Hundreds of natives pass the night round about the railway-station, waiting to cross the bridge on the first morning train.  Nowhere else in the world does a gathering of people present so picturesque and interesting a sight as in sunny Hindostan.  These people gathered about the Beas River station look more like a company rigged out for the spectacular stage than ordinary, everyday mortals attending to the prosaic business of life.  The nose-rings worn by many of the women are so massive and heavy that silken cords are attached and carried to some support on the head to relieve the nostril of the weight.  The rims of the ears are likewise grievously overburdened with ornaments.  These unoffending appendages are pierced with a number of holes all round the rim from lobe to top; each hole contains a massive ring almost large and heavy enough for a bracelet, the weight of which pulls the ear all out of shape.  Simple yet gaudy costumes prevail-garments of red, yellow, blue, green, olive, and white, with gold tinsel, drape the graceful forms of the dusky Sikh or Jatni belles; and not a whit less picturesque and parti-colored are the costumes of their husbands, brothers, and fathers-fine fellows mostly, tall, straight, military-looking men, with handsome faces and fierce mustashios.  Not a few thoroughbred Jats are mingled in the crowd—­the “stout-built, thick-limbed Jats,” the warlike race with the steel or silver discus surmounting their queer pyramidal headdress.  Under the independent government of their people by the Gurus, or ruler-priests, of the last century, and particularly under the regulations of the celebrated Guru Govind, every Sikh was considered a warrior from his birth, and was always required to wear steel iri some form or other about his person.  The Jats, being the most enterprising and warlike tribe of the territory acknowledging the rule of the Gurus and the religious teachings of the Adi Granth as their faith, take especial pride in commemorating the bravery and warlike qualities of their ancestors by still wearing the distinguishing steel quoits on their heads.

Seesum or banyan trees, shading twenty yards’ width of luxuriant greensward on either side of the road, and each and every tree sheltering groups of natives, resting, idling, washing their clothes in some silent pool, or tending a few grazing buffaloes, form a truly Arcadian scene for mile after mile next day.  These buffaloes are huge, unwieldy animals with black, hairless hides, strong and heavy almost as rhinoceroses.  In striking contrast to them are the aristocratic little cream-colored Brahmani cows, with the curious big “camel-hump” on their withers.  These latter animals are pampered and revered and made much of among the Brahmans; mythology has it that Brahma created cows and Brahmans at the same time, and the cow is therefore an object of worship and veneration.