The evening is spent pleasantly in telling stories of camp-life in India and Afghanistan.  Some of the soldiers present have been recently stationed at Peshawur and other points near the northern frontier, and tell of the extraordinary precautions that had to be adopted to prevent their rifles being stolen at night from the very racks within the barrack-rooms where they were sleeping.

An officer at the cantonment claims to have cured himself of enlarged spleen, the bane of so many Anglo-Indian officers, by daily riding on a tricycle.  He then disposed of it to advantage to a native gentleman who had noted the marvellous improvement it had wrought in his health, and who was also affected with the same disease.  The native also cured himself, and now firmly believes the tricycle possessed of some magic properties.

Reliefs of punkah-wallahs are provided for the barracks, a number of punkahs being connected so that one coolie fans the occupants of a dozen or more charpoys.  In talking about these useful and very necessary servants, some of the comments indulged in by the gentleman who first invited me into the barracks are well worth repeating:  “Be jabbers, an’ yeez have to kape wide awake all night to swear at the lazy divils, in orther to git a wink av shlape”—­and—­“The moment yeez dhrap ashlape, yeez are awake,” are choice specimens, heard in reference to the punkah-wallahs’ confirmed habit of dozing off in the silent watches of the night.

The two wheelmen of the Connaught Rangers, accompany me five miles to the Bane River ferry, in the cool of early morning.  They would have escorted me as far as Umballa, they say, had they known of my coming in time to arrange leave’ of absence.  Twenty-five miles of continuously smooth and level kunkah, bring me to Phillour, a Mohammedan town of several thousand inhabitants.  The fort of Phillour is a conspicuous object on the left of the road; it was formerly an important depot of military supplies, and in the time of Sikh independence was regarded by them as the key to the Punjab.  Since the mutiny it has dwindled in importance as a military stronghold, but is held by a detachment of native infantry.

A mile or so from Phillour is a splendid girder railway bridge crossing the River Sutlej.  The overflow of the river extends for miles, converting the depressions into lakes and the dry ditches into sloughs and creeks.  Resting under the shade of a peepul-tree, I while away a passing hour watching native fishermen endeavoring to beguile the finny denizens of the overflow into their custody.  Their tactics are to stir up the water and make it muddy for a space around, so that the fish cannot see them; they then toss a flat disk of wood so that it falls with an audible splash a few yards away.  This manoeuvre is intended to deceive the fish into thinking something eatable has fallen into the water.  Woe betide the guileless fish, however, whose innocent, confiding nature is thus imposed upon, for “swish” goes a circular drop-net over the spot, from the meshes of which the luckless captive tries in vain to struggle.