Tusked and antlered trophies of the chase adorning the walls, and panther and tiger skins scattered about the floor, attest the police-commissioners’ prowess with the rifle in the surrounding jungle.  The height of every young Englishman’s ambition when he comes to India is to kill a tiger; not until with his own rifle he has laid low a genuine Tigris Indicus, and handed its striped pelt over to the taxidermist, does he feel entitled to hold his chin at a becoming elevation and to indulge in the luxury of talking about the big game of the jungle on an equality with his fellows.  Among the pets of the establishment are a youthful black bear that spends much of its time in climbing up and down a post on the lawn, a recently captured monkey that utters cries of alarm and looks badly frightened when approached by a white person, and a pair of spotted deer.  These, together with several hunting dogs that delight in taking wanton liberties with the bear and deer, form quite a happy, though not altogether trustful family party in the grounds.

The day’s rest does me a world of good, and upon resuming my journey the voice of my own experience is augmented by the advice of my entertainers, in warning me against overexertion and fatigue in so trying a climate as India.  It has rained during the night, and the early morning is signalled by cooler weather than has yet been experienced from Lahore.  Companies of tall Sikhs, magnificent-looking fellows, in their trim karki uniforms and monster turbans, are drilling within the native-infantry lines as I wheel through the broad avenues of one of the finest cantonments in all India, and English officers and their wives are taking the morning air on horseback.

This splendid cantonment contains no less than seven thousand two hundred and twenty acres and might well be termed a magnificent park throughout.

It is in the hilly tracts of the Umballa district that the curious custom prevails of placing infants beneath little cascades of water so that the stream of water shall steadily descend on the head.  The cool water of some mountain-rivulet is converted into a number of streams appropriate for the purpose, by means of bamboo ducts or spouts.  The infants are brought thither in the morning by their mothers and placed in proper position on beds of grass; the trickling water, pouring on their heads, keeps the brain cool and is popularly supposed to be efficacious in the prevention of many infantile diseases peculiar to the country.  Children not subjected to this curious hydropathic treatment are said to generally die young, or grow up weaklings in comparison with the others.