“The manufactures of silk, cotton, and metals are very important; for the soil is not very fertile, though cotton, rice, sugar, indigo, and all kinds of grains and fruits, are raised.  Lahore is the capital of the Punjab, and has a population of a hundred and seventy-seven thousand, though it once contained a million.  At this point we are near the Himalaya Mountains.  About a hundred and fifty miles east of Lahore is Simla, nearly eight thousand feet above the sea.  This is a noted sanitarium; and in the hot season it is the resort of thousands of people, including the highest officers of the army and the government.”

“Is this as near the Himalayas as we are to go?” asked Scott.

“About as near, though at Patna you will be about one hundred and fifty miles from Mount Everest, the highest peak on the earth.”

“I should like to go there,” added Scott.

“You couldn’t climb it; and what good would it do you?  I could mention a hundred places in India I should like to visit; but it is not practicable to do so,” added the commander.  “We can only take along with us a few specimens of the wonderful country, and make the best of them.”

After dinner the party divided up according to their own fancy, and went out to walk, though some were too tired to do so.  Louis invited Miss Blanche to go with him; and she was always glad to be in his company, especially as Sir Modava was to be his companion.  The first sight they saw in the street was a regiment of Punjab sepoys, a well-drilled body of men, not very different from the soldiers they had seen in other countries.

They wore frock-coats, buttoned tight to the throat, and a sort of turban on the head.  Their faces were swarthy, but none of them wore full beards.  There were plenty of street sights after the regiment had passed.  The different kinds of vehicles attracted their attention first.  In a kind of gig drawn by a horse, two men and two women were crowded together.  The driver seemed to be seated behind, and one of the women was on the floor in front of the two who were seated.  By the side of the man on the seat was a girl of sixteen or eighteen, and she was very pretty.

In a two-wheeled cart drawn by a humped bullock were a couple of Hindu ladies, under a canopy supported by four poles.  Then came a camel bearing two bearded men on his back.  Two or three palanquins were seen; but they were an old story, and they turned their attention to the architecture of the houses that lined the street.  There was an abundance of what we call bay-windows, and ornamented balconies.  There was a great deal of variety in the construction of these appendages of the houses; and all of them were occupied by ladies, who wore no veils over their faces, though most of them were doubtless Mohammedans, and the yashmak had evidently gone out of fashion.

“There is the dak-bungalow,” said the Hindu gentleman as they passed a building of considerable size.