mount of work from each
man.

These masons were continually having quarrels and fights amongst
themselves, and I had frequently to go down to their camp to quell
disturbances and to separate the Hindus from the Mohammedans. One
particularly serious disturbance of this sort had a rather amusing
sequel. I was sitting after dusk one evening at the door of my hut,
when I heard a great commotion in the masons' camp, which lay only a
few hundred yards away. Presently a jemadar came rushing up to me to
say that the men were all fighting and murdering each other with sticks
and stones. I ran back with him at once and succeeded in restoring
order, but found seven badly injured men lying stretched out on the
ground. These I had carried up to my own boma on charpoys (native
beds); and Brock being away, I had to play the doctor myself as best I
could, stitching one and bandaging another and generally doing what was
possible. There was one man, however, who groaned loudly and held a
cloth over his face as if he were dying. On lifting this covering, I
found him to be a certain mason called Karim Bux, who was well known to
me as a prime mischief-maker among the men. I examined him carefully,
but as I could discover nothing amiss, I concluded that he must have
received some internal injury, and accordingly told him that I would
send him to the hospital at Voi (about thirty miles down the line) to
be attended to properly. He was then carried back to his camp, groaning
grievously all the time.

Scarcely had he been removed, when the head jemadar came and informed
me that the man was not hurt at all, and that as a matter of fact he
was the sole cause of the disturbance. He was now pretending to be
badly injured, in order to escape the punishment which he knew he would
receive if I discovered that he was the instigator of the trouble. On
hearing this, I gave instructions that he was not to go to Voi in the
special train with the others; but I had not heard the last of him yet.
About eleven o'clock that night I was called up and asked to go down to
the masons' camp to see a man who was supposed to be dying. I at once
pulled on my boots, got some brandy and ran down to the camp, where to
my surprise and amusement I found that it was my friend Karim Bux who
was at death's door. It was perfectly evident to me that he was only
"foxing," but when he asked for dawa (medicine), I told him gravely
that I would give him some very good dawa in the