eated alike.

After a long, dusty drive in the suburbs of Delhi one day I crept
into the grateful shade of a dak bungalow, found a comfortable
chair and called for some soda to wash down the dust and biscuits
to hold my appetite down until dinner time. I was sipping the
cool drink, nibbling the biscuits and enjoying the breeze that
was blowing through the room, when the attendant handed me a
board about as big as a shingle with a hole drilled through the
upper end so that it could be hung on a wall. Upon the board
was pasted a notice printed in four languages, English, German,
French and Hindustani, giving the regulations of the place, and
the white-robed khitmatgar pointed his long brown finger to a
paragraph that applied to my case. I paid him 10 cents for an
hour's rest under the roof. It was a satisfaction to do so. The
place was clean and neat and in every way inviting.

At many of the railway stations beds are provided by the firm of
caterers who have a contract for running the refreshment-rooms.
Most of the stations are neat and comfortable, and you can always
find a place to spread your bedding and lie down. There is a
big room for women and a big room for men. Sometimes cots are
provided, but usually only hard benches around the walls. There
are always washrooms and bathrooms adjoining, which, of course,
are a great satisfaction in that hot and perspiring land. The
restaurants at the railway stations are usually good, and are
managed by a famous caterer in Calcutta, but the men who run
the trains don't always give you time enough to eat.

On the passenger trains, ice, soda water, ginger ale, beer and
other soft drinks are carried by an agent of the eating-house
contractor, who furnishes them for 8 cents a bottle, and it pays
him to do so, for an enormous quantity is consumed during the
hot weather. The dust is almost intolerable and you cannot drink
the local water without boiling and filtering it. The germs of
all kinds of diseases are floating around in it at the rate of
7,000,000 to a spoonful. A young lady who went over on the ship
with us didn't believe in any such nonsense and wasn't afraid
of germs. She drank the local water in the tanks on the railway
cars and wherever else she found it, and the last we heard of
her she was in a hospital at Benares with a serious case of
dysentery.

[Illustrations: GROUP OF FAMOUS BRAHMIN PUNDITS]

Mark Twain says that there is no danger from germs in the sacred