way,
a station about every six miles--still through bamboo forest--I think
the bamboos must be 70 to 90 feet high. Now and then we pass glades with
water. At one pool little naked boys and girls are herding cattle, white
and cream coloured cows, and black hairless buffaloes, whose skins
reflect the blue sky. The mud banks are brown and the water yellow, and
there's bright green grass between the red mud and the soft green of the
bamboos. Put in the little brown-skinned herds, one with a pink rag on
his black hair, and that is as near as I can get it with the A.B.C., and
there is not time nor sufficient stillness for paint.

[Illustration]

With pencil in my journal I have little hasty scribbles--one half done
and the other begun. There is a group of women, with waistcloths only,
standing on a half-submerged tree trunk in greenish water washing
clothes, one stands the others squat, and beyond are cattle and bamboos.
Along the side of the track there are wild flowers, creepers, and thorns
with little violet flowers, and others of orange vermilion, and every
here and there are ant hills, three or four feet high, of reddish soil
shaped like rugged Gothic spires or Norman towers. On the telegraph wire
are butcher birds, hoopoos, kingfishers, and a vivid blue bird a little
like a jay, the roller bird I believe. The king crow I am sure of--I saw
and read about him in Bombay; he is the most independent and plucky
little bird in India, fears nothing with wings! He is black, between the
size of a swift and a blackbird, with a long drooping tail turned out
like a black cock's at the end. I don't think he troubles anyone unless
they trouble him and his wife, then he goes for them head first, and the
wife isn't very far behind and gets a dig in too. There are doves and
pigeons galore, and just before we came to Dharwar across a clear space
there cantered a whole family circle of large monkeys! What a lovely
action they have, between a thoroughbred's and a man's. They wore
yellowish beards and black faces and black ends to their tails, which
they carry high with a droop at the end.

[Illustration]

Alnaver.--We pass iron trucks with native occupants--not bad
looking--paler in colour I think than the natives at Bombay. Acres of
cut dry timber, long bits and short bits, are here for the engine's
fuel. The smoke of it makes a pleasant scent in the hot dry air. The
country becomes a little more open and not quite so interesting perha