ps.
Kambarganvi--flatter and less picturesque--nullahs, open ground and
cattle, thin jungle on rolling ground extending to a distant edge of
table land. We pass a pool full of buffalo, only their heads are visible
above the muddy green water; on the shores and on their backs are little
brown nude girls with yellow flowers round their necks; then Dharwar and
the Elder Brother on the platform, and we heave a sigh of relief at the
end of the first chapter of our Pilgrimage in India.

CHAPTER XIII

DHARWAR

Dharwar Station is not so unlike one we know within two and a half miles
of the centre of Scotland. It is almost the same size but there is no
village. Though not imposing, I understand it is the nerve centre of
some 1,500 miles of The Southern Maharatta Railway.

As we pull up my brother, Colonel and Agent on the platform, remarks,
"Well, here you are, you're looking well--have you any luggage?" and in
a twinkling we are driving away, leaving the "little pick" of luggage to
the boy to bring up leisurely. G.'s maid drives off in a princely padded
ox cart or dumbie, and we get into a new modern victoria. I am not sure
which is the most distinguished, perhaps the dumbie; it is at any rate
more Oriental, and its bright red and blue linings, white hood, and two
thoroughbred white oxen make a very gay turn-out.

The Agent's bungalow is wide-spreading, flat-roofed, with deep verandah
supported on white-washed classic pillars, and surrounded by a park.
There are borders of blooming chrysanthemums and China asters, and trees
with quaint foliage, and flowering creepers about the house. The flower
borders seem to tail away into dry grass and bushes and trees of the
park, and that changes imperceptibly into dry rolling country with
scattered trees and bushes.

Lunch is served by waiters in white clothes and bare feet, "velvet
footed waiters" to be conventional, and there is a blessed peace and
quietness about our new surroundings. For weeks past we have ever heard
our fellows' voices all the day long; what a contrast is this quiet and
elbow room to the crowd on the P. & O. and the gun firing and babel of
Bombay.

... It is overcast and still; away to the east over the rolling bushy
country are heavy showers, but at this spot trees and crops faint for
water. We doze in the verandah and wake and doze again, and wonder how
this silence--can be real, even the birds seem subdued. We notice
E.H.A.'s friends are here in n