d again. Again we have had
a glimpse of how quickly friends are made here. I suppose the extreme
isolation makes one white man realise his dependence on the next white
man, so that they naturally make the best of each other and become
friends quickly.

Krishna bustles round packing things--bustles is hardly the word though,
for his barefooted, silent effectiveness. And snoring hardly the word
for the noise that son of a thief, the watchman, makes outside.

CHAPTER XV

[Illustration]

Good-bye to Dharwar, we are on the move again, the comparatively
cold-weather tourists take the road south to Bangalore. We jog along at
a respectable rate, not too fast and not too slow, say forty-five miles
an hour top speed, and twenty-five mean, which allows us to see things
to-day and remember what we saw yesterday.

Before leaving, biked down to the Native Town of Dharwar, a place full
of interest, picturesque scenes, and somewhat sinister looking
people--tried to make a picture of women and men at a well-head, a
magnificent subject, but too difficult to do in a few minutes. There
were men pulling up kerosene tins over a wheel, hand over hand, from the
cool looking depths of the wide red sandstone well and filling goats'
skins to sling on cows' backs, and women in sombre reds and blue
wrappings, old and young, and rather monkeyish in appearance; still,
some were not altogether bad looking. One old woman had almost
Savonarola features, and the strip of blue from the sky on her brown
back was telling as she and a young woman leant and pulled hand over
hand at the rope. The water splashed on to the pavement round the well,
reflected the rich colours of cloth and limb and patches of cobalt from
the sky. The women seem to consider this is not a bad part of their
day's work; to come to the well-head and chat with their neighbours and
show off their jewellery, and probably wouldn't thank you for a modern
engine to pump up the water in half the time. They are dirty little
pigs; can you make out a little beast to the right, comparatively a
superior, extra well-dressed beauty, with very polished black hair and a
flower in it? No, I am afraid not; the reduction, or reproduction,
obscures her charm completely. She looks round about her and rubs a
family water pot with a little mud and water off the road, yet by her
religion it would be defiled if my shadow fell on it.

[Illustration]

I came away almost sick with the feeling of i