or driven by road and 66 are by narrow-gauge
railway, on which high speeds are impossible. There were 6500 feet to
descend from Naini, and 6000 feet to ascend to Simla, but in India a
good organiser can accomplish miracles.

The Viceroy's tour being abandoned, Colonel Erskine, the Commissioner
for the Kumaon district, invited me to accompany him on his own
official tour. It was through very difficult country where no wheeled
traffic could pass, so we were to ride, with all our belongings carried
by coolies. I bought two hill-ponies the size of Newfoundland dogs for
myself and my "bearer," and we started. The little animals being used
to carrying packs, have a disconcerting trick of keeping close to the
very edge of the khudd, for experience has taught them that to bump
their load against the rock wall on the inner side gives them an
unpleasant jar. These little hill-ponies are wonderfully sure-footed,
and can climb like cats over dry water-courses piled with rocks and
great boulders, which a man on foot would find difficult to negotiate.
The rhododendrons were then in full flower, and the hills were one
blaze of colour. We were always going up and up, and as we ascended,
the deep crimson rhododendron flowers of Naini Tal gradually faded to
rose-colour, from rose-colour to pale pink, and from pink to pure
white. It was a perfect education travelling with Colonel Erskine, for
that shrewd and kindly old Scotsman had spent half his life in India,
and knew the Oriental inside out. The French have an expression, "se
fourrer dans la peau d'autrui," "to shove yourself into another
person's skin," and therefore to be able to see things as they would
present themselves to the mind of a man of a different race and of a
different mentality, and from his point of view. All young diplomats
are enjoined to cultivate this art, and some few succeed in doing so.
Colonel Erskine had it to perfection. On arriving in a village he would
call for a carpet, and a dirty cotton dhuree would be laid on the
round. He would then order a charpoy, or native bed, to be placed on
the carpet, and he would seat himself on it, and call out in the
vernacular, "Now, my children, what have you to tell me?" All this was
strictly in accordance with immemorial Eastern custom. Then the long
line of suppliants would approach, each one with a present of an
orange, or a bunch of rhododendron flowers in his hand. This, again,
from the very beginning of things has be