ee the sun rise upon a strange land
and to know that you have only to go forward and possess that land--that
it will dower you before the day is ended with a hundred new impressions
and, perhaps, one idea. It is good to snuff the wind when it comes in
over large uplands or down from the tops of the blue Aravalis--dry and
keen as a new-ground sword. Best of all is to light the First Pipe--is
there any tobacco so good as that we burn in honour of the breaking
day?--and, while the ponies wake the long white road with their hooves
and the birds go abroad in companions together, to thank your stars that
you are neither the Subaltern who has Orderly Room, the 'Stunt who has
office, or the Judge who has the Court to attend; but are only a loafer
in a flannel shirt bound, if God pleases, to "little Boondi," somewhere
beyond the faint hills beyond the plain.

But there was alloy in this delight. Men had told the Englishman darkly
that Boondi State had no love for Englishmen, that there was nowhere to
stop, and that no one would do anything for money. Love was out of the
question. Further, it was an acknowledged fact that there were no
Englishmen of any kind in Boondi. But the Englishman trusted that Ganesh
would be good to him, and that he would, somehow or other, fall upon his
feet as he had fallen before. The road from Nasirabad to Deoli, being
military in its nature, is nearly as straight as a ruler and about as
smooth. Here and there little rocky hills, the last off-shoots of the
Aravalis to the west, break the ground; but the bulk of it is fair and
without pimples. The Deoli Force are apparently so utterly Irregular
that they can do without a telegraph, have their mails carried by
runners, and dispense with bridges over all the fifty-six miles that
separate them from Nasirabad. However, a man who goes shikarring for any
length of time in one of Ram Baksh's tongas would soon learn to dispense
with anything and everything. "_All_ the Sahibs use my tonga; I've got
eight of them and twenty pairs of horses," said Ram Baksh. "They go as
far as Gangra, where the tigers are, for they are 'shutin-tongas.'" Now
the Englishman knew Gangra slightly, having seen it on the way to
Udaipur; and it was as perverse and rocky a place as any man would
desire to see. He politely expressed doubt. "I tell you my tongas go
anywhere," said Ram Baksh, testily. A hay-wagon--they cut and stack
their hay in these parts--blocked the road. Ram Baksh ran t