with feet of silver," but, from the scarp of its banks, Deoli in
the rains must be isolated. Ram Baksh, questioned hereon, vowed that all
the Officer Sahibs never dreamed of halting, but went over in boats or
on elephants. According to Ram Baksh the men of Deoli must be wonderful
creatures. They do nothing but use his tongas. A break in some low hills
gives on to the dead flat plain in which Deoli stands. "You must stop
here for the night," said Ram Baksh. "I will _not_ take my horses
forward in the dark; God knows where the dak-bungalow is. I've
forgotten, but any one of the Officer Sahibs in Deoli will tell you."

Those in search of a new emotion would do well to run about an
apparently empty cantonment, in a disgraceful shooting-tonga, hunting
for a place to sleep in. Chaprassis come out of back verandahs, and are
rude, and regimental Babus hop off godowns, and are flippant, while in
the distance a Sahib looks out of his room, and eyes the dusty
forlorn-hope with silent contempt. It should be mentioned that the dust
on the Deoli Road not only powders but masks the face and raiment of the
passenger.

Next morning Ram Baksh was awake with the dawn, and clamorous to go on
to Boondi. "I've sent a pair of horses, big horses, out there and the
_sais_ is a fool. Perhaps they will be lost; I want to find them." He
dragged his unhappy passenger on the road once more and demanded of all
who passed the dak-bungalow which was the way to Boondi. "Observe," said
he, "there can be only one road, and if I hit it we are all right, and
I'll show you what the tonga can do." "Amen," said the Englishman,
devoutly, as the tonga jumped into and out of a larger hole. "Without
doubt this is the Boondi Road," said Ram Baksh; "it is so bad."

It has been before said that the Boondi State has no great love for
Sahibs. The state of the road proves it. "This," said Ram Baksh, tapping
the wheel to see whether the last plunge had smashed a spoke, "is a very
good road. You wait till you see what is ahead." And the funeral
staggered on--over irrigation cuts, through buffalo wallows, and dried
pools stamped with the hundred feet of kine (this, by the way, is the
most cruel road of all), up rough banks where the rock ledges peered out
of the dust, down steep-cut dips ornamented with large stones, and along
two-feet deep ruts of the rains, where the tonga went slantwise even to
the verge of upsetting. It was a royal road--a native road--a Raj road
of