PILGRIMS OF THE PHALGOU RIVER 169
ticable, and even there we require the shelter of our travel- ing bungalow. Kâlouth the fireman must be made of pure carbon, or he would certainly dissolve before the grating of his furnace. But the brave Hindoo holds out nobly. It has become second nature with him, this existence on the platform of the locomotives which scour the railway lines of Central India!
During the daytime of May the 19th, the thermometer suspended on the wall of the dining-room registered 106° Fahrenheit. That evening we were unable to take our ac- customed "constitutional or hawakana. This word sig- nifies literally "to eat air," and means that, after the stifling heat of the tropical day, people go out to inhale the cool pure air of evening. On this occasion we felt that, on the contrary, the air would eat us!
"Monsieur Maucler," said Sergeant McNeil to me, “this heat reminds me of one day in March, when Sir Hugh Rose, with just two pieces of artillery, tried to storm the walls at Lucknow. It was sixteen days since we had crossed the river Betwa, and during all that time our horses had not once been unsaddled. We were fighting between enormous walls of granite, and we might as well have been in a burn- ing fiery furnace. The chitsis passed up and down our ranks, carrying water in their leathern bottles, which they poured on the men's heads as they stood to their guns, otherwise we should have dropped. Well do I remember how I felt! I was exhausted, my skull was ready to burst -I tottered. Colonel Munro saw me, and snatching the bottle from the hand of a chitsi, he emptied it over me- and it was the last water the carriers could procure. A man can't forget that sort of thing, sir! No, no! When I have shed the last drop of my blood for my colonel, I shall still be in his debt."
"Sergeant McNeil," said I, "does it not seem to you that since we left Calcutta, Colonel Munro has become more absent and melancholy than ever? I think that every day-"
"Yes, sir," replied McNeil, hastily interrupting me, but that is quite natural. My colonel is approaching Lucknow -Cawnpore-where Nana Sahib murdered. Ah! it drives me mad to speak of it! Perhaps it would have been better if this journey had been planned in some different
