Until the native can be brought to understand the
inadvisability of using tainted water and unclean utensils, and of
permitting the ubiquitous fly to pervade the larder--until, I say, that
millennium can be attained, the danger of enteric and other ills will
always be very great in Indian hotels.
_Friday, October_ 13.--Lunch with Dr. Munro, who surprised us somewhat by
having married a wife since we played golf and bridge together at Gulmarg
only a few weeks ago. Tea, a farewell repast with our invalid--who goes
before a medical board in a few days, and who will then be doubtless sent
home on long sick leave--and the despatch of our heavy luggage direct to
Bombay, occupied us pretty fully for the day; and in the evening, after
dinner, we took up our residence in a carriage drawn up in a siding to be
attached to the 6.30 mail in the morning. Our last recollection of Pindi
was a vision of the faithful Ayata, paid, tipped, and provided with a
flaming "chit," flapping along the road in the bright moonlight, with all
his worldly possessions, _en route_ for Abbotabad and home.
_Saturday, October_ 14.--A prodigious amount of banging, whistling, and
yelling seemed to be necessary before we could be coupled up to the early
train, and sent flying towards Lahore. It was impossible to sleep, and I
was peacefully watching the landscape as it slid past, first in the pink
flush of early dawn, and gradually losing colour as the sun, gaining in
strength, reduced everything to a white hot glow, when, scraping and
bumping into a wayside station, we were suddenly informed that, owing to
hot bearings or heated axles or something, we must quit our carriage at
once, and so, half dressed and wholly wrathful, we were shot out on a hot
and exceedingly gritty platform, with our hand luggage and bedding all of
a heap, and with the whole length of the train to traverse to attain our
new carriage.
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