CHAPTER XIV

Summary

October 13th.—Spent a most agreeable day doing nothing, diversified by a visit in the evening to the band, which played in the parade-grounds, and attracted all the Europeans of Meerut. Only one native was present, a Sikh chief, on whom the Government keep an eye, and to whom they pay a large pension. He drives about in a very handsome English carriage and four horses, with a multitude of servants, in native livery, hanging on to it, or following him on horseback. In the evening I dined at the Artillery Mess, which is in many points as good as that at Woolwich, of which there are strong reminiscences about the place. The very excellent band—of which the Master is a German, well-known in London as one of the ablest of Costa's lieutenants in the old days of his magnificent orchestra—performed in the verandah outside, and the conversation was so agreeable, and the persuasion of my friends so pressing, that it was late at night ere I crept into my gharry, and once more was trotted off on the high road to Agra.

October 14th.—Of to-day I cannot say much, except that, as I travelled on incessantly in clouds of dust, I thought, for “the cool season,” the heat was very distressing. Nothing to note particularly, except large straggling native villages, trains of cotton carts, miserable road-side stations for the horses, and a flat country just recovering from the effects of a summer's baking, and rich with rising crops.