SOON after I returned home on leave last year, I ran across an old friend in the town near which I was staying. His Christian name is Wisdom, and, after a long and useful life's work, he is spending the autumn of his days in a Foundation, built and endowed by an Archbishop, housed in a noble pile of brick, and inhabited by a score of old "gownsmen " like himself. To belong to this Hospital implies that a member is not only of local birth but of irreproachable character, and to be nominated to fill a vacancy is a source of pride and congratulation to the recipient and his relatives.

Wisdom shook me kindly by the hand, and, in answer to my inquiries after his health, replied, "I'm just 'NOHOW,' sir, just 'NOHOW""; and it struck me then and there that, had I possessed his power of terse speech, I might have saved myself, and my hearers, many long winded explanations as to where I had been during my last shooting trip by saying "Just Nowhere, sir,just sir, just NOWHERE.'" But though too late for that, I can still paraphrase friend Wisdom and call this little story "A trip to Nowhere," or something of that sort.

On the 15th April a brother officer named Addington and I packed ourselves, our ser

vants, our light kit, and our dogs into a couple of compartments and steamed out of the cantonment station in a downpour of unseasonable rain, and in equally unseasonable— though welcome-coolness.

Our destination was a littleknown country far away in the interior of the Himalayas, whose name and whereabouts I shall withhold till I succeed in reaching it, for the following chronicle is one of unsuccessful endeavour and of ultimate failure.

Away up through the plains of the Punjab we rolled that night, and early next morning arrived at the terminus of the line, and exchanged steam for horse-flesh,-horse-flesh of an emaciated but wiry type, that did not realise how innutritious was the hill grass on which it had to sustain life, but did realise that, though it was all collar work, the sooner the stage was covered the sooner would come rest. Eighty miles in a tonga brought us to P, and we drove up to the Dak Bungalow,-not dustsmothered as usual, but coated with mud, for the rain had accompanied us. The bungalow Khansamah promised us tea in five minutes, but before it appeared an English lady came out and told us that a case of smallpox had been discovered among her servants that day, and that orders had accordingly been sent by the Local Civil Authority for the

Dak Bungalow to be closed to all travellers for some time to come. This was a pretty lookout for two wet and weary men whose tents were still a march or two back on the road, for the Dak Bungalow was the only public house of entertainment in P. We sent for the issuer of this disastrous order and demanded instant shelter if he wished it to be complied with, and he soon solved the difficulty by breaking open the Public Works Department Rest House and allotting us excellent quarters therein.

After refreshment in front of a roaring fire, we found that the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted, and that we were in a very lovely little place, not high enough to be classified as a hill station, and apt to be uncommonly hot in June and July, but very pleasant in April. A ruined church, a ruined club-house, a ruined school, a new dak bungalow and sessions-house, built on anti-earthquake lines,—that is, of light wood framing, instead of solid masonry, showed us that the traces of the appalling earthquake of 1905 were still very visible. Nowhere in India had its effects been more terrific than in the district of which Pis the centre.

Forty thousand lives of men alone were lost in the space of a couple of minutes, at least so we were assured by all classes of people, and an equal number of cattle. Ruin stared every one in the face, and to no class was the catastrophe so

overwhelming as to the unfortunate English tea - planters. A few years ago so many members of this cheery community lived on their own estates within riding distance of P that seventy used to sit down on big nights to the club dinner. A succession of bad seasons put them into difficulties, from which the present improvement in tea might have extricated them, but then came the earthquake. There remained only one thing, and that was to sell their estates to rich native capitalists from Amritsar, Benares, and Lahore for any song they would fetch, and go out and begin life again.

We spent about a week at

P and other places in the tea district, and moved about among the people, looking at the, to us, unfamiliar teagardens, and asking many questions. The central fact that remained impressed on our minds was that the English planters had succeeded, as 8 class, in winning the trust, affection, and loyalty of their native neighbours to an extraordinary degree. By their surnames they were unknown, but the meanest field - hand would point to a mass of ruins and tell us that there "Willy Sahib" had lived and died that there "Freddy Sahib's" wife had been pinned by a falling beam and taken out with a broken leg; that there "Bobby" and "Teddy and "Franky" had succeeded their father and grandfather, only, in the end, to be compelled to sell an estate "worth three

;

lakhs" for Rs. 25,000 to a native banker after the earthquake. Teddy Smith, they would add, was now employed by a timber-merchant, Bobby had gone to Calcutta, and so on. When asked how they liked their new masters, their comments were "frequent and free." One man said, "We have been paid no wages for eleven months, and can't go away now or we shall never recover what is due to us"; another, "These sowcars [bankers] treat us as if we were cattle"; while a friend added, "In the Sahib's time there was always medicine for us when sick, and five rupees for a wedding."

Having now been joined by all our belongings, human, canine, and sporting, which had been marching up from the railway, we moved on by invitation to the home of a man belonging to my regiment, who, though a very humble individual in his squadron, was of the most ancient royal lineage in the world, added the title "MIAN" to his name (which was Labh Singh), and only soldiered because it was traditional to his race to do so. Here we were received by two of his brothers, and found ourselves established, with much ceremony and honour, in the family guest-house, which was a pleasant little bungalow set in the midst of a tea-garden, and which, by some fluke, had remained standing though the family mansion itself, itself, 200 yards away, had collapsed in the earthquake. Our good hosts seemed to lead an easy

life, to judge from the amount of time they were able to devote to us. For at least half the hours of daylight they were within hailing distance of the guest-house, watching all our movements with avidity, and ever ready for a chat. The eldest brother, a fine-looking man, had snared a hawk a day or two before, and was engaged in accustoming her to her new surroundings prior to further training. Meanwhile, the hawk sat on her master's wrist from dawn till dusk, and I have no reason to suppose that she occupied any other place during the hours of sleep. She was simply a part of the man himself for the time being, and a gentle, languid hand was constantly employed in stroking her head and back. Natives of India tame wild birds of all kinds in a way perfectly incomprehensible to Europeans, who can't understand why partridges and quail run after their masters, like dogs, along the public roads. It is much the same all over Upper India. Stop and search a loafer in the Lucknow Bazaar, or your Khitmatgar in his quarters behind the bungalow, and you will probably find a fighting quail or grey partridge somewhere on his person. Similarly search (or, for choice, get some one else to search) a stalwart young Pathan on the hillside, and the odds again are that a chikor, tame and perfectly contented, will be discovered lurking in his armpit.

Soon after our arrival we discovered that an English