On the Indian Hills

THE rain came down with very little intermission during my first week -- not the warm drizzle of an English autumn, but a cold shower-bath, night and day. Again and again we all got wet through, and as nothing could be dried, owing to the saturated condition of the atmosphere, my whole wardrobe rapidly emerged from the packing-cases, and, becoming wet, was in turn hung up to take care of itself round our walls. I changed my hue like a chameleon, and at last began to look anxiously for a break in the clouds, in order that I might dry some things; otherwise I should be reduced to the necessity of going weeding in evening dress.

Every morning we rose at dawn, mustered the coolies in a downpour, worked all day under the same conditions, and when the evening came released our men, always a long and tedious affair, and gladly betook ourselves to the reeking hut, where we dined in a vapor-bath of moisture condensed by our lamp. Then, after a pipe and reading a little, we sought our bunks, and listened to the rain pattering overhead and the trees sighing with the wind that swept up the mountain gorges, until we dropped asleep.

One never knows what a man can stand until the time comes to make the trial. In England I should have thought this sort of life the height of misery, although well accustomed to "roughing it;" but here I had fallen quite naturally into the way, and regarded being drenched through and through, in spite of umbrellas and oil-skins, as of very slight importance. It told, however, on R---, who was "not so young as he was once," and, neglecting himself, he got worse and worse, putting duty after duty on my shoulders, until the 12th, when, coming home from work, he was clearly "run out." His dinner was pushed away untasted, and he insisted upon going to bed at once.

We helped the old coffee-planter to his cot; but he was stiff all over, and lay groaning and writhing long into the lonely hours of the night, while "Charlie" and I watched and tended him, and did what we could. But not even he himself had any idea what was the matter. About midnight nothing would satisfy him but starting at once for Palghaut, where there was a hospital with an intelligent native apothecary, who, he hoped, would be able to doctor him. In vain we tried to dissuade R--- from the long wet journey, for it was of no avail; so, while his son ran down to the lines to collect twenty of our strongest men, I set to work to construct a munchiel. This was rather difficult, as there were no bamboo clumps within a mile capable of affording a stem strong enough to support the burden down the rocky road to the plains. However, necessity is the mother of invention, and looking round, my eye lit upon the long poles, made of young sapling jack trees, which supported the division of our rooms; and seeing one could come away without bringing down everything in the neighborhood, I was soon at work upon it with a clasp-knife, and, after being half choked with cobwebs and blinded with dust, got it safely down. But then there was the difficulty of the hammock. A blanket was lashed on, but wound itself into a robe, and was cut away as a failure. Then fortunately I bethought me of an Ashantee hammock which had been used on the voyage out, and this was tried and found a great success, though somewhat frail in appearance. About one o'clock in the morning, in the heavy silence which precedes the dawn and the dense black darkness, the coolies shouldered my roughly made munchiel, we helped R--- in, and telling him. we hoped to see him back soon, the melancholy procession started, and the torches borne by two or three of the party gleamed fitfully upon the wet tree trunks as the path wound up the ridge, until the light, becoming fainter, finally died away altogether and left us in solitude.

The first pay day in the jungle is always a very difficult one for the new arrival, especially when he has to be his own paymaster to the forces, his cashier and clerk all rolled into one. The coinage is strange to him, and he is sure to get