Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/101

 only a few yards away. The slightest wind raises it in clouds, a string of camels darkens the horizon, a cavalry parade obscures the whole hemisphere for hours after; once or twice in a month, in a week, or sometimes in a day, a storm of dust takes place that baffles all description; yet the following transcript from my note book may give some idea of it:— "The weather had been unusually calm and sultry for some days previous; during the forenoon the sky was heavily overcast, a slight breeze only was fanning the date trees at intervals, and now and then a magnificent column, like a vidette of the approaching hurricane, wheeled spirally over the parade, and with its foot upon the earth, and its head in the heavens, disappeared upon the horizon. The thermometer was only 85°; the weather-door was left ajar to invite in a gentle current of air; the punkah was hanging motionless from the ceiling; the tatty reclining dry and dusty against the pillars of the verandah; and the punkah-walla and the bheestie were taking their araum in the open air, and plying their hookah. Old tyrant Sol never looked so bewildered before, he could not show his naked face anywhere; one could form no conception of his locality: no shadow followed his footsteps; his standing orderly, the sundial,had a perfect sinecure of it, and stood at ease all day long. It might have been morning