Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/218

 shower, rise from the earth with four large wings. They fly to the lights, and your lamps are put out in a few minutes by swarms of them: they fall into your plate at dinner, and over your book when reading, being most troublesome. Last night heavy rain fell, and the rooms were swarming with winged-ants, which flew in; their wings fell off almost immediately, verifying the proverb: "When ants get wings they die ."

To-night we are suffering under a more disagreeable infliction; a quantity of winged-bugs flew in just as dinner was put on the table, the bamboo screens having been let down rather too late. They are odious; they fly upon your face and arms, and into your plate; if you brush them away, they emit such terrible effluvia it is sickening, and yet one cannot bear them to crawl over one's body, as one is at this minute doing on my ear, without pushing them off.

21st.—There has been a great fire in the Fort of Allahabad, and the magazine of gunpowder was with difficulty saved. What an explosion it would have caused had it taken fire!

Oh! how I long for the liberty and freshness of a country life in England—what would I not give for a fine bracing air, and a walk by the sea-side, to enable me to shake off this Indian languor, and be myself again! The moon is so hot to-night, I cannot sit on the Terrace; she makes my head ache. A chatr (umbrella) is as necessary a defence against the rays of the moon at the full, as against the sun.

These natives are curious people. Two of our khidmatgārs were looking at the weather; the one said, "It is a good thing that from the pleasure of Allah the rain has been stopped; otherwise, so many houses would have fallen in." The ābdār answered, "Those are the words of an unbeliever." Kaffir ke bat. "You are a Kaffir," exclaimed the first man, in a great rage. It being high abuse to use the term, the ābdār took off his shoe and flung it at the other, on which the first man struck him a good blow with his fist, which cut his cheek open. Here ended the fight—they were both frightened at the sight of