advanced. "I catch coolies," said David, and he did so, dragging them on board by leg, arm, or turban end, as chanced. Although we had telegraphed to have lower sofas reserved, the Anglo-Indian railway brain has not been equal to devising or borrowing a system of numbering and definitely securing such a reservation. Possession was to the swiftest, and the foot-race up a soft bank and over ends of railway ties by torchlight warmed one at least. The air grew colder, and bitterly colder, as we rumbled along through the night, and the loose-fitting doors and windows sent frosty currents across us. From dreams of Pullman curtains, blankets, soft mattresses and springs, of double windows and thick carpets, of sixteen-wheeled trucks with cylindrical springs under long cars hung far above the dusty road-bed, we woke to the cold reality of our freight-and cattle-car comforts. Before daylight tea-trays flashed in the lamplight of way stations, and cups of freshly made tea thawed one and cheered the gray hour of dawn, while the thick frost haze of the plain half obscured the sky.
By six o'clock it was light enough to see that the people had changed overnight with the temperature. We had left the sleek, supple, barefooted Bengali in his sheeted drapery, with his thin nose and deep eyes, and come to a race with high cheek bones and flat Mongol faces, first cousins to the Chinese, even to the cut of their loose-sleeved coats with overlapping fronts, and their high cloth boots. The queue and the turban were worn together; and that was not more incongruous than the Hindu caste-
