dust whirling in clouds, when I reached Gaya station on my pilgrimage to the Tree of Knowledge, and it was a cold, dull, prosaic drive of a mile in a rattling gharry to Gaya town and the dak bangla, where the government provides chill cheer for the few European travelers who ever rest there. One
THE EKKA
elephant passed by on the station road,—a touch of the ancient East, the Hindu India, that did not accord with the background of barbed-wire fences, telegraph poles, and railway tracks, nor with the well-metaled highway of British India that the creature trod upon. A string of dusty brown camels filed across the neutral, dusty distance, and turbaned folk sped by in bullock-carts or gay ekkas, the native cabs, mere curtained canopies hung with balls and bells, and the ponies caparisoned to match, with high, peaked collars and blue bead necklaces.
