their places appeared a nondescript people in sober attire,—sturdy hill-men whose clothes and cheek-bones had the same Chinese suggestion as those of the hill-folk around Darjiling, At ten-thirty we shook off our razais and rugs and limped into the dak bangla at Solon, with fierce mountain appetites added to what naturally succeeded the imitation of a breakfast at Kalka. A courteous old khansamah, with a velvet manner and perfect decorum, ushered us to a dining-room where the chill of Himalayan summits lingered, and we soon had the table brought out to the sunny veranda. Twenty-seven miles of travel, and a lift of a few thousand feet in air, had raised the art of cookery far above its level at Kalka, and we breakfasted with enthusiasm.
While two plunging animals refused either to be led or backed up to the "fitton," the babu informed us that this was the best post-road in India; that it had the best carriages and best ponies; that the government pays one and two hundred rupees for the best Peshawar and Agra horses, and sells them cheap at the end of six or eight months, since only the best stock will do for or can stand the Simla travel. Across the valley we could see twenty horses sunning themselves before the next station, ready for the day's relays, and our early start gave us the choice of the successive stables. From Solon the road led steadily up over bare brown hills, marked by the path of landslides or the green of afforestation efforts, set with candlestick cacti and striped with an occasional patch of snow. All the boulders were painted over with and the pine groves stuck full of
