The station beyond Jhelum is reached, I having but one mighty river to pass before I leave the bounds of India proper and tread the outskirts of central Asia, in the valley of the Peshawar. But it took some two or three days and nights of continuous travel in a dak gharry [carriage], before I reached Attock. The dak gharry is a fairly comfortable mode of conveyance, but one becomes tired of the eternal horizontal position in which it accomodates the weary traveller. Crossing the Indus in a boat rowed over a frightful torrent with the roar of the waters breaking on the rocks below, was a very exciting experience, especially as it happened at night, and the dark gloom added a magnifying effect to the roar of the suspected danger. Another dak gharry waited, into which I got, lay down and went to sleep, not to waken until I reached Nowshera.

Ah! Mademoiselle de Maupin! What a lovely girl! Who can she be? She must, I fancy, be the daughter of the colonel commanding here, out for her morning walk, and perhaps, judging from the keen expectant glance shot in at me through the half-open sliding door of the gharry, expecting somebody, perhaps her fiancй; perhaps that is why she looked so eager and yet so disappointed!

Oh, dear reader! just as I opened my eyes I saw, through the half-open door, this perfect figure of feminine beauty! A girl clothed in close-fitting grey-coloured dress with a Teria hat archly sloped on her lovely and well-shaped head! That beautiful face! How perfect the oval of it! What glorious, yet rather stern eyes! What a delicately formed nose! Truly she must have aristocratic blood in her veins to be so daintily formed! What a rosebud of a mouth! What cherry lips! God! Jupiter! Venus! What a form! See those exquisite rounded shoulders, those full and beautiful arms, the shape of each so plainly visible so close does her dress fit her; and how pure, how virgin-like is that undulating bosom! See how proudly each swelling breast fills out her modest, but still desire-provoking, bodice! Ah! The little shell-like ears, fitting so close to the head. How I would like to have the privilege of gently pressing those tiny lobes! What a lovely creature she looks! How refined! How pure! How virginal.