And all these impressions flashed through my mind from a glimpse, a very vivid glimpse it is true, and she seemed so absolutely and completely removed from ordinary mankind that I never dreamt I should ever see her cunt; according to plan I was going to change horses at Nowshera and proceed immediately to Cherat.

But on arriving at the post office, which was also the place for changing horses, the postmaster, a civil-spoken Baboo, told me that he could give me horses only as far as Publi, a village about halfway between Nowshera and Peshawar, and that from that place I must make the best of my way to Cherat, for there was no road along which dak gharrys could be driven, and my good Baboo added that the said interval between Publi and Cherat was dangerous for travellers, there being many lawless robbers about. Moreover, he added, the distance was a good fifteen miles. He advised me to put up at the public bungalow at Nowshera until the brigade major could put me in the way of completing my journey.

This information was a great surprise and a great damper to me! How on earth was I to get up to Cherat with my baggage if there was no road? How could I do fifteen miles under such circumstances? To think I had come so many thousands of miles, since I had left England, to be balked by a miserable little fifteen. However, for the present there seemed nothing to be done but to take the excellent Baboo's advice, put up at the public bungalow and see the brigade major.

The public bungalow stood in its own compound, a little distance from the high road, and to get to it I had to drive back part of the road I had travelled.