ABSTRACT
F r o m the verandah of the Ramidi rest-house I look out on deep midsummer. Showers have refreshed the land; little yellow and blue flowers show confiding faces amongst the vivid green of the grass. Thorn-trees are covered with golden bloom, amid which the wild pigeons coo an interminable concert; the tree shadows lie on the ground like tranquil pools of darkness. Beyond the hedges of prickly-pear fields are being ploughed; extra yoke of oxen are tinkling along the road towards the aid of their brothers stolidly tramping the furrows; faint and purple the Taramulla hills show in the distance.While writing, a war is being waged against innumerable flies;bang! the fly-flap has killed or stunned one; it is swept on to the ground, where big soldier-ants are swarming; in a second one of them drags it away. But all is not plain sailing, a bigger and stronger ant comes along, there are arguments about that fly. The smaller ant goes off empty antennae-ed-or whatever it is that ants drag with. “ It is a bad, bad world,” as the worm said when only half of it got away; the fat minah bird hopping about the grass picking, and looking anything but miserable, is responsible for this remark, which, I believe, is not original. Perish the people who said things before us!While the years are bringing the philosophic mind (let us hope, though the above tag hardly illustrates i t !) they are taking away, unkindly, an amenable body. It is well work here was started years ago; I do not think I could now hop about Ramidi like an energetic frog seeking some convenient water-spout to creep into.1 Luckily the frog has arrived in a pond. After the hot midday journey yesterday a 1 See An Uphill Road in India , Chaps, ix and x.
