it, every hotel had its compound white with tents, for the exorbitant discomfort of which dozens were clamouring; dozens more, after the Indian fashion, which regards the railway station as something between an hotel and a home, dressed in waiting-rooms after a night and day's journey, and left the ball-room for their special before the dawn. And so, one way or another, some nine hundred came, and spacious as are Lahore's resources there was need for every inch of its fine floors, for Lahore dances, as the saying is, "sixteen annas to the rupee," and, having come so far to fill it, saw the programme through. It was a soldiers' night; uniforms everywhere; the gayer colours of the Indian Army, mixed with the red and blue and gold one knew. For once the ladies' dresses did the toning, and the room was only adorned by groups of lances and wreaths of crimson pompons drawn up to a ceiling of sky-blue. Our last Royal dance was the Byculla at Bombay, in a steamy heat, well up in the eighties. Here, not a thousand miles northward, we had stars that sparkled in an English winter sky, and an air that whitened our breath as we sought near dawn for our own traps in the tangle of carriages. Tum-tum, phaeton, and tonga were there, open all of them to the weather, for India never in the practical matter of a dance stands on the order of its going: and it was mostly to ladies perched up on high dog-cart seats, or tucked away under tonga awnings, muffled in furs, and veiled in laces, that the merry farewells were said and plans remade for the Christmas meeting. CHAPTER IX THE GATE OF EMPIRE "SATURDAY, 2nd December. 10 A.M., Public Arrival. 10.30, Address from the Municipal Committee. 3 P.M., Garden Party. 8 P.M., Banquet." The quotation is from the orders of the day, and it is headed Peshawar. Attock and the Indus are behind us, our horizon lies beyond the frontier; Kabul River runs beside us, and Kabul itself is within two days' hard riding. Every name for miles around has a place in history; in history that reaches from the day before yesterday back to Alexander. Yet, so invincibly English are we, that the day's programme for an event that can happen but twice. or thrice in a century is indistinguishable from what might be arranged in any county at home. "Change here for Dargai," cried the guard at Nowshera. Dargai that seemed beyond the civilised border of the world so short a while ago, when one saw its name first on excited posters and heard it shouted through London streets, become now a little station at which any tourist may disport himself. Compared with that, garden parties and municipal addresses seem quite suitable to Peshawar, though Peshawar is still a place of plots and the haven of the discontented. The Prince's drive through the city was a cause of grave anxiety to those responsible for his safety. For weeks every house overlooking the route had been searched, and at the last moment the doubtful characters were quietly removed, and detectives planted at points of vantage. Police supervision in India is very thorough, and from the day of their landing a watch is kept on the unaccountable till they arrive, as they generally do, up here. Germans and Russians are the most frequent foreigners, and to see the Khaibar their ostensible objective; but they probably seldom realise that the Political Officer before granting them a permit has been made acquainted with every turn in India which their feet have taken. So, too, no one enters Peshawar who is not overlooked and an entry made of his history and intentions. Yet with all this care, those best qualified to speak proclaim their inability to foretell what may happen there to-morrow. Afridi raids have come during the past few months within a few miles of the city; last year the station was burnt down, and in the dark of this morning Pathan rifle thieves made a successful descent on the Northamptons' camp at Burhan. This contrast in securities, between a Royal garden party and thieves creeping between |