Several times I stopped to drink some water where it seemed to be good,
and I ate a little chocolate from my supply, well knowing the
miraculous, sustaining powers of the simple little block of "Menier,"
which, with its six small tablets, will not only sustain life, but will
supply vigour and energy, for as much as two days, with no other food.
On and on, through the day and the night, past sleeping villages, where
the jackals howled around the open doors of the huts; and across vast
fields of late crops, over hills thickly grown with trees, past the
broad bend of the Sutlej river, and over the plateau toward Sultanpoor,
the cultivation growing scantier and the villages rarer all the while,
as the vast masses of the Himalayas defined themselves more and more
distinctly in the moonlight. Horses of all kinds under me, lean and fat,
short and high, roman-nosed and goose-necked, broken and unbroken; away
and away, shifting saddle and bridle and saddle-bag as I left each tired
mount behind me. Once I passed a stream, and pulling off my boots to
cool my feet, the temptation way too strong, so I hastily threw off my
clothes and plunged in and had a short refreshing bath. Then on, with,
the galloping even triplet of the house's hoofs beneath me, as they came
down in quick succession, as if the earth were a muffled drum and we
were beating an untiring _rataplan_ on her breast.
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