The reader of these pages, who knows the Sandy Tracts, would think that I did them scarcely justice if I omitted from the picture all reference to a visitation which to many of them formed, too often, a main feature of Indian existence. There is a Fiend there, be it known, that comes, no one can tell whence--from earth or air, or marshy pool or frosty sky or blazing sunny morning. However, when he comes he speedily makes his arrival known to the guests whom he favours with a visit. He shakes them and racks them, and gets into their heads and beats a kettledrum there, and sets a tribe of imps to dance a sort of infernal ballet all about each quivering limb; he freezes them, so that the poor shivering wretches bury themselves under mountains of rags and blankets and go on shivering still; he parches them till they feel like Dives in torture; he turns their brains to mud, their thoughts to chaos, their high spirits to the very blackest gall. Most people, it is believed, when the demon first possesses them, signalise his accession by a hearty cry; and well they may, for among the other cheering thoughts which suggest themselves at the moment, one is that every time you have fever the likelier you are to have it yet again; and that your way to recovery lies through a remedy which for bitterness and bewilderment is only not as bad as the disease for which it is invoked--quinine. In the Sandy Tracts they serve it to you hot, out of a black bottle, stopped with a twisted coil of paper, and heated half to boiling by being carried through the sun. It is at such a moment that existence naturally wears a sombre look, and that the Indian exile curses the ambition or the ill-luck that bore him to such a fortune beneath an alien sky. Maud, however, was so far fortunate that she had the best and tenderest nurses that could be wished. The surgeon, delighted with so interesting a patient, was assiduous, considerate and suggestive. Mrs. Crummins was more than a mother, and Sutton suddenly discovered a perfect genius for the science of an invalid's room. When Maud, after a week or two, began to get strong again there was no doubt in the little conclave that she ought to go to the Hills. A great deal of illness was about--the cholera had become really serious--the fierce summer was coming quickly on--in another fortnight the journey would be almost impossible for all but the strongest. So it was settled for her to go; and Sutton became very impatient and uneasy till she was safely off.