“Animal!” exclaimed my friend in astonishment, and laughing heartily, “why you are a greater griffin than I took you for: this beats your spearing the village pig. A dawk is a relay of bearers at stages of ten or twelve miles apart, to carry you, at the rate of four or five miles an hour, to your journey’s end.” “Thank you,” said I, “for the information; but not possessing intuitive knowledge, you see, one can’t be expected to know all things until told of them.” Augustus admitted that there was reason in the observation. Well, it was decided that I was to proceed to Barrackpore on the second night after the day on which this conversation took place; so I wrote at once to my friend Tom, to tell him that he might expect me immediately. The last day of my stay, De la Chasse and his _fidus Achates_ dined with us, and we all appeared depressed at the prospect of separation, for our short acquaintance had already ripened into a friendly feeling. Like towns in an ill-governed country, where, owing to the absence of sound laws and honest administrators of them, every one is afraid of his neighbour, hearts, in artificial England, are too often petty fortresses, in which pride, caution, and suspicion are incessantly on the watch to guard against surprise, and to break down these barriers and effect a lodgment is frequently the work of years; but in India, amongst Anglo-Indians, the case is reversed; the gates are thrown wide open, and intimacies and cordial (though, perhaps, not always lasting) feelings are generally the result of a few day’s acquaintance. Both extremes are bad, as all extremes are; but it is indubitably far pleasanter to live amongst those, the approaches to whose confidence and kindness are supinely, rather than too rigorously guarded; the one system, ’tis my belief, shuts out more good than the other admits of evil. “_Sahib, ka daktiar hyr_,” said a servant entering the apartment some time after dark, on the day of which I am speaking. “Gernon,” observed Mr. Augustus, “the best of friends must part: your palankeen is ready outside, and only waits your orders.” I arose, walked to the terrace, and there was my equipage. The sentimental St. Pierre, with all the _accuracy_ of a Frenchman, thus describes the equipage of his truth-seeking doctor, who, if as subject to blundering as himself, might have been a long time in discovering that valuable treasure.