As to the risk of death, who is free from it anywhere? Certainly not in the Punjab. I hear that all those religious mendicants at Zilabad have proclaimed a holy fair this summer in order that pious people may feed them, and now, having collected in thousands beside the river in hot weather, they have spread cholera all over the district. There is trouble raging throughout all the world, Mother, and yet these sons of mean fathers must proclaim a beggars' festival in order to add to it! There should be an order of the Government to take all those lazy rascals out of India into France and put them in our front-line that their bodies may be sieves for the machine guns. Why cannot they blacken their faces and lie in a corner with a crust of bread? It is certainly right to feed the family priests, Mother, but when the idle assemble in thousands begging and making sickness and polluting the drinking-water, punishment should be administered. Very much sickness, such as cholera and dysentery, is caused by drinking foul water. Therefore, it is best to have it boiled, Mother, no matter what is said. When clothes are washed in foul water, sickness also spreads. You will say, Mother, that I am no longer a trooper but a washer-woman or an apothecary, but I swear to you, my Mother, what I have said is true. Now, I have two charges to deliver to you as to the household under you. I beg you, my Mother, to give order that my son drink water which is boiled, at least from the beginning of the hot weather till after the Rains. That is one charge. The second is that when I was going down to the sea with the Regiment from home, the Lady Doctor Sahiba in the Civil Lines asked of our Colonel's lady whether any of us desired that their households should take the charm against the small-pox [be vaccinated]. I was then busy with my work and I made no reply. Now let that Doctor Sahiba know that I desire by her favour that my son take the charm as soon as may be. I charge you, Mother, upon _his_ head that it is done soon. I beg you respectfully to take this charge upon you. Oh, my Mother, if I could now see you for but half of one watch in the night or at evening preparing food! I remember the old days in my dreamings but when I awake--there is the sleeper and there is the bedding and it is more far off than Delhi. But God will accomplish the meetings and surely arrange the return.