My wife and I let the regiment get a day ahead of us when we reached Ferozepore, as we stayed with an old friend who welcomed us most warmly. It is a pretty green station, once the British boundary. We saw here the most wonderful flight of locusts pass over the place. The whole air was darkened with them. I can only compare the effect to that of a blinding snowstorm; but the colour was grey instead of white. All the populace turned out with tin pots, kettles, drums, and tom-toms to prevent the enemy settling, and the main body passed the station in about an hour, but thousands of stragglers kept flying after them all the afternoon, and many thousands more dropped exhausted. The natives collect the fallen, and make curries of them, which is not at all a bad dish; but woe to the green fields if they be allowed to alight on them--not a blade of grass or green leaf escapes these fearful marauders. The next flight of winged things we saw was a flock of wild geese, so numerous that the whole goose tribe seemed to be emigrating to more temperate zones. CHAPTER XV. THE HIMALAYAS. AGRA--LETTER-WRITERS IN BAZAAR--A DILEMMA--THE RAJAH OF ULWAR--THE TAJ-MAHAL--DESERTED CITY OF PALACES--FUTTEHPORE SEKRI--RAILWAY TRAVELLING--THE SEWALLIC RANGE--THE HIMALAYAS--THE SNOWY RANGE--DEHRA--THE TRAINING SEASON--CHOLERA--PROCLAIMING BANNS OF MARRIAGE--PRESAGES OF A STORM. CHAPTER XV. It was the 9th of March when we reached Loodiana, having left Nowshera the last day of January, and here we were at what was then the terminus of the Indian railway. We got down to Agra in a couple of days, breaking the journey at Meerut to let the men have their rations cooked, and on the 13th of March we arrived at Agra, well pleased to have reached our final destination.