is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a
flood.'

And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs
straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen
hundred miles - such a river of life as nowhere else exists in
the world. They looked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length
of it, the white breadth speckled with slow-pacing folk; and the
two-roomed police-station opposite.

'Who bears arms against the law?' a constable called out
laughingly, as he caught sight of the soldier's sword. 'Are not
the police enough to destroy evil-doers?'

'It was because of the police I bought it,' was the answer. 'Does
all go well in Hind?'

'Rissaldar Sahib, all goes well.'

'I am like an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out from
the bank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the Road of Hindustan.
All men come by this way...'

'Son of a swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee to
scratch thy back upon? Father of all the daughters of shame and
husband of ten thousand virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted
to a devil, being led thereto by her mother. Thy aunts have never
had a nose for seven generations! Thy sister - What Owl's folly
told thee to draw thy carts across the road? A broken wheel? Then
take a broken head and put the two together at leisure!'