to _terra firma_ by turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic
over the sands I was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the
river; and at the same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "_whit_"
close to Pornic's head.

There was no mistaking the nature of the missile--a regulation
Martini-Henry "picket." About five hundred yards away a
country-boat was anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke
drifting away from its bows in the still morning air showed me
whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable
gentleman in such an _impasse_? The treacherous sand slope
allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most
involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal
for a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid
that I lost my temper very much indeed.

Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to
cool my porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to
the horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn
sixty-five human beings from the badger-holes which I had up till
that point supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst
of a crowd of spectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one
child who could not have been more than five years old. They were
all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth which one
associates with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight, gave me the
impression of a band of loathsome _fakirs_. The filth and
repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond all description, and I
shuddered to think what their life in the badger-holes must be.

Even in these days, when local self-government has destroyed the