his opinion of it was too lurid to print. My subaltern, who had been superintending the unloading of the baggage, joined us and in his turn was regaled with these cheering criticisms of our new home. His face fell; for, like me, he had been looking forward eagerly to being quartered in this little outpost, where, we had been told, the sport was excellent. Fortunately men's tastes differ; and after eighteen months' experience of this much-abused Buxa, I liked it better than any other place I have ever served in in all my soldiering.

I learned from our new friends that the fort was six miles from the railway and fifteen hundred feet above it; so I inquired for the transport to convey our baggage there.

Before leaving Baroda the quartermaster of our regiment had written to the nearest civil official of the district, requesting him to provide me with a hundred coolies for the purpose. There were also, I knew, three Government transport elephants in charge of the detachment quartered in Buxa Duar. These I saw at the station engaged in conveying the baggage of the Punjabis, who were to leave on the following day. I asked for my hundred coolies.

The major laughed when I told him of our quartermaster's requisition. "Your regimental headquarters," he said, "evidently did not realise what a desolate, uninhabited place this is. A hundred coolies? Why, with difficulty I have procured eight; four of them women. You will have to leave your baggage here under a guard, and have it brought up piecemeal on the elephants after our departure. And now, if you will fall in your men, I'll lead the way up to Buxa and gladly take my last look at it."

A baggage guard having been left at the station with our food and cooking-pots, etc., my detachment fell in, formed fours and followed us. From the clearing near the railway a broad road, cut through the forest, led towards the hills. For the first three miles it was comparatively level; and we swung along at a good pace between the tall trees rising from the dense undergrowth. Breaking the solemn silence of the forest, I eagerly plied our new friends with questions on the chances of sport that Buxa afforded. But I found that they had done little in that way and could give me scant information. The subaltern had shot a tiger on a tea garden, but had hardly ever gone into the jungle. I learned, however, that out of the three transport elephants now at my disposal, two were trained for shooting purposes and were remarkably steady. This at least was good news.

Towards the end of the third mile the road began to rise; and when it emerged into a small clearing we halted for a few minutes. We were now at the very foot of the hills; and from here we could see them for the first time since our train had entered the forest. High above our heads they towered. At first low, rounded, tree-clad buttresses of the giant ramparts of India, long spurs thrust out from the flanks of the mountains. Then lofty rugged walls of rock, jagged peaks, dark even in the brilliant sunshine, precipitous cliffs over which thin threads of water leapt and seemed to hang wavering down the steep sides.

In the clearing stood two or three wooden huts; and a hundred yards farther on was a long and lofty open structure, with a thatched roof supported on rough wood pillars. The flooring was of pounded earth with three brick "standings," with iron rings inserted in them; for this was the Peelkhana or elephant stables of the detachment. The clearing was dignified with the euphonious name of Santrabari. Past the Peelkhana the road entered the hills. At first it wound around their flanks, crossing by wooden bridges over clear streams; then, rising ever higher, it climbed the steep slopes in zigzags. Along above a brawling mountain torrent, tumbling over rounded rocks in a deep ravine it went, across wooded spurs and under stony cliffs. Huge bushes flamed with strange red and purple flowers, thick shrubs hung out great white bells to tempt the giant scarlet and black butterflies hovering overhead. Above our path tall trees stretched out their long limbs covered with the glossy green leaves of orchids. From trunk to trunk swung creepers thick as a ship's hawser, trailing in long festoons or interlacing and writhing around each other like great snakes.

But, as we climbed, the forest fell behind us. The trees stood farther apart, grew fewer and smaller. The undergrowth became denser. Tall brakes of the drooping plumes of the bamboo, thick-growing thorny bushes, plantain trees with their broad leaves and hanging bunches of bananas, the straight slender stems of sago palms with trailing clusters of nut-like fruit springing up from tangled vegetation. A troop of little brown monkeys leapt in alarm from tree to tree and vanished over a cliff. With a measured flapping of wings a brilliantly plumaged hornbill passed over our heads. The road crossed and recrossed the mountain stream and led into a deep cleft among the hills towering precipitously over us. And looking up I saw on the edge of a cliff the corner of a building. It was the fort of Buxa at last. But before we reached it a few hundred feet more of climbing had to be done; and we panted wearily upward. Through a narrow cutting we emerged on a stretch of artificially levelled soil, the parade ground, and halted gladly. We stood in a deep horseshoe among the mountains, nearly two thousand feet above the plains. Before us, peeping out from low trees and flowering bushes, were a few bungalows; and above them towered a conical peak, its summit another four thousand feet higher still. From it right and left ran down on either side of us two long wooded spurs; and on knolls on them stood three white square towers. Behind us, on a long mound, were fortified barracks with loopholed walls. These formed the fort; and this was Buxa Duar. We had reached our destination.

The major first showed our men to their new quarters; and I told them off to their different barrack-rooms, and saw them settled down. Then he and his subaltern led us to the Mess where we met a third officer, the doctor, a young lieutenant in the Indian Medical Service named Smith, who was to remain on in Buxa in medical charge of my detachment. Then ensued the wearisome task of taking over charge of all the Government property in the Station, from the rifle-range and the ammunition in the magazine to picks and shovels, buckets and waterproof coats. We had next to do our own bargaining over the buying of the store of tinned provisions, jams, pickles and wines in the Mess, as well as the scanty furniture in it. Among other things we purchased were two Bhutanese mountain sheep—huge creatures with horns. Meat being a rare commodity in Buxa, the major had bought them from a Bhuttia from across the border. Not needing to kill them at once, he had let them roam freely about the Mess garden until, as he said, they had become such pets that he could not harden his heart sufficiently to order them to be killed for food. My subaltern and I mentally resolved not to allow them to become thus endeared to us by long association.

Dinner in the Mess that night was quite a pleasant function, everyone but the doctor being in the best of spirits. As he was not to take his departure on the morrow, he was not as cheerful as the two Punjabi officers, who were delighted to think that they were so soon to leave Buxa. They had, perhaps, reason to rejoice at their return to civilisation and the society of their kind. They had come there from Tibet, where they had been quartered in the wilds from the end of the fighting in the war of 1904 to the evacuation of the country by our troops. They frankly pitied us for the prospect of two years' exile in this isolated post, where a strange white face was rarely seen. They