LETTER xxn A FIERY DAY 141
aide-de-camp, attended by a cavalry escort, called, and
with much courtesy offered me the fialaJckana, arranged, he
said, in European fashion. The Governor was absent, but
this officer said that it would be his wish to offer me
hospitality. As I felt quite unable to move he sent a skin
of good water, some fruit, and a guard of four soldiers.
It was only 11 A.M. when the tents were pitched, and
the long day which followed was barely endurable. The
mercury reached 124° inside my tent. The servants lay
in a dry ditch under a tree in the Governor's garden.
Boy several times came into the shade of my verandah.
The black flies swarmed over everything, and at sunset
covered the whole roof of the tent so thickly that no part
of it could be seen. The sun, a white scintillating ball,
blazed from a steely sky, over which no cloud ever passed.
The heated atmosphere quivered over the burning earth.
I was at last ill of fever, and my recipe for fighting the
heat by ceaseless oSeupation failed. It was a miserable
day, and at one time a scorching wind, which seemed hot
enough to singe one's hair, added to the discomfort. " As
the hireling earnestly desireth the shadow," so I longed
for evening, but truly the hours of that day wdre " long
drawn out." The silence was singular. , Even the
buzzing of a blue-bottle fly would have been cheerful
The sun, reddening the atmosphere as he sank, disappeared
in a fiery haze, and then the world of Daulatabad awoke.
Parties of Persian gentlemen on fiery horses passed by,
dervishes honoured me by asking alms, the Governor's
major-domo called to offer sundry kindnesses, and great
flocks of sheep and goats, indicated by long lines of dust
clouds/moved citywards from the hills. Sand-flies in
legions now beset me, and the earth, which had been
imbibing heat all day, radiated it far into the morning.
I moved my bed outside the tent and gave orders for an
early start, but the charvadar who was in the city over-