Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/231

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I MEET AN A.D.C.
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dignified and lordly mien. It reminded me of a smart and well-dressed woman gracefully sailing on unconscious of the little wisp of hair that had escaped behind and marred the whole effect. A camel with his big, ungainly feet that yet fell so noiselessly upon the dusty road, his head held superciliously aloft, and his huge nostrils sniffing the air disdainfully, passed slowly by, obedient to the single guiding-rein that again was nothing more than a little bit of string.

In a flash we caught a glimpse of old Delhi as we swept under a magnificent gateway, time-worn and crumbling, taking one back suddenly out of the hustling present to memories of the long-since silent past. A turn of the road, and all again was modern—a marvellous glimpse of the law and order and precision that the British Raj has imposed upon chaos and disorder. Before us stretched miles and miles of tents shining dazzling white in the morning sun, trim, neat, in orderly lines, like a regiment marshalled for review. It was a marvellous sight, this vast encampment. It made one think of one of those vivid Biblical stories of some beleaguered city on a hill, with the hosts of the enemy encamped over against them on the plains below. The first glimpse of the Ridge is never to be forgotten. All that one has ever heard or read of it seems to flash before one as it rises into view. The very ground is sacred, pulsating with a thousand memories, and the air seems throbbing with the sound of many voices long since hushed. But this is the twentieth century, and we have come to celebrate the Proclamation of