Chiefs. They seemed to extend for about a couple of miles. The Chiefs have some long journeys before them if they mean to attend every function of the first few days of January; but they will have the satisfaction of knowing that the camps are in an open and healthy situation. At the very last camp I met a friendly Englishman, who said that the Southern Army had bivouacked the previous night two or three miles to the eastward. A cross-cut put me on the right route at last. Here were waggons loaded with barrels of beer. Clearly the Army could not be very far away. Then came a plain where wreaths of smoke from the embers of countless fires were mingling with the fog. A few natives could be faintly descried beating out the ashes with sticks; but the entire Army, horse, foot, artillery, and baggage train, had vanished into the unknown. Nothing but the smouldering fragments told that they had ever been there. Twenty thousand men marching light, leave astonishingly few traces behind them.
As I turned disappointedly towards Delhi, I was overtaken by a squadron of the Central India Horse; and then I began to realise what marching through dust was like. Instantly the scene became almost invisible. We moved through dense choking clouds. A thick flour settled on clothes and carriage. One heard the clatter of hoofs, the jingling of arms, the hoarse cries of the sowars; but all that could be seen were stray glimpses of a fluttering lance-pennon, of a phantom bearded face, of
