RAILWAYS

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lie beyond the full influence of the south-west monsoon,
and the total rainfall here is only 7 inches.
All around us now are Punjab influences. The
character of the people has changed with their dress and
their manners. The Sind shopkeeper disappears with
the Baluch borderer, and the Punjabi Mussulman, turbaned
 and loosely clothed (polite enough when encountered
 about the dusty, sun-baked little roadside stations ;
but often truculent and disagreeable in the crowded byways
 and alleys of the great Punjab cities) has taken their
place. Multan, Lahore, Rawal Pindi, and Peshawur have
all a common stock of humanity. It is a useful stock, filling
the ranks of the army and police with recruits, and finding
workmen for most of the public enterprises of India ; and
politically, it is a most important one, for the enormous
gatherings of mixed ruffianism (including more and more
of the worst Pathan element as one approaches the
border) which gathers in these great towns must ever be
1 source of uneasiness in times of difficulty, and demands
sonstant watchfulness even in times of peace.
Lahore, the city of the Ravi, is the capital of the
Punjab, and in its streets and buildings are gathered
176,000 people. To reach Lahore we have travelled
more than 8oo miles from Karachi. The journey has
been slow, indescribably dusty, and the scenery monotonous
 ; nor should we have improved it much had we
struck off from Multan and journeyed by the Sind-Sagar
line (which follows the Indus to Dera Ismail Khan, and
then runs eastwards to Jehlam) to our destination. We
should have seen a dim silhouette of the Sulimani Mountains,
 tinted in grey, against a glaring western sky ; and,
if lucky, might have distinguished the dominating peaks of
the Kaisargarh ; but such distance as intervenes between
‘he Indus and the crest of the Sulimanis lends little enchantment
 to the view, and on the whole the shorter
route is the more profitable. Lahore (or Lahawur) is
doubtless a very ancient city, but we find no mention of
it earlier than the seventh century A.D., when it was in the
hands of the Chauhan Rajputs. From them it passed