"Exactly," replied the judge.
"Only to think that in forty-eight hours we shall be in London, even allowing for a two hours' stay in Cairo to pick up further mails and passengers."
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" agreed his companion.
"And the absence of heat is some consideration, when travelling in a land like India," continued the colonel as he flicked off the end of his cigar.
"Yes. The stifling heat, particularly in May, June and July, when you get the hot dry winds, is altogether insufferable in those stuffy railway carriages, while up here it is delightfully cool and bracing, and the view is magnificent."
"Hullo! what is that fine river down there?" asked the judge, as he looked down through the clear, tropical atmosphere on to the delightful landscape of river, plain and forest three thousand feet below.
"Oh, that must be the Indus, the King River of Vedic poetry, a wonderful stream, two thousand miles in length," said the colonel, consulting his pocket map.
"Can it really be the Indus?"
"It is indeed."
"Then we have already travelled four hundred miles since noon across the burning plains of India, and we have reached the confines of this wonderful land," replied Jefferson.