say no deception about this tale by accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist though he is the only englishman who has been there a somewhat similar institution used to flourish on the outskirts of and there is a story that if you go into the heart of which is in the heart of the great indian desert you shall come across not a village but a town where the dead who did not die but may not live have established their and since it is perfectly true that in the same desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money retreat after they have made their fortunes fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the government to protect them but take refuge in the sands and drive c spring and buy girls and their palaces with gold and ivory and and mother o pearl i do not see why s tale should not be true he is a civil engineer with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps he could earn more by doing his legitimate work he never the tale in the telling and grows very hot and indignant when he thinks of the treatment he received he wrote this quite at first but he has touched it up in places and introduced moral reflections thus � the strange ride in the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever my work my being in camp for some months between and � a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had the misfortune to go there may know my were neither more nor less than other and my work demanded sufficient attention to keep me from had i been inclined to so a weakness on the d december i felt a little feverish there was a full moon at the time and in consequence every dog near my tent was it the brutes assembled in and and drove me frantic a few days previously i had shot one loud mouthed singer and suspended his in terror em about fifty yards from my tent door but his friends upon fought for and ultimately devoured the body and as it seemed to me sang their hymns of afterwards with renewed energy the light head which fever acts differently on different men my irritation gave way after a short time to a fixed determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening thanks to a shaking hand and a giddy head i had already missed him twice with both barrel of my when it struck me that my best plan would be to ride him down in the open and finish off with a f this of course was merely the semi notion of a fever patient but i remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and i therefore ordered my groom to saddle and bring him round quietly to the rear of my tent when the pony was ready i stood at his head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift up his voice by the way had not been out of his for a couple of days the night air was crisp and chilly and i was armed with a specially long and sharp pair of with which i had the strange ride been rousing a that afternoon you will easily believe then that when he was let go he went quickly in one moment for the brute bolted as straight as a die the tent was left far behind and we were flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed in another we had passed the wretched dog and i had almost forgotten why it was that i had taken horse and spear the delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the air must have taken away the remnant of my senses i have a faint recollection of standing upright in my and of my spear at the great white moon that looked down so calmly on my mad gallop and of shouting to the thorn bushes as they past once or twice i believe i swayed forward on s neck and literally hung on by my spurs � as the marks next morning showed the wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed over what seemed to be a expanse of sand next i remember the ground rose suddenly in front of us and as we the ascent i saw the waters of the shining like a silver bar below then heavily on his nose and we rolled together down some unseen slope i must have lost consciousness for when i recovered i was lying on my stomach in a heap of soft white sand and the dawn was beginning to break dimly over the edge of the slope down which i had fallen as the light grew stronger i saw i was at the bottom of a shaped of sand opening on one side directly on to the of the my fever had altogether left me and with the exception of a slight in the head i felt no bad effects from the fall over night who was standing a few yards away was naturally a good deal exhausted but had not hurt himself in the least his saddle a favorite one was much about and had been twisted under his belly it took me some time to the strange ride put him to rights and in the meantime i had ample opportunities of observing the spot into which i had so foolishly dropped at the risk of being considered tedious i must describe it at length inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its 