XXXIX. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
CHRONICLES OF DUSTYPORE.[1]
He seems like one whose footsteps halt,
Tolling in immeasurable sand;
And o'er a weary, sultry land,
Far beneath a blazing vault,
Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,
The city sparkles like a grain of salt.
Any one who knows or cares anything about India—that is, say,
one Englishman in a hundred thousand—is familiar with the train
of events which resulted in the conquest of the Sandy Tracts, the
incorporation of that unattractive region in the British Indian
Empire, and the establishment of an Agency at Dustypore. The
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, who neither
know nor wish to know, would not be grateful for
