On, and on, and on! For interminable hours had we been rushing headlong over yellowish-brown plains, punctuated here and there by willow-fringed streams; past huge water-tanks standing guard over dreary little cabins already cowering before the approach of fierce wintry assaults; past forlorn specimens of unkempt and altogether hopeless humanity, who straggled away toward invisible habitations beyond the horizon, or, swaddled in accumulated filth and ragged shawls, squatted in solemn stolidity b