The most substantial and least tempting food

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 33.

About one o'clock the khansaman would lay out tiffin, comprising as at breakfast, in Majendie's experience, 'the most substantial and least tempting food' which could be imagined; and, after turning up their noses at everything on the table, the officers would return to their tents, their cheroots and that same listless state in which they had passed the morning. About four o'clock the syces began to wake up; soldiers appeared at the doors of their tents; elephants were led away to bathe in some nearby tank; horses were also taken to water; pariah dogs got up to stretch their skinny legs; and women milk- sellers walked about the camp in their white cotton robes and brightly coloured shawls, their smooth, strong, braceleted arms supporting burnished brass pots, their anklets jingling as they softly cried,' Dudh! Dudh!

Dinner-time came at last; and although it was usually as substantial and unwelcome as breakfast and tiffin, the beer - in which, to the astonishment of the 'griffin', the older officers drank each other's health in inconceivable quantities - was always swallowed with the greatest pleasure and relief. After dinner men and officers stumbled back to their tents once more, to lie sweating sleeplessly in the heat, disturbed by the howls of pariah dogs, the yelling of jackals, the gurgling groans of camels, the beating of native drums, the squeals and kicking of horses, and the droning chanting of Indian servants, who in spite of all edicts on the subject could not be prevented from singing.