The terrible furnace-wind of Hindustan with its clouds of parched dust

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 32.

In the hot months military activity virtually ceased while those who could escaped to the hills. Sometimes, however, a summer's march might be necessary; and then servants became 'absolutely essential'. The march, beginning in the early hours of the morning, would usually end about nine o'clock when the temperature rose to well over one hundred degrees. Tents would then be pitched for the day by servants roundly cursed in a mixture of Hindustani, English and gibberish for their slowness and inefficiency. Vivian Majendie, a young artillery officer, described how, having sworn at or beaten all the servants who had occasion to come into contact with him, he normally strolled into the mess-tent as soon as it had been erected, tired, hot and excessively irritable though not in the least hungry. There he found, laid out on a rickety camp-table,' a repast so terribly substantial' as to throw him 'into a yet more profuse perspiration: a tough spatch-cock; curry made principally of the necks and skins of chickens; some doubtful eggs; and a dishful of gigantic things called "beef-chops'". 'During breakfast,' Majendie continued, 'our coolies stand behind us with huge fans . .. And afterwards calling for a light for our cheroots, we return to our tents, there to lie down panting on our beds ... to be tormented by flies ... or prickly heat . . . How shall I ever forget these long hot mornings when one's only amusement - if amusement it can be called - was watching the thermometer gradually working its way up to 114° or 116° [or even 125°], or gazing listessly out at the quiet camp, where not a human being, except a sun-dried n----- perhaps, was to be seen, and over which swept the terrible furnace-wind of Hindustan with its clouds of parched dust, pungent as dry snuff? . . . The great scorching sun beat down upon us with a heat which was almost past endurance and all nature seemed to have fallen into a death-like lethargy.'