four o'clock in the afternoon
Dawn showed them the Indus at last : a sheet of tarnished silver , five miles wide , sprawling over the colourless country , its normal banks submerged by the rush of water from the hills : and behind them day sprang out of the east , ` a tyrant with a flaming sword . ' Through eight blazing hours that sword hung bared above them . For their ferry-boat was a native barge , persuaded rather than propelled in any given direction by oars as long as punt poles ; and set with one unwieldy sail that could neither be tacked nor furled ; but which provided them , for a time , with a patch of burning shadow , by no means to be despised . In it they smoked and picnicked , and made merry with cards and dogs , to the best of their ability ; while erratic currents bore them from sandbank to sandbank ; each collision involving an interlude of shouting , shoving , coaxing , and upbraiding on the part of four assiduous boatmen ; and when , by the mercy of God and the river , they managed to run aground on the farther side , it was nearing four o'clock in the afternoon . Here were more tongas awaiting their prey : and this time the travellers hailed them gratefully : for the swollen river had almost invaded the gardens of outlying bungalows ; and a short gallop brought them at last into the straggling station , whose name literally signifies the Tents of Ishmael . But the day of tents had long since given place to the day of spacious , square-shouldered bungalows , with pillared verandahs , set in the midst of rambling compounds , where the ferasch and banana flourished in dusty luxuriance , while orange , pomegranate , hybiscus , and poinsettia , -- to say nothing of marigolds and roses , -- blazed regally in the blossoming season with scarlet , and crimson gold . A bird 's - eye view of the station itself might have suggested to the imaginative eye a game of noughts and crosses scratched on a Titanic slate : -- a network of wide white roads , unrelieved by curve or undulation ; their rigidity emphasised by equidistant lines of trees , and whitewashed gate-posts , innocent of gates .