After that we made ninety miles an hour.

We crossed the Ganges just at dawn, made our connection, and went to Benares, where we stayed twenty-four hours and inspected that strange and fascinating piety-hive again; then left for Lucknow, a city which is perhaps the most conspicuous of the many monuments of British fortitude and valor that are scattered about the earth.
The heat was pitiless, the flat plains were destitute of grass, and baked dry by the sun they were the color of pale dust, which was flying in clouds.

But it was much hotter than this when the relieving forces marched to Lucknow in the time of the Mutiny.

Those were the days of 138 deg.

in the shade..