...Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern December, the layers of woodsmoke, the dusrty grey blue of the tamarisks, the the domes of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains...They were picking them up at nearly every station now - men and women coming in for the Christmas week, with racquets, with polo sticks, with dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox terriers and saddles...