AT THE DAK BUNGALOW AFTER A LONG RUN.—(See Page [97].)
I have already spoken of the risk a white person incurs in India by being exposed to the rain. Fever is almost certain to follow, and the morning after our arrival in Lahore, I found Mrs. McIlrath with a temperature of 104 degrees, and every symptom of malaria. Though I struggled through the day, caring for her, when I laid down at night, the ache in my muscles and joints, and the fire which raged internally, warned me I was a victim also, and for the next week we lay side by side, comparing temperatures and consoling one another. To be stricken with fever in India is one of the most terrible punishments nature can visit upon the violators of her laws, and all day and all night through we lay without the cooling drinks, the ripe fruits and the delicacies and attentions which ease and encourage the patient at home. By Saturday, July 17, we were able to sit up and totter about the room, and immediately began to obtain strength by carriage rides in the cool evening air.
Lahore does not possess temples, mosques and tombs of great architectural merit, but its chief charm lies in the enormous bazaars which extend for miles through the main streets of the city. The buildings are two-story affairs, built of brick and covered with a staff, which, at a time long ago, was white in color. The shops are merely square rooms, with open fronts; the goods piled on the floors and hung from the ceiling in such a manner as to prevent walking about without danger to stock and inspector. A few of the shops bear sign-boards, painted in English letters. One in particular that attracted my attention, announced that “Subri Lall was a Dentist and Photographer.” Another, which struck me as being peculiar, announced that the firm inside sold “fresh salt, patent medicines and millinery.” Some of the characters we met wandering around the bazaars selling charms and fetish bags were most interesting fellows. One gigantic Sikh, who halted at the side of our carriage, displayed his stock in trade to us, and then exhibited his personal gear. Under his tunic he wore a coat and helmet of chain mail; in the belt were seven knives of different sizes, and around the turban were three sharped-edged flat circles of steel, which are thrown in the same manner as a boomerang, and in skillful hands will decapitate an enemy. A stout club, bound with copper, completed the Sikh’s outfit, and as I looked upon this mail-clad, walking arsenal, I could but be impressed with how very little was English rule and law respected and feared. Lahore marked the end of our journey along the Grand Trunk road, as from that city on Tuesday, July 20, we turned directly south toward the Persian Gulf and the city of Kurachee. Only thirteen miles of the eight hundred and twenty-four were covered the first evening, and though the two hours of jolting and jarring were keenly felt, when we dismounted at the solitary little station at Kana Kacha, the experience was welcomed. It was home-like, for we had not forgotten our ride across Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Utah and Nevada on similar paths, usually used by the iron horse and the healthy but indigent hobo. Truly patriotism does assume some homely forms in the American absent from home, but then patriotism is satisfying in any form.
We were now entered on the most dangerous portion of our two thousand miles ride across India. Not only did we abandon all hope for finding an occasional stretch of road, which would afford relief from the monotonous jolt and jar of riding on track ballast, but had made up our minds to expect poor accommodation in the villages along our route. In the face of the heat and obstructions on the road, however, we managed to schedule fifty miles a day before reaching Changa Manga. I met a delightful gentleman in Montgomery, where we spent two days and a night. He was Mr. Fitzherbert, a civil engineer, who had originally landed in India as first officer on a merchantman. I was surprised to learn that a relationship existed between his family and the famous Stonewall Jackson, which fact made us fast friends. Regarding the city in which we were, I can best dismiss the subject in Mr. Fitzherbert’s own language:
“Yes,” said he, “Montgomery is quite a large place, far different from the little settlement in the desert that I first knew. There are now 4,000 inhabitants, 2,500 are in jail and the balance should be, but as I care little for society that fact does not worry me, and the presence of the city jail assists in making the town. The heat in Montgomery is what renders it almost unbearable. Last year we stood at the head of the list in India, and let me tell you in quiet confidence, that a man that can exist ten years in Montgomery will thoroughly enjoy himself in hell.”
Early in the morning of July 28 we said good-bye to our friends in Montgomery, and resumed our grind along the railway line, but we were lonesome no longer. Each train that passed us was manned by a crew who greeted us with cheers and encouraging signals as the train whizzed by, and we humbly and laboriously bucked along over the humps and high spots. From Kacha Khuh we took a run over to Mooltan City, returning to Kacha Khuh by rail. The break in the journey afforded us time to form new and desirable acquaintances, and various little trips, via rail, such as this, furnished us with an insight of a phase of life in India of which we knew nothing before, and which will never cease to be of interest to us—the joys of a traveler on a railway line conducted by the English Government on the English system. In India passengers may be transported in three classes, first, second and third, and as I have yet to learn anything English which is branded first-class and touches the American idea of A 1, we did not for a moment consider the second and third rate inducements of low fare. Purchasing two slips of pasteboard at the “booking office,” for which we paid two cents a mile, we were informed that we could take the triangular luggage cases, which we wished to check, into the carriage with us, no goods being checked, but dumped into the “brake van” to be called for and identified by the owner. The first-class carriage was easily identified on the exterior by a coat of white paint, but the first glance into the interior would have led one to believe it was a well-loaded furniture van, on any old day about May 1. Our fellow passengers were a Catholic priest and a lieutenant of Her Majesty’s army, and into a space only eight feet long were piled their belongings. I took an inventory and counted five trunks, two valises, four hat-boxes, a wash bowl in a leather case, cane, golf stick, riding whip, four large sun helmets, two rolls of bedding, one bundle of books and a lunch hamper. Arriving at Kacha Khuh, we managed to attract the attention of the guard, who kindly released us, and as we dismounted from the carriage we were convinced that our cycles afforded us just about as great speed, comfort and certainly less inconvenience than the government railway train in India. Truly the Chinese are hide-bound in customs, but the English run them a close race. Though many of their methods are modern, in railways, hotels and conveniences for the public at large, they are far in the rear of the ever-advancing army of modern progress which has its headquarters in the United States of America, and whose generals are the same “wooden nutmeg” inventing Yankees, of whom the English so often speak lightly.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PET MONKEY DINES UPON RUBBER TIRES AND DELAYS PROGRESS—OFFICIALS REFUSE TO LET THE TOURISTS GO THROUGH BELOOCHISTAN.
Our last days in India were spent during the monsoon season. The deserts had become lakes of steaming water, the matted undergrowth of rank grass and vegetation rotting, and that we escaped without malarial or typhoid fever was almost a miracle. The railway tracks, which formed our only path, were cut away by the flood of ceaseless rain. The ballast had been swept away and the clay embankment cut into a series of gullies. Four hundred miles we had to push and plod our way through this sticky mass. We left Khanpur on the evening of Aug. 18. The rain had been pouring down for three days, and had subsided into a steady drizzle, which we deemed the most favorable opportunity we would have for a start. We arrived at Daharki, in the plague-stricken district of India, on Aug. 20. We spent the next day, Sunday, at Daharki, and early on the morning of Aug. 22 we started out on a day of mishaps. Before we had passed the yard limits my rear tire collapsed, necessitating a delay of half an hour. Then an unusually long bridge of open structure made our limbs tremble, and scarcely two miles further came a second puncture. Under ordinary circumstances punctures with the outfit and tire we use are trifling affairs, but when each minute counts, as with a race with the sun, such delays are of as great importance to us as any delay to the fire department on its way to a conflagration. Three hours interviewed, when a loud hiss from my rear tire announced a third puncture, and in a few minutes the rim, bumping and smashing on the stone ballast, announced that I was “without air.” Three punctures in less than thirty miles was a record to which we were quite unaccustomed. With a third disaster, and no plugs to repair with, my suspicions were aroused and upon investigation I found five large wounds in the tire. As the injury extended along one side only, and that the side which did not come in contact with the ballast, I examined the sides and found the threads torn outward. While sitting on the edge of the railroad ties, gloomily reflecting on the long walk before me, and wondering who could so maliciously have damaged my tire, the pet monkey, Rodney, crawled from his resting place in the bosom of my coat and began plucking grass and herbs. I paid but little attention to him until I heard a sound at the wheel, and turned just in time to discover Rodney chewing a fresh hole. I had caught the offender in the act, and subsequent observations convinced me that he was determined either to make a monkey of us, or satisfy the inexplicable monkey in him. The only reason I failed to kick that grinning ape into space larger than that longed for by the most ardent balloonist, was that he skipped through a barb wire fence quicker than I could reach him with my foot. Mrs. McIlrath carried him into Sarhad, for had he been consigned to my care I fear he would have been cast adrift on the Indus. I reached Sarhad at noon, and had the journey been a mile longer the heat certainly would have killed me. From Sarhad I wired for our trunks and got them after much difficulty. They were billed to a station forty miles ahead, and the station master at first refused flatly to surrender them. He gave them to me after my protests, that without them I should have to walk forty miles more. The plugs were found, the necessary repairs made and at 5 o’clock in the afternoon we were again upon our way.