Great credit should be given to the Mohammedan women of Allahabad and beyond, who, with no Worth to do them service, display individuality of dress sufficient to attract a flagging attention. To be exact, it isn’t a dress at all, being merely a jacket and a pair of thin, cotton trousers, full above the knee and close-fitting below, like riding-breeches. The costume originated with its wearers, no doubt. Far be it from me, at least, to accuse them of copying the garb of the sahibs who gallop along the broader thoroughfares.
We slept again under the spreading trees, and might have slept well, had not the spot chanced to be the rendezvous of all the mosquitoes of the northwest provinces. With morning our host marched away at the head of a band of wandering minstrels to carry entertainment to the English rector. The performance endured beyond all precedent. One by one the artists straggled back to the grove, some glad, some sorrowful; and among the latter was Marten. In accordance with our plan to continue towards the Punjab, he had promised to send the “Guiseppe Sarto” from the harbor of Bombay, where it had ridden at anchor since the day that we entered Hoogly, to Kurachee at the mouth of the Indus. The classic tale had aroused the old-time sympathy; the rector had listened gravely; the story must surely have brought its reward had not the teller, too cock-sure of his lines, forgotten momentarily the contemplated revision of the text and blurted out the familiar name so distinctly that correction was impossible. He had drawn, therefore, when the division of lots fell, a ticket to Bombay.
There were two reasons why Marten had no desire to visit that port: first, because I had refused to accompany him; second, because the commissioners of that uncharitable presidency have contracted the reprehensible habit of committing to the workhouse the penniless white man taken within their borders. But the die was cast. The law required that the holder of a government ticket depart by the first train, and even had it not, there was no one else in Allahabad to whom to appeal. The grief of the former pearl fisher was acute, lachrymose, in fact. To dry his tears I consented to accompany him to the capital of the next district.
We took leave of the Irishman as darkness fell and before the night was well on its wane had sought a sharp-cornered repose at the station of Jubbulpore. The commissioner of that district, moved by a more carefully constructed tale, granted the stranded mariner a ticket to Jhansi. The route mapped out for him led southward to the junction with the main line, which I, anxious to explore a territory off the beaten track, chose to gain by an unimportant branch. We separated, therefore, promising to meet again next day at Bina.
Returning northward to the village of Khatni, I spent the night on a station settee, and boarded the mixed train that sallies forth daily from that rural terminal. It was in charge of a Eurasian driver and guard, of whom the latter gave me full possession of a roomy compartment adjoining his own. The country was rolling in outline, a series of broad ridges across which the train rose and fell regularly. To right and left stretched jungle, uninhabited and apparently impenetrable. The villages rarely comprised more than a cluster of huts behind the railway bungalow, to which the inhabitants flocked to greet the arrival of the train, the one event that enlivened a monotonous daily existence. Now and then I caught sight of some species of deer bounding away through the low tropical shrubbery, and once of that dreaded beast of India—a tiger. He was a gaunt, agile creature, more dingy in color than those in captivity, who advanced rapidly, yet almost cautiously, clearing the low jungle growth in long, easy bounds. On the track he halted a moment, gazed scornfully at the sluggard locomotive, then sprang into the thicket and was gone.
We halted at midday at the station of Damoh. Certain that my private carriage could not be invaded in a district where Europeans were almost unknown, I left my knapsack on a bench and retreated to the station buffet. At my exit a strange sight greeted my eyes. Before the door of my compartment was grouped the population of Damoh. Inside stood a native policeman, in khaki and red turban. Under one arm he held the guidebook, a tobacco box, a pipe, a spool of film, and the leaf-wrapped lunch that had made up the contents of my knapsack. The sack itself, a half-dozen letters, and the kodak-cover lay on the floor under his feet. By some stroke of genius he had found the springs that released the back of the kodak, and having laid that on the bench beside him, was complacently turning the screw that unwound the ruined film, to the delight of his admiring fellow-countrymen.
The natives fled at my approach, and the officer, dropping my possessions on the floor, dashed for the shelter of the station-master’s office. I followed after to make complaint, and came upon him cowering behind a heap of baggage, his hands tightly clasped over the badge that bore his number.
“He says,” interpreted the Eurasian agent, when I had demanded an explanation, “that it is his duty to look in empty compartments for lost articles, but that he has not taken the littlest thing, not even a box of matches, and asks that you forgive him. If you cannot put the queer machine together again, he will.”
“These fellows are always prying into things like monkeys,” put in the guard, “I’d make complaint to the inspector at Bina.”
A change came over the face of the policeman. Till then he had been the picture of contrition; now he advanced boldly and poured forth a deluge of incomprehensible lingo.