From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

and bade the cavalcade take up its march. They lighted their torches, and like the wise virgins, "took oil in their vessels with their lamps," and set out on our night journey. At first we wound our way through the streets of the town, through bazaars and past temples, till at last we emerged from all signs of human habitation, and were alone with the forests and the stars.

When we were fairly in the woods, all the stories I had heard of wild beasts came back to me. For a week past I had been listening to thrilling incidents, many of which occurred in this very mountain pass. The Sewalic range is entirely uninhabited except along the roads, and is thus given up to wild beasts, and nowhere is one more likely to meet an adventure. That very morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Woodside had given me her experience. She was once crossing this pass at night, and as it came near the break of day she saw men running, and heard the cry of "tiger," but thought little of it, as the natives were apt to give false alarms; but presently the horses began to rear and plunge, so that the driver loosed them and let them go, and just then she heard a tremendous roar, which seemed close to the wagon, where a couple of the brutes had come down to drink of a brook by the roadside. She was so terrified that she did not dare to look out, but shut at once the windows of the gharri. Presently some soldiers came up the pass with elephants, who went in pursuit, but the monsters had retreated into the forest.

That was some years ago, but such incidents may still happen. Only a few weeks since Mr. Woodside was riding through the pass at night in the mail-wagon, and had dropped asleep, when his companion, a British officer, awoke him, telling him he had just seen a couple of tigers distinctly in the moonlight.

One would suppose we were safe enough with more than a dozen attendants, but the natives are very timid, and a tiger's roar will set them flying. A lady at Dehra, the daughter of a missionary, told us how she was once carried with her mother and one or two other children in dooleys, when just at break of day a huge tiger walked out of a wood, and came right towards them, when the brave coolies at once dropped them and ran, leaving the mother and her children to their fate. Fortunately she had presence of mind to light a piece of matting, and throw it out to the brute, who either from that, or perhaps because he was too noble a beast to attack a woman, after eyeing them for some moments, deliberately walked away.

Such associations with the road we were travelling, gave an excitement to our night journey which was not the most composing to sleep. It is very well to sit by the fireside and talk about tigers, but I do not know of anybody who would care to meet one in the woods, unless well armed and on an elephant's back.

But what if a wild elephant should come out upon us? In general, I believe these are quiet and peaceable beasts, but they are subject to a kind of madness which makes them untamable. A "rogue elephant"—one who has been tamed, and afterwards goes back to his savage state—is one of the most dangerous of wild beasts. When the Prince of Wales was hunting in the Terai with Sir Jung Bahadoor, an alarm was given that a rogue elephant was coming, and they pushed the Prince up into a tree as quickly as possible, for the monster has no respect to majesty. Mrs. Woodside told me that they once had a servant who asked to go home to visit his friends. On his way he lay down at the foot of a tree, and fell asleep, when a rogue elephant came along, and took him up like a kitten, and crushed him in an instant, and threw him on the roadside.

The possibility of such an adventure was quite enough to keep our imagination in lively exercise. Our friends had told us that there was no danger with flaming torches, although we might perhaps hear a distant roar on the mountains, or an elephant breaking through the trees. We listened intently. When the men were moving on in silence, we strained our ears to catch any sound that might break the stillness of the forest. If a branch fell from a tree, it might be an elephant coming through the wood. If we could not see, we imagined forms gliding in the darkness. Even the shadows cast by the starlight took the shapes that we dreaded. Hush! there is a stealthy step over the fallen leaves. No, it is the wind whispering in the trees. Thus was it all night long. If any wild beasts glared on us out of the covert, our flaming torches kept them at a respectful distance. We did not hear the tramp of an elephant, the growl of a tiger, or even the cry of a jackal.

But though we had not the excitement of an adventure, the scene itself was wild and weird enough. We were entirely alone, with more than a dozen men, with not one of whom we could exchange a single word, traversing a mountain pass, with miles of forest and jungle separating us from any habitation. Our attendants were men of powerful physique, whose swarthy limbs and strange faces looked more strange than ever by the torchlight. Once in seven or eight miles they set down their burden. We halted at a camp fire by the roadside, where a fresh relay was waiting. There our fourteen men were swelled to twenty-eight. Then the curtain of my couch was gently drawn aside, a black head was thrust in, and a voice whispered in the softest of tones "Sahib, backsheesh!" Then the new bearers took up their load, and jogged on their way.

I must say they did very well. The motion was not unpleasant. The dooley rested not on two poles, but on one long bamboo, three or four inches in diameter, at each end of which two men braced themselves against each other, and moved forward with a swinging gait, a kind of dog trot, which they accompanied with a low grunt, which seemed to relieve them, and be a way of keeping time. Their burdens did not fatigue them much—at least they did not groan under the load, but talked and laughed by the way. Nor were luxuries forgotten. One of the men carried a hooka, which served for the whole party, being passed from mouth to mouth, with which the men, when off duty, refreshed themselves with many a puff of the fragrant weed.

Thus refreshed they kept up a steady gait of about three miles an hour through the night. At length the day began to break. As we approached the end of our journey the men picked up speed, and I thought they would come in on a run. Glad were we to come in sight of Saharanpur. At ten o'clock we entered the Mission Compound, and drew up before the door of "Calderwood Padre," who, as he saw me stretched out at full length, "like a warrior taking his rest," if not "with his martial cloak around him," yet with his Scotch plaid shawl covering "his manly breast," declared that I was "an old Indian!"