The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib

by Sara Jeannette Duncan

In appearance the Browne’s dâk-gharry was a cross between a sun-bonnet and a blue hearse. This may be a little difficult to imagine; but I don’t appeal to your imagination, I state facts. It was the shape of a hearse, and you were supposed to lie down in it, which completed the suggestion. To counteract the gloomy apprehension of this idea, it was painted blue inside and out—distinctly a foncée blue. This superficial cheerfulness was accentuated by shutters in the back and sliding doors at the sides, and the whole thing was trimmed from the roof with canvas wings. The top would take as much luggage as the hold of a ship—a small ship. Inside there was nothing at all, and a place to put your feet. Kasi condoned this austerity with rugs and pillows, and took his seat beside the driver, with whom he conversed as affably as his superior social position would admit. The two Brownes were carefully extended inside like modern mummies; four native persons of ambiguous appearance and a persuasive odour fastened themselves on behind. The driver cracked his whip, and the two meek brown spotted down-trodden horses stood promptly upon their hind legs pawing the air. They came down in time, and then they began to back into the dâk-bungalow dining-room. Dissuaded from this they walked across the road with the intention of putting themselves in the ditch; and finally, after a terrific expenditure of language on the part of the driver, they broke into a gallop, which brought each of the recumbent Brownes inside to a right angle by the action of some mechanical principle containing a very large element of alarm. This was not at all a remarkable demonstration. It is the invincible dustur of every animal in the dâk-gharry business, and is perfectly understood, locally. The animals attached to the Brownes galloped their three miles and arrived reeking at the next dâk-stable without another thought of anything but their business. In the meantime the local understanding spread to the Brownes, who specified it afterwards with liniment.

To this impetuous way of going it was a relief, Mrs. Browne told me afterwards, to hang one’s feet out of the door. The picturesque conduct of the fresh dâk-ponies every three or four miles displayed novel forms of vice, interesting to the uninitiated. They bit and strove and kicked, and one of them attempted to get inside. Helen said it was very wearing to one’s nerves. But when they had accomplished the little earthquake of starting there were compensations. The road was green and shaded, as it would be in England; squirrels frisked from one trunk to another, silvery doves with burnished breasts cooed in the bamboo branches, and ever the gracious hills drew nearer and a little nearer.

“These are only the Siwalliks,” remarked young Browne, in a pause of their jubilant conversation. “Wait till you see the Himalayas on the other side! The Siwalliks are only rubble. They’re rapidly crumbling away.”

“If they were in England,” replied Mrs. Browne, watching the little topmost turrets grow greener, “we wouldn’t admit that they were rubble. And I don’t believe they’ll crumble away very soon.”

“In a few æons,” returned Mr. Browne superiorly. “It won’t matter to us. We’re getting regularly up amongst them. This is the beginning of the pass.”

They had journeyed four hours and had come to a little white bungalow perched high upon the flank of the nearest hill. Here the khansamah had a red beard, and swore by it that the sahib had not forewarned him; how should there be beef and potatoes! Milk and moorghy might be, but eggs no—the eggs were a little bad.

“For that saying, son of the Prophet,” said young Browne, “backsheesh will be to you. In Bengal there is no true talk regarding eggs. And now hasten with the milk and the warmed moorghy curry of the traveller of yesterday, and dekko, Kasi, tiffin-basket, lao!”

Broad is the road that leads over the Mohun Pass, and beautiful are the summits that look down on it, but it cannot be climbed with the unaided strength of horses. It was dull driving but for the sunset behind the hills, when they put oxen on in the bad places; and still duller when the sulky, long-haired black buffaloes lent a leg; but there was a certain picturesqueness in being pulled by the three varieties of beasts at once, especially when a gang of road-coolies turned in and pushed behind.

They had always the trumpet, too, which enlivened the whole of that part of Asia. And wild white balsams grew high on the rocks, and naked little children, in blue necklaces, played about the road.

There was the blackness of a tunnel, and then the vision of a fair valley mightily walled in, with the softness of evening still in her face, and the smoke of her hearth-fires curling up to a purple sky. They rattled across a quarter of a mile of dry riverbed full of stones, and were in Dehra, Dehra Doon, where all the hedges drop pink rose-petals, and the bul-bul sings love songs in Persian, and the sahib lives in a little white house in a garden which is almost home.