Rajpore human on innumerable pairs of brown legs, turned suddenly into the best and most spacious of its ground floors, dragging thence Rajpore equine hostile on four, wearing an aggrieved expression above clinging strands of country grass. They came, and still they came, from above trotting down, from below trotting up. A human being of sorts was usually attached to them, but Rajpore was obviously inhabited by ponies. No other census would have been worth taking there. Mrs. Browne was surrounded by ragged turbans and man-eaters. With Mr. Browne’s anxious hand upon her arm she felt herself precipitated in every direction at once. “I can’t keep out of the way of all their heels, George,” she exclaimed in the voice of the tried woman, and then George backed her carefully against a wall, drew a semicircle round her with a diameter of five feet, and forbade man or beast to cross the line. Then they proceeded to a choice.
“Here iz, hazur! Good nice thin wallah, memsahib kawasti!”[[132]]
[132]. For the memsahib.
“Thanks,” said Helen; “he’s a diagram! I want a fat one.”
“Look, memsahib! This one bote plenty fat. Rose, rose, tarty bun’nles ghas khata!”[[133]]
[133]. Day by day he eats thirty bundles of grass!
“He’s a baote-tamasha-wallah,” remarked young Browne. “Look at his eye, Helen. He also appears to have kicked all his skin off his fetlocks. For you I should prefer the diagram.”
Finally it was the diagram for Helen, who commanded that an unreasonable quantity of food should be given to it under her eyes, and remained until it was finished. “If she isn’t fatter after that,” she said with satisfaction, “it’s her own fault.” Young Browne selected the veritable charger of Rajpore. He wore his mouth and nose carefully tied up in rope, and might be relied upon at all points so long as that one remained secure. “They’re not much of a pair,” said young Browne, “but in your animal, dear, I don’t mind sacrificing both speed and appearances.”
“To safety. Yes, dear, you are perfectly right.” And Mrs. Browne, whose sense of humour was imperfectly developed, regarded her husband with affection.
Thereafter it became a question of an ekka, and Rajpore had ekkas bewildering in their variety and in their disrepair. If you have never seen an ekka it will be difficult for you to understand one. The business ekka does not stand about to be photographed, and therefore you must be told that, although it appears to rest mainly on the horse’s back, it has two wheels generally, one on each side. There is a popular saying that no sahib likes a one-wheeled ekka, and though it is a popular saying it is true. The vehicle will do prodigious distances with one wheel, but it is anticipating Providence to engage it on that basis. An ekka is rather like a very old two-storied birdcage tilted up and fore-shortened, with a vaulted roof, and it runs in my mind that the roof is frescoed. The upstanding little posts at the four corners are certainly painted red and yellow; they are carved also, like the rungs of certain chairs. I know that the ekka-wallah sits in the upper story smiling upon the world. An ekka-wallah always smiles; his is a life of ease. I know too that there are bulgings above and protuberances below, and half a yard of dirty sacking, and seven pieces of ragged rope, and always room for something else; but at this point my impression becomes a little confused, and I cannot state with assurance which end is attached to the horse. That, however, is a matter of detail. The real point is that the Brownes found an ekka apparently two feet square, which contracted to carry their luggage, bedding, tiffin-basket, and Kasi up to Chakrata and down to the plains for the sum of three rupees per diem, which was extortionate. But the pulthans[[134]] were moving down, and the sergeants’ wives would require many ekkas. They could afford to wait for the sergeants’ wives. In expectation of these ladies the ekka market was a solid unit and the Brownes succumbed before it.