Goa and the Blue Mountains; or, Six months of sick leave

by Sir Richard Francis Burton

All we have said of the palanquin is applicable to its humble modification. The mancheel in this part of the world consists merely of a pole, a canvas sheet hung like a hammock beneath it, and above it a square moveable curtain, which you may draw down on the sunny or windy side. In this conveyance you will progress somewhat more rapidly than you did in the heavy wooden chest, but your miseries will be augmented in undue proportion. As it requires a little practice to balance oneself in these machines, you will infallibly be precipitated to the ground when you venture upon your maiden attempt. After that a sense of security, acquired by dint of many falls, leaves your mind free to exercise its powers of observation, you will remark how admirably you are situated for combining the enjoyments of ophthalmic glare, febrile reflected heat, a wind like a Sirocco, and dews chilling as the hand of the Destroyer. You feel that your back is bent at the most inconvenient angle, and that the pillows which should support your head invariably find their way down between your shoulders, that you have no spare place, as in the palanquin, for carrying about a variety of small comforts, no, not even the room to shift your position—in a word, that you are a miserable being.

If in good health, your best plan of all is to mount one of your horses, and to canter him from stage to stage, that is to say, between twelve and fifteen miles a day. In the core of the nineteenth century you may think this style of locomotion resembles a trifle too closely that of the ninth, but, trust to our experience, you have no better. We will suppose, then, that you have followed our advice, engaged bandies[138] for your luggage, and started them off overnight, accompanied by your herd of domestics on foot. The latter are all armed with sticks, swords, and knives, for the country is not a safe one, and if it were, your people are endowed with a considerable development of cautiousness. At day-break, your horse-keeper brings up your nag saddled, and neighing his impatience to set out: you mount the beast, and leave the man to follow with a coolie or two, bearing on their shoulders the little camp-bed, on which you are wont to pass your nights. There is no danger of missing the road: you have only to observe the wheel-ruts, which will certainly lead you to the nearest and largest, perhaps the only town within a day’s march. As you canter along, you remark with wonder the demeanour of the peasantry, and the sensation your appearance creates. The women veil their faces, and dash into the nearest place of refuge, the children scamper away as if your countenance, like Mokanna’s, were capable of annihilating a gazer, the very donkeys and bullocks halt, start, and shy, as you pass them.[139] In some places the men will muster courage enough to stand and gaze upon you, but they do so with an expression of countenance, half-startled, half-scowling, which by no means impresses you with a sense of your individual popularity.

Between nine and ten A.M. you draw in sight of some large village, which instinct suggests is to be the terminus of that day’s wandering. You had better inquire where the travellers’ bungalow is. Sign-posts are unknown in these barbarous regions, and if you trust overmuch to your own sagacity, your perspiring self and panting steed may wander about for half an hour before you find the caravanserai.

At length you dismount. A horse-keeper rising grumbling from his morning slumbers, comes forward to hold your nag, and, whilst you are discussing a cup of tea in the verandah, parades the animal slowly up and down before you, as a precautionary measure previous to tethering him in the open air. Presently the “butler” informs you that your breakfast, a spatchcock, or a curry with eggs, and a plateful of unleavened wafers, called aps—bread being unprocurable hereabouts—is awaiting you. You find a few guavas or plantains, intended to act as butter, and when you demand the reason, your domestic replies at once, that he searched every house in the village, but could procure none. You might as well adopt some line of conduct likely to discourage him from further attempts upon your credulity, otherwise you will starve before the journey’s end. The fact is, he was too lazy to take the trouble of even inquiring for that same butter.

We must call upon you to admire the appearance of the travellers’ bungalows in this part of the country. You will see in them much to appreciate if you are well acquainted with Bombay India. Here they are cleanly looking, substantially built, tiled or thatched tenements, with accommodation sufficient for two families, good furniture, at least as far as a table, a couch, and a chair, go, outhouses for your servants, and an excellent verandah for yourself. There you may remember, with a touch of the true meminisse juvat feeling, certain dirty ill-built ruinous roadside erections, tenanted by wasps and hornets, with broken seats, tottering tables, and populous bedsteads, for the use of which, moreover, you were mulcted at the rate of a rupee a day. The result of the comparison will be that the “Benighted Land,”[140] in this point at least, rises prodigiously in your estimation.

A siesta after breakfast, and a book, or any such passe-temps, when you awake, bring you on towards sunset. You may now, if so inclined, start for an hour’s constitutional, followed by a servant carrying your gun, and keep your hand in by knocking down a few of the old kites that are fighting with the Pariah dogs for their scanty meal of offals, or you may try to bag one or two of the jungle cocks, whose crowing resounds from the neighbouring brakes.

Dinner! lovely word in English ears, unlovely thing—hereabouts—for English palate. The beer is sure to be lukewarm, your vegetables deficient, and your meat tough, in consequence of its having lost vitality so very lately.

You must take the trouble, if you please, of personally superintending the departure of your domestics. And this you will find no easy task. The men who have charge of the carts never return with their cattle at the hour appointed, and, when at last they do, there is not a box packed, and probably half your people are wandering about the bazaar. At length, with much labour, you manage to get things somewhat in order, witness with heartfelt satisfaction the first movement of the unwieldy train, and retire to the bungalow for the purpose of getting through the evening, with the assistance of tea, and any other little “distractions” your imagination may suggest.

Before retiring to rest you might as well look to the priming and position of your pistols. Otherwise you may chance to be visited by certain animals, even more troublesome than sand-flies and white ants. A little accident of the kind happened to us at Waniacollum, a village belonging to some Nair Rajah, whose subjects are celebrated for their thievish propensities. About midnight, the soundness of our slumbers was disturbed by the uninvited presence of some half-a-dozen black gentry, who were gliding about the room with the stealthy tread of so many wild cats in purissimis naturalibus, with the exception of an outside coating of cocoanut oil. One individual had taken up a position close to our bedside, with so very long a knife so very near our jugular region, that we judged it inexpedient in the extreme to excite him by any display of activity; so, closing our eyes, we slept heavily till our visitors thought proper to depart.