CHAPTER XVI.
LIFE AT OOTY.
If a bachelor, you generally begin by depositing your household gods in the club buildings, or one of the two hotels[156]—there is no travellers’ bungalow at Ootacamund—if a married man, you have secured lodgings by means of a friend.
The Neilgherry house merits description principally because it is a type of the life usually led in it. The walls are made of coarse bad bricks—the roof of thatch or wretched tiles, which act admirably as filters, and occasionally cause the downfall of part, or the whole of the erection. The foundation usually selected is a kind of platform, a gigantic step, cut out of some hill-side, and levelled by manual labour. The best houses occupy the summits of the little eminences around the lake. As regards architecture the style bungalow—a modification of the cow-house—is preferred: few tenements have upper stories, whilst almost all are surrounded by a long low verandah, perfectly useless in such a climate, and only calculated to render the interior of the domiciles as dim and gloomy as can be conceived. The furniture is decidedly scant, being usually limited to a few feet of drugget, a chair or two, a table, and a bedstead. The typical part of the matter is this. If the diminutive rooms, with their fire-places, curtained beds, and boarded floors, faintly remind you of Europe, the bare walls, puttyless windows and doors that admit draughts of air small yet cutting as lancets, forcibly impress you with the conviction that you have ventured into one of those uncomfortable localities—a cold place in a hot country.
So it is with life on the Neilgherries—a perfect anomaly. You dress like an Englishman, and lead a quiet gentlemanly life—doing nothing. Not being a determined health-hunter, you lie in bed because it passes the hours rationally and agreeably, and you really can enjoy a midday doze on the mountain-tops. You sit up half the night because those around you are not shaking the head of melancholy, in consequence of the dispiriting announcement that “the Regiment will parade, &c., at four o’clock next morning” (A.M. remember!). At the same time your monthly bills for pale ale and hot curries, heavy tiffins, and numerous cheroots, tell you, as plainly as such mute inanimate things can, that you have not quite cast the slough of Anglo-Indian life.
We will suppose that your first month in the Neilgherry Hills with all its succession of small events has glided rapidly enough away. You reported your arrival in person to the commanding officer, who politely desired your signature to a certain document,[157] threatening you as well as others with all the penalties of the law if you ventured to quit Ootacamund without leave. The Auditor-General’s bill, which you received from the Paymaster, Bombay, authorizing you to draw your salary from him of the southern division of the Madras army, was not forwarded before the first of the month, or it was forwarded but not in duplicate—something of the kind must happen—so you were most probably thrown for a while upon your wits, rather a hard case, we will suppose. Then you tried to “raise the wind” from some Parsee, but the way in which he received you conclusively proved that he has, perhaps for the best of reasons, long since ceased to “do bijness” in that line. You began to feel uncomfortable, and consequently to abuse the “authorities.”
During your first fortnight all was excitement, joy, delight. You luxuriated in the cool air. Your appetite improved. The mutton had a flavour which you did not recollect in India. Strange, yet true, the beef was tender, and even the “unclean” was not too much for your robust digestion. You praised the vegetables, and fell into ecstasy at the sight of peaches, apples, strawberries, and raspberries, after years of plantains, guavas, and sweet limes. From the exhilarating influence of a rare and elastic atmosphere you, who could scarcely walk a mile in the low country, induced by the variety of scenery and road, wandered for hours over hill and dale without being fatigued. With what strange sensations of pleasure you threw yourself upon the soft turf bank, and plucked the first daisy which you ever saw out of England! And how you enjoyed the untropical occupation of sitting over a fire in June!—that very day last year you were in a state of semi-existence, only “kept going” by the power of punkahs[158] and quasi-nudity.
The end of the month found you in a state of mind bordering upon the critical. You began to opine that the scenery has its deficiencies—Can its diminutive ravines compare with glaciers and seas of ice—the greenness of its mountain-tops compensate for the want of snow-clad summits, and “virgin heights which the foot of man never trod?” You decided that the Neilgherries are, after all, a tame copy of the Alps and the Pyrenees. You came to the conclusion that grandeur on a small scale is very unsatisfactory, and turned away from the prospect with the contempt engendered by satiety. As for the climate, you discovered that it is either too hot in the sun or too cold in the shade, too damp or too dry, too sultry or too raw. After a few days spent before the fire you waxed weary of the occupation, remarked that the Neilgherry wood is always green, and the Neilgherry grate a very abominable contrivance. At last the mutton and pork, peaches and strawberries, palled upon your pampered palate, you devoured vegetables so voraciously that pernicious consequences ensued, and you smoked to such an extent that—perhaps tobacco alone did not do it—your head became seriously affected.
And now, sated with the joys of the eye and mouth, you turn round upon Ootacamund and inquire blatantly what amusement it has to offer you.