We halted for our last picnic lunch in a roadside garden full of loquat trees and big purple hibiscus. The only curious thing here was a pi-dog which refused to eat cold duck! Certainly it was a very tough duck, but still, I do not think a pi-dog should he so fastidious.
A few more level dusty miles, and we rattled into Rawal Pindi, where, after depositing our sick man safely in his own mess precincts, we proceeded to ensconce ourselves in Flashman’s Hotel, which is certainly far better than the Lime Tree, where we stayed before. Indian hotels are about the worst in the world. We have sampled rough dens in Spain, in Tetuan, and in Corsica—especially in Corsica, but then they are unpretentious inns in unfrequented villages, whereas in India you find in world-famous cities such as Agra or Delhi the most comfortless dens calling themselves hotels—hotels where you hardly dare eat half the food for fear of typhoid, and will not eat the rest because it is so unsavoury!
It may be argued that the hotels, if bad, are cheap, and that one cannot reasonably expect much in return for five or six rupees per day; it seems, however, that in a country where food and labour cost next to nothing, a good landlord should be able to “do” his customers well upon five rupees, and make a substantial profit into the bargain.
Probably, as the facilities for travel are rapidly increasing, and India is now as easy to reach as Italy was in days not so long by, the hotels will soon improve. Hospitality, which is still to-day greater in the East than in our more selfish Western regions, and which has, until quite recently, obviated for strangers and pilgrims the necessity for hotels, is now unable to cope with the increasing flood of visitors and wanderers; as the need becomes more pressing, so will the supply, consequent upon the demand, improve both in quality and quantity; and we have already heard of the new Taj Mahal Hotel at Bombay, the fame of which has been trumpeted through India, and which is said to rival in luxury the palaces of Ritz!
The real and serious difficulty, and one which at present seems insurmountable, is to secure cleanliness and safety in that Augean stable—the cook-house. Until the native can be brought to understand the inadvisability of using tainted water and unclean utensils, and of permitting the ubiquitous fly to pervade the larder—until, I say, that millennium can be attained, the danger of enteric and other ills will always be very great in Indian hotels.
Friday, October 13.—Lunch with Dr. Munro, who surprised us somewhat by having married a wife since we played golf and bridge together at Gulmarg only a few weeks ago. Tea, a farewell repast with our invalid—who goes before a medical board in a few days, and who will then be doubtless sent home on long sick leave—and the despatch of our heavy luggage direct to Bombay, occupied us pretty fully for the day; and in the evening, after dinner, we took up our residence in a carriage drawn up in a siding to be attached to the 6.30 mail in the morning. Our last recollection of Pindi was a vision of the faithful Ayata, paid, tipped, and provided with a flaming “chit,” flapping along the road in the bright moonlight, with all his worldly possessions, en route for Abbotabad and home.
Saturday, October 14.—A prodigious amount of banging, whistling, and yelling seemed to be necessary before we could be coupled up to the early train, and sent flying towards Lahore. It was impossible to sleep, and I was peacefully watching the landscape as it slid past, first in the pink flush of early dawn, and gradually losing colour as the sun, gaining in strength, reduced everything to a white hot glow, when, scraping and bumping into a wayside station, we were suddenly informed that, owing to hot bearings or heated axles or something, we must quit our carriage at once, and so, half dressed and wholly wrathful, we were shot out on a hot and exceedingly gritty platform, with our hand luggage and bedding all of a heap, and with the whole length of the train to traverse to attain our new carriage. Sabz Ali being curled up asleep in an “intermediate,” was all unwitting of this upheaval. The officials were impatient, and so Jane and I were in a thoroughly unchristian frame of mind by the time we were stowed, hot and greatly fussed, into a stifling compartment, whose dust-begrimed windows long withstood all endeavours to open them.
We reached Lahore about noon, and, having some six hours to dispose of there, we spent them in calm contemplation, sitting on the verandah of Nedou’s Hotel. It was really too hot to think of sight-seeing.
Thursday, October 19.—Another night in the train brought us to Delhi at dawn, and we drove up to the execrable caravansary of Mr. Maiden. I do not propose to write much about Delhi. Every one who has been in India has visited the capital of the Moguls, whose wealth of splendid buildings would alone have rendered it a supreme attraction for the sight-seer, even had it not played the part it did in the Mutiny, and been memorable as the scene of the storming of the Kashmir Gate and the death of John Nicholson.
We, personally, carried away from Delhi an uncomfortable sense of disappointment. It was very hot, and Jane fell a victim to the heat or something, and took to her bed in the comfortless hotel, while I prowled sadly about the baking streets, and tried to work up an enthusiasm which I did not feel.