Our dinner-table was set out on the platform of the station at Chitorgarh, and our bedrooms were close by, our host and hostess sleeping in the “special” by which they were to return to Udaipur in the morning, while we slept in a siding, ready to be coupled up to the early train from Bombay.
Late into the warm and balmy night we paced the platform; for there seemed to be always something still to say, and we found it hard to part from our charming friends; realising, too, that this was the end of our holiday, and that before us lay merely the toil and bustle of a return to commonplace, everyday life. At last, though, the final fag-end of a cheroot was thrown away, the last hand-grips given, and the parting came.
There is little more to say.
All Thursday we rushed through the wide landscape; saw the parched plains stretch far into the dusty horizon; saw the lean men and leaner cattle, to whom the grim spectre of famine is already foreshadowed; flew past populous villages and creaking water-wheels, noting every phase of a scene now familiar, yet always delightful.
Late in the evening we changed at Baroda, and dawn next morning saw us speeding across the swamps and inlets, which gave place ere long to the palm groves and clustering houses which marked the farther limits of the suburbs of Bombay.
We found the heat—damp and oppressive—very trying after the drier air of Rajputana, and the Taj Mahal Hotel below our expectations in all respects save price. It is undoubtedly better than most Indian hotels, but yet it is not good!
Bombay is chiefly connected in our minds with the inevitable fuss and worry of packing and departure.
As we left the Taj Mahal Hotel, in a conveyance piled high with miscellaneous baggage, we saw the last of our faithful and indispensable Sabz Ali, as he hurriedly quitted the hostelry in our wake, fearful lest undue delay should jeopardise the possession of the spoils he was carrying off, wrapped in bulging bundles of goodly size.
Jane and I were sorrier, I think, to part with him than he with us. After all, we were but troublesome charges, for whose well-being he had to answer to “General ’Oon Sahib,”—charges who had not been quite so lavish with their incalculable riches as they should have been, and who doled out rupees, and even annas, with a sorely grudging hand; still I think Sabz Ali, as he made his way to the station, with many rupees lining his inmost garments, and a flaming “chit” carefully stowed away, felt a certain regret at parting from the “sahibs,” who had really shown a very fine appreciation of his merit, and were sending him back with much honour to his own country.
Late in the afternoon, as the spires and roofs of the city stood dark against the sky, and the many steamers and native dhows showed black upon a flood of liquid gold, the Persia got under way, and we slowly left the anchorage, steaming out into the fading light.