In the southernmost part of the peninsula, along the Malabar coast, where there are no trains, we traveled in cabin-boats rowed by natives. It took them all night to row from Quilan to Travandrum, about fifty miles along the backwater. They sang from the moment they began to row, timing the stroke of the oar to the rhythm of their song. In the morning, they appeared as smiling and fresh as they had the evening before when we started.
In Madras, we rode in rickshaws like those of China and Japan. In many parts of India, men take the place of animals, both in carrying people and in transporting cargo. Several times we were carried up mountains in dholies by coolies. These dholies consist of a seat swung between two poles by ropes. They are carried by two or four men, who trot off up the hill with the poles resting on their shoulders, while the passenger dangles between them. They used to come down the mountains so fast that we were quite terrified. The seat would twist and sway, hit against trees, graze along the side of rocks, while our porters would dance along, talking and laughing, without paying the slightest attention to us. Then there are various kinds of push-carts used in different parts of the country.
Of course, the really Indian way of traveling is on elephants. Very few, however, except princes and foreign travelers, ever ride on these lordly animals. In the "zoos" in Calcutta and Bombay there are elephants for the children to ride. The riders climb steps to a platform the height of the elephant's back, then jump into the howdah, where they are tied fast to make sure of their not falling. The old huthi, as the elephant is called there, sways off, waving his trunk, flopping his ears, and blinking his eyes. He makes a tour of the gardens, then returns to the platform to get other children.
At Jaipur, Gwalior, and a number of other towns where there is a fort on a hill, elephants can be hired for the ascension. The huge creatures knelt down while we clambered into the howdah with the aid of ladders. When they rose, it seemed like an earthquake to us on their backs. They climbed the hill so slowly that the others of the party who walked arrived ahead of us. Our huthi would smell about carefully with his trunk before taking each step, then he would put a huge foot forward cautiously, and throw his great weight upon it slowly, as if afraid that the earth would give way under him. It took him so long to accommodate his four feet to each step, that I was thankful he had not as many as a centiped.
To appreciate an elephant in all his glory, one should see him in the splendor of princely procession. Designs in bright colors are painted on his forehead and trunk, trappings of silver ornament his tusks, head, and ankles, a rich cloth of gold and silver embroidery hangs over his colossal sides, and on his back is perched a rare howdah, often of gold and silver, with silk hangings. Aloft in the howdah rides the prince, resplendent with gold, silk, and jewels. In front, on the elephant's neck, sits the mahout, urging him on with strange-sounding grunts, and prods from a short pointed spear.
The elephants are reserved for state occasions. Most of the princes now have automobiles, which they look upon much as a child does its latest toy. The mass of the people depend upon the bullocks and horses to cart them about. There are now, also, in most parts of the empire, telephones and telegraphs; but they are such ancient systems and so unreliable that they are not to be compared with ours. India is through and through a lazy country, where nobody is in a hurry.
WHERE THE SUNSETS OF ALL THE YESTERDAYS ARE FOUND
BY OLIN D. WHEELER
In Montana, Idaho, and northern Wyoming lies the region where center the headwaters of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Green, and Snake rivers—the last named a branch of the Columbia. In the early years of the last century it was virtually the center of all human activity in the Rocky Mountain region, being a prolific, but dangerous, trapping-ground for the fur trade of those days.