Reaching the main road, we once more packed ourselves away in our boxes, and, the sun soon setting his last for us upon the Cashmere mountains, left us to make our way down to the miserable plains as fast as the flaring and spluttering light of a couple of pine torches would allow our bearers to patter along.
From this, until we reach Lahore, we are accompanied by an incessant shuffle shuffle of naked feet through the dusty road; jabbering and shouting of blacks, flickering of torches, bumping of patched and straining doolies against mounds of earth, glimpses of shining naked bodies, streaming with perspiration, as they flit about, and the whole enveloped in dense and suffocating clouds of dust, which penetrate everything and everywhere, and soon become, in fact, a part of one’s living breathing existence; occasionally, outstripping our procession, a vision passes, like the glimmer of a white strip of linen, a stick, and a black and polished body, it rushes by like the wind, and disappears in the gloom of dust and night, and, in a second, her Majesty’s mail has passed us on the road! As we near [[284]]the plains this vision undergoes a slight change, and takes the form of an apparition of two wild horses tearing away with a red and almost body-less cart; this also goes by like a flash, but gives more notice of its coming, and our torches, for a second, light up the figure of a wild huntsman, with red and streaming turban, who sits behind the steeds and blows a defiant blast at us as he also vanishes into the darkness. About seven miles from Muree, we halted for dinner, and made renewed acquaintance with that interesting object—the Indian roadside chicken.
October 16.—Arrived early at Rawul Pindee, and breakfasted at seven, apparently off guttapercha and extract of sloe leaves. On again immediately, and reached Gugerkhan bungalow at seven P.M. hot, apoplectic, and saturated with dust.
The room smells thoroughly of the plains; an odour, as it were, of punkhas, mosquitoes, and mustiness, not to be found elsewhere, and entirely unexplainable to uninitiated sufferers.
The chicken, whose “fate had been accomplished,” died as we entered the yard, and was on the table in the fashion of a warm spread eagle in fifteen minutes! After this delicacy is duly discussed, the doolies are emptied of dust, the bedding laid down, and jolt, jolt, creak, [[285]]creak, grunt, grunt, on we go again, until sleep good-naturedly comes to make us oblivious of all things. The kahars, or bearers, however, take a different view of life, and at every relief a crowd of sniggering darkies assemble, on both sides, with applications for bukshish. At first one hears, “Sahib, Sahib!” in a deprecating tone of voice, mindful of sudden wakings of former Sahibs, sticks, and consequent sore backs, then più forte, “Sahib!” crescendo, “Sahib, Sahib!” and then at last, in a burst of harmony, “Sahib pûrana Baira kûtch bukshish mil jawe?”[2] and the miserable doolie traveller, who has been, probably, feigning sleep in sulky savageness for the last ten minutes, makes a sudden dive through the curtains with a stick, an exclamation is heard very like swearing, only in a foreign language, and the troop of applicants vanish like a shot, keeping up, however, a yelping of Sahibs, and Pûrana Bairas, and Bukshishs, until the new bearers get fairly under weigh, and have carried their loads beyond hearing. None but those who have been woken up in this manner from a comfortable state of unconsciousness, to the full realities of doolie travelling in Indian heat and dust, can form an idea of the trial it is to one’s temper; and, from my own feelings, together with [[286]]the sounds I hear from my companion’s direction, I can testify as to the relief that the use of foreign expletives affords under the affliction.
October 17.—Arrived at Jhelum about eight A.M. to all intents and purposes dust inside and out. Flesh and blood can stand no more for the present, and we resolve to halt here for the day. The weather appears quite as hot as when we started, and the wind comes in, hot and dry, and makes one feel like a herring of the reddest; while an infernal punkha is creaking its monotonous tune, as it flaps to and fro in the next room, making one again realize to the full, “the pleasures of the plains.” We begin, in fact, to discover that the thorns which were not forthcoming on the Cashmere roses are too surely to be found elsewhere.
October 18.—Reached Goojerat at cock-crow; thus completing a distinct circle of travel through Bimber, Sirinugger, Ladak, Kushtwar, Muree, and back to our present halting-place, from whence we had originally branched off.
October 19.—A dusty night’s work brought us at two A.M. to Goojerwala. Here we found that there was no bungalow between us and Lahore, and, consequently, no chance of either a wash or breakfast should we go on; we therefore chose loss of time in preference to loss of breakfast, [[287]]with the addition of a day under a broiling sun, and halted until the authorities should awake to feed us.
October 20.—Reached Lahore before sunrise, and got our letters and papers from the post once more. Afterwards we laid our dak for Cawnpore, and made all arrangements for a start in the evening.
October 21.—Arrived at Umritsur about three A.M., and remained in our coaches until sunrise, when we set off for a stroll through the city. This we found the cleanest, if not the only clean, town we had seen since landing in India. The streets were well drained and built, and were guarded by a force of yellow-legged, red-turbaned Punjabee policemen, who were provided, like their brother blue-bottles at home, with staves and rattles instead of the more usual insignia of sword and shield. The houses were almost all decorated, outside and in, with grotesque mythological and other paintings, such as Vishnu annihilating Rakshus, or demons of various kinds, or wonderful battle-pieces, wherein pale-faced, unhealthy-looking people, in tailed coats and cocked hats, might be seen performing prodigies of valour, assisted by bearded and invincible Sikh warriors of ferocious exterior. The shops were built with verandahs, [[288]]and the piazza character of some of the streets, in conjunction with the unusual cleanliness, gave one a very agreeable impression of Umritsur and its municipal corporation, whoever that body may be. The inhabitants are principally Sikhs, fine-looking men generally, with long beards turned up at either side of their faces, and knotted with their hair under the voluminous folds of their turbans.