After a stay of about a week at the Guest House at Gwalior we took the road again, or rather the railroad, Delhi being the next place on our itinerary. We thought, however, to break the journey for a few hours at Agra, and get a view of the entry of the Amir, which was fixed for the 9th of January.
It was a lowering, cloudy morning when we left our quarters and made for the railway station, where we had a long wait in the darkness. An enormous throng of natives filled the platform, squatting on the ground or standing about in groups, talking or sleeping under covers which hid them from head to foot. Most were closely wrapped up about the shoulders, cloths being wound over the turban, even so that they had generally a top-heavy look with bare legs. Their wraps were only of cotton though, as a rule, and did not seem adequate against the chill of the morning. One little swarthy man was busy writing, making entries on sheets of paper or perhaps bills of lading. He squatted on the platform against one of the piers of the arcade, writing by the aid of a lantern’s light. I noticed only one European besides ourselves in the throng, and he appeared to be an English official and wore a pith helmet.
At last up came the train from Jhansi, and we got in, a slumbering English officer occupying one of the berths. The sky, which was the only gloomy and threatening one we had experienced in India, and certainly looked leaden and hopeless enough, soon turned to rain, and under such an aspect the country looked desolate in the extreme. The tawny earth and fuzzy, dry grass, sparse trees of prickly acacia and scrub bushes, the broken hillocks and mounds of clay, looked more fruitless and forlorn under the steady, soaking rain; groups of poor country folk in their thin cotton clothing huddled together, waiting at the stations we passed, or could be seen splashing through the muddy pools to catch the train.
Nearing Agra, we saw heavy artillery trains with field guns trailing along the wet roads. Troops had been pouring into Agra for some time, and while at Gwalior a native regiment of cavalry (lancers) rode by the Guest House, preceded by their baggage on mules and camels.
At Agra Road Station the rain was pouring in torrents. There is an immense, long, exposed platform, along which we made our way to cover under the station shed, which was already crammed with people, mostly English and American visitors, army officers, and officials.
The weather being quite hopeless, we gave up the idea of seeing anything of the procession, which of course was a military one, and then finding there was a dining-car in waiting, we had a scamper through the rain again down the platform to reach it.
A DASH FOR THE DINING-CAR AT AGRA ROAD
After tiffin we were just in time to catch a train on to Delhi—in fact it had actually started, but the courteous station-master sent an official to stop it for us, and to see us safely in with our baggage. It was now nearly noon, but our train, a slow passenger one, was not due at Delhi until 5.30. The rain continued steadily, and damp groups of natives were gathered at the different stopping stations in various stages of discomfort. They did not, however, appear to mind the wet so much as one would have expected, but swathed themselves in all sorts of curious wraps up to the eyes, leaving the legs and feet bare, and some even squatted on the wet ground.