INDIAN TRAVELLING.
THE Hartleys soon left their pleasant place of sojourn, and started on
their journey towards Talwandi. The piano and large packing-cases had
been sent on before by a luggage train; and Harold had arranged that a
big bullock-cart should meet them at the station where the railway-line
must be quitted. Nothing could be pleasanter to the young couple than
the journey as long as it could be made by train, though, for economy’s
sake, the carriage which they occupied was second class. The travellers
were to descend at the station of Chuanwál, twenty miles from Talwandi.
Harold had made every possible arrangement beforehand for the comfort of
his young bride. He had secured a dák-gári (the Indian substitute for a
post-chaise) in which she should accomplish the last part of the
journey.
Chuanwál was reached. After helping Alicia down to the platform, and
rapidly emptying the carriage of two big rolls of bedding, umbrellas, a
hamper, and six or seven other articles which must on no account be left
behind, Harold looked for the station-master.
“You have been good enough to lay our dák; a carriage is ready, I hope?”
said Harold.
“Here is the munshi, sir; he will explain,” said the station-master, as
a stout, dark, sensuous-looking man came forward, book in hand and
pencil behind his thick ear, proud of an opportunity of airing his stock
of English.
“Dák no lay—can’t lay. No station Talwandi way—dusri ráh [other way].
How Sahib change horses where no horses be found?” said the munshi.
“Well, suppose that we cannot change horses on the journey, one pair of
stout animals can easily accomplish twenty miles.” The last part of
Harold’s sentence was half drowned in the shrill scream of the departing
train.
The fat munshi seemed to see mountains of difficulty in the way. “If
horses go Talwandi, must come back Chuanwál,” at last he sagely
observed.
“Of course; they will return here to-morrow. The question is, Have you
the gári [carriage] and horses which I ordered three days ago?”
After a good deal of beating about the bush and cross-questioning,
Harold elicited the fact that there was a gári, and moreover a pair of
horses.
“Then have the horses put in at once. Why were they not ready? The lady
is tired of waiting,” said Harold, glancing towards Alicia, who was
sitting on one of the bundles of bedding.
Orders were given to a man waiting near, who went off to see about the
gári; and the munshi took his pencil from behind his ear. “Sahib must
pay beforehand,” said the munshi.
“All right. How much have I to pay?” asked young Hartley, drawing from
his pocket his bag of rupees.
The munshi surveyed the bag, perhaps making a calculation as to its
probable contents, then named a sum that was an exorbitant charge for so
short a journey. To pay it would more than drain Harold’s bag. The
missionary remonstrated, but in vain. The munshi knew that the
travellers were in his power. They must pay what he chose to demand, or
no dák-gári should start.
“I shall inform the Government official of the extortion,” began Harold;
but he was not allowed to conclude the sentence.
“No Government dák—private affair,” said the munshi, showing a row of
white teeth in a smile of triumph. “If Sahib no like pay, Sahib try find
ekká.”
Harold’s first thought was, “So I will;” but when he glanced again at
his simply but elegantly dressed wife, he could not bear the idea of her
having to climb up into a vehicle so rude, to be jolted over twenty
miles of rough road, seated Oriental fashion, and holding the ropes at
the side to prevent herself from being jerked out on the road. No, no;
Harold would not take his bride home in an ekká.
“Harold, what is all this delay and discussion about?” asked Alicia,
who, weary of waiting, had sauntered up to the side of her husband.
“This fellow is making an unreasonable demand: he asks for more than I
have with me,” said Harold, looking slightly annoyed.
“Oh, is that all? I’ll be your banker,” cried Alicia. “Just help me to
open my box, and I’ll get out the money.”
In a few minutes Alicia’s pretty purse was in the hand of her husband.
The lady was rather amused at the idea of lending to Harold; but he was
by no means pleased at having to borrow from his bride. The money was
paid, the amount registered in the munshi’s greasy book, and in due time
the gári appeared.
“Is it not like an old bathing-machine?” said Alicia. “It looks hardly
as luxurious as one would expect from the cost of its hire.”
A dák-gári is by no means luxurious, especially on a rough country road.
It has neither springs nor windows, and cushions must be improvised from
the rugs which travellers carry with them. However, Alicia was perfectly
satisfied. “Mission Mem Sahibas must not care for luxury,” thought she.
When nearly half the journey had been accomplished, the travellers
passed a heavily-laden bullock-cart, slowly jolting on its way.
“There, see! there’s our piano and our big cases!” exclaimed Alicia. “I
thought that we should find them all ready unpacked on our arrival at
home. We sent on the luggage ages ago.”
“There was probably some hitch at the station,” said Harold; “and
bullocks travel very slowly indeed. But the cart will be in before
morning; we shall arrive some hours before it.”
Harold was calculating without his host, or rather without his horses. A
brief pause was made half-way to Talwandi for the driver to quench his
own thirst and that of his horses, and to indulge himself with a pull at
his hookah. The pause was unfortunate, for it gave one of the animals
time to consider that he had not been taken out of harness and relieved
by another horse, as he had a right to expect. The creature resolutely
determined—and some Indian horses have resolute wills—not to go a single
step further. The driver had resumed his seat on the box, and cracked
his whip as a sign to move on; but in vain was whip-cracking or urging
or beating. The horse reared and plunged and kicked, and turned almost
right round, after the fashion of nat-kat (naughty) horses in India.
“O Harold! Harold! what is that dreadful creature doing?” exclaimed
Alicia, in terror grasping her husband’s arm.
“It is only that we have a nat-kat in the shafts,” replied Harold.
“There will be a regular battle between the will of man and horse, as
shown in the picture which we were looking at in the clever book ‘Curry
and Rice.’”
“Oh, this is terrible!” cried Alicia, as the horse’s iron hoofs beat a
tattoo against the gári. “There—oh, look!—he has turned round—his head
will be in the carriage; he’s as fierce as a tiger! What a frightful
noise he makes—between a neigh and a scream!”
“I will get out and help the driver,” said Harold, with his hand on the
sliding panel of the gári, which was but half pushed back.
“Oh no; the horse will kick you or bite you—nat-kat horses bite!” cried
Alicia, almost frantic with terror. Stronger nerves than hers have been
tried by a nat-kat brute.
Neither could the driver master the furious beast, nor Harold soothe the
terrified lady. A quarter of an hour passed—a half-hour; mindless of
rein, only irritated by blows, kicking, snorting, backing, now to the
right side of the road, then to the left, doing his utmost to overturn
the heavy gári, the nat-kat would go any way but forward.
“O Harold, I can bear this no longer; help me out!” gasped Alicia,
looking so pale that her husband feared that she was going to faint.
Catching his opportunity, Harold sprang from the gári, lifted his wife
down on the side nearest the quieter horse, and placed the trembling
lady at a safe distance from the heels of the plunging nat-kat.
“Harold, I feel so nervous; I will not attempt to get into that carriage
again,” faltered Alicia Hartley.
“But we _must_ go on, my love; the driver will at last get the better in
the struggle.”
“There is the bullock-cart coming along the road; we will go in that,
the oxen are so quiet. Oh, mercy!”
The nat-kat, half-maddened by the punishment which he was receiving,
with distended nostrils and flashing eyes, was indeed attempting to bite
as well as to kick. Harold in vain urged that the bullocks would take
hours to accomplish the journey, and that the sun was about to set.
Alicia declared that to go home slowly was better than not getting home
at all. Harold was constrained to let the timid creature have her own
way, and the furious horse had his; for while Alicia was with difficulty
squeezing herself behind the piano, and Harold trying to arrange the
luggage taken from the gári, the nat-kat and his companion were tearing
away at the utmost speed that the weight of the gári permitted on their
way back to Chuanwál station. Mightily amused was the fat munshi when he
heard of the adventure, and with great satisfaction he stroked his beard
and jingled his bag of rupees.
It was some time before the nervous Alicia, in her most uncomfortable
niche in the bullock-cart, could recover her wonted composure. Harold
tried to make the best that he could of circumstances, but thought with
regret of the despised ekká, in which he might so much more quickly and
cheaply, and perhaps more comfortably too, have accomplished a tiresome
journey. Poor Alicia had been so much frightened, and was now so much
shaken and tired, that she had difficulty in keeping in her tears. She
had a fear that she had displeased, or at least had annoyed, Harold, and
that Robin would laugh at her for making so poor a beginning of
missionary life. The slow pace of the bullocks made the journey terribly
tedious, and dark night closed in long before they had accomplished five
miles.
Travelling adventures were not over. A bit of specially bad and boggy
road was encountered. First the cart stuck fast in the mud. Harold
sprang down, and his exertions, combined with those of the driver and
the struggles of the belaboured oxen, at last succeeded in setting the
clumsy conveyance in motion again. A few yards further on there was a
sudden shock and a crash. One of the big wheels had come off. A great
deal of the luggage was precipitated on the miry road.
“Quite a night of adventures!” cried Harold cheerfully, to reassure his
young wife and prevent her noticing that a falling box had inflicted on
his arm a very severe contusion. He bit his lip with pain, and then
added in the same playful tone, “We shall laugh over our little troubles
when we reach our destination.”
“But when shall we reach it?” exclaimed Alicia; “how far are we now from
Talwandi?”
“I should say four miles,” replied Harold; “but it is difficult to guess
in the darkness, when one can see no landmarks. How we are to proceed
with a wheel off is a difficult problem to solve. If you permit, I will
press forward and bring back a lantern and my fathers tattu [pony], on
which you will ride.”
“Oh no; you must not leave me!” cried Alicia, clinging like a terrified
child to her husband’s strong arm. “I can walk—I would far rather walk.”
And walk she did, all the long weary way over a rough road; for the four
miles proved to be five, and to the young traveller seemed to be ten.
Mr. Hartley, after staying up till midnight to welcome the pair, had
given them up and retired to rest, when Harold and his tired—almost
exhausted—bride reached the little bungalow at last.
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