RACE FOR LIFE WITH A MAD DROVE OF BUFFALO--UNCLE SAM'S FLAG A
FEATURE OF THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE CELEBRATION AT DELHI.
It was our idea to see the sights of Lucknow in two days and return
to Cawnpore on the evening of the second, but our plans were changed,
as Messrs. Thoburn, Robinson and Mansell, of the American Methodist
Mission, called upon us at the hotel and transferred us, bag and
baggage, to the Mission as their guests. Under their guidance we
remained in Lucknow a week. Having returned to Cawnpore, we resumed
our journey on June 11, making rapid progress, principally during
the nights. Ever since entering China, more than a year before,
we had seen daily countless numbers of the hairless, black, water
buffalo. Many Europeans fear them and consider them dangerous, but they
treated us with deference until Sunday, June 20, when we encountered
a herd of the fierce-looking, cumbersome beasts while pedaling our
way to Delhi. I do not believe the buffalos had any premeditated
intention of attacking us, but as we wheeled slowly through a drove,
a calf became imbued with the idea that bicycles were dangerous. He
bolted straight down the road in front of us, running like a winner
for a quarter of a mile. Then he was attracted by some tempting
green leaves, and halted to browse upon them. As soon as we passed
him, the machines which had frightened him became an attraction,
and he meekly trotted out and fell in line behind us. The mother,
who had been lumbering along in the rear, became excited at the
unusual conduct of her son, gave a few short snorts, and set out
in pursuit. Immediately the entire drove joined in the novel race,
and, with a thundering clatter of hard hoofs ringing in our ears,
we realized that we were being pursued. Faster and faster we spun
along, and as native pilgrims heard the uproar, they gave one glance
at the avalanche of bicycle and buffalo sweeping down upon them and
scattered to the right and left. We tried, by shouting and waving
helmets at the calf, to drive him away, but in vain, and the affair,
which had been amusing at first, settled down into a race for life. It
is impossible, as readers know, to take to a tree when on a cycle,
so there was nothing else to do but set a pace for a crazy calf and
a drove of jealous buffalo, and for the next mile and a half we did
so. How the calf came to change his mind about joining his fortune
with ours I do not know, but a sudden cessation of the clatter behind
us revealed on sight the calf recumbent in a pool of water, with his
sympathizing friends and relatives standing by, grimly looking after
us. This was the outcome of the buffalos' end of the race; ours was
garments soaked with perspiration, panting breath, and ourselves so
heated and flushed we were dizzy and faint.
The Queen's Jubilee, celebrated the day following our arrival in
Delhi, gave us opportunity to enjoy an illumination scene in India,
and, though we observed many well-lighted European and government
employes' houses, I should not say that the Indian is as much a lover
of British rule as the British would have others believe. The usual
parade of soldiery and police was the first feature of the evening,
and fireworks the final. I thoroughly enjoyed the astonishment caused
by the presence of a large American flag, flying from a staff lashed
to the life-sized stone elephant which stands in the yard of the
government building, and was much amused at the inscriptions on the red
cloth banners which the natives hung over their doorways. They read,
"Welcome to India;" "Welcome to Delhi," and a rather suggestive few
read, "God bless the Prince." It was a few moments before it dawned
on me that the inscriptions were originally made to please the eye
of the Prince of Wales, when that great functionary of corner-stone
laying and baby christening was doing a little globe-trotting at the
English public's expense. Who did it, and why that American flag, in
all its starry beauty, was flying in front of a government building,
were the principal questions asked by army and police officers the
next day. Delhi, as a city, was founded during the shadowy ages,
which precludes the possibility of dates, but its ruins are visible
to-day on an area ten miles wide and fifteen miles long. How often
the city has changed its site is only limited to the victories gained
by invaders of all tribes and nations. The Rome of Asia, Delhi has
known its Nero; Maharrata, Hindoo, Jain, Persian, Afghan, Mohammedan,
and the cold, unfeeling Britain, have in turn ruled over the Indian
Empire from this ancient city, and the truth has ever been proven that
whosoever held Delhi ruled India. Delhi, like many other Indian cities,
offers the visitor many interesting buildings of native structure, but
so often have we viewed with reverence and awe some superb building,
only to learn that it was a tomb for some notable departed, that the
word "tomb" has become abhorrent. India will linger in our memory
chiefly as one vast group of mausoleums, set in an arid desert and
scorched by the fires of a sun fierce as the furnaces of Sheol.
The exposure to heat, from which the Inter Ocean cyclists were
suffering daily, led to Mrs. McIlrath's serious condition, which
prevented our departure from Delhi on June 24, the day upon which
we had made our arrangements to leave. With face swollen so that
her eyes were half-closed, her skin was entirely covered with tiny
pimples. Small-pox would not have presented a more pitiable sight, but
experts pronounced the case prickly heat, and beyond advising perfect
rest, cool drinks and hot baths, declared that nothing could be done
to drive away or reduce the swelling. Under these conditions we were
unable to proceed until July 1, but with the delightful attentions
shown us by Mr. and Mrs. Aitkin of the Delhi Morning Post, and Major
Mainwaring, of the Native Infantry, time did not hang heavily upon our
hands. We swung into the main road at 6 o'clock one morning, taking the
Grand Trunk once more, and following its course due north. Karnaul,
the city which we should have reached the night before, had it not
been for the stiff head winds, we entered at 8 o'clock the following
morning, just in time to escape a downfall of rain which detained us
until the next day. A second reminder of the plucky little Lenz we
found in the register book of the Karnaul dak bungalow, which read,
"F. G. Lenze, October 10, 1893, arrived six p. m. Departed six a. m.,
October 12, American Bicyclist." Strange as it may seem, this was
only the second instance in which we found trace of Lenz, though in
China, Burmah and India we traveled in all over four thousand miles
on identically the same route.