With A Fine Moonlight Night In Our Favour We Again Took The Road; And
Practice Slightly Assuaging Our Sufferings, We
Got on smoothly enough
till within a few hours from Hureepore Bungalow, when my machine again
broke with a crash,
And the nature of the fracture being compound,
I walked on and left the executioners to repair the instrument at
their leisure.
JUNE 1. - Reached Hureepore at four A.M., and found the place in
possession of a crowd of monkeys of all sorts and sizes, taking an
early breakfast. Here, chicken and eggs being again written in our
destiny, we halted for an hour or two, and at eleven again took the
road with our cast-iron bearers, and hurried along in the noonday sun,
up hill and down dale, through Kussowlie, and on and on till we were
once more fairly deposited at the feet of "Mrs. Charybdis." A slight
dinner here, and at 8.30 P.M. we were again in train, shuffling along
through several feet of dust, which the bearers, and torch-carriers,
and the rest of our numerous train, kicked up about us, in clouds
nearly dense enough to cause suffocation.
JUNE 2. - At 8.30 A.M. we arrived again at Umballa, and with
nothing to comfort us in our dusty and worried condition but the
reflection that our start from Simla was a magnificent triumph of
stern determination over present enjoyment and unwonted luxury, we
again resumed our forced march. At six P.M. we took our departure,
in a very magnificent coach, but in an "unpropitious moment," for the
horse was unusually averse to an advance of any sort, and when we did
get clear of the station his opinions were borne out by a terrific
storm of dust, with a thunder, lightning, and rain accompaniment,
which effectually put a stop to all further progress. The horse
for once had his wish, and was brought to a regular stand. The
wind howled about us, and the dusty atmosphere assumed a dull red
appearance, such as I had only once before seen at Cawnpore, and the
like of which might possibly have prevailed during the last days of
Pompeii. After getting through the worst of the storm, we pushed along,
and had reached the twentieth mile-stone, when, catching a flavour of
burning wood, I looked out and found the wheel at an angle of some 30
degrees, and rubbing against the side preparatory to taking its leave
altogether. Here was another effect of starting in an unpropitious
moment. The interruption in the great forced march preyed heavily upon
our minds, but, on the principle of doing as "Rome does," we took
a lesson from the religion of "Islam," and concurring in the views
expressed by our attendant blacks, viz. that "whatever is written in
a man's destiny that will be accomplished," we ejaculated "Kismut"
with the rest, and resignedly adapted ourselves to the writings in
our own particular page of fate.
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