Under The Circumstances, Exhausted Nature Gave In; Though Saved From Scylla, Our Destiny Was Charybdis, And We Accordingly Surrendered Ourselves To A Wash, Breakfast, And The Brahminee Bull.

During the day, we had a visit from a friend and ex-brother officer, whom we had promised to stay with, at "Kussowlie," on our road up.

Kalka was not HOT, but GRILLING, so that a speedy ascent to the station was soon agreed upon. Not caring to risk a sun-stroke, I resigned myself to the traditional conveyance of the country, a "jhampan," while the other two rode up; but here, for the second time, it was "out of the fryingpan into the fire." Such an infernal machine as my new conveyance turned out never could have existed in the palmiest days of the Inquisition. It was a sort of child's cradle, long enough for a creature of some five or six summers, made like a tray, and hung after the fashion of a miniature four-post bedstead, with goat's-hair curtains. The structure is suspended, something in the fashion of a sedan-chair which has been stunted in its growth, between two poles; between the projections of these again, before and behind, connected by a stout strap, are two shorter bars, each supported, when in travelling order, on the shoulders of two bearers. When the machine is in motion, therefore, there are four men in line between the shafts.

The pace is always rather fast, and down a declivity the torturers go at a run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine, coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the ground and the humour of the inquisitors.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 16 of 303
Words from 4103 to 4396 of 82277