About Seven
Miles From Muree, We Halted For Dinner, And Made Renewed Acquaintance
With That Interesting Object - The Indian Roadside Chicken.
OCTOBER 16.
- Arrived early at Rawul Pindee, and breakfasted at
seven, apparently off guttapercha and extract of sloe leaves. On
again immediately, and reached Gugerkhan bungalow at seven P.M. hot,
apoplectic, and saturated with dust.
The room smells thoroughly of the plains; an odour, as it were,
of punkhas, mosquitoes, and mustiness, not to be found elsewhere,
and entirely unexplainable to uninitiated sufferers.
The chicken, whose "fate had been accomplished," died as we entered
the yard, and was on the table in the fashion of a warm SPREAD EAGLE
in fifteen minutes! After this delicacy is duly discussed, the doolies
are emptied of dust, the bedding laid down, and jolt, jolt, creak,
creak, grunt, grunt, on we go again, until sleep good-naturedly
comes to make us oblivious of all things. The kahars, or bearers,
however, take a different view of life, and at every relief a crowd
of sniggering darkies assemble, on both sides, with applications for
bukshish. At first one hears, "Sahib, Sahib!" in a deprecating tone
of voice, mindful of sudden wakings of former Sahibs, sticks, and
consequent sore backs, then piu forte, "Sahib!" crescendo, "Sahib,
Sahib!" and then at last, in a burst of harmony, "Sahib purana Baira
kutch bukshish mil jawe?"[33] and the miserable doolie traveller, who
has been, probably, feigning sleep in sulky savageness for the last
ten minutes, makes a sudden dive through the curtains with a stick, an
exclamation is heard very like swearing, only in a foreign language,
and the troop of applicants vanish like a shot, keeping up, however,
a yelping of Sahibs, and Purana Bairas, and Bukshishs, until the new
bearers get fairly under weigh, and have carried their loads beyond
hearing.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 212 of 303
Words from 57267 to 57572
of 82277
