- 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.
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