RAILWAY TRAVEL IN INDIA

New Zealand Mail, 5 February 1902, Page 4

RAILWAY TRAVEL IN INDIA

<By Sir Edwin Arnold, in the “Youth’s Companion.”)

For an Indian railway run of any length, you must make preparations of a kind which would never be thought of at Home. You must carry your own light bedding with you, two silk or cotton rezais, well wadded, and a pillow. Tho guide books justly counsel that there should be two rezais. To these should be added a pillow-case, calico sheets, and a blanket. A rough waterproof cover in which to wrap the bedding must not be omitted, or the first time the bedding is carried any distance by a coolie or packed on a pony it may be very much soiled. Without such a modest supply of covering as is hero indicated, a traveller may at any time spend a night shivering in tho cold, which would probably result in an attack of agwe. Of course, it must be in what is called the “cold weather” that you traverse the varied lengths and breadths of Hindustan. From the middle of November to the middle of March is the ideal period. Yet even then, as always, the sun must be respected from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., and many a burning hot hour at best will be passed in the railway carriage.

The rolling stock has been constructed with regard to this necessity. The firstclass compartments have a double roof to soften tho fierce impact of the noonday sunshine, and the windows arc duplicated with pale purple or green glass and “jitmil”—shutters—to excluds, as far as possible, the hot winds and tho dust.

On these tracks, too, where tunnels do not forbid the arrangement, the Transatlantic tourist will be amused to behold the third and fourth class carriages devoted to the traffic of the common people, so that, as with tho Chicago pork express, there are layers of humble travellers berthed over the heads of the others, a kind of rollinoNoah’s Ark in floors. In this by no means luxurious fashion will the Hindu with his family contentedly journey day and night and go upon pilgrimages, being satisfied if be can only get over the ground cheaply. It was a mooted point at the beginning of railway making in India whether or not the Shastras, the holy books, would permit orthodox and devout Hindus to oerform pilgrimages by the aid of steam. Happily for the dividends of shareholders and for the convenience of the native public, the pundits decided that in Ved or Smriti there was nothing recorded against such a practice, and it is the swarm of simple people which

nowadays makes the Indian lines -paytogether, of course, with the trade in grain, cotton and general produce. One must not expect in India. There are at Bombay, Delhi, Agra, Benares, Calcutta, and Madras some that are moderately good, but they will hardly satisfy him who has been accustomed to the magnificent accommodation provided by American hostelries. Here and there the railway depot will have bedrooms as well as restaurants, but along all by-roads, and in the Mofussil generally, the dawk bungalow only is to be found. The dawk bungalow is just a plain, white-washed shelter, with a few bedsteads and the chance of a very tough fowl, which, being caught amid wild confusion at the moment of the arrival of the guest, takes revenge for his death by the indigestion lie bequeaths to his consumer.

In whatever direction the Indian train may be moving, the landscape on either side will be new to the Western visitor. If he is a botanist, or has with him any companion who can name and explain the details of such leafy and flowery vistas as may be seen in Guzerat or the Deccan, the leagues of moving plain, jungle and village will not pass without instruction and interest. The tourist in India must not expect to see tigers and leopards, or bears and bisons from the windows of his carriage, but there will, nevertheless, be something of interest to every lover of Nature. The sky will be full—especially near the towns and stations—of kites and vultures, soaring aloft, and wheeling round and round with shrill cries. Over the pools and rivers the fish-tiger will hover, and the snowwhite egrets will everywhere be noted stalking about among the grey cattle. There are many railroads along which one is likely to eatcli glimpses of the beautiful and graceful Indian antelopes. I was once riding on a ballast engine in the Deccan, when we surprised a wolf in the entrance of a deep and long cutting; and never shall I forget how he put on the pace as we rattled behind him betwen the steep embankments. In passing through the green flats and forests of Guzerat there are districts where for miles and miles you may beguile the journey by watching the monkeys, the bandar-log, those strange fourhanded folk who come down to sit on the babul trees, and to look at the passing trains and the travellers. Secure from all interference—for the white.man must not molest them, and the brown man will not—they perch by families on the branches of the trees lining tho track, and with their long tails swinging, and their furry jaws busy with the fruit which they have stolen, like meditative Asia herself, they “let the legions thunder past.” Or they squat, demurely, in companies about the fields of millet and grain—the old gossips together, and the youngsters merrily playing—all as confident and cool as if they were citizens of the place and had votes.

In Rajputana you may often notice from the passing train the beautiful dark blue peacocks break in a thunder of jewelled wings and a lightning of purple plumes from the white marble rocks at the edge of the jungle, and you will pass many a spot notoriously frequented by tigers and panthers, no more visible, however, than if the wild green fastnesses concealed nothing except porcupines and mongoos. The engineers along tiie lines are mainly Europeans. There are not many Hindus or Mohammedans who have as yet the courage ortho knowledge to drive the terrible and wonderful ag-gadi, the fire horse of which the Punjabee verse

smgsi “Now is the devil-horse come to Sindh, Wall, wall, Gurra! that is true! His belly is stuffed with the fire and tho wind.” In parts of India the wandering tribes will still be seen offering tributes to tho flying locomotive, and even prostrating themselves before the telegraph wire, which they style sheitan-ka-rashi, the “Devil’s string.” Most of tho station masters arc Bengalee baboos or Deccani clerks, or some other educated Hindus. Such quiet duties suit them well, and they are very attentive and sedulous, hut strictly given to carry out- to the letter their by-laws, and to tions from their superiors. Thus it refer on all possible occasions for direcis really no myth, but a solemn fact, that once on the Great India Peninsula Railway, the Chief Superintendent received at the central depot- from a member of the staff of an up-country station this telegraphic message:— “Tiger on platform. Has killed station master. Is now devouring tit-kit- wallah. Pleaso wire instructions.”