TRAVELLING IN INDIA.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 5, 19 January 1912, Page 2

TRAVELLING IN INDIA.

THE NECESSARY PREPARATIONS Everybody when on a journey in India carries his own bedding, and outside the large ; establishments of the Government officials everywhere it is needed. You are supposed, says Mr. Price Collier, writing in "‘Scribner's Magazine,” to carry your own bedding with you just as you carry your own tooth-brush. In the trains —there are very long train journeys, by slow trains, in India—in the guest houses of the native in camp of course always, and in the hotels and inns. your own bedding is a necessity. Indeed, you can scarcely carry too much in India if you wish to be comfortable. . All sorts of clothing, from fur coatsj to the thinnest of linen, all sorts of hats from a cap to a pith helmet, a spirit lamp, a folding table and chair, a small amount of tinned or bottled food and a supply of mineral water for the train, a large supply of linen and underclothing, for one changes often, and the laundry work is done by beating on flat stones. • The changes of temperature from noon till midnight are startling. One must give up cold baths and take to tepid or hot water, and be careful, indeed, what, and how much, one eats and drinks. No alcohol before sunset, and very little then, and the plainest and most nourishing food. In this land, as large almost as the whole of Europe, there are only a few;, large cities where one can buy any of the luxuries or comforts of life outside the obvious, and what you need you must carry with you. 'On a large scale you do what the native does, you carry your household gods and goods about with you. How differently “pick up your bed and walk” sounds in your ears when you see a whole population of hundreds of millions actually carrying their beds with them whenever' they move. Why should one take heed as to what one shall eat, or drink, or wear, when a handful of rice, a thimbleful of water, and a loin-cloth suffice ? The group of servants in front of their master’s door at the hotel, or the hundreds of families travelling by train, by bullock-cart, or even on foot, have squeezed and sifted life’s necessaries down to the vanishing point.