A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of IndiaAcland, Charles
History
A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of India
Acland, Charles
India -- Description and travel; India -- Social life and customs
It was bitterly cold last night. I had on cloak, trowsers, a flannel
jacket next my skin, a thick coat buttoned up to my neck, a double
blanket over me, and both doors of my palkee shut. Yet I awoke about
four o'clock this morning shivering with the cold, and was glad to
get out and have a good run of two or three miles, flapping my arms
against my sides, to restore the warmth. Mrs. Acland has complained
of the cold for the last two days, even at twelve o'clock at noon.
The fact is, people here become so accustomed to intense heat that
they often find the cold weather very trying, and the hot season is
notoriously the most healthy part of the year, though I fancy it is
now as warm as an English summer.
Poor Mr. B., with whom we stayed while at Pooree, has had an attack
of the terrible jungle-fever, and will, I fear, be obliged to
return to England. A sick person, at least in my district, is quite
a rarity: all the diseases are so rapid in their operation, that
a week's illness is considered a long time. If it is violent, the
patient generally dies in a few hours, or at most in two or three
days; if slight, he is by that time convalescent, and generally
proceeds at once either to the Cape of Good Hope or to England.
Cuttack, December 10.
I have been to Midnapore and back again. Whilst I was at Balasore
information was brought in that one hundred and fifty or two hundred
elephants had come down into the paddy-fields about twelve miles from
Balasore, and that they were destroying the crops. Two or three of
the Europeans there wanted to make up a party to go and attack them;
I should very much like to have gone with them, but could not afford
the time; so the proposition fell to the ground.
It is dangerous sport, but very exciting. The elephant is
invulnerable except at one point, and that is a small hollow in the
middle of the forehead. I said invulnerable, but that is an improper
word; I mean, that that little spot is the only point where you
can hit him fatally. Fancy an enormous elephant charging at full
speed down a narrow path, with dense jungle on either side, and the
sportsman standing still till he comes almost close, and then aiming
at the forehead. Suppose he misses the one little spot--the elephant
seizes him with his trunk, dashes him to the ground, and then
kneels upon and crushes him; that is to say, if it is a fierce male
elephant. The tusks of a large one are worth fifty pounds.
[Sidenote: JUGGERNAT'H FESTIVAL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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