Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 098, February, 1876Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 098, February, 1876
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
contemplation, with which this singular people regard the transition
from present to future existence. These corpses, however, which are
thus committed to the wave, do not always chime so happily in with the
reveries of boating-parties on the Nerbadá. The Marble Rocks are often
resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can
easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one's boat
and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a
light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently
here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers.
Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the _magar_ (or
Nerbadá crocodile) may pop up from the surface, which may here serve
as a warning to the young lady who trails her hand in the water--and
I have yet to be in a boating-party where the young lady did not trail
her hand in the water--that on the Nerbadá it is perhaps as well to
resign an absent-minded hand to the young officer who sits by her in
the boat lest Magar should snap it off.
Leaving the Nerbadá we now struck off northward toward the Tonsa,
intending to pass round by way of Dumoh, Sangor, Bhilsa and Sanchi
to Bhopal. We might have pursued a route somewhat more direct by
following directly down the valley of the Nerbadá to Hoshangabad,
and thence straight across to Bhopal, but my companion preferred
the circuitous route indicated, as embracing a greater variety of
interesting objects. He had procured for our conveyance a vehicle
which was in all respects suitable to the placidity of his temper; and
I make bold to confess that, American as I am--born on the railroad,
so to speak--I have never enjoyed traveling as I did in this novel
carriage. It was what is called a _chapaya_. It consisted of a body
nearly ten feet in length by more than five in breadth, and was
canopied by a top supported upon sculptured pillars of wood.
The wheels were massive and low. There were no springs; but this
deficiency was atoned for by the thick cushionment of the rear portion
of the vehicle, which allowed us to lie at full length in luxurious
ease as we rolled along. Four white bullocks, with humps and horns
running nearly straight back on the prolongation of the forehead line,
drew us along in a very stately manner at the rate of something like a
mile and a half an hour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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