Travel Stories Retold from St. Nicholas — John Shaqi
Travel Stories Retold from St. NicholasVarious
General
Travel Stories Retold from St. Nicholas
Various
Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
Of these, the most beautiful are the huge white bulls sacred to the
Hindu god Shiva. These lead a life of leisure and luxury. They roam
about the streets unmolested, eating from the fruit- and
vegetable-stalls at will. Some are housed in the temples of the god.
Those who are not so lucky as to be held sacred have a rather hard time
of it. They do most of the heavy hauling, and often suffer very cruel
treatment from their drivers. In fact, no other animal is so much the
victim of the cruelty and ignorance of the natives as these poor
bullocks.
We drove in all sorts of curious-looking conveyances behind these
somewhat refractory creatures. Once we drove out into a desolate region
to visit some deserted temples, seated on the floor of a bullock cart
with an arched cover of plaited bamboo over us. The men along the road
walked faster than our bullocks, which went so slowly that, had it not
been for the jolting of the cart, we should scarcely have known that we
were moving.
In the southernmost part of the peninsula, along the Malabar coast,
where there are no trains, we traveled in cabin-boats rowed by natives.
It took them all night to row from Quilan to Travandrum, about fifty
miles along the backwater. They sang from the moment they began to row,
timing the stroke of the oar to the rhythm of their song. In the
morning, they appeared as smiling and fresh as they had the evening
before when we started.
In Madras, we rode in rickshaws like those of China and Japan. In many
parts of India, men take the place of animals, both in carrying people
and in transporting cargo. Several times we were carried up mountains
in _dholies_ by coolies. These dholies consist of a seat swung between
two poles by ropes. They are carried by two or four men, who trot off
up the hill with the poles resting on their shoulders, while the
passenger dangles between them. They used to come down the mountains so
fast that we were quite terrified. The seat would twist and sway, hit
against trees, graze along the side of rocks, while our porters would
dance along, talking and laughing, without paying the slightest
attention to us. Then there are various kinds of push-carts used in
different parts of the country.
Of course, the really Indian way of traveling is on elephants. Very
few, however, except princes and foreign travelers, ever ride on these
lordly animals. In the "zoos" in Calcutta and Bombay there are
elephants for the children to ride. The riders climb steps to a
platform the height of the elephant's back, then jump into the howdah,
where they are tied fast to make sure of their not falling. The old
_huthi_, as the elephant is called there, sways off, waving his trunk,
flopping his ears, and blinking his eyes. He makes a tour of the
gardens, then returns to the platform to get other children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account