After Enjoying A Delightfully Cool Night In
Our Elevated Bedroom, We Started For "Thanna."
Our path led through a gradually ascending valley, cultivated, for
the rice crop, in terraces, and irrigated by a complicated net-work
of channels, cut off from the mountain streams, and branching off
in every direction to the different elevations.
The ground was so
saturated in these terraces that ploughing was carried on by means of
a large scraper, like a fender, which was dragged along by bullocks,
the ploughman standing up in the machine as it floundered and wallowed
about, and guiding it through the sea of mud.
JUNE 18. - Reached Thanna at nine A.M. and came to a halt in a shady
spot outside the village. There was an old serai about half a mile
off, but it was full of merchants and their belongings, and savoured
so strongly of fleas and dirt, that we gave it up as impracticable.
This was the first instance of our finding no shelter; and, as ill
luck would have it, our tents took the opportunity of pitching
themselves on the road, a number of coolies broke down, and one
abandoned our property and took himself off altogether. Under these
interesting circumstances, we were obliged to spend the day completely
AL FRESCO, and to wait patiently for breakfast until the fashionable
hour of half-past two P.M. The inhabitants took our misfortunes very
philosophically, and stopped to stare at us to their heart's content
as they went by for water, wondering, no doubt, at that restless
nature of the crazy Englishman, which drives him out of his own
country for the sole purpose, apparently, of being uncomfortable in
other people's. Our position, although at the foot of the grander
range of mountains, we found very hot, and a good deal of ingenuity
was required in order to find continued shelter from the scorching
rays of the sun. The natives here, seemed to suffer to a great extent
from goitre, and one of our coolies in particular had three enormous
swellings on his neck, horrible to look at. During the night, Rajoo
came in with the missing baggage, except two khiltas, for which no
carriage could be procured, and which he was in consequence obliged
to abandon on the road until assistance could be sent to them.
JUNE 19. - Started at daybreak from our unsatisfactory quarters, and
enjoyed some of the finest scenery we had yet encountered. The road
ascended pretty sharply into what might be called the REAL mountains,
and finding our spirits rise with the ground, we abandoned our ponies
and resolved to perform the remainder of our wanderings on foot. As we
reached the summit of our first ascent, and our range of view enlarged,
mountain upon mountain rose before us, richly clothed with forest
trees; while, overtopping all, peeped up the glistening summits of
the snowy range, everything around seems cool and pleasant, in spite
of the hot sun's rays, which still poured down upon us.
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