About Midnight We Reached The River "Sutlej," And Exchanged Our Horse
For Four Fat And Humpy Bullocks, Who Managed, With Very Great Labour
And Difficulty, To Drag Us Through The Heavy Sands Of The River-Bed
Down To The Edge Of The Water.
Here we were shipped on board a
flat-bottomed boat, with a high peaked bow; and, after an immensity
of hauling and grunting, we were fairly launched into the stream, and
poled across to the opposite shore.
The water appeared quite shallow,
and the coolies were most of the time in the water; but its width,
including the sands forming its bed, could not have been less than two
miles and a half. It was altogether a wild and dreary-looking scene,
as we paddled along - the wild ducks and jackals, &c. keeping up a
concert on their own account, and the patient old bullocks ruminating
quietly on their prospects at our feet.
On arriving at what appeared to be the opposite bank, we were taken
out, and again pulled and hauled through the deep sand, only to be
reshipped again on what seemed a respectable river in its own right;
and here, getting out of patience with a stream that had no opposite
bank, I fell asleep, and left the bullocks to their sorrows and
their destiny.
JUNE 4. - Arrived at Jullundur, where we had to share the bungalow
with another traveller and a rising family, who kept us alive by
howling vigorously all day. The road from this being "Kucha," literally
UNCOOKED, but here meant to express "unmetalled," we had yet another
form of conveyance to make acquaintance with.
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