After
A Most Affectionate Parting With Our Boatmen, Messrs.
Suttarah,
Ramzan, Guffard, and Co., we started on our new travels at about ten
A.M. under a broiling sun.
After several halts under shady chestnuts,
groves of mulberry, &c., and passing by a gentle ascent through a
lovely country, we came to our first encamping ground, at Kungur, and
pitched our tent under a chestnut grove, considerably hot and tired by
our first march, after all the ease and comparative idleness we had of
late been enjoying in the valley. Here we saw the first of the system
of extortion which goes on among the government authorities and the
people; for after the paymaster to the forces had settled with the
seven coolies who were not in our permanent employ, not being able
to take all as we had originally intended, they assembled round us,
and complained most dolefully of the smallness of their pay. The
sepoy, who appeared a most pugnacious customer, cuffed some of them,
and made desperate flourishes at others with a big stick, and seemed
altogether so anxious to prevent, as he said, the "cherishers of
the poor," from being inconvenienced by the "scum of the earth,"
that we suspected something wrong, and on inquiring, ascertained,
that out of the amount due to the seven, viz. one rupee five annas,
or about two shillings and eightpence, the organ of government had
actually stopped eight annas, or one shilling. The mistake we soon
rectified, much to the delight of the "scum of the earth," - who had
certainly earned their three annas, or fourpence halfpenny per man,
by carrying our impedimenta eight kos under a hot sun, - and equally
to the disgust of "the organ" who handed over the difference with
a very bad grace indeed, and was rather out of tune for the rest of
the day.
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