It Was A Sort Of Child's Cradle,
Long Enough For A Creature Of Some Five Or Six Summers, Made Like A
Tray, And Hung After The Fashion Of A Miniature Four-Post Bedstead,
With Goat's-Hair Curtains.
The structure is suspended, something in the
fashion of a sedan-chair which has been stunted in its growth,
Between
two poles; between the projections of these again, before and behind,
connected by a stout strap, are two shorter bars, each supported, when
in travelling order, on the shoulders of two bearers. When the machine
is in motion, therefore, there are four men in line between the shafts.
The pace is always rather fast, and down a declivity the torturers
go at a run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are
continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine,
coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the
ground and the humour of the inquisitors. After getting over about
six miles in this graceful and pleasing manner, we reached the first
of the fir-trees, and as we rose still higher a delicious breeze came
over the hills, as precious to the parched and travel-stained pilgrim
from the plains as a drop of water to the thirstiest wanderer in the
desert. Kussowlie appeared a picturesque little station, perched at
the summit of one of the first of the hilly ranges, and here I found
my two companions, burnt and red in the face as if they, too, had had
their sufferings on the road, occupied in looking over the goods of a
strolling Cashmere merchant; luckily for themselves, however, it was
under the protecting superintendence of our hostess. Our friends were
living on a miniature estate commanding a magnificent view of the
mountain ranges on one side, and, on the, other, the plains of the
Punjab, the scorching country from which we had just made our escape
lying stretched out before us like an enormous map in relief. Towards
the mountains were the military stations of "Dugshai" and "Subathoo,"
and the boys' asylum of "Senore," the latter rather marring the face
of nature by the workhouse order of its architecture. "Simla" we could
just distinguish, nestled among the blue mountains in the far distance.
Here we spent a couple of days very pleasantly with our hospitable
entertainers, and satisfactorily pulled up all arrears of sleep -
a luxury none can really appreciate who have not travelled for six
days and nights in the different local conveniences I have mentioned.
Before leaving we had an opportunity of seeing how England in the
Himalayas makes its morning calls. Walking, which amounts almost to an
impossibility in "the plains," seems to be voted INFRA DIG. in "the
hills," and Mrs. Kussowlie according made her appearance seated in
state in a jhampan, and borne on the shoulders of four of her slaves.
These were active, wiry-looking natives, dressed in long green coats,
bound with broad, red, tight-fitting pantaloons, and with small turbans
of red and green on their heads.
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