A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
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We Anchored At Gardenrich, Four Miles Below Calcutta.
Nothing gave
me more trouble during my travels than finding lodgings, as it was
sometimes impossible by mere signs and gestures to make the natives
understand where I wanted to go.
In the present instance, one of
the engineers interested himself so far in my behalf as to land with
me, and to hire a palanquin, and direct the natives where to take
me.
I was overpowered by feelings of the most disagreeable kind the
first time I used a palanquin. I could not help feeling how
degrading it was to human beings to employ them as beasts of burden.
The palanquins are five feet long and three feet high, with sliding
doors and jalousies: in the inside they are provided with
mattresses and cushions, so that a person can lie down in them as in
a bed. Four porters are enough to carry one of them about the town,
but eight are required for a longer excursion. They relieve each
other at short intervals, and run so quickly that they go four miles
in an hour or even in three-quarters of an hour. These palanquins
being painted black, looked like so many stretchers carrying corpses
to the churchyard or patients to the hospital.
On the road to the town, I was particularly struck with the
magnificent gauths (piazzas), situated on the banks of the Hoogly,
and from which broad flights of steps lead down to the river.
Before these gauths are numerous pleasure and other boats.
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