The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-31
RAILWAYS OF INDIA.
Cheap Prices and Primitive Accom-
mOdatioDS Prevail There.

G. w. Stevens in the London Mail.
The native has taken up with enthusiasm
the recreation of railway travelling, ami
the Indian railways are accordingly admir-
able. They lack only one point of excel
lence, and that is exactly what the Euro
peans wants and the native does not,
speed. The white man is often in a hur-
ry, the native never; the Indian train
strols accordingly at a decorous twenty
miles an hour. The sahlb may get impa-
tent, but It is lightning TO people whose
national conveyance is a bullock cart. The
native troubles himself nothing about time
tables; he goes to the station before sun
rise and sits down til the train comes.
And the amount of native traffic is aston
ng-astonishing even though ii costs
him about a farthing mile. The station
yard and the road beyond are fair by day
and a dOss house by night at the open
ing of the gates the roaring, jabbering
platform recalls the breaking of the crowd
when the lord mayors show has gone by
The third-c.ass carriages are even as
crates of fowls; some stand on the seats,
some lie on the floor. You see only jun
gle of heads and legs and arms projected
vaguely out of nowhere; at night the com
partment is a heap OF sack-colored bun
bles, that might indifferenuy be men or
mailbags.
Your own Indian railway carriage IS not
unlike the Indian house. 1t has space and
all indispensables for existing in bad
climate, but little of finish or embellish-
ment In Europe the sleeping car mimics
the drawing room In India, where often
the very drawing room is but a hating
place in a perpetual journey, a sleeping
car is merely a car you can very well sleep
In. To 1t, as everywhere in India, you
bring your own bedding and your own ser
n q 20 lie
at stations by the way; If there is no re-
fTeshment room at the right time and
place, you bring your food with you. The
European train is like a hotel; the Indian
Ike camp. Your servant piles In your
canvas bundle of bedding, your battered
dressing case. your hatbox, your dispatch
box, your topl, your stick your flask, your
tlffn basket, your overcoat, your cricket
bat, your racquet, your hunting crop, your
gun and your dog; you insert yourself
among them and away you go
The Indian train may not be sumptuous-
~ caparsoned, but il is workmanlike to
the uttermost hatpcg. on the meter-gauge
lines you are a little cramped at night, In
evitably; on the broad gauge there is far
more dressing washing and shaving space
than on any line IN Europe or America.
Against the hot weather screens of board
ing hang from the carriage roof TO midway
down the window: these stan off some
smoked to cool the glare. Ice can be had
at important stations during the hot
months Another vast convenience Is the
railway waiting room, in one OF which, on
the Northwest ern railway, / am at this
moment concluding this letter / arrived
here at o'clock, and took a cup of tea;
while l drank that shave and hot bath
were preparing In the waiting ROOM while
/ took these, breakfast was cooking In the
kitchen. went forth and did what / came
here for; now, having an hour to spare,
minister to your mind at a better chair
and table and room altogether than,
doubt, you viii find N any hotel in India
In snort, your Brton is not at all the
conservative creature that at home he
would make himself out. Put him down
where he hos more or less of clear field,
and he will adapt, and invent and con-
tive. and relieve the usefuly ugly with
the best Of them. The small convenience.
for example OF carriages colored accord
ing TO their class, now timidly nibbled at
In England, has long been familiar to In
dia; frst-cass is white, second, dark
green; third, native color. Only one fauft
can 1 think Of in The regulations for In
dian travel; there are no carriages reserV-
ed for men, Consequently ladies enter in
with their husbands. which at bedtime
| brings embarrassIneuts. once l have act
uaIlv had 10 ask the station master to put
on an extra carriage solely for me to hide
| my bushes In.