The record-union., 1899-07-21
RAILWAYS IN INDIA.
Cheap Prices and Primitive Ac-
commodatious.

commodations.
& The native has taken up with enthu.
siasm the recreation of railway travel
ing, and the Indian railways are ac,
cordingly admirable They lack only
one point of excellence, and that is ex-
actly what the European wants and
the native does not-speed. The white
man is often in hurry, the native
never; the Indian train strolls accord
ingly at decorous twenty miles an
hour The sahib may get. impatient.
but it is lightning to people whose ma
t1onal conveyance is a bullock cart.
The native troubles himself nothing
about time tables; he goes to the sta
ton before sunrise and sits down tih
the train comes. And the amount Of
native traffic is neutrality-suspicious.
ing even though it costs him about a
farthing a mile. The station yard and
the road beyond are fair by day and
a doss house by night; at the opening
of thesgates the roaring, jabbering plat.
form recalls the breaking of the crowd
when the Lord Mayors show has gone
by. The third class carriages are even
as crates of fowls; some stand on this
seats, some lie on the floor. You see
only a jungle of heads and legs and
arms projected out of nowhere; at
night the compartment is a heap of
sack colored bundles, that might indif'
ferently be men or mail bags.
Your own Indian railway carriage ia
not unlike the Indian house. 1t has
space and all indispensables for exist,
ing in bad climate. but little of finish
or establishment. In Europe the sleep
in ypoin ho n in,
India, where often the very drawing
room is but halting place in a per-
petual journey, sleeping car is merely
car you can very we'll sleep in. To 1t,
| as everywhere in India, you bring you,
own bedding and your own servant to
lay it out. You take your meals at
stations by the way; if there is no re-
freshment room at the right time and
place, you bring your food with you.
The European train is like hotel; thu
Indian like camp. Your servant piles
in your canvas bundle of bedding, your
battered dressing case, your hat box
your dispatch box, your topi, your
stick, your flask, your tfffin 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 sumptu,
ously caparisoned, but it is workman.
| like to the uttermost hat peg On the
| meter gauge lines you are a little
cramped at night inevitably; 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 boarding
hang from the carriage roof to midway
down the window; these stall off some
| Of the dust, while most of the win,
dows are smoked to cool off the glare.
| Ice can be had at important stationa
during the hot months Another vast
convenience is the railway waiting
room, in one of which, on the North
western Railway, I am at this moment
concluding this letter. / arrived here
at = o'clock and took cup of tea; while
I drank that a shave and hot bath
were preparing in the waiting room.
while / took those breakfast was cook
! ing in the kitchen. I went forth and
did what l came here for; now, having
an hour to spare, 1 minister to your
mind at a better chair and table and
room altogether than, I doubt, you will
find in any hotel in India.
In short, your Briton is not at all this
conservative creature that at home he
would make himself out. Put him down
where he has more or less OF clear
field, and he will adapt and invent and
contrive and relieve the usefully ngly
with the best of them. The small con
venience, for example, of carriages col
ored according to their class, now tim
idly nibbled at in England, has long
been familiar to India; first class is
white second dark green, third native
color. Only one fault can 1 think of
in the regulations for Indian travel:
there are no carriages reserved foi
men. Consequently ladies enter in with
their husbands. which at bed time
brings embarrassments. Once I have
actually had to ask the station mas
ter to put on an extra carriage solely
for me to hide my bushes inc. w,
Stevens in the London Mail.