The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1903-12-05
Selett Stnrp.
THE HIDDEN PEARL.
From Calcutta Mail.

From Calcutta Mall
The Grand Trunk road is the main
artery of India 1t runs without break
across the breadth of the land from Kara
Chi to Bombay.
A cyclist who had ridden round the
world on his bicycle once described it as
1900 miles of the finest cycling track on
earth
1t is made of kunkar, kind of stony
growth found on sandy ground and resem-
bling sandstone. When ground fine and
mixed with water, this yields mortar
like substance which gives surface to the
road as hard and smooth as billiard table.
But once this surface is worn through
the kunkar reverts to its native sand.
Hence the centre of the Grand Trunk
road, which is always kept in repair for
light traffic, is like asphalt, while on each
side of this track is broad lane for heavy
country traffic, where the dry sand lies a
foot thick and the broad wheeled OK carts
raise Il pillar of dust as they proceed and
leave trail like the wake of a ship be-
hind them.
On each side of the main track is row
of trees, and on each side of the side track
is vet another row. There are thus four
rows of trees in all to shield the wayfarers
from the intolerable heat and glare of the
vertical sun.
Along this great highway the many
sided life of India flows and eddies. 1t is
peopled almost entirely by the natives in
their dirty cotton clothing, with bare brown
legs showing beneath.
The sahib keeps to his iron railroad and
leaves the people of the country to their
prehistoric slow moving rate OF progress.
Here and there the crimson garments of
the lower class women and the different
hued trousers of the Mohammedan women
in special, make splash Of color amid the
crowd of white -robed pilgrims.
There goes the graceful figure of "a wo-
man. straight as dart beneath her brass
fotah of water. Better, however, not to
look at her face; very few of the Indian
peasant woman have any beauty Of feature,
and the hard labor of work in the fields
under an Eastern sun leaves them old and
shriveIed up before their time.
Here comes native lady in burka,
and you could not look upon her features
| if YOU would. The burka is long, shape
less garment of unbleached calico, which
completely envelops the figure from the
crown of the head to the feet; it has a
lacework mask for the face, through which
only the eyes are visible. 1t is astonish-
ing how seldom this or any other native
raiment seems to get washed.
A herd of goats struggle untended down
the highway. Farther along some i'm
mese cattle with branching horns block the
traffic. A fast trotting little bullock of the
hump backed breed, harnessed to an ekka,
bumps merrily along the centre of the road.
A boy flying kite cannons into the
passersby. Two professional singers, sur
rounded by small crowd of women and
children, stand under branching pipal
tree, opening and shutting their mouths
alternately as they give vent to a monoto-
nous chant.
A fakir stalks by, clothed only in loin
cloth, with long matted hair and his head
and body covered with ashes, withered
arm held straight in front of him. Look
at those Pathan soldiers with their baggy
white breeches and huge black puggaris,
staggering through the crowd with the
contempt of the warrior for the country
pumpkin.
Along the portion of the Grand Trunk
which lies between Allahabad and Benares,
one day in late September two Englishmen
were strolling at their ease. It was just
at the change of the seasons when there
was still some bite in the sun in the day.
time, and it was not too cold to sleep In