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Leaves from a Journal in the East, December, 1899 - November, 1901
Leaves from a Journal in the East December 1899 November 1901 Author:Julia Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOMBAY, GWALIOR, AND THE NORTH WEST. 1900. February 22nd.—After travelling from Madras all night we reached Bombay in the morning at 7.30. At Sholapur yest... more »erday I began to realize what heat during travelling really means ! Owing to a collision between two goods trains we were kept in that " Black Hole " of a station some hours, and had not a friendly fellow-traveller exchanged some ice for my biscuits and potted meat, I don't know how I should have existed. The water in the pipe was scalding, and a linen gown I had hung up was as hot as if it had been before a kitchen fire. I drove straight to Watson's Hotel, and after refusing to inhabit a " prophet's chamber " in the roof offered to me, finally got some hours' rest in a decent room not overlooking the tiles. My first hotel in India does not impress me well, as I had been prepared for many a hiatus in comforts ! However, there is a large verandah both to my room and the dining-room. But one is as much hurried over one's meals as if this country were America, not easy-going India. A really good carriage, in which I could lie back, carried me over to Malabar Hill, from where I got a splendid view over the City and Harbour. The bungalows mostly, however, did not impress me, many of them falling into ruins, with curious coloured glass balls edging garden beds, or on balconies, and always with some name ending in gee or with Vakie. The street crowds are most fascinating, barring some crippled squatters from the famine district I saw near the great square. Here one meets the Arab in his flowing white garments; the Parsee, in his sort of " flycatcher " cap and his frock-coat, with yellow elastic-side boots ; besides Hindus and Mahommedans with every variety of colour in their turbans, and beards dyed red and even dark ...« less