Begums, Thugs and White Mughals by Fanny Parkes

Author:Fanny Parkes [Fanny Parkes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780600192
Publisher: Eland Publishing
Published: 2012-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIX

PILGRIMAGE TO THE TĀJ

HE WHO HAS NOT PATIENCE POSSESSES NOT PHILOSOPHY

WHETHER DOING, SUFFERING, OR FORBEARING, YOU MAY DO MIRACLES BY PERSEVERING

JANUARY 10TH 1835 – Ours is the slowest possible progress; the wind seems engaged to meet us at every turn of our route. At three o’clock we lugoed at Etawah; while I was admiring the ghāts, to my great delight a handful of letters and parcels of many kinds were brought to me. In the evening, the chaprāsī in charge of my riding horses, with the sā’ises and grass-cutters who had marched from Allahabad to meet me, arrived at the ghāt. The grey neighed furiously as if in welcome; how glad I was to see them!

In a minute I was on the little black horse; away we went, the black so glad to have a canter, the memsāhib so happy to give him one: through deep ravines, over a road through the dry bed of a torrent, up steep cliffs; away we went like creatures possessed; the horse and rider were a happy pair. After a canter of about four miles it became dark, or rather moonlight, and I turned my horse towards the river, guided by the sight of a great cliff, some one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high, beneath which we had anchored. I lost my way, but turned down a bridle road in the bed of a ravine, which of course led somewhere to the river. I rode under a cliff so high and overhanging I felt afraid to speak; at last we got out of the cold and dark ravine and came directly upon the pinnace. I had met, during my ride, two gentlemen in a buggy; one of them, after having arrived at his own house, returned to look for me, thinking I might turn down by mistake the very road I had gone, which at night was very unsafe on account of the wolves; but he did not overtake me.

The next morning he called on me and brought me a letter from a relative; therefore we were soon acquainted and agreed to have a canter when the sun should go down. He told me, on his way down the police had brought him a basket, containing half the mangled body of a child; the wolves had seized the poor child and had devoured the other half the night before, in the ravines. It was fortunate I did not encounter a gang of them under the dark cliff, where the black horse could scarcely pick his way over the stones.

January 11th – I rode with Mr G— through the ravines and the Civil Station, and saw many beautiful and picturesque spots. We returned to the pinnace; he came on board and we had a long conference. It was not to be marvelled at that the memsāhib talked a great deal, when it is considered she had not spoken one word of English for thirty-three days; then she did talk! – ye

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