Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Chapter XI In Which Phileas Fogg Secures A Curious
Means Of Conveyance At A Fabulous Price
The train had started punctually. Among the passengers were a number of
officers, Government officials, and *** and indigo merchants, whose business called
them to the eastern coast.
Passepartout rode in the same carriage with his master, and a third passenger occupied
a seat opposite to them.
This was Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr. Fogg's whist partners on the Mongolia, now
on his way to join his corps at Benares.
Sir Francis was a tall, fair man of fifty, who had greatly distinguished himself in
the last Sepoy revolt.
He made India his home, only paying brief visits to England at rare intervals; and
was almost as familiar as a native with the customs, history, and character of India
and its people.
But Phileas Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took
no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing an orbit
around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics.
He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of hours spent since his
departure from London, and, had it been in his nature to make a useless demonstration,
would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction.
Sir Francis Cromarty had observed the oddity of his travelling companion--
although the only opportunity he had for studying him had been while he was dealing
the cards, and between two rubbers--and
questioned himself whether a human heart really beat beneath this cold exterior, and
whether Phileas Fogg had any sense of the beauties of nature.
The brigadier-general was free to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons
he had ever met, none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences.
Phileas Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis his design of going round the
world, nor the circumstances under which he set out; and the general only saw in the
wager a useless eccentricity and a lack of sound common sense.
In the way this strange gentleman was going on, he would leave the world without having
done any good to himself or anybody else.
An hour after leaving Bombay the train had passed the viaducts and the Island of
Salcette, and had got into the open country.
At Callyan they reached the junction of the branch line which descends towards south-
eastern India by Kandallah and Pounah; and, passing Pauwell, they entered the defiles
of the mountains, with their basalt bases,
and their summits crowned with thick and verdant forests.
Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty exchanged a few words from time to time,
and now Sir Francis, reviving the conversation, observed, "Some years ago,
Mr. Fogg, you would have met with a delay
at this point which would probably have lost you your wager."
"How so, Sir Francis?"
"Because the railway stopped at the base of these mountains, which the passengers were
obliged to cross in palanquins or on ponies to Kandallah, on the other side."
"Such a delay would not have deranged my plans in the least," said Mr. Fogg.
"I have constantly foreseen the likelihood of certain obstacles."
"But, Mr. Fogg," pursued Sir Francis, "you run the risk of having some difficulty
about this worthy fellow's adventure at the pagoda."
Passepartout, his feet comfortably wrapped in his travelling-blanket, was sound asleep
and did not dream that anybody was talking about him.
"The Government is very severe upon that kind of offence.
It takes particular care that the religious customs of the Indians should be respected,
and if your servant were caught--"
"Very well, Sir Francis," replied Mr. Fogg; "if he had been caught he would have been
condemned and punished, and then would have quietly returned to Europe.
I don't see how this affair could have delayed his master."
The conversation fell again.
During the night the train left the mountains behind, and passed Nassik, and
the next day proceeded over the flat, well- cultivated country of the Khandeish, with
its straggling villages, above which rose the minarets of the pagodas.
This fertile territory is watered by numerous small rivers and limpid streams,
mostly tributaries of the Godavery.
Passepartout, on waking and looking out, could not realise that he was actually
crossing India in a railway train.
The locomotive, guided by an English engineer and fed with English coal, threw
out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg, clove, and pepper plantations, while the
steam curled in spirals around groups of
palm-trees, in the midst of which were seen picturesque bungalows, viharis (sort of
abandoned monasteries), and marvellous temples enriched by the exhaustless
ornamentation of Indian architecture.
Then they came upon vast tracts extending to the horizon, with jungles inhabited by
snakes and tigers, which fled at the noise of the train; succeeded by forests
penetrated by the railway, and still
haunted by elephants which, with pensive eyes, gazed at the train as it passed.
The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often stained with
blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali.
Not far off rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad, capital
of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the detached provinces of
the kingdom of the Nizam.
It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held
his sway.
These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of
the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when this part of
the country could scarcely be travelled
over without corpses being found in every direction.
The English Government has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though
the Thuggees still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites.
At half-past twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where Passepartout was able to
purchase some Indian slippers, ornamented with false pearls, in which, with evident
vanity, he proceeded to encase his feet.
The travellers made a hasty breakfast and started off for Assurghur, after skirting
for a little the banks of the small river Tapty, which empties into the Gulf of
Cambray, near Surat.
Passepartout was now plunged into absorbing reverie.
Up to his arrival at Bombay, he had entertained hopes that their journey would
end there; but, now that they were plainly whirling across India at full speed, a
sudden change had come over the spirit of his dreams.
His old vagabond nature returned to him; the fantastic ideas of his youth once more
took possession of him.
He came to regard his master's project as intended in good earnest, believed in the
reality of the bet, and therefore in the tour of the world and the necessity of
making it without fail within the designated period.
Already he began to worry about possible delays, and accidents which might happen on
the way.
He recognised himself as being personally interested in the wager, and trembled at
the thought that he might have been the means of losing it by his unpardonable
folly of the night before.
Being much less cool-headed than Mr. Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and
recounting the days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped, and
accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally
blaming Mr. Fogg for not having bribed the engineer.
The worthy fellow was ignorant that, while it was possible by such means to hasten the
rate of a steamer, it could not be done on the railway.
The train entered the defiles of the Sutpour Mountains, which separate the
Khandeish from Bundelcund, towards evening.
The next day Sir Francis Cromarty asked Passepartout what time it was; to which, on
consulting his watch, he replied that it was three in the morning.
This famous timepiece, always regulated on the Greenwich meridian, which was now some
seventy-seven degrees westward, was at least four hours slow.
Sir Francis corrected Passepartout's time, whereupon the latter made the same remark
that he had done to Fix; and upon the general insisting that the watch should be
regulated in each new meridian, since he
was constantly going eastward, that is in the face of the sun, and therefore the days
were shorter by four minutes for each degree gone over, Passepartout obstinately
refused to alter his watch, which he kept at London time.
It was an innocent delusion which could harm no one.
The train stopped, at eight o'clock, in the midst of a glade some fifteen miles beyond
Rothal, where there were several bungalows, and workmen's cabins.
The conductor, passing along the carriages, shouted, "Passengers will get out here!"
Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty for an explanation; but the general could
not tell what meant a halt in the midst of this forest of dates and acacias.
Passepartout, not less surprised, rushed out and speedily returned, crying:
"Monsieur, no more railway!" "What do you mean?" asked Sir Francis.
"I mean to say that the train isn't going on."
The general at once stepped out, while Phileas Fogg calmly followed him, and they
proceeded together to the conductor.
"Where are we?" asked Sir Francis. "At the hamlet of Kholby."
"Do we stop here?" "Certainly.
The railway isn't finished."
"What! not finished?" "No. There's still a matter of fifty miles
to be laid from here to Allahabad, where the line begins again."
"But the papers announced the opening of the railway throughout."
"What would you have, officer? The papers were mistaken."
"Yet you sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta," retorted Sir Francis, who was
growing warm.
"No doubt," replied the conductor; "but the passengers know that they must provide
means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad."
Sir Francis was furious.
Passepartout would willingly have knocked the conductor down, and did not dare to
look at his master.
"Sir Francis," said Mr. Fogg quietly, "we will, if you please, look about for some
means of conveyance to Allahabad." "Mr. Fogg, this is a delay greatly to your
disadvantage."
"No, Sir Francis; it was foreseen." "What!
You knew that the way--"
"Not at all; but I knew that some obstacle or other would sooner or later arise on my
route. Nothing, therefore, is lost.
I have two days, which I have already gained, to sacrifice.
A steamer leaves Calcutta for Hong Kong at noon, on the 25th.
This is the 22nd, and we shall reach Calcutta in time."
There was nothing to say to so confident a response.
It was but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point.
The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and had
been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line.
The greater part of the travellers were aware of this interruption, and, leaving
the train, they began to engage such vehicles as the village could provide four-
wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by
zebus, carriages that looked like perambulating pagodas, palanquins, ponies,
and what not.
Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the village from end to end, came
back without having found anything. "I shall go afoot," said Phileas Fogg.
Passepartout, who had now rejoined his master, made a wry grimace, as he thought
of his magnificent, but too frail Indian shoes.
Happily he too had been looking about him, and, after a moment's hesitation, said,
"Monsieur, I think I have found a means of conveyance."
"What?"
"An elephant! An elephant that belongs to an Indian who
lives but a hundred steps from here." "Let's go and see the elephant," replied
Mr. Fogg.
They soon reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within some high palings, was the
animal in question.
An Indian came out of the hut, and, at their request, conducted them within the
enclosure.
The elephant, which its owner had reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike
purposes, was half domesticated.
The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding him every three
months on sugar and butter, to impart to him a ferocity not in his nature, this
method being often employed by those who train the Indian elephants for battle.
Happily, however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal's instruction in this direction had
not gone far, and the elephant still preserved his natural gentleness.
Kiouni--this was the name of the beast-- could doubtless travel rapidly for a long
time, and, in default of any other means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him.
But elephants are far from cheap in India, where they are becoming scarce, the males,
which alone are suitable for circus shows, are much sought, especially as but few of
them are domesticated.
When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to hire Kiouni, he refused point-
blank.
Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of
the beast to Allahabad. Refused.
Twenty pounds?
Refused also. Forty pounds?
Still refused. Passepartout jumped at each advance; but
the Indian declined to be tempted.
Yet the offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant fifteen
hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than six hundred pounds
sterling.
Phileas Fogg, without getting in the least flurried, then proposed to purchase the
animal outright, and at first offered a thousand pounds for him.
The Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain, still refused.
Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect before he went
any further; to which that gentleman replied that he was not in the habit of
acting rashly, that a bet of twenty
thousand pounds was at stake, that the elephant was absolutely necessary to him,
and that he would secure him if he had to pay twenty times his value.
Returning to the Indian, whose small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice, betrayed
that with him it was only a question of how great a price he could obtain.
Mr. Fogg offered first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two
thousand pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund, was
fairly white with suspense.
At two thousand pounds the Indian yielded. "What a price, good heavens!" cried
Passepartout, "for an elephant." It only remained now to find a guide, which
was comparatively easy.
A young Parsee, with an intelligent face, offered his services, which Mr. Fogg
accepted, promising so generous a reward as to materially stimulate his zeal.
The elephant was led out and equipped.
The Parsee, who was an accomplished elephant driver, covered his back with a
sort of saddle-cloth, and attached to each of his flanks some curiously uncomfortable
howdahs.
Phileas Fogg paid the Indian with some banknotes which he extracted from the
famous carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed to deprive poor Passepartout of his vitals.
Then he offered to carry Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier gratefully
accepted, as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue the gigantic
beast.
Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and, while Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg took the
howdahs on either side, Passepartout got astride the saddle-cloth between them.
The Parsee perched himself on the elephant's neck, and at nine o'clock they
set out from the village, the animal marching off through the dense forest of
palms by the shortest cut.