A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil | Page 9

limiting the number
of firearms or getting a friend to father the extra ones through the

Customs--a perfectly simple matter had one foreseen the difficulty.
Also the danger of taking parcels for friends--of which more anon![1]
The Devon Place Hotel may be the best in Karachi, but it is pretty
bad.... I am told that all Indian hotels are bad--still, the breakfast was a
considerable improvement on the _Marie Valerie_, and we sallied forth
as giants refreshed to have a look at Karachi and do a little shopping. It
being Sunday, the banks were closed, but a kindly shopman cashed me
a cheque for twenty pounds in the most confiding manner, and enabled
us to get the few odds and ends we wanted before going up
country--among them a couple of "resais" or quilted cotton wraps and a
sola topee for Jane.
Karachi did not strike us as being a particularly interesting town, but
that may be to a great extent because we did not see the best part of it.
On landing at Kiamari we had only driven along a hot and glaring mole,
bordered by swamps and slimy-looking flats for some two miles. Then,
on reaching the city proper, a dusty road, bordered by somewhat
suburban-looking houses, brought us to the Devon Place Hotel, near the
Frere station. After breakfast we merely drove into the bazaars to shop
before betaking ourselves to the station, in good time for the 6.30 train.
Passengers--at least first-class passengers--were not numerous, and
Major Twining and I had no difficulty in securing two
compartments--one for our wives and one for ourselves.
An Indian first-class carriage is roomy, but bare, being arranged with a
view to heat rather than cold Two long seats run "fore and aft" on either
side, and upon them your servant makes your bed at night. Two upper
berths can be let down in case of a crowd. At the end of each
compartment is a small toilet-room.
It was unexpectedly chilly at night, and Twining and I were glad to roll
ourselves up in as many rugs and "resais" as we could persuade the
ladies to leave to us.
[1] A big deal case which we unpacked at Srinagar proved to contain a
"life-sized" work-table. The package holding our camp beds and

bedding, having a humbler aspect, had been sent to Bombay and cost as
a world of worry and expense to recover!




CHAPTER III
KARACHI TO ABBOTABAD
This morning we awoke to find ourselves rattling and shaking our way
through the Sind Desert--an interminable waste of sand, barren and
thirsty-looking, covered with a patchy scrub of yellowish and
grey-purple bushes.
I can well imagine how hatefully hot it can be here, but to-day it has
been merely pleasantly warm.
Jane and I were deeply interested in the novel scenes we passed
through, which, while new and strange to us, were yet made familiar by
what we had read and heard. The quiet-eyed cattle, with their queer
humps, were just what we expected to see in the dusty landscape. The
chattering crowds in the wayside stations, their bright-coloured
garments flaunting in the white sunlight--the fruit-sellers, the
water-carriers, were all as though they had stepped out of the pages of
_Kim_--that most excellent of Indian stories.
And so all day we rattled and shook through the Sind Desert in the hot
sunlight till the dust lay thick upon us, and our eyes grew tired of
watching the flying landscape.
In the afternoon we reached Samasata junction, where the Twinings
parted company with us, being bound for Faridkot.

Sorry were we to lose such charming companions, especially as now
indeed we become as Babes in the Wood, knowing nothing of the land,
its customs, or its language!
Henceforward, Sabz Ali shall be our sheet-anchor, and I think he will
not fail us. His English is truly remarkable, so much so that I regret to
say I have more than once supposed him to be talking Hindustani when
he was discoursing in my own mother-tongue. But he certainly is
extraordinarily sharp in taking up what I and the "Mem-sahib" say.
He presented to me to-day a remarkable letter, of which the following
is an exact copy. I presume it is a sort of statement as to his general
duties:--
"To the MAGER SAHIB.
"Sir,--I beg to say that General 'Oon Sahib send me to you. He order
me that the arrangement of Mager Sahib do.
"To give pice to porter kuli this is my work. This is usefull to you.
"You give him many pice.
"Your work is order and to do it my work. You give me Rupee at once.
Then I will write it on my book, from which you will see it is right or
wrong. Now I