Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/179

 the old fashicnod swoepa, or where bullecks are drawing water fo be poured by hand upon the fields are everywhere to be geen. Bice, tobaceo, castor oil-besne, and poppies are tha principal erops. The poppy is cul- tivated undor the immediate supervision of the Government authorities, whotake the crop at a fixed price and menofacture it into opium. This mosepoly yields a year- ly income to the Indian Government of seven million pounds sterling. The boriztn is fringed with palms, and over there bread prairics the mango trees are reattered like the ozks in an Koglish park. An occa- sions! glimpse of the Ganges calls up no enthusiagm. Itisnewthe dry eesson and the Sacred River is very low, with broad, sandy bauka. The current is as rapid as the Missouri, snd the water of the same dingy, yellow color. The railway is fenced with erctus hedged ard its showy yellow blossems form @ bright featura in the iand- scape.

The natives have very little ides of time: tables and depariure hours. They walk down to the stations and there sit on the piatforma smoking their hookahs, waiting patiently for the train to arrive whether it is ns hour or ten. But when they hear the train coming they loose all self-control and rush Jiks a flack of sheep crowding and jamming, with an uproar that eounds like a Babel of tongues, towerds the peus prc— vided for them, 29 if for denr life, where they are alowed away like tightly-packed herrings. Here once seated the hubbub aubzides, and they whiff at their habbie- bubblesia stolid indifferenco,and never com- plain to the guard st being behind time. Por the convenienca of this class of travsi- erg, from, whor the chief income of the company ia derived, the stations are very close together, and as tho trating ston at every atation tho rate cf epeed rarely exccads twenty miles an honr. Nearly al! the rail- wey employees are natives, and the ticket slerks and beok-keepers are usually balf- castes, Who speak English ag well 38 Hin- doostanio, They are addressed as Baboos, a title of honor, and feel lufinitely above their ustive brethren. ‘They are very civil to EBurepeans, bus the way they kick and euif the natives is an illustration of the effect of “a little briof authority”-—the same all the world over.

During the night the innumerable stopping places with unpronouncable [sic] names disturbed many a comfortable “forty winks,”