Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/57

Rh With the remoteness and seeming isolation among the black faces one has no fear or concern in these Hindu communities, trusting implicitly to that safety and order guaranteed one wherever the British flag floats and Kaiser-i-Hind's initial letters grace official property. Else, when we stepped out on the lonely platform at Chidambram that rainy midnight, we would have thought twice before picking our way through sleeping pilgrims in the open waiting-room, and stowing ourselves away with every joint bent in a tiny box of a native cart, or "lie-down-bandy," for the ride into unknown blackness beyond. Daniel compressed himself with David and the larger luggage bundles into another small box on wheels, and the ponies spattered down a muddy road in the black shadows of overarching trees. Our driver had no turban, his hair was long and snaky, and the jerky motion of the bandy, and the driver's frequent flights out over the shafts to lead the pony by the bridle over bridges and around corners, sent those locks rippling down his back—and my back, too, as I sat hatless, crouched flat on the bandy floor behind him. After what seemed a long race through the reek and blackness, past sodden fields and through dreary mud hamlets, we came in under the shadows of the great trees surrounding the dak bangla.

With the abrupt reining up we slid out, or fell out, of the bandbox of a bandy, and our cramped members slowly jointed out straight again. Knocks, thumps, and calls brought no response from two front doors, and there was an uncanny quarter-hour of waiting before the swaying lantern of Daniel and