Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/452

394 clumsy, heavy, creaking, groaning vehicles take weeks to pass over the distance that would be crossed in a day by the rail-car. In nothing is India more deficient than in means of intercourse. With the exception of a few main lines, the roads are mere tracks through sandy plains or over rocks and hills. It is not to be wondered at, that, with such roads, such cattle, such carts, and such easiness of disposition, the Hindu bandy-man should not be a swift courier. They are greatly outstripped by the coolies, who with boxes on their heads, weighing sixty pounds, travel twenty miles or more a day, often for distances of many hundred miles.

Fifteen miles from Arcot brought us to Vellore, a town used as a station for British troops, well fortified, and, for many generations past, a stronghold of the chieftains of Southern India. About the fort is a deep ditch filled with water from the Palar River, and inhabited by many alligators. These scaly monsters serve as a complete guard; for no one dares to venture through the moat, lest he should find himself in their capacious and well-armed jaws.

Vellore is famous for a most fearful tragedy which was here enacted less than fifty years