Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/97

Rh from his lonely path at night. Apart from all, as far as may be in such a crowd, walks the old Brahmin, followed by his two gray-haired wives.

With this varied stream of foot-passengers comes as varied a crowd of vehicles. English officers of rank roll along in their barouches, with coachman and footman, and a groom running beside each horse. Ladies loll back in their phætons, while their horsekeepers, running before, clear the road with loud cries of “Poh! poh! Appaley poh!” (go! go! away! away!) or help out of the way those who are too careless or too surly to give place soon enough to the splendid English trotters of their mistress. People of less pretension drive past in buggies and palankeen coaches with a single horse, and its constant attendant, the syce, or running groom. Here comes a strange pyramidal affair drawn by two white bullocks; it is a native bandy, with its Hindu occupant sitting crosslegged upon the floor, and the driver at his feet urging on the bullocks by cries and kicks and pokes of his whip-handle, ever and anon bestowing an excruciating twist of the tail upon the more stubborn of the pair. After it comes another bandy, closely covered, with the eyes, and jewelled noses of Hindu wives and mothers Rh