Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/108

92 EN ROUTE TO AHMEDABAD.

the 1st of April 1878 we left for Ahmedabad. The poor famine-stricken people came to us in crowds wherever the train stopped, looking more like apparitions than beings in flesh and blood. About Dákore, Umreth, and other adjoining places, the distress seems to have been very severe and general. Still the prospect that lay before the eye was pleasanter than we had hitherto seen.

In the carriage we occupied were a Vakil and a philosophic Shrawak. The Vakil had an opera-glass, which he seemed to mistake for a telescope. He said he espied Ahmedabad through it at the distance of about 60 miles. This the Shrawak said he could not see. Whilst these two were wrangling, the train stopped at an intermediate station, and in came a Hindu