Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/251

Rh danger of the jungle to complain, though every movement swung us about till our bones ached.

We were ten hours going those fifteen miles. At last day broke, and our torch-bearer was dismissed. “Hungry and thirsty, our souls fainted in us” indeed. But at last we reached Katgodan, and found the mother and babes all safe. They had slept soundly the whole distance, and at daybreak were laid safely down at the door of the travelers' bungalow. It was twenty-two hours of traveling and exposure since we had tasted food, and when it was served up it was indeed welcome.

Mrs. C. and Miss Y. did not arrive for some hours after my wife, having lost the difference of time on the road in contentions with their bearers, and extra bribing to induce them to go on. On my arrival, one of the first remarks I met was from Miss Y.: “Why, what could have happened to Mrs. Butler's bearers, that they started so cheerfully and arrived here so soon, without giving her the least trouble!” Ah! she knew not, but I knew, there is a God who heareth and answereth prayer! O for a heart to trust him as I ought! The divine interposition in the case will appear all the more manifest when I add that even the “bucksheesh” for which the bearers were at first contending, (and which I was only too willing to pay them,) they started off without staying to ask for or receive; nor did they even require it from Mrs. B., when they safely laid her down at the end of their run. I shall never forget the experience and the mercy of that night in the Terai!

We stopped all night at the bungalow, which was crowded, and the heat was beyond any thing I ever felt before. Major T. had kindly sent down jampans (a kind of arm-chair with a pole on each side, carried by four men) to bring us up the mountain. We began the ascent at three o'clock next morning, having eleven miles to go to reach Nynee Tal. As soon as day broke the view was sublime—something of the Swiss scenery in its appearance, but more majestic. The road (a narrow path) wound round and up one mountain after another, by the brink of precipices and landslips. As we rose the cold increased, till we came to a region