Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/422

 CHAPTER XXIX.

PILGRIMAGE TO THE TĀJ.

"HE WHO HAS NOT PATIENCE POSSESSES NOT PHILOSOPHY ."

"Whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, You may do miracles by persevering."

Etaweh—Moonlight Ride—The Wolves—Bird-catchers—Peacocks—The Bar of Sand—The Good Luck of the Mem Sāhiba—Narangee Ghāt—Betaizor—The Silk-cotton Tree—Fields of the Cotton Plant—The Chakwā Chukwaee—Eloquence of a Dhobee—Aladīnpoor—Noon, or Loon—Modelling in Khuree—Cotton Boats—The Ulāk—Vessels on the River—Plantations of the Castor Oil Plant—Cutting through a Sandbank—First Sight of the Tāj—Porcupines—Bissowna—Quitted the Pinnace—Arrival at Agra.

1835, Jan. 10th.—Ours is the slowest possible progress; the wind seems engaged to meet us at every turn of our route. At 3 P.M. we lugāoed at Etaweh; while I was admiring the ghāts, to my great delight, a handful of letters and parcels of many kinds were brought to me. In the evening, the chaprāsī in charge of my riding horses, with the sā'īses and grass-cutters who had marched from Allahabad to meet me, arrived at the ghāt. The grey neighed furiously, as if in welcome; how glad I was to see them!

In a minute I was on the little black horse; away we went, the black so glad to have a canter, the mem sāhiba so happy to give him one: through deep ravines, over a road through the dry bed of a torrent, up steep cliffs; away we went like creatures