Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (top novels to read TXT) 📖

could not realise

that he was actually crossing India in a railway train.

The locomotive, guided by an English engineer and fed with English

coal, threw out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg, clove,

and pepper plantations, while the steam curled in spirals around

groups of palm-trees, in the midst of which were seen picturesque

bungalows, viharis (sort of abandoned monasteries), and marvellous

temples enriched by the exhaustless ornamentation of Indian architecture.

Then they came upon vast tracts extending to the horizon, with jungles

inhabited by snakes and tigers, which fled at the noise of the train;

succeeded by forests penetrated by the railway, and still haunted

by elephants which, with pensive eyes, gazed at the train as it passed.

The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often

stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali. Not far off

rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad,

capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the

detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts

that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway.

These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age

in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was

a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over

without corpses being found in every direction. The English Government

has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees

still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites.

 

At half-past twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where

Passepartout was able to purchase some Indian slippers,

ornamented with false pearls, in which, with evident vanity,

he proceeded to encase his feet. The travellers made a hasty breakfast

and started off for Assurghur, after skirting for a little the banks

of the small river Tapty, which empties into the Gulf of Cambray, near Surat.

 

Passepartout was now plunged into absorbing reverie. Up to

his arrival at Bombay, he had entertained hopes that their journey

would end there; but, now that they were plainly whirling across

India at full speed, a sudden change had come over the spirit of

his dreams. His old vagabond nature returned to him; the fantastic

ideas of his youth once more took possession of him. He came to regard

his master’s project as intended in good earnest, believed in the reality

of the bet, and therefore in the tour of the world and the necessity

of making it without fail within the designated period. Already he began

to worry about possible delays, and accidents which might happen on the way.

He recognised himself as being personally interested in the wager,

and trembled at the thought that he might have been the means of losing it

by his unpardonable folly of the night before. Being much less cool-headed

than Mr. Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and recounting the

days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped,

and accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally blaming Mr. Fogg

for not having bribed the engineer. The worthy fellow was ignorant that,

while it was possible by such means to hasten the rate of a steamer,

it could not be done on the railway.

 

The train entered the defiles of the Sutpour Mountains, which separate

the Khandeish from Bundelcund, towards evening. The next day Sir Francis

Cromarty asked Passepartout what time it was; to which, on consulting

his watch, he replied that it was three in the morning. This famous timepiece,

always regulated on the Greenwich meridian, which was now some seventy-seven

degrees westward, was at least four hours slow. Sir Francis corrected

Passepartout’s time, whereupon the latter made the same remark that he had

done to Fix; and upon the general insisting that the watch should be

regulated in each new meridian, since he was constantly going eastward,

that is in the face of the sun, and therefore the days were shorter

by four minutes for each degree gone over, Passepartout obstinately refused

to alter his watch, which he kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion

which could harm no one.

 

The train stopped, at eight o’clock, in the midst of a glade some

fifteen miles beyond Rothal, where there were several bungalows,

and workmen’s cabins. The conductor, passing along the carriages,

shouted, “Passengers will get out here!”

 

Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty for an explanation;

but the general could not tell what meant a halt in the midst

of this forest of dates and acacias.

 

Passepartout, not less surprised, rushed out and speedily returned, crying:

“Monsieur, no more railway!”

 

“What do you mean?” asked Sir Francis.

 

“I mean to say that the train isn’t going on.”

 

The general at once stepped out, while Phileas Fogg calmly followed him,

and they proceeded together to the conductor.

 

“Where are we?” asked Sir Francis.

 

“At the hamlet of Kholby.”

 

“Do we stop here?”

 

“Certainly. The railway isn’t finished.”

 

“What! not finished?”

 

“No. There’s still a matter of fifty miles to be laid

from here to Allahabad, where the line begins again.”

 

“But the papers announced the opening of the railway throughout.”

 

“What would you have, officer? The papers were mistaken.”

 

“Yet you sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta,” retorted Sir Francis,

who was growing warm.

 

“No doubt,” replied the conductor; “but the passengers know

that they must provide means of transportation for themselves

from Kholby to Allahabad.”

 

Sir Francis was furious. Passepartout would willingly have knocked

the conductor down, and did not dare to look at his master.

 

“Sir Francis,” said Mr. Fogg quietly, “we will, if you please,

look about for some means of conveyance to Allahabad.”

 

“Mr. Fogg, this is a delay greatly to your disadvantage.”

 

“No, Sir Francis; it was foreseen.”

 

“What! You knew that the way—”

 

“Not at all; but I knew that some obstacle or other would sooner or later

arise on my route. Nothing, therefore, is lost. I have two days,

which I have already gained, to sacrifice. A steamer leaves Calcutta

for Hong Kong at noon, on the 25th. This is the 22nd, and we shall

reach Calcutta in time.”

 

There was nothing to say to so confident a response.

 

It was but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point.

The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast,

and had been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line.

The greater part of the travellers were aware of this interruption, and,

leaving the train, they began to engage such vehicles as the village

could provide four-wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by zebus,

carriages that looked like perambulating pagodas, palanquins, ponies,

and what not.

 

Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the village

from end to end, came back without having found anything.

 

“I shall go afoot,” said Phileas Fogg.

 

Passepartout, who had now rejoined his master, made a wry grimace,

as he thought of his magnificent, but too frail Indian shoes.

Happily he too had been looking about him, and, after a moment’s hesitation,

said, “Monsieur, I think I have found a means of conveyance.”

 

“What?”

 

“An elephant! An elephant that belongs to an Indian who lives

but a hundred steps from here.”

 

“Let’s go and see the elephant,” replied Mr. Fogg.

 

They soon reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within

some high palings, was the animal in question. An Indian came

out of the hut, and, at their request, conducted them within

the enclosure. The elephant, which its owner had reared, not for

a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated.

The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding

him every three months on sugar and butter, to impart to him

a ferocity not in his nature, this method being often employed

by those who train the Indian elephants for battle. Happily,

however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal’s instruction in this direction

had not gone far, and the elephant still preserved his natural

gentleness. Kiouni—this was the name of the beast—could

doubtless travel rapidly for a long time, and, in default of

any other means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him.

But elephants are far from cheap in India, where they are becoming

scarce, the males, which alone are suitable for circus shows,

are much sought, especially as but few of them are domesticated.

When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to hire Kiouni,

he refused point-blank. Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive

sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of the beast to Allahabad.

Refused. Twenty pounds? Refused also. Forty pounds? Still refused.

Passepartout jumped at each advance; but the Indian declined to be tempted.

Yet the offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant

fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than

six hundred pounds sterling.

 

Phileas Fogg, without getting in the least flurried, then proposed

to purchase the animal outright, and at first offered a thousand pounds

for him. The Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain,

still refused.

 

Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect

before he went any further; to which that gentleman replied that

he was not in the habit of acting rashly, that a bet of twenty thousand

pounds was at stake, that the elephant was absolutely necessary to him,

and that he would secure him if he had to pay twenty times his value.

Returning to the Indian, whose small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice,

betrayed that with him it was only a question of how great a price

he could obtain. Mr. Fogg offered first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred,

eighteen hundred, two thousand pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund,

was fairly white with suspense.

 

At two thousand pounds the Indian yielded.

 

“What a price, good heavens!” cried Passepartout, “for an elephant.

 

It only remained now to find a guide, which was comparatively easy.

A young Parsee, with an intelligent face, offered his services,

which Mr. Fogg accepted, promising so generous a reward as to materially

stimulate his zeal. The elephant was led out and equipped. The Parsee,

who was an accomplished elephant driver, covered his back with a sort

of saddle-cloth, and attached to each of his flanks some curiously

uncomfortable howdahs. Phileas Fogg paid the Indian with some banknotes

which he extracted from the famous carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed

to deprive poor Passepartout of his vitals. Then he offered to carry

Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier gratefully accepted,

as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue the

gigantic beast. Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and,

while Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg took the howdahs on either side,

Passepartout got astride the saddle-cloth between them.

The Parsee perched himself on the elephant’s neck, and at nine o’clock

they set out from the village, the animal marching off through the

dense forest of palms by the shortest cut.