FROM BOMBAY TO ETAWAH. 35 



in India to make all railway journeys in the night, if possible, to 

 avoid the oppressive heat of the day. Leaving Allahabad at 11 p.m., 

 we rolled up in our double blanket and slept comfortably until we 

 reached Cawnpore, at 5 a.m. 



As we neared our destination, we watched the landscape with 

 greedy interest, and the prospect was perfectly satisfactory. The 

 country was a dead level, dry and baked hard, covered with fields 

 of wheat, barley, and dal, with here and there thorny acacias, and 

 little mud villages nestling in clumps of green and shady mango 

 or banyan trees. We saw eight pairs of saras cranes stalking ma- 

 jestically over the open fields, large numbers of ibises, small cranes, 

 herons, and plovers wading in the pools of water along the railway, 

 and a small fox {VuJj^es Bengalends) , standing a hundred yards 

 away, looking at the rushing train with a stare of curiosity. 



At hall-past eight we reached Etawah, an insignificant civil 

 station, with a jDopulation of twenty-seven thousand natives (a 

 town of that size is nothing in India), and eight Europeans, the 

 headquarters of the Lower Ganges Canal Department, containing, 

 besides a dak bungalow, a church, school, jail, and a court presided 

 over by a single assistant magistrate, who is the sole representa- 

 tive of EngHsh power that is allotted to this host of natives. Major 

 Koss and his wife were then twenty miles east of Etawah, tenting 

 and surveying the line of a new irrigation canal, so I took up quar- 

 ters at the dak bungalow, until I could get a boat ready upon the 

 river. 



The dak bungalow is a government institution, common through- 

 out India and Ceylon, which is simply indispensable to the very 

 existence of European travellers. In Southern India it is called a 

 traveller's bungalow, and in Ceylon it becomes a rest house, but 

 its plans and purposes are just the same. A traveller in India 

 cannot start out boldly across the country as we do in America, 

 travel until nightfall, and then demand shelter, food, and fire for a 

 consideration at any farm-house or settler's cabin he may happen 

 upon. Ninety-nine out of a hundred Indian natives would see a 

 white man perish by the roadside before they would take him 

 into any of their houses, even for a night, simply because he has 

 no caste, and therefore is not quite so good as a dog. The travel- 

 ler across country, in India, must reach a dak bungalow or camp 

 in the open fields, for only the largest cities have hotels. 



The dak bungalow is a house built and kept in repair by the 

 Government, usually containing two suites of rooms — dining, bed, 



