Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1876 — East Indian Travelers. [ARTICLE]

East Indian Travelers.

Curious to aav, the Datives of all classit, castas and creeds, who, aa a rule, are the most difficult people Id the world to adopt any novelty, have taken to railway traveling as readily as if they bad been boro in u land whew the steam-whistle had been heard for half a centuir. Yu here there is a line of rail the natives now travel by it and by no othcrfoioaps. As a matter of course, even the richest among them select the cheapest mode t»f transit; they would not be Oriental did they do otherwise. The first ami second-ylass traffic is almost abandoned; in fact, the carriages of the latter sre rarely. If ever occupied sav* by European officials, or officers, or oU|en» of the white governing ■class. To save a few rupees even a well Do-do native will always travel third class; and what the third-claas carriages are musS he seen to be believed In the tightest packed compartment of the South western railway on the day of the boat-race there is ease, luxury and comfort. compared to what the third-class carriages in India are, for perhaps hundreds of miles.

As a rule the natives of India, and more particularly the lower classes, have no more idea of time than a negro in tropical Africa has of skating. Thus, for Instance, a native wants to proceed, let us l»y, from Baroda to Surat. He learns that the train will start at ten o’clock in the morning: but to him ten in the morning is like every hoar, except sunrise and sunset—aa unknown quantity. He has, however, nothin* particular to do, and so, determined to be In time, he arrives at the station about six o’clock in the morning. If it is summer time he more than likely arrives an hour or two earlier. He has with him, perhaps, his wife and two or three children to see him off, and to bid him Godspeed on the route; or he is accompanied to the station by a dozen or more neighbors or friends. If he is a rich man these friends may number 30, 40, or 50. Should he be going a considerable distance, say to Bombay, 100 or more of his fellow-townsmen will come to see him depart. And be it remembered that he is by no means a solitary instance of a traveler whose acquaintances come to see him start. There are, perhaps, 300, 500, or 700 going in the same train, and each of these individuals makes, a point of coming to the station three or four hours before the train starts, and is accompanied by a score or more Mends. Of course the}* are not admitted on the platform, or even into the station, so long before the proper time; therefore they sit on their hams outside, chewing sugar-cane, eating sweetmeats, and chattering away to each other like so many overgrown children. The noise, the confusion and the stench -of this assembled multitude can hardly be imagined by those who have not seen a similar assemblage. The patience and good nature exhibited toward them by the English railway officials is not the least surprising part of the whole affair. But the orders from high quarters in this respect are very peremptory. It is the third-class passenger traffic that pays the railway companies ia India -best, and therefore it is the third-class to which almost every tuber traffic has to give way.

Not the' ieast ludicrous of native travelers’ peculiarities is the enormous quantity of luggage* or rather of belongings, that they bring with them. It is no uncommon thing to see a family, consisting of one man. bis wife, and child, take to the railway a large cbarpoy, or native ■bed, a bundle of sugar-sane about a half donkey-load in size,' a dozen or mote copper pots for cooking, a hnge bag-full of rice, an equal quantity of flour, and perhaps twenty or thirty pounds of ghee or clarified butter in which to cook their food. How all this Is packed away, or how, at the journey's end, each traveler gets his own property—for it must be remembered none ol it is marked—are problems difficult, if not impossible, to solve. AS the time for the departure of the trait* draws near, the confusion becomes greater and greater, and achieves its climax when the ticket office is opened. In England, as we all know, the delivery of a passenger ticket barely takes up thirty seconds. The traveler states his destination and the class he wishes to travel by; he pays his money; the clerk clips the ticket in a machine, delivers it over, and the transaction is at an end. But it is veiy different in India. The native vfijrbt- his way to the window. The clerk teils him, let us say, that one rupee six annas is the fare. But the native has all his life been accustomed to have been asked one price and pay another for what he wants. He cannot see why he should not, at any rate, try to cheapen his railway ticket as well as anything else. He first, perhaps, asks wnether he would not take -one rupee two annas. The clerk, as a matter of conrse says no, and not unfre■quently u*es a certain amount of bad language. He then proposes one rupee four annas; and it is only when the policeman outside the ticket-window threatens to put him away altogether that he takes out his monev-hag and pays out the coin as slowly and with as much apparent pain as if some one were drawing his teeth. Nor ■dora the transaction come to an end then. To recoup himself in some alight manner he tries hard lo pass off upon the ticketclerk one or more worthless coins, and, as they are refused, he gesticulates, screams, swears and laments in a most heart-broken manner. But let us not be too hard upon him. His love of money 4s his second nature. He may be a Moslem, a Parsee. a Hindoo or a Jew; a Brahmin, a Kajpote or a Paria; the rupee is his god, and the only god which he worships. Let us imagine four or five hundred natives about to take their departure by the train; and we shall have some faint idea of what a ticketclerk in India has logo through in the performance of Jhis duty. JSut even alien our dusky friend has •got his passenger ticket delivered to him, Ore infliction he entails upon the railway establishment is only half over. He has to go to a IJaooc, or native writer, to have hißiuggaje weighed, registered, and to pay for the excess in weight. If parting with com for his railway ticket brought upon him pains of purgatory, the agontn he has now to go through may be called infernal.,* He is, perhaps, bound for Bombay, and has heard at the bazar that rice and floor are so much a mauud dearer in that town than in his native place. ' He therefore determines to take with him M supply of food for the eight or ten days foe purposes staying at me paisidency. Hat, like many a wiser man, lib reckons *wit wont his host—or rather without the lie will aMm®• w psy uy railWllY, Hesees in a moment that even the small tax be has to pay on these articles will entirely defeat his economical projects. But SEATS from his home, which is, perhaps, miles off. He cannot leave them behind, for SISSSSSiirMLrt to try and save something by cheating the railway clerk. And so, never fora moment seeming to think but wbat he can

heat down the price of the freight, he sets to work to bargain as he did for his railway ticket, but ends by having to pay the (till demand. I The scene inside the railway station about thia time fairly baffles description. Hundred* are fighting and bargaining for their tickets, scores are doing the same for the freight of their baggage. The railway whistles sound, the station bell rings, out ail to no purpose. It is rare, indeed,-except in large presidential towns, that a train ever starts within half an hour of the time advertised. At last, slowly and by degrees, the third-class carriages begin to fill. For every native traveler who goes oo theplatform a dozen or more go to sec him off, m we have already remarked. The platform ia consequently as crowded as if ten trains were about to start. When any native present wants to find a friend, he does not look for him or even call him in a moderate tone of voice, but screams at the utmost power of his lungs, repeating the name of the person sought for again and again. When several seores of persons indulge in this performance, the effect can be imagined.— All the Year Round.