CHAPTER XVII.

DARJEELING.

DARJEELING, INDIA, Jan. 4, 1890.

At 4 P.M. yesterday we left Calcutta, passing through the city, which was everywhere decorated for Prince Victor, who will be a king of England, if he lives, and who was to arrive at the same hour we left. We took possession of the car engaged for us, and I noticed that the next one was engaged by two Indian princes, their names being on the car. Presently they appeared, handsomely dressed in long colored robes and turbans, and soon after there arrived two palanquins carried by coolies, and completely shut up, containing their wives. They held up a carpet screen to prevent outsiders from getting a look at the women, but I caught sight of two figures, completely covered from head to foot with white garments, getting out of the palanquin into the car. The car-blinds were instantly drawn down. I was much interested, it being my first look at Mohammedan women.

After a tolerable night's sleep in the car we crossed the Ganges on a ferry-boat, and then took a narrow-gauge, two-feet-wide railroad, called the Darjeeling and Himalaya, which is perhaps one of the greatest feats of engineering skill in the world. It is run mainly on a cart-road previously built, and cost only fifteen thousand dollars per mile, and is fifty miles long.

We passed through a flat country for some miles, and then commenced to go up, around, through, and over mountains with terrible-looking precipices, now on one hand and now on the other. It has been a bright and splendid day, one in a hundred they tell us. We were in an observation car, and we consequently could see every thing to the best advantage. Elephants were at work in the fields on the plains, and immense tea plantations lined the hills and mountains.

At 4 P.M. we reached our destination, 7,400 feet high and looked upon the mighty Himalayas, four ranges rising each one above the other, the two highest covered with snow, and the one most remote appearing to be fifty miles off, one of the peaks of which is the famous Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The atmosphere was exceptionally clear, and the panorama spread before us was magnificent, and would require the poetical pen of Bayard Taylor to do it any thing like justice. We were soon in our rooms at an excellent hotel, which had been engaged as usual. Mine had an open coal-fire and a man soon brought a delicious cup of tea and some toast which were very welcome. I could hear the jackals crying in the near woods. The country is thickly populated and highly cultivated, the people bright and smart but clothed in rags and looking very poor, beggars being everywhere. Darjeeling is the sanitarium of Bengal. There are several hotels, and numerous fine dwellings scattered along on the mountain sides, and far up there are large barracks and hospitals for soldiers. We remained two days, and on the morning of the second day Mr. Kolish, Mr. Jackson, and I became ambitious to see Mount Everest from a nearer point of view and in all its glory, so we were called at 5 A.M. On getting out I found my two friends mounted, but the ugly beast waiting for me did not approve of the excursion, and first tried to kick me, and then to bite, but I finally mounted and succeeded in making him understand that he had better mind me. Away we went, up the steep but excellent roads for an eight-mile trip to the top of one of the mountains. My horse proved a good roadster, sometimes trotting and then galloping, and in one and a half hours we reached our destination, and looked upon a great range of snow-covered mountains; Everest, the monarch of all, was among them, but much to our disappointment, clouds settled about the tops of the range and we did not see the greatest mountain in the world.

We stopped there an hour or so and took our fill of the grand sight, and then rode down the mountain at the same fast pace we had come up, for the train left at ten and we had none too much time. On our way down we met a Chinese marriage procession. They were making an awful din with tomtoms and drums, and a great show with banners and flags, which scared my horse, but the good-natured Chinese stopped their noise and we galloped on, reaching the hotel at nine, having enjoyed a fine morning ride.