Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XI

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SE­CURES A CU­RI­OUS MEANS OF CON­VEYANCE AT A FAB­ULOUS PRICE

The train had start­ed punc­tu­al­ly. Among the pas­sen­gers were a num­ber of of­fi­cers, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, and opi­um and in­di­go mer­chants, whose busi­ness called them to the east­ern coast. Passep­artout rode in the same car­riage with his mas­ter, and a third pas­sen­ger oc­cu­pied a seat op­po­site to them. This was Sir Fran­cis Cro­mar­ty, one of Mr. Fogg's whist part­ners on the Mon­go­lia, now on his way to join his corps at Benares. Sir Fran­cis was a tall, fair man of fifty, who had great­ly dis­tin­guished him­self in the last Se­poy re­volt. He made In­dia his home, on­ly pay­ing brief vis­its to Eng­land at rare in­ter­vals; and was al­most as fa­mil­iar as a na­tive with the cus­toms, his­to­ry, and char­ac­ter of In­dia and its peo­ple. But Phileas Fogg, who was not trav­el­ling, but on­ly de­scrib­ing a cir­cum­fer­ence, took no pains to in­quire in­to these sub­jects; he was a sol­id body, travers­ing an or­bit around the ter­res­tri­al globe, ac­cord­ing to the laws of ra­tio­nal me­chan­ics. He was at this mo­ment cal­cu­lat­ing in his mind the num­ber of hours spent since his de­par­ture from Lon­don, and, had it been in his na­ture to make a use­less demon­stra­tion, would have rubbed his hands for sat­is­fac­tion. Sir Fran­cis Cro­mar­ty had ob­served the odd­ity of his trav­el­ling com­pan­ion--al­though the on­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty he had for study­ing him had been while he was deal­ing the cards, and be­tween two rub­bers--and ques­tioned him­self whether a hu­man heart re­al­ly beat be­neath this cold ex­te­ri­or, and whether Phileas Fogg had any sense of the beau­ties of na­ture. The brigadier-​gen­er­al was free to men­tal­ly con­fess that, of all the ec­cen­tric per­sons he had ev­er met, none was com­pa­ra­ble to this prod­uct of the ex­act sci­ences.

Phileas Fogg had not con­cealed from Sir Fran­cis his de­sign of go­ing round the world, nor the cir­cum­stances un­der which he set out; and the gen­er­al on­ly saw in the wa­ger a use­less ec­cen­tric­ity and a lack of sound com­mon sense. In the way this strange gen­tle­man was go­ing on, he would leave the world with­out hav­ing done any good to him­self or any­body else.

An hour af­ter leav­ing Bom­bay the train had passed the viaducts and the Is­land of Sal­cette, and had got in­to the open coun­try. At Callyan they reached the junc­tion of the branch line which de­scends to­wards south-​east­ern In­dia by Kan­dal­lah and Pounah; and, pass­ing Pauwell, they en­tered the de­files of the moun­tains, with their basalt bases, and their sum­mits crowned with thick and ver­dant forests. Phileas Fogg and Sir Fran­cis Cro­mar­ty ex­changed a few words from time to time, and now Sir Fran­cis, re­viv­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, ob­served, “Some years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have met with a de­lay at this point which would prob­ably have lost you your wa­ger.”

“How so, Sir Fran­cis?”

“Be­cause the rail­way stopped at the base of these moun­tains, which the pas­sen­gers were obliged to cross in palan­quins or on ponies to Kan­dal­lah, on the oth­er side.”

“Such a de­lay would not have de­ranged my plans in the least,” said Mr. Fogg. “I have con­stant­ly fore­seen the like­li­hood of cer­tain ob­sta­cles.”

“But, Mr. Fogg,” pur­sued Sir Fran­cis, “you run the risk of hav­ing some dif­fi­cul­ty about this wor­thy fel­low's ad­ven­ture at the pago­da.” Passep­artout, his feet com­fort­ably wrapped in his trav­el­ling-​blan­ket, was sound asleep and did not dream that any­body was talk­ing about him. “The Gov­ern­ment is very se­vere up­on that kind of of­fence. It takes par­tic­ular care that the re­li­gious cus­toms of the In­di­ans should be re­spect­ed, and if your ser­vant were caught--”

“Very well, Sir Fran­cis,” replied Mr. Fogg; “if he had been caught he would have been con­demned and pun­ished, and then would have qui­et­ly re­turned to Eu­rope. I don't see how this af­fair could have de­layed his mas­ter.”

The con­ver­sa­tion fell again. Dur­ing the night the train left the moun­tains be­hind, and passed Nas­sik, and the next day pro­ceed­ed over the flat, well-​cul­ti­vat­ed coun­try of the Khan­deish, with its strag­gling vil­lages, above which rose the minarets of the pago­das. This fer­tile ter­ri­to­ry is wa­tered by nu­mer­ous small rivers and limpid streams, most­ly trib­utaries of the Go­dav­ery.

Passep­artout, on wak­ing and look­ing out, 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.