CHAPTER XXV
JEYPORE
T Agra we were midway in the peninsula—eight hundred and forty-one miles from Calcutta, and eight hundred and forty-eight miles from Bombay. It was very cold, and rain was falling in sheets when we started, late at night, to ride the one hundred and forty-nine miles to Jeypore, and during the night it grew colder. Clouds of dust came through the loose, rattling carriage-windows, and when we shook off our razais at daylight, near Jeypore, there was a small dust-storm in our compartment.
The pompous, fat proprietor of the Hotel Kaiser-i-Hind was strutting the platform in a solferino plush coat, waving a telegram and shouting for "Eliza! Eliza!"—meaning the person who had sent the message. His rival, the proprietor of the dak bangla, fawned at our elbow, beseeching us to come to his house instead, and there was wordy war between the two across me, charge and counter-charge. "I will furnish elephant for Amber, no charge!" shouted one. "Oh, memsahib! memsahib!" hissed the other, "that elephant no good elephant, not got
344
