Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXIII. Steamboating On the Ganges—Life on the River—The Greatest Business Firm in the World—Sceneries—Temples—Serampoor—Boat Races—An Excursion to the Himalayas—Darjieling and Himalaya Railroad—Tea Plantations—Darjieling—Llamas—View from the Mountains
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232,
Story of an Emigrant.
fine park to the railway station, whence a special train
carried the excursionists back to Calcutta.
After a summer of eight months in the Bengal lowlands
with a constant temperature of 90° to 100° Fahrenheit in
the shade, fresh breezes and cool air become luxuries more
keenly enjoyed than those who live in a more temperate
climate can conceive. To benefit by both I made a short
journey in October, 1882, to the celebrated Himalaya
mountains, among which the city of Darjieling is situated. The
train on the Bengal railroad carried us about three hundred
miles in a northerly direction through a level lowland
teeming with gardens, palm groves and rice fields, to Siligori, at
the foot of the mountains, where we arrived in the morning
at sunrise. Having enjoyed a good breakfast and a bottle
of Norwegian export beer at the railway eating house, we
were transferred to a train on the Darjieling & Himalaya
railroad to be carried up seven thousand feet high in a
distance of forty-two miles.
This mountain railroad is so different from all other
railroads that it deserves a special description. It is narrow
gauged in the fullest sense of the word, the distance between
the rails being only two feet. The cars are very small and
low, and the wheels are about twelve inches in diameter.
The car is ten feet long and six feet wide, and contains four
seats, each of which accommodates four persons; it is open
on the sides so that passengers can get on and off easily and
have an open view. The locomotive is no larger than the
cars, but powerful enough to pull ten or twelve of them up
the mountain at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour.
Nowhere is the track straight even for a distance of a couple
of hundred yards, but it winds right and left in the most
fantastic manner, and reminded me strikingly of the lines
described in one of the old country dances.
The signal is given, the pigmy locomotive puffs and sput-
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