Verne The Steam House

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-8496-4583-0
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 614 Seiten

We leave it to the critics to determine the value of Jules Verne's descriptions if they were shorn of the marvellous in which he delights to clothe them. All we can say is. his grotesque images are highly amusing. Here we have the story of the Sepoy Mutiny in India, and hear a great deal about the terrible Nana who set it a-going. The Steam House is a gigantic engine of steel, fashioned like a huge elephant, impelled by steam, and dragging several vast cars as big as houses, up and down the country. We meet with this droll conception in many of the fabulous illustrations by a French artist.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Verne, Jules

Weitere Mitwirkende

Bennett, Leon

Leseproben

The great city was by this time quite familiar to me. Morning promenades before the heat became unbearable; evening drives on the Strand, as far as the Esplanade or Fort William, where the splendid equipages of the English whirl scornfully past the not less splendid carriages of the great fat native baboos; expeditions through the curious streets of shops, which are very appropriately called bazaars; visits to the burial-grounds on the banks of the Ganges; to the Botanic Gardens, the work of the great naturalist Hooker; and to “Madam Kali” the horrible four-armed woman, who, as the fierce goddess of death, is enshrined in a small temple where modern civilization and native barbarism are exhibited side by side. All this I had done. I had gazed at the vice-regal palace opposite the Spencer Hotel; admired the curious buildings on the Chowringhi Road, and the Town Hall, dedicated to the memory of the great men of our time; studied in detail the interesting mosque of Hougly; gone over the harbour crowded by the finest vessels of the English merchant service; made the acquaintance of the “adjutants,” those singular birds known by a variety of names, whose vocation it is to act as scavengers and preserve the city in a perfectly salubrious condition. And all this being accomplished, I had now nothing to do but to take my departure. Accordingly, on the 6th of May, a wretched vehicle with two horses and four wheels, called a “palkighari,” a machine unfit to be seen beside comfortable English-built carriages, came to convey me to the door of Colonel Munro’s bungalow.

Our train awaited us at no great distance; we had only to enter and establish ourselves. Our luggage had of course been put “on board.” Nothing unnecessary was allowed; but Captain Hood had large ideas in the matter of fire-arms, and considered an arsenal of four Enfield rifles, four fowling-pieces, two duck-guns, and several other guns, pistols and revolvers, quite indispensable for such a party as ours. This armoury appeared to threaten the lives of wild beasts rather than simply to supply game for our table, but the Nimrod of our expedition was very decided in his views on the subject.

Captain Hood was in the highest spirits. The triumph of having succeeded in persuading Colonel Munro to forsake his solitary retreat; the pleasure of setting out on such a tour, with an equipage so entirely novel; the prospect of unusual occupation, plenty of exercise, and grand Himalayan excursions; all combined to excite him to the greatest degree; and he gave vent to his feelings in perpetual exclamations, while he urged us to bestir ourselves.

The clock struck the hour of departure. Steam was up, the engine ready for action. Our engine-driver stood at his post, his hand on the regulator. The whistle sounded.

“Off with you, Behemoth!” shouted Captain Hood, waving his cap. And this name, so well suited to our wonderful traction-engine, was ever after bestowed upon it.

Now for a word as to our attendants, who occupied the second house—No. 2, as we used to call it.

The engine-driver, Storr, was an Englishman, and had been employed on “The Great Southern” line until a few months previously. Banks knew him to be an efficient and clever workman, thoroughly up to his business, and therefore engaged him for Colonel Munro’s service. He was a man of forty years of age, and proved exceedingly useful to us.

The fireman’s name was Kâlouth. He belonged to a tribe or class of Hindoos much sought after by railway companies, to be employed as stokers, because they endure with impunity the double heat of their tropical climate and that of the engine furnaces. They resemble, in this, the Arabs employed as firemen in the Red Sea steamers—good fellows who are content to be merely boiled where Europeans would be roasted in a few minutes.

Colonel Munro had a regimental servant named Goûmi, one of the tribe of Gourkas. He belonged to that regiment which, as an act of good discipline, had accepted the use of the Enfield rifles, the introduction of which into the service had been the reason, or at least the pretext, of the Sepoy revolt. Small, active, supple, and of tried fidelity, Goûmi always wore the dark uniform of the rifle brigade, which was as dear to him as his own skin.

Sergeant McNeil and Goûmi were attached heart and soul to Colonel Munro. They had fought under his command all through the Indian campaign; they had accompanied him in his fruitless search for Nana Sahib; they had followed him into retirement, and would never dream of leaving him.

But Captain Hood had also a faithful follower—a frank, lively young Englishman, whose name was Fox, and who would not have changed places with any officer’s servant under the sun. He perfectly adored Captain Hood, and was quite as keen a sportsman as his master. Having accompanied him on numberless tiger-hunts. Fox had proved his skill, and reckoned the tigers which had fallen to his gun at thirty-seven, only three less than his master could boast of.

Our staff of attendants was completed by a negro cook, whose dominion lay in the forepart of the second house. He was of French origin, and having boiled, fried, and fricaseed in every possible latitude, Monsieur Parazard—for that was his name—had no small opinion of the importance of his noble profession; he would have scorned to call it his trade.

He presided over his saucepans with the air of a high priest, and distributed his condiments with the accuracy of a chemist. Monsieur Parazard was vain, it is true, but so clever that we readily pardoned his vanity.

Our expedition, then, was made up of ten persons; namely, Sir Edward Munro, Banks, Hood, and myself, who were accommodated in one house; McNeil, Storr, Kâlouth, Goûmi, Fox, and Monsieur Parazard, in the other.

I must not forget the two dogs, Fan and Niger, whose sporting qualities were to be put to the proof by Hood, in many a stirring episode of the chase.

Bengal is perhaps, if not the most curious, at least the richest of the three Indian presidencies. It is now, properly speaking, the country of the Rajahs, which lies more especially in the centre of the vast empire, but the province extends over a district the dense population of which may be considered essentially Hindoo.

The route we proposed to take would lead us obliquely across this district, which to the extreme north is bounded by the insurmountable barriers of the Himalaya chain.

After some discussion, it was finally proposed that, having travelled up the banks of the Hoogly for some leagues (the Hoogly being that branch of the river Ganges which passes through Calcutta), we should leave to the right the French town of Chandernagore, thence follow the line of the railroad as far as Burdwan, and afterwards pass transversely through Behar, so as to rejoin the Ganges at Benares.

“Arrange the route exactly as you please, my friends,” said Colonel Munro. “Decide without reference to me. Whatever you do will be done well.”

“Still, my dear Munro,” replied Banks, “it would be satisfactory to have your opinion.”

“No, Banks,” returned the colonel; “I give my self up to you, and have no wish to visit one place rather than another. One single question, however, I will ask. After Benares, in what direction do you propose to travel?”

“Northwards, most certainly,” exclaimed Hood impetuously. “Right across the kingdom of Oude, up to the lower ranges of the Himalayas!”

“Well then, my friends,” began Colonel Munro, “perhaps when we get so far, I will propose—but it will be soon enough to speak of that when the time comes. Till then, go just where you choose.”

I could not help feeling somewhat surprised by these words of Sir Edward Munro. What could he have in his mind? Had he only agreed to take this journey in the hope that chance might serve his purpose better than his own will and endeavour had done? Did it seem to him possible that, supposing Nana Sahib to be still alive, he might yet find trace of him in the extreme north of India? Was the hope of vengeance still strong within him?

I could not resist the conviction that our friend was influenced by this hidden motive, and that Sergeant McNeil shared his master’s thoughts.

When we left Calcutta we were seated in the drawingroom...