Around the World in Eighty Days, Part 3: The Elephant

1:27:20 Chapter X: In which Passepartout is only too glad to get off with the loss of his shoes

1:27:20 Chapter Ten. In which Passepartout is only too glad to get off with the loss of his shoes.

1:27:27 Everyone knows that India—that great inverted triangle with its base in the north and its apex in the south—covers an area of one million four hundred thousand square miles, over which a population of a hundred and eighty million is unevenly spread.

1:27:44 The British Government exercises real dominion over a certain part of this immense country. It maintains a Governor-General at Calcutta, governors at Madras, at Bombay and in Bengal, and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.

1:28:01 But British India proper covers an area of only seven hundred thousand square miles, with a population of a hundred to a hundred and ten million.

1:28:11 That is to say that a considerable part of the territory still escapes the Queen's authority; and indeed, in the lands of certain rajahs of the interior, Indian independence is still absolute.

1:28:24 From seventeen fifty-six—when the first English settlement was founded on the site now occupied by the city of Madras—until the year in which the great Sepoy insurrection broke out, the famous East India Company was all-powerful.

1:28:40 Little by little it annexed the various provinces, buying them from the rajahs for annuities which it paid sparingly or not at all; it appointed its Governor-General and all its civil and military employees. But now it no longer exists, and the English possessions in India come directly under the Crown.

1:29:01 And so the appearance, the customs and the ethnographic divisions of the peninsula are changing from day to day. In former times one travelled there by every ancient means of transport: on foot, on horseback, by cart, by wheelbarrow, by palanquin, on men's backs, by coach and so on.

1:29:23 Now steamboats ply at high speed on the Indus and the Ganges, and a railway, which crosses India in its whole breadth, branching out along its course, puts Bombay only three days from Calcutta.

1:29:37 The route of this railway does not follow a straight line across India.

1:29:41 As the crow flies, the distance is only a thousand to eleven hundred miles, and trains going at no more than an average speed would not take three days to cover it; but the distance is increased by at least a third by the bend the railway makes in climbing up to Allahabad, in the north of the peninsula.

1:30:01 Here, in short, is the route of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway in its main outlines.

1:30:07 Leaving the island of Bombay, it crosses Salcette, leaps to the mainland opposite Tannah, crosses the chain of the Western Ghats, runs north-east as far as Burhampour, furrows the almost independent territory of Bundelcund, and climbs to Allahabad.

1:30:25 Then it turns eastward, meets the Ganges at Benares, bears a little away from it, and, coming down again to the south-east by way of Burdivan and the French town of Chandernagor, has its terminus at Calcutta.

1:30:41 It was at half past four in the afternoon that the passengers of the Mongolia had landed at Bombay, and the Calcutta train left at eight o'clock precisely.

1:30:50 Mr. Fogg therefore took leave of his partners, left the steamer, gave his servant a list of some purchases to be made, expressly enjoined him to be at the station before eight, and, with his regular step, which beat the seconds like the pendulum of an astronomical clock, made his way to the passport office.

1:31:10 So, of the wonders of Bombay, he had no thought of seeing anything: not the town hall, nor the magnificent library, nor the forts, nor the docks,

1:31:21 nor the cotton market, nor the bazaars, nor the mosques, nor the synagogues, nor the Armenian churches, nor the splendid pagoda on Malabar Hill, with its two polygonal towers.

1:31:35 He would not behold the masterpieces of Elephanta, nor its mysterious underground chambers, hidden to the south-east of the harbour, nor the Kanheri caves on the island of Salcette, those admirable remains of Buddhist architecture!

1:31:50 No! Nothing.

1:31:53 On leaving the passport office, Phileas Fogg went calmly to the station, and there he had dinner served to him. Among other dishes, the head waiter thought fit to recommend a certain stew of 'local rabbit', of which he spoke in the highest terms.

1:32:09 Phileas Fogg accepted the stew and tasted it conscientiously; but, in spite of its spiced sauce, he found it detestable.

1:32:19 He rang for the head waiter.

1:32:22 Phileas Fogg: Sir,

1:32:23 he said, looking at him fixedly,

1:32:25 Phileas Fogg: is this rabbit?

1:32:27 the Bombay landlord: Yes, my lord,

1:32:28 the rogue replied brazenly,

1:32:31 the Bombay landlord: jungle rabbit.

1:32:33 Phileas Fogg: And this rabbit did not mew when it was killed?

1:32:36 the Bombay landlord: Mew! Oh, my lord! A rabbit! I swear to you…

1:32:41 Phileas Fogg: Head waiter, do not swear, and remember this: in India, in former times, cats were regarded as sacred animals. Those were good times.

1:32:52 the Bombay landlord: For the cats, my lord?

1:32:55 Phileas Fogg: And perhaps for travellers too!

1:32:59 This observation made, Mr. Fogg went quietly on with his dinner.

1:33:05 A few moments after Mr. Fogg, Fix the detective had also landed from the Mongolia and had hurried to the chief of the Bombay police. He made himself known as a detective, and explained the mission with which he was charged and his position with regard to the presumed perpetrator of the robbery.

1:33:24 Had a warrant of arrest been received from London?… Nothing had been received. And indeed the warrant, dispatched after Fogg had left, could not yet have arrived.

1:33:35 Fix was much put out. He tried to obtain from the chief an order for the arrest of the said Fogg. The chief refused.

1:33:44 The matter concerned the Metropolitan authorities, and they alone could legally issue a warrant. This strictness of principle, this rigorous observance of the law, is perfectly explicable given English ways, which in matters of individual liberty admit of nothing arbitrary.

1:34:03 Fix did not insist, and understood that he must resign himself to waiting for his warrant. But he resolved not to lose sight of his impenetrable rascal for as long as the man remained in Bombay.

1:34:17 He had no doubt that Phileas Fogg would stay there for a time—and, as we know, that was Passepartout's conviction too—which would give the warrant time to arrive.

1:34:30 But since the last orders his master had given him on leaving the Mongolia, Passepartout had understood well enough that it would be with Bombay as it had been with Suez and Paris: that the journey would not end here, that it would go on at least as far as Calcutta, and perhaps farther.

1:34:48 And he began to wonder whether Mr. Fogg's wager was not perfectly serious after all, and whether fate was not dragging him, who had wanted to live in peace, into going round the world in eighty days!

1:35:02 Meanwhile, having bought a few shirts and socks, he was strolling about the streets of Bombay. There was a great concourse of people: among Europeans of every nationality, Persians in pointed caps, Bunhyas in round turbans, Sindhis in square caps, Armenians in long robes, Parsees in black mitres.

1:35:24 It happened to be a festival of these Parsees, or Guebres, the direct descendants of the followers of Zoroaster, a people among the most industrious, cultivated, intelligent and austere in India, to whom the rich merchants of Bombay at present belong.

1:35:41 That day they were celebrating a sort of religious carnival, with processions and entertainments, in which dancing girls appeared, dressed in pink gauze brocaded with gold and silver, who danced marvellously to the sound of viols and the beating of tom-toms—and, it should be said, with perfect decorum.

1:36:02 That Passepartout stared at these curious ceremonies, that his eyes and ears opened beyond all measure to see and to hear, that his air and his countenance were those of the greenest 'booby' imaginable—all this it is needless to dwell on here.

1:36:19 Unfortunately for him, and for his master, whose journey he came near to compromising, his curiosity carried him further than was proper.

1:36:31 For, after catching a glimpse of this Parsee carnival, Passepartout was making his way to the station when, passing the admirable pagoda on Malabar Hill, he had the ill-starred idea of visiting the inside.

1:36:46 He did not know two things: first, that Christians are strictly forbidden to enter certain Hindu pagodas; and secondly, that the faithful themselves may not go in without leaving their shoes at the door.

1:37:00 It should be remarked here that, for reasons of sound policy, the English Government, respecting the religion of the country down to its least details, and making others respect it, severely punishes anyone who violates its observances.

1:37:16 Passepartout, who had gone in meaning no harm, like any ordinary tourist, was admiring, inside the pagoda of Malabar Hill, the dazzling glitter of the Brahmin ornamentation, when suddenly he was thrown down on the sacred flagstones.

1:37:33 Three priests, their eyes full of fury, rushed at him, tore off his shoes and socks, and began to rain blows on him, uttering furious cries.

1:37:43 The Frenchman, strong and agile, was quickly on his feet again.

1:37:48 With a blow of his fist and a kick he knocked down two of his adversaries, much hampered by their long robes; and, dashing out of the pagoda as fast as his legs would carry him, he soon outdistanced the third priest, who had set off in pursuit, rousing the crowd.

1:38:05 At five minutes to eight, only a few minutes before the train left, hatless, barefoot, having lost in the scuffle the parcel that held his purchases, Passepartout arrived at the railway station.

1:38:17 Fix was there, on the platform. Having followed the said Fogg to the station, he had realised that the rascal was about to leave Bombay. His mind was at once made up to go with him as far as Calcutta, and farther if need be.

1:38:32 Passepartout did not see Fix, who kept in the shadows; but Fix heard the account of his adventures, which Passepartout told his master in a few words.

1:38:43 Phileas Fogg: I hope that this will not happen to you again,

1:38:45 replied Phileas Fogg simply, taking his seat in one of the carriages of the train.

1:38:51 The poor fellow, barefoot and utterly crestfallen, followed his master without a word.

1:38:59 Fix was about to get into a separate carriage when a thought held him back and suddenly changed his plan of departure.

1:39:06 Fix: No, I'll stay. An offence committed on Indian soil… I have my man.

1:39:17 At that moment the locomotive gave a vigorous whistle, and the train vanished into the night.

1:39:23 Chapter XI: In which Phileas Fogg buys a mount at a fabulous price

1:39:28 Chapter Eleven. In which Phileas Fogg buys a mount at a fabulous price.

1:39:34 The train had left at the scheduled time. It carried a fair number of passengers: some officers, civil officials, and merchants in opium and indigo whose business called them to the eastern part of the peninsula.

1:39:49 Passepartout occupied the same compartment as his master. A third traveller sat in the opposite corner.

1:39:56 This was the brigadier-general, Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr. Fogg's partners on the crossing from Suez to Bombay, who was rejoining his troops in their cantonments near Benares.

1:40:08 Sir Francis Cromarty—tall, fair, about fifty years old, a man who had greatly distinguished himself during the last Sepoy revolt—might truly have been called a native. He had lived in India since his youth, and had made only rare appearances in the land of his birth.

1:40:27 He was a well-informed man, who would gladly have given information about the customs, the history and the institutions of India, had Phileas Fogg been a man to ask for it.

1:40:38 But this gentleman asked for nothing. He was not travelling; he was describing a circumference.

1:40:45 He was a grave body, travelling in an orbit round the terrestrial globe according to the laws of rational mechanics.

1:40:53 At that moment he was going over in his mind the reckoning of the hours spent since his departure from London, and he would have rubbed his hands, had it been in his nature to make a useless movement.

1:41:06 Sir Francis Cromarty had not failed to recognise the oddity of his travelling companion, although he had studied him only with cards in his hand and between two rubbers.

1:41:16 He was therefore entitled to wonder whether a human heart beat beneath that cold exterior, whether Phileas Fogg had a soul sensitive to the beauties of nature and to moral aspirations. For him, this was an open question.

1:41:32 Of all the eccentrics the brigadier-general had met, none could compare with this product of the exact sciences.

1:41:40 Phileas Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis Cromarty his plan of a journey round the world, nor the conditions under which he was carrying it out. The brigadier-general saw in this wager nothing but an eccentricity with no useful purpose, and one which must necessarily lack the transire benefaciendo that ought to guide every reasonable man.

1:42:04 At the rate this strange gentleman was going, he would evidently pass through 'doing nothing', either for himself or for others.

1:42:12 An hour after leaving Bombay, the train had crossed the viaducts and the island of Salcette and was running on the mainland. At Callyan station it left on its right the branch line which runs down by Kandallah and Pounah towards the south-east of India, and went on to Pauwell station.

1:42:31 At this point it entered the many-branched mountains of the Western Ghats, ranges with a base of trap and basalt, whose highest summits are covered with thick woods.

1:42:42 From time to time Sir Francis Cromarty and Phileas Fogg exchanged a few words; and now the brigadier-general, reviving a conversation that kept flagging, said:

1:42:54 Sir Francis Cromarty: Some years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have suffered a delay here that would very likely have compromised your itinerary.

1:43:00 Phileas Fogg: How so, Sir Francis?

1:43:02 Sir Francis Cromarty: Because the railway stopped at the foot of these mountains, and they had to be crossed by palanquin or on ponyback as far as Kandallah station, on the other side.

1:43:11 Phileas Fogg: That delay would in no way have disturbed the economy of my programme. I have not failed to foresee the possibility of certain obstacles.

1:43:20 Sir Francis Cromarty: And yet, Mr. Fogg, you ran the risk of having a very nasty business on your hands with this young man's adventure.

1:43:26 Passepartout, his feet wrapped up in his travelling rug, was fast asleep, and little dreamed that he was being talked about.

1:43:35 Sir Francis Cromarty: The English Government is extremely severe, and rightly so, with offences of that kind. It insists above all that the religious customs of the Hindus be respected, and if your servant had been caught…

1:43:47 Phileas Fogg: Well, if he had been caught, Sir Francis, he would have been sentenced, he would have served his sentence, and then he would have gone quietly back to Europe. I do not see how the affair could have delayed his master!

1:44:00 And with that the conversation dropped again.

1:44:04 During the night the train crossed the Ghats and passed Nassik, and the next day, the twenty-first of October, it was speeding across comparatively flat country, the territory of Khandeish.

1:44:16 The well-cultivated countryside was dotted with small towns, above which the minaret of the pagoda took the place of the steeple of the European church. Numerous small streams, most of them tributaries or sub-tributaries of the Godavery, watered this fertile region.

1:44:35 Passepartout, awake now, gazed about him, and could not believe that he was crossing the land of India in a train of the Great Peninsular Railway. It seemed to him improbable. And yet nothing could be more real!

1:44:50 The locomotive, guided by the arm of an English engine-driver and fired with English coal, threw out its smoke over plantations of coffee, nutmeg, clove and red pepper.

1:45:03 The steam curled in spirals round clumps of palms, among which appeared picturesque bungalows, a few viharis—a kind of abandoned monastery—and marvellous temples enriched by the inexhaustible ornamentation of Indian architecture.

1:45:21 Then immense tracts of land stretched away as far as the eye could see: jungles where there was no lack of snakes, nor of tigers, terrified by the neighing of the train;

1:45:34 and lastly forests, split by the line of the track, still haunted by elephants, which watched the dishevelled train go by with pensive eyes.

1:45:44 During that morning, beyond Malligaum station, the travellers crossed that ill-omened territory which was so often stained with blood by the sect of the Stranglers.

1:45:55 Not far off rose Ellora and its admirable pagodas; not far off, the celebrated Aurungabad, the capital of the fierce Aureng-Zeb, now merely the chief town of one of the provinces detached from the kingdom of the Nizam.

1:46:12 It was over this region that Feringhea, the chief of the Thugs, the king of the Stranglers, held sway.

1:46:19 These murderers, united in an association that could not be laid hold of, strangled victims of every age in honour of the goddess of Death, without ever shedding blood; and there was a time when one could not dig anywhere in this soil without finding a corpse.

1:46:37 The English Government has indeed been able to prevent these murders to a considerable extent, but the dreadful association still exists and is still at work.

1:46:49 At half past twelve the train stopped at Burhampour station, and there Passepartout was able to procure, for a small fortune, a pair of slippers decorated with false pearls, which he put on with a feeling of evident vanity.

1:47:04 The travellers lunched hastily and set off again for Assurghur station, after running for a while along the bank of the Tapty, a small river which flows into the Gulf of Cambay near Surat.

1:47:17 This is the moment to make known the thoughts that were then occupying Passepartout's mind. Until his arrival at Bombay he had believed, and had had reason to believe, that matters would go no further.

1:47:30 But now, since he had been speeding at full steam across India, a change had come over his mind. His true nature was coming back to him at a gallop.

1:47:41 He was recovering the fanciful notions of his youth; he took his master's plans seriously; he believed in the reality of the wager, and consequently in this journey round the world and in this maximum of time which must not be exceeded.

1:47:57 Already he was even worrying about possible delays, about accidents that might happen on the way. He felt as though he himself had a stake in this wager, and he trembled at the thought that he might have compromised it the day before by his unpardonable gawking.

1:48:14 And so, being much less phlegmatic than Mr. Fogg, he was much more anxious. He counted and recounted the days gone by, cursed the train's halts, accused it of slowness, and privately blamed Mr. Fogg for not having promised the engine-driver a reward.

1:48:33 He did not know, the good fellow, that what was possible on a steamer was no longer so on a railway, whose speed is fixed by regulation.

1:48:42 Towards evening they made their way into the passes of the Sutpour mountains, which divide the territory of Khandeish from that of Bundelcund.

1:48:52 The next day, the twenty-second of October, when Sir Francis Cromarty asked him the time, Passepartout consulted his watch and replied that it was three o'clock in the morning.

1:49:04 And indeed this famous watch, still set by the meridian of Greenwich, which lay nearly seventy-seven degrees to the west, was bound to be slow, and was in fact four hours slow.

1:49:16 Sir Francis therefore corrected the time Passepartout had given, and made him the same remark that he had already heard from Fix.

1:49:25 He tried to make him understand:

1:49:27 Sir Francis Cromarty: You ought to set your watch by each new meridian, and, since you are travelling steadily eastward, that is to say towards the sun, the days grow shorter by four minutes for every degree you cross.

1:49:39 Jean Passepartout: Never!

1:49:41 It was no use. Whether or not the stubborn fellow had understood the brigadier-general's remark, he obstinately refused to put his watch forward, and kept it invariably at London time.

1:49:54 An innocent mania, after all, and one that could do no one any harm.

1:50:00 At eight o'clock in the morning, fifteen miles beyond Rothal station, the train stopped in the middle of a vast clearing fringed with a few bungalows and workmen's huts. The guard passed along the line of carriages, saying:

1:50:15 the Kholby conductor: Passengers alight here.

1:50:17 Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty, who seemed to understand nothing of this halt in the middle of a forest of tamarinds and khajours.

1:50:26 Passepartout, no less surprised, sprang down on to the line and came back almost at once, crying:

1:50:33 Jean Passepartout: Monsieur, there's no more railway!

1:50:35 Sir Francis Cromarty: What do you mean?

1:50:36 Jean Passepartout: I mean the train doesn't go any farther!

1:50:39 The brigadier-general at once got down from the carriage. Phileas Fogg followed him without hurrying. The two of them went up to the guard.

1:50:49 Sir Francis Cromarty: Where are we?

1:50:50 the Kholby conductor: At the hamlet of Kholby.

1:50:52 Sir Francis Cromarty: We stop here?

1:50:53 the Kholby conductor: Certainly. The railway is not finished…

1:50:56 Sir Francis Cromarty: What! Not finished?

1:50:58 the Kholby conductor: No! There is still a stretch of some fifty miles to be laid between here and Allahabad, where the line begins again.

1:51:06 Sir Francis Cromarty: But the newspapers announced that the whole railway was open!

1:51:09 the Kholby conductor: What would you have, sir? The newspapers were mistaken.

1:51:13 Sir Francis Cromarty: And you sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta!

1:51:16 the Kholby conductor: To be sure, but passengers know very well that they must get themselves carried from Kholby to Allahabad.

1:51:24 Sir Francis Cromarty was furious. Passepartout would gladly have knocked the guard down, though the man could do nothing about it. He did not dare look at his master.

1:51:35 Phileas Fogg: Sir Francis, if you are willing, we shall look about for some means of getting to Allahabad.

1:51:41 Sir Francis Cromarty: Mr. Fogg, this is a delay that must do your interests the gravest harm?

1:51:46 Phileas Fogg: No, Sir Francis; it was allowed for.

1:51:49 Sir Francis Cromarty: What! You knew that the line…

1:51:52 Phileas Fogg: By no means; but I knew that sooner or later some obstacle or other would rise up in my path. Now, nothing is compromised. I have two days' advance to sacrifice. A steamer sails from Calcutta for Hong Kong on the twenty-fifth at noon. Today is only the twenty-second, and we shall be at Calcutta in time.

1:52:14 There was nothing to be said to an answer given with such complete assurance.

1:52:19 It was only too true that the railway works stopped at this point. Newspapers are like certain watches which have a mania for running fast, and they had announced the completion of the line prematurely.

1:52:31 Most of the passengers knew about this break in the line, and on leaving the train they had seized upon every kind of vehicle the village possessed: four-wheeled palkigharis, carts drawn by zebus, a sort of humped ox, travelling cars that looked like pagodas on wheels, palanquins, ponies and so on.

1:52:51 So it was that Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the whole village, came back without having found anything.

1:53:00 Phileas Fogg: I shall go on foot.

1:53:02 Passepartout, who was just then rejoining his master, made an expressive grimace as he looked at his magnificent but inadequate slippers. Very fortunately, he had been out exploring on his own account, and, with a little hesitation:

1:53:18 Jean Passepartout: Monsieur, I think I have found a means of transport.

1:53:23 Phileas Fogg: What is it?

1:53:24 Jean Passepartout: An elephant! An elephant belonging to an Indian who lives a hundred paces from here.

1:53:30 Phileas Fogg: Let us go and see the elephant.

1:53:33 Five minutes later Phileas Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty and Passepartout came to a hut adjoining an enclosure shut in by high palisades. In the hut there was an Indian, and in the enclosure an elephant. At their request the Indian showed Mr. Fogg and his two companions into the enclosure.

1:53:56 There they found themselves in the presence of a half-tamed animal which its owner was rearing, not as a beast of burden, but as a fighting beast.

1:54:06 With this end in view he had begun to alter the animal's naturally gentle character, so as to bring it by degrees to that paroxysm of rage which is called 'mutsh' in Hindustani; and this by feeding it for three months on sugar and butter.

1:54:23 This treatment may seem ill-suited to produce such a result, but it is none the less used with success by the breeders. Very fortunately for Mr. Fogg, the elephant in question had only just been put on this diet, and the 'mutsh' had not yet declared itself.

1:54:41 Kiouni—that was the beast's name—could, like all his kind, keep up a rapid pace for a long time; and, for want of any other mount, Phileas Fogg resolved to make use of him.

1:54:54 But elephants are dear in India, where they are beginning to grow scarce. The males, which alone are suited to the combats of the arena, are extremely sought after.

1:55:05 These animals rarely breed once they are reduced to the domestic state, so that they can be obtained only by hunting. They are therefore the object of the utmost care; and when Mr. Fogg asked the Indian whether he would hire out his elephant, the Indian refused point-blank.

1:55:23 Fogg persisted, and offered an excessive price for the beast: ten pounds—two hundred and fifty francs—an hour.

1:55:32 Refused. Twenty pounds? Refused again. Forty pounds? Still refused.

1:55:39 Passepartout gave a jump at every higher bid. But the Indian would not be tempted.

1:55:45 It was a handsome sum, nevertheless. Assuming that the elephant took fifteen hours to get to Allahabad, it would bring its owner six hundred pounds—fifteen thousand francs.

1:55:58 Phileas Fogg, without growing in the least excited, then proposed to buy the beast from the Indian, and offered him, to begin with, a thousand pounds—twenty-five thousand francs.

1:56:10 The Indian would not sell! Perhaps the rascal scented a magnificent bargain.

1:56:16 Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside and urged him to reflect before going any further.

1:56:23 Phileas Fogg replied to his companion that he was not in the habit of acting without reflection; that what was at stake, after all, was a wager of twenty thousand pounds; that this elephant was necessary to him; and that, were he to pay twenty times its value, he would have this elephant.

1:56:43 Mr. Fogg went back to the Indian, whose small eyes, lit up with greed, made it plain that for him it was only a question of price.

1:56:52 Phileas Fogg offered in succession twelve hundred pounds, then fifteen hundred, then eighteen hundred, and at last two thousand—fifty thousand francs. Passepartout, usually so red in the face, was pale with emotion.

1:57:09 At two thousand pounds the Indian gave in.

1:57:13 Jean Passepartout: By my slippers, that puts a fine price on elephant meat!

1:57:18 The bargain concluded, it only remained to find a guide. That was easier. A young Parsee with an intelligent face offered his services.

1:57:28 Mr. Fogg accepted, and promised him a handsome reward, which could only double his intelligence.

1:57:36 The elephant was brought out and equipped without delay. The Parsee knew the trade of mahout, or elephant driver, to perfection. He covered the elephant's back with a kind of saddle-cloth and fixed two howdahs of a sort, one on each flank, neither of them very comfortable.

1:57:54 Phileas Fogg paid the Indian in bank-notes taken from the famous bag. It really seemed as though they were being drawn out of Passepartout's very entrails.

1:58:05 Then Mr. Fogg offered to carry Sir Francis Cromarty to Allahabad station. The brigadier-general accepted. One traveller more was not going to tire the gigantic animal.

1:58:17 Provisions were bought at Kholby. Sir Francis Cromarty took his seat in one of the howdahs, Phileas Fogg in the other. Passepartout sat astride the saddle-cloth between his master and the brigadier-general.

1:58:31 The Parsee perched himself on the elephant's neck, and at nine o'clock the animal, leaving the village, plunged by the shortest way into the dense forest of fan-palms.

1:58:43 Chapter XII: In which Phileas Fogg and his companions venture through the forests of India, and what ensues

1:58:47 Chapter Twelve. In which Phileas Fogg and his companions venture through the forests of India, and what ensues.

1:58:56 To shorten the distance to be covered, the guide left on his right the line of the railway, where the works were still in progress. That line, much thwarted by the capricious spurs of the Vindhia mountains, did not follow the shortest road, which was the one it was in Phileas Fogg's interest to take.

1:59:14 The Parsee, who knew every road and path of the country, claimed that he could gain some twenty miles by cutting through the forest, and they left it to him.

1:59:25 Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, buried up to their necks in their howdahs, were badly shaken by the stiff trot of the elephant, which its mahout was driving at a brisk pace.

1:59:36 But they bore the situation with the most British phlegm, talking little, besides, and hardly able to see each other.

1:59:44 As for Passepartout, perched on the beast's back and taking every jolt and counter-jolt full on, he took good care, on his master's advice, not to keep his tongue between his teeth, for it would have been cut clean off.

1:59:59 The good fellow, now flung forward on to the elephant's neck, now thrown back on to its rump, was vaulting like a clown on a springboard.

2:00:08 But he joked, he laughed in the midst of his tumbling, and from time to time he drew a lump of sugar from his bag, and the intelligent Kiouni took it with the tip of his trunk without breaking his steady trot for an instant.

2:00:23 After two hours on the march, the guide stopped the elephant and gave it an hour's rest. The animal devoured branches and shrubs, after first quenching its thirst at a pool close by.

2:00:35 Sir Francis Cromarty did not complain of this halt. He was worn out. Mr. Fogg seemed as fresh as if he had just stepped out of bed.

2:00:45 Sir Francis Cromarty: Why, the man is made of iron!

2:00:48 said the brigadier-general, looking at him with admiration.

2:00:52 Jean Passepartout: Of wrought iron,

2:00:53 replied Passepartout, who busied himself getting a hasty lunch ready.

2:00:59 At noon the guide gave the signal to set off. The country soon took on a very wild appearance. The great forests gave way to thickets of tamarind and dwarf palm, then to vast arid plains, bristling with stunted shrubs and strewn with great blocks of syenite.

2:01:18 All this part of upper Bundelcund is little frequented by travellers. English rule has never managed to establish itself properly over a territory under the sway of the rajahs, who would have been hard to reach in their inaccessible retreats in the Vindhias.

2:01:35 Several times they caught sight of bands of fierce-looking men, who made angry gestures on seeing the swift quadruped go by. In any case, the Parsee avoided them as far as he could, holding them to be men it was better not to meet.

2:01:52 Few animals were seen that day, barely a few monkeys, which fled with a thousand contortions and grimaces that greatly amused Passepartout.

2:02:02 One thought among a good many others troubled the fellow. What would Mr. Fogg do with the elephant when he reached the station at Allahabad?

2:02:11 Take it along with him? Impossible! The cost of carriage added to the purchase price would make it a ruinous animal.

2:02:19 Would they sell it, or set it free? The estimable beast surely deserved some consideration.

2:02:26 If, by any chance, Mr. Fogg were to make him a present of it—him, Passepartout—he would be very much at a loss. The thought gave him no little concern.

2:02:39 By eight o'clock in the evening the main chain of the Vindhias had been crossed, and the travellers halted at the foot of the northern slope, in a ruined bungalow.

2:02:49 The distance covered that day was about twenty-five miles, and as many remained to be done to reach the station at Allahabad.

2:02:58 The night was cold. Inside the bungalow the Parsee lit a fire of dry branches, and its warmth was much appreciated. Supper was made of the provisions bought at Kholby.

2:03:10 The travellers ate like men worn out and aching in every limb. The conversation, which began with a few broken sentences, soon ended in loud snores. The guide kept watch beside Kiouni, who went to sleep on his feet, leaning against the trunk of a large tree.

2:03:30 No incident marked the night. Now and then the roars of cheetahs and panthers broke the silence, mingled with the shrill cackling of monkeys.

2:03:41 But the beasts of prey went no further than their cries and made no hostile move against the occupants of the bungalow.

2:03:49 Sir Francis Cromarty slept heavily, like a good soldier worn out by his exertions. Passepartout, in a restless sleep, went through the tumbles of the day before all over again in his dreams;

2:04:03 as for Mr. Fogg, he slept as peacefully as if he had been in his quiet house in Saville Row.

2:04:11 At six in the morning they set off again. The guide hoped to reach the station at Allahabad that same evening. In that way Mr. Fogg would lose only a part of the forty-eight hours saved since the beginning of the journey.

2:04:25 They went down the last slopes of the Vindhias. Kiouni had taken up his rapid pace again. Towards noon the guide went round the little town of Kallenger, which stands on the Cani, one of the sub-tributaries of the Ganges.

2:04:40 He still avoided inhabited places, feeling safer in that deserted country, which marks the first dips of the great river's basin. The station at Allahabad was not twelve miles off to the north-east.

2:04:54 They halted under a clump of banana trees, whose fruit, as wholesome as bread and 'as succulent as cream,' as travellers say, was enjoyed enormously.

2:05:06 At two o'clock the guide entered the cover of a dense forest, which he had to cross for a distance of several miles. He preferred to travel in this way, under the shelter of the woods.

2:05:18 At all events, he had so far had no unpleasant encounter, and the journey seemed likely to be accomplished without mishap, when the elephant, showing some signs of uneasiness, suddenly stopped.

2:05:32 It was then four o'clock.

2:05:34 Sir Francis Cromarty: What is it?

2:05:35 asked Sir Francis Cromarty, lifting his head above his howdah.

2:05:40 the Parsee guide: I do not know, sir,

2:05:41 replied the Parsee, listening hard to a confused murmur that was passing beneath the thick branches.

2:05:48 A few moments later the murmur became more distinct. It sounded like a concert, still a long way off, of human voices and brass instruments.

2:05:59 Passepartout was all eyes and ears. Mr. Fogg waited patiently, without uttering a word.

2:06:06 The Parsee jumped down, tied the elephant to a tree and plunged into the thickest of the undergrowth. A few minutes later he came back, saying:

2:06:15 the Parsee guide: A procession of Brahmins, coming this way. Let us not be seen, if we can help it.

2:06:20 The guide untied the elephant and led it into a thicket, telling the travellers not to set foot on the ground. He himself stood ready to leap astride his mount if flight became necessary.

2:06:33 But he thought the band of worshippers would go by without noticing it, for the thickness of the foliage hid it entirely.

2:06:41 The discordant noise of voices and instruments drew nearer. Monotonous chants mingled with the sound of drums and cymbals.

2:06:49 Soon the head of the procession appeared beneath the trees, some fifty paces from the spot where Mr. Fogg and his companions were posted. Through the branches they could easily make out the curious figures taking part in this religious ceremony.

2:07:05 In the front rank came priests, wearing mitres and dressed in long, richly braided robes. They were surrounded by men, women and children, who were raising a kind of funeral chant, broken at regular intervals by the beat of tom-toms and the clash of cymbals.

2:07:24 Behind them, on a car with broad wheels whose spokes and rims were wrought as interlacing serpents, appeared a fearsome statue, drawn by two pairs of richly caparisoned zebus.

2:07:37 The statue had four arms; its body was painted a dark red, its eyes were wild, its hair tangled, its tongue lolling, its lips stained with henna and betel.

2:07:51 Round its neck was coiled a necklace of skulls, and round its waist a girdle of severed hands. It stood upright upon a vanquished giant who had no head.

2:08:03 Sir Francis Cromarty recognised the statue.

2:08:07 Sir Francis Cromarty: The goddess Kali, the goddess of love and of death.

2:08:11 Jean Passepartout: Of death, I grant you; but of love, never!

2:08:15 The Parsee signed to him to be quiet.

2:08:18 Round the statue a group of old fakirs were tossing, flailing and writhing, striped with bands of ochre and covered with cross-shaped gashes from which their blood trickled drop by drop.

2:08:31 Behind them, some Brahmins, in all the splendour of their Eastern dress, were dragging along a woman who could barely stand.

2:08:40 This woman was young, and very fair.

2:08:44 Her head, her neck, her shoulders, her ears, her arms, her hands, her toes were loaded with jewels, necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings and rings. A tunic shot with gold, veiled in a light muslin, outlined the contours of her figure.

2:09:04 Behind this young woman—a violent contrast for the eye—guards armed with naked sabres thrust through their belts and long damascened pistols were carrying a corpse on a palanquin.

2:09:17 It was the body of an old man, clothed in the opulent robes of a rajah, and wearing, as in his lifetime, the turban embroidered with pearls, the robe woven of silk and gold, the cashmere sash studded with diamonds, and the magnificent arms of an Indian prince.

2:09:36 Then came musicians and a rearguard of zealots, whose cries at times drowned the deafening din of the instruments, and these closed the procession.

2:09:46 Sir Francis Cromarty watched all this pageantry with a look of singular sadness, and, turning to the guide:

2:09:54 Sir Francis Cromarty: A suttee!

2:09:57 The Parsee nodded and laid a finger on his lips. The long procession wound slowly away beneath the trees, and soon its last ranks vanished into the depths of the forest.

2:10:10 Little by little the chanting died away. There were still a few bursts of distant shouting, and at last all this tumult gave way to a deep silence.

2:10:24 Phileas Fogg had heard the word spoken by Sir Francis Cromarty, and, as soon as the procession had disappeared:

2:10:31 Phileas Fogg: What is a suttee?

2:10:33 Sir Francis Cromarty: A suttee, Mr. Fogg, is a human sacrifice, but a voluntary sacrifice. The woman you have just seen will be burned tomorrow in the first hours of the day.

2:10:44 Jean Passepartout: Oh, the scoundrels!

2:10:46 cried Passepartout, who could not hold back this cry of indignation.

2:10:51 Phileas Fogg: And the corpse?

2:10:53 the Parsee guide: It is that of the prince, her husband, an independent rajah of Bundelcund.

2:10:58 Phileas Fogg: What!

2:10:59 said Phileas Fogg, without his voice betraying the slightest emotion.

2:11:03 Phileas Fogg: These cruel customs still survive in India, and the English have not been able to stamp them out?

2:11:10 Sir Francis Cromarty: In the greater part of India these sacrifices no longer take place; but we have no influence over these wild regions, and least of all over this territory of Bundelcund. The whole northern side of the Vindhias is the scene of incessant murder and pillage.

2:11:25 Jean Passepartout: The poor woman! Burned alive!

2:11:29 Sir Francis Cromarty: Yes, burned; and if she were not, you would never believe to what a wretched state her own kin would reduce her.

2:11:37 Sir Francis Cromarty: They would shave her head; they would feed her on a few handfuls of rice, and barely that; they would cast her off; she would be looked upon as an unclean creature, and would die in some corner like a mangy dog.

2:11:50 Sir Francis Cromarty: And so it is the prospect of that dreadful existence, far more than love or religious fanaticism, that often drives these unhappy women to the pyre. Sometimes, however, the sacrifice is truly voluntary, and it takes the firm intervention of the government to prevent it.

2:12:07 Sir Francis Cromarty: For instance, some years ago, when I was living in Bombay, a young widow came to ask the governor's leave to burn herself with her husband's body. As you may well imagine, the governor refused. So the widow left the city, took refuge with an independent rajah, and there she carried out her sacrifice.

2:12:27 While the brigadier-general was telling his story, the guide kept shaking his head, and, when the story was over:

2:12:34 the Parsee guide: The sacrifice that is to take place tomorrow at sunrise is not voluntary.

2:12:39 Sir Francis Cromarty: How do you know?

2:12:41 the Parsee guide: It is a story everyone in Bundelcund knows.

2:12:44 Sir Francis Cromarty: Yet the unhappy woman did not seem to be offering any resistance.

2:12:48 the Parsee guide: That is because they have drugged her with the fumes of hemp and opium.

2:12:52 Sir Francis Cromarty: But where are they taking her?

2:12:54 the Parsee guide: To the pagoda of Pillaji, two miles from here. There she will spend the night, waiting for the hour of the sacrifice.

2:13:02 Sir Francis Cromarty: And the sacrifice will take place…?

2:13:05 the Parsee guide: Tomorrow, at the very first light of day.

2:13:09 With this answer, the guide led the elephant out of the dense thicket and hoisted himself on to its neck. But just as he was about to urge it on with a peculiar whistle, Mr. Fogg stopped him, and, turning to Sir Francis Cromarty:

2:13:24 Phileas Fogg: Suppose we save this woman?

2:13:27 Sir Francis Cromarty: Save this woman, Mr. Fogg!…

2:13:29 Phileas Fogg: I still have twelve hours in hand. I can devote them to that.

2:13:33 Sir Francis Cromarty: Well, well! So you are a man of heart!

2:13:38 Phileas Fogg: Sometimes,

2:13:39 Phileas Fogg answered simply,

2:13:41 Phileas Fogg: when I have the time.