Chapter 44 - Page 2

sat great
groups of natives on the bare stone floor,--young, slender brown women,
old, gray wrinkled women, little soft brown babies, old men, young men,
boys; all poor people, but all the females among them, both big and
little, bejeweled with cheap and showy nose-rings, toe-rings, leglets,
and armlets, these things constituting all their wealth, no doubt. These
silent crowds sat there with their humble bundles and baskets and small
household gear about them, and patiently waited--for what? A train that
was to start at some time or other during the day or night! They hadn't
timed themselves well, but that was no matter--the thing had been so
ordered from on high, therefore why worry? There was plenty of time,
hours and hours of it, and the thing that was to happen would happen
--there was no hurrying it.

The natives traveled third class, and at marvelously cheap rates. They
were packed and crammed into cars that held each about fifty; and it was
said that often a Brahmin of the highest caste was thus brought into
personal touch, and consequent defilement, with persons of the lowest
castes--no doubt a very shocking thing if a body could understand it and
properly appreciate it. Yes, a Brahmin who didn't own a rupee and
couldn't borrow one, might have to touch elbows with a rich hereditary
lord of inferior caste, inheritor of an ancient title a couple of yards
long, and he would just have to stand it; for if either of the two was
allowed to go in the cars where the sacred white people were, it probably
wouldn't be the august poor Brahmin. There was an immense string of
those third-class cars, for the natives travel by hordes; and a weary
hard night of it the occupants would have, no doubt.

When we reached our car, Satan and Barney had already arrived there with
their train of porters carrying bedding and parasols and cigar boxes, and
were at work. We named him Barney for short; we couldn't use his real
name, there wasn't time.

It was a car that promised comfort; indeed, luxury. Yet the cost of it
--well, economy could no further go; even in France; not even in Italy. It
was built of the plainest and cheapest partially-smoothed boards, with a
coating of dull paint on them, and there was nowhere a thought of
decoration. The floor was bare, but would not long remain so when the
dust should begin to fly. Across one end of the compartment ran a
netting for the accommodation of hand-baggage; at the other end was a
door which would shut, upon compulsion, but wouldn't stay shut; it opened
into a narrow little closet which had a wash-bowl in one end of it, and a
place to put a towel, in case you had one with you--and you would be sure
to have towels, because you buy them with the bedding, knowing that