Page:At Delhi.djvu/21

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whole place was cleared. If this be true, one wonders why Some One does not send one of these wonder-working Telegrams to Ghaziabad; for rumour declares that there are nine hundred trucks full of goods at that bewildered junction, and that they seem likely to stay there.

The Delhi tongas are in notable contrast with the Bombay hackney carriages in point of speed. You are rattled along at a rapid pace, which becomes almost embarrassing when you suddenly collide with an electric lamp post and your baggage is pitched out on the road. The installation of the electric light in the city seems a little belated. The posts are there, in the very middle of the thoroughfare, as you ruefully discover if one of their warning lanterns gets blown out; but Delhi still awaits the discerning beams of the new illuminant. You drive along a road or two, where there are houses, and then emerge upon dim, open tree-clad spaces. There is nothing to be seen, and if there were you would not care. The present writer once arrived in Venice at three o'clock on a freezing December morning. That was, despite the weather, a novel and unforgettable experience. But Delhi in the small hours in December! B-r-r-r! The only thing you are conscious of is the cold. For a moment the mind is roused to other things when you notice the shadowy outline of rising ground on your right. Can that little slope be the famous Ridge, you ask yourself. But daylight will serve to answer that question, and