too, most trying to the patience. Patience, however, is indigenous to India: to sit still is never a misfortune to the Hindu while he has any thing to eat.
The common carts used for the transportation of goods from the interior, which constantly pass the traveller on this road, are many of them exceedingly primitive in their construction. A pole is attached to a simple frame running upon two solid wheels, made sometimes of a circular cut from a tree, sometimes of two pieces clamped together. The yoke merely lies upon the necks of the cattle without being fastened, except that a pin at each extremity keeps it from slipping off. These bandies are drawn sometimes by oxen, sometimes (as in the accompanying illustration) by domesticated buffaloes, whose hairless hide is mercilessly belaboured by the driver.[1] These
- ↑ In the illustration, the driver, as is very customary, is walking beside the pole of the bandy and between the buffaloes, to urge them on by blows, cries, and pushes. The shaved head and coodamy or queue will be noticed. An European, if thus exposed, would soon be prostrated by a sunstroke. A native in better circumstances is walking under the shelter of a palm-leaf umbrella, and a cooly is trotting by with a tin box upon his head. In the background are natives seated on the piol of a small house.
