Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/61

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way by whatever vehicle he could procure. He considered himself fortunate if he secured the services of a pair of fast bulls capable of trotting three or four miles an hour instead of walking at the rate of two. Various also were the accidents that happened, and still more numerous were the escapes. The bullocks sometimes ran away with him. They began their tricks early, and he thus describes them in the first year of his episcopate : 'Three or four times in the course of the journey my bullocks dashed off the road through the ditch (happily not very deep) and ran imminent risk of breaking the springs and injuring themselves and me. On one of these occasions they rushed between two trees in the adjoining field. On another they dashed down a steep place at the side of the road and came close up to a block of brick buildings, which would have smashed the carriage if it had run on two or three more feet.'

When travelling by bullock-cart a conveyance is necessary for each person, Only in dire need is it shared. The uneven gait of the cattle and the roughness of the road throw travellers occupying the same cart from side to side and cause collisions and contusions. Now and then there was no alternative but for the bishop and his chaplain to ride together. On one occasion when the Kev. S. Morley, afterwards Bishop of Tinnevelly and Madura, was chaplain, he lost the bishop. They had arranged to travel all night and 'laid their dak' accordingly. It was usual for the chaplain to take the lead and for the bishop to follow close behind as close, that is to say, as the dust would permit. In the middle of the night Mr. Morley dropped into an uneasy slumber from which he awoke with a start. He glanced back along the road for the glimmer of the lights on the cart that carried the bishop, but could see no trace of them anywhere. The way was hedgeless and the country