CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_d46cf18d-093e-5b3b-8fed-c87a992d740b)
In which the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean show themselves Propitious to Phileas Fogg’s designs
The distance between Suez and Aden is exactly thirteen hundred and ten miles, and the timetable of the company allows its steamer a period of one hundred and thirty-eight hours to make the distance. The Mongolia, whose fires were well kept up, moved along rapidly enough to anticipate her stipulated arrival. Nearly all the passengers who came aboard at Brindisi had India for their destination. Some were going to Bombay, others to Calcutta, but via Bombay, for since a railway crosses the entire breadth of the Indian peninsula, it is no longer necessary to double the island of Ceylon.
Among these passengers of the Mongolia, there were several officials of the Civil Service and army officers of every grade. Of the latter, some belonged to the British Army, properly so-called, the others commanded the native Sepoy troops, all receiving high salaries, since the Government has taken the place of the powers and charge of the old East India Company; sub-lieutenants receiving £280; brigadiers, £2400; and generals, £4000. The emoluments of officials in the Civil Service are still higher: Simple assistants in the first rank get £480; judges, £2400; the president judges, £10,000; governors, £12,000; and the governor-general more than £24,000.
There was good living on board the Mongolia, in this company of officials, to which were added some young Englishmen, who, with a million in their pockets, were going to establish commercial houses abroad. The purser, the confidential man of the company, the equal of the captain on board the ship, did things up elegantly. At the breakfast, at the lunch at two o’clock, at the dinner at half-past five, at the supper at eight o’clock, the tables groaned under the dishes of fresh meat and the relishes, furnished by the refrigerator, and the pantries of the steamer. The ladies, of whom there were a few, changed their toilet twice a day. There was music, and there was dancing also when the sea allowed it.
But the Red Sea is very capricious and too frequently rough, like all long, narrow bodies of water. When the wind blew either from the coast of Asia, or from the coast of Africa, the Mongolia, being very long and sharp built, and struck amidships, rolled fearfully. The ladies then disappeared; the pianos were silent; songs and dances ceased at once. And yet, notwithstanding the squall and the agitated waters, the steamer, driven by its powerful engines, pursued its course without delay to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
What was Phileas Fogg doing all this time? It might be supposed that, always uneasy and anxious, his mind would be occupied with the changes of the wind interfering with the progress of the vessel, the irregular movements of the squall threatening an accident to the engine, and in short, all the possible injuries, which, compelling the Mongolia to put into some port, would have interrupted his journey.
By no means, or, at least, if this gentleman thought of these probabilities, he did not let it appear as if he did. He was the same impassible man, the imperturbable member of the Reform Club, whom no incident or accident could surprise. He did not appear more affected than the ship’s chronometers. He was seldom seen upon the deck. He troubled himself very little about looking at this Red Sea, so fruitful in recollections, the spot where the first historic scenes of mankind were enacted. He did not recognise the curious towns scattered upon its shores, and whose picturesque outlines stood out sometimes against the horizon. He did not even dream of the dangers of the Gulf of Arabia, of which the ancient historians, Strabo, Arrius, Artemidorus, and others, always spoke with dread, and upon which the navigators never ventured in former times without having consecrated their voyage by propitiatory sacrifices.
What was this queer fellow, imprisoned upon the Mongolia, doing? At first he took his four meals a day, the rolling and pitching of the ship not putting out of order his mechanism, so wonderfully organised. Then he played at whist. For he found companions as devoted to it as himself: a collector of taxes, who was going to his post at Goa; a minister, the Rev. Decimus Smith, returning to Bombay; and a brigadier-general of the British Army, who was rejoining his corps at Benares. These three passengers had the same passion for whist as Mr Fogg, and they played for entire hours, not less quietly than he.
As for Passepartout, sea-sickness had taken no hold on him. He occupied a forward cabin, and ate conscientiously. It must be said that the voyage made under these circumstances was decidedly not unpleasant to him. He rather liked his share of it. Well fed and well lodged, he was seeing the country, and besides, he asserted to himself that all this whim would end at Bombay. The next day after leaving Suez it was not without a certain pleasure that he met on deck the obliging person whom he had addressed on landing in Egypt.
“I am not mistaken,” he said on approaching him with his most amiable smile; “you are the very gentleman that so kindly served as my guide in Suez?”
“Indeed,” replied the detective, “I recognise you! You are the servant of that odd Englishman—”
“Just so, Monsieur—?”
“Fix.”
“Monsieur Fix,” replied Passepartout. “Delighted to meet you again on board this vessel. And where are you going?”
“Why, to the same place as yourself, Bombay.”
“That is first rate! Have you already made this trip?”
“Several times,” replied Fix. “I am an agent of the Peninsular Company.”
“Then you know India?”
“Why—yes,” replied Fix, who did not wish to commit himself too far.
“And this India is a curious place?”
“Very curious! Mosques, minarets, temples, fakirs, pagodas, tigers, serpents, dancing girls! But it is to be hoped that you will have time to visit the country?”
“I hope so, Monsieur Fix. You understand very well that it is not permitted to a man of sound mind to pass his life in jumping from a steamer into a railway car and from a railway car into a steamer, under the pretext of making the tour of the world in eighty days! No. All these gymnastics will cease at Bombay, don’t doubt it.”
“And Mr Fogg is well?” asked Fix in a most natural tone.
“Very well, Monsieur Fix, and I am too. I eat like an ogre that has been fasting. It is the sea air.”
“I never see your master on deck.”
“Never. He is not inquisitive.”
“Do you know, Mr Passepartout, that this pretended tour in eighty days might very well be the cover for some secret mission—a diplomatic mission, for example!”
“Upon my word, Monsieur Fix, I don’t know anything about it, I confess, and really I wouldn’t give a half-crown to know.”
After this meeting, Passepartout and Fix frequently talked together. The detective thought he ought to have close relations with the servant of this gentleman Fogg. There might be an occasion when he could serve him. He frequently offered him, in the bar-room of the Mongolia, a few glasses of whisky or pale ale, which the good fellow accepted without reluctance, and returned even so as not to be behind him—finding this Fix to be a very honest gentleman.
In the meantime the steamer was rapidly getting on. On the 13th they sighted Mocha, which appeared in its enclosure of ruined walls, above which were hanging green date trees. At a distance, in the mountains, there were seen immense fields of coffee trees. Passepartout was delighted to behold this celebrated place, and he found, with its circular walls and a dismantled fort in the shape of a handle, it looked like an enormous cup and saucer.
During the following night the Mongolia passed through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabic name of which signifies “The Gate of Tears,” and the next day, the 14th, she put in at Steamer Point, to the north-west of Aden harbour. There she was to lay in coal again. This obtaining fuel for steamers at such distances from the centres of production is a very serious matter. It amounts to an annual expense for the Peninsular Company of eight hundred thousand pounds. It has been necessary, indeed, to establish depots in several ports, and in these distant seas coal reaches as high as from three to four pounds per ton.
The Mongolia had still sixteen hundred and fifty miles to make before reaching Bombay, and she had to remain four hours at Steamer Point, to lay in her coal. But this delay could not in any way be prejudicial to Phileas Fogg’s programme. It was foreseen. Besides, the Mongolia, instead of not arriving at Aden until the morning of the 15th, put in there the evening of the 14th, a gain of fifteen hours.
Mr Fogg and his servant landed. The gentleman wished to have his passport viséd. Fix followed him without being noticed. The formality of the visé through with, Phileas Fogg returned on board to resume his interrupted play. Passepartout, according to his custom, loitered about in the midst of the population of Somalis, Banyans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs, Europeans, making up the twenty-five thousand inhabitants of Aden. He admired the fortifications which make of this town the Gibraltar of the Indian Ocean, and some splendid cisterns, at which the English engineers were still working, two thousand years after the engineers of King Solomon. “Very singular, very singular!” said Passepartout to himself on returning aboard. “I see that it is not useless travel, if we wish to see anything new.”
At six o’clock p.m. the Mongolia was ploughing the waters of the Aden harbour, and soon reached the Indian Ocean. She had one hundred and sixty-eight hours to make the distance between Aden and Bombay. The Indian Ocean was favourable to her, the wind kept in the north-west, and the sails come to the aid of the steam. The ship well balanced, rolled less. The ladies, in fresh toilets, reappeared upon the deck. The singing and dancing recommenced. Their voyage was then progressing under the most favourable circumstances. Passepartout was delighted with the agreeable companion whom chance had procured for him in the person of Fix.
On Sunday, the 20th of October, towards noon, they sighted the Indian coast. Two hours later, the pilot came aboard the Mongolia. The outlines of the hills blended with the sky. Soon the rows of palm trees which abound in the place came into distinct view. The steamer entered the harbour formed by the islands of Salcette, Colaba, Elephanta, Butcher, and at half-past four she put in at the wharves of Bombay. Phileas Fogg was then finishing the thirty-third rubber of the day, and his partner and himself, thanks to a bold manuvre, having made thirteen tricks, wound up this fine trip by a splendid victory. The Mongolia was not due at Bombay until the 22nd of October. She arrived on the 20th. This was a gain of two days, then, since his departure from London, and Phileas Fogg methodically noted it down in his memorandum-book in the column of gains.
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_365d05f8-cbc8-564c-89de-0377c4cff5c6)
In which Passepartout is only too happy to get off with the loss of his shoes
No one is ignorant of the fact that India, this great reversed triangle whose base is to the north and its apex to the south, comprises a superficial area of fourteen hundred thousand square miles, over which is unequally scattered a population of one hundred and eighty millions of inhabitants. The British Government exercises a real dominion over a certain portion of this vast country. It maintains a Governor-General at Calcutta, Governors at Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, and a Lieutenant-Governor at Agra.
But British India, properly so-called, counts only a superficial area of seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants. It is sufficient to say that a prominent part of the territory is still free from the authority of the Queen; and, indeed, with some of the rajahs of the interior, fierce and terrible, Hindu independence is still absolute. Since 1756—the period at which was founded the first English establishment on the spot to-day occupied by the City of Madras—until the year in which broke out the great Sepoy insurrection, the celebrated East India Company was all-powerful. It annexed little by little the various provinces, bought from the rajahs at the price of annual rents, which it paid in part or not at all; it named its Governor-General and all its civil or military employees; but now it no longer exists, and the British possessions in India are directly under the Crown. Thus the aspect, the manners, and the distinctions of race of the peninsula are being changed every day. Formerly they travelled by all the old means of conveyance, on foot, on horseback, in carts, in small vehicles drawn by men, in palanquins, on men’s backs, in coaches, etc. Now, steamboats traverse with great rapidity the Indus and the Ganges, and a railway crossing the entire breadth of India, and branching in various directions, puts Bombay at only three days from Calcutta.
The route of this railway does not follow a straight line across India. The air-line distance is only one thousand to eleven hundred miles, and trains, going at only an average rapidity, would not take three days to make it; but this distance is increased at least one-third by the arc described by the railway rising to Allahabad, in the northern part of the peninsula. In short, these are the principal points of the route of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Leaving the island of Bombay, it crosses Salcette, touches the main land opposite Tannah, crosses the chain of the Western Ghauts, runs to the north-east as far as Burhampour, goes through the nearly independent territory of Bundelkund, rises as far as Allahabad, turns towards the east, meets the Ganges at Benares, turns slightly aside, and descending again to the south-east by Burdidan and the French town of Chandernagor, it reaches the end of the route at Calcutta.
It was at half-past four p.m. that the passengers of the Mongolia had landed in Bombay, and the train for Calcutta would leave at precisely eight o’clock. Mr Fogg then took leave of his partners, left the steamer, gave his servant directions for some purchases, recommended him expressly to be at the station before eight o’clock, and with his regular step which beat the second like the pendulum of an astronomical clock, he turned his steps towards the passport office. He did not think of looking at any of the wonders of Bombay, neither the city hall, nor the magnificent library, nor the forts, nor the docks, nor the cotton market, nor the shops, nor the mosques, nor the synagogues, nor the Armenian churches, nor the splendid pagoda of Malebar Hill, adorned with two polygonal towers. He would not contemplate either the masterpieces of Elephanta, or its mysterious hypogea, concealed in the south-east of the harbour, or the Kanherian grottoes of the Islands of Salcette, those splendid remains of Buddhist architecture! No, nothing of that for him. After leaving the passport office, Phileas Fogg quietly returned to the station, and there had dinner served. Among other dishes, the landlord thought he ought to recommend to him a certain giblet of “native rabbit,” of which he spoke in the highest terms. Phileas Fogg accepted the giblet and tasted it conscientiously; but in spite of the spiced sauce, he found it detestable. He rang for the landlord.
“Sir,” he said, looking at him steadily, “is that rabbit?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the rogue boldly, “the rabbit of the jungles.”
“And that rabbit did not mew when it was killed?”
“Mew! oh, my lord! a rabbit! I swear to you—”
“Landlord,” replied Mr Fogg coolly, “don’t swear, and recollect this: in former times, in India, cats were considered sacred animals. That was a good time.”
“For the cats, my lord?”
“And perhaps also for the travellers!”
After this observation Mr Fogg went on quietly with his dinner.
