At Bioura we encountered modern civilization again in the shape of the
south-west branch of the Grand Trunk road, which leads off from the
main stem at Agra. The Grand Trunk is not a railroad, but a firm and
smooth highway, with which the English have united Calcutta to the
North-west Provinces and to the west of India. Much of this great
roadway is metaled with _kunkur_, an oolitic limestone found near the
surface of the soil in Hindustan; and all Anglo-India laughed at the
joke of an irreverent punster who, _apropos_ of the fact that this
application of kunkur to the road-bed was made under the orders of
Lord William Bentinck, then governor-general, dubbed that gentleman
William the Kunkurer.

We had abandoned our _chapaya_--which, we may add for the benefit
of future travelers, we had greatly improved as against jolting by
causing it to be suspended upon a pair of old springs which we found,
a relic of some antique break-down, in a village on the route--and
after a short journey on elephants were traveling _dâk_; that is, by
post. The _dâk-gharri_ is a comfortable-enough long carriage on four
wheels, and constitutes the principal mode of conveyance for travelers
in India besides the railway. It contains a mattress inside, for it
goes night and day, and one's baggage is strapped on top, much as in
an American stage-coach after the "boot" is full. Frequent relays of
horses along the route enable the driver to urge his animals from one
station to the other with great speed, and the only other stoppages
are at the _dâk_-bungalows.

"I have discovered," I said to Bhima Gandharva after a short
experience of the _dâk-gharri_ and the _dâk_-bungalows--"I have
discovered a general remark about India which is _not_ absurd: all the
horses are devils and all the _dâk_-bungalow servants are patriarchs."