saved from Scylla, our destiny was Charybdis, and we accordingly
surrendered ourselves to a wash, breakfast, and the Brahminee
Bull. During the day, we had a visit from a friend and ex-brother
officer, whom we had promised to stay with, at "Kussowlie," on our
road up. Kalka was not HOT, but GRILLING, so that a speedy ascent to
the station was soon agreed upon. Not caring to risk a sun-stroke,
I resigned myself to the traditional conveyance of the country, a
"jhampan," while the other two rode up; but here, for the second
time, it was "out of the fryingpan into the fire." Such an infernal
machine as my new conveyance turned out never could have existed in
the palmiest days of the Inquisition. It was a sort of child's cradle,
long enough for a creature of some five or six summers, made like a
tray, and hung after the fashion of a miniature four-post bedstead,
with goat's-hair curtains. The structure is suspended, something in the
fashion of a sedan-chair which has been stunted in its growth, between
two poles; between the projections of these again, before and behind,
connected by a stout strap, are two shorter bars, each supported, when
in travelling order, on the shoulders of two bearers. When the machine
is in motion, therefore, there are four men in line between the shafts.

The pace is always rather fast, and down a declivity the torturers
go at a run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are
continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine,
coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the
ground and the humour of the inquisitors. After getting over about
six miles in this graceful and pleasing manner, we reached the first
of the fir-trees, and as we rose still higher a delicious breeze came
over the hills, as precious to the parched and travel-stained pilgrim
from the plains as a drop of water to the thirstiest wanderer in the
desert. Kussowlie appeared a picturesque little station, perched at