Freeland Tribune

It Is Not Quite as Easy as Journeying In a Pullman.
How hot it was in the plains! The month was April, and in southern India that is one of our hottest months. My little girl, Fanny, looked so white that I determined to take her to the hills and an account of our journey there will amuse many a little child.
First we went in the train, and that was all very nice. When we reached the station (the nearest to the hills) a bath and breakfast did us good. Fanny was quite longing for our next start in the transit, which is a long cart on two wheels, covered with matting. First we had a lot of straw put in and then our mattress and pillows, with a bottle of water and a tin of biscuits for Fanny. Then in we got, the ayah, or nurse, sitting at the end.
We were traveling with friends, so they went first in one cart, we came next, followed by two carts with the luggage.
We went along gayly enough, but the shades of night were creeping on, and we had forty miles to go. Fanny was much amused at the man blowing his horn, and all the funny noises he made to make the bullocks go faster.
Bump! bump! oh, what has happened! I screamed; Fanny laughed: the bullocks had run us down a bank and bumped us up against a tree.
After a bit we tried to sleep, but finding the bullocks going at such a pace I called to the driver to stop. Getting no answer, I looked out. No one was on the box seat, and the bullocks were tearing madly on. The driver had gone to sleep and fallen off. At last the bullocks stopped, and the driver appeared much bruised and out of breath. Then our wheels got locked in another cart; but at last, about three in the morning, we came to the rest-house at the foot of the hills.
There we had tea and put some warm clothes on. We found numbers of natives, all waiting with our chairs fastened to bamboos, to carry us and our luggage up the ghaut.
How still it was! Not a sound was to be heard and the quiet stars were twinkling overhead.
The coolies told us that one of their number had been asleep, wrapped in his white cloth, and a cheetah had just crept out of the wood and bitten off his arm. Poor man!-Mrs. F. Smith, in Our Little Ones.