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I spoke of doors, but I should rather have called them door-ways with curtains to them, thus the air set moving by the punkahs could circulate through the house, while the sun could not penetrate into the inner room, it was therefore kept tolerably cool." "I think we are better off in England, where even in the hottest weather we can keep cool without so much trouble being taken," observed Fanny.
An Indian punkah-puller, urged by his mistress to better his condition, replied: "Mem Sahib, my father pulled a punkah, my grandfather pulled a punkah, all my ancestors for four million ages pulled punkahs, and, before that, the god who founded our caste pulled a punkah over Vishnu."
The punkahs go all day not the flapping kind of Mofussil punkahs, but things like bits of windmills fastened to poles. I never like to sit or sleep exactly underneath one, they look so insecure; besides, they make one so untidy. At a dinner-party it is really dreadful to have the things flap-flapping above one's carefully done hair.
Then we had a tailor, who made all my clothes as well as Norman's and his papa's, and he is called a durize. We had six bearers, who were employed to carry our palanquin, when we went out, and they also had to keep the punkahs at work, besides having other things to do." "What a household," exclaimed Mrs Leslie, "I am glad we have not so many servants to attend to in England.
The heat in Colombo was not oppressive, but, as in other places, there are flying punkahs and electric appliances for cooling the air; then there are fans in one's room to use at will, for these Easterners like comfort and secure it at whatever cost, and the denizens of the West soon fall into their ways, even adopting the English custom of four o'clock tea.
The air of the banquet-hall was cooled with punkahs; ire mantici coperti, che facevano continoamemte vento, are the words of Corio; and on a column in the center stood a living naked gilded boy, who poured forth water from an urn.
As Englishmen in such positions generally do, they kept themselves aloof and scowled, frowned at the children who whined in the nearest neighbourhood to them, and listened in disgust to the continuous chatter about punkahs, tiffins, and bungalows. But close to them, at the end of the long table, at the common dinner, sat two ladies, on whom it was almost impossible for them to frown.
I used to like to be sentry at the colonel's tent, on our halting for the night, when the canvas would be looped up, to let in the air, and they'd got their great globe-lamps lit, with the tops to them, to keep out the flies, and the draughts made by the punkahs swinging backwards and forwards.
Then they rose until they fell upon Jebel Shamsan, in its intoxicating red and opal far away, and upon the frowning and mighty rampart that makes Aden one of the most impregnable stations of the Empire. The amusement in his eyes had died away; and as he dipped his fingers in the water at his side and motioned for a quickening of the punkahs, he said: "There is force in what you say.
Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel, with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd! Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously.
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