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Illusive at first, evanescent as filaments of gossamer; then as the buds opened, emphasising itself, breathing deeper, stronger. An exquisite mingling of many odours passed continually over the Mission, from the garden of the Seed ranch, meeting and blending with the aroma of its magnolia buds and punka blossoms.
The saloon had an air of freshness to-night. All the men were in drill or pongee, and so receptive is the imagination that the picture robbed the room of half its heat. To and fro the punka flapped; the pulleys creaked and the ropes scraped above the sound of knives and forks and spoons. Elsa ate little besides fruit. She spoke scarcely a word to Martha, and none to those around her.
It has often been said that every engineer on his arrival in India sets about improving this useful apparatus; but if we may judge from the endless variety of forms which may be seen in shops and offices, in public and in private buildings, no general principle of construction has been recognized, and the punka, as we see it, seems to depend, for its form, more upon the taste of the workman who makes it than on anything else.
The power required to drive a punka is nearly all due to the resistance of the air; that part due to the force of gravity, and the friction of the suspending joints, is scarcely worth counting. We may readily observe the effect of the resistance of the air by swinging two pendulums of equal length and having each a large cardboard disk attached.
The function of a punka is to cause a current of air to pass the human body so that the animal heat may escape more rapidly. This has nothing to do with ventilation; for if the punka were used in a closed room, it would still produce a cooling effect on the skin.
Twenty-four pulls a minute of a length of 36 inches give in practice a speed of 168 linear feet to the punka curtain. This speed is found to produce a current sufficiently rapid for practical purposes, and twenty-four pulls or beats per minute correspond to a length of suspending cord of fifty inches.
To obtain the greatest result from the power expended in driving it, the punka should be placed as near as possible to the person to be cooled, as the loss of effect, due to distance, increases not in direct ratio, but in proportion to the square of the distance between punka and person.
Well, to keep the skin at an agreeable temperature in India we generally wear a minimum of clothing, and when there is no breeze, we try to produce one with the punka.
The bahi still holds the cord that pulls it, but it is because he has tied it to his hand. He has gently slid to the floor in a squatting posture. He is asleep and you are burning. A vigorous exclamation brings him to his feet all standing, and he begins to pull the punka with all his might, and you have a feeling of ease and coolness.
A novel, idly skimmed over in bed, was the extent of his literature; he never bored himself by reading the papers, he heard the news earlier than they told it; and as he lived, he was too constantly supplied from the world about him with amusement and variety to have to do anything beyond letting himself be amused; quietly fanned, as it were, with the lulling punka of social pleasure, without even the trouble of pulling the strings.
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