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This in simple language means that it is useless to expect a good downward current of air from a slow moving and heavy punka, with long suspending cords which keep it nearly always in a vertical position to its plane of movement.
This breeze prevents perspiration, or evaporates the same as soon as it is formed. Sometimes it sinks to a light zephyr; then, if you are reading or writing, you may continue your work, but in a distracted way, with a moist brow, and with a feeling of annoyance that soon makes you leave book or pen. Looking around you, you find the punka immovable.
After the frame has been lifted, a weight fastened to the lower part causes it to fall back again. The result of the continuous motion of this colossal fan is a coolness that is highly appreciated in a country where the temperature is at times incredibly high, and where, without the factitious breeze created by the punka, living would not be endurable.
For hours he would sit under the yellow-and-green awning of the Greek hotel and watch the procession pass, or he would lie under an umbrella on the beach and laugh as the boatmen lifted their passengers to their shoulders and with them splash through the breakers, or in the bazaars for hours he would bargain with the Indian merchants, or in the great mahogany hall of the Ivory House, to the whisper of a punka and the tinkle of ice in a tall glass, listen to tales of Arab raids, of elephant poachers, of the trade in white and black ivory, of the great explorers who had sat in that same room of Emin Pasha, of Livingstone, of Stanley.
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