Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
He went and stayed with Strobo, and every day he and the Signor, clad in bath-towels, lay in closed rooms under punkahs and had iced drinks in the long tumblers of the East, and smoked and talked away the burden of the hours.
Silken punkahs swung from chains, wafting back and forth a cloud of sandalwood smoke that veiled the whole scene in mysterious, scented mist. Through the open window came the splash of a fountain and the chattering of birds, and the branch of a feathery tree drooped near by. It seemed that the long white wall below was that of Yasmini's garden.
And in the middle, there was a golden throne of bejewelled peacocks, and punkahs and umbrellas of gold and rose a dream of beauty and not one man in the whole show! The Apollo Bundar, as everyone who has been in India knows, is a projecting part of the esplanade below the Taj Hotel. Here Royalties are in the habit of landing and embarking.
He learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born, who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty. He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn; and quietly he measured himself against his self-reliant mates.
He could have sat there with Elizabeth, although their marriage hovered on the horizon, and talked of trivial things: of sport, of shooting; or damned the Executive sitting beneath punkahs in offices with windows all closed, far away in Calcutta. Or could have traversed, mentally, leagues of sea and rehabilitated past scenes in London. It would be like talking to a brother officer.
They died in hundreds; remember it was during an Indian summer, and even under the best conditions, with ice and punkahs and shade, the European finds it hard to get through the hot weather. Here there were no conveniences and very few even of what might be considered necessaries.
They are not to be only pitied, for all their punkahs, and the damp heat. Rangoon, 8th January. The Shan Camp. To this we were invited by Mr B. S. Carey, C.I.E. He dined with us at the E.'s bungalow and told us much of interest of the people he had brought from these states that lie between Burmah and China.
The drawing-room, in which Wilhelm walked restlessly up and down, was full of Indian things; oriental carpets on the floor, low divans along the walls covered with gold embroidery and heaped with cushions, rocking-chairs in the corners, punkahs hanging from the ceilings no heavy European furniture anywhere, but here and there a little toy-like table or stool made of sandalwood or ebony, inlaid with silver or mother-o'-pearl.
One rope moved both punkahs, and the motive power was supplied by a coolie who, salaaming to the sahibs and seating himself on the ground, picked up the end of the rope and began to pull. Raymond put out the lamp. Wargrave stared up at the moon for a while. Then he said: "I say, Ray; didn't Mrs. Norton look lovely to-night? Didn't that dress suit her awfully well?" "Oh, go to sleep, old man.
The foreign residents, including consuls of all nationalities, missionaries, and merchants, live well out of the city on a hilltop. Their houses are built with very high ceilings and bare interiors, and as the occupants seldom go into the city except in a sedan chair and have "punkahs" waving day and night, life is made possible during the intense heat of summer.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking