three-thousand-feet

Updated: May 2, 2025

The coolie, drawn from his native village reluctant, like a periwinkle from its shell, is never a good starter, and when he finds himself at the end of a tow-rope or bowed beneath half a hundredweight of the sahib's trinkets, with a three-thousand-feet pass to attain in front of him, he is extremely apt to burst into tears idle tears or be overcome by a fit of that fell disease "the lurgies."

T. R. Swinburne - A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil