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Updated: June 25, 2025
I must say that these people's jewels interest me more than their expressions; but this one man's face was exceptional, and he was lean! You see the thing above these people, that is the punkah; when it waggles about it makes a cold draught and you get hot with annoyance.
During the day we sit under the punkah, a great wooden fan suspended from the roof with great flapping fringes.
Over their tea the two young soldiers discussed the day's sport, recalling every incident of each run and kill, until the servants came in to throw open the doors and windows in hope of a faint breath of evening coolness. The punkah stopped, and the coolie who pulled it shuffled away.
We could see the two blacks at the ends of the punkah cords outside on the veranda, their bodies swaying lithely in alternation as they threw their weight against the light ropes. Other blacks, in the long white robes and exquisitely worked white skull caps of the Swahili, glided noiselessly on bare feet, serving.
Most of this time is spent in the pleasant occupation of reclining in an arm-chair beneath the punkah, the only comfortable situation in Delhi at this season of the year. Nevertheless, I manage to spin around the city mornings and evenings, and visit the famous fort and palace of Shah Jehan.
Had X. consulted his convenience he would certainly have worn his black sun spectacles, but actually feared to alarm his followers by exhibiting any further tendency to eccentricity on their first day in a strange country, and so he resigned himself to blink owlishly throughout the meal. The absence of a punkah, a necessity to which he was accustomed, was also a trial.
The carpenter has rigged up a punkah, and the men have improvised some double awnings. At Colombo they made some windsails, so we are now better off than on our last hot voyage. It has been really hotter than ever to-day, but a pleasant breeze sprang up in the afternoon. Sunday, April 8th. A delightful fresh morning after a cool night.
"Mamma, what are punkahs and tatties?" inquired Fanny, "I did not like to interrupt you when you spoke of them." "The punkah is something like an enormous fan suspended to the roof, and when a breeze is required, it is drawn backwards and forwards with ropes by the bearers.
He kept house on a green oil-cloth table-cover, one chair, one charpoy, one photograph, one tooth-glass, very strong and thick, a seven-rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last item was extortion. He had no punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the roof of the office with all his wife's letters under his pillow.
He could just make out the man's blurred shape a shadow in the shadows dog-curled, with the punkah rope looped round his foot. He kicked him gently, and the man stirred, but fell asleep again. He kicked him harder. The man sat up and stared, terrified; the whites of his eyes were distinctly visible. He seemed to have forgotten why he was there, and to imagine that he saw a ghost.
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