Around the World in 80 Days

to this product of the exact sciences.

Phileas Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis his design of going
round the world, nor the circumstances under which he set out;
and the general only saw in the wager a useless eccentricity
and a lack of sound common sense.  In the way this strange gentleman
was going on, he would leave the world without having done any good
to himself or anybody else.

An hour after leaving Bombay the train had passed the viaducts
and the Island of Salcette, and had got into the open country.
At Callyan they reached the junction of the branch line which
descends towards south-eastern India by Kandallah and Pounah;
and, passing Pauwell, they entered the defiles of the mountains,
with their basalt bases, and their summits crowned with thick
and verdant forests.  Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty exchanged
a few words from time to time, and now Sir Francis, reviving the conversation,
observed, "Some years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have met with a delay
at this point which would probably have lost you your wager."

"How so, Sir Francis?"

"Because the railway stopped at the base of these mountains,
which the passengers were obliged to cross in palanquins
or on ponies to Kandallah, on the other side."

"Such a delay would not have deranged my plans in the least,"
said Mr. Fogg.  "I have constantly foreseen the likelihood of
certain obstacles."

"But, Mr. Fogg," pursued Sir Francis, "you run the risk of
having some difficulty about this worthy fellow's adventure
at the pagoda."  Passepartout, his feet comfortably wrapped
in his travelling-blanket, was sound asleep and did not dream
that anybody was talking about him.  "The Government is very severe
upon that kind of offence.  It takes particular care that the
religious customs of the Indians should be respected,
and if your servant were caught--"

"Very well, Sir Francis," replied Mr. Fogg; "if he had been
caught he would have been condemned and punished, and then would
have quietly returned to Europe.  I don't see how this affair
could have delayed his master."

The conversation fell again.  During the night the train left
the mountains behind, and passed Nassik, and the next day
proceeded over the flat, well-cultivated country of the Khandeish,
with its straggling villages, above which rose the minarets
of the pagodas.  This fertile territory is watered by numerous
small rivers and limpid streams, mostly tributaries of the Godavery.

Passepartout, on waking and looking out, could not realise
that he was actually crossing India in a railway train.
The locomotive, guided by an English engineer and fed with English
coal, threw out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg, clove,
and pepper plantations, while the steam curled in spirals around
groups of palm-trees, in the midst of which were seen picturesque
bungalows, viharis (sort of abandoned monasteries), and marvellous
temples enriched by the exhaustless ornamentation of Indian architecture.
Then they came upon vast tracts extending to the horizon, with jungles
inhabited by snakes and tigers, which fled at the noise of the train;
succeeded by forests penetrated by the railway, and still haunted
by elephants which, with pensive eyes, gazed at the train as it passed.
The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often
stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali.  Not far off
rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad,
capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the
detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam.  It was thereabouts
that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway.
These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age
in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was
a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over
without corpses being found in every direction.  The English Government
has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees
still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites.

At half-past twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where
Passepartout was able to purchase some Indian slippers,
ornamented with false pearls, in which, with evident vanity,
he proceeded to encase his feet.  The travellers made a hasty breakfast
and started off for Assurghur, after skirting for a little the banks
of the small river Tapty, which empties into the Gulf of Cambray, near Surat.

Passepartout was now plunged into absorbing reverie.  Up to
his arrival at Bombay, he had entertained hopes that their journey
would end there; but, now that they were plainly whirling across
India at full speed, a sudden change had come over the spirit of
his dreams.  His old vagabond nature returned to him; the fantastic
ideas of his youth once more took possession of him.  He came to regard
his master's project as intended in good earnest, believed in the reality
of the bet, and therefore in the tour of the world and the necessity
of making it without fail within the designated period.  Already he began
to worry about possible delays, and accidents which might happen on the way.
He recognised himself as being personally interested in the wager,
and trembled at the thought that he might have been the means of losing it
by his unpardonable folly of the night before.  Being much less cool-headed
than Mr. Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and recounting the
days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped,
and accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally blaming Mr. Fogg
for not having bribed the engineer.  The worthy fellow was ignorant that,