Night Journey by Camel

Except for some twinkling stars in the sky, it was almost pitch dark on the road before and after the cart, lonely, deserted and silent but for the sound 0f the bell hung around the camel's neck as the animal plodded along pulling the cart down the often bumpy desert highway. The cart, a flat platform built above huge wheels with rubber tyres, was piled high with sacks containing jute bags and bundles of bamboo. Such cargoes were of no value to robbers who were wont to stop loaded carts such as this in the dead of night on the highway and make away with their cargoes for a quick cash trade for them at a nearby village.

A tarpaulin had been spread over the cargoes and Mir Jhan, the cart driver, was curled up fast asleep on top of it, leaving the camel up in front to make the journey using its instinct as it had always done for more that two decades on this same road from Karachi to Hyderabad.

Mir Jhan would wake up just before dawn at a watering place, get down off the cart, feed the camel and then perform his morning prayers, a routine he had followed all the years he had been on the road.

He would then join his fellow cart drivers at the same place for a light breakfast of leaven bread and beans. He would take the opportunity to exchange the latest news with his friends. An hour later, he was on the road again as the sun rose in the east where his destination, the town of Hyderabad, lay and where he would discharge his cargoes and take on a new load of cooking pots for his journey onward to Quetta where he lived with his wife and daughter.

Mir Jhan recounted to me the details of his travel all over Pakistan when he stopped over to visit his nephew, Rehman, who was working as a houseboy with me at Karachi. His was an interesting life full of adventure and trials involving highway robberies, sand storms and invasions of locusts that could blacken the whole sky. His descriptions of Hyderabad, Multan, Lahore, Peshawar and the Khyber Pass reminded me of Kim's wandering in this part of the world as told by Kipling.

Incident at the Five Cowrie Bridge

Lagos, the morning after the first military take over....

A soldier waving a rifle in the air above his head stopped my car on the Five Cowrie Bridge, opened the door on the passenger side and got into the seat.

"Take me to the Ikoyi camp!" he barked at me. I slammed on the gear and drove through the checkpoint barrier, turned right and headed for the Awolowo road to Ikoyi. Who was I to argue with a loaded (?) gun?

I was amazed that I was able to keep my cool and drove along without any difficulty with my heart pounding hard and sweat running down my face.

The Awolowo road was choked full of morning traffic. "Quick, Man, quick!" he yelled at me. waving his gun and pumping up and down on the seat. I put my thumb hard on the horn and overtook as many vehicles ahead of me as I could. Soon, I saw the Ikoyi Hotel looming up in the distance.

"Stop, stop here!" shouted my passenger. I pulled to the side of the road and he opened the car door, got out in a rush and slammed it shut. He melted away into a row of straw village huts.

I drove to the Ikoyi and got myself a stiff drink at the bar.

Train Journeys II

Albany, the state capital, Fort Ticonderoga, the Allegheny Mountains, the valley of the River Hudson, all the golden leafage of autumn and the historical feel of this part of the northeastern part of the USA, at any moment I would see a party Mohican hunters running Indian file through the forest glades or Hawkeye, out hunting face down in the tall grass taking aim with his muzzle loading flintlock at a deer beneath the trees. Is that a detachment of Montcalm's soldiery landing on the side of a placid lake looking for the British Redcoats to ambush? I was sitting most comfortably on the train from the Penn Station in Manhattan on my way to Montreal, Quebec and looking and enjoying the scenes it passed through the window. The train on this occasion had an electric driven locomotive up front but, I am certain, it would have a proper steam locomotive in years past for this journey. I moved down the train to the buffet car and got myself some egg sandwiches and a can of Coke for a snack.

Train Journeys - I

I climbed on board the Dover/Manhattan train one morning at the whistle stop at Mt. Tabor, New Jersey and settled down onto a comfortable seat as the train took off toward Morristown, Newark and the Penn Station in New York. New Jersey is known as the garden state and, as to be expected, we passed some beautiful townships, parks and some lovely sights. After Newark, the train dipped underground below the Hudson River which separates the shores of New Jersey and Manhattan. For some time we were literally underwater deep in the bowels of the earth until the train suddenly emerged from the ground before it pulled into the Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. It was quite an interesting experience to be sitting in a train that went into the earth like a legendary dragon and re-emerged on solid ground again.

Winter in Moscow

Well attired in heavy winter clothes, boots and thick leather gloves I sprinted across the Ulitsa Mosfilmoskaya and into the park that surrounded the grounds of Moscow University. The temperature was a few degrees below zero, in the depth of winter and the trees in the park were all bare but covered with snow. In the night, the temperature had dropped even lower and caused all the snow, on the branches of the trees and on the ground to turned crystalline. I had to trot carefully as the snow on the ground had turned to ice and extremely slippery. But the whole scenery that met my eyes was like a fairy land and with the weak sun that filtered through the park it was all so splendid and picturesque. In short, the whole park was so beautiful that words can hardly give adequate description of it. It was all silent, no birds were found among the trees, it was far too early in the morning. Later in the day, sparrows and other small species of birds would come out to look for food. There were no other human beings around, I was all alone in this wonderful world of crystals and white snows cape and light sunshine.