The Eastern Gate - How the Railway Climbed the Hills

摘要

"You might think of walking downstairs, but if a block of flats had a lift, who would ever dream of walking up?"On the way from Madras to the Nilgiris, a good friend of mine, a mill owner, had invited me to spend a day with him at Coimbatore. A look round his mill had given me the impression - possibly quite a superficial one - that if Madame Madras in 1901 had only just stepped out of her palanquin, the upcountry had gone ahead very much indeed. Adding to this impression, the mill owner recommended me to go up to the Hills by the new Nilgiri Railway, not quite three years old, and then considered as another evidence of modern efficiency in the upcountry.The alternative was to renew acquaintance with the old palanquin route to Kotagiri direct, by carrying-chair for the first half of the way, and the rest on horseback. In early days I had seen others go by tonga or ox-cart, and the mill owner said all those laborious ways were now quite out of date, since the coming of the new Railway. He crowned his argument with the very appropriate words I have just quoted (or words to that effect, as they say in the Army), and so turned the scale. Besides, the Railway was the only route which was a real novelty. Something, however, ought first to be said about the roads before the Railway came.