CHAP. X - UMRITSUR

Summary

At Umbala, I heard that the Sikh pilgrims returning from the sacred fair, or great Hindoo camp-meeting, at Hurdwar, had been attacked by cholera, and excluded from the town; and as I quitted Umbala in the evening, I came upon the cholera-stricken train of pilgrims escaping by forced marches towards their homes, in many cases a thousand miles away. Tall, lithe, long-bearded men with large hooked noses, high foreheads, and thin lips, stalked along, leading by one hand their veiled women, who ran behind, their crimson and orange trousers stained with the dust of travel, while bullock-carts decked out with jingling bells bore the tired and the sick. Many children of all ages were in the throng. For mile after mile I drove through their ranks, as they marched with a strange kind of weary haste, and marched, too, with few halts, with little rest, if any. One great camp we left behind us, but only one; and all night long we were still passing ranks of marching men and women. The march was silent; there was none of the usual chatter of an Indian crowd; gloom was in every face, and the people marched like a beaten army flying from a destroying foe.

The disease, indeed, was pressing on their heels. Two hundred men and women, as I was told at the Umbala lines, had died among them in the single day.