مذكرة عن السيرة المهنية للسير توماس إدوارد روجرز [و‎‎٢‎٠] (١١٨/٣٩)

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our tent as we were taken hospitably into theirs by some clearly well-employed
roadmender subjects of the King Emperor. They gave us tea and chupatti which
added to the fellow-feeling we had for them after our own tough roadmaking
apprenticeship in Asiatic Turkey. In Quetta where ten years later I would be
Political Agent just before Independence I was lucky enough to have a short
talk with an outstanding senior Political Officer, 'Bunch' (Major-General
Sir Arthur) Parsons, a man of clearly monkish dedication who had become Agent to
the Governor-General the year before.
As we left Quetta on the 2000 mile stage to Calcutta readers of Kipling among
us were not unprepared for the sights ahead except that all was now alive before
our eyes. We would be viewers of a non-stop kaleidoscope along the Grand Trunk
Road whose packed sixteen foot width, however, fell short of its sonorous name.
But 'Grand' it was a dramatic microcosm of the different provinces and people on
either side. Camels, elephants, bullocks, buffalos and monkeys mingled in the
human stream so that at times it seemed no square yard of road was left unoccupied.
After roads in Europe where but for horses in Hungary animals were rarely to be
seen, we delighted to watch the slow rhythmic pace of so many creatures
imperturbably bearing their master's load or person along this marvellous flow
of life. The colourful people pressing along the road, with the swaying women
capped with water-pot or bundle outdoing the men in speed and grace, suggested for
all their poverty the bearing of long-civilised races. Physique, colour, language,
- l ' ros/ ' x * < S ^
religion and dress kept changing as we passed from province across Northern India
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and down the long Gangetic plain towards Bengal and journey's end. Coming from
prosperous Europe I could have had no more salutary introduction to my work than
to join this packed 2000 mile-long procession of India's masses who for all their
differences bore the touching common stamp of people for whom life is a struggle
to survive.