Читать книгу The Cable Game. The Adventures of an American Press-Boat in Turkish Waters During the Russian Revolution онлайн

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The country from Teutocorin to Madras is not particularly noteworthy, and looks like any other semi-tropic country, with much cactus growth scattered about. New Mexico and Oklahoma are the nearest things in America which resemble it. The only new thing that really impresses the stranger is the native, and for a short time he is interesting to look at. His dress is distinctly simple. As far as one can observe, there is nothing more than a long strip of red cotton cloth, perhaps four feet wide by twenty feet long. He begins his dressing process at his head and winds himself up in this sheet effect, until when the job is finished, he appears extremely well dressed and quite gracefully draped. The women have a similar arrangement, only there is more of it. The country in the south is fairly well cultivated, and here and there in the fields one sees the natives stripped for action, patiently following the bullock and a wooden plow through the field. The thing that impresses one most of all is the limitless number of brown-faced red clad men and women that swarm around the stations and villages with apparently nothing on their minds or any business in hand. There are no dining cars on the train that I traveled on, and one has to put up with eating houses, one of which occurs every five hours. The fare is not bad, and the time allowed is certainly adequate to eat all there is in sight. The style of drink in this country is whiskey and soda with ice, served in glasses eight inches deep. There must be something curious about Indian conditions which enable the residents to soak up such enormous quantities of alcohol. There are thousands of them in India who can drink a quart of whiskey a day and get up and walk off with it without turning a hair.