Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days

“Fix.”

“Monsieur Fix,” replied Passepartout. “Delighted to meet you again on board this vessel. And where are you going?”

“Why, to the same place as yourself, Bombay.”

“That is first rate! Have you already made this trip?”

“Several times,” replied Fix. “I am an agent of the Peninsular Company.”

“Then you know India?”

“Why—yes,” replied Fix, who did not wish to commit himself too far.

“And this India is a curious place?”

“Very curious! Mosques, minarets, temples, fakirs, pagodas, tigers, serpents, dancing girls! But it is to be hoped that you will have time to visit the country?”

“I hope so, Monsieur Fix. You understand very well that it is not permitted to a man of sound mind to pass his life in jumping from a steamer into a railway car and from a railway car into a steamer, under the pretext of making the tour of the world in eighty days! No. All these gymnastics will cease at Bombay, don’t doubt it.”

“And Mr Fogg is well?” asked Fix in a most natural tone.

“Very well, Monsieur Fix, and I am too. I eat like an ogre that has been fasting. It is the sea air.”

“I never see your master on deck.”

“Never. He is not inquisitive.”

“Do you know, Mr Passepartout, that this pretended tour in eighty days might very well be the cover for some secret mission—a diplomatic mission, for example!”

“Upon my word, Monsieur Fix, I don’t know anything about it, I confess, and really I wouldn’t give a half-crown to know.”

After this meeting, Passepartout and Fix frequently talked together. The detective thought he ought to have close relations with the servant of this gentleman Fogg. There might be an occasion when he could serve him. He frequently offered him, in the bar-room of the Mongolia, a few glasses of whisky or pale ale, which the good fellow accepted without reluctance, and returned even so as not to be behind him—finding this Fix to be a very honest gentleman.

In the meantime the steamer was rapidly getting on. On the 13th they sighted Mocha, which appeared in its enclosure of ruined walls, above which were hanging green date trees. At a distance, in the mountains, there were seen immense fields of coffee trees. Passepartout was delighted to behold this celebrated place, and he found, with its circular walls and a dismantled fort in the shape of a handle, it looked like an enormous cup and saucer.

During the following night the Mongolia passed through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabic name of which signifies “The Gate of Tears,” and the next day, the 14th, she put in at Steamer Point, to the north-west of Aden harbour. There she was to lay in coal again. This obtaining fuel for steamers at such distances from the centres of production is a very serious matter. It amounts to an annual expense for the Peninsular Company of eight hundred thousand pounds. It has been necessary, indeed, to establish depots in several ports, and in these distant seas coal reaches as high as from three to four pounds per ton.

The Mongolia had still sixteen hundred and fifty miles to make before reaching Bombay, and she had to remain four hours at Steamer Point, to lay in her coal. But this delay could not in any way be prejudicial to Phileas Fogg’s programme. It was foreseen. Besides, the Mongolia, instead of not arriving at Aden until the morning of the 15th, put in there the evening of the 14th, a gain of fifteen hours.

Mr Fogg and his servant landed. The gentleman wished to have his passport viséd. Fix followed him without being noticed. The formality of the visé through with, Phileas Fogg returned on board to resume his interrupted play. Passepartout, according to his custom, loitered about in the midst of the population of Somalis, Banyans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs, Europeans, making up the twenty-five thousand inhabitants of Aden. He admired the fortifications which make of this town the Gibraltar of the Indian Ocean, and some splendid cisterns, at which the English engineers were still working, two thousand years after the engineers of King Solomon. “Very singular, very singular!” said Passepartout to himself on returning aboard. “I see that it is not useless travel, if we wish to see anything new.”

At six o’clock p.m. the Mongolia was ploughing the waters of the Aden harbour, and soon reached the Indian Ocean. She had one hundred and sixty-eight hours to make the distance between Aden and Bombay. The Indian Ocean was favourable to her, the wind kept in the north-west, and the sails come to the aid of the steam. The ship well balanced, rolled less. The ladies, in fresh toilets, reappeared upon the deck. The singing and dancing recommenced. Their voyage was then progressing under the most favourable circumstances. Passepartout was delighted with the agreeable companion whom chance had procured for him in the person of Fix.

On Sunday, the 20th of October, towards noon, they sighted the Indian coast. Two hours later, the pilot came aboard the Mongolia. The outlines of the hills blended with the sky. Soon the rows of palm trees which abound in the place came into distinct view. The steamer entered the harbour formed by the islands of Salcette, Colaba, Elephanta, Butcher, and at half-past four she put in at the wharves of Bombay. Phileas Fogg was then finishing the thirty-third rubber of the day, and his partner and himself, thanks to a bold manuvre, having made thirteen tricks, wound up this fine trip by a splendid victory. The Mongolia was not due at Bombay until the 22nd of October. She arrived on the 20th. This was a gain of two days, then, since his departure from London, and Phileas Fogg methodically noted it down in his memorandum-book in the column of gains.

In which Passepartout is only too happy to get off with the loss of his shoes

No one is ignorant of the fact that India, this great reversed triangle whose base is to the north and its apex to the south, comprises a superficial area of fourteen hundred thousand square miles, over which is unequally scattered a population of one hundred and eighty millions of inhabitants. The British Government exercises a real dominion over a certain portion of this vast country. It maintains a Governor-General at Calcutta, Governors at Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, and a Lieutenant-Governor at Agra.

But British India, properly so-called, counts only a superficial area of seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants. It is sufficient to say that a prominent part of the territory is still free from the authority of the Queen; and, indeed, with some of the rajahs of the interior, fierce and terrible, Hindu independence is still absolute. Since 1756—the period at which was founded the first English establishment on the spot to-day occupied by the City of Madras—until the year in which broke out the great Sepoy insurrection, the celebrated East India Company was all-powerful. It annexed little by little the various provinces, bought from the rajahs at the price of annual rents, which it paid in part or not at all; it named its Governor-General and all its civil or military employees; but now it no longer exists, and the British possessions in India are directly under the Crown. Thus the aspect, the manners, and the distinctions of race of the peninsula are being changed every day. Formerly they travelled by all the old means of conveyance, on foot, on horseback, in carts, in small vehicles drawn by men, in palanquins, on men’s backs, in coaches, etc. Now, steamboats traverse with great rapidity the Indus and the Ganges, and a railway crossing the entire breadth of India, and branching in various directions, puts Bombay at only three days from Calcutta.