He was answered by the
natives according to their usual mode of expression, that the moon was
in her dark side, and that he was not to hope to behold her bursting
through a cloud to illuminate the thickets and strata of black and slaty
rocks, amongst which they were winding. Hartley had therefore no
resource, save to keep his eye steadily fixed on the lighted match of
the Sowar, or horseman, who rode before him, which, for sufficient
reasons, was always kept in readiness to be applied to the priming of
the matchlock. The vidette, on his part, kept a watchful eye on the
Dowrah, a guide supplied at the last village, who, having got more than
halfway from his own house, was much to be suspected of meditating how
to escape the trouble of going further. [Footnote: In every village the
Dowrah, or Guide, is an official person, upon the public establishment,
and receives a portion of the harvest or other revenue, along with the
Smith, the Sweeper, and the Barber. As he gets nothing from the
travellers whom it is his office to conduct, he never scruples to
shorten his own journey and prolong theirs by taking them to the nearest
village, without reference to the most direct line of route, and
sometimes deserts them entirely. If the regular Dowrah is sick or
absent, no wealth can procure a substitute.]
The Dowrah, on the other hand, conscious of the lighted match and loaded
gun behind him, hollowed from time to time to show that he was on his
duty, and to accelerate the march of the travellers.
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