Idiots Abroad

The blundering Idiot! Passepartout has gone and set foot in an Indian temple with shoes. Everyone knows that no Christian can go into one of them and not even Hindus can go in with shoes. Of course three priests found him out and proceeded to beat him (as would have liked to have done if I had been there). He then made things worse by knocking down two of them completely and escaped the third. Now he has no shoes, no hat, and none of the articles he bought that were necessary to our journey. He barely made it in time to catch the eight o' clock train for Calcutta, on which we are now.

Indian Temple, India, 1870's

There was another fool who tried to make me believe that my meal was native rabbit from the jungle. The dish was decidedly unpalatable. I caught him out by asking if the 'rabbit' had mewed when killed. Of course the meat was cat, how I wish those animals were still sacred to the natives!

 We are now on our way to Calcutta, we have been running now for 35 minutes. The train will pass through Salcette, after that we shall go across to the continent opposite Tannah, go over the chain of the Western Ghauts, run thence north-east as far as Burhampoor, skirt the territory of Bundelcund, ascend to Allahabad, turn eastwardly to meet the Ganges at Benares, then depart from the river a little, descend by Burdivan and the French town of Chandernagor, and arrive at Calcutta.

                                                               Phileas Fogg
                                                                   8:37 PM
                                                                   Sunday
                                                                   20th of October, 1872