| |
| | “Why is my District death-rate low?” |
| Said Binks of Hezabad. |
| “Well, drains, and sewage-outfalls are |
| “My own peculiar fad. |
| “I learnt a lesson once. It ran |
| “Thus,” quoth that most veracious man:— |
IT was an August evening and, in snowy garments clad, | |
| I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad; | |
| When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all, | |
| A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall. | |
| |
| I couldn’t see the driver, and across my mind it rushed | 5 |
| That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth. 1 | |
| I didn’t care to meet him, and I couldn’t well get down, | |
| So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town. | |
| |
| The buggy was a new one and, praise Dykes, it stood the strain, | |
| Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain; | 10 |
| And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals, | |
| And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels. | |
| |
| He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, | |
| To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— | |
| Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, | 15 |
| Felt the brute’s proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair. | |
| |
| Heard it trumpet on my shoulder—tried to crawl a little higher— | |
| Found the Main Drain sewage outfall blocked, some eight feet up, with mire; | |
| And, for twenty reeking minutes, Sir, my very marrow froze, | |
| While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes! | 20 |
| |
| It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning grey | |
| Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away. | |
| Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain. | |
| They flushed that four-foot drain-head and—it never choked again! | |
| |
| You may hold with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure, | 25 |
| Till you’ve been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer. | |
I believe in well-flushed culverts….
This is why the death-rate’s small; | |
| And, if you don’t believe me, get shikarred 2 yourself. That’s all. | |
