Rudyard Kipling

📔 Under the Deodars

1889

One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground. Each well-regulated Indian Cemetery keeps half a dozen graves permanently open for contingencies and incidental wear and tear.

📔 Oonts

1890

Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire? / It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire; / But it's everlastin' waitin' on an everlastin' road / For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load. / O the oont, O the oont, O the commissariat oont! / With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes; / We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt, / An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks.

📔 Life's Handicap

1897

'Sedan-chair! Put your 'ead in a bag. That was a palanquin. Don't yer know a palanquin when you see it?' said Ortheris with great scorn... What befell at that interview in the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half-built embankment, only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is a confusing one, running thus... 'There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage. On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we do? We were poor men. He took full half of our wages. Will the Government repay us those moneys?...'

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Under the Deodars Oonts Life's Handicap