Travels in India (Tavernier) 8.8

8.8

It is a kind of bed, of 6 or 7 feet long and 3 feet wide, with a small rail all round. A sort of cane, called bamboo, which they bend when young, in order to cause it to take the form of a bow in the middle, sustains the cover of the pallankeen, which is of satin or brocade; and when the sun shines on one side, an attendant, who walks near the pallankeen, takes care to lower the covering. There is another, who carries at the end of a stick a kind of basket-work shield, covered with some kind of beautiful stuff, in order to promptly shelter the occupant of the pallankeen from the heat of the sun when it turns and strikes him on the face. The two ends of the bamboo are attached on both sides to the body of the pallankeen between two poles, joined together in a saltier, or St. Andrew’s Cross, and each of these poles is 5 or 6 feet long. Some of these bamboos cost as much as 200 écus, and I have paid 125 for one. Three men, at most, place themselves at each of these two ends, to carry the pallankeen on the shoulder, the one on the right and the other on the left, and they travel in this way faster than our chairmen in Paris, and with an easier pace, being trained to the trade from an early age. When you wish to make haste, and travel up to 13 or 14 leagues a day, you take 12 men to carry the pallankeen, so that they may relieve one another from time to time.