94 OVERLAND TO INDIA CHAI'.
in our company, one crouching, on a pile of bundles and with other bundles as a footstool, another weak and feeble and well packed up among tightly stuffed quilts and ticking, the third of unnecessary girth and greasiness and % adorned with bread-crumbs in her moustaches ; also a young wife with three children and another with a baby, which at any rate kept quiet while the others played ! about, clambering over the bundles and chasing one another like small wild-cats through the overfilled compart- M ment, the atmosphere of which was not improved by the vile cigarettes glowing between the lips of bearded or g unshaved, lowering, and unkempt fellows. But the worst of all was that all these migrating travellers carried with them heaps of belongings, bedclothes, pillows, and quilts, small boxes, sacks, and bags, packets of meat, bread, rolls, .111/,
apples, grapes, and melons, teapots, glasses, and samovars,
and there was no possibility of finding room on our 1111 wretched bench for all this stuff. The racks were of
course overfilled in a moment, then as much as could find 11 room was crammed under the seats ; coats, cloaks, and Ill packages were hung up on the hooks till they were full to !~ the knob, and the rest was piled up in the passages and LI between the benches in this compartment for six where twelve persons had taken their places. Those who did ~I not sit packed together on the seats or in one another's ri lap reposed on the top of their goods and chattels, and when everything was " made straight," the compartment t was like a well-packed sardine box, a night harbourage for tramps, or at best a clearing-out auction in a rag-market.
This compartment presented a tragi-comic appearance as of a removal or eviction, and it was impossible to get out or to make the slightest movement. And yet the Armenians were never quiet ; they were constantly fidgeting and settling themselves afresh, they changed places with one another, tried to get at things in their bundles, and rummaged in their bags for bread, cakes, and fruit. In an hour the floor was covered with peel and refuse, scraps of bread, fruit kernels, and bits of paper. Appetite in one corner spread the infection to another, and soon slabbering mouths and dirty noses were seen in all
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