"Today is Saturday, Captain Sahib. Saturdays and
Tuesdays are sacred to the goddess Devi, the Divine Mother. Journeys begun on those days always meet disaster. Bandits, tigers, washed-out roads. A Mussalman once made my cousin bring a cart of indigo to Surat from a village down the river on a Tuesday, and a bridge broke under his load. Both of his bullocks were drowned."
It was mid-afternoon on Sunday when the caravan finally pulled out from the water tank at Surat's Abidjan Gate. By nightfall they had traveled three _kos_, reaching the outskirts of the village of Cossaria. The next day they made twelve _kos_ east-northeast to reach the town of Karod, a strategic fort on the Tapti, dominated by a hilltop castle that garrisoned two hundred Rajput soldiers. The next three days their camp stages had been the towns of Viara, Corka, and the large garrison city of Narayanpur.
On the insistence of Mirza Nuruddin, Hawksworth had carried only a minimal amount of money with him. Instead he had adopted the practice of Indian merchants, leaving a chest of silver in Surat and receiving a letter of credit, which could be debited for cash at major stops along the road to Agra. Moneylenders received negotiable notes against the silver deposit, which would be paid in Surat at 7 percent surcharge, thereby allowing travelers along the bandit-infested roads to carry cheques instead of cash.
Hawksworth found himself annoyed that Vasant Rao never allowed the caravan to stop inside the towns, where traditional Indian guest houses--a stone floor and a roof-- were available free for travelers. Instead they camped each evening on the outskirts, while a few Rajputs rode in to the town bazaar to buy fresh vegetables, bricks of cow dung for cooking, and betel leaves for the drivers.
The evening they reached Narayanpur, the governor of the garrison, Partab Shah, had paid a surprise visit to their camp, bringing his own troup of _nautch_ women. While the women entertained the Rajputs with an evening of dance and low-priced intimacy, Partab Shah whispered warnings to Hawksworth that the road farther east was no longer safe now that civil rule in the Deccan was teetering. The governor had offered to provide additional troops to escort the English ambassador and his gifts for the Moghul safely through the district. To the governor's--and Hawksworth's--dismay, Vasant Rao had politely declined.