Page 80 - AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
P. 80
Around the World in 80 Days
such means to hasten the rate of a steamer, it could not be
done on the railway.
The train entered the defiles of the Sutpour Mountains,
which separate the Khandeish from Bundelcund, towards
evening. The next day Sir Francis Cromarty asked
Passepartout what time it was; to which, on consulting his
watch, he replied that it was three in the morning. This
famous timepiece, always regulated on the Greenwich
meridian, which was now some seventy-seven degrees
westward, was at least four hours slow. Sir Francis
corrected Passepartout’s time, whereupon the latter made
the same remark that he had done to Fix; and upon the
general insisting that the watch should be regulated in each
new meridian, since he was constantly going eastward,
that is in the face of the sun, and therefore the days were
shorter by four minutes for each degree gone over,
Passepartout obstinately refused to alter his watch, which
he kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion
which could harm no one.
The train stopped, at eight o’clock, in the midst of a
glade some fifteen miles beyond Rothal, where there were
several bungalows, and workmen’s cabins. The conductor,
passing along the carriages, shouted, ‘Passengers will get
out here!’
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