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Page 2
After running down the coast till the sun became so uncomfortably hot
as to render an awning over the whole vessel an indispensable
necessary, we suddenly struck into one of the many creeks with which
the Delta of the Indus is everywhere interlaced. The vessel did not
answer her helm well; and as the breadth of the stream did not much
exceed her length, we were for some time running ashore, first on one
bank, and then on the opposite one. However, as the banks were steep,
and composed of a mixture of sand and mud, we were not so much delayed
by these accidents as might have been expected; for after grounding
with a shock sufficient to floor any one unused to the navigation of
the Indus, the tough little craft would slide back of her own accord
into her proper element, and go ahead again as if nothing had
happened. The first time this took place, I was sent on my beam-ends,
and was not a little alarmed into the bargain; but the crew seemed to
take it as a matter of course, and in reply to my anxious inquiries as
to the extent of damage that had been occasioned, they informed me
that she had only brushed the cobwebs off her keel. On entering the
creek, we startled large flocks of wild geese and ducks; and here and
there a pair of pelicans, after gazing at us for a few seconds, would
slowly wing their way to some more sequestered stream, unprofaned by
noisy, smoky civilisation.
As we continued on our course, the landscape--a level plain, that
stretched away for miles till it met the horizon--was covered with
camels grazing upon tamarisk-bushes, which, with a few mangostans, an
occasional specimen of acanthus, and a coarse and scanty herbage, were
the only specimens of the vegetable kingdom that met our gaze. The
scene during the remainder of the afternoon was the same, the monotony
being relieved only when we stopped for half an hour to take a supply
of wood from a large pile collected on the bank for this purpose, and
thus had an opportunity of stretching our legs on _terra firma_. At
dusk, the steam-boat was run ashore, the steam blown off, and here we
were to remain for the night. The natives immediately rushed on shore,
and began preparing fires to cook their provisions. The ship's cook
had already supplied me with a cup, or rather a tin pot of tea; but as
the growing coolness of the evening, and the example of my neighbours,
rather encouraged my appetite, I resolved to make a second edition of
my evening meal, and accordingly took under my arm the copper canteen
which formed the sum-total of my culinary apparatus--the lid being my
only plate or dish--and furnished with a supply of tea, sugar, cold
meat, and biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I
might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom
that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and
put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and
complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but
picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out
by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and
ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while,
in the midst, the funnel of the steam-boat loomed tall and black above
the veil of smoke that hung around--like some dark and horrid object
Of heathen idolatry surrounded by its sacrificial fires. The sounds
that met my ear, however, dispelled this somewhat fanciful idea; for
in the stillness of the night voices grow distinct, while forms are
indebted to the imagination for filling up their outlines.
The native passengers, who had remained, silent and dull, in a
constrained position during the whole of the day, felt a load taken
off their spirits as soon as they set foot on dry land; and in a trice
the silence that had hitherto reigned was broken by a very Babel of
tongues, among which could be distinguished the guttural jargon of the
Scindian, the bastard dialect of Mahratti, of the Hindoo from the
Deccan, and the ungrammatical _patois_ of Hindostani, which--although,
when exclusively used, it marked out the Mussulman--was yet the
_lingua franca_ of the whole party; but amidst the unceasing torrent
of words, little could be distinguished, save when the ear was saluted
with an outburst of nature's universal and unvaried language in the
shape of a light-hearted laugh. By and by, my attention became
directed, by an occasional shout of merriment, to a group of Seedies
clustered round a fire near me. Negroes in this country are much the
same as in other parts of the World--a happy, easily-contented race,
forgetful of the past, and careless of the future. After keeping up
their noisy confabulation for some time, they removed to a level spot
close to where I was lying: one of them squatted down on the ground,
and commenced singing to the music of a sort of tambourine, that he
beat with the flat of his hand; and the others at once formed a
circle, and commenced a rude dance, which had probably been brought
by themselves or their fathers from the shores of Eastern Africa. The
air was at first low and monotonous, the time seeming to be more
studied than any variation of the tune; but after some minutes a few
notes in a higher key were occasionally introduced, giving the music a
strangely wild and melancholy character. The dance consisted
principally of low jumps, each foot being alternately advanced in
strict time with the music. Sometimes the dancers joined hands; again
they would pass into one another's places, until they had made the
circuit of the ring; and every now and then, in going through these
movements, they would leap completely round, apparently without an
effort, but as a natural consequence of the momentum produced by the
celerity of their motions, and the weight of their huge bodies. The
whole affair was gone through in a serious and business-like manner,
unusual in the negro. How long I watched them I cannot say; but it
seemed to me as if they went on for hours without slackening the pace,
or moving one muscle of their countenances, until my eyes became heavy
with looking at them. At length, the figures appeared to grow dim, and
among them I thought I recognised faces of friends then many thousands
of miles from me, and forms that the earth had long before covered
over. A death-like chill came over me: by a sudden impulse, I rushed
forward, and awoke. With bewildered feelings, I rose on my elbow, and
gazed around. The moon had risen; her cold, clear light making every
object near me either startlingly distinct, or else a mass of dark
shade, while a deep and solemn silence reigned around. All had
vanished--the singer and the dancers--the flaming, sparkling, roaring
fires, and the noisy groups around them; and I might have imagined
that I had awaked to find myself in another world, had it not been for
the heap of black ashes beside me, and the dark outline of the
steam-boat in the distance. I arose, stiff, cold, and drowsy, and
tucking my kitchen under my arm, slowly wended my way on board.
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