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The whole river, and the general character of this shore and muddy stream, remind me strongly at this moment of the Don, between Tcherkask and Asof,—and Kedgeree, a village on the opposite side of the river from Saugor, if it had but a church, would not be unlike Oxai, the residence of the Attaman Platoff.

Several boats again came on board us; in one of which was a man dressed in muslin, who spoke good English, and said he was a "Sircar," come down in quest of employment, if any of the officers on board would entrust their investments to him, or if any body chose to borrow money at 12 per cent. In appearance and manner he was no bad specimen of the low usurers who frequent almost all seaports. While we were conversing with him, a fowl fell overboard, and his crew were desired to hand it up again; the naked rowers refused, as the Hindoos consider it impure to touch feathers; but the Sircar was less scrupulous, and gave it up at the gangway. A " Panchway," or passage boat, succeeded, whose crew offered their services for 15 rupees to carry any passengers to Calcutta, a distance of above 100 miles. This was a very characteristic and interesting vessel, large and broad, shaped like a snuffer dish; a deck fore and aft, and the middle covered with a roof of palm branches, over which again was lashed a coarse cloth, the whole forming an excellent shade from the sun; but, as I should apprehend, intolerably close. The "Se

1 A native agent, as well as a money-lender.-ED.

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BANKS OF THE RIVER.

rang," or master, stood on the little after-deck, steering with a long oar; another man, a little before him, had a similar oar on the starboard quarter; six rowers were seated cross-legged on the deck upon the tilt, and plied their short paddles with much dexterity; not however as paddles usually are plied, but in the manner of oars, resting them instead of on rullocks, on bamboos, which rose upright from the sides. A large long sail of thin transparent sackcloth in three pieces, very loosely tacked to each other, completed the equipment. The rowers were all naked except the " Cummerbund," or sash : the steersman, indeed, had in addition a white cap, and a white cloth loosely flung like a scarf over one shoulder: the whole offered a group which might have belonged to the wildest of the Polynesian islands. Several of these Panchways were now around us, the whole scene affording to an European eye a picture of very great singularity and interest. One of the Serangs had a broad umbrella thatched with palm leaves, which he contrived to rest on his shoulder while he steered his canoe, which differed from the others in having a somewhat higher stern. The whole appearance of these boats is dingy and dirty, more so I believe than the reality.

We were now approaching the side of the river opposite Kedgeree: here all likeness to the Don disappeared, and nothing met the eye but a dismal and unbroken line of thick, black wood and thicket, apparently impenetrable and interminable, which one might easily imagine to be the habitation of every

BANKS OF THE RIVER.

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thing monstrous, disgusting, and dangerous, from the tyger and the cobra de capello down to the scorpion and mosquito,-from the thunder-storm to the fever. We had seen, the night before, the lightenings flash incessantly and most majestically from this quarter; and what we now saw was not ill-fitted for a nursery of such storms as Southey describes as prevailing in his Padalon. The seamen and officers spoke of this shore with horror, as the grave of all who were so unfortunate as to remain many days in its neighbourhood; and even under our present brilliant sun, it required no great stretch of fancy to picture feverish exhalations rising from every part of it. As we drew nearer to the Sunderbunds their appearance improved; the woods assumed a greater variety of green and of shade; several round-topped trees, and some low palms, were seen among them, and a fresh vegetable fragrance was wafted from the shore. The stream is here intense, and its struggle with the spring-tide raises waves of a dark-coloured water, which put me in mind of the river where Dante found the spirit of Filippo Argenti. I looked with much interest on the first coco-palms I saw, yet they rather disappointed me. Their forms are indeed extremely graceful, but their verdure is black and funereal, and they have something the appearance of the plumes of feathers which are carried before a hearse. Their presence, however, announced a more open and habitable country. The jungle receded from the shore, and its place was supplied by extremely green fields, like mea

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dows, which were said to be of rice, interspersed with small woods of round-headed trees, and villages of huts, thatched, and with their mud walls so low, that they look like hay-stacks.

We anchored a few miles short of Diamond Harbour. The current and ebb-tide together ran at a rate really tremendous, amounting, as our pilot said, to 10 and 11 knots an hour. We were surrounded soon after our anchoring by several passage vessels; among these was a beautiful ship of about 250 tons, with the Company's Jack, and a long pendant, which we were told was the Government yacht, sent down for our accommodation.

During this day and the next I made several fresh observations on the persons and manners of the natives, by whom we were surrounded. I record them, though I may hereafter see reason to distrust, in some slight degree, their accuracy. I had observed a thread hung round the necks of the fishermen who came first on board, and now found that it was an ornament worn in honour of some idol. The caste of fishermen does not rank high, though fish is considered as one of the purest and most lawful kinds of food. Nothing, indeed, seems more generally mistaken than the supposed prohibition of animal food to the Hindoos. It is not from any abstract desire to spare the life of living creatures, since fish would be a violation of this principle as well as beef; but from other notions of the hallowed or the polluted nature of particular viands. Thus many Brahmins eat both fish and kid. The Rajpoots, besides these, eat mutton,

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