CHAPTER XV.

STEAMING UP THE GANGES.

THE number of native servants, the European engineers, and the native sailors, all crowded together in that floating hive, a Ganges steamer, form as strange a medley perhaps as one can witness anywhere, whilst the various languages employed on board-English, Hindostannee, Bengallee, Oordoo, and, perhaps, Persian and Arabic too, tend to make the moving mass a veritable Babel.

"Coaling a steamer" in England is anything but an interesting sight-huge men, and huger cranes deposit sack after sack, or bucket after bucket of the black diamond under hatches in a very methodical and matter-offact way. But "coaling" the Irrawaddy was

a different matter altogether. The steamer was obliged to anchor at night, the river being too dangerous to admit of proceeding in the darkness. Our captain, therefore, endeavoured to arrive at the coaling station just as night was setting in, in order that the coals might be taken on board whilst the steamer was compelled to remain inactive,

We had arrived at Cutwa, a coaling station half-way between Calcutta and the Ganges. The stars gave as much light as they could reasonably be expected to give. We could just perceive objects on the bank beside us dimly and faintly. Suddenly a dark troop of figures made their appearance, near what we could discover, with a little difficulty, to be a small mountain of coal. The individuals composing the mass of humanity that thus suddenly attracted our observation, appeared to be in constant motion; they were chattering incessantly; each had a small basket in his hand, and it appeared to me that some dreadful quarrel was raging.

"They must be boys," said I to Lumba, who was standing beside me. "They must be boys, judging by their size."

He was intently watching the movements of the chief mate on shore, who came and went, appearing and disappearing with extraordinary celerity, amongst the dark masses, as if in search of some particular individual in the crowd,—which, considering the number, the noise, and the confusion, would apparently be a fruitless search.

I repeated my observation to Lumba.

"Those," said he, smiling, "are all Hindoo girls and women. They carry the coals on board here."

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That accounts then," I replied, "for the incessant talking, the shrill voices, and the size; but what are they quarrelling about ?” Nothing," said he; they are not quarrelling, but they are all eager to be employed there is no keeping their tongues quiet."

It's all right, sir," shouted the chief mate from the shore.

"Very well, let them begin," replied Lumba, as he walked aft* to give the necessary orders.

* In the river steamers the fore part is that occupied by the passengers.

Women and girls! thought I, how strange that they should be employed in such work, and yet how much better that they should be thus occupied, than excluded, as in England, from all out-of-doors employment. Besides, as I speedily perceived, the work was not altogether unsuitable to them. They carried small baskets of coals upon their heads, and came in troops, laughing and chatting incessantly. In fact, from the moment the work began, there seemed to be still more noise than before, made with their tongues. It was altogether a strange scene. Our vessel was

a blaze of light.

The chief mate stood at the gangway, to count the baskets that came on board, each containing an Indian measure about equal to half a hundred weight. One by one the erect figures, with the baskets on their heads, emerged from the gloom on shore, and plunged into the illumination of the steamer. Naked for the most part to the waist, they seemed of every shade of colour, from the lightest brown, the hue of coffee with an extra allowance of milk in it, to a deep black— some indeed shining with a jetty lustre that

would have eclipsed one of Hoby's patent leather boots.

Talking to each other, some laughing, they came on regularly and without intermission. The coals were discharged into the hold, and still laughing and chatting, and, perhaps, replying to some badinage of the passengers or crew, they made their way in single file on shore again, by another plank. Many of

them had fine forms-forms that would have served as models to the sculptor, and the erect posture which they were obliged to maintain in carrying the baskets on their heads exhibited such figures in the best possible way. The quivering of the flesh, caused by the motion and the load, showed off the firmness and elasticity of the frame, as well as its delicately rounded muscular cha

racter.

Some, I say-nay, many of them—were thus distinguished, but there were others also, old and withered, whose flattened, elongated breasts hung down to their waists, flapping against their bodies as they advanced, whilst their wrinkled skin proclaimed their age, or