On the Indian Hills

AMONGST the ships in harbor were two or three of the crazy-looking two-masted Dutch barks, painted the usual green and white; and yet, somehow or other, these creep all over the world, and are to be found in every port and inlet whence merchandise can be shipped, no matter what the latitude or longitude. Here, if their crews have read modern history, they must feel a tinge of sorrow overspreading their minds as they look at the fertile island which was once their own. Besides these, there were vessels of several other countries in the harbor; but the English ships were much the most numerous, the best built, and the best ordered of all.

No sooner had our starboard anchor gone down with a great rattling of chain, and the ship swung into her berth, than we were stormed by the dusky crews of a dozen clumsy cargo boats that came alongside to take off our Colombo merchandise. Directly we were at rest these boats came bumping and pushing against the sides of the ship, until their crews, with a prodigious amount of shouting and fighting, had made them fast somehow or other, and then the bright-skinned Singhalese and Tamil boatmen seized the slack ropes hanging overboard, and scrambled up the sides of the ship, jumping down from the bulwarks. They were soon in apparent possession of the deck, though they happily confined themselves to the forward part of the vessel; one or two who ventured down towards the saloon, where the ladies were, being driven forward with but scant ceremony. Physically these men left very little to be desired. I had expected to find every one wearing a black skin in India on the verge of starvation, on account of the long famine that had existed for the last two years in the Madras Presidency and to the southward; and so I was pleased to see these coolies, at all events, remarkably well nourished, tall, and strongly made, many of them of good personal appearance. Although not particularly clean, they seemed to shave with great scrupulousness, never wearing the smallest vestige of hair about their faces; and when they took off the rag which was wound round their heads as a sort of apology for a turban, to mop up the perspiration which soaked their brows, I noticed that their scalps were also closely shaven. Whether their heads were newly shorn or not, all had left one long forelock just above the forehead, in order that the Angel of Death may, as has been said, take hold of it when he draws them up to heaven. The Red Indians leave just such a lock of hair growing, but with them it is not a religious form, being an act of courtesy to enable their enemies to "lift" their scalps with greater convenience when they kill them. This is very considerate!

While the swarm of black figures was hard at work unloading the fore-hold of the numerous English goods for the Colombo market, their ceaseless chatter and the fearful rattling of the energetic donkey-engine drove us half wild; but we completed our packing operations, tipped our special "boys" the usual ten rupees, and then, after a hasty meal, W--- and myself pushed off for the shore in a native canoe, after promising our friends to come back for one more dance that evening. The boat in which we embarked was a very remarkable structure, and about as uncomfortable as it was strange. As for "beam," it had none to speak of. It was constructed in this way. The bottom was formed of the trunk of a small palm-tree, hollowed out, rounded off at either end, and planed smooth below. The sides of the hollow were built upward with thin planks of teak bent together at the ends, and laced one to another with numberless strong fibers of coir, passing through small holes bored opposite each other in the planks. There is scarcely a nail about the boat, the cracks being caulked with coarse tow, and the lacing of fibers giving an elasticity and springiness which could not be obtained were the construction different, and proves of the greatest service in any rough weather. The top edge of the planks, about four feet out of the water, is roughly finished off by a lacing of small round bamboo, and the small seats are made of large split bamboos. The result is a canoe that would horrify an English boat-builder, but which is fully equal to a spell of rough weather. Although the length is eighteen or twenty feet, the beam is not more than a foot and a half, and the seats are between three and four inches above the water, so that the rowers, and the passengers too, if they like, can let their toes dangle in the waves on either side as they go