On the Indian Hills

AFTER waiting more than a week at Colombo, and making daily pilgrimages to the British India Office to inquire "when on earth" the next steamer was coming (she was much overdue), she suddenly put in an appearance at the harbor mouth, and I forthwith packed up my shore-going kit, paid my bills, and went down to the custom-house docks to get my luggage out. About midday, I was once more afloat on "the sea -- the fresh, the green, the ever free," following the cargo-boat in a light outrigger paddled by two sinewy natives.

The Africa, although a fine steamer, was not so smart and trim as the Almora, chiefly because she was merely a trading ship, and had been hard at work for the last few months carrying rice to all the ports of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts for the famine-stricken natives inland. She had, however, a good saloon, with any number of cabins and berths, of which I took my choice as there was only one passenger, besides myself, and he invariably slept on deck; in fact, I followed his example after one night spent below, when I was driven wild with cockroaches and stifled by the heat.

We spent the whole of the blazing hot day taking in cargo, principally jute and rice; and the noise of the donkey-engine, the dense volumes of smoke, and the close, sickly smell of the open holds, where hundreds of tons of rice were piled up as tight as it could be packed, made me long for the evening and the serang's shrill whistle for the crew to get up the anchor.

But though it was uncomfortable on deck, there were some "men and brothers" alongside infinitely more uncomfortable. These were a couple of hundred coolies going back to their homes in Madura and Malabar, after a year's work on the Ceylon plantations. They came off from the shore -- men, women, and children, with all their small belongings, bundles and parcels of every shape and size -- piled up in two cargo-boats, so tightly packed and squeezed together that it seemed impossible a baby could have been added to the load without turning some one out. Alas for them! there was a strong ground swell rolling into the harbor, which heaved the cargo-boats up and down, although the Africa sat as steady as a rock; and the result was that even before they reached her the coolies were abjectly sick, and they do not bear up well against adverse circumstances, so their sufferings were almost comical. They had left the shore sitting or standing in the boat as happy and trim as coolies ever can be, but when they got under our bows all were lying down at the bottom in one indistinguishable conglomerate of legs and arms.

The poor creatures looked more like a kettle of eels than anything else, and the rowers sitting on the seats above them only laughed at their miseries. Their sufferings, however, were only just beginning, for there was so much cargo and stealable property about on deck, that the first officer would not permit them to enter the ship until things had been got into better order on board. So there the miserable people lay, rolling and tossing about on the heavy ground swell, with a burning sun overhead, roasting them and adding to their miseries, while only a few feet away lay the great long ship as steady as dry ground, and doubtless a sort of heaven to their eyes. For three long hours they rolled about in the miseries of seasickness, from which they seemed to suffer as much as though they were Christians, until at length their sufferings were so intense I took pity on them. I went to the captain and begged him to be good enough to have them up as soon as might be, and he gave at once orders for the ship's ladder to be let down over the side, and the coolies proceeded to come on board. But this was not as easy as it might seem.

At one moment the ground swell brought the rice-boats up to within a few feet of our bulwarks, and the next, sinking rapidly, took the boat right down to the level of the orlop deck. The first coolie who made the attempt seized hold of the