Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/260

 and white dresses and scarlet caps; it looks like a very pretty sort of cockle-shell thing, on this grand river. Of course, when we had sent the carriages away, the tide turned out to be against us, and we arrived two hours later than we meant. I could not help thinking, as it grew dusk, and then dark, how strange any of you would have felt if you could have changed places with me for an hour.

The shores of the river between this and Calcutta have such a sameness we could not tell how much way we had made, but every now and then there was an outline of a temple, and the sound of the tom-toms and the screaming to the idols. Then some dark figures coming out of the jungle with lights, which they dropped in the water; if they floated past us, it was a good omen for them. Then a darker mass on the water, and that was a human body with vultures settled on it. Then, a large, bright flame on the shore, and that was a human body burning. Then a splash from a startled alligator. Then a cluster of moving stars would seem to surround the boat; these were fire-flies. Then, quite high up in the air, above the cocoa-nut trees, some supernatural looking