Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/72

58 stranding vessels. At times, however, even they fail, and whole crews perish within a cablelength of the gazing crowds upon the beach.

Just beyond the sandy beach runs a fine road parallel with the water, with the customhouse and stores upon its farther side. Here the whole scene was full of life; all was new and strange. Wagons and turbaned men, bullock-carts, palankeens, and bearers thronged the road, and all were at our service. Escaping from the pertinacious crowd of natives, who, with jabbering tongues, claimed our acquaintance, and demanded payment for imaginary services, we entered a carriage, and were driven, by a road full of novel sights and sounds, to the house of Mr. Winslow, our honoured senior in the mission work, who, for thirty years had laboured in the land on which we now first trod.