Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/635

Rh pacify her, Brahma said that Ganesa should be most worshipped of all the gods. Before a Hindoo builds a temple, or a house, or goes a journey, he prays to Ganesa. And so I say: "O Ganesa—glorious and honorable Ganesa—grant me success this evening. May I please all this people! All reverence to you, Ganesa."

I will now go back to our steamer, and we must fancy ourselves coming into Madras. There is the steamer just as she appears soon after daylight off the roads. Madras has no harbor whatever, and so every captain arrives as early as possible, to get away before night; as soon after daylight as he can he casts anchor in the roads, and if you come on deck in the morning you will see round the vessel the boats in which you will be expected to land, one of which you are now looking at. I leave you to imagine the effect when an English lady sees for the first time twenty or thirty of these fellows in the morning. The boat is called a catamaran, and it is the only chance you have of landing if the surf is high. You are lashed to this thing, and they bring you to shore. The sea washes right over you, but, as the water is warm, except that you do not like the ducking, it does not much hurt you. These fellows are off the boat, and in the water, and on to the boat again in a moment. Although they say the sea abounds in sharks, they are never eaten, and they actually say the sharks will not touch a black man.

Well, the first thing you do, having landed, is to go to an hotel, and find yourself a carriage. There are three kinds you can choose from. There is the old palanquin, put upon wheels, called the palanquin coach, which is what Europeans generally use. The horse looks sorry, but he can go; every horse has his ghora-walla to attend him, and a woman too. You buy the ghora-walla and the woman when you buy the horse. It is the man's business to clean and feed the horse, and the woman's to cut grass for him. The next carriage is called a shigrampoo. You pay 1s. 6d. an hour for this, and have to pay beforehand, and whether the pony goes or not it is all the same. The Hindoo has no idea of time; he prefers that the pony should not go, and so Europeans seldom use this. The next is a bullock bandy—no springs. The bullocks come from Mysore, and are admirable goers. The native standing by the side is the owner, and the other is the fellow that drives. The natives are all vain, and want to be photographed, and are sure to stand wherever they see a camera. Now we start on our way to the hotel, having chosen one of the conveyances. We shall not have gone far before we see something of this sort at the corner of nearly every street—an almost naked barber, engaged in the act of shaving, all for one penny. They say they are most wonderful fellows at it. They actually shave people while they are asleep. I found them very indifferent hands. If they are not engaged in that, these very fellows are shaving the natives' heads. It is wonderful to relate that, although there is the most intense heat, the natives