Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/420

 scenery! My pinnace, a beautiful vessel, so unlike any thing else here, must add beauty to the river, especially when under sail.

Aground on a sandbank again! with such a wind and stream it is not pleasant—hardly safe. What a noise! attempting to force her off the bank; it is terribly hard work; the men, up to their waists in water, are shoving the vessel with their backs, whilst the wind and stream throw her back again. Some call on Allah for aid, some on Gunga, some on Jumna-jee, every man shouting at the height of his voice. What a squall! the vessel lies over frightfully. I wish the wind would abate! forced sideways down on the sandbank by the wind and stream, it is not pleasant. There! there is a howl that ought to succeed in forcing her off, in spite of the tufān; such clouds of fine sand blowing about in every direction! Now the vessel rocks, now we are off once more,—back we are again! I fancy the wind and stream will have their own way. Patience, mem sāhiba, you are only eight miles from Etaweh: when you may get over those eight miles may be a difficult calculation. The men are fagging, up to their breasts in the river; I must go on deck, and make a speech. What a scene! I may now consider myself really in the wilderness, such watery waists are spread before me!

THE MEM SĀHIBA'S SPEECH.

"Ari! Ari! what a day is this! Ahi Khudā! what a wind is here! Is not this a tufān? Such an ill-starred river never, never did I see! Every moment, every moment, we are on a sand-*bank. Come, my children, let her remain; it is the will of God,—what can we do? Eat your food, and when the gale lulls we may get off. Perhaps, by the blessing of God, in twelve months' time we may reach Etaweh."

After this specimen of eloquence, literally translated from the Hindostanee in which it was spoken, the dāndees gladly wrapped their blankets round them, and crept into corners out of the wind, to eat chabenī, the parched grain of Indian corn, maize. Could you but see the men whom I term my children! they are just what in my youth I ever pictured to myself cannibals must be: so wild and strange-looking, their long, black, shaggy hair