Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/430

 fagging, up to their knees in water, against the stream and this cold wind; this twist in the river will, however, allow of half an hour's sail, and the poor creatures may then warm themselves. I will send each man a red Lascar's cap and a black blanket, their Indian bodies feel the cold so bitterly. When the sails are up my spirits rise; this tracking day by day against wind and stream so many hundred miles is tiresome work. My solitude is agreeable, but the tracking detestable. I must go on deck, there is a breeze, and enjoy the variety of having a sail. At Pukkaghur eight peacocks were by the river-side, where they had come for water; on our approach they moved gently away. They roost on the largest trees they can find at night. I have just desired three pints of oil to be given to the dāndees, that they may rub their limbs. The cold wind, and being constantly in and out of the water, makes their skin split, although it is like the hide of the rhinoceros; they do not suffer so much when their legs have been well rubbed with oil. What a noise the men are making! they are all sitting on the deck, whilst a bearer, with a great jar of oil, is doling out a chhattak to each shivering dāndee.

24th.—Another trouble! The river is very broad, with three great sandbanks in the centre, and there is scarcely any water among the divided channels. Two great cotton boats are aground in the deepest part. They must be off ere there will be room for the Seagull. Whilst the cook-boat anchors, the washermen will set to work to wash the clothes on the river's edge, and will dry them in the rigging; and the crews of both vessels will unite to cut the pinnace through the sand. Noon: the cotton boats are off; the dinghee is moving about, sounding the passage.

I have had a ramble on the sands, and have found a shell, the shape of the most curious of the fossils we used to find in the cliffs at Christ Church in Hampshire. I have only found three small ones, and must look for more; they are rarely on the sands. Whilst we were waiting for the cotton boats to get off, I sketched them. The boat called an ulāk is beautiful, like a bird upon the waters—graceful and airy—with bamboos in all