(for he hated the Civil Service with an intense hatred), and say that, for his part, he thought it was not so bad, that one would soon become accustomed to it, and as none of us were going the entire distance of the Irrawaddy's voyage, the passage would not last so long.

Bunder was very little-he had never forgiven nature for making him so; and as he endeavoured to make up for his deficiency in size by the growth of hair upon his face, which gave him a remarkably fierce expression of countenance, he contrived to render himself ridiculous. "His figure-head," as Lumba confidentially informed me, "was for all the world like a hairy baboon's." Furthermore, he was fond of monkeys-anxious, I suppose, to see something resembling humanity smaller than himself, he constantly travelled with a pet; whilst he kept a ménagerie of them at his quarters. It was impossible not to be struck with the resemblance between the two countenances, when he caressed his favourite "Sukchilly." The comparison, however, was unquestionably in his favour, and when Bunder and Sukchilly played together, there could

not be a doubt that the man was the betterlooking of the two.

Yet Colonel Bunder had a good heart, which Paugul apparently wanted, and had Lumba been a small man, or even a man of any ordinary length, I have no doubt Bunder's sympathies would have been immediately enlisted in his favour, and he would have become his staunch protector.

Mr. Paugul had installed himself as the chaperon of a lady, the wife of a magistrate in the Upper Provinces, a Mrs. Nutkut, who was proceeding to join her husband and family; having been obliged to come down to Calcutta in consequence of the alarming illness of a relative. Mrs. Nutkut was agreeable and unaffected. Nothing could exceed the ease and grace with which she accommodated herself to the numerous inconveniences of the steamer, making as light of them as possible, and turning many of them into sources of amusement, whilst her self-constituted protector made things but more uncomfortable by his incessant growling. It is astonishing with what apparent ease an agreeable, sensible woman becomes accustomed to circumstances which, in any other position,

VOL. I.

S

she would find almost unendurable; and it is, surely, only those who are lost to good sense and propriety who cannot take an example from her conduct, and make the best of what cannot be obviated, and must be endured.

Such were the passengers the Irrawaddy bore in its grilling cabins and on its wellscrubbed decks, as we steamed northwards, towards the mighty flood of the Ganges-for the Hooghly, which flows past Calcutta, is but one of the numerous streams by which the sacred river discharges its waters into the

ocean.

CHAPTER XV.

STEAMING UP THE GANGES.

THE number of native servants, the European engineers, and the native sailors, all crowded together in that floating hive, a Ganges steamer, form as strange a medley perhaps as one can witness anywhere, whilst the various languages employed on board-English, Hindostannee, Bengallee, Oordoo, and, perhaps, Persian and Arabic too, tend to make the moving mass a veritable Babel.

"Coaling a steamer" in England is anything but an interesting sight-huge men, and huger cranes deposit sack after sack, or bucket after bucket of the black diamond under hatches in a very methodical and matter-offact way. But "coaling" the Irrawaddy was

a different matter altogether. The steamer was obliged to anchor at night, the river being too dangerous to admit of proceeding in the darkness. Our captain, therefore, endeavoured to arrive at the coaling station just as night was setting in, in order that the coals might be taken on board whilst the steamer was compelled to remain inactive.

We had arrived at Cutwa, a coaling station half-way between Calcutta and the Ganges. The stars gave as much light as they could reasonably be expected to give. We could just perceive objects on the bank beside us dimly and faintly. Suddenly a dark troop of figures made their appearance, near what we could discover, with a little difficulty, to be a small mountain of coal. The individuals composing the mass of humanity that thus suddenly attracted our observation, appeared to be in constant motion; they were chattering incessantly; each had a small basket in his hand, and it appeared to me that some dreadful quarrel was raging.

"They must be boys," said I to Lumba, who was standing beside me. "They must be boys, judging by their size.'