thoroughly awakened sleepers--with great want of taste--growled out,
at the expense both of myself and of my performance, sundry
maledictions, with a fervency peculiar to the country, until at length
I may say I was clad with curses as with a garment. At this juncture,
I took out of my provision-bag a remarkably fine piece of pork, and
began to contemplate it by the light of the moon with the critical eye
of a connoisseur. The reader is no doubt aware, that among the natives
of India the popular prejudice does not run in favour of this
wholesome article of food; and perhaps to this fact I must attribute
it that the surrounding Mussulmans and Hindoos became wondrously
polite all on a sudden, and left a wide circle vacant around me, so
that I had ample room to make down my bed; nor was I disturbed from a
hearty sleep till the morning.

At daybreak, I was aroused by the crew getting up the anchor: in a few
minutes, the head of the 'fire-boat,' as my dusky neighbours termed
it, was turned down the coast, and on we went, steaming, smoking, and
splashing, after the most orthodox fashion of fire-boats in general. I
had now time and opportunity to look around me. Every available spot
of the deck and paddle-boxes of the small, flat-bottomed iron steamer,
was crowded with as motley a set of passengers as ever sailed since
the days of Captain Noah. Sepoys returning from furlough to join their
regiments; lascars, or enlisted workmen belonging to the different
civil branches of the army; and camp-followers in all their varieties,
were everywhere squatted on their haunches, and although muffled up to
their eyes in wrappers of cotton-cloth, were all looking miserably
cold from the sharpness of the morning breeze. The crew consisted of
about twenty sailors--half of whom were Europeans, and evidently
picked hands. Under the influence of good pay, fresh provisions
without stint, sleeping all night in their hammocks, and constant