change of scene, they were as healthy-looking and good-humoured a lot
of seamen as I had ever met with. Their principal employment seemed to
be to take their turn at the wheel; and as the natives performed most
of the little work that was to be done in a vessel of this
description, carrying no sails, I presume they were entertained only
with the view of manning the two small howitzers and half-a-dozen
swivel-guns, in case our little craft should find it necessary to shew
her teeth. The remaining portion of the men were even finer specimens
of humanity than the Europeans. With the exception of two tall, bony
Scindians, they were all Seedies, or negroes, and there was not one
among them that might not have served as a model for a Hercules. Their
huge bodies presented an appearance of massiveness and immense
strength; and the enormous muscles had even more than the prominence
we find in some statues, but so seldom meet with in men of these
effeminate times. These particulars were the more easily noted, as
their style of costume, in the daytime at least, approached very
closely to nudity. But their size was as nothing to their appetites;
and deep and vasty as their internal accommodations must have been, it
remains a matter of perplexity to me to this day to determine by what
mysterious process they managed to stow away one-half of what they
devoured. I have repeatedly watched one of these overgrown animals
seat himself before a wooden trencher, some three-quarters of a yard
broad, and clear from it, as if by magic, a mess piled up to the
greatest capacity of the vessel, and consisting of rice, garnished at
the top with a couple of pounds or so of curried meat or fish; after
which, glaring around him in a hungry and dissatisfied manner,
calculated to raise unpleasant sensations in a nervous bystander, he
would sullenly catch hold of the hookah common to the party, and seek
to deaden his appetite by swallowing down long and repeated draughts
of tobacco-smoke, until the tears came into his eyes, and he was