the growing coolness of the evening, and the example of my neighbours,
rather encouraged my appetite, I resolved to make a second edition of
my evening meal, and accordingly took under my arm the copper canteen
which formed the sum-total of my culinary apparatus--the lid being my
only plate or dish--and furnished with a supply of tea, sugar, cold
meat, and biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I
might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom
that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and
put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and
complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but
picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out
by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and
ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while,
in the midst, the funnel of the steam-boat loomed tall and black above
the veil of smoke that hung around--like some dark and horrid object
Of heathen idolatry surrounded by its sacrificial fires. The sounds
that met my ear, however, dispelled this somewhat fanciful idea; for
in the stillness of the night voices grow distinct, while forms are
indebted to the imagination for filling up their outlines.

The native passengers, who had remained, silent and dull, in a
constrained position during the whole of the day, felt a load taken
off their spirits as soon as they set foot on dry land; and in a trice
the silence that had hitherto reigned was broken by a very Babel of
tongues, among which could be distinguished the guttural jargon of the
Scindian, the bastard dialect of Mahratti, of the Hindoo from the
Deccan, and the ungrammatical _patois_ of Hindostani, which--although,
when exclusively used, it marked out the Mussulman--was yet the
_lingua franca_ of the whole party; but amidst the unceasing torrent
of words, little could be distinguished, save when the ear was saluted