notion of another place altogether. My boots and thence upward to my knees have got by this time discoloured with the red dust of the place, which, more or less, seems to tinge everything in Madras; the fields, trees, and houses, as also the surfaces of the lakes and tanks, and the mosques, churches, and temples. This brick-dusty effect has not a cleanly appearance nor a desirable one. The visitor will remember Madras by it, as he will recall Cincinnati or Newcastle-onTyne by the smoky, almost sooty, look of most of their houses. The shops are much crowded together in the streets of the old town, but it looks bad for the traders that the clothes of the natives are all as destitute of pockets as are the shrouds of our dead.

The city seems much neglected by its municipality—if such body exists here. Buildings appear in a very dilapidated state, and many lie in ruins, to the disfigurement of the streets and inconvenience of the pedestrians. The bricklayer and the mason, as also the whitewasher and the painter, seem to be greatly needed here. I am glad to get out of the uneven footways and neglected town into the tree-shaded high roads, and to visit the public gardens, and another which combines zoological and botanical specimens. The immense size of the elephants here is astonishing, making the smaller ones of Ceylon look but insignificant. The elephant is, however, at home in India, and is for work more than for show. In the fort and barracks numbers of them are kept by the Government. They look there as formidable as the cannons that they help to haul about. As engines of war they, however, need iron plating now against modern conical shot and Gatling guns. They did very well in the bygone days of bow-andarrow warfare.

This Madras is quite the proper city to be first visited in India, as it was the first place in which a British settlement was made. It was also the ground on which the English and French fought their first Indian battle. The first fort—that of St. George-was built here by the English, and here was established the first of Indian Presidencies-the small begin

nings, two hundred and eighty years ago, of the interest which Great Britain now has in India; an interest that is greater than ever acquired by the sword of its Baber, or ruled by the sceptre of its Akbar. One can look back on all its progress now from the day that the old East India Company invested their first thirty thousand pounds in this Indian adventure-the best that Englishmen ever undertook-to the other day, when they were displaced, and the Empress of India proclaimed.

The mere visitor will not wish to make a long stay in this Madras. It is a very satisfying place, which has a different meaning to its being a satisfactory one. It has railway communication now with Bombay overland, so that the unpleasantness of entering it by its water gateway may be avoided. By that way, however, myself and companions have to leave it, as our liberty days have expired. It is a worse day for leaving than was our day for landing, and really requires good courage to face the breakers that come dashing on the shore. This, however, is a secondary trouble to that of getting out of the hands of the boatmen who have no right to us, and finding those who have. If these men were unmannerly on board ship, they are outrageous now, with their feet upon their native sands. One of our number is a clergyman, and a particularly inoffensive man. With wonder I behold him illustrating the church militant in fighting his way out of the hands of these devils of black fellows. He has broken his umbrella to splinters in dealing blows right and left with it, and is glaring through his spectacles with only half the handle of it left in his hand. As it is the same fare to pay, whoever takes me, and there is variety in different boats and boatmen, I get peace and quietness, and am first off, by surrendering to the first captors who are content to start with one passenger. As a preliminary I tie myself to my seat, as a help to keeping it on the dangerous journey. That being done, the boat is run out to sea, and the halfdozen who have assisted at it cling to the sides, and come on board as wet as drowned rats. That ducking is pleasant in

Getting on Board.

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the heat of this climate, and no damage is done to their clothing-in fact, the dirty rag that constitutes all of it gets the washing that it needs.

The aid of a boat-hook would, I feared, be necessary to get me up the ship's side. The big Poonah rolled from side to side in the swell of the surf, and from my little barge I obtained at high times full view of its deck, and next moment almost a view of the keel. Both sides of the vessel were tried in this endeavour to effect my shipment, which was at last done by the boatswain catching me as I rose to the level of his standing-place at the head of the steps. It is sometimes a fortunate thing to be a light weight, and this was an instance of it. If I ever visit Madras again, it will be on urgent business, and from the landward side by way of the railway, or any other way than that by which I last left it.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE HOOGHLY.

THE waters of the Hooghly are entered upon soon after leaving Madras. They are one of the many divisions of the stream of the Ganges, that here finds its way for between one and two hundred miles into the Bay of Bengal. The sacred Ganges as it nears the sea makes the most of itself, and a mess of itself too, spreading and flooding about in a shallow, shifty, and marshy way, and in many streams, over the broad stretch that is called its Delta. This delta of the Ganges, of which the Hooghly, that I am now upon, is a western branch, is believed to be the hotbed, in every sense of the word, of malarious diseases and the birthplace of Asiatic cholera. Considering the number of the dead that this sacred stream is believed to float to salvation, whose remains in some shape must here lie in shallow water, the evil is not to be wondered at.

It is to be wished that the sacred waters were of a better colour, and that they were deeper and kept to one course after adopting it. For these great mistakes, and for its unhealthy behaviour at its outlets, this river should be execrated rather than deified. Therein is the behaviour of the Hindoos typical. They have ever bent where they should rebel. To that which ill-uses them they kneel. Their destroyer they worship. Of their trinity the favourite god is the destroying Shiva.

When the sea-voyager hither on the way to Calcutta has been brought, as he might suppose, to his journey's end, his

A Hooghly Pilot.

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water-trouble really begins. It commences at " Sandheads " here. On reaching "heads" elsewhere one is soon thereafter at anchorage and debarkation. At these Sandheads of the Hooghly, however, I learn that it is yet two days and nights to Diamond Harbour and the landing-stairs at Calcutta. Folks accustomed to travel will know what can be done in that space of time, and will chafe, as I did, at the idea of dropping anchor each night, and dawdling along for fifty or sixty miles a day only. That is the mode of getting to Calcutta, as it always has been, and always will be-by its waterway. Worse things might happen, though, than this wearisomeness, which one gets over after the first day of it. I was detained once an equal time in a fog at the entrance to New York harbour, and another time for a longer period in that antiquated, exasperating torture called quarantine—an invention of the Evil One to promote profanity.

One passenger and his supplement have been added to our number at Madras, but he occupies as much attention as a whole dozen might. Some folks can make themselves felthave a "presence," as it is called-and way is given to them accordingly. We could not have left Madras until we got this addition, and if by any mischance he had died or dropped overboard and drowned, we must have gone back again and waited-even if we waited a month-for his successor. The waters of the Hooghly are so shallow, its sands and currents so everlastingly shifting, and with new channels ever forming, that no sea captain dare take a ship up to Calcutta unassisted by an amphibious creature known as a Hooghly pilot.

Such is our new acquisition, and he proves to be quite a curio. All of us feel gauze clothing to be quite enough to satisfy the demands of the climate. We walk about also with umbrellas hoisted when away from beneath the ship's awning, bowing before that fierce sun that is the real Great Mogul ruler of India, in whose presence one must, like to an Hebrew taking an oath, not stand uncovered. Yet our pilot is resplendent in broadcloth uniform, a thick heavy cap, kid gloves, and patent leather boots! These articles of costume he never