Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay

by Emma Roberts

I wished much to enrich the collection of foreign plants making by the Royal Botanical Society of London, by some of the most interesting specimens of Indian growth, feeling deeply interested in the success of this institution; but not being a practical gardener myself, I have as yet been unable to fulfil my intentions. I calculated, perhaps, too strongly upon the desire of scientific people in Bombay to promote objects of general utility at home, and see little chance, unless I do every thing relating to the collecting, planting, packing, and transmitting the plants with my own hands, of succeeding in sending any thing to England. Indeed, I find a difficulty in procuring a hortus siccus.

As every body, who can possibly get away, leaves Bombay during the hot weather and the rains, the residence at Malabar Point, intended as a retreat in the sultry season, is seldom tenanted by the Governor's family. The house, however, is not very often empty, being generally occupied by some great person and his suite, such as newly-arrived commanders-in-chief, who are accommodated at this establishment until they can provide for themselves. The principal residence, and several bungalows attached to it, are erected on the side of a hill overlooking and washed by the sea. The views are beautiful, the harbour affording at all times a scene of great liveliness and interest, while the aerial summits of the hills in the distance, and their purple splendours, complete the charm. The numerous fairy-like skiffs, with their white sails, catching the sunlight, give life and movement to the picture, while the cottages of the fishermen are often placed with happy effect upon the neighbouring shore.

There are, unfortunately, serious drawbacks to the enjoyment which the eye derives from the gliding boats and palm-crowned huts; the amusement of yachting being seriously impeded by the method of spreading nets, for the purpose of capturing the finny tribes, while, in consequence of the immense quantity which is caught, the whole island occasionally smells of fish. The fishermen have certain places secured to them by law, in which they drive immense stakes, usually the trunks of palm-trees, and between these stakes they fasten their nets, any damage done to them by passing boats being punishable by a fine; the navigation of the harbour, to those who wish to visit its beautiful islands, is, in consequence, rather difficult, and would scarcely admit of being carried on by those small steamers, which render every place in the neighbourhood of Calcutta so accessible.

The boats here, with the exception of private yachts, which are not numerous, are a disgrace to a civilized place. Nothing can be easily imagined to be worse than the pattamars usually employed for the conveyance of troops and travellers to distant points; they are dirty, many so low in the roof that the passengers cannot stand upright in them, and filled with insects and vermin.

The abundance and cheapness of fish render it the common food of the lower classes, and consequently its effluvia sometimes pervade the whole atmosphere. The smell of frying fish, with its accompaniment of oil, is sufficiently disagreeable; but this is not all; a much more powerful odour arises from fish drying for future use, while, as it is commonly spread over the fields and employed as manure, the scents wafted by the breezes upon these occasions breathe any thing but perfume.

There are many very delicate kinds of fish, which are held in great esteem, to be seen at European tables; but, to a stranger, the smell of the refuse allowed to decay is quite enough, and habit must reconcile the residents of Bombay to this unpleasant assailant of the olfactory nerves, before they can relish the finest specimens of pomfret or other favourite. As it can always be purchased freshly caught, fish appears at dinner as well as at the breakfast-table in Bombay; the list of shell-fish includes oysters, which, though not so tempting in their appearance as those of England, are of excellent quality.

The fishermen, like those of Europe, leave the sale of their fish to their wives, who are said to be a busy, bustling, active race, quite equal to the tasks which devolve upon them, and, in consequence of the command which their occupation gives them over the pecuniary receipts of the house, exerting a proportionate degree of authority.

Fishermen's huts, though very picturesque, are not usually remarkable for their neatness or their cleanliness, and those of Bombay form no exception to their general appearance. They are usually surrounded by a crowd of amphibious animals, in the shape of tribes of children, who for the most part are perfectly free from the incumbrance of drapery. Many, who have not a single rag to cover them, are, notwithstanding, adorned with gold or silver ornaments, and some ingeniously transform a pocket-handkerchief into a toga, or mantle, by tying two ends round the throat, and leaving the remainder to float down behind, so that they are well covered on one side, and perfectly bare on the other. Amid the freaks of costume exhibited at Bombay, an undue preference seems to be given to the upper portion of the person, which is frequently well covered by a warm jacket with long sleeves, while the lower limbs are entirely unclad.

There is said to be cotton goods to the amount of a million sterling lying in the godowns and warehouses of Bombay, unemployed, in consequence of the stoppage of the China trade, and it seems a pity that the multitudes who wear gold chains about their necks, and gold ear-rings in their ears, could not be prevailed upon to exchange a part of this metal for a few yards of covering of some kind or other, of which apparently they stand much in need.

Great numbers of the poorer classes seem to be ill-fed, ill-lodged, and worse clothed; yet scantiness in this particular is certainly not always the result of poverty, as the redundance of precious ornaments above mentioned can witness. Neither does the wretched manner in which many belonging to the lower orders of Bombay shelter themselves from the elements appear to be an absolute necessity, and it is a pity that some regulations should not be made to substitute a better method of constructing the sheds in which so many poor people find a dwelling-place. The precaution of raising the floor even a few inches above the ground is not observed in these miserable hovels, and their inhabitants, often destitute of bedsteads, sleep with nothing but a mat, and perhaps not even that, between them and the bare earth.