Jinricksha.
The steamer was to go at twelve, but after all we might have stayed on shore, and had luncheon, as he had kindly asked us to, with Mr. Harwood, for one of the officers had gone snipe-shooting in the morning, and shot a Chinaman by accident. He was arrested by the police, and the captain had to go ashore, arrange the compensation, procure his release, and go bail, causing us a delay of two hours. It was 4 p.m. when we rounded the hill and lost sight of pretty little Penang—which I like so much better than Singapore.
Saturday, January 3rd.—We are in the Andaman Sea to-day, so called from the Andaman group of islands, celebrated as the place where Lord Mayo was murdered. The smoothness of the sea is broken by white horses, which are found here when nowhere else. Captain Gardner holds a theory that the disturbance is caused by an underground passage communicating between two volcanic islands, which are now inactive.
We bought yesterday in Penang a durian, which we experimented upon to-day. Every one was immediately aware of its presence as it came on board. Outside it looks like a green hedgehog, and inside the thick rind there are about eight or nine custard eggs. The smell is like assafœtid acid and garlic proportioned in equal parts. It is an acquired taste, if ever it is really liked as much as people say.
CHAPTER XV.
THE METROPOLIS OF INDIA AND ITS HIMALAYAN SANATORIUM.
On this bright, yet foggy morning of January 7, 1885, we find ourselves at anchor in the mouth of the Hooghley—that vast delta and network of channels where the most ancient of historical rivers, the Ganges, loses itself in the ocean.
The sun is struggling through the bank of fog, and as it slowly lifts, it is difficult to believe that the broad expanse of dun-coloured waters, with its dim outline of mud-banks forming a shore, is a river and not the sea. The white tower of the lighthouse of Saugor gleams in the far distance, and the pilot and his leadsman are on board.
It is 156 miles from the mouth of the Hooghley to the wharves at Calcutta, and all through the morning we are making a slow and tedious progress, stopping frequently to take soundings. The Hooghley is well known as a most "ticklish" piece of navigation, and altogether three pilots take charge of the ship in its upward course. The pilot with his accompanying leadsman, who after five years' apprenticeship is qualified as such himself, takes the ship to Garden Reach, and then hands over the charge to the harbour-master to take her into dock and the moorings.