So completely vitiated is the native eye, by being accustomed to these deformities, that the majority of Indians can often make little or nothing of a European drawing; and I have often, in my post-griffinish days, seen one of them take a pencil sketch in his hand, turn it round about this way and that, and finally settle to its examination when upside downwards.
The Hindus, in these respects, seem more deficient than the Mahomedans, though, like the ancient Egyptians, in their ghauts, temples, and other works, they exhibit the vast and minute in perfection, showing what numbers and perseverance can effect without the aid of taste.
The Baghiriti, at Burhampore, narrows at the commencement of the cold season to a moderately broad stream, and was now fast falling, so that we were led to suppose some difficulty in getting into the great Ganges at the point of junction, some days’ journey higher up. Sometimes this part becomes absolutely impracticable for large boats, which are then obliged to effect the passage by another branch.
As we approached the great river, our journey became rather one by land than by water. The river had fallen to the depth of a few inches in some parts, we were pushed by main force, by our indefatigable dandies, over sandy shallows, of miles in extent.
This was a labour, however, to which they had evidently been accustomed, and most philosophically did they set about it: planting their backs against the broad Dutch-built stem of the budgerow, they worked us along by almost imperceptible degrees, with insufferable yelling, groaning, and grunting, varied occasionally by the monotony of “Tan a Tooney hy yah!”
After a dos-à-dosing it in this style for some days, we had at length the satisfaction to find ourselves fairly hacked out of the scrape, and riding in the Ganges.
The Ganges! Strange were my emotions as I gazed on the broad expanse of that famed and once mysterious river, with whose name were associated so many of my early ideas of Brahmins, Gentoos, burning widows, and strange idolatries! Alas! the romance of the world is fast departing. Steam, commerce, and conquest, are making all things common, and soon they will leave no solitary spot on this globe of ours where the imagination may revel undisturbed amidst dim uncertainties and barbaric originalities. There wants but a gin-shop on Mount Ararat, or a spinning-jenny on Olympus, to complete the work of desecration.
A day or two more brought us in sight of the blue mountains, or hills of Rajmahal, a great relief to the eye, after having been so long accustomed to the unvarying level of Bengal.
The low lands at the foot of these hills are well stocked with game, the neighbouring jungles affording them secure shelter. Everything is here to be found, from the rhinoceros to the quail. Here I shot my first chikor, a splendid bird, of the partridge kind, but twice the size of ours.
Accompanied by the trusty Ramdial and Nuncoo, with a few dandies whom I had pressed into my service as beaters, I sallied out one morning with the determination to make a day of it.