"Yes, sir; nothing like foreign travel for enlarging the mind and perfecting the manners. Perfecting even the most charming natural manners, sir," said the mate, drawing himself up, and saluting with one finger.
It was good for Ralph to have this atmosphere of boyish nonsense restored to him. Between its bright influence, and the relief of finding his friends alive and well, he improved wonderfully fast.
All the officers and men of the Pelican came to see him, and all appeared to be drawn more closely together from remembrance of the hardships through which they had struggled. There was but one exception, that of Kirke, and why he did not form one of that friendly group must be explained later.
The friends went to walk in the bazaar, amused to see the shops, or booths, so simply arranged by throwing upwards the side of the house, and propping it up with a pole; and the odd conglomeration of articles exposed for sale beneath this primitive awning.
Here, in a hole simply dug in the ground before the houses, were Burmese women cooking rice in the joints of the bamboo.
There were others selling "pickled tea," and other abominations, by means of weights fashioned after the semblance of the sacred duck.
Silver trinkets, lacquer ware, earthen jars and pots of native manufacture, were oddly mixed up with the commonest glass and earthenware from Staffordshire and St. Helens; stuffs of Oriental make and pattern lay beside Manchester coloured handkerchiefs and Madras muslin jackets; images of Guadama wore a suspiciously Brummagem air, and might be seen—though never sold—side by side with lamps of native pottery with distinctly classical shape, in the establishment of some Chinaman, over whose booth the picture of his patron saint presided. Mats, baskets, cylinders of gold, ornamented more or less, and worn by the ladies as earrings poked through the universal hole in the ear, were on every side,—together with Peak and Frean's biscuits and Bryant and May's matches,—looking oddly out of place.
The people who bought and sold were as mixed a lot, and as queer to the unsophisticated boy's eyes, as the goods in which they trafficked.
Burmese men and lads, whose close-fitting blue-patterned garments turned out to be their own skins tattooed; women, their abundant tresses dressed with exquisite roses or orchids, but displaying one leg bare to the knee beneath their gracefully-draped "tameins"; children, even babies in arms, smoking cheroots; bullock-carts, saffron-robed priests, officials; half-naked children everywhere, under everybody's feet; gongs sounding, bells tinkling, laughter echoing, strange calls and cries and speech on all sides,—formed a never-ending entertainment for Ralph, who had not previously seen more of the world than the rather dull and prosaic streets of mercantile Liverpool. All was new to him, all amusing, nothing more so than the idleness and merry temper of the natives, coming so suddenly upon him after so stern an early struggle with the grave realities of civilised life.
The rains were now over, and the pious Burmese, with great tenderness for the little fishes left behind in many pools, collected them in jars, and carried them in procession down to the river, that they might be thus carefully restored to their native element.