“The whole of that week continued fine, and by degrees we got affairs into working order. The ‘tween decks,’ where the coolies are berthed, has port holes all along, and wind-sails are carried for ventilation, so that the air can be kept pretty fresh. On deck there is a large open kitchen built of brick, about twelve feet long and seven wide, where their food is cooked. I have two interpreters, two ‘sirdars,’ four cooks and six ‘topasses,’ or scavengers, under me. The coolies ‘fare sumptuously every day;’ they make most delicious curries of their allowance, which is rice, fish, tamarinds, turmeric, dholl, ghee, oil, mustard and pepper, as well as a sheep every Sunday. I can tell you they do not get such feeding in Natal. A meal such as I have described they get twice a day—at 9 A. M. and 3 P. M. At these times we get them all on deck, and they present a funny sight, the different family groups around their plates, helping themselves with their fingers out of the same pannikin. Here and there a wife, more attentive than the rest, feeds her husband, rolling the rice into balls and popping them into his mouth. Of course, among such a motley crew, we have some curious characters; one, styling himself ‘a Roman Catholic priest to his own countrymens’ is a curiosity—blind of one eye, a face with a sanctimonious leer, expressing, ‘What a fool you are to believe me,’ grizzly locks and a jagged beard, presenting a grotesquely solemn appearance. He sits day after day telling his beads and singing hymns. He has got a written paper with him to the following effect: ‘Gentlemens and Ladys, I beg to inform that I am a very poor old man; I have lost my sight and i can only see with my one eye and i have got small childrens to feed, so i hope gentlemens and kind ladys will help me and my childrens, it will be great favour to you, and God will bless you all and your families. I am your poor old man Antony, a Roman Catholic priest for my own countrymens.’
“I give him an approving nod when I see him, a little grog to keep his throat moist, and in return get the advantage of his petitions to the Throne of Grace, morning, noon and night.
“The familiarity of these semi-Christians with Holy Writ is something ludicrous. ‘How are you getting on this morning, Interpreter?’ I said to-day. ‘Very well, thank you; by the favor of the Lord Christ first, and secondly by favor of your honor.’ You see the relative position I hold here. Another, an old woman, who boasts of ‘Coffee Lister’ as her former master, continually holds up to me a rotten old blanket and says: ‘Present from the Natal government; good government, very!’ but adds, if I will give her a blanket, she ‘will pray the good Lord for me, my wifes [sic] and my families.’ We have also tailors, barbers, washermen and jewelers with us, who all do a roaring trade.
UMBUNDI’S PASS, DRAKENSBERG RANGE.
“But to proceed with my description of the ship and its ‘cargo.’ It is hard work to make them keep clean; they seem to abhor cold water. There is, however, on board a strong force pump, which enables me to do my duty. Every other morning I have the men brought forward and stripped, then I have the sea water pumped on them ad libitum.
“As a body they have a large amount of money with them. The Calcutta coolies, especially some of them, have as much as £50, £70 and £100 each, one man has £300, showing very forcibly the result of industry and sobriety, or rather ‘taking care of the pence, and leaving the pounds to take care of themselves’! Domestic squabbles are of frequent occurrence. One little wretch of a woman leads a stalwart six-footer an awful life—all day long she is nagging at him, but at night she excels, for she yells, and shouts, and chatters, and cries, enough to deafen one. Last night she pealed out a regular triple bob-major from her belfry, but so discordantly that for the first time I had a patient in hospital! I relieved him for once of his better half, locking her up for the night by herself in the dark, to brew mischief for the morrow, and pull her own hair instead of that of her husband. She came out this morning, however, considerably subdued.
“Feb. 27th.—Since writing the above we have made scarcely any progress, and are just now drifting in an entirely opposite direction to the one we wish to take, and are some 600 miles distant from Mauritius.
“March 4th, 9 A. M.—Just arrived off Port Louis, have anchored, and the health officer has been alongside, and who should he be but an old fellow-student of mine. We were told that Paris capitulated on Jan. 26th, 1871, but nothing further, as we are quarantined because we have coolies on board. We have, however, from the Bell buoy a good view of the harbor and town of Port Louis, as well as of the Pieter Botte mountain, which, I believe, has been ascended two or three times. It has a curious summit, which it is almost an impossibility to ascend, though this has been accomplished by flying a kite over, and so getting ropes across. Things seem very different here from Natal, and on an older and more established footing. After waiting until 3 o’clock, no permit has come for us to go on shore, but water has come alongside, at least the authorities left it about 200 yards from us and we had to fetch it, all the crew leaving the water boat. Why such absurd regulations should exist, when our ship is perfectly healthy and from a healthy port, I cannot possibly understand. We might surely have all the plagues of Egypt on board, combined with a mixture of cholera, yellow fever and small-pox, to account for the way we are treated. They even float a letter to us, in a boat with a tow line; like Mr. Meagles in ‘Little Dorrit,’ it is enough to make one ‘Allong and Marshong,’ and fume and swear; but so it is.
“The master of the quarantine boat will come presently to get paid for the water, and he takes away any letters, and this among others....