Chapter Twelve.
Strange Sights and Scenes on Land and Sea.
The river Hoogly. Off Calcutta. Tropical vegetation on the shore. Glittering sunshine on the water. Blue sky and fleecy clouds overhead. Equally blue sky and fleecy clouds down below. A world of sky and water, with ships and boats, resting on their own inverted images, in the midst. Sweltering heat everywhere. Black men revelling in the sunshine. White men melting in the shade. The general impression such, that one might almost entertain the belief that the world has become white-hot, and the end of time is about to be ushered in with a general conflagration.
Such is the scene, reader, to which we purpose to convey you.
The day was yet young when a large vessel shook out her topsails, and made other nautical demonstrations of an intention to quit the solid land ere long, and escape if possible from the threatened conflagration.
“I wonder when those brutes will be sent off,” said the first mate of the ship to the surgeon, who stood on the poop beside him.
“What brutes do you refer to?” asked the surgeon, who was no other than our young friend Stanley Hall.
“Why, the wild beasts, to be sure. Have you not heard that we are to have as passengers on the voyage home two leopards, an elephant, and a rhinoceros?”
“Pleasant company! I wonder what Neptune will say to that?” said Stanley, with a laugh, as he walked forward to ask the opinion of the owner of the said Neptune. “I say, Welton, we are to have an elephant, a rhinoceros, and two leopards, on this voyage.”