A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of IndiaAcland, Charles
History
A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of India
Acland, Charles
India -- Description and travel; India -- Social life and customs
[Sidenote: WATERSPOUT.]
Here we are arrived safely at this place, after a very disagreeable
voyage, the worst part of which was the travelling up the river
Hoogly. We were becalmed for some time, and merely drifted up a few
miles a-day with the tide. However, I was much interested one day
by watching a cloud, which, after moving and whirling about for a
little time, began to send down a little thin point towards the
river. Presently the column increased in size, while underneath the
waves seemed to rise to meet it; and when they had done so a great
quantity of the water was sucked up by the cloud, which grew larger
in consequence, and then steered away towards the land: this was a
waterspout.
The place in which we live--that is, our hotel--is a large house,
three stories high, surrounding a square, and on each side are
forty-two windows in a row.
Immediately after landing I went to pay my respects to the
archdeacon, and to inform him of my arrival. Not finding him at
home, I proceeded to the bishop, who treated me very hospitably, and
invited us to his house.
[Sidenote: BISHOP'S PALACE.]
On returning home I found that during my absence the archdeacon's
wife and daughter had been calling on my wife, for the purpose of
inviting us to their house; but having already accepted the offer of
the bishop, we, of course, were compelled to decline this. In the
bishop's palace we have two very large apartments assigned to us,
besides a bath-room, and a verandah, about three hundred yards long,
to walk in. I was scarcely located here, however, before I received
an order to proceed to Gowhattie, in Assam, and to assume the
clerical superintendence of the whole province. At Gowhattie there is
one European lady, and there are five European gentlemen, who are the
only ones within two hundred and seventy miles. My parish, if such
it can be called, is about twice the size of England, and I shall be
continually travelling about.
But I must now tell you something about this place. The principal
animals here are buffaloes, elephants, and tigers, of whose numbers
you may form an idea by the fact of the Government having offered a
reward for every tiger's head. Last year, in the province of Assam,
the number of heads brought in was two thousand six hundred, and yet
these animals seem to be as numerous as ever.
We shall have to travel in a little boat, called a budjeon, with two
cabins, up to Gowhattie. The boatmen are black, and we shall be the
only passengers on board. We must be provided besides with two other
boats, the one with the fowls and goats in it for cooking, and the
other with the luggage. We shall be rather more than two months on
the voyage, and must take with us enough provisions for a year. When
we reach Gowhattie the boat must serve us for a home until we have
built one with mats and reeds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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