This mode of travelling in India though extremely tedious or perhaps rather, I should say, occupying a vast deal of time, and, when the river is swollen by the periodical rains and the melting of the snow, attended with considerable danger, is, nevertheless, in some respects, exceedingly pleasant and convenient. The sitting-room in a good-sized budgerow is as large as a small parlour, seven or eight feet in height, and, when fitted up with table, chairs, couch, book-shelves, &c., is as comfortable as an apartment on shore. The venetians open inwards, and may be raised and hooked to the ceiling along both sides of the rooms or cabins, of which there are usually two, one a dormitory, affording, as you glide along, a pleasant view of bathers, boats, temples, ghauts, and the other various picturesque objects which generally adorn the banks of Indian rivers. The _dandies_, or boatmen (not quite such dressy fellows as their namesakes at home, a rag or waistcloth constituting their working suit), tow the boats at the rate of fourteen or sixteen miles a day; each man has a stout piece of bamboo, with a string attached; the latter he attaches to the towing line, placing the former over his shoulder. In ascending, the oars are seldom made use of, excepting in crossing the river, or in passing long lines of moored boats, when they are sometimes deemed preferable to passing the towing line over each separate masthead, which is a troublesome operation, and productive of infinite squabbling and abuse between the crews. The term _budgerow_ is a corruption of the word _barge_, and the idea of those in common use in India has evidently been taken from the state barges, once more used by colonial governors than at present, as a state appendage, and which once also in London, in the olden time, served the purposes of transit amongst the great which coaches do at present. Specimens of them still survive in the Lord Mayor’s barge and those of public companies. We soon left Barrackpore behind us, and the pretty Danish settlement of Serampore opposite—the Bengal city of refuge for the fugitives of John Doe and Richard Roe—and in a little time passed the French possession of Chandernagore, and the Dutch factory of Chinsurah. In the evening we reached Bandel, an ancient Portuguese settlement, celebrated for its cream cheeses, which are rather so-so, and a pretty Roman Catholic chapel and convent, coeval, I imagine, with the earliest settlement of the Portuguese in Bengal. The shades of evening were gathering around as we slowly brought to and moored our boats for the night. Lights from many a nook and ghaut on the river began to shed their trembling rays across its surface. The crescent moon, in silver sheen, like a fairy of light, was just rising above the tops of the cocoa-nut trees; and the clash of gongs and cymbals resounded from the neighbouring bazaars, telling it was the hour of joy and relaxation.