sprung, right glad once more to feel ourselves on _terra firma_, respecting which, be it observed, _en passant_, I hold the opinion of the Persian, that a yard of it is worth a thousand miles of salt-water. Here then was I at last, in very truth, treading the soil of India—of that wondrous, teaming, and antique land, the fertile subject of my earliest thoughts and imaginations—that land whose “barbaric pearl and gold” has stimulated the cupidity of nations down the long stream of time, from Sabæan, Phœnician, Tyrian, and Venetian, to Mynheer Van Stockenbreech, and honest John Bull himself—whose visionary luxuries have warmed full many a Western poet’s imagination, and whose strange vicissitudes have furnished such ample matter to adorn the moralist’s and historian’s pages. As I gazed on the turbaned crowds, the flaunting robes, the huge umbrellas, the passing palankeens, the black sentinels, the strange birds, and even (pardon the climax) the little striped squirrels, which gambolled up and down the pillars of the custom-house—sights so new and strange to me,—I almost began to doubt my own identity, and to think I had fallen into some new planet. Assuredly, of all the sunny moments which chequer the path of life’s pilgrimage here below, there are few whose brightness can compare with those of our first entrance on a new and untrodden land. What music is there in every sound! What an exhilarating freshness in every object! The peach’s bloom, the butterfly’s down, or the painted bubble, however, are but types of them. Alas! as of all sublunary enjoyments, they vanish upon contact, or at best, bear not long the grasp of possession. My feelings were still in a state of tumultuous excitement, when, gazing about, I observed a native, in flowing robes and large gold ear rings, bearing down upon me. With a profound salaam, and the smirking smile of an old acquaintance, he proceeded to address me: “How d’ye do, Sare?” said he. “Pretty well, thank you,” said I, smiling; “but who are you?” “I, Ramee Sawmee Dabash, Sare, come to make master proper compliment. Very glad to see master safe on shore; too much surf, I think, and master’s coat leetle wet.” “Not a little,” said I, “for we have all had a complete sousing.” “Oh, never mind souse, Sare; I take to Navy Tavern there makee changee—eat good dinner. Navy Tavern very good place—plenty gentlemen go there.” “Where you please,” said I; “I am at your service.” “Ver well, Sare; but (in a tone of entreaty) you please not forget my name, Ramee Sawmee Dabash—master’s dabash—I am _ver_ honest man; too much every gentleman know me.”