I could not help being forcibly struck with the marked dissimilarity between the two races, who, here respectively the subjects of a common power, and from the antipodes, were engaged in objects of mutual interest, or busy in the exchange of friendly greetings. There stood the sturdy Englishman, with his ruddy face, iron muscles, and broad shoulders, strong in his straightforward hyperborean honesty; before him, like some delicate spaniel, or Italian greyhound, coaxing a bluff old Jowler of a mastiff, were the wily Asiatics, chattering and salaaming, fearful to offend, their slender and supple limbs all in motion, and supplying by quickness and address the want of energy and boldness. The family union, which had now for five months so pleasantly subsisted between our party on board, was about to be dissolved, and already were their thoughts and feelings on the wing, impatient for other scenes and objects. The cup of pleasure is seldom unalloyed, and with mine, at that moment, mingled a drop of bitterness, as I thought that an important scene of my life was about to close for ever, and that many of the actors in it, with whom I had so pleasantly “strutted my hour,” I might never see again. To think that we are leaving even an inanimate object for ever is a painful thought, but it acquires almost a solemnity when man, “the mind, the music, breathing from his face,” is the being we are now about to quit. Honest McGuffin, methought, have I heard your broad Scotch for the last time? Grinnerson, my merry wag, will you roast me no more? Gillans, bluntest of seamen, will thy hoarse voice, in the midnight watch, never again startle my ear, when through the shrouds (rudest of Æolians) the rough winds pipe their wild accompaniment? And, oh! Jemmy Ducks, thou Pariar of the _Rottenbeam Castle_, thou great conservator of chickens, shall I never again see thee scramble over the hen-coops, or be more enlivened with a pleasant vision of thy tarred and ragged breeks? _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ As a party of us, including the second mate, were chattering and laughing on the deck about noon, our attention was suddenly attracted to a handsome pinnace, with green sides and venetians, and of a light and beautiful rig, gliding down the river, with all sail loosened, which, however, the light winds had barely power to distend. As it approached, we observed an old gentleman, and a numerous group of attendants on the chut or roof. Marpeet immediately observed that we were about to be visited by one of the Calcutta big wigs; and Grinnerson, applying the glass to his eye, exclaimed, after a little reconnoitring and slapping his leg with delight, “By the piper that played before Moses, if it isn’t that old Tartar, General Capsicum; he’ll keep us all alive if he comes on board.”