Charlie and his friends amused themselves by sauntering about in the native town, greatly surprised by the sights and scenes which met their eyes; for in those days very little was known of India, in England. They were, however, greatly disappointed. Visions of oriental splendour, of palaces and temples, of superbly dressed chiefs with bands of gorgeous retainers, had floated before their mind's eye. Instead of this they saw squalid huts, men dressed merely with a rag of cotton around them, everywhere signs of squalor and poverty. Madras, however, they were told that evening, was not to be taken as a sample of India. It was a mere collection of huts, which had sprung up round the English factories. But when they went to a real Indian city, they would see a very different state of things. Chapter 5: Madras. After the young writers had seen the native town, they returned to the beach, and spent the afternoon watching the progress of landing the cargo of the Lizzie Anderson. They were pleased to see their own luggage safely ashore; as it would have been greatly damaged, had the boat containing it been swamped; a misfortune which happened to several of the boats laden with cargo. It was very amusing, each time that one of these boats arrived, to see a crowd of natives rush down into the water, waist deep, seize it, and drag it up beyond the next wave. Many of them would be knocked down, and some swept out by the retreating wave, only to return on the next roller. All could swim like fish, and any of these events were greeted with shouts of laughter by the rest. When the packages were landed a rope was put round them, and through this a long bamboo pole was inserted, which would be lifted on to the shoulders of two, four, or six porters, according to its weight; and these would go off, at a hobbling sort of trot, with their burden to the factory. Their own baggage was taken up to the quarters allotted to them, and at the hour named for dinner the newcomers met, for the first time, those with whom they were to be associated. All were dressed in white suits, and Charlie was struck with the pallor of their faces, and the listless air of most of them. The gentleman to whom they had first been introduced made them acquainted with the others. "How refreshingly healthy and well you look!" a young man of some six and twenty years old, named Johnson, said. "I was something like that, when I first came out here, though you'd hardly think it now. Eight years of stewing, in this horrible hole, takes the life and spirits out of anyone.