Nothing daunted, he
allowed me to have my say, then took up his discourse where he had left
it, finished it to the last word, saluted me profoundly, and marched off
his contingent. He probably would not have minded had I refused to supply
the seats, but after all his trouble in getting it by heart he would have
resented bitterly being robbed of any part of his speech. So, though it
kept more important business waiting, I had to hear him out.
NEARING SHAZADPUR,
_January_ 1891.
We left the little river of Kaligram, sluggish as the circulation in a
dying man, and dropped down the current of a briskly flowing stream which
led to a region where land and water seemed to merge in each other, river
and bank without distinction of garb, like brother and sister in infancy.
The river lost its coating of sliminess, scattered its current in many
directions, and spread out, finally, into a _beel_ (marsh), with here
a patch of grassy land and there a stretch of transparent water, reminding
me of the youth of this globe when through the limitless waters land had
just begun to raise its head, the separate provinces of solid and fluid as
yet undefined.
Round about where we have moored, the bamboo poles of fishermen are
planted. Kites hover ready to snatch up fish from the nets. On the ooze at
the water's edge stand the saintly-looking paddy birds in meditation. All
kinds of waterfowl abound. Patches of weeds float on the water.
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