This evening we have moored our boat in a lonely bend. The sky is clear.
The moon is at its full. Not another boat is to be seen. The moonlight
glimmers on the ripples. Solitude reigns on the banks. The distant village
sleeps, nestling within a thick fringe of trees. The shrill, sustained
chirp of the cicadas is the only sound.
SHAZADPUR,
_February_ 1891.
Just in front of my window, on the other side of the stream, a band of
gypsies have ensconced themselves, putting up bamboo frameworks covered
over with split-bamboo mats and pieces of cloth. There are only three of
these little structures, so low that you cannot stand upright inside.
Their life is lived in the open, and they only creep under these shelters
at night, to sleep huddled together.
That is always the gypsies' way: no home anywhere, no landlord to pay rent
to, wandering about as it pleases them with their children, their pigs,
and a dog or two; and on them the police keep a vigilant eye.
I frequently watch the doings of the family nearest me. They are dark but
good-looking, with fine, strongly-built bodies, like north-west country
folk. Their women are handsome, and have tall, slim, well-knit figures;
and with their free and easy movements, and natural independent airs, they
look to me like swarthy Englishwomen.
The man has just put the cooking-pot on the fire, and is now splitting
bamboos and weaving baskets.
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