Children, covered all
over with clay, are sporting boisterously, splashing water on each other,
while one of them shouts a song, regardless of the tune.
Over the high banks, the cottage roofs and the tops of the bamboo clumps
are visible. The sky has cleared and the sun is shining. Remnants of
clouds cling to the horizon like fluffs of cotton wool. The breeze is
warmer.
There are not many boats in this little river; only a few dinghies, laden
with dry branches and twigs, are moving leisurely along to the tired
plash! plash! of their oars. At the river's edge the fishermen's nets are
hung out to dry between bamboo poles. And work everywhere seems to be over
for the day.
CHUHALI.
_June_ 1891.
I had been sitting out on the deck for more than a quarter of an hour when
heavy clouds rose in the west. They came up, black, tumbled, and tattered,
with streaks of lurid light showing through here and there. The little
boats scurried off into the smaller arm of the river and clung with their
anchors safely to its banks. The reapers took up the cut sheaves on their
heads and hied homewards; the cows followed, and behind them frisked the
calves waving their tails.
Then came an angry roar. Torn-off scraps of cloud hurried up from the
west, like panting messengers of evil tidings. Finally, lightning and
thunder, rain and storm, came on altogether and executed a mad dervish
dance. The bamboo clumps seemed to howl as the raging wind swept the
ground with them, now to the east, now to the west.
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