REGARDING MATTERS IN INDIA. 615 



pacify her, Brahma said that Ganesa should be most worshipped of all 

 the gods. Before a Hindoo buikls a temple, or a house, or goes a 

 journey, he prays to Ganesa. And so I say : " O Ganesa glorious 

 and honorable Ganesa grant me success this evening. May I please 

 all this people ! All reverence to you, Ganesa." 



I will now go back to our steamer, and we must fancy ourselves 

 coming into Madras. There is the steamer just as she appears soon 

 after daylight off the roads. Madras has no harbor whatever, and so 

 every captain arrives as early as possible, to get away before night ; as 

 soon after daylight as he can he casts anchor in the roads, and if you 

 come on deck in the morning you will see round the vessel the boats 

 in which you will be expected to land, one of which you are now look- 

 ing at. I leave you to imagine the effect when an English lady sees for 

 the first time twenty or thirty of these fellows in the morning. The boat 

 is called a catamaran, and it is the only chance you have of landing if 

 the surf is high. You are lashed to this thing, and they bring you to 

 shore. The sea washes right over you, but, as the water is warm, ex- 

 cept that you do not like the ducking, it does not much hurt you. 

 These fellows are off the boat, and in the water, and on to the boat 

 again in a moment. Although they say the sea abounds in sharks, 

 they are never eaten, and they actually say the sharks will not touch 

 a black man. 



Well, the first thing you do, having landed, is to go to an hotel, 

 and find yourself a carriage. There are three kinds you can choose 

 from. There is the old palanquin, put upon wheels, called the palan- 

 quin coach, which is what Europeans generally use. The horse looks 

 sorry, but he can go ; every horse has his ghora-walla to attend him, 

 and a woman too. You buy the ghora-walla and the woman when 

 you buy the horse. It is the man's business to clean and feed the 

 horse, and the woman's to cut grass for him. The next carriage is 

 called a shigrampoo. You pay Is. Gd. an hour for this, and have to 

 pay beforehand, and whether the pony goes or not it is all the same. 

 The Hindoo has no idea of time ; he prefers that the pony should not 

 go, and so Europeans seldom use this. The next is a bullock bandy 

 no springs. The bullocks come from Mysore, and are admirable goers. 

 The native standing by the side is the owner, and the other is the fel- 

 low that drives. The natives are all vain, and want to be photo- 

 graphed, and are sure to stand wherever they see a camera. Now we 

 start on our way to the hotel, having chosen one of the conveyances. 

 We shall not have gone far before we see something of this sort at the 

 corner of nearly every street an almost naked barber, engaged in the 

 act of shaving, all for one penny. They say they are most wonderful 

 fellows at it. They actually shave people while they are asleep. I 

 found them very indifferent hands. If they are not engaged in that, 

 these very fellows are shaving the natives' heads. It is wonderful to 

 relate that, although there is the most intense heat, the natives invari- 



