22 SPOKT IN BENGAL. 



we were obliged to eat our dinner on deck before sunset, and 

 to retire early to our beds after smoking a cigar, which we 

 did with our legs wrapped up in blankets, hands in pockets, 

 and newspapers spread on the seats of our cane chairs for 

 reasons too obvious to require explanation. 



The loudness of the hum and chirping of insects on land 

 in the rainy season is something surprising to one who has 

 never lived within the tropics, but it is nothing compared 

 with the far louder "voices of the night" in a wide "jheel" 

 in Bengal, where the croaking and flopping of frogs, the 

 sharp " chit-chit " of a large kind of grass-hopper, the twitter 

 of small birds, the calls of coots and water-hens, and the 

 splashes of rising and diving fishes, all combine, with the 

 flutter and buzz of myriads of small insects, to create a volume 

 of sound, never ceasing or varying, sufficient to keep awake 

 the seven sleepers. But this is not all ; conceive, in addition, 

 a temperature close upon ninety degrees, the grunting and 

 grumbling of a dozen servants and boatmen, and the slapping 

 of as many pairs of hands, and then picture to yourself 

 a night on the " jheels " in August or September, when not 

 a breath of air stirs the leaves of the lotus, or moves the 

 grass. 



The depth of water in the great Tipperah and Sylhet 

 " jheels " varies from ten to twenty feet during the season of 

 rains ; nevertheless a coarse description of rice will be found 

 growing in all but the deepest parts, which will survive 

 submersion even, if not prolonged beyond three days. At a 

 rough estimate this area of inundated country cannot be less 

 than eight thousand square miles, and is probably more ; it 

 may therefore be asked, where do the people live who sow 

 and reap the grain ? Well ; they live, or rather vegetate, in 

 hovels built upon the banks of rivers and water-courses, and 

 on little narrow hummocks in the midst of the waters, just 

 standing out of them a foot or two above the highest flood 

 level. Every householder possesses one canoe at least, 

 without which he would be a prisoner in his house, unable to 

 earn his living, and in such he makes his little journeys to 



