182 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



embankments around them, and planting trees which grow to 

 great size and height ; but they are too apathetic to combine 

 for any such purpose, and prefer to risk their lives and 

 property once every twenty or thirty years, to making the 

 necessary efforts to save both in the uncertain future. 



In the course of a conversation between the writer and 

 some of the few survivors in Nulchirah, and in reply to a 

 question put to the latter whether they would now migrate 

 and make new homes elsewhere in safer regions, they ex- 

 pressed their intention to remain where they were, the soil 

 being prolific, the rent moderate, and the rice crops heavy. 



On the whole the bearing of the sufferers, almost all 

 Mahomedans of the rude and rough type of Eastern Bengal, 

 was resolute, and conspicuous for a determination to make the 

 best of their sad condition ; but they could not be induced in 

 their own vital interests to remove the corpses of the drowned 

 from the immediate vicinity of their temporary huts ; their 

 excuse being that they were not " Domes " * in the first place, 

 and in the second that they had enough to do to bury their 

 own dead, without concerning themselves about the remains 

 of strangers. 



In the course of a fortnight's travels among such horrors, 

 my companion and I became acquainted with many revolting 

 incidents, such as robbery and murder committed during the 

 raging of the storm in its utmost fury ; desperate fights en- 

 gaged in by neighbours over the flotsam and jetsam at its 

 close ; men and women driven mad by terror ; fathers of 

 families left sole survivors ; and other occurrences of the like 

 painful nature. Among the troubles which befell us was the 

 breaking out of cholera among our crews on the second day, 

 but happily it ceased with that one case. Unable to touch the 

 food placed before us on account of the flies and foul air, we 

 subsisted mostly on biscuits, tea without milk, and weak 

 brandy and water. 



Should these lines be ever read by the brother officer, 



* A very low caste of people, employed usually as scavengers, 

 carriers of corpses, and removers of the carcases of animals. 



