260 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



eight-oared country boat, which served as kitchen and tender 

 to be picked up on our return. My own boat was a particu- 

 larly fine and comfortable craft. Originally built to navigate 

 the stormy and shallow tideways of the Megna, she pulled 

 twelve oars, carried two masts and lug-sails, and was fast 

 whether rowed or sailed. She was sixty feet in length by 

 twelve beam ; bows and stern alike, except that the former 

 stood a little higher out of water. Her cabin accommodation 

 consisted of a pantry, three feet by twelve, a saloon twelve 

 by twelve, a bedroom eight by nine or ten, and a bathroom 

 three and a-half by seven or eight. Abaft the cabins, which 

 were over six feet in height within, was a deck of six feet, on 

 which the food of the Mahomedan crew was cooked in a 

 caboose. Before the cabins the deck was all clear for the 

 rowers, with a low hatch leading below deck, where sails, 

 chains, ropes, and the crew's kits were stowed away, together 

 with my own stores. The boat having a keel of only three 

 inches on her round bottom, lay over very little on taking 

 ground, and ran no danger of being upset in a strong tide- 

 way, as a sharp built one would be. With such a craft, 

 drawing two and a-half feet, and with a crew of thirteen 

 sturdy Noakholly boatmen, the mouths of any rivers might 

 be navigated in safety during the cold season, or indeed at 

 any other time. Being built with great care of well- seasoned 

 timber, and copper-bottomed, she was capable of making fair 

 weather in a considerable swell. 



About four in the afternoon, the north breeze having 

 died away, and a southerly air blowing from the sea, we 

 anchored a couple of miles from the mouth of the river in a 

 little bay of the left or eastern bank, where the swell which 

 set in with the spring tide shortly after was little felt, and 

 the heaving of the water, usually perceptible so near the 

 sea, even in a perfect calm, only caused the boat to rise 

 and fall with a gentle motion. A glorious moon rose soon 

 after sunset, and lit up the deep woods and the rushing 

 river with a soft shimmering light, very pleasant to look 

 upon; while shoals of the "bummelow" and other small 



