90 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



so-and-so, returning from sucli-a-ship laden with rice, went to pieces 

 in the surf and the cargo was lost. The crew escaped by swim- 

 ming." 



Looking shoreward from the ship, we see a long row of square- 

 built, flat-roofed warehouses, stores, and banks extending along 

 the shore within a stone's throw of the surf. To the south of this 

 there is a tall light-house, a fort (St. George), and behind these a 

 wide esplanade, beyond Avhich the city spreads out indefinitely. 

 There is nothing prominent about Madras, no lofty buildings loom- 

 ing up above the smaller one, no domes, nor church-spires, nor 

 even a palm-tree. 



In good weather there is not the least difficulty or danger in 

 going through the surf, and a masulah boat soon landed us high 

 and dry upon the sand. Perhaps Madras never appeared to worse 

 advantage than it did then, in Ma}', 1877. The second year of 

 drought and famine had filled the city with an immense crowd of 

 half-starved, and four-fifths naked wretches, men, women, and chil- 

 dren, who fau'ly swarmed in every street and alleyway. The trees 

 were almost leafless, the gi'ound was baked and bare, and from 

 morning till night the sultry air was full of blinding red dust which 

 covered everything, even penetrating the closed sleeping-rooms and 

 coating the furniture and bed-curtains. The city had taken on a 

 dull, reddish-brown color, instead of its traditional yellow. 



For half a mile the beach was covered with masulah boats, and 

 bags of rice stacked up eight feet high, at which a swarm of coolies 

 worked like a huge colony of black ants, unloading boats and car- 

 rying rice-bags up to the level of the street. The streets near the 

 beach were crowded with carts, which, when laden with rice were 

 dragged away to the railway station by coolies instead of bullocks. 



Women and children with baskets followed the laden carts, and 

 whenever a rice-bag sprung a leak and a little grain was si^illed in 

 the dust, the dirt was swept up and carried away to be sifted for 

 the few grains of rice it contained. Emaciated beggars swarmed 

 about the hotel doors, begging with the piteous pantomime of hun- 

 ger, or with the long-drawn wail of " Sawme e ! " In the streets, 



boys ran along beside the open gharry, holding out their hands and 

 crying " Sahib ! " at every rod ; and no matter where the carriage 

 stopped, there was always a Hving skeleton at hand to rise up, pat 

 its hollow stomach with one hand £ind hold out the other for alms. 



At first I thought the Madrasees were four or five shades blacker 

 than the natives of Noirfihem India, but their seeming so was only 



