DACCA 333 
mometer ranging between 95° and 106°, and scenery destitute 
of all interest, was ' miserably slow and very uncomfortable 
to boot.' 
We bave been alternately winding through narrow 
channels, tossing in vast river beds, bumping on sandbanks, 
or lying, moored to cliffs of sand and mud, waiting for fair 
weather or calms. Scarcely a tree has been visible for days, 
and then came wretched cottages, accompanied by clumps 
of Mango and ghostly Palms. . . . The desertion of our 
crew compelled us to put into Pubnah for a few hours. You 
will scarcely believe- it, but these people are so lazy and 
capricious, that our Headman and the crew actually ran 
away from their own boat, (a large covered luggage craft, 
80 feet long) leaving it to be the property of nobody, (i.e. 
our property if we chose) ; so we had to hire other men at 
Pubnah, and brought it on to Dacca. 
A fresh picture appears with the city of Dacca. 
The dwellings of the English residents are truly mag- 
nificent, as much so as at Calcutta, with richer gardens 
and more beautiful prospects. The streets are open and 
clean, and this is literally the first Indian town I have seen 
where you can drive along the public ways without grievous 
offence to the nose. [The narrow-fronted native cottages of 
mud or plaited matting, running back fifty feet from the 
street, with their eaves dipping nearly to the ground at the 
corners, looked all roof.] In these hovels the famous Dacca 
muslins used to be worked : they were wonderful fabrics, 
of which they say that you could not see them when out- 
stretched on the dewy grass, nor distinguish them from 
gossamer, when floating in the air. Aurungzebe reprimianded 
his daughter for appearing en deshahille, when she was really 
wreathed from chin to toes in one hundred yards of muslin. 
The manufacture has long been given up, or nearly so, but 
now there is a fitful revival, owing to the order given for 
the Grand Exhibition of 1851. For this. Dr. Wise ^ is collect- 
ing the article, materials and implements : the latter are 
1 Thomas Alexander Wise {d. 1889), appointed Assistant Surgeon in Bengal 
1827, founded Hugli College and was its first Principal, doubling the work with 
the Civil Surgeoncy of Hugli 1836-9. Appointed Secretary to the Council of 
Education, afterwards Principal of Dakka College, retiring in 1851. 
