Chambers Edinburgh Journal, Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. | Page 4

outburst of nature's universal and unvaried language in the shape of a
light-hearted laugh. By and by, my attention became directed, by an
occasional shout of merriment, to a group of Seedies clustered round a
fire near me. Negroes in this country are much the same as in other
parts of the World--a happy, easily-contented race, forgetful of the past,
and careless of the future. After keeping up their noisy confabulation
for some time, they removed to a level spot close to where I was lying:
one of them squatted down on the ground, and commenced singing to
the music of a sort of tambourine, that he beat with the flat of his hand;
and the others at once formed a circle, and commenced a rude dance,
which had probably been brought by themselves or their fathers from
the shores of Eastern Africa. The air was at first low and monotonous,
the time seeming to be more studied than any variation of the tune; but
after some minutes a few notes in a higher key were occasionally
introduced, giving the music a strangely wild and melancholy character.
The dance consisted principally of low jumps, each foot being
alternately advanced in strict time with the music. Sometimes the
dancers joined hands; again they would pass into one another's places,
until they had made the circuit of the ring; and every now and then, in
going through these movements, they would leap completely round,
apparently without an effort, but as a natural consequence of the
momentum produced by the celerity of their motions, and the weight of
their huge bodies. The whole affair was gone through in a serious and
business-like manner, unusual in the negro. How long I watched them I
cannot say; but it seemed to me as if they went on for hours without
slackening the pace, or moving one muscle of their countenances, until
my eyes became heavy with looking at them. At length, the figures
appeared to grow dim, and among them I thought I recognised faces of
friends then many thousands of miles from me, and forms that the earth
had long before covered over. A death-like chill came over me: by a
sudden impulse, I rushed forward, and awoke. With bewildered

feelings, I rose on my elbow, and gazed around. The moon had risen;
her cold, clear light making every object near me either startlingly
distinct, or else a mass of dark shade, while a deep and solemn silence
reigned around. All had vanished--the singer and the dancers--the
flaming, sparkling, roaring fires, and the noisy groups around them;
and I might have imagined that I had awaked to find myself in another
world, had it not been for the heap of black ashes beside me, and the
dark outline of the steam-boat in the distance. I arose, stiff, cold, and
drowsy, and tucking my kitchen under my arm, slowly wended my way
on board.
However, there must be an end to all things; and on the third day, we
emerged from the dreary net-work of creeks, and entered into the open
Indus. The scenery still remained much the same. Here and there,
beacons were erected, but they were only of temporary use, for the
channel of the river alters almost every year. The breadth of the stream
varies with the rise of the water consequent on the melting of the snow
on the distant mountains, among which it takes its source. At Sukkur, it
is as broad as the Thames at Blackwall; and nearly two hundred miles
lower down, it is sometimes found of no greater breadth; while in other
spots it spreads into a lake some two or three miles across, depending
upon the level of the surrounding country and the rise of the river.
Scinde has been called Young Egypt, from the general resemblance of
the physical features of the two countries, and the fact, that the
existence of an only river in each is the sole cause of an immense tract
of territory being prevented from becoming throughout a parched and
unprofitable desert. In Upper Scinde, there are very rarely more than
three or four showers in the year, and the cultivator has to depend
entirely upon the overflow of the river for the growth of his crops, in
the same way as the fellah of Egypt is saved from famine by the annual
inundation of the Nile. In Fort Bukkur, there is a gauge on which the
height of the river is registered, in a similar manner to that of the
celebrated one in Egypt; and the news of the rise or fall of a few inches,
is received by the Scindians with an eager interest, not a little strange to
those who are unaware that such petty fluctuations determine whether a