Glimpses of Bengal | Page 3

he is coming at once. Hurry up! Hurry up! Presently comes the shout:
"The sahib has arrived." All in a flurry I brush the dust off hair, beard,
and the rest of myself, and as I go to receive him in the drawing-room, I
try to look as respectable as if I had been reposing there comfortably all
the afternoon.
I went through the shaking of hands and conversed with the magistrate
outwardly serene; still, misgivings about his accommodation would

now and then well up within. When at length I had to show my guest to
his room, I found it passable, and if the homeless cockroaches do not
tickle the soles of his feet, he may manage to get a night's rest.

KALIGRAM, 1891.
I am feeling listlessly comfortable and delightfully irresponsible.
This is the prevailing mood all round here. There is a river but it has no
current to speak of, and, lying snugly tucked up in its coverlet of
floating weeds, seems to think--"Since it is possible to get on without
getting along, why should I bestir myself to stir?" So the sedge which
lines the banks knows hardly any disturbance until the fishermen come
with their nets.
Four or five large-sized boats are moored near by, alongside each other.
On the upper deck of one the boatman is fast asleep, rolled up in a sheet
from head to foot. On another, the boatman--also basking in the
sun--leisurely twists some yarn into rope. On the lower deck in a third,
an oldish-looking, bare-bodied fellow is leaning over an oar, staring
vacantly at our boat.
Along the bank there are various other people, but why they come or go,
with the slowest of idle steps, or remain seated on their haunches
embracing their knees, or keep on gazing at nothing in particular, no
one can guess.
The only signs of activity are to be seen amongst the ducks, who,
quacking clamorously, thrust their heads under and bob up again to
shake off the water with equal energy, as if they repeatedly tried to
explore the mysteries below the surface, and every time, shaking their
heads, had to report, "Nothing there! Nothing there!"
The days here drowse all their twelve hours in the sun, and silently
sleep away the other twelve, wrapped in the mantle of darkness. The
only thing you want to do in a place like this is to gaze and gaze on the
landscape, swinging your fancies to and fro, alternately humming a

tune and nodding dreamily, as the mother on a winter's noonday, her
back to the sun, rocks and croons her baby to sleep.

KALIGRAM, 1891.
Yesterday, while I was giving audience to my tenants, five or six boys
made their appearance and stood in a primly proper row before me.
Before I could put any question their spokesman, in the choicest of
high-flown language, started: "Sire! the grace of the Almighty and the
good fortune of your benighted children have once more brought about
your lordship's auspicious arrival into this locality." He went on in this
strain for nearly half an hour. Here and there he would get his lesson
wrong, pause, look up at the sky, correct himself, and then go on again.
I gathered that their school was short of benches and stools. "For want
of these wood-built seats," as he put it, "we know not where to sit
ourselves, where to seat our revered teachers, or what to offer our most
respected inspector when he comes on a visit."
I could hardly repress a smile at this torrent of eloquence gushing from
such a bit of a fellow, which sounded specially out of place here, where
the ryots are given to stating their profoundly vital wants in plain and
direct vernacular, of which even the more unusual words get sadly
twisted out of shape. The clerks and ryots, however, seemed duly
impressed, and likewise envious, as though deploring their parents'
omission to endow them with so splendid a means of appealing to the
Zamindar.
I interrupted the young orator before he had done, promising to arrange
for the necessary number of benches and stools. Nothing daunted, he
allowed me to have my say, then took up his discourse where he had
left it, finished it to the last word, saluted me profoundly, and marched
off his contingent. He probably would not have minded had I refused to
supply the seats, but after all his trouble in getting it by heart he would
have resented bitterly being robbed of any part of his speech. So,
though it kept more important business waiting, I had to hear him out.

NEARING SHAZADPUR,
January 1891.
We left the little river of Kaligram, sluggish as the circulation in a
dying man, and dropped down the current