e rank of masters and
branch pilots, the latter being the highest grade. Branch pilots
generally command pilot brigs, which cruise off the mouth of the Hooghly
for the purpose of supplying vessels that come from sea with pilots to
take them up the river, and of taking the pilots out of ships bound to
sea. Master pilots, mates, and second mates are engaged in taking
vessels out and in, while the youngsters are employed in heaving the
lead, and studying the navigation of the rivers. The whole service is
remarkably well conducted. The work undergone by its members is very
hard during the south-west monsoon; and they are generally short-lived.
This may be easily accounted for, in such a climate, by their constant
exposure to heat and rain, to say nothing of gales of wind and frequent
sound duckings from the spray of the sea.

The natives of Bengal are not favourites of mine: they are much given to
lying and thieving, and are sad cowards. It is true, they are not
pirates, like the Malays; but this is owing, I suspect, to want of
courage, more than of inclination. A Malay servant, should his master
threaten to strike him, will say: "Cut my pay, sir, or turn me away if I
am in fault, but (emphatically) don't strike me." A Bengalee, under
similar circumstances, would cringe under his master's feet, _salaam_ to
the ground, beg to be whipped, but "Oh," would be his cry, "don't cut my
pay, sir." Nothing used to annoy me so much as this excessive servility
of the Bengalee servants: they will do any thing for _pice, pice_; that
word being repeated by them at least ten times oftener than any other
in their vocabulary. With all this, they are lazy, and require more
looking after than any other servants I know. They certainly work for
little pay, but that little is sufficient to supply their families with
the necessaries of life, and to leave a trifle to put by, if the head of
the family does not gamble. The palanquin-bearers are the most useful
men to a stranger: for thirty-five rupees (3l. 10s.) he will get a
palanquin and six men who will carry him all over the town, a whole
month, for that trifling sum; they will take him out in an evening, wait
patiently in the street till he is ready to return home, and be at his
door by six the next morning, ready to obey his orders. The _circar_,
too, is a useful character, but, generally, a sad scamp: he will conduct
the stranger all over this vast city, shew him where any thing is to be
had,