st on one
bank, and then on the opposite one. However, as the banks were steep,
and composed of a mixture of sand and mud, we were not so much delayed
by these accidents as might have been expected; for after grounding
with a shock sufficient to floor any one unused to the navigation of
the Indus, the tough little craft would slide back of her own accord
into her proper element, and go ahead again as if nothing had
happened. The first time this took place, I was sent on my beam-ends,
and was not a little alarmed into the bargain; but the crew seemed to
take it as a matter of course, and in reply to my anxious inquiries as
to the extent of damage that had been occasioned, they informed me
that she had only brushed the cobwebs off her keel. On entering the
creek, we startled large flocks of wild geese and ducks; and here and
there a pair of pelicans, after gazing at us for a few seconds, would
slowly wing their way to some more sequestered stream, unprofaned by
noisy, smoky civilisation.

As we continued on our course, the landscape--a level plain, that
stretched away for miles till it met the horizon--was covered with
camels grazing upon tamarisk-bushes, which, with a few mangostans, an
occasional specimen of acanthus, and a coarse and scanty herbage, were
the only specimens of the vegetable kingdom that met our gaze. The
scene during the remainder of the afternoon was the same, the monotony
being relieved only when we stopped for half an hour to take a supply
of wood from a large pile collected on the bank for this purpose, and
thus had an opportunity of stretching our legs on _terra firma_. At
dusk, the steam-boat was run ashore, the steam blown off, and here we
were to remain for the night. The natives immediately rushed on shore,
and began preparing fires to cook their provisions. The ship's cook
had already supplied me with a cup, or rather a tin pot of tea; but as
the growing coolness of the evening, and the example of my neighbours,
rather encouraged my appetite, I resolved to make a second edition of
my evening meal, and accordingly took under my arm the copper canteen
which formed the sum-total of my culinary apparatus--the lid being my
only plate or dish--and furnished with a supply of tea, sugar, cold
meat, and biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I
might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom
that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and
put