racter. 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 surroundi