spectacle that meets my eye. And long after the
sun has set, the steamer throbs on, favoured by
the radiant clouds and the white splendour of the
moon.
Towards midnight new lights appear on the northern
horizon, and gradually grow into the transports Freebooter
and Rob Roy, with flats in tow, and three
hundred men with
racked muskets on
board. The placid
calm of the moonlit
night is rudely
broken by these
new-comers. A l l
moves as in a play.
T h e p a n t i n g
steamers race past
me down the river,
till they find an open
space at which to
touch; then in a flash
they swing to, and
slowly move up
into place. The
river, lashed into
f u r y by t he
paddles, plunges in
great waves and
breaks vehemently
a m a s t e r -b u i l d e r a t p a k o k u against the shore.
368
The smaller craft, catching the infection, strain madly
at their moorings. Lascars shout, and captains roar
their orders above the din. The placing of the gangway
planks is a signal to the hungry men on board,
A
A FERRY.
and sixty seconds, see: as many men ashore with cooking
pots that glitter in the moonlight, foraging for firewood
and seeking out places in which to cook their food.
Spectators talk in bated whispers of war in the Chin
hills, and there is some quality in the spectacle that
makes the blood run and the heart beat faster. Up
there in those distant highlands, so far away that for
all their ten thousand feet they are invisible from here,
the rude tribesmen are unaware of the power they
have evoked,i of the destiny that is already in train.
The British Administrator up there turns from his
day’s toil with a feeling of irritation, to the tales of
v o l . 1. 369 B B