Here and there, against the saffron tide, or under banks quaggy as melting chocolate, stooped a naked fisherman, who--swarthy as his background but for a loin-band of yellow flesh--shone wet and glistening while he stirred a dip-net through the liquid mud.

Faint in the distance harsh cries sounded now and then, and the soft popping of small-arms,--tiny revolts in the reign of a stillness aged and formidable.

Crumbling walls and squat ruins, black and green-patched with mould--old towers of defense against pirates--guarded from either bank the turns of the river.

In one reach, a "war-junk," her sails furled, lay at anchor, the red and white eyes staring fish-like from her black prow: a silly monster, the painted tompions of her wooden cannon aiming drunkenly askew, her crew's wash fluttering peacefully in a line of blue dungaree.
Beyond the next turn, a fowling-piece cracked sharply, close at hand; something splashed, and the ruffled body of a snipe bobbed in the bronze flood alongside.
"Hang it!" complained a voice, loudly.

"The beggar was too--Hallo! Oh, I say, Gilly! Gilly, ahoy! Pick us up, there's a good chap! The bird first, will you, and then me." A tall young man in brown holland and a battered _terai_ stood above on the grassy brink.
"Oh, beg pardon," he continued.