At 11.20 A.M. Got Under Weigh With A Rattling Breeze, But
Scarcely Had We Been Half An Hour Under Sail When Crack Went The Great
Yard Of The "Clumsy" Once More.
I had her taken in tow.
It is of no use
repairing the yard again, and, were it not for the donkeys, I would
abandon her. Koorshid Aga's boats were passing us in full sail when his
diahbiah suddenly carried away her rudder, and went head first into the
morass. I serve out grog to the men when the drum beats at sunset, if
all the boats are together.
Jan. 13th. - Stopped near a village on the right bank in company with
Koorshid Aga's two diahbiahs. The natives came down to the boats - they
are something superlative in the way of savages; the men as naked as
they came into the world; their bodies rubbed with ashes, and their hair
stained red by a plaster of ashes and cow's urine. These fellows are the
most unearthly-looking devils I ever saw - there is no other expression
for them. The unmarried women are also entirely naked; the married have
a fringe made of grass around their loins. The men wear heavy coils of
beads about their necks, two heavy bracelets of ivory on the upper
portion of the arms, copper rings upon the wrists, and a horrible kind
of bracelet of massive iron armed with spikes about an inch in length,
like leopard's claws, which they use for a similar purpose.
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