On These Occasions, The
Rats Are Seen To Decamp In Large Troops, And Gentlemen, Returning
Home From Drives Or Parties,
Are often arrested by a fire, and by the
instructions they afford, do much towards staying the progress of the
Flames, while the greater number of natives, Parsees in particular,
look quietly on, without offering to render the slightest assistance.
Whole clusters of huts are in this manner very frequently entirely
consumed; the mischief does not spread farther, and would be little to
be lamented should it lead to the entire demolition of dwelling-places
equally unsightly, and prejudicial to health.
Much to my astonishment, I have seen, in the midst of these very
wretched tenements, one superior to the rest placed upon a platform,
with its verandah in front, furnished with chairs, and surrounded
by all the dirt and rubbish accumulated by its poverty-stricken
neighbours, miserable-looking children picking up a scanty
subsistence, and lean cats groping about for food. Such houses
are, besides, exposed to all the dangers of fire originating in
the adjoining premises; but apparently this circumstance has been
overlooked, together with the expediency of building a little apart
from the horrors of the surrounding abominations. This is the more
remarkable, from the contrast it affords to the air of comfort which
is so often manifest in the inferior dwellings of the natives of
Bombay.
I often, in my drives, come upon a small patch of ground, well
cultivated, and boasting vegetables, fruits, and flowers, with a small
low-roofed house of unbaked mud in one corner, having a verandah all
round, well tiled and supported on bamboos.
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