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There were budgerows, vessels with two tolerably sized rooms, available for hire at a moderate charge. It was indispensable to have with the budgerow a small boat for the accommodation of servants and for the cooking of food.
"Have Pen's immortal productions made their appearance on board Bengalee budgerows; and are their leaves floating on the yellow banks of Jumna?" asks Warrington, that sceptic, who respects no work of modern genius. "I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins, at Calcutta," says the Colonel simply. "I daresay you have heard of her. She is one of the most dashing women in all India.
Forty boats with thatched roofs, known as budgerows, were moored in shallow water at a little distance from the bank; and the crowd of fugitives were forced to wade through the river to the boats. By nine o'clock the whole four hundred fifty were huddled on board, and the boats prepared to leave Cawnpore.
Native boats laden with produce and wood continue to ply, but the budgerows and pinnaces, which Europeans could hire, have almost entirely disappeared. There are various reasons for this change. The current of the river is very rapid in some places, which makes the work of dragging against it very slow and tiresome; there is sometimes the danger of collision with other boats.
Suddenly a bugle was sounded, and a murderous fire of grape-shot and musketry was opened upon the wretched passengers from both sides of the river. At the same time the thatching of many of the budgerows was found to be on fire, and the flames began to spread from boat to boat. Numbers were murdered in the river, but at last the firing ceased.
The bunder, or pier, where passengers disembark upon their arrival in Bombay, though well-built and convenient, offers a strong contrast to the splendours of Chandpaul Ghaut in Calcutta; neither are the bunder-boats at all equal in elegance to the budgerows, bohlias, and other small craft, which we find upon the Hooghley.
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