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Updated: May 17, 2025
When it comes on to blow with any force, the Singalese boatmen may be observed standing out on their outriggers, to counteract the force of the wind on the high sails. The stronger the breeze the further out the men go. Their mode of expressing the intensity of a breeze is significant.
People of all nations throng the thoroughfares and bazaars Indians and Singalese, Chinese and Burmans and one's first impression is a vague confusion of picturesque costumes and unaccustomed types of mankind; for Rangoon is cosmopolitan to a degree, and can hardly be called a Burmese town at all.
The natives on board were astonished and alarmed at our appearance, and expressed some unwillingness to receive us; but our circumstances would admit of no denial; and we scarcely waited till our Singalese fellow-passenger could interpret to them our situation and our wants, before we ascended the sides of their vessel, assuring them that every expense and loss sustained on our account should be amply repaid.
Nubians, Sikhs, Thibetans, Burmese, Singalese, Siamese and Bengalis mingle with Jews, Greeks and Europeans on common terms, and, unlike the population of most eastern cities, the people of Bombay always seem to be busy.
The ear-splitting sounds of Indian tom-toms, Tibetan drunis, Singalese pipes, Chinese trumpets, and Burmese gongs deafened us on all sides, awakening in our souls hatred for humanity and humanity's inventions. "De tous les bruits du monde celui de la musique est le plus desagreable!" was my ever-recurring thought.
The life of the gate was already at full tide of sound and colour, braying, gargling, quarrelling nomads wading in their flocks, Djlass countrymen, Singalese soldiers, Jewish pack-peddlers, Bedouin women bent double under their stacks of desert fire-grass streaming inward, dust white, dust yellow, and all red in the dawn under the red wall. The flood ran against him.
Gently the Delhi enters the passage between the harbour moles, and is at once surrounded by a fleet of rowing boats from the shore. Singalese and Hindus swarm up the gangways, and throw themselves with much jabbering on the traveller's possessions. They are scantily clothed with only a shirt or a white sash round the loins and a cloth or a comb on the head.
The number of brown imps scattered about the streets, threatening to upset your every movement, speaks highly of the prolificness of Singalese matrons; and if a numerous progeny is a desirable thing, then these mammas ought to consider themselves blessed amongst women. Their general aspect, though, conveys the opposite impression.
I have always been fond of study and had a special aptitude for sciences and the languages. On one occasion I acquired a fair knowledge of Singalese and Tamul in three months. From the university I returned home.
The Singalese don't say as we do, it is blowing stiff, or half a gale, or a gale; but that it is a "one-man wind," or "two," or "three-man wind," as the case may be. I believe a similar idiom is used by the natives of the Sandwich isles. On nearing the land we could see how really delightful this ocean gem is.
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