tailed on to the ropes along with the men, joking and laughing,
for their men out in the water told them there were lots of fish! You
did not need to know Tamil or Telugu to learn this, the delight was so
evident--It was evidently to be the catch of the season! The excitement
and movement grew splendid as the bag, still a few yards from shore, was
throttled in some way under water. First a small outer bag was pulled
ashore, then a bigger one holding the day's catch, a Scotch cartload of
fish--a bumper bag. They were all so pleased and jolly, and were puffing
and panting and wet with the last struggle to get the fine-meshed bag
through the surf. When it was opened like a great brown purse, there lay
the wealth of the Bay of Bengal! in silver and blue and rose and
yellow. About half the fish were pure silver, the rest violet, emerald
green, pure blue, and some red like mullet, with lemon yellow fins, and
the colour of the brown men and the women's faded draperies round the
glittering haul was delicious. The wrangling, not Billingsgate at
all--milder even than Parliamentary--was loud enough, and continuous. I
left them taking away the fish in baskets, and freshly minted money
never looked so beautiful. How they divided I couldn't tell; it seemed
as if each helped himself or herself as each thought fit.

I must note the afternoon of this delightful day, though noting these
"first impressions" of India seems rather a big order; for each day
seems so full of delightfully new experience, and fascinating sights,
that I am sure you see in one day here--at least a _nouveau_ does--more
interesting things than one could in a week in Europe.

... Our civil servant friend, who paints like Sam Bough, asked us to see
his bungalow on the Adyar River, also to look at sketches. We drove
three miles on a broad road under banyan trees and palms with patches of
corn and native huts, and an occasional bright dress and brass bowl of a
woman showing between the dark stems, and pulled up at half-a-dozen
bungalows by mistake, and left cards at others, to the owners of which
we had introductions, and after a considerable hunt turned up at the
bungalow we aimed at. Here were open views, in front the Adyar River and
the many-arched Elphinston Bridge, and palm groves, and down the river
to the left, the sand bar across its mouth, and to the right views of
the river's many windings in palm groves. Such a place, with the feeling
of the sea being withi