India 2001 books

Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light
blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
of Scutari.
A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
hung from twisted osier loops.


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