India 2001 books

The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il
faut chanter quand meme," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo
then started "Frere Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the
Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of
the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all
the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They
sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's
eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks
and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer
shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars,
the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and
water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint
twitter--also recurrent and monotonous--of some nightjar....
The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a
little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague.


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