Eric Newby - Slowly Down the Ganges

It was unfortunate that we chose this moment to run aground ourselves and we now found ourselves in the ridiculous position of having to ask the raftsmen for help before we could help them. These men were in a terrible state. They were wet and shivering and dressed in nothing but sodden loin-cloths that were mere vestiges of clothing. Now they abandoned their rafts and joined us in the boat, wrapping themselves from head to toe in long damp sheets, more like corpses exhumed from the tomb than living beings. ‘We have come from the jungle, northwards of the Rawasan Nala,’ they said. ‘For two days we have eaten nothing.’

We gave them sugar and sweets, all that we could lay our hands on without unloading the boat; but their pleasure was short-lived. We were now approaching the fifteenth rapid of the day, the twenty-ninth of the journey, a particularly frightening one, and the boatmen, whose sympathy for the newcomers was of a less demonstrative order than our own, made them disembark and stagger along the bank for half a mile on foot, while we descended the long run of water in comparative comfort.

The long day was drawing to a close – far too rapidly for my liking – although I had had more than enough of it. We would never reach the bridge, that was certain; what seemed equally certain was that we would not even reach Nagal before nightfall. Already the plumed grasses and sugar cane on the islands to the west were silhouetted against the sun which was sinking at an unseemly rate and deep in the bed of the river we were already in cold shadow.

As the boat entered the thirty-first rapid down which it careered silently, rocking from bow to stern on the powerful stream, we had a respite from the oars and now for the first time we had the feeling of being carried on the bosom of a great river. This was what I had imagined that the descent of the Ganges would be like.

The sun had gone now and for those who were not at the oars the air was very cold; but in spite of everything it was a lovely time and I felt strangely contented rowing like mad down this long reach, stripped to the waist, with the wild duck rising in hundreds and the Sarus Cranes, tall grey birds, standing in the water on long, bare, red legs, trumpeting to one another; while in the afterglow sky and water became blood-red and a long line of cliffs to the east which were now closing with the left bank of the river were the colour of canyons at sunset in the National Geographic Magazine . It was very calm and very impressive, but when we asked the raftsmen how far it was to Nagal – ‘ Wuh kitni dur hai? ’ – they said it was ‘ Bahut dur ’ (very far), and wrapped themselves closer still in their wet rags. These men were remarkably vague about their whereabouts. All they seemed to know was that their village was somewhere near Nagal, a small market town of 2,000 inhabitants, which lay somewhere to the east of the Ganges.

Now we went aground in the last of the light. Nine men and one woman hopelessly lost in a maze of shoals; blundering about in the darkness probing for a channel with bamboo poles; at one moment up to our waists in water, the next with it barely covering our calves. When eventually we did find a way it led through quicksands in which it was impossible to let go of the side of the boat for an instant for fear of disappearing for ever; attempting to move the boat in these circumstances, with no solid substance underfoot, was rather like pedalling a unicycle in a circus.

As we went slowly on, Karam Chand interrogated the raftsmen about the whereabouts of their village. ‘Three miles,’ they said at first, and then much later, ‘Two miles’, from which distance, however far we travelled, they refused to be dislodged. Finally, even Karam Chand became exasperated. ‘It is my opinion,’ he said, ‘that their village is nowhere near Nagal at all.’

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