Scinde; or The Unhappy Valley

The perpetual tomtoming and squeaking of native music mingled with the roaring bawling voices of the inhabitants the barkings and bayings of the stranger-hating curs and the streams of the hungry gulls who are fighting over scraps of defunct fishes form a combination which strikes the tympanum as decidedly novel. [...] In the East you know the well is the place of reunion and of conversazione the scandal-point " and the pump-room of each little coterie. [...] To him we look for the clearing of the harbour the drainage of the dirty backwater and the proper management of the tidal incursions. [...] The tout ensemble of the scene strikes your eye strangely the glaring blue vault above vividly contrasting with the withered and sickly foliage of the palms which are now shedding their clusters of bright gambogc-coloured dates ; the quaintly habited groups of visiters the vivid emerald hue of the swamp intersected by lines of mineral water and covered with the uncouth forms of its inhabitants [...] There is a horror in the sound and then the prospect from the windows ! It reminds one of Firdausi's vast idea that one layer has been trampled off earth and added to the coats of the firmament.* You close every aperture and inlet in the hope of escaping the most distressing part of the phenomenon.