The Music of Hindostan c6.217

c6.217

The other opportunity was on a night journey by *valam*¹ from Trivandrum to Quilon. A *valam* is a covered boat in which you may balance yourself during the day on a semicircular roof and watch a slowly moving panorama of palms, Chinese fishing nets, wheel pumps, and naked children, and at night recline inside making such account as you may with heat, smells, and mosquitos, or other inmates. There were two boatmen, punting; one in the bows with a bass, the other in the stern with a tenor voice. Each kept his own pitch accurately : their tonics were a fourth apart, though for readiness of comparison all are given here with the same tonic.