March 27 Friday – The S.S. Wardha negotiated the last stretch of the Hooghly River and by 11:15 a.m. was in the blue of the Bay of Bengal. Again Sam was nursing a cold. Sam’s notebook:

Mch. 27. We have slept on deck these 2 nights. Very hot, & mosquitoes troublesome elsewhere.

10 a.m. The Hoogli here is 5 miles wide, the shores a low fringe of forest — a ribbon….

Left the muddy water for the blue at 11.15 — the line separating the 2 colors distinctly mark[ed]. But the illusion has remained — I am leaving La & the Miss behind — not India & the Hoogli. See Bayard Taylor….

We have been out of the river 2 hours, now (2 pm) but its brown streak is still visible off to one side [NB 36 TS 60-2].