Doomurdah. 'Children ran to lisp their sire's return, And climb'd the knees the envied kiss to share,' 17 had, in hundreds of instances, to deliver their purses, and then fall victims to the pirates, who either threw them overboard, or sprung a leak in their boats. The famous robber-chief, known by the name of Bishonauth Baboo, lived here about sixty years ago. It was his practice to afford shelter to all wayworn and benighted travellers, and to treat them with every show of courtesy and hospitality. But all this profuse display of kind-heartedness at last terminated in the midnight murder of the guests in their sleep. Many were the victims thus hugged into snares, and then committed quietly to the peace of a watery grave, before his deadly deeds transpired to the public, and he was caught to end his days on the scaffold. His depredations extended as far as Jessore, and his whereabouts being never certainly known, he long eluded the search of the police. He was at length betrayed by one of his comrades, surrounded in the hut of his courtesan in the midst of a jungle, seized when overcome by wine, and then hanged on the spot to strike terror into the neighbourhood. The house in which he lived still stands; it is a two-storied brick-built house just overlooking the river, whence he used to 'Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies, Past associations give to Doomurdah a gloomy and dismal look. The inhabitants are all jellas and mallasboatmen and fishermen-many of whose fishing-nets were drying in the sun. They are, or rather were, every one of them leagued together to fish by day, and cut throats at night. Fifty years ago there were many noble houses in Sooksagur. The Marquis of Cornwallis often came hither to spend the summer months, now passed by the Viceroy in Simla. This was the country-seat of our Governors previous to the erection of the park at Barrackpore. The Revenue Board was also established here on its removal from Moorshedabad. The river has encroached upon and washed away the greater part of Sooksagur, leaving not a vestige of its numerous buildings. In the great inundation of 1823 a good-sized pinnace sailed through the Sooksagur bazar. Chagdah, or Chackra-dah, is an abyss said to have been made by the chariot-wheel of Bhagiruth. The legend points to an antiquity, which is not borne out by any old vestiges or ancient population. The place is at best a mart, or outlet, for the agricultural produce of the neighbouring districts, being crowded with warehouses and brothels that generally compose an Indian bazar. There is always a large number of boats moored at the ghauts. The place is also a great Golgotha, where the dead and dying are brought from a great way off to be burnt and consigned to the Ganges. The deceased is seldom conveyed by any of his relatives, unless from a short distance. Poor people generally send forward their dead for incremation in charge of bearers, who never betray the trust reposed in them. Bullagur.-Goopteeparah. 19 On the opposite side of the river is Bullagur, the abode of Gossains and Koolins, of Vaishnavas and Vaidyas. Next is Goopteeparah, the Brahmins of which were once famed for the brilliancy of their wit and the purity of their Bengalee. It was, in those days, the innocent diversion of the rich Hindoos to listen to witty sayings, to laugh at the antics of buffoons, to hear ventriloquists, story-tellers, and songsters, for relaxation after the serious business of the day, all of which have been now banished from their boitukhanas by the brandybottle and its concomitants. Instances are known in which a witty saying has procured grants of land, or release from a bond of debt. Goopteeparah is also a seat of Hindoo learning, and has produced some remarkable scholars. But it is more famous for its monkeys than its Pundits. The former swarm here in large numbers, and are mischievous enough to break women's water-pots. It has become a native proverb that to ask a man whether he comes from Goopteeparah, is as much as to call him a monkey. 'Raja Krishna Chunder Roy is said to have procured monkeys from Goopteeparah, and to have married them at Krishnugger, and on the occasion to have invited Pundits from Nuddea, Goopteeparah, Ula, and Santipoor; the expenses of the nuptials cost about half a lac.' If one were to comment upon this now, he must suspect the Rajah to have found a kinship between the two, or he would not have confounded Pundits with monkeys. February 13th.-In the last century the Ganges flowed immediately below Santipoor. Now, in front of that town, is a large sand-bank, behind which it rises with all its details. On Rennel's map, the position of Santipoor is at a considerable distance from the river. Most probably Santipoor has existed from remote ages. But its antiquity cannot be traced beyond the fifteenth century. The earliest known voyage down the Bhageruttee was made in the age of Asoka, who sent his son Mahindra with a branch of Buddha's sacred peepul tree on a mission to the king of Ceylon. But few particulars of that voyage have been preserved in the Buddhistical books. The Chinese traveller, Fa Hian, returned home by this way across the sea in the fifth century, and it would be interesting if any of the places on his route could be identified. There is, no doubt, a small nucleus of truth in the tales of Chand Saodagur's and Sreemunto's voyages, but it is buried too deep in a mass of fiction to be ever able to give us the benefit of its light. The earliest authentic mention of Santipoor is found in the history of Choitunya. It is a place sacred to the Vaishnavas for the birth and abode of his friend and follower, Adwaita. The sand-bank, now in front of the town, would not be a mile in breadth from the ghaut. But Holwell, who was landed here on his way to Moorshadabad, after the horrors of the Black Hole, says, that 'he was marched up to the Zemindar of Santipoor in a scorching sun near noon, for more than a mile and a half, his legs running in a stream of blood from the irritation of the iron.' Once Santipoor was a large, populous, and manu facturing town. It was then the seat of the commercial Residency of the East India Company. The Marquis of Wellesley spent here two days, in the magnificent house, with marble floors, built at the cost of a lac of rupees, for the Resident. In 1822, the place is described to have had 50,000 inhabitants at least, and 20,000 houses, many of which were built of brick, and exhibit evident marks of antiquity.' Now it has not half this number of houses. The place, however, still enjoys a great repute for the manufacture of fine cotton cloths-it being, in this respect, next to Dacca in Bengal. There are yet in Santipoor upwards of ten thousand families of weavers and tailors. The descendants of Nityanundo are Gossains of Khurdah. The descendants of Adwaita are Gossains of Santipoor. There, the principal idol is Shamsoonder. Here, the principal idol is Shamchand. One-third of the people of Santipoor are Vaishnavas. There are yet many toles, or seminaries, in this town, but much fewer than in former times. No Brahmin, however, now marries 100 wives, nor does any widow think of sutteeism, but re-marriage. The Baroary Poojah, that used to be celebrated here with the greatest éclat, has also gone out of vogue. In one of these poojahs a party of Brahmins had assembled to drink and carouse. Under the effects of liquor, one of them proposed to offer a sacrifice to Kali, to which the others assented. But having nothing to sacrifice, one of the Brahmins cried out, Where is the goat? on which another, more drunk than the rest, exclaimed, I will be the goat! and |