CRUELTY TO A CAMEL.

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to furnish gratis to the Company's troops, and all persons travelling with public "Purwannus," or Government orders, for which the Zemindars receive a yearly abatement of their taxes, but which may sometimes, when many and extensive requisitions are made, press hard on the poor Ryuts. I was, therefore, as careful as I possibly could be to ascertain the amount of the different things demanded by my people, or furnished by the villagers, to take care that no unreasonable demands were made, and that nothing more than the letter of the law required was either taken or accepted by our people without payment. This was the first thing I did on alighting from my horse, (my arrival in the camp and that of the supplies usually taking place about the same time,) and while a readiness to listen to all complaints obtained me from the peasantry the name of "Ghureeb-purwar," (poor man's provider,) the object was easily accomplished with a caravan so small as ours. With an army, however, of course, the case is very different, and the officers at Cawnpoor to whom I thought it right to mention the complaints I had heard, said that they feared the sepoys often took provisions without payment, when the bustle of a march and other circumstances rendered them secure from the observation of their European officers. Still, they said, the neighbourhood even of these last was a great check to them, and the difference between their minor encroachments, and the open plunder and violence of a native prince's camp, was what nobody could believe who had not seen it.

Soon after I had got through the complaints and difficulties of the Commissariate, an elderly European, in a shabby gig, drove up, and entering into conversation with Abdullah, asked him some questions about my horse. On hearing that he had lost a shoe, he professed himself a blacksmith, and said he had been farrier many years to a dragoon regiment, and was now a pensioner, on his way to Allahabad in search of employment in his trade. He produced some specimens of very neat horse-shoes, and I soon set him to work to remove the Indian shoes, which pinched my horse's feet, and replace them with some of a better fashion. He was a very good and tolerably reasonable workman, a Lancashire man from the borders of Yorkshire, with a dialect and physiognomy rather approaching the latter than the former county. In the evening he went on to the serai a little farther, having, as he frankly observed, "been in vary gud luck to meet us," since he found a profitable job without any delay in his journey, and obtained a letter of recommendation, as a neat artist, to Allahabad. In the course of this evening my attention was attracted by the dreadful groans of one of our baggage-camels at some little distance among the trees. I went to the spot, and found that two of the "Sarbanns," or camel-drivers, had bound

its legs in a kneeling posture, so that it could not rise or stir, and were now busy in burning it with hot irons in all the fleshy, muscular, and cartilaginous parts of its body. They had burned six deep notches in the back of its neck, had seared both its cheeks immediately under the eye, its haunches and head, and were now applying the torturing instrument to its forehead and nostrils. I asked what they were doing, and they answered that "it had a fever and wind, and would die if they did not treat it in this manner." I called Abdullah and asked him if such a remedy was usual. He said it was so in this country and in Persia, but that the Arabs in similar cases found a little warm water-gruel with garlic sufficient. I should have thought so too, but the poor animal's sufferings were now over for the present, and by-and-by they actually gave it a large ball of garlic. It was better, they told me, some hours after, but on renewing my inquiries in the morning, I heard that it was finally released from its misery.

October 5.-Another stage of 14 miles to Mundiserai. The parched state of the country had till now threatened a famine. Rain had fallen at Benares and Allahabad, but none as yet in the country through which we had marched. The fears expressed by the poor people every where had been very touching. One of the Tussuldars had asked me to pray for them, and said with a curious mixture of Eastern compliment and undoubted truth, "We poor people have had great trouble here, but now your worship is come, if it pleases God, we shall have rain." I assured him of my prayers, and had, indeed, used, both in the church at Allahabad, and during our morning and evening family prayers of every day for the last fortnight, the Collect containing that petition. This morning, soon after we had reached our encampment, their deep distress was relieved, and several smart showers fell during the day and night, at which we rejoiced most sincerely, since, though for us the dry weather was better, it was impossible to put our convenience in competition with the food of millions. The change of weather, however, seemed to disagree with our people, who were several of them taken ill, but were relieved by proper remedies.

October 6.-The march before us being longer than usual, the loaded wagons began to set out soon after midnight, and Mr. Lushington and I were on horseback at three, to enable the clashees to take down our tents. The sky was cloudy, and as we picked our way with some difficulty in the dark, through watery roads and a wild open country, my recollection was forcibly drawn to those times when my youngest brother and I used to ride some miles to meet the mail in our way to school, and afterwards to college. Thence I naturally passed to the jour

nies of a riper age in the same neighbourhood, my wife's parting adieu and exhortation to take care of myself, and to write as soon as I got to London, at a time when we little thought of ever enduring more than a month's separation. Hodnet, dear Hodnet, as we left it, and as it is now, Moreton, and all the names and recollections connected with them, combined to make me sad, and I was obliged to turn my attention to Bombay, and the meeting to which I look forwards there, to restrain some emotion which I was not sorry the darkness concealed. We rode on in silence about seven miles, when, in passing a village, we were roused by the lights, tinsel, flowers, mummery, horns, gongs, and shouts of Seeta, Rama, Luchmun, and their followers, in the concluding feast after the destruction of the paper giant Ravanu. The show was really pretty at a certain distance, but the little performers were all sadly tired, and I was not sorry, for their sakes, that this was their last night of acting.

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One of the bystanders told us our road, which we should otherwise have had some difficulty in finding, and we went on through a winding street, and amid the mud walls of cow-houses and sheds, when a coolie came up to me and said that Dinoo, one of my sick servants, had fallen off his horse and was dying. I immediately went into the watch-house, and found him stretched on a mat which they had brought out for him, complaining of great pain, but speaking little and moaning dismally. I was much shocked, and the more so because I did not know what to give him; indeed my medicine-chest was gone on with the palanquin, and all the town, except the watchman, were busy with the show. I asked if they could get a dhooly for him, and bring him on to our next station, Futtehpoor. The watchman, who was now joined by another man, said "there were no bearers in the village. What," said I, "all those men whom I saw following Rama, can none of them put their shoulders under a bamboo and carry this poor man a few coss, when they are sure of being well paid for it?" "My lord," was the characteristic answer, "they are all coolies, not bearers; they can only carry loads on their heads, and cannot carry a man!" I grew impatient, and said that I insisted upon his being brought some way or other, and by hand, for the motion of a hackery was more than he could bear, and that if he was not brought in three hours time to Futtehpoor, I would complain to the Cutwal. I repeated this to the Jemautdar of the village, who now made his appearance, and he promised faithfully that help should be forthcoming. At length (an European would never guess how the matter was settled) four women came forward with one of the country cane-bedsteads; the patient was placed on it, and the sturdy lasses took it up on their heads like Cariatides, and trudged away with it. I left a

spearman by way of escort, and went on before, but with little hope that the poor man would reach the camp alive.

The day was now breaking, and we went on at a brisker pace, my young horse confirming me more and more in my good opinion of him, till, while stopping to let him drink in a plash of water, he all at once lay down and began rolling. I was not hurt, and the circumstance would not have been worth mentioning, had not the saees given as a reason for it, that the Turkomans fed their colts with buffalo's milk, and that my horse had probably thus acquired both the fondness for water and the folly of his foster mother! Certainly he seemed altogether unconscious of having done wrong, and imagined, perhaps, that the cold bath would be as agreeable to me as to himself; indeed, I gave him no reason to suppose the contrary, but shall in future watch him more closely on similar occasions.

The road for some miles from Futtehpoor lies over an open plain, as level as any part of India, and seeming marked out by nature for the scene of a great battle, which should decide the fate of the country. Here we were met by the Cutwal of Futtehpoor, who, in much civility, had come out on horseback to pay his respects, attended by the usual up-country retinue of shield and spear. I could not help smiling as the thought occurred, how different from the "great man" whom he probably expected, he must have found me, on a horse, without attendants, or even saees, and having on every part of my hat, jacket, and trowsers, the muddy stains of the nullah. However, the interview passed with great propriety on all sides, but as I was still wet and cold, and his retinue could not possibly keep pace with me, I begged him to spare the compliment of accompanying me into the town.

Futtehpoor is a large place, with more appearance of prosperity than any town I have seen since Allahabad. It contains some tolerably good houses, and a very elegant little mosque, built within these few years by the nephews and heirs of the celebrated eunuch Almass Ali Khân, long minister to the Nawab of Oude, and who held for many years the whole southern and western Dooab from Merut to Allahabad in farm. He was remarkable for his wealth, his attachment to the English, and, it is said, for his talents.

Futtehpoor is surrounded, like most of these towns, with tombs, in the midst of which our tents were pitched. Near us was a large but ruinous serai, which had, however, more of its interior detail perfect than most which I have seen in India. It corresponded in many respects with those of Turkey and Crim Tartary,—a large court with two gateways opposite to each other, surmounted by towers not unlike those of a college, with a cloister or verandah all round raised about a foot from the ground, with

a pucka floor, and having little fire-places contrived against the wall, just large enough to hold the earthen pitchers in which all the cookery of the country is carried on, and behind this a range of small and dark apartments a step lower than the verandah. No payment is required for lodging here, except a few cowries to the sweeper, while for a very few pice grass and water will be furnished to a traveller's beasts, and wood and earthen pots to himself; for provisions, the neighbouring bazaar is ready. These serais are generally noble monuments of individual bounty, and some were in ancient times liberally endowed, and furnished supplies of gram*, milk, and grass gratis to the traveller, as well as shelter. Their foundations are most of them alienated, but even so far as shelter only is concerned, it is a very great blessing in this country, where the general poverty of the natives, and the prejudices of caste, forbid a stranger hoping for admission into any private dwelling. Even now, though ruinous, they are kept tolerably clean, and their benefit is so great to all persons, whether Europeans or natives, who are not rich enough to possess tents, and occasionally to some even of those who are, that I rejoice to learn that their restoration is one of the objects proposed by Government in the application of the internal tolls to works of public improvement.

The only plague attendant on our present situation arose from the swarms of sturdy Mussulman beggars, calling themselves Marabouts," or holy men, and living in the tombs around us. I gave alms to one old man who addressed me by the claim of being a fellow-servant of the same God, and had, in consequence, my ears deafened for half the morning by continued cries of supplication from people in the full possession of youth, health, and strength, who would not even have thanked me for less than half a rupee, and who had about as much sanctity in their appearance and demeanour as Friar Tuck, or Fray Diavolo. At last the Archdeacon went out, and talked to them in their own way, and they dispersed. Dinoo, to my surprise, arrived in camp about an hour after us, very materially better, and there seemed no doubt but that in a dhooly he would be able to proceed.

There were some hard showers during the day, and the night was so rainy, that though the morning of October 7th seemed rather more promising, I gave up all idea of attempting to stir the tents, and sent Mr. Corrie word to this effect. He called on me, however, to say that he had no doubt of being able, by the help of the Cutwal, to obtain hackeries from the town to carry the flies, which are the heaviest parts of the tents; that the camels would have no difficulty with the remainder, and that the loss

* A kind of vetch on which horses are chiefly fed in India.-ED.