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HAFEZ REHMUT KHAN.

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being taken from him, is an inestimable blessing. But it must be observed that I was not struck by any material difference between the villages of Oude and those which I had passed in my way between Allahabad and Cawnpoor, so that other causes, besides a difference of regime, may be supposed to operate in favour of the Rohillas. They have, indeed, the character of a cleanly and industrious people; and their land, before its conquest and transfer to Oude, is said to have been a perfect garden. From that time it grew worse and worse, till on its cession to us by Saadut Ali, it was a frightful scene of desolation and anarchy. Its subsequent recovery has been rapid, but is not yet complete.

Within these two days I have noticed some fields of tobacco, which I do not think is a common crop in the districts through which I have hitherto marched. The Hindoostance name is "tumbuccoo," evidently derived, as well as the plant itself, through the Europeans, from America. How strange it is that this worthless drug should have so rapidly become popular all over the world, and among people who are generally supposed to be most disinclined from the adoption of foreign customs!

The Daroga of Futtehgunge called on me in the course of the morning, a fine looking man, with a full black beard, and a complexion very little darker than a southern European. He brought a present of two large geese, and was better dressed than most public functionaries of a corresponding rank in India. I asked him to sit down, which greatly pleased him. He told me that Futtehgunge, which means the Mart of Victory, was founded by the Nawab Suja ud Dowla, in memory of the great battle in which the last Patan Chief, Hafez Rehmut Khân, was slain, and which was fought between this place and Cuttrah in the year 1776, a little to the southward. This unfortunate man was an excellent sovereign, and the country under his government, notwithstanding the anarchy which had preceded it, was highly cultivated. He has been described as a noble old warrior, with a long gray beard, who led his cavalry on in a brilliant style against the allied armies. When his nobles, at the head of their respective clans, either treacherous or timid, gave way, he remained almost alone on a rising ground, in the heat of the fire, conspicuous by his splendid dress and beautiful horse, waving his hand, and vainly endeavouring to bring back his army to another charge, till seeing that all was lost, he waved his hand once more, gave a shout, and galloped on the English bayonets. He fell, shot through and through, and the brutal Suja ud Dowla applied for his body, that it might be cut in pieces, and his gray head carried on a pike through the country. The English General, however, had it wrapped in shawls and sent with due honour to his relations. Still a sad stain seems to rest on the English name for the part they took in this

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business, and this with the murder of Nundemar, and the treatment which the Raja of Benares met with, are the worst acts of Mr. Hastings's administration.

The noble mangoe-tope was planted by the jemautdar whom Hafez Rehmut established here, and is about thirty-six years old. These trees begin to decay in about sixty or seventy years, and seldom last much more than one hundred.

The Daroga was followed by the Tusseldar, a man of not so splendid an appearance, but one whom I saw, by the bustle my servants made to receive him, was a person of some importance. I found, in fact, in the course of such conversation as I was able to carry on with him, that he was of an illustrious family, which in ancient times had been sovereigns of the greater part of Rohilcund, but had been displaced by the family of Hafez Rehmut. He was also, in comparison with the people of the eastern provinces, a fair man. His address was good and gentlemanly, but he had little to say except what related to the greatness of his ancestors, who had, he said, reigned at Rampoor. He told me one curious fact, however, that the wheat now cultivated at Rohilcund was propagated from seed brought from England since the conquest, by Mr. Hawkins. The English at Shahjehanpoor had not mentioned this circumstance, though they spoke highly of the excellence of the bread made in this district. It answers, indeed, the beau ideal of Anglo-Indian bread, being excessively white, utterly tasteless, and as light as a powder-puff; when toasted and eaten dry with tea it is tolerably good; but I would as soon bestow butter on an empty honey-comb, which it marvellously resembles in dryness, brittleness, and apparent absence of all nourishing qualities. It is lamentable to see fine wheat so perversely turned into mere hair-powder. The native bread is nothing but baked dough, but I like it the best of the two. The Tusseldar brought as a present three very fine lambs, which, my own dinner being already provided for, I sent to the sepoys and to the other folks of the camp. I meant to have sent them all to the sepoys, but I was assured that two would be sufficient for them, so far does a very little meat go with Hindoos, and when well mixed up in currie; it is to be owned, however, that a considerable number of the sepoys were likely to scruple eating

meat.

During the last week we have almost every day fallen in with large parties of pilgrims, going to, or returning from, the Ganges, as well as considerable numbers of men bringing water from Hurdwar. The greatest proportion of the pilgrims are women, who sing in a very pleasing, cheerful manner, in passing near a village, or any large assembly of people. Once, as they passed my tents, their slender figures, long white garments, water-pots,

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and minstrelsy, combined with the noble laurel-like shade of the mangoe-trees, reminded me forcibly of the scene so well represented in Milman's Martyr of Antioch, where the damsels are going to the wood in the cool of the day, singing their hymns to Apollo. The male pilgrims, and those who carry water, call out, in a deep tone," Mahadeo Bôl! Bôl! Bôl!" in which I observed my Hindoo servants and bearers never failed to join them.

My new acquaintance, the Tusseldar, called again in the evening to ask if he could do any thing more for me, and to say he would see me again at the next station. I had in the meantime happened to find his pedigree and family history in Hamilton's Gazetteer, and pleased him much, I believe, by asking him which of the six sons of Ali Mohammed Kkân he was descended from? He said, "Nawâb Ali Khân ;" and added that his own name was Mohammed Kasin Ali Khân. The father and founder of this family, Ali Mohammed Khân, was a peasant boy, saved from a burning village, about the year 1720, by Daood Khân, an Afghan, or Patan freebooter, who came into this country about that time, and after a long course of robbery and rebellion at length became its sovereign. He adopted the foundling to the prejudice of his own children, and, on his decease, Ali Mohammed succeeded to the throne, and held it to his death. His six sons, as usual in such cases, quarrelled and fought. Nawâb Ali Khân, the fourth, was for some time the most successful; but all were at length overthrown by another chieftain, said to be of better family, Rehmut Khân. He, in his turn, was killed in battle by the English and men of Oude; and thus ended the sovereignty of Rohilcund. Of such strange materials were those dynasties chiefly composed, on whose ruins the British empire has been erected, and so easily did "the sabre's adventurous law" make and mar monarchs in the olden times of Hindostan !

A miserable little sickly man, wrapped in a ragged blanket, asked charity, saying he was going with his wife and two children the pilgrimage to Mecca! What a journey for such a person! I advised him to return home, and serve God in his own land, adding that He was every where, and might be worshipped in India as well as by the side of a black stone in Hejaz. He smiled in a melancholy way, as if he were partly of the same opinion, but said he had a vow. At home, indeed, he perhaps, to judge from his appearance, left nothing but beggary. I do not think that this pilgrimage is very popular with the Indian Mussulmans. This is only the fourth person whom I have met with who appeared to have made it, or to be engaged in it; and yet the title of Hajee, which such persons assume, would, apparently, point them out to notice.

November 13.-From Futtehgunge to Furreedpoor is seven VOL. I.-46

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JOURNEY TO FURREEDPOOR.

coss, through a country equally well cultivated, and rather prettier, as being more woody, than that which I saw yesterday. Still, however, it is as flat as a carpet. The road is very good, and here I will allow a gig might travel well, and be a convenience, but it would have made a poor figure in the plashy country on the other side of Lucknow, and have not been very serviceable in any part of the King of Oude's territories. We encamped in a smaller grove of mangoe-trees than the four or five last had been, but the trees themselves were very noble. The chief cultivation round us was cotton. The morning was positively cold, and the whole scene, with the exercise of the march, the picturesque groups of men and animals round me,-the bracing air, the singing of birds, the light mist hanging on the trees, and the glistening dew, had something at once so Oriental and so English, I have seldom found any thing better adapted to raise a man's animal spirits, and put him in good temper with himself and all the world. How I wish those I love were with me! How much my wife would enjoy this sort of life,-its exercise, its cleanliness and purity; its constant occupation, and at the same time its comparative freedom from form, care, and vexation! At the same time a man who is curious in his eating, had better not come here. Lamb and kid, (and we get no other flesh,) most people would soon tire of. The only fowls which are attainable are as tough and lean as can be desired; and the milk and butter are generally seasoned with the never-failing condiments of Hindostan, smoke and soot. The milk would be very good if the people would only milk the cow into one of our vessels instead of their own; but this they generally refuse to do, and refuse with much greater pertinacity than those who live near the river. These, however, are matters to which it is not difficult to become reconciled; and all the more serious points of warmth, shade, cleanliness, air, and water, are at this season no where enjoyed better than in the spacious and well-contrived tents, the ample means of transport, the fine climate, and fertile regions of Northern Hindostan. Another time, by God's blessing, I will not be alone in this Eden; yet I confess there are very few people whom I greatly wish to have as associates in such a journey. It is only a wife, or a friend so intimate as to be quite another self, whom one is really anxious to be with one while travelling through a new country.

The Tusseldar called again this afternoon, and brought three more lambs or goats, I am not sure which, for both are called "buckra" here. I, however, thought it too bad to take the firstlings of his flock in this unmerciful manner, and declined them as civilly as I could, giving him at the same time a certificate of my satisfaction with his attentions, with my great seal appended,

JOURNEY TO BAREILLY.

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-a distinction of which I have discovered the value in native eyes, and mean only to give it to gentlefolks. He took his leave with a profusion of compliments, having got a "neknamee," or character, and kept his mutton.

The evening was beautiful, and I walked round the village, which, however, had nothing in it worth seeing.

November 14.-From Furreedpoor to Bareilly is a distance of eight short coss, not much more than twelve miles, but to the cantonment, in the neighbourhood of which my tent was pitched, it is a mile and a half less. Mr. Hawkins, the senior judge of circuit, had offered the use of a large room in a house of his in the immediate neighbourhood of my encampment, for divine service; and I had the pleasure of finding a numerous congregation of the civil and military officers, with their families, as well as a good many Christians of humbler rank, chiefly musicians attached to the regiments stationed here, with their wives. I had, I think, sixteen communicants.

Bareilly is a poor ruinous town, in a pleasant and well-wooded, but still a very flat country. I am told, that when the weather is clear (it is now hazy) the Himalaya mountains are seen very distinctly, and form a noble termination to the landscape. Nothing, however, of the kind is now to be seen, though the distance is barely sixty miles. The nights and mornings are become really very cold, and in my tent I find a blanket, a quilt, and my large cloak, no more than enough to keep me comfortable.

November 15.-I breakfasted and dined to-day at General Vanrenen's, and met a very large family party. They are extremely hospitable, kind-mannered, and simple-hearted people, and the General has seen more of different parts of India than most men whom I have met. After breakfast, I had a number of children brought to be baptized, three couples to be married, and one young woman, a native, but engaged to be married to an English soldier, who was a candidate for baptism. She spoke English a little, though imperfectly, and to my surprise was not much better acquainted with Hindoostanee, being a native of Madras. Her intended husband, however, a very respectable young man, had evidently taken much pains to instruct her in her new belief. She repeated the substance of the Lord's Prayer and Creed very well in English, and afterwards explained, in answer to my questions, the different clauses intelligibly in Hindoostanee. In Telinga, her husband assured me, she was very perfect in both. I explained to her myself, as far as our means of communication went, and got him to explain to her more fully, the obligations which she was to take on herself in baptism and marriage. For the former she seemed very anxious, and to judge from her extreme seriousness during the ceremony, and the trembling

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