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seen a very remarkable old man, answering to the description given, seated in a corner of the serai at that place. The jemautdar was a Mussulman, and had no motive for swelling the praises of a Hindoo saint, so that I have little doubt that he himself believed what he told me, nor, indeed, do I think the fact impossible, or even improbable. Similar stories are told of hermits in Syria, whose cells have been frequented by lions, and a lion I should conceive to be as formidable a chum as a tiger; and it certainly is not unlikely that a man, with no other occupation or amusement, might very thoroughly tame a tiger's whelp, so as to retain a hold on its affections, and to restrain it, while in his presence, from hurting others, even after it had arrived at its full growth and fierceness. Every animal is, cæteris paribus, fiercer when tied up or confined; yet the great tiger at Barrackpoor would, I have no doubt, allow his keeper to sleep in the same den with him; in a wilderness abounding with hogs and deer, there would be little risk of the tiger's coming home so hungry as to be tempted to attack his friend; and the principal danger of the devotee would be from the rough fondling of his pet when he was two-thirds grown. As to the supposed safety of the rival saint, that I conceive to be merely luck, added to the fact that, except a tiger be provoked, or much pressed by hunger, or have once tasted human flesh, it seems pretty certain that he seldom attacks a man.

The poor sepoy to whom I had given medicine the day before, and who was this morning reported much better, was again attacked with fever at night. I gave him a rather stronger dose than before, but by no means felt easy about him.

I am not sure whether I mentioned in their proper place two curious facts which were told me in Kemaoon respecting the forests and their productions. The one is, that fires often take place in the jungles during the dry season, by the mere friction of the cane stalks against each other in high winds. This was first told me by the Raja Gooman Singh, and it was confirmed, at least as being the usual opinion of the people, by Mr. Traill and Sir R. Colquhoun. A scene of this sort, and arising from this cause, is described in Leyden's Scenes of Infancy, but I had always, till now, supposed that the poet's fancy, rather than his reading, had been his prompter here. The other is, that the Boa Constrictor is frequently found, particularly in the wood between Bamoury and Dikkalec, under the immediate feet of the hills. These snakes are of enormous size, but not much feared by the natives, since though they have, in their opinion, sufficient strength to master a buffalo, they are proportionably unwieldy. Many stories are told here, as in Surinam, of persons stepping on them by mistake for fallen trees, and being terrified on finding them alive.

ELEPHANTS SWIMMING.

435

December 16.-From Tighree to the ferry of the Ganges is about three coss, all wild jungle. Half-way we passed the hermitage of the tiger saint, a little cottage almost buried in long grass, but both larger and more apparently comfortable, than, from the jemautdar's description, I had expected. We now took leave of the noble Ganges, not again to see it till our return by sea to Saugor Island. Even here, at this distance from the sea, and in almost the driest season of the year, it is a great and mighty river, not far short, as I think, of the Thames at Westminster bridge. During the rains it must, judging from its traces on both sides, be nearly four miles across. I had frequently asked military men whether the Ganges was any way fordable after it left the hills, and had, as usual in India, received contradictory and unsatisfactory answers, but the impression left on my mind was, that it was fordable both at Gurmukteser and Anopshehr. On asking the jemautdar and ferrymen, however, they all agreed that there was no ford in its whole course. Here there certainly was not; since, as the boats could not receive our elephants, and they tried to wade through, even they were, in the middle of the stream, compelled to swim, a sight which I was not at all sorry to have an opportunity of seeing. All three could swim, which was fortunate, as this is not always the case with them. I did not think that the one which I remarked, sank so deep in the water as had been described to me, or as the elephant is represented as doing in Captain Williamson's print.

In the course of this day's march, a circumstance occurred which proves, I think, how much the people of this country look up to the English for help and counsel in all emergencies. I was going along a jungly piece of road, for all this day's march as well as yesterday's was more or less jungly, when I saw a little cluster of travellers of the lower class surrounding somebody on the ground. As soon as they saw me they immediately ran up, saying, that one of their friends was sick, and they begged me to look at him and give him medicine. The man, as it turned out, had only a little cholic, which was well before my physic chest arrived to enable me to give him medicine. But what struck me, was the immediate impulse which led these men to suppose, on seeing an European riding along the road, that he was likely to help and advise them! Surely, if this opinion is general, it must be one of the best holds we have on our Indian empire.

Shahjehanpoor, a common name in India, is a large and picturesque town with a ruined castle, several mosques, and some large and fine groves and pools of water. I saw, however, but little of it, for I had a good deal of business during the day, getting ready my letters to be despatched from Meerut, and in the

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evening having patients again. The sepoys indeed were well, but two ponies, one belonging to Mr. Ford's Chuprassee, the other, a very pretty one, to Cashiram the goomashta, were taken exceedingly ill. The causes of their attack were variously stated, but I believe that the saees had given them too much and too acid gram immediately after their journey. They had both the appearance of palsy or staggers, had lost the use of their loins, reeled to and fro, and at length fell. Before I heard of it they had given them brandy, pepper, and I know not what, and when I saw them they had every symptom of violent inflammation of the bowels. I advised bleeding immediately; nobody could do this but Abdullah, and there was no proper instrument but my penknife; while I was hunting for this, one of the horses died, and the other was evidently in extremity. Abdullah opened the usual vein, but very little blood would run; in fact, they had given it arrack enough to kill an elephant. It died in the course of the night, and all which gave me pleasure in the business, was the exceeding attachment of the poor saees to it. He wrung his hands over it as if it had been his brother, sate by it, supporting its head, and rubbing its ears and neck, till life was actually gone, and, as it appeared, it was his ignorant good-will in giving too large a feed of corn, which had done the mischief. Cashiram bore his loss very well, and said not a single cross word to his servant the whole time. I wish all Christians might have behaved with as much propriety.

December 17.-To-day we went six coss to Mow, a poor village without trees, where, however, by the advantage of a firmân from the collector of Meerut, and of a very civil tusseldar, we got supplies in abundance, and were allowed to pay for nothing. In the afternoon a large troop of gipsies, as I and all my people thought they were, though they themselves disowned the term, came to the camp. They said they came from Ahmedabad in Guzerat, were going on pilgrimage to the Ganges, and had been eight months on their road. They pretended at first to be brahmins, to the great scandal and indignation of Cashiram, who is a brahmin, and reproved them with much austerity for their presumption. I asked them to show their "strings," on which they confessed they had none, but still persisted that they were Rajpoots. "Tell me the truth," said I, "are you Bheels?" the name of the wild mountaineers near Ahmedabad. My people laughed at this question, and said they certainly were Bheels and nothing else. They, however, stiffly denied it. They were very merry, but very poor wretches, nearly naked, and the leanest specimens of human life I have ever seen; so wretched, indeed, was their poverty, that, I immediately sent for a supply of pice to distribute among them, pending the arrival of which, a man and

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woman, who seemed the Tramezzani and Catalani of the party, came forwards, and sung two or three songs, the man accompanying them on a vina, a small guitar like the Russian balalaika. Their voices were really good, and though they sung in the vile cracked tone which street-singers have all the world over, the effect was not unpleasant; but it was a strange and melancholy thing to hear a love song, expressive, so far as I could catch the words, of rapture and mutual admiration, trilled out by two ragged wretches, weather-beaten, lean, and smoke-dried. The poor little children, though quite naked, seemed the best fed, and I thought they seemed kind to them, though one old man who was the head of the party, and had an infant slung in a dirty cloth, like a hammock, to a stick, which he carried in his hand, held it carelessly enough; insomuch that, till I asked him what he had in his bundle, and he opened his cloth to show me, I did not suppose it was a child. I gave them an ana each, children and all, with which they went to buy ghee and flour in the village, and soon after made a fire under a neighbouring peepul-tree. I saw them in the course of the evening at their meal, and one of the collector's suwarrs said he heard them pray for me before they sat down. I should have fancied them very harmless poor creatures, or at worst, only formidable to hen-roosts, and in such petty thefts as gipsies practise in England. But I find these rambling parties of self-called pilgrims bear a very bad character in Hindostan. They are often described as "Thugs," the name given to the practice of which they are accused, that, namely, of attaching themselves, on different pretences, to single travellers or small parties, and watching their opportunity to fling a rope with a slip-knot over the heads of their victims, with which they drag them from their horses, and strangle them. So nimbly and with such fatal aim are they said to do this, they seldom miss, and leave no time to the traveller, to draw a sword, use a gun, or in any way defend or disentangle himself. The wretches who practise this are very numerous in Guzerat and Malwah, but when they occur in Hindostan are generally from the south-eastern provinces. My poor gipsies, I hope, as they appeared at least grateful, were not monsters of this atrocious description.

CHAPTER XIX.

MEERUT TO DELHI.

SITUATION OF MEERUT-CHURCH-CONSECRATION-VALLEY OF THE DHOON-CONDOR-ANECDOTE OF BEGUM SUMROO-SCHOOL-HOSPITAL -CONFIRMATION-SURGEON APPOINTED-SKINNER'S HORSE-HEAVY * RAIN-DELHI-TOMB OF HUMAIOON-AQUEDUCT—FIROZE'S WALKING-STICK-IMMENSE EXTENT OF RUINS-SHAWL MANUFACTORYMUSJEED-PRESENTATION TO THE EMPEROR-PALACEKOOTTAB-SAHIB-PRESENT FROM THE BEGUM-LATE AND PRESENT EMPERORS OF DELHI.

JUMNA

DECEMBER 18.-This morning I proceeded to Meerut, and was met at a little distance from the town by Mr. Fisher, the chaplain, (whom I had once, many years ago, heard preach at Knaresborough,) and two of his sons, one a chaplain in the Company's establishment, the other a lieutenant in the same service, and some officers of the troops in garrison, an accession of society which put Câbul into such high spirits, that I almost thought he would have shamed me, as he neighed like a trumpeter, lashed out all ways, reared, jumped with all four feet from the ground, and did every other coltish trick which could show his surprise, and tend to discompose the gravity of his rider. He has, however, no real vice, and his transports gradually subsided.

I pitched my tent, by Mr. Fisher's invitation, in his compound, which is an unusually large one. Two other sepoys were this day added to the sick-list, and, with my former patient, removed to the hospital, whither I sent with them a recommendation to the good offices of the surgeon, and directed, since I was myself to stay some time in the place, that one of their comrades should go every day to see that they wanted nothing.

Meerut is a very extensive cantonment, but less widely scattered than Cawnpoor. The native town, too, on which it is engrafted, is much less considerable. It stands advantageously on a wide and dry plain, all in pasture, which would afford delightful riding-ground, if it were not, like the steppes of Russia, which it much resembles, very full of holes made by the small marmot, which is common there, and called "suslik." Its Hindoostanee name I have not learned. A small nullah, with a handsome bridge over it, runs through the town. When I saw it, it was quite dry, and the bridge seemed absurd; but Mr. Fisher said that,

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