during the rainy months, it was not a bit longer than was necessary. The church is much the largest which I have seen in India. It is one hundred and fifty feet long, eighty-four wide, and, being galleried all round, may hold at least three thousand people. It has a high and handsome spire, and is altogether a striking building, too good for the materials of which it is composed, which, like the rest of the public buildings of this country, are only bad brick covered with stucco and whitewash. It is the work of Captain Hutchinson.

December 19.-The church, which I have described, was consecrated this day with the usual forms. The congregation was very numerous and attentive, the singing considerably better than at Calcutta, and the appearance of every thing highly honourable both to the chaplain and military officers of this important station. I had the gratification of hearing my own hymns, "Brightest and best," and that for St. Stephen's day, sung better than I ever heard them in a church before. It is a remarkable thing, that one of the earliest, the largest, and handsomest churches in India, as well as one of the best organs, should be found in so remote a situation, and in sight of the Himalaya mountains. The evening service was very well attended, and this is the more creditable, inasmuch, as I have elsewhere observed, all who then come are volunteers, whereas attendance in the morning is a part of military parade.

I had heard Meerut praised for its comparative freedom from hot winds, but do not find that the residents confirm this statement: they complain of them quite as much as the people of Cawnpoor, and acknowledge the inferiority of their climate in this respect to that of Rohilcund. The beautiful valley of the Dhoon, since its conquest by the British, affords a retreat to their sick which they seem to value highly; and it has the advantage of being accessible without danger at all times; but, except during the dry months, even this lovely valley is not wholesome. Mr. Fisher had some drawings of different parts of the Dhoon, which represented scenery of very great beauty and luxuriance, on a smaller and less awful scale than Kemaoon. The animals seem much the same; but Lieutenant Fisher gave me a fuller account than I had yet received of the eagle, or, as from his statement it rather seems to be, the condor, of these mountains. It appears to belong to this latter tribe from the bareness of its neck, which resembles that of the vulture, and the character of its beak, which is longer and less hooked than the eagle's, and perhaps, too, from its size, which exceeds that of any eagle of which I have heard. Lieutenant Fisher shot one very lately at Degra, which measured thirteen feet between the tips of its extended wings, and had talons eight inches long. He was of a deep black colour,

with a bald head and neck, and appears strongly to resemble the noble bird described by Bruce as common among the mountains of Abyssinia, under the name of "Nisser." This is, no doubt, the bird which carries away the children from the streets of Almorah. The one which Mr. Fisher shot could, he was sure, have carried up a very well-grown boy. Nor have I any doubt that it is the "rok" of the Arabians. In Sindbad's way of telling a story, so formidable an animal might be easily magnified into all which that ingenious voyager has handed down to us concerning his giant bird.

December 20.-I observed this morning, at the gate of Mr. Fisher's compound, a sentry in the strict oriental costume, of turban and long caftan, but armed with musket and bayonet, like our own sepoys. He said he was one of the Begum Sumroo's regiment, out of which she is bound to furnish a certain number for the police of Meerut and its neighbourhood. Her residence is in the centre of her own jaghire at Sirdhana, about twelve coss from Meerut; but she has a house in this place where she frequently passes a considerable time together. She is a very little, queer-looking old woman, with brilliant, but wicked eyes, and the remains of beauty in her features. She is possessed of considerable talent and readiness in conversation, but only speaks Hindoostanee. Her soldiers and people, and the generality of the inhabitants of this neighbourhood, pay her much respect on account both of her supposed wisdom and her courage; she having, during the Maharatta wars, led, after her husband's death, his regiment very gallantly into action, herself riding at their head, into a heavy fire of the enemy. She is, however, a sad tyranness, and, having the power of life and death within her own little territory, several stories are told of her cruelty, and the noses and ears which she orders to be cut off. One relation of this kind, according to native reports, on which reliance, however, can rarely be placed, is very horrid. One of her dancing girls had offended her, how I have not heard. The Begum ordered the poor creature to be immured alive in a small vault prepared for the purpose under the pavement of the saloon where the nâtch was then celebrating, and, being aware that her fate excited much sympathy and horror in the minds of the servants and soldiers of her palace, and apprehensive that they would open the tomb and rescue the victim as soon as her back was turned, she saw the vault bricked up before her own eyes, then ordered her bed to be placed directly over it, and lay there for several nights, till the last faint moans had ceased to be heard, and she was convinced that hunger and despair had done their work. This woman calls herself a Christian, of the Roman Catholic faith, which was that of her husband Summers. ("Sumroo" is the Hindoostanee pronunciation of the German

surname.) She has a Roman Catholic priest as her chaplain, and has lately begun to build a very large and handsome church at Sirdhana, which will rival, if not excel, that of Meerut in size and architectural beauty.

1 dined this day with General Reynell. His aide-de-camp, Captain Meade, is a very accomplished artist, and showed me a portfolio of splendid drawings; some of them were from views in the Dhoon, and the mountains near Sabathoo. These last bear some resemblance to those of Kemaoon, which they nearly equal in height, but the snowy range of Himalaya is removed to a much greater distance, and only visible from the tops of the highest hills. The lower parts of the Dhoon seem as like Wales as possible.

December 21.-I went with Mr. Fisher to-day to a school which he has established in the old city of Meerut; I had previously seen this very imperfectly, but I now found it larger than I expected, with a ruined wall and fort, and some good architectural remains of mosques and pagodas. The school is well managed, and numerously attended. The boys are taught reading and writing in Hindoostanee and Persian, and receive, such of them as desire it, which they all do, instruction in the Gospels. They read fluently, and construed Persian very well. Their master is a Christian convert of Mr. Fisher's. I also went to the native hospital to see the three sick sepoys, two of whom I found much better, the third still ill. They seemed very grateful for the visit, and said that they were well treated, and wanted nothing. Mr. Lowther, the judge and magistrate of Bundishehr, with his wife, passed the evening at Mr. Fisher's. They pressed me, which I should have liked much, to take their station in my way from Delhi to Agra. But Muttra is too important a place to be passed by, and this would be the necessary consequence of my accepting their invitation.

December 22.-I went with Mr. Fisher to a small congregation of native Christians, to whom, not being able to give them a service on Sunday, he reads prayers and preaches on this day. About twenty people were present, one the "Naick," or corporal, whom, in consequence of his embracing Christianity, Government very absurdly, not to say wickedly, disgraced by removing him from his regiment, though they still allow him his pay. He is a tall, stout, plain-looking man, with every appearance of a respectable and well-behaved soldier. Another was Anund Musseeh, a convert of Mr. Corrie's, who has a good deal distinguished himself as a catechist at Delhi, and on whom Mr. Fisher wants me to confer ordination. He is a tall, coarse-looking man, without much intellect in his countenance, but is said to be very eloquent and well-informed, so far as a knowledge of Hindoostanee and Persian VOL. 1.-56

enables him. I had, afterwards, repeated conversations with him, and was pleased by his unassuming and plain manner.

December 23.-This morning I breakfasted with General Reynell. In the evening Mr. Fisher read prayers and preached to a tolerably numerous congregation, it being his custom to have service of this kind every Wednesday and Friday.

December 24.-This day I confirmed above 250 people, young and old, of whom between 40 and 50 were natives converted to christianity by Mr. Fisher. Surely all this is what we could hardly expect in so remote a part of India, and where no Englishman had set his foot till the conquests made by Lord Lake and Sir Arthur Wellesley. The rest of the day I was busy writing letters. The sepoy whom I had left sick at Moradabad rejoined me; but the camel-driver, he said, was still very dangerously ill. The men who were in the hospital at Meerut, were declared convalescent.

December 25.-Christmas-Day. and above 200 communicants.

A very large congregation,

December 26.-I preached, and after evening service confirmed twelve persons, who had not been able to attend on the Friday. December 27.-I received a present of fruit from the Begum Sumroo, together with a civil message, expressing a hope to see me at Sirdhana, to which I returned an answer in an English letter. Though she herself does not understand the language, she has many people about her who do, particularly Colonel Bryce, who acts as a sort of resident at her court. My tents and servants set off this evening.

I received a very kind offer from General Reynell to assign me a medical attendant in my march to Bombay, there being a Dr. Smith at the time in Meerut, who had just come with a detachment of troops from Mhow, and was not attached to any specific service there; he was highly recommended as an able man, and one who, by his local knowledge, would be very useful to me in my journey. I had suffered so much during my residence at Dacca, and subsequently in my own illness, and when my escort and servants were attacked with the fever in Kemaoon, for want of a medical attendant, that I felt extremely glad of such an offer. Indeed, with upwards of a hundred people in my train, and on the point of commencing a journey through countries of the wildest character, where no medical assistance could be obtained in marches of, in one instance, twenty-four, and in another of twenty-three days, such a precaution is most necessary and reasonable.

December 28.-I set off from Meerut by Dâk, as far as Begumabad, a large village forming a part of the jaghire of a

Maharatta princess, under the protection of the English government. Here I mounted Nedjeed-did I ever tell you the name of my little Arab horse before?-and pursued my journey, escorted by five of Colonel Skinner's irregular cavalry, the most showy and picturesque cavaliers I have seen since I was in the south of Russia. They had turbans of dark red shawl, long yellow caftans, with dark red cummerbunds, and trowsers of the same colour. The commander of the party had a long spear, with a small yellow pennon, the others had each a long matchlock-gun, which they carried on the right shoulder, with the match ready lighted. They had all, likewise, pistols, swords, and shields, and their caftans and turbans so strongly quilted, as to secure them against most sabre-cuts. Their horses were very tolerable in size and appearance, but hot and vicious, and the whole cavalcade had an appearance remarkably wild and Oriental. They are reckoned, by all the English in this part of the country, the most useful and trusty, as well as the boldest body of men in India; and during the wars both of Lord Lake and Lord Hastings, their services and those of their chief were most distinguished. Colonel Alexander Skinner is a good and modest, as well as a brave man. He has just devoted 20,000 sicca rupees to build a church at Delhi. Unfortunately I shall not meet him there, as he is now on the frontier with most of his men, fighting the rebellious clans of Seiks and Mewatties. The Hindoostanees, who respect him very highly, call him by a whimsical but not illapplied corruption of his name, Secunder Sahib," Lord Alexander.

My tents had gone on to the next station, Furrucknuggur, but I was met on the road thither by Mr. Charles Elliott, son of the Resident at Delhi, and assistant collector of Meerut, a clever young man whom I had met at Mr. Fisher's, who pressed me to come and pass the day with him in his tent at Gaziodeen-nuggur, a small ruinous walled town; we did not reach his encampment till near 12 o'clock at noon. But the sun here, though hot, is at this season not mischievous, and I passed a pleasant day. After dinner I had a moonlight ride over a very rough and broken country, and through a river, to my tent. The ford was not deep, but so wide that if I had not had people with me who knew the country, I should have hesitated to essay it by such a light. I had no sooner got into my tent than it began to rain, and during the night fell with a violence not very much less than that which preceded my arrival at Cawnpoor; a great and providential blessing to this miserable country, the most miserable which I had yet seen in India. All the way from Meerhut hither is scattered with ruins, the groves of fruit-trees are few, small, and neglected, the villages very mean, the people looking half-starved, and quite