amounting to four rupees a month for her school, but that her neighbours sometimes helped her. She owned that she had seldom more than six or eight scholars, children of the European soldiers chiefly, to whom she taught reading and working. She asked for nothing but a prayer book (she had a very good Hindoostanee New Testament and Pentateuch, and some spelling-books for her school,) but accepted a small donation with much thankfulness.

Curreem Museeh's house, which we next visited, was still smaller than Mrs. Simpson's, and had not the few old pieces of European furniture, which, in hers, marked her husband's nation and profession. Adjoining it was a little school-house, which we found full of women and children (about 30 or 35) on the ground, which was spread with mats, with their books in their laps. This served as their church also, where they and a few of their husbands, mostly European soldiers, who understood Hindoostanee, met three times a week in the evening for prayer. This school is supported, and Curreem Museeh's salary paid, by the Church Missionary Society, and they have been sometimes, though very rarely, visited by a Missionary in orders. I regretted greatly that I could not address them with any effect in their own language, though I was strongly tempted to try; they, many of them, indeed, knew a little English, but so little that they could not have been at all the better for any thing said to them in that tongue, nor except a few words, could they have understood the service this morning. I heard them read, however, and (by choosing such chapters of the New Testament as I was best acquainted with) was able to follow them, and to show them that I did do so. They read extremely well, distinctly, slowly, and as if they understood what they read; they afterwards answered several of the questions in Watts' catechism, and repeated the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, giving a sort of exposition of each. I was extremely pleased and surprised at all I witnessed here. On my return to the pinnace, I found that the Corries were not visible even from our mast-head, so that they plainly could not arrive before night, while two officers, who had just come in a budgerow from Ghazeepoor, said that if the wind failed ever so little, I should not get there in one day. I therefore wrote a few lines to Mr. Corrie, explaining my plans, and advising him to stay over Sunday at Buxar, and set off, finding as an additional reason for quitting my present situation, that the water in the river had fallen nearly a cubit in the course of the night, and that if I remained, I might have some difficulty in getting the pinnace out of the

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colly. I had the usual salute from the garrison, and left Buxar after a day of great and unexpected interest.

The attendants in the school were of all ages, several young boys, some little girls, but the majority full grown women. The boys were in the usual attire of other Indian children; the women and girls were decently wrapped up in their long shawls, bare-footed, with the anklets and armlets usual with their countrywomen, but with no marks of caste on their foreheads. I heartily wished for some of the enemies of missions to see, in this small and detached instance, the good, which in a quiet and unpretending way, is really doing among these poor people. Curreem Museeh was I believe, a havildar in the Company's army, and his sword and sash were still hung up, with a not unpleasing vanity, over the desk where he now presided as catechist; he is a very decent looking, middle aged man, his white cotton clothes and turban extremely clean, and his colour like that of most of the inhabitants of these provinces, not very much darker than the natives of the south of Europe. I am indeed often surprised to observe the difference between my dandees, (who are nearly the colour of a black tea-pot,) and the generality of the peasants whom we meet with on the shore or in the bazars. The difference of climate will not account for this, for I have never in Bengal felt the sun more powerful than it has been within these last few days in Bahar; nor, though the people here wear rather more clothing than the lowest ranks of Bengalees, does this amount to more than a mantle over the head and shoulders, which after all they put on during the rain and breeze, not in the sun. I cannot help believing that as the language is different, so their race is also, and that in Bengal are some remains of an earlier, perhaps a negro stock, such as are now found in the Andamian islands, but who have been subdued by, and amalgamated with, the same northern conquerors who drove the Puharrees to their mountains.

CHAPTER XII.

BUXAR TO BENARES.

CARAMNASA-GHAZEEPOOR-LORD CORNWALLIS'S MONUMENT

-PALACE SALUBRITY-ROSE FIELDS

SUTTEES-LEPERS

-DAK JOURNEY-SEIDPOOR-BENARES-CASE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS-CONFIRMATION-MISSION SCHOOL--DESCRIPTION OF BENARES-NATIVE

HOUSES-PAGODAS-VISHVAYE

SA OBSERVATORY-JAIN TEMPLE-VIDALAYA-HINDOO ASTRONOMY-STREET PREACHING-AMRUT ROW-VISIT FROM THE RAJA.

A LITTLE to the south-west of Buxar we passed a large town with some neat mosques and the remains of a fort, named Chowsar, and a little further the mouth of a considerable river, the Caramnasa, whose singular properties I have before mentioned. It is for this river, which crosses the great road from Calcutta to Benares, that the rope-bridge exhibited by Mr. Shakespear at Cossipoor was intended by the Baboo Ramchunder Narain. At this place it is the boundary between the provinces of Bahar and Allahabad, and was, till the administration of Warren Hastings, who pushed on the border to Benares, the extreme limit of the Company's territories. How vastly have they since been extended! The river is here much contracted in width, as might be expected after getting above the junction of so many great tributary streams, and the banks are generally high and abrupt. The country has but little timber in comparison with Bengal, but would not be thought deficient in this respect in most parts of Europe. The trees are round-topped, few palms being seen, and the cultivation wheat, oats, and pulse, intermixed with grass leys, covered with vast herds of cattle.

In passing along a colly, which we entered a little after we left the Caramnasa, I heard some disputing on deck, and suddenly found the boat going over to the other side of the stream. On inquiry, the venitians being closed on the side where the difficulty was, I was told that some European sergeants, with some Company's boats under their charge, who had put up for the night on that shore, had sent a message warning us off, lest our tow-line should occasion them some little trouble. I was angry, and asked the Serang why he attended to such an impertinent order, and why he obeyed it without consulting me. He answered that one side of the stream was really as good as the other, and that as he expected soon to lugana for the night, he had no desire to be

234

COTTON-GRASS-GHAZEEPOOK.

in the neighbourhood of such people. However, it is, I fear, a specimen of the way in which these gentry order about the natives, and even the European traders; not seeing any uniforms or white people in the boat, they perhaps took it for one of the floating shops which I have mentioned.

We brought to about a quarter of an hour afterwards, by a vast grass field, divided into butts by rows of the tall and beautiful cotton-grass. It is cultivated for the "Choppers" thatched roofs, of bungalows, and also for ropes, and even for a coarse but strong kind of canvass. It evidently was regarded as a valuable crop, from the exactness with which it was planted. As no cows would eat it except in extreme hunger, it is safe from their attacks, and the intervening stripes of grass afford a rich and noble pasture. I never saw, I think, finer land. The banks of the river are all a light, marly loam, like garden-mould, dry, sound, and friable, without any intermixture of stones or cold clay, and with very little sand. Abdullah, who is a warm patriot, so far as his admiration of the climate, soil, and productions of Hindostan goes, and who is much pleased to observe the interest which I take in these matters, said, "Ah, my lord, why not get leave to buy land in this good place and good climate, my lady and children always have good health here, settle it on young lady, native of country, and call it Harrietpoor." I laughed, and told him the reasons of the law which hindered the English from buying land in India; he owned that it was a very good law to prevent the English collectors and magistrates from being tempted to extort lands, as the Mussulmans had done, from the people by false accusations, and added, that it was wonderful how the English parliament took notice of every thing, and every body."

August 28.-It is quite extraordinary to see how much and how fast the waters are subsiding; surely the rains have not ceased thus early! If they have it would augur ill for my getting to Cawnpoor by water, and (what I am far more afraid of) would make the neighbourhood of Calcutta very unhealthy. I have been visited within these few days by several large wasps or hornets, of greater bulk and duller colours than those of England, but not so numerous as to be troublesome.

Ghazeepoor, where I arrived this day, is another large town or city, and from the river very striking, though, like all the Indian cities I have passed, its noblest buildings on approaching them turn out to be ruins. The river, though narrower than I have been lately accustomed to see it, is still as wide as the Hooghly at Cossipoor. At the eastern extremity of the town is a very handsome though ruined pa

LORD CORNWALLIS'S MONUMENT.

235

lace, built by the Nawab Cossim Ali Khan, the most airy and best contrived, so far as can be perceived from its outward appearance, of any of the eastern buildings which I have seen. Its verandahs are really magnificent, but its desolation is so recent, that it is very far from being a pleasing object on approaching near enough to perceive its decay. It might still at no great expense be made one of the handsomest and best situated houses in India. At the other extremity of the town, and separated from it by gardens and scattered cottages, are the houses of the civil servants of the Company, mostly with ground-floors only, but large and handsome; and beyond these is the military cantonment, ugly low bungalows, with sloping roofs of red tile, but deriving some advantage from the trees with which (very different from the stately but naked barracks of Dinapoor) they are surrounded and intermingled. The most conspicuous object among them is the monument to Lord Cornwallis, who died here on his way up the country. It has a white dome like a pepper-pot, but when the young trees, which are growing up round it, shall have got a little higher, it will not look ill from the river.

Almost immediately as my vessel came to shore, Mr. Melville, who had seen it in its approach, came on board to say that he had given up his own house, and was staying with Mr. C. Bayley, who hoped for my company also. In their agreeable society I passed the three days which I remained at Ghazeepoor, and from them obtained so much valuable information that I cannot help regretting that I had not time, and have not memory to put down half of it. Some diffi

culties were felt about a proper place for divine service next day, the place (an old riding-house) which had been used as a church before the station lost its chaplain, being in so ruinous a state that the quarter-master had reported it sometime since to Government as unsafe for any persons to assemble in. A Mr. Watson, a tradesman in the place, however, offered his long room, generally used for auctions, and sometimes for assemblies, which, now that the European regiment was absent, and the probable congregation less numerous than it otherwise would have been, answered the purpose extremely well, being large, airy, and furnished both with seats and punkahs.

During our drive this evening I had a nearer view of Lord Cornwallis's monument, which certainly does not improve on close inspection; it has been evidently a very costly building; its materials are excellent, being some of the finest freestone I ever saw, and it is an imitation of the celebrated Sybill's temple, of large proportions, solid masonry, and raised