September 13. This morning I went again with Colonel Alexander and my two friends from Benares, to see the tomb of Shekh Soliman,t and after breakfast I went on board, taking leave of my friends with a more earnest wish to meet again than travellers can often hope to feel. Nothing occurred this day or the next much worth recording. We made a very slow progress with the tow-line, under a burning sun, and without wind. The country is pretty, but the river falling very low, with great bare banks of brown earth visible on each side. The boatmen all cry out that there will be famine in these provinces, though in Bengal, where rice is the staple crop, the harvest will probably be a very fine one, the danger there being of too much, rather than too little water. This heat brings all odious insects out of their lurking-places; I found in my cabin a large scorpion, not like that which I had seen before, but black and hairy, and two more were found by my servants. Near Seidpoor the Corries' boats were attacked by a swarm of large wasps which stung every person on board; it is a celebrated place for sugar, which indeed seems cultivated to a great and increasing extent in all this part of the country. At most of the ghats leading to the villages I see large rol

your application, so far as I apprehend them to be compatible with some general measures to the same good end, which I have reason to anticipate from the care of Government, shall not want my best recommendation, or my earnest wishes for their success with a Government, which, I willingly bear them witness, to the extent of the means intrusted to them, have always shown themselves anxious for the encouragement and support of such feelings and such conduct as I witnessed in the veterans of Chunar.

May I request you to convey to the gentlemen of the church committee, my thanks in the name of the Church of England and religion in general, for the liberality which they have shown, and the judgment with which that liberal expenditure has been conducted; and to accept, at the same time, my best thanks for all the kindness with which you have personally favoured me.

(Signed) "REGINALD CALCUTTA."-ED.

The following is an extract of a letter from Colonel Alexander to the Editor, dated London, 13th July, 1827:

"It may, at a time when every thing relating to the memory of such a man is precious, be interesting to you to hear, that during the few days the reverend Bishop honoured me with his company at Chunar, in our early drive one morning in my gig, I pointed out to him a large stone idol, of curious manufacture, which had just been sculptured, and was nearly ready for transmission to Benares, to be set up in one of the temples. His Lordship descended from the gig, and surveyed it with deep attention, but said little. Those, however, who knew him, may easily imagine what were the workings of his mind at the sight of such an object, not many months before hewn from the neighbouring quarry."-ED.

lers of Chunar-stone, apparently just landed from boats, and intended to crush the sugar-canes. The demand must be great to elicit such a supply.

September 15. We passed Mirzapoor, the size and apparent opulence of which surprised me, as it is a place of no ancient importance or renown, has grown up completely since the English power has been established here, and under our Government is only an inferior civil station, with a few native troops. It is, however, a very great town, as large, I should think, as Patna, with many handsome native houses, and a vast number of mosques and temples, numerous, and elegant bungalows on its outskirts and on the opposite side of the river, a great number of boats of all kinds moored under its ghats, and is computed to contain between 2 and 300,000 people.

This is, indeed, a most rich and striking land. Here, in the space of little more than two hundred miles, along the same river, I have passed six towns, none of them less populous than Chester,-two (Patna and Mirzapoor,) more so than Birmingham; and one (Benares) more peopled than any city in Europe, except London and Paris! and this besides villages innumerable. I observed to Mr. Corrie that I had expected to find agriculture in Hindostan in a flourishing state, but the great cities ruined, in consequence of the ruin of the Mussulman nobles. He answered, that certainly very many ancient families had gone to decay, but he did not think the gap had been ever perceptible in his time, in this part of India, since it had been more than filled up by a new order rising from the middling classes, whose wealth had, during his recollection, increased very greatly. Far indeed from those cities which we had already passed decaying, most of them had much increased in the number of their houses, and, in what is a sure sign of wealth in India-the number and neatness of their ghats and temples, since he was last here. Nothing, he said, was plainer to him, from the multitude of little improvements of this kind, of small temples and bungalows, partly in the European style, but obviously inhabited by natives, that wealth was becoming more abundant among the middling ranks, and that such of them as are rich are not afraid of appearing so. The great cities in the Dooab, he said, were indeed scenes of desolation. The whole country round Delhi and Agra, when he first saw it, was filled with the marble ruins of villas, mosques, and palaces, with the fragments of tanks and canals, and the vestiges of enclosures. But this ruin had occurred before the British arms had extended thus far, and while the country was under the tyranny and never-ending VOL. I.

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invasions of the Persians, Affghans, and Maharattas. Even here a great improvement had taken place before he left Agra, and he hoped to find a much greater on his return. He apprehended, that on the whole, all India had gained under British rule, except, perhaps, Dacca and its neighbourhood, where the manufacturers had been nearly ruined.

We slept this night off a village called Janghuirabad, in a pretty situation, with a grove of fine round-topped trees, under which a large pulwar was building. Several sugarmill rollers were on the beach. The bank was very high, and much of it having been recently deserted by the water, the smell was very unpleasant. I have great reason to be thankful that under this tremendous sun, my spirits and appetite remain as good as usual.

September 16.-We passed an old Gossain, who said hist age was 104, and that he had no complaint but dimness of sight. He told me that the last ten years had been remarkable for an interruption, and frequently an entire cessation of the rains in September, which he never remembered before. He thought it would continue two years longer, for," says he, 66 every thing changes once in twelve years for good or bad; the bad is nearly gone now-the good will come; only be patient."

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We moored at night near a sand-bank in the middle of the river, in company with several other vessels, among others the fleet of General Martindell, but, from the nature of our quarters, with little facility of communication. heat had continued intense all day, but about midnight the wind changed to the east, and was refreshing and even cold.

The

September 17.-After another day's sailing we moored under a high precipitous bank, which, like all those we now see, was worn into a regular succession of steps, following all the wavy lines of its face, and marking the gradual, though, in the present year, most rapid subsiding of the water. The uppermost of these was at least thirty feet above the present level of the river, and higher still the usual bank or sand-hill arose about twenty feet more. I climbed with some trouble to the top of this for my twilight walk, taking Abdullah with me. After passing the usual margin of high jungle-grass, with its beautiful silky tufts hanging over our heads, we got into a field of Indian-corn with a pretty good path through it, but no other appearance of a village, and the country, so far as the imperfect light allowed me to discover, more wild and jungly than any which I had passed since Sicligully. A brilliant light, however, beamed up among the trees at some distance, and I walked towards it in the idea that it was a cowman's cottage, and that I

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might get some milk, the goats I had on board being dry. On approaching it, however, and when we got within about one hundred yards, it suddenly disappeared, and we found neither path nor village. Abdullah observed, that these people could have been about no good, that it was very like a jugglery fire, and we had better turn back again." "I answered, that I thought they were more like thieves than jugglers; to which he replied, it might be so, for a slip of country near us, either now was, or had been very lately under the Nawab of Oude, and was a mere nest of thieves. "Well," said I, "if they are thieves, it will not be desirable to have them so near our boats to-night, and we will at least go up to the place where the fire has been. As for jugglery, you know we are Christians, and the devil cannot hurt us." I had not, indeed, the smallest idea that there was risk, inasmuch as we were two of us, and my boat within hail. I felt also sure that a village was not far off, or at least a cowshed, from a shepherd's pipe which I had heard in that direction just before we came to shore. I still wondered we saw nothing, till I came close upon a little shed of straw, out of which a man thrust his head, and in answer to my question of "who's there?" answered "a watch." Abdullah asked him why he had put out his light; he said that he was watching his cucumbers, that he had lighted a fire to keep off wild beasts, but on hearing our voices, had covered it up with turf, lest its light should attract more company than he desired to his garden. The village, he said, was still at some distance, and with the little light which remained, we should not easily find it. In fact, it was so dark by the time we returned to the bank, that I was obliged to call for a lantern to find my way down again. I asked what beasts the man had to apprehend, and he answered, wild hogs and wolves; the former would certainly be likely to visit his cucumbers, and the fire might keep them at a distance, but the latter must be much more audacious in this country than in Europe, if they would come near a living and waking man. It is probable, however, that the imperfect means of defence possessed by these poor people, together with their fatalist principles and consequent neglect of precautions, may give mischievous animals a greater confidence than they are likely to possess in the neighbourhood of the strong, hardy, and intelligent peasants of Russia or Sweden.

The district of which Abdullah spoke as subject to the Nawab of Oude, is about four miles a-head of our present station, and is called Lucha-geery. It was a part of the jointure of Saadut Ali Khan's mother, who refused to alien

ate it when Allahabad and the neighbouring province were ceded to the Company. Since her death it has been exchanged for a large tract of our conquest in Nepaul. While subject to the Begum and the Nawab, it was indeed a nest of thieves, but is now under the same police with the rest of the Company's territories.

The day had been as hot as its predecessor, but towards sunset a light pleasant air sprung from the east, in which quarter also I saw a collection of clouds with some lightning, and other indications of rain, if not immediately, yet, it might be hoped, in a day or two.

September 18.-This morning, as I was at breakfast, the alarm was given of a great snake in the after-cabin, which had found its way into a basket containing two caps, presents for my wife and myself from Meer Ushruff Ali of Dacca. It was immediately, and without examination, pronounced to be a large "Chreetu," cobra di capello, and caused great alarm amongst my servants; however, on dislodging it from its retreat, it merely proved to be a water-snake. It appeared to have been coiled up very neatly round the fur of the сар, and though its bite would not have been venomous, would certainly have inflicted a severe wound on any body who had incautiously opened the basket. I had once or twice, since leaving Chuñar, fancied I heard a gentle hissing, but the idea of a snake in the boat seemed so improbable, that I attributed it to different causes, or to fancy. Much wonder was expressed at finding it in such a place, but as I have seen one of the same kind climb a tree, it is probable that it had ascended one of the ropes by which the boat is moored at night. I had heard at Patna of a lady who once lay a whole night with a cobra di capello under her pillow; she repeatedly thought during the night that something moved, and in the morning when she snatched her pillow away, she found the thick black throat, the square head, the green diamond-like eye, advanced within two inches of her neck. The snake was without malice, his hood was uninflated, and he was merely enjoying the warmth of his nest; but, alas! for her, if she had during the night pressed him a little too roughly!

The banks under Lucha-geery are more than usually picturesque, being very lofty and steep, covered down to highwater with beautiful pendant creepers, and backed by a considerable jungle. The stream was so rapid that we were obliged to cross to the other side, and fortunately had a light easterly breeze again to assist us. The sun, however, was, I think, hotter than ever. I was amused to find that these boatmen have the same fancy with our English sailors about whistling for a wind.