CHAPTER III.

THE tale of our journey opens with all the pomp and circumstance of an Eastern romance. Our party was composed of four,-dear reader. But, instead of the prince, the minister, the commander, and the merchant, you must be content with the less conspicuous characters of the doctor, the lawyer, the scholar, and the tradesman. All the charm of a resemblance lies only in the beginning. The story then professes to be something more serious than the tale of an Indian nursery, which induces the very opposite of what is aimed at here-to help the reader to keep awake to the interest of the scenes and sights about him.

Friday, the 19th of October, 1860, was the day appointed for our departure. Crossing over to Howrah, we engaged passage for Burdwan. The train started at 10 A.M., and we fairly proceeded on our journey. Surely, our ancient Bhagiruth, who brought the Ganges from heaven, is not more entitled to the grateful remembrance of posterity, than is the author of the Railway in India.

Travelling by the Rail very much resembles migrating in one vast colony, or setting out together in a whole moving town or caravan. Nothing under this enormous load is ever tagged to the back of a locomotive, and yet we were no sooner in motion than Calcutta, and the Hooghly, and Howrah, all began to recede away like the scenes in a Dissolving View.

The first sight of a steamer no less amazed than alarmed the Burmese, who had a tradition that the capital of their empire would be safe, until a vessel should advance up the Irrawady without oars and sails! Similarly does the Hindoo look upon the Railway as a marvel and miracle-a novel incarnation for the regeneration of Bharat-versh.

The fondness of the Bengalee for an in-door life is proverbial. He out-Johnsons Johnson in cockneyism. The Calcutta Baboo sees in the Chitpoor Road the same 'best highway in the world,' as did the great English Lexicographer in the Strand of London. But the long vista, that is opening from one end of the empire to the other, will, in a few years, tempt him outof-doors to move in a more extended orbit, to enlarge the circle of his terrene acquaintance, to see variety in human nature, and to divert his attention from the species Calcutta-wallah to the genus man. The fact has become patent, that which was achieved in months and days is now accomplished in hours and minutes, and celerity is as much the order of the day as security and saving.

The iron-horse of the 19th century may be said to

have realized the Pegasus of the Greeks, or the Pukaraj of the Hindoos. It has given tangibility and a type to an airy nothing, and has reduced fancy to a matter-offact. The introduction of this great novelty has silenced Burke's reproach, 'that if the English were to quit India, they would leave behind them no memorial of art or science worthy of a great and enlightened nation.'

From Howrah to Bally the journey now-a-days is one of five minutes. In twice that time one reaches to Serampore. The next station is Chandernagore-thence to Chinsurah, and then on to Hooghly and Muggra. The Danes, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the English, all settling at these places in each other's neighbourhood, once presented the microcosm of Europe on the banks of the Hooghly.

All along the road the villages still turn out to see the progress of the train, and gaze in ignorant admiration at the little world borne upon its back.

Nothing so tedious as a twice-told tale—nothing so insipid as a repeated dish. The story of our journey is, therefore, commenced from Pundooa. Once the seat of a Hindoo Rajah, when it was fortified by a wall and trench, five miles in circumference, Pundooa is now a rural town of half its former size. From the train it is seen to peep from amidst groves, orchards, and gardens, surrounding it on all sides, and imparting to it a pleasing sylvan character. Traces of its ancient fortification are yet discernible at places. The tower, 120 feet high, arrests the eye from a long way off. This is

the oldest of all buildings in the plains of Lower Bengal, which has defied the storms and rains of a tropical climate through 500 years. It is striking that mere brick-work can resist the elements for such a

long period. Thus standing untouched by time, and uninjured by the weather, the tower is a hoary witness of the events of several ages. It has seen the rise and fall of Dacca, Rajmahal, and Moorshedabad, and still exists. To this day the building is in a very good condition, and promises to outlive many more generations. Outward the surface of the tower has been overlaid with a thick crust of the hoar of ages.

Pundooa is famous for the Battle of the Cow, fought in 1340, A.D. The birth of a long-denied heir to its Rajah had given occasion for a great public fête. There was a Persian translator attached to the Hindoo Court, who too wanted to partake in the jubilee. But the killing of a cow is indispensable to the making of a Mahomedan holiday. Living in a Hindoo town, the Moonshee hesitated between the choice of beef steaks and the wrath of alien townsmen. In an evil moment, his temptation getting the better of his prudence, he decided to slay a cow. Care was taken privately to bury the entrails and bones in an obscure part of the But very often does a trifle turn out to blow up a wrong-doer from the fancied security of his precautions. The slaughter of a cow was an extraordinary occurrence in a community of vegetarians and icthyophagists. It did not escape the powerful olfactory of the jackals. Nothing was ever likely to be so little antici

town.

The Battle of the Cow.

143

pated, as that a pack of these quick-scented creatures should happen to be attracted to the spot, and, unsodding the remains of the slaughtered animal, hold their nocturnal carnival, and then leave exposed its bones and skull on the field. Next morning, when the head and front of the offence too plainly told its tale, the whole town rose up to a man to demand vengeance. The new-born child, deemed unworthy to live with the blood of kine upon his head, was first sacrificed to appease the manes of the departed quadruped. The hue and cry then followed the Moonshee, who had not reckoned upon his being outwitted and betrayed by jackals. He appealed to the Rajah for protection. But the enormity of his crime left no hopes of mercy from any quarter. Abandoned to his fate, the Moonshee gave the slip to his enemies, and, escaping to his kith and kin, kindled the flames of a war, which, raging for many years, at length terminated in the downfall of the Hindoos.

It is said the place held out so long as the waters of a sacred tank possessed the virtue of restoring life to the fallen soldiers of the Hindoo garrison. But charm was counteracted by charm. A live heifer is more venerated by the Hindoo than the gods of his Triad. But in the shape of meat, it is highest abomination. The Moslems, therefore, played the ruse of throwing in a steak of beef, and defiling thereby the sanctity of the tank out of which their opponent drank. No more could the besieged Hindoos touch a drop of its water. The spell was broken that had made them invincible,