to physiologists. The Jogee that we saw in Nuddea was then a mere neophyte. He was a young man of about five and twenty, who had been practising his austerities for ten or twelve years. He sat the whole day, near the edge of the water, under a burning sun, praying and meditating. In a small hole two feet long, cut in the shelving bank, he passed his nights. He had not yet been able to overcome the powers of his appetite, and lived upon one meal a day, of only rice and dall, served by his sister in the evening. He was trying to bring himself to exist on the smallest portion of food, till he would leave it off altogether. He did not speak with any man, and appeared to be in pretty good health.

To Jahn-nugger, which is about four miles west of Nuddea, and below which the Ganges formerly held its course. Here is a small old temple of Jahnuba Muni, who had such a capacious abdomen as to have drunk up the Ganges, and then let out its waters by an incision on one of his thighs. Immediately below the temple is traced the old bed of the river, annually flooded during the rains. In Jahn-nugger was a petty landlord, who, we were told, punished his defaulters by putting them in a house of ants. The Nabobs of Moorshedabad used to confine men for arrears of revenue to a house of bugs. Brahmaditala, in Jahn-nugger, is a spot where human sacrifices were formerly offered to an image of Doorga, and where a great mela is now annually held in July. One of the amusements in this mela, is the jhapan, or the exhibition of the skill of snake-catchers and snakecharmers, and their pharmacopica of antidotes. Natives,

Krishnugger,-Convicts working in Fetters. 45

who cannot seek the reputation at the cannon's mouth, will easily risk their lives by snake-bites, and die in a few hours.

Next, we set out for Krishnugger, which afforded us a bit of fine trip up the Jellingy. Once, so far north as Krishnugger' was a common phrase in the mouths of the Europeans of Calcutta. Now, that so far north' is at Simla, or Peshawur. In two hours, we towed up to the ghaut at Gowaree, and on landing, made our first peep at the Judge's Kutcherry, where the worthy Daniel sat immersed in 'petitions, despatches, judgments, acts, reprieves, and reports' of all descriptions.

On the road we found a number of convicts working in fetters. It will not be out of place to introduce an anecdote relative to these convicts:- A magistrate, being anxious to cut a road through a forest, employed the convicts under his charge for that purpose. The labour was very great, and also exceedingly tedious in consequence of the difficulty which the men sustained in working in their manacles. The magistrate was known to be of a benevolent disposition, and a deputation of the convicts waited on him one day, and told him that if he would permit their fetters to be removed, and trust to their pledge that they would not take advantage of the facilities it would afford them for escape, he should not lose a single man; while the work would be more speedily and efficiently performed. The magistrate, after a short deliberation, determined to hazard the chance of what might have been a very serious affair to himself, and relieved the men from their chains.

Long before he could have expected its completion he had nine miles of broad road cleared; while the convicts returned voluntarily every night to their jail, and, as. they had promised, he did not lose one of their number.'

Krishnugger has been named from Rajah Krishna Chunder Roy, whose memory is held in great veneration here. He was a rich and powerful Zemindar of the last century, who often expended his wealth upon worthy objects. He was a learned man himself, and a great patron of men of letters. The court he kept was frequented by all the wits and literati of his time in Bengal. It was in his court that Bharut Chunder wrote the charming tale of Biddya Soondra, which forms the staple amusement to all classes of the Bengalees, and stanzas from which are caroled in the streets and villages. Rajah Krishna Chunder was a great rival of the Rajah of Burdwan, and is said to have set Bharut Chunder to level the poem as a squib against his adversary.

The present Rajah has not a tithe of the grandeur of his great predecessor-an empty name alone remains his boast. We saw the young scion drive in a baroucheand-two. As he passed along, he received the homage of a bow from all persons on the road.

The mansion of the Krishnugger Rajah was found to be a hoary, antique-looking building, without any fashion or beauty. The greater part of it was ruined and dilapidated, only one or two gateways remained to attest its former magnificence.

'It was a vast and venerable pile,

So old, it seemed only not to fall;

Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle.'

Rajah Krishna Chunder.

47

In a Kali-baree, close to the Rajah's dwelling-house, were shown the apartments occupied by Bharut Chunder. Rajah Krishna Chunder was a great Shaiva, who instituted many emblems of that god as well as images of Kali for worship. Throughout his Zemindary, his voice was dictatorial on matters of orthodoxy. It is for his days, for his subhas, for his encouragement of learning, for his opposition to the Vaishnavas, and for his punishment of heterodoxy, that the Brahmins of Nuddea pant. In 1760, a meeting of Brahmins was held at Krishnugger before Clive and Verelst, who wished to have a Brahmin restored to his caste, which he had lost by being compelled to swallow a drop of cow's soup; the Brahmins declared it was impossible to restore him (though Ragunundun has decided in the Prayaschitta Tutua that an atonement can be made when one loses caste by violence), and the man died soon after of a broken heart.' In 1807 there was a Tapta Mukti, or ordeal by hot clarified butter, tried before 7000 spectators on a young woman accused by her husband of adultery.' But the Krishnugger that was orthodox and bigoted, and highly conservative, and prohibited dhobees and barbers for loss of caste, and held Tapta Muktis, is now a warm and eager advocate for putting down idolatry, for the spread of Brahminism, for the re-marriage of widows, and for the suppression of polygamy.

Back to Nuddea, and thence to Agradweep, but not till the 23rd of August, 1846. It was blowing a little squall, and the rains having filled its bed to the brim, the Bhagirutee presented a broad, billowy surface. No

sand-banks to show up their heads now-the waters rolled over them full twenty feet deep. Meertulla is a dreary place, and a fit region for robbers and pirates.

Near Patoolee, the burning-ghaut presented a melancholy spectacle. The friends and relatives sat apart in a gloomy silence, gazing steadfastly upon the fiercelyburning faggots that consumed the deceased, whilst the young wife, doomed to perpetual widowhood, stood a little way off like Niobe all tears.' To European feelings, the burning of the dead is as horrid as the 'roasting' and 'cannibal feasting' of savages. But incremation is preferable in a sanatory point of view, and, probably, it first suggested itself to our Aryan forefathers, under the same notions that are now entertained by savans against the evil effects of burial.

In Rennel's time, Agradweep was situated on the left bank of the river-it is now on the right. The great annual mela of Agradweep is held in April, when hundreds of thousands come to see the image of Gopinath perform the shrad of Ghosh Thacoor, a disciple of Choitunya, who set up the idol three centuries ago. Brindabun has Agra or Agrabun: Nuddea has Agradweep. In 1763, the English defeated a body of Meer Cossim's troops in the neighbourhood of this village.

August 25th.-Cutwa is Arrian's Katadupa. Indeed, Katwadweep, and Agradweep, and Nabadweep, all refer to a period when they must have been regular dweeps, or islets, to have received such names. There is an allusion to Cutwa in the Kobin-kunkun, and a