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description of it in the Dharma Pooran. Now a purely commercial town, Cutwa was formerly the military key of Moorshedabad. Moorshed Kuli Khan erected guardhouses here for the protection of travellers, and when a thief was caught, his body was split in two, and hung upon trees on the high road. In the early part of the eighteenth century, Cutwa had suffered much from the incursions of the Mahrattas. Their yearly ravages had depopulated all the principal towns and villages along the river, and converted the country into jungles, through which a traveller seldom ventured to pass without sounding instruments to scare away the tigers and boars. The retreat of Ali Verdi Khan, in 1742, before a large army of Mahrattas under Bhaskur Pundit, from Midnapore to Cutwa, through a miry country, without any food for his troops but grass and leaves of trees, and any shelter from the heavy rains, has been remarked to parallel 'the retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon'

To the Vaishnavas, Cutwa is a sacred place of pilgrimage where Choitunya, flying from the roof of his parents, and leaving behind his wife, embraced dundeeism to shake off the obligations of society and the cares of a secular life. He was initiated into its rites by a Gossain, named Kesab Bharuty, and the hairs thrown from his head on the occasion are yet preserved in a little white temple. There are also two wooden images of Choitunya and Nityanunda, executed in a dancing attitude, as in a procession of their Kirtuns, for which they are objects of great curiosity.

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Cutwa is famous in modern Bengal history, as the place where Clive halted on his route to Plassey in 1756. His cavalier heart lost its pluck for a moment, and he was dismayed at the prospect of the high game he was to play with a handful of men. In this crisis, he called a council of war-the first and last ever called by him and it opined not to risk a battle. He then retired to meditate alone in the solitude of an adjacent mango-grove. There he seems to have been visited and inspired by the good genius of Britain, and, staying for an hour, came out with the word Forward on his lips, and ordered the army to cross the river next morning. Round Cutwa are many topes and groves of mango of various size and age. But in vain we looked for the memorable grove, where was taken the resolution that decided the fate of Bengal, and ultimately that of India.

In a commercial point of view, Cutwa is finely situated at the confluence of the Adjai and Bhagirutee. It is a considerable depôt of trade, being full of shops, and warehouses, and granaries of rice. They make here 'much fine stuffs of cotton and silk,' says Tieffenthaler. There is within six miles of Cutwa a population of one hundred thousand souls. The greater portion of this population follows Vaishnavism.

Coming back from our stroll through the town, we encountered a party of female choristers chanting their rude songs from door to door in the streets. The cause of their merriment was the celebration of some nuptials, when it is customary here for the women of the lower

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classes to amuse themselves with singing hymeneals publicly. This provincialism was something novel for a Ditcher.

The old fort of Cutwa, famous for the defeat of the Mahrattas by Ali Verdi, stood on a tongue of land between the Adjai and Bhagirutee. It was a mud fort half a mile in circumference, and had 14 guns mounted upon its walls. But on the approach of Coote in 1757, the garrison set fire to the mat buildings, and ab-* sconded. No more vestiges of this fort were seen by us, than some faint traces of the mud walls washed down almost level with the surface of the ground, and overgrown by fine green kusa grass.

From Cutwa the celebrated Plassey is about sixteen miles higher up. The traveller's enthusiasm is roused to see the famous spot, and go over it-fighting the battle through in his imagination. But the memorable battle-field has ceased to exist-the river having swept it away. Of the famous mango-grove called the Lakha Baug, or the tope of a lac of trees, that was eight hundred yards long and three hundred broad, all the trees have died or been swept away by the river, excepting one, under which one of the Nabob's generals who fell in the battle is buried.' As long ago as 1801, there were no more than 3000 trees remaining, and a traveller of that date thus writes:-The river, continually encroaching on its banks in this direction, has at length swept the battle-field away, every trace is obliterated, and a few miserable huts literally overhanging the water, are the only remains of the celebrated Plassey.'

In the large mango-grove was the English army encamped, and where Clive had been lullabied to sleep by the cannon-roar in the midst of the battle. The heavens seemed to have thrown cold water upon Suraja Dowlah's hopes, for a heavy shower wetted the powder of his troops, and their matchlocks did not fire. The battle of Plassey made 'Clive a heaven-born general,' and a Nabob-maker. It was got so cheap that he thought all the Asiatics to live in a glass-house, and proposed shortly afterwards to the authorities the conquest of China for paying off the National Debt. In Plassey, it was two Bengalee generals, Meer Muddun (an apostate) and Mohun Lall, who had contested the field with the 'Daring in War,' a circumstance to tickle the vanity of their nation, never wounded so much as when refused to be enlisted as Volunteers. To the chronicler, the battle of Plassey may appear as distinguished by no valorous deed or memorable exploit, but in the importance of its political or moral consequences, its name shall stand on the page of history as equal to those of Marathon, Cannæ, Pharsalia, and Waterloo-the greatest battles in the annals of war.

'The Palasa,' says Sir William Jones, 'is named with honour in the Vedas, in the laws of Menu, and in Sanscrit poems, both sacred and popular; it gave its name to the memorable plain called Plassey by the vulgar, but properly Palasi Nobody, whom we asked, recollected when a grove of that plant had stood on the spot. Long had the jungly state of the neighbourhood of Plassey been a lurking-place for robbers and dacoits.

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It is now a cultivated plain. The spot where the solitary tree yet survives, is called Pirka Jaiga and held sacred by the Mussulmans, whose reasons are inexplicable indeed for so doing.

Giving up Plassey, we went up the Adjai on a trip through Beerbhoom. The navigation of this stream is very precarious as well as dangerous. Being a mountainstream, its floods are as impetuous as its drainage is rapid. It is subject to a dangerous bore, called Hurpa -a huge wave caused by a sudden fall of rain in the hills, which rushes down the dry bed of the river with a tremendous roar, washing away villages, and drowning men, cattle, and boats in its progress. Fortunately, the torrent came down on the night previous to our starting, and we had a nice agreeable voyage up a river full to the brim.

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The Adjai is the Amystis of Megasthenes,' and the Ajamati of Wilford. In its literal acceptation, the Adjai means the unconquerable, and many a Hindoo mother, like Thetis, formerly dipped their children in its waters to make them invulnerable. Hence may be accounted the name of Beerbhoom, or the land of heroes. It was anciently called Malla-bhumi, or the lands of malls (wrestlers and athlete). The legend alludes to a state of things, which is rendered not very probable by the appearance of the present men, who are not distinguished by any superior physical powers and qualifications from the rest of their brethren in Bengal. But there can be no question that the Adjai flows through a country of the highest picturesque beauty. The sur

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