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face of the ground is beautifully undulated, and dotted with neat and pretty villages. Here, a thick tope of young mangoes spreading their welcome shade, and there, the tall palms overhanging a crystal pond, vary the features of the landscape for a sketcher. The air is delicious and bracing for an invalid. Nothing filthy or noisome to interrupt the pleasures of the eye. The whole country spreads as a vast, bright, and charming park.

Came up to Bisramtullah, a sacred spot overshaded by the branches of a hoary banian-with 'daughter' and also grand-daughter trunks. On Choitunya's absconding from home to turn an ascetic, his father had set out in pursuit of him to seize and carry him back. Scarcely had Choitunya shaven his head and assumed the dundee, before he heard of his father's arrival at Cutwa. Like a true runaway and scamp, he immediately took to his heels, and, making the fastest use of them, arrived without rest or respite at Bisramtullah. Out of breath, tired and sunburnt, he sat down under the shade of this banian to repose his weary limbs. The spot has thence received the name of Bisramtullah, or resting-place. To appearance, the banian tree looked old and hoary enough to be the identical tree—or it may be, that they preserve a plant to cherish a memory of the spot.

Little below Soopoor is seen that the unconquerable has been conquered-for the railway bridge thrown over the Adjai has chained, cribbed, and confined its powers to human will and purposes.

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August 29th.-Soopoor is two miles to the west of the station of Bolpoor, and half a mile inland from the Adjai. The elevated chattaun upon which it is situated, protects it from the inundation of that stream. Never has it been known to suffer from such a calamity. Tradition states it to have been a town of great repute in the ancient Hindoo times. It was founded by a Rajah Surath, whose memory is cherished in many legends. They show the vestiges of his palace and fortress-if a large pile of kunkery rubbish, and nothing else, be entitled to be considered as such. The image of Kali, before which he is said to have offered the sacrifice of a hundred thousand goats, was shown to us in an old decayed temple in the bazar.

There are many brick-houses at Soopoor. The population is large enough. Trade, here, is principally carried on in rice, sugar, and silk. Many Santhals have emigrated and settled in this town, who perform the lowest offices in the community. Our durwan found out a brother of his in the bazar after twenty years, who had been given up for dead by all the members of his families. He had left home in a freak of anger, turned a sunnyassi, and, after pilgrimages to various shrines, had taken up his abode in this obscure town. In a day or two there came up another vagabond who had seen Hinglaz (near Mekran), Setbunder, Chundernauth, and many other tirthas, and who proved to us an interesting fellow like Mr Duncan's sunnyassi in the Asiatic Researches.

Lodging is cheap enough at Soopoor, but not so is

living. The only cheap article here is rice; all others are scarce and dear. Fish is a rare luxury. It does not abound in these mountain-streams, and is never sold without being mixed with sand. The fisherwomen say, that they would sooner give up their husbands than the practice of sand-mixing. The numerous tanks with which the country abounds are, therefore, well-stocked with fish. In Western Beerbhoom, nearly all the tanks have reddish water, owing to the ferruginous soil.

September 8th.-Left this morning for Kenduli. Passed through Soorool, where we saw the deserted and desolate premises used for the silk filature of the East India Company. Then our path lay through a succession of paddy-fields, waving with the verdant stalks of corn. Now, a bold expansive knoll planted with groves and orchards, and then, a declivity glowing in all the beauty of fresh autumnal verdure, produced the variety of a pleasing alternation, that contrasted much with the tame prospect of a dead level plain in the valley. The Hurpa, or torrent, had but just run down when we came up to the Bukkesur, a little hill-stream, that we crossed in a small canoe hollowed out of the trunk of a palm, while the bearers forded through the stream with the palkee on their heads. Two hours more and we reached Kenduli - the birth-place of Joydeva, the great lyric poet of Bengal-we may say, of the world.

Lassen supposes Joydeva to have lived about a.d. 1150. But he was a follower of Ramanund, who

Kenduli-the Birth-place of Joydeva. 57

flourished in the beginning of the 15th century. General Cunningham fixes the date of Ramanund in the latter half of the 14th century. He calculates it from the chronology of Pipa-ji, Rajah of Gagrown, and a disciple of Ramanund, who reigned between the years 1360 and 1385. Joydeva is now remembered only as a poet. He is forgotten to have been a reformer. But to genius and scholarship he united other qualifications and virtues which made him revered as the greatest man of his age, and gathered round him disciples from far and near. It has been justly remarked, that 'what Melancthon was to the early Lutheran Church, that was Joydeva to the reformation in Bengal.' Spending half his lifetime in study, travels, and preachings, Joydeva retired to his native spot with the accumulated sanctity of an ancient Rishi, and in his secluded hermitage composed the noble lyric which has surpassed all in the various languages of mankind. The song rose from a small obscure village in Bengal, but all India soon resounded with its melodious echoes. Whatever is delightful in the modes of music, whatever is graceful in the fine strains of poetry, whatever is exquisite in the sweet art of love, let the happy and wise learn from the song of Joydeva.'

The great charm of the Gita-Govinda consists in its mellifluous style and exquisite woodland pieces. Milton is said to have 'culled the flowers of his delicious garden of Eden from the soft and sublime scenery of Tuscany; and the charming retreats, in the

neighbourhood of Avernus, were probably the prototypes of Virgil's habitations of the blessed.' Equally the excellence of Joydeva's descriptions-of Radha's beautiful bower, covered with flowering creepers, and darkened by overhanging branches-seems to have been derived from the scenery of the fairy ground amidst which the poet lived. In Beerbhoom the beauties of the land are seldom obscured by the mists and evaporations of the Deltaic regions. The sun shines with a sharp clearness, and the landscape wears a vivid freshness and colouring. The mountains are almost in sight robed in their azure hues.' The palmyra rises in tall majesty with its feathery foliage. The mango, the muhuya, and the tamarind thrive with a luxuriant growth. Flocks and herds are numerous. The gushing rills keep up a perpetual music. The gales are zephyrous and bland. In the midst of all these the poet lived and wrote, and they are reflected in his writings.

To render emphatic homage to his genius, it is said that the god himself came down to the earth, and, during the absence of the poet for a bath in the Ganges, put the last touches to the Shepherd's song.' The Gita-Govinda has been translated by Sir W. Jones in English, by Lassen in Latin, and by Ruckert into German. But the poem, from first to last, 'consists of a series of exquisite woodland pieces, which Sanscrit poets know so well how to paint, and English writers find impossible worthily to translate. The difference between the natural phenomena of India and Europe

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