forms an invincible obstacle to the rendering of Sanscrit poetry into the English tongue. The richest and most vigorous metaphors drawn from the scenery peculiar to Asia, and going directly to the Indian heart, are precisely the passages which must be omitted as unintelligible to the English reader. It is as if a translator of Tennyson were compelled to leave out everything that was national and peculiarly English.'

Kenduli is a venerated spot, where the mortal remains of the poet lie interred in a sumaj, overshaded by the branches of a splendid grove. To do honour to his memory, each spring the Vaishnavas celebrate the festival of his anniversary. During three days the little sequestered village is thronged by thousands, and its solitude disturbed by strange gaieties. The pilgrims 'sing the reconciliation of Radha with Krishna, but misinterpret the meaning of the shepherd's idyl.'

From Kenduli we pursued our journey to Doobrajpoor. The first thing we did on our arrival here was to go and see its little hill. Indeed, it is not even a hillock, but a puny hill-ling of pretty appearance though, which pops up its head from a plain of large expanse, and seems, as it were, a little urchin left to itself by its gigantic parents. The height of it is about twenty feet. Huge blocks lie strewed around, barricading every path for ascension to its top. No tree or shrub grows upon it, and its aspect is perfectly bald.

Doobrajpoor is situated almost beneath the shadow of the mountains. More Santhals here. The principal article of trade in Doobrajpoor is sugar, manufactured

from a fine quality of goor made by the Santhals, and which is chiefly consumed by the inhabitants of Moorshedabad. Many people deal also in forest produce, formerly brought by the Santhals, but now by the dealers themselves. The region surrounding Doobrajpoor is thinly inhabited, and villages are scattered over it at distant intervals. The greater part of it is uncultivated, and occupied by jungles and saul forests.

September 9th.-To the hot-springs of Bukkesur. They are seen in a solitary retired village, to which our passage lay through depths of saul-wood and jungles, and across paddy fields that were like little morasses. As we approached near, the village gradually unfolded itself to the view, rising with its numerous temples and houses like a fairy city of the desert. The spot is lovely and charming with greens of all kinds, and encircled by a beautiful gushing streamlet called the Paphara, or the washer-of-sins.

There is an annual mela held on Sivrath at Bukkesur, to pay devotions to the god from whom the village has been named. The Pandas are a numerous class, and, owing to the scanty number of pilgrims visiting this remote jungly shrine, the arrival of a new-comer always forms a bone of canine contention to them, till one happens to produce in his worm-eaten scrolls the testimony of some ancestorial signature or certificate, and carries off the visitant, leaving the others to chew the cud of disappointment. Such a thing was not possible for any of them in our case, and raw griffins of pilgrims that we were, our choice was given to the man who bore among

Bukkesur,-the Hot Springs.

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the herd the recommendation of an honest and intelligent physiognomy.

The first thing we were led to see were the koonds or springs. There are about eight of them, each being enclosed by little walls of sandstone in the form of wells, and known by different names from those of our gods. The temperature of these springs is unequal, and a fetid sulphureous smell is constantly emitted from them. It is diffused through the atmosphere of the place, and retained by the water long after cooling. The spring that has the highest temperature is the Soorjakoond, in which we could not dip our hand, and in which an egg may be boiled, but not rice, of which we threw in a handful to try the experiment. The water is perfectly crystal, and hardly a foot deep, it being allowed to escape through a hole into a nullah communicating with the stream. The bed of the well has a burnt-clayish matter, through which the water constantly oozed in small bubbles. A few paces from the Soorjakoond is a cold spring. There are springs in the bed of the Paphara, the washer-of-sins. But we have not yet alluded to the spring venerated most of all by the Brahmins. It is called the Setgunga, part of which is cold, and part lukewarm. This seeming union of contrarieties is what strikes the Brahmins as most marvellous. The water of the Setgunga has a milky whiteness, whence the origin of its name. The Sahib-logues of Soory take away the

water of these hot-wells for their drink.

Next we went to see the veritable Bukkesur himself. The shrine of his godship stands aloft like Gulliver

amongst a host of Lilliputian temples. Inside the shrine, it is uninteresting as a sepulchre. The emblem is placed in a low subterranean chamber, where a feeble light burns day and night, contending with a profound darkness.

It was nearly four in the afternoon when we left Bukkesur for Soory, and tracked our way through a deep forest of saul. Tall bristling trees closed the view on all sides, and not a trace of human abode was found in their wild, forlorn depths. These saul plantations are valuable estates to their owners, who cherish them with great care for their timber. On emerging from the forest, which extends for ten miles, we fell into a broad, macadamized road leading right up to Soory. In Beerbhoom, especially over the elevated knolls, the hard, red, kunkurry soil enables to dispense with all metalling of the roads.

September 10th.-Soory is a modern town, with many brick buildings, and a principal street in the middle. The ancient capital of the province was Naghore, to which there was a grand causeway from Gour for communication at all seasons of the year. The environs of Soory-bold and beautiful. The prospects commanded are closed by blue, rugged hills in the horizon. Their 'sweet mountain air' is sniffed from this distance, and recommends the place to the man in search of health.

Procceded from Soory down to Poorunderpore, which appeared to be a decayed village from its former prosperity, and where we met with an old, decrepit, poor dame, who, to our asking about her age, gave the fol

Poorunderpore.-Cynthia.

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lowing quaint reply, that she was about ten years old when rice sold three seers to a rupee.' It was the year of that great famine which swept away one-fifth of the population of Bengal,' in which John Shore wrote home to his wife that he was buying crowds of little children, at five rupees a-piece, to save them from being abandoned to the jackals;' in which the whole valley of the Ganges was filled with misery and death, and the Hooghly every day rolled thousands of corpses close to the porticoes and gardens of their English conquerors'-the year 1770. In 1846, the old woman was in her eighty-sixth year, which an ignorant creature of her circumstances not being likely to recollect, was counted by her from the year of the great famine, the most memorable event in her life, and indelibly impressed on her memory.

November 12th, 1858.-It was not till twelve years from the last date, that an opportunity occurred to visit Beerbhoom again, and we shift the scene from Porundpore to Cynthia, to carry the reader to Moorshedabad. To the north-west of Cynthia lay the regions then recently famous for the exploits of Sedhoo Manjhee, Singra, Pachoo, and Sookool-the Alexanders and Napoleons of the Santhals. Few events have that great singularity of interest as the Santhal project of the conquest of India in 1855-which was intended to have been made with bows and arrows against all the mighty instruments of war of the nineteenth century-which threatened alike all Hindoos, Mussulmans, and English to be routed from the land as trespassers and usurpers