raising their voices aloud in praise of their gods; garments of the brightest hue glistened in the sun; fakirs held aloft their hands in adoration; and barges landed piles of wood, to burn the corpses laid on the banks; while goats, cows, donkeys, monkeys, vultures, parroquets and crows mingled freely with the devout multitude.

The architecture of some of the houses belonging to native princes strikes one every now and then as singularly chaste and effective ; but adjacent mud hovels spoil the coup d'œil. Many of the ghâts are tumbling down, and the holy river is inexpressibly dirty. Just below the rough, rickety bridge of boats is the commanding site of the old fort, where also stood the city of Kasi, founded 1600 B.C. They are about to begin a great railway-bridge over the Ganges at this spot.

In the afternoon we witnessed another performance of jugglers, whose most remarkable trick was instigating a mongoose to kill a snake, whose head was reduced to pulp, but which, under the influence of their incantations, was

SARNATH, THE ABODE OF BUDDHA. 77

restored to perfect health in a few minutes. Then they had scarcely gone when the verandah of the bungalow was covered with fruits and vegetables and native dishes presented to us by the Maharajah; and in the evening we had a delightful drive through mango-orchards, fields of barley in ear, springing wheat, beans, and vegetables of various kinds to the ruins of Sarnath, where Buddha himself once lived, and where he founded a religion even now professed by a great majority of the population of Asia.

There is a large business carried on in Benares in brass-work. Mrs. Clark, of the hotel, employs sixty people; and as scarcely any travellers require accommodation in India except in the cold season, the trade in brass is larger and more lucrative than that of keeping an inn.

On Thursday we enjoyed a remarkable and truly Oriental excursion to the Maharajah's castle of Ramnuggur, situated on a lofty bank several miles above and on the opposite side of the river from Benares, and commanding a strikingly-beautiful view of the city and its

surroundings. First, we drove through gardens and fields of corn, then were carried in tangans -a sort of bath-chair, borne on poles by four coolies to a sand-bank out in the stream, where the Racehorse barge was waiting to take us across to the picturesque stronghold, the battlements of which were manned by natives in all kinds of costumes and colours; while on the banks were carriages and caparisoned elephants, and troops of servants waiting to do our bidding the great man is said to have no fewer than 3,000 retainers. He himself was at a distant country seat, but we were received by his nephew and heir, who showed us over the castle, introduced us to his little boy, who was learning English, let us see a performance by Nautch girls, and came, after we had lunched with friends in a pavilion in the beautiful gardens, to exhibit his horsemanship and his skill as a marksman by hitting å rupee thrown into the air with a rifle-ball—a feat which our entertainer, Mr. Ross, himself one of the best shots in India, and a member of a family celebrated for their prowess in this respect, said he could

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not perform. Then there were snake-charmers and actors from the Deccan, who played on the platform of the immense tank adjoining the garden.

We dropped down the river to the city at sunset in the barge, and in the evening attended a concert in aid of an asylum for widows, got up by Mr. Lambert, of the London Missionary Society, and patronised by all the officials. The jackals had a horrible chorus that night, and we were awakened at dawn by the trumpeting of elephants.

t

CHAPTER VII.

AT CALCUTTA.

ON the 6th of January, at mid-day, we joined the mail-train at Mogul-Serai Junction, and travelled over a vast, apparently interminable plain, well wooded and cultivated, fertile and irrigated; crossed the Sone at 4 o'clock on a great viaduct; halted fifteen minutes at the important military cantonment of Dinapoor; passed the city of Patna; at Mokameh had the best railway dinner we had tasted in India; at dusk found ourselves between strangely-shaped and isolated hills, and had hardly time to rub our eyes and tie up our wraps in the morning when, punctual to the moment, at 5'40 the train drew up in Howrah Station, on the other side of the Hooghly from Calcutta. The Government House drag, with four horses and two postillions, and various servants of the Viceroy, were waiting for us, and we were very soon comfortably installed in much more spacious apartments than we had occupied for some time.