not to miss the opportunity, and arranged to send off my tents, &c. on Wednesday evening, being the earliest moment at which my necessary arrangements could be completed. these circumstances I made up my mind | the first rise of the hills, where the air is good, and supplies are plentiful, and leave them encamped there till my return. Accordingly I sent off in the evening the greater part of my escort, servants, and animals, retaining only ten Sepoys, some bearers, my horse, and the suwarree elephant with his mohout and coolie. November 17.-This day was chiefly taken up in packing. My plan was to take my whole caravan to Bamoury at CHAPTER XVII. BAREILLY TO ALMORAH. First distant View of the Himalaya Mountains-Sheeshghur-Visit from Raja and SonsAccount of Terrai-" Essence of Owl"-Wretchedness of Inhabitants-KulleanpoorTiger Hunt-Ruderpoor-Case of Malaria Fever-Burning the Jungle-Tandah-Bamoury -Beemthâl-Water Mill-Khasya Nation-Ramghûr-Sikh-Mount Meru-Pilgrim to Bhadrinath. NOVEMBER 18.—I went this morning | sure at one end, which, in Calcutta, from Mr. Hawkins's house to a village named Shahee, about sixteen miles, over a country like all which I had yet seen in Rohilcund, level, well cultivated, and studded with groves, but offering nothing either curious or interesting, except the industry with which all the rivers and brooks were dammed up for the purposes of irrigation, and conducted through the numberless little channels and squares of land which form one of the most striking peculiarities of Indian agriculture. The country is almost entirely planted with wheat, with a few fields of Indian corn, and the pulse called dâl. I looked out vainly all the morning for the mountains, which, at the distance of fifty miles, for the nearest range is no further, ought certainly now to be within sight. All I saw, however, was a heavy line of black clouds, in the direction in which I knew them to be; and when this gradually melted before the rising sun, it was succeeded by a grey autumnal haze, through which nothing was distinguishable. At Shahee I found Mr. Boulderson, the collector of the district, encamped, in the discharge of his annual duty of surveying the country, inspecting and forwarding the work of irrigation, and settling with the Zemindars for their taxes. His tent, or rather his establishment of tents, was extremely large and handsome. That in which he himself lived was as spacious as those which were first sent me from Cawnpoor, with glass doors, a stove, and a canvas enclo would have passed for a small com- had been furnished with a set of in- | structions by Mr. Knight, the station surgeon of Bareilly. Natives, Mr. Knight thinks, are more liable to the complaint, and recover from it with greater difficulty, than Europeans, who are, in the first instance, better protected against the damp and unwholesome air, and whose full habit of living, and the high temperature of their health, make the work of depletion with them at once more easy and more effectual than with men whose pulse is always feeble, and who sink at once into despondency on the attack of a disease which they know to be dangerous. As to tigers, though we may possibly hear their roars and see traces of their feet, it is not often that they venture near the fires of an encampment, or the formidable multitude of men which such an encampment as mine presents to them. Still, if a tiger shows himself, it will, in all probability, be at Tandah; and though I should not dislike to see the animal in its natural state, I am bound, for the sake of my half-naked and careless followers, and my numerous train of animals, still more than my own, not to linger twelve hours in a spot of so bad reputation. In the daytime at this season, and by those who merely pass along the beaten track, neither fevers nor tigers are usually to be apprehended. The latter, indeed, on any approaching bustle, keep themselves, at those hours, so close in cover, that those who seek them find it difficult enough to start them. Mr. Boulderson is a keen sportsman, and told me several interesting facts respecting the wild animals of this neighbourhood. The lion, which was long supposed to be unknown in India, is now ascertained to exist in considerable numbers in the districts of Saharunpoor and Loodianah. Lions have likewise been killed on this side the Ganges in the northern parts of Rohilcund, in the neighbourhood of Moradabad and Rampoor, as large, it is said, as the average of those in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. Both lions, where they are found, and tigers, are very troublesome to the people of the villages near the forest, who, having no elephants, have no very effectual means of attacking them with safety. The peasantry here, however, are not a people to allow themselves to be devoured without resistance, like the Bengalees; and it often happens that, when a tiger has established himself near a village, the whole population turn out, with their matchlocks, swords, and shields, to attack him. Fighting on foot, and compelled to drive him from his covert by entering and beating the jungle, one or two generally lose their lives, but the tiger seldom escapes; and Mr. Boulderson has seen some skins of animals of this description, which bore the strongest marks of having been fought with, if the expression may be used, hand to hand; and were in fact slashed all over with cuts of the "tulwar," or short scimitar. A reward of four rupees for every tiger's head brought in is given by Government; and if the villagers of any district report that a tiger or lion is in their neighbourhood, there are seldom wanting sportsmen among the civil or military officers, who hear the news with pleasure, and make haste to rid them of the nuisance. A good shot, on an elephant, seldom fails, with perfect safety to himself, to destroy as many of these terrible animals as he falls in with. In the afternoon Mr. Boulderson took me a drive in his buggy. This is a vehicle in which all Anglo-Indians delight, and certainly its hood is a great advantage, by enabling them to pay visits, and even to travel, under a far hotter sun than would otherwise be endurable. The country, however, in this neighbourhood, and everywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the principal stations, is strangely unfavourable for such vehicles. Our drive was over ploughed fields, and soon terminated by a small but, to us, impassable ravine. We had, however, a first view of the range of the Himalaya, indistinctly seen through the haze, but not so indistinctly as to conceal the general form of the mountains. The nearer hills are blue, and in outline and tints resemble pretty closely, at this distance, those which close in the vale of Clwyd. Above these rose what might, in the present unfavourable atmosphere, have been | I could not find it in Arrowsmith's map. taken for clouds, had not their seat been Bhadrinâth, he told me, is reckoned the so stationary, and their outline so harsh highest. From hence, however, it is and pyramidical, the patriarchs of the not the most conspicuous of the four. continent, perhaps the surviving ruins That we saw the snowy peaks at all, of a former world, white and glistening considering their distance, and that as alabaster, and even at this distance mountains twice as high as Snowdon of, probably, one hundred and fifty intervened, is wonderful. I need hardly miles, towering above the nearer and say that I wished for my wife to share secondary range, as much as these last the sight with me. But I thought of (though said to be seven thousand six Tandah and the Terrai, and felt, on rehundred feet high) are above the plain collection, that I should have probably on which we were standing. I felt in- been in considerable uneasiness, if she tense delight and awe in looking on and the children had been to pass the them, but the pleasure lasted not many intervening inhospitable country. minutes, the clouds closed in again, as on the fairy castle of St. John, and left us but the former grey cold horizon, girding in the green plain of Rohilcund, and broken only by scattered tufts of peepul and mangoe-trees. November 19.-This morning we went seven coss to Sheeshghur, over a worse cultivated country than the last day's stage, and one which had, evidently, suffered much from want of rain. The heavy and happy fall which had given plenty to Oude and the Dooab did not extend here, and except in a few places, where irrigation had been used, the rice and Indian corn had generally failed, and the wheat and barley were looking very ill. Where there are rivers or streams, irrigation is practised industriously and successfully, but there are few wells, and they do not seem, as in the Dooab and Oude, to draw water from them by oxen for their fields. The rain which falls is, in most seasons, said to be sufficient. On leaving our encampment we forded the river Bhagool, and afterwards, once or twice, fell in, during our march, with its windings. At last, soon after the sun rose, and just as we had reached a small rising ground, the mist rolled away and showed us again the Himalaya, distinct and dark, with the glorious icy mountains, towering in a clear blue sky, above the nearer range. There were four of these, the names of three of which Mr. Boulderson knew, Bhadrinath, Kedar Nâth, and the peak above the source of the Ganges, the Meru of Hindoo fable. The fourth, to the extreme right, he did not know, and Sheeshghur is a poor village, on a trifling elevation, which is conspicuous in this level country. It has a ruinous fort on its summit, and altogether, with the great surrounding flat and the blue hills behind it, put me in mind of some views of Rhuddlan. The Clwydian chain, indeed, is not crowned by such noble pinnacles as Bhadrinâth and Gangotree, but I could not help feeling now, and I felt it still more when I began to attempt to commit the prospect to paper, that the awe and wonder which I experienced were of a very complex character, and greatly detached from the simple act of vision. The eye is, by itself, and without some objects to form a comparison, unable to judge of such heights at such a distance. Carneth Llewellyn and Snowdon, at certain times in the year, make really as good a picture as the mountains now before me: and the reason that I am so much more impressed with the present view, is partly the mysterious idea of awful and inaccessible remoteness attached to the Indian Caucasus, the centre of earth, "Its Altar, and its Cradle, and its Throne;" and still more the knowledge derived from books, that the objects now before me are really among the greatest earthly works of the Almighty Creator's hands, the highest spots below the moon-and out-topping, by many hundred feet, the summit of Cotopasi and Chimborazo. I had two sets of visitors to-day; the first were a set of Nâch-women, accompanied by a man, who beat a small drum, and a naked boy, who seemed | ductive jaghire, as large as an English county, extending from the neighbourhood of Moradabad almost to the foot of these mountains. He maintained that the proposed work would drown some of his villages. We went in the afternoon to see the place; and I endeavoured, by the help of a very rude extempore levelling instrument, made of the elephant-ladder, four bamboos, and a weighted string, to ascertain the real course which the water would take, and how high the dam might be raised without danger of mischief. My apparatus, rude as it was, was viewed with much wonder and reverence by these simple people; and as I kept on the safe side, I hope I did some good, or, at least, no harm by my advice to them. The ryuts of the Nawâb, indeed, as well as the raja and his sons, professed themselves perfectly satisfied with the line proposed. the son of the elder of the three females. The whole party were of the "cunja," or gipsey caste, with all its most striking peculiarities. The women would have been good-looking, had not their noses been distorted, and their ears lengthened, by the weighty ornaments suspended from them. Their arms, legs, and necks were loaded with rings and chains, and their dress was as tawdrily fine as their poverty would admit of. The man and boy were in all respects but clothing the same description of animal which might steal a hen or open a gate for a traveller in the neighbourhood of Norwood. I gave them a trifle, but declined seeing their performance. The second set of visitors were an old raja and three sons and a grandson, who were introduced by Mr. Boulderson. Their ancestors had possessed a considerable territory, but the Patan wars had lowered them down to simple, and far from wealthy landowners, whose main dependance is, at present, on a pension of four thousand s. rupees a year, allowed them by the Company. The raja was a homely, cheerful old man, with a white beard and unusually fair complexion; and excepting the few swords and shields in his train, neither he nor his sons had much which differed from the English idea of respectable yeomen. Their visit was not long: I gave them, at taking leave, lavender-water by way of pawn and attar; and the old raja (on account of the supposed sanctity of my character, in which I heartily wish I more accorded with their ideas of me) desired me to lay my hand on his back and that of his sons, and bless them. His business with Mr. Boulderson chiefly respected an embankment which he wished to make on the neighbouring small river Kullee, in order to throw the water over many acres of land, some of which we had crossed, which were now altogether dependant on rain, and sometimes, as in the present year, unproductive. The embankment had been commenced, but was opposed by the Nawab of Rampoor, a descendant of Ali Mohammed Khân, already mentioned, and who still holds a very pro Mr. Boulderson said he was sorry to learn from the raja, that he did not consider the unhealthy season of the Terrai as yet quite over. He, therefore, proposed that we should make a long march of above twenty miles the following day to Ruderpoor, in order to be as short a time in the dangerous country as possible. I was, for several reasons, of a different opinion. My people and Sepoys had already had two long marches through very bad and fatiguing roads. That to Ruderpoor was described as worse than any which we had yet seen. As Ruderpoor is reckoned only a shade less dangerous than Tandah, to halt there on the Sunday would be impossible, and we should have on that day also a march of twenty-five miles through the forest to Bamoury. Besides my reluctance to subject the men to so great fatigue on such a day, I had always understood that lassitude was among the most powerful predisposing causes to fever, and I could not think, without uneasiness, of any of them being tired out and lagging behind in so horrible a country. The direct way to Ruderpoor lay through the Nawâb's territory, and Manpoor, the intervening station, was by no means a desirable one, either from its air or the mutinous character of its inhabit |