GAOL CALENDAR.

So far as the present quarter, it stands thus.

219

Case 1, Affray, and assault on a single person, by fourteen criminals. 2, One man charged with the murder of his fellow-workman in

the fields.

3, One man charged with forgery.

4, Five with house-breaking.

5, Two charged with house-breaking.

6, Five charged with affray and riot, destroying property, &c.
[This is connected with the succeeding case of forgery,
being an attempt, under colour of a forged instrument
first, and afterwards by violence, to obtain possession of an
indigo work. See Cases 14 and 19.]

7, Four for house-breaking and attempt to murder.
8, Three for house-breaking.

9, Five for child-stealing. [In this case one of the accused par-
ties, in whose house the little girl was found, declared in
his own justification, that desiring to obtain a wife for his
son, (a boy,) he had given some rupees to a neighbour,
(one of the robbers,) to buy one: that the said neighbour
brought him the little girl, saying she was his niece, and
that he received her as such. But there was little doubt
that this was untrue, and that the design of the whole
gang was to sell the child to some person at a distance.]
10, Two for murder by poison, administered in brandy.
11, Five for false imprisonment and murder. [A man was seen
bound and dragged along by the five prisoners,-was taken
to the house of one of them, and there confined two or
three days, and beaten, as it is said, to death. They plead
that the man was mad, and his death occasioned by his
distemper. It appears, however, that there was previous
malice, and that they were not bound to take care of him,
if he had been mad.]

12, Seven for house-breaking, with torture.

13, Three for homicide, in executing an arrest.

14, Seven for an affray and riot at another indigo factory, arising out of the same dispute with the one formerly mentioned.

15, Four for piracy and attempt to murder.

16. One for murder, by striking with a bamboo.

17, Nine for an attack on a dwelling-house, plundering, beating, and false-imprisonment.

18, One for false-imprisonment, assault, and compelling the plaintiff to sign a paper containing a false deposition.

19, Seven for forgery and subornation of forgery. See Cases

6 and 14.

20, Six for robbing a boat.

21, Two for assault, with intent to kill.

22, Five for piracy and attempt to kill.

In all 91 prisoners for trial, not including a very curious case, now under investigation, in which a wealthy Brahmin is accused of having procured his enemy to be seized and carried before the altar of Kali in his private house, and having there cut off his head, after the manner in which sheep and hogs are sacrificed to their deities. This offers, certainly, no favourable view of the morals of the country, considering that the district of Furreedpoor is not larger than the ordinary run of Welch counties. Two circumstances worth notice are, the gangs in which most crimes are committed, and the nature of the defence usually set up, which I observed, was in nine cases out of ten, an alibi, being the easiest of all others to obtain by the aid of false witnesses. Perjury is dreadfully common and very little thought of.

The

In the evening I again drove out with Mr. Warner. A large lake is at a small distance from the house, which holds water all summer. natives say it was part of the original bed of the Ganges which used to cover all Furreedpoor, till a Raja requiring a portion for his daughter, implored Varuna to give him one. The god sent a tortoise which swam out, making a large circuit in the bed of the river, and immediately within that space dry land appeared. I read prayers to Mr. Warner's family circle, and returned to my pinnace. Fur

reedpoor used to be a favourite station of banditti, and so dangerous, that till a local magistrate with a strong police was settled here, no valuable boat ever risked the passage. This part of its former history may possibly have made the manners of its present inhabitants more unruly, and account in some degree for the heaviness of the calendar.

July 27. This day passed as the preceding. I heard nothing of Miss Stowe, and the disadvantage of any further delay to my voyage seemed so serious, that I determined, unless some news reached me in the course of this day or night to go on.

July 28. No tidings arriving, and having done every thing I could think of to ensure the gradual impartment of the sad news of her brother's death to poor Miss Stowe, and provided as far as I could for the comfort and safety of her dismal homeward journey, about noon, when I was hurrying the Serang to make sail, I received a letter from my poor wife, with an account of the severe illness of both our babies, and of the merciful deliverance which our beloved little Emily had received from God. This letter grievously agitated me, so much so that I think for some time I hardly felt or understood what had happened. My first impression was to hurry home to Calcutta. But on reading the letter over again, I knew I could implicitly trust my wife when she told me that the danger was over, that if she had apprehended the probability of a relapse, she would not have concealed it from me; that I was en

222

JOURNEY CONTINUED.

gaged at this time in a solemn professional duty, to desert which without the strongest grounds, would be a criminal distrust of God, and neglect of his service; that my presence would not help my poor child, and that in case of the worst which I might hear at Bogwangola, I might at all events then return to comfort my wife under her affliction. On the whole I determined to go on, though, when I had made that determination, and was actually on the broad stream of the Ganges, it seemed as if I first became sensible of the bitterness which I had escaped, and which might still threaten me. I did not, however, repent of the resolution which I had taken, and I hoped I acted right, and not unfeelingly to my dear wife, in thus preferring a public to a private duty.

CHAPTER IX.

FURREEDPOOR TO BOGLIPOOR.

Blind Beggar-Crocodile-Ape-Silk Manufactory-Basket for catching Fish-Bogwangola-Strength of Current-Begging Dervises— Ant-hills-Rajmahál Hills—Gour—Rajmahál—Sultan Sujah's Palace -Puharrees-Caves-Gossain-Boglipoor-Schools-Religion of Pu

harrees.

We had a noble breeze, and went on rapidly, all sail spread, when all at once, to my great surprise, the Serang brought up the pinnace so suddenly, that he almost laid her on her beam-ends, and the water flowed in at her lee cabin windows; a very little more wind, and she would have turned quite over. On running out to learn the reason of this manœuvre, I found Mohammed pale, Abdullah scolding, and the crew endeavouring with more haste than good speed, to get in the top and topgallant sails. It appeared that the steersman had seen a shoal right ahead, and so close under the bows, that even the rapid bringing-up of the boat's head was barely sufficient to avoid it. The fact is, however, that such mud-banks as are usually met with here would have been less dangerous with our flat bottom, than the expedient which they put in practice. However, I ordered two men forward with long bamboos, to sound wherever