these, and of the mango groves we have seen, have been planted by public-spirited natives, who have desired to live in the grateful recollections of their countrymen, and to have their prayers for the welfare of the planters while they enjoy the shade and eat of the fruit. And the banyan trees may remind us of Moore's charming lines:

"They tell us of an Indian tree,

Which, howsoe'er the sun and sky
May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom wide and high,

"Far better loves to bend its arms

Downward again to that dear earth,
From which the life that fills and warms
Its graceful being once had birth.

"There are in India so many sorts and varieties of this rich fruit, which, in fact, may be called, for its abundance, the Indian apple, that it would take a volume to describe them. As a mere tree it is valuable, being of not very slow growth, and affording, by its dense, dark shade, the most grateful shelter from the traveller's enemy,' the SUN. Its wood is most extensively used, and, in fact, the planks supply, for a large part of India, the uses of fir plank in Europe; and when carefully preserved by paint, it lasts many years. The fruits in their season are so abundant in all the bazaars that the cows are often regaled with them, and always with the stones, which they crunch, apparently, with great delight. A curious fact is that in remote villages, near extensive forest tracts, the bears, at the season of the fruit, are known to invade the mango topes, and to take possession of them till they have devoured all the fruit, in spite of all the efforts of the villagers to drive them out! The finest mangoes on the Bengal side of India are said to be those of Malda; though there are certainly some in the neighbourhood of Calcutta equal or superior to them. The finest in all India are said to be those of Goa, where they have been cultivated by the Portuguese. Until of late years, however, little or no attention was paid to the sorts planted; or, at all events, it was rarely thought, by natives at least, worth the trouble or expense of sending far for good kinds; the topes, indeed, being as often planted as an act of piety, to afford shade, as for the fruit, which he who planted rarely expected to taste. Good grafts, and those upon good stocks, are now more sought after, especially in the neighbourhood of large towns, where a few mango trees, if bearing choice fruit, are valuable property. Perhaps nothing can show more strongly what the mango may become by careful cultivation, than the fact that at the plantation of Black River, in the Isle of France, no less than twelve varieties of the most exquisite flavour, of sizes from a large apple to that of a man's head, some almost without stones, have been obtained by the care and attention of a long series of years. The mango, in India, is eaten in every possible form, and an extensive trade is carried on in the young green and acid fruits, which, being dried in the sun, are sold in all the bazaars as a favourite for curries. The crop of this fruit is very uncertain, as the prevalence of fogs at the time of flowering, drought, or storms, will often destroy a large crop in a few hours."Stocqueler's Oriental Interpreter.

"And thus, tho' wooed by flattering friends,
And fed with fame, if fame it be,
This heart, my own dear mother, bends

With love's true instinct, back to thee."

We are now in the midst of the chief Opium district in British India: the cultivation-a Government monopoly, as we have said,-extends a vast way along the banks of the Ganges: a field more fateful than many a battle plain. The district is divided into two Agencies, Benares and Behar, and of the former Ghazeepore is the Central Factory.

Ghazeepore is also the seat of one of the Government Studs; an important establishment, superintended by European officers; and famous for turning out useful horses at moderate prices.

There are numerous SATIS-monuments commemorating the burning of Hindoo widows-in and near Ghazeepore, where such murderous spectacles were formerly more frequent than even in Calcutta.

But time passes. Christmas comes and goes, with the usual feasting of the officers and carousing of the men. Early in 1842 we had orders to prepare for the march, and presently came "THE ROUTE!" We were to go by BENARES, the sacred city of the Hindoos, and ALLAHABAD, "the city of God" of the Mahommedans, and the place of the MEETING OF THE GANGES AND THE JUMNA,-to CAWNPORE, the city of the sandy waste!

SONG.

A SONG TO THe Brave of oLD! A song!

We have talked of them oft, we have dreamt of them long,-
How they dared distant climes, and faced legions of foes,
How they laughed at hard fare, and thought nothing of blows!
We have gazed on the tombs where the victors sleep;
O'er the dust of the slain we have bent to weep;
But though we may sigh, we should do them wrong,
If they were forgot in the Song, the SONG!

'Twas not for themselves that they fought and bled—
Those giants of old who now dwell with the dead—
For a world then unborn, for a far distant time,
Gave they youth in its vigour, and health in its prime!
For Light and for Commerce, for Truth and for Peace,
To shield the oppressed, and the captive release;
From tyrants to wrest repayment for wrong,

They gave up their lives! LET THEM LIVE THEN IN SONG!

WE

CHAPTER VII.

THE HOLY CITY.

E have reached the sacred city of BENARES, on the left bank of the Ganges (420 miles by land from Calcutta),* the most holy shrine of the Hindoo faith, the "Lotus of the World," the reputed CENTRE OF THE EARTH; alleged to be coeval with the Creation, and to have been originally constructed of gold, and certainly of remote antiquity, while it has ever retained its supremacy:† the city of three hundred and thirty million ideal "gods" (everywhere represented by multitudes of images), thousands of idol temples, twenty thousand idol priests, three or four hundred thousand annual pilgrims, ‡ innumerable beggars, swarms of monkeys, and countless Brahmin kine: § the city of Sanscrit learning,

Travellers by water can only reach Benares by being cooped up in a boat for about two months.

There is nothing to tell us the date of the foundation of Benares. But "twenty-five centuries ago, at the least," says Mr. Sherring, in his "Sacred City of the Hindus," "it was famous. When Babylon was struggling with Nineveh for supremacy, when Tyre was planting her colonies, when Athens was growing in strength, before Rome had become known, or Greece had contended with Persia, or Cyrus had added lustre to the Persian monarchy, or Nebuchadnezzar had captured Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Jerusalem had been carried into captivity, she had already risen to greatness, if not to glory. Nay, she may have heard of the fame of Solomon, and have sent her ivory, her apes, and her peacocks to adorn his palaces; while partly with her gold he may have overlaid the Temple of the Lord." Yet not many of the existing structures are old. The very oldest are certain Moslem tombs and buildings supposed to be of the fifteenth century; and there are said to be many Indian cities that have older remains. Nor was the city always of its present extent. Much of it has within a comparatively recent period been redeemed from the jungle. The road to Benares, like that to Juggernauth and other great places of Hindoo pilgrimage, is a scene of misery; multitudes expire on the way by cholera, fever, and exhaustion, and no one of their fellow-Hindoos seems to go to their relief.

The devotion of the Hindoos to both the Brahmins and the kine was

and of the Vedas, Shastras, and Puranas-the Rome and the Athens, the Jerusalem and the Mecca, the Oxford and the Cambridge of Hindostan-Kashi, the SPLENDID, THE GLORIOUS! ("founded on the trident of Siva, and exempt from all earthquakes"); to which the eyes of innumerable millions turn, and have turned for ages, as the metropolis of their religion. It has, moreover, been called the Indian Venice. Its appearance from the river is imposing, presenting in a great crescent-like sweep of some three miles and a half, and often more than a hundred feet high, large and stately flights of colossal stone steps-the famous ghats-leading

well shown in the case of a late female ruler. Baka Bai was very devout. Rising at 5 a.m., she devoted the early hours of the day to the worship of cows and the tulsi tree, after which she sat down to repeat the names of her gods, and, with the help of the rosary, to mark her progress when interrupted and obliged to converse with any one on worldly business. In the forenoon she was waited on by her priests, when she bathed, adored the sun, presented offerings at the shrines of her idols, and listened to poems in their praise. Having repeated her homage to the sun and to a cow, she went round a certain number of ants' hills, and fed the tiny insects with sugar. This was followed by the worship of Brahmins. Those who had assisted in her devotions were joined by others, who sat down to dinner with them in the palace. Before they commenced, the old lady, approaching the first, applied to his forehead the coloured mark usually made on idols, set before him a small spoonful of water, into which he thrust his toe, and ended by presenting him with an offering of bel leaves, flowers, and money. When she had thus gone through the whole company with the holy water that each Brahmin had thus consecrated, she retired to an adjoining room and drank it off for the remission of her sins. In the afternoon alms were distributed to the poor. The evening, when she partook of her only meal, witnessed proceedings similar to those of the forenoon, especially the adoration of cows. Every day did this zealous lady spend at least twelve hours in the rites of her religion, and at her own expense entertain fifteen Brahmins, and double that number of Gossains, in addition to all the priests and mendicants who had been supported by the preceding ruler.

More recently Baka Bai fell sick, and as she was about eighty years old, it was feared that her end was at hand. Five cows were therefore introduced into the room where she lay, in order that they might be bestowed on Brahmins. Each cow was led up to her couch. The Brahmin to whom it was to be given stood at its head, and the invalid was lifted up so that she might take hold of its tail; and thus it was presented. The gift was accompanied by a further donation of fifty or a hundred rupees; and as the animal and the recipient passed from the bedside, they were supposed to help the giver forward on her way to heaven. As she became worse, an order was issued for a feast, and handsome sums of money were directed to be given to the Brahmins. One of the last acts of her life was to call for a cow; and having fallen at its feet, as far as her fast-waning strength would permit her, she offered it grass to eat, and addressed it by the venerated name of "mother." While she was engaged in giving away more cows to the Brahmins she expired.

from the water to the city, rising in terraces, and having one or more temples associated with each of them. (Some of these temples, however, have sunk, and others are falling; being undermined, as it would seem, by the very River the people worship.) There are also many rude pathways up the embankment. Most of the ghats, we are told, have been built by pious rajahs and nobles. At the summit, and all along the bank, to the right and left, rising one above another, are pagodas, palaces (for numerous deposed princes live here ), fortress-like houses, gateways, terraces, colonnades, balconies, carved oriels, towers, domes, pinnacles, of Oriental architecture, in strange and wild disorder; many grotesquely -many very indecently-painted and sculptured; others most delicately, elegantly, and elaborately carved, crowded with bas-reliefs, and lavishly ornamented, interspersed with trees, many-storied mansions (on the flat roofs of which the inmates are seen walking), huts, images, figures of bulls, altars, rows of sick people brought down to the Ganges to die, and, in one place, the Munikurnika ghat-some burning piles whereon smoke the dead, while demon-like attendants stir up the fires with long rods of iron, and throw jars of oil on the corpses, whose ashes (like those of many others from all parts of India, sent hither for the purpose) are afterwards cast into the river. (Here, by-the-bye, is a party of men, bearing in thick wrappers a body they have probably brought from

The Rajah of Benares resides at Ramnuggur, near the north end of the city, in a noble castellated mansion. An interesting account of a visit paid to his Highness by Madame Pfeiffer, in company with a travelling associate, will be found in that lady's "Journey Round the World," p. 169. Madame Pfeiffer observes that for many years no one has died in the palace which the Rajah occupies. The reason of this is said to be that a former Rajah once asked a Brahmin what would become of the soul of any one who died in the palace, to which it was replied that it would go to heaven. The Rajah repeated the question ninety-nine times, and always received the same answer; but on asking the hundredth time the Brahmin lost patience, and answered that it would go into a donkey. Since that time every one, from the prince to the meanest servant, leaves the palace as soon as he feels himself unwell. Rajahs and men of high social position in all parts of India pride themselves on having a house at Benares.

"The dying person often sees the stake erected on which his body is to be burned. Nor is the body allowed to get cold; but as soon as life is extinct it is put upon the pile, and the fire kindled. Instances are not rare when the body was not really dead, and when it rose up as the flames began to scorch it. In such a case the Hindoos believe a bad spirit has entered the corpse, and knock it down with bamboos. The skull, which