Mirzapore.-Temple of Bindachul.

137

Mirzapore has grown and prospered under English rule within the memory of living man, and as a mart of trade ranks next to the metropolis. Here is exposed for sale the corn, the cotton, and the dyes of one-sixth of India. Here, in the warehouses, are collected cloth-goods and metals for the consumption of near fifty millions of men. Here are manufactured various goods and the richest carpets. Bankers and merchants from all parts of Hindoostan and Central India are located here for business. The enterprising and thrifty Marwaree is attracted here, and returns home a rich man. The Bengalee, too, is in this great field of speculation and competition. There is no town in India which has risen like Mirzapore purely from commercial causes, unconnected with religion or the auspices of royalty. Much as Mirzapore has grown and flourished, it is destined to quadruple in population, wealth, and splendour, on the opening of the rail to Bombay.

In Mirzapore is seen the most beautiful chouk of all in India. The large square is enclosed by ranges of high stone-buildings, from which project elegant balconies over-hanging the market-place on all sides. There is also a superb serai. From a noisome tank, it has become a commodious accommodation for several hundred travellers, with towers at the corners, and a well and shrubbery in the centre. This has been built at the expense of a benevolent native lady.

Four miles from Mirzapore is the Temple of Bindachul. Here is seen the only instance of Kali in all Hindoostan, who is the goddess of thugs and robbers.

Her shrine is on the brow of a solitary hill, where murders were very conveniently committed without transpiring to the public. It is said, that 250 boats of river thugs, in crews of fifteen, used to ply between Benares and Calcutta, five months every year, under the pretence of conveying pilgrims-their victims' back was broken, and the corpse was thrown into the river.'

From Mirzapore to Allahabad, for an account of which the reader is referred to following pages.

CHAPTER III.

THE tale of our journey opens with all the pomp and circumstance of an Eastern romance. Our party was composed of four, dear reader. But, instead of the prince, the minister, the commander, and the merchant, you must be content with the less conspicuous characters of the doctor, the lawyer, the scholar, and the tradesman. All the charm of a resemblance lies only in the beginning. The story then professes to be something more serious than the tale of an Indian nursery, which induces the very opposite of what is aimed at here to help the reader to keep awake to the interest of the scenes and sights about him.

Friday, the 19th of October, 1860, was the day appointed for our departure. Crossing over to Howrah, we engaged passage for Burdwan. The train started at 10 A.M., and we fairly proceeded on our journey. Surely, our ancient Bhagiruth, who brought the Ganges from heaven, is not more entitled to the grateful remembrance of posterity, than is the author of the Railway in India.

Travelling by the Rail very much resembles migrating in one vast colony, or setting out together in a whole moving town or caravan. Nothing under this enormous load is ever tagged to the back of a locomotive, and yet we were no sooner in motion than Calcutta, and the Hooghly, and Howrah, all began to recede away like the scenes in a Dissolving View.

The first sight of a steamer no less amazed than alarmed the Burmese, who had a tradition that the capital of their empire would be safe, until a vessel should advance up the Irrawady without oars and sails ! Similarly does the Hindoo look upon the Railway as a marvel and miracle-a novel incarnation for the regeneration of Bharat-versh.

The fondness of the Bengalee for an in-door life is proverbial. He out-Johnsons Johnson in cockneyism. The Calcutta Baboo sees in the Chitpoor Road the same 'best highway in the world,' as did the great English Lexicographer in the Strand of London. But the long vista, that is opening from one end of the empire to the other, will, in a few years, tempt him outof-doors to move in a more extended orbit, to enlarge the circle of his terrene acquaintance, to see variety in human nature, and to divert his attention from the species Calcutta-wallah to the genus man. The fact has become patent, that which was achieved in months and days is now accomplished in hours and minutes, and celerity is as much the order of the day as security and saving.

The iron-horse of the 19th century may be said to

have realized the Pegasus of the Greeks, or the Pukaraj of the Hindoos. It has given tangibility and a type to an airy nothing, and has reduced fancy to a matter-offact. The introduction of this great novelty has silenced Burke's reproach, 'that if the English were to quit India, they would leave behind them no memorial of art or science worthy of a great and enlightened nation.'

From Howrah to Bally the journey now-a-days is one of five minutes. In twice that time one reaches to Serampore. The next station is Chandernagore-thence to Chinsurah, and then on to Hooghly and Muggra. The Danes, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the English, all settling at these places in each other's neighbourhood, once presented the microcosm of Europe on the banks of the Hooghly.

All along the road the villages still turn out to see the progress of the train, and gaze in ignorant admiration at the little world borne upon its back.

Nothing so tedious as a twice-told tale-nothing so insipid as a repeated dish. The story of our journey is, therefore, commenced from Pundooa. Once the seat of a Hindoo Rajah, when it was fortified by a wall and trench, five miles in circumference, Pundooa is now a rural town of half its former size. From the train it is seen to peep from amidst groves, orchards, and gardens, surrounding it on all sides, and imparting to it a pleasing sylvan character. Traces of its ancient fortification are yet discernible at places. The tower, 120 feet high, arrests the eye from a long way off. This is