When roosted aloft, and duly charged to keep profound
silence (which I obeyed to the letter, by falling
sound asleep), the word was passed to the beaters,
who surrounded our post on the plain-side, extending
some miles in line, and full two or three distant from
us. They entered the jungle, beating tom-toms,
singing and shouting as they advanced, and converging
towards our position. In the noonday solitude
of these vast forests, our situation was romantic enough:
there was not a breath of wind, an insect or bird stirring;
and the wild cries of the men, and the hollow sound
of the drums broke upon the ear from a great distance,
gradually swelling and falling, as the natives ascended
the heights or crossed the valleys. After about
an hour and a half, the beaters emerged from the jungle
under our retreat; one by one, two by two, but preceded
by no single living thing, either mouse, bird, deer,
or bear, and much less tiger. The beaters received
about a penny a-piece for the day’s work; a rich
guerdon for these poor wretches, whom necessity sometimes
drives to feed on rats and offal.
We were detained three days at Sulkun, from inability
to get on with the carts; and as the pass over the
Kymore to the north (on the way to Mirzapore) was
to be still worse, I took advantage of Mr. Felle’s
kind offer of camels and elephants to make the best
of my way forward, accompanying that gentleman, en
route, to his residence at Shahgunj, on the table-land.
Both the climate and natural history of this flat
on which Sulkun stands, are similar to those of the
banks of the Soane; the crops are wretched. At
this season the dryness of the atmosphere is excessive:
our nails cracked, and skins peeled, whilst all articles
of wood, tortoiseshell, etc., broke on the slightest
blow. The air, too, was always highly electrical,
and the dew-point was frequently 40 degrees below
the temperature of the air.
The natives are far from honest: they robbed
one of the tents placed between two others, wherein
a light was burning. One gentleman in it was
awake, and on turning saw five men at his bedside,
who escaped with a bag of booty, in the shape of clothes,
and a tempting strong brass-bound box, containing
private letters. The clothes they dropped outside,
but the box of letters was carried off. There
were about a hundred people asleep outside the tents,
between whose many fires the rogues must have passed,
eluding also the guard, who were, or ought to have
been, awake.
CHAPTER III.
Ek-powa Ghat — Sandstones — Shahgunj — Table-land, elevation, etc.
— Gum-arabic — Mango — Fair — Aquatic plants — Rujubbund —
Storm — False sunset and sunrise — Bind hills — Mirzapore —
Manufactures, imports, etc. — Climate of — Thuggee — Chunar —
Benares — Mosque — Observatory — Sar-nath — Ghazeepore —
Rose-gardens — Manufactory of Attar — Lord Cornwallis’ tomb —
Ganges, scenery and natural history of — Pelicans — Vegetation —
Insects — Dinapore — Patna — Opium godowns and manufacture —
Mudar, white and purple — Monghyr islets — Hot Springs of Setakoond
— Alluvium of Ganges — Rocks of Sultun-gunj — Bhaugulpore —
Temples of Mt. Manden — Coles and native tribes — Bhaugulpore
rangers — Horticultural gardens.
