went at an increasing rate, up a small slope
and then down again, precipitous descent on
either hand, and a thick rocky jungle at the
bottom. The Mussulman looked back at me
once or twice; and seeing that I did not
flinch, we shot down without any
interruption, till we found our way into a
picturesque ravine, from which a short ascent
led to the open plain beyond. We had, for
some stages, been rising imperceptibly to
the edge of a mountain ridge upon a sort
of table land, and had thus descended to
the plains again, leaving a highly respectable
range of hills, suddenly discovered, at our
backs.

At twilight we crossed the sandy bed of
the Booregha, one of the river arms that
forms the island of Sherghatty, at which I
proposed to rest. The coolies who helped us
across, having completed that business,
requested to be paid off, as they had nothing
to do with the other river. They were,
however, so well pleased with what I gave
them, that they agreed by acclamation to run
me across the island and over the stream on
the other side, the Moorhur. In the town
on the island I stopped at the bungalow, and
sent home tidings through the post office.
When we had crossed the Moorhur I paid
off the coolies again, and dismissed them with
a salaam. "No," they cried; ''you will want
us yet." I was to have a new coachman at
that stage of my journey—the fourth driver
since I had left Calcutta—but coachman and
horse were nowhere to be seen. The coachman's
horn was on the vehicle, and the coolies,
finding it, began to perform bugle calls, which
really did fetch in the missing cavalry. It
proved a sorry horse; and, being harnessed
to the shafts, lay down and determined that
it would not rise again. We did indeed find
the help of the coolies useful.

The great event of the road next day was
a meeting with an English dog, upon its
travels like myself, and evidently glad to
look upon a face that was not black. He at
once came up to me, and offered me the nose
of friendship in return, for which I tickled
his ears with familiar English words, and his
palate with some biscuits. His companion,
who looked like a Pariah, stood stolidly by,
and I threw biscuit to him also, which he
had not expected, and ate ravenously without
any sign of thanks. Two or three miles
farther on, after fording a shallow river, I
met an old Calcutta friend on his way back
to the metropolis, and exchanged with him
some information useful on the road. Next
morning we reached the river Soane, where
there is not a bridge, and found it full from
bank to bank. While waiting for a ferry, I
was accosted by something better than an
English dog—a countryman there stationed
as surveyor of the roads. We were at once
friends: I received his hospitality, and
acknowledged my sense of it by a present of
some of the books that I had not read. He
was a great reader, but I left him print
enough to last him for a month.

We spent two hours in the crossing of the
Soane. Had the water been low, we should
have been three times as long, because we
should have been dragged over by a team of
bullocks who would have sunk occasionally in
the sands. I had time to sketch the romantic
fortress of Rhotasghur during the passage.
Then on we went, passing the huge fantastic
mausoleum of Shere Shah, and passing what
I thought more interesting still, the bullock
waggons of a wealthy Hindoo family on the
way to the holy city of Benares. I admired
the magnificent oxen, and the thick
peopling of the waggons, the pretty children
peeping at the foreigner through loopholes,
and from under screens. As for the fine old
chief, their father, he did not appear to be
well pleased at my manifest admiration of
his little ones. Fatherly pride gave place to
his dread of "the evil eye."

By this time I had began to observe a
change in the costume and manners of the
people, so great that I considered myself to
be already virtually in the North- West
Provinces. In place of the dirty whitey-
brown rags of the low country there were
coloured garments gracefully adjusted; the
women had no longer a subdued look, and
were comely, although very black indeed.
Reflection upon such matters, and upon any
matter, was soon made impossible; for we
arrived at a certain stretch of a road that has
been under repair since its first formation.
It was at first too low, and suffered flooding,
so it is now being raised bodily for many
miles. Little of that road was fairly to be
considered practicable; and, some parts of it
that were too stiff for the strongest travelling
machine, obliged us to turn out into the fields
and to drive across country as best we could,
all our efforts being furthered, and made
successful, by the constant help of coolies.

This trouble surmounted, we rattled along
over the handsome stone bridge spanning
the Karumnassa. We were really at last
in the North-West Provinces. After a
time we reached the banks of the Ganges,
opposite Benares. There again we had a
weary ferrying, poling up, pulling up, and
running down the stream before we could
get properly across; but a better opportunity
of examining carefully the fantastic architecture
of the temples which crowned the city
on its river front could not have been
afforded in another way. At Benares I
ended that day; and began the next in charge
of a kind friend, who showed me all the
lions, and much wondered at the faculty for
dropping suddenly asleep engendered by a
course of Dawk travelling.

On again through the finest country I had
yet seen, sloping in long undulations to the
Ganges. Our pace at one stage now attained
fourteen miles an hour. At midnight I was
again crossing the Ganges to reach Allahabad;