petty chieftains are secured in their semi-independence by the treaty with Runjeet in 1809, which confined the ruler of Lahore to the right bank of the Sutlej.  But their reception of the colonel did not appear to indicate any great degree of gratitude for these favours to the British nation, as represented in his person; for not one of the five Seik chiefs, “each of whom has his own snug little fort close to the city,” would supply him with a lodging; and it was only by perseverance and ingenuity that he secured a place to lay his head, after long wrangling with the subordinate functionaries.  Matters improved, however, as he advanced further into the country; and, at the little mountain-city of Nahun, he was most hospitably received and entertained by the young rajah, Futteh Pur Grass Sing, “who had been educated almost entirely under the kind and fatherly superintendence of Captain Murray,” the commissioner of the Seik states, and whose frank and gentlemanlike manners, “so unlike those of the ghee-fed wretches of the plains,” did honour to his guardian’s precepts.  The town of Nahun, which is 3600 feet above the level of the sea, is described as clean and well paved; and the rajah, whose revenue had been increased under the management of Captain Murray from 37,000 to 53,000 rupees, was highly popular, and by the colonel’s account deservedly so, with his subjects.  He earnestly pressed “the fat gentleman” (whose caution in mounting an elephant, while two men on the other side of the howdah balanced his weight, vehemently excited his risibility) to return to the plains through Nahun, and have a month’s shooting with him in the valley; but whether the invitation was accepted or not remains untold, as—­“Alas for the literature of the age! when I was ordered to Bundelcund, a vile thief entered my tents at night, and robbed me of my second volume; and thus did I lose my carefully written account of the sub-Himmalayan range, which cost me fully eight months’ labour.”

Thus abruptly terminates the first part of the colonel’s travels, and at the commencement of the second we find him crossing the Jumna to Calpee, the frontier town of Bundelcund, a wild and unsettled province, prolific in Thugs and bad characters of all sorts, and principally inhabited by a peculiar race called Bundelas, who have never been perfectly reconciled to the British supremacy, and who, at this present writing, are kept quiet only by the presence of a force of 15,000 men.  Calpee is said to be the hottest place in India, the thermometer in June, according to the colonel, standing even on a cloudy day at 145 degrees—­a degree of heat almost incredible; and it is also the principal mart for the cotton, which the rich black soil of Bundelcund produces of finer quality than any other part of Hindostan.  But, notwithstanding its commercial inportance, the town was at this time left to the government of a native Darogah or chief of police, the nearest European courts being at Hameerpore, thirty miles distant, and the