or gipsy, who had been robbed.” A robbery
from a gipsy was such a strange contradiction
of terms, that the colonel went personally to enquire
into the matter, when he was horror-struck by finding,
that the man had been, not only plundered of his earnings
by a band of Bunjarras, but frightfully mutilated and
wounded, a trifle which the Hindoo servants had not
thought worth mentioning. The poor wretch’s
arm was amputated by Dr Ross; and, being carried with
the camp and carefully tended, he was at last dismissed,
with a fair prospect of recovery, and with a gift
of sixty rupees subscribed among the party; but not
even the example of the
sahibs could teach the
Hindoos humanity, and only the peremptory commands
of Dr Ross could prevail upon his bearer to place
a mattress under the sufferer! On their return
march, the party were further honoured by visits from
several rajahs and zemindars, all of whom were “loud
in complaint against the extortions of the aumils,
who constantly attempted to gather more, and sometimes
twice and a half as much, as the stipulated rent, in
consequence of which the zemindars were compelled
to rebel;” a view of the political condition
of Oude which naturally results from its anomalous
position, under a sovereign nominally independent,
who is at once too weak to control his own subjects,
and fearful of diminishing the shadow of authority
left to him by calling in the only available aid.
On the 29th of March the party again reached Khyrabad,
the appointed place of their separation, as it had
been of their meeting; and here the narrative, as
before, breaks off abruptly.
The concluding part, in order of time, of the colonel’s
lucubrations, contains his narrative of a voyage on
the Ganges, from Allahabad, by Dhacca, to Calcutta;
but the features and incidents of this navigation
have been so frequently described by travellers of
all sorts and kinds, from Bishop Heber and Captain
Bellew to our own much-esteemed Kerim Khan, that we
shall devote but brief space to it. He quitted
Allahabad, as he informs us, December 5, 1839, so
deeply regretted by the native population, that they
determined to perpetuate his memory by the erection
of a new ghat or landing-place, every brick of which
was to be stamped with the letter D—a distinction
which he had, no doubt, deserved by the bonhommie
towards both Hindoo and Moslem, which forms one of
the most favourable traits in the jovial colonel’s
character. The Tribeenee Ghat, immediately below
Allahabad, where the streams of the Jumna and the Ganges
unite, is one of the holiest spots in India; to which
pilgrims resort from all quarters, in the hope of
securing paradise by dying at the junction of the
sacred waters. The spirit of religious exclusiveness
prevails here as well as in other places; and the
colonel mentions his having been once an eyewitness
of some rough treatment received by a chumar,
or leather-dresser, (one of the lowest castes,) at
the hands of some high caste sepoys, who were highly