January 19, 1850.—­Hutteeah Hurrun, thirteen miles.  The plain level as usual, and of the loose doomuteea soil, fertile in natural powers everywhere, and well tilled around the villages, which are more numerous than in any other part that we have passed over.  The water is everywhere near the surface, and wells are made at little cost.  A well is dug at a cost of from five to ten rupees; and in the muteear, or argillaceous soil, will last for irrigation for forty years.  To line it with burnt bricks without cement will cost from one to two hundred rupees; and to add cement will cost a hundred more.  Such lining is necessary in light soil, and still more so in sandy or bhoor.  They frequently line their wells at little cost with long thick cables, made of straw and twigs, and twisted round the surface inside.  The fields are everywhere irrigated from wells or pools, and near villages well manured; and the wheat and other spring crops are excellent.  They have been greatly benefited by the late rains, and in no case injured.  The ground all the way covered with white hoar frost, and the dews heavy in a cloudless sky.  Finer weather I have never known in any quarter of the world.

This place is held sacred from a tradition, that Ram, after his expedition against Cylone, came here to bathe in a small tank near our present camp, in order to wash away the sin of having killed a Brahmin in the person of Rawun, the monster king of that island, who had taken away his wife, Seeta.  Till he had done so, he could not venture to revisit his capital, Ajoodheea.  There are many legends regarding the origin of the sanctity of this and the many other places around, which pilgrims must visit to complete the pykurma, or holy circuit.  The most popular seems to be this.  Twenty-eight thousand sages of great sanctity were deputed, with the god Indur at their head, on a mission to present an address to Brimha, as he reposed upon the mountain Kylas, praying that he would vouchsafe to point out to them the place in Hindoostan most worthy to be consecrated to religious worship.  He took a discus from the top-knot on his head, and, whirling it in the air, directed it to proceed in search.  After much search it rested at a place near the river Goomtee, which it deemed to be most fitted for the purification of one’s faith, and which thenceforth took the name of Neem Sarung, a place of devotion.  The twenty-eight thousand sages followed, and were accompanied by Brimha himself, attended by the Deotas, or subordinate gods.  He then summoned to the place no less than three crores and half, or thirty millions and half of teeruts, or angels, who preside each over his special place of religions worship.  All settled down at places within ten miles of the central point, Neem Sarung; but their departure does not seem to have impaired the sanctity of the places whence they came.  The angels, or spirits, who presided over them sent out these offshoots to preside at Neemsar and the consecrated places around it, as trees send off their grafts without impairing their own powers and virtues.