In passing along, with wheat-fields close by on our left, while the sun is a little above the horizon on the right, we see a glory round the shadows of our heads as they extend into the fields.  All see these glories around their own heads, but cannot see them around those of their neighbours.  They stretch out from the head and shoulders, with gradually-diminished splendour, to some short distance.  This beautiful and interesting appearance arises from the leaves and stalks of the wheat being thickly bespangled with dew.  The observer’s head being in the direct rays of the sun, as they pass over him to that of his shadow in the field, he carries the glory with him.  Those before and behind him see the same glory around the shadows of their own heads, but cannot see it round that of the head of any other person before or behind; because he is on one or other side of the direct rays which pass over them.  It is best seen when the sky is most clear, and the dew most heavy.  It is not seen over bushy crops such as the arahur, nor on the grass plains.

January 20, 1850.—­Beneegunge, eight miles, over a slightly-undulating plain of light sandy soil, scantily cultivated, but well studded with fine trees of the best kind.  Near villages, where the land is well watered and manured, the crops are fine and well varied.  All the pools are full from the late rain, and they are numerous and sufficient to water the whole surface of the country, with a moderate fall of rain in December or January.  If they are not available, the water is always very near the surface, and wells can be made for irrigation at a small cost.  The many rivers and rivulets which enter Oude from the Himmalaya chain and Tarae forest, and flow gently through the country towards the Ganges, without cutting very deeply into the soil, always keep the water near the surface, and available in all quarters and in any quantity for purposes of irrigation.  Never was country more favoured, by nature, or more susceptible of improvement under judicious management.  There is really hardly an acre of land that is not capable of good culture, or that need be left waste, except for the sites of towns and villages, and ponds for irrigation, or that would be left waste under good government.  The people understand tillage well, and are industrious and robust, capable of any exertion under protection and due encouragement.

The Government has all the revenues to itself, having no public debt and paying no tribute to any one, while the country receives from the British Government alone fifty lacs, or half a million a-year; first, in the incomes of guaranteed pensioners, whose stipends are the interest of loans received by our Government at different times from the sovereigns of Oude, as a provision for their relatives and dependents in perpetuity, and as endowments for their mausoleums and mosques, and other religious and eleemosynary establishments; second, in the interest paid for Government securities