any moment have destroyed them all, or have interposed to arrest their progress.”  These, however, are the speculations of only the thinking portion.  At the bottom of the respect shown to such Mahommedan shrines, by the mass of Hindoos, there is always a strong ground-work of hope or fear:  the soul or spirit of the savage old man, who had been so well supported on earth, must still, they think, have some influence at the Court of Heaven to secure them good or work them evil, and they invoke or propitiate him accordingly.  They would do the same to the tomb of Alexander, Jungez Khan, Tymour, or Nadir Shah, without any perplexing inquiries as to their creed or liturgy.

February 28, 1850.—­Chinahut, eleven miles west, over a plain intersected by several small streams, the largest of which is the Rete, near Sutrick.  There is a good deal of kunkur-lime in the ground over which we have passed today; but the tillage is good where the land is at all level, and the crops are fine.  The plain is cut up here and there by some ravines, but they are small and shallow, and render but a small portion of the surface unfit for tillage.  The banks of the small streams are, for the most part, cultivated up to the water’s edge.

We passed the Rete over a nice bridge, built by Rajah Bukhtawar Sing twenty-five years ago, at a cost of twenty-five thousand rupees, out of his own purse.  He told me that one morning, in the rains, he came to the bank of this river, on his way to Lucknow from Jeytpoor, a town which we passed yesterday, and found it so swollen that he was obliged to purchase some large earthen jars, and form a raft upon them to take over himself and followers.  While preparing his raft, which took a whole day, he heard that from five to ten persons were drowned, in attempting to cross this little river, every year, and that people were often detained upon the bank for four or five days together.  He resolved to save people from all this evil; and as soon as he got home set about building this bridge, and got it ready before the next rains.  It is a substantial work, with three good arches.  About two miles on this side of the bridge he pointed out to me the single tree, near a mango-grove, where some eighteen or twenty years ago he overtook a large balloon, which the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, had got made in the Dilkosha Park at Lucknow.  It was made, he tells me, by a tall and slender young English gentleman, who visited Lucknow, with his uncle, for the special purpose of constructing and ascending in this machine.  “When it was all ready, sir, the young man got into a small boat that was suspended under it, taking with him a gun and some artificial fish.  We asked him what he intended to do with a gun in the clouds; and he told us, that in the sky he was in danger of meeting large birds that might hurt the balloon, and the gun was necessary to frighten them off.  As the balloon began to ascend the old gentleman’s eyes filled with tears, and I asked him why.  He told me, that this young man’s father had fallen into the sea, and been drowned; and he was always afraid, when the son went up, that he might never see him alive again.