Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/190

176 was told, were once floating through the chasm, when a ball, which one of them had fired at a peacock, slanted off from the rock and unfortunately happened to hit one of these nests. The consequence was that the bees immediately swarmed about the boat, and stung one of its occupants, who was unable to swim, so severely that he died from the effects. His companion leaped into the stream and floated down with it; but even then a cloud of bees followed him for a long way, watching his movements, and immediately attacked his face and every portion of his body which appeared for an instant above the surface of the water.

Allahabad, the capital of the North-West Provinces, has become one of the most important places in India from its position at the junction of two mighty rivers, and as the centre of the railway communication between Bombay, Calcutta and the Panjab. It possesses a newspaper, the Pioneer, which obtained great popularity all over India from the humour of its late editor, the Rev. Julian Robinson; and while its past is interesting from its connection with the Indian Mutiny and the stemming of the tide of mutiny, the archæologist will find in it remains which are of great importance for the elucidation of Indian antiquity. English travellers will also find there the residence of the cotton-commissioner, Mr. Rivett-Carnac, who is so well known by his great efforts to enable India to meet the demands of Great Britain for its products, by his activity in collecting information of all kinds, and his extreme readiness in imparting it to those who are happy enough to come in contact with him.

But we must proceed towards the Himáliya; and in order to do so at once, I shall say nothing hereof Cawnpore and Lucknow, Delhi and Agra. They have been admirably described by several modern writers, but no description can give an adequate idea of the mournful interest excited by a visit to the two former, or of the dazzling beauty of the Taj Mahal and the Pearl Mosque of Agra. I shall only remark that those who visit the scenes of the Indian Mutiny may do well to inquire for themselves into the true history of that dreadful outbreak, and not allow themselves to be deceived by the palliating veil which such amiable writers as the late Dr. Norman Macleod have drawn over it. That history has never been written; and I was assured by one of the special commissioners who went up with the first relieving force from Allahabad, that the government interfered to prevent his publishing an account of it drawn from the sworn depositions which had been made before him. It is right that the angel of mercy should bend over the well at Cawnpore, and flowers spring from the shattered walls of the Residency at Lucknow; but the lessons of the mutiny are likely to be in great part lost, if its unprovoked atrocities are to be concealed in the darkness to which every humane heart must desire to relegate them.

Here, in the valley of the Ganges, we may be said to be at the base of the Himáliya, though even from near points of view they are not visible through the golden-dust haze of an Indian March. This valley runs parallel with the Stony Girdle for twelve hundred miles, itself varying from eighty miles in breadth at Monghir, to two hundred at Agra; and is so flat as to suggest rather an immensely long strip of plain than anything like a valley. Those who do not think of venturing into the high and interior Himáliya, but yet wish to have something like a near view of the highest and grandest mountains in the world, will of course direct their steps to one or more of the hill-stations on its southern or south-western front, and each of the more important of these is a place of departure for the wilder and more inaccessible country behind. A brief glance at these latter will serve to expose the points from which the most interesting parts of the Himáliya are accessible.

To begin from the east, Dárjiling (Dárjeeling) is the great sanitarium for Bengal, and is usually the residence, for some portion of the year, of the lieutenant-governor of that province, and of his chief officers. A railway is in course of construction, or is to be constructed, which will greatly facilitate access to it. As it is, we have to go eleven hours by rail from Calcutta, four hours in a river steamboat, 124 miles in a dak gharri, bullock shigram, or mail-cart, then fourteen miles on horseback or in a palanquin to the foot of the hills, and by similar means of carriage up to the top of them, in order to reach Dárjiling. In the rains this is a horrible journey to make; and, except in the very hot season, the miasma of the Terai or jungle forest between Siligari and Pankabarri is so deadly that the 