Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/108

 standing now contain a quantity of coal, the warehouse of the steamers; it must have been a handsome building in former days; the marble floor of the mosque remains, and a fine well. My guide told me that at Gaur is a fine place, belonging to this Nawāb, now in ruins. All around Rajmahal is a beautiful jungle of magnificent bamboos; such fine clumps, interspersed with date palm trees, overshadowing the cottages, around which were a number of small cows, and fowls of a remarkably good breed; every thing had an air of comfort. The walks in all directions were so cool and pleasing, that it was very late ere I could induce myself to return to breakfast. The inhabitants of this pleasant jungle are accounted great thieves; an idea quite the contrary is given from the comfortable appearance of their cottages under the clumps of bamboos, close to the river, which is covered with vessels passing up and down.

5th.—The ruins of the ancient city of Gaur are laid down as at no very great distance from the Ganges. We were very anxious to visit the place, and therefore, quitting the Ganges, entered the little river, the Baugruttī sotā, up which, at the distance of half a mile, is the village of Dulalpūr: off the latter place we moored our vessels, being unable to proceed higher up from the shallowness of the water.

We explored the nālā in a dinghee, a small boat, and seeing two wild fowl (murghābī), I requested my companion to shoot one. "They are Brahmanī ducks, I do not like to kill them," he replied; I persisted; he fired, and shot the male bird, the chakwā, it fell into the nālā, close to the boat; the hen bird, utterly unmindful of the gun, flew round and round the dinghee, uttering the most mournful cries over the dead body of her mate; poor bird, with merciful cruelty we let her live;—never again will I separate the chakwā, chakwī. The following is an extract from Forbes' Hindūstanī Dictionary:—"Duck (wild) chākwī, chakaī. This is the large duck or goose, well known in India by the name of Brahmanī goose or duck, and in the poetry of the Hindūs, is their turtle-dove, for constancy and connubial affection, with the singular circumstance of the pair having been doomed for ever to nocturnal separation,