reshments, a story of the most tragic
character was told us of two children carried off and eaten by tigers
the previous night. The demoralized condition of one of the poor
families bore witness to the truth of the report. We listened to the
very harrowing detail of the event, but will not weary the reader with
it. The half-howl, half-bark of the jackals at night frequently awoke
us. They carry off young kids in these regions, and do not hesitate to
attack small dogs, but keep a wholesome distance from human beings.

One day and night upon the route--there are no sleeping-cars, so we did
without them--brought us back to Calcutta, extremely gratified with our
excursion to the Himalayas, and more than ever impressed with the
distinctive character of each new locality. There are no two rivers
alike, no two mountain ranges precisely similar, no two races of people
that quite resemble each other. There is always some marked distinction
to fix the new experience on the mind. Were this not the case, confusion
would be the natural result of ten months of such varied travel as these
notes are designed to record.

CHAPTER VII.

From Calcutta to Benares.--Miles of Poppy Fields.--Ruined
Temples.--The Mecca of Hindostan.--Banks of the Sacred
Ganges.--Idolatry at its Height.--Monkey Temple.--The Famous River
Front of the Holy City.--Fanaticism.--Cremating the Dead.--A
Pestilential City.--Visit to a Native Palace.--From Benares to
Cawnpore.--A Beautiful Statue.--English Rule in India.--Delhi.--The
Mogul Dynasty.--Lahore.--Umritsar.--Agra.--The Taj Mahal.--Royal
Palace and Fort.--The Famous Pearl Mosque.

Calcutta is not a city calculated to detain the traveler more than four
days, so we promptly got our baggage together to start for the next
objective point, which was Benares, the holy city of the Hindoos, to
reach which five hundred miles of central India must be traversed by
rail. The route, however, lay through an extremely interesting region of
country, where, notwithstanding it was still January, everything was
green, and both planting and harvesting were in progress. The people
appeared to be wretchedly poor, living in the most primitive mud cabins
thatched with straw. Such squalor and poverty could be found nowhere
else outside of Ireland, and yet we were passing through a famous
agricultural district, which ought to support thrifty farm-houses and
smiling villages. It abounde