ast India Railway and
semi-European society and accommodation. Instead of doughy chuppatties,
throat-blistering curry, and octogenarian chicken, I this morning
breakfast off a welcome bottle of Bass's ale, baker's bread, and American
cheese.

My experience of hotels and hotel proprietors has certainly been somewhat
wide and varied within the last two years; but it remains for Rannegunj
to produce something entirely novel in the matter of tariff even to one
of my experience. The cuisine and service of the hotel is excellent, and
well worth the charges; but the tariff is arranged so that it costs more
to stay part of a day than a whole one, and more to take two meals than
to take three. If a person remains a whole day, including room and three
meals, it is Rs 4, and he can, of course, suit himself about staying or
going if he engages or pays in advance; but should he only take dinner,
room, and chota-hazari, his bill reads: Dinner, Rs 2; room, Rs 1, 8
annas; chota-hazari, rupees 1; total, Rs 4, 8 annas, or 8 annas more than
if he had remained and taken another square meal. The subtle-minded
proprietor of this establishment should undoubtedly take out a patent on
this very unique arrangement and issue licences throughout all
Bonifacedom; there would be more "millions in it" than in anything
Colonel Sellers ever dreamed of.

And now, beyond Rannegunj, comes again the glorious kunkah road, after
nearly three hundred miles of variable surface. Level, smooth, and broad
it continues the whole sixty-five miles to Burd-wan. Notwithstanding an
adverse wind, this is covered by three o'clock. The road leads through
the marvellously fertile valley of the Dammoodah, an interesting region
where groves of cocoa-nut palms, bamboo thickets, and thatched villages
give the scenery a more decidedly tropical character than that north of
the Bengal hills. Rice is still the prevailing crop, and the overflow of
the Dammoodah is everywhere. Men and women are busily engaged among the
pools, fishing for land-crabs, mussels, and other freshwater shell-fish,
with triangular nets.

As my southward course brings me next day into the valley of the Hooghli
River, the road partakes almost of the character of a tunnel burrowing
through a mass of dense tropical vegetation. Cocoa-nut and toddy-palms
mingle their feathery foliage with the dark-green of the mango, the wild
pomolo, giant bamboo, and other vegetable exuberances characteristic of a
hot and hum