The greater part of the country through which we travelled is very
level. Beyond Chunar, indeed, which is sixteen miles from Benares, and
Mirzapore, which is thirty miles distant, there is a great extent of low
hill-country. These districts we visited several times. The most of our
journeys were in the wide open plains of the North-West. The country,
though level, is by no means uninteresting. You receive as you travel a
very favourable impression of the productiveness of the land and the
industry of the people. In the cold weather you see, as far as the eye
can reach, a sweep of growing corn, wheat and other grains, which give
the hope of an early and abundant harvest. Towns and villages meet your
view on every side. If you get to a slightly elevated spot you are
struck with the number of wells you see in the fields, dug for the
purpose of irrigation. In the great region lying between the Ganges and
the Jumna, called the Doab--the country of the two rivers, the
Mesopotamia of Northern India, over a great part of which we travelled
for the first time at the end of 1842 and the beginning of 1843, and
which we have often traversed since--there is no extensive forest near
the Trunk Road. In all directions, however, you see clumps of lofty and
shady trees, and occasionally groves of considerable extent. Trees have
been largely planted along the road, and within every few miles there
are groves, where travellers get their tents pitched, and where they are
thoroughly protected from the glare and heat of the sun. Even in the
coldest part of the cold weather tents pitched in the open become
quickly too heated for comfort. In the groves the deep shade cast by the
widely-spread branches and the thick foliage sometimes darkens the tent
too much for reading and writing; but outside, on a chair before a small
table, if that be required, one can spend hours very pleasantly reading
or writing, as it may be, and listening if inclined to the cawing of the
crows, the cooing of the doves, and the notes of other birds, while the
gentle breeze rustles through the trees, and the children, if any, play
with their toys under them.

Natives, when they travel, as I have already mentioned, manage things in
a fashion which we are not able to imitate, but which I have often been
inclined to envy. Let them have flour, water, a little wood for fuel,
if not in its stead dried cow-dung, and they partake with relish of the
meal their own hands have coo