here centres the railway system which unites these
widely-separated points. Add to this singular union of commercial
advantages the circumstance--so important in an India controlled by
Englishmen--that the climate, though warm, is perfectly wholesome, and
you will see that Allahabad must soon be a great emporium of trade."

"Provided," I suggested, "Benares yonder--Benares is too close by to
feel uninterested--will let it be so."

"Oh! Benares is the holy city. Benares is the blind Teiresias of
India: it has beheld the Divine Form, and in this eternal grace its
eyes have even lost the power of seeing those practical advancements
which usually allure the endeavors of large cities. Allahabad,
although antique and holy also, has never become so wrapped up in
religious absorption."

On the day after our arrival my companion and I were driven by
an English friend engaged in the cultivation of indigo to an
indigo-factory near the town, in compliance with a desire I had
expressed to witness the process of preparing the dye for market.

"Not long ago," I said to our friend as we were rolling out of the
city, "I was wandering along the banks of that great lagoon of Florida
which is called the Indian River, and my attention was often attracted
to the evidences of extensive cultivation which everywhere abounded.
Great ditches, growths of young forests upon what had evidently been
well-ploughed fields within a century past, and various remains of
settlements constantly revealed themselves. On inquiry I learned that
these were the remains of those great proprietary indigo-plantations
which were cultivated here by English grantees soon after Florida
first came under English protection, and which were afterward
mournfully abandoned to ruin upon the sudden recession of Florida by
the English government."

"They are ruins of interest to me," said our English friend, "for one
of them--perhaps some one that you beheld--represents the wreck of my
great-great-grandfather's fortune. He could not bear to stay among the
dreadful Spaniards and Indians; and so, there being nobody to sell to,
he simply abandoned homestead, plantations and all, and returned to
England, and, finding soon afterward that the East India Company was
earnestly bent upon fostering the indigo-culture of India, he
came here and recommenced planting. Since then we've all been
indigo-planters--genuine 'blue blood,' we call ourselves."

Indigo itself had a very arduous