ss. We were all breakfasting with the
brigadier after muster when the reply came-the distance to Darbhanga
from Nathpur on the Kusi river, where we then were, must have been a
hundred and fifty miles.[16] We saw men running in all directions
through the camp, without knowing why, till at last one came and
summoned the brigadier's driver. With a face of terror he came and
implored the protection of the brigadier; who got angry, and fumed a
good deal, but seeing no expression of sympathy on the faces of his
officers, he told the man to go and hear his sentence. He was
escorted to a circle formed by all the drivers in camp, who were
seated on the grass. The offender was taken into the middle of the
circle and commanded to stand on one leg[17] while the Raja's
driver's letter was read. He did so, and the letter directed him to
apologize to the offended party, pay a heavy fine for a feast, and
pledge himself to the offended drivers never to offend again. All the
officers in camp were delighted, and some, who went to hear the
sentence explained, declared that in no court in the world could the
thing have been done with more solemnity and effect. The man's
character was quite altered by it, and he became the most docile of
drivers. On the same principle here stated of enlisting the community
in the punishment of offenders, the New Zealanders, and other savage
tribes who have been fond of human flesh, have generally been found
to confine the feast to the body of those who were put to death for
offences against the state or the individual. I and all the officers
of my regiment were at one time in the habit of making every servant
who required punishment or admonition to bring immediately, and give
to the first religious mendicant we could pick up, the fine we
thought just. All the religionists in the neighbourhood declared that
justice had never been so well administered in any other regiment; no
servant got any sympathy from them--they were all told that their
masters were far too lenient.

We crossed the Hiran river[18] about ten miles from our last ground
on the 22nd,[19] and came on two miles to our tents in a mango grove
close to the town of Katangi,[20] and under the Vindhya range of
sandstone hills, which rise almost perpendicular to the height of
some eight hundred feet over the town. This range from Katangi skirts
the Nerbudda valley to the north, as the Satpura range skirts it to
the south; and both are of the same sa