not so thick, they night have had far better sport. They were on their way to Rampore by the old road, which is now impassable. So perhaps the birds take refuge there still. Certainly in the months of June, July, and August they were invisible.

The only exception we heard of, in the general chorus of exasperated sportsmen, was in the case of Mr. Buck, a very keen ornithologist, who is so perfectly skilled in imitating the calls of different rare birds that the deluded victims respond, and, coming close to the beguiling voice, pay the penalty of their curiosity. This chiefly applies to the argus, or horned pheasant, wary as his namesake of old, but withal so jealous that he can brook no rival, and at once responding to the far-away call, flies to give battle to the intruder, but finds the odds are hopelessly to his disadvantage. Besides the argus, there are the kallidge, or black pheasant, the cheer, or snow pheasant, and the minaul pheasant.

The latter is a magnificent bird. When you do have the luck to see him on the wing, he flashes past you like a ray of prismatic light, a dazzling mass of iridescent metallic green, blue, bronze, gold, purple, and crimson, changing in every light, and glossy as satin, with a beautiful crest of drooping feathers. The argus is more quaker-like, but beautiful in his neatness. plumage is brown with black and pearly-white spots. The snow pheasant is rather a dirty-grey bird. There ought also to be sundry varieties of partridges, snipe, and woodcock, but we had little chance of making acquaintance with them, either on the wing or in the larder.

His

Having spent a delightful day in Hatto forest, we returned to our tents, which had been pitched near the travellers' bungalow at Narkunda, 8,676 feet above the sea. We had by this time become thoroughly enamoured of our gipsy life, and were daily more and more enchanted with its freedom. The escape from every phase of civilised formality, from all fixed laws of action, from regular hours, each meal being henceforth a movable feast, no wearisome seven or eight o'clock dinner to waste two precious hours, but a merry supper by our camp-fire whenever we were ready for it; and then "early to bed and early to rise "-in short,

DELIGHT OF CAMP-LIFE.

337 it was an escape from the old stereotyped existence whose comfortable, commonplace round we had run, till it had become altogether monotonous and humdrum; and we rejoiced exceedingly to think that for three whole months we could know nothing of the well-appointed British social life, and its wearisome sameness; but that day after day, and week after week, must slip by in ever-changing scenes, while we wandered from one beautiful spot to another, snail-like, carrying about our locomotive homes, or rather not snail-like, making others fag for us.

So here on this lovely starlit night we found our tent-homes pitched on a grassy bank; a blazing camp-fire, both for warmth and safety, as the leopards are apt to be troublesome in the dark, and the most comfortable of suppers all ready for us.

And then, an hour later, looking out from the little tent, an oft-recurring allegory of "the near and the heavenly horizons' seemed to paint itself on earth and sky, an allegory of enduring light, veiled by the nearer trifles of the moment. A very common parable, but one which suggests itself as often as you sit at night working beside an open window. Your work is engrossing, everything within the rays of your little camp is so distinct, while without all is thick night.

One breath extinguishes that earth light, and within your home all is dark. But suddenly the great heaven is lighted by 10,000 gleaming worlds; and to-night as I looked up, not the stars only were there, for on the far horizon a pale, cold line of glittering peaks towered above the mist like white spirits at

rest.

And one little glimmering taper close at hand had hidden all this peaceful loveliness!

N

CHAPTER XIII.

UNDER CANVAS.

Opium Fields - Kotghur Mission Station

-

Native Christians Devil Worshippers-Ascent to Thandarh-A Tea Plantation-A Sociable Pariah-Descent from the Temperate Zone to the Tropics-Gorge of the Sutlej-A March under Difficulties-Rampore-A Spoilt Rajah-Resthouse versus Tent-A Plague of Flies-Camp at Gowrah.

ON leaving Narkunda we likewise lost the general view of the snowy range. Henceforth our path was to wind in and out of valleys, and up and down steep hills, whence we could rarely see more than a few peaks at a time. Of these we often caught such glimpses on reaching our night's camping-ground, as Too often, promised good subjects for the morrow's sketch. however, the morning revealed only a sheet of grey vapour, so blending with the sky that we could scarcely believe it possible that hills lay hidden behind that filmy veil. There was nothing for it but to finish a careful drawing of rocks and trees and nearer hills, in the faith, rarely disappointed, that sooner or later a light breeze would stir the clouds. Then, like some spectral vision, a great shoulder would reveal itself here, and a tall peak there, looming fitfully through the mist like phantoms from the spirit world.

Our route lay through Hatto forest, far below the green glade where we had spent the previous day. The path lay along a khad so steep that it sometimes rose and fell almost precipitously above and below us, and we had to look far down for the bases of the grand old pines whose tops seemed to reach up to

heaven. The hill was here clothed with magnificent silver fir, also with the morinda and rye pine. The latter occasioned an irresistible confusion in our natural history, rye meaning mustard; and certainly these tall "mustard" trees were the "greatest of all herbs." I fear, however, they would scarcely have supplied our cruet-stand!

Here, as usual, we noticed that the trees half burnt away were always the most richly festooned with virginia creepers and wild roses. In the sheltered hollows were clumps of fine horse-chestnut in full blossom, also a large kind of bird-cherry, and a few scarlet blossoms still lingered on the rhododendrons. The ground in places was blue with larkspur and covered with primrose plants; I also found one delicate lilac auricula, which carried my heart straight home to the old garden where these fragrant blossoms used to bloom so luxuriantly long ago.

On emerging from the forest we passed by a multitude of tiny, terraced fields; some were full of white poppies, shortly to be converted into opium, that curse of many lands. I had heard of the poppy fields as being rainbow fields, purple, yellow, white, and pink, and those of China are blood-red. Those we saw were all pure white, which I believe is the case generally throughout India. So fair a crop gave no hint of the evil which those fair blossoms might be made to work, when transformed to that malignant poison which has done so much to degrade and enervate myriads. The opium is drawn from the seed vessels; as soon as these are fully formed, an incision is made in each every evening, and by morning a drop of milky juice has exuded. This is scraped off carefully and boiled, and is thus prepared for market.

Happily this evil crop does not seem to be extensively cultivated hereabouts, but it monopolises a terribly large proportion of the richest land in the fertile valley of the Ganges, especially in the province of Behar, and in the neighbourhood of Benaresthe most thickly-peopled districts, where it would scarcely be possible for the land to support so dense a population, even were it all devoted to growing grain and cotton, instead of the most fertile tracts being given up to these wretched poppies.

It is known that the produce of an acre of fair soil will keep a human being in comfort, but the same extent of the very richest irrigated land will only produce fourteen pounds' weight of opium, and yet India's annual export of poison is something considerably over sixty-thousand chests of 140 lbs each.1

Is it not pitiful that notwithstanding the indescribable misery resulting, on the one hand from the use of opium, and on the other, from oft-recurring years of famine (which might at least be mitigated, were good food grown on all the land now devoted to raising deadly poison), Christian Britain actually continues for filthy lucre's sake to promote the still further increase of this devil's traffic, merely raising the price paid to its cultivators, to enable it to maintain its ground against such crops as wheat, rice and potatoes (which, of late years have doubled in price!).

1 I have heard it asserted that the Supreme Government of India has no monopoly of opium. This may be true as regards Bombay, which derives its Opium Revenue from the Transit Duty of £70 per chest of 140 lbs., paid by inland native states, for the privilege of transporting their produce through British territory to the shipping ports.

But the opium shipped from Calcutta is purely the property of the Government, which does not allow one acre of British India to be devoted to the cultivation of poppies without license, and which encourages the poppy farms, by granting advances of money without interest. All the opium produced must be given to the official agent at Government price; not an ounce may be retained by the cultivator under heavy penalties, and any dispute concerning weight or quality can only be determined by the opium agents, no reference to ordinary courts being allowed.

The opium thus produced costs the Government about £40 per chest of 140 lbs., and brings in from £120 to £130. In the year 1878-79, fifty-five thousand chests were sold by auction for six million, seven hundred thousand pounds. In the following year the Indian revenue derived from opium had increased to about eight millions sterling, and now has risen to about nine millions sterling!

1

The openly avowed intention of the Government is "to push the cultivation by every possible means, and obtain as much revenue as possible out of opium," avowing itself "perfectly indifferent to the deleterious effect which opium may produce on the people to whom it is sold." This was the official statement of a recent Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and Sir William Muir remarks that

1 55,500 chests realised £6,798,639.