to the dried-up country round Allahabad (and indeed all the North-west Provinces) was positively startling. Thick layers of white dust, inches deep, lay everywhere. The rains had proved a delusion, and it was said that in the previous twelvemonth there had literally been only two wet days. Consequently famine was imminent, and daily prayers for rain were offered, not only in the churches, but in all the temples, and still there was no sign of its coming, though every day as we looked at the grey, almost English sky, with soft fleecy clouds, some deluded being would say, "Why! I do believe it is going to rain!" Once or twice half a dozen drops did manage to fall, as though some angel had shaken a dewy wing above the parched city, and then the temples began to beat tomtoms and to rejoice aloud, but they soon found out their mistake, and renewed their prayers for the blessing so long withheld. Even then famine-stricken wretches were coming in from the country seeking food; and in truth it is difficult to imagine how life could be sustained on less than the regular allowance of these poor creatures a little rice and pulse, nothing more.

For one of the many peculiarities of this strange Hindoo race is that they are practically vegetarians, so that animal food scarcely counts at all in the feeding of this great nation, whose unswerving obedience to rigid ecclesiastical law, would compel them to starve in presence of countless herds of sheep and oxen, even supposing that these could survive the drought. The highest feast of these, our brown brethren, is more meagre than a European fast, for since fowls are deemed unclean, eggs are of course prohibited, and although caste rules allow about 80 per cent. of the Hindoos to eat fish when they can get it, both the poverty of the consumer, and the scarcity of the supply, tend to make even this item less important than we might suppose. In fact, the very serious decrease of the fish supply in recent years furnishes a remarkable and distressing illustration of the manner in which the increase of the people acts on the commissariat generally.

The increased demand has caused the fisher castes to work harder and with finer nets. So close is the mesh that scarcely a stickleback could escape. Traps, nets, baskets-every sort of

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contrivance for fish capture has been worked to the uttermost ; all means, fair and foul, even to draining off the water from ponds and streams. No close time is observed. The young fry are captured and sold by the thousand. Even the spawn is collected

for food! No wonder that in some districts the waters are already utterly exhausted, and the fisher caste have had to take to agriculture. Now the frogs are eagerly collected, and classed as fish!

But in the present instance, the question was much more serious than the lack of what, to the Hindoo, is merely a luxury. Now the danger lay in the probable failure of all fruits of the earth, and the near approach of an appalling famine.

In addition to the compulsory hunger already being endured by multitudes of Hindoos, the Mohammedans were fulfilling a religious obligation in keeping their rigid fast of Ramazan, and were consequently growing daily leaner and more lean.

At length the fast was over, and the festival of the Buckra Eed followed, when goats are killed and eaten sacramentally in remembrance of the sacrifice of Ishmael on Mount Ararat by his father Abraham, which was duly averted by a Heaven-sent goat. Then the whole Mohammedan male population arrayed itself in fair linen, with gorgeously embroidered waist-scarfs and turbans and went forth to worship in the mosques (or musjids as they are called in India), and thence came to visit some grand old tombs in the Kooshroo Bagh, where we were sketching: so we surveyed them at our leisure. Bagh means garden, and here four tombs, each the size of a great church, mark the resting-place of the rajah of the glad face, and his wife, brother, and friend. The tombs are stately buildings, crowned with a great dome. They are still shadowed by some very fine old tamarind trees, though the finest specimens of these trees, unequalled for size and beauty, were cut down a very few years ago, by order of some tasteless and senseless magistrate. There were formerly beautiful avenues of these trees all round the towns, but these likewise have disappeared before the insatiable thirst for "improvements," and sorely their want is now felt along those broad dusty roads.

It is unfortunately not very often that the "improvements" take the form of planting with a view to creating shady boulevards, but even in this beneficent act a European is liable to find that he has unintentionally run against some native superstition, as was the case with a magistrate who thought he would confer a great benefit on the town by planting pipal trees (Ficus religiosa) in the market-place. To his astonishment the buniahs (tradesmen) came to tell him frankly that, as these trees are so sacred that no Hindoo dares utter a false word or do an unjust act beneath their shadow, their presence in the market-place would make it quite impossible to carry on business! So these beautifully picturesque trees are generally found apart from the business quarter, near to wells or temples, where their truth-compelling presence is less embarrassing. If no temple is near, a rude stone god placed beneath the sacred tree reminds all men of its sanctity.

Outside the Kooshroo Gardens is a large caravanserai, formerly a great halting-place for caravans, and crowded with camels, elephants, and bullocks; but the omnivorous railway has absorbed so much of the traffic that the travellers who now rest here are comparatively few. But there is still a picturesque bazaar beneath the trees, with great gates on either side, and a deep, cool well, where the women come to draw water and rest a while beneath the great pipal tree.

The principal gateway here is thickly studded with horse-shoes of every size and make. There are hundreds of them nailed all over the great gates, doubtless the offerings of many a wayfarer who has long since finished his earthly pilgrimage. We could not find out what was the exact idea connected with this customprobably much the same notion of luck as we attach to finding a horse-shoe (especially one with the old nails still in their place !). We afterwards noticed that the sacred gates of Somnath, preserved in the fort at Agra, are similarly adorned. It reminded us of that curious old manorial right still kept up at Oakham in Rutlandshire, where every peer of the realm is bound, the first time he enters the town, to present a horse-shoe to be nailed on the old portal, which is well-nigh covered with these lordly tributes. It is said that in

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case any contumacious peer should refuse to pay this tax, the authorities have a right to stop his carriage and levy their black mail by unshoeing one of the horses. To avert so serious an annoyance the tribute-shoe is generally ready, some being of enormous size, and inscribed with the name of the donor. Whether these Eastern horse-shoes were taxes or offerings I cannot tell; but it certainly is very curious to observe how widespread is the superstitious reverence attached to this particular form.

It has been suggested, and apparently with some reason, that in ancient pagan times it may have been a recognised symbol in serpent-worship, and hence may have arisen its common use as a charm against all manner of evil. The resemblance is obvious, more especially to that species of harmless snake which, like our British blindworm, is rounded at both ends, so that head and tail are apparently just alike. The creature moves backwards or forwards at pleasure; hence the old belief that it actually had two heads and was indestructible, as even when cut into two parts it was supposed that the divided heads would seek one another, and re-unite. It stands to reason that in a snake. worshipping community, such a creature would be held in high

reverence.

Even in Scotland various ancient snake-like bracelets and ornaments have been found which seem to favour this theory; and at a very early period both snakes and horse-shoes seem to have been engraven as symbols on sacred stones. We hear of the latter having been sculptured, not only on the threshold of old London houses, but even on that of ancient churches in various parts of Britain. And in the present day we all know the idea of luck connected with finding one, and how constantly they are nailed up on houses, stables, and ships, as a charm against witchcraft. In Scotland, and all parts of England and Wales, and especially in Cornwall (where not only on vans and omnibuses, but sometimes even on the grim gates of the old gaols), we may find this curious trace of ancient superstition. Whatever may have been its origin, it certainly is remarkable that it should survive both in Britain and in Hindoostan.

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CHAPTER IV.

HINDOO PILGRIMS AND LIVING WATERS.

Water-supply-Three Holy Rivers-Death on the Ganges-Brahmans-The Holy Fair-Yogis — Barbers - Jewels - Suicides - Cholera CentresPilgrimages of brown men and white.

ONE of the first points which attracts the notice of a traveller in Hindoostan (naturally on the alert to mark peculiarities of social life) is the picturesque Oriental simplicity of the watersupply. There is no laying of pipes or taps, or even pumps. In some of the large towns a small rivulet of pure sparkling water is brought to the very doors of the people, by an open channel carried along the main street. This, however, is exceptional. As a general rule the people are dependent on their wells, and around these at all hours of the day, but more especially at the outgoings of morning and evening, they assemble in groups most fascinating to the artistic eye. The more crowded the city, the more abundant are the wells, yielding an unfailing supply to the thirsty throng who come to fill their great red earthenware jars, or brightly polished brazen lotas.

Many of the finest wells are presented to the city by some wealthy citizen for the use of the wayfarer and the poor, as an act of merit-a profitable investment in the treasury of a future life. Others, with the same end in view, erect temples, to which are attached tanks for ceremonial ablutions: for every Hindoo, man, woman and child, must worship before he dares break his