169 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
Unlike the Dunwah pass, this, to the level of the Ganges, is wholly 
barren. At the foot the sun was intensely hot, the roads rocky or 
smothered with dust by turns, the villages crowded with a widely diffe- 
rent looking race from those of the hills, and the whole air of the 
outskirts, in a sultry afternoon, far from agreeable. 
Mirzapore is, however, an exceedingly pretty, a moderately cool, and 
very pleasant station, especially the edet east, but socially 
speaking west-end, which runs along the banks of the Ganges, and 
whither I proceeded to the house of my friend Mr. Claude Hamilton, 
where I received a most cordial welcome. 
Mirzapore is celebrated for its manufactory of carpets (of a kind 
like our dining-room one), which are admirable looking, and in all 
respects save durability I am told are equal to the English. Indigo 
seed from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, the 
best coming from the Doab, and lae. For cotton, sugar, and saltpetre, 
it is the greatest mart in India. Bundelkund indigo seed is g 
and larger but not equal to the Doab. The articles of native manu- 
facture are brass washing and cooking utensils, and stone deities 
worked out of the sandstone 
There is little native vegetation, the country being covered with 
cultivation and extensive groves of Mango, and occasionally of Guava. 
English vegetables are abundant and excellent, and the strawberries 
rival in size the European fruit, but hardly in flavour. 
The atmosphere is extremely dry and electrical, the hair constantly 
crackling when combed. Further west, where the country is still 
drier, the electricity of the air is even greater. Griffiths mentions that 
in filling his barometer tubes in Affghanistan, he constantly experi- 
enced a shock. 
Here I had the pleasure of meeting Lieut. Ward, one of the assistant 
suppressors of Thugge (Thuggee, in Hindostan, signifying a deceiver, 
fraud, not open force being employed). This gentleman kindl 
showed me the approvers or king's evidence, of his establishment, be- 
longing to those three classes of human scourges, the Thug, Dakoit, 
and Poisoner. Of these the first was the Thug, a mild-looking man, 
who was born and bred to the profession: he has committed many mur- 
ders, sees no harm in them, and feels neither shame nor remorse. His 
organs of observation and destructiveness were large, and the cerebellum 
small. He explained to me how the gang waylay the unwary traveller, 
