SENCHAL, THE ABANDONED CANTONMENT. 417 



vailing direction of the winds in the case we are at 

 present considering, is from the southwards, and comes 

 directly up from the Terai towards the mountains. 



As we shall revert again to the question of the 

 Terai district, we shall at present content ourselves 

 with merely mentioning' the well-known fact of the 

 highly malarious nature of its climate so much so 

 that it is stated on high authority that " it is almost 

 inevitable death for a European to sleep there any 

 time between the end of April and November," * 

 and although great improvements have been effected 

 of late years in the portion of the Terai lying between 

 Silliguri f and Darjeeling, it must be remembered 

 that this was not till long after the abandonment of 

 Senchal. 



Unfortunately the deadly nature of the vapours of 

 the Terai belt at this point were only too clearly 

 proved, in 1861, by a tragical event which cost the 

 life of a most estimable lady, and no less a person- 

 age than the wife of Charles John, Earl Canning, first 

 Viceroy of India ; who, after crushing out the last 

 embers of the Mutiny, was returning to Calcutta, after 

 a triumphal progress through the North West Pro- 

 vinces early in November in that year. Lady Canning, 

 who had been staying at Darjeeling, left that 

 station with the intention of meeting her husband upon 

 his arrival, and on her way down stopped one night 

 in the neighbourhood of the Terai. This was of course 

 before the construction of the railway and during a 



* The Cyclopaedia of India, by Surgeon-General Edwd. Balfour, 3rd 

 Edition, 1885, Vol. iii., p. 848. 



y Silliguri is the junction of the metre gauge system with the 24 in. 

 narrow gauge railway to Darjeeling. 



VOL. II. 27 



