83 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



simply no excuse. Inde'scl, I believe the animals mentioned above 

 are the only decent objects of worship the Hindoos recognize. A 

 scaly old mugger is a worthy god in comparison with the most 

 common object of worship in all India, the name of which is not to 

 be written. Their gods and goddesses are bloodthirsty and cruel 

 monsters, guilty of adultery and incest, and some of the rites by 

 which they are worshipped are so obscene that they can never be 

 recorded. If there is a religion in existence which is destitute of 

 even one redeeming quality, Hindooism is the one. If there is one 

 which is wholly " earthly, sensual, devihsh," it is this. It is a re- 

 ligion of frauds, cruelties, and horrors. 



Leaving the Holy (?) City at eleven o'clock in the morning, we 

 rode aU that day over the same hot, dusty, and seemingly barren 

 plain which we have been crossing nearly ever since we left Bombay. 

 By daylight the next morning the scene had changed, and the j)lain 

 was dotted over with groves of palms. What a blessed reUcf from 

 that wide, level, thirsty-looking expanse, without forest or thickets, 

 hills or valleys, to relieve the eye or excite the interest. As we 

 sped rapidly along, the green palm-groves gradually grew denser 

 and thicker, and finally blended into one continuous jungle. This 

 is the India we have been longing to see — thick jungle with shady 

 lanes running through it, thatched huts nestUng among the cocoa- 

 nut groves, banana-trees reaching their broad green leaves over the 

 garden fences, tanks with \dllages beside them, and tropical mois- 

 ture and luxuriance. Presently we reached Howrah, the busy ter- 

 minus of the railway and the Brooklyn of Calcutta, crossed the 

 Hoogly on the fine, new pontoon bridge, one of the finest of its 

 kind ever constructed, and were in Calcutta, the City of Palaces. 

 "But where are the Palaces?" is the natural query of every trav- 

 eller. It is a conundrum, and I give it up. The palace of the ex- 

 king of Oudh is the only one I saw or heard of, and that is an 

 hour's drive from the city. 



As might be expected, the European quarter of Calcutta is per- 

 fectly satisfactory — fine Government buildings, wide and regular 

 streets, a spacious esplanade called the Maidan, a pleasure gar- 

 den, the Eden, and the customary statues in each. The Imperial 

 Museum has just taken possession of a huge rectangular pile, built 

 expressly for it, but its collections are by no means what a natural- 

 ist has a right to expect. In some departments the collection is 

 even poor, some of the most important Asiatic forms being con- 

 spicuous only by their absence. The collection of East Indian Che- 



