129 



we read of a man being sawed asunder, and after this cruel death, 

 his body would have remained to be eaten by the dogs, if the 

 emperor had not pardoned him. It appears extraordinary to par- 

 don a dead man; but unless the despotic tyrant had extended 

 this clemency to the deceased, no person would have dared to 

 bury him. 



About this time, from being so much exposed to the violence 

 of the weather, and sleeping in a wet camp, I was seized with a 

 fever; which, resisting all the power of medicine, constantly re- 

 turned every springtide, and left me in a weak and languid con- 

 dition; but having much to do, in my official capacity, with Futty 

 Sihng, the Brodera chieftain, which occasioned several inclement 

 journeys to his capital, I resisted its effects as long as possible, and 

 continued with the colonel at Bellapoor. A summer campaign 

 in India is generally pleasant, but an encampment in the rainy 

 season far otherwise; the soft and muddy quality of the soil, the 

 humidity of the atmosphere, and the rank grass which springs 

 round the tents, united with the fetid odours in every quarter, ren- 

 der it a disagreeable residence: it is with difficulty that the pins 

 and ropes keep the tents upright in the soft earth, and it is still more 

 difficult to preserve them dry during the long and heavy falls 

 of rain. 



These are perhaps the only inconveniences attending the rich 

 soil of Guzerat, but they are compensated by its fertility and 

 beauty. In happier times this province was styled the paradise of 

 nations, and it deserved the appellation; for when conversing with 

 oriental travellers, and comparing it with other countries, I have 

 heard them in the very words of Moses, call it " a land flow- 



VOL. II. s 



