957 



young widow devoted to celibacy, whom the birth of her child 

 would have doomed to infamy and loss of caste, she might here 

 have disposed of it as she thought proper, without any human 

 witness of the transaction, and subject to no punishment but the 

 remorse of her own conscience: fortunately she was the wife of a 

 peasant, and became the happy mother of a fine infant. 



The distance from Ranghur to Zinore is about eleven miles, 

 through a populous, well-cultivated country, at that time under 

 my care. From the town you descend the steep bank of the Ner- 

 budda by more than a hundred broad steps of hewn stone, many 

 yards in extent. This river is there a narrow stream, meandering 

 through a lovely scene of woods, groves, villages, and cultivated 

 plains, bounded by picturesque hills and lofty mountains. Pur- 

 chas's Pilgrims, two hundred years ago, describes Guzerat " as a 

 garden, where the traveller saw at once the goodliest spring and 

 harvest he had ever seen. Fields joining together, whereof one 

 was green as a meadow, the other yellow as gold, ready to be cut, 

 of wheat and rice. And all along goodly villages, full of trees, 

 yielding abundance of fruits/' 



Soon after leaving Ranghur we came to the celebrated pass 

 at Bowa-peer, where the Mahralta armies ford the Xerbudda, 

 when rushing down from the Deccan mountains, on these lovely 

 plains like a people of old, fierce and strong, with a fire devour- 

 ing before them, and behind them a flame burning; the land 

 was like the garden of Eden before them, behind them a desolate 

 wilderness; and from them nothing should escape. Such a coun- 

 try to be so frequently subject to the cruel depredations I twice 

 witnessed within six years, is truly painful. Guzerat, either in 



VOL. III. 2 l 



