81 



about three hundred. Friendship and hospitality so universally 

 mark the British character in India that I shall suppose it always 

 understood. 



Among the various amusements at Caunpore were abundance 

 of Nautches, or exhibitions by the dancing-girls of the country, 

 which, however pleasing, were far exceeded by a set of young girls 

 lately arrived from Cachemire, of such surpassing beauty, grace, 

 and elegant accomplishments, that, not venturing on the detail, I 

 shall proceed to the distressing circumstances attendant on the 

 nightly visits of the numerous wolves by which the cantonment 

 and its vicinity had been for some time infested. These savage 

 animals were it seems first attracted thither in such numbers, dur- 

 ing the late dreadful famine, by the dead bodies of the poor 

 wretches, who, crawling for relief, perished through weakness be- 

 fore they could obtain it; and filled up every avenue to the can- 

 tonment with their sad remains. Long accustomed to human 

 food, they would not leave their haunts, and were now orown so 

 fierce, that they not only frequently carried off children, but ac- 

 tually attacked the sentries on their posts, who had in consequence 

 been doubled. The first night the embassy arrived at Caunpore, 

 Sir Charles Malet ordered his cot, or bed, to be placed in the gar- 

 den, and was surprised in the morning to hear that a goat had 

 been carried off from very near the place where he slept. 



Three of these monsters, as Mr. Cruso was credibly assured, 

 had attacked a sentinel, who after shooting one, and dispatching 

 another with his bayonet, was overpowered by the third, and killed 

 at his post. While the embassy was there, a man, his wife, and 

 child, sleeping in their hut, the former at a little distance, the mo- 



VOL. IV. M 



