64 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III. 



seen from the neighbourhood, flowing among trees, with 

 the white houses, domes, and temples of Mirzapore 

 scattered around, and high above which the dust-clouds 

 were coursing along the horizon. 



Mr. Money, the magistrate of Mirzapore, kindly sent a 

 mounted messenger to meet me here, who had vast trouble 

 in getting bearers for my palkee. In it I proceeded the 

 next day to Mirzapore, descending a steep ghat of the 

 Bind hills by an excellent road, to the level plains of the 

 Ganges. Unlike the Dunwah pass, this is wholly barren. 

 At the foot the sun was intensely hot, the roads alternately 

 rocky and dusty, the villages thronged with a widely 

 different looking race from those of the hills, and the whole 

 air of the outskirts, on a sultry afternoon, far from 

 agreeable. 



Mirzapore is a straggling town, said to contain 100,000 

 inhabitants. It flanks the river, and is built on an undu- 

 lating alluvial bank, full of kunker, elevated 360 feet above 

 the sea, and from 50 to 80 above the present level of the 

 river. The vicinity of the Ganges and its green bank, and 

 the numbers of fine trees around, render it a pleasing, 

 though not a fine town. It presents the usual Asiatic 

 contrast of squalor and gaudiness ; consisting of large 

 squares and broad streets, interspersed with acres of low 

 huts and groves of trees. It is celebrated for its manu- 

 factory of carpets, which are admirable in appearance, and, 

 save in durability, equal to the English. Indigo seed from 

 Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, 

 the best coming from the Doab. For cotton, lac, sugar, 

 and saltpetre, it is one of the greatest marts in India. The 

 articles of native manufacture are brass washing and 

 cooking utensils, and stone deities worked out of the 

 sandstone. 



