10 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
The channel is occasionally almost choked with huge 
masses of rock, which fall from the beetling precipices 
above and so interrupt the course of the stream that 
it boils and lashes over them with an uproar truly 
appalling; especially when the traveller casts his 
anxious eye upon it while crossing one of those frail 
bridges over which he is so frequently obliged to pass 
in a journey through these mountains. 
We again met with some delay, in consequence of 
the alarm of our servants at the aspect of the country. 
Many of them refused to advance, and, notwithstand- 
ing the civility of the Rajah’s vakeel in procuring us 
porters, several of these quitted us shortly after we 
left the Coaduwar ghaut, and we had great diffi- 
culty in supplying their places ; and when this was 
finally accomplished, it was not without resorting to 
a compulsory mode of discipline which necessity only 
could have warranted but against which there was 
no alternative. Thus we were obliged to obtain by 
stripes what we could not do by persuasion. We, 
however, at length procured the number required, 
over whom a vigilant watch was kept as we pro- 
ceeded. 
During our halt a circumstance occurred which I 
confess I feel no little pleasure at having the oppor- 
tunity of recording, as it is highly characteristic of the 
skill of these mountaineers in baffling the ferocious 
propensities of those animals by which they are so 
perpetually threatened with mischief. I had entered 
a deep dell with my gun, accompanied by two hill- 
men, in order to try if I could not succeed in killing 
some jungle-fowl which are here tolerably abundant. 
