20 6 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
gence of the person to whose care it was intrusted,, 
and who probably favoured its escape in order to get 
rid of a troublesome charge. Having continually re- 
marked the foot-prints of tigers and other beasts of 
prey as we advanced,, though tolerably well prepared 
against an irruption from such formidable enemies, 
we were not without our apprehensions ; we, however, 
saw nothing to molest us, except four large bears, 
which we surprised in the bed of a dry nullah, and 
which were glad to escape from so formidable an 
array as our party presented. 
At some short distance from the Eckpouah ghaut 
there is a huge, misshapen crag, rising full three hun- 
dred feet above the level of the plain. Its sides are so 
nearly perpendicular that there is no possibility of 
scaling it. This amorphous mass does not at all ap- 
pear to belong to the spot, but seems as if it had been 
upheaved from the bosom of the earth by some pri- 
meval convulsion of nature. It bears the marks of 
very remote antiquity, and from its having so unna- 
tural a location, the native geologists ascribe its posi- 
tion there to the period when, according to their 
cosmogony, the churning of the ocean took place, by 
which there was such a general dislocation of na- 
ture, that rocks were cast upon plains, and vast tracts 
of land, forming islands, flung into the sea. 
In the neighbourhood of Sasseram, where we halted 
for a day, we found many fine subjects for the pencil, 
besides the tomb of Shere Shah, engraved in our first 
volume. The country round exhibits some noble 
specimens of oriental architecture, both Mahomedan 
and Hindoo. As we approached Rhotas Gur, the 
