244 JOUENEY TO THE KYIMOEE HILLS 
decking themselves with trinkets and patches of gold leaf 
for the forehead and pieces of bone thrust through the ear, — 
the gi'eedy boys were twitching their mothers to the lollipop 
sellers, and the bigger ones eyeing the ponies on the outskirts. 
Old men were chaffering for graven gods, and the sick folks 
were waiting round the doctors' stalls. I was looking on, 
followed by an immense trail of people whom my presence 
had diverted from their traffic, when I suddenly heard a 
fearful yell, which proceeded from the direction of the spot 
where I had left my elephant, and casting my eyes thither, 
I saw all about him in an uproar. The men were swearing 
and flourishing their sticks, the women and children were in 
full flight, the driver on his neck was banging him with the 
goad till his skull rang again, or digging it into his forehead 
till the blood sprang. As to Elephas himself, he would not 
stir from the place, but kept laying about him wdth his 
trunk, bellowing through mouth and nose, retreating or 
advancing a step or two with fearful violence and continu- 
ally darting his proboscis at some object, — what I knew not, 
in the crowd. You may guess my terror : I felt sure he was 
enraged and wreaking his violence on some of the poor 
creatui'es from whom proceeded the dismal shrieks which I 
heard ! I rushed through the throng, overturning some of 
the stalls in my hmiy to reach the place, — ^^hen I found — 
what do you think, Willy 1 now, guess, Mary ! — ^why my 
elephant was clearing out a sweetmeat booth : he was eating 
barley sugar by the pound, and comfits by the peck. I had 
another anecdote for my cousins about a crocodile which I 
saw caught, just as he had devoured a poor woman's child 
who was standing by and looking at the odious brute ; but 
my time is up and I must break off. 
Meantime, his scientific and personal standing in India 
was greatly enhanced by the publication of Ross's account of 
the Antarctic Voyage. 
You have no idea how many people in this country have 
been reading Eoss's work : I am better received in India 
for having accompanied that voyage, than ever I was on 
that account in England. Every individual with whom 
I have stayed, on my way up and down the Ganges, has 
read it ! and knows me through it ! . . . On this table in 
this house [of Dr. Grant of Bhagulpore] lies the N. British 
