the cool fresh air, after the stifling ordeal we had
undergone.
On the following evening the elephants were again
in waiting to conduct us to the Rajah. He and his
relations were assembled outside the gates, mounted
upon elephants, amid a vast concourse of people. The
children and Dewan were seated in a sort of cradle ;
the rest were some in howdahs, and some astride on
elephants’ backs, six or eight together. All the idols
were paraded before them, and powdered with red d u st;
the people howling, shouting, and quarrelling. When
the mob had sufficiently pelted one another with balls
and dirty red powder, a torchlight procession was
formed, headed by the idols, to a very large tank,
bounded by a high rampart, within which was a broad
esplanade round the water.
The effect of the whole scene was very striking, the
glittering cars and barbaric gaud of the idols showing
best by torchlight; while the white robes and turbans
of the undulating sea of people, and the great black
elephants picking their way with matchless care and
consideration, contrasted strongly with the quiet moonbeams
sleeping on the still broad waters of the tank.
Thence the procession moved to a field, where the
idols were placed on the ground, and all dismounted :
the Dewan then took the children by the hand, and
each worshipped his tutelary deity in a short prayer
dictated by the attendant Brahmin, and threw a
handful of red dust in its face. After another ordeal
of powder, singing, dancing, and suffocation, our share
in the Hooli ended; and having been promised
elephants for the following morning, we bade a cordial
farewell to our engaging little hosts and their staid old
governor.
On the 10th of March we left for Rangamally, a
village eight miles distant in a northerly direction, our
course lying along the west bank of the Teesta.
The river is here navigated by canoes, thirty to forty
feet long, some being rudely cut out of a solid log of
Sal, while others are built, the planks, of which there
are but few, being sewed together, or clamped with
iron, and the seams caulked with the fibres of the root
of Dhak (Butea frondosa), and afterwards smeared
with the gluten of Diospyros embryopteris.
The whole country improved in fertility as we
advanced towards the mountains; the grass -became
greener, and more trees, shrubs, herbs, and birds
appeared. Flocks of cranes were abundant over-head,
flying in wedges, or breaking up into “ open order,”
preparing for their migration northwards, which takes
place in April, their return occurring in October; a
small quail was also common on the ground. Tamarisk
grew in the sandy bed of the riv e r; its flexible
young branches are used in various’ parts of India for
wattling and basket-making.
In the evening we walked to the skirts of the Sal
forest. The great trunks of the trees were often
scored by tigers’ claws, this animal indulging in the
c at-lik e propensity of rising and stretching itself
against such objects.
At Rangamally, the height of the sandy banks of the
Teesta varies from fifteen to twenty feet. The bed is a