who retired into the chamber, and there died, or it may have been that of a murdered person.

The monument near Konjorpur is a handsome square building with five small domes, and in a far better style than any Muhammadan structure that I have seen in the three northern districts of Bengal. It is not encumbered with any minute ornaments, but is a neat well-formed edifice of brick covered with plaster. It is in a remarkably fine situation, and has been repaired by a gentlemen who occupied a house adjacent. The family of the founder has been buried

near.

The monument erected to Mr. Cleveland by the zemindars [is] totally destitute of taste, a Hindu pyramid surrounded by a kind of Grecian gallery. In good repair. The one erected by Government in front of his house is of stone, small but neat. It is fast approaching to ruin, the Pipal having lodged in the joinings of the roof. The hill house where he lived is not convenient, and far from elegant; but is showy from a distance. It swarms with snakes. The hill probably artificial. The town very much scattered, and irregular. The buildings are very poor.

6th November.-I went about six coses to Ruttungunj,(34) having pitched my tents about half a mile beyond the Thanah. The country all the way level and very beautiful. The houses very poor, and generally huddled together. Many small tanks. The road in some places good, in others very bad, yet many carts pass through the mud. About two miles from the Hill house, where I had pitched my tents while at Bhagulpur, I saw on my right a Munt (35) named Gunguniya, not large and ruinous, but in a neat style borrowed from the Moslems, with a dome in the centre. For about a mile farther the road lead along a poor ridge, and was very good. I then came to a broken embankment, where the road was very bad. About

(84) Ruttungunge, B.A., Pl. II; now Ratanpur, about 10 mi. S. by W. of Bhagalpur, on the road to Bankā.

(85) i.e. math, a monastery'. Ganganiya is not marked on the S.S.

three miles farther, I came to the Maimuda, (36) a small river which, about 6 miles from Bhagulpur and a little above where I crossed, sends off the Kankaiti.(37) This is by much the larger stream, and formerly joined the Maimuda much farther north. Rather less than nine miles from Bhagulpur, I crossed the Undra, (38) a miserable rivulet now almost dry; but its channel is considerable. These rivers might readily be employed to water the fields, but this, so far as I saw, is neglected. Some water drains from a tank near Ruttungunj, and is conducted to the fields. I saw no machines for irrigation.

8th November.-I went rather more than two coses south-west to Bonahor(39) to view the hunting seat of Suja(40) Padshah. The country exceedingly fine and beautifully wooded and cultivated. About four miles on, I came to Padshahgunj, (11) a small village ghat. The tank is of no great size, and seems to have been surrounded by a ditch and rampart on the outside of the mound. One-half of the building of brick on the mound has fallen. The people call it a Tukht or throne, but it seems to me to have been a small mosque consisting of three apartments, each perhaps twenty feet square, and communicating by arched doors, too high for those of a dwelling house. The two lateral apartments seem to have had no communication with the external air except through that in the centre. There is an inscription over the door, but it is in the Togara character. The building has never been either magnificent or possessed of taste.

(36) The Mahananda of the S.S.

(37) Not named on the S.S.

(38) Anhari of S.S. Buchanan's Undra (i.e. Andhra) the blind

stream.

(39) Banhara, part of Amarpur.

(40) See Martin's E. I., II, 33–34, where Buchanan describes the traces of the old fort between Dumrāwān (B.'s Dumariya) and Amarpur, said to have been destroyed by Sultan Shujā, who had a hunting box erected there. The village of Sultanpur, 2 mi. N. of Amarpur, was doubtless named after that prince.

(41) Not marked on the S.S. There is no reference to these sites in the Gazetteer.

From the Tukht, Jetaurnath (42) hill bore south. It may be a mile in diameter. Bhimsen, (43) a smaller hill, is west from it. Both are entirely in this Thana. Burun,(44) the highest part of a considerable range of hills, bore south-south-west. It belongs entirely to Kurukpur, (45) but this Thanah extends to its root.

From the building I went rather more than half a mile south to a large village divided into two parts called Amarpur and Bonhara. Here is a hat(46) sometimes called Bonhara, sometimes Amerpur, sometimes Puin hat. I then turned north-east, and rather more than half a mile afterwards came to the southwest corner of the fort of Dewai Raja, (47) through which I passed for about a mile and a quarter. It consists of a low rampart of mud, and a narrow ditch without outworks, and contains no traces of buildings, but the north end, which is highest, is separated by another rampart and ditch, and is said to have been the part where the Rajah dwelt. There is nothing in the appearance of the works that could render it worth while to trace their whole extent and form; but we must have only a low opinion of the Mogol government, when we find so near the residence of the Imperial viceroy of Behar and Bengal, an independent prince, even in the greatest period of its strength. It may, however, be alleged, although the Hindus assert the contrary, that Dewai was a mere refractory Raja; but this will not give us the higher opinion of the Mogol vigour. Dewai, by the Hindus, is supposed to have been of the low tribes called Chandal, now fishermen, (48) but on account of his power, his family have been received within the limits of purity and are

(42) Jataur hill (840 ft.)

(43) The small hill (553 ft.) NE. of Bhimsen hamlet.

(44) Bharam hill (1,168 ft.)

(45) i.e. to the estates of the Raja of Kharakpur.

(46) Hat a market or market place; here used for a village where a market is held.

(47) In J.A.S.B., 1870, p. 232 f. Babu Rashbihari Bose, then Subdivisional Officer of Bankā, gives some account of the traditions of this neighbourhood.

(48) Candāla, properly a person of mixed caste, sprung from a Sūdra father and a Brahman or Vaisya mother; a term applied to all low caste or out-caste tribes, and not specially to fishermen.

called Khyetoriyas. (49) They pretend to trace their origin from a Chandal contemporary with Ram Sonkor; but I have not been able to learn the name of any one of Dewai Rajah's ancestors.

In the fort I found a Hindu decently clothed lying on the road in the most beastly state of intoxication. The only thing of the kind that I have yet seen. I then returned by the Banka road to Rattangunj, passing through a village named Dumuriya or Dumraia. (50) The roads all the way good.

11th November.-I went to Jetaur, and halted on the banks of the Chandini. (51) Ratangunj is a poor village, without a single shop, but it is pleasantly situated among fine Mango groves. fine Mango groves. The water is hard and ill-tasted. About three miles from Ratanganj is Dumraia, a larger village with a small indigo factory. Near Dumraia, a Hindu Dhanuk had been gibbeted for the murder of a child. About half a mile beyond it is the commencement of Dewai Rajah's fort. Rather more than four miles from Ratanganj is Amerpur, a large village with many shops. A Hat is held at its north end, on the banks of an old watercourse called Puin jhil. About 7 miles from Ratanganj is Nurganj,(52) a village where the Commissioner for Ratanganj and Banka resides. It is but a poor place. I halted about a mile beyond it, near Jetaur hill. The country all the way very beautiful, and finely wooded with Mangoes, Palmiras and Kejhur.(53) I saw in one place that the people had had the sense to cut down an old mango garden and bring it into cultivation. Near Jetaur the country rises, and some poor swelling lands are overrun with bushes, but the fields between are well cultivated, which shows the absurdity of the usual cry against the wild beasts. The scenery there becomes very fine, the hills being well wooded, and the summit (49) The "Khatauris of Risley, T. & C., I, 477.

(50) Dumrawan. The Dumrya of Rennell's 1773 sheet.

(51) Chandan R.

(52) Noorgunge of Rennell, B.A., Pl. II; apparently the Ghogha of the S.S. The "Commissioner was perhaps an officer of the Jāgirdārī Institution.

(58) Khajur, the date palm (Phoenix sylvestris).

1 Res. J.

of Jetauri rises into a fine rock, divided by perpendicular rents like whin. (54) The houses all of clay and close huddled together. The people much cleaner than in Puraniya. At Jetaur At Jetaur I was visited by Kadir Ali, (55) the zemindar of Korukpur, a civil fat Moslem, but descended of a family of Rajputs. He rode on an elephant, had about twenty horse-men, and many foot attendants. Had two silver sticks in waiting. In the night a tiger prowled round the tents.

12th November.-I went to Banka. (56) Rather less than a mile from where I had halted, I came to the temple of Jetaurnath, where there are two small square temples of Siv, very rude and mean, but in good repair. No one lives at them, the Pujari residing in the village. The temple stands at the east end of the hill, on the bank of the Chandan river, across the channel of which a ledge of rocks runs from south-west by west to north-east by east by the compass. The lower part of the hill seems composed of this rock, which in every part, from whence I could procure it, is in a state of decay, but seems to have been a reddish granite. In its state of decay it breaks into rhomboidal masses, with plain surfaces, generally covered with a white powder. At the river side it is evidently disposed in strata nearly vertical, and running north and south, and the same would seem to give an imperfect columnar appearance to the face of the rocks on the summit of the hill, the strata terminating abruptly towards the north, but that rock consists almost entirely of a whitish quartz broken into similar rhomboidal fragments, the facies of which are often covered with small crystals of the same. About 1 miles from the temple, ascending the bank of the Chandan through woods consisting of deserted plantations, I came to the boundary of Korakpur and of

(54) Whin or whinstone; a term used in Scotland as synonymous with greenstone; applied by miners and quarrymen to any hard resisting rock. (Stormonth's Dictionary).

(55) Qadir Ali Khan, the raja to whom Warren Hastings restored the estate in 1781. He was the son of Fazl Ali and grandson of Muzaffar Ali.

(56) Rennell in his 1773 sheet marks Bogaryah, and in the B.A, Bogariah, a village about half a mile S. W. of Banka. Bogaria of S.S.