the Kholasah sect of the Sikhs, mostly following Govinda Das of Rekabgunj, but there are several other inferior Sanggats. Not above 500 houses adhere to the doctrine of the Khalesah sect in the Harimandir, but many strangers frequent this place of worship. Two hundred houses are guided by the Kavirpanthi, of which there is an Akhara. A few weavers are of the Gorakshanathi sect, and have Gurus of their own. All these and a few other trifling castes are considered as orthodox (Astik). Three hundred houses of Jain or Srawaks are considered as heterodox (Nastik), and between 3 and 4 annas, the dregs of impure poverty, are considered altogether unworthy of care.

Most of the few antiquities, that remain, have been already incidentally mentioned. The traces that can be considered as belonging to the Hindu city are exceedingly trifling. Everywhere in digging, broken pots, but very little else, are to be found; and where the river washes away the bank, many old wells are laid open, but nothing has been discovered to indicate large or magnificent buildings. In the Ganges, opposite to the suburbs above the town, I found a stone image lying by the water's edge when the river was at the lowest. It has represented a male standing, with two arms and one head, but the arms and feet have been broken. The face also is much mutilated. It is nearly of a natural size, and very clumsy, and differs from most Hindu images that I have seen in being completely formed, and not carved in relief with its hinder parts adhering to the rock, from whence it has been cut. On the back part of the scarf, which passes round the shoulders, are some letters which I have not been able to have explained, and too much defaced to admit of being copied with absolute precision. Some labourers employed to bring this image to my house informed me that it had been some years ago taken from a field on the south side of the suburbs, and had been intended for an object of worship but that a great fire having happened on the day when it was removed, the people were afraid, and threw it into the sacred river. They also informed

me that in the same field the feet of another image projected from the ground, and that many years ago a Mr. Hawkins had removed a third. On going to the place I could plainly discover that there had been a small building of brick, perhaps fifty or sixty feet in length; but most of the materials have been removed. On digging I found the image to be exactly similar to that which I found on the river but somewhat larger. The feet are entire, and some part of the arms remain, but the head has been removed. On its right shoulder is placed something which seems intended to represent a Thibet bull's tail. This is an insignia of the Yatis, or priests of Jain, but in other respects the images have little resemblance to such persons, one of whom is represented in the Drawing No. 132. I rather suppose that these images have been intended as an ornament to the temple, and to represent the attendants on some god, whose image has been destroyed. In the drawing No. 2 the images have been represented with the inscription on the smaller, that on the larger is totally illegible.

In the suburbs at a little distance from the eastern gate are two heaps called Mathni, which are supposed to be of Hindu origin; but there is no tradition concerning the person by whom they are built, and their size is trifling. South from these heaps about a mile is a very considerable heap, which with some small eminences in the neighbourhood are called the five hills, and are attributed to the five sons of Pandu: but this is probably an idle fable. One is at least 100 feet in perpendicular height, and has no hollow on its top, so that I suspect it to have been a solid temple of the Buddhas. The others are almost level with the soil, and have probably been houses for the accommodation of religious men. It is said by the peasants of the neighbourhood that they consist entirely of brick, but the owner of the larger obstinately refused his consent to allow me to dig for its examination.

I cannot learn any tradition concerning the island Sambalpur, opposite to Patna, having ever been a town;

nor, so far as I can learn, are any ceremonies performed there, as Major Wilford had heard.

It need not be wondered, that so little traces of the Hindu city should remain, as the occupancy of men totally regardless of the monuments of antiquity soon obliterates every trace; and it is only in remote and wild parts of the country, that the ruins of buildings are allowed to remain undisturbed; or among nations very far civilized, that any attention is bestowed on the preservation of the monuments of art. Chehelsutoon, the palace of the viceroys of Behar, which has accommodated many personages of royal birth, and which fifty years ago was in perfect preservation, and occupied by the king's son, can now be scarcely traced in a few detached portions retaining no marks of grandeur; and the only remain of a court of justice, that had been erected in the year of the Hijri 1142, is a stone commemorating the erection, which was dug up in the (year) 1221 (A.D. 1807), when a police office was about to be erected on the spot where the other had formerly stood, and which in 79 years from its foundation had been completely obliterated.

IV-Appendix.

The Collection of Mineral Specimens.

Buchanan's report on the Minerals of Patna and Gaya has been reproduced without abridgment in Eastern India, Volume I, pages 241 to 274. He classified the hills in which most of the specimens were found into three main groups, as follows:

(A) The Southern range of Hills, consisting of two main ridges, approximately parallel to each other-(1), hills which he considered to be pure granite, forming the southern boundary of the district from the Gurpa Hill to Durvasarikh and Sringgirikh near Rajauli, this granite further to the east and south of Rajauli becoming much modified in the neighbourhood of the mica mines of Belam and Dubaur; and (2), hills of quartz, jasper, or hornstone, stretching from Ektara and Mahabhar in the neighbourhood of Akbarpur, in a north-easterly direction as far as the hills of Gidhaur in western Monghyr. He also thought that he could trace (3), a series of small isolated hills of granite, lying north of the latter ridge, and likewise running north-easterly from the neighbourhood of Fatehpur through Sitamarhi as far as the group of hills close to Lakhi Sarai and Kiul.

(B) The Rajgir Hills, which he also subdivided into two principal portions-(1), the hills traceable, in most parts as a double ridge, from a small heap north of Bakraur close to Bodh Gaya in a north-easterly direction past Tapoban, Hanria, Rajgir itself, and Giriak, as far as the Sheikhpura hills, but including also the isolated hill at Bihar; all of these being almost entirely silicious and very little modified by contact action; and (2), the subsidiary range of small isolated hills which lie close to the northern ridge of the main group, commencing from Narawat and continuing through Majhauli and Saran to the confused heap of low hills north of Chakra Ghat in the main ridge, and called Dukri Ghat or Belsara. These he considered to be mainly silicious, but much more metamorphosed.

(C) The Barabar Hills, which he regarded as (1), a central nucleus, the Barabar hills proper, including Kawa Dol, all pure granite; (2) an eastern wing, comprising the series of isolated hills such as Dhermpur or Charbigha (mis-spelt Tarbigha in Martin's edition), Patharkiti, and Bathani, all of these being granitic in their nature, but with the exception of the last-named hill more or less modified; and (3), a southern wing, consisting of the hills close to the town of Gaya, some of these being of granite, some of quartzite, and the rest a mixture of these natures in varying degrees, modified by contact action.

The principal omissions in this classification are the numerous low hills in the strip of country lying between his route of December 13th, 1811, past the north of the Maher and Sobhnath hills as far as Sitamarhi, and that taken on January 14th to 16th, 1812, skirting the southern boundary of the Rajgir Hills from Hanria to Tapoban and Amethi. The Journal shows that he did not examine the nature of the hills in this area, amongst which the quartzite ridge about five miles long ending on the east at Reula, and the isolated hill at Tungi near Jamuawan, are the most prominent. If he had done so, and particularly if he had examined the small hills close to the present Gaya-Nawada road near Wazirganj, the four easternmost of which are of granite exactly similar to that of the Barabar Hills, it is not unlikely that he would have modified his classification to some extent, and that he would not have associated the isolated granite hills south of the Rajgir Hills so closely with his Southern division.

The list of minerals which follows has been compiled from the numbers given to them in the Journal, as shown in the various footnotes. It seems that while it can hardly be regarded as anything more than a temporary classification, pending the more detailed examination which Buchanan made during his stay at Patna after his tour had been completed, it is as regards numbers fairly complete.

Judging from the Report, the collection of minerals from the hills of Patna and Gaya consisted of either 111 or 112 specimens,