LETTERS FROM THE EAST.

II. MONGHYR,

Lower Bengal, Oct. 3rd, 1862.

WE are now celebrating the Doorga Poojah festival, a season when the British Government proclaims a general ten-days' respite from the fatigues of office, that its pagan subjects may be at leisure to worship, burn, and drown their idols. A А very satisfactory arrangement, so far as the holiday is concerned; though I can't quite see why a Christian Government should consider itself bound to conform to heathen fancies, and grant holidays at the unhealthiest season of the year. A month or two later we should be able to enjoy the livelong day with our guns in the jungle-now we are compelled to pass melting moments under the punkah, with the thermometer at 92° in the shade, listening to the inharmonious beat of the tom-tom, as it is wafted on the breeze from the thronged Ghaut, where our truant servants are holding their "tamasha." However as there's no Cutcherry to-day, we have an opportunity of looking back on the friends and associations of former days-and not least among them the venerable Courts of our beloved College. Often and often do we yearn towards her, as we revisit the scenes, where her great Apostle Martyn lived and laboured. Would she sent forth a noble army to follow in his footsteps, hush these tom-toms, and abolish the degrading worship of Doorga. But my intention is not to write a sermon, any more than another long-winded dissertation on the capabilities of India for supplying cotton. That subject has been handled enough, and it is but of little importance to Cambridge. Just at this moment however, when the people of England for several reasons are taking more interest than usual in their one hundred and eighty millions of fellow subjects out here, it may not be altogether amiss to say a few words about one of the favourite stations of Bengal.

Monghyr is a place of great antiquity, though comparatively little is known of its history. Buchanan states that

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the ancient name was Magdalpoor, and that the fort was erected by Husain, the greatest of the kings of Bengal. We know that it was strengthened and fortified about A.D. 1660, by Shujá, second son of Shahjehán, in the struggle for empire with his younger brother Aurungzebe. Shahjehán is now-adays chiefly memorable as connected with the peacock-throne and the Taj Mahal at Agra, of which you have a magnificent model in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Shujá was entrusted with the government of Bengal, and appears to have resided at Monghyr, where, besides several mosques, he built a splendid palace on the site of the present gaol.

In later times Monghyr was made the arsenal of Mir Cossim Ali, when preparing to free himself from his connection with the English. It was probably from this circumstance that the town became noted for the fabrication of hardware and fire-arms.

But these scenes of war and bloodshed have long since passed away. The fort lies dismantled and in ruins. The only sentries are the Police which guard the Treasury and Gaol. The very hardware made now-a-days is of an execrable quality. It has always been a favourite civil station. The picturesque beauty of the Fort, with its crumbling battlements; the loveliness and fertility of the surrounding scenery; the neighbourhood of the Jumalpore hills, and the salubrity of the climate, have always had special charms for the European. Yet even in this respect its palmy days are over the extension of our Empire and the increased facilities of transit have brought new scenes to view which have eclipsed the fair fame of Monghyr. Dismantled as a military station, the scarlet coats of our brave no longer dazzle the eyes of our fellow-countrymen, the strains of martial music no longer enchant their ears. Abandoned as an invalid depôt, society droops and, covering her face with her wings, mourns the loss of the fair daughters of her ancient families. Add to this, that Government is seriously meditating the removal of the Civil Station to the opposite side of the river, and then say-doth not its history deserve to be recorded, ere its ruin is complete? Monghyr is situate on the western side of a promontory of land, from six to eight miles in length and three or four in width, intercepting the course of the Ganges. On three sides therefore it is surrounded by a vast expanse of water at greater or less distance, and this may account in some measure for its salubrity. The river, as may be supposed from its erratic propensity above described, abounds in "churs" in this neighbourhood.

An

English reader will have difficulty in comprehending my meaning in its full extent, his ordinary experience being confined to rivers, which present pretty much the same aspect all the year round-and in comparatively few instances ever rising more than two or three feet. The law of alluvion, I should imagine, very rarely enters into the practice of an English lawyer-in this country it is a subject of every-day cognizance. The reader consequently will hardly understand what "chur" lands are; there are several descriptions; as land separated from the main land by the river; or alluvial deposit added thereto; islands thrown up in the middle of the channel; or swamps dry at certain times. This class of land, though generally inundated during the rainy season, is culturable in the cold weather, and frequently produces very rich crops. An Englishman too, unaccustomed to see such large rivers as are met with here, is no little astonished at first at the changes a river will suddenly make in its course. This is always the case in a country where the rivers present a different appearance at different seasons of the year. A large body of water rushing suddenly down into the plains is not necessarily confined to the old channel, and as the body of water varies each year, so may we expect to find the course of the stream vary more or less accordingly. For example, the Ganges used to flow towards Monghyr from the south; this is evident, not only from the construction of the moat, but from the fact that a higher water-mark is found on that side than the present one. Of late years it has been cutting a new course in a more easterly direction, encroaching annually on the farther bank. The other day I had the case of an estate there, which had been diminished by diluvion from one thousand biggahs to about three hundred and fifty, and again in the last twenty years to half that area. The former channel however is still unfordable, and it is generally believed now that the Naiad of this sacred stream is about to return to it, and in a few years will kiss and encircle her old love as she did in the days of yore.

But the suits thus arising from the sudden changes in a river are not confined to the Civil or Revenue Courts; and I may mention this as exhibiting a trait in the character of this people very much akin to the Irish spirit of combativeness we see displayed at times nearer home. Suppose a parcel of land to become a subject of dispute, either being newly formed by the dereliction of the river, or cut off from the original estate by a sudden inroad of the main course of the