plunder formed the chiefest aim. Of the two routes, I chose the upper, as being less perilous to a single traveller, and also a more expeditious route, for the rains of Upper India and the melting of the Hymalaya snows had filled the Indus, although now falling, and I trusted to fair winds and justifiable stratagem wherewith to " 'sarcumvent" the wily Belooch.

I left Sukkur in a miserable boat, manned by eight as rascallylooking, black-headed Scindians as I had ever seen. Evening after evening we brought to amidst the mud and jungle and filth of alluvial soil, rendered secure froin Belooch moss-troopers by miles of inundated country. As a set-off to the advantages of security, there was the great chance of fever to my servants and the crew, and nightly exposure to the most malicious breed of musquitoes ever let loose upon poor mortals. Too old in experience of the "jungle" and the "river” to travel without a musquito-net, I suffered little from this annoyance, but my Hindostanees and the Scindian crew passed every night in torture, groaning in unison, and awaking constantly to anathematize the past. After enduring this for fourteen days, and holding councils of war with my servants and the boatmen, I came to the resolution of risking a visit from the Belooch, and shaped my course accordingly, taking the short route by the nullas or branches of the Indus, which abound, and are navigable in August, September, and October, enjoying the luxury of mooring to hard ground at even, and a half-hour's walk upon the bank.

So far it had been a most monotonous and lonely trip; inundated jungle had alone blessed my sight since the limestone rock of Bukkur disappeared on the evening of the first day. My boat was miserable in size, shape, and construction; square in stem and stern, and fashioned as if intended for a gigantic snuffers-tray or bread-basket. One solitary apartment, nine feet long by six broad, was my sole accommodation, scarcely sufficient to contain a bed stretched upon a pair of camel trunks, a small camp-table, and a chair; and between this room and the bow of the boat was a small caboose for cooking in. The Indus, though falling, was still immense; a fresh-water sea, boiling, wheeling, and shooting like an arrow here, and tearing like a cataract where its bed was not so deep. A very short probation satisfied me that my conveyance was not insurable, and as we crossed the mighty stream from time to time, as it was necessary, the miserable craft creaked, and groaned, and strained, until I thought the planks must soon part company; square in stem and without any keel whatever, the boat was only adapted for sailing dead before the wind; and when the manjee or skipper endeavoured to keep her steady, she pushed before her broad stem a wall of water two feet higher than that alongside, and at times, the enormous sail jibing, she would take in a tun of water at a sweep, drenching us one and all. My Hindostanees were much alarmed; land on either side could scarcely be seen; a palm tree on the horizon, here and there, pointing out its direction, and a current such Asiat.Journ.N.S. VOL.IV.No.24. 4 F

as promised no salvation to the wrecked. Albeit not a bad swimmer myself, I was not quite easy as to the result, and weighing in my mind the chances of shipwreck, I did not omit to weigh those of deliverance. The boat was shipping water at every lurch, yet, as I liked not the idea of being unable to extricate myself in the event of a capsize, I sat down at the larboard doorway; having first, however, removed the stirrupleathers from my saddle, I rolled up the horse-hair mattress upon which I slept, and buckled them round it; with this safety-buoy at my elbow, I felt life still worth struggling for, and even enjoyed the fresh gale and boiling caldron, for the wind was fair and our progress better than it had yet been.

The Indus is a solitary river; for miles and miles no boat gladdens the eye; in the rains a sea, in the dry season a desert; a line of jow jungle, or a fantastically-shaped drift-tree, alone varying the scene. We are now passing over a shoal, the flood is hissing in anger; see how, rolling over the sand on its mutilated branches, that enormous tree is urged along! mayhap torn from its native bed on the brow of a Hymalayan precipice. How many miles has it travelled?-how many miles may it yet go?

The gale moderated, and towards evening, to avoid a strength of current to which the wind was now inadequate, we left the main stream and wound our plodding way up a nulla or water-course, only navigable at certain seasons: the banks of this nulla were dry, and my servants rejoiced in the idea of cooking their meal in comfort, a luxury which they had scarcely once enjoyed since leaving Sukkur. The weather assumed a placid appearance, and the clouds clearing off, disclosed, as far as the eye could command, the dark-blue ridge of the Soolimanee mountains. We threaded this nulla for three days, only meeting with a solitary village or two, and going many miles without seeing a single human being, and at length found ourselves at that point where the nearest spur of the mountain approaches towards the river: this was a dangerous locality, as the neighbouring hills harboured numerous Belooch freebooters, who in small parties infested the nullas and banks of the Indus in quest of plunder. We were moored to the dry bank, and a ragged jungle, which shewed marks of having been flooded when the river was at its greatest height, looked deserted and uninviting. The Hindoos had cooked, told their evening tales, and retired to a disturbed rest, for the musquitoes vere unusually virulent, and kept trumpeting outside the net, searching with laudable perseverance for an opening; the Scindian boatmen were lying abaft and already snoring; the sky had again become cloudy, and the moon in her first quarter just rendered more indistinctly visible the jungle and the brake. Teazer and Tinker, good dogs and true, had been picketed ashore close to the boat, on the roof of which my domestics were slumbering. It might have been midnight, or nearly so, for I had no watch by which to note the time, when I was roused by my calashie or tent-pitcher stealing quietly into the little cabin in which I slept, and I was instantly aware that something unwonted had occurred.

"Sahib sahib!" exclaimed Mr. Bola, in an undertongue, "Jungle men buhot Sowar hyn (the jungle is full of horsemen); I have been keeping watch."

It appeared that the Hindostanees, having overheard the Scindian crew telling narratives of rapine and plunder enacted in this neighbourhood, had taken the alarm, and as it was not improbable that the boatmen themselves might be in league with these marauders, they had agreed among themselves to keep alternate watches. Bola had been on the “qui vive,” and stated that he had seen four horsemen come out of the jungle, scan the state of our boat and the party, and dip again into the brake. I was not long in turning out, and, giving instructions to Bola not to awaken either the Hindoos or boatmen, for the latter I feared might assist the plunderers, I gave him my holsters and sword, and told him to keep close to me. Deeming it unlikely that the Beloochees would return until they had consulted for a time, I occupied a few minutes in changing the caps of my firearms, and with as fine and sure a double bore as ever came out of Westly Richards' shop, I stole out by the starboard doorway, or that furthest from the shore. "Indian stratagem must be met with Indian circumvention," was the next idea that struck me. "Here are four to one at any rate, and mayhap more Belooches than these lurking in the bush; nor is it likely that their object in prowling near a lonely boat under the spur of a Murree hill is to build churches." The sad fate of poor Ennis and his wife came for a moment to my recollection, and as it flashed across me, I knew that I might find no more mercy than they did; so my mode of warfare I fixed upon, which was to take as many pot-shots as possible, the first shot in these cases being half the fight. They all, boatmen and Hindostanees, snored on, and I, with Bola crouched at my side, skulked behind the little room that formed my cabin. Levelling my double-barrel on the roof, I was screened all but the head, and I felt confident that, at the distance I intended shooting from, neither bullet would be uselessly spent. The jungle remained still as death, no one was there, and whispering to Bola to step within for my telescope, I kept watch myself, sweeping the horizon of the brake, where many gaps in the vegetation existed, I once or twice thought I could descry a figure of a mounted man, but I knew I might be mistaken, and at any rate no good could come of firing under such uncertainty. I fancy I had remained reconnoitring some fifteen or twenty minutes, when stealthily, and in each others' footsteps, four horsemen issued from the waste; so quietly did their horses move, that they broke not a rotten branch, nor stirred even a withered leaf, and their object was evidently to surprise us while sleeping, and all did sleep save Bola and I, who had it all to ourselves. The extreme caution with which the Belooch approached the bank was characteristic of their predatory habits and peculiar mode of warfare, and to my eye indecision strongly marked the group. They were standing together some twenty yards from the boat, and I wondered that the dogs had not been disturbed by them; nearer than this I did not intend them to come. I pressed the

hammers of both locks, and the clear musical tinkle as the tumblers caught the checks made me feel how completely two lives at least were at my disposal.

I whispered to Bola to challenge them. "Quhon Sowar hye?" voci ferated the Hindoo. "Sahib golee se marega." "What horseman is that? My master will shoot you.' One bound in four different direc tions, and every Belooch had sought shelter in the jungle; and, to assure them of their luck, I sent a chance bullet to where the creaking of branches told me the course that one of them had taken, and as it whizzed among the jow twigs, Bola followed it up with a loud laugh of derision, and I just thought how well we were out of that scrape.

The party were all aroused, none but myself and the calashie having any clear notion of the cause of disturbance; but fearing lest the Belooch might return, with more valour than discretion I ordered the manjee to cast off and stand up the nulla with the light favourable breeze that was blowing. This at first he refused to do, and his refusal satisfied me that, had the horsemen succeeded in plundering us, he and his crew would not have suffered much; but seeing me prepared to enforce my wish, he ultimately turned out the boatmen, and loosened the huge sail. This operation was one requiring some time to effect, and during its performance, Bola and I kept sharp eyes on the jungle. At last, the sail was bent to the yard, and we soon ran it up the mast; and, casting off the ropes of coir, by which we were moored to the bank, the flat craft gradually gathered way, and we were soon in the middle of the stream. Our progress could not be more than a mile and a half an hour, and I began to speculate upon what measures I should take were the breeze to die away, for we had not even a wooden anchor with which to bring up in the channel of the nulla. But the breeze continued, and at daylight we found ourselves near a village, where we brought up, in order to give rest to the crew, who had been working since midnight. The boat had not been moored more than half an hour, when four well-mounted Belooches entered the village. Kissun, my sirdar-bearer, who was on the alert, awoke Bola, and they both awaited the result. The Belooches came down to the ghaut, and Bola again challenged them, for he doubted not they were our friends of the night; and he knew that they could offer no violence within the precincts of the village, whose authorities would have been made answerable for the outrage, and that their sole intention in approaching was to discover if the boat was of sufficient value to tempt them to dog us further. I was awoke by one of them asking whose boat it was,-if it was a sardougah's, or merchant's, &c. &c. Bola replied, that his master had only three commodities for sale,-powder, shot, and bullets,—and that, if they pleased, he would acquaint him that they had come for a moolakat. The sneer upon Bola's countenance as he said this was most characteristic; and as they declined seeing me, and rode away, Bola sent a peal of laughter after them. We cast off again at ten A.M., and about two o'clock, a bend of the river, where the ground was open for a distance, and inviting for the view, was a pleasant change. I swept

it with my Dollond, and was astonished to find our four Belooch friends crossing this plain at about a couple of miles distance, evidently bent upon intercepting us at some turn of the river further on, when night should have closed in. Luckily, however, the main body of the Indus was close at hand, as a cross-branch of the nulla led into it from where we now were. So far from wishing to court danger when it could be avoided, we took to the mighty stream.

Once more upon the bosom of the broad Indus,-that stream of classic fame, that had witnessed the proud Greek's prowess, and borne upon its waves the fleet of Nearchus, the days of scholastic troubles, when Quintus Curtius carried with him no further interest than that excited by having his page construed, and thereby escape a flogging, rose up before me like a dream long forgotten and suddenly remembered. How useless I then thought the task! and how disgusting to be crammed to the throat with chapter upon chapter of the records of the dull historian! but the feeling had changed now, and every feature in the expedition I could recal brought with it thanks to the old humanity professor, who had driven even a little of it into my leaden head. Relics of the Greek invasion may be found in every large town on the Indus and Punjaub rivers; and so complete were the steps for perpetuating the fame of the invaders, that their successors, the children of Mahomed, have failed in annihilating them. It is true, that even the site of Bucephalia, and cities of lesser name in the Greek dynasty, are lost to us; but where their currency is found in every old ruin, who can doubt of its past glory? The classic shapes of Athenian and Macedonian amphoræ and pateræ are preserved in all their original chasteness of design by the semi-barbarous workmen of the Indus, where the bare mention of Sikunder's name carries with it at such a distance of time wonder to the peasant and terror to the child.

CHAPTER XV.-TRAITS OF THE SUTLEJ,

Again, all is water and sandbank, save the dome-winged city of Mitten-ke-kote to the north-west, and a few palms at intervals, denoting the union of the Punjaub rivers. Hydaspes, Hyphasis, Hydraotes, Acesines, all are here engulfed; and, chronicled as ye have been by the Greek historian's pen, who knows but your names may be yet more famed by the British cohorts that have forded ye never to return? I know a tale of one of ye which it yet chills my blood to think of; and many in the first returning force from Cabool will carry to their graves the recollection of the Jelum's treacherous ford. But a few marches more, and the force expected to be within the provinces ; it had reached the banks of the Jelum, or ancient Hydaspes, and, to point out the ford, stakes had been driven diagonally into the bed of the river. Next morning, the advance-guard crossed, and discovered that the river had risen from six to eight inches during the night: the additional power produced upon troops crossing may, therefore, easily be conceived. It was considered necessary, however, to attempt it with the main body. Each took the stream with his own