aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

212 ABOUND THE WOKLD.
and the Mdbabharata with its hundred thousand stanzas !
land of the ascetic Rishis, the eighteen Puranas, and the
Tri-Pitaka of the Buddhists ! land of pearl-built palaces,
templed caves, marble pillars, dust-buried ruins, walled
cities, mud villages, and idolatrous worship !
These, all these,
are -among the sights, the lingering memories, of India's
mingled glory and shame.
When legendary Rome was a panting babe, and proud
Greece a boasting lad, overshadowed by Egyptian grandeur,
India was gray-bearded and venerable with years, worshiping
one God, and using in conversation the musical Sanscrit,
a language not only much older than the Hebrew, but conceded
by all philologists to have been the richest and most
thoroughly polished language of the ages. Well may India
have been considered the birthplace of civilization, and the
primitive cradle-bed of the Oriental religions.
APPEOACHING THE
LAND OF THE BRAHMAN.
Steaming through wind and wave out of the Bay of Bengal,
Indiaward, we entered the broad mouth of the sluggish
Hoogly, one of the outlets of the Ganges, and consequently
to Hindoos a sacred stream. Calcutta is something
like a hundred miles from the mouth of this river. Though
the banks are low and nearly level, the stretching jungle
thickly shaded, and the cultivation only ordinary, the stately
palms, cocoanut-groves, and luxuriant vegetation, along this
winding Mississippi of the East, rendered the scenery decidedly
attractive.
Just previous to reaching the city, we passed the royal
mansions of the ex-king of Oude. This prisoner of state,
though despising the English, aS do the rajahs generally,
maintains much of his kingly magnificence, and gets, besides,
a yearly stipend from the English government. A Mohammedan
in religion, preferring polygamy to monogamy, his
social instincts are said to be decidedly animal. Several European
women grace—rather disgrace— his harem. Within