SĪCKRĪ-GALĪ.
A country vessel is being towed by her crew round a rocky point; each man has his own gūn, or track-rope, fastened to a short, thick piece of bamboo, which he carries over his shoulder. A Pinnace, or budjerow, tracks, with ten or twelve men, upon one rope only.
The Sīckrī-galī pass, during the Hindū and Muhammadan Governments, was the commanding entrance from Bahar into Bengal, and was fortified with a strong wall; however, in 1742, a Mahratta army of cavalry passed into Bengal through the hills above Colgong. The village of Sīckrī-galī is eighteen miles above Rajmahal at the base of a high rocky eminence, commanding a fine view of two ranges of hills. There is here the tomb of a celebrated Muhammadan Saint, Pīr Pointī, and a cave in limestone rock; and higher up, at a place called Pīr Pointī, now a mass of ruins, is another tomb of the saint.
This pass is close upon the Rajmahal hills, and the only European inhabitant lives in the Bangla, commonly called Bungalow, the house at the foot of the hill. Wild beasts sometimes come to this place at night, and the footmarks of the tiger are often to be seen in the garden. Jackals roam howling through the village; bears, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, hogs, deer of all kinds, abound here, and feathered game in the hills. Elephants are absolutely necessary to enable a man to enjoy shooting amidst the high grass and thorny thickets. The place is so much disturbed by the people who go into the hills for wood, that the game retreat farther into the jangal. When a gentleman goes out shooting on foot, the dandīs accompany him with long poles, to beat the bushes. In the marshy plains under the hills of this pass good shooting is to be found, but on account of tigers it is dangerous.