I feel quite well again: we start for the hills this afternoon. The party consists of seven Europeans and about one hundred natives. It happened rather curiously that the Rajah to whom the hill belongs called here this morning on business: he is a very intelligent young man. He has volunteered to accompany us, to supply us with elephants if we wish to hunt upon the plain, and to provide us an escort of five hundred men; so we shall go in state. He rode a magnificent white horse with pink eyes. We each take a small axe, a pair of pistols, and two guns.
But before proceeding I would enter into more particulars concerning the excursion that we took for the benefit of my wife's health. On Monday we all started at half-past five in the morning—Captain R. and myself on horseback, and Mrs. R. and my wife in palanquins, having their ponies led by their side. We had about one hundred and twenty servants with us, Captain R. having a good deal of surveying and other work to do.
As we went along the road he stopped to inspect the different bridges, &c. We had one little adventure this morning. It seems that some months ago a beyraghee, or mendicant, sat himself down by the side of the road, a few miles from Cuttack, with nothing but an umbrella to shade him from the sun. There he remained for some weeks, subsisting on the charity of the pilgrims who were proceeding to Juggernat'h. I should have mentioned that our road lay, for a considerable distance, on the direct route for Pooree. After some time the beyraghee made himself a little hut of wicker-work, after the fashion of many of the Indian devotees. These baskets, as I may call them, are just large enough to contain a man in a lying-down position; they are, in fact, mere coverings.
By degrees the basket became a good-sized mud hut; then the beyraghee began to enclose a small piece of ground, which he cultivated, and built himself a granary of bamboo to contain the rice given him by the pilgrims. Now, although a man with an umbrella does not much matter, yet a hut with a little field, around which a village is likely enough to spring up, cannot be allowed upon the roadside, which belongs to Government.
The man had been warned, but paid no attention to what was said; and accordingly, when we reached the spot, Captain R. directed the chuprapees, or Government messengers, to pull down the fence and destroy the hut, granary, &c. We sat on our horses while these men obeyed the order. In a quarter of an hour the whole was level with the ground. I knew that Captain R. was perfectly right, yet I could not help pitying the poor man, who came and laid himself down at our horses' feet, with his hands clasped over his head. Like many of the beyraghees, he was entirely naked. They are a worthless, wicked set of men, and peculiarly obnoxious to Europeans. It was a singular scene. Captain R. and myself, with our broad-brimmed hats, sitting quietly on our sturdy ponies; a half-naked groom at the head of each; the naked beyraghee at our feet; and a dozen chuprapees, in the white native dress, with red badges, hewing the house and fence to pieces, and scattering the remains on all sides under the grove of mangoes with which the road was bordered. In the distance were the palanquins, whilst the wild song of the bearers faintly reached our ears.
ENCAMPMENT AT BENGWHARRIE
Nothing of interest occurred after this until we arrived at Bengwharrie, a small village, where our tents were pitched under a grove, or, as we call it, a "tope," of splendid trees. I have already described the appearance of a private encampment; the only difference here was that we had a greater number of men about us, and more tents. Mine contains one room, about twenty-four feet square; in the centre rises the high pole which supports our canvas house. At each end are cloth doors, made to roll up. The tent has a double fly or covering, one much larger than the other; it is like a small one inside a large one. This tends to keep it warm at night, and cool during the day; the outer fly forms a verandah round the inner room. In the latter are two small camp bedsteads, a camp table, camp chairs, &c. By camp bedsteads, &c., I mean such as will double up for the convenience of carriage. In the verandah are our palanquins, a chest of wine, beer, &c., some cooling apparatus, and various other articles. At one side there is an entrance into a small tent, which serves for a bathing-room.
After breakfast, we were very much interested in watching the monkeys. The tope swarmed with a grey species, some of which appeared almost as large as men. They are peculiarly sacred in the eyes of the Hindus, who imagine that one of their gods once assumed a similar form. They are called Hunnamuns, which was the name of that deity. My wife and I stood at the door of the tent watching them for hours; they do not appear to be afraid of men. Many of the females had young ones with them, and they came and sat down close to us with their little ones in their laps. First they would suckle them, then they would hush them to sleep, or turn them over and over, pulling off all the dirt that adhered to their skins, and making them clean and comfortable.