At the Dunghye bungalow some travellers had been extremely poetical:
“Dunghye! Dunghye! with hills so high,
A sorry place art thou;
Thou boasts not e’en a blade of grass,
Enough to feed an hungry ass,
Or e’en a half-starved cow.”
Nevertheless, we saw fine jungle and grass in plenty on every side, and were told partridge and jungle fowl were abundant.
En route were several parties of fakirs, who said they were going to Jugunnath. These rascals had some capital tattoos with them. Several of these men had one withered arm raised straight, with the long nails growing through the back of the hand. These people are said to be great thieves; and when any of them were encamped near us on the march, we directed the chaukidārs (watchmen) to keep a good look out, on our horses as well as our chattels. The adage says of the fakir, “Externally he is a saint, but internally a devil[26].”
At Sherghattee we delivered the stealer of the spoon over to the magistrate. In the evening I went out with the gentlemen on an elephant; they had some sport with their guns.
At Baroon we bought some uncut Soane pebbles, which turned out remarkably good when cut and polished. We rode across the Soane river, which was three miles in breadth, and had two large sandbanks in the middle of the stream. Wading through the water was most troublesome work on horseback. Twice we were obliged to put the horses into boats, they struggled, and kicked, and gave so much trouble. The Arab ‘Rajah’ jumped fairly out of the boat into the stream. The mares worked hard getting the buggy across the deep sand; they went into and came out of the boats very steadily.