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Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar; lost tea-gardens Shillong-way; villages where their fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan; Mission-stations a week from the nearest railway line; seaports a thousand miles south, facing the brazen Indian surf; and cinchona-plantations south of all.
The Bengal mission was fourfold Serampore and Calcutta reckoned as one station; the old Dinapoor and Sadamahal which had taken the place of Mudnabati; Goamalty, near Malda; Cutwa, an old town on the upper waters of the Hoogli; Jessor, the agricultural capital of its lower delta; and afterwards Monghyr, Berhampore, Moorshedabad, Dacca, Chittagong, and Assam.
Like every other part of the surface of India, it has suffered much from denudation, especially on the above-named mountains, and around their bases, where various rocks protrude through it. Along the Ganges again, its surface is an unbroken level between Chunar and the rocks of Monghyr.
"Thereafter I worked up-stream very slowly and lazily, and a little above Monghyr there came down a boatful of white-faces alive! They were, as I remember, women, lying under a cloth spread over sticks, and crying aloud. There was never a gun fired at us, the watchers of the fords in those days. All the guns were busy elsewhere.
They are of stratified quartz, dipping, at a high angle, to the south-east; and, as far as I could observe, quite barren, each crowned with a little temple. The swarm of boats from below Patna to this place was quite incredible. April 1. Arrived at Monghyr, by far the prettiest town I had seen on the river, backed by a long range of wooded hills, detached outliers of which rise in the very town.
The Curruckpore hills, the northern boundary of the gneiss and granite range of Paras-nath, are seen first in the distance, and then throwing out low loosely timbered spurs towards the river; but no rock or hill comes close to the banks till near Monghyr, where two islets of rock rise out of the bed of the river.
There were temples, pyramids, immense catafalques, kiosks, etc., all massively built of tiles. The extent of this cemetery is quite disproportioned to the number of Europeans in Monghyr; but the place is said to be the most unhealthy in India, so that when a European is ordered there for any number of years, he generally takes a last farewell of all his friends.
At Monghyr I spent a very pleasant evening with Mr. Leslie of the Baptist Mission, even then of considerable standing, and years afterwards a highly esteemed veteran in the missionary host. Our progress was slow. In some places the stream was too strong for our steamer tugging the flat, and in other places the water was too shallow.
Leslie, the Baptist missionary at Monghyr. I mentioned to him that my friend Mr. Lyon had learned the language, and was preaching in it. Looking me full in the face, he said, to my surprise and chagrin, "Depend on it, Mr. Lyon may use the words of the language, but no one can be said to acquire it in a year." I thought this a hard saying, but years afterwards I was forced to feel its truth.
On Saturday, we made an expedition to a place called Monghyr, about forty-five miles from here, where there is a hot spring, and something like hills. There has been a good deal of rain, and I still feel well here, but I suppose on the 29th I must return to the Calcutta steam-bath. This forenoon I paid a visit to a school, one of the Government schools.
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