Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 28, 2025
In an hour and a half after this, we reached and crossed the river Scend, about two miles from the top of the ghaut. Our spies, who had just left the camp of the enemy, informed us that they were not encamped on the top of the ghaut, there being no water there, but that they were lying near a large lake of water, about two miles from the ghaut, apparently unconscious of our approach.
There were, however, sufficient gaps between the stones to allow me to have a view of the crest of the Ghaut, while below my view extended down to the hills behind Bombay. It was evident to me now why the Dacoits did not climb up into the fortress. There were dozens of similar crags on the face of the Ghauts, and the troops did not as yet know their whereabouts.
As the heathen devotee approaches nearer and nearer to Benares he feels more and more devotionally inclined, and these tanks of the semi-sacred water of the Ganges Valley happily afford him opportunity to soften up the crust of his accumulated transgressions, preparatory to washing them away entirely by a plunge off the Kamnagar ghaut at Benares.
In the thick bush and deep valleys and gorges there they could always take refuge, while sometimes the more daring chiefs converted these detached peaks and masses of rock, numbers of which you can see as you come up the Ghaut by railway, into almost impregnable fortresses.
Tantia Topee's dispositions for the perpetration of the treachery could not now succeed, for the Ganges has changed its course and there is deep water close in shore at the ghaut. In the stream nearest to the Oude side the river has cast up a long narrow dearah island, in the fertile mud of which melons are cultivated where once whistled the shot from the guns on the Oude side of the river.
"But surely I saw Marigold wreaths floating off the edge of the Ghaut only this noon," said the Adjutant. Marigold wreaths are a sign of reverence all India over. "An error an error. It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. She loses her eyesight year by year, and cannot tell a log from me the Mugger of the Ghaut.
We passed through Parmunsa, and arrived at Moorkandah, which is a small village, and in a very ruinous condition, as it is at the foot of the Ghaut; the inhabitants are but few in number, and are principally Brahmins, consequently provisions are very scarce; on my requesting the cutwall, or headman of the village, to bring some fowls, he refused, and said there were none in the place, although I repeatedly heard the crowing of a cock.
We had gained information from our spies, that our road lay over a high ghaut, on which the enemy had a strong piquet; that, when we had surmounted that ghaut, the road to the fort of Gurrah Mundellah was over lowlands interspersed with water; and that we should have to cross the Nerbuddah, where we might expect to be opposed, as that river was wide, deep, and stony.
Early on the following morning we began to cross the Luckenwarry Ghaut; the roads were steep and not above ten feet wide, and on each side a vacuity of about 250 feet deep.
The village was deep in flood, and I swam above the Ghaut and went far inland, up to the rice-fields, and they were deep in good mud. Yes, glass bracelets; and, if my memory serves me well, a shoe. I should have shaken off both shoes, but I was hungry. I learned better later. Yes.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking