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Then he resolved upon flight, and accompanied by his favorite wife and a single eunuch, he left his palace in disguise, and entering a boat which had been engaged for the purpose, reached Rajmahal, ninety miles distant, on the evening of the fourth day.
These Sontals reminded me of the Gónds whom I had seen, though they seemed to be far manlier representatives of the autochthonal races of India than the former. They are said to number about a million, and inhabit a belt of country some four hundred miles long by one hundred broad, including the Rajmahal Mountains, and extending from near the Bay of Bengal to the edge of Behar.
This time he reported that Mir Jafar had arrived with a large force and taken possession of the Nawab's palace of Mansurganj. Immediately after the traitor's arrival Sirajuddaula had collected all the gold and jewels on which he could lay hands and fled with his women. Suspecting that the luckless Nawab was making for Rajmahal in the hope of meeting Law there, Desmond made up his mind to follow.
On the way down, during a visit to the Rajmahal Hills, round which the great Ganges sweeps, Carey and Ward made the first attempt to evangelise the Santal and other simple aboriginal tribes, whom the officials Brown and Cleveland had partly tamed.
So early as 1796 he wrote of this the most widely extended offspring of the Sanskrit: "I have acquired so much of the Hindi as to converse in it and preach for some time intelligibly...It is the current language of all the west from Rajmahal to Delhi, and perhaps farther. With this I can be understood nearly all over Hindostan."
Though disguised in mean clothes he had been recognized by a fakir, who happened to be at the very spot where he landed. The man had a grudge against him; his ears and nose had been cut off some time before at the Nawab's order. Hastening into Rajmahal he had informed the governor, who sent a guard at once to seize the unhappy prince and bring him to Murshidabad.
Catching sight of Desmond, the great soldier flashed out: "What do you mean, sir, by absenting yourself so long? I sent you in advance because I thought you would be speedy. A snail would have gone more quickly." "I am sorry, sir," said Desmond; "I was unexpectedly delayed. I had got nearly as far as Rajmahal when I learned the whereabouts of Mrs. Merriman.
The more inaccessible tops of the same mountains, the Rajmahal, are occupied by a much ruder set of people, the Mâlers, who appear to have been pushed up here by the Sontals, as the Sontals were themselves pressed by the incoming Aryans.
Such were our feelings as we woke at daylight one morning in the midst of the Rajmahal hills.
Today we perceived the low ranges of the Rajmahal Hills, the first we had seen since we left Madras. In the evening, we were again stuck fast upon a sandbank. We remained tolerably quiet during the night, but, as soon as it was morning, every possible means were adopted to get us off again.
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