convenient depots of the products of civilisation; that Dalhousie is a good starting-point for Kashmir; and that Dharamsala, where the houses stand at elevations of from about 4000 to 7000 feet high, rises out of the Kangra valley, which Lord Canning held to be the most beautiful district in India, with the exception of Kashmir, and which combines the advantages of tropical with Alpine climate and vegetation. Very far beyond these, at a height of about 7000 feet, we have Marri (Muree), which is the hill-station for the Panjáb and its Lieutenant-Governor, and the great point of departure for Kashmir. It is only 40 miles distant from the Grand Trunk Road at Ráwal Pindi, and can be reached in hill-carts, so that it is really more accessible to the English tourist than some of the hill-stations which geographically may appear much nearer; but it is not in immediate proximity to any very high ranges, though sometimes a glimpse can be got from its neighbourhood of the wonderful peak of Nangha Parbat, which is 26,629 feet high. Close to the Indus, where the Himálaya have changed into the Hindú Kúsh, there is Abbottabad, which, though a military station and little over 4000 feet, is one of the points which command Kashmir; and it has beside it the sanitarium of Tandali, or Tundiani, which presents more extensive views from the height of 9000 feet. And here our line of sanitariums. comes to an end; for though the plain of our transIndus possession is bounded by the most tempting mountains-the lower ranges of the Hindú Kúsh—yet if the tourist makes even the slightest attempt to scale these, he will find that between the Akoond of Swat, the Amir of Kaubul, and the officers of the British Government, he will have an uncommonly bad time of it, and may consider himself fortunate if he is only brought back neck and crop to Peshawar (Peshawur) and put under surveillance or ordered out of the district.

Simla, as I have indicated, is the best starting-point for the inner Himálaya, besides being an interesting place in itself, as usually the summer residence of the Viceroy and the other chiefs of the Supreme Government of India, though this year they have been detained in Calcutta by the Bengal famine. But Masúri is more easy of access; that place, or rather the closely adjacent military station of Landaur (Landour), commands a finer view of snowy peaks; and it is not necessary to descend from Masúri to the burning plains in order to reach Simla, as a good bridle-road, passing through the new military station of Chakraota, connects the two places, and can be traversed in fourteen easy marches, which afford very good preliminary experience for a tour in the Himálaya.

CHAPTER IV.

RÚRKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI.

SAHÁRUNPUR COLLECTIONS-DR JAMIESON-MAJOR LANG-LOSING ONE'S HEAD-RÚRKI ENGINEERING COLLEGE-HARDWARTHE GREAT MELA-JUNGLE FIRES-THE TERAI-A HIMÁ

LAYAN HUNTER-MR HAYWARD-FOSSILS OF THE SEWALIK -THE DEHRA DOON INDIAN TEA LOCALITIES OF THE

PLANTATIONS.

IN April of 1873 Masúri was the first elevation I made for, and eagerly did I seek its cool breezes after the intense heat of Agra and Delhi. Anglo-Indians are very hospitable towards English travellers; and as the thoughtful kindness of Sir William Muir, the then Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, had furnished me with some letters of introduction, I could not but accede to his wish that I should go to Rúrki (Roorkee) and see the Engineering College there, the workshops, and the works of the Ganges Canal. At Sahárunpur, the railway station for Rúrki, there is a botanical garden, and a valuable collection of fossils, under the charge, and created by the labours, of Dr Jamieson, of the Forest Department, a relative and pupil of the well-known mineralogist, and one of the founders of the science of geology, who for fifty years occupied the post of Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Rúrki is famous for its Engineering College, and for its invaluable canal, which

has done so much to prevent famine in the North-West Provinces. I was fortunate enough there to be the guest of Major Lang, the very able Principal of the Thomason Engineering College, who had formerly been engaged in the construction of "the Great Hindusthan. and Tibet Road," which runs from Simla towards Chinese Tartary; and any doubts as to where I was bound for were soon entirely dissipated by the Principal's descriptions of Chini and Pangay, the Indian Kailas, and the Parang La. He warned me, indeed, not to attempt Chinese Tibet, lest the fate of the unfortunate Adolph Schlagintweit might befall me, and a paragraph should appear in the Indian papers announcing that a native traveller from Gartok had observed a head adorning the pole of a Tartar's tent, which head, there was only too much reason to fear from his description of it, must have been that of the enterprising traveller who lately penetrated into Chinese Tibet by way of Shipki. But then it was not necessary to cross the border in order to see Chini and the Kailas; and even his children kindled with enthusiastic delight as they cried out "Pangay! Pangay!"

This Engineering College was founded in 1848 by Mr James Thomason, the then Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, an Indian civilian of great ability and influence, and it was organised by Colonel Maclagan, R.E. The number of students has steadily increased, until it is now about 300; and the various. classes are composed of officers, non-commissioned officers, privates in the army, civil Englishmen, and natives. The commissioned officers who go there are prepared for the Public Works Department, and have to go through a very severe course of study. The civil Englishmen are young men, between 18 and 22 years. of age, who have been educated in India or at home, and, before admission, are required to pass an exam

ination in English literature and composition, Latin, French or German, Physical Science, Algebra, Geometry, Plane Trigonometry, &c. Of this section of the College, Colonel Medley, a recent Principal, said— "It forms the most valuable provision at present extant for the sons of the many respectable servants of Government who cannot afford them the cost of an English career. Many of these young men are gentlemen in manners and tone-others are not at all so; but they are all treated as such, and the increasing admixture of students from England is a great advantage in this respect." The non-commissioned officers and soldiers are trained up to be overseers and suboverseers in the P.W. Department. There is another college of the same kind in Western India at Poona, and both establishments aim at training up officers and civil students to be engineers of the first class; to provide an opening for deserving soldiers and others of the lower grades; and, more generally, to afford opportunity and encouragement to the people of India to qualify themselves for being their own engineers. An institution of this kind is better for the natives than classes which foster the Indian tendency to indulge to excess in the subtleties of speculation and the niceties of literature; but though the Indians get on well enough with engineering, so far as it consists in drawing plans and making calculations in a room, they do not succeed so well with field work, for their early marriages, peculiar diet and habits of life, do not fit them for combining physical with intellectual exertions. At Rúrki there are six scholarships of 50 rupees per mensem for native students. This is a great bonus for people like the Hindús, with whom 50 rupees goes so long a way; but it is only very lately that it has induced young men. of the kind intended to come forward at all; and, at a recent examination, even a Lieutenant-Governor so