The natives are far from honest: they robbed one of the tents placed between two others, wherein a light was burning. One gentleman in it was awake, and on turning saw five men at his bedside, who escaped with a bag of booty, in the shape of clothes, and a tempting strong brass-bound box, containing private letters. The clothes they dropped outside, but the box of letters was carried off. There were about a hundred people asleep outside the tents, between whose many fires the rogues must have passed, eluding also the guard, who were, or ought to have been, awake. CHAPTER III. Ek-powa Ghat -- Sandstones -- Shahgunj -- Table-land, elevation, etc. -- Gum-arabic -- Mango -- Fair -- Aquatic plants -- Rujubbund -- Storm -- False sunset and sunrise -- Bind hills -- Mirzapore -- Manufactures, imports, etc. -- Climate of -- Thuggee -- Chunar -- Benares -- Mosque -- Observatory -- Sar-nath -- Ghazeepore -- Rose-gardens -- Manufactory of Attar -- Lord Cornwallis' tomb -- Ganges, scenery and natural history of -- Pelicans -- Vegetation -- Insects -- Dinapore -- Patna -- Opium godowns and manufacture -- Mudar, white and purple -- Monghyr islets -- Hot Springs of Setakoond -- Alluvium of Ganges -- Rocks of Sultun-gunj -- Bhaugulpore -- Temples of Mt. Manden -- Coles and native tribes -- Bhaugulpore rangers -- Horticultural gardens. On the 3rd of March I bade farewell to Mr. Williams and his kind party, and rode over a plain to the village of Markunda, at the foot of the Ghat. There the country becomes very rocky and wooded, and a stream is crossed, which runs over a flat bed of limestone, cracked into the appearance of a tesselated pavement. For many miles there is no pass over the Kymore range, except this, significantly called "Ek-powa-Ghat" (one-foot Ghat). It is evidently a _fault,_ or shifting of the rocks, producing so broken a cliff as to admit of a path winding over the shattered crags. On either side, the precipices are extremely steep, of horizontally stratified rocks, continued in an unbroken line, and the views across the plain and Soane valley, over which the sun was now setting, were superb. At the summit we entered on a dead flat plain or table-land, with no hills, except along the brim of the broad valley we had left, where are some curious broad pyramids, formed of slabs of sandstone arranged in steps. By dark we reached the village of Roump (alt. 1090 feet), beyond the top of the pass. On the next day I proceeded on a small, fast, and wofully high-trotting elephant, to Shahgunj, where I enjoyed Mr. Felle's hospitality for a few days. The country here, though elevated, is, from the nature of the soil and formation, much more fertile than what I had left. Water is abundant, both in tanks and wells, and rice-fields, broad and productive, cover the ground; while groves of tamarinds and mangos, now loaded with blossoms, occur at every village.