Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
History
Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846
Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
India -- Description and travel; Sikh War, 1845-1846
Let us test the point by English statistics. In Middlesex[69] they
quote 5,590--98 souls to a square mile. Now, if we say three millions
for Kanoge, it will give about 4,800 souls to a square mile. Then it
must be recollected, that the streets of Benares are so very narrow,
that if one person enters a street at one end on an elephant, and
another comes from the opposite end similarly mounted, neither can
pass, but one must back out, which implies that the streets are not
twenty feet wide. Besides which, the native houses in Benares are
several stories high. It is a fact, that a great portion of the
sickness of that city, as of others which I have seen, arises from the
circumstance that the sun's rays never penetrate the street. Therefore,
if Kanoge were peopled to anything like the extent even of Middlesex,
we may believe the number of inhabitants to have been as great as
suggested by Maurice. If the Venetian be correct, we may assert that,
if Beejanuggur extended ninety-four miles, Kanoge, the most ancient
Hindoo city of Hindoostan, was one hundred miles in circumference. It
is to be borne in mind, that the population of the world, at the period
referred to, was greater than in times before the Christian era. Lord
Lake had his head-quarters at Kanoge before his army took the field in
1803.
The late Lieut.-Colonel Thorn, in his Memoir of the War in India,
1803-6, says: "Kanoge, which modern writers suppose, though certainly
on very problematical grounds, to be the site of the celebrated
Palibothra;" but this will be noticed again when I speak of Allahabad,
which some deem to be the identical site of Palibothra.
The 60,000 bands of singers and musicians is a more puzzling problem:
because each band has never less than four persons; two girls and two
men. Now, 2,500,000 divided by 60,000, gives a "natch" or dancing
set to about every forty-two persons. It proves at least the musical
taste of the Hindoos, and their fondness for singing and dancing in
those days. We must, however, recollect that singing enters into their
religion, and forms a necessary part of their sacred festivals. Again,
if we take a brick house to contain six people, and a mud house four,
there would be a band for every eight or nine families.
Kanoge is celebrated for its attar of roses, rose-water, and
sweetmeats; of the last I purchased fifteen seers, or thirty lbs. for
my servants, thus giving two lbs. to each man.
On the 24th of April, I rode twenty-three miles to Poorah; on the 25th,
to Kullianpore, nineteen miles and three-quarters. My next stage
was to Cawnpore, a distance of seven miles, where I put up at the
Bungalow, next to the one I occupied when I was stationed at Cawnpore
with my regiment last year. The change from my tent to a Bungalow was
exceedingly agreeable, for latterly I had found it almost intolerable,
on account of the dust and heat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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