The cantonments for invalids at Chunar, are situated outside the fort. The houses are all built of stone, and are generally two stories high; the residence belonging to the stone-cutter, which stands near the crowded cemetry, is a handsome structure. This last resting-place for the dead, is situated on the slope of the hill, which is crowned by the fort; the white monuments contrasting forcibly with the red stone fortress. The Major-General commanding the Division used to reside in the fort, up to the early part of this century, and in 1807, the chaplain, the Rev. Daniel Corrie, afterwards Archdeacon of Calcutta, and lately Bishop of Madras, lived here. There is now a resident chaplain, and some missionaries. The fortress, as I observed above, fell into the power of the English, in 1775. They had been repulsed in an attempt to assault it by night, but it surrendered shortly after, without a siege. It was formerly a place of great importance, but Allahabad being more north, has superseded it as a military depôt. In the hills near Chunar, which run parallel to the right bank of the Ganges, and are clothed with heath and brushwood, are to be found some of the largest snakes in India; many of them, it is said, being eighteen feet in length and half the thickness of a man's thigh, but they are not venomous like the cobra de capella, and the short, thin, green snake. The difference between the bite of the snake and the sting of a scorpion, is contained in the following Oriental distich:-- "He that's bitten by a serpent sleeps: But he that's bitten by a scorpion weeps." Sultanpore, about four miles from Chunar, is prettily situated; a regiment of Native Cavalry was formerly stationed here. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 97: "Narmada," Sanscrit, "rendering soft," Colebrooke, Wilks, etc.] [Footnote 98: See Appendix XXI.] CHAPTER XIV. Benares--Bathing in the Ganges--Water-carrying by Women--Extent and Population of Benares--Attempted Tax--Mosque of Aurungzebe--Observatory of Rajah Jey Singh--Bazaars--Jewellery--Cultivation of Sugar--Secrole--Murder of Mr. Cherry--State Prisoners--The Maharannee of Lahore. WE anchored off the ancient and sacred city of Benares, at eight o'clock in the evening. The Sanscrit name of the district of Benares is Varanase, from "Vara" and "Nashi" ("two streams"); it is in the Province of Allahabad, and was ceded to the East India Company by Asophud-Dowlah, the Nawab of Oude, in 1775. Its national appellation was "Kasi," or "the Splendid." It is built upon the left bank of the Ganges, along which it stretches in a semi-circle for six or seven miles. On the outer side of the curve, which is the most elevated, stands the holy city of Benares. Generally speaking, the banks of every river are higher on the side where its course is convex, and they are always high alternately, if the river has a winding course, high on the convex side, and low on the concave of the curve which it forms.