With their forests of foliage and rich jungles the Thull Ghauts are a perpetual wonder and mystery to the natives, and the spot on which the handsome city of Nashik stands is a paradise to the Brahmans. Through it the Godaveri, sometimes called the Gunga, flows, spreading gladness and plenty everywhere. Here it was that Rama, with his beautiful wife Sita, spent the first days of their exile near a dark and dreadful forest, out of which issued the beautiful deer in pursuit of which he was obliged to leave Sita, who became an easy prey to his enemy Rawana. Here Lakshman, the brother of Rama, cut off the nose of the giantess Sarp Naki, the snake-nosed sister of Rawana, from which event the city itself is named. There is doubtless an historical basis to all these local traditions, for Nashik is a place of great antiquity, and is mentioned by Ptolemy by the name which it bears to-day. This land was no doubt at one time debatable ground between the advancing Aryan tribes and the aboriginal settlers. Here the Buddhists took refuge from the persecutions of the orthodox Brahmans, excavating the temples and caves that abound in this region. Nashik is now a Brahman city in the fullest sense of the word. Brahmanic power, influence, culture, and tradition are felt everywhere. Govind, our pundit, was in his best humor. It seems he had long desired to make a pilgrimage to this sacred spot, and here he was without any actual expense to himself and at the right moment. Nashik is said to have a population of from twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants, chiefly Brahmans of great wealth and famed for their religious sanctity of character. At the jatras, or tribe-meetings, a great concourse of Brahmans, Hindoos, Rajpoots, and Mahrattas from all parts of India pour into this city, and our visit happened at this time, for the pilgrims were arriving from all parts of the Eastern world. Most of the streets are, like those usually found in Oriental cities, narrow, ill-drained, and badly paved, but there are some that are well kept, and a fine broad thoroughfare leads almost, but not quite, through the centre of the city to the banks of the Godaveri. The lofty houses of the Brahmans, many of which are three stories high and almost palatial in appearance, were thrown open to the strangers. Pilgrims thronged the streets and were encamped along the roadside in tents in the open air or under the shade of huge trees. Highways lead everywhere down to the river, whose sanctity may be conceived from the vast numbers and characteristics of the temples that line its banks and dot the islands and rocks in the river-bed, nearly all built of a hard black rock capable of high polish, and some in the purest style of Hindoo architecture.