The greater part of the country through which we travelled is very level. Beyond Chunar, indeed, which is sixteen miles from Benares, and Mirzapore, which is thirty miles distant, there is a great extent of low hill-country. These districts we visited several times. The most of our journeys were in the wide open plains of the North-West. The country, though level, is by no means uninteresting. You receive as you travel a very favourable impression of the productiveness of the land and the industry of the people. In the cold weather you see, as far as the eye can reach, a sweep of growing corn, wheat and other grains, which give the hope of an early and abundant harvest. Towns and villages meet your view on every side. If you get to a slightly elevated spot you are struck with the number of wells you see in the fields, dug for the purpose of irrigation. In the great region lying between the Ganges and the Jumna, called the Doab--the country of the two rivers, the Mesopotamia of Northern India, over a great part of which we travelled for the first time at the end of 1842 and the beginning of 1843, and which we have often traversed since--there is no extensive forest near the Trunk Road. In all directions, however, you see clumps of lofty and shady trees, and occasionally groves of considerable extent. Trees have been largely planted along the road, and within every few miles there are groves, where travellers get their tents pitched, and where they are thoroughly protected from the glare and heat of the sun. Even in the coldest part of the cold weather tents pitched in the open become quickly too heated for comfort. In the groves the deep shade cast by the widely-spread branches and the thick foliage sometimes darkens the tent too much for reading and writing; but outside, on a chair before a small table, if that be required, one can spend hours very pleasantly reading or writing, as it may be, and listening if inclined to the cawing of the crows, the cooing of the doves, and the notes of other birds, while the gentle breeze rustles through the trees, and the children, if any, play with their toys under them.