The country in this part of Bengal is a dead flat, composed of a rich alluvial soil, in a high state of cultivation. Rice, sugar-cane, Palma Christi, and fifty other tropical productions, flourish luxuriantly, and charm the sight by their novelty. The face of the country is covered with groves of mango, tamarind, and plantain trees, &c.; and numerous towns and villages are scattered here and there, but which, however, have little that is striking or interesting in their appearance, mud or matting being the predominant materials with which they are constructed. Still the vastness of the population, the number and variety of the boats on the river, transporting up and down the rich and varied produce of India, and the diversity of the objects to be seen on the banks as you slowly glide along, are extremely pleasing. Miss Belfield, being a finished sketcher, was daily in raptures with all she saw. Full often would she summon me to the budgerow window, to look at something exceedingly picturesque—some glimpse, effect, or “pretty bit,” as she was wont to term it, and which had awakened all her admiration. Some old and magnificent banyan-tree, exhibiting a forest of shade, and whose tortuous roots, like sprawling boa-constrictors, overhung the stream; village maidens filling their water-pots beneath it, or fading like phantasmagoric figures in the deepening gloom of the receding woodland-path; or some Brahmin standing mid-leg in the water, with eye abased, and holding his sacred thread; cattle sipping, or the huge elephant, like a mountain of Indian-rubber, half-immersed, and patiently undergoing his diurnal scrubbing and ablution. I caught all her enthusiasm, and great was the sketching and dabbling in water-colours which followed thereon. Captain Belfield possessed a far more extensive library than my friend Tom Rattleton, comprising many standard works on Indian history, geography, antiquities, &c.; to these, for he was no monopolist in any shape, he kindly gave me free access, and when not occupied by blazing at the snipes, or in aiding Miss Belfield in her graphic operations, I found in his library stores an ample fund of amusement. I pored over the _seer ul Mutakhereen_, and formed an extensive acquaintance amongst the twelve million gods of the Hindoo Pantheon. How genuine, how refreshing, by the way, is the _bonhomie_ of the Mahomedan author of the _seer ul Mutakhereen!_ with what grave simplicity and _naïveté_ does he relate the sayings and doings of our valiant countrymen in the early times of Anglo-Indian history! His comparison of the red Feringhie[34] soldiers, firing in battle, to a long brick wall, belching forth fire and smoke, is admirable. And how excellent the story of Beebee Law, and the stem reproof administered to the fawning Asiatic parasite, the young noble at Patna, by the sturdy English commander, when the former tried to ingratiate himself by insulting his fallen enemy, the gallant Frenchman!