be justified by the bravery and military character of the people. They
have been called the Cossacks of India from these qualities combined
with their horsemanship. But the dynasty of the usurping ministers had
its origin in iniquity; and the corruption of its birth quickly broke
out again under the stimulus of excess and luxury, until it culminated
in the destruction of the Mahratta empire in 1818. So, when we had
seen the palace of the Peishwa, from one of whose balconies the young
Peishwa Mahadeo committed suicide by leaping to the earth in the
year 1797 through shame at having been reproved by his minister
Nana Farnavese in presence of his court, and when we had visited the
Hira-Bâgh, or Garden of Diamonds, the summer retreat of the Peishwas,
with its elegant pavilion, its balconies jutting into the masses of
foliage, its cool tank of water, reposing under the protection of the
temple-studded Hill of Pararati, we took train again for Bombay.

The Great Indian Peninsula Railway's main line leads out of Bombay
over the Gháts to Jabalpúr, six hundred miles; thence a railway of
some two hundred and twenty miles runs to Allahabad, connecting them
with the great line, known as the East Indian Railway, which extends
for more than a thousand miles north-westward from Calcutta _viâ_
Patna, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra and Delhi. Our
journey, as marked out by Bhima Gandharva, was to be from Bombay
to Jabalpúr by rail; thence by some slow and easy conveyance across
country to Bhopal, and from Bhopal northward through Jhansi to Delhi
and the northern country, thence returning by rail to Calcutta.

As one ascends the Western Gháts shortly after leaving Bombay one has
continual occasion to remark the extraordinary resources of modern
railway engineering. Perhaps the mechanical skill of our time has not
achieved any more brilliant illustrations of itself than here occur.