profusion. After eating a cardamum, and touching with our
pocket-handkerchief some cotton on which had been dropped otto of roses,
we ascended to the house-top, and found it built upon much the same plan
as Cashmere Mull's, without its antique carving and quaint appearance.

We were not a little glad when the bustle and heat attendant on so much
sight-seeing was over, and we forced our way back through the crowded
streets.

The population of Benares is estimated by Mr. Prinsep at nearly 200,000;
its trade consists chiefly in sugar, saltpetre, indigo, opium, and
embroidered cloths; besides which, the city has advantages in its
position on the great river, making it, jointly with Mirzapore, the depot
for the commerce of the Dukkum and interior of Hindostan.

General Jung Bahadoor had reached Benares a few days before I arrived
there, and I found him installed in a handsome house, the envy of all
rajahs, the wonder of the natives, and the admiration of his own
countrymen, some thousands of whom had come thus far to meet him. If he
had been a lion in London, he was not less an object of interest at
Benares--his house was always crowded with visitors of high degree,
Indian and European; one old native rajah in particular was frequently to
be seen in close conference with him; and the result was, that the Prime
Minister of Nepaul became the husband of the second daughter of his
Highness the ex-Rajah of Coorg. Upon the day following his nuptials my
friend and I called upon him, and to our surprise he offered to present
us to his newly wedded bride. We, of course, expressed our sense of the
honour he was doing us; and had just reached the balcony, the stairs
leading up to which were on the outside of the house, when our friend the
bridegroom perceived his father-in-law, the Coorg rajah, coming in a most