considerable detour, only reaching that village at 2 p.m. All the
hill people we observed were a fine-looking athletic race; they
disclaimed the tiger being a neighbour, which every palkee-bearer
along the road declares to carry off the torch-bearers, torch and
all. Bears they said were scarce, and all other wild animals, but a
natural jealousy of Europeans often leads the natives to deny the
existence of what they know to be an attraction to the proverbially
sporting Englishman.

Illustration - OLD TAMARIND TREES.

The site of Maddaobund, elevated 1230 feet, in a clearance of the
forest, and the appearance of the snow-white domes and bannerets of
its temples through the fine trees by which it is surrounded, are
very beautiful. Though several hundred feet above any point we had
hitherto reached, the situation is so sheltered that the tamarind,
peepul, and banyan trees are superb. A fine specimen of the latter
stands at the entrance to the village, not a broadheaded tree, as is
usual in the prime of its existence, but a mass of trunks irregularly
throwing out immense branches in a most picturesque manner; the
original trunk is apparently gone, and the principal mass of root
stems is fenced in. This, with two magnificent tamarinds, forms a
grand clump. The ascent of the mountain is immediately from the
village up a pathway worn by the feet of many a pilgrim from the most
remote parts of India.

Paras-nath is a mountain of peculiar sanctity, to which circumstance
is to be attributed the flourishing state of Maddaobund. The name is
that of the twenty-third incarnation of Jinna (Sanscrit "Conqueror"),
who was born at Benares, lived one hundred years, and was buried on