mingled with pounded ginger and sugar; the vicious are stupified by opium; and the sluggish stimulated to action by some potent cordial. It being scarcely possible for any amateur to deal with these experienced practitioners, a broker, or, as he is called in India, a Dulal, is usually employed; and with his assistance, the bargain is speedily concluded. Amongst the curiosities in horses which are brought to Hurdwar, are some very powerful ponies from Osbech Tatary, called Phooldars, which, translated, means spotted with flowers: they are very curiously marked, being covered all over with figures somewhat resembling those on marbled paper: one of these animals would be a great prize at Astley's or the Zoological Gardens.

In the stalls, almost every description of merchandise is exposed for sale-brazen vessels of every kind; idols and images of metal and of clay; common bead-necklaces; manufactured articles in agate, lapis lazuli, cornelian, and different marbles; coral, pearls, precious stones, rough, polished, or set, and some formed into necklaces, valued at L.5000 each; fans, chowries for whisking away the flies; every sort of native ornament in gold, silver, pewter, tinsel, or lac; sable, tiger, leopard, ounce, and other skins; looking-glasses in ivory frames, ornamented with moreen-work; toys in ivory and mother-of-pearl; shoes, skull-caps, and scarfs, handsomely embroidered; perfumes and sherbets; truffles from the countries north of the Sutlej; gums and medicinal drugs; shawls brought in bales from Cashmere, and sold unopened; pickles and sweetmeats from China; French watches; English chintzes, broadcloth, stationery, and cutlery; together with other articles, forming a list too long for enumeration. The clamours of the traffickers are overwhelming; the corn-dealers vociferating when their heaps of barley, wheat, or straw, are trodden down and scattered; while others, watching their bags of pistachia-nuts, almonds, raisins, or assafoetida, warn off trespassers with shout and cry; while the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the trampling of elephants, grunting of camels, barking of dogs, and roaring of wild

beasts, fill the air with discordant noises. In consequence of the very great demand for sweetmeats by this vast multitude, men and beasts being in India equally fond of confectionary of all kinds, the lower floors of many of the houses in the town of Hurdwar are let to manufacturers of the sugared articles so much in request, who carry on their operations in the open air, upon stoves running under the verandas. Huge caldrons and basins of iron, copper, and brass, appear filled with a liquid mass, composed of the different ingredients forming the compound; this mixture hisses and sputters as it boils; while at the proper period ladlefuls are taken out, and being poured upon a plate of iron over the furnace, are speedily transformed into cakes, which are piled up in enormous heaps, and sold to the passers-by.

Shops belonging to bankers and money-changers are very numerous, and coin-collectors may here find many rare and curious specimens ; every description of money in India, both ancient and modern, finding its way to Hurdwar. The heat and the glare of the day render evening the most agreeable period for a visit to the fair, which is best accomplished on the back of an elephant. In passing along, groups of dancing-girls are to be seen performing in the fronts of the houses of rich people, attended by musicians, and singing with all their might; these amusements being carried on till a very late hour. Other revellers are also abroad, displaying their skill upon all sorts of instruments; and amid all this noise and clamour, the bugles of the battalion of hill-rangers may be heard playing some English air, familiar to European ears, and the more soothing from its contrast to the wild discord around. At night, the Ganges wears a very gay and enlivening appearance; the branch nearest the town being illuminated by vast numbers of lights disposed upon its banks, and the surface rendered brilliant by floating lamps, ignited and launched upon the water. Sometimes a grand entertainment is given by the nuwaub of Nujihabad, or other great personage, and the profusion of fireworks which always form a part of a native fête,

renders the pageant still more effective. Lights are to be seen on all sides, and in all directions, from the temples, houses, tents, stalls, and huts; and, glancing among the trees, the European portion of the visitors drive home to a late dinner, and their encampment forms a very pleasing spectacle, more quiet, but perhaps not so gay with lights and music, as that of the rich natives. At length the uproar, which has been kept up without intermission since daybreak, dies away, and either subsides into a faint murmur, or ceases; the greater number of lamps are extinguished, and silence and darkness prevail. It is at this time that the thieves, a dexterous and numerous class, are upon the alert, and, trusting to the adroitness for which they are famed, venture, in despite of the precaution taken against them, to steal the very habiliments which some cautious sleeper has placed beneath his pillow. A terrier dog proves the best security, but when fatigued by the toils of the day, the wearied animal sinks into profound repose, and sometimes fails to give timely warning. The scientific mode by which an experienced thief will obtain the sheet or other article disposed for safety under the pillow, is to tickle the sleeper's ear with a straw; this causes him to turn, a pull being given at the same time; and should the manœuvre not be immediately successful, it is repeated at a proper interval, and is pretty certain to answer the end proposed.

Formerly, before the East India Company obtained possession of Hurdwar and its adjacent districts, the fair seldom or ever concluded without battles and bloodshed. The priesthood belonging to the rival sects, of which Hindooisin presents many, all of whom are impressed with the notion of the efficacy of the Ganges water, endeavoured to secure the greater portion of the alms collected for themselves. When they and their partisans were strong enough, force was employed in the attainment of this object; while lawless tribes, covetous of the wealth brought to the fair, attacked the merchants, who were obliged to defend their goods by armed retainers. A

very efficient police, under the direction of the European magistrates of the district, now prevents these wholesale robberies; and it is only the petty depredations of professional thieves which are to be apprehended at the present time. The sale of spirituous liquors in the fair is prohibited under a heavy penalty: thus one fertile source of evil is cut off. No one is permitted to enter the place armed. All offensive weapons are deposited with certain officials named Chaprassies, appointed by government to take charge of them; all have duplicatetickets, one of which is given to the owner, who, producing it upon his departure, receives his property back. At one particular period it is upon record that 700,000 swords were thus placed in the care of the chaprassies. But the fair is now said to be on the decline. Many people attribute this falling off to the belief now prevalent all over India, that the Christians are destined to spread their religion and customs throughout the land; an opinion which renders vast numbers rather lukewarm in their attachment to the fooleries of the Brahmins.

THE MAN WHO KNEW EVERYBODY. SOME few summers ago, I spent several weeks at a pretty little watering-place, in one of the southern counties of Scotland. The village, during the period of my stay, was filled with visitors of all classes and descriptions. Numbers of real or imaginary invalids from among the wealthier orders of society, were spending at the spot their usual term of country residence, while many of a humbler rank were seeking relief from true illness by the use of the medicinal springs in the neighbourhood. Amongst all these various residents, for the time being, a perfect equality reigned, and, indeed, this was in a measure inevitable, seeing that there was no alternative between absolute solitude, and the adoption of such companions as chance was pleased to bring in the way.

Those who lodged in the inn of the village, in particular, being chiefly young men, like myself, who had come to while away a week or two in fishing and other amusements, were brought into daily and hourly fellowship, having to breakfast, dine, and sup at a common table, and, in short, enjoying nothing individually and undividedly but their bedrooms. For my part, I enjoyed this fortuitous associateship very much, for the three or four weeks of my residence in the village. A great part of this enjoyment was owing to one individual, the only person among my co-lodgers who had anything remarkable about him; the rest being idle, gentlemanly young fellows of an ordinary cast. Not that I mean to insinuate that the individual particularised was not as idle and gentlemanly as any of them; only, he was not an 'ordinary' personage, and there lay the distinction. The first extraordinary thing about him was, that nobody knew his name, or who and what he was, though he knew everybody, and all about everybody. He was generally termed Mr S.,' or the 'gentleman with the whiskers,' his visage being decorated with an ample pair of these appendages. The chamber-maid it was, I believe, who gave us this initial glimpse at his name, having observed the letters J. S. on his portmanteau. Genteel in his person, courteous, even to excess, in his manners, and scrupulously neat, if not elegant, in his attire, Mr S. was calculated, at first sight, to excite a prepossession in his favour; and on further intercourse with him, this impression certainly had no tendency to decrease. the everyday small-talk of society, he was a first-rate master; he abounded in anecdote of the most pleasing conversational kind, his stories generally relating to living persons of note and rank in the world: and what was best of all about the good things he told, he almost uniformly gave you them at first hand, exactly as they had fallen from the lips of the parties concerned, in his presence. No common-place culler and retailer of fiftytimes told and written bon-mots was the 'gentleman with the whiskers. Everything that came from his mouth

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