provided for by Benee Madho, as a matter of course.

I asked him how he or any other person could be found to attend a
beast of that kind? Pointing to his stomach, he said--"We poor people
are obliged to risk our lives for this, in all manner of ways; to
attend elephants has been always my profession, and there is no other
open to me; and we make up our minds to do whatever our duties
require from us, and trust to Providence." He told me that when the
elephant shoved him off, he thought that in his anger he might have
forgotten him, and called out as loud as he could,--"What, have you
forgotten a service of six years, and do you intend to kill the man
who has fed you so long?" That the beast seemed to recollect his
voice and services, and became, at once, quiet and docile--"that had
he not so called out, and reminded the animal of his long services,
he thought he should have been killed; that the driver came, armed
with a spear, and showed himself more angry than afraid, as the
safest plan in such cases."

Dangerous as the calling of the elephant-driver is, that of the
snake-keepers, in the King's service, seems still greater. He has two
or three very expert men of this kind, whose duty it is to bring him
the snakes, when disposed to look at them, and see the effects of
their poison on animals. They handle the most venomous, with
apparently as much carelessness as other men handle fighting-cocks or
quail. When bitten, as they sometimes are, they instantly cut into
the part, and suck out the poison, or get their companions to suck it
out when they can't reach the part with their own mouths. But they
depend chiefly upon their wonderful dexterity in warding off the
stoops or blows of the snakes, as they twist them round their necks
and limbs with seeming carelessness. While they are doing so, the eye
of the spectator can hardily detect the _stoops_ of the one and the
guards of the other. After playing in this way with the most venomous
snakes, they apply them to the animals. Elephants have died from
their bites in a few hours--smaller animals sooner. I have never,
myself, seen the experiments, but any one may see them at the palace.
Elephants and the larger animals are too expensive to be often
experimented on.

_January_ 4, 1850.--Halted at the village of Onae, alias Gorbuksh
Gunge. It lost the name of Onae, after the proprietor, Gorbuksh, who
had built the Gunge, and made it a great emporium of trade in corn,
cotton