left the
mountains behind, and passed Nassik, and the next day proceeded over
the flat, well-cultivated country of the Khandeish, with its straggling
villages, above which rose the minarets of the pagodas. This fertile
territory is watered by numerous small rivers and limpid streams,
mostly tributaries of the Godavery.

Passepartout, on waking and looking out, could not realise that he was
actually crossing India in a railway train. The locomotive, guided by
an English engineer and fed with English coal, threw out its smoke upon
cotton, coffee, nutmeg, clove, and pepper plantations, while the steam
curled in spirals around groups of palm-trees, in the midst of which
were seen picturesque bungalows, viharis (sort of abandoned
monasteries), and marvellous temples enriched by the exhaustless
ornamentation of Indian architecture. Then they came upon vast tracts
extending to the horizon, with jungles inhabited by snakes and tigers,
which fled at the noise of the train; succeeded by forests penetrated
by the railway, and still haunted by elephants which, with pensive
eyes, gazed at the train as it passed. The travellers crossed, beyond
Milligaum, the fatal country so often stained with blood by the
sectaries of the goddess Kali. Not far off rose Ellora, with its
graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad, capital of the ferocious
Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the detached provinces of the
kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee
chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway. These ruffians, united
by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of the
goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when
this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over without
corpses being found in every direction. The English Government has
succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees
still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites.

At half-past twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where Passepartout
was able to purchase some Indian slippers, ornamented with false
pearls, in which, with evident vanity, he proceeded to encase his feet.
The travellers made a hasty breakfast and started off for Assurghur,
after skirting for a little the banks of the small river Tapty, which
empties into the Gulf of Cambray, near Surat.

Passepartout was now plunged into absorbing reverie. Up to his arrival
at Bombay, he had entertained ho