efer when I come to remark on the wonderful progress
made in India in recent years owing to the introduction of English skill
and capital, and shall now briefly describe my route to the western
jungles of Mysore.

When I landed in Bombay, in 1855, the journey to the Native State of
Mysore, now so easy and simple, was one requiring much time and no small
degree of trouble, for the railway lines had then advanced but little--the
first twenty miles in all India having been only opened near Bombay in
1853. A land journey then was not to be thought of, and as there were no
coasting-steamers, I was compelled to take a passage in a Patama (native
sailing craft) which was proceeding down the western coast with a cargo of
salt which was stowed away in the after-part of the vessel. Over this was
a low roofed and thatched house, the flooring of which was composed of
strips of split bamboo laid upon the salt. On this I placed my mattress
and bedding. My provisions for the voyage were very simple--a coop with
some fowls, some tea, sugar, cooking utensils, and other small necessaries
of life. A Portuguese servant I had hired in Bombay cooked my dinner and
looked after me generally. We sailed along the sometimes bare, and
occasionally palm-fringed, shores with that indifference to time and
progress which is often the despair and not unfrequently the envy of
Europeans. The hubble-bubble passed from mouth to mouth, and the crew
whiled away the evening hours with their monotonous chants. We always
anchored at night; sometimes we stopped for fishing, and once ran into a
small bay--one of those charming scenic gems which can only be found in
the eastern seas--to land some salt and take in cocoa-nuts and other
items. As for the port of Mangalore, for which I was bound, it seemed to
be, though only about 450 miles from Bombay, an immense distance away, and
practically was nearly as far as Bombay is from Suez. At last, after a
nine days' sail, we lay to off the mouth of the harbour into which, for
reasons best known to himself, the captain of the craft did not choose to
enter, and I was taken ashore in a canoe to be kindly received by the
judge of the collectorate of South Kanara, to whom I had a letter of
introduction.

After spending some pleasant days at Mangalore I set out for Manjarabad,
the talook or county which borders on the South Kanara district--in what
is called a manshiel--a kind of open-sided cot slung to a bamboo pole
which pr