vantage is secured--the
Gospel is kept before the minds of the people, and some knowledge of it
is carried to the remotest parts of the land. Books and tracts are taken
to places which missionaries have never visited. It cannot be doubted
that such services have their part in preparing the people for the new
and better state of things which every Christian longs for and expects.

At Allahabad I had an opportunity of observing the peculiarities of a
great Hindu mela. The morning was devoted to bathing and the performance
of religious rites. As the forenoon came on, the merchants of every
class set out their wares in tents erected on sites appointed for them,
with their opening, so far as possible, away from the side exposed to
the wind. Goods of every description, useful and ornamental, cloth,
grain, cooking vessels, trinkets, and sweetmeats, were exhibited to
tempt purchasers, and buying and selling went on as vigorously as if the
people had come together solely for that end. Crowds were in constant
motion, going from place to place to see what could be seen, and
stopping where there was any special attraction, or, as happens in our
own crowded streets, stopping where a few were incidentally collected.
By the afternoon, singers, experts in tricks, and show-people of every
description, commenced their operations, and were sure of admiring
crowds. The merry-go-rounds were largely patronized. Hour after hour was
thus spent.

[Sidenote: COOKING AND MERRYMAKING.]

A few cooked food early in the day, but the vast majority staved off
hunger--in some cases by partaking of cakes reserved from the previous
evening meal; the greater number, I believe, by partaking of sweetmeats
made with flour, sugar, and melted butter, of which an enormous quantity
was offered for sale. As evening came on they scattered themselves over
the ground lying between the Ganges and the Jumna, and set to the
preparation of their one proper meal for the twenty-four hours. The
plain was alight with their fires. Nothing can be simpler than their
cooking. They make what they call a _choola_, an elevation in the shape
of a horseshoe of a half-foot or a little more of moistened mud, or
stone if they can get it. If the traveller be of a respectable caste, he
takes care to make no use of the _choolas_ which former travellers have
left. They may have been set up by impure hands, and so he makes one for
himself. It is convenient to have two such _choolas_, that