see, between Almora and Cashmere;
the Cashmiran; the Panjabee; the Mooltanee, or Vuchee, on the middle
Indus; the two dialects of Sindhi, or Tatto, on the lower Indus; the
Cutche, on the west coast of the peninsula; the Guserate, spoken
on the islands of Salsette and Bombay and the opposite coast of the
Coucan, as well as by the Parsees in the cities, where it is corrupted
with many words of other languages through the influence of commercial
relations; the Coucane, from Bombay to Goa and along the parallel
Ghats where it is called Ballagate; the Bikaneere, the Marvare, the
Jeypore, the Udayapore, of Rajpootana; the Vraja-bhasha (the cow-pen
language) of the Doab, between the Ganges and the Jumna, which is
probably the parent of Hindi (or Oordu); the Malooe, of the tableland
of Malwa; the Bundelakhande, of the Bundelkhand; the Mogadhe, of
Behar; the Maharachtre, of the country south of the Vindhyas; the--"

"It gives me pain to interrupt you, Bhima Gandharva," I said
(fervently hoping that this portion of my remark might escape the
attention of the recording angel); "but I think we are at Jabalpur."

_Apropos_ of Jubbulpoor, it is well enough to remark that by the rules
of Indian orthography which are now to be considered authentic, the
letter "a" without an accent has a sound equivalent to short "u," and
a vowel with an acute accent has what is usually called its long
sound in English. Accordingly, the word written "Jabalpur" should
be pronounced as if retaining the "u" and the "oo" with which it was
formerly written, "Jubbulpoor". The termination _pur_, so common in
the designation of Indian places, is equivalent to that of _ville_
in English, and means the same. The other common termination, _abad_,
means "dwelling" or "residence": e.g., Ahmedabad, the residence of
Ahmed. Jabalpur is but about a mile from the right bank of the Nerbada
(_Nerbudda_) River; and as I wished to see the famous Marble Rocks
of that stream, which are found a short distance from Jabalpur, my
companion and I here left the railway, intending to see a little of
the valley of the Nerbada, and then to strike across the Vindhyas,
along the valley of the Tonsa, to Bhopal, making our journey by such
slow, irregular and easy stages as should be compatible with that
serene and philosophic disposition into which the Hindu's beautiful
gravity had by this time quite converted my American tendencies toward
rushing through life at the killing pace.

[Ill