nd appeared to blow in upon the poor devoted city from every
side; and the troops of Zalim Singh, who at first prevented the
people from rushing out at the gates, made off in a panic at the
horrors before them. All our establishments had been driven into the
city at the approach of Zalim Singh's troops; and scores of
elephants, hundreds of camels, and thousands of horses and ponies
perished in the flames, besides twenty-five thousand souls. Only
about five thousand persons escaped out of thirty thousand, and these
were reduced to beggary and wretchedness by the loss of their dearest
relations and their property. At the time the flames first began to
spread, an immense crowd of people had assembled under the fortress
on the bank of the Sonar river to see the widow of a soldier burn
herself. Her husband had been shot by one of Zalim Singh's soldiers
in the morning; and before midday she was by the side of his body on
the funeral pile. People, as usual, begged her to tell them what
would happen, and she replied, "The city will know in less than four
hours"; in less than four hours the whole city had been reduced to
ashes; and we all concluded that, since the event was so clearly
foretold, it must have been decreed by God.'[6]

'No doubt it was,' said Sarimant; 'how could it otherwise happen? Do
not all events depend upon His will? Had it not been His will to save
me, how could poor Tulsi the Kurmin have carried me upon her
shoulders through such a scene as this, when every other member of
our family perished?'

'No doubt', said Ram Chand, 'all these things are brought about by
the will of God, and it is not for us to ask why.'[7]

I have heard this event described by many other people, and I believe
the account of the old pundit to be a very fair one.

One day, in October 1833, the horse of the district surgeon, Doctor
Spry, as he was mounting him, reared, fell back with his head upon a
stone, and died upon the spot. The doctor was not much hurt, and the
little Sarimant called a few days after, and offered his
congratulations upon his narrow escape. The cause of so quiet a horse
rearing at this time, when he had never been known to do so before,
was discussed; and he said that there could be no doubt that the
horse, or the doctor himself, must have seen some unlucky face before
he mounted that morning--that he had been in many places in his life,
but in none where a man was liable to see so many ugly or unfortunate
fa