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means of observing the manners of the people, as well as the nature of the country. Accordingly there are found among them many who are stored with curious and useful information. In their own profession they seem to be judicious, according as they have more or less discarded the absurd theories of their books, and proceeded on their own observations, and the practical remarks current in the quarters they have visited. Although surgery be on the whole in a low state, there are some operations which are here performed with great judgment. There are parts of the country in which continual strife prevails, and wounds are generally received, and yet scarcely one professed surgeon is to be found.

85. The Cabul Mission left Delhi on the 12th of October, 1808, and arrived at Beekaneer on the 5th of November. During its stay there many natives of the escort and camp followers were buried. This was not attributable to the unhealthiness of the place or season, but to some preceding circumstances,-severe marching in sand, bad or indifferent water on the route, and great vicissitudes of heat and cold between day and night in the month of October; but, above all, the incautiously eating water-melons and drinking water after heat and fatigue. In passing the desert some individuals were affected with Nyktolopia, but by proper treatment they speedily recovered. Diseases in Buhawulpoor, Mooltan, and Dera, and Ismaul-Khan are generally the same as those of our provinces, with the addition of eye complaints, which are comparatively rare in them. Coughs and catarrhs are common in Buhawul poor. The natives of the detachment experienced during their stay in this country, a cold somewhat greater than that of their own. In the march to Peshawur they were exposed to severe rain, cold, and fatigue, combined. In Peshawur they were but ill accommodated, and exposed to heat and closeness, yet during all this time they were never unhealthy. They marched through the Punjab during the rains, a circumstance which far from being unfavorable, probably preserved them in greater health than they would have enjoyed if halted; there is therefore no reason to conclude the countries they passed through to be unhealthy for strangers.

86. The water of the upper Punjab indeed, is celebrated both by natives and strangers, and the climate vaunted as remarkably salubrious. This boast is not altogether unjust, for here we find but little of the eye complaints so common in similar climates to the west and south. The Sikhs seem a healthy race, and there are found among them some fine persons and faces. They appear built, however, more for activity

than strength. They do not accustom themselves to foot service, and probably could not undergo great fatigue except on horseback. This is still more true of the natives of Toorkistan. Such is the plenty of horses in that country, and so much are they reckoned a necessary of life, that even beggars travel on horseback. The natives of Khoorasan have a great aversion to foot service, and do not excel in that species of travelling, in which the natives of India are generally acknowledged to surpass all their western neighbours. This is absurdly attributed to their foot, when it can be more naturally deduced from the state of their country and their mode of life. Among them none are equal to the Bhutties, or people of Bhutner, where there are said to be some who will travel 30 kos, and after robbing a village or a caravan return the same distance without halting. The people of Hurreeana are in this respect somewhat inferior, but are a robust nation, and in bravery surpass all their neighbours. Being now under our Government, it behoves us to consider how we shall make use of these qualities, or at least prevent them from being turned against us by an enemy. The hill tribes among the Afghans, and others, excel in climbing and in travelling among mountains. The Khyburees are employed in hill warfare as far east as Kot-Kangra, which is situated near the right bank of the Hyphasis before it leaves the mountains; but the Kohistanees are reckoned to excel all others in such operations, and have been known to fight well even in the plain. It is a common observation in the country, that the inhabitants of hills make little figure in war when they venture into the plains, and during the late broils more than one instance has occurred to confirm it. None is more striking than the defeat of Shooja-ool-Moolk, when in the spring of 1802 he brought a force of Khyburees against Peshawur. It is said their inability to bear the heat of the climate was the chief cause of their discomfiture, which terminated in many of them dying of thirst. The natives of the cold and temperate climates express the utmost dislike to the summer heat of that of the warm, but their impatience under it is not always in proportion to the coldness of their native places. The Cabulies support it better than the hill Afghans, or even the Dooranees, whose climate is much warmer than Cabul. This part of the Dooranee character has been very manifest in their history, and productive of important effects. The Persians, though inferior in courage, excel them in steadiness, another good quality of a soldier, and bear the extremities of heat and cold with equal patience. The poverty, ingenuity, and enterprising disposition of the Kushmeerees annually disperse considerable numbers of that nation

over the greatest variety of climates; and in pursuit of gain, they seem little to regard the heat or cold to be endured.

87. The natives of the warm climates do not manifest the same impatience of the winter cold climates; on the contrary, Cabul and Kushmeer are the theme of their praises. It seems doubtful whether this quality of the warm climates, by which those born in them are adapted to both species of climates, can be brought forward more in their commendation, or as an argument of their being plainly inferior to the others. It will be found generally true, that in cold climates there are more numerous diseases, perhaps more unhealthiness; but the natives are more robust and enjoy longer life. In these countries it is remarked that the hair sooner turns grey, and life is shorter in the warmer districts; eye complaints, moreover, are most common in them. When known in the cold, they usually proceed from travellers having exposed themselves to the glare of the snows; but the summer is the season of this complaint in the warm districts. Even those patients in whom they have become chronic, feel a remission of their pains in winter. The natives have no rational theory to account why they are more prevalent in some warm countries than in others. Because they affect moist districts rather than dry, these theorists maintain them to arise from the eating of rice, not adverting that they are not peculiarly severe in Kushmeer, and that there are places in which, though rice be the chief food, they are rarely known. It is a singular fact that ophthalmia begins to be common where the summer rains of India become scanty and uncertain. inclined to be of opinion with Volney, that it is caused by the dews and breezes to which those who sleep. on the terraces expose themselves.

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88. Fever is an universal complaint. Fevers are most common at the equinoxes, but those of the spring are generally of the hot species, where agues and low fevers prevail in the autumn-which, on the whole, is the unhealthiest season of the year. The former species of fevers are commoner in the cold than in the warm districts, and the reverse is true of the latter. The effusion of cold water in the paroxysms of hot fevers, though practised in Persia for ages, is here unknown, except to the Kafirs. It is a general practice to take purging medicines and to draw blood in the spring. Under another subject (see para. 51 and 58) a few places have been mentioned as unhealthy; there now remain very few to be added. There are many diseases in Kushmeer, a fact less owing to an unhealthy air than to filthiness, poverty, and the degraded condition of the inhabitants. The Kashmeerees are at the same time

a robust race, and excelled by none in carrying burdens over mountains. The Huzaras and Oozbucks, especially the former, are broad in their persons, and strong. The water drawn in the interior of Cabul disagrees with strangers, and there is a good deal of sickness among the poor by reason of their being ill accommodated, and the town too closely built, otherwise the climate is not unhealthy, and Peshawur is not inferior to it. Scrofula, a complaint little known in India, is not uncommon among the Daoodzyes, and some other tribes.

89. Khoorasan is undoubtedly a healthy country; and in Toorkistan we can name only a few situations which deserve to be called unhealthy. The most remarkable is Bulkh, which is afflicted with eyecomplaints, all species of fevers, consumptions, the Guinea-worm, dropsy, and many other diseases; yet some of its villages have a good air. The most remarkable complaint of Bokhara is the Guinea-worm, which appears in some other situations in the east of Toorkistan and Bactria, in some villages of Candahar, in certain parts of Huzara and of the Pahar-turee of our provinces (see paragraph 71), in Hureeana Haroutee, and many other quarters of India. In all cases it is commonly ascribed to the quality of the water. In Toorkistan the inhabitants of those cities in which it is most prevalent drink from tanks, the water of which is only occasionally renewed. Where running water is to be had the disease disappears; yet I have heard it pretended that there is something in the air of Bokhara which occasions it, and a pleasing story is told of a certain Moolla who was sceptical in this particular. Being persuaded the water only was to blame, he resolved to use none but that of water-melons, and confidently expected to escape; but before he had passed a year in Bokhara he had a number of worms extracted from his body. The only other local complaints deserving of mention is the Goitre, which is now supposed to be the consequence of drinking water impregnated with certain minerals; it is not unknown in Bactria, but its chief seats are the banks of the Kishun Gunga, Sirn, and Pech. The waters of the Uba Seen have somewhat of the same bad quality, and Goitres are common in certain parts of the Gukhur and Khatir countries. It is asserted, that on the banks of the Pech even the dogs and tame birds are affected.

(To be continued.)

ART. II.-March between Mhow and Saugor, 1838.

Many of the places visited in this journey, were unavoidably visited (it may be almost said) at a gallop; the descriptions are not therefore offered as minute and faultless details, but rather as sketches claiming every indulgence; whose aim is to stimulate the curiosity of future travellers over the same ground, who may have more leisure to pursue the inquiry. Some apology seems also necessary for the digressive nature of the notes. Their best excuse will be their proving either interesting or instructive. Nothing was observed worth noticing till the fourth march,-unless we except a warm spring* between Duttoda and Oouchade, known by the name of the "Kiaura Koond" from a few of the so-called trees, whose flowers perfume its banks, and which give a title to a Ling temple near it, "Kioures war." Some time after leaving Akberpoor, the road crosses a range of low wooded hills, issuing from which the small village of Kurnawud is seen, half-hidden in foliage on the right. It boasts itself to derive its name and origin from one who plays a conspicuous part in the "Bharut," the ear-born son of Kunti-the 6th Pandoo-the gallant and generous Kurun. Not content with the wonderful adventures of which he is the hero in "the great war," the inhabitants of the vicinity possess a goodly store of silly local cheritras regarding him, which they eagerly recite, and believe with perhaps a more lively faith, than will elicit from them the more orthodox, but less familiar, fables of Vyasu. One of the legends they told us, was that which is found in Conolly's overland journey,+ and the others were of a like stamp. A Ling temple close to the village, honored by the name of the hero, appears-the lower part of it at least-to be of considerable antiquity; though a plastered roof now covers the Subha, and a modern brick dome supplies the place of the doubtless once pyramidal Sikra; the

*Springs of this kind are not uncommon in the offsets of the Vindhya. They rarely are of higher temperature than 80o, and have no remarkable chemical properties.

† Vol. ii. page 286. The story is however not in the Bhagawut. It may possibly be found in the "Kurun Upakian." A Basha poem, the "Gurb Chintamani" describing the inconstancy of human glory, thus speaks of Kurun's charity, and his end, in popular doggrel

Raja Kurun bihoto

Kunchun khatma deto
He nur murgya chun me
Dera kuryya bun me.

Death has seized as his prey
Kurun, who lavished gold;
Like a spark he passed away;
His grave is in the world.

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