CAWNPORE.
CHAPTER I.
THE STATION.
THE city of Cawnpore lies on the south bank of the Ganges, which at that spot is about a quarter of a mile in breadth, and this too in the dry season; for, when the rains have filled the bed, the stream measures two thousand yards from shore to shore. And yet the river has still a thousand miles of his stately course to run before that, by many channels and under many names, he loses himself in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. In old times an officer apA ointed to Cawnpore thought himself fortunate if he could reach his station within three months from the day he left Fort William. But tow-ropes and punt-poles are now things of the past, and the traveller from Calcutta arrives at the end of his journey in little more than thirty hours.
