made his adieus to Phileas Fogg, wishing him all possible success, and expressing the wish that he would recommence the journey in a less original, but more profitable manner. Mr. Fogg pressed lightly his companion's fingers. The parting greetings of Aouda were more demonstrative. She would never forget what she owed Sir Francis Cromarty. As for Passepartout he was honored with a hearty shake of the hand by the general. Quite affected, he asked where and when he could be of service to him. Then they parted.
Leaving Benares, the railway followed in part the valley of the Ganges. Through the windows of the car, the weather being quite clear, appeared the varied country of Behar, mountains covered with verdure, fields of barley, corn, and wheat, jungles full of green alligators, villages well kept, forests yet green. A few elephants, and zebus with large humps, came to bathe in the waters of the sacred river, and also notwithstanding the advanced season and the already cold temperature, bands of Hindoos of both sexes, who were piously performing their holy ablutions.
All this panorama passed like a flash, and frequently a cloud of steam concealed its details from them. The travelers could scarcely see the fort of Chunar, twenty miles to the southeast of Benares, the old stronghold of the rajahs of Behar, Ghazepour, and its large rose-water manufactories; the tomb of Lord Cornwallis rising on the left bank of the Ganges; the fortified town of Buxar; Patna, the great manufacturing and commercial city, where the principal opium market in India is held; Monghir, a more than European town, as English as Manchester or Birmingham, famous for its iron foundries, its manufactories of cutlery, and whose high chimneys cover with a black smoke the heavens of Brahma—a real fist-blow in the country of dreams!
Then night came, and in the midst of the howlings of the tigers, the bears, and the wolves, which fled before the locomotive, the train passed on at full speed, and they saw nothing of the wonders of Bengal, or Golconda, or Gour in ruins, or Mourshedabad, the former capital, or Burdwan, or Hougly, or Chandernagar, that French point in the Indian territory, on which Passepartout would have been proud to see his native flag floating.
Finally, at seven o'clock A. M., Calcutta was reached.
