CHAPTER III.
The necessary arrangements for long marches having been rapidly completed, we turned our backs on the “holy town,” and started for Patna along a pleasant road that lay by the side of vast plains concealed with sprouting corn, and in places fringed with immense belts of trees and evergreen shrubs, which only disappeared when we entered an avenue of miles in extent leading into Patna.
To speak of silvan avenues as stretching miles in extent, would seem to imply that they had been measured with the proverbial “long bow”; but in passing, it may be mentioned that in many parts of India magnificent avenues stretch scores of miles without a break.
The town of Patna, though large, is in no wise very remarkable. It contains, however, an immense population of disloyal Mahomedans, and is one of the great centres of disaffection and intrigue in India. Situated on the right bank of the Ganges, it presents a rather prepossessing panoramic view of an Oriental riverside town; and viewed from the water it is a long, irregular line of countless buildings closely packed together in grotesque shapes of various sizes, while prominently
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