A country vessel is being towed by her crew round a rocky point; each
man has his own _gūn_, or track-rope, fastened to a short, thick piece
of bamboo, which he carries over his shoulder. A Pinnace, or budjerow,
tracks, with ten or twelve men, upon one rope only.
The Sīckrī-galī pass, during the Hindū and Muhammadan Governments, was
the commanding entrance from Bahar into Bengal, and was fortified with a
strong wall; however, in 1742, a Mahratta army of cavalry passed into
Bengal through the hills above Colgong. The village of Sīckrī-galī is
eighteen miles above Rajmahal at the base of a high rocky eminence,
commanding a fine view of two ranges of hills. There is here the tomb of
a celebrated Muhammadan Saint, Pīr Pointī, and a cave in limestone rock;
and higher up, at a place called Pīr Pointī, now a mass of ruins, is
another tomb of the saint.
This pass is close upon the Rajmahal hills, and the only European
inhabitant lives in the _Bangla_, commonly called Bungalow, the house at
the foot of the hill. Wild beasts sometimes come to this place at night,
and the footmarks of the tiger are often to be seen in the garden.
Jackals roam howling through the village; bears, tigers, rhinoceroses,
leopards, hogs, deer of all kinds, abound here, and feathered game in
the hills. Elephants are absolutely necessary to enable a man to enjoy
shooting amidst the high grass and thorny thickets. The place is so much
disturbed by the people who go into the hills for wood, that the game
retreat farther into the _jangal_. When a gentleman goes out shooting on
foot, the _dandīs_ accompany him with long poles, to beat the bushes. In
the marshy plains under the hills of this pass good shooting is to be
found, but on account of tigers it is dangerous.