X432/4(23)

The rope bridge at Sirinagur.

No. XXIII. THE ROPE BRIDGE, AT SERINAGUR.

The city of Serinagur appears in the distance, extending along the right bank of the Alucnindra, and is partly concealed by the high rock in the front of the view. On the author's approach to this place, he was greeted by many young people, who presented him with flowers, and preceded his party on their way to the town, singing and shewing other signs of an hospitable welcome. On entering the city, he found the disposition of the Rajah himself no less friendly, but unfortunately he was then preparing to quit his capital, and leave it to the mercy of another Rajah, who, in his superior power, had discovered an unanswerable argument for invading the territories of his neighbour. The river is here too rapid to be passed even by boats, and therefore the bridge of ropes, represented in this plate, offered the only means for the Rajah and his people to effect their retreat, which circumstance presented an affecting scene, and a most melancholy example of the wretched state of society under these petty chieftains, whose views of government are little better than those of savages; and with whom all questions of justice and right are, as with duellists, referred to arms; considering, like them, no decisions so correct, and so honourable, as those which have been recorded in letters of blood.

This bridge, which is 240 feet in length, is an ingenious contrivance, and so simple that it may be soon erected and soon removed. On each side of the river two strong and lofty poles are fixed in the ground, and kept together with transverse pieces at their upper ends, over which large ropes, made fast to the rocks or ground, are stretched and extended from side to side. From the bottom of those upright poles are carried other ropes, which are drawn towards the upper ones by a lacing of cords, while flat pieces of bamboo are so fastened to the lower cords as to form a tolerably commodious footway.

On the top of the rock near the bridge, are the remains of a building formerly inhabited by a Faquier, who is a kind of Indian hermit.