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than many pretending volumes, by men who nave been half their lives in the countries to which they relate :

sent to the pictures of depravity and general worthlessness which some have drawn of the Hindoos. They are decidedly, by nature, a mild, pleasing, and intelligent race; sober, parsimonious, and, where an object is held out to them, most industrious and persevering. But the magistrates and lawyers all agree that in no country are lying and perjury so common, and so little regarded; and notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their manners, the criminal calendar is generally as full as in Ireland, with gang-robberies, setting fire to buildings, stacks, &c.; and the number of children who are decoyed aside and murdered, for the sake of their ornaments, Lord Amherst assures me, is dreadful."

We may add the following direct testimony on a point of some little curiosity, which has been alternately denied and exaggerated :

the Brahmins who manage it. They have really animals of several different kinds there, not only those which are accounted sacred by the Hindoos, as monkeys, peacocks, &c., but horses, dogs, and cats; and they have also, in little boxes, an assortment of lice and fleas! It is not true, however, that they feed those pensioners on the flesh of beggars hired for the purpose. The Brahmins say that these insects, as well as the other inmates of their infirmary, are fed with vegetables only, such as rice, &c. How the insects thrive, I did not hear; but the old horses and dogs, nay the peacocks and said to be in any tolerable plight are some milch apes, are allowed to starve; and the only creatures cows, which may be kept from other motives than charity."

"Of the people of this country, and the manner in which they are governed, I have, as yet, hardly seen enough to form an opinion. I have seen enough, however, to find that the customs, the habits, and prejudices of the former are much misunderstood in England. We have all heard, for instance, of the humanity of the Hindoos towards brute creatures, their horror of animal food, &c.; and you may be, perhaps, as much surprised as I was, to find that those who can afford it are hardly less carnivorous than ourselves; that even the purest Brahmins are allowed to eat mutton and venison; that fish is permitted to many castes, and pork to many others; and that, though they consider it a grievous crime to kill a cow or bullock for the purpose of eating, yet they treat their draft oxen, no less than their horses, with a degree of "At Broach is one of those remarkable institubarbarous severity which would turn an English tions which have made a good deal of noise in Euhackney coachman sick. Nor have their religious rope, as instances of Hindoo benevolence to inferior prejudices, and the unchangeableness of their habits, animals. I mean hospitals for sick and infirm been less exaggerated. Some of the best informed beasts, birds, and insects. I was not able to visit of their nation, with whom I have conversed, assure it; but Mr. Corsellis described it as a very dirty me that half their most remarkable customs of civil and neglected place, which, though it has considerand domestic life are borrowed from their Mahomable endowments in land, only serves to enrich medan conquerors; and at present there is an obvious and increasing disposition to imitate the Eng. lish in every thing, which has already led to very remarkable changes, and will, probably, to still more important. The wealthy natives now all affect to have their houses decorated with Corinthian pillars, and filled with English furniture. They drive the best horses and the most dashing carriages in Calcutta. Many of them speak English fluently, and are tolerably read in English literature; and the children of one of our friends I saw one day dressed in jackets and trousers, with round hats, shoes and stockings. In the Bengalee newspapers, of which there are two or three, politics are canvassed, with a bias, as I am told, inclining to Whiggism; and one of their leading men gave a great dinner not long since in honour of the Spanish Revolution. Among the lower orders the same feeling shows itself more beneficially, in a growing neg. lect of caste-in not merely a willingness, but an anxiety, to send their children to our schools, and a desire to learn and speak English, which, if properly encouraged, might, I verily believe, in fifty years' time, make our language what the Oordoo, or court and camp language of the country (the Hindostanee), is at present. And though instances of actual conversion to Christianity are, as yet, very uncommon, yet the number of children, both male and female, who are now receiving a sort of Christian education, reading the New Testament, repeating the Lord's Prayer and Commandments, and all with the consent, or at least without the censure, of their parents or spiritual guides, have increased, during the last two years, to an amount which astonishes the old European residents, who were used to tremble at the name of a Missionary, and shrink from the common duties of Christianity, lest they should give offence to their heathen neighbours. So far from that being a consequence of the zeal which has been lately shown, many of the Brahmins themselves express admiration of the morality of the Gospel, and profess to entertain a better opinion of the English since they have found that they too have a religion and a Shaster. All that seems necessary for the best effects to follow is, to let things take their course; to make the Missionaries discreet; to keep the government as it now is, strictly neuter; and to place our confidence in a general diffusion of knowledge, and in making ourselves really useful to the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the people among whom we live.

He adds afterwards,

"I have not been led to believe that our Government is generally popular, or advancing towards popularity. It is, perhaps, impossible that we should be so in any great degree; yet I really think there are some causes of discontent which it is in our own power, and which it is our duty to remove or diminish. One of these is the distance and haughtiness with which a very large proportion of the civil and military servants of the Company treat the upper and middling class of natives. Against their mixing much with us in society, there are certainly many hindrances; thongh even their objec tion to eating with us might, so far as the Mussul mans are concerned, I think, be conquered by any popular man in the upper provinces, who made the attempt in a right way. But there are some of our amusements, such as private theatrical entertain ments and the sports of the field, in which they would be delighted to share, and invitations to which would be regarded by them as extremely flattering, if they were not, perhaps with some reason, voted bores, and treated accordingly. The French, under Perron and Des Boignes, who in more serious matters left a very bad name behind them, had, in this particular, a great advantage over us; and the easy and friendly intercourse in which they lived with natives of rank, is still often regretted in Agra and the Dooab. This is not all, however. The foolish pride of the English absolutely leads them to set at nought the injunctions of their own Government. The Tussildars, for instance, or principal active officers of revenue, ought, by an order of council, to have chairs always offered them in the presence of their European superiors; and the same, by the "In all these points there is, indeed, great room standing orders of the army, should be done to the for improvement: But I do not by any means as-Soubahdars. Yet there are hardly six collectors in

India who observe the former etiquette: and the latter, which was fifteen years ago never omitted in the army, is now completely in disuse. At the same time, the regulations of which I speak are known to every Tussildar and Soubahdar in India, and they feel themselves aggrieved every time these civilities are neglected."

tion of Justice; especially in the local or district courts, called Adawlut, which the costli ness and intricacy of the proceedings, and the needless introduction of the Persian language, have made sources of great practical oppres sion, and objects of general execration throughout the country. At the Bombay Presidency Mr. Elphinstone has discarded the Persian, and appointed every thing to be done in the

Of the state of the Schools, and of Education in general, he speaks rather favourably; and is very desirous that, without any direct at-ordinary language of the place. tempt at conversion, the youth should be generally exposed to the humanising influence of the New Testament morality, by the general introduction of that holy book, as a lesson book in the schools; a matter to which he states positively that the natives, and even their Brahminical pastors, have no sort of objection. Talking of a female school, lately established at Calcutta, under the charge of a very pious and discreet lady, he observes, that "Rhadacant Deb, one of the wealthiest natives in Calcutta, and regarded as the most austere and orthodox of the worshippers of the Ganges, bade, some time since, her pupils go on and prosper; and added, that if they practised the Sermon on the Mount as well as they repeated it, he would choose all the handmaids for his daughters, and his wives, from the English school."""

And here we are afraid we must take leave of this most instructive and delightful publication; which we confidently recommend to our readers, not only as more likely to amuse them than any book of travels with which we are acquainted, but as calculated to enlighten their understandings, and to touch their hearts with a purer flame than they generally catch from most professed works of philosophy or devotion. It sets before us, in every page, the most engaging example of devotion to God and good-will to man; and, touching every object with the light of a clear judgment and a pure heart, exhibits the rare spectacle of a work written by a priest upon religious creeds and establishments, without a shade of intolerance; and bringing under review the characters of a vast multitude of eminent individuals, without one trait either of sarcasm

He is far less satisfied with the administra- or adulation.

(October, 1824.)

1. Sketches of India. Written by an OFFICER, for Fire-Side Travellers at Home. Second Edition, with Alterations. 8vo. pp. 358. London: 1824. 2. Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and Italy. By the Author of Sketches of India, and 1824. Recollections of the Peninsula. 8vo. pp. 452. Londoữ:

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THESE are very amiable books:—and, be- them, will be more generally agreeable than sides the good sentiments they contain, they a digest of the information they might have are very pleasing specimens of a sort of travel-acquired. We would by no me aus undervalue writing, to which we have often regretted the researches of more learned and laborious that so few of those who roam loose about the world will now condescend-we mean a brief and simple notice of what a person of ordinary information and common sensibility may see and feel in passing through a new country, which he visits without any learned preparation, and traverses without any particular object. There are individuals, no doubt, who travel to better purpose, and collect more weighty information—exploring, and recording as they go, according to their several habits and measures of learning, the mineralogy, antiquities, or statistics of the different regions they survey. But the greater part, even of intelligent wanderers, are neither so ambitious in their designs, nor so industrious in their execution;-and, as most of those who travel for pleasure, and find pleasure in travelling, are found to decline those tasks, which might enrol them among the contributors to science, while they turned all their movements into occasions of laborious study, it seems reasonable to think that a lively and svccinct account of what actually delighted

persons, especially in countries rarely visited:
But, for common readers, their discussions
require too much previous knowledge, and
too painful an effort of attention. They are
not books of travels, in short, but works of
science and philosophy; and as the principal
delight of travelling consists in the impres
which we receive, almost passively, from the
presentment of new objects, and the ref
tions to which they spontaneously give
so the most delightful books of travels shou
be those that give us back those impression
in their first freshness and simplicity, and e
cite us to follow out the train of feelings ar
reflection into which they lead us, by the
rect and unpretending manner in which the
are suggested. By aiming too ambitiously
instruction and research, this charm is lost;
and we often close these copious dissertation
and details, needlessly digested in the form
of a journal, without having the least de
ould
how we, or any other ordinary person, w
tho-
have felt as companions of the journey-
should
roughly convinced, certainly, that we

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not have occupied ourselves as the writers before us seem to have been occupied; and pretty well satisfied, after all, that they themselves were not so occupied during the most agreeable hours of their wanderings, and had omitted in their books what they would most frequently recall in their moments of enjoyment and leisure.

"The "Sketches of India," a loose-printed octavo of 350 pages, is the least interesting perhaps of the two volumes now before usthough sufficiently marked with all that is characteristic of the author. It may be as well to let him begin at the beginning.

slated or thatched roofs, its neat gardens, its green
and sloping shores.-Madras and its naked fort,
noble-looking buildings, tall columns, lofty veran
dahs, and terraced roofs. The city, large and
crowded, on a flat site; a low sandy beach, and a
The roadstead, there, alive with
foaming surf.
fishing barks. Here, black, shapeless Massoolah
beautiful yachts, light wherries, and tight-built
boats, with their naked crews, singing the same
wild (yet not unpleasing) air, to which, for ages,
the dangerous surf they fearlessly ply over has been
rudely responsive.

On the afternoon of July the 10th, 1818, our vessel dropped anchor in Madras Roads, after a fine Nor are these records of superficial obser- run of three months and ten days from the Mothervation to be disdained as productive of enter-bank.-How changed the scene! how great the tainment only, or altogether barren of instruc-contrast!-Ryde, and its little snug dwellings, with tion. Very often the surface presents all that is really worth considering-or all that we are capable of understanding;-and our observer, we are taking it for granted, is, though no great philosopher, an intelligent and educated man-looking curiously at all that presents itself, and making such passing inquiries as may satisfy a reasonable curiosity, without greatly disturbing his indolence or delaying his progress. Many themes of reflection and topics of interest will be thus suggested, which more elaborate and exhausting discussions would have strangled in the birth-while, in the variety and brevity of the notices which such a scheme of writing implies, the mind of the reader is not only more agreeably ex-waving with a feathery motion in the wind; the cited, but is furnished, in the long run, with more materials for thinking, and solicited to more lively reflections, than by any quantity of exact knowledge on plants, stones, ruins, manufactures, or history.

"I shall never forget the sweet and strange sensations which, as I went peacefully forward, the new objects in nature excited in my bosom. The rich broad-leaved plantain; the gracefully drooping bamboo; the cocoa nut, with that mat-like-looking binding for every branch; the branches themselves

bare lofty trunk and fan-leaf of the tall palm; the slender and elegant stem of the areca; the large aloes; the prickly pear; the stately banian with drop-branches, here fibrous and pliant, there strong and columnar, supporting its giant arms, and forming around the parent stem a grove of beauty; and among these wonders, birds, all strange in plumage and in note, save the parroquet (at home, the lady's pet-bird in a gilded cage), here spreading his bright green wings in happy fearless flight, and giving his natural and untaught scream.

Such, at all events, is the merit and the charm of the volumes before us. They place us at once by the side of the author and bring before our eyes and minds the scenes he has passed through, and the feelings they "It was late and dark when we reached Poonasuggested. In this last particular, indeed, we mallee; and during the latter part of our march we are entirely at his mercy; and we are afraid had heavy rain. We found no fellow-countryman he sometimes makes rather an unmerciful to welcome us: But the mess-room was open and lighted, a table laid, and a crowd of smart, roguishuse of his power. It is one of the hazards looking natives, seemed waiting our arrival to seek of this way of writing, that it binds us up in service-Drenched to the skin, without changes of the strictest intimacy and closest companion-linen, or any bedding, we sat down to the repast ship with the author. Its attraction is in its provided; and it would have been difficult to have direct personal sympathy-and its danger in found in India. perhaps, at the moment, a more cheerful party than ours.-Four or five clean-lookthe temptation it holds out to abuse it. It ing natives, in white dresses, with red or white enables us to share the grand spectacles with turbans, ear-rings of gold, or with emerald drops, which the traveller is delighted-but compels and large silver signet rings on their fingers, crowded us in a manner to share also in the sentiments round each chair, and watched our every glance, to Curries, vegetables, and with which he is pleased to connect them. anticipate our wishes. For the privilege of seeing with his eyes, we fruits, all new to us, were tasted and pronounced upon; and after a meal, of which every one seemed must generally renounce that of using our to partake with grateful good humour, we lay down own judgment-and submit to adopt im- for the night. One attendant brought a small carpet, plicitly the tone of feeling which he has found another a mat, others again a sheet or counterpane, most congenial with the scene. till all were provided with something; and thus closed our first evening in India. The morning scene was very ludicrous. Here, a barber uncalled for, was shaving a man as he still lay dozing! there, another was cracking the joints of a man half dressed; here were two servants, one pouring water on, the other washing, a Saheb's hands. In spite of my efforts to prevent them, two well-dressed men were washing my feet; and near me was a lad dexterously putting on the clothes of a sleepy brother officer, as if he had been an infant under his care-There was much in all this to amuse the mind, and a great deal, I confess, to pain the heart of a free-born Englishman."

On the present occasion, we must say, the reader, on the whole, has been fortunate. The author, though an officer in the King's service, and not without professional predilections, is, generally speaking, a speculative, sentimental, saintly sort of person-with a taste for the picturesque, a singularly poetical cast of diction, and a mind deeply imbued with principles of philanthropy and habits of affection:-And if there is something of fadaise now and then in his sentiments, and something of affectation in his style, it is no more than we can easily forgive, in consideration of his brevity, his amiableness, and variety.

Sketches of India, pp. 3-10.

With all this profusion of attendance, the march of a British officer in India seems a matter rather of luxury than fatigue.

"Marching in this country is certainly pleasant; | general's tents from the Deccan, were in the act although perhaps you rise too early for comfort. An hour before daybreak you mount your horse; and, travelling at an easy pace, reach your ground before the sun has any power; and find a small tent pitched with breakfast ready on the table.Your large tent follows with couch and baggage, carried by bullocks and coolies; and before nine o'clock, you may be washed, dressed, and employed with your books, pen, or pencil. Mats, made of the fragrant roots of the Cuscus grass, are hung before the doors of your tent to windward; and being constant wetted, admit, during the hottest winds, a cool refreshing air.

of loading. The intelligent obedience of the elephant is well known; but to look upon this huge and powerful monster kneeling down at the mere bidding of the human voice; and, when he has risen again, to see him protrude his trunk for the foot of his mahout or attendant, to help him into his seat; or, bending the joint of his hind leg, make a step for him to climb up behind; and then, if any loose cloths or cords fall off, with a dog-like docility pick them up with his proboscis and put them up again, will delight and surprise long after it ceases to be novel. When loaded, this creature broke off a large branch from the lofty tree near "While our forefathers were clad in wolf-skin, which he stood, and quietly fanned and fly-flapped dwelt in caverns, and lived upon the produce of himself, with all the nonchalance of an indolent the chase, the Hindoo lived as now. As now, his woman of fashion, till the camels were ready. princes were clothed in soft raiment, wore jewelled These animals also kneel to be laden. When in turbans, and dwelt in palaces. As now, his haughty motion, they have a very awkward gait, and seem half-naked priests received his offerings in temples to travel at a much slower pace than they really of hewn and sculptured granite, and summoned him do. Their tall out-stretched necks, long sinewy to rites as absurd, but yet more splendid and de- limbs, and broad spongy feet,-their head furni bauching, than the present. His cottage, garments,ture, neck-bells, and the rings in their nostrils, household utensils, and implements of husbandry with their lofty loads, and a driver generally on the or labour, the same as now. Then, too, he wa- top of the leading one, have a strange appearance." tered the ground with his foot, by means of a plank Ibid. pp. 46-48. balanced transversely on a lofty pole, or drew from the deep bowerie by the labour of his oxen, in large bags of leather, supplies of water to flow through the little channels by which their fields and gardens are intersected. His children were then taught to shape letters in the sand, and to write and keep accounts on the dried leaves of the palm, by the village schoolmaster. His wife ground corn at the same mill, or pounded it in a rude mortar with her neighbour. He could make purchases in a regular bazaar, change money at a shroff's, or borrow it at usury, for the expenses of a wedding or festival. In short, all the traveller sees around him of social or civilized life, of useful invention or luxurious refinement, is of yet higher antiquity than the days of Alexander the Great. So that, in fact, the eye of the British officer looks upon the same forms and dresses, the same buildings, manners, and customs, on which the Macedonian troops gazed with the same astonishment two thousand years ago."

Sketches of India, pp. 23-26.

If the traveller proceeds in a palanquin, his comforts are not less amply provided for. "You generally set off after dark; and, habited in loose drawers and a dressing gown, recline at full length and slumber away the night. If you are wakeful, you may draw back the sliding panel of a lamp fixed behind, and read. Your clothes are packed in large neat baskets, covered with green oil-cloth, and carried by palanquin boys; two pairs will contain two dozen complete changes. Your palanquin is fitted up with pockets and drawers. You can carry in it, without trouble, a writing desk and two or three books, with a few canteen conveniences for your meals,-and thus you may be comfortably provided for many hundred miles' travelling. You stop for half an hour, morning and evening, under the shade of a tree, to wash and take refreshment; throughout the day read, think, or gaze round you. The relays of bearers lie ready every ten or twelve miles; and the average of your run is about four miles an hour."

Ibid. pp. 218, 219.

We cannot make room for his descriptions, though excellent, of the villages, the tanks, the forest-and the dresses and deportment of the different classes of the people; but we must give this little sketch of the Elephant and Camel.

"While breakfast was getting ready, I amused myself with looking at a baggage-elephant and a 'ew camels, which some servants, returning with a

We must add the following very clear description of a Pagoda.

A high, solid wall, encloses a large area in the form of an oblong square; at one end is the gateway, above which is raised a large pyramidal tower; its breadth at the base and height proportioned to the magnitude of the pagoda. This tower is ascended by steps in the inside, and divided into stories; the central spaces on each are open, and The light is seen dismaller as the tower rises. rectly through them, producing, at times, a very beautiful effect, as when a fine sky, or trees, form the back ground. The front, sides, and top of this gateway and tower, are crowded with sculpture; elaborate, but tasteless. A few yards from the gate, on the outside, you often see a lofty octagonal stone pillar, or a square open building, supported by tall columns of stone, with the figure of a bull couchant, sculptured as large, or much larger than life, beneath it.

"Entering the gateway, you pass into a spacious paved court, in the centre of which stands the inner temple, raised about three feet from the ground, open, and supported by numerous stone pillars. An building, contains the idol. Round the whole court enclosed sanctuary at the far end of this central runs a large deep verandah, also supported by columns of stone, the front rows of which are often shaped by the sculptor into various sacred animals rampant, rode by their respective deities. All the other parts of the pagoda, walls, basements, entablatures, are covered with imagery and ornament of all sizes, in alto or demi-relievo."

The following description and reflections among the ruins of Bijanagur, the last capital of the last Hindu empire, and finally overthrown in 1564, are characteristic of the author's most ambitious, perhaps most questionable, manner.

"You cross the garden, where imprisoned beauty once strayed. You look at the elephant-stable and juring up some associations of luxury and magnifithe remaining gateway, with a mind busied in concence.-Sorrowfully I passed on. Every stone be neath my feet bore the mark of chisel, or of human skill and labour. You tread continually on steps, pavement, pillar, capital, or cornice of rude relief, displaced, or fallen, and mingled in confusion. Here, large masses of such materials have already formed bush-covered rocks,-there, pagodas are still standing entire. You may for miles trace the city walls, and can often discover, by the fallen pillars of the

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.ong piazza, where it has been adorned by streets | officer, and without public character of any of uncommon width. One, indeed, yet remains kind, it is admirable to see with what uniform nearly perfect; at one end of it a few poor ryots, respect and attention he was treated, even by who contrive to cultivate some patches of rice, cot- the lawless soldiery among whom he had freton, or sugar-cane, in detached spots near the river, have formed mud-dwellings under the piazza. quently to pass. The indolent and mercenary While, with a mind thus occupied, you pass on Brahmins seem the only class of persons from through this wilderness, the desolating judgments whom he experienced any sort of incivility. on other renowned cities, so solemnly foretold, so In an early part of his route he had the good dreadfully fulfilled, rise naturally to your recollec-luck to fall in with Scindiah himself; tion. I climbed the very loftiest rock at day-break, on the morrow of my first visit to the ruins, by rude and broken steps, winding between and over immense and detached masses of stone; and seated

and the

picture he has given of that turbulent leader and his suite is worth preserving.

the road, or scrambling and leaping on the rude "First came loose light-armed horse, either in banks and ravines near; then some better clad, with the quilted poshauk; and one in a complete suit of the hunting elephant of Scindiah, from which he chain-armour; then a few elephants, among them had dismounted. On one small elephant, guiding it himself, rode a fine boy, a foundling protegé of Scindiah, called the Jungle Rajah; then came, slowly prancing, a host of fierce, haughty chieftains, forward, and all took their proud stand behind and on fine horses, showily caparisoned. They darted round us, planting their long lances on the earth, and reining up their eager steeds to see, I suppose, our salaam. Next, in a common native palkee, its himself. He was plainly dressed, with a reddish canopy crimson, and not adorned, came Scindiah turban, and a shawl over his vest, and lay reclined, smoking a small gilt or golden calean.

myself near a small pagoda, at the very summit. From hence I commanded the whole extent of what was once a city, described by Cæsar Frederick as twenty-four miles in circumference. Not above eight or nine pagodas are standing; but there are choultries innumerable. Fallen columns, arches, piazzas, and fragments of all shapes on every side for miles. Can there have been streets and roads in these choked-up valleys? Has the war-horse pranced, the palfrey ambled there? Have jewelled turbans once glittered where those dew-drops now sparkle on the thick-growing bamboos? Have the delicate small feet of female dancers practised their graceful steps where that rugged and thorn-covered ruin bars up the path? Have their soft voices, and the Indian guitar, and the gold bells on their ankles, ever made music in so lone and silent a spot? They have; but other sights, and other sounds, have also been seen and heard among these ruins. "I looked down on the chiefs under us, and saw There, near that beautiful banyan-tree, whole that they eyed us most haughtily, which very much families, at the will of a merciless prince, have been increased the effect they would otherwise have prothrown to trampling elephants, kept for a work so duced. They were armed with lance, scimitar and savage that they learn it with reluctance, and must shield, creese and pistol; wore some shawls, some be taught by man. Where those cocoas wave, once stood a vast seraglio, filled at the expense of tears wrapped in clothing; and wore, almost all, a large tissues, some plain muslin or cotton; were all much and crimes; there, within that retreat of voluptu-fold of muslin, tied over the turban top, which they ousness, have poison, or the creese, obeyed, often fasten under the chin; and which, strange as it may anticipated, the sovereign's wish. By those green sound to those who have never seen it, looks warbanks, near which the sacred waters of the Toom-like, and is a very important defence to the sides budra flow, many aged parents have been carried of the neck. forth and exposed to perish by those whose infancy they fostered."-Sketches of India.

The following reflections are equally just and important:

such as I write of, is added avarice the most piti-
less? I cannot tell. But I recollect often before, in
my life, being thus moved. Once, especially. I
stood over a gateway in France, as a prisoner, and
saw file in, several squadrons of gens-d'armerie
d'elite, returning from the fatal field of Leipsic.
They were fine, noble-looking men, with warlike
helmets of steel and brass, and drooping plumes of
black horse-hair; belts handsome and broad; heavy
swords; were many of them decorated with the
Their trumpets
cross of the Legion of Honour.
flourished; and I felt my heart throb with an ad-
miring delight, which found relief only in an invol
untary tear. What an inconsistent riddle is the
human heart!"-Ibid. pp. 260-264.

"How is it that we can have a heart-stirring sort of pleasure in gazing on brave and armed men, though we know them to be fierce, lawless, and cruel-though we know stern ambition to be the chief feature of many warriors, who, from the cra"Nothing, perhaps, so much damps the ardourdle to the grave, seek only fame; and to which, in of a traveller in India, as to find that he may wander league after league, visit city after city, village after village, and still only see the outside of Indian society. The house he cannot enter, the group he cannot join, the domestic circle he cannot gaze upon, the free unrestrained converse of the natives he can never listen to. He may talk with his moonshee or his pundit; ride a few miles with a Mahometan sirdar; receive and return visits of ceremony among petty nawabs and rajahs; or be presented at a native court: But behind the scenes in India he cannot advance one step. All the natives are, in comparative rank, a few far above, the many far below him and the bars to intercourse with Mahometans as well as Hindoos, arising from our faith, are so many, that to live upon terms of intimacy or acquaintance with them is impossible. Nay, in this particular, when our establishments were young and small, our officers few, necessarily active, necessarily linguists, and unavoidably, as well as from policy, conforming more to native manners, it is probable that more was known about the natives from practical experience than is at present, or may be again."-Ibid. pp. 213, 214.

In the interior of the country there are large tracts of waste lands, and a very scanty and unsettled population.

"On the route I took, there was only one inhabited village in fifty-five miles; the spots named for halting-places were in small valleys, green with young corn, and under cultivation, but neglected sadly. A few straw huts, blackened and beat down The author first went up the country as far by rain, with rude and broken implements of husas Agra, visiting, and musing over, all the re-bandry lying about, and a few of those round hardenmarkable places in his way-and then returned thrashing-floors, tell the traveller that some waned through the heart of India-the country of Scindiah and the Deccan, to the Mysore. Though travelling only as a British regimental

dering families, of a rude unsettled people, visit these vales at sowing time and harvest; and labour indolently at the necessary, but despised, task of the peaceful ryot."-Ibid. p. 300.

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