THEIR HABITS BY NO MEANS INFLEXIBLE.

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domestic life are borrowed from their Mohammedan conquerors; and at present there is an obvious and increasing disposition to imitate the English 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 neglect 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 Hindoostanec), 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.

In all these points there is, indeed, great room for improvement: But I do not by any means assent 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.”

312 HOSPITAL FOR LICE! OUR SMALL POPULARITY.

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

"At Broach is one of those remarkable institutions which have made a good deal of noise in Europe, as instances of Hindoo benevolence to inferior animals. I mean hospitals for sick and infirm beasts, birds, and insects. I was not able to visit it; but Mr. Corsellis described it as a very dirty and neglected place, which, though it has considerable endowments in land, only serves to enrich 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 apes, are allowed to starve; and the only creatures said to be in any tolerable plight are some milch cows, which may be kept from other motives than charity."

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; though even their objection to eating with us might, so far as the Mussulmans 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 entertainments 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 standing orders of the army, should be done to the Soubahdars. Yet there are hardly six collectors in India who observe

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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."

Of the state of the Schools, and of Education in general, he speaks rather favourably; and is very desirous that, without any direct attempt at conversion, the youth should be generally exposed to the humanizing 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.'"

He is far less satisfied with the administration of Justice; especially in the local or district courts, called Adawlut, which the costliness and intricacy of the proceedings, and the needless introduction of the Persian language, have made sources of great practical oppression, 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 ordinary language of the place.

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 devo

314

BISHOP HEBER

EXCELLENT TONE OF HIS BOOK.

tion 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 or adulation.

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EGYPT AND ITALY. 315

1. Sketches of India. Travellers at Home. pp. 358. London:

(OCTOBER, 1824.)

Written by an OFFICER, for Fire-Side Second Edition, with Alterations. 8vo. 1824.

2. Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and in Italy. By the Author of Sketches of India, and Recollections of the Peninsula. 8vo. pp. 452. London: 1824.

THESE are very amiable books: - and, besides the good sentiments they contain, they are very pleasing specimens of a sort of travel-writing, to which we have often regretted 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 succinct account of what actually delighted them, will be more generally agreeable than a digest of the information they might have acquired. We would by no means undervalue the researches of more learned and laborious persons, especially in countries rarely visited: But, for common readers, their discussions require too much pre