held to be all-sufficient for temporal, as well as religious purposes; they have adopted the regal government, because such is the will of God; they have been passively obedient to this emanation of the divine power so long as no competition has appeared, and they have embraced with facility the cause of rebellion and civil war, because, like the Mahommedans, they believe that kingdoms are the immediate gift of the Almighty, and that victory is the manifestation of the divine will.'-p. 24.

Opinions, such as these, may probably sway some of the leaders of the people, but can scarcely be applied to the people themselves; their degraded condition, we are quite certain, may be traced rather to that most impolitic and injurious system of dividing them into castes. We stop not to inquire whether the establishment of castes was the effect of a single mind, or the result of successive expedients for retaining in subjection the conquests of the northern Hindoos;' we merely notice the fact itself, which, from the moment of its adoption, must have been as fatal to the advancement of knowledge, as the subsequent subdivision of castes into trades and occupations could not fail to be to the progress of science and the arts. Whether the curious structure of Indian society has arisen as a consequence out of the latter, or whether it is considered as another proof of what some European enthusiasts would call the wisdom of Hindoo legislation, is scarcely worth the inquiry; it is, at any rate, admirably calculated to cooperate with the former in subduing every energy both of body and mind. Every Indian village is a separate and distinct community, composed of a small group of people, collected together just in sufficient numbers for the general protection against any internal disturber of the peace of the community, and for administering reciprocally to each others wants. It is, in short, precisely that state of society which visionary theorists have imagined to be the golden age of innocence and simplicity; such, for instance, as would have enraptured the frenzied mind of a Rousseau. The twelve constituent parts, or ayangadees, essential to the complete formation of one of these little republics, are, 1. The Poteel, the headman of the village, who is responsible to the officers of government for the due collection and payment of the revenue. 2. The registrar. 3 and 4. The watchmen of the crops and of the village. 5. The tank-master, who has the distribution of the water. 6. The divine or soothsayer, who declares the proper times of depositing the seed in the ground, and marks the lucky and unlucky days7. The smith. S. The carpenter. 9. The potter. 10. The washerman. 11. The barber. 12. The poet, who acts also as schoolmaster. The bulk of the community consists of the ryots or actual cultivators of the land, who contribute to the support

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and maintenance of the professional men above enumerated, in return for their respective services: and, in this regular mode, ages have continued to roll on, without producing in the minds of the people one new idea, or adding one single improvement to any instrument of art in use among them. The whole extensive and populous peninsula of India is made up of a mass of such little communities as we have been describing, without any variation, except in those places where the residence of the superior agents of government has necessarily drawn together a mixed multitude: the consequence of which has been the gradual rise of towns, cities, &c. Of these agents some have the superintendance of ten, twenty, one hundred, and even one thousand villages; but the inhabitants of each know no master but its own individual headman they inquire not who the conquerors are, or of what nation their governors, while the internal management of the community remains the same: so long as the distribution of the crop is not altered, and the miseries of war extend not to the wulsa, it is a matter of little or no concern to them, whether the throne of Delhi be filled by a Hindoo, a Mahommedan, or an English mogul.

In contemplating the baneful effects which must necessarily be produced by the various impolitic institutions of the Hindoos, we cannot but doubt exceedingly, whether the best intentions and endeavours of the British government will contribute, in any material degree, to the amelioration of the condition of the inhabitants, until a total change of the system shall be effected; we had almost said, until the Vedas and Puranas, together with the whole of the senseless fabric of Braminical superstitions, shall have been committed to the flames, and something better substituted in their place. The wisest regulations must prove abortive, so long as the minds of the miserable natives continue to be fettered in the adamantine chains forged for them so many ages since; nay, we are well convinced that it will require the greatest degree of discretion and forbearance to prevent mischief, even where benefit is intended.

It is not our intention to trace minutely the succession of enormities committed by the several rulers who have wielded the sceptre of Mysore. The system seems at all times to have been precisely the same if any shade of difference aggravated or diminished the oppression of the subject, it was wholly owing to the personal character of the sovereign, and not to any change in the constitution of the government. We shall therefore content ourselves with framing, from the volume before us, a general sketch of the rise and progress of a powerful kingdom which, though now merged in the British possessions, was once the most formidable, because the most active, enemy to the British interests, in the whole peninsula of Hindostan.

The

The first Mussulman force that ever crossed the mountains, south of the Tapti, was led by Alla u Dien, in 1293. The booty obtained in this predatory irruption served as an incentive to future invasion.

In 1310, Kafoor, a Mahommedan general crossed the Kistna, for the first time, and laid seige to Dhoorsummoodar, the capital of Bellal Deo, sovereign of the Carnatic, whom he defeated in a great battle; and returned to Delhi literally loaded with gold. In 1326, Mahommed the III. completed the destruction of this capital, when the seat of the declining government was removed to Tonoor, about 12 miles to the northward of Seringapatam. In the ruins of Dhoorsummoodar, recently discovered by Major Mackenzie, about 105 miles N. W. of Seringapatam, some curious sculptures and inscriptions have been found which verify the dates we have given above from the accurate Ferishta.

The sculpture of these ruins,' says Colonel Wilks, although sufficiently defective, if compared with the Grecian standard, is yet highly interesting. In examining the Indian hero and his charioteer, mounted in their war chariot, we seem to be viewing the car of Achilles. The costume of the equestrian figures is remarkable; the hair twisted into a knot at the top of the head is its only defence or covering; long boots seem to have defended the legs, and a large net-work to have been the ornament or defence of the horse. The figure of the horseman is an example of the most graceful seat of modern European horsemanship.'-p. 11.

The irruption of the northern invaders into Telingana was followed by the subversion of a dynasty which had lasted 256 years; but it led to the establishment of a more southern Hindoo government which, for two centuries, opposed a barrier to the progress of the Mahommedan arms. Two illustrious fugitives, Booka and Aka Hurryhur, officers of the treasury of the deposed Raja of Warankul, founded a city on a branch of the Kistna to which they gave the name of Videyaunuggur, the city of Science,' in compliment to their preceptor, Videyerannea. Their government commenced in 1336, and the last of the thirteen rajahs or rayeels of the house of Hurryhur, who were followers of Siva, was succeeded in 1490 by Narsing Raja, of the sect of Vishnoo. This raja erected the strong forts of Chandragherry and Vellore, and before 1515 had reduced the whole of Drauveda, now the Carnatic, to subjection. The dynasty of Narsing continued till 1542, and was succeeded by two short usurpations; but in 1564 a confederacy of four Mussulman kings defeated the Hindoo army in a great battle, in which Ram Raja, the seventh in descent from Narsing, and the whole of his principal officers, fell. The Mahommedans marched to the capital, which they plundered with every circumstance of cruelty; and partitioned the Carnatic among themselves. Four years after

this, the last branch of Narsing was expelled from the fortress of Chandragherry, the only remaining place of strength.

It is to the period in which the dominion of the rajahs of Videyanuggur extended over a great part of the south of India, that the romantic origin of the rajalis of Mysore, is by general tradition, ascribed.

Two young men of the tribe of Yedava, named Vijeya and Kristna, departed from that court in search of a better establishment to the South. Their travels carried them to the little fort of Hadana, a few miles from the present situation of the town of Mysoor; and having alighted, as is usual, near the border of a tank, they overheard some women of the Jaryana sect, who had come for water, bewailing the fate of a young maiden of their tribe who was about to be married to a person of inferior quality. The brothers inquired into the circumstances of the case; desired the woman to be comforted, and offered their services in defence of the damsel. She was the only daughter of the Wadeyar, (or lord of 33 villages,) who was afflicted with mental derangement; and in this unprotected state, the chief of Caroogully, a person of mean cast, had proposed to the family the alternative of immediate war, or the peaceable possession of Hadana by his marriage with the damsel; and to the latter proposition they had given a forced and reluctant consent. The offer of the strangers was made known, and they were admitted to examine the means which the family possessed of averting the impending disgrace. In conformity to their advice, no change was made in the preparations for the marriage feast; and while the chiefs of Caroogully were seated at the banquet in one apartment, and their followers in another, the men of Hadana, who had been previously secreted for the purpose, headed by the two brothers, sprung upon their guests; and slew them, marched instantly to Caroogully, which they surprized, and returned in triumph to Hadana. The damsel full of gratitude, became the willing bride of Vijeya, who changed his religion and became the Lord of Hadana and Caroogully.'--p. 32.

The precise date of this event is uncertain; nor is the number of generations known that intervened between this founder of the family and Cham Raj, surnamed "Arbiral,' or the six-fingered; whose succession is fixed in 1507. Little appears to have occurred, deserving notice, in the several reigns between this period and the acquisition of Seringapatam, in 1610, by the Raj Wadeyar, which thenceforth became the seat of the Mysore government. The circumstances of the times were peculiarly favourable to the growth of the rising power of Mysore, which, however, was soon afterwards destined to meet with a severe check by the restoration of the Mahratta empire, in the person of Sevajee. This country, bordering on Mysore, had for upwards of 300 years, been subjected to the domination of strangers. The existence, the name, and almost the remembrance, of a Mahratta government, had fallen. into oblivion; but there was a bond of union which time and con

quest

quest had not been able to dissolve-their religion and their language.

The birth of Sevajee, in 1626, was the fulfilment of a prophecy which gave to the Hindoos a deliverer and a conqueror. At the age of seventeen, this notorious robber had collected a banditti, ravaged the neighbouring districts, and applied the plunder to the augmentation of his followers: in a short time he was enabled to raise so vast a force, as to bid defiance to the power of the Mogul. No feelings of humanity arrested his progress; desolation marked his footsteps; and, on one occasion, he put to death three thousand persons, the adherents of one family, destroying even the infants in the womb. He overran the whole Carnatic, spreading ruin far and wide, and, like Hyder Ali in after-times, threatened the English at the gates of Madras. With all his enormities, he was considered by the Hindoos, and pretended to consider himself, as under the special protection of a deity; for it must not be supposed that any thing dishonourable attaches to the character of a robber in India. The most atrocious marauder, so long as he continues to conduct his enterprizes with success, and to accumulate wealth, is sure to attract admiration, and to procure as many followers as he chuses to enlist. Robbery, like beggary is, in India, an hereditary craft, and a crime only when the thief is weak or unskilful enough to be taken in the act. Such was Sevajee; and his followers have not, to this period, shewn themselves unworthy of so illustrious a leader.

'A modern Mahratta,' says Colonel Wilks, is utterly destitute of the generosity and point of honor which belongs to a bold robber. If we should attempt to describe him by English terms, we must draw a character combined of the plausible and gentle manners of a swindler, the dexterity of a pick pocket, and the meanness of a pedlar; equally destitute of mercy and of shame, he will higgle in selling the rags of a beggar whom he has plundered; and is versatile as occasion offers, to swagger as a bully, or to cringe as a mendicant, when he dares not rob.'

As a specimen of their unblushing perfidy, Colonel Wilks has favoured us with the following anecdote:

'A vakeel of the Mahratta chief Gockla, in conversation with me, stated, as an example at once of Lord Wellington's contempt of danger and confidence in his master, "that he (Lord Wellington) had driven Gockla in an open carriage from his own to the Mahratta camp, without a single attendant." I asked him what the general had to fear on that occasion. "You know what he had to fear," replied the vakeel, "for after all we are but Mahrattas.”—p. 253.

It would furnish but little amusement or instruction to our readers, to enter into a detailed account of the plots and assassinations by which various rajahs of the house of Mysore were taken off

and