try, of overstrained tenderness for animal life, and from the fact that certain sacred animals, such as the bulls dedicated to Brahma, are really treated with as much tenderness and consideration as if they were Brahmins themselves. As yet it remains to be seen how far the schools may produce a change for the better, I am inclined to hope every thing from them, particularly from those which Mrs. Wilson has, under the auspices of the Church Missionaries, set on foot for females; but I am sure that a people such as I have described, with so many amiable traits of character, and so great natural quickness and intelligence, ought to be assisted and encouraged as far as we possibly can in the disposition which they now evince, in this part of the country at least, to acquire a knowledge of our language and laws, and to imitate our habits and examples. By all which I have learned, they now really believe we wish them well, and are desirous of their improvement; and there are many points (that of the burning widows is one) in which a change for the better is taking place in the public mind, which, if we are not in too great a hurry, will probably, ere long, break down the observance of, at least, one horror. Do not suppose that I am prejudiced against the Hindoos. In my personal intercourse with them I have seen much to be pleased with, and all which I hear and believe as to what they might be with a better Creed, makes me the more earnest in stating the horrors for which their present Creed, as I think, is answerable.

This is an unmerciful letter, but I hope and

believe that I shall not have wearied you. Both Emily and I often think and talk of you, and recall to mind, with deep and affectionate interest, our parting on the quarter-deck of the Grenville, with you and your brothers.

We more and more feel how much we have relinquished in leaving such friends behind; but I do not, and hope Emily does not, repent of our undertaking. So long as we are blessed with health, and of this, with due care, I entertain at present few apprehensions, we have, indeed, abundant reason for content and thankfulness around us, and where there is so much to be learned and to be done, life cannot hang heavy on the hands of,

Dear Harriet,

Ever your affectionate Cousin,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

I believe I have said nothing of the Mohammedans, who are about as numerous here as the Protestants are in Ireland. They are in personal appearance a finer race than the Hindoos; they are also more universally educated, and on the whole I think a better people, inasmuch as their faith is better. They are haughty and irascible, hostile to the English as to those who have supplanted them in their sovereignty over the country, and notoriously oppressive and avaricious in their dealings with their idolatrous countrymen wherever they are yet in authority. They are, or are supposed

to be, more honest, and to each other they are not uncharitable; but they are, I fear, less likely at present than the Hindoos to embrace Christianity, though some of them read our Scriptures; and I have heard one or two speak of Christians as of nearly the same religion with themselves. They have, however, contracted in this country many superstitions of castes and images, for which their western brethren, the Turks and Arabs, are ready to excommunicate them; and, what is more strange, many of them, equally in opposition to their own religion and that of the Hindoos, are exceeding drunkards.

TO MRS. HEBER.

Tittyghur, January 25, 1824.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,

Our former packets will, I trust, before this time, have communicated to you the intelligence of our safe arrival, and of our subsequent proceedings.

Calcutta is a very striking place, but it so much resembles Petersburgh, though on a less splendid scale, that I can hardly help fancying myself sometimes in Russia. The architecture of the principal houses is the same, with Italian porticoes, and all white-washed or stuccoed, and the width and straightness of the principal streets, the want of

pavement, the forms of the peasants' carts, and the crowds of foot-passengers in every street, as well as the multitude of servants, the want of furniture in the houses, and above all, the great dinner-parties, which are one distinguishing feature of the place, are all Muscovite.

The public here is very liberal, but the calls on charity are continual, and the number of five and ten pound subscriptions which are required of a man every month, for inundations, officers' widows, &c. &c. are such as surprise an Englishman on his first arrival, though he cannot but be pleased at the spirit which it evinces. .

I am happy to set you at ease about pirates. There were, as you have been rightly informed, four or five years ago, a good many Arab pirates in the Bombay seas, but none that I have heard of ever ventured into the bay of Bengal, and even those who did exist are said to have been completely driven from the sea by the expedition which was sent some time back from Bombay against the Arabs of the Persian gulf. But with these seas I shall have little concern, since my journeys in that quarter will be chiefly by land. Those which I have to perform in this part of India will be mostly by the Ganges, on which sculking thieves are sometimes met with, but no robbers bold enough to attack European boats. I should have much preferred marching by land the whole way, as we at first proposed, but I found it impossible to leave Calcutta before the weather would have

become too hot for such a journey. At the commencement of the rains we shall set out, and boat it all the way to Cawnpoor. The boats are like houses, and as comfortable as such things well can be; but our progress, by this method, will be very tedious and wearisome, compared with the amusement of a land-journey with our tents and elephants. We shall, however, escape the rains, which is reckoned the only unhealthy season in Bengal, when every road is a puddle, every field a marsh, and every river a sea, and when a hot sun, playing on a vast surface of water and decayed vegetables, is regarded as the cause of almost all the diseases which are not brought on by intemperance and carelessness.

horse

My morning rides are very pleasant; my is a nice, quiet, good-tempered little Arab, who is so fearless that he goes, without starting, close to an elephant, and so gentle and docile that he eats bread out of my hand, and has almost as much attachment and coaxing ways as a dog. This seems the usual character of the Arab horse, who (to judge from those I have seen in this country,) is not the fiery dashing animal I had supposed, but with more rationality about him, and more apparent confidence in his rider than the generality of English horses. The latter, however, bear the highest price here, from their superior size and power of going through more work. The Indian horses are seldom good, and always ill-tempered