resource, and are obliged implicitly to obey their orders. The Moslem are become vile and wretched; the honour of the great men is gone; Christians, seize and keep by force the daughters of Syeds and Moslem. Under these circumstances, where we can no longer act openly, it behoves us to exert ourselves secretly in the cause of religion." Such are, and such ever will be, the feelings of men who believe a different religion from that of their rulers.

Some stones fell from the sky in the province of Benares, in the year 1799. Lord Valentia has given the testimony of six witnesses in his appendix. A meteor was passing which gave a great light; three reports were heard like the firing of cannon; afterwards, many like the firing of muskets, and it broke into several pieces. Several stones fell in different places, in size from ten pounds to a quarter of a pound; they were black, and smelt like burnt gunpowder; on being broken, they appeared of a crumb ling nature, like shining sand. This instance is of peculiar importance, because (it is said) a stone of the same kind is not to be found any where, and there can be no doubt of its having proceeded from the meteor. One of the most extraordinary facts of this kind occurred in Spain in the year* 1438, when a shower of stones fell, without any previous explosion, some of them as large as half a bushel, and yet not weighing half a pound; for they resembled indurated foam in the hollowness and lightness of their texture.

Lord Valentia notices two "

very

singular vehicles" at Lucknow; they were both on wheels, somewhat resembling large elephants houdahs with coverings, and drawn by those animals, and they went at a considerable rate, though one was as large as a small room. "I believe," he says, "it is the first time elephants have been used in India for draught: artil

lery they only push along with their trunks. Lord Wellesley has had models sent down, in hopes of applying the idea to a military purpose." Just such vehicles are represented in one of the prints to Ysbrants Ides's Travels. Linschoten also represents elephants as drawing the chariot of an idol in the kingdom of Narsinga.

At Lucknow the traveller witnessed the effects of a hurricane, the description of which we shall extract as the most remarkable passage in these volumes:

"This evening, the heat being very oppressive, I was sitting in my apartment on the terrace-roof of the house, when a sudden gloom and distant thunder induced me to go out on the terrace. The wind, which had been easterly, was now perfectly lulled. A very dark blue cloud arose from the west, and at length covered half the sky. The thunder was not loud, and the air was perfectly still. The birds were flying very high, and making a terrible screaming. At length a dark brown cloud appeared on the western horizon, and came on with considerable rapidity. The whole town of Lucknow, with its numerous minars, was between me and the

cloud, and the elevation of my terrace gave me an excellent opportunity of observing it. When at about the distance of a mile, it had all the appearance of a smoke from a vast fire, volume rolling over volume in wild confusion, at the same time raising itself high in the air. As it approached, it had a dingy red appearance; and by concealing the most distant minars from my view, convinced me that it was sand born along by a whirlwind. The air with us continued perfectly still; the clouds of sand had a defined exteriour: nor did the wind a moment precede it. It came on with a rushing sound, lence, as to oblige me to take shelter in my and at length reached us with such vio

eastern verandah. Even there the dust was driven with a force that prevented me from keeping my eyes open. The darkness became every moment greater, and at length it was black as night. It might well be called palpable darkness; for the wind now changed a little to the southward, brought on the storm with tenfold violence, and nearly smothered us with

dust. It blew so violently, that the noise of the thunder was frequently drowned by the whistling of the wind in the trees and buildings. The total darkness lasted about ten minutes; when at length it gradually gave way to a terrifically red, but dingy light; which I, at first, attributed to a fire in the town. The rain now poured down in torrents, and the wind changed to due

south. In about an hour from its commencement the sky began to clear, the tufaun went off to the eastward, and the wind immediately returned to that quarter. The air was perfectly cool, and free from dust. Although all my windows and doors had been kept closed; and there were tattys on the outside, yet the sand was so penetrating, that it had covered my bed and furniture with a complete coat of dust. Mr. Paul tells me, he once was caught in a north-wester on the banks of the Ganges, when the darkness lasted for several hours. This, however, was one of the most tremendous that had ever been beheld at Lucknow. One person was literally frightened to death. There is, indeed, no danger from the storm itself, but the fires in the houses are in such situations, that a blast might easily drive a spark against their thatched roofs, heated already by the sun; in which case, the darkness would probably preclude the possibility of saving any part of the town. It is equally probable that a roof may be blown in, which would have the same melancholy consequences. The long drought had pulverized so much of the country, and so completely annihilated vegetation on the sandy plains, that the tufaun brought with it more sand than usual; and to that alone must be attributed the perfect darkness. It was the most magnificent and awful sight I ever beheld; not even excepting a storm at sea. The wind in both cases was of equal violence, but neither the billows of the ocean, nor the sense of danger, affected my mind so much as this unnatural darkness." Vol. I. p. 160.

A striking instance of the happy effects of British government has occurred since we took possession of the Nawaub of Furruckabad's country. As soon as the English resident arrived there, about a hundred Patans waited on him, and requested to know whether he really intended to establish a police. He assured them most seriously that he did: upon which they told him it would not suit them, and all immediately

departed for the Mahratta country. Seven persons, says lord Valentia, der at the next circuit, but not one are now in prison to be tried for muroffence of that sort has been committed since our police has been established. Heartily do we agree with lord Valentia, in believing that India has reason to rejoice in coming under the British dominion, but very far are we from agreeing with him concerning the means by which that government is to be upheld.

"The most rapidly accumulating evil of Bengal is the increase of half-cast children. They are forming the first step to colonization, by creating a link of union between the English and the natives. In every country where this intermediate cast has been permitted to rise, it has ultimately tended to the ruin of that country. Spanish America and St. Domingo are examples of this fact. Their increase in India is beyond calculation; and though possibly there may be nothing to fear from the sloth of the Hindoos, and the rapidly declining consequence of the Mussulmauns. yet it may be justly apprehended, that this tribe may hereafter become too powerful for control. Although they are not permitted to hold offices under the Company, yet they act as clerks in almost every mercantile house, and many of them are annually sent to England, to receive the benefit of an European education. With numbers in their favour, with a close relationship to the natives, and without an equal proportion of that pusillanimity and indolence, which is natural to them, what may not in time be dreaded from them? I have no hesitation in saying, that the evil ought to be stopt; and I know no other way of effecting this object, than by obliging every father of half-cast children, to send them to Europe, prohibiting their return in any capacity whatsover. The expense that would thus attend upon children, would certainly operate as a check

to the extension of zenanas, which are now but too common among the Europeans: and this would be a benefit to the country, no less in a moral, than in a political view." Vol. I. p. 241.

Little thought can that man have bestowed upon the principles of policy or of human nature, who is capable of recommending a measure so cruel, so preposterous, and so impracti

cable as this which lord Velentia advises. The principle which he advances is false, and the examples which he adduces to support it warrant no such conclusion. That of Hayti is inapplicable; first, because the intermediate race was not between the Europeans and the natives, the natives having been exterminated; and secondly, because the work of retribution in that island, where perhaps a greater load of guilt had been accumulated than in any other part of the habitable world, was executed by the negroes, not the mulattos. That of Spanish America is equally fallacious. So far indeed is the existence of a numerous mixed population from proving detrimental to a colony, that the house of Braganza is indebted to such a breed for the most important discoveries, and most valuable parts of its empire in Brazil. But for deeper speculations, and profounder views upon this subject, we refer lord Valentia to Mr. Bolingbroke's voyage to the Demerary; he will there find, mixed with some great and grievous errours respecting negro slavery, this question most ably and originally treated. Far different from this policy was that of Alboquerque, the founder of the European dominion in India, and the most far-sighted politician that ever set foot in that country! The cocoa tree should be the emblem of our empire in the east; it lifts a beautiful head to heaven; it renders an abundant harvest, but it spreads its roots along the surface of the soil, and is therefore at the mercy of the winds; the first hurricane lays it prostrate, and not a sucker springs up to mark the place where it flourished. Lord Valentia calls upon the East India Company to take the aFarm, because a race of men is rising there, who inherit from their mothers constitutions adapted to that climate, which (be it remembered) destroys nine Englishmen of every ten who go thither in pursuit of fortune, many of whom are educated in England, all of whom speak the English

language, profess the Christian faith, and have one common interest with the English government, because if any revolution should again expose the country to the tyranny of a Hindoo or a Moorish conquerour, they would be involved with it in ruin. If such men are not the bulwarks of a state, where are they to be found.

Lord Valentia agrees with Dr. Buchanan in the fitness of giving an episcopal establishment to British India, and in the earnest wish that it should take place without delay. Respecting the missionaries, and the history of their various predecessors in the east, he writes with little knowledge of historical circumstances. Upon this question we have elsewhere advanced arguments which it is more easy to rail at than to refute, and we have not leisure now to point out the defects of his lordship's logick and information. It is difficult to discover whether his lordship be most alive to the feelings of the Hindoos or of the Moslem. At Benares, his tenderness towards the former predominates, "It is a pity." he says, "that any thing should prevent this noble city from being brought to that perfection of which it is ca pable; and he feels himself sufficiently a Hindoo, when viewing the lofty minarets, to wish, that hereafter government may restore the spot to its original owners, and remove this cruel eyesore from the holy city." At Lucknow, where he dines with the Nawaub, and some English ladies are present in company with their husbands, he thinks nothing can be so highly disgusting as to see women mixing in society with Mahomedans; it is so contrary to the principles of the latter, who can only have a contempt for them, and consider them as on a level with the nautch girls that is to say, with common prostitutes. As if there were any chance that such an opinion could be formed of English women! He talks of the danger of offending religious prejudices, yet tells us that

the prejudices of the Moslem are now so weakened in India, that one of their processions was stopped at his request, and the horse of Hosein, which is represented as pierced on every side by arrows, was brought close to his palanquin, that he might see it with more facility. If the grandson of Mrs. Company can stop a procession to gratify his curiosity, he must, indeed, have felt confident that religious prejudices were not very strong, and that there was little danger of offending them.

His lordship returned to Calcutta, and then embarked for Ceylon, from which island, he says, a fragrant smell was perceptible at the distance of nine leagues. A harsh at tack is here made upon a work lately published by an English officer. "Every observation respecting the Dutch females," it is said, “is extracted from Stavorinus's account of the women at Batavia; and that as nearly verbatim as the change of place would admit. He is in other instances under very large, though unacknowledged obligations to Stavorinus." The only English officer who has written an account of Ceylon, is captain Percival. We have compared his account of the Dutch women with that in Stavorinus, and have no hesitation in saying, that the charge so positively made, appears to be unfounded. Nor is it possible that captain Percival can have been under great obligation in this work to Stavorinus upon other subjects, for that able writer hardly mentions Ceylon in his voyages. Neither Percival indeed, nor Cordiner, nor lord Valentia himself, have added much to that stock of knowledge respecting Ceylon, which we already possessed in the Portuguese and Dutch writers, and the faithful book of our honest old countryman, who says in his epistle dedicatory, that his book was the whole return he made from the Indies after twenty years stay there, having brought back nothing else but Robert Knox.

Ceylon requires a governour with

the ambitious spirit of marquis Wellesley, who would at once conquer the Candians and the climate by laying open the interiour of the country. Upon an island of this size, conquest is a sure game, and what is won can be kept. Under a Roman system, the whole country would, in fifty years, be civilized, and every one of its inhabitants speak the language, profess the religion, and imitate the manners of their rulers. The missionaries, both of the Dutch and Portuguese, had great success here. The Lutheran natives have been calculated at above 240,000, the Catholicks once at nearly a million. Lord Valentia himself, little as he is a friend to the societies for introducing the gospel into the east, delivers it as his opinion, that if the plans introduced by the Dutch were quietly and steadily pursued, the whole Cingalese nation might in time be converted. There were schools established throughout the country, which Mr. North, during his administration, restored, increased, and improved. The schoolmasters were bound to act as notaries in their several districts; so that the whole expense of the establishment, amounting to 4,6007. was not to be set down to the account of education solely. "Had this, however, been the case," says his lordship, "the benefits arising from a plan calculated to improve the morals of the rising generation, to enlighten them in true religion, and attach them to the British government, would have been cheaply purchased at such a moderate expenditure." Such, however, was not the calculation made at home, for in 1803, Mr. North received orders to limit the expense of the schools to 1500l. per annum, whence those in the country districts were given up. In the same pitiful and short-sighted system of economy all the pensions which had been granted to the Landroosts, or persons who had held high offices in the Dutch service, were suspended, and

these men even reduced to beggary. It was afterwards, in an ungracious manner, mitigated, by permitting the governour to grant pensions in his majesty's name. Without such an allowance they must absolutely have perished for want of food; with it they can just exist; and having been thus injured, they are, as of course they would be after such treatment, our secret and mortal enemies.

There is little worthy of notice in the travels through Mysore and Canara. We have, however, to censure the author for writing oriental names, in a manner sometimes capricious, and sometimes affected. Minars and minarets are written. Sceva, the god whose worship prevails most in Hindoostan, is some times called by his name of Iswara, sometimes Seva, sometimes Seve; and Ali and Abubeker, personages far too famous in history to have their orthography altered, are called Alli and Abboo Buker. This fault has never been carried to such excess by any writer as by Mr. Scott Waring, in his tour to Sheeraz. That gentleman declares in his preface, that though many persons have at tached vast importance to the orthography of Indian or Persian words, he attaches none; and that where words have received the sanction of universal usage, he has followed the voice of the publick. Yet he writes Ulee for Ali, Ubdool for Abdallah, Ubas for Abbas, Wuzeer for Vizir, and Qajjar, Qooroosh, and Ubrqoovn for-we cannot tell what.

tainable at Massowah, Dhalac, or the adjacent islands, where, in former times, the Egyptian and Roman merchants resided for the purpose of carrying on trade with the interiour of Africa. Another object was to open a communication with Abyssinia, with a view to commercial advantages." Upon these subjects lord Valentia frequently conversed with marquis Wellesley, and that able statesman fully entered into his views. “At length," says his lordship, "I pros posed to his excellency that he should order one of the Bombay cruisers to be prepared for a voyage to the Red Sea; and I offered my gratuitous services to endeavour to remove our disgraceful ignorance by embarking in her, for the purpose of investigating the eastern shore of Africa, and making the necessary inquiries into the present state of Abyssinia, and the neighbouring countries. His excellency approved of the plan, and it was determined, that in order to obviate any difficulties which might arise from the commanding officer dif fering with me in opinion with respect to the eligibility of going to particular places, he should be placed under my orders." Accordingly the Antelope, captain Keys, was made ready, of about 150 tons, mounting twelve eighteen pound carronades, and having on board forty one Europeans, sixteen marines, and thirty lascars and servants, with six months rice and salt meat, and forty days water. In this vessel lord Valentia embarked with his secretary and draftsman, Mr. Salt, and his attendants, March 13, 1804.

On his arrival at Mocha he learnt that captain Keys was averse to the service on which he was ordered, and would have given up the command, upon the plea of ill health, if Mr. Pringle, the English agent, had not dissuaded him from so imprudent a step. It was evident, however, that a voyage of discovery, undertaken against the inclination of the captain, was not likely to be