(the Sullees for example,) would be eagerly seized and urged as the first step in a new system, by all who wished ill to the British rule; and that, if it did not of itself occasion a rebellion, it would give additional popularity, and a more plausible pretext, to the first rebellion which the disaffected might find opportu nity for attempting.

On the way from Benares to Allahabad, the Bishop exclaims, after passing Mirzapoor, a city of between 2 and 300,000 inhabitants,-"this is, indeed, a most rich and striking land. Here, in the space of little more than 200 miles, along the same river, I have passed six towns, some of them less populous than Chester; two more so than Birmingham; and one, (Benares,) more so than any city in Europe, except London and Paris; and this besides villages innumerable!" He expected to find the great cities ruined, in consequence of the ruin of the Mussulman nobles; but his own observation, and the testimony of old residents, led him to the conclusion that most of them, in Central India, had increased in wealth and population, since the establishment of the British power, owing to the rise of a new and prosperous order from the middling classes. The vestiges of decay and havoc, the scattered fragments of marble palaces, mosques and villas, and of tanks and canals, belong to the eras of the ruthless irruptions and tyranny of the Persians, Affghans, and Maharattas. We find him, in his Correspondence, dated March 1825, expressing his full belief that the influence of Britain had been honestly employed for the benefit of India, and had produced great good to the country and its inhabitants. He acknowledges, however, that the British rule was not generally popular, nor advancing towards popularity. One of the occurrences which he relates, to illustrate one of the modes in which the natives make resistance to what they conceive to be arbitrary or unlawful treatment, is too curious to be passed over in silence. At Benares, government unadvisedly imposed a house-tax of a very invidious character both from its amount and its novelty. Strong representations from the magistrates, produced no effect at Calcutta; whereupon, the whole population of Benares and its neighbourhood, resolved to sit Dhurna," till the grievance was redressed. To sit dhurna, or mourning, is to remain motionless in that posture, without food, and exposed to the weather, till the person against whom it is employed, consents to the request preferred; and the Hindoos believe that whoever dies under such a process, becomes a tormenting spirit to haunt and afflict his inflexible antagonist. In this instance, before the government was in the least apprized of the plan, above three hundred thousand persons "deserted their dwellings, shut up their shops, suspended the labour of their farms, forbore to light fires or dress victuals, many of them to eat, and sate down with fold

ed arms and drooping heads, like so many sheep, on the plain which surrounds Benares." The perplexity of the British authorities may be imagined. They did not, however, yield to this portentous expedient of fanaticism, but drew a strong body of European troops from Dinapoor and Gazeepoor, to the neighbouring cantonment, and endeavoured to persuade the ringleaders of the assemblage, of the impossibility that government should yield to demands so urged. At last, the Indian multitude, pinched by hunger and drenched with rain, began to waver and think of changing their plan. They then fell into dissensions concerning a substitute; a large number dropped off, and in a few days the whole mass melted away. When the black cloud had wholly disappeared, the supreme government wisely repealed the tax.

At Allahabad, the good Bishop changed his mode of travelling, suitably to his destination, and departed for Cawnpoor, with an equipment, which he pleasantly describes thus:

"At length, on Thursday morning the 30th of September, we began our journey, having set off some hours before our motley train, consisting of twenty-four camels, eight carts drawn by bullocks, twenty-four horse-servants, including those of the Archdeacon and Mr. Lushington, ten ponies, forty bearers and coolies of different descriptions, twelve tent-pitchers, and a guard of twenty sepoys under a native officer. The whimsical caravan filed off in state before me; my servants, all armed with spears, to which many of them had added, at their own cost, sabres of the longest growth, looked, on their little ponies, like something between cossacks and sheriff''s javelin-men; my new Turkoman horse, still in the costume of his country, with his long squirrel-like tail painted red, and his mane plaited in love-knots, looked as if he were going to eat fire, or perform some other part in a melo-drama; while Mr. Lushington's horses, two very pretty Arabs, with their tails docked, and their saddles English ("Ungrigi") fashion, might have attracted notice in Hyde-park, the Archdeacon's buggy and horse had every appearance of issuing from the back gate of a college in Cambridge on a Sunday morning; and lastly came some mounted gens d'armes, and a sword and buckler-man on foot, looking exactly like the advanced guard of a Tartar army."

Having reached Cawnpoor, though not without remarkable adventures, he proceeded thence to Lucknow, the capital of the kingdom of Oude, so conspicuous in the British Indian annals, and upon whose soil every thing flourishes, that grows either in Bengal or in Persia. He set out on an elephant, and was soon met by a splendid retinue of elephants and horses, sent for the accommodation of his party by the monarch of Oude, "the refuge of the world:"_

"While," says the prelate, "I was changing elephants, a decent looking man stepped up to me, and begged to know my name and titles at full length, in order, as he said, to make a report of them to the asylum of the world. I found, on inquiry, that he was the writer of the court circular, a much more minute task, and one considered of far more importance here than in Europe. Every thing which occurs in the family of the King himself, the Resident, the chief officers of state, or any strangers of rank who may arrive, is carefully noted and sent round in writing. And I was told that the exact hour at which I rose, the sort of breakfast I ate, the visits I paid or received, and the manner in which I passed my morning, would all be detailed by the King's chobdars, for the information

of their master, whose own most indifferent actions, however, are with equal fairness written down for the inspection of Mr. Ricketts, the British Resident."

The account of his residence at Lucknow, of his symposiums and discussions at the most polished and splendid court in India," and of the condition of the sovereign and people, forms one of the precious portions of his Narrative; but we can merely indicate its attraction and value. Oude has been the resort of a host of European adventurers; and to exemplify the strange mixture, he relates that he had applications made to him for charity, by a Spaniard from Lima in Peru, and a Silesian Jew.

From Lucknow, he went to Bareilly. On the route, he noticed some fields of tobacco, called by the Hindoos tumbuccoo, a name evidently derived, as well as the plant itself, through the Europeans, from America. One passage of this part of the Diary, we cannot refrain from quoting, as it portrays both the country and the traveller:

"November 13.-We encamped in a smaller grove of mangoe-trees than the four or five last had been, but the trees themselves were very noble. The chief cultivation round us was cotton. The morning was positively cold, and the whole scene, with the exercise of the march, the picturesque groups of men and animals round me,-the bracing air, the singing of birds, the light mist hanging on the trees, and the glistening dew, had something at once so Oriental and so English, I have seldom found any thing better adapted to raise a man's animal spirits, and put him in good temper with himself and all the world. How I wish those I love were with me! How much my wife would enjoy this sort of life,-its exercise, its cleanliness and purity; its constant occupation, and at the same time its comparative freedom from form, care, and vexation! At the same time a man who is curious in his eating, had better not come here. Lamb and kid, (and we get no other flesh,) most people would soon tire of. The only fowls which are attainable are as tough and lean as can be desired; and the milk and butter are generally seasoned with the never-failing condiments of Hindostan, smoke and soot. The milk would be very good if the people would only milk the cow into one of our vessels instead of their own; but this they generally refuse to do, and refuse with much greater pertinacity than those who live near the river. These, however, are matters to which it is not difficult to become reconciled; and all the more serious points of warmth, shade, cleanliness, air, and water, are at this season no where enjoyed better than in the spacious and well-contrived tents, the ample means of transport, the fine climate, and fertile regions of Northern Hindostan."

We now approach, with the Lord Padre, the Himalaya mountains, the region in which, perhaps, on the whole, he is more happy and engaging, than in any other scene of his peregrinations. We could wish here, to draw abundantly on his attractive pages, but the use we have made, and have still to make of the book generally, restricts us to comparatively brief and desultory glances. We shall copy at once, his first impressions and principal notices of the colossal ridge, about which, as it is honoured and celebrated by the Hindoos themselves, we would refer the reader, also, to the "argument" and text of Sir William Jones' noble Hymn to Durga.

"We had at Shadee, a first view of the range of the Himalaya, indistinctly seen through the haze, but not so indistinctly as to conceal the general form of

the mountains. The nearer hills are blue, and in outline and tints resemble pretty closely, at this distance, those which close in the vale of Clwyd. Above these rose, what might, in the present unfavourable atmosphere, have been taken for clouds, had not their seat been so stationary and their outline so harsh and pyramidical, the patriarchs of the continent, perhaps the surviving ruins of a former world, white and glistening as alabaster, and even at this distance of, probably, 150 miles, towering above the nearer and secondary range, as much as these last (though said to be 7600 feet high) are above the plain on which we were standing. I felt intense delight and awe in looking on them, but the pleasure lasted not many minutes, the clouds closed in again, as on the fairy castle of St. John, and left us but the former gray cold horizon, girding in the green plain of Rohilcund, and broken only by scattered tufts of peepul and mangoe. trees."

"On leaving our encampment we forded the river Bhagool, and afterwards, once or twice, fell in, during our march, with its windings. At last, soon after the sun rose, and just as we had reached a small rising ground, the mist rolled away and showed us again the Himalaya, distinct and dark, with the glorious icy mountains, towering in a clear blue sky, above the nearer range. There were four of these, the names of three of which my companion knew, Bhadrinâth, Kedar, Nâth, and the peak above the source of the Ganges, the Meru of Hindoo fable. The fourth, to the extreme right, he did not know, and I could not find it in Arrowsmith's map. Bhadrinâth, he told me, is reckoned the highest. From hence, however, it is not the most conspicuous of the four. That we saw the snowy peaks at all, considering their distance, and that mountains twice as high as Snowdon intervened, is wonderful. I need hardly say that I wished for my wife to share the sight with me. But I thought of Tandah and the Terrai, and felt, on recollection, that I should have probably been in considerable uneasiness, if she and the children had been to pass the intervening inhospitable country.

"Sheeshghur is a poor village, on a trifling elevation which is conspicuous in this level country. It has a ruinous fort on its summit, and altogether, with the great surrounding flat and the blue hills behind it, put me in mind of some views of Rhydlan. The Clwydian chain, indeed, is not crowned by such noble pinnacles as Bhadrinath and Gangotree, but I could not help feeling now, and I felt it still more when I began to attempt to commit the prospect to paper, that the awe and wonder which I experienced were of a very complex character, and greatly detached from the simple act of vision. The eye is, by itself, and without some objects to form a comparison, unable to judge of such heights at such a distance. Carneth Llewellyn and Snowdon, at certain times in the year, make, really, as good a picture as the mountains now before me; and the reason that I am so much more impressed with the present view, is partly the mysterious idea of awful and inaccessible remoteness attached to the Indian Caucasus, the centre of earth,

"Its Altar, and its Cradle, and its Throne;"

and still more the knowledge derived from books, that the objects now before me are really among the greatest earthly works of the Almighty Creator's hands, -the highest spots below the moon-and out-topping, by many hundred feet, the suminits of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo."

.

"November 23.-This morning I mounted Mr. Traill's pony, a stout shaggy little white animal, whose birth-place might have been in Wales, instead of the Himalaya. Mr. Boulderson was on a similar one which he had brought from the hills some years before. He was equipped for the journey with a long spear, had his gun, a double-barrelled one, loaded with ball and shot, carried close to him, and two men with matchlocks who seemed his usual attendants. By his advice I had my pistols, and he also lent me a double-barrelled gun, saying, we might see tigers. After a good deal of trouble in getting the mules and coolies started, we proceeded on our journey as it began to dawn, a night march being not very safe amid these mountains, and the beauty of the scenery being of itself a sufficient motive to see all which was to be seen. The road was, certainly, sufficiently

steep and rugged, and, particularly when intersected by torrents, I do not think it was passable by horses accustomed only to the plain. I was myself surprised to see how dexterously our ponies picked their way over large rolling pebbles and broken fragments of rock, how firmly they planted their feet, and with how little distress they conquered some of the steepest ascents I ever climbed. The country as we advanced, became exceedingly beautiful and romantic. It reminded me most of Norway, but had the advantage of round-topped trees, instead of the unvaried spear-like outline of the pine. It would have been like some parts of Wales, had not the hills and precipices been much higher, and the valleys, or rather dells, narrower and more savage. We could seldom, from the range on which the road ran, see to the bottom of any of them, and only heard the roar and rush of the river which we had left, and which the torrents which foamed across our path were hastening to join."

"November 25.-This morning we began to pack by four o'clock, but owing to the restiveness of the mules and the clumsiness of the people, divers accidents occurred, the most serious of which was the bursting of one of the petarrahs. At length we got off, and after coasting the lake for one mile, went for about thirteen more by a most steep and rugged road, over the neck of mount Gaughur, through a succession of glens, forests, and views of the most sublime and beautiful description. I never saw such prospects before, and had formed no adequate idea of such. My attention was completely strained, and my eyes filled with tears; every thing around was so wild and magnificent, that man appeared as nothing, and I felt myself as if climbing the steps of the altar of God's great temple. The trees, as we advanced, were in a large proportion fir and cedar, but many were ilex, and to my surprise I still saw, even in these Alpine tracts, many venerable peepul trees, on which the white monkeys were playing their gambols."

Nundidevi, the highest peak in the world, is stated to be no less than 25,689 feet above the sea, and four thousand feet and upwards higher than Chimborazo. Bhadrinath and Kedarnath are merely two ends of the same mountain, its height is 22,300 feet. The peak which the chuprassees called Meru, is properly Sumeru, as distinguished, by the modern Pundits at least, from the celestial and fabulous one. It is really, however, pretty near the sources of the Ganges, and about 23,000 feet high, though the three great peaks of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, whence the Ganges really flows, are from this point obscured by the intervening ridge of Kedarnath. Kedarnath, Gungothee, Sumeru, and Nundidevi, are all within the British territory, and Mr. Traill has been to the northward of them, though the peaks themselves have never been scaled. Nundidevi is, as the crow flies, forty miles from Almorah, but following the winding of the only accessible road, it is eight or nine days march."

"We encamped near a village named Pruny, on a beautiful piece of rocky pasture-ground, situated between the two peaks of a lofty mountain, and surrounded on every side by a forest of fir and cedar-trees. At a little distance from our tents, some people who had been sent on by Mr. Traill to prepare the Zemindars to afford the necessary supplies, had constructed a sort of bower or wigwam of pine branches for the use of our followers. Nothing could be ruder than these leafy screens; but with plenty of straw, a blazing fire, and sheltered situation, they seemed to satisfy our people; nor could I help noticing that, though we were now 6000 feet above the level of the sea, and it was freezing in the shade almost all day, the sepoys, soon after their arrival, stripped off all their clothes, but their waist-clothes, went to wash themselves as usual in the brook, and remained naked all day till the sun was actually setting; so little reason have we for accusing these people of effeminacy or softness, even in circumstances most at variance with their general habits and sensations. I myself, though I had a good blanket, quilt, and cloak, was so cold at night that I could hardly sleep. My tent, indeed, was small and thin, and scarcely afforded more shelter than the pine-boughs, with the disadvantage of having no fire and no neighbours to keep me warm. The water in the basin was frozen as hard and thick as it might have been, under similar circumstances, in England, to the great astonishment and delight of my Calcutta servant, who had never seen such