while their reviving effects on man, beast, bird, and vegetable, have really been little less than magical. These showers are now, indeed, becoming more frequent and attended with less wind, and an early setting-in of the rain is predicted, of which I hope to take advantage for my voyage up the country. My journey, alas! will not be so pleasant as I anticipated, since, on the concurrent representations of all our medical advisers, my wife and children remain behind, and we shall be separated for half a year at least.

Dacca will be the first place I shall visit; there is a church to consecrate there; a good many candidates for confirmation, and some Greek Christians with whom I wish to get on the same amicable terms as I am with their countrymen at Calcutta. Nor am I insensible to the desire of seeing one of the most ancient and singular cities of India, and of obtaining a nearer view of the Sunderbunds, the main stream of the Ganges and the yet mightier Megana.'

CHAPTER XI.

On the 15th of June, the bishop began his extensive visitation, accompanied by his domestic chaplain, the Rev. Martin Stowe, and his native servants. The demand for medical men occasoned by the Burmese war was so great, that the bishop was prevented, by the representation of one of the members of government, from publicly requesting that a surgeon should be appointed to attend him.

'We set out,' he writes to a friend, attended by two smaller boats of very rude construction, with thatched cabins and huge masts and yards of bamboo, something like the canoes of the Friendly Islands, as Cook has represented them. One of these is a cooking-boat, the other for our luggage and servants; and it may give some idea of the number of hands employed in Bengal for all purposes, when I tell you that twelve servants are thought a very moderate travelling establishment for myself and

single friend; and that the number of boatmen for the three vessels amounts, I believe, to thirtytwo. We are, indeed, obliged to carry every thing with us, even to milch goats, supplies being seldom to be procured in the line of country, through which we have to travel. Our diet must, therefore, have been salt meat and poultry, had not a few instances of fair dealing with the fishermen procured us an almost daily supply of their commodities. I was surprised to see some of these poor men paddle away at our approach as fast as their canoes could carry them 1; but learned soon after, from the complaint of one of their number, that the servants and boatmen of 'great men' were apt to take their fish by force without paying for them. This I easily prevented; but these and some other abuses of the same kind, which even my imperfect. knowledge of the language enabled me to detect, show how prone these people are to plunder and tyrannize over each other, and how much odium may be unknowingly incurred by Europeans through the rascality of their followers.

'Our way was through the heart of Lower Bengal, by the Matabunga, the Chundna, and those other branches of the Ganges which make

The Sun

so tortuous a labyrinth in the map. derbunds would have been a nearer course; but this was pleasanter, and showed us more of the country, which along the whole line of the river was fertile, well cultivated and verdant to a great degree, and sometimes really beautiful, the banks are generally covered with indigo. and beyond are wide fields of rice and pasture, with villages, each under a thicket of glorious trees, banians, palms, plantains, and bamboos; and though we here and there passed woods of a wilder character, their extent did not seem to be more than in one of our English counties. The vilages are all of mud and bamboos, the roofs arched like the bottom of a boat, to prevent their pliable supporters from bending in a contrary direction, and both the country, the houses, the boats, and the people, are, on the whole, of a better description than anything in the immediate neighborhood of Calcutta.

Our little fleet unmoored early, and brought to for the night about six; after which we generally contrived to get a pleasant walk, and to see more, by far, of the country and the people, than we could have done in many months spent in Calcutta. The general impressions made on

my mind was, certainly, that of prosperity and good government; and perhaps it was, in a certain sense, an indication of both these, that the peasants, such of them as spoke Hindoostanee, were rather forward to speak of their grievances, and grumble about 'the t'mes' in much the same way with English cottagers. Their complaints were all of the same character,—the dearness of rice, the rise of rents, and the burthen of tolls and local taxes.'

JOURNAL.

'June 17.-About two o'clock this morning we had a northwester, accompanied with violent thunder and lightning. It lasted about two hours, and was so severe, that we could not but feel thankful that it had not overtaken us the night before, while we were under sail. I have never heard louder thunder, or seen so vivid and formidable lightning. Happily, our attendant boats were close in shore, under the shelter of the bigh bank, while our own mariners did their work exceedingly well and quietly, letting go a second anchor, and veering out as much cable as they had on board. After having done all that under such circumstances was to be done, they gave the of Allah hu Allah!' and went to prayers, a circumstance which, unaccompanied

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