Mohammedan law still exists, but has not been very successful, appealing as it does to a small and special class of students. There is a college built under the terms of the will of Charles Martin, whose college, "La Martinière," we saw in Lucknow. One hundred thousand dollars were bequeathed by Martin "to establish a school for the education of a certain number of children of any sex to a certain age, and then to have them apprenticed to some profession, and married when at age." This bequest was invested until it became five hundred thousand dollars, when the school was founded, with a scholarship, at the time of the last report, of seventy-five boys and forty girls. The Free Church Institution, founded by Rev. Dr. Duff, has averaged over a thousand pupils annually for thirty-five years, and is a noble example of what missionary enterprise may achieve under wise and able direction. St. Francis Xavier's College, under the Jesuits, has four hundred and eighty scholars, and is among the best schools in Calcutta. To enumerate the various schools would prolong this letter, and I only allude to the prominent features of education in India as among the brightest features of British rule. Under the administration of the present Viceroy, Lord Lytton, every form of education has received an impulse, and the efforts of the government seem bent upon nothing so earnestly as upon the widest dissemination of knowledge and the training of the rising generation in English civilization. Whether the result of this policy will be to make the people more contented with the rule of Great Britain or not is a problem that excites the earnest thought of many of the English gentlemen with whom I have conversed. Education is a duty, however, and the wisest policy is what has been adopted, to spare no pains to open every avenue of thought and progress to the native mind and leave the result to Providence.

Lord Lytton left for the hills, and General Grant became the guest of Sir Ashley Eden, Governor-General of Bengal, to whose beautiful residence we removed on the afternoon of the 12th of March. Sir Ashley is one of the famous men in the British service, who has done noble work in India, and by

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any Indian circle you hear high praise or severe condemnation. It seemed to me that an administration of so positive a character as to excite these criticisms is sure to make its impression on history, and not fall nerveless and dead. The criticisms passed upon Lord Lytton were calculated to raise him in the estimation of those who had no feelings in Indian affairs and

saw only the work he was doing. One burning objection to his Lordship was his decision in a case where an Englishman received a nominal sentence for having struck a native a blow which caused his death. The blow was not intended to kill. It was a hasty, petulant act, and the native, ailing from a diseased spleen, fell, and, rupturing his spleen, died. The courts

DEPARTURE FROM CALCUTTA.

149

"Simla," commanded by Captain Franks, was to sail for Burmah at midnight, he resolved to visit Rangoon. This resolution left Ceylon and Madras unvisited, to our regret; but it opened a new field of observation in a country full of interest, promising to be even more interesting. We had come to India late, because

hardships of travel, was counting the days until we should pass the Straits of Malacca, and find comfort in the temperate zone at China and Japan.

When we embarked on the "Simla " at midnight we took our leave of Sir Ashley, who came to say good-by. In taking leave of him we felt like saying good-by to India; and the thought that occurred to us all, and to no one more than General Grant, was one of gratitude for the splendid hospitality we had received. We had made a rapid tour, too rapid, indeed, to see the country as fully as we could have wished; but from the time of our arrival in Bombay, as the guests of Sir Richard Temple at Malabar Point, until we left the stately home of Sir Ashley Eden in Calcutta, we received nothing but kindness, unvarying and considerate, and the memory of which will always make us feel that our residence in India was a residence among friends.