thatch of houses. I saw several playing about the eaves of my bungalow, and at first mistook them for rats, which at a small distance they much resemble.

December 28.-I went this morning to return a visit which I had received from Colonel Krefting, the Danish Governor of Serampoor, a fine old veteran who has been above 40 years resident in Bengal, yet still preserves the apparently robust health and florid old age of Norway, of which country he is a native. With him I found his secretary, an officer of the name of Mansbach, also a Norwegian, whose mother I had met with many years back at the house of Mr. Rosencrantz at Hafslan, on the Falls of the Glommer. My conversation with them renewed some very agreeable recollections on both sides, and I was glad to hear of the health of some of those who had formerly shown me kindness, while they were much interested by my account of the Knudtzons, of Penrhyn's travels in the province of Bergen, and of the glacier which he had discovered.

Serampoor is a handsome place, kept beautifully clean, and looking more like an European town than Calcutta, or any of its neighbouring cantonments. The guard, which was turned out to receive me, consisted of perhaps a dozen Sepoys in the red Danish uniform; they were extremely clean and soldier-like looking men, and the appearance of the place flourishing. During the long war in which England was engaged, and so long as the Danes remained neutral, it was really so, and a vast deal of commerce was carried on under the benefit of its flag. At the time of the Copenhagen rupture, Lord Minto sent two or three companies of infantry to take possession of it. Since that period the settlement has grievously declined, and so much the faster, because no stipulation was made by the Danish Government at the time of the general pacification, for the continuance of a grant of 200 chests of opium yearly, which, previous to the rupture, the English East India company were accustomed to furnish to the Danish Government of Serampoor at the cost price, thereby admitting them to share in the benefits of this important monopoly. This grant has been earnestly requested since by Colonel Krefting, but hitherto without success, and in consequence he complains that the revenues of the settlement do not meet its current expenses, and that the Government have been utterly unable to relieve the sufferers by the late inundation. Of Colonel Krefting every body speaks highly; and I have found great sympathy expressed in his misfortunes and those of his colony. I fear, however, that Government will not be able to grant his petition without authority from England, though they show in other respects what kindness and favour they can.

Many persons of different nations, who like a cheaper resi

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dence than Calcutta, take houses here. One of these was the abode of Mr. Brown, many years senior Presidency Chaplain, and the friend of Henry Martyn. A deserted pagoda near it, once the temporary residence of the latter, attracted my attention. It was in Mr. Brown's time fitted up with books, and a bed for occasional visiters at his house, but is now quite empty and ruinous.

The administration of Serampoor, as it respects the police, is extremely good, and does much credit to Colonel Krefting and his Danish magistrates. During the late inundation he was called on for more vigorous measures than usual, since a numerous band of "Decoits," or river-pirates, trusting to the general confusion and apparently defenceless state of the place, attacked his little kingdom, and began to burn and pillage with all the horrors which attend such inroads in this country. The Colonel took the field at the head of his dozen Sepoys, his silver-sticks, police-men, and sundry volunteers, to the amount of perhaps 30, killed some of the ruffians, and took several prisoners, whom he hanged next morning, without deigning to ask aid from his powerful neighbours at Barrackpoor.

From Serampoor I proceeded to Chandernagore, where I had also to return a visit to Monsieur Pelissier, the French Governor. It is, I think, a smaller town than the former, and with a less striking appearance from the river; the houses are mostly small, and the streets presented a remarkable picture of solitude and desertion. I saw no boats loading or unloading at the quay, no porters with burdens in the streets, no carts, no market people, and in fact only a small native bazar, and a few dismal looking European shops. In the streets I met two or three Europeans smoking segars, and apparently with little to do, having almost all the characteristic features and appearance of Frenchmen.

I had half an hour's very agreeable conversation with the Governor, and promise myself much pleasure from his acquaintance. He is only just arrived at this place from Pondicherry, where he had passed several years, and of which he seems very fond; of the climate of Bengal he complains as being too hot and too cold, and says that his family have suffered in their healths during their residence here.

I had about this time an opportunity of observing a custom which prevails with different classes of Hindoos and Mussulmans, of making presents to their masters or superiors at Christmas of fruit, game, fish, pastry, and sweetmeats. Some gifts of this sort came to us from different Baboos of our acquaintance. Our head servants sent presents of plum-cakes, fish, and fruit; and even our poor bearers came in a body, their faces decorated with an extra quantity of raddle, chalk, and tin foil, to beg my accept

HINDOO IDOLS.

ance of a basket of plantains and oranges. The outer gates of most of the houses in Calcutta and Chowringhee are decorated with garlands of flowers, tinsel, and gilt paper. These Christmasboxes are said to be an ancient custom here, and I could almost fancy that our name of box for this particular kind of present, the derivation of which is not very easy to trace in the European languages, is a corruption of "Buckshish," a gift or gratuity, in Turkish, Persian, and Hindoostanee. There have been undoubtedly more words brought into our language from the East than I used to suspect. Cash," which here means small money, is one of these; but of the process of such transplantation I can form no conjecture.

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January 1, 1824.-I this day preached at the cathedral, it being an old and good custom in India always to begin the year with the solemn observation of the day of the Circumcision; there was a good congregation. I received to-day an explanation of some very singular images, which stand in different streets of Calcutta and its neighbourhood, representing a female figure, or at least the figure of a youth, rudely carved in wood and painted, standing erect on the back of a disproportionately little elephant, and with a monstrous sort of spire or shrine on his head. They are used, it appears, as a sort of hatchment, being erected on the death of wealthy Hindoos, near their dwelling houses, but, differing in this respect from hatchments, are generally suffered to remain till they fall in pieces. These are of wood. Most of the Hindoo idols are of clay, and very much resemble in composition, colouring, and execution, though of course not in form, the more paltry sort of images which are carried about in England for sale by the Lago di Como people. At certain times of the year, great number of these are in fact hawked about the streets of Calcutta in the same manner, on men's heads. This is before they have been consecrated, which takes place on their being solemnly washed in the Ganges by a Brahmin Pundit. Till this happens, they possess no sacred character, and are frequently given as toys to children, and used as ornaments of rooms, which when hallowed they could not be, without giving great offence to every Hindoo who saw them thus employed. I thought it remarkable that though most of the male deities are represented of a deep brown colour, like the natives of the country, the females are usually no less red and white than our porcelain beauties as exhibited in England. But it is evident, from the expressions of most of the Indians themselves, from the style of their amatory poetry, and other circumstances, that they consider fairness as a part of beauty, and a proof of noble blood. They do not like to be called black; and though the Abyssinians, who are sometimes met with in the country, are very little darker than they themselves are,

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PORTUGUESE IN INDIA.

their jest books are full of taunts on the charcoal complexion of the "Hubshee." Much of this has probably arisen from their having been so long subjected to the Moguls, and other conquerors originally from more northern climates, and who continued to keep up the comparative fairness of their stock by frequent importation of northern beauties. India too has been always, and long before the Europeans came hither, a favourite theatre for adventurers from Persia, Greece, Tartary, Turkey, and Arabia, all white men, and all in their turn possessing themselves of wealth and power. These circumstances must have greatly contributed to make a fair complexion fashionable. It is remarkable, however, to observe how surely all these classes of men in a few generations, even without any intermarriage with the Hindoos, assume the deep olive tint, little less dark than a Negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Portuguese natives form unions among themselves alone, or if they can with Europeans. Yet the Portuguese have, during a three hundred years' residence in India, become as black as Caffres. Surely this goes far to disprove the assertion, which is sometimes made, that climate alone is insufficient to account for the difference between the Negro and the European. It is true that in the Negro are other peculiarities which the Indian has not, and to which the Portuguese colonist shows no symptom of approximation, and which undoubtedly do not appear to follow so naturally from the climate, as that swarthiness of complexion which is the sole distinction between the Hindoo and the European. But if heat produces one change, other peculiarities of climate may produce other and additional changes, and when such peculiarities have 3 or 4000 years to operate in, it is not easy to fix any limits to their power. I am inclined after all, to suspect that our European vanity leads us astray in supposing that our own is the primitive complexion, which I should rather suppose was that of the Indian, half way between the two extremes, and perhaps the most agreeable to the eye and instinct of the majority of the human race. A colder climate, and a constant use of clothes, may have blanched the skin as effectually as a burning sun and nakedness may have tanned it; and I am encouraged in this hypothesis by observing that of animals the natural colours are generally dusky and uniform, while whiteness and a variety of tint almost invariably follow domestication, shelter from the elements, and a mixed and unnatural diet. Thus while hardship, additional exposure, a greater degree of heat, and other circumstances with which we are unacquainted, may have deteriorated the Hindoo into a Negro, opposite causes may have changed him into the progressively lighter tints of the Chinese, the Persian, the Turk, the Russian, and the Englishman.

FIRE-WORKS AT SERAMPOOR.-SUTTEE.

79

My wife and little girl having returned from their cruize to the Sandheads, much benefited by the change of air, we went, on the 7th of January, 1824, to Titty-ghur, a convenient and comfortable house, in a beautiful situation, most kindly lent to us for a couple of months by Dr. Wallich. It is on the banks of the river, about two miles from Barrackpoor, and in the middle of the Company's experimental botanic garden. The weather is now very delightful, and we are comparatively free from the dense fogs which at this season beset Calcutta and Chowringhee. On the 10th of January there was a display of fire-works at Serampoor, in honour of the patron saint at the Roman Catholic chapel, which we saw to great advantage from our bholiah, stationed opposite to it on the river. They were, we were told, procured from China by one of the Roman Catholic Portuguese merchants. I thought them very good, and the forms of most of them were new to me. One was a striking imitation of the foliage of a tuft of bamboos, being in fact really a cluster of long and slender bamboos, with fire-works affixed to them, which very beautifully gave the effect of the graceful curve of that elegant plant, and even the form of its leaves. There was also another, a sort of Roman candle, which sent up flames, in shape and action, as well as the noise they emitted, not unlike large pigeons, and therefore called Chinese doves. A great crowd of boats and people were on the river to see these fire-works, which are a very popular exhibition with the lower orders.

Returning one day from Calcutta, I passed by two funeral piles, the one preparing for a single person, the other nearly consumed, on which a Suttee had just taken place. For this latter purpose a stage had been constructed of bamboos about eighteen inches or two feet above the ground, on which the dead body had been laid, and under which, as my native servants told me, the unhappy widow had been stretched out, surrounded with combustibles. Only a heap of glowing embers was now seen here, besides two long bamboos, which seemed intended to keep down any struggles which nature might force from her. On the stage was what seemed a large bundle of coarse cotton cloth, smoking, and partially blackened, emitting a very offensive smell. This my servants said was the husband's body. The woman they expressly affirmed had been laid below it, and ghee poured over her to hasten her end, and they also said the bamboos had been laid across her. I notice these particulars, because they differ from the account of a similar and recent ceremony, given by the Baptist missionaries, in which it is said that the widow is laid by the side of her husband, on the platform, with her arm embracing him, and her face turned to him. Here I asked repeatedly, and received a different account. Yet the mission