and the sort of deference paid to them in society are great, and said to be necessary in conformity with native ideas and the example set by the first conquerors, who took their tone from the Mussulmans whom they supplanted. All members of council, and others, down to the rank of puisne judges inclusive, are preceded by two men with silver-sticks, and two others with heavy silver-maces, and they have in society some queer regulations, which forbid any person to quit a party before the lady or gentleman of most rank rises to take leave.

There are some circumstances in Calcutta dwellings which at first surprise and annoy a stranger. The lofty rooms swarm with cockroaches and insects; sparrows and other birds fly in and out all day, and as soon as the candles are lighted, large bats flutter on their indented wings, like Horace's cura, round our laqueata tecta, if this name could be applied to roofs without any ceiling at all, where the beams are left naked and visible, lest the depredations of the white ant should not be seen in time.

On the whole, however, you will judge from my description that I have abundant reason to be satisfied with my present comforts and my future prospects, and that in the field which seems opened to me for extensive usefulness and active employment, I have more and more reason to be obliged to the friend who has placed me here.

The country round Calcutta is a perfect flat, intersected by pools and canals, natural and artificial, teeming with population like an ant-hill, and covered with one vast shade of fruit trees, not of low growth like those of England, but, generally speaking, very lofty and majestic. To me it has great interest; indeed, such a scene as I have described, with the addition of a majestic river, may be monotonous but cannot be ugly.

Barrackpoor, the governor's country-house, is really a beautiful place, and would be thought so in any country. It has what

is here unexampled, a park of about 150 acres of fine turf, with spreading scattered trees, of a character so European, that if I had not been on an elephant, and had not from time to time seen a tall coco-tree towering above all the rest, I could have fancied myself on the banks of the Thames instead of the Ganges. It is hence that I date my letter, having been asked to pass two days here. Our invitation was for a considerably longer period, but it is as yet with difficulty that I can get away even for a few hours from Calcutta.

Of the religious state of India I have little as yet to say. I have bestowed the archdeaconry, much to my satisfaction, on the senior resident chaplain, Mr. Corrie, who is extremely popular in the place, and one of the most amiable and gentlemanly men in manners and temper I ever met with.

In the schools which have been lately established in this part of the empire, of which there are at present nine established by the Church Missionary, and eleven by the Christian Knowledge Societies, some very unexpected facts have occurred. As all direct attempts to convert the children are disclaimed, the parents send them without scruple. But it is no less strange than true, that there is no objection made to the use of the Old and New Testament as a class book; that so long as the teachers do not urge them to eat what will make them lose their caste, or to be baptized, or to curse their country's gods, they readily consent to every thing else, and not only Mussulmans but Brahmins stand by with perfect coolness, and listen sometimes with apparent interest and pleasure while the scholars, by the road side, are reading the stories of the creation and of Jesus Christ. Whether the children themselves may imbibe Christianity by such means, or whether they may suffer these truths to pass from their minds, as we allow the mythology which we learn at school to pass from ours, some further time is yet required to shew, but this, at least, I understand has been ascertained, that a more favourable opinion both of us and

our religion has been, apparently, felt of late by many of those who have thus been made acquainted with its leading truths, and that some have been heard to say, that they did not know till now that the English had "a caste or a shaster." a caste or a shaster." You may imagine with what feelings I have entered the huts where these schools are held, on seeing a hundred poor little children seated on the ground writing their letters in sand, or their copies on banana leaves, coming out one after another to read the history of the good Samaritan, or of Joseph, proud of shewing their knowledge, and many of them able to give a very good account of their studies.

I have been even more gratified at seeing the confidence and respect evidently shewn by the elder villagers towards the clergy who superintend these schools. I yesterday saw a man follow a German missionary, to request that he would look at his little boy's copy; and Mr. Hawtayne, the secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, seems as well known and received in the vicinity of his schools, as any English clergyman in his parish.

None

I have not as yet received any visits from the wealthy natives, though some of them have made enquiries through my sircar, whether such visits would be agreeable to me, to which I, of course, answered, “ extremely so." Their progress in the imitation of our habits is very apparent, though still the difference is great. of them adopt our dress, (indeed their own is so much more graceful, and so much better adapted to the climate, that they would act very absurdly in doing so.) But their houses are adorned with verandahs and Corinthian pillars; they have very handsome carriages, often built in England; they speak tolerable English, and they shew a considerable liking for European society, where (which unfortunately is not always the case,) they are encouraged or permitted to frequent it on terms of any thing like equality. Few of them, however, will eat with us; and this opposes a bar to familiar intercouse, which must, even more than fashion and John Bullism, keep them at a distance.

They are described, especially the Hindoos, as not ill-affected to a government under which they thrive, and are allowed to enjoy the fruits of their industry, while many of them still recollect the cruelties and exactions of their former rulers.

This is, I feel, an unreasonable letter. But I know your friendship will not be indifferent to details in which I am so much interested; and I have not been sorry, while the novelty yet remained, to communicate to you my first impressions of a country, in all respects so unlike our own, and yet so important to an Englishman. Lord Hastings appears to have been very popular here, and to have done much good. The roads which he made in different parts of Calcutta and its neighbourhood, his splendour, and his extreme courtesy, made him liked both by natives and Europeans.

Adieu, dear Wynn. Present our mutual best regards to Mrs. Williams Wynn and your young folk, and believe me ever,

Your obliged and affectionate friend,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES W. WILLIAMS WYNN.

Fort-William, December 1, 1823.

MY DEAR WYNN,

I hope you will, ere this reaches you, have received a long letter from Barrackpoor, giving an account of my first impressions of India. By all which I have yet seen, I do not think they were too favourable. The climate, since I wrote, has very materially improved, and is now scarcely hotter, and to the full as pleasant as our finest August weather. The mornings and evenings are particularly agreeable; and the sun, during the day-time, though still too hot to admit of taking exercise, is any thing but oppressive to

those who are sitting still under a roof, or driving in a carriage. The only plague, and a sore plague too, are the musquitos.

I am constantly, and sometimes intensely occupied, insomuch that I have as yet had no time whatever for my usual literary pursuits, and scarcely any for the study of Hindoostanee and Persian, or the composition of sermons, of which last, unluckily, owing to a mistake, my main stock was sent by another ship which has not yet arrived, so that I have more trouble in this way than I expected, or than is very consistent with my other duties.

Since my last letter, I have become acquainted with some of the wealthy natives, of whom I spoke, and we are just returned from passing the evening at one of their country-houses. This is more like an Italian villa, than what one should have expected as the residence of Baboo Hurree Mohun Thakoor. Nor are his carriages, the furniture of his house, or the style of his conversation, of a character less decidedly European. He is a fine old man, who speaks English well, is well informed on most topics of general discussion, and talks with the appearance of much familiarity on Franklin, chemistry, natural philosophy, &c. His family is brahminical and of singular purity of descent; but about 400 years ago, during the Mahommedan invasion of India, one of his ancestors having become polluted by the conquerors intruding into his Zennanah, the race is conceived to have lost claim to the knotted cord, and the more rigid brahmins will not eat with them. Being, however, one of the principal landholders in Bengal, and of a family so ancient, they still enjoy to a great degree the veneration of the common people, which the present head of the house appears to value,—since I can hardly reconcile in any other manner his philosophical studies and imitation of many European habits, with the daily and austere devotion which he is said to practise towards the Ganges, (in which he bathes three times every twenty-four hours,) and his veneration for all the other duties of his ancestors. He is now said, however, to be aiming at the dignity of Raja, a title which