.

mats and white wicker-work, with thatched roofs and cane verandahs, with gourds trailing over them, and the broad tall plaintains clustering round them. Adieu.

Yours most faithfully,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO THE VERY REVEREND THE DEAN OF ST. ASAPH.

MY DEAR SIR,

Fort-William, December 16, 1823.

Long before this reaches you, you will, I trust, have received the news of our safe arrival in India, and Emily's account of our first impressions of the country, the people, and Calcutta. These impressions were, and still continue favorable.

The climate at this time of year far surpasses my expectations, and indeed if it would always continue as it is now, would be, perhaps, the finest in the world. And I find the field of useful exertion before me so great, and the probability of doing good so encouraging, that if Providence blesses us with health, I have no doubt of being as happy here as we could be any where at such a distance from our dear and excellent friends. Emily and I have, thank God, remained perfectly well through our changes of climate. Some days ago I should have had a bad report to make of our· dear little girl.

During the last week she has been almost quite herself again, but her mother has so much confidence in the sea air, and a change of air of any kind is said to be, in this country, so desirable for convalescents, that she has determined to take her down till the end of the month to the Sand-heads at the mouth of the river, for which purpose Lord Amherst has kindly placed one of the pilot schooners

at her disposal, and, what is of still more consequence, has authorised Mr. Shaw, the assistant surgeon of the Fort, to accompany and remain with her till her return.

At the present time this is a very fine and interesting country, and contains the capability and the probability of improvement to a degree far exceeding any thing which I had anticipated. In Bengal, indeed, as you are aware, there is no mountain, nor so much as a single hill, and the prospect has no other beauty but what arises from water, wood, and a richly cultivated plain, inhabited by a population exceeding all which I know in Europe, and apparently falling little short of all which we read of in China. Yet these circumstances, joined to the apparent simplicity of the people, their singular customs and architecture, the beauty and clearness of the sky, and the richness and majesty of the vegetable creation, make our rides and drives here very interesting, particularly those which are taken on horseback through glade and copse and hamlet, and rice-fields, under the shadow of banyans, bamboos, tamarinds, and cocos. It is in the course of these rides that I generally visit the village schools, which are now numerous and flourishing under the care of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Church Missionary Society; of the institution and success of which I had a very inadequate notion before I arrived in India, and which I believe are but little known even at the present moment in England. Hearing all I had heard of the prejudices of the Hindoos and Mussulmans, I certainly did not at all expect to find that the common people would not only without objection, but with the greatest thankfulness, send their children to schools on Bell's system; and they seem to be fully sensible of the advantages conferred by writing, arithmetic, and, above all, by a knowledge of English.

There are now in Calcutta, and the surrounding villages, twenty boys' schools, containing from 60 to 120 each; and twenty-three girls'

each of twenty-five or thirty. The latter are under the management of a very clever young woman, who came out under the patronage of the Lancasterian School Society, but, in consequence of their having pledged themselves to allow no Scripture lessons in their schools, and her preferring the system pursued by the Church of England, they withdrew her salary, and she must have left the country, had she not been fortunately taken up by the Church Missionary Society, one of whose missionaries she has since married. This branch of education is, however, now about to be put on a different footing. Some of the Hindoos objected to men at all interfering in the girls' schools, or even that the school should be in the same building where men reside. We are, therefore, going to build a separate house for the school, which, with all the female schools established, or to be established in India, is to be · managed by a committee of ladies. Lady Amherst has taken the office of patroness, and Emily, with several other ladies in Calcutta, are to form a committee. I have no doubt that things will go on prosperously if we can only get funds sufficient for the demand on The difficulties of Mrs. Wilson's undertaking, and the wonders she has brought about, will be better understood when I mention, that two years ago, no single native female in Bengal could either write, read, or sew, that the notion of teaching them these things, or of sending them to schools where they ran the risk of mixing with, and touching those of different castes, was, at first, regarded in about the same light as it would be in England to send a girl to learn tumbling and rope-dancing at Sadler's Wells, and that even those who were most anxious for the improvement of the natives, and knew most of India, spoke of her as undertaking impossibilities. Mrs. Wilson's first care was to get a pretty good knowledge both of Hindoostanee and the vulgar Bengalee; her next, to circulate her proposals in these languages, urging on parents the advantages which their daughters would derive from her instructions, as servants, mothers, and mistresses of families, promising a strict regard to caste, and urging that, whether they became Christians

us.

or no, it would do them no harm to become acquainted with the European shaster, and the rules of conduct which Europeans professed to follow towards each other. She went about a good deal herself among the wealthy native families, persuaded some of the leading Gooroos, or religious teachers, to honour her school with their presence and inspection, and all now goes on smoothly. Rhadacant Deb, one of the wealthiest natives in Calcutta, and regarded as the most austere and orthodox of the worshippers of the Ganges, bade, some time since, her pupils go on and prosper; and added, that "if they practised the Sermon on the Mount, as well as they repeated it, he would choose all the handmaids for his daughters, and his wives, from the English school." I do not say, nor do I suppose, that any large proportion of these children will become Christians. Even if they were to offer it now, we should tell them," Wait till you are of age, and get your father's leave:" and it is likely that many, on leaving school, will leave many of their good impressions behind them. But it is certain, that, whether they become Christians or no, they may be great gainers by what they learn; and it is probable that some, at least, in the present generation, and probably far more among their children, will be led to compare our system with their own, and seriously, and in a real zeal for their own salvation, to adopt the truth. In the mean time, I am assured that the pains now taken have materially increased the popularity of the English in Bengal. The peasants cannot help perceiving that the persons who mix with them for these purposes, have their worldly as well as spiritual interest at heart. The children like the rewards, the clothing, and the praise which they receive; and in districts where, I am assured, three years ago, at the sight of an European they all ran away screaming to hide themselves, the clergymen and missionaries engaged in the superintendance of these little establishments are now as well known and as well received as an English pastor in his parish. Our chief hindrances are some deistical brahmins, who have left their old religion, and desire to found a sect of their own,

and some of those who are professedly engaged in the same work with ourselves, the Dissenters. These last are, indeed, very civil, and affect to rejoice at our success; but they, some how or other, cannot help interfering, and setting up rival schools close to ours; and they apparently find it easier to draw off our pupils, than to look out for fresh and more distant fields of exertion and enterprize.

My principal labour here is in the multitude of letters from the Archdeacons, the Chaplains, the charitable institutions, the Supreme Government, and the inferior Governments of Madras and Bombay, which I have constantly to read and answer. Besides my official Secretary, I am obliged to keep a native Amanuensis, and as every thing connected with Churches, Chaplains, Missionaries, and Schoolmasters, passes through my hands, or is referred to me by Government, besides my being visitor of Bishop's College, and agent to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, I find myself daily in a sort of business in which I have much to learn, and in which I certainly take no great pleasure. I have this morning, for instance, and yesterday evening, had to answer four letters about the rate of exchange between Calcutta and England, and the expediency of drawing bills on the latter to pay the College debts; and I have just finished reading a long sheet of queries from the Secretary to Government, respecting some ecclesiastical buildings, their expense, workmanship, &c., which will take some time and many previous enquiries to answer properly. All this will, however, I doubt not, become familiar to me by degrees; and I only regret it now, because it completely hinders the composition of my sermons, and very materially retards my acquisition of the Oriental languages. On the political state and prospects of India, as they at present appear to me, I hope to write another letter. It is an extensive and not uninteresting subject, and one, which I think is not generally understood in Europe.