I heartily wish I could stay here a month or six weeks, every hour of which time might be usefully and profitably employed. My time, however, is very limited, and I must press on to Travancore before the south-west monsoon shall have made travelling on the Malabar coast impossible.

Thence, I hope, after visiting Calicut and Cannanore, to return by Seringapatam to Madras, and thence to Calcutta.

Heaven bless you, my dear Charles,

Believe me ever your's affectionately,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO R. WILMOT HORTON, ESQ.

MY DEAR WILMOT,

Trichinopoly, April 1, 1826.

I have been passing the last four days in the society of a Hindoo Prince, the Rajah of Tanjore, who quotes Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Linnæus, and Buffon fluently, has formed a more accurate judgement of the poetical merits of Shakspeare than that so felicitously expressed by Lord Byron, and has actually emitted English poetry very superior indeed to Rousseau's epitaph on Shenstone, at the same time that he is much respected by the English officers in his neighbourhood as a real good judge of a horse, and a cool, bold, and deadly shot at a tyger. The truth is that he is an extraordinary man, who, having in early youth received such an education as old Schwartz, the celebrated Missionary, could give him, has ever since continued, in the midst of many disadvantages, to pre

serve his taste for, and extend his knowledge of European literature, while he has never neglected the active exercises and frank soldierly bearing which become the descendant of the old Maharatta conquerors, and by which only, in the present state of things, he has it in his power to gratify the prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among them. Had he lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been a formidable ally or enemy, for he is, by the testimony of all in his neighbourhood, frugal, bold, popular, and insinuating. At present, with less power than an English nobleman, he holds his head high, and appears contented; and the print of Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized by that of Lord Hastings in full costume, that it can do no harm to any body. To finish the portrait of Maha Raja Sarbojee, I should tell you that he is a strong-built and very handsome middle-aged man, with eyes and nose like a fine hawk, and very bushy grey mustachios, generally splendidly dressed, but with no effeminacy of ornament, and looking and talking more like a favourable specimen of a French general officer, than any other object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja Sewajee, (so named after their great ancestor,) is a pale sickly-looking lad of seventeen, who also speaks English but imperfectly, and on whose account his father lamented, with much apparent concern, the impossibility which he found of obtaining any tolerable instruction in Tanjore. I was moved at this, and offered to take him in my present tour, and afterwards to Calcutta, where he might have apartments in my house, and be introduced into good English society; at the same time that I would superintend his studies, and procure for him the best masters which India affords. The father and son, in different ways, the one catching at the idea with great eagerness, the other as if he were afraid to say all he wished, seemed both very well pleased with the proposal. Both, however, on consulting together, expressed a doubt of the mother's concurrence, and accordingly, next day, I had a very civil message through the Resident, that the Rannee had already lost two sons, that

this survivor was a sickly boy, that she was sure he would not come back alive, and it would kill her to part with him, but that all the family joined in gratitude, &c. So poor Sewajee must chew betel and sit in the zennanah, and pursue the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo Princes, till he is gathered to those heroic forms who, girded with long swords, with hawks on their wrists, and garments like those of the king of spades (whose portrait painter, as I guess, has been retained by this family) adorn the principal room in the palace. Sarbojee, the father, has not trusted his own immortality to records like these. He has put up a colossal marble statue of himself, by Flaxman, in one of his halls of audience, and his figure is introduced on the monument, also by Flaxman, which he has raised in the Mission Church to the memory of his tutor Schwartz, as grasping the hand of the dying saint, and receiving his blessing".

Of Schwartz and his fifty years' labour among the heathens, the extraordinary influence and popularity which he acquired, both with Mussulmans, Hindoos, and contending European govern

* The Rev. Mr. Robinson being desirous to see also the Christian congregation at Kanandagoody, fifteen miles from Tanjore, and his Highness the Maha Raja's Chatteram, went to that place on the 15th April. He was much pleased to see a large congregation assembled, and after morning prayers, he gave a kind address to the Christians, animating them to be thankful to God for his great mercies shewed to them. The chapel at this place is a decent thatched building. It is also used as a school. Fifty poor children of the Christians are here supported by the bounty of his Highness, but instructed at the expence of the mission. The houses of the catechist and schoolmaster, which are also thatched, are built near the chapel. From Kanandagoody he went to his Highness's Chatteram, which is a Hindoo charitable institution, established by the present Maha Raja of Tanjore, not merely for the maintenance of brahmins, but for the poor of every description. This charitable institution has saved many hundreds from perishing when a severe famine and the cholera prevailed some years ago in the Ramuad, Shevagunga, and Madura districts. A circumstance that renders this institution worthy of notice is, that there is a charity school attached to it, in which children are instructed in the Tamul, Gentoo, Maharatta, Sanscrit, Persian, and English languages; to this must be added the Christian charity school at Kanandagoody, above mentioned. There are also two hospitals attached to the charitable institution, one for men and one for women suffering by sickness. A beautiful bungalow is also erected over the Chatteram for the accommodation of gentlemen and other Europeans going to the southward or coming from thence.-Extract from a letter from the Rev. J. C. Kohloff. ED,

ments, I need give you no account, except that my idea of him has been raised since I came into the south of India. I used to suspect that, with many admirable qualities, there was too great a mixture of intrigue in his character; that he was too much of a political prophet, and that the veneration which the Heathen paid and still pay him, and which indeed almost regards him as a superior being, putting crowns and burning lights before his statue, was purchased by some unwarrantable compromise with their prejudices. I find I was quite mistaken. He was really one of the most active and fearless, as he was one of the most successful missionaries who have appeared since the Apostles. To say that he was disinterested in regard to money, is nothing; he was perfectly careless of power, and renown never seemed to affect him, even so far as to induce even an outward shew of humility. His temper was perfectly simple, open, and cheerful, and in his political negociations (employments which he never sought for, but which fell in his way) he never pretended to impartiality, but acted as the avowed, though, certainly, the successful and judicious agent of the orphan prince entrusted to his care, and from attempting whose conversion to Christianity he seems to have abstained from a feeling of honour. His other converts were between six and seven thousand, besides those which his predecessors and companions in the cause had brought over.

The number is gradually increasing, and there are now in the south of India about 200 Protestant congregations, the numbers of which have been sometimes vaguely stated at 40,000. I doubt whether they reach 15,000, but even this, all things considered, is a great number. The Roman Catholics are considerably more numerous, but belong to a lower caste of Indian, for even these Christians retain many prejudices of caste, and in point of knowledge and morality, are said to be extremely inferior. This inferiority, as injuring the general character of the religion, is alleged to have occasioned the very unfavourable eye with which all native Christians have been regarded in the Madras Government.

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If they have not actually been persecuted, they have been disqualified," totidem verbis, from holding any place or appointment, whether civil or military, under the Company's Government; and that in districts where, while the native princes remained in power, Christians were employed without scruple. Nor is this the worst; many peasants have been beaten, by authority of the English magistrates, for refusing, on a religious account, to assist in drawing the chariots of the idols on festival days; and it is only the present Collector of Tanjore who has withheld the assistance of the secular arm from the brahmins on these occasions. The consequence is, that the brahmins, being limited to voluntary votaries, have now often very hard work to speed the ponderous wheels of Kali and Siva through the deep lanes of this fertile country. This is, however, still the most favoured land of brahminism, and the temples are larger and more beautiful than any which I have seen in Northern India; they are also decidedly older, but as to their very remote age, I am still incredulous.

You will have heard, perhaps, from your brother, that I had the pleasure of meeting him in Ceylon. That country might be one of the happiest, as it is one of the loveliest spots in the universe, if some of the old Dutch laws were done away, among which, in my judgement, the chief are the monopoly of cinnamon, and the compulsory labour of the peasants on the high roads, and in other species of corvées. The Candian provinces, where neither of these exist, seemed to me the most prosperous parts of the country.

You will perceive from the date and tenor of my letter, that I am again on my visitation tour; again too, I am grieved to say, separated from my family. Circumstances had detained me so late at Calcutta, that the cool season was quite spent, and it would have been tempting Heaven to take them with me, in such a journey, at this time of the year. It is indeed intensely hot, often from 98 to 100 in the shade; but I could not defer it to another year, and I, thank God, continue quite well, though some of my