any whatever for my usual literary pursuits, and scarcely 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 philoso phical 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 at present bears pretty nearly the same estimation here as a peerage in England, and is conferred by government in almost the same manner. The house is surrounded by an extensive garden, laid out in formal parterres of roses, intersected by straight walks, with some fine trees, and a chain of tanks, fountains, and summer-houses, not ill adapted to a climate where air, water, and sweet smells, are almost the only natural objects which can be relished during the greater part of the year. The whole is little less Italian than the façade of his house, but on my mentioning this similarity, he observed that the taste for such things was brought into India by the Mussulmans. There are also swings, whirligigs, and other amusements for the females of his family, but the strangest was a sort of "Montagne Russe" of masonry, very steep, and covered with plaister, down which he said the ladies used to slide. Of these females, however, we saw none,indeed they were all staying at his town-house in Calcutta. He himself received us at the head of a whole tribe of relations and descendants on a handsome flight of steps, in a splendid shawl, by way of mantle, with a large rosary of coral set in gold, leaning on an ebony crutch with a gold head. Of his grandsons, four very pretty boys, two were dressed like English children of the same age, but the round hat, jacket, and trowsers, by no means suited their dusky skins so well as the splendid brocade caftans and turbans covered with diamonds, which the two elder wore. On the whole, both Emily and I have been greatly interested with the family, both now and during our previous interviews. We have several other eastern acquaintance, but none of equal talent, though several learned Moollahs, and one Persian doctor, of considerable reputed sanctity, have called on me. The Raja of Calcutta, and one of the sons of Tippoo Sultan, do not choose, I am told, to call till I have left the fort, since they are not permitted to bring their silver-sticks, led horses, carriages, and armed attendants within the ramparts. In all this, nothing strikes me more than the apparent indifference of these men to the measures employed for extending Christianity, and rendering it more conspicuous in Hindostan. They seem to think it only right and decent that the conquering nation should have its hierarchy and establishment on a handsome scale, and to regard with something little short of approbation, the means we take for instructing the children of the poor. One of their men of rank has absolutely promised to found a college at Burdwan, with one of our Missionaries at its head, and where little children should be clothed and educated under his care. All this is very short indeed of embracing Christianity themselves, but it proves how completely those feelings are gone by, in Bengal at least, which made even the presence of a single Missionary the occasion of tumult and alarm. I only hope that no imprudence, or over-forwardness on our part, will revive these angry feelings. Believe me, dear Charles, Ever your obliged friend, TO MISS DOD. Calcutta, Dec. 15, 1823. I have been very busy, busier indeed than I ever was before, except during the Oxford election; * The country, the society, and, at this season of the year, the climate are all very agreeable, and there are several amiable and excellent people here, who have shewn us much and cordial kindness, and whose friendship would, in any country, be a valueable privilege. Of the country we have as yet seen little, except in one voyage up the river, and in the vicinity of Calcutta. But all Bengal is described to us as like those parts which we have seen, a vast alluvial plain, intersected by the innumerable arms of the Ganges, overflowed once a year, but now covered with fields of rice, divided by groves of tall fruit-trees, with villages under their shelter, swarming with a population beyond any thing which Europe can shew, and scarcely to be paralleled in China. Calcutta, when seen from the south, on which side it is built round two sides of a great open plain, with the Ganges on the west, is a very noble city, with tall and stately houses ornamented with Grecian pillars, and each, for the most part, surrounded by a little apology for a garden. The Churches are not large, but very neat and even elegant buildings, and the Government House is, to say the least of it, a more shewy palace than London has to produce. These are, however, the front lines; behind them ranges the native town, deep, black and dingy, with narrow crooked streets, huts of earth baked in the sun, or of twisted bamboos, interspersed here and there with ruinous brick bazars, pools of dirty water, coco-trees, and little gardens, and a few very large, very fine, and generally very dirty houses of Grecian architecture, the residence of wealthy natives. There are some mosques of pretty architecture, and very neatly kept, and some pagodas, but mostly ruinous and decayed, the religion of the people being chiefly conspicuous in their worship of the Ganges, and in some ugly painted wooden or plaister idols, with all manner of heads and arms, which are set up in different parts of the city. Fill up this outline with a crowd of people in the streets, beyond any thing to be seen even in London, some dressed in tawdry silks and brocades, more in white cotton garments, and most of all |