have already furnished. Our lives for the last six weeks have been passed in great general retirement,

but so much and so many things are to be done, that I am often completely tired out before the day is ended, and yet have to regret many omissions. One considerable source of labour has been the number of sermons I have had to compose.

There is so grievous a want of Chaplains on the Bengal establishment, that both the Archdeacon and myself are obliged to preach quite as often, and sometimes oftener in the Sunday, than I ever did at Hodnet.

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The country is now splendidly beautiful. The tall timber trees which delighted us with their shade and verdure when we landed, are now many of them covered with splendid flowers, literally hot-house flowering shrubs, thirty or forty feet high, and the fragrance of a drive through the park at Barrackpoor, is answerable to the dimensions of this Brobdignag parterre. Some of the trees, and those large ones too, lose their leaves entirely at this season, throwing out large crimson and yellow flowers in their place.

I began my letter with a sketch of the peasantry of India. I conclude it with one of a part of the park of Barrackpoor, with Lady Amherst in her morning's airing. The large tree in the centre

is a peepul, sacred to Siva, and with an evil spirit, as the Hindoos believe, dwelling under every leaf: In the distance, between that and the bamboo, is a banyan. In the foreground an aloe, and over the elephant the cotton-tree, which at a certain season exchanges its leaves for flowers something like

I have two most kind and interesting letters to thank you for.

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I have now, alas! to announce the death of the poor chief-justice, who, after a week's struggle with one of the country fevers, but too common at this time of year, breathed his last yesterday morning at a little after four, having enjoyed his office in India exactly, even to a day, the same time, six weeks, which his predecessor did. For the last thirty-six hours he had been, generally speaking, delirious, having from the beginning exhibited symptoms of a tendency of blood to the head; but

down to that time I had seen him every day, and, though he was much reduced, had few apprehensions that the disorder would take so malignant a turn. He was buried yesterday evening, (for in this climate no lying-in-state is ever thought of,) with the usual military honours, and attended to his grave by a more than the usual shew of the military functionaries of Calcutta. I read the service, and all the Clergy attended. He had already become a great and general favourite both with Europeans and natives from his cordial and friendly manners, the sensible and unaffected way in which he had commenced his judicial functions, and (with the natives more particularly) from the pains he, like poor Blossett, was taking to learn the language. Lady Puller has borne up admirably; her boy has been a great comfort to her, and has evinced in his whole conduct a very amiable and affectionate disposition, and a self-command, judgement, and discrimination, beyond his years.

She has determined, and I think wisely, to return by the same vessel, the Paget, which brought them out! The contrast will, indeed, be very painful between her situation now, and what it was then, but both she and her husband were much pleased with the conduct of the Paget's Captain (Geary), and she will probably find herself less forlorn with him than among total strangers. We asked them to our house, and they had a similar invitation from Lord Amherst, but they have preferred remaining during the short time which they spend in