could not be collected to receive Confirmation, less delightful to me. Surely this is no inconsiderable progress, when we take into consideration the few years that the Church of England has made any attempt to spread her doctrines in the north of India.

I have now about half finished the visitation of my diocese, a task which has employed me above ten months of almost constant travelling, during which I have seldom slept under any roof but that of my tent, or in the cabin of my boat, and have traversed, I should guess, not much less than three thousand miles either by water or on horseback. During all this time I have been greatly favoured in the general health and protection which God has extended to me, in His help under a sharp fever, when I was far removed from all medical aid, and without any friend or countryman near me; in being preserved from infection in districts where several of my people fell dangerously ill, and from wars and violence in those parts of central India, where tranquillity can never long be counted on.

I passed Bhurtpoor about a month before, and Jyepoor a month after, disturbances which would have, probably, put an effectual stop to my progress; and a similar good fortune attended me in the neighbourhoods of Mundissore and Doongurpoor, as well as in Guzerât, all which districts have been more or less disturbed and dangerous. In

almost every instance I met with hospitality and kindness, not only from my own countrymen, but from the native princes; and I have reason to hope that I have made myself not unacceptable either to Christians or heathens. Meantime I have found much to interest and delight me during my long journey. I thought much of you and of my long ramble with you, as I stood on the cedar-tufted mountains of Kemaoon, 8000 feet above the level of the sea, and with the range of Himalaya, 25,800 feet high, within forty miles' distance. I thought of you again, and wished much for you, while visiting the noble marble palace of Delhi and Agra; and while I was comparing, in recollection, my Rajpoot and Maharatta escorts, with our Cossack friends in the Cuban. By the way, "Cosâk" is the common word for a predatory horseman all through northern and central India. Still, however, with all these qualifications of curiosity, I have had many things to keep me from forgetting the peculiar and appropriate object of my journey, as you will believe when I mention, that though many of my Sundays were, of course, necessarily passed in wildernesses remote from European or Christian society, yet I have found occasion and opportunity to preach above fifty times since I left Calcutta. And though I have certainly not shut my eyes to the different objects of interest and beauty near which my route carried me, I can truly say that I have never gone out of my way in pursuit of such objects, and have been no where where I had not professional duties to perform, or which was not in the direct road to

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some scene of such duties. After all, in looking back at the vast and promising field which I have passed, my heart is ready to sink when I recollect how much more I might have done, and how many things I have omitted or hurried over. Another time, if I am spared to perform the same journey again, I shall know better how to arrange my plans, and Heaven grant that I may be more diligent in carrying them into effect! My wife and little Emily came hither by sea ten days ago.

We are to remain here till after the first fall of rain. Then I purpose to march to Poonah, and after returning hither, to sail to Calcutta, taking Cannamore, Cochin, the Syrian Churches, and Ceylon in my way. I trust to be at home again by the beginning of the cool weather. Madras, and the remainder of India, Bangalore, Hydrabad, and Nagpoor, I must reserve to another year. I have much to do in all these places, but I cannot, without inconvenience to the whole diocese, be so long absent from Calcutta as would be necessary for me to visit all India in a single journey.

Dear Thornton,

Ever your obliged and affectionate friend,

REGINALD CAlcutta.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD GRENVILLE.

MY LORD,

Bombay, June 1, 1825.

I beg your Lordship to accept my best thanks for your obliging letter, as well as for the valueable and interesting present which it announces. The latter is, I trust, awaiting my arrival at Calcutta, the former reached me a few weeks since on my arrival within the bounds of this Government. It will, on every account, give me most sincere pleasure to find myself able, in the slightest degree, to contribute to the completeness of your Lordship's collection of plants, and I have written to Mr. Traill, a gentleman who holds the chief civil employment in Kemaoon, and who is more intimately acquainted than most persons whom I know with the forests and glaciers of the Himalaya, requesting him to send down to Calcutta, with the precautions your Lordship suggests, some acorns of the mountain Ilex, and some cones of all the different species of pine which he can obtain within the limits of his jurisdiction, the soil, climate, and productions of which differ, as I understand, in no material respect, from those of the other and unconquered provinces of the Nepâlese monarchy. A visit which I paid to those glorious mountains in November and December last, was

unfortunately too much limited by the short time at my disposal, and by the advanced season, to admit of my penetrating far into their recesses, nor am I so fortunate as to be able to examine their productions with the eye of a botanist. But though the woods are very noble, and the general scenery possesses a degree of magnificence such as I had never before either seen or (I may say) imagined, the species of pine which I was able to distinguish were not numerous. The most common is a tall and stately, but brittle, fir, in its general character not unlike the Scottish, but with a more branching head, which in some degree resembles that of the Italian pine. Another, and of less frequent occurrence, is a splendid tree with gigantic arms and dark narrow leaves, which is accounted sacred, and chiefly seen in the neighbourhood of ancient Hindoo temples, and which struck my unscientific eye as very nearly resembling the cedar of Lebanon. But these I found flourishing at near 9000 feet above the level of the sea, and where the frost was as severe at night as is usually met with at the same season in England. But between this, which was the greatest height that I climbed, and the limit of perpetual snow, there is doubtless ample space for many other species of plants, to some of which a Dropmore winter must be a season of vernal mildness. The ilex, which was the only species of oak I saw, grows to a great size on the sides of the secondary range, mingled with the walnut, the crab, the small black cherry, and a truly European underwood of blackthorn, brambles, rasp