formation, acute good sense, energy, and application to business, is one of the most extraordinary men, as he is quite the most popular Governor, that I have fallen in with.

Believe me,

Ever your affectionate friend and cousin,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO THE REVEREND J. J. BLUNT.

Bombay, June 10th, 1825.

I am ashamed to recollect how long it is since I wrote to you, but you will excuse me when you are aware of the many circumstances which must prevent my ever becoming a good correspondent. I do not, indeed, think that in the regular and ordinary functions of my diocese, there is more or even so much to be done as in any of the more extensive Bishoprics of England; the small number of the Clergy must prevent this being the case. But on the other hand, every thing which is done must be done by myself, both in its spirit and its details, and partly owing to the manner in which we are scattered, and partly to the general habit of the country, all must be done in writing. Questions, which in England would not occupy more

than five minutes' conversation, may here sometimes call for a letter of six or eight pages; and as nothing, or almost nothing which concerns the interests or duties of the Clergy, can be settled without a reference to Government, I have, in fact, at least two sets of letters to write and receive in every important matter which comes before me. As Visitor of Bishop's College, I receive almost every week six or seven sheets of close writing on the subject. I am called on to give an opinion on the architecture, expence, and details of every Church which is built, or proposed to be built, in India ; every application for salary of either clerk, sexton, schoolmaster, or bell-ringer must pass through my hands, and be recommended in a letter to Government. I am literally the conductor of all the missions in the three Presidencies; and, what is most serious of all, I am obliged to act in almost every thing from my own single judgement, and on my own single responsibility, without any more experienced person to consult, or any precedent to guide me. I have, besides, not only the Indian Clergy and the Indian government to correspond with, but the religious Societies at home, whose agent I am, and to whom I must send occasional letters, the composition of each of which occupies me many days while, in the scarcity of Clergy which is, and must be felt here, I feel myself bound to preach, in some one or other of the Churches or stations, no less frequently than when I was in England.

All this, when one is stationary at Calcutta, may be done, indeed, without difficulty; but my jour

neys throw me sadly into arrears; and you may easily believe, therefore, not only that I am obliged to let slip many opportunities of writing to my friends at home, but that my leisure for study amounts to little or nothing, and that even the native languages, in which it has been my earnest desire to perfect myself, I am compelled to acquire very slowly, and by conversation more than by reading. With all this, however, in spite of the many disadvantages of climate and banishment, I am bound to confess that I like both my employments and my present country. The work is as much as I can do, and more than, I fear, I can do well; but a great deal of it is of a very interesting nature, and India itself I find so full of natural beauties and relics of ancient art, and there are so many curious topics of enquiry or speculation connected with the history and character of its inhabitants, their future fortunes, and the policy of Great Britain concerning them, that in every ride which I have taken, and in every wilderness in which my tent has been pitched, I have as yet found enough to keep my mind from sinking into the languor and apathy which have been regarded as natural to a tropical climate.

To my preservation thus far from such a result, a tendency to which I certainly see in many of my friends, it is probable that the frequent change of scene, and the necessity of daily bodily exercise and even fatigue, to which I have been for the last ten months habituated, have much contributed. Indeed Sir John Malcolm foretold that I should be

highly pleased with my first visitation, though he warned me also that I should find it an inexpressibly wearisome duty to march over the same immense extent of ground, visiting the same places a second and a third time. Of this, however, I am content to run the risk, and I look forward to my future journeys with any thing but a gloomy anticipation, since I hope that in them I shall be accompanied by my wife and children.

During a great part of the year the climate is sufficiently disagreeable; it is by no means pleasant to be kept a close prisoner to the house from soon after sunrise to a little before sunset, at the peril of a fever, or of a stroke of the sun, if one ventures to brave his terrors. It is a poor comfort to a person suffering, as I am at this moment, under what is called prickly heat, exactly resembling the application of red-hot needles to different parts of the body and limbs, to be told that this is a sign of health, and that while it continues he is not likely to have the cholera morbus. Nor is it comfortable at night, during the rainy season, to have the option between utter sleeplessness, if you choose to shut the window, and having one's bed, and every thing in the room, soaked through by the storm beating in if you think fit to leave it open. Nor can any comparison be formed between the degrees of fatigue occasioned by clerical duties in England and in India, when I come out of the pulpit, as was the case but yesterday, with

my lawn sleeves as if they had been soaked in water. All these are easy to be borne so long as Providence gives health and strength, and many of them are only confined to particular seasons; and in all seasons considerable difference exists in different parts of India. The northern stations are, I think, most favoured, enjoying a longer continuance of cool weather, an air at all times drier and more elastic, and, except during the hot winds, by no means uncongenial to an English constitution. I have been greatly struck with the difference in muscle, complexion, and apparent strength between persons stationed in the upper provinces and those resident in Calcutta or Bombay. Yet so impartial is death in his visits, and so much may prudence and good management effect towards obviating natural inconveniences, that it is not found that on the whole there is greater mortality among the European inhabitants of these last-named cities, than among those of Delhi, Meerut, and Bareilly.

Of the people of this country I gave you, if I recollect right, a tolerably long account in my last letter.

Their anxiety after improvement is exceedingly great, and the steps which are now taking, particularly by the Government of Bombay, to translate useful books, especially mathematical and philosophical, into their languages, is likely, I hope, to produce effects even beyond the civil and secular improvements, which is their more immediate ob