single article of clothes, or any thing save my writing-desk and pistols. The night was but little cooler than the day had been, and the road very dusty. It was moon-light, however, and I could therefore observe that the country was of the same highly cultivated, strongly enclosed, woody, and English character which we had seen the whole way on this side of the Mhye.

About ten o'clock we reached Kairah, and were conducted to the bungalow of Mr. Goode the Clergyman, who received us very hospitably, and had prepared a bed for me in an empty bungalow separated from his only by a small field. Both these were very neat and even pretty dwellings, but constructed with much less regard to the climate than is usual on the other side of India. Here the windows are generally small and without glass, so as neither to admit any great body of air when it is cool, nor to exclude the hot wind; they have low ceilings too, and are roofed with tiles, on which the sun beats with great power. Nor are the verandahs so well constructed, in my opinion, as those of Hindostan. The servants are either Parsees or Portuguese, and the English language is much more generally understood and spoken among them than in the northern and eastern provinces. From Saturday the 26th of March to Monday the 4th of April I remained at Kairah, during which time I received great civility and kindness from Mr. Goode the Chaplain, Major Sale of the 4th light dragoons, at this time commanding officer, and the other gentlemen of the station. On Sunday I consecrated

the Church, which is a large and solid but clumsy building, lately finished. On Wednesday I confirmed about seventy persons, and on Friday and Sunday (Good Friday and Easter day) I preached. On Saturday, before evening service, I consecrated the burial-ground, and in the course of that day visited the regimental school, the station library, and hospital.

The cantonment of Kairah stands about a mile and a half from a small city of the same name, with a river between them, crossed by a considerable wooden bridge, but now in most places fordable. It is extensive, and, I think, well laid out, with good barracks and an excellent hospital, which has only the defect of being built round a square, -a plan which robs one-half the range of all benefit from the breeze. By this form, however, it is more conveniently and easily guarded; and the patients are secluded from any injurious intercourse with their comrades, as well as from access to spirituous liquors. To the prevention of this latter danger even while the men are in health, a greater, or at least, a more successful attention seems to be paid in this cantonment than in any other which I have visited. No dram-shop is allowed within its bounds, and the only one which is tolerated, even in the neighbourhood, is under so good control, that no great degree of drunkenness appeared to exist among the European soldiers, who are, indeed, some of the most respectable looking and orderly men I have seen in India, and of whom, on the whole, Mr. Goode has, according to his own

statement, a very interesting and attentive congregation.

The regimental school is in very good order. There are, indeed, few children, the greater number having been carried off by a grievous sickness which prevailed amongst them last year. But there are about forty adult soldiers, who either having never learned, or forgotten their reading and writing, are here instructed both in these and in arithmetic. I examined these men, and was much pleased with the progress which they had made, and with the account which I received of their diligence.

The station library is a very good room, with a small apartment adjoining for a non-commissioned officer, who has the care of the books, which are made up from two different sources, the one being a lending library, containing the works usually furnished by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; the other a larger, more miscellaneous, and far more expensive collection, furnished by the East India Company, and containing, among others, Paley's Natural Theology, Goldsmith's Animated Nature, Pinkerton's Geography, a good Atlas, the Indian histories of Orme and Wilks, and the Novels of the author of Waverley. The books published by the Christian Knowledge Society are circulated in the manner usually practised in the lending libraries of that Institution, and bear marks, not of ill usage, but of being well read, and perhaps by no very delicate hands. The Company's books are not to be taken away from the room in which

they are deposited, a late regulation to that effect having been passed by the commander-in-chief, Sir Charles Colville. I regret this restriction, because I am convinced that, in this climate, the utility of the library will be much impaired by it, since men will not read when they can amuse themselves in the open air, nor when the sun is high will they, nor ought they, to walk some distance to a library. I can, indeed, easily believe that while books were taken by the men to their quarters, some would be occasionally damaged, but it is surely better that this should happen occasionally, rather than that the reasonable and decent use of the books should be impeded, and the munificence of Government, in a great degree, rendered vain.

But even an occasional and restricted access to works such as I have described, is doubtless a very valueable privilege; and, altogether, I have seen no Indian station, (Meerut excepted,) from which I have derived so much comfort and pleasure, as from Kairah. The worst is its extreme unhealthiness; besides the burning heat, under which all Guzerât suffers, and in which it is more unfavourably circumstanced than any other province in India, there is something in the nature of the soil, which like the Terrai, though not in so fatal a degree, affects mankind, particularly Europeans, with fever, ague, and the other complaints of tropical climates. The havoc among the European troops during the hot months, and, still more, during the rains, is dreadful; and even my Hindoostanees and Bengalees were many of them affected in a way

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which reminded me much of " the Belt of Death;" one was taken ill after another, and, though all recovered, all were so thoroughly alarmed, that I never witnessed more alacrity displayed by them than when I gave orders to prepare for marching. Archdeacon Barnes and I felt nothing like indisposition. Here, as in the Terrai, the servants ascribed their illness to the badness of the water. The majority of the wells are certainly brackish, but there is one very fine one of excellent quality at the military hospital, to which I apprehend they would, by using my name, have had free access. I am myself inclined to impute the unhealthiness of the station to the quantity of saltpetre in the soil, a circumstance in which this district appears to resemble lower Bengal. At the same time, it should seem that the spot on which the cantonment stands is peculiarly unfortunate, since the neighbouring city, and even the artillery lines, though only separated from the rest by a river, are reckoned much more healthy.

The city of Kairah is a large and tolerably neat town, surrounded by a lofty stone wall, with semicircular bastions, in good repair, and sufficient to keep off either nightly robbers, or parties of irregular cavalry. To sudden attacks of both kinds, notwithstanding the vicinity of the cantonments, it would otherwise still be, (as it has been in times past,) exposed. The streets within, though narrow, are clean, and the houses solid and lofty, with sloping tiled roofs, and a good deal of carving exhibited on the wood-work of their gable-ends and