none, I would not raise expectation by examining them. There were also barbers in abundance, conspicuous by their red turbans, one of whom was soon retained by some of my dandees, who sat down, one after another, on the green bank, to have their hair clipped as close as possible, as became aquatic animals. A juggler, too, made his appearance, leading a tall brown goat, almost as high as a Welsh pony, with two little brown monkeys on its back. In short it was the liveliest scene which I had encountered during the voyage. I arrived early, and was therefore for some time a prisoner in my boat from the heat, exposed to the teazing of various applicants for custom. As it grew cool I walked into the fort, passing by a small but neat English burial-ground, fenced in with a wall, and crammed full of those obelisk tombs which seem almost distinctive of European India. The fort occupies a great deal of ground, but is now dismantled. Its gates, battlements, &c. are all of Asiatic architecture, and precisely similar to those of the Khitairgorod of Moscow. Within is an ample plain of fine turf, dotted with a few trees, and two noble tanks of water, the largest covering, I conceive, a couple of acres. Two high grassy knolls are enclosed within the rampart occupying two opposite angles of the fort, which is an irregular square, with, I think, twelve semicircular bastions, and a very wide and deep wet-moat, except on the west side, where it rises immediately from the rocky banks of the river. On one of the eminences of which I speak is a collection of prison-like buildings: on the other a very large and handsome house, built originally for the commander-in-chief of the district, at the time that Monghyr was an important station, and the Mahrattas were in the neighbourhood; but it was sold some years since by Government. The view from the rampart and the eminences is extremely fine. Monghyr stands on a rocky promontory, with the broad river on both sides, forming two bays, beyond one. of which the Rajmahal hills are visible, and the other is bounded by the nearer range of Curruckpoor. The town is larger than I expected, and in better condition than most native towns. Though all the houses are small, there are many of them with an upper story, and the roofs, instead of the flat terrace or thatch, which are the only alternations in Bengal, are generally sloping, with red tiles, of the same shape and appearance with those which we see in Italian pictures; they have also little earthenware ornaments on their gables, such as I have not seen on the other side of Rahmahal. The shops are numerous, and I was surprised at the neatness of the kettles, tea-trays, guns, pistol, toasting-forks, cutlery and other things of the sort, which may be

procured in this tiny Birmingham. I found afterwards that this place had been from very early antiquity celebrated for its smiths, who derived their art from the Hindoo Vulcan, who had been solemnly worshipped, and was supposed to have had a workshop here. The only thing which appears to be wanting to make their steel excellent, is a better manner of smelting, and a more liberal use of charcoal and the hammer. As it is, their guns are very apt to burst, and their knives to break, precisely the faults which, from want of capital, beset the works of inferior artists in England. The extent, however, to which these people carry on their manufactures, and the closeness with which they imitate English patterns, show plainly how popular those patterns are become among the natives.

August 13.-Mr. Templer, the judge and magistrate, breakfasted with me this morning, and gave me such an account of Monghyr and its spiritual concerns, as made me decide on staying over Sunday. There are, besides his own family, five or six others here of the upper and middling classes, and above thirty old English pensioners, many of them married and with families, without any spiritual aid except what is furnished by a Baptist missionary, who is established here. Of him Mr. Templer spoke very favourably, but said that the members of the Church of England, though in a manner compelled to attend his ministry, would value extremely an opportunity of attending divine service, and receiving the sacrament in their own way, while the number of children of different ages, whose parents might be expected to bring them for baptism, was far from inconsiderable. I therefore requested Mr. Templer to give publicity to my arrival, and intention of performing divine service on the Sunday. I dined with him, and he afterwards drove me through what is really one of the prettiest countries that I have seen, very populous, but cultivated in a rude and slovenly manner. The rent of the best land is about two rupees for a customary bega, nearly equal to an English acre, or to three Bengalee begas. They get three crops in succession every year from the same lands, beginning with Indian corn, then sowing rice, between which, when it is grown to a certain height, they dibble in pulse, which rises to maturity after the rice is reaped. The district is very fertile, and most articles of production cheap. The people are quiet and industrious, and the offences which come before the magistrate both in number and character far less, and less atrocious, than is the case either in Bengal or farther on in Hindostan. Theft, forgery, and house-breaking, being the besetting sins of the one, and violent affrays, murders, and highway robberies, being as frequent among the other people, and all being of

very rare occurrence in the Jungleterry district. The peasants are more prosperous than in either, which may of itself account for their decency of conduct. But Mr. Templer was inclined to ascribe both these advantages in a great degree to the fact that the Zemindarries in this neighbourhood are mostly very large, and possessed by the representatives of ancient families, who, by the estimation in which they are held, have the more authority over the peasants, and as being wealthy have less temptation to oppress them, or to connive at the oppression of others. Though a Zemindar of this kind has no legal control over his people, he possesses greater effective control than a great land-owner in England exercises over his tenants. Most of them still hold cutcherries, where they attend almost daily to hear complaints and adjust differences; and though doubtless oppressions may sometimes occur in these proceedings, yet many quarrels are stifled there, and many mischievous persons discountenanced, who might else give much trouble to the magistrate.

In the upper parts of Babar, and in the neighbourhood of Benares, the Zemindarries are small, and much divided between members of the same family. In consequence the peasants are lacked to the utmost, and still farther harassed by the law-suits of the joint or rival owners, each sending their agents among them to persuade them to attorn to him, and frequently forcibly ejecting them from their farms unless they advanced money, so that they have sometimes to pay a half-year's rent twice or three times over. Nor are the small freeholders, of whom there are, it appears, great numbers all over Bahar, so fortunate in their privileges as might have been expected. They are generally wretchedly poor; they are always involved in litigations of some kind or other, and there is a tribe of Harpies, of a blended character between an informer and a hedge-attorney, who make it their business to find out either that there is a flaw in their original title, or that they have forfeited their tenure by some default of taxes or service. These free, or copyholders, have been decidedly sufferers under Lord Cornwallis's settlement, as have also been a very useful description of people, the "Thannadars," or native agents of police, whose "Jaghires," or rent-free lands, which were their ancient and legal provision all over India, were forgotten, and therefore seized by the Zemindars, while the people themselves became dependent on the charity of the magistrate, and degraded altogether from the place which they used formerly to hold in the village society. The permanent settlement was regarded by some as a very hasty and ill-considered business. Many undue advantages were given by it to the Zemindars, at the same time that even so far as

they were concerned, it was extremely unequal, and in many instances oppressive. Like our old English land-tax, in some districts it was ridiculously low, in others, though the increase of cultivation had since brought the lands more up to the mark, it was first ruinously high, so that, in fact, quite as many of the ancient Zemindarrie families had been ruined, as had been enriched, while taking all the districts together, the Company had been losers to the amount of many millions. I should have supposed that by its permanency at least, it had been the chief cause of the prodigious extension of cultivation, which every body allows has occurred in Bengal and Bahar since they were placed under the immediate government of the Company. But that increase, I was told, might be accounted for by other causes, such as the maintenance of public peace, the perfect exemption from invasion and the march of hostile armies, and the knowledge that a man was tolerably sure of reaping the immediate fruits of his labour, and that the acquisition of wealth did not expose him to the malignant attention of Government. In Bahar, at least, the Zemindars had not, even yet, any real confidence in the permanence of the rate, and in fact there had been in so many instances revisions, re-measurements, reexaminations, and surcharges, that some degree of doubt was not unnatural. In these cases, indeed, fraud on the part of the original contractors had been alleged by Government, but as some of the Bahar landlords had observed, they did not hear of any abatement made by the Company in those instances where the advantage of the bargain had been notoriously on their side, while they also observed, so long as, in the recent measure adopted by Mr. Adam, the Government possessed and exercised the power of taxing the raw produce of the soil to any amount they pleased in its way to market, it was of no great advantage to the landholder that the direct land-tax remained the same.

On the whole, what I heard confirmed my previous suspicion, that the famous measure of Mr. Law was taken on an imperfect acquaintance with the interests of India, and that in the first instance at least, a decennial valuation, executed in a liberal spirit, would have avoided many inconveniences without losing any great advantage. Mr. Templer surprised me by what he said of the size of farms in this part of India. A wealthy "ryot," or peasant, on one of the large Zemindarries, often holds as much as two hundred. English acres.

August 14.-I had this morning one christening, and Mr. Corrie had several. The child I christened was a very fine boy of two years old, the son of an invalid sergeant, who

came, attended by his wife, a very pretty young half-caste, and by two of his comrades and one of their wives as sponsors. All these were very well-behaved decent old men ; they stayed talking with me some time; they spoke well of India, but complained of the want of some occupation for their minds. A lending library, they said, would be a great comfort to their little society. I afterwards mentioned the subject to Mr. Templer, and I hope, put him in the proper way to get one from Government, as well as a school for these poor men's children, such of them as, by any accident, were prevented from going to the Military Orphan Asylum. I understand that these old soldiers are in general men of very decent character,and though poor, brought up their families very decently. Some of them, however, are liable to sudden fits of drunkenness or infatuation, sometimes after many months of sobriety, during which nothing can keep them from brandy so long as they have either money, credit, or clothes. Monghyr is the station generally chosen by the more respectable characters, the reprobates preferring Moorshedabad. The Company give them the choice of residing either at Moorshedabad, Monghyr, Buxar, or Chunar, and they sometimes change repeatedly before they fix.

In consequence of the intention I had expressed to have service to morrow, Mr. Templer told me that the Baptists had given notice that their own meeting should not open, so that he said we should probably have all the Christian resisidents of the place and vicinity. The Baptist congregation in this neighbourhood was first collected by Mr. Chamberlain, an excellent man and most active missionary, but of very bitter sectarian principles, and entertaining an enmity to the Church of England almost beyond belief. He used to say that Martyn, Corrie, and Thomason, were greater enemies to God, and did more harm to his cause, than fifty stupid drunken Padre . . . . ." inasmuch as their virtues, and popular conduct and preaching, upheld a system which he regarded as damnable, and which else must soon fall to the ground. The present preacher, Mr. Lesley, is a very mild, modest person, of a far better spirit, and scarcely less diligent among the Heathen than Chamberlain was. He has, however, as yet had small success, having been but a very short time in the country. Mr. J. Lushington, whom I found here, has been detained some days, owing to the dandees belonging to the horse-boat running away, a practice very common on this river, these people getting their wages in advance, and then making off with them. One of the party asked Mr. Lushington whether there had been any quarrel between the dandees and his servants, or himself; on his an