II.

VOYAGE TO CALCUTTA.

A1

N opium steamer having been sent down to convey us to Calcutta, we set sail for that port, stopping at Pondicherry and Madras. On the way we encountered the cyclone of the 21st of October. Our ship, however, outrode the storm, though driven from her course. On our way we met with many vessels damaged, and when we reached the Hooghly we began to see the terrible effects of the first cyclone. At one place we saw the wreck of a vessel in which three hundred coolies went down to a watery grave. The ship was literally inverted. At another point we saw the Bentinck, a ship of the largest class, high up on the shore, and when we reached Calcutta we beheld a city that looked as if it had been shelled by an enemy. It was evening as we drew near the port, and we beheld on the banks of the stream for the first time the fires of the funeral pile. It was to me a strange and

melancholy light. Fearing to damage the shipping in port, we anchored below Garden Reach all night, and slipped up early in the morning of the next day.

Eastward of Alexandria we meet with no wharf. At Pondicherry, at Madras, is only an open roadstead, and here we anchor in the stream, and go ashore in a dingy, a small, narrow, native boat. Reaching Calcutta we take a ghary for the Spencer House, a large, airy, lofty tavern, built in the Oriental style. After breakfast we take our first ride in the palanquin. It is no pleasant conveyance, and I soon exchanged it for a ghary, in which I visited the Asiatic Society's Museum, the Geological Museum, the Public Library, the Agricultural Museum, the Baptist missions, the Wesleyan missionaries, etc. I was not long in Calcutta before I had the pleasure of meeting Rev. Dr. Butler, who came down from our mission field to accompany me up. Calcutta has been called the city of palaces. Like all Indian cities, it has a black town and a white town; the former for natives, the latter for Europeans. The one has narrow, unpaved streets, and mud or bamboo houses, the other has spacious avenues, high brick buildings, covered with stucco, and ornamented with verandas. The strand is a fine drive along the river bank.

The

public edifices are spacious and elegant, especially the Bishop's College, the Cathedral of St. Paul, and the Government House. Fort William lifts up ramparts which require 600 cannon, and 9,000 men to man them. Garden Reach is a beautiful suburb, with country seats and elegant gardens. Among them is the residence of the late king of Oude, who, with a royal salary, is always in debt; and no wonder, for they say he has one hundred wives.

The population is between 600,000 and 700,000, of which 10,000 are Europeans. The mean temperature is 66 degrees Fahrenheit in January, 69 degrees in February, 80 degrees in March, 85 degrees in April and May, 83 degrees in June, 81 degrees in July, 82 degrees in August and September, 79 degrees in October, 74 degrees in November, 66 degrees in December. The hot season begins in April, and the heat increases till June, when the thermometer is often 100 and II0 degrees. Numerous public monuments adorn the city, commemorative of Gen. Ochterlony and Lords Hardinge, Bentinck, Auckland, and others distinguished in the Indian service. Then there is a Burmese Pagoda in Eden Gardens, which, when I saw it, was pretty well demolished by the cyclone. At Messina, in Sicily, there came on board a young Brahmin, who had been to

England to complete his education, and who, having passed a competitive examination, had received a commission in the Indian civil service. He was a youth of fine abilities and most amiable character, and I formed a very intimate acquaintance with him. He is a son of Baboo Tagore, of Calcutta, a Zemindar of great wealth and influence, and who is the founder of the Brahmo Somaj, an organization of Deists which is becoming an important element in the moral forces of India. The society was established more than twenty-five years ago. Beginning in a sort of Vedic philosophy, which recognized the infallibility of the Vedas and the sanctity of the Brahmins, and "blew the sacred couch, and rang the sacred bell," it has at length reached a simple theism. It at first took external nature as its teacher of religious truth, but finding that insufficient, it has learned to depend on the internal light, or religious consciousness. Its members study the works of Colenso, Newman, Theodore Parker, and other English and American skeptics. The writings of Thomas Paine are to be found translated in India, but the Brahmos are too cultivated to be pleased with his blasphemy. It professes to be Catholic and Eclectic; recognizing some truth in all forms of faith, and selecting from Western and Eastern

religions those principles which it approves,

crying with Emerson,

"I am owner of the sphere,

Of the seven stars, and the solar year;

Of Cæsar's hand, and Plato's brain;

Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain."

It differs from the Deism of the West in two important particulars. It maintains a devotional spirit; assumes an organic form; it has a Church, a liturgy, and a sort of priesthood; it gathers in its converts, and sends out its agents to preach alike against Hindooism, Mohammedism, and Christianity; it is thoroughly iconoclastic, and, so far as it is destructive, it is useful; but it presents no definite faith, and exercises no moral discipline over its members. Its mode of operating upon the nation is peculiar. Regarding Hindooism as the representation of the national character, and desiring to preserve the national life, it would adopt the national religion and modify it, or, rather, adapt the new religion to Indian Sociology, Philosophy, and modes of action, so as to preserve the Hindoo character and the whole machinery of Hindoo society complete. Its ideas are, however, unsettled. At first it deemed God too merciful to punish, now it deems him too just to forgive. The day after I reached Calcutta young