CORRESPONDENCE. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES W. WILLIAMS WYNN. MY DEAR WYNN, Barrackpoor, October 29th, 1823. The first quiet morning which I have had since my arrival in India I cannot employ more agreeably than in writing to those dear and kind friends, the recollection of whom I feel binding me still more strongly to England, the farther I am removed from it. . . . The first sight of India has little which can please even those who have been three months at sea. The coast is so flat as only to be distinguished, when very near it, by the tall coco-trees which surround the villages; and Juggernauth, which is a conspicuous sea-mark, shews merely three dingy conical domes, like glass-houses. The view of Saugor is still worse, being made up of marshes and thick brush-wood, on the same level line of shore, and conveying at once the idea, which it well deserves, of tygers, serpents, and fevers. During the night of our anchoring under its lee, however, few of us went to bed without reluctance, since, besides the interest which men feel in looking on land at all, after so long an absence, I never saw such magnificent sheet-lightning in my life as played over it all night. When coupled with the unhealthy and dangerous character of the place, and the superstitions connected with it as the favourite abode of Kali, it was impossible to watch the broad, red, ominous light, which flickered without more intermission than just served to heighten its contrast with darkness, and not to think of Southey's Padalon; and it luckily happened that " Kehama” was on board, and that many of the party, at my recommendation, had become familiar with it during the voyage. By the way, what a vast deal of foolish prejudice exists about Southey and his writings. Of the party on board some had been taught to think him a Jacobin, some an Ultra-Tory, some a Methodist, some an enemy to all religion, and some a madman. None had read a line of his works, but all were inclined to criticise him, and yet all, when they really tried the formidable volume, were delighted both with the man and the poetry. Nor is he the only poet for whom I succeeded in obtaining some justice. I repeated at different times some parts of the "Ancient Mariner," without telling whose it was, and had the pleasure to find that its descriptions of natural objects in tropical countries, were recognized by the officers, and more experienced passengers, as extremely vivid, and scarcely exaggerated. The chief mate, a very hard-headed Scotsman, a grandson of Lord Monboddo's, was particularly struck, and downright affected, with the shrinking of the planks of the devoted ship when becalmed under the line, the stagnation and rolling of the deep, and the diminished size, and terrible splendour of the noonday sun, right over the mast-head, "in a hot and copper sky." He foretold that we should see something like this when the Grenville came to anchor in the Hooghly; and verily he fabled not. The day after our arrival off Saugor, the sun was, indeed, a thing of terror, and almost intolerable; and the torrent, carrying down trees, sugar-canes, and corpses past us every five minutes, and boiling as it met the tide-stream, like milled chocolate, with its low banks of jungle, or of bare sand, was as little promising to a new comer as could well be conceived. Of these different objects, the corpses, as you are aware, are a part of the filthy superstition of the country, which throws the dead, half-roasted over a scanty fire, into the sacred river; and such objects must always be expected and perceived by more senses than one. The others, though also usual at the termination of the rains, were this year particularly abundant, from the great height to which the river had risen, and the consequent desolation which it had brought on the lower plantations and villages. We arrived in Fort William on the evening of the 10th. The impression made by the appearance of the European houses which we passed in Garden-reach, by our own apartments, by the crowd of servants, the style of the carriages and horses sent to meet us, and almost all the other circum→ stances which met our eyes, was that of the extreme similarity of every thing to Russia, making allowance only for the black instead of the white faces, and the difference of climate, though even in Russia, during summer, it is necessary to guard against intense heat. This impression was after, wards rather confirmed than weakened. The size of the houses, their whiteness and Palladian por ticos, the loftiness of the rooms, and the scanty furniture, the unbounded hospitality and appa rent love of display, all reminded me of Petersburgh and Moscow; to which the manner in which the European houses are scattered, with few regular streets, but each with its separate court-yard and gateway, and often intermixed with miserable huts, still more contributed. I caught myself several times mixing Russian with my newly-acquired Hindoostanee, talking of rubles instead of rupees, and bidding the attendants come and go in what they, of course, mistook for English, but which was Sclavonic. I was surprised to find how little English is understood by them; out of upwards of forty servants, there are only two who have the least smattering of it, and they know a few of the commonest words without the power of putting together or understanding a sentence. The sircar, indeed, is a welleducated man, but of him we see comparatively little, so that we have abundant opportunity and necessity for the acquisition of the native languages. After a manner, indeed, every body speaks them, but we find (I must say) our previous instructions in grammar from Gilchrist extremely valueable, both as facilitating our progress, and as guarding us from many ridiculous equivoques and blunders into which other griffins fall. . . . . . ... My situation here is extremely pleasant, as plea sant as it can be at a distance from such friends as those whom I have left behind, and I have a field of usefulness before me, so vast, that my only fear is lest I should lose my way in it. The attention and the kindness of the different members of Government, and the hospitality of the society of Calcutta, have been every thing we could wish and more. The arrears of business which I have to go through, though great, and some of a vexatious nature, are such as I see my way through. My own health, and those of my wife and child, have rather improved than otherwise since our landing, and the climate, now that we have lofty rooms and means of taking exercise at proper times of the day, is any thing but intolerable. Of what are called in England " the luxuries of the east," I cannot give a very exalted description; core in all the fruits now in season are inferior to those of |