Adieu, dear Wynn. Present our mutual best regards to Mrs. Williams Wynn and your young folk, and believe me ever,

Your obliged and affectionate friend,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES W. WILLIAMS

WYNN.

Fort-William, December 1, 1823.

MY DEAR WYNN,

I hope you will, ere this reaches you, have received a long letter from Barrackpoor, giving an account of my first impressions of India. By all which I have yet seen, I do not think they were too favourable. The climate, since I wrote, has very materially improved, and is now scarcely hotter, and to the full as pleasant as our finest August weather. The mornings and evenings are particularly agreeable; and the sun, during the day-time, though still too hot to admit of taking exercise, is any thing but oppressive to those who are sitting still under a roof, or driving in a carriage. The only plague, and a sore plague too, are the musquitos.

I am constantly, and sometimes intensely occupied, insomuch that I have as yet had no time

whatever for my usual literary pursuits, and scarcely any for the study of Hindoostanee and Persian, or the composition of sermons, of which last, unluckily, owing to a mistake, my main stock was sent by another ship which has not yet arrived, so that I have more trouble in this way than I expected, or than is very consistent with my other duties.

Since my last letter, I have become acquainted with some of the wealthy natives, of whom I spoke, and we are just returned from passing the evening at one of their country-houses. This is more like an Italian villa, than what one should have expected as the residence of Baboo Hurree Mohun Thakoor. Nor are his carriages, the furniture of his house, or the style of his conversation, of a character less decidedly European. He is a fine old man, who speaks English well, is well informed on most topics of general discussion, and talks with the appearance of much familiarity on Franklin, chemis try, natural philosophy, &c. His family is Brah minical and of singular purity of descent; but about 400 years ago, during the Mahommedan invasion of India, one of his ancestors having become polluted by the conquerors intruding into his Zennanah, the race is conceived to have lost claim to the knotted cord, and the more rigid Brahmins will not eat with them. Being, however, one of the principal landholders in Bengal, and of a family so ancient, they still enjoy to a great degree the veneration of the common people, which the present head of the house appears to value, since I can hardly reconcile in any other manner his philoso

phical studies and imitation of many European habits, with the daily and austere devotion which he is said to practise towards the Ganges, (in which he bathes three times every twenty-four hours,) and his veneration for all the other duties of his ancestors. He is now said, however, to be aiming at the dignity of Raja, a title which at present bears pretty nearly the same estimation here as a peerage in England, and is conferred by government in almost the same manner.

The house is surrounded by an extensive garden, laid out in formal parterres of roses, intersected by straight walks, with some fine trees, and a chain of tanks, fountains, and summer-houses, not ill adapted to a climate where air, water, and sweet smells, are almost the only natural objects which can be relished during the greater part of the year. The whole is little less Italian than the façade of his house, but on my mentioning this similarity, he observed that the taste for such things was brought into India by the Mussulmans. There are also swings, whirligigs, and other amusements for the females of his family, but the strangest was a sort of "Montagne Russe" of masonry, very steep, and covered with plaister, down which he said the ladies used to slide. Of these females, however, we saw none,indeed they were all staying at his town-house in Calcutta. He himself received us at the head of a whole tribe of relations and descendants on a handsome flight of steps, in a splendid shawl, by way of mantle, with a large rosary of coral set in gold, leaning on an ebony crutch with a gold head. Of

his grandsons, four very pretty boys, two were dressed like English children of the same age, but the round hat, jacket, and trowsers, by no means suited their dusky skins so well as the splendid brocade caftans and turbans covered with diamonds, which the two elder wore. On the whole, both Emily and I have been greatly interested with the family, both now and during our previous interviews. We have several other eastern acquaintance, but none of equal talent, though several learned Moollahs, and one Persian doctor, of considerable reputed sanctity, have called on me. The Raja of Calcutta, and one of the sons of Tippoo Sultan, do not choose, I am told, to call till I have left the fort, since they are not permitted to bring their silver-sticks, led horses, carriages, and armed attendants within the ramparts. In all this, nothing strikes me more than the apparent indifference of these men to the measures employed for extending Christianity, and rendering it more conspicuous in Hindostan. They seem to think it only right and decent that the conquering nation should have its hierarchy and establishment on a handsome scale, and to regard with something little short of approbation, the means we take for instructing the children of the poor. One of their men of rank has absolutely promised to found a college at Burdwan, with one of our Missionaries at its head, and where little children should be clothed and educated under his care. All this is very short indeed of embracing Christianity themselves, but it proves how completely those feelings

are gone by, in Bengal at least, which made even the presence of a single Missionary the occasion of tumult and alarm. I only hope that no imprudence, or over-forwardness on our part, will revive these angry feelings.

Believe me, dear Charles,

Ever your obliged friend,

REGINALD CALCUTTA,

TO MISS DOD.

Calcutta, Dec. 15, 1823.

I have been very busy, busier indeed than I ever was before, except during the Oxford election;

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The country, the society, and, at this season of the year, the climate are all very agreeable, and there are several amiable and excellent people here, who have shewn us much and cordial kindness, and whose friendship would, in any country, be a valueable privilege. Of the country we have as yet seen little, except in one voyage up the river, and in the vicinity of Calcutta. But all Bengal is described to us as like those parts which we have seen, a vast alluvial plain, intersected by the innumerable arms of the Ganges, overflowed once a year, but now covered with fields of rice, divided