it ?"

"How did we know that the Sahib would like to be troubled ?" I do not say that these are every day instances: I hope and believe not; nor would I be understood as denying that alms are, to religious mendicants, given to a great amount in Bengal, or that several of the wealthy inhabitants, in what they consider good works, such as constructing public tanks, making roads to places of pilgrimage, building pagodas and ghâts, are liberal. I only mention these instances because none of those who heard them seemed to think them unusual or extraordinary; because in a Christian country I think they could not have happened, and because they naturally arise from the genius of the national religion, which, by the distinction which it establishes, makes men worse than indifferent to each other. Accordingly, many of the crimes which fall under the cognizance of the magistrate, and many of the ancient and sanctified customs of the Hindoos, are marked with great cruelty. The Decoits, or gangs of robbers, who are common all over the country, though they seldom attack Europeans, continually torture to force the peasants to bring out their little treasures.

I need say nothing of the burning of widows, but it is not so generally known that persons now alive remember human sacrifices in the holy places near Calcutta ; and that a very respectable man of my acquaintance, himself by accident and without the means of interfering, witnessed one of a boy of fourteen or fifteen, in which nothing was so

terrible as the perfect indifference with which the tears, prayers, and caresses even, which the poor victim lavished on his murderers, were regarded. After this it is hardly worth while to go on to shew that crimes of rapine, and violence, and theft, are very common, or that the tendency to lying is such that (as one of the judges here observed) "in a court of justice they cannot even tell a true story without spoiling it." But what I would chiefly urge is, that for all these horrors their system of religion is mainly answerable, inasmuch as whatever moral lessons their sacred books contain, and they are very few, are shut up from the mass of the people, while the direct tendency of their institutions is to evil. The national temper is decidedly good, gentle, and kind; they are sober, industrious, affectionate to their relations, generally speaking, faithful to their masters, easily attached by kindness and confidence, and in the case of the military oath, are of admirable obedience, courage, and fidelity, in life and death. But their morality does not extend beyond the reach of positive obligations; and where these do not exist, they are oppressive, cruel, treacherous, and every thing that is bad. We have heard much in England of their humanity to animals; I can only say that I have seen no tokens of it in Calcutta.

Their high reputation in such matters has arisen, I am assured, from exaggerated statements of particular instances, such as may happen in any coun

try, of overstrained tenderness for animal life, and from the fact that certain sacred animals, such as the bulls dedicated to Brahma, are really treated with as much tenderness and consideration as if they were Brahmins themselves. As yet it remains to be seen how far the schools may produce a change for the better. I am inclined to hope every thing from them, particularly from those which Mrs. Wilson has, under the auspices of the Church Missionaries, set on foot for females; but I am sure that a people such as I have described, with so many amiable traits of character, and so great natural quickness and intelligence, ought to be assisted and encouraged as far as we possibly can in the disposition which they now evince, in this part of the country at least, to acquire a knowledge of our language and laws, and to imitate our habits and examples. By all which I have learned, they now really believe we wish them well, and are desirous of their improvement; and there are many points (that of the burning widows is one) in which a change for the better is taking place in the public mind, which, if we are not in too great a hurry, will probably, ere long, break down the observance of, at least, one horror. Do not suppose that I am prejudiced against the Hindoos. In my personal intercourse with them I have seen much to be pleased with, and all which I hear and believe as to what they might be with a better Creed, makes me the more earnest in stating the horrors for which their present Creed, as I think, is answerable.

This is an unmerciful letter, but I hope and

believe that I shall not have wearied you.

Both Emily and I often think and talk of you, and recall to mind, with deep and affectionate interest, our parting on the quarter-deck of the Grenville, with you and your brothers.

*

*

We more and more feel how much we have relinquished in leaving such friends behind; but I do not, and I hope Emily does not, repent of our undertaking. So long as we are blessed with health, and of this, with due care, I entertain at present few apprehensions, we have, indeed, abundant reason for content and thankfulness around us, and where there is so much to be learned and to be done, life cannot well hang heavy on the hands of,

Dear Harriet,

Ever

your

affectionate Cousin,

REGINALD CALCUTTA.

I believe I have said nothing of the Mahommedans, who are about as numerous here as the Protestants are in Ireland. They are in personal appearance a finer race than the Hindoos; they are also more universally educated, and on the whole I think a better people, inasmuch as their faith is better. They are haughty and irascible, hostile to the English as to those who have supplanted them in their sovereignty over the country, and notoriously oppressive and avaricious in their dealings with their idolatrous countrymen wherever they are yet in authority. They are, or are supposed

to be more honest, and to each other they are not uncharitable; but they are, I fear, less likely at present than the Hindoos to embrace Christianity, though some of them read our Scriptures; and I have heard one or two speak of Christians as of nearly the same religion with themselves. They have, however, contracted in this country many superstitions of castes and images, for which their western brethren, the Turks and Arabs, are ready to excommunicate them; and, what is more strange, many of them, equally in opposition to their own religion and that of the Hindoos, are exceeding drunkards.

TO MRS. HEBER.

Tittyghur, January 25, 1824.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,

Our former packets will, I trust, before this time, have communicated to you the intelligence of our safe arrival, and of our subsequent proceedings.

Calcutta is a very striking place, but it so much resembles Petersburgh, though on a less splendid scale, that I can hardly help fancying myself sometimes in Russia. The architecture of the principal houses is the same, with Italian porticos, and all white-washed or stuccoed, and the width and straightness of the principal streets, the want of