finitely longer than I myself anticipated; but I know how deep an interest you take in all which relates to this country, and, except these long dispatches, and my daily prayers for you and yours, have now no opportunity of shewing how sincerely I am, Dear Wynn, Your obliged and affectionate friend, I REGINALD CALCUTTA. TO MRS. R. HEBER. Doodeah, Guzerát, March 13th, 1825. Your letter of the 9th February has just been forwarded to me from Baroda. I need not say how great a comfort it was to me to hear from you again in the midst of these wilds, and when, for a week to come, I hardly flattered myself with that expectation. It is of four days later date than your last, and thank God, the accounts continue favourable. I am and have been in perfect health, and have performed my journey through all which was considered the adventurous part of the road, very peaceably and quietly. Nothing can be wilder or more savage than these jungles, but they contain many spots of great romantic beauty, though the mountains are certainly mere playthings after Hi malaya. The various tribes of the countries through which I have passed, interested me extremely; their language, the circumstances of their habitation, dress, and armour, their pastoral and agricultural way of life; their women grinding at the mill, their cakes baked on the coals, their corn trodden out by oxen, their maidens passing to the well, their travellers lodging in the streets, their tents, their camels, their shields, spears and coats of mail; their Mussulmans with a religion closely copied from that of Moses, their Hindoo tribes worshipping the same abominations with the same rites as the ancient Canaanites; their false prophets swarming in every city, and foretelling good or evil as it suits the political views of their employers; their judges sitting in the gate, and their wild Bheels and Khoolies dwelling like the ancient Amorites in holes and clefts of the rocks, and coming down with sword and bow to watch the motions, or attack the baggage of the traveller, transported me back three thousand years, and I felt myself a contemporary of Joshua or Samuel! I have a large packet of Journal for you, which I shall keep till I hear from you again, lest you should, after all, have sailed from Calcutta. God bless you, dearest! REGINALD CALCUTTA. MY DEAR WILMOT, Barreah, (Guzerát) March, 1824. I have now, since the middle of last June, pretty nearly seen the eastern, northern, and western extremities of British India, having been to Dacca and Almorah, and having now arrived within a few days' march of Ahmedabad, visiting by the way several of the most important, independant, or tributary principalities. Of the way of performing this long journey, I was myself very imperfectly informed before I began it, and even then it was long before I could believe how vast and cumbersome an apparatus of attendance and supplies of every kind was necessary to travel in any degree of comfort or security. On the river, indeed, so long as that lasted, one's progress is easy and pleasant, (bating a little heat and a few storms,) carried on by a strong south-eastern breeze, in a very roomy and comfortable boat, against the stream of a majestic body of water; but it is after leaving the Ganges for the land-journey that, if not "the tug," yet no small part of the apparatus, proventus et commeatus, of It has been my wish, on many accounts, to travel without unnecessary display; my tents, equipments, and number of servants, are all on the smallest scale which comfort or propriety would admit of; they all fall short of what are usually taken by the collectors of districts, and in comparison with what the Commander in Chief had the year before last, I have found people disposed to cry out at them as quite insufficient. Nor have I asked for a single soldier or trooper beyond what the commanding officers of districts have themselves offered as necessary and suitable; yet for myself and Dr. Smith, the united numbers amount to three elephants, above twenty camels, five horses, besides poneys for our principal servants, twenty-six servants, twenty-six bearers of burthens, fifteen clashees to pitch and remove tents, elephant and camel drivers, I believe, thirteen, and since we have left the Company's territories and entered Rajpootana, a guard of eighteen irregular horse and forty-five Sepoys on foot. Nor is this all; for there is a number of petty tradesmen and other poor people whose road is the same as ours, and who have asked permission to encamp near us, and travel under our protection; so that yesterday, when I found it expedient, on account of the scarcity which prevails in these provinces, to order an allowance of flour, by way of Sunday dinner, to every person in the camp, the number of heads returned was 165. With all these formidable numbers, you must not, however, suppose that any exorbitant luxury reigns in my tent; our fare is, in fact, as homely as any two farmers in England sit down to; and if it be sometimes exuberant, the fault must be laid on a country where we must take a whole sheep or kid, if we would have animal food at all, and where neither sheep nor kid will, when killed, remain eatable more than a day or two. The truth is, that where people carry every thing with them, bed, tent, furniture, wine, beer, and crockery, for six months together, no small quantity of beasts of burden may well be supposed necessary; and in countries such as those which I have now been traversing, where every man is armed, where every third or fourth man, a few years since, was a thief by profession, and where, in spite of English influence and supremacy, the forests, mountains, and multitudes of petty sovereignties, afford all possible scope for the practical application of Wordsworth's "good old rule," you may believe me that it is neither pomp nor cowardice which has thus fenced your friend in with spears, shields, and bayonets. After all, though this way of life has much that is monotonous and wearisome, though it grievously dissipates time and thought, and though it is almost incompatible with the pursuits in which I have been accustomed to find most pleasure, it is by no means the worst part of an Indian existence. It is a great point in this climate to be actually compelled to rise, day after day, before the dawn, and to ride from twelve to eighteen miles before breakfast. It is a still greater to have been saved a residence in Calcutta during the sultry months, and to have actually seen and felt frost, ice, and snow, on the summits of Kemaoon, and under the shadow of the Himalaya. And though the greater part of the Company's own provinces, except Kemaoon, are by no means |