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and to accelerate its establishment. The Rev. G. A. F. Saulez, chaplain of Nainee Tal, has taken an especially lively interest and zealous part in forwarding the object, and has collected, with the help of friends in Delhi, Peshawur, and elsewhere, upwards of Rs. 4000, as a very promising indication of the warm interest felt by many in this truly Christian design. The above sum is, however, but a commencement, and must be greatly increased before it can be applied to the object contemplated.—Allen's Indian

Mail.

CONVERSION OF HINDOOS TO MAHOMEDANISM.-The Morning Chronicle relates a curious story of the conversion of a number of Hindoos to Mahomedanism in Chittagong. A wealthy Hindoo was, it is said, deluded into a marriage with the daughter of a Mahomedan gentleman. On discovering the trick which had been played on him, the Hindoo applied for redress to the magistrate, who, however, declared that he was unable to afford him any assistance. The Hindoo, in high dudgeon, immediately declared his intention of embracing Mahomedanism, and was accordingly admitted, with all the friends who had partaken of the marriage feast, into the assembly of the faithful, and was then re-married to his bride according to the forms and ceremonies of the Mussulman ritual. We believe that Mahomedanism throughout India receives an annual accession of many converts, and it is even stated that the numbers which embrace it in India fully make up for those which it loses in other parts of the world. The majority of these converts, however, are of the most degraded classes, as the higher castes have no temporal inducement to abandon their own creed.

cruel ceremonies termed Suttees have reached us. The occurrence took place, we are assured, within the Company's territory, and, what appears incredible, within fifteen miles of one of the Cutcherries, where a judge was presiding. Should the case be established, we apprehend the authorities will deem it indispensably necessary to institute a searching inquiry into all the facts, with a view to visit the negligence of their officer, if any, with condign punishment, and also to apprehend and try all who assisted at this human sacrifice for murder.

"The Suttee occurred at a village about twenty miles from the Cutcherry. The husband was an old man upwards of sixty years, and the unfortunate woman quite young, say twenty-two or twenty-three. The patell of the villages came in to the collector to give information that such an event was to be apprehended, and expressed a wish to have a guard sent with him to prevent the sacrifice; the guard was given to the man at once, who returned immediately, and with all despatch, but found, on his arrival at the village, that the woman's object had been effected in his absence, and all that remained was a heap of bones, All who were known to have been present at the Suttee were apprehended and tried by the district judge: nineteen or twenty were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, from ten to two years. I heard the whole case, and blame could be attached to no one. The scene of the tragedy is an out-of-the-way place, and the patell did all in his power to prevent it. No one seems to have advised the woman; it was her own act, dictated and carried through of her own free will. The parties were all of low caste; the husband of the woman was a spurious Brahmin, and by no stretch of the Hindoo law, or rather traditions, could have been entitled to such a sacrifice on the part

BOMBAY.-Particulars of one of those of his widow."-Telegraph, May 9.

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ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Sonnet.

GREATER there is than all of woman born,

All powers of man's great heart, and will, and mind;
All heroes who have held the world in scorn,

All sages who more loved, and taught, mankind;
Greater than all is this lone Voice, assigned
To preach repentance and the coming Lord.
Yet the least babe, whom that Incarnate Word
Doth to Himself in mystic union bind,
Is more than John, blessed with a nobler name,
A new-born nature and a throne on high.
Then on ye hosts whose shining feet proclaim
The present CHRIST, with these new riches fly,
Baptize with grace-through earth's wide desert cry,
"I am the Life: who lives by me shall never die!"

MISSIONARY RECOLLECTIONS.-No. 12.

By the Editor.

G. T.

THE Neilgherries, or, as the word signifies, the Blue Mountains, are at the southern end of the great ridge of hills which runs throughout India from the Himalayas in the north to within a short distance of Cape Comorin in the south. In the Presidency of Madras this high ground rises abruptly from the plains of Coromandel on the eastern coast, and of Malabar on the western; and both lines of hill are called Ghauts, which word, however, properly signifies the passes by which they are ascended. As the two lines of Ghauts come southward, they draw nearer to each other, and meet in the Neilgherries. These are broken into a number of rounded hills, many of them very small, and looking like teacups upside down. Some of them are as smooth and regular as a batter-pudding just turned out of a basin! Others are lofty and of a more varied outline. Dodabett, the largest and highest of all, is more than 8000 feet above the sea, and the station of Ootacamund is situated about 1500 feet below its highest point.

This hilly territory is little more than 20 miles across, in some parts, from where you look down its steep passes upon the level plains of Coimbatore on the east, to where the eye drops from a like elevation sheer down upon the

little strip of coast intervening between the base of the mountain and the western sea. There is a very remarkable point which I visited on the latter edge of the mountains: it is a sugar-loaf peak, from which you look down almost perpendicularly for four or five thousand feet upon the coast of Malabar. But narrow as this little territory is, its value to the English in India is above price. It is a well-known fact, that the higher you ascend, the cooler the climate becomes. In Europe, at 6000 feet above the sea, we have perpetual snow. Snow also lies on the Himalaya mountains, north of Bengal, which, however, rise to the height of 17,000 feet. The Neilgherries being so much farther south, and only half that elevation, are never visited by snow. Frost there is just enough to obtain a little ice from water exposed in favourable spots for a brief time in the night towards morning. Through the day the climate varies but little, being about the temperature of a fine October day in England. But never have I experienced here or in any other place the bracing, elevating sensations of that pure and lovely atmosphere. In the accounts which I have read of the Alps, the travellers much admire the clearness and brilliancy of the air occasioned by the great elevation. But there they have nothing to look at except ice and snow. On the Neilgherries there is the same clearness of the atmosphere with the most lovely vegetation to gaze upon. The hills are covered with verdure to their summits. Great varieties of geraniums and other flowers grow wild. The most remarkable are the rhododendrons, which, instead of being shrubs as in this country, are there clustered together in woods of perfect trees. The flower is of a bright scarlet, and very large and fine in shape. From the regularity with which these woods are disposed about, with the round hills covered with the smoothest grass swelling between them, the country has all the air of a park -and one keeps looking out for the gentleman's mansion to burst upon the eye. This effect is much increased at Ootacamund by the hand of art, which, by erecting a dam across a small brook which wound among the hills, has raised its waters into a charming lake, where these lovely knolls and forests lie reflected back to the brilliant sky above. I could spend hours in describing the beauty of these hills, and the delight with which, after spending some years in India, sheltered all the day from the beams of the sun, one mounts a horse to ride over hill and dale, from seven in the morning till the same hour at night. But I must come to the inhabitants of the hills and their religious condition.

The Neilgherries were discovered by a gentleman still living, who, while employed in the Civil Service in Coimbatore, followed some native smugglers in their retreat and penetrated to the country I have been describing. At this time the proprietors of the land were considered to be a people called Todas or Todawallahs, differing in every respect from the other inhabitants of India. They are not numerous, but I have seen some of them. At the

first glance the outline of their face and figure is like an ancient Roman's ; the men wear no turban upon their heads, which are not shaved like the Hindoo's, but covered with black matted hair. Their keen eyes, aquiline nose, and oval face are equally different from any Hindoo features. Their dress has a resemblance to the Roman toga, being thrown about them like a mantle; leaving the arm bare; and their whole deportment is free and daring. These Todas live in families occupying what is termed a mund or small village, which often consists of only a few huts, and are generally planted in the most picturesque situations. They neither till the soil nor employ themselves in any kind of manufacture. Labour they utterly despise their only occupation being the tending of large herds of buffaloes and the keeping of bees. They feed entirely on the milk and honey, never touching flesh, and possessing neither grain nor vegetables. Another strange difference between the Todas and other natives of India is in the article of marriage. Throughout the East polygamy is common, but it is in the form of one man possessing several wives. With the Todas the unnatural custom obtains of one woman being married to several husbands-generally all the brothers of a family-who occupy a mund together.

Nor are they less singular in their religious ideas. It has not yet been discovered that the Todas practise any species of worship whatever. In their munds there is a hut set apart from the rest and carefully guarded, which was supposed to be their temple; but access having been gained to the interior, it was found without any idol or symbol of worship whatever. Vessels of milk are placed with some care in these huts (which are divided into two compartments), but no kind of sacrifice or worship has hitherto been detected. They show an affection for particular spots of ground (commonly very beautiful ones), and sometimes object to sell them, or even reclaim them when they have been sold, to Europeans, on the pretence that they are sacred; but no religious use is made of them. At certain seasons they practise a rite which it is truly difficult to understand. Numbers of their buffaloes (of which in general they are extremely careful) are collected in an enclosure on the top of a hill, where the Todas fall upon them with sticks and clubs, and beat them most barbarously. They seem upon these occasions actuated by an insane rage, which is not expended till they lie exhausted and powerless on the ground. The animals are actually beaten to death, but they never make any use of the carcases, which are left to be consumed by other natives.

The Todas were thought to be the original inhabitants of the hills, but there is proof of a race existing before them in the cairns which crown the summits of many of the hills. These have been opened, and found to contain bones and other relics which show them to be the burial places of a people respecting whom the Todas are perfectly ignorant. I have been present at

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