The Modern Traveller. A Popular Description, Geographical, Historical, and Topographical of the Various Countries of the Globe: Persia and China. Parts 37-40

Front Cover
J. Duncan, 1828

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 128 - Some were swimming' about at the full extent of their strings, or lying half in and half out of the water, others were rolling themselves in the sun on the sandy bank, uttering a shrill whistling noise as if in play. I was told that most of the fishermen in this neighbourhood kept one or more of these animals, who were almost as tame as dogs, and of great use in fishing, sometimes driving the shoals into the nets, sometimes bringing out the larger fish with their teeth.
Page 88 - Institution is, the tuition of the sons of respectable Hindoos^ in the English and Indian languages, and in the literature and science of Europe and Asia.
Page 219 - The Hindoo inhabitants are a race of men, generally speaking, not more distinguished by their lofty stature . . . than they are for some of the finest qualities of the mind ; they are brave, generous, and humane, and their truth is as remarkable as their courage.
Page 249 - The material of the buildings is a very good stone, from Chunar, but the Hindoos here seem fond of painting them a deep red colour, and, indeed, of covering the more conspicuous parts of their houses with paintings in gaudy colours of flower-pots, men, women, bulls, elephants, gods and goddesses, in all their many-formed, many-headed, many-handed, and many-weaponed varieties.
Page 96 - It is remarkable, however, to observe how surely all these classes of men in a few generations, even without any intermarriage with the Hindoos, assume the deep olive tint, little less dark than a Negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Portuguese natives form unions among themselve alone, or if they can, with Europeans. Yet the Portuguese have, during a three hundred years' residence in India, become as black as Caffres.
Page 105 - ... have been entirely forsaken by God, and (what is the worst of divine vengeance) given over for ever to a reprobate mind, on account of the peculiar wickedness of their worship, which supposes, in those among whom it prevails, a degree of perversity far beyond that of all old Pagan nations...
Page 259 - He then showed me how the sun went round the earth once in every day, and how, by a different but equally continuous motion, he also visited the signs of the zodiac. The whole system is precisely that of Ptolemy, and the contrast was very striking between the rubbish which these young men were learning in a government establishment and the rudiments of real knowledge which those whom I had visited the day before had acquired, in the very same city, and under circumstances far less favourable.
Page 73 - ... never derive any advantage from it. On some horror and surprise being expressed by the gentleman who told me this case, one of the officers of his court, the same indeed who had reported it to him, not as a horrible occurrence, but as a proof how spiteful the parties had been against each other, said very coolly, " why not ? — she was a very old woman, — what use was she...
Page 267 - ... avenge. This prevailed, and after much bitter weeping, it was resolved that Ganges was Ganges still; that a succession of costly offerings from the laity of Benares might wipe out the stain which their religion had received, and that the advice of the judges was the best and most reasonable.
Page 378 - ... view is closed by the breast of the mountain, which is of vivid green, from perpetual moisture, and is furrowed by time and the torrents into numberless ravines, and down these ravines are seen trickling the numerous sources of this branch of the Jumna. Above this green bank...

Bibliographic information