1806; and in seven years, the New Testament was completed at the Serampore press. In 1822, after the incessant labour of sixteen years, Dr. Marshman had the happiness of bringing to a completion his Version of the whole Bible. In the following year, Dr. Morrison, who had been simultaneously occupied on an independent Chinese translation at Canton, completed his Version. A second edition of the whole Bible has now been commenced at Serampore, founded on a collation of both versions.*

Besides these Biblical labours, which, to adopt the ingenuous panegyric of a learned orientalist (M.Rémusat), will entitle their authors to rank, in the memory of the learned, with Ximenes, Walton, and Montanus,-the Serampore Missionaries have been actively engaged in establishing schools and missionary stations in different parts of the Presidency, and in printing and circulating tracts in various languages. To them, we have already seen, is due the merit of having first set on foot the native schools, now so extensively patronised; and, in the year 1818, they followed up their plans for propagating Christian knowledge, by founding at Serampore a college, for the purpose of giving a superior education to the children of Christian natives, and of preparing a body of native Christian preachers. No sooner had they announced their design, than Lord Hastings gave an unequivocal mark of his approbation, by becoming a patron of the infant institution. His Danish Majesty has since presented to the Serampore

the Bengalee, which formed the basis of these translations; and he was thus fully competent to direct and superintend the whole of this living polyglott apparatus.

* See, respecting these versions, MOD. TRAV. Persia, &c., vol. ii. p. 283. M. Rémusat pronounces the Serampore the more literal version, the Canton, the most conformed to Chinese taste.

Missionaries, in trust, a house for the college, and has incorporated it by royal charter. The buildings, when complete, are designed for four professors and two hundred native students: forty-seven are now in attendance, of whom six are studying divinity with a view to missionary labours. In the college chapel, Divine worship is conducted, morning and evening, in Bengalee. The general object of the Institution, it will be seen, is the same as the Episcopal College subsequently set on foot by Bishop Middleton; and India will reap the advantage of their amicable rivalry.*

In passing the next reach above Barrackpore, we come upon the French settlement of Chandernagore, situated upon the right bank of the river, and wearing a very distinct and much less striking appearance. "Large, lofty houses and warehouses, discoloured, decaying, and half-empty, speak of lofty speculations and disappointed hopes. A forsaken monastery completes the picture." The streets present a remarkable scene of solitude and desertion. " I saw," says Bishop Heber, no boats loading or unloading at the quay, no porters with burdens in the streets, no carts, no market people, and in fact, only a small native bazar, and a few dismal-looking European shops. In the streets, I met two or three Europeans smoking segars, having almost all the characteristic features and appearance of Frenchmen." About two miles below

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* All the labours of the Serampore brethren are gratuitous; and they have themselves contributed to the objects and expenses of the mission, in the course of twenty-seven years, sums amounting to upwards of 72,000., the fruit of their honourable earnings; exclusive of the funds derived from the Missionary Society in England.

† Sketches of India, p. 127.

Heber, vol. i. p. 64. Yet, the population in 1814, was 41,337; and the revenue which it yielded, amounted to 32,154 rupees.

Chandernagore, are the ruins of a superb house, the country residence of its former governors.

The Dutch settlement of Chinsurah is about three miles higher up the river. "It has quite a national character. Many small, neat houses with green doors and windows; a pretty little square, with grass-plot and promenades, shaded by trees; a fortified factory; and a gloomy old-fashioned government-house, are the more remarkable features." This colony has been recently transferred to the British Government, and the Dutch church is now appropriated to the forms of the episcopal ritual. A large Italian-looking church and a small convent, at a place called Bandel (Bunder, i.e. port), just above the native town of Hooghly, are all that remains to tell that the Portuguese had once a settlement there. Hooghly is situated on the right bank, twenty-six miles above Calcutta. The river here contracts very much, and the banks are higher and more precipitous. The bore, which commences at Hooghly Point, is perceptible above Hooghly town, a distance of seventy miles, which it travels in less than four hours.*

As a proof of the alterations which have taken place in this branch of the Ganges, it deserves mention, that, when Chandernagore was taken from the French in 1757, Admiral Watson brought up a seventy-four gun ship to batter it.

Hamilton, vol. i. p: 62. Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 108. Its position is said to be in every respect superior to that of Calcutta.

* At Hooghly, in 1632, (then a Portuguese settlement,) the first serious quarrel happened between the Moguls and the Europeans. After a siege of three months and a half, it was taken by assault, and great numbers were massacred. In 1686, the English were involved in hostilities with the Nabob, which ultimately led to the abandonment of the factory, and they retired to Chuttanuttee or Calcutta. See vol. ii. p. 18.

FROM CALCUTTA TO DACCA.

On the 15th of June (1824), Bishop Heber left Calcutta for his visitation through the Upper Provinces. His first voyage was to Dacca, the provincial capital of the eastern division of Bengal, by a tedious and intricate navigation, which lay through a part of the country rarely traversed by Europeans. His Lordship embarked in a fine sixteen-oared pinnace, followed by Archdeacon Corrie with his family in a budgerow, and attended by two smaller boats, one for cooking, the other for baggage. Some miles above Hooghly, the main stream receives the Jellinghey branch of the Great Ganges, by which, when there is water enough to float large vessels, is the most direct communication between Calcutta and Dacca. Turning into this channel, the Bishop continued his course, in a direction N.E. by N., through a country more bare of trees, and more abundant in pasture, than he had yet seen. After passing the large village of Ranaghaut, the stream became wider and deeper, and the course chiefly N.W.;* the banks were higher and more precipitous, and coco-trees re-appeared, towering, here and there, over the bamboos, banyans, and fruit-trees. On the second night after entering this channel (June 18), the boats brought to at Sibnibashi (Sivanivasa), a ruined Hindoo city which appears to have been once a place of some importance.† The high, angular domes of some pagodas, seen above the trees of a thick wood, induced the Bishop to land; and the jungle proved to be full of ruins. Two very

"A circumstance irreconcileable with Rennell's map, unless the discrepancy can be accounted for by an extraordinary alteration of the river's channel."

†The Sibnibas of Rennell is placed further south, and on a different side of the river.

fine, intelligent-looking boys, whom his Lordship met, informed him, that the place was really Sibnibashi ; that it was very large and very old; and that there were good paths through the ruins. The youths were naked, all but the waist-cloth, like the other peasants; but the Brahminical string over their shoulders, marked their superior caste. "After a

few questions," continues the Bishop, "they whispered to each other, and ran towards the jungle, leaving us to pursue our track, which was narrow and winding through masses of brick-work and earthen mounds, with many tamarind and peepul trees, intermixed with thickets of cactus, bamboo, and a thorny plant a little like the acacia; on the whole, reminding me of some parts of the Roman wall at Silchester. We found four pagodas, not large, but of good architecture and very picturesque, so that I much regretted the having left my sketch-book on board, and the more so because it was now too late to get it before dusk. The sight of one of the peons, who had followed me, though without orders, with his silver mace, procured us much respect from the Brahmins and villagers, and the former were urgent to shew us their temples. The first which we visited, was evidently the most modern, being, as the officiating Brahmin told us, only fifty-seven years old. In England, we should have thought it at least two hundred; but in this climate, a building soon assumes, without constant care, all the venerable tokens of antiquity. It was very clean, however, and of good architecture; a square tower surmounted with a pyramidal roof, with a high cloister of pointed arches surrounding it externally to within ten feet of the springing of the vault. The cloister was also vaulted, so that, as the Brahmin made me observe, with vi