This manner of living prevails all over India, and it is rare, indeed, to find any one living within his means. The consequence is, that nearly all the officers of the army, and most of the civil servants, are deeply in debt to natives; and this, notwithstanding the high pay of the civil servants, (magistrates, judges, &c.,) who receive from 1,000 to 8,000 rupees a month. The Governor-General receives a salary of £25,000 per annum, besides allowances, which make it amount to as much again—but his expenses are very great. The Governor-General of India resides at Calcutta, and has direction of the general affairs of the whole continent, the Governors of the two other Presidencies of Bombay and Madras being subordinate to him-though not to the same extent, as are the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, the Chief Commissioner of Oude, the Lieutenant-Governor of Agra and the North Western Provinces, and the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, who are directly under his control. The Governor-General, and the Governors of the two other Presidencies, are appointed by the Crown, although under the direction of the Company, which may dismiss them. All other posts in the civil service are, however, now open to competition, those persons being appointed who succeed best at the Company's civil service examination in London. These examinations are open to all British subjects, and several natives have passed high, and received very good appoint ments. The language of Bengal, is the Bengalee, a tongue which has much affinity with the Sanscrit; but the common language used by natives to foreigners, both in Calcutta and throughout India, is the Hindoostanee, which is only vernacular in Hindoostan. This Hindoostanee, or, as it is more correctly termed, Oordoo, (the camp dialect) is a sort of lingua franca, which arose after the Moosulman conquest, and was invented to facilitate intercourse between the conquerers and the conquered. It contains many Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit words, the proportions being dissimilar in different parts of the country. The further you go to the north-west, the more does the Perso-Arabic element prevail. It is a very flexible tongue, readily appropriating words from all languages; but has regular declensions and conjugations. Being only used, in the greater part of India, between people who speak different languages, it is, of course, poor in words, and has no literature. I said above, that it was vernacular, in parts of Hindoostan. This expression may be misunderstood, as the term Hindoostan is incorrectly used here, to designate the whole peninsula of India. It, really, only describes the country north of the Nurbudda, west of Benares, and east of the Sutlěj, and is often, if not generally, used in a still more contracted sense those of the Rajpootana states, which are within these limits, and even the dominions of Scindiah, not being commonly considered a part of Hindoostan. The term Hindoo, also, it should always be remembered, is appropriate to a religion, and not to a race. The peninsula of India is inhabited, and always has been, by men of various races, different languages, and subject to numerous independent sovereigns. Their only tie is caste, which is at once, a bond connecting together a certain number, and insulating them from all others. There is no approach to a feeling of common nationality among the inhabitants of the various countries into which India is divided, and in none of the native languages is there a word answering to "India," or "an Indian."* think I am not wrong in saying that there is far less sympathy between a Bengalee, a Hindoostanee, a Punjabee, and a Děkkunee, than between the same number of individuals picked out of the most dissimilar countries in Europe. Were these facts more generally known, they might remove some misconceptions with respect to the recent mutiny in India. I * The word India was formed by the Romans, from the name of the river "Indus"-in the native language "Sind." CHAPTER X. CALCUTTA-CONTINUED. Roasting Human Bodies-Adjutants in Calcutta-Unpaid Scavengers-Early Rising— ONE of the most remarkable sights in Calcutta, is the "Burning Ghât;" a piece of ground on the river's bank, in the upper part of the city, used for the incremation of the dead. It is about a hundred feet square, surrounded on three sides by brick walls, eighteen or twenty feet high. On the fourth side toward the river it is open. The enclosure is unpaved and slopes to the water's edge, near which the funeral pyres are erected. At the upper end, against the wall, are miserable huts where those sick Hindoos, who can pay for the privilege, come to die near the sacred Gunga-a consummation which must be materially hastened by the stench of the locality, the exposure of lying in wretched hovels made only of mats, and the custom of keeping them on a very light diet indeed. In some very obstinate cases, the relatives shorten the agonies of their dying relations by stuffing the mouth and nostrils with the sacred mud of the Hoogly. The religious rites connected with the burning are in the hands of certain brahmuns, the practical details being intrusted to the members of a peculiar caste; both drive a thriving trade. Two bodies were burning and frizzling on miserably insufficient piles of fuel, when I visited the place, and the fetid, deadly, odour of the fumes, the horrid, dissecting-room stench of piles of human bones, half covered with flesh, on which birds of prey were feeding, with the groans and cries of pain from the poor wretches in the sheds, soon sickened me with the place, and made me 5* glad to leave. I have before mentioned that the bodies are generally only half burned. When all the wood that the relatives have paid for has been consumed, the roasted carcase is thrown into the river, and floats away or not, according to the tide. In either case, it is at once pounced on by the loathsome carrion birds, which sit on the wall of the enclosure, motionless as statues, waiting till their meal be cooked. These birds are called hurgilas, but have been nicknamed adjutants by the foreigners from the solemnity and stiffness of their carriage. They form quite a feature of Calcutta, standing motionless on the roofs of houses, and even in the streets and squares. They look like a cross between the stork and vulture, stand about three feet high, and measure about eight from tip to tip. They have a disgustingly roomy pouch under the bill, and are altogether horrid looking creatures. Their demeanour is particularly calm and sedate, and they will stand motionless for hours in the most frequented squares, probably reflecting on the possibility of their soon making a meal on the passers-by. They will let you come as near them as you like, having no fear of man, as a city regulation prevents their being molested. This immunity they owe to their being the only scavengers, except the other carrion birds, of which there are great numbers in Calcutta. No such birds are seen in China, where the dead are all buried, and everything else on which they feed is carefully collected, and made into manure, or turned to some useful purpose. The filthy condition of Indian towns and villages contrasts most disadvantageously with Chinese towns; I do not believe that there are any cleaner cities in the world than the latter, if the narrowness of the streets and the absence of drainage be taken into account. Europeans in India keep very different hours from those in China. Every house in Calcutta is shut up by ten o'clock, and the whole city is asleep. In this respect the habits of foreigners depend very much upon those of the natives. In China, where the Chinese like to sit up late, foreigners conform, and do not go to bed before twelve, getting up very e. In Bengal, however, all the servants leave their mas ter's house by ten, or before, to go to their own homes-and rise very early in the morning, customs which the Europeans are forced to imitate. Up-country, the natives keep later hours, but the requirements of the service compel the officers to rise before day-break, when parade takes place, and in consequence they generally retire to bed by nine o'clock in the. evening. The custom of rising early in Calcutta, enables the residents to get a ride before breakfast-the early morning being the only part of the day, until after sunset, when exercise is possible in the Indian climate. From five till seven in the morning the Maidan is covered with ladies and gentlemen on horseback; but the greatest show is in the evening, from half-past five to seven. Between these hours, every one in Calcutta, who can muster any vehicle, betakes himself to the Strand, which is then as crowded as Hyde Park in the season. The equipages are, some of them, very handsome, but entirely English in style, even when they belong to rich natives. The coachmen are all natives, and generally wear long beards. They drive remarkably well. Each carriage has as many saeeses or grooms, as there are horses. They are Moosulmans of a peculiar caste, and wear a short tight-fitting jacket and flat turban, the lower part of the body being covered by a tightly wound dhotee which leaves the legs bare. They carry in their hands the chouree, or tail of the Thibet goat, fitted with a short handle; with this, running along side of the horses, they brush away the flies. These saeeses will run for almost any distance with a carriage, or after the horse upon which their master rides, and up-country their endurance is often put to severe tests. In Calcutta, however, as the roads in the Maidan are very crowded, the saeeses are generally allowed to sit on the footboard. Beside the neat turn-outs of the Europeans, one sees on the Strand the equipages of the rich natives, which are also in the English style, but much gayer, each carriage being often accompanied by six or eight servants, including a "silver-stick." The owner of all this splendour will sit alone on the back seat of the carriage, divested of all clothing, if a Bengalee baboo, except a fine |