to the Council of Education of Bengal for acknowledging its former deficiencies and shortcomings so candidly! Let it not be forgotten, too, that the system must have been a very bad one indeed, which could call down such a censure from the present Council upon the labours of its predecessors. My readers must not suppose, however, that the chief objection has therefore been removed. Far from it. The youth of India are still brought up without faith, without a religion, as in times past.

I am perfectly aware that all this will not prevent my being virulently attacked by certain Indian journals and Anglo-Indian patriots "Venomous falsehoods,' Ignorant and malicious calumnies," "Ridiculous drivellings," "Absurd rhodomontade," "Vile aspersions," are some of the amenities of literature culled from Indian journals (such as the Friend of India) relative to what I have previously written; and similarly gentle remonstrances will doubtless be issued with reference to the present work. My justification. is not for such as use those terms-for such as will not see, nay, possibly cannot sce-but for that portion of the press and public of Eng

land which can and will see. Let but tha press and that public receive these Tropicai Sketches with as much favour as Forest Life in Ceylon was received, and I shall care little for the pop-gun salutes of anonymous correspondents in Indian journals, or the more formidable broadsides of their editorial columns.*

*For misrepresentation in Ceylon and India, I was prepared, but I confess I was not prepared for misrepresentation in New York. In Mr. Mitchell's paper, The Citizen, an account was given, early in the present year, of my description of Indian Coolies and their treatment on the coffee-estates, which was as far from the truth in its inferences, as it was from being a just representation of my views in its statements.

CHELSEA, October, 1854.

TROPICAL SKETCHES;

OR,

REMINISCENCES OF AN INDIAN JOURNALIST.

CHAPTER I.

THE COLONIAL NEWSPAPER.

NOTHING, sir, can be more foolish," said my uncle. We were at the moment seated in his office in the Fort of Colombo, the thermometer at ninety degrees in the shade. He was one of those bald, apparently irascible but really benevolent, men, who wax red at the least provocation, and who constantly rub their shining phrenological developments, guiltless of hair, with their handkerchiefs, when excited.

VOL. I.

B

He had just given me a long dissertation on the evils of that desire for change, which young men so often exhibit, and was now winding up his discourse. "Nothing, sir, can be more foolish. You give up a flourishing estate, bright prospects-" "The leeches and solitude, the coolies and the lonely bungalow," I added. "Pshaw! what are these?" was the reply; "trifles not worth naming. You give up, I say, the prospect of a fortune, and for what? to edit a miserable newspaper that nobody reads." "It has four hundred and eighty-seven subscribers," said I, interrupting him,-for, where the honour of the Ceylon Herald was at stake, I thought myself bound to take up arms. "Four hundred fiddlesticks!" quoth my uncle, waxing wroth, as he tried to puff his cigar again; but the light had long been extinguished, and the attempt was vain. "Four hundred fiddlesticks! it's easy to make out a case." "And then, with management, I see no reason why we should not have seven hundred subscribers in a short time. They say the Observer has more," I added. With your management and with your pen," said he, "it must be a thou

sand soon ;" and there he paused. I puffed my cigar, sipped a little more brandy and water, smiled, and said nothing.

I had but just completed my nineteenth year, when I first landed in Ceylon. Two years of jungle life, spent in the management of a coffee-estate, had made me melancholy, moping, dull, a bookworm, and a man of reverie. I determined I would stand it no longer. I had before me an offer to undertake the editorship of the Ceylon Herald, at a small salary, it is true, but then the salary was to increase with the circulation. I was in all the budding glory of twenty-one, and I had made up my mind to try my hand at leading articles for the future, leaving coffee estates and coolies, bugs and bungalows, to the poor denizens of the forest.

My letters from the jungle had always appeared in conspicuous positions in the Colombo papers-the italics, the notes of admiration and exclamation, the dashes and the Greek and Latin quotations, always carefully attended to. My contributions were evidently valuable, why then should not my leading articles succeed? I knew a great deal about