papers of India, for the times were dreadfully dull, and people were beginning to be tired of incessant editorial squabbles. The newspapereditors and Golab were those most immediately benefited by the rash measures of the fanati

We were expected, of course, by thousands of readers, to know all about the Seikhs and their religion forthwith. One correspondent wrote to ask why so many of them were called Sirdars and Singhs? another, who the Punches were, and whether they had anything to do with the individual whose treatment of his spouse Julia had often excited their indignation at home? A third asked the breadth of the Sutlej, and its depth at the place where the Seikhs had crossed? and whether there was any chance of their making their way to Calcutta? whilst a fourth informed us, in a mysterious manner, that the Seikhs in the Burra Bazar were thinking of rising and murdering all the English, requesting that we should take the first opportunity of acquainting Sir Henry Hardinge with the fact.

To answer all these questions, it was neces

sary we should read up all about the Seikhs immediately. We read about them all day, studying Malcolm, Murray, Prinsep, Osborne, Lawrence, Thornton and the Calcutta Review, wrote about them all the evening, dreamed about them all night. Surely, the newspapereditors, as a body, ought to have come forward unanimously for once, by way of curiosity, to thank them for affording new topics for discussion, just as all the old ones were becoming flat, stale, and unprofitable.

Like the rest, I read much about the Seikhs, and talked a great deal to one of them employed in the office-a peaceful-looking man enough-hence my gossip about them now.

CHAPTER V.

THE "EDUCATED" AND THE UNEDUCATED HINDU.

THE religions professed by the various inhabitants of the City of Palaces are as numerous and motley as the languages spoken and the garments worn. Of the various religious structures which arrest the eye in wandering through the town, the Christian churches are, certainly, the most imposing, the Mohammedan mosques are the most picturesque, from their innumerable minarets and Oriental domes, whilst the Hindu temples are massive, ugly, and extraordinary.

Hinduism, or Brahmanism, as it is va riously styled, is, of course, the prevailing religious system in Calcutta, as in most other Indian towns. With all its absurd multitude

of deities, decent and obscene; with all its contradictory dogmas and ceremonies; with all its fine sentiment and fiendish practice, Brahmanism retains its hold, nominally at least, over some hundred millions of our race. A hundred millions of our race! a hundred millions of human beings! we talk glibly of such numbers when we come to speak of the swarming hives of Asiatic life, of the densely populated plains of China or of India, but it is no easy matter to conceive such multitudes, to form anything like an adequate conception of what a hundred millions of mankind really are. An aggregated mass of a hundred thousand is perhaps as great a multitude of mankind as we can form a distinct and definite idea of at once-an aggregated mass of a hundred thousand, such as thronged the aisles and galleries of the great Crystal Palace, in 1851, when every part of the building was full to overflowing-a thousand such masses, a thousand such congregations of a hundred thousand each, may serve to extend our ideas to the limits of a hundred millions; faintly, however, and dimly at best.

Let us take a specimen from this living mass of a hundred millions, and see in what he believes for this world and the next. Stand forth, educated Hindu! This man is of the highest caste compared with other mortals he is of the finest porcelain, they of the densest brown earthenware. His white muslin robes set off his small figure well-his head-dress, a neat roll of the same material, is becoming and picturesque. Outwardly, there is nothing to complain of; the tint of the skin is pleasing, not too dark, merely a tinge of brown, a slight tinge, that harmonizes well with the glare around, affording an agreeable relief for the vision. Were it paler, like that of the Chinaman or the European, it would appear sickly to the eye accustomed to the darker livery. His small hands and feet might be envied by many a beauty in England; they are delicate, neatly-formed, eminently feminine in their proportions. The English beauty would not envy the colour, the light-brown tint, but all the Kalydors and washes of London or Paris will never make her hand of that shape, nor will they give it