and even during those hours when we are necessarily inactive, the free current of air and the ever-open doors and windows of our lofty and almost unfurnished rooms may perhaps be quite as favourable to animal existence as the little close study where I used to pass so much of my time. The country is now splendidly beautiful. The tall timber-trees which delighted us with their shade and verdure when we landed are now, many of them, covered with splendid flowers, literally hot-house flowering shrubs, 30 or 40 feet high, and the fragrance of a drive through the park at Barrackpore is answerable to the dimensions of this Brobdingnag parterre. Some of the trees, and those large ones too, even lose their leaves entirely at this season, throwing out large crimson and yellow flowers in their place. A show of fruit is, they tell us, to succeed this profusion of bloom; but of the Indian fruits I have tasted few, except oranges, which I liked, and of those which I have not yet seen, except the mango, the account given us is not very promising. The sugar-canes are both beautiful and, when chewed, cool and refreshing, with a slightly acid taste, which is agreeable on a hot day. The sugar prepared from them is very disagreeable to me. It is in the form of sugar-candy, the crystals formed round threads of coarse cotton, and often with so much chaff, straw, dead leaves, etc., intermingled, that one's tea assumes the appearance of having received the bottom of an old stocking and the sweepings of a farmyard. On the whole, however, though the luxuries of the East are certainly over-rated, we have many comforts for which we may well be thankful, nor can I consider India as a disagreeable place of residence.

"Many thanks for your two interesting and kind letters, and more particularly for the account of Edge Bow-meeting. My poor song was, indeed, highly honoured. But why have you not sent me yours? What could induce our friend Offley Crewe to talk of my sea-sickness? I never felt any during the whole voyage. Pray tell any members of the Acton family whom you may meet, with our kind regards, that Major, now 'Lt.-Colonel' Cunliffe is extremely well, and shows no sign whatever of having suffered from his long residence in India. Without being pre

cisely like any of his family, he put us both in mind of them, both in person, voice, and manner. He is very good-natured, well informed, and agreeable, and as popular in India as his relatives are in Wales and Cheshire. It is very pleasant to us to talk with him about scenes which he scarcely remembers, but is still interested about, and which we—when shall we forget them ?

"I told you you would laugh if you saw me in my palankeen. I now give you an opportunity of doing so1 as I went the other day in state to the 'Durbar' or Asiatic Levee of the GovernorGeneral. Pray give the kind regards both of Emily and me to your dear, kind family circle at Edge, to Conny and to Ned Davenport, to whom I wrote some time back, and mean to write again. I have had a long and interesting letter from Pearson, who speaks of a delightful day which he spent at Edge. In general, my friends have been very bad correspondents. Adieu, dearest Charlotte. Believe me ever your faithful and affectionate friend, R. CALCUTTA."

"I began my letter with a sketch of the peasantry of India. I conclude it with one of a part of the park at Barrackpore, with Lady Amherst in her morning's airing. The large tree in the centre is a peepul, sacred to Siva, and with an evil spirit (as the Hindoos believe) dwelling under every leaf. In the distance, between that and the bamboo, is a banian. In the foreground an aloe, and over the elephant the cotton tree, one of those which at a certain season exchanges its leaves for roses. The man who walks at the head of the elephant is employed in giving him advice, such as 'Step out,' 'Take care,' 'There's a stone,' 'A slippery place,' Bravo, my fine fellow,' 'Remember who it is you are carrying,' etc., which nonsense they fancy the animal understands and profits by.

"Did I tell you in my last letter that the other day I met with one of my hymns ('From Greenland's icy mountains') translated into Bengali? I must bind it up with the Welsh Palestine."

"MY DEAREST CHARLOTTE-This is a letter which I send off at haphazard, in much hurry, that it may be in time for a ship at Saugur. It will be what my dear sister calls a 'real letter,' though since I left England I have not, to my knowledge, disguised my feelings in any shape. I cannot, however, bear to allow the anniversary of our last meeting to pass away without telling her that I am well, that I am busy, I hope useful, and as happy as a man can be in banishment from such friends as mine, and that I am in heart and brotherly love for her all which I was when we took leave twelve months ago at Iscoyd. Alas! alas!

1 In a sepia sketch.

how are we now divided! Yet I do not repent of having left England. I feel I should have repented if I had stayed, and I feel that I have abundant reason for thankfulness to Providence in the splendid career of usefulness which lies before me, and in the kind friends who have been raised up for me in a strange land, though none of those friends can be to me like those I have left behind.

"I have been unwell during a considerable part of this year. It began by a fall from my horse, in itself of little consequence, but the cut on my leg, in this inflammatory climate, was followed by a succession of boils, a very common disease here, and I am told reckoned rather beneficial than otherwise to the general health. They were, however, very painful and troublesome, and were, in my case, aggravated, as I am told, by too great abstinence. Certain it is I have been much better since I have eaten meat regularly and drunk wine, though in both I am still more moderate than most of my neighbours. This is all in strict confidence, and not to be repeated. I am very anxious my poor mother should not know of my having been unwell. From you I will not conceal it, and I know you will believe me when I say that I am now almost as well as ever I was, and I have every reason to think the climate will agree with me. I wish I could be equally confident respecting my poor wife and children. The baby is, however, as fine and fat a child as can be, and little Emily, though thin and delicate, is very much better than she has been. My poor wife is by no means well. Yet she does not look ill. She takes a deal of riding exercise, and perhaps her health is more affected by the bustle and labour which she has undergone lately in changing residence than from any other circumstance.

"We are, as in my last letter, I prepared you to expect, returned to Calcutta, where we are established in a house so large as quite to exceed all our ideas of comfort. I feel almost lost in

a dining-room sixty-seven feet long, a drawing-room of the same dimensions, a study supported by arcades, and though low in proportion to its size, forty-five feet square. Yet these overgrown rooms, they tell us, will be very convenient and comfortable when the hot winds begin. Of these we have already had a little and but a little-experience, but the climate is, as yet, very tolerable. We are obliged, however, to be on our horses in a morning before five o'clock, since at seven the sun is too powerful to allow us to be exposed to it, and even at half-past six it is as hot as the hottest noon in England. Often and often during these early rides, amid palms and plantains, or on the broad