green plain which surrounds the fort and the city, do I find my fancy wandering to Overton Scar or the lane near the Lower Wych, and start when I am recalled to reality by the bleating of the goats and the cries of the black wild-looking bearded herdsmen. Even my study has a sort of likeness, from its arches, etc., to the Hall at Edge, which makes me love it, and though few of my books or prints are yet unpacked, there is one drawing on which my eyes continually rest, which I used to quarrel with for being so little like you, but which I now regard with an interest which I can hardly express. Dear, kind friend, be sure I shall ever remember you, ever love and pray for you, ever rejoice to hear of your happiness!

"Of myself I have little more to say. The hot months have at least the advantage of causing a cessation in the gaieties of Calcutta. I, too, am more and more getting rid of idle forms and parade, and do not find that I am the less respected or the worse thought of for riding in a round hat and loose trousers, as I used to do at Hodnet. Yet Emily tells me I am a graver man than I used to be, and the ladies here, who, I know not why, had conceived a very different opinion of me, have complained that I think no females in Calcutta worth talking to. I do not plead guilty to the charge. Yet the truth is, I may well be a little graver than I used to be. I am happy, however, and I hope grateful. Adieu, dear, dear sister. God bless you and yours. R. C."

In Calcutta Heber witnessed for the first time the Charak Poojah, or swinging festival, held on the sun's entrance into Aries, in honour of the favourite Bengali goddess, the black Kali. The present writer witnessed the same orgie in the same place thirty years afterwards, but the police have since interfered to stop it in the interests of public order and humanity. "The crowd on the Maidan," he writes in his Journal, "was great, and very picturesque. The music consisted chiefly of large double drums, ornamented with plumes of black feathers, like those of a hearse, which rose considerably higher than the heads of the persons who played on them; large crooked trumpets, like the 'litui' of the ancients, and small gongs suspended from a bamboo, which rested on the shoulders of two men, the last of whom played on it with a large, thick, and heavy drum-stick, or cudgel. All the persons who walked in the procession, and a large majority of the spectators, had their faces, bodies, and white cotton clothes daubed all over

with vermilion, the latter to a degree which gave them the appearance of being actually dyed rose-colour. They were also crowned with splendid garlands of flowers, with girdles and baldrics of the same. Many trophies and pageants of different kinds were paraded up and down, on stages, drawn by horses, or bullocks. Some were mythological, others were imitations of different European figures, soldiers, ships, etc., and, in particular, there was one very large model of a steamboat. The devotees went about with small spears through their tongues and arms, and still more with hot irons pressed against their sides. All were naked to the waist, covered with flowers, and plentifully raddled with vermilion, while their long black wet hair hung down their backs, almost to their loins. From time to time, as they passed us, they laboured to seem to dance, but in general their step was slow, their countenances expressive of resigned and patient suffering, and there was no appearance, that I saw, of anything like frenzy or intoxication. The peaceableness of the multitude was also as remarkable as its number; no troops were visible, except the two sentries, who at all times keep guard on two large tanks in the Maidan; no police except the usual 'Chokeydar,' or watchman, at his post near Allypoor Bridge; yet nothing like quarrelling or rioting occurred, and very little scolding. A similar crowd in England would have shown three boxingmatches in half an hour, and in Italy there would have been half a dozen assassinations before night. In the evening I walked in another direction, towards the Boitaconnah, and the streets chiefly occupied by natives. Here I saw the 'swinging.'"

CHAPTER IX

TO DACCA AND THE HIMALAYAS

1824-1825

AFTER five months of incessant toil, during which the new Bishop cleared off arrears of ecclesiastical business, reconciled to each other warring chaplains and archdeacons, inspected every form of missionary activity and public charity in and around Calcutta, extended the building and developed the working power of Bishop's College, preached frequently three times a week, and influenced the Europeans and native gentlemen by his social as well as official attentions, as the hot season of 1824 reached its height he began the first visitation of his great diocese.

On Ascension Day, 27th May, the Bishop delivered his primary charge1 in the Cathedral of St. John, "at six o'clock in the morning, to avoid the heat of the day." A prelate who had so little spared himself, and whose humbleness of mind was as winning as his culture and spirituality were known to all, had the right to set before each of the Company's chaplains a higher ideal of his office and life than had generally been sought-even to become "such a man as Martyn was" among the heathen. For the missionaries as well as the chaplains his theme was the peculiar nature of the great enterprise which they had undertaken. On the chaplain he pressed the duty, laid down in the old charter, of "the attentive and

1 Published by his widow (John Murray, 1829) in a volume of his selected Sermons Preached in India.

grammatical study of some one of the native languages," so as to "endeavour the conversion of his heathen neighbours." "It is with no common thankfulness to God," he proceeded to say, "that I see the Episcopal chair of Calcutta now first surrounded by those who are missionaries themselves, as well as by those who are engaged in the important office of educating youth for the future service of missions." "I regard it as one among the most favourable signs of the present times that while Providence has, in a manner visible and almost miraculous, prepared a highway in the wilderness of the world for the progress of His truth, and made the ambition, the commerce, the curiosity, and enterprise of mankind His implements in opening a more effectual door to His Gospel, the call thus given has been answered by a display of zeal unexampled at any time since the period of the Reformation; and America and England have united with Denmark and Germany to send forth a host of valiant and victorious confessors to bear the banner of the Cross where darkness and death have hitherto spread their broadest shadows."

The exertions of this kind during the last fifteen years, while they had shut the mouths of critics hostile to "the illumination of our Indian fellow-subjects," had excited those who, "though themselves not idle, . . . were ready to speak evil of the work itself rather than that others who followed not with them should cast out devils in the name of their common Master." Thus the Metropolitan alluded to the notorious letters which had then appeared from the pen of the Mysore missionary, the Abbé Dubois: "Like those spectre forms which the madness of Orestes saw in classical mythology, the spirit of religious party sweeps before us in the garb and with the attributes of pure and evangelical religion. The cross is on her shoulders, the chalice in her hand, and she is anxiously busied, after her manner, in the service of Him by whose holy name she also is called. But outstrip her in the race, but press her a little too closely, and she turns round on us with all the hideous features of envy and of rage. Her hallowed taper blazes into a sulphurous torch, her hairs bristle into serpents, her face is as the face of them that go down to the pit, and her words are words of blasphemy.

"What other spirit could have induced a Christian minister,