time, for they had had very little rain for the last two years, and in the west of Guzerat, in the forests between that province and Malwa, and the greater part of Rajpootana or Ajmer towards the desert, I met many little parties of poor emigrants passing towards the Company's provinces, 'having heard that there was corn there and grass, and that their cattle might not perish.' In one poor little city in the midst of these forests and mountains, whose Raja, a little boy of ten years old, I made very happy by the present of some English muslin and a gilt dagger (I had unfortunately given away all my copies of the New Testament), I was moved to more than tears-to downright sickness of heart-by the hunger and wretchedness which was visible. There was literally a crying for bread in their streets; the countenances of all seemed to have gathered blackness, and the women and children were, some of them, such hideous and ghastly skeletons, that I did not before suppose it possible for creatures so thin and pale to be alive and crawling about. These were the worst off that I saw, but in many other places the cattle were so weak (the greater part having died of mere hunger and drought) that, in crossing the road, some of them fell down, and could not rise again, and we were told that, had we passed that way but ten days later, the last wells would have been dry, the people would all have been driven elsewhere, and we should have been almost under a necessity of waiting in Malwa till a more propitious season. The Bheels suffered most, and met with least pity from their neighbours, who are but too apt to treat them as beasts of prey, though they are, in fact, a bold and docile race; among whom, as they have no caste to contend with, I hope before it is very long to send a missionary. A good and prudent man would, I have little doubt, be well received by them, though what they are now you may judge from a little conversation which an acquaintance of mine had with some of them during the spring of last year. In passing the fords of the Banass at the same time with a large convoy of oxen laden with corn and oil, he noticed a few Bheels leaning pensively on their bows, as if spectators of the crowd and bustle. 'Are these cattle yours?' he asked. 'No,' was the answer, but a good many of them would have fallen to our share if it had not been for you English, who take care that nobody shall rob but yourselves!'

"Still, notwithstanding the wildness of the country, and the poverty and thieving of the people, I have been greatly interested and pleased with my journey through Central India and Guzerat, though the heat in the latter country in the month of April was so intense as I never felt elsewhere. The 18th of April, after twice

crossing the Mhye, and seeing the different stations on the coast pretty thoroughly, I embarked at Surat for Bombay, and the 21st (my birthday) I arrived in this island, where, a few days after, my two dear Emilies joined me, having had a sadly tedious and sickly passage from Calcutta by sea. Our poor baby they were obliged to leave behind. My health had remained good all the journey, and they (thank God) are now perfectly well again. We are now the guests of Mr. Elphinstone, the Governor of Bombay, a very clever and agreeable man, who has shown us a degree of kindness seldom met with, and never surpassed, and for whose brother, owing to some likeness of complexion and features, I have been pretty generally taken by the Gaikwar Raja and other chiefs of Guzerat and the Concan. Of the personal resemblance I am myself no judge, but there are very many points on which I should much wish to be like him. Indeed, I do not know any man with whom, on so short an acquaintance, I have been so much struck. He is a very active and fearless patron of any practicable scheme for the advantage and improvement of the Hindoos, and I have been enabled since my arrival not only to set on foot a new district Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, but Emily has also collected some good subscriptions towards the school for native girls at Calcutta. We hope next week to pay a visit to Poona, five days' march up the country, and soon after our return to embark for Calcutta, staying some short time at Ceylon. Even in Calcutta, however, I cannot hope to remain long, for the Presidency of Madras is yet unexplored, and sufficient of itself to occupy the greater part of next year, the more so as the native Christians, who are very numerous there, amounting to considerably more than 40,000 members of the Church of England, are, unhappily, quarrelling among themselves, and have applied to me to settle their differences.

"Since writing the greater part of this letter, I have received your kind and interesting packet of 2nd December. What a time for a letter to be on its road! But what can we expect with half the world between us? You say nothing of your own health, or that of your family. I trust that this is equal to a good account of all, but do not omit it again. I could not send you my Charge, because it has never been printed. The passage which appeared in the Christian Remembrancer was taken from a newspaper report. Thank you much for the kind pains you have taken for our girls' school, but do not trouble yourself any more. At present we are, I hope, going on well. I have received, and long since wrote to thank you for your kind and gratifying but too flattering verses.

Your hymn, which I like very much, has since reached me during my journey through Guzerat. I, alas! have no time for verses now. I have kept, however, a tolerably regular Journal, and have carried off some drawings and other memoranda of the interesting scenes.

"I have not yet seen any engraving of my portrait. I am sure I feel highly pleased and flattered by the honourable place which dear Anne has assigned to my likeness, and by your multiplication of it. I have received no more hymns from Milman, and think of preparing for the press the collection as it now stands. You are very good still to recollect and adorn my lines with your pencil. Adieu, my dear friend! Emily unites in sending her love to yourself, your father, mother, and sisters. God bless and prosper you all! May you long continue to love Him and each other, and do not forget those exiled friends who often, very often, talk of Edge and its inhabitants with a regard and interest which neither distance nor time can diminish. Believe me, my dear Charlotte, ever your obliged and affectionate friend, "R. C. "P.S.-Pray remember me most kindly to E. Davenport and Conny. To the former I owe a long and interesting letter, in return for a most excellent one which I received from him. Το the latter, for her kind recollection of us, her good wishes, and her prayers, pray say anything that is grateful and affectionate. Heaven knows we have all great need of the prayers of our friends, and I feel that need more and more as I see more of this great field of exertion, and am made more sensible of my own insufficiency to do all which is required of me.”

Archdeacon Barnes describes Heber's voice and countenance as very much what they were at Oxford seventeen years hefore. "His manner everywhere is exceedingly popular, though there are some points, such as his wearing white trousers and a white hat, which I could wish were altered with more regard to his station, and which, perhaps, strike me the more after being accustomed to the particular attention of Bishop Middleton in such points; yet really I feel compelled to forgive him when I observe his unreserved frankness, his anxious and serious wish to do all the good in

1 On his journeys the Bishop wore a white sola pith hat, with a very broad brim (lined with green silk). The white trousers he adopted soon after his arrival in India, from their greater coolness, and he recommended them to his clergy on all ordinary occasions.

his power, his truly amiable and kindly feelings, his talents and piety, and his extraordinary powers of conversation, accompanied with so much cheerfulness and vivacity. I see the advantage which Christianity and our Church must possess in such a character, to win their way and keep all together in India."

To his four chief friends, Thornton, Wynn, Wilmot Horton, and Davenport, and to his old curate at Hodnet, Blunt, Heber from time to time during his tour revealed his convictions as to the people of India, and the only means of improving permanently their condition. Writing to R. J.

Wilmot Horton, Esq., on the variety of the races and social customs of the millions of Bengal, Hindustan, and North Bombay, on their degrading superstitions, and on the ignorance shown in Parliament on such subjects, he remarks :—

"BARREAH (GUZERAT), March 1824.

"I met, not long since, with a speech by a leading member of the Scottish General Assembly, declaring his 'conviction that the truths of Christianity could not be received by men in so rude a state as the East Indians; and that it was necessary to give them first a relish for the habits and comforts of civilised life before they could embrace the truths of the Gospel.' The same slang (for it is nothing more) I have seen repeated in divers pamphlets, and even heard it in conversations at Calcutta. Yet, though it is certainly true that the lower classes of Indians are miserably poor, and that there are many extensive districts where, both among low and high, the laws are very little obeyed, and there is a great deal of robbery, oppression, and even ferocity, I know no part of the population, except the mountain tribes, who can, with any propriety of language, be called uncivilised.

"Of the unpropitious circumstances which I have mentioned, the former arises from a population continually pressing on the utmost limits of subsistence, and which is thus kept up, not by any dislike or indifference to a better diet, or more ample clothing, or more numerous ornaments than now usually fall to the peasant's share (for, on the contrary, if he has the means he is fonder of external show and a respectable appearance than those of his rank in many nations of Europe), but by the foolish superstition, which Christianity only is likely to remove, which makes a parent regard it as unpropitious to allow his son to remain un

married, and which couples together children of twelve or fourteen years of age. The second has its origin in the long-continued misfortunes and intestine wars of India, which are as yet too recent (even when their causes have ceased to exist) for the agitation which they occasioned to have entirely sunk into a calm. But to say that the Hindoos or Musalmans are deficient in any essential feature of a civilised people is an assertion which I can scarcely suppose to be made by any who have lived with them. Their manners are, at least, as pleasing and courteous as those in the corresponding stations of life among ourselves; their houses are larger, and, according to their wants and climate, to the full as convenient as ours; their architecture is at least as elegant.

"... With subjects thus inquisitive, and with opportunities of information, it is apparent how little sense there is in the doctrine that we must keep the natives of Hindostan in ignorance, if we would continue to govern them. The fact is, that they know enough already to do us a great deal of mischief if they should find it their interest to make the trial. They are in a fair way, by degrees, to acquire still more knowledge for themselves; and the question is, whether it is not the part of wisdom, as well as duty, to superintend and promote their education while it is yet in our power, and to supply them with such knowledge as will be at once most harmless to ourselves, and most useful to them.

"In this work the most important part is to give them a better religion. Knowing how strongly I feel on this subject, you will not be surprised at my placing it foremost. But even if Christianity were out of the question, and if, when I had wheeled away the rubbish of the old pagodas, I had nothing better than simple Deism to erect in their stead, I should still feel some of the anxiety which now urges me. It is necessary to see idolatry to be fully sensible of its mischievous effects on the human mind. But of all idolatries which I have ever read or heard of, the religion of the Hindoos, in which I have taken some pains to inform myself, really appears to me the worst, both in the degrading notions which it gives of the Deity; in the endless round of its burdensome ceremonies, which occupy the time and distract the thoughts, without either instructing or interesting its votaries; in the filthy acts of uncleanness and cruelty, not only permitted but enjoined, and inseparably interwoven with those ceremonies; in the system of castes, a system which tends, more than anything else the Devil has yet invented, to destroy the feelings of general benevolence, and to make nine-tenths of mankind the hopeless