By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes framed, E'er dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore; You, you alone, have dar'd to plough my main, And, with the human voice, disturb my lonesome reign." Meanwhile the Pole Star and the Northern constellations sank in the nightly heavens, and the Ship, Centaur, Southern Cross, and their brilliant companions rose into view. Soon we realise that the Cape of Good Hope is indeed, as it has been called, the CAPE OF STORMS. Sudden and frequent gusts of wind compel us many times to "tack" ship: and often, when all seems clear, a cloud, "like a man's hand," appears at a distance, and before we can take in sail a violent tempest is raging which lifts the sea mountains high all around us. Our own British sailor, Falconer, well describes the scene: let the reader turn, when at leisure, to his pages. We now again cross the Line. Soon after we are becalmed for awhile, and reminded of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," while we lie "As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean." Some alarm is But the calm is brief, and we sail on. occasioned by a suspicious-looking vessel, which is observed to be hovering near us, and is thought to entertain piratical intentions. Arms are therefore brought out, and preparation is made for defence; but after following us for awhile, and scanning our appearance, she takes herself off. Other ships (of which we have seen but few for some weeks) are occasionally observed far away; and a shoal or "school" of whales now and then; and numerous birds flying about us. By-and-by, after enjoying the trade winds, we arrive off the Nicobar Islands, fringed with the graceful palm trees which give such a characteristic charm to Eastern lands. From one of these islands a boat, full of natives of savage appearance, comes out to us with beautiful fruits of various kinds, which they offer for sale or barter. As the first natives of this region we have seen, we look on their naked forms with no little curiosity. Then we pass the Andaman Islands, which, we are told, are also inhabited by savages.* But we are getting towards civilised territories. The swordfish, the flying-fish, the tiger-shark, the sea-hedgehog, and other curious creatures, of some of which we get occasional glimpses, abound in the Bay of Bengal. Soon we reach the Sandheads, and take on board our pilot-quite a gentleman,† with blue uniform coat, figured brass buttons, and gold lace cap, and attended by a native servant-and sail on. Byand-by it is night. Again it is morning. "See, how at once the bright effulgent sun, The short-lived twilight; and with ardent blaze The genial breeze to mitigate his fire The day passes. Once more it is night. Another day and night wear on. After three days we drop anchor off Saugor Island, near the mouth of the Ganges; this island, as we know, is famous for tigers, which, we are told, sometimes swim out into the stream; famous, too, or rather Professor Max Müller, in his address to the Anthropological section of the British Association at Cardiff in 1891, showing how impossible it is to estimate aright the character of a people without intimate intercourse with them, and a knowledge of their language, observes: "No race has been so cruelly maligned for centuries as the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. An Arab writer of the ninth century states that their complexion was frightful, their hair frizzled, their countenance and eyes terrible, their feet very large, and almost a cubit in length, and that they go quite naked. Marco Polo (about 1285) declared that the inhabitants are no better than wild beasts, and he goes on to say: I assure you, all the men of this island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are just like big mastiff dogs.' They are now found to be very different." And the Professor gives much interesting information furnished by the English officers who went to live among them when after the Mutiny of 1857 these islands were used as a penal colony for India, and who found them a very interesting and even a lovable people! (See also Hunter's Indian Empire, chap. iii., p. 70 et seq.) †The pilots receive about £800 a year, and they have a present from each ship they navigate. The pilot brigs are stationed at the Sandheads, and serve as lightships in that dangerous locality. Thomson. infamous, for the number of infants formerly, if not still," thrown here to the sharks and alligators as an offering to Gunga, the Spirit of the River (which all Hindoos regard as the source of salvation), by the female pilgrims annually resorting hither from all parts of the country. Hundreds of thousands of innocent children have thus, it would seem, been immolated here; and many of the mothers have probably given themselves to the alligators. Thus early, at the very gates of the land, we are reminded of the cruel superstitions of India. (A six years' pilgrimage from the source of the Ganges in the Himalaya to its mouth at Saugor and back again, known as Pradakshin, is performed by many Hindoos.) Here, too, the Bore, when it occurs, takes its rise, occasioning no little disaster as it rushes up the river. Yonder are the deadly Sunderbunds, a vast forest jungle, the alleged birthplace of CHOLERA. With morning we pursue our way, passing Kedgeree, and going on by tedious and careful navigation among the shifting sands, and through a strong current, till after three days more we approach Calcutta. * Infanticide at Saugor was prohibited in 1802 by the Marquis Wellesley, who declared the practice to be murder, punishable with death, because it was not sanctioned by the Hindoo Shastras. We are not sure, however, that it has altogether ceased. And there is every reason to believe that the same offence is practised in other ways. "Though the crime of infanticide," says Miss Roberts, "upon any pretext whatever is not permitted by the British Government, there is not much difficulty in eluding the laws in force against it, since the natives are possessed of so many facilities for accomplishing in private what they no longer dare to perform before the world. A small quantity of opium administered in the first nourishment given to a newborn babe will send it to its everlasting rest; and as no inquiry is instituted as to the cause of death perpetrated without apparent violence, and where the probabilities are in favour of its having been occasioned by natural accident, the murderers escape detection." †The law abolishing infanticide does not forbid suicide. O° CHAPTER II. THE CITY OF PALACES. UR vicinity to the capital is indicated by the charming palatial villas of Garden Reach, set like gems amidst greenest verdure, which follow on our right bank in endless succession, and which are confronted by numerous villages half hidden amid palms and bamboos, by the world-famous Botanical Gardens, and by what we are told is the Bishop's College,* on the opposite side; while the muddy river-the Hooghly, a branch of the GANGES-every moment grows more and more animated with ships, and fishing and pleasure boats, many of the latter being very elegant and shaded with venetians. Numbers of the boatmen, wrapped around with sheeting, look, as somebody says, almost like ghosts, and it would be easy to imagine them risen from the dead in their grave-clothes. All, however, is sunny and beautiful (though a little chilly), except that now and then a dark The first stone of this magnificent establishment was laid by Bishop Middleton in 1820. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel having founded it at the instance of that venerable prelate for the training of preachers, catechists, and schoolmasters, for the general extension of education, and for the reception of European missionaries on their arrival in India; and having raised under a Royal Letter the sum of £5,000 towards its erection, another £5,000 was given by the Christian Knowledge Society and the Church Missionary Society respectively to the Building Fund, which was aided by other contributions, while the Church Missionary Society afforded additional assistance to the institution, and the British and Foreign Bible Society assigned to it £5,000 for the Scriptural Translation Department. Other sums have since been appropriated to the College, including a bequest of £30,000 by "A Man of Kent." The College funds are administered by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; while the institution itself is under the management of a principal and two professors, and maintains Native tutors for the purposes of instruction in the Oriental languages. It is open alike to all Christian men,-European and Native,-under certain limitations and regulations. object-the corpse, it is suggested, of some unfortunate Hindoo, whose remains have not been wholly consumed on the funeral pyre-is seen floating past us, with a number of birds upon it.* And now we draw near our port, and our four months' voyage will soon be finished. The broad stream becomes more and more crowded with vessels-English, American, Arab, Chinese, Manilla, and Native-“ perhaps the finest fleet of merchant shipping the world can produce" (about which, however, numbers of kites are hovering, as if looking out for food)-while the far-stretching bank, at once a splendid pleasure-ground and a noble highway :and the commodious quay, with its flights of steps and pillared platforms, extending along the bank the whole length of the city,-seem full of moving objects. The citadel of Fort William-one of the most perfect fortifications in the world t-identified in the memories of most Englishmen with our early history and the imprisonment of our countrymen in the Black Hole; its green glacis, cannon, dry ditch, drawbridge and gate; the superb colonnaded and domed residence of the Governor-General of India; and at a hundred miles from the sea-the CITY OF PALACES, with its marble-like, Greek-like, pillared mansions, church spires, mosques, pagodas, and one tall monument-to Ochterlony (statesman and warrior), as we afterwards find-stand before us. The anchor is dropped. Friends who have been awaiting The Rev. T. Gardner says: "You cannot go at any time anywhere on the river without the risk of seeing a dead body lying here and there upon the banks, perhaps floating down the stream, with two or three crows standing on it, and tearing out pieces from it. We have seen and heard the dogs all night quarrelling over human bodies, and tearing them close beside us." It is now forbidden to throw bodies into the river, and the authorities have provided a public furnace for burning them. This fortress, begun by Clive, and built on the Vauban system at a cost of £2,000,000, requires from 10,000 to 15,000 men to defend it. The ships pass so close thereto that they may be hailed from the glacis. "In Calcutta the houses are generally square blocks, at least two, generally three, stories in height, always standing alone, in what are called 'compounds,' or courts adorned with gardens and surrounded by the domestic offices. Each house is a separate design by itself, and toward the south is always covered by deep verandahs, generally arcaded on the basement, with pillars as above, which are closed to half their height, from above, by green Venetian blinds, which are fixed as part of the structure. The dimensions of these façades are about those of the best Venetian palaces. The Grimani, for instance, both in dimensions and arrangement, |