and been picked out from its excrement, holding this to be the purest of all food! Others live wholly upon milk, and, that their exalted natures may not be defiled by the ordinary process, affect to bring up all that is not convertible into chyle, by means of a small string of cotton, somewhat in the manner that Spallanzani made experiments upon himself and his unfortunate buzzard. The torments which devotees, in this benighted country, inflict upon themselves, are well known; they differ more in fashion than in principle, from the practices which have entitled so many European fanatics to a place in the Romish Kalendar. It is known, also, how the Brahminical system produces the utmost excesses of false humanity and of hideous cruelty. They who use force to keep the widow upon the pile which she would fain escape, they who teach the mother to expose her infant to the ants and vultures, and the children to accelerate the death of their aged parents by forcing them into the river, or stopping their mouths and nostrils with mud; they who grind in oil-mills the priests of a rival idolatry, and who pour boiling oil in the ears of the Sudra, who has been unlucky enough to hear their scriptures, -hold it a crime to destroy the insect that bites them! Some carry a light broom to sweep the ground before them, lest they should unwittingly crush any thing that has life, and others wear a cloth before their mouths lest they should draw in an insect with their breath. That part of the Banian hospital at Surat, where animals, when worn out in the service of man, or disabled by any accidental hurt, are provided with food and suffered to die in peace, may make an Englishman feel shame for his country, when he recollects the facts which were stated by Lord Erskine before the British parliament; but those wards which are appropriated to the most loathsome vermin, and where beggars are hired by the night to serve as food for them, make us blush for human nature.

This superstitious reverence for life in the lowest stages of existence, is instanced in one of the most interesting anecdotes in the work before us. A Brahmin, far beyond his brethren both in powers of mind and extent of knowledge, lived in habits of great intimacy with an Englishman who was fond of natural and experimental philosophy; the Brahmin, who had learned English, read the books of his friend, searched into the Cyclopædia, and profited by his philosophical instruments. It happened that the Englishman received a good solar microscope from Europe; he displayed its wonders with delight to the astonishment of the Brahmin'; and convinced him by the undeniable evidence of his senses, that he and his countrymen who abstained so scrupulously from any thing which had life, devoured innumerable animalculæ upon every vegetable which they ate. The Brahmin, instead of being delighted as his new friend had expected, became unusually thoughtful, and

at

at length retired in silence. On his next visit he requested the gentleman would sell him the microscope: to this it was replied, that the thing was a present from a friend in Europe, and not to be replaced; the Brahmin, however, was not discouraged by the refusal; he offered a very large sum of money, or an Indian commodity of equal value, and at length the gentleman, weary of resisting his importunities, or unwilling longer to resist them, gave him the microscope. The eyes of the Hindoo flashed with joy, he seized the instrument, hastened from the viranda, caught up a large stone, laid the microscope upon one of the steps, and in an instant smashed it to pieces. Having done this he said in reply to the angry reproaches of his friend, that when he was cool he would pay him a visit and explain his reasons. Upon that visit he thus addressed his friend :

'Oh that I had remained in that happy state of ignorance in which you found me! Yet I confess, that as my knowledge increased so did my pleasure, till I beheld the wonders of the microscope: from that moment I have been tormented by doubts,-I am miserable, and must continue to be so till I enter upon another stage of existence. I am a solitary individual among fifty millions of people, all brought up in the same belief as myself, and all happy in their ignorance. I will keep the secret within my own bosom, it will destroy my peace, but I shall have some satisfaction in knowing that I alone feel those doubts which, had I not destroyed the instrument, might have been communicated to others, and rendered thousands wretched. Forgive me, my friend-and bring here no more implements of knowledge!'-

This is a fine story; but how much finer might it have been if the European had been a Christian philosopher, as well as an experimentalist!

'I have been asked,' says Mr. Forbes, by one of the most amiable men I know, and one of the most valuable friends I ever possessed, why I trouble myself so much about the Hindoos: why not allow mothers to destroy their infants, widows to immolate themselves with their husbands, and Brahmins to pour boiling oil into the ears of the lower casts who hear the Shastah? This gentleman lived upwards of twenty years in India, and, like many others, saw no impropriety in such conduct; or he would have been among the first to reprobate it, and attempt a change. But as I know he speaks the sentiments of numerous philanthropists, I shall answer the question in the language of the excellent Cowper.

"I was born of woman, and drew milk,
As sweet as charity, from human breasts.
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a man.
How then should I, and any man that lives,
Be strangers to each other?"

While Mr. Forbes felt thus, like a wise and good man, from the abominable institutions of Hindostan, he could sympathize with whatever was good in the character of the people, and treat their prejudices with tenderness and respect. The inhabitants of Dhuboy requested that their fellow-citizens, the monkeys, and the water-fowl who frequent their lake, might not be fired at by the Europeans of the garrison; alleging as a reason for this request not merely their own belief, but that those creatures were useful in keeping the city and the tank free from dirt, nuisance and reptiles. The monkeys, indeed, as well as the peacocks, and many other birds, destroy great numbers of the deadly serpents with which India is infested; the monkey knows where the danger lies from these deadly reptiles, seizes the snake by the neck, and grinds down the head upon the gravel or upon a stone, then tosses the writhing body to its young for a plaything. Mr. Forbes readily granted the request; and the protection which was asked for these creatures, who had the public claim to it, he extended to all, and prevailed upon his countrymen never to fire a shot within the fortress. Every bird therefore which flew over the walls found an asylum; every house was crowded with squirrels as well as monkeys, trees were filled with peacocks, doves, and parrots, the lake covered with aquatic fowl, and the surrounding groves enlivened with bulbuls and warblers of every kind. The Brahmins, encouraged by this compliance, asked another favour of more importance, the greatest indeed which could be conferred upon them; it was, that he would give an order forbidding beef to be killed in the city, or publicly exposed to sale. They knew, they said, the English soldiers would have beef if it were procurable, but they hoped that if Mr. Forbes could not prevent the slaughter he would keep it as private as possible. It would have been cruel as well as impolitic,' he observes, to have refused them so innocent and reasonable a request. I only wished the rest of my countrymen there had been as indifferent to this food as myself, and their feelings should not have been wounded.'

6

Sometimes, Mr. Forbes says, he almost envied these Hindoos the pleasures which they enjoyed in the performance of their religious duties, and the delight of social worship, for during four years he was deprived of all the sacred ordinances of Christianity. They often asked him this important question, Master, when an Englishman dies, does he think he shall go to his God? and the remark upon his answer was usually to this effect,-Your countrymen, Master, seem to take very little trouble about that businessthe Hindoos, the Mahomedans, the Parsees, the Roman Catholic Christians all duly perform the respective ceremonies of their religion: the English alone appear unconcerned about such things. Mr. Forbes himself, to his great astonishment, fell under

an

an imputation of a very different kind. When he had been about two years at Dhuboy a rumour prevailed that he worshipped the devil, or at least that he performed ceremonies and paid some kind of adoration, to the evil principle, -and the rumour was traced to his own servants. The mystery was soon explained: he had frequently pea-fowl at his table; the gizzard was, in English fashion, sent from the table to be broiled and seasoned, and when it was returned thus bedevilled, and the guest took a glass of wine after it, the servant who was a stranger to the manners, customs, and language of the master, and understood nothing but the name, actually and not very unreasonably believed that this was a sacrifice performed to the devil himself.

The district over which Mr. Forbes presided was infested by the Bheels and Gracias, a savage race of men, the descendants probably of the early inhabitants of Hindostan, who in that unremembered conquest which reduced the natives to the state of degradation in which the lower casts at present exist, preferred with a better spirit but not with happier consequences a barbarous independence. Woe to the human species wherever it begins to be retrograde! when once the characteristic virtues of civilization are lost, its ferocious passions prevail, and man becomes more fierce than the fiercest beast. Under the Mahratta government, these Bheels and Gracias were hunted down like wild beasts. Soon after Mr. Forbes arrived at Dhuboy, while he was sitting at dinner with a young friend lately arrived from England, some peasants were introduced who bore a dish covered with a napkin. Supposing it to contain a present of game he desired it might be put upon the table: and his horror may be imagined when, upon taking off the cloth, he beheld a human head just decollated! It was the head of a Gracia who had met with his proper fate in a plundering incursion. Mr. Forbes immediately issued the most positive orders to prohibit such executions in future: but to his sorrow he found that this humanity was no mercy to the villagers; for it only made these banditti more insolent, more audacious and more cruel. Year after year *of remonstrances and mistaken clemency on his part served but to embolden them. They ravaged the country, burnt the villages, murdered men, women and children, and exercised upon those who fell into their hands cruelties at the thought of which human nature shudders. They fastened letters filled with abusive menace to the very gates of Dhuboy. A few Hindoos were one morning assembled before the Gate of Diamonds, when two armed Gracias on horseback came up, and asked if the governor were in the Durbar? being answered in the affirmative, one of them threw a letter

to

to a Brahmin, saying, deliver this to him—and that you may not forget it, he added, take this for a remembrance,-at the same instant thrusting a spear into his side. His companion in like manner accompanied the message with a stroke of the scimitar across the breast of a Banian. Their letters to the governor were in the most arrogant and inflated style. They boasted of their impregnable holds, like those of the eagle in the cliffs of the rocks; they laughed at his power, and reminded him that a gnat could torment an elephant. Many villages were entirely depopulated by these wretches, and the inhabitants emigrated into other countries, declaring that great as were the blessings which they enjoyed under the justice and clemency of the British laws, these blessings were of little avail if they were not protected against the Gracias, and they would rather submit themselves to an Asiatic despot, than be exposed to this perpetual danger. Mr. Forbes was therefore compelled at length to urge the government of Baroche and Bombay to send a military force against these banditti. The object of the expedition was to seize the chieftain and his principal officers if possible. It failed in this, but it was conducted with such skill and secrecy, that his capital was surprised and the women of his zenana were taken and sent to Dhuboy as hostages. The Gracia princesses were at first very obstreperous, they declared that they would kill themselves, if they were brought into Mr. Forbes's presence, or any way exposed to public view; they were however treated with such respect to all their customs and feelings that they had no temptation to execute this threat; and this act of vigour made the Gracias as humble as they had before been insolent; Mr. Forbes, however, would grant them peace on no other security than that of the Bhauts, and under the guarantee of that extraordinary race, it was concluded.

After this treaty these districts enjoyed uninterrupted peace, and flourished under the blessings of the British government, till in the year 1783 they were ceded to the Mahrattas, of all Oriental tyrants the most cruel and the most oppressive. Such a transfer was the heaviest of all calamities to the inhabitants, and while there remained a hope that it might be averted, no prayers, no ceremonies, no sacri fices were left unperformed by the different casts and religions. When the cession was actually made, and Mr. Forbes and his countrymen departed from Baroche, they were followed to the waterside by the principal inhabitants of the city. As they were embarking to cross the Nerbudda, a dark cloud passed over them and a shower of rain fell; the natives then were no longer able to keep silence, and exclaimed with prophetic grief, these drops are the tears of Heaven for the fate of Baroche.' I oppose