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form a favourable contrast to the modes by which money was raised in the ages of the Mogul pageantry. It is quite true that the Ryot, as our author says, " does not drink beer, eat beef, or read his newspaper by a sea-coal fire;" but it is equally true that in his slattern way of living with a rag about his middle, and destitute as he is of shoes and stockings, which he never wore, and which, we suspect, he would consider a very great inconvenience, he is surrounded by what Mr. Kaye felicitously calls a "sluttish plenty," and that he is secure against those magnificent spoliations which reduced him to the level of the beasts of the field, in order that his masters might be enabled to smite his eyes with jewels and precious stones.

To turn to another subject, we commend the reader who desires to obtain a clear insight into the recesses of Indian life to read attentively Mr. Kaye's chapters on Thuggee and Dakoitee. In the annals of human crime perhaps there are no incidents so strange, no combinations for ghastly purposes so astounding as those which are here developed. Thuggee and Dakoitee have been frequently described before; but the merit and interest of Mr. Kaye's descriptions consist in the clearness of his narrative, and the power with which he makes these horrors stand out upon his pages. In the same way, every phase of the native tribes, in their villages, and their open plains, on the hill sides and in the valleys, is shown in vivid relief; and these pictures of the country and the people are so skilfully introduced into an authentic review of the civil and military systems, the revenues, and the public works, and the measures that have been taken for the promotion of education and the discouragement of superstition and fanaticism, that the book, instead of being simply a history of the East India Company, is, in fact, the most satisfactory, and can hardly fail to become the most popular, history of India itself, in its social and administrative aspects, that has yet appeared.

As a specimen of one of the many passages illustrative of the native habits of India, take the following sketch of the custom of infanticide. In England Mr. Kaye observes, infanticide is said (we believe rashly, for it is not at any time progressive, but appears and disappears at intervals) to be on the increase; but in England it is a crime, while in India it is a custom. The comparison is curious. With us, the unchastity of the mother is generally the proximate cause of child-murder, while the Rajpoot, who regards unchastity as the inevitable condition of celibacy, puts his female children to death a few hours after their birth to preserve their purity!

"Marriage in both cases is the remedy; but the difficulties in the way of its application are diametrically the reverse. In England marriage is honourable; but celibacy is not disgraceful. In India celibacy is disgraceful. An unmarried daughter is a reproach to her parents, and a reproach to herself. Indeed, more or less the birth of a daughter is always a calamity. It is a disappointment in the first instance, because to beget sons is glorious in the estimation of a Hindoo, and there cannot be too many born into his house. And it is a care to him afterwards, because marriage is a necessity, and the circle of suitability is

narrowed by the exclusiveness of caste. The higher the social degree of the family, the greater the difficulty. In England infanticide is peculiar to the lower orders; in India it is peculiar to the higher. In England it is the activity of degradation; in India the activity of pride. In England male and female infants are murdered with equal recklessness. In India the destroying hand is laid only on the latter. But in both cases it is the non-attainment of honourable marriage in esse, or in posse, which impels to the commission of the crime."

Rajpoot honour and Rajpoot chivalry are convertible terms for the most profound and stupefying barbarism. An old Rajpoot woman was quietly eating her dinner alone, when some Mahomedans, who were walking through the village, accidentally looked in and saw her. From that moment life was no longer endurable. She could not survive the insult of being looked at by a Mahomedan while she was eating her dinner; and when her grandson, a fine manly young fellow, came home, she related her disgrace to him, and begged of him to kill her. He very sensibly remonstrated with her, and refused; and not being able to find anybody willing to perform the sacrifice, she availed herself of the next opportunity when she was alone, and beat her head violently against the wall. On the return of her grandson this time, finding her in a state of excruciating agony, he complied with her entreaties, and stabbed her to the heart. This is very shocking; yet such is the condition of morals and rationality we have to legislate for in India. "The dishonour," observes Mr. Kaye, "incurred by an old woman seen by a passing stranger, in the act of eating her dinner, is not very readily appreciable. The only thing that is very clear about the matter is that, if a woman is so easily dishonoured, it were better that she should eat her dinner in a place where curious travellers cannot see her."

Looking back upon these terrible usages and lamentable delusions, Mr. Kaye may well congratulate his English readers on the civilizing labours of their countrymen-labours frequently pursued in solitude, and in the midst of difficulties and dangers, uncheered by those stimulating tributes of popular applause which are showered upon men in less arduous tasks elsewhere.

"In such chapters of Indian history would be found many pictures not to be dwelt upon without feelings of national pride and Christian gratitude-pictures of English gentlemen in the deep recesses of a strange country, isolated from their kind, devoting themselves to the noble work of reclaiming the savage people of a newly-acquired province, and making their way, slowly and painfully, through jungles of ignorance and barbarism, folly and superstition, to the great reward of full success. Such success is often the only reward which these good deeds secure to the man of peace and the agent of civilization. He may win the approbation and the confidence of his employers, but I only utter a threadbare common-place, when I add that a brilliant charge of horse, or an assault on a petty fortress, will secure for him more popular renown, and achieve for him, by the unpremeditated act of a casual half hour, more honorary distinction than can be acquired by years of philanthropic toil."

Here we must reluctantly dismiss a book upon which we would willingly dwell at much greater length. But the exactions of space are as inexorable as the exactions of the Great Mogul himself.

165

A RAILWAY INCIDENT.

BY ONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

I HATE railway travelling! Pardon the strength of the expression. To me the pleasure and excitement of a journey no longer exist: both have vanished with macadamised roads, and mailcoaches. True, the former were dusty, especially in July: but have you no chances of ophthalmia by rail? Are there no sharp particles flying into your eye at the rate of thirty miles an hour, including stoppages; and is there not a sting, a pungency, a piercingness, about railway dust, for which the old highway commodity affords no parallel? Twenty-four hours to London certainly was a " toil of a pleasure," there is no denying that. But if the toil is now happily got rid of, I appeal confidently to every traveller of taste, if I am not right in asserting that the pleasure has gone with it?

How pleasant, some fourteen or twenty years ago (for my railway grievance is not of much longer standing), was a journey through some of the rural districts of old England! There were the turnings and windings of the grass-bordered highway, every one of which presented you with some new view, or fresh aspect of the old; the stately park-like trees which here and there overshadowed it; then, the ruin in the valley, how it seemed to flit before you, now on the one side, then on the other, disclosing its beautiful details of arch, gallery, and ivy-braced tower, till at length, suddenly lost sight of, a sharp turn of the road, brought you under its time-stained walls, and, for a moment, you glided noiselessly over the green turf whence they sprang. Then a cheerful blast of the horn, or haply bugle-notes, that rang out in sharp echoes; and, dashing over the steep bridge, apparently constructed for the express purpose of sousing all the "outsides" into the stream, a fate from which miracle or first-rate coachmanship alone saved you-you cantered jauntily into the little country town, to the admiration of all the loungers about that most seductive inn-door, and the supreme delight of John himself, who is acutely alive to the unqualified approbation excited by his turn-out. A sentiment which is admirably depicted in the broad grins that greet his arrival; while the occupants of sundry blue bed-gowns and scarlet petticoats, suspend their labours of eternally washing something or other at their door-steps, to turn up their hard-lined, impassive faces, and gaze at the vehicular pageant as it rushes by. The Red Lion creaked invitingly as you entered the porch; and, rejoicing in the security of your half hour for dinner, you made known your wishes for that most attractive of "rural messes," ham and eggs, with an inward longing, to which delicacy alone prevented you giving vocal expression, to add, "for two!" Then you strolled to the close-shaven, well-enclosed bowling-green, whose

verdant level agreeably bounds the view, right through the house, to enjoy the sunset till your repast was ready. That was enjoyment; and business was done into the bargain, every whit as well, as though you had clattered along at the heels of an unseemly steam-engine, and seen nothing worth looking at by the

way.

There was an idea of unity, a oneness about a stage-coach, the attainment of which is simply impossible to half a quarter of a mile of carriages, headed, and perhaps followed to boot, by a snorting locomotive: and then with how fraternal a spirit you regarded the rest of the four "insides." With what kindly compassion you remarked the ill-made sandwiches with which your companion opposite had been furnished by some unconscientious hireling; and with what a thrill of humanity you tendered him your own delicate parallelograms of most savoury contents, prepared for you by one of your own household, dear, “silly, womankind!" and of whose existence and uses, in your utter abjuration of lunches en route, you are alone reminded by your neighbour's wretchedness. Meet him in a railway carriage, and you absolutely feel a savage pleasure in seeing him, after repeated and vain attempts upon the gristly refection, fling the whole through the window with a growl of malediction, dedicated alike to the artist who had perpetrated so unworkmanlike an affair, and such a mode of travelling as renders the loss irreparable. No, it is utterly, and for ever impossible that the sympathies which are required to embrace three hundred individuals can be as intense as when they are brought to a focus upon halfa-dozen! And then, the box-seat! What mere mortal can adequately unfold its marvellous delights. One, two, three-at each step you seem to shake off some of the littlenesses of humanity; till, finally perched upon its proudest height, you become sensible of a rapidly increasing contempt for all men and things beneath; culminating in so settled and sublime a composure as enables you serenely, and without feeling discomposed at their awkwardness, to drive over old women, and children, and donkey-carts, and even to jerk elderly gentlemen out of their ridiculous tilburies into quickset hedges: which, by the way, come the worse off of the two, their budding hopes being utterly crushed beneath the weight of incumbent humanity. Other things may be "great;" but your "four-in-hand " is "glorious."

My last experience of this delectable position, passive though not active, was one of thorough enjoyment; the more so, perhaps, that it was unpremeditated, for slight symptoms of a wet day had half induced me to bestow myself snugly inside. However, being always weather wise at the sea-side, I concluded that it would turn out fine. And fine it was; one of the most brilliant specimens of an April day, with the exception of its showers; the dull, lowering morning issuing in an evening of such varied cloud and sunshine, as I have rarely seen, and which imparted an extreme, albeit illusive beauty, to a bleak sandy coast; the beach, whence the tide had retreated, leaving innumerable miniature lakes in its

shelvings, and sinuosities, glowing with a hazy purple hue, amid which the little pools gleamed like gold. The cliff to the north, torn, ragged, and abrupt, stood out boldly to the light; its deep brown sides stained with many tints by the streams that trickled from the high land; while, to the south, a faint blue line, visible above the horizon, indicated the Welsh mountains. The former we left behind, our road skirting the sea, and almost on its level, for a short distance. It was in a quiet part of the country-a corn-growing district, innocent of tall chimneys, and night- and day-working steam-engines, which, in some of the northern parts of England, disfigure the most beautiful and picturesque scenery. Here, innumerable windmills attracted the eye of the spectator.

I have called it an April day; but, in fact,

"'T was April, as the bumpkins say,

The Legislature called it May."

And, indeed, the two months might well have squabbled as to which of them might justly claim the honour of having produced it.

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The first few miles of our journey lay on and near the barren coast, where sand alternated with stunted herbage, and the slender wiry plant that binds together the light shifting undulations. In some places, where cultivation had bestowed its patient toil, were scattered groups of such trees as best stand the keen salt blast: the hardy willow, the fir, and sundry others, that, familiar though they are to my eye, I must with shame confess I am not arborologist enough to name: all, by their invariable slant in one direction, landwards, bearing witness to the strength and constancy of the ocean-scented gale" that sweeps over them, searing the tender buds that first struggle into tardy verdure. Dull, flat, and monotonous, the scene yet had its attractions beneath the deeptoned sunshine that now gave grace and beauty to the most insignificant portions of it. (How beautiful in such a light is a bit of broken clay-bank crested with short green turf!) The vapours that, during the early part of the day, had rested heavily on the earth, were now dispersed, until atmosphere (in artistic phrase) there was absolutely none; so crisp, so intensely clear was all around. Presently, low white cottages were seen here and there amid a tuft of sheltering trees, under whose screen gay flowers were clustered. While the neatly-kept kitchen-garden, well stocked with vegetables, and the bright milk-pails (arranged for present use, as I guessed from seeing a formidable pair of horns at the other side of the hedge!), gave pleasing evidence of the cheerful industry of their inmates: some specimens of whom presented themselves to our view, in the form of small urchins, the shape and colour of a brick; so square and red were these "sons of the soil." In the distance a range of sand-hills allowed occasional glimpses of the "burnished waters" that rolled beyond them; and whose ceaseless booming, growing faint and fainter as our course inclined to the interior, fell not unharmoniously upon the ear.

VOL. XXXIV.

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