they change every seven or eight minutes, and thus require double the number actually engaged. The spare men run beside the others, and so rest. They were busy girding for the journey. A piece of coarse, half bleached calico, several yards long, and about one and a half broad, is produced; a man stands at either end; it is doubled to about half a yard's breadth; then the one to be girded passes his own end about his person, and, turning round and round, winds it up on his waist as in factories they do on a roller, the other holding with all his might to secure its tightness. This preliminary accomplished, they are ready at a moment's warning. Each set of bearers has a musaljee, a gentleman bearing in one hand a tin vessel, like a small gasometer, with a spout, and, in the other, an instrument which at first sight you are ready to imagine a cigar, intended for some illustrious Brobdignag. The vessel, you learn, contains oil, and the monster cigar is a flambeau, which, though looking very like tobacco, is composed of rags tightly rolled together into one hard stick of about three feet long, and several inches round. On the end of this he pours a quantity of oil, ignites it, fans it by running, till it flings on the pathway a broad and brilliant light. He feeds it with fresh oil, as regularly as a student snuffs his candle; while its hardness is such as to secure its lasting through the night. This custom beautifully illustrates the parable of the ten virgins, as showing the folly of neglecting to take "oil in their vessels with their lamps."

Then there were the Caverdi coolies, each man with two tin boxes painted green, and shaped like a wooden bee-hive, but rather larger. These contain the travelling wardrobe, and are suspended from either end of a long bamboo lath, which the coolie places on his bare shoulder, and trots after the palankeen with one box swinging before and the other behind. The bearers also have coolies of their own, who carry in similar style a pyramid of round black earthenware pots, which constitute their itinerant kitchen. For, being particular in caste matters, they will not eat any food unless cooked in their own vessels. Shortly after night, the flambeaux were lighted, the coolies took up their loads, the bearers stood round their palankeens, and the completion of the multiform preparations was announced. Taking leave of our fellow-voyager, Mr. Pope, who was appointed to stay in Madras, and of our other kind friends, we each repaired to his own unsocial vehicle. We were hoisted from the ground; Bay-din, bay-din, shouted the head bearer of the foremost palankeen, in a loud recitative; and in a few minutes the flash of torch-light, and the song of four dozen voices, announced our progress along the "Great Western" road to Bangalore.

The example of the munificent usurper Shir has not been wholly lost on our Indian Government. He was a father to travellers; ordered that they should be entertained at the public expense, built caravanseras from the Bay of Bengal to the Indus, planted the road with trees to shade them, dug wells every two miles to refresh them, and erected splendid mosques to prompt and accommodate their devotions.* The religious part of these princely arrangements was not likely to find imitators in our authorities;

* Mill's "History of British India," by Wilson, vol. ii., p. 328. It is a remarkable proof of the civilization of his Government, that about the middle of the sixteenth century he established a post system, by means of horses, "for the more rapid conveyance of intelligence to Government, and for the accommodation of trade and correspondence."

but they have conferred on travellers an invaluable boon by the erection of bungalows at convenient distances, along the most frequented roads. Bungalow is the term invariably used in India to designate a house of one story, built after the style adopted by Europeans. In those provided for the benefit of the wayfaring, you find a table, half a dozen chairs, and an old pensioned sepoy, who, gracefully combining the native obeisance with our military salute, makes a profound salaam, and proffers his services to obtain any requisite articles of food. Of these he presents you with a list provided by authority, with prices affixed, to prevent imposition. You are amused to find a sheep stated at a rupee, (two shillings,) and one of an inferior order at fourteen annas, one and ninepence. The sheep of the Carnatic are small and lean, without a particle of wool, the hide being just like that of a calf; but their mutton is tolerably good. Almost every day during a journey a deputation from the bearers, after very low salaams, present a request for seep: the gift is not near so much as would be paid to coachmen and guards at home for a night's travelling; but it is not claimed as a right, only sought as a favour, and, when granted, they go away as pleased as school-boys with a holiday.

Before daylight we were deposited in the verandah of the bungalow at Streepermatoor, about twenty-seven miles from Madras. By sunrise the coolies had arrived with the changes of raiment, and culinary apparatus ; the sepoy was in attendance; milk and eggs were procured, and we lacked nothing whereby to make comfortable the hours which the heat of the sun compelled us to pass under shade. During the day the sepoy laid on the table a small box containing books, all of which we found to be of a valuable and religious character. This laudable custom is frequent in the bungalows; and I never saw one of those little libraries that did not bear marks of having been well read. It is true that in some places there are unseemly records of distaste for such literature. I recollect one poetical effusion complaining that they were

"Too dull to read, too good to tear."

But who can tell the benefit that may accrue even to a traveller of this temper, from his consenting to relieve the ennui of an idle, hot day in a lonely bungalow, by reading a chapter of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress,” or of James's "Anxious Inquirer ?"

The country around answered ill to the descriptions which authors delight to give of India. But it would be well for readers of travels to remember that the popularity of a book depends far more on eloquence than accuracy. When looking on the tame flats and patches of brown copse about Streepermatoor, it was hard to believe that this was the Ind of history, fable, and song:-the country by whose transit-commerce the isolated Tyre rose to such fame; and “Tadmor in the wilderness," Solomon's "city of store," into that proud Palmyra which, though sand-girt and without territory, rivalled the first capitals of earth, subdued Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, won from Gallienus the right to array its Prince in imperial purple, and, under a woman's leadership, tried well the strength of Rome, though directed by the warlike Aurelian :-the country from whose surplus treasures Alexandria, Genoa, and Venice derived their splendour;* whence Sheabeddin is said to have carried a booty of three thou

* See Robertson's "Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India."

great kingdoms of Europe, and boasting an army of above seventy thousand

men.

The climate of Madras is hot, the thermometer often rising to 100° in the shade; sometimes being known to reach 110°; and in the coldest night of winter not falling below 65°. But, as the absence of marshy ground prevents those exhalations so deadly in the tropics, and as the wide Bay of Bengal both protects it on the east from all noxious influences, and serves to fan its inhabitants by cool, refreshing gales, there is greater salubrity than in many a more temperate place; and not a few "old Indians" prefer it, with all its heat, to the cooler regions of the Mysore. The most unpleasant part of the year is in the month of May, when the sun is vertical; and, concurrently with this, a wind from the west brings all the heated air of the peninsula in a scorching current, feeling like a furnace-blast, and producing a disagreeable irritation of the skin, known by the name of "prickly heat;" so that to drink a cup of tea subjects you to a sensation like the simultaneous prick of a thousand needle-points. It is a familiar fact, that wherever two portions of atmosphere are at different temperatures, the dense air of the cooler region will press in upon the space occupied by the lighter air of the heated one; as every one knows who has ever sat at the window of a crowded place of worship, or other warm room. Now, as this principle acts equally on the large scale as on the small, its effects are very observable in the winds which prevail in those regions of the earth where climate is not subject to endless vicissitudes, but annually exhibits its phases with little variation. Thus at Madras, when, shortly after the summer solstice, the lands to the north become greatly heated, the winds naturally tend in that direction, and thus the westerly gale becomes south-west, which wind brings from the Indian Ocean immense quantities of rain, the clouds carrying which break against the western Ghauts, or are expended on the table-lands of the Mysore, transmitting only occasional showers as far as Madras. Again, after the autumnal equinox, the regions lying southward become more heated, and the consequent rarefaction of the atmosphere in that direction demands a supply from the north. To meet this, vast currents of air rush southward, and, receiving in their course the natural trade-wind direction, blow from the north-east, and burst upon Madras, in the month of October, with terrific effect. The barometer falls half an inch, the air becomes still and oppressive, portentous clouds load the sky, and the monsoon opens thunder, lightning, and rain, which far surpass anything witnessed be yond the tropics; while the wind beats fearfully, and the roaring of the surf makes wrathful interchange with the peals of thunder. For more than six weeks there is a succession of such storms, with bright intervals; and then succeeds a period of dry, clear, and, for Madras, cool, weather. So accurately is the commencement of this season of tempests reckoned on, that, on the 15th of October, the flag-staff at the Fort is annually struck, as a warning to ships in the Roads, that their anchorage is no longer safe; and when any are hardy enough to delay their escape for a day or two, they not unfrequently suffer shipwreck for their temerity. Besides these unfailing annual phenomena, God has made a daily provision for moderating the temperature of those sun-burnt shores. The sea does not absorb heat so rapidly as the land; consequently, under the sun's rays, the atmosphere of the latter becomes warmer, and thus the denser air of the sea presses in upon the land, causing an agreeable current, known by the name of the sea-breeze, which rises before noon, and blows steadily till the day

with

has spent its sultriness, and evening cools the land. Again: the land radiates its heat more rapidly than the sea, and thus, in the sun's absence, sinks to a lower temperature; so that its atmosphere, in turn, becomes cooler, consequently more dense, and so presses out upon the sea, making what is called the land-breeze, which rises about midnight, and blows from the shore till morning. These arrangements of divine Providence beautifully exemplify the truth, that God "rejoices in the habitable parts of his earth, and his delights are with the sons of men." Did he not care that the earth should be peopled, and that men should live in comfort, how differently might he have arranged the distribution of land and sea, and so rendered whole continents, if habitable at all, the arid nursery of a miserable and complaining population! We find that, in traversing the surface of the globe, the equator wholly escapes the great continents of Asia and Europe, crosses Africa and America at points where the breadth of the land suddenly decreases, and touches no great island but Borneo and Sumatra. Thus by far the greater portion of the earth's surface included by the tropics exposes to their torrid heats, not the habitable plains, which drought would desolate, but the pathless and homeless sea, whose waters yield to the same influence those abundant evaporations which serve to fertilize the land that our Father's hand has gathered beneath milder skies. By this gracious arrangement the continents are both saved from destructive heat, and provided with copious irrigation. But were it otherwise,― were the great continents spread around the torrid zone, and the oceans now so beneficially occupying that region transferred to their present site, then the aggregation of such masses of land beneath tropical suns would engender a heat, in all likelihood, destructive to animal life; while, on the other hand, the waters, acted on by more languid suns, would have but a slow evaporation, and, consequently, the supplies of rain become scanty, as the necessity for their profuseness increased. Under such a distribution,

extreme heat and defective moisture must induce wide-spread sterility, and if not destroy, at least sorely embitter, all existence. The same benign wisdom is also manifested in the allocation of the great ranges of the Mountains of the Moon, the Himalaya, and Andes, in those parts of the three continents where the copious rains and large rivers, which they attract and originate, are most necessary to constitute the adjacent countries "habitable parts." In our favoured clime these reflections are not so likely to arise, as where the blaze of fiery suns, "in a hot and copper sky," makes one feel that if Providence had not provided means to "abundantly water the earth," life must shortly languish. There the eye is far more open to the records, and the ear to the voice, by which nature proclaims the mercies of her Author. The bright testimony, "God is love," is seen equally emblazoned on ocean and plain. The trees of the field clap their hands, the floods lift up their voice," even "the mountains and hills break forth into singing," and all creation speaks eloquently of His wisdom and grace from whom it sprang.

CHAPTER III.THE JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY.

ABOUT Sunset on the 27th of August, on the compound, or grass-plat, in front of Mr. Crowther's house stood four palankeens, looking like dwarf omnibuses dismounted. About fifty natives, with dusky skins, and drapery of tarnished white, surrounded them. These consisted of four sets of bearers, each numbering twelve; for, though only six carry at a time,

they change every seven or eight minutes, and thus require double the number actually engaged. The spare men run beside the others, and so rest. They were busy girding for the journey. A piece of coarse, half bleached calico, several yards long, and about one and a half broad, is produced; a man stands at either end; it is doubled to about half a yard's breadth; then the one to be girded passes his own end about his person, and, turning round and round, winds it up on his waist as in factories they do on a roller, the other holding with all his might to secure its tightness. This preliminary accomplished, they are ready at a moment's warning. Each set of bearers has a musaljee, a gentleman bearing in one hand a tin vessel, like a small gasometer, with a spout, and, in the other, an instrument which at first sight you are ready to imagine a cigar, intended for some illustrious Brobdignag. The vessel, you learn, contains oil, and the monster cigar is a flambeau, which, though looking very like tobacco, is composed of rags tightly rolled together into one hard stick of about three feet long, and several inches round. On the end of this he pours a quantity of oil, ignites it, fans it by running, till it flings on the pathway a broad and brilliant light. He feeds it with fresh oil, as regularly as a student snuffs his candle; while its hardness is such as to secure its lasting through the night. This custom beautifully illustrates the parable of the ten virgins, as showing the folly of neglecting to take "oil in their vessels with their lamps."

Then there were the Caverdi coolies, each man with two tin boxes painted green, and shaped like a wooden bee-hive, but rather larger. These contain the travelling wardrobe, and are suspended from either end of a long bamboo lath, which the coolie places on his bare shoulder, and trots after the palankeen with one box swinging before and the other behind. The bearers also have coolies of their own, who carry in similar style a pyramid of round black earthenware pots, which constitute their itinerant kitchen. For, being particular in caste matters, they will not eat any food unless cooked in their own vessels. Shortly after night, the flambeaux were lighted, the coolies took up their loads, the bearers stood round their palankeens, and the completion of the multiform preparations was announced. Taking leave of our fellow-voyager, Mr. Pope, who was appointed to stay in Madras, and of our other kind friends, we each repaired to his own unsocial vehicle. We were hoisted from the ground; Bay-din, bay-din, shouted the head bearer of the foremost palankeen, in a loud recitative; and in a few minutes the flash of torch-light, and the song of four dozen voices, announced our progress along the "Great Western" road to Bangalore.

The example of the munificent usurper Shir has not been wholly lost on our Indian Government. He was a father to travellers; ordered that they should be entertained at the public expense, built caravanseras from the Bay of Bengal to the Indus, planted the road with trees to shade them, dug wells every two miles to refresh them, and erected splendid mosques to prompt and accommodate their devotions.* The religious part of these princely arrangements was not likely to find imitators in our authorities;

*Mill's "History of British India," by Wilson, vol. ii., p. 328. It is a remarkable proof of the civilization of his Government, that about the middle of the sixteenth century he established a post system, by means of horses, "for the more rapid conveyance of intelligence to Government, and for the accommodation of trade and correspondence."