various and beautiful trees and shrubs of these mountainous regions, I was delighted to recognize many old English friends. The oak and the rhododendron are the largest timber trees; and of the latter, which in Europe and America is a mere shrub, the beams of the Llandowr houses are formed. At this period they are covered with a luxuriant crimson flower, and their stems, as well as those of the oak, are thickly clothed with a long and hoary moss. During our descent I also discovered the cherry, pear, barberry and raspberry, which are unknown in the plains. Missouree is situated on a table-hill, and is less wooded than Llandowr: but it has greatly the advantage in point of space. We called upon Major Young, who resides here, and he obligingly furnished us with directions for hunting tigers in our progress through the Doon towards Simla. The descent we found infinitely more fatiguing than the ascent, but our nerves grew callous in proportion to our fatigue; though we were obliged to dismount in a few bad places. At Rajpore we found our gig, and drove into Deyra just in time to dress for dinner. It was a good day's work. We rode twenty-six miles, nineteen of mountain equitation, and drove seven miles.'-Mundy's Sketches, vol. i. pp. 185-190.

Thus we see that, in circumstances of such suffering and horror, that the magnanimous Jacquemont saw reason to suspect that the vengeance of offended heaven was specially aimed at him, these bêtes of English, with an awkward affectation of manliness' (vol. i. p. 92), seek for health and pleasure, and, after a good day's sport, drive home in their gigs to dress for dinner. We cannot now, for the last time, mention Captain Mundy's lively and interesting work* without requesting our readers not to judge it by the short and mutilated extracts we have made. We think it fully equal to Jacquemont's in point of amusement, and vastly above it in every other respect; and there is one very curious circumstance connected with the two works which we must notice, though we cannot explain. Captain Mundy's tour was made in 1828 and 1829, and his book published in London in 1832. Jacquemont died in the beginning of 1832, and never could have seen Captain Mundy's volumes; yet there are some remarkable passages in Jacquemont's letters which seem identical with facts stated by Captain Mundy. Any reader who will take the trouble to compare Jacquemont's account of the robbery in his tent, (vol. i. p. 214;) of the fall of his horse over a precipice, and his being caught in a tree half way down, (p. 350;) and of the residence, court, and person of the Rajah of Nahun, (p. 352,) with Captain Mundy's relation in similar words of similar accidents and circumstances occurring in the same neighbourhood-any person, we say, who will make the comparison, will, we think, see a strong similitude. Jacquemont

* Pen and Pencil Sketches of India. By Captain Mundy, late Aide-de-Camp to Lord Combermere. Second edition. 2 vols. 8vo, London. 1833.

could

could not have seen, as we have said, Captain Mundy's book, and it is impossible to believe that his editor can have interpolated such passages; yet the coincidences are curious. We are almost induced to suspect that, as Captain Mundy's adventures were of course well known at Simla, near which place they occurred, and where Jacquemont made two or three long visits as the guest of Captain Kennedy the resident there, the Frenchman may have heard the stories, and, with his usual accuracy and modesty, thought himself justified in repeating them for the amusement of his domestic circle, as having occurred to himself. It would be strange that circumstances so nearly resembling each other should have occurred to two different travellers and so nearly in the same neighbourhood.

We will pursue no further our hostile criticism on M. Jacquemont, though we are far from having exhausted the topic. We now turn to the more agreeable task of saying, that, with the drawback of his monstrous vanity and the partialities and inaccuracies which such extravagant egotism must produce, his letters are amusing, and, where his personal and national prejudices do not interfere, show considerable tact and discrimination. There is a great deal of tautology, and the same story is sometimes tediously repeated, but that is the fault not of himself, but of the form in which he writes, as he is obliged to repeat the same events to different correspondents. By the omission of some of these duplicate letters, and of those passages which offend religion and delicacy, (and these might easily have been removed,) the book would have been an agreeable, though very loose, gossip on the state of Indian mauners and society. Jacquemont seems to have had a good deal of conversational pleasantry, and the art of telling a story agreeably, though there are everywhere traces of effort and affectation. Of course our limits will not allow us to give many specimens of qualities which are in their nature rather diffuse; but, as an example, we shall select a passage which we think is in his best style :

'A few broken legs, and shattered shoulders, are so much a matter of course in Indian hunting, that none is ever undertaken without a surgeon. As for hunting lions and tigers, it is (for gentlemen I mean) a most harmless amusement, since the game is never sought on horseback, but only on an elephant. Each hunter is perched, like a witness in an English court of justice, in a strong and lofty box, fastened upon the animal's back. He has a little park of artillery near him; namely, a couple of carbines and a brace of pistols. It sometimes happens, but very seldom, that the tiger, when brought to bay, leaps on the elephant's head, but that does not concern us; it is the affair of the conductor (mahout), who is paid twenty-five francs a month, to run the risk of such accidents. In case of death, the

latter

latter has at least the satisfaction of a complete revenge, for the elephant does not play the clarionet unconcernedly with his trunk, when he feels he has a tiger for his head-dress: he does his best, and the hunter assists him with a ball point-blank. The mahout is, you see, a sort of responsible editor. Another poor devil is behind you, whose duty it is to carry a parasol over your head. His condition is still worse than that of the mahout; when the elephant is frightened, and flies from the tiger, which charges him and springs on his back, the true employment of this man is to be eaten in the gentleman's place. India is the Utopia of social order for the aristocracy in Europe, the poor carry the rich upon their shoulders, but it is only metaphorically; here it is without figure. Instead of workers and consumers, or governed and governors-the subtle distinction of European politics-in India there are only the carried and the carrying, which is much clearer.'-pp. 194, 195.

This, although the pleasantries are rather too elaborate, is lively enough—the best hit, however, that of the 'responsible editor,' will be lost upon those readers who are not versed in the modern practice of the French courts in the trials of newspaper libels.

At Loodiana, on the banks of the Sutledge, M. Jacquemont was introduced to two ex-kings of Cabul,-Shah Zeman, who had been blinded as well as dethroned; and Shah Soojah, his brother, who had also been dethroned, but escaped with his eyes still about him into the Himalaya mountains. The adventures of Shah Soojah, who, after having been twice dethroned, is now a third time a king, are of the most romantic character. They have been recorded by himself in Persian, and translated and published in the Calcutta Journals. Of the two brothers M. Jacquemont

says:

There are two ex-majesties here, who preserve the title, and before whom I did not appear without taking off my shoes; these are Shah Zeman and Shah Shaudjah his brother, formerly kings of Cabul, Afghanistan, and Cashmere; and great sovereigns twenty years ago. The British government sent them a magnificent embassy, and sought their alliance, at the period when the presence of General Gardanne, at Tehran, raised some suspicion in the cabinet of Calcutta with regard to the views, generally not very pacific, of your friend, the great man, as Courier used to say. Mr. Elphinstone, the British Ambassador, disputed for a fortnight with the Grand Master of the Ceremonies and the Chamberlain of Shah Shaudjah, about the etiquette of his presentation to the king. The latter agreed at last to exact from Mr. Elphinstone only thirty-nine bows; while he himself, the king, would show his nose at the window, the ambassador remaining with his whole suite in the court-yard, at a distance of three or four hundred paces.

His ex-majesty has the most magnificent black beard I ever saw; and I found him a very gracious personage. A pensioner on British generosity, to which, in truth, he has no claim, [we must be allowed to

smile at the coolness of Jacquemont in this description,] Shah Shaudjah lives here in freedom, but under the surveillance of the British political agent, my present host. By this officer I was conducted to a private audience of the Shah, with whom I spent an hour, conversing about Cashmere, whither I am going, and where he formerly made war, from Cabul, his country,-from his mountains, of which he spoke to me with affecting eloquence. Do you recollect that the women broke open the doors of the hotel Sinet, to see the Tunis envoy's handsome secretary? I know not what they would do if Shah Shaudjah went to Paris; the National Guard would not be sufficient to preserve public order, he is so handsome! The old emperor, Shah Zeman, who had his eyes put out, spends his time in devotion, which, however, does not prevent his having a large seraglio. He related to me his pilgrimage to Mecca, which he undertook after he became blind.'vol. i. pp. 372, 373.

Of Runjeet Sing M. Jacquemont gives the following account. It corresponds, as to essentials, with the portraiture of Burnes, and supplies some amusing traits which our countryman's gravity feared perhaps to introduce.

Lahore, March 16, 1830.-I have several times spent a couple of hours in conversing with Runjeet, de omni re scribili et quibusdam aliis. His conversation is like a nightmare. He is almost the first inquisitive Indian I have seen; and his curiosity balances the apathy of the whole of his nation. He has asked a hundred thousand questions of me about India, the British, Europe, Bonaparte, this world in general, and the next, hell, paradise, the soul, God, the devil, and a myriad of others of the same kind.

This pattern of an Asiatic king is, however, no saint: far from it. He is bound by neither law nor honour, when his interests do not enjoin him to be just or faithful; but he is not cruel. He cuts off the nose, ears, and a hand of very great criminals; but he never puts any to death. He is passionately fond of horses, quite to madness; and he carries on a murderous and expensive war against a neighbouring province, in order to obtain a horse which has been refused him either as a gift or a purchase. He has great bravery, a somewhat rare quality amongst the princes of the East; and although he has always succeeded in his military undertakings, it is by perfidious treaties and negociations alone that, from a simple country gentleman, he has become absolute king of the Punjab, Cashmere, &c., and is better obeyed by his subjects than the Mogul emperors in the zenith of their power. A Seikh by profession, a sceptic in reality, he every year pays his devotions at Umbritsir; and, what is very singular, these devotions are paid at the tombs of several Mohammedan saints; yet these pilgrimages offend none of the puritans of his own sect.

'He is a shameless scoundrel, and cares not a bit more about it than Henri III. formerly among us. It is true that, between the Indus and the Sutledge, it is not even a peccadillo to be a scoundrel. But what horribly offends the morality of these good people is, that the king, not content with the women in his own seraglio, often fancies

those

those of others; and what is worse, those which belong to everybody. In spite of the mystery which the orientals, even of the lowest class, throw over their intrigues, whether purchased or not, Runjeet has often exhibited himself to the good people of Lahore, mounted on an elephant, with a Mussulmaun courtesan.'-vol. i. pp. 395-400.

M. Jacquemont says that it was only after his entrance into the Punjab that he fully appreciated the benefit of British rule in India. Before he even reached Bengal, however, he had found: out that the colossal magnitude of English sway was a blessing;' that the British colonial institutions were admirable, as seen at the Cape,' and 'those of the French execrable as exhibited at the Isle of Bourbon' and Pondicherry; at all which places he touched on his way thither. In p. 244, vol. ii., he remarks,

It is evident that it is not by physical force that the English keep under the immense population of these vast regions. The European army consists of only 20,000 men; that is all. The principle of their power is elsewhere. It is in the respect with which their character inspires these nations.'

Even the mode in which we have obtained our paramount sway in India, for which we have been so often and so largely abused by foreigners, appears neither unjust nor wonderful in the eyes of M. Jacquemont. He remarks (p. 233)

In France, we consider as an hypocritical farce the excuse of necessity, alleged by the English, for the prodigious aggrandisement of their Asiatic dominions; nothing, however, is more true, and certainly no European government was ever more faithful to its engagements than that of the Company.'

We believe it may be truly asserted, that in all the wars in which the British have been engaged in India, the native potentates were, more or less, the aggressors. Ambition is, in their eyes, as in the eyes of more civilized nations, a godlike virtue- super et Garamantes et Indos proferet imperium.' It is true that the Company have generally indemnified themselves for the expenses of wars, thus forced on them, by extension of territory, so as at once to reduce the strength of their adversaries and augment their own; but their policy and their interest are and have been essentially pacific. Even the most successful wars, followed by acquisitions of territory and even of money, such as those waged against Tippoo, have not ultimately enriched their treasury; whilst some hostilities, even when prosecuted to a glorious termination, such as the late war with the Burmese, have entailed upon them ruinous expense. It must be confessed, no doubt, that territory has often been acquired in a more questionable way, by compelling the native princes, to whom we have supplied subsidiary troops, to cede portions of their possessions in payment of the military entertained for their protection and defence; but