by view of THE FUTURE which promises, before many months are over, to bring Australia within four weeks' reach of India, through "the mighty agency of steam." It is not alone then to the intending permanent settler, the Indian resident whose failing health, narrow means, and severed family-and perhaps hopelessness either of his own return home, or of making due provision for his children after him, may be weighing him down body and spirit in this uncongenial climate,—that the subject must be interesting here; but also to the occasional visitor-to the very many, who whether in quest of health, amusement, or science, will find in those scenes, soon to be comparatively near at hand and easy of access, more attraction than in any other quarter to which Indian travellers can now by any possibility

resort.

Based as the Otago Scheme obviously is on the soundest principles of religion and philanthropy-all its arrangements apparently planned with most admirable caution, intelligence, and foresight-its actual execution under the immediate control and conduct of men, whose character, experience, and position have already secured for them the confidence of the Government and the admiration of their country-the success of this noble undertaking does appear to us, under God's blessing, to be inevitable. The solitary place will be glad for them; it will rejoice at their coming; it will blossom abundantly. And the day may now be looked forward to, when these fertile but hitherto untrodden wastes shall teem with a population not only glorying in their British name and pedigree-and not only inheriting from their immediate progenitors a territory yielding beneath a bracing sky all the material bounties of heaven, but richer far in the heritage bequeathed to them, of Civil and Religious Institutions, rooted as it were in their very soilidentified, from the first and for ever, with their social and political existence--the surest safeguards of all that constitutes true national greatness or individual happiness.

ART. VI.-1.-A Sketch of Assam; the Hill tribes. By an officer, in the pany's Bengal Native Infantry in civil trations from Sketches by the Author. 1847.

with some account of Honorable E. I. Comemploy. With illusSmith, Elder and Co.

2. Simla; by Captain George Powell Thomas, of the 64th Bengal Native Infantry. Dickenson and Co. 1846.

3. Military Service and Adventures in the Far East, including sketches of the campaigns against the Affghans in 1839 and the Sikhs in 1845-46. Ollier. 1847.

4. Recollections of Four years' Service in the East, with II. M.'s 40th Regiment. By J. M. B. Neill, Captain, 40th Regiment. Bentley.

5. Six views of Kote Kangra and the surrounding country; sketched on the spot, by Lieut. Colonel Jack, 50th Regiment N. I. Smith, Elder and Co. 1847.

6. Briefe aus Indien, &c. (letters from India; by Dr. W. Hoffmeister, Physician in the suite of Prince Waldemar of Prussia; edited by Dr. A. Hoffmeister. Brunswick. Westermann. 1847.

;

WE purpose in this article to say as little as possible for ourselves. It is not our intention to offer a dissertation of our own upon any set subject; but to introduce to our readers, where introduction is necessary, the works whose titles we have above transcribed, not as mere "make-believes," or even as so many pegs whereon to hang our own excellent wisdom but a bonâ fide half-dozen of genuine books placed before us for actual review. With one-half of these the reader can have made no previous acquaintance, before this number of our journal passes into circulation; with the other half he will not, we are sure, be sorry to have his acquaintance refreshed. With one exception they are the works of Indian officers. Nay, indeed, we are not sure that we ought to make even this one exception; for the officers of the Indian army will ever regard as a brother, one who, though not an Englishman by birth, fell on the field of battle amongst Englishmen, and was immortalised in an English Gazette.

And as far as these volumes are illustrative of Military Life and Adventure in the East, we purpose to let them speak for themselves. The lights and shadows of Indian life are here set forth in striking contrasts-scattered too over a wide surface; from Assam to Istaliff. Let us start from the former place. The Assam officer has presented us with a volume,

handsome enough in all externals-handsomely printed, handsomely bound, and handsomely illustrated. But it has other and higher claims to consideration. It is a book at once amusing and instructive-full of information conveyed in a pleasant, unaffected style, and presenting upon the surface many characteristic traces of the true soldier-cheerful, patient, manly, full of hope and full of courage. It is no secret, we believe, that Captain Butter is the author of this book. He was at Mynpúrí, with his regiment, at the close of 1840, when he received the appointment of second-in-command to the Assam Light Infantry; and started in a budgerow with as little delay as possible to join his new staff-corps.

6

Our Assam Light Infantry officer had spent some time at Gowalparah in 1837; and here he touched in 1840, on his way to join his appointment. "An absence (interval) of three years," he says," had produced few changes in the con⚫dition of the people or the appearance of the buildings, excepting in the house I formerly occupied, which had been suffered to become a heap of ruins. One vestige of the débris, however, gratified my self-love. A little glass windowframe, made with my own hands, still survived the destruction of time and the elements, and vividly recalled to memory the difficulty I had overcome in endeavouring to ⚫ admit light into my little dwelling. Such a luxury as window glass being unknown at the remote station, I had purchased some of the small looking glasses which always abound in the Indian bazars, and removing the quicksilver, converted them into window panes." The pursuit of comfort under difficulties, indeed! In a country where the luxury of glasswindows is not denied to the poorest cottager, this passage may excite some surprise; here it will excite sympathy. Who does not know the value set upon a house "with glass-windows" in a remote station-who does not know how to appreciate such an achievement as that so modestly related in the above passage? Light, it is true, is always obtainable, and the Assam officer scarcely describes the real state of affairs, when he talks of "endeavouring to admit light into his little dwelling." A hole cut in the side of a mat house will admit light enough-and more than enough; but the difficulty is to obtain light without hot wind in the dry weather, with its accompaniment of dust; and rain in the wet season. Time was when even in Calcutta glass-windows were little known; and now, we believe, that they are becoming common in the Ultima thule of Assam and ArraThat a rudely constructed glass-window should be thus appreciated, as a luxury of the first water, is a circumstance to

can.

be duly regarded by those who would form a correct estimate of the agrémens of military life in the East. And who knows, but that the future historian of Assam may not dwell upon such a circumstance with curious interest, even as we now read Mr. Shore's complaints of the want of glass-windows in Calcutta, and wonder how it was that Mr. Forbes was compelled to go to bed soon after sunset, because he could afford neither a candle nor a supper?

After passing Gowahatty our officer, not being satisfied with the progress of his budgerow, transferred himself to "a canoe formed of a single tree hollowed out." "It was," he adds, "forty-eight feet long, and three feet wide, ten feet of the length being covered in with a small mat roof as an apology for a cabin. In this I felt by no means uncomfortable, though I had only a little more room than served to enable me to lie down at full length." We might almost suspect that we are indebted to the printer for these proportions. Let any one who has a room or a verandah long enough for the purpose, step out forty-eight feet and see the length of this canoe hollowed out of a single tree. But, any how, these primitive vessels have their advantages in addition to the great one of increased speed, for they are much more secure than budgerows and pinnaces, against the perils of wind and water, being not very easily swamped or very easily capsized. But, says the traveller-a hardy stout-hearted fellow enough,-there is nevertheless "a painful sense of insecurity from the streams and rivers in many parts of Assam swarming with crocodiles;" and he adds, "I have heard that one of these amphibious monsters has been known to seize a paddler unconsciously sleeping in the front part of the boat." Pleasant fellows these crocodiles; and plenty of them. Our Assam officer tells us that, on one occasion," a heap of one hundred crocodile's eggs, each about the size of a turkey's egg, were discovered on a sand bank and brought to him." "I found on blowing them," he adds, "that they all contained a perfectly formed crocodile, about two inches long, which would have crept forth after a few days' more exposure to the sun."

Such is the population of an Indian river. Further in there are other inhabitants, with which one is equally disinclined to associate. The Assam officer on reaching his station at Saikwah ("a more desolate place," he says, "can scarcely be imagined,") set about the construction of a house. We give the account in his own words, and take the opportunity of introducing his new associates to the reader :

"A few days after my arrival at Saikwah sufficed to plaster my mat-and

grass cottage with mud, and with the assistance of the Sipahis, a chimney for a fire place was soon constructed, with bricks and mortar obtained from old buildings at Suddeah; then putting in a glass window, I was enabled, in comfort and solitariness, to pursue my usual vocations in all weathers. In this secluded retreat, every incident, however trifling in itself, acquired an importance which induced me to note it in my tablets. One one occasion, about eight o'clock at night, sitting by a snug fireside, my attention was arrested by the approach of an unwelcome visitor making his way in at the door. Taking up a candle to ascertain who or what was forcing ingress to my dwelling, I beheld a python, or boa-constrictor, about six feet long, steadily advancing towards me. In my defenceless position it may be imagined that safety depended on immediate flight; and the monster thus speedily gained entire possession of my habitation. It was, however, for a few minutes only, that he was permitted to remain the undisturbed occupant of the abode; for my servants quickly despatched the intruder with a few blows inflicted with long poles. An apothecary, who had long been attached to the Assam Light Infantry, assured me that pythons, or boa-constrictors, were very numerous in our vicinity, and of an immense size, some not being less than fifteen or eighteen feet in length. I had evidence of the truth of the statement; a skin, fifteen feet long, being subsequently brought me by the natives. I caused it to be tanned and sent to England. Small serpents were often met with. On one occasion the apothecary brought me two boa-constrictors of about four feet long, which he had found on a table curled up amongst some bottles in the same room where his children were sleeping. In all probability the lives of the infants were saved by the musquito curtains preventing access to the bed. Boa-constrictors are exceedingly fond of rats, and on this occasion they had evidently been in search of their prey.

As my cottage had not the usual white cloth ceiling suspended, insects, snakes, and vermin frequently descended from the roof into the rooms; but by keeping the house free of baggage and well swept, contact with them was avoided. The reader will suppose an Assam mat-hut to be a dreary kind of residence; but I can assure him, the logwood fire on a hearth one foot high, in the centre of the room, with a small window cut high in the wall for the escape of the smoke, is by no means devoid of cheerfulness."

The cheerfulness, perhaps, is after all more in the gallant Captain's heart. "There's nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Many a man would have growled over much better quarters than these; the Assam Light Infantry officer is made of good stuff, he looks on the bright side of the world, and finds "good in everything." A mat-hut, with a hole in the wall for the escape of the smoke, and all sorts of reptiles descending from the ceilingless roof, like the earwigs, which dropped into good Mrs. Nickleby's tea, is not primâ facie the sort of dwelling, in which one would feel much disposed to be jolly. But an Indian officer must be "equal to either fortune" -to the fortune of a palace in Chowringhi or a mat-hut in the wilds of Assam. Happy the man, who is possessed of the present writer's constitutional cheerfulness-and happy the Company which is in possession of tribes of such servants. There have, we know, been occasions, on active service,