scene, as the East India Company build all their steam and war-ships there, and numbers of the native labourers are employed in their construction; they are superintended by Scotch or English engineers, and, with the aid of their instructions, the machinery of these vessels, intended chiefly for the Indian navy, is there made and put together; formerly, it was sent out in a finished state, and of course at a great expense. As the harbour of Bombay is thought to be unequalled in British India, and so favourably situated for commerce, with the advantage of its deep tide-water, most excellent docks have been constructed for the accommodation of shipping. The forests of Malabar supply them with abundance of the finest teak timber for building purposes. There are three principal entrances into the Fort; fine, handsome, military-looking gateways, with guard-houses erected over their arches, and three or four sally-ports between them, that run under the massive fortifica tions, and cross the wet moat by a narrow foot-bridge. A strong embankment outside slopes down to the esplanade. They are all closed at nine o'clock, every evening, and opened at gun-fire (day-light), in the morning. Sentries are on guard here, night and day. Bombay has long been the nursery for our native sailors and soldiers; and the sepoy is proud of the rank which he sustains in our armies of the East; but neither he nor his superior officers can entirely give up old customs and habits; and when the duties of parade are over, and they return to their barracks,

you will commonly find them squatted in the centre of the room, eating their rice and curry out of chattees. Their pay is less than that of the English soldier, but their wants are fewer in comparison. No one can find fault with this arrangement, when we consider what our countrymen have often to suffer in this burning climate, banished as they are, for a period of twenty-one years, from their own happy land.— How few, how very few are those who live to return with the regiment with which they went out! "Tis true, we hear of such and such companies arriving at Chatham and elsewhere, from India, in good health, after that length of absence; but how many of those who originally composed it are to be found in its ranks? Yet, these circumstances do not appear to daunt the British soldier. He knows his pay will be good in India, and that, with care, he may lay by a little, every year, for old age, should it please Providence to prolong his life; for the Honourable East India Company are noble pay-masters to all their servants; and we often find in their employ many of England's bravest sons. I have heard it stated, that every soldier sent out to India costs the government £25 for the voyage alone. This enormous expense, with £90 allowed to every officer, may account for the length of the period during which they are required to remain in India.

Camels, buffaloes, and other large native animals, are not permitted to be led through the streets of Bombay, as they startle the horses; but groups of

them are met with outside on the esplanade, and give a truly Eastern character to the scene. I shall, however, have occasion to allude again to this gay place, as it appears in the hot season, when every stranger and resident able to command a buggy, turns out for an hour or two's drive before dinner.

There are two or three good weekly papers published in Bombay, and the same number in the Hindoostannee language. The art of printing has made great advance here, particularly the lithographic branch, which is well adapted to Eastern languages. But it is to be lamented, that Christians should use this valuable gift, for the dissemination of such works as the Koran, &c. Since I left Bombay, an Indian paper informs me, that 15,000 copies of this work have been lately worked off and sold at two rupees a copy. Formerly, the Koran could not be purchased for less than twenty or thirty rupees.

CHAPTER III.

"Two tyrant-seasons rule the wide domain,
Scorch with dry heat, or drench with floods of rain :
Now feverish herds rush maddening o'er the plains
And cool in shady streams their throbbing veins;
The birds drop lifeless from the silent spray,
And Nature faints beneath the fiery day:
Then bursts the deluge on the sinking shore,
And teeming Plenty opens all her store."

Climates. South-west Monsoon. Mango Showers. Put your house in

Palanquins. Clearing Tents off the
Why I was called a Griffin.

The

Order. Letters and Post Men.
Esplanade. Warm Clothing.
Rains at last descend. Atmospheric changes. Appearance of the

ocean.

Awful thunder and lightning.

Nature is agitated.

The

Sun darkened. Strife of the elements. Tempest terrific to behold. Houses shaken in the Fort. The floods. Scene pregnant with horrors. Flying Bugs and hideous Spiders. A Rest for the Punkahs. What the Poor Natives suffer at this Season. A Glance from our

Bungalow.

and Fruits.

Good Works.

Wonderful changes in the Vegetable World. Flowers
Golden Oriole and Jungle Cock. Shere Khan and his
Neglect of Old Tanks. Cool Breezes and Delhi

Shawls. A Peep into the Sick Man's Chamber.
Peas. How to eat Mangoes. Poisonous Miasma.

of Cocoa-nut-Day. &c., &c.

Jellies and Sweet

Hindoo Festival Offerings to the Ocean. Farewell to the Rains,

THOSE who are familiar only with the climate of England, with its sunshine and its storms; and with

the wild aspect of its long dreary winters, when the northern districts of our island put on so early their mantle of snow, and rivers and lakes, locked up in their icy prisons, are bound together for weeks by an invisible hand-those who are accustomed to the regular variations of temperature, which, notwithstanding the frequent and sudden changes which we experience from heat to cold, give an almost decided character to the four seasons that sum up our year, can form but an imperfect idea of other lands, where the sun, for eight months out of the twelve, is scarcely shadowed by a cloud, and where frost and snow are almost unknown. Nature is boundless in her resources; and the more we inquire and examine, the more we are lost in wonder and admiration at the great scheme for carrying on so beautifully the designs of the Creator, so that seed time and harvest, summer and winter, shall still be given to man, and God's promises stand fast for ever. Though some districts of India are often left nine months together without rain, yet an ample provision has been made to counteract the ill effects of so long a drought upon a country so much exposed to a burning sun. Vegetation, which with us would speedily perish without an abundant supply of rain, is there sufficiently nourished by that moisture which plants, as they bud and blossom, and produce their fruit, have the power of hoarding up and retaining from one rainy season to another, and by the heavy dews that nightly fall upon their large, expanded leaves. Those remarkable

L