in May, 1807, celebrated by a concourse of about a hundred thousand persons, and gives an extract from his journal descriptive of the orgies, which were exactly of the same quality as those at the grand temple in Orissa.

THE FUNERAL PILE.

From the performances of the temple, Dr. Buchanan passes to those of the funeral pile; and adds one more to the many descriptions which have not even yet, by familiarity with the subject, cured us of wonder:

"A horrid tragedy was acted, on the 12th instant (September, 1807) near Barragore, a place about three miles from Calcutta, A Koolin Brahmin died at the advanced age of ninety-two. He had twelve wives; and three of them were burned alive with his dead body. Of these three, one was a venerable lady, having white locks, who had been long known in the neighbourhood. Not being able to walk, she was carried in a palanquin to the place burning; and was then placed by the Brahmins on the funeral pile. The two other ladies were younger; one of them was of a very pleasing and interesting countenance. The old lady was placed on one side of the dead husband, and the two other wives laid themselves down on the other side; and then an old Brahmin, the eldest son of the deceased, applied his torch to the pile, with unaverted face. The pile suddenly blazed, for it was covered with combustibles; and this human sacrifice was complete, amidst the din of drums and cymbals, and the shouts of Brahmins."

THE FIRST PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES.

From these abominations, our author turns gladly to contemplate the moral condition of a favoured portion of the same race in the southern parts of the peninsula.— At Tranquebar he indulged the pensive, but elevating emotions which every man of high Christian ambition would feel at beholding, placed near together in one church, the sepulchres of the first Protestant missionaries, Ziegenbalg and Grundler. A few days after he entered Tanjore, he heard for the first time the name of Swartz pronounced by a Hindoo; and was received with friendly politeness by the Rajah,-a considerably intelligent man,

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as it should seem, but a melancholy illustration of human nature and of the power of error: for neither a long friendly intercourse with Swartz, nor a deep veneration for his memory, have availed to withdraw him from the worship of an object which Dr. Buchanan thus describes :

"On the following day, I went to view the Hindoo Temples, and saw the great BLACK BULL of Tanjore. It is said to be of one stone, hewn out of a rock of granite; and so large that the temple was built around it. While I surveyed it, I reflected on the multitude of natives who, during the last hundred years, have worshipped this idol."

Dr. Buchanan preached, in English, in Swartz's pulpit :

"After this service was ended, the congregation of Hindoos assembled in the same church, and filled the aisles and porches. The Tamul service commenced with some forms of prayer, in which all the congregation join with loud fervour. A chapter of the Bible was then read, and a hymn of Luther's sung. After a short extempore prayer, during which the whole congregation knelt on the floor, the Rev. Dr. John delivered an animated discourse in the Tamuel tongue. Many persons had the Ollas in their hands, writing the sermon in the Tamuel short-hand. Mr. Cohloff assured me, that some of the elder students and catechists would not lose a word of the preacher, if he spoke deliberately."

The contrast between this and the scene at Juggernaut is more consummately perfect than anything the powers of fiction could have created. And this is the difference at two points on the same line of coast, effected among a people substantially alike at the beginning of that century, at the close of which there has been, among pretended Christians in England, a loud and prolonged cry for the suppression of the peaceful efforts for converting more of such people as those at Juggernaut, into such people as these in Tanjore. The author was gratified by everything he saw and heard among this pure and amiable section from the vast and degraded population of India-excepting their distress. from the insufficient supply of teachers and bibles, and the deficiency of pecuniary means for extending Christian knowledge, through the medium of schools and other modes of instruction, further into the country. Mr. Kohloff stated,

that there were "upwards of ten thousand Protestant Christians belonging to Tanjore and Tinavelly districts. alone, who had not among them one complete copy of the bible; and that not one Christian perhaps in a hundred had a New Testament; and yet there are some copies of the Tamul Scriptures still to be sold at Tranquebar; but the poor natives cannot afford to purchase them."

THE MALAYAN ARCHIPELAGO.

Our author's observations are directed, in the next place, to the grand field opening to Christian enterprise and hope in the Malayan Archipelago, where, in consequence of our recent successes against the Dutch, the great islands, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Celebes, with various inferior ones, and also the peninsula of Malacca, have acquired a claim to receive from English intelligence and Christianity the illumination to which, it may be hoped, the knowledge already imparted by the Dutch is but the dawn.

"What a noble field here opens to the view of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and of the Bible Society! 'One hundred thousand Malay Bibles will not suffice to supply the Malay Christians.""

PARENTS EATEN BY THEIR CHILDREN.

It is to be understood that the Christianized Malays constitute but a diminutive proportion of the population of this Archipelago, and the author dwells strongly on the almost incredible barbarism of the nations in the interior of these islands-citing Dr. Leyden's account, that among the Batta tribes in Sumatra it is an approved custom, that "When a man becomes infirm and weary of the world, he invites his own children to eat him, in the season when salt and limes are cheapest. He then ascends a tree, round which his friends and offspring assemble, and, as they shake the tree, join in a funeral dirge, the import of which is 'The season is come-the fruit is ripe-and it must descend.' The victim descends, and those who are nearest and dearest

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to him deprive him of life, and devour his remains in a solemn banquet."

THE SYRIAN CHRISTIANS.

6

be;

The Syrian Christians of Malayala,* are the subject of a large and very interesting portion of the volume. When the Portuguese, about three centuries since, reached India, they were surprised and pleased at finding more than a hundred Christian Churches on the Malabar coast. But their pleasure was turned into indignation, on discovering that these Christians were desperate schismatics and heretics, being entirely ignorant of the Pope, and refusing to acknowledge him after this ignorance had been kindly removed by their European brethren. They had "For 1,300 years past enjoyed a succession of Bishops appointed by the Patriarch of Antioch. We,' said they, 'are of the true faith, whatever you from the West may for we come from the place where the followers of Christ were first called Christians.'" Their simplicity and obstinacy, however, underwent the discipline of the Inquisition-its fires not omitted-as soon as the Portuguese had gained sufficient strength to establish it at Goa. This rigour failing to effect the object, was, after a while, tempered down into a sort of conciliation, which condescended to a compromise by which the sovereignty of the Pope was acknowledged, and a portion of the Romish ritual admitted, but the ancient liturgy of the Syrians retained, and in the native language-though with very great difficulty, and not without a purgation of its errors by a popish archbishop. The posterity of these Christians are the present Roman Catholics of Malabar.

But no art or force availed to reduce to this subjection the Christians residing at a distance from the coast. They preferred even abandoning their homes, taking refuge among the mountains, and throwing themselves on the protection of the native heathen princes. Their descendants have remained chiefly in the most secluded districts of the country, and have been so little heard of for two hundred years,

"Malay-ala is the proper name for the whole country of Travancore and Malabar, comprehending the territory between the mountains and the sea, from Cape Comorin to Cape Illi or Dilly. The language of these extensive regions is called Malayalim, and sometimes Malabar."

that even the existence of such a people has been sometimes called in question. Dr. Buchanan resolved to find them out, investigate their literature and history, collect some of their biblical manuscripts, and endeavour to engage them in translations. This journey was permitted by the Rajah of Travancore, in whose dominions they reside. There is no attempting any abstract of the relation of the Doctor's visits to a considerable number of the churches, his conversations with their clergy, and his inspection of their books. It abounds throughout with the most curious particulars. At the first church, which is in the vicinity of the Romish Christians, and in which he found some defect of simplicity owing to that circumstance, he was received with a degree of suspicion, from the recollection of the visits they had often received from popish emissaries, on purposes appropriate to that character-and, from a strange persuasion, the Doctor says, that the English, too, are of the popish church. They were reconciled after a little intercourse, and an amicable debate with the priests ensued, on the question whether the Gospels were first written in Syriac, of which they maintained the affirmative. At the next church, that of Chinganoor, he was struck with the appearance of one of the strongest practical effects of Christianity, the free condition and unaffected dignity of the women. The general air of poverty and depression was explained by complaints of the tyranny of the native princes, and of the extinction of the former glory of the Syrian church. He answered with a consolatory assurance that "the glory of a Church could never die if it preserved the Bible.' At Cande-nad, Dr. Buchanan was introduced to Mar Dionysius, the Metropolitan of the Syrian Church; with whom he had several interesting conversations, in which they discussed a topic of no small delicacy, the advantages of some kind of union between the English and Syrian episcopacy. This discussion had been preceded by one with several priests, who reported the argument to the bishop, on the still more delicate question of the channel through which the English Church has derived from the Apostles the power of Ordination. It appears to have been with a considerable effort of resolution that he plainly acknowledged that channel to be, that very Church which had sent to these Malabar Christians