how to act, but the master, who had been inside the Sand Heads before, thought he could run the ship up till we fell in with a pilot schooner. We stood on under easy sail, heaving to occasionally to sound; a practice highly commendable when a ship is groping her way near the land in the dark, or in waters where she is but imperfectly acquainted, but which seems to have gone out of use of late among the nautical officers of the Hon. India Company's service.

Early in the morning we descried a vessel a-head, which on coming up proved to be a pilot schooner (by the bye, pilot schooners here are all brigs,) who sent a pilot on board to take charge of the ship, and by ten A.M. we we were safely moored at the new anchorage off the island of Saugur. All hands were now turned to, to find the leak, and as in the course of the search it was discovered that right under the counter dry rot had commenced its ravages, it was resolved to proceed to Calcutta with as little delay as possible, and I was ordered off to prepare accommodations for the crew while the ship might be in dock.

On the pilot's coming on board we were most anxious to obtain intelligence of the result of the Marattah campaign, which (though we were not aware of it) had been brought to a most successful termination by the political and military skill of the Governor-General. But I had ever found pilots miserably deficient in news, and those of the Ganges, though better appointed, do not in this respect excel either their sable brethren of the West India Islands, or their silent sulky tenbreeched compeers of the Scheldt or Helder.

In answer to our queries he said, that he had heard there had been sights of fighting up about the hills, but whether the Goorkah, or Garrow, or Rajmaul hills, he could not take upon himself to say. That his Lordship had beat Blacky all to nothing, and was now returning to Calcutta, where, it was said, that the people were a-going to present him with a sword, or an address, or a speechification, or something of that nature. Some said too, that there was a-going to be a praying match in the churches about it, but for himself he did not mind such things much. I observed, that from what I had heard, that was the

last demonstration of satisfaction I should have expected from the Calcutta folks, as I understood that they had but few prayers to spare upon any occasion. "Why, master," said he, "that there might have been the case once, but all that is changed now; for some time back they had got out a bishop, and a bishop's mate, and a second mate, and a Scotch padré, and what with them, and the missionaries who had come out to convert the black fellows, the people are like to become a d-d sight too sacreligious, (sanctimonious?") But notwithstanding this good gentleman's opportunities of information, and the number, zeal, and talents of their spiritual instructors, I did not quit Calcutta with any violent apprehensions of its worthy inhabitants falling into the sin of becoming righteous overmuch.

As I knew nothing of the country, I repaired on board the pilot vessel to obtain information how to proceed, and had the good luck to find three young gentlemen who had been on a cruize for the recovery of their health. They were just sitting down to tiffin, (a meal which corresponds to our lunch) and if I might judge from their appetites, had perfectly obtained the purpose of their voyage. Two of these were young civilians of the Honourable Company's service, called writers; the third was a mercantile man, who, from his Israelitish cast of features, I took for a Jew, more particularly when his companions addressed him by the style and title of Moses. But on hearing his voice, I immediately recognized the tones of my own country. It was only my ignorance of the country that could have excused this blunder as to the gentleman's nation. In Calcutta, there are no Jews (by birth,) but they are not missed, as their functions are most ably performed by the native Sircars

and European agents.

These gentlemen received me with the greatest politeness, and on hearing my errand, told me, that if I would stay and tiff with them, they would be happy to take me over to Kedgeree in a fishing-boat they had detained for that purpose, where they said they had a bungalow or budgerow, or some name of that kind, that would take us to Calcutta; after expressing my obligations, I sat down and made a meal, that, but for its name, I should have supposed to be a dinner.

The company, besides ourselves, consisted of several pilots of different ranks in that service; their acquirements seemed to be much upon a par with those of the worthy whom I left on board the frigate, except one, a tall young man, whose conversation and manners shewed that his opportunities had been much superior to those of most of his brethren, and he seemed to be perfectly conscious of that superiority. After tiffin, we proceeded across, and I found the thing of which they had spoken to be a large decked boat with a round-house abaft, which furnished most comfortable accommodations. We were hardly on board of her, when a native servant came off with his master's salaam, requesting our company to dinner. We immediately accepted, and were conducted to the house of Mr Harton of Kedgereepark, who received us more with the cordiality of an old friend, than the civility of a mere stranger; and we soon found ourselves seated at an excellent dinner. Here we met with a jolly old parson, who had come down to the sea-side to recover the effects of a bilious attack, and taken up his abode with Mr Harton. We found him a most valuable acquisitionhe was quite the life of the company. As he had come late into the vineyard, and had been a soldier in his youth," he was more a man of the world than most clergymen I have met with. It was probably owing to this circumstance that he wanted that austere and dignified carriage, so peculiarly becoming a minister of the gospel, which a residence in a university, where the highest veneration is always shewn to exalted piety and superior learning, (added, perhaps, to a strong inward consciousness of possessing in an eminent degree these good gifts) is said to have bestowed on some of his superiors in the Indian church. Notwithstanding this deficiency, however, he is a most benevolent man, and did great good among a most neglected class of his countrymen in the east, whose lowness of worldly and spiritual estate, and vulgar and disgusting vices, throw them very properly without the pale of the charity of more dignified and orthodox churchmen. We at least found the reverend gentleman a most agreeable companion; he told the drollest stories with such imperturba

ble gravity of countenance, that, but for a roguish twinkle in his eye," one might have supposed that he did not participate in the merriment which every sentence he uttered never failed to create. I since saw him in London, reading a lecture on propriety of conduct to an inebriated exquisite in the theatre, who was disturbing some ladies in the same box with him. His eloquence (though powerful) might have been unavailing, had he not concluded his homily with a gentle hint, that, in case the annoyance was repeated, he should be under the disagreeable necessity of tossing the cause of it into the pit. This argument seemed to have a wonderfully sedative effect on the rising passions of the spirited dandy.

After dinner he took off a wig, the episcopalian dimensions of which were reduced to suit it the better to the climate in which it was destined to flourish; and, hanging it on the back of his chair, he took his claret with right good will. After a very liberal allowance of which we rose to depart, but our host protested against it, as he said it was a flagrant violation of the laws of his house, informing us at the same time, that he had got beds prepared for us. To this, however, my companions objected, (much to my disappointment) that they were obliged to hurry on to Calcutta. He said, that as that was the case, he would not detain us; but, as the tide would not serve for two hours to come, it was needless to go on board yet; and, upon the word, a devill'd turkey was produced, which, after having washed down with a modicum of brandy and water, we repaired on board, feeling remarkably comfortable.

I cannot take leave of mine host, distinguished as he is for hospitality even in that hospitable country, without expressing my thanks, and those of all my messmates, for the unremitting kindness and attention he shewed us, all the time we were in the river. I may never have the happiness of expressing what I feel to himself personally; but if by any chance I should ever catch him in Rothsay, if I don't bouse up his jibb with whisky toddy as taught as any private gentleman could desire," then am I sous'd grunet." We arrived at the Chandpaul

vity in Bengal,) form the total of the whole, as Dr Hume hath it, of the domestic life of a Calcutta writer.

While these gentlemen are amusing themselves as best they may, with eulogiums on their steeds, complaints against Dr Lumsden for not allowing them to quit college before they have learned any thing they have been sent there to learn; admiring drawings, or rather daubs of horses and dogs by a Hindoo Stubbs, and French prints of a less innocent nature, I shall endeavour to give you the natural history of the animal called a writer.

Writers are the sons of families in the higher and middle ranks of life, who have interest sufficient to procure them their appointment, and in this interest consists their great, if not sole qualification, as they take their station among their brethren of the same year, according to the seniority of the director by whose patronage they were placed there; and no inattention or misconduct, short of what is sufficient to remove them entirely, can depress them one step in the books of the service; and conversely, no ability, how ever splendid, no assiduity, however unwearied, no conduct, however irreproachable, can raise them in the comparative scale in which they are unalterably fixed.

After spending a year or two at a catch-penny school, which they dignify with the title of a college, and learning not enough of Hindoostanee to hold the commonest conversation in that language, they are shipped off for the higher college of Calcutta, with this animating assurance, that they have only to behave themselves tolerably, and live long enough to arrive at the highest offices in the Honourable Company's service. A voyage of half-a-year's duration, spent in total idleness, and under no superintendance or control, to a young man, emancipated for the first time from discipline, and the salutary awe inspired by a consciousness of being in some degree under the eye of his parents and guardians, with a prospect of pleasure uncontrolled by any of the checks that thwarted them at home, forms the most appropriate prelude for their life in India. There the languor induced by the climate, and the want of incitement to industry, soon inclines them to indolence; and the example of their superiors, and appro

bation of their equals, confirm this disposition into a habit. Add to all this, an unlimited command of moneythe opinions of society forming no check upon the indulgence of the passions-the total want of religion as a guide of moral conduct; for in India it either falls off into apathy and scepticism on the one hand, or assumes the form of the most disgusting bigotry and fanaticism on the other; and the wonder will be, not that they are thoughtless and dissipated, but that they are not wholly profligate and worthless. Yet such is the power of early instruction, that I must do them the justice to say, that though prudence and propriety are rarely to be found in the list of their virtues, I have never known or heard of a single instance of one of them being guilty of a mean, dishonourable, or ungentleman-like action.

Could the honourable Court of Directors be brought to lay these truths to heart-could they be brought to sacrifice the interests of the few blockheads the service contains to the general good of the whole-could they be got to forego the unenviable prerogative of making dulness and stupidity supersede genius and intellect, and make rank and emolument the certain reward of conduct, abilities, and application, there can be no doubt that they would make the civil service of India, excellent as the materials are they have to work upon, equal to any body of men on the face of the earth.

When tiffin was announced, an immediate change took place in the visages of my friends, from languor and ennui to life and gaiety. It is not to be supposed that they were particularly hungry, but any one who has been so long at sea as I have, must know that eating supplies occupation, and drives away the listlessness of inaction; and in a country like India, where our pleasures of every kind are so very limited, those of the table, which can be enjoyed equally well as in a better climate, form a most prominent part. To this cause the tendency to gormandism, so generally observed in gentlemen long resident in the east, is to be ascribed, rather than to what people are facetiously pleased to denominate the luxuries of India; a term which must be applied in irony, as any luxuries I have ever seen there, are only

bad substitutes, procured at great expence, for what every one enjoys at home for nothing.

During the meal we had a deal of lively rattling talk, which could not be called conversation, but is to me as pleasant, and, I am ashamed to say, sometimes as edifying. The truth, since I must own it is, that I have had but few opportunities of witnessing that sharp encounter of the wits," which Dr Johnson is of opinion can alone be dignified with that title, except at the Circuit, where I once had the happiness to listen to a good deal of it, from some young Edinburgh lawyers. The subject was either politics or literature, and alternate orations, of from five to fifteen minutes duration, were made by the Whigs or Tories, much as in the House of Commons. I no longer wondered at the unrivalled eloquence of the Scottish bar, when I found that such was their zeal to acquire that talent, that even the convivial board, where others waste their time in idle chat, and heedlessly blunder out whatever comes uppermost, was by the processes of their well-dis ciplined minds-by weighing carefully every sentence before they uttered it-by using no arguments but those which, by having stood the test of ages, have come to be considered self-evident axioms-converted into a gymnasium, to train them by (wordy) warlike exercises for the real conflicts in which they were to be engaged as the champions of some oppressed client in the lists of the Parliament House.

There is another cause, I have been informed, from which this superiority arises their early education in the Edinburgh Speculative Society, a debating club where questions are given out for discussion, and parties appointed to support and oppose them after the manner in which the men of Kent make up a match at cricket. This gives them a habit of making long speeches whether they have any thing to say or not, an immense advantage in an argument, as those who have not listened (and who can command attention for three hours together) cannot impugn the reasoning. It also begets a sturdy pugnacious temper, highly conducive to logical attainments, and as the impertinent sugges

tions of their reason (if any they might happen to have) would incline them more to one side than another, the indulgence of such improper feelings is checked in the bud, and the use of brains in forming an opinion for ever after set aside.

But though I was lost in admiration of the brilliant things they uttered, so defective is my taste, that I received no great pleasure from "the feast of reason, and the flow of soul." In fact, it was like treating a ploughman to claret and olives, whose taste being brutalized by ale and gingerbread, thinks these higly flavoured luxuries insipid and nauseous. But habit reconciles every thing; and should it ever be my good fortune to reside in Edinburgh, I have no doubt but that, by a daily dose of such fare, I may come to relish it mightily, as acquired tastes are always the strongest.

But to return from this digression, on rising from the table, the company retired to sacrifice to the graces. My oblations to these goddesses taking but little time, I contented myself with bathing, and exchanging my heavy uniform for a suit of light muslin, with which one of the gentlemen was kind enough to accommodate me. But the process was by no means so simple with my friends, for on returning to the large hall where we had dined, I had full three quarters of an hour for meditation before they were ready. At last they entered in all the conscious splendour of hunting frocks, striped waistcoats, cord breeches, and top boots, which, with their well-stiffened starchers and ear-cutters, were in a style of ultra dandyism, most probably copied from the caricatures of the day, and stylish enough, but not, I should suppose, the costume the best calculated in the world to yield comfort in a climate +95° of Farenheit.

They in one breath pressed upon me the means of any mode of conveyance I might prefer. One recommended his horse Knocknagrogherry, who, he assured me, being naturally endowed with a sweet disposition, and having arrived at the years of discretion, could be ridden by a child. Though my fears prevented me from accepting him on this occasion, I was under great obligations to that good-natured steed, and his equally good-natured master, during my stay in the coun