light which have now been absorbed by the shining splendour of our noon-tide brightness. Yet, alas! they do not present that people, whose path has been so monotonous, and whose religion and character have been so stationary,-whose infancy was so precocious, and their mature years a continued childhood, as possessing the knowledge of the only living and true God, or as ennobled by divine and exalting principles; as either imparting or receiving truth and virtue, as enjoying the fellowship of the Holy One and the Just, or glorifying his name as the servants of Jehovah and the benefactors of the human race. Theirs was not the path of the just, which shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Better prospects have, however, appeared in our time for that land of hoary antiquity.

THE ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.

THE increase and extension of geographical knowledge is as much a feature of modern improvement as any recent discovery in the arts, or in the circle of sciences. When Columbus went forth to explore the farther Indies by a western route, the region now denominated British India was a terra incognita, as much as the laws which now regulate chemical affinities were unknown to the alchemist, or the fanatic enthusiast, who wildly groped in search of the philosopher's stone. The land of

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the banian and the palm, of the spice-cane and the pepper, where the choicest condiments and most valuable articles of commerce are in abundance produced, lay upon the map an unexplored region; since its paths had for ages been untrodden, and its many tribes had been despised as a people of a strange speech. The rays of science and the light of literature have now shone on the lofty mountains, and penetrated the valleys and trackless wilds; the energies of commerce and the daring of ambition have stemmed the majestic rivers, and circumnavigated the outstretched coast of Hindostan. historian and the painter have recently described her inhabitants and her scenery. Industry and talent, enterprise and perseverance, have explored regions and tribes which were long hidden, or but partially known. What was scattered in many and inaccessible repertories has been condensed; and the information which was shut up or monopolized in the libraries of the wealthy or the learned is now widely and cheaply diffused, and brought to our fire-sides and tea-tables. Hindostan is better known to-day than the Hebrides were in the time of Johnson, or than the Shetland Isles were at the beginning of the present century; while the aggressions and acquisitions of our English nabobs in oriental countries, the subversion of Asiatic despotism, and the substitution of British rule among the nations of the East, are the records of our cabinet libraries, and form the vade mecums of every inquirer after knowledge.

It is, however, an expression not confined to the unlearned, which we not unfrequently hear, "the heat of India," or "the climate of India :" whereas Hindostan contains regions as subject to snow, with chilling frosts, and cold and shivering blasts, as any part of continental Europe; and presents as great a variety of climate: from the arid heat of a vertical sun, to the inhospitable and freezing atmosphere of the bleak and frigid north. The countries now ruled by, or subject to the supremacy of, Britain in the East, extend from the equator, near to which Singapore is situated, or from the southernmost peninsula of Malacca, about two degrees north latitude, to the Himalayas ; which range from the 28th degree, in the Bhotan country advancing to the more northerly latitudes of Cashmere, Attock, and Herat; and extend in the widest sweep of the river Sind, as far as the 35th and 36th degrees; and spread from the Sylhet frontier, a border which lies as far east as the 100th degree, to the mouths of the Indus on the western shores of Hindostan besides the dependencies in the Persian Gulf, and on the Red Sea;-a wide-enough field for every change of climate and every degree of temperature under which man can comfortably subsist. While the native of the southern provinces clothes himself in the loose and light robes of cotton, or passes among his people in the bazaars and thoroughfares only partially covered, the hardy northern wraps himself in the woollen or silken stuffs and shawls of Moultan and Cashmere, or

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in the flannels and broad cloth of English manufacture; and the daring traveller or mountaineer of the Himalayas is glad to draw around him the furs and mufflings which are employed to protect against the snows of Nova Zembla or Siberia.

The several presidencies have their separate and distinguishing natural characteristics, and the countries or provinces subject to their jurisdiction differ as they lie east or west, north or south. If we traverse the eastern regions under the presidency of Bengal, we shall find the alluvial well-watered and flat plains of Bengal; the hills and dales of Bahar, the Rajmehall hills, and the table lands with which the province is diversified. Allahabad contains the exuberant district of Benares, the fertile banks of the Jumna and Ganges, and the elevated table lands of Bundlecund, with the picturesque and isolated hills which range and diverge in groups parallel to the Vindhya mountains. Agra is in some places open and flat, but toward the south and west better wooded and interspersed with hills and dales; while Delhi is covered with dense jungles and forests in the north-west, but clear, level, and cultivated from the centre to the south-west. The British provinces in Berar are wild and rugged, with steep water-courses, dense jungles, hills, and impassable ravines. The Vindhya and Goundwara, or Sautpora, ranges of hills on either side, hedge in the romantic valley of the Nerbudda for three hundred miles; a rude and uncultured vale, which stretches in breadth nearly twenty