Medical College Hospital. Let institutions of a similar kind be commenced at Bombay and Madras, and in other grand centres of civilisation in India, and a great work will be inaugurated, which cannot fail to benefit the country.

There is, too, a work to do for every lady who employs native women in her service in India, and one which need not remove her from home; many are doing this by endeavouring to improve their female attendants, and superintending the education of the children of the servants of their households. The direct, as well as indirect, influence of every Englishwoman, as well as every Englishman in India, for good or for evil, can hardly be estimated. What has been already done reveals what great wants exist, and how they may be supplied. The devoted work of multitudes of Englishwomen in that great continent, shows what our sex can do: new light, the rapid progress of civilisation, the wants created by it, reveal increasing need of women's work in India. May many more Englishwomen arise, who shall devote themselves to the glorious and blessed work of raising their Eastern sisters, to fill that place in society for which the Creator has destined them!

CHAPTER III.

THE INHABITANTS OF INDIA.

THOSE in our country who know as little of India as I did myself before my visit to the East, are perhaps hardly aware of the number of races and tribes inhabiting that vast peninsula. To say that the inhabitants of Hindostan differ from each other as much as those of the whole of Europe, would present a very inade quate idea to the mind. Much as the ice-bound plains of Lapland, the rugged grandeur of the Scandinavian peninsula, the varied marvels of nature which astonish the traveller even within a comparatively small space in the central countries of our Western continent, differ from the soft and beautiful South, with its vine-covered hills, its orange-perfumed groves, the tender beauty of its woodlands and lakes, the grandeur of its cascades and mountains-there is an infinitely greater diversity of climate, country, productions, and marvellous features of nature, contained between the heaven-piercing sum mits and eternal snow of the Himalayas, and the spicy woods and palm-bound shores of the tropical island of Ceylon. In like manner is there far greater variety in the human species inhabiting our Indian Empire, than in the subjects of all the monarchies of Europe. The Laps, the Icelanders, the Russians, the Germans, do indeed differ from the Spaniards, the Italians, the

Greeks, the semi-Oriental Turks-and all these differ essentially from the inhabitants of our own British Isles; even within our own small sphere, there are to be found different races, and those of the same race so unlike each other, that the vigorous energetic population of the manufacturing district can hardly understand, in character or speech, the inhabitants of the rich agricultural South of England, washed by the blue transparent waves of our Channel, with hills and valleys. redolent with myrtle and fragrant herbs:-yet these different nations and varieties sink into nothing in comparison with those that people Hindostan. In

Europe there is (excepting in Turkey) the common acceptance of the Christian religion, and, notwithstanding the great variety of forms under which this is received, yet the simple acknowledgment of it as a Divine revelation, gives some degree of unity of social institutions, thought, and feeling; while the Jews and Mahometans, who do not so receive it, holding as a fundamental doctrine the absolute unity of the Great First Cause of all, have not imbibed those idolatrous practices which are, in India, so fatal a hindrance to improvement. Europeans have, more or less, common ideas of civilisation and social intercourse, and they can travel from one part of the continent to the other without any great shock to their conventional notions; though there is no lingua franca of the whole continent, yet frequent travel, and constantly increasing facilities of intercourse, renders intercommunication easy. In India, on the contrary, there are not only differing but hostile religions, so closely connected with social habits, as to render it impossible for different races to have friendly domestic intercourse with each other, for each is surrounded with barriers which must not be broken down.

Until the recent introduction of railways, communication between these different parts was most difficult and rare, and this isolation led to the perpetuation of the most extraordinary and (in the opinion of the educated), most absurd customs. Some of these have been already indicated; many are disappearing before the march of civilisation, and, still more, before the progress of educa tion and enlightenment.

To attempt to give any complete account of the races of India, would be obviously impossible in a single chapter. Not having, while in that country, any intention of writing a book, I did not collect information on this subject, which would then have been accessible to me, while the impossibility of intercourse with the uneducated native races limited my acquaintance to those who spoke English. I am, therefore, not in a position to give even a brief account of all the races and tribes, and various subdivisions of the inhabitants of India, or even of any part of it. Yet even the few remarks which I can offer, my own impressions, and still more some reliable information not generally accessible, may throw light on subjects to which I am anxious to invite the serious consideration of the reader.

On arriving at Bombay, the nearest port to England, and that which is especially the great commercial emporium of the Empire, one is immediately struck by a great diversity existing among the inhabitants. The Hindoos, with their many tribes and castes, being for a time disregarded, those that occupy the most prominent position are the Parsees. These are well known to be descendants of the ancient Persians or fire-worshippers, the followers of Zurthosht or Zoroaster. They are at present so remarkable for their intelligence and com

mercial activity, that of late years they have taken a lead in the city, and have sometimes obscured the real merits and progress of the Hindoos themselves, in the opinion of English writers. Their sacred writings and prayers are in Zend, an obsolete language; they are said to have been destroyed by Alexander the Great. Traces of them have been discovered in Germany, and the learned among them are occupied in collecting, restoring, and translating them. Zoroaster is regarded by the common people as divinely inspired: a highly educated Parsee gentleman informed me, however, that he and others did not consider that their great legislator claimed inspiration for himself, though his writings are received as the highest authority. It is wonderful how much sway one mind may hold for thousands of years!

The Parsees appear likely to exercise so great an influence in the portion of Western India where they have settled, that it will be interesting to read the following statement respecting them, made by Dr. Wilson at the annual meeting of the Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Parsee Benevolent Institution (on April 9, 1867):

The institution, it will have been observed, was founded by the late venerated Parsee baronet, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, and his benevolent consort, still surviving. The large sum (of about four lacs of rupees) forming its foundational endowment, it is to be borne in mind, for the credit of that distinguished family, forms only about a tithe of the contributions made by it to the cause of philanthropy in the West of India. One magnificent specimen of this liberality appears in the extensive hospitals surrounding the Grant Medical College, at which the numerous native residents and visitors of the island of Bombay principally obtain their medical and