exposure, can ward off the irresistible effects of climate. The general course of the young constitution is, that from birth till about the age of three, the child, passing over the usual ailments of dentition, appears tolerably healthy, in some cases even more so than its cotemporaries in Europe; but, after that period, it begins to droop, becomes emaciated, sallow and languid; loses strength, spirits and appetite, and is incapable of partaking in amusement or receiving education. Then it is that parents have to make the choice, between sending their children to Europe, and retaining them in India to see them daily wasting away before their eyes. A cruel alternative! when to the inevitable griefs of parting there is added, as is too often the case, the uncertainty of the treatment which the children are to receive at home, from friends whom perhaps the parents may not have seen or had communication with for many years; who may be utterly indifferent to their long absent relatives, and very little prepared either to receive the "living consignments" with affection, or to watch over them with care.

Such reflections do not, of course, occur to young men on their arrival in India, nor are they commonly awakened during the few first years of married life. While the children are young, parents

in general, too much occupied with the happiness of possessing them, willingly exclude from their minds all thoughts of parting, and give themselves up to a sort of dreamy persuasion, hardly amounting to belief, that, among the innumerable cases they see around them, theirs may be an exception, and that, though thousands of examples testify to the contrary, some additional care or precaution, or some latent good fortune in the constitution, may preserve their children unaffected by the fiery blasts of May and the steamy exhalations of October. But gradually time steals on, and the infant passes its fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh birthdays; the delusion begins to dissipate; languor, sallowness, loss of appetite and strength, unappeasable fretfulness and increasing emaciation, followed by more serious attacks of fever, and unconquerable derangement of bowels, arouse parents to the sad necessity of preparing for their children's departure.

When, after many a struggle between duty and affection, and many an excuse for delay, which the parents, even while making it, perceive to be fallacious, the transmission is finally determined upon and accomplished, it is not to be supposed that all the disadvantages of Indian exile terminate, or that the whole loss consists in a few years of absence. Far

more serious evils are often the result. The unnatural separation of parents and children necessarily breaks up the associations which result from youthful intercourse, and the gradual expansion of intellect, during the years of education, under the parent's eye. When all this interesting period is passed over as a dreary blank, and the parents meet again with their grown-up offspring, they find themselves estranged from each other; community of feeling is lost, and too frequently there remains but little of affection. Even brothers and sisters, who may have been sent home at distant intervals, rarely attain that warmth of mutual affection which can be produced only by a length of unbroken intercourse during the susceptible years of childhood.

Such are the disadvantages of sending children to Europe; but they are inevitable. Of those who, from any cause, are kept in India, great numbers perish between birth and the completion of childhood. Some, however, survive: they for the most part appear to recover themselves about the age of ten or twelve, and from thence continue to pass through the usual stages of existence, but with marked debility both of mental and bodily constitution. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the average duration of life in this race of men, but there can be little doubt that it is short:

many of the females, particularly, fall victims to too early marriage.

A curious circumstance, connected with the infants, is that, where they are much affected by the climate, they absolutely appear to cease to grow, and at the age of from one to three years, will go on from month to month without the smallest increase of bulk: their little clothes never require to be enlarged. Yet on being put on board of ship, and sent to sea, they at once take a start, and shoot up to their proper size.

Many projects have been entertained, and sometimes carried into execution, of rearing European offspring in Simla and other northern parts of India, and such schemes are generally so far successful as to carry children over the dangerous period of infancy; but this imperfect improvement of climate is altogether insufficient as a substitution for that of Europe, and perhaps no parent has ever trusted to it without having cause to repent. So certain is all this, that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find throughout India a single instance of a second generation of European blood existing without having had communication with their original country; I mean that the grandparents should be Europeans, and the children and the grandchildren should have been born and reared

in India without ever going to Europe. If instances of this are to be found, they certainly must be very rare. I have never known one.

These considerations fully demonstrate the fallacy of the idea, that colonization by Europeans could ever be carried to any extent in our eastern dominions, even were it permitted in the most unlimited manner. Nature herself has placed insurmountable obstacles in its way, and has evidently intended that the blood of Europe should never people the plains of India. Were a colony now established under the most favourable circumstances, and with every requisite for the foundation of a new community, it would, without the slightest external accident or misfortune, wither and perish in two generations. The truth is, that the aphorism, that man is an inhabitant of all climates, must be received with great limitation. If it be true with respect to man in general, it is certainly erroneous with respect to the various races into which mankind are divided. They appear to be almost as strictly confined to particular districts as the different species of animals, and we might as easily expect to people the jungles of Bengal with a race of white bears, as its fields with a race of Esquimaux, or even perhaps of the race, whatever be its name, which inhabits the White Islands of