mountain precipices, the riches and splendor of her mineral and fossil kingdoms, and her almost incalculable resources in carrying on commercial intercourse with other nations, render her a fit subject for philosophical contemplation. If we trace the long line of her population through the dim vista of ancient history, we shall behold it maintain one continuous march from the very birth-place of nations to this moment, connecting in one unbroken succession the wanderers of the plains of Shinar with the men of modern days. In looking at her moral state, we see a yet more wonderful-an awful spectacle-a scene of horrific grandeur! In the swollen and loathsome decrepitude of her gigantic superstitions, we discern the identical features of that spiritual domination which, in its more vigorous age, gave birth to the mythology of Egypt and of Greece, combining at the same instant in one shapeless mass of impurity, the gross licentiousness of an early, with the impotence of a declining age. Her chamber of imagery exhibits a huge frame-work composed of the broken and disjointed particles of original tradition, in which is grouped together all that is mystic in the Cabiric, Eleusinian, or Dionysiac systems; one lurid light, and one alone, illumining the chaotic darkness, the light which glares from surrounding putrescence. Her religious theory, possessing exactly that degree of energy which awakens the susceptibilities of her devotees, in order to plunge them into all the horrors of a cruel and debasing superstition: gratifying, and at the same time degrading the mighty and universal love of man for the supernatural, by the exhibition of deities distinguished from man alone by the greater impurity and more unrestrained gratification of their passions; completes the whole process of mental degradation by substituting a rigorous code of reiterated ablutions, bodily contortions, and self-inflicted torments, for the great realities of man's moral existence. Nothing can exceed the interest, the mournful interest of such a spectacle! India is the great temple of the world's idolatry, and prone before her obscene and colossal gods, lie her debased millions, soulless, and lifeless, as though the retributive justice of an offended deity had changed them into stone, in the very moment of their earliest superstition, and left them an existing but a breathless monument of the folly of idolatry, a pillar of salt to survivors. Nevertheless, to a student of the great family of mankind, Hindustan presents an unequalled range of observation. In no portion of the globe are there presented to the view so many different types of our species. The effeminate Bengalee, the courtly Cingalese, the crafty Siamese, the fierce Malay, the majestic Afghan, the athletic Bundella, the hardy Goorkha and Nepaulese, the sturdy Burman, and the semi-barbarous aborigines of the mountains of Rajamahl, all inhabit the two peninsulas which pass under the common name of India, besides innumerable smaller tribes who shade down, with every possible variation, the greater distinctions to which we have particularly referred. Here dwell the worshippers of Mahomet, the worshippers of fire, the devotee of the great Lama, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Sain, and the several seceders from each system, whom either caprice, or the anxious search, after a more rational and more consistent creed, has induced to leave the ranks of orthodoxy. To the philologist this land is a mine of learning. Already have the industrious sons of Germany wrought here with great success; and deduced, on principles which cannot be doubted, that the languages of Greece and Rome borrowed much of their structure from that officina linguarum, the Sanscrit, and there is but little doubt that future Scaligers will trace, through the meanderings of its many dependent streams, the origin of other dialects which at present appear to spring up without a parent. To Britons, above all, the plains of India have associations of the most solemn and affecting nature. There are but few families in this land who do not look to it as the sepulchre of some of their dearest relatives. To its spirit-kindling shores the loftiest and most vigorous of our youth have departed in pursuit of wealth or honor, and in that pursuit have perished. The laurels of British India grow on the tombs of those we loved. Even now as our pen traces this memorial of the land where we passed some of our earliest and most buoyant years, we behold with an interest which the lapse of twenty years has scarcely softened, the lonely spot almost hidden amongst the bold mountains of Bundlekund, where lies the brave and rugged soldier of many battles, whose fostering care directed and controlled the energies of our early enthusiasm. He fell on that neighbouring hill, a bloody sacrifice to war! And if we dared trust ourselves to the mournful remembrance, we could tell of others, and they too dear to some we love, who in the first bloom of manhood left the widowed mother and the sorrowing sister, and sought on the same blood-stained field the same phantom of honor, and found an early tomb. We forbear the melancholy subject. We have bade a long, a last farewell to the land watered by the hundred arms of Ganga, and protected by the snow-capped peaks of gigantic Himalaya. But still she is dear to our hearts; there we left the brave, and those we loved. our And in a still higher sense is India interesting to better feelings. Consigned to the care and to the moral influence of our country for many years by the over-ruling providence of God, how much do we owe her! How much for the sad omission of a right use of our mental superiority! How much more for the awful exhibition of a moral example differing only from the vice of home production by the superior energy of our physical and mental constitution. India has long known the prowess of our troops in the struggle of war, and has acknowledged the extent of our scientific applications; she has yet to learn that any thing of a moral or religious power can be associated with our name. On every plain, on every mount of her great peninsula, wave the trophies of Britain's valor, but alas, the monuments of her benevolence are yet to be erected. Yet we believe a new era of India's history is about to be begun. The names of Martyn, Buchanan, and Carey, and those of our transAtlantic countrymen, Boardman and Judson, will be mentioned by future ages as those of the real benefactors of that country, and Britain will be remembered by the annalists of Hindustan, not only as the birth-place of her conquerors, but as the guardian angel, whose divine instructions first dispelled the thick darkness under whose influence her children had been so long enslaved and debased, and imparted the salutary direction of true religion to lead them back again to God. The present volumes are the record of a missionary voyage undertaken by some of our brethren of the United States of America, for the purpose of visiting the stations under their direction in the south-eastern parts of Asia. As the result of this design, the author, Mr. Howard Malcom, a minister of Boston, in New England, records his voyage to Burma, and thence to Calcutta, with his visits to the different stations in the vicinity of those places, as well those under the auspices of other religious bodies, as those immediately connected with the society to which he belongs. It is a pleasing feature of the production, that no trace of a sectarian spirit is discernible in these accounts; in truth, so little of any thing denominational is apparent, that we are left to infer from some incidental allusions, that the writer is of the Baptist persuasion. The missionary press has, within a few years past, presented to the reading public many volumes of a very interesting character, containing the observations of Ellis, Stewart, Williams, Medhurst, Gutzlaff, and others, on several portions of the world hitherto little known; but we venture to say, that never has it produced a work of more interest or utility than the present. We are not sure that any two volumes of an equal size in the whole circle of British literature, contain so much useful and correct information on the several countries of India, in the various relations of their natural productions, and their population, considered as to their political and religious diversities. On the occasion of coming in contact with an English vessel voyaging to Australia, Mr. Malcom observes ;-'They belonged to our father-land; they came from the noblest nation earth ever saw; they were but lately engaged against us in horrid war; 'they bore to a distant home a motley crew of refined and vulgar, VOL. VII. 2 A which pass under the common name of India, besides innumerable smaller tribes who shade down, with every possible variation, the greater distinctions to which we have particularly referred. Here dwell the worshippers of Mahomet, the worshippers of fire, the devotee of the great Lama, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Sain, and the several seceders from each system, whom either caprice, or the anxious search, after a more rational and more consistent creed, has induced to leave the ranks of orthodoxy. To the philologist this land is a mine of learning. Already have the industrious sons of Germany wrought here with great success; and deduced, on principles which cannot be doubted, that the languages of Greece and Rome borrowed much of their structure from that officina linguarum, the Sanscrit, and there is but little doubt that future Scaligers will trace, through the meanderings of its many dependent streams, the origin of other dialects which at present appear to spring up without a parent. To Britons, above all, the plains of India have associations of the most solemn and affecting nature. There are but few families in this land who do not look to it as the sepulchre of some of their dearest relatives. To its spirit-kindling shores the loftiest and most vigorous of our youth have departed in pursuit of wealth or honor, and in that pursuit have perished. The laurels of British India grow on the tombs of those we loved. Even now as our pen traces this memorial of the land where we passed some of our earliest and most buoyant years, we behold with an interest which the lapse of twenty years has scarcely softened, the lonely spot almost hidden amongst the bold mountains of Bundlekund, where lies the brave and rugged soldier of many battles, whose fostering care directed and controlled the energies of our early enthusiasm. He fell on that neighbouring hill, a bloody sacrifice to war! And if we dared trust ourselves to the mournful remembrance, we could tell of others, and they too dear to some we love, who in the first bloom of manhood left the widowed mother and the sorrowing sister, and sought on the same blood-stained field the same phantom of honor, and found ar early tomb. We forbear the melancholy subject. We have bad a long, a last farewell to the land watered by the hundred arm of Ganga, and protected by the snow-capped peaks of giganti. Himalaya. But still she is dear to our hearts; there we left th brave, and those we loved. mor And in a still higher sense is India interesting to better feelings. Consigned to the care and to the influence of our country for many years by the over-ruling providence of God, how much do we owe her! How much to the sad omission of a right use of our mental superiority! Ho much more for the awful exhibition of a moral example differin only from the vice of home production by the superior energy |