inducing through means of external changes, a present state of ease and tranquillity, we render the native mind a fitter—a more enduring receptacle of those great truths which we desire to instil into it. Indeed whilst society is in a state of feverish unrest-whilst men's minds are disturbed and a sense of present security no where exists-it is clearly no time for the triumphs of education. At such a season-in such a posture of affairs—we must scatter our good seed amidst choaking thickets, and it were in vain to look for a harvest. All local reforms are valuable-nay indispensable auxiliaries; let them be duly estimated as such, but let no man think that by attacking symptoms, which are but secondary, he can reach the disease itself. No; this were an error of grievous magnitude—one the evil consequences of which it were difficult to over-rate-one which if universally encouraged, would be fatal to the advancement of the happiness, the prosperity, because the intellectual and moral culture of the people. Our work will not live beyond the hour until we begin to touch the heart.

After the preceding article was not only written but sent to press, we met with a passage in a work on Government, now rather scarce, which appeared to us very briefly and felicitously to express a sentiment that cannot be too frequently and earnestly impressed on the minds of right-thinking men. And as the passage, in question, in its main scope and spirit, tends to corroborate and enforce some of our own remarks, we here quote it entire :

"It is wonderful how forward some have been to look upon it as a kind of presumption and ingratitude, and rebellion and cruelty, and I know not what besides, not to alledge only, nor to own, but to suffer any one so much as to imagine that an old established law could in any respect be a fit subject for condemnation. Whether it has been a kind of personification that has been the cause of this, as if the law were a living creature, or whether it has been the mechanical veneration for antiquity, or what other delusion of the fancy, I shall not here inquire. For my part I know not for what good reason it is that the merit of justifying a law when right should have been thought greater, than that of censuring it when wrong. Under the Government of laws, what is the motto of a good citizen? To obey punctually, to censure freely. Thus much is certain; that a system that is never to be censured will never be improved; that if nothing is ever to be found fault with, nothing will ever be mended; and that a resolution to justify every thing at any rate, and to disapprove of nothing, is a resolution which, pursued in future, must stand as an effectual bar to all the additional happiness we can hope for; pursued hitherto, would have robbed us of that share of happiness which we enjoy already. For is a disposition to find 'every thing as it should be,' less at variance with itself than with reason and utility? The common-place arguments in which it vents itself justify not what is established in effect any more than they condemn it; since whatever now is establishment once was innovation."

X

ART. VI.-1. Indian Atlas. Nos. 47-48, 65-66.

2. J. B. Fraser's Journal of a Tour through part of the Snowy Range of the Himalaya Mountains, aud to the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges, with Map, 1820.

3. Illustrations of the Botany and other Branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, 2 vols. by J. Forbes Royle. M. D. V. P. R. S., 1839.

4. Moorcroft's Travels in the Himalayan Provinces with Map. Edited by H. H. Wilson, 2 vols. 1841.

5. Asiatic Researches, vols. XVI. and XVII. Mr. G. W. Traill's Statistical Sketches of Kumaon aad the Bhotia Mehals.

-Mr. J. H. Batten's Settlement Report on Gurhwal. Printed by order of Government, N. W. P., 1843.

6. McClelland's " Geology of Kumaon, 1835.”

7. Account of Kunawur in the Himalaya Mountains, with Map, by the late Captain A. Gerrard, edited by G. Lloyd, 1841. -Narrative of a Journey, &c. to the Boorondo Pass in the Himalaya Mountains, by Major Sir Wm. Lloyd, and Captain A. Gerrard, &c. &c. Edited by G. Lloyd, 1840.

8. Bengal and Agra Gazetteer, 4 vols. 1841 and 1842. Articles Hill Sanataria."

66

6

9. Notes of Wanderings in the Himalaya, &c. &c. by Pilgrim,' Agra. 1844.

LET not our readers be alarmed at this catologue; we are not going to tax their patience with any elaborate notice of these several productions, nor could we presume to dilate on the multiplicity of objects which they present to the critical

eye.

The list which heads our pages, serves to indicate the regions in which we intend for a short time to expatiate. Those who accompay us in this excursion may, indeed, add largely to the number of their guides, and find much matter for amusement with something also occasionally to enlighten their understanding in the light leaves of Archer, Skinner, Mundy, Fane, Bacon, and last, not least, Jacquemont; in the pictorial and letter press illustrations of White and Roberts; and in the profounder page of that journal, which has now for some time been the repository of all that is useful and elegant in the labours of the Bengal Asiatic Society and its correspondents.

An eminent naturalist, not long since retired from public

service in India, and the fruits of whose scientific labors have yet to appear in their complete and European form, was accustomed to speak of common journal writers and specimen collectors as travellers, meaning we suppose, by that term to convey, with as much urbanity as possible, his contempt for the crudities of their Reports, and the self taught and unscientific character of their knowledge. With less delicacy, and with less ground for the depreciation which they attempted, some of his occidental opponents delighted to treat the naturalist himself as a mere Indian observer and collector.' Now, it is undoubtedly true, that observers and collectors ought in every way to be encouraged, and we should be the first to decry any attempt to undervalue their labours, or to cool their zeal by any disparaging remarks. But, for the sake of our Indian reputation, we earnestly beseech all travellers' to stick to their collections, and, in their observations, not to wander beyond the record. It is lamentable to see an amiable author plunging beyond his depth, or floundering in the mud, when he might with safety and pleasure disport himself among clear and shallow waters, and even gather precious stones and gems for philosophers on the bank.

The great defect of all Indian writers, who treat of natural history, geography, geology, and in fact of all the ologies which belong to the tracts they visit and describe, is, that they make a 'jumble' of their information, and do not in their written accounts distinguish what they have actually seen and known from what they heard and guessed at, or from what having seen, they do not know. There has been only one individual in these regions, who was entitled, by his great attainments in every branch of learning and science, to describe the country in each and all of its various relations, material or otherwise; and if James Prinsep had been spared to us, there can be little doubt that the Humboldt of the east would have rivalled the fame of his western prototype. We do not ask the reader to take up a volume of Humboldt or a paper of Prinsep, and compare therewith even the clearest descriptions of our Indian writers on similar topics; for, to expect that such a comparison could be sustained would be but a senseless conceit, and would expose our own ignorance of cause and effect. It results from the very constitution of Indian society, which is composed for the most part of public servants, that those who are alone available for the duties of scientific research, work with fettered hands and in a limited sphere,* while they are generally wanting in

It is only very recently that the Government relieved the Superintendent of the

ence.

the advantages of a complete education and matured experiBut in addition to these inevitable disadvantages, we are, we think, justified in saying, that there exist two other far from necessary causes to which the defect alluded to as characterizing our Indian descriptive literature may be fairly_attributed; first, the fatal facility with which a local Indian reputation may be acquired; secondly, the ignorance and apathy which prevail concerning the progress of knowledge in Europe. It is one object of our article to aid in correcting the first evil. Already we hope that people are beginning to discover that before a man can take rank with the emeriti of the intellectual world, he must achieve a triumph over self-opinionativeness, emptiness, and the whole brood of sciolism; that he must eschew long windedness, and cultivate brevity; and above all, that he must tell something worth knowing in a manner worth listening to. With all due respect to the ancients of the Service, we think we perceive in the young civilians of our day, a diminished belief in the heaven born and brahmanical intellectualism of their caste, and a less firm confidence in the puffs of the Indian House, and especially of those which issue from the honored lips of the old China captains who enact the orator and make valedictory addresses at Haileybury examinations. Still, there is much room for alarm at the ease with which celebrity is gained in this climate of rapid growths; and cleverish settlement reports and heavy judicial minutes are still too certain steps in the ladder of Indian fame, although the Government have ceased to evoke any more stupendous essays on ryotwary and zemindary settlements.

The cure for the second evil which we have mentioned,a disregard to the state of knowledge in Europe,-is of course to be found in visits to that enlightened quarter of the globe; or, where that remedy is impossible, in study, and reflection, and intercourse with those who have enjoyed better opportunites of mental improvement. A course of novels, magazines and reviews-even the Calcutta Review-is rather too mild a discipline; and yet we know of some very distinguished characters between the Himalaya and Cape Comorin who receive their whole supply of intellectual food from these store-houses. But the truth is, nevertheless, undoubted, that if a man-even in the receipt of 3,000 Rupees per mensem-once allows himself any lee way, and fails to keep his mind up to the point of

N. W. P. Botanical Gardens (to whom also, the whole tea-growing and tea-manufacturing experiment in Upper India is confided) from the duties of Accouchier to the Civilians' wives of Suharunpoor, and of Body Surgeon to the convicts at that

station.

average European intelligence-a point easily ascertained in these days of quick communication and cheap books-he will soon drop irretrievably behind, and be distinguishable from the Native craft around him only by his colour; or he will be stranded fast and immoveable on the shoal of pretending mediocrity. Without disparaging the claims to distinction of our Everests, Wilsons, Falconers, Royles and other oriental luminaries, who now enjoy the full reflected blaze of intellectual light in the west, we may be certain, from their own acknowledgment, that they underwent some slight eclipse on their first entrance into their new orbit. To use a more homely illustration, these Cocks of the School in India felt that they were only fifth form boys in England. What, then, shall be said of those, who, neither visit the fountain head in their native land, nor imbibe fresh knowledge from imported draughts,-what shall be said of the Sciolists of India through whose imperfect and confused statements, the land we live in is made known to the intelligent world? What shall be said of those, who unprovided with the sacred fire, venture to lay their irreverent hands on the sublime altar of nature in the Himalaya? Our object in drawing attention to the frailties, which have hitherto been spared more or less by all authors east of the Cape, is not to propound any newly discovered moral, or to illustrate a stale truism. It is to provoke even the present occupants of the field to a new and holy emulation, and to a warfare against the sins which most easily beset them. And what may we not hope when we behold such a champion, as H. M. Elliot, of Agra, entering the arena ?* We need not in his case, we are sure, utter any warnings against the dangers of rapid reputation, and his own voice would be the loudest in preaching the true faith to the rising generation.

Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,

Noctes atque dies niti prostante labore,

Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri.

We might leave these noble words of Lucretius ringing in the ears of our audience, but we fear that unless something in a humbler strain is added by way of application, our Indian mediocrity will be indefinitely prolonged, and the race of Mikronoustics (to use a word borrowed from the banks of Camus) will still infest our literature, and-for we now come

This gentleman's "Supplemental Glossary" should be in every body's hands "If he do not receive such notice from the Court of Directors" (to use the Revenue Board's words) "as will encourage him to bring the work to completion," may their Kingdom depart from them!