Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child when scaring sounds molest
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.

We purpose, if permitted, to return again to Himalayan subjects on some future occasion, and to treat of the following topics for which our present space is insufficient. First, the great geographical features of the northern mountains. Secondly, their geology. Thirdly, the scenery which they afford. Fourthly, the Hill Stations or Sanataria, and Cantonments of troops. Fifthly, the Resources and Real Use of the Hills. The utile' and the dulce' will be thus fairly discussed. We bring this article to a close with a few words on Pilgrim's Notes. We intend to use this Book again as a handle for our further dissertations, and shall therefore defer all extracts therefrom till that time. In the meanwhile, we place on record our general satisfaction on the perusal of this simple volume and our commendation of its good intentions and occasional ability. Pilgrim, whose identity with a gentleman well known in Upper India for the combination of great practical usefulness with a vein of accomplishments and enthusiasm, is, we believe, no longer a secret, must excuse us for lamenting that the first vehicle of his Notes was a newspaper, and that he has mixed up controversy with his descriptions of scenery. To the last circumstance, we are indebted for a wearisome reiteration of the beauties of the Nainee Tal station, and the merits of its supporters and founders; to the first we must attribute the repetition of epithets, partaking of exaggeration and indistinctness. Beautiful, exquisite, immense, awful, magnificent and the like are fine words-nay excellent words, but, to prove anything, they should be sparingly used. When too frequently used, they impair the effect of particular descriptions and throw a shade of doubt on the fidelity of all. We also cannot exactly discover why the names of official persons are sometimes mysteriously abbreviated and hinted at, and at other times openly published to the profane. Messrs. Lushington and Batten must, if they have any fun in them, laugh heartily at finding themselves sometimes designated at full length, then immediately after figuring as Mr. L. or Mr. B., or my friend B., or a high authority in Kumaon, or an official gentleman in the Province, or as Commissioner, or as Judge, Collector, and Magistrate! We can excuse this kind of careless writing in the original letters, but why, did Pilgrim republish his lucubrations in a collected form without due emendation and a regard to the "ars lini?" We

cannot help thinking, too, that he has paid an unwise courtship to the existing powers, and at all events has ventured far out of his depth, when he allowed himself to speak in the manner he has done of Mr. Traill. Visitors at Nainee Tal, who know nothing of the province of Kumaon, will, if they believe Pilgrim, form a totally erroneous opinion of Mr. Traill's motives in adopting what is styled a Chinese policy' in regard to European travellers. Of this more hereafter. In the meanwhile we emphatically warn Pilgrim that there must be something rotten in a work which assails Traill, the beloved* of the Hill men, and Shore, the Friend to India.

In conclusion, we again reiterate the assurance that the preceding observations have been penned in no hostile or unfriendly spirit towards any of the authors whose works have been thus briefly noticed. On the contrary, towards all of them, whether personally known to us or not, we have no reason for cherishing aught but feelings of kindliness and good will. Our grand object has been, to point out the desirableness and necessity of aiming at a higher standard, with a view to the realization of still nobler performances. At the same time, we regard it as at once our duty and our privilege to encourage and foster all efforts, however humble, that are in any way calculated to attract the attention of the British public towards this glorious but too long neglected realm-and to excite an interest in the developement of its resources and the progressive amelioration of its inhabitants. There is not one of the publications already named, from which something interesting or useful may not be gleaned. Some of them are written in a style eminently adapted to the tastes of a large class of readers, who might not enjoy the more learned researches and more scientific delineations of a Humboldt or a Prinsep. But, in proportion to their fitness to suit the popular demand, ought to be their freedom from mistakes that may generate and rivet erroneous impressions in the popular mind.

Vide Gurhwal Settlement Report, page 7, by way of comment on pp. 151 and 152 of Pilgrim's Notes.

ART. VII.-1. Illustrations of some Institutions of the Mahratta People, by William Henry Tone, Esq., formerly commanding a Regiment of Infantry in the service of the Peishwa. cutta, 1818.

Cal

2. Elphinstone's Report on the territories conquered from the Peishwa. Calcutta, 1821.

3. Jenkin's Report on the Territories of the Rajah of Nagpore. Calcutta, 1827.

4. History of the Mahrattas, by James Grant Duff, Esq. Captain 1st or Grenadier Regiment of Bombay Native Infantry, and late Resident at Satara. Longman, London, 1826. 5. The Bengal and Agra Gazetteer for 1841 and 1842.

SCARCELY more than a twelvemonth has passed since our pages contained a brief outline of the leading events of the last few years in the Punjab, and furnished a catalogue of atrocities which to many readers, especially to those in Europe, may have appeared unduly coloured and exaggerated. It is difficult to understand how any country can escape absolute depopulation when scourged by such calamities, and we shrink with horror from the details of individual suffering involved in these wholesale butcheries. There is, however, a pertinacious vitality in mankind, that rallies from the most tremendous slaughter of men. The Sikhs are not the only people

"Whose morning dawn was with blood o'erspread,
Their evening-fall was a bloody red ;

Their groans were heard on the mountain swarth;

There was blood in the heavens and blood on the earth.”

Such is the train of thought suggested by perusing the works, the titles of which stand at the head of this article. Before using them as authorities it will be only courteous briefly to introduce the authors and our readers to each other.

We have disinterred from the back shelves of our library, the worm-eaten pages of Jenkins's and Elphinstone's valuable reports. Such state documents are too little read. They afford better lessons of Indian statesmanship than half the more pretending publications of the day. Grant Duff's volumes should be in the hands of all who desire acquaintance with the Mahrattas. He lived among them for years, understood their peculiar character, and, without any pretension to commanding talent, seems to us to have combined the chief qualifications necessary to a good Political Agent. He was industrious, impartial, and benevolent. He was not, moreover, a mere book worm.

He studied men and manners in the camp, the cabinet, and in the peasant's field, as well as in the dusty records of his office. He examined the past that he might understand the present; and such we consider to be the duty of every Indian official who would not be led by the nose by his assistants, European or Native. Research of this kind has, however, its besetting dangers it tempts men to become mere devourers of indistinct manuscripts, and it is apt to lure them into the wide waste of speculation, where, mounted on the hobby of some favourite theory, they challenge and combat the strongest evidence that will not take the road they themselves have chosen. Grant Duff escaped these temptations: he was eminently practical. His book is written with the candour and gentlemanliness of the accomplished soldier, combined with the kindliness to be expected from a disciple of Mount Stewart Elphinstone. If the minute details of some portions of the Mahratta history in some measure fatigue the reader, he is rewarded by the fullest information on the character of a very peculiar people, too generally believed to be as the Sikhs, a modern sect, or, like the Pindarees, to have been mere bands of marauders, instead of being one of the oldest races of the Indian peninsula. The record of that portion of Mahratta history that came under Grant Duff's personal observations, appears to us to possess the rare merit of thorough impartiality. Each topic and individual is treated manfully but courteously. Truth was his grand object. He sank no point by which it might be ascertained or illustrated; but, while doing so, he uniformly treated his opponents with unassuming candour. Elphinstone's statements both in his history and official report, agree with those of Grant Duff. Rushton's Gazetteer is a treasury of information to those who can separate the wheat from the chaff; but the winnowing is rather a formidable task. We should gladly welcome another series, more leisurely compiled than those for 1841 and 1842. Our Government offices teem with records which, under moderately judicious editorship, would incalculably enrich such a work.

Besides the above authors we have gleaned information relative to the Mahrattas from other writers, who advert to them directly or indirectly. Mill's notice of them is singularly meagre and unsatisfactory, and not always accurate. Gleig evidently means to follow Duff, but occasionally embellishes his authority in a way that might have passed in "the Subaltern," but is unbecoming in an historian. Wilkes and Orme throw much light on those portions of Mahratta history which they treat of; and the same may be said of "Scott's Dakhan

Waring's History of the Mahrattas" makes much pretension, which is very scantily fulfilled. We have been more edified and amused by Mr. Tone's seventy-six modest pages than by Waring's quarto. "Broughton's Mahratta Camp" is unpretending and interesting, and brings before us Mahratta manners and Sindhia's Court. Hamilton's notices of the Mahratta country in his Gazetteer are extremely valuable. Sutherland's brief sketches are excellent. The Mahrattas and their country were little known when Rennell wrote; his notices are therefore scanty and inaccurate.

This enumeration of authorities, at the outset, will excuse us from perpetual references. With their assistance, we now proceed to offer to our readers a brief sketch of early Mahratta History, down to the time when the several states of Poona, Berar, Baroda, Gwalior, and Indore branched of; when, following the diminished fortunes of the junior branch of the Satara family at Kolapoor, we shall hastly glance at the recent military operations in that and the Sawunt-waree country.

*

Maharashtra, or the country of the Mahrattas, is, according to Hindu geographers, one of the five principal divisions of the Deccan, or, country south of the Narbadda and Mahanaddi rivers. The limits of Maharashtra are variously given: Mahommedans seldom troubled themselves about geographical questions, and it was long after they had overrun the different provinces of India, before they enquired respecting their original divisions. Mahrattas, indeed, are seldom mentioned by Mahommedan writers until the deeds of Shahjee, and his son Sevagee, brought their countrymen prominently to notice. When the historian Ferishtah alludes to the Mahrattas he calls them "the Hindus," "the Bergis," meaning by the first appellation the population, generally, in contradistinction to their moslem conquerors; by the second, designating them marauders.†

Two points of the Mahratta history have, however, been

The Deccan of the Hindus comprized the whole Peninsula south of the Narbadda and Mahanaddi, but Europeans have adopted the Mahommedan definition, and limit it to Telingana, Gondwana, and that portion of Maharashtra above the Western Ghats, being generally the country between the Narbadda and Kistna rivers.

Mr. Elphinstone states, at page 457, volume 2 of his History of India, "the word Mahrattas first occurs in Ferishta, in the transactions of the year A. D. 1485, and is not then applied in a general sense." This is an error It strikes us we have repeatedly seen them mentioned at earlier dates. By a hasty reference we have now found three such references. A. D. 1342, Ferishtah, as translated by Dow, says. "He at the same time conferred the Government of Doulutabad and of the country of the Mahrattors upon Cuttulech, his preceptor." Page 289, volume 1. Again, at two places, in page 320 of the same volume, "Sirvadon, Chief of the Mahrattors" is mentioned. In Scott's translation of Ferishtah's History of the Deccan, among other inmates of "Feroze Shaw's" Zenana, in A. D. 1398, are noted, "Rajpootees, Bengalees, Guzratees, Telinganees, Maharattins.