the instruments of turning many to a purer and more enlightened faith. All the societies engaged in the work of missions have far more calls for labourers than they have instruments at their disposal. Twenty times the number of missionaries, catechists, and schoolmasters, are wanting, and there is abundant evidence that through the exertions now making, the fabric of Hindoo superstition is beginning to totter.

Besides the vast regions in Hindoostan under the sway of Great Britain, the monarchs of Portugal, France, and Denmark, possess a few small settlements, chiefly the scanty remains of much larger territories.

The Portuguese, whose settlements were formerly so numerous on the coasts and in the islands of the Indian Sea, have preserved Goa, with a few adjacent places, Damaan, and a small portion of the peninsula of Guzerat, with the fortress of Diu, a place important for the construction of vessels. These possessions, together with the Island of Macao, in the Bay of Canton in China, and some small districts of the Island of Timor, are supposed to contain about 30,000 square miles, and 575,000 inhabitants.

The French settlements in Asia are confined to India, and comprehend the governments of Pondicherry, with the towns of Pondicherry and Karical, on the coast of Coromandel, and a few other places, among which, Chandernagor in Bengal, and Mahé on the coast of Malabar, are the most important. The whole area possessed by the French does not exceed 450 square miles, with a population of 160,000 individuals.

The Danish colonies consist only of the town of Tranquebar, and its territory, on the coast of Coromandel, a place remarkable for the influence which the missionary establishment of the Protestant creed, which was erected here more early than in other places, exercised on the neighbourhood. The Danes have also a small settlement at Serampore, on the Ganges. The population of the whole is about 60,000.

The settlements of the Dutch were formerly dispersed over the coasts of both peninsulas of India, as well as over the adjacent islands; but they were obliged to abandon them by degrees; and since 1821, they have been limited to the islands.

Hindoostan has from the earliest times been noted for the great number of its large and populous cities and towns. The following are a few of the most prominent at the present day.

Calcutta, the capital of British India, situated on the Hoogly branch of the Ganges, 100 miles from the sea, is supposed to contain 500,000 inhabitants; while, within a radius of twenty miles, there are upwards of 2,000,000. The situation was originally very unhealthy, being in the midst of forests and swamps; and, though these have been in a great measure cleared away, it still suffers by the damp breezes from the Sunderbunds. The English town, or suburb, called Chouringee, consists of 4300 houses. Strangers ascending the river are particularly struck by the number of elegant villas, with which all the environs are studded. The Black Town, comprising much the greater part of Calcutta, consists, as in other parts of India, of miserable cottages of mud and bamboo. The governmenthouse is a very splendid and costly structure. A college was founded by the Marquess Wellesley, which boasted many illustrious members, but has of late been much reduced. The allowances to all the servants of government are liberal; and though their aim, in going out, has generally been to return with an independent fortune, they indulge in a hospitable, splendid, and expensive style of living. Large dinner parties, in preference to public amusements, form the favourite recreation. Serampore, 12 miles above Calcutta, is a neat, thriving little town, at which is a Danish settlement. This place is interesting as the seat of the Baptist missionaries, who have distinguished themselves by such learned and extensive labours in the pious task of translating the Scriptures into all the languages of India, and even of China.

Bombay, the capital of Western India, is situated on a small island connected by an artificial causeway with the larger one of Salsette. In 1661, it was ceded by the Portuguese to Charles II., as part of queen Catherine's portion; two or

three years after, a settlement was established, and in 1686, the chief seat of English trade was transferred thither from Surat. Since that time, Bombay, notwithstanding considerable vicissitudes, has continued on the whole in a state of constant increase, and has become the great emporium of Western India, with a population of 220,000. Of these, about 8000 are Parsees, the most wealthy of the inhabitants, and by whom its prosperity is mainly supported. There are also Jews, Mahometans, and Portuguese, in considerable numbers; but the Hindoos comprise three-fourths of the whole.

Madras, situated on the west coast of the peninsula, is the capital of the presidency of Madras. It has no harbour; but a mere road, through which runs a strong current, and which is often exposed to dangerous winds. On the beach breaks so strong and continual a surf, that only a peculiar species of large light boats, the thin planks of which are sewed together with the tough grass of the country, can, by the dexterous management of the natives, be rowed across it. For the conveyance, also, of letters and messages, they employ what is called a catamaran, consisting merely of two planks fastened together, with which they encounter the roughest seas with wonderful address, and, when swept off by the waves, regain it by swimming. The city has a handsome appearance from the sea, and many of its streets are spacious. The population is about 300,000.

Surat, on the Gulf of Cambay, and about 170 miles north of Bombay, at the first arrival of Europeans, was the greatest emporium of India, and at present it ranks scarcely second to Calcutta. The population is usually rated at 600,000. It has suffered by the British having established the chief seat of their commerce at Bombay. It still, however, carries on extensive manufactures of silks, brocades, and fine cotton stuffs. This city contains many very opulent merchants, chiefly Banians and Parsees. The former carry to a great extent all the peculiarities of their religion, and manifest in a peculiar degree their tenderness for animal life, by erecting hospitals for birds, monkeys, and other animals accounted sacred.

Benares, the Athens of the Hindoos, stands on the left bank of the Ganges, about 900 miles from the Gulf of Bengal. It may be said to form the grand depository of the religion and learning of this vast country. Its sacred character, which is supposed to ensure the salvation of all who die within its precincts, cannot fail, in a nation devoted to pilgrimage, of rendering Benares a scene of extensive and crowded resort. Its own population, long supposed to exceed 500,000, has been found by a late census not to be more than 200,000; but it is augmented, at solemn seasons, by pilgrims to a much greater number. Benares, in fact, presents a more lofty and imposing aspect than any other Indian city. Its houses, instead of being a mere collection of mud and straw huts, are most of them built of brick, and some of them five or six stories high; so that they make a very magnificent appearance. The city also contains a great number of temples and mosques.

Lucknow, the principal city in Oude, was, while the nabobs of that state were in full power, one of the most splendid in India: the population in 1800 was estimated at upwards of 300,000, but is said to have diminished since that time. It contains several mosques and palaces with gilded domes, which give it an imposing appearance at a distance. It is situated on the Goomty, a branch of the Ganges.

On the banks of the Jumna, is found, mouldering in decay, the city of Delhi. It was, in early times, a great Hindoo metropolis, under the name of Indraput; but Shah Jehan, in the middle of the seventeenth century, made it the chief seat of Mogul dominion, and such it afterwards continued. Here, in 1806, died Shah Allum, the last of that mighty dynasty who could be said to enjoy any portion of real empire. His son Akbar is still allowed by the British to bear that great name, and to receive a considerable proportion of the revenues of the province, which enables him to live in some splendour. What remains of Delhi is still rather a handsome city; the streets, though narrow, contain many good houses, built of brick, and partly of stone. Here are the remains of a number of splendid palaces; and the city is adorned with many beautiful mosques, still in good repair. During the reign of Aurengzebe, it was computed to contain 2,000,000

inhabitants; but, at present, less than one-tenth of that number. In 1739, Delhi was plundered by Nadir Shah, when 100,000 of the inhabitants were massacred, and plunder to the amount of £62,000,000 was collected.

Dacca was the capital of Bengal in the reign of Jehangire, and is still a very large city. It contains 150,000 inhabitants, displays no particular splendour, but is the seat of a great trade. It stands on the Boor Gunga, or old Ganges, 100 miles from the sea, and 150 north-east from Calcutta.

The city of Cashmere, the largest in the Seik dominion, contains, it is said, 150,000 inhabitants: it stands on the Jylum, in the most northern part of Hindoostan, and is noted for its manufactures of the finest shawls in the world. The beauty of its situation has also been widely celebrated, particularly its lake, studded with numberless islands, green with gardens and groves, and having its banks environed with villas and ornamented grounds.

Hyderabad, 400 miles south-east from Bombay, the capital of the province of the same name, may be considered also the present capital of the Deccan, the removal of the Nizam thither from Aurungabad having attracted to it a population of about 120,000. Though not a fine city, Hyderabad contains some handsome mosques; and the Nizam maintains, on a smaller scale, a semblance of Mogul pomp. He has large magazines filled to the ceiling with fine cloths, watches, porcelain, and other ornamental articles presented to him by European embassies. Poonah resembles a huge village rather than a city; the houses are irregularly built, chiefly of slight brick walls, by which even the palace is entirely enclosed. For resisting the violent rains, these structures depend chiefly on interior timber frames: they are painted with innumerable representations of the Hindoo Pantheon. The markets are plentifully supplied with provisions of every kind. Poonah is now included in the British territory, and attached to the presidency of Bombay. It is about 80 miles south-east from the city of that name. Population, 10,000.

Some of the other important cities in Hindoostan are Lahore, the capital of the Seik dominions, with a population of 80,000; Umritsir, the holy city of the same people, and the seat of their great national council, containing a population of 100,000; Tattah, the chief city of Sinde, and Hyderabad, the capital of the same state these are both on the Indus: the former contains about 20,000 inhabitants, and was once a very great manufacturing and commercial place. Katmandoo, the capital of Nepaul, was said to contain, a few years ago, 20,000 houses: of these, one-half were destroyed by an earthquake, in the spring of 1834.

CEYLON.

CEYLON, lying to the south of Hindoostan, from which it is separated by the Strait of Manar, is a large and beautiful island, about 300 miles in length and 160 in breadth: it is traversed in the interior by a range of mountains, one of which, Adam's Peak, is 6152 feet in height: here the Cingalese and Hindoos worship the colossal footsteps of Adam, who, as they believe, was created on this mountain, and, according to the religion of Boodha, is Boodha himself. This island produces cinnamon, for which it is famous; also rice, cotton, ginger, coffee, pepper, &c. A great variety of precious stones are found here, the diamond, ruby, amethyst, &c.; also, quicksilver, lead, iron, and tin. A pearl-fishery is carried on along the western coast and in the Strait of Manar, which was formerly important, but is now declining.

The inhabitants are estimated at about 1,000,000 in number, and comprise1. The Cingalese, similar to the Hindoos: these form the majority of the people; 2. The Beddahs, rude savages, who inhabit the wildest tracts in the interior; 3. The Dutch and Portuguese, descendants of the former masters of the island; and 4. The English residents and military. Many churches and schools have been established by both English and American missionaries, at which numbers of the natives attend, and are gradually laying aside their gross errors and superstitions, and acquiring a knowledge of the benign doctrines of Christianity.

LACCADIVE AND MALDIVE ISLANDS CHIN INDIA.

511

Ceylon is a colony independent of the East India Company, being under the immediate control of the crown.

Colombo, on the west coast of the island, is the seat of government and of almost all the foreign trade. It owes this advantage to its situation in the midst of the most fertile and productive territory in the island; population, 50,000. Trincomalee, Point de Galle, Jafnapatam, and Condatchy, are all places of some note. Kandy, the interior capital, is only a large straggling village, surrounded by wooded hills, that echo continually with cries of wild animals.

LACCADIVE AND MALDIVE ISLANDS.

WEST and south-west from the southern part of India, the Laccadive and Maldive Islands extend, in a direction nearly north and south, a distance of about 1000 miles in length: the former are about 200 miles west from the Malabar coast, and the latter 300 to 350 south-west from Cape Comorin.

The Laccadives are said to be 32 in number, all of them small and covered with trees. The inhabitants are mostly Mahometans, called Moplays: they trade to the nearest coast of India, and also to Muscat, in large boats; taking there cocoa-nut oil, cable and cordage, and dried fish; receiving in return, dates, coffee, &c. Ambergris is often found floating off these islands.

The Maldives are, it is said, 1000 in number; but they are, for the most part, uninhabited. The natives appear to be a mixture of Arabs and Indians of Malabar: they supply vessels with cocoa-nuts, oil and honey, dried fish, tortoise-shell, and cowries. The islands are divided into 17 attollons, or provinces, each governed by a chief: the whole are under the control of a king, who rules despotically. They have four sea-ports, in which their few articles of commerce are collected.

CHIN INDIA.

CHIN INDIA, OF FURTHER INDIA, Comprises that extensive region situated between India and China, and sometimes called Indo China, and also India beyond the Ganges; its inhabitants have but little in common with the Hindoos or Chinese; and although this region has had but a small share in the great transactions of which Asia has been the theatre, yet it comprises several extensive and important kingdoms, some of which have been alternately united and separated.

It may be divided into the British territories, ceded in consequence of the late successful war, the empire of Birmah, the kingdom of Siam, the empire of Anam, or Cochin China, and lastly, the Peninsula of Malaya, or Malacca. The whole region is bounded on the west by Hindoostan, the Bay of Bengal, and the Strait of Malacca; north by Thibet and China; and east by the China and Malayan Seas. It extends from 2° to 26° north latitude, and from 92° to 108° east longitude; a distance, from north to south, of 1700, and from east to west about 1000 miles. It contains an area of nearly 1,000,000 square miles, and is inhabited by a population, composed of various races, amounting, according to the estimates of the latest writers on the subject, to about 14,000,000 souls, apportioned among the different States as follows, viz:

The surface of this great territory is formed by a series of mountain ranges, running from north to south, between each of which intervenes a broad valley, in general very fertile, and watered by a large river, descending from the mountains

of China and Thibet. The rivers are mostly of great importance. The Irrawaddy, or river of Ava, is navigable many hundred miles for large boats. The Salwen, or Thaluen, is also a large stream, though but little known. The Mecon, or Cambodia, is navigable twenty days' sail from the ocean. The Menan, which waters Siam, after a course of 800 miles enters the Gulf of Siam by three channels, the most easterly admitting vessels of the first magnitude. The outline of this region is very irregular, being deeply indented by the large Gulfs of Siam and Tonquin and the Bay of Martaban.

The government of all these kingdoms, in principle, at least, is a pure despotism; in which no constitutional check on the authority of the monarch is recognised. The state officers compose a sort of council of state, but entirely subject to the monarch, and removable at his pleasure. The nobles, especially in Siam, show the most profound submission, and approach the throne in the most abject manner, lying prostrate on their faces, and creeping on the ground. The king has many pompous titles, but that of shoe, or golden, is the one most valued, and which must be applied to him on every occasion.

The military strength of these nations consists almost entirely of a feudal militia, for which all males of a certain age are enrolled, and may be called upon to serve under the chiefs of their respective districts. Their arms are mostly swords, lances, and cross-bows; though they have collected a considerable number of firearms; but these, being chiefly the muskets condemned in the English arsenals, cannot, by the most anxious exertions of art and skill, be brought into a serviceable state. The only exception is in Cochin-China, where the European officers in the king's service have effected considerable improvements. But the most efficient part of the establishment consists in the war-boats, destined to act on the great rivers which form the main channels of communication in all these kingdoms.

On land, the Birmans and Siamese trust chiefly to their stockades, which they throw up with surprising skill and expedition. In general, however, none of these troops can stand the charge of a disciplined army, but, as soon as their defences are penetrated, they take to flight with precipitation. In Cochin-China only a regular army has been organised and trained in the European manner: this force, in 1800, was estimated at 140,000 men; but is supposed at present not to exceed 50,000, of whom the royal guards amount to 30,000.

The productive capacities of this region are very ample. It yields all the grand staples of tropical produce. The principal culture consists of rice, sugar of fine quality, pepper, and cotton. The sides of the great ranges of hills are covered with luxuriant timber of various species and great value. There are large forests of teak, a wood now found to be preferable, from its strength and durability, to any other, for the purposes of ship-building. Large boats are often cut out from a single tree, and a great quantity of teak timber is now produced for the supply of the naval arsenals of British India. Stick lac and gamboge are among the chief articles of export; also, areca-nut and betel-leaf, that universal article of luxury and ceremony in all Indian countries. Cardamoms are a spice for which a large market is found in China, and there is some cinnamon in Cambodia; but in general these regions are not productive of the finer species.

Cultivation is very generally diffused, and is conducted in the west on the Indian model, and in the east on the Chinese; but it is not practised in the same perfection, or with the same patient industry, as by either of these nations. The sugar and pepper of Siam are chiefly raised by Chinese settlers. Domestic animals are little used in cultivation, and in Ava the Brahminical principle prevents them from being made articles of food. Animals are tamed chiefly for conveyance or pomp; and for these purposes the elephant, here found in greater perfection, and more highly prized, than in any other country in the world, is chiefly employed.

Manufactures exist only on a limited scale, and in a rude form; the raw materials which the country affords being worked up mostly by the family itself for domestic use. Those brilliant and beautiful fabrics which are the boast of China and Hindoostan are not produced here, and the quantity used is imported from