Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843

CONCLUSION

While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper place an incident of some interest—his presence at the opening of the Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the Queen in person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a member of the royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to the House of Lords, and was placed in a position which afforded him an excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their sovereign. "When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression of all the magnificence around me, I could compare it only to the Garden of Trem[11 - The palace constructed, in the early ages of the world, by the giant-king Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and supposed still to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the recesses of the Desert—See Lane's Thousand and One Nights, vol, ii. p. 342.]—nay, it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous place. At twelve o'clock, twenty-one peals of artillery announced the approach of the Queen, who shortly after entered with Prince Albert, followed by her train-bearers, &c. All rose as she advanced; and when the Lords were again seated, the cadhi-ab-codhat (Lord Chancellor) put a piece of paper in her hands, and placed himself on the right of the throne, while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the gentlemen of the House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a loud voice from the paper to the following effect." We need not, however, follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the debate on the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, "that under the emperors of Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the sovereign, would inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at least have ensured his spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka." On the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that "the justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of Nushirvan from the face of the earth!" But the remarks of the simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their honest sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter—"We saw in an instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be, a queen; we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to believe that she could, though meek and amiable, be firm and decisive; ... that no man or set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and that, knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of her people, she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the lustre of her reign, that the period of her sway in Britain would be quoted as the golden age."

After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an occasional attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was present at a debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took part—"These three being the most eloquent of the speakers, and the chiefs of their respective parties, though several other members spoke at great length either for or against the motion, according as each was attached to one or other of the great factions which divide the House of Commons, and hold the destinies of the people in their hands." Of the speeches of these three leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts to give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived, we imagine, principally through the medium of an interpreter, this first essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if we are to conclude, from his constant use of the phrase zemindars to denote the landed interest, that he considered the estates of the English proprietors to be held by zemindarry tenures similar to those in Bengal, his notions on the subject of the debate must have been considerably perplexed. "At length, however, as the debate had already been protracted to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy termination to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the constitution. With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom—so that here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact is the reverse—for from these debates result those measures which mark the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."

But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a definition of the essential differences which separate them; and, for a statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories, as represented to an oriental, we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf Kooli, who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted with this abstruse subject. "The Tories," says the Persian prince, "argue as follows:—'Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now reform and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs reply—'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and circumstances. Moreover, by the old policy, only a few were benefited; and, as government is for the general good, we must observe that which is best for the whole nation, so that all should be profited.'" The Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament, and his summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech, are marked by the same amusing naïveté—"When all are met, the king, arrayed in all his majestic splendour and state, with the crown on his head, stands up with his face to the assembly, and makes a speech with perfect eloquence as follows:—'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you will thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every day, Sunday excepted, from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after sunset. They take all things into consideration, and decide all questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise loud voices and vehement disputes."

But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the Lord Mayor's dinner, described in our last Number, in the world of amusement which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he recovered from the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but his account of the wonders of this celebrated place of resort, perhaps from his faculties still being in some measure abstracted, is less full than might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere, till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak, so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to attempt to describe it in detail. After this," continues the Khan, "I passed under ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases, bearing in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance in the world of encountering a grinning hyæna, or some such beast; and it was with some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not being exactly acquainted with their nature."

The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps, the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious displays—Vauxhall. "A large garden! a paradise!"—such is the rapturous description of the Persian princes—"filled with roses of various hues, with cool waters running in every direction on the beautiful green, and pictures painted on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps, each of a different colour; and we saw here such fire-works, as made us forget all others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank moons (ladies) led by the hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their beautiful cheeks." The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of the illumination; "thousands of lights distributed over the gardens, suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful devices, so as to form flowers, names, &c.; and when it became dark, one blaze of bright light was presented, extending over a vast space." He was fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the gardens on the evening of a balloon ascent, "and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I ever saw—a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider to be a Feringhi fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not see it, and many even who were present, believed that their senses had been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a howdah was swung by ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated themselves, besides the æronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat, telling me he had performed nearly three hundred ærial voyages, and that, if any accident should happen, he himself would be the first to suffer. I certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending to the skies, but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me, who said it was safer to remain on terra firma, and look on at the voyagers; and accordingly I did so."

Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of the British Museum, his description of that institution, "one like which I had never before heard of," is reserved almost to the last in the catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze, form one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history, and particularly of the humming birds "from the far isles of the Western Sea," the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest degree—"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library, "containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of bygone mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste—the Egyptian colossi are alluded to as "the work in former days, I suppose, of some of the mummies up stairs;" and the Grecian statues "would appear, to an unbiassed stranger, a quantity of useless, mutilated idols, representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English, it is a most valuable collection, said to have cost seven lakhs of rupees, (£70,000,) and venerated as containing some of the finest sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be attached in Europe to this art, since the use of all images is as distinctly forbidden by the Tevrāt, (Bible,) as it is by our own law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which contains specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the bowels of the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains, being a branch of that relating to minerals, of which there is in the next room a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases, with the names written on them.... Among these, the most extraordinary were some stones said to have fallen from the sky, one of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most generally received opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in the moon, thus assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there; secondly, their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a distance, according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000 miles; and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown. This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system; indeed, it is in direct contravention to it."

The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus, by which the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the centre of the universe, to a subordinate grade in the solar system, seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan; "since," as he remarks, "the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told, however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon, mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are distinctly visible." After satisfying his curiosity on these points, the Khan proceeded to inspect the hospital, where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great hall; "most of these had lost their limbs, and those who were not maimed were very old, and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed, it was a very interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the English nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have shed their blood in her defence." To the charitable institutions of the country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do justice; "there is no better feature than this in the national character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted are lodged, fed, and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!" In pursuance of this feeling, we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these establishments, and the proficiency which many of them had attained in trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their privations, sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character, which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:—"I obtained a seat near the officiating imam or high priest, and saw near ten thousand children of both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary establishments, which are deservedly the pride of this country, all clothed in an uniform dress, while every corner was filled with spectators. After the khotbah (prayer) was read, they began to sing, not in the ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged to many schools,[12 - The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected from all parts of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this procession!] and are brought here once a year, that those who contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made, as well as their health and appearance."

The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the cadets of the East India Company's army, would naturally be to the Khan an object of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired, in company with several of his friends, apparently members of the Indian direction, on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel Pasley.[13 - The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of visitors on that day occur the names of Kurreen Khan, Mohabet Khan, and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who will be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that season.] "After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we went to the students' room, where they were examined in various branches of the military science, as mathematics, fortification, drawing, &c., besides various languages, one of which was the Oordoo."[14 - The polite dialect of Hindustani, which differs considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is derived from Oorda, the court, or camp, of the sovereign—whence our word horde.] After the close of the examination, and the distribution of prizes to the successful candidates,[15 - "One hundred and fifty-three of the students," he adds, "were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to India;" but the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here, as the number actually selected was only thirty-one.]the company repaired to the grounds, where the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery—"a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to impress him with an adequate idea of British power—the launch of a first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16 - This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was launched June 21, 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the Queen personally performed the ceremony of christening the ship, since that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson, who used on the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when Nelson fell.] "The sight was extremely exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The ceremony of christening a ship is taken from that of christening a child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron, against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."

The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the top-khana, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the production of a Feringhi pen, present one of the most faithful pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank matters:—"When we came to the guns," says the eximious Hajji Baba, "by my beard, existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and denominations, enough to have paved the way, if placed side by side, from Tehran to Tabriz—if placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they would have reached—into the very grave of the father of all the Russians, perhaps!" "The cannon distributed over the whole place," says the graver narrative of the Khan, "are said to amount to 40,000! all ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses; and, as if these were not sufficient for the destruction of the human race, other pieces are constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India, where the guns are cast in moulds—whereas here a solid cylinder is cast, and afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by steam power.... There are, moreover, a considerable number taken from enemies in battle, two of which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam, have their muzzles in the form of a lion's mouth, and are very well cast and elaborately ornamented; having their date, with the weight of powder and ball they carry, expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also three from Bhurtpore, and three others from Aden, the inscriptions on which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor, Mahmood[17 - This must be a slip of the pen for Selim, or perhaps for Soliman Ibn Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)] Ibn Soliman." After leaving the arsenal, the Khan proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely enumerates the various departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of the hydraulic press, impressed him, as it must do every one who has witnessed that astonishing process, with the idea of almost illimitable power. "On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days before in the presence of Prince Albert, and when I was there four men were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel, the force produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I arrived it began to give way, when they desisted. The force here produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of some 200,000 elephants, which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent (steam,) the results of which I meet with in so many different places, and under so many different circumstances!" After visiting the convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which, as well as the electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in Oordoo,") by which communication is effected between the two ends of the line, he soon after paid another visit to inspect. "This railway is carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of the ground was unusually high, I was told that it cost, though only three miles and a half in length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees, (£1,000,000!")

With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative of the Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his native land, which we believe took place soon after this period. The remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix, consisting chiefly of dissertations on the manners, institutions, &c., of Great Britain, as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an elaborate retrospect of English history, from the Britons downwards; excepting, however, the four centuries from the death of William the Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.—an interval which he perhaps considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on the struggles for power between the crown and the barons, and the consequent origin and final constitution of parliament, related in a previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation was, as he informs us, "for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are to this day entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been extended over so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is felt in the remotest corners of the globe." The manner in which the Khan has performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his industry and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of the facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been bestowed, is particularly complete and well written—unless (as, indeed, we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation in toto from some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of English history, indeed, is sometimes more accurate than his acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when, in comparing Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi, Raziah Begum, he speaks of the latter princess as "daughter of Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor of Delhi;" whereas a reference to Ferishta, or any other native historian, will inform us that Raziah died a.d. 1239, more than 200 years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this, either in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan's sketch of English history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it. His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18 - "At this epoch," adds the Khan in a note, "reigned the great Harūn-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."] thus summing up his character:—"To describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and moral, attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial; affable, and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he was a man especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit the human race!"

The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady, are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom before the conquering swords of the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive monarch Canute "was looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very extraordinary man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world, the sovereign of the seas and the land." The well-known story of his pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of incompetency. "One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the waves reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated to the ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the king whose mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as by the children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe, and was called Canute the Great, as we should say Sahib-i-kirān," (the Lord of the Conjunction, implying a man born under a peculiar conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to distinguished fortunes.)

But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan, the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic king, in his estimation—a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being abhorred by the Moslems—is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the "gospel light that beamed from Boleyn's eyes," or of the doom which overtook more than one of his consorts, is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his achievements; such allusions, indeed, would probably be regarded by the Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to encounter, we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal power, and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries previously, by the Pope. "This personage was the monarch of Christendom, something analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his blessing and forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover, if the king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure, his people were excommunicated, and anathemas published against them to the whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of camels." He then proceeds to state how Henry, by holding forth to his nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the church, induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the papal ascendency. "He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged from the khotbah, and his own to be substituted as head of the church; while the idols and pictures were removed from the churches, and not allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for himself, the second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and distributed the third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion.

"The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all to undertake a holy war against Henry, who was not only a heretic, but an infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would be rained on them from heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war accordingly against Henry, and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed; and the King of Denmark and other potentates, perceiving that the Pope's threats were not accomplished, and that no fire fell from heaven, followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe, so that at the present day his name is read in the khotbah only in the city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry, and which is so different from the ancient faith, has existed in England ever since, a period of above three hundred years."

We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on English history, of which the passages already given afford a sufficient specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of Delhi, and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the climate, productions, and statistics of the country, its division into zillahs or counties, the law of primogeniture as regards succession to landed property, &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws regulating the succession to the throne, the responsibility of ministers, the election of the members of the House of Commons, and the mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his remarks on these subjects, though creditable from their general accuracy, possess little originality; and may be left without comment for the edification of his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of ministers, (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had occasion to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to have lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its practical bearings; and is pronounced to be "the best law which the English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a check on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam, though with us the check is still more powerful and effectual, as the judge is empowered by the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!" The details of the British finances are briefly touched upon, with a special denunciation of "that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the sun when it comes through a window:"—but the Khan contents himself with stating the amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid to the public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction, like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the pressure of the taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably, erelong, produce a revolution, in which the whole debt would be cancelled, it would be far better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of their claim, and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the feasibility, as well as equity of this plan, the Mirza does not appear to entertain the smallest doubt:—"and thus," he triumphantly concludes, "in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be liquidated; some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished, and others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper, and the people be rendered happy, and grateful to the government."

"When in Hindustan," says the Khan, "I had heard, like millions of others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers, called Company; but no one knew whether this was a man, or a medicine, or a weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing else. The most prevalent notion was, that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us, and their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum, with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding that Company was so far from being one and indivisible, that Companies "exist by thousands for multifarious objects—many even for speculation in human life. The most recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve directors, and other officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on this sum they put a per centage, varying according to his age and state of health, which he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money. People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of providing, by small annual contributions, for the support of their families after their decease—and consequently the man's own relations often rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company) grieve."

On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected. Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on such subjects can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his knowledge of the country being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from ballrooms and crowded soirées, than from the private circles of family réunions. With these limited opportunities of observation, his remarks on the mass of the people are necessarily confined, in a great measure, to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship, into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The important point of the comparative deference paid to women, and the amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them, in the social systems of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively, is taken up by the Khan in behalf of the former, with as much warmth as in past years by his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb,[19 - The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in England a treatise, entitled "Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women," which was translated by Captain Richardson, and published first in the Asiatic Annual Register for 1801, and again as an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet, and well worth perusal.] and in much the same line of argument—to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the fickleness and caprice of her partner, ("whose interest it thus becomes, setting affection wholly out of the question, to remain on good terms with her,") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where a wife, though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the Mohammedan system of divorces, may still be driven, without misconduct on her part, from her husband's house, and left to seek redress by the slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with whom he conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many years of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess, that if they were correctly stated, "the ladies in India are far better off than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it in one day if they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property, but are given us by our husbands." But if we allow the Khan all due credit for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion the cause of his fair countrywomen, we can scarcely acquit him of something like disingenuousness in a discussion with "another lady," apparently one who had not been in India, and who lamented the hard fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again after the death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the priests, who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to prevent their doing so. "With regard to this last idea, it is so utterly groundless, that there is no word in our language corresponding with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world, Islam is the least influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is, besides, expressly enjoined in the Koran, that widows should marry; they may do so as often as they like, if they survive their husbands; and if they do not, it is their own choice." Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan's is perfectly true as regards Moslem law and Moslem widows, he must have been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus, those customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of the Brahmins, and the impediments to the marriage of a widow,[20 - Great efforts have of late been made, among the more enlightened Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal, a wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe the prize has been since claimed:—and in the Asiatic Journal (vol. xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of the establishment, in 1842, of a "Hindu widow re-marrying club" at Calcutta!] exist in full force at this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan, even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his fair opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.

But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the eyes of the Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances of real friendship, on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places, from the collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. "They dispute in parliament, they dispute in their social circles, they dispute in steam-boats, on railroads, in eating and drinking; and I verily believe that, but for some slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to each other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together, the more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart, as well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the men—they are more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to strangers, less reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed. Wherever I have been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a difficulty occurred on any topic, the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters, and ask for an explanation, thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only apparent, and arose from the desire the men might have to display the accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it is the real state of the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of the people."

We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is enhanced by its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands." But the impression produced on the Khan by the contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be viewed in another light—in its relations to the government of India under Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the people at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the words of our author,) that in Mohammedan countries "every prince is a tyrant; every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in depravity, ignorance, and misery:" and who cling to the comfortable delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of our civil government, in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this important subject from the other side of the question, taken by one, however, by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as the meritorious features of the English administration, the Khan's comparative summary, though not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses considerable interest: and it must be admitted, that with respect to the internal improvement of the country, his strictures have hitherto had but too much foundation, though the schemes of the present governor-general, if carried into effect, will go far to remove the stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a conversation with an English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings under the Moslem rule, with the slow process of the English courts in India, to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which, according to the Khan's statement, not a single individual of the number who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he proceeds—

"Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who talk of the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I could prove by many instances, were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore, a distance of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles, and at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai, where all travellers were fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this, canals were dug, and public edifices built, at the expense of millions, without taxing the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand, and will endure for many years, as monuments of the munificence of the monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English dominion in India, what has been done which would remind the people fifty years hence, if they should retire from the country, that such a nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave, would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to indicate what has been done in, if not for India! In some cases also, they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have employed thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense profit to government, and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the high qualities of energy and enterprise, united with superior education and intelligence, unquestionably possessed by its masters, they display so lamentable and apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and skill which I see every where and in every department, I cannot but the more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries, and strange and unheard-of inventions, in every branch of science and art, are likely to remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return all the wonders I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established, the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years, nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been founded on the principle of those built and endowed by the emperors, they might have produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since, in various parts of the empire, in which some thousands of children, both Hindoo and Moslem, have received education, they have never turned out a single man of superior attainments in any department of literature there taught:—and it is remarkable that not an instance exists, as far as I am aware, of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having been selected for the high judicial offices of Sadr-ameen, and principal Sadr-ameen (judges in the local courts;) but that these functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have established schools professing to give superior instruction to the people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and how can it be accounted for, except by these institutions having been conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India, I must be like the free-masons, silent and reserved, unless when I meet one who has been, like myself, in England, and with whom I can converse on the wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country, and which, if I venture to narrate them in public, or even among my own immediate friends and relatives, would draw on me such disbelief, that I would certainly die from grief of heart."—Here leave we Kerim Khan; not without a hope, that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the passage just quoted, of incurring the reproach to which "travellers' tales" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which has been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we are acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization, the want of which he so feelingly deplores, and that he may live a thousand years in the full fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting, we now take leave of him.

NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES

BY JOSEPH DOWNES.

Author of "The Mountain Decameron."

Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire, September 9

"And this is the 'disturbed district!'—this is the seat of war!—the 'Agrarian civil war!'—the headquarters of the 'Rebecca rebels!" I soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9, 1843—a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day—while thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards, stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said "street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of watches (silver, too!) displayed, without a token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road, only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.

It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight, confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip" among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic Mynydd Du, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And this is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.

I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition—also, a great love of rural quiet, joined to some trifling degree of cowardice, as my family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," bivouacking in their wildest solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up in measureless content."

"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony—bloody felony—was at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent, helpless, and—a woman!!

But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.

As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son, we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from them, survey us with surly eyes, as Sabbath-breakers, for travelling on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three expressions at us among themselves—I say, how curious a fact in the pathology of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of felons, midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men, against society itself. For a system which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society—it is a casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as the Guy Fawkes.

It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the female faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for elsewhere, humble civility has always met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts—'Becca has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed for by every honest farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent 'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the looks of the Welsh women.

We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked—no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of the road by tramp of horses—like the spider showing himself at his hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left—and huge stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a road!—that payment which the laws of the land had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or neglected to—erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had pronounced her law—"sic volo, sic jubeo"—and we rode through, by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict—cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I never was transported—never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this strange triumph of anarchy—after looking down on these works of mob law, unreversed, tamely endured—after fancying I saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying helpless—the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted, unrestored—left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable blessing—I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings—let me whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure did creep up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money, snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any man—Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride toll free through, or rather over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in short—without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for I surely loved 'Becca at heart at that moment!

My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws—but it wouldn't do. "But you don't look altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are Rebeccaites to the backbone, and to a man? I fear they must be more than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities in the first instance, in not instantly re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains pro tempore, protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few military at first, stationed near the gates, would have awed rustic rebels. It is the impunity which this unheard-of palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of all payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay—the vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict—the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "peccavi" too manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of all. A bonus in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine, besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then, in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long, if government do not do something more than send down a gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people, by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house—fire its contents—murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even ask you again for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"

Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the first torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has accepted it, and "justice"—justice keeps her promise religiously, for no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?

Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10. Sunday

A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (vulgo a bagman) into a "sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales—not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer—on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed—the immortal prose-poet bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat, with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes, surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable, "magna componere parvis."

Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.

Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine, water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in, impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye, directed to nature only—to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's God—was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and darkest passions; that the army—that odious, hideous, necessary curse of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace, (though uncongenial to both)—was at that moment evoked by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and scene—emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood, and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy Dying"—of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example—where even still, nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret operation!

In that very park of Dynevor, whose beauty we were admiring from the bridge, a little walk would have led us to—a grave!—no consecrated one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; dug, in savage threatening of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living—the son of the noble owner of that ancient domain—dug in sight of his father's house, in his own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save that of being a magistrate—a sworn preserver of the public peace!

Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out from the meeting-houses.

Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of ha—a—h? "long drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem "conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.

To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls—this outbreak of a devilish spirit—this crusade against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The Times newspaper has ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such daring subornation of crime would have brought themselves into trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You did not excite your followers to rebellion and arson! You, with your unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions—you, who are all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from violence is easier than to commit it?

The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion, (the feeler put forth being the toll grievance,) and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very eyes—in your daily path—which no good man can view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable suspension of your influence—and I find it in self-interest—love of "filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to conciliate—is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your interest in direct opposition."

Llanon, Carmarthenshire

The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was fear of the house being set fire to, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men, now prisoners, were of this village, the focus of this rebellion that dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared at their command. They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however, soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or in) on a "Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.

And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a man's just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very villagers—against the night-masked assassins, who had just before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women—against the chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!

Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday

The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives" that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every corner to cabal, rather than to dispute, it seems; for, fond as they are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you from what they dissent, or to what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or midnight surprisals) against right.

In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record—the first dwelling-house, not being a toll-house, was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here. And here resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition, an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine, called Y Diwygiwr, (the "Reformer!")—God bless the mark!

This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The Times newspaper did good service in gibbeting this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of Welsh society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!—