Yet these each other's power so strong contest, FINGAL'S CAVE-STAFFA, GOLDSMITH. "WE visited Staffa and Iona. The former is one of the most extraordinary places I ever beheld. It is a cathedral arch, scooped by the hand of Nature, equal in dimensions and in regularity to the most magnificent aisle of a Gothic cathedral. The sea rolls up to the extremity in most tremendous majesty, and with a voice like ten thousand giants shouting at once. It exceeded, in my mind, every description I had heard of it; or rather, the appearance of the cavern, composed entirely of basaltic pillars as high as the roof of a cathedral, and running deep into the rock, eternally swept by a deep and swelling sea, and paved as it were with ruddy marble, baffles all description. You can walk along the broken pillars, with some difficulty, and in some places with a little danger,' as far as the farthest extremity. Poats also can come in below when the sea is placid, which is seldom the case. I had become a sort of favourite with the Hebridean boatmen, I suppose from my anxiety about their old customs, and they were much pleased to see me get over the obstacles which stopped some of the party, so they took the whim of solemnly christening a great stone-seat at the mouth of the cavern, Clachan-an-Bairdh, or the Poct's Stone. It was consecrated with a pibroch, which the echoes rendered tremendous, and a glass of whiskey,2-not poured forth in the ancient mode of libation, but turned over the throats of the assistants. The head boatman, whose father had been himself a bard, made me a speech on the occasion; but as it was in Gaelic, I could only receive it as a silly beauty does a fine-spun compliment, bow and say nothing. When this fun was over (in which, strange as it may seem, the men were quite serious), we went to Íona, where there are some ancient and curious monuments. From this remote island the light of Christianity shone forth on Scotland and Ireland. The ruins are of a rude architecture, but curious to the antiquary. Our return was less comfortable; we had to row twenty miles against an Atlantic tide and some wind, besides the pleasure of seeing occasional squalls gathering to windward. The ladies were sick, and none of the gentleman escaped except Staffa3 and myself. The men, however, cheered by the pipes and by their own interesting boat-songs, which were uncommonly wild and beautiful, one man leading and the others answering in chorus, kept pulling away without apparently the least sense of fatigue, and we reached Ulva at ten at night, tolerably wet, and well-disposed for bed."-SCOTT. Of all the countries on the Asiatic continent, India, from the earliest ages, has excited the greatest interest and enjoyed the highest celebrity. The exploits of the conquerors who made it the object of their warlike expeditions, as also the splendid productions of nature and art which were thence imported, procured for it a great name even in the remotest eras of classical antiquity. It has all along appeared to the imagination of the Western World as adorned with whatever is most splendid and gorgeous; glittering as it were with gold and gems, and redolent of fragrant and delicious odours. Though there be in these magnificent conceptions something romantic and illusory, still India forms unquestionably one of the most remarkable regions that exist on the surface of the globe. The varied grandeur of its scenery, and the rich productions of its soil, are scarcely equalled in any other country. It is also extremely probable that it was, if not the first, at least one of the earliest seats of civilization, laws, arts, and of all the improvements of social life. These, it is true, have at no period attained to the same pitch of advancement as among Europeans; but they have, nevertheless, been developed in very original forms, displaying human nature under the most striking and singular aspects. The strong interest which India in itself is thus calculated to excite, must to us be greatly heightened by the consideration of its having become so completely a province of the British Empire. The government of this country now directs the fortunes of a hundred millions of human beings placed at the opposite extremity of the earth; and hence the welfare of the state is intimately suspended on that of this vast dependency. This connection, too, is peculiarly strengthened by the great number of our countrymen who are constantly going out to administer the affairs of that important colony. Closer personal ties, in many instances, are thereby formed with our eastern settlements than with the different provinces of Britain itself. Thousands, to whom Cornwall and Devonshire are almost strange lands, are connected by the most intimate social relations with Madras and Calcutta. For such persons the history and description of our Indian possessions, independently of the grandeur of the subject and its union with national wealth and power, must have a peculiar interest, as being closely associated with the pursuits and prospects of their dearest friends. India is enclosed by grand natural boundaries. Its whole northern frontier is separated from the high table-land of Thibet, by the chain of the Himalaya mountains, which, according to recent observation, appears to reach at least as great a height as any other ridge by which the globe is traversed. The western and eastern limits are formed by the lower course of two great rivers,—the Indus on one side, and the Brahmapoutra on the other. The southern portion consists of a very extensive peninsula, bounded by the ocean. Other countries have often been comprehended under the general appellation of India,—particularly Cabul and Candahar, which ranked long as provinces belonging to the Mogul emperors; but this was merely in consequence of those warlike rulers having conquered India, and transferred thither the seat of their empire. These districts, it is manifest, bear a much closer relation to Persia and Tartary; and when they are included in Hindostan, they necessarily extend that country beyond its great river-line on the north-west, where it has no decided or natural boundaries. But within the limits we have indicated there is found a religion, languages, manners, and institutions, characteristic of this region, and distinguishing it from all the other countries of Asia. India, thus defined, though some of its extremities have not been very precisely determined, may be suitably described as lying between the eighth and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude, and the sixty-eighth and ninety-second of east longitude. It thus extends somewhat above 1,800 miles from north to south, and at its greatest breadth nearly 1,500 miles from east to west. In treating of India, it will be useful to begin with a general survey of its geographical features; and these, it will soon appear, are distinguished at once by their grandeur and their variety. India is, as it were, an epitome of the whole world. It has regions that bask beneath the brightest rays of a tropical sun; and others, than which the most awful depths of the polar world are not more dreary. The varying degrees of elevation produce here the same changes that arise elsewhere, from the greatest difference of position on the earth's surface. Its vast plains present the double harvests, the luxuriant foliage, and even the burning deserts of the torrid zone; the lower heights are enriched by the fruits and grains of the temperate climates; the other steeps are clothed with the vast pine-forests of the north; while the highest pinnacles are buried beneath the perpetual snows of the arctic zone. We do not here, as in Africa and the polar regions, see nature under one uniform aspect; on the contrary, we have to trace gradual yet complete transitions between the most opposite extremes that can exist on the surface of the same planet. The main body, as it were, of India, the chief scene of her matchless fertility, and the seat of her great empires, is composed of a plain extending along the entire breadth, from east to west, between the Brahmapoutra and the Indus; and reaching, in point of latitude, from the great chain of mountains to the high table-land of the southern peninsula. It may thus possess a length of 1,500 miles, with an average breadth of from 300 to 400. The line of direction is generally from south-east to northwest, following that of the vast mountain-range which bounds it on the north, and from whose copious streams its fruitfulness is derived. With the exception, perhaps, of the country watered by the great river of China, it may be considered the finest and most fertile on the face of the carth. The whole of its immense superficies, if we leave out an extensive desert tract to be presently noticed, forms one continuous level of unvaried richness, and over which majestic rivers, with slow and almost insensible course, diffuse their sea-like expanse. Of this general character of the Indian plain, the province of Bengal presents the most complete and striking example; no part of it being diversified with a single rock or even a hillock. The Ganges pours through it a continually-widening stream, which, during the rainy season, covers a great extent with its fertilizing inundation. From this deep, rich, well-watered soil, the sun, beating with direct and intense rays, awakens an almost unrivalled power of vegetation, and makes it one entire field of waving grain. Bahar, farther up the current, has the same general aspect, though its surface is varied by some slight elevations; but Allahabad, higher still, is mostly, low, warm, and fruitful, exactly like Bengal. North of the river, the provinces of Oude and Rohilcund, sloping gradually upwards to the mountains, enjoy a more cool and salubrious climate, and display in profusion the most valuable products both of Asia and Europe. Here the valley of the Ganges terminates, and is succeeded by that of the Jumna, more elevated, and neither so well watered nor quite so fertile. The Doab, or territory between the two rivers, requires, in many places, artificial irrigation. Its woods, however, are more luxuriant, while the moderate cold of its winter permits a crop of wheat or other European grain to be raised, and the summer is sufficient to ripen one of rice. To the south of the Jumna, and along the course of its tributary the Chumbul, the ground is broken by eminences extending from the hills of Malwah and Ajmere; while, even amidst its most level tracts, insulated rocks, with perpendicular sides and level summits, form those almost impregnable hill-forts so much celebrated in Indian history. Westward of Delhi begins the great desert, which we shall at present pass over to notice the plain of the Punjaub, where the five tributaries of the Indus, rolling their ample streams, produce a degree of fertility equal to that of the region watered by the Ganges. High cultivation, too frequently obstructed by public disorders and the ruder character of the people, is alone wanting to make it rival the finest portions of the more eastern territory. now Throughout the whole of this vast plain, the wants of the population, and the demands of commerce, have entirely superseded the original productions of nature, and substituted plants and grains better fitted for human use. Even under the most careful management, few of those exquisite shrubs are reared which have given such celebrity to the vegetable kingdom of the east. Here are quite unknown those aromatic gales which perfume the hilly shores of Malabar and the Oriental islands. Its staples consist of solid, rich, and useful articles, produced by strong heat acting on a deep, moist, and fertile soil :--rice, the eastern staff of life; sugar, the most generally used of dietetic luxuries; opium, whose narcotic qualities have made it everywhere so highly prized; indigo, the most valuable substance used in dyeing; and in the drier tracts, cotton, which clothes the inhabitants of the east, and affords the material of the most delicate and beautiful fabrics. Such an entire subjection to the plough and the spade, joined to the want of variety in the surface, gives to this great central region a tame and monotonous aspect. Baber, its Afghan conqueror, complains, in his memoirs, of the uniform and uninteresting scenery which everywhere met E |