1826.] Discovery of the Province of Minas Gernes. !^C7 



Rio das Velhas : such changes cause much alarm amongst the miners who 

 are there. 



That gold of the rivers comes down from the mountains is beyond all 

 doubt; but a remarkable circumstance is, that very often the gold of the 

 mountains where the river-; originate is of a bad alloy, while on the 

 contrary, that found in the cascalho of the rivers is of good alloy. * 



( To be continued.) 



THE king's troops IN INDIA. f 



Breathe the words East-India Company, and the sudden impulse is 

 to marvel at its enormous power, and the next to execrate its blood- 

 stained usurpation. Yet when we cool again, and calmly trace the 

 history of its course, all seems, if not inevitable, certainly the natural 

 results of the principles which we see governing the world — passion for 

 accumulation, or rather, resolute pursuit of gain and gratification, thirst 

 for distinction, and lust of dominion. If we are to cast blame, then, 

 it must be upon those compelling instincts, that more or less rouse into 

 activity the energies of every human being. Singularly has fortune 

 favoured the Company, and sedulously have they embraced her favours : 

 but what healthy and vigorous person will not strive to make the most 

 of favourable :ircumstances ? Riches are sure of the world's respect, 

 and conquest has ever enchained its admiration. Wealth and command 

 then, to the farthest scope of his abilities, will cverj- individual ener- 

 getically pursue, or indolently sigh for. Natural as is the love of 

 power, education, too, strengthens the longing — not education in the 

 narrow and absurd sense of the term, but what alone is the real, per- 

 vading, operating education; that, we mean, infused by the example of all 

 around us at home and abroad. Of what authority are words likely to 

 be, when the practice of the very teacher himself is perpetually counter- 

 acting them ? Renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world 

 is the pious and precious precept, which every body undertakes, and 

 nobody remembers to perform. The parent carefully instils it, the 

 teacher is scouted who neglects it; and yet obviously, if not confessedly, 

 no use is made of it by young or old. WTiat is it that dictates and per- 

 petuates this — nonsense we shall not abstractly term it — but, this incul- 

 cation of a maxim long since stript of all authority ? Proceeds it from 

 the blunders of ignorance, or the treacheries of artifice ? — or from such 

 conviction as painfully, but imperatively, bids us warn the youthful 

 navigator to shun the rock ourselves have split upon ? Neither the one 

 nor the other ; it is the mere process of habit. The precept, coupled 

 with many others of corresponding import, has constituted, for ages, 

 what is considered the moral part of education ; and we tread on in the 

 same beaten path, without troubling ourselves to ascertain whether the 

 instruction it conveys be practised, understood, or even applicable. At 

 the best, it proceeds from an unreasoning respect for w hat we vaguely 

 believe has the sanction of our religion. We have been taught, that 

 that religion enjoins us to renounce the world — that is, perhaps, if we 



* The alloy of gold is various according to the various metals it is mineralized 

 vvith ; a law exists by \\hieli it is regulated in the different jjarts of the province. 



t Remarks on the exclusion of officers of his Majesty's service from the Staff of the 

 Iiniian army, &c. By a King's Officer. T. and G. Underwood, Fleet-street, 1836. . 



2 M 2 



