57 



nature sickens, and each gale is death." During my residence in 

 India I never witnessed these calamities in any alarming degree ; 

 since my return to England both sides of the peninsula have felt 

 their dire effects. I remember the rains at Bombay being once with- 

 held until long after the usual season. To avert the fatal consequences 

 apprehended, the professors of all the different religions on the island 

 made solemn processions to their respective places of worship, to 

 offer up prayers and supplications to the Great Parent of the 

 universe. In the Protestant and Romish churches the usual peti- 

 tions were made for this blessing. The Hindoos were lavish in 

 their ceremonies; the mahomedans daily opened their mosques, and 

 the Parsees fed the sacred fire with a double portion of holy oil and 

 sandal-wood. At length the rain poured down copiously, fear 

 vanished, " the wilderness and the solitary place rejoiced, and the 

 desert blossomed as the rose!" 



The extent of these dreadful famines in India is not easily con- 

 ceived in Europe. The account of one in the northern provinces 

 of Bengal, by Captain Williamson, is truly affecting. It is a plain 

 unvarnished tale which I shall not pass over, because, among many 

 interesting particulars, it displays the English character in India in 

 the light in which it deserves to be estimated. A Briton, wherever 

 his lot may be cast, feels and acts in the true sense of Terence's 

 often-quoted line, 



" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." 

 I am a man, and have a fellow-feeling for every thing belonging to man ! 



" Nothing could be more distressing than the effects produced 

 by the famine, which, owing to the extreme drought of the year 



VOL. III. i 



