be made from the single cocoa-nut tree, which at the same time 
supplies oil, and a nourishment in much request; the ease of pro- 
ducing and manufacturing cotton, is evinced by the plenty and 
price of linen; health is best preserved in this climate, by the 
slightest and simplest diet; perhaps it is from this consideration 
that religion has forbid the use of flesh meats and spirituous liquors 
amongst the Hindoos. 
“ Thus the general wants of other climates become extremely 
lessened in this. Now if men multiply in proportion to the ease 
of gaining a subsistence, it will no longer be admired, that the 
country of Hindostan should, even under the iron sway of despo- 
tism, continue populous; especially if we add this better funda- 
mental cause, which, resulting like the other from the effects of 
the climate, is still rendered more effectual by the most sacred of 
customs. Every Hindoo is by his religion obliged to marry, and 
is permitted to have more wives than one: it has been proved, that 
the number of females exceeds that of the males; so that a plu- 
rality of wives produces not the effect in India, which it is ima- 
gined to do in other countries, that of decreasing the numbers of a 
people.” 
In this part of my letters, youthful imagination, and enthusias- 
tic patriotism, heightened by distance from the beloved object, 
led me to draw a long comparison between the inhabitants of 
Britain and India. Warmed by the amor patriae, I pursued the 
delightful theme from Windsor’s royal towers, to the palaces of the 
nobles, villas of the opulent, commercial sea-ports, manufacturing 
towns, cheerful villages, farms, and hamlets: I traced the muni- 
ficent endowments for art and science: from her splendid univer- 
