appearance of the texture of his frame. Two English sawyers have performed in one day the work of thirty-two Indians: allowances made for the difference of dexterity, and the advantage of European instruments, the disparity is still very great; and would have been more, had the Indian been obliged to have worked with the instrument of the European, as he would scarcely have been able to have wielded it.

As much as the labourer in Indostan is deficient in the capacity of exerting a great deal of strength at an onset, so is he endowed with a certain suppleness throughout all his frame, which enables him to work long in his own degree of labour; and which renders those contortions and postures, which would cramp the inhabitant of northern regions, no constraint to him. There are not more extraordinary tumblers in the world. Their messengers will go fifty miles a day, for twenty or thirty days without intermission. Their infantry march faster, and with less weariness than Europeans; but could not march at all, if they were to carry the same baggage and acccoutre

ments.

Exceptions to this general defect of nervous strength, are found in the inhabitants of the mountains which run in ranges of various directions throughout the continent of Indostan. In these, even under the tropic, Europeans have met with a savage whose bow they could scarcely draw to the head of a formidable arrow, tinged with the blood of tigers whose skins he offers to sale. Exceptions to the general placid countenance of the Indians, are found in the inhabitants of the woods, who, living chiefly on their chace, and perpetually alarmed by summons and attacks from the princes of the plains, for tributes withheld, or ravages committed, wear an air of dismay, suspicion, treachery, and wildness, which renders them hideous; and would render them terrible, if their physiognomy carried in it any thing of the fierceness of the mountaineer.

The stature of the Indian is various : the northern inhabitant is as tall as the generality of our own nation: more to the south their height diminishes remark ably; and on the coast of Coromandel we meet with many whose stature would appear dwarfish, if this idea was not taken

off by the slimness and regularity of their figure. Brought into the world with a facility unknown to the labours of European women: never shackled in their infancy by ligatures; sleeping on their backs. without pillows; they are in general very straight; and there are few deformed persons amongst them.

Labour produces not the same effect on the human frame in Indostan as in other countries; the common people of all sorts are a diminutive race, in comparison with those of higher casts and better fortunes; and yield still more to them in all the advantages of physiognomy. Prohibited from marrying out of their respective tribes, every cast seems to preserve its respective proportion of health and beauty, in sanity and ugliness. There is not a handsomer race in the universe, than the Banians of Guzerat: the Haramcores, whose business is to remove all kinds of filth; and the buryers and burners of dead bodies, are as remarkably ugly.

Nature seems to have showered beauty on the fairer sex through Indostan, with a more lavish hand than in most other countries. They are all, without exception, fit to be married before thirteen, and wrinkled before thirty-flowers of too short a duration not to be delicate; and too delicate to last long. Segregated from the company of the other sex, and strangers to the ideas of attracting attention, they are only the handsomer for this ignorance; as we see in them, beauty in the noble simplicity of nature. Hints have already been given of their physiognomy their skins are of a polish and softness beyond that of all their rivals on the globe a statuary would not succeed better in Greece itself, in his pursuit of the Grecian form; and although in the men he would find nothing to furnish the ideas of the Farnesian Hercules, he would find in the women the finest hints of the Medicean Venus.

If we consider the impossibility of a stranger being admitted into any one cast, to which a Bramin will administer any of his sacerdotal functions, and the universal restriction of marriage to persons of the same cast; we shall not be surprized to find that the Indian has preserved his physiognomy from a resemblance with any of his neighbours.

EAST INDIES. EUROPEANS understand by the East Indies, all the countries and empires, which lying to the south of Tartary, extend from the eastern frontiers of Persia to the eastern coasts of China. The islands of Japan are likewise included in this denomination, as are all the Malay islands, in which the Dutch have such valuable possessions, and which extend to the southward as far as the coasts of New Holland, and to the eastward to lands unknown.

The dominion of the Great Mogul, to which the name of India can only with propriety be applied, are designated in Asia as well as in Europe, by the kingdom of Indostan ; and although the Moguls are not masters of all the countries which are accepted under this denomination, yet there are very few tracts which have not formerly been, or which are not at present, subject or tributary to Mahomedans.

น

That part of the western side of Indostan, which is not bounded by the sea, is separated from Persia and the Usbeg Tartary by desarts, and by those mountains which were known to the ancients under the name of Paropamisus. The course of mount Caucasus forms its barrier to the north, and separates it from various nations of Tartars, from the Great and Little Thibet. Where mount Caucasus ceases, marshes and rivers di

vide it from the kingdoms of Tepra, As

sam, and Aracan, and circumscribe to the eastward the dominions of the Mogul, until they reach the sea at Chittagong. The sea, from Chittagong to the cape of the peninsula of India, and from this cape to the dominions of Persia, forms the remaining boundary, and embraces more than one half of the kingdom of Indostane there are few empires of which nature has more strongly marked the outline.

The most northern parts of this empire laying in the 35th degree of latitude,

See Tavernier, also Mr. D'Anville's Map of

India.

and the most southern in the 8th, the distance from the northern to the southern extremity is more than 1,620 geographical miles; the greatest extent from east to west is about 1,500 miles.

PARSEES.

When the emigration of the Persians took place in the seventh century, soon Mahomedans, a number of these people after the conquest of their country by the found their way to India, and landing on the western coast, near Danoo and Cape

Sejan, commonly called St. John's, were admitted by the Hindoo rajah, to settle in the adjacent country, and particularly at the village of Oodwara, which is still the chief residence of their priests, and the depository of their sacred fire brought by them from Persia. These people have

now increased to about one hundred and

fifty thousand families, dispersed in the cities and villages on the coast of western India, from Diu to Bombay, of which about six thousand reside in Bombay; which, reckoning four to a family, makes the Parsee population of Bombay about twenty-four thousand. Cultivating only the arts of peace, they may be said to be a distinct race from their ancestors; and though they have been settled for more refrained from intermeddling with polithan a thousand years, yet have hitherto tics; consequently they are the best of sub

jects, and demean themselves so as to give the governments under which they reside the utmost satisfaction.

With the Hindoo dress they adopted many of their customs, forgot their own language, and adopted that of their wives, (the language of Guzuret), which is now so general that not one in a thousand can speak any thing else.

The young men of good families are, however, taught to read and write English, but few of them think of learning Persian, or of paying much attention to their ancient history.

The opulent amongst them are merchants, brokers, ship-owners, and ex

́tensive land-holders. The lower orders

The tribe of Chureegurs being amongst the foremost of those who adopted the new computation, those who still adhere to the old method are stiled Rusmee and Sher si, and still form the bulk of the population.

are shopkeepers, and follow most of the mechanic arts, except those connected with fire; thus there are neither silversmiths, nor any workers of the metals among them; nor are there any soldiers, the use of fire-arms being abhorrent to their principles; nor are there any sailors; the bulk of their population are weavers and husbandmen, and cultivators of the date, palmira, and mowa; and the distillers and venders of their produce in the sea-ports; many of them are ship and house carpenters; and in Bombay many of them are in the service of Europeans as dubeshs, and domestic

servants.

Their charities are munificent and unbounded, relieving the poor and distressed of all tribes, and maintaining their own poor in so liberal a manner that a Parsee beggar is no where seen heard of.

nor

Anxious to know every thing respect ing the religion of their ancestors, the opulent Parsees of Bombay and Surat, have from time to time sent persons into Persia to collect books and notices respecting it; and have also invited many of the sect from Persia, some few of whom reside occasionally in Bombay.

The Parsee population is divided into clergy and laity (Mobed and Bedeen). The clergy and their descendants are very numerous, and are distinguished from the laity by wearing of white turbans, but they follow all kinds of occupations, except those who are particularly selected for the service of the churches, though they have no distinction of casts. A recent innovation, respecting the commencement of their new year, has formed them into two tribes, one celebrating the festival of the new year a month before the other, which causes their religious ceremonies and holidays to fall also on different days. This at present is only subject for merriment, but may in time cause dissention and separation, as each party have an opulent family at their head.

Those who adopted the new æra (in compliance, I believe, with Molna Firaun, the high priest of Bombay, who has himself been in Persia), are styled Kudmee, and jocularly Chureegurs. i. e. bangle makers, workers in ivory, and other materials for women's ornaments.

Some of their ancient ceremonies have, however been preserved inviolate; and particularly those concerning the rites of sepulture, which are correctly described in "Lord's Account of the Parsees," if we except his statement about the removal of the body. No person of a different sect is allowed to approach, or any stranger allowed to witness the obsequies ; but it does not appear that the bodies should be exposed to any thing but the elements; a private sepulchre, built some few years ago, having an iron gate at top to prevent the ingress of birds of prey.

They have a few plain and unornamented churches, where they assemble for the purpose of prayer; they are crowded every day by the clergy, but the laity only attend on certain days.

It has been already said that there are no sailors amonst them; but the Persians were never a maritime nation; they profess, however no abhorrence to a sea life, for many of them embark as traders, on the most distant and perilous voyages, and take part in all shipping speculations, and are bold and enterprising merchants, though few of them settle out of their own country, (so they call the western part of India, from Diu to Bombay,) yet there is not a place where they do not occasionally visit, and often reside in for years; thus they are found in China, Bengal, Pulo Pinang, Pegu, Madras, Ganjam, Ceylon, and at most places on the Malabar coast, but have no settlement to the south of Bombay.

Though they follow not the profession of arms, yet they have no hesitation in following the armies into the field in quality of sutlers, shopkeepers, and ser

vants to the officers.

To conclude they are a highly interesting people. The philosopher will contemplate in them the descendants of a mighty nation, whose empire once extended from the shores of the Mediterranean to the frontiers of India, and rejoice to find them neither deficient in virtue or morality.*

Pope's Revelations of Ardai Viraf.

POETRY.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.