TRAVELLING REMINISCENCES.

A LINGERING indisposition, which seemed to baffle the power of medicine and the skill of practitioners, had laid me aside from activity, and cast a cloud over my prospects. Change of climate and occupation were enjoined. I had set my heart on a visit to the island of spicy groves, and a sojourn with some endeared transatlantic friends, who had come forth there with the ambition to do good. My medical attendants, however, assured me that such a change would be fatal to my life, with the affection under which I laboured. A northern, or at least, a colder region, presented the only probability of recovery. Not from choice, then, but necessity, was another route pursued. A partial convalescence encouraged a farther experiment, by which I was led from one region to another, feebly performing certain duties, till I had traversed many hundred miles overland, and by water. It was not deemed prudent that I should travel alone: I started from the presidency, therefore, accompanied by one whose zeal and love were a solace and support under drooping sickness and protracted disease, and whose ministering care was often needed, and never withheld in the time of need. Another friend travelled with us during part of the way, and by his amiable and prompt, as well as judicious cooperation, we enjoyed many consolations in our route, and alleviations of the fatigues or privations incident to so lengthened a journey.

I shall not again recur to the stages of our progress below the Eastern Ghauts. The high tableland of the ancient Carnata, the country of the modern Mysore; Malabar, the country of the Nairs; Canara, the Tulava of former times; the shores of the Mahratta country; the Concans, north and south; the fragments of Portuguese dominion from Goa to Damaun; the presidency of Bombay, the chiefship of Surat, the ruins of Mahratta warfare, the fertile districts of Guzerat, and the coasts of Cambay, will more than occupy the space I have allotted for this chapter. I can only skim the surface of memoranda which recount scenes and incidents as various as the localities through which I passed, or the different tribes with whom I mingled. My mode of travel permitted me to visit most of the more remarkable places repeatedly, and scenes were presented at one time which had not been witnessed at another. I shall not, therefore, transcribe a bare itinerary of stages, arrivals, and departures, but I shall avail myself of the opportunity of grouping incidents, as well as persons; I shall, moreover, attempt to paint the events, without introducing my bulletins of health, or bill of fare. A personal narrative would be impertinent to my object.

The collector of Arcot, and other Madras civilians contiguous to the Ghauts, had chosen Pulamanair as a cool retreat from the heat of the Carnatic, and several most agreeable bungalows or chateaus had been erected for their temporary residence. I was received by Mr. -, the collector, with the hospitable urbanity so characteristic of the country civilians of India. His connexion with the highest authorities of the Indian direction was close, and his influence and patronage were great. His estimable lady was of exalted worth, equal to her lineage and station. But they were both disciples of Christ, and not ashamed to make the declaration of their adherence to the cause of evangelical religion. In our conversational inquiries and discussions, the "Waverley Novels," and other productions of Scott's fertile pen, passed under review; the question of their moral influence, their relation to history, and delineations of religious character, was introduced; and the injustice committed upon the memory and reputation of the covenanters in Scotland, and puritans in England, was strongly reprobated. These colloquies led my host to mention his relation to one of the most distinguished of Scottish worthies, a Clydesdale champion for God's broken covenant, and his own oppressed country. Mr. produced a manuscript volume, written in the style of the seventeenth century, which he said he had never read, except a page or two, but he believed it concerned those trying times and martyred men. Within the second page I read, "But the times (of his birth) were extremely unhappy, because of a cruel, tyrannical, prelatical persecution, begun and carried on by the ever infamous Charles the Second, king of Britain, Middleton and Lauderdale in the state, and perfidious, treacherous Sharpe in the church. For, before I was born, my father, with others, being set on by the enemy at Pentland Hills, when they were standing up for the gospel, and was routed, and many of them slain," &c. I found what followed to be partly an autobiography of the writer, and partly the tale of his father's sufferings unto death. Thus will manuscripts of greatest interest travel, from Clydesdale to Mysore, or other lands even more remote. The possessor was persuaded to print the work, which occupied a hundred octavo pages, and bore the title, "Victorious Providence in His Divine and Triumphant Rays." It is a monument of pious gratitude, and a memorial to the riches of redeeming grace.

A few miles to the north, along the ridge of the Ghauts, resides the rajah of Panganoor. His style of rajah is higher in name than in possession; he might rather be accounted a landed proprietor, who is allowed by the English to enjoy one-fifth of the revenues of his land, and to pay the rest into the Company's exchequer. He was a polygar chief, but is prudent enough to perceive that servile submission to British supremacy is his most politic course. He has assumed the dress and manners of an Englishman, cultivates the language of the English, maintains a domestic establishment in imitation of an English resident, and whenever he can attract strangers of note to his palace, he appears gratified, and exerts himself to gain their approbation. I have been told of his appearing in top boots, and other parts of dress to suit. But he mingles, in a most incongruous medley, Eastern pomp with English fashion; elephants and horses, &c. He is much flattered by the attention of the local civilians, and comes forth occasionally in great parade to visit them at Pulamanair. There is a scattered native village, partly employed in agriculture, and partly dependent on the European residents; the population is not great about two or three hundred houses; the cultivation is of the various kinds of such dry grains as do not require irrigation.

The stages through the Mysore are provided