travelled stranger; the instances, many and painful, in which women found themselves expelled from a bosom and a habitation, where they had been promised life and fortune, to make way for a more attractive countrywoman, or some fair and favoured sister from another land; the ruthless manner in which often their offspring were torn from them and placed in receptacles for such children of shame, while the germ of natural affection was discouraged and extinguished between the children and their mother; have been ingredients, strong and bitter enough, to mingle many a cup of gall and wormwood. But the effect of such proceedings upon the community at large, would be to countenance natives in their debased opinion of woman, to present the standard of European estimation in a degrading and ungenerous aspect. It would habituate, not only the women themselves, but their mothers and sisters, from whom they had withdrawn for European intercourse, to regard their sex as created, or treated at least as if created, for the most ignoble purposes. It would leave them without a single generous motive for cultivating their minds, or any excitement to the use of their legitimate influence in society, and would tempt them to employ the moments of weakness and indulgence to circumvent, to plunder, and, it may be, to ruin the men who had bound them as slaves, and having dishonoured, were now about to desert them, when their power to please or captivate had passed away.

It is surely enough that I have said on this unpalatable subject. I could make disclosures which would be painful to my readers, in order to confirm the intimations which I have but suggested; I have been compelled to glance at this point to complete the description. And while such has been the baleful nature of the intercourse maintained by European gentlemen; there has been little to counteract its operation in the influence of English females who have chosen India as their temporary residence. In many instances they have been youthful, and consequently inexperienced women ; introduced to Indian society in the midst of gaiety and excitement, with volatile associates and highwrought expectations; and engaged in employments which do not expand the mind or improve the heart. They have been met and received by the elders of their own sex, who were longing to leave the regions of vertical heat, of sudden death, and of wearisome exile from their homes and kindred. They have mingled and formed connexions with the men of wealth and distinction, who were soonest likely to return to England, or who could maintain the most luxurious establishment, suited to the indolent East; or it may be, at length, they have been captivated by the junior members of the service, or the subalterns in rank, whose duties required them often to change their residence, or perhaps locate themselves where the society was unattractive, and the seclusion was dreary and saddening to the light-hearted and uninquiring. On their landing, or their marriage, they took into their service an ayah, or female attendant, who should minister in the trifling affairs of dress and the labours of the toilet; her attainments were few; a few words of English, a gentle patience under all irritations, a suppleness which could bend under, if it did not conform to the caprices of successive mistresses; and a disposition to lounge or sleep any hour, or almost all hours of the twenty-four; and when aroused, prepared to foster vanity, or gratify whatever weakness she discovered in the Dorisana, or Beebe-Sahib, her mistress. This generally was the only native woman with whom intercourse was held; the milliner, the washer, the cook, the perfumer, the head servant, and every household servant, were men-what then could the young, and perhaps indolent woman, the woman of fashion and pleasure, know of the Hindoo female character? or what could she propose to do for them? and what moral influence on the women of India, could English women exercise in such circumstances? It was enough, if the labours of the toilet could be endured so as to appear when the table was covered, or when the hour for evening drive, or the evening party, had arrived the intervening hours being, many of them, spent in dishabille and the retirement of the shaded and punkaed apartment. Mrs. Sherwood has not overdrawn her description of English women in Bengal. And between them and the native women of India, the mothers, the wives, and sisters of the Hindoos, a wide chasm, a

great gulf has interposed to prevent all friendly or colloquial intercourse. The knowledge which subsists between women of the one family and of the other, has been conveyed and distorted by hearsay evidence; and the poor secluded Hindoo is scarcely more ignorant of her British sister, of her privileges and pursuits, when exalted and sanctified by a cultivated education and a fear of God, than the lady of the collector, the major, the doctor, the magistrate, the judge, or the general, is unacquainted with, and uninterested in, the claims, the sufferings and debasement, the helplessness, and utter wretchedness of the ten thousand Hindoo women who inhabit the zillah, the pettah, or the city, in whose immediate vicinity their dwelling is placed; while generous-hearted and ingenuous men, who sought to elevate the character of Hindoo females-men, whom we have known, anxious to raise the mother of their children to the rank of their wives and companions, have been tabooed and represented as odd, quixottish, and almost insane, and the worst motives ascribed to them.

The imperative obligations under which these considerations lay the lover of his species, and more especially the servant of Jesus Christ, to put forth strenuous efforts for ameliorating the moral wretchedness, and elevating the general character of Hindoo females, require no farther illustration : unless their women be brought up in modesty and with industrious and religious habits, it is in vain

It

that we seek to improve the Hindoo women. is the female sex who keep the character of men at its proper elevation. I rejoice, however, to testify that exertions have been made most creditable to the devoted and honoured women who have gone forth to heathen lands as helpers in the missionary cause. The listlessness felt by adult Hindoo females on the subject of education would seem almost invincible, but there is added to this, an odium which associates a lascivious character with the possession of literary knowledge: this prejudice is not only countenanced, but enforced, for ignoble purposes, by men whose works of darkness will not bear the light. It cannot be, that reading has been found to produce such a character, but women attached to heathen temples, destined for pollution, have been presumed to be instructed in the knowledge of letters, and therefore, all native women learning to read, were represented as belonging to the same class-a delusion which the Brahminical priesthood took care to strengthen. An alienated and suspicious mind, misled by these misrepresentations, required to be overcome; prejudice and custom must be broke through; and naturally indolent and careless dispositions should be aroused before education could spread far among the Hindoo females. Barriers and impediments such as these, could be surmounted, it might have been thought, only by masculine and cooperating energies, aided by the influence of the governing authority: yet the work was under