165 N. VI. INDIA'. * "Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but, as when Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one (When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness) Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour, Shall, star-like, rise as great in fame as she was, THE above lines are part of the beautiful prophecy pronounced over the cradle of the infant Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry the Eighth. I have placed them at the head of this brief notice of India, not inappositely; for in the * These remarks, it is hoped, contain a valuable concentration of much that has been written on India. splendid reign of that heroine, the foundation of British power in the East was laid. Peace is now smiling on the councils of our present glorious King; education is gradually removing the bandages and veils of prejudice from the eyes of Hindostan. She is beginning to perceive with amazement her own ignorance, as the first indication of improvement, which, in future times, will reflect the brightest lustre on the age of George the Fourth. India is divided by nature into three great parts. Hindostan Proper extends from the mountains of Tartary to the river Nerbudda; the Deckan, thence to the river Krishna; and the Peninsula, from the Krishna to the Indian Ocean. Westward of the great river Indus, the inhabitants of Baloochistan, Afghanistan, Cabul, &c. may be called Indo-Persians: they all belong to the Caucasian variety of man. Eastward of the wilds of Tipperah, which bound Bengal beyond the river Ganges, the natives are IndoChinese, inhabiting Arracan, Assem, Ava, Siam, Pegu, Tunquin, &c.-all these belong to the Mongolian variety. Northward of the Hemalaya range of mountains, which rise upwards of 22,000 feet above the level of the sea, the people are also of the Mongolian race. Southward and eastward of India, in the Islands of the Indian seas, the chief of which are Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, the Sunda Chain, Borneo, Celibes, the Moluccas, Phillipines, &c., the inhabitants partake of the nature of the races belonging to the continents near them. The Malay variety of man is very extensively diffused over these islands. What is very curious in nearly all of them, the Ethiopian variety is found, under various names, generally in a savage state. The national history of man may, therefore, be studied under great advantages in the East Indies. All the varieties of man, except the American variety, present themselves to observation in India; and the American so much resembles the Mongolian, that the naturalist has little to regret in not finding the fifth most curious and interesting production of creation in the garden of the East, whence men, notwithstanding all their difference of colour, stature, and form, spread over the world from a single pair. That the colour of man is not caused by climate, is a fact of which I have not the least doubt, notwithstanding the discordancy of philosophical opinion on the subject. The Jews have continued white in Malabar since the destruction of the temple: so have the Persians in Guzerat, &c. since the persecutions of Mahomet. White and black races have inhabited the same parts of the earth, and lived in each other's neighbourhood from time immemorial. The Malay and Sumatran are as different as night and day; so are the Negro and American, so long as they intermingle not with each other. Black men, however, have been born of white parents, and white men of black ones; and it has been found that these varieties, when once formed, reproduce themselves. The cause of this, as of many other daily phenomena, is above our comprehension. Hereditary diseases are transmitted from parents to children; so are the quills of the porcupine in the porcupine family of England; so are the six fingers and toes in some families of Europe; so are the colours of hair and eyes, &c.-These are curious facts within general observation. |