Of the public buildings of Calcutta, the government-house; built by lord Wellesley, is the most remarkable. The lower story forms a rustic basement, with arcades to the building, which is Ionic. On the north side there is a handsome portico, with a flight of steps, under which carriages drive to the entrance; and on the south there is a circular colonnade with a dome. The four wings, one at each corner of the body of the building, are connected with it by circular passages, so long as to secure their enjoying the air all around, from whichever quarter the wind blows. The centre of the house is given up to two rooms, the finest I have seen. The lowest is paved with dark gray marble, and supported by Doric columns or chunam, which one would take for Parian marble. Above the hall is the ball-room, floored with dark polished wood, and supported by Ionic pillars of white chunam. Both these fine rooms are lighted by a profusion of cut-glass lustres suspended from the painted ceilings, where an excellent taste is displayed in the decorations.

Besides the government-house, the public buildings are, a town-house, which promises to be handsome when finished, the court-house, a good-looking building, and two churches, the largest of which has a fine portico, and both have handsome spires. The hospital and jail are to the south of the town, on that part of the esplanade called the course, where all the equipages of Calcutta assemble every evening, as those at Madras do on the Mount road. The houses now occupied by the orphan schools being ruinous, there are handsome designs for erecting new ones. The writers' buildings, to the north of the government-house, look like a shabby hospital, or poor's-house; these contain apartments for the writers newly come from Britain, and who are students at the college of fort William, which is in the centre of the buildings, and contains nothing but some lecture-rooms. At stated seasons general examinations take place at the college, and public disputations are held by the students in Persian, Hindui, and Bengalee, in the government-house, in presence of the governor-general, who usually makes a speech on the occasion, setting forth the advantages of the college, the

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anxiety he feels for its success, the liberality of the company with respect to it and the college of Hertford, blaming the slothful in general, but commending the diligent by name, and medals are distributed to such as have distinguished themselves.

Calcutta, like London, is a small town of itself, but its suburbs swell it to a prodigious city, peopled by inhabitants from every country of the world. Chinese and Frenchmen, Persians and Germans, Arabs and Spaniards, Armenians and Portugese, Jews and Dutchmen, are seen mixing with the Hindoos and English, the original inhabitants and the actual possessors of the country. This mixture of nations ought, I think, to weaken national prejudices; but, among the English at least, the effect seems to be diametrically opposite. Every Briton appears to pride himself on being outrageously a John Bull; but I believe it is more in the manner than in the matter, for in all serious affairs and questions of justice, every man is, as he ought to be, on a footing.

There is something in the scenery of Barrackpore that reminds me of the beauty of the banks of the Thames; the same verdure, the same rich foliage, the same majestic body of water; here are even villas too along the banks; but the village and the cottage are wanting, whose inhabitants cannot suffer oppression unredressed, and to whom every employment is open of which their minds are capable, or their hearts ambitious enough to undertake. Perhaps there is something of pride in the pity I cannot help feeling for the lower Hindoos, who seem so resigned to all that I call evils in life. Yet I feel degraded, when, seeing them half-clothed, half-fed, covered with loathsome disease, I ask how they came into this state, and what could amend it, they answer, "It is the custom ;"-" it belongs to their cast to bear this;"--and they never attempt to overstep the boundaries which confine them to it!"

Mrs. Graham describes the botanical garden under Dr. Roxburgh as being very curious, and kept in excellent order. On the 23d of December, she embarked at Calcutta, but by

accident was detained opposite fort William, and had full leisure to admire it, as the setting sun gilded its long lines and the white barracks within. The barracks are all handsome buildings, and the trees in the different squares make the whole delightfully cool. Our authoress perceived several human bodies floating on the river, surrounded by fish, or torn by wild dogs. This proceeds from the custom of carrying the deceased and infirm to the water's edge, and stuffing their mouth and ears with mud, leaving them to perish; but should a man survive this exposure he becomes a Paria, and is no longer considered as belonging to his family or children, and can have no interest in his own fortune or goods.

At Kedgiree, where the Hoogly widens to a basin, our pleasant traveller embarked for Madras; where, after spending a few weeks in examining the antiquities in the neighbourhood, so ably described by colonel Mackenzie, she procured a passage home in a frigate, where she arrived safe; having, during the voyage, touched at the cape of Good Hope, and also at St. Helena, which black, bare, and dreary rocks, have become famous, being the prison of a man who so long directed the policy of Europe.