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seen decorated with medals to a man. It was held to be impolitic to tell the truth, and the officer who dared to publicly reveal it would probably have found his own services dispensed with in a very summary manner. Lord Clyde is reported to have recently declared, that he had often praised the conduct of the Bengal sepoys when he felt that they did not deserve it,—that such eulogy was according to form, and always expected at the seat of government. We lament the hard alternative of the distinguished commander, and we are sure that on no other occasion of his life have his expressed sentiments been in opposition to his convictions.1

The source of this military inferiority was not so much in the native character as in the manner in which he had been treated. There are periods in the earlier history of India in which the military virtues of the Bengal sepoys shone with a brightness rivalling, and, on more than one occasion, even eclipsing those of the European soldier. Under able commanders, intelligent officers, and a strict discipline, they have performed all that could be desired of troops. The late lamented General Jacob is an instance of what one man with a knowledge of native character, can effect with the swarthy soldiers of India, when he has obtained the key to their hearts. Their loyalty to the Government could only be exceeded by their attachment to him; and the famous Scinde Horse would have felt imputation on their fidelity far more than a wound, and were ready at any moment to prove their devotion to the death.

We cannot follow in more detail Sir Henry Lawrence's recommendation for improving the morale and the material of a native army. His suggestions embrace a plan of opposing class to class, creed to creed, and interest to interest, not by a mixture of sects in each regiment, but by separate regiments, each consisting chiefly, though not entirely, of a single sect. The numerical strength of the European troops in India should never, he thinks, be less than one-fourth of the regular army, but should be always in the highest state of efficiency, and kept in a state of perfect readiness for action. With a view to this, Sir Henry Lawrence suggested, many years ago, that at least two-thirds of the European force required for India should be permanently located on the hills. The plan is now, we believe, being seriously entertained by the Indian Government, and is likely, in a few years, to be carried into full effect; and when we consider that one British recruit costs the country L.100, the policy is obvious, on merely pecuniary grounds, of economising human life, availing ourselves of those sources of health which India itself affords in its hill districts, and thereby maintaining the troops in a state 1 See Russell's Diary.

of efficiency far greater than they could ever be if enervated by the heat of the plains and decimated by inevitable disease. It is almost incredible, that Chunar, the hottest rock in India, was permitted for years to be used as a station for European invalids. Now railroads are gradually making accessible the finest hill stations of India; and the Nielgherries, Dharjeding, Kussowlee, Mussourie, and Simla, will soon be as easily reached as they were formerly difficult of access. We shall then realize Hyder Ally's notion, and keep our Europeans in cages, ready to let slip on occasions of necessity.

There is one work of benevolence, which, as bearing on the well-being of the British soldier in India, it is impossible not to notice in connection with the services of Sir Henry Lawrence. It is the institution which bears his name and which owes its existence to his munificence. The Lawrence Asylum, located near Kussowlee, in the Himalayas, for the orphan and other children of British soldiers having served or serving in India, is now too well known to need either description or eulogy. It has placed a healthy climate, a sound moral training, and a good education, within the reach of every soldier's family in India, and the benefits are equally felt by the parents and the children. The one are relieved from all anxiety for the welfare of their offspring, and to the other are ensured a sound physical and intellectual development which could not otherwise be obtained, and which makes their services eagerly sought for, and well rewarded, in the various situations of life which are open to them as soon as their training is complete. This noble institution is doing much to increase the British element in India. It is, by its annual supply of vigorous and educated adults, gradually raising up a hardy race of colonists that must, at no distant day, greatly strengthen our position in India and materially influence its future. Since the death of its founder, and the consequent loss of a considerable portion of its revenue, we are happy to learn that the Government, in a spirit of the highest wisdom and beneficence, has taken upon itself the whole cost of its maintenance, fully adopted the views of its originator, and made it a public institution.1

Prolific as India has been in great administrators, few ever effected so much, and in so short a time, as Sir Henry Lawrence in the province which he ruled. He was of that school of

We give the following extract from the description of the asylum, and its results, by a gentleman who visited it :-"The personal appearance of the pupils, both male and female, really astonished me, suddenly arriving, as I did, from among the languid forms and pale faces of the southern plains. I felt as if I had dropped from the clouds, among groups of children, on the breezy, heathery slopes of the Grampians, they all looked so hale and stout, so imbued with athletic energy; while their round and chubby cheeks seemed to vie in glowing blushes with the freshest rose of summer.

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public men, to whom expediency is strictly subordinated to justice. It was the confidence which his character inspired that made the task of pacification so easy in the Punjab; and no public officer probably ever existed in India, better qualified to represent the British nation, or to embody and show forth in his character and acts the spirit with which it is actuated towards the people of India. It is as the pacificator and regenerator of the Punjab, that the name of Lawrence will illustrate the recent history of British empire. His influence over the people was unbounded. His presence alone at Lahore, in 1847, seemed to check the refractory spirit of the Sikh soldiery. Fearless and confident, he went unattended among them attaching them by acts of kindness, and controlling them by the energy of his administration. His temporary absence in England proved the signal for disturbances, which brought him back to public life, but too late to avert the rebellion which ensued. The private virtues are the source of all public excellence. Those of Sir Henry Lawrence were as conspicuous as his services were great. Indefatigable in the discharge of his duties, he was a rigid exacter of "work" from all who held office under him. With a heart of feminine softness, and a tenderness for the feelings of others, that to more rugged natures sometimes almost assumed the appearance of weakness, he displayed an immoveable firmness of purpose when he had to deal with tyranny or wrong. He was feared for his justice, quite as much as he was loved for his beneficence. In the highest part of his character, that of an earnest and consistent Christian, he was unsurpassed by any individual in India; and it may be long before we shall again see the skilful administrator, the military reformer, the sagacious statesman, and the active philanthropist so beautifully blended and usefully combined as in the eminent man whose services we have briefly sketched, and whose memory must always be held in the most reverential estimation, not only in the country which was the immediate sphere of his duties, but in that which has the honour to number him among her sons, and by the Empire whose interests he greatly contributed to advance, and whose true glory it was ever his highest ambition to promote.

ART. IV.-Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines; together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices. By Authority: JOHN FERRIS, Government Printer, Melbourne.

1859.

In close alliance with the geographical element in human knowledge are several questions, the general solution of which is fitted to exercise a salutary influence on the progress of scientific inquiry, and the advancement of the highest interests of society. Of these questions, however, some of the most significant are peculiarly liable to neglect, partly because, at first sight, they seem trivial and superficial; but mainly, perhaps, because of the intrusive inroads of the logical faculty on the legitimate domain of the law of association, and the consequent depreciation, by minds of a certain order, of any method of intellectual culture that is apparently opposed to the claims of a rigorous dialectic.

That an exact answer to the question, in what direction do the principal rivers of a new country flow? cannot, of course, be received from any description, however faithful, of their characteristic fishes, or the plants that adorn their banks, is a proposition too obvious to require any detailed exposition. No such organic connection subsists between the naked phenomena of locality and life, as will allow any question regarding the former to be directly replied to by the latter.

From the stimulus, however, that is naturally imparted to the thoughtful explorer of any new region, by the presence of living forms, animal or vegetable, more especially if such are of a novel character, all questions regarding the strictly inorganic features of the district in which they occur cannot fail to assume an increase, alike of definiteness in form and urgency of import. In some vital respects, indeed, the manifold activities of life and growth, of organic, rather than inorganic phenomena,—are a needful auxiliary to the distinct apprehension and serviceable remembrance of the merely visible bearings of the earth's surface, but especially of such portions of it as have not been directly submitted to the chain and theodolite of the surveyor.

And in this view both of the desirable excitement and the associative links of thought that are supplied by the presence of life, in its relation to the definition of the mere geography of a country, the most minute and trivial portions of a thoughtful traveller's observations assume no mean or transient importance. Attaching a positive value to the smallest fragments of fact, and even to their most limited engagements of the suggestive faculty of thought, the shrewd inquirer into the local arrangements of

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nature, as presented to the eye, in different regions, will promptly accept illustrations, however faint and remote, of his determining principles of inquiry. He will not, for example, peremptorily refuse to appreciate the feelings of a venerable judge in former days, whose lively botanical predilections were wont occasionally to exceed the due limits of senatorial self-restraint; because, in that delighted twinkle of the eye, when, as on one occasion, he unexpectedly beheld from his carriage-window a pre-eminently handsome specimen of the common harebell, a silent but emphatic expression of his having acquired a more distinct knowledge of the surrounding district, was unconsciously implied. In that sharply realised habitat of that very simple plant, for the first time, a clue to far wider relations in the organic and inorganic constitution of the environing landscape had been indirectly vouchsafed.

Nor, if the subtle bonds of sympathy, that, winding in mystic mazes through the thoughts of the poet, link together in fertile union the inward law of interpretation with the outward facts of observation, be recognised as of legitimate influence in the structure of true knowledge, will the following brief narrative of a summer noon's walk be devoid of instruction as to the suggestive nature of living things, when viewed in the light of stepping-stones to a more intelligible acquaintance with the visible scenes in which they occur, and a more enlarged conception of the landscape of which such scenes form a part.

"When," remarks the Rev. Perceval Graves, in a charming letter to Mr Woodward in Archer Butler's Life," we reached the side of Loughrigtarn (which you may remember Wordsworth notes for its similarity, in the peculiar character of its beauty, to the Lago de Nemi, Dianæ Speculum), the loveliness of the scene arrested our steps and fixed our gaze. The splendour of a July noon surrounded us and lit up the landscape, with the Langdale Pikes soaring above, and the bright tarn shining beneath; and when the poet's eyes were satisfied with their feast on the beauty familiar to them, they sought relief in the search, to them a happy vital habit, for new beauty in the flower-enamelled turf at his feet. There his attention was attracted by a fair, smooth stone of the size of an ostrich's egg, seeming to imbed at its centre, and, at the same time, to display a dark star-shaped fossil of most distinct outline. Upon closer inspection, this proved to be the shadow of a daisy projected upon it with extraordinary precision, by the intense light of an almost vertical sun."

But, moreover, in recognising the importance of organic forms -the characteristic mammal or bird, or attractive blossom of a prevailing tree-in relation to man's more definite and memorable acquaintance with the superficial features of any region, it is also

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