in his friendship, and unbounded in his attachment to the principles of true honor, Col. Conway is a man at all times easy of access; and that his frank, courteous and gentlemanly demeanor towards those officers and others who have public business to transact with him, forms a striking contrast to the conduct of some members of the staff, whose supercilious airs upon such occasions only tend to produce the smile of contempt from many a worthy and meritorious individual, whose lot it may be to dance attendance on persons who are far more their inferiors in ability than their superiors in rank. Having offered this just tribute to the character of a man who is an honor and an ornament to his profession, the reader will feel less of surprise than regret at the circumstance of Colonel Conway, in common with every other man similarly gifted and endowed, having his enemies to contend with; and though we may exultingly adopt the lines of the poet, who observes that Envy will merit as its shade pursue, stance true. Still it could most cordially be wished that his enemies were those of a frank, open, and manly character, instead of the insidious and lurking class, who holding situations and having interest, and perhaps some degree of influence at 66 Head Quarters." Possess the power too deeply to instil Persons of this description have, it is apprehended, been exercising illiberal and sinister arts to depreciate the reputation and talents of this gallant officer, and if possible to procure his removal from his elevated situation. Fortunately, however, their malignity has recoiled on themselves his honorable employers, we are persuaded, are too well aware of the benehits ich the service derives from the exertions of such a man as Col. Conway, to be induced by any invidious representations to remove him from a seat which he fills with such reputation and distinguished ability. : The degree of our astonishment that these machinations should have been put in practice against Col. Conway will be somewhat abated, when we call to mind the jealousy and envy which exists in the East-Indies between certain officers of his Majesty's army and those of the Company's forces: nor is this officer the first by many who has had cause to complain of the effect of this mischievous and degrading spirit, its evil tendency is, too obvious to require a single comment; it has, on more occasions than one, been productive of the worst consequences to those officers who have been so illiberal and imprudent as to imbibe it, while it has proved highly detrimental and injurious to the service in which they have been jointly engaged. Illustrative of the pernicious effect of this unmanly and ungenerous spirit is the following circumstance, which the writer recollects to have taken place at Madras a very few years ago. Certain officers of rank, belonging to the Company's service, suggested the propriety of convening a general meeting of the officers of both services then at the presidency, to consider of the erecting a monument to commemorate the victories of WELLINGTON. Colonel Conway, as on all occasions of a similar nature, was the foremost in promoting an object so congenial to a military spirit, and was supported by several highly res pectable general officers of the same service. But certain officers of rank of his Majesty's service (and those too, very near the person of the commander-inchief), whose duty it was to have checked the least symptoms of this jealous and illiberal temper on such an occasion, much to their discredit, fell into the same error, and accordingly represented to the officer commanding the army that the meeting was principally composed of officers of the Company's service, and prevailed on him to dissolve the meeting, under pretext that it had not been regularly convened! From this circumstance a stain has been cast on the Madras army for not doing that which it must have been their ardent wish and desire to have done, in honor of a warrior who imbibed the first principles of his profession when commanding a portion of their own body. On this occasiou, one general officer in particular, holding a high command, distinguished himself by his intemperate and over-bearing conduct; but his courage was soon cooled by the spirited and determined behaviour of Conway, who on this, as on all occasions, proved himself to be the friend of discipline and good order; exemplifying, at the same time, by his conduct, the character of the gentleman, the man of honor, and the true soldier. The Madras army is now in the field, and though no one can doubt the bravery of British troops under whatever circumstances they may be placed, yet the success of the commanding officer in his military operations must in a great measure, if not entirely, depend upon the advice and assistance which he receives from the officers of his staff. It is therefore of the first importance that these should be persons who have served in the country, possessing a knowledge of the language, habits, and manners of the natives, who are moreover well acquainted with the mode of conducting and every circumstance connected with an Indian campaign, together with a variety of important points of information, altogether of a peculiar and local description. The system of warfare, and much of the general plan of military operations, as carried on in the East-Indies, is extremely different from the practice in other parts of the globe, and a commanding officer vice; ON THE SITE OF PALIBOTHRA. THE obscure notices left by the ancients respecting the site of Palibothra may be compared to the equivocating legacy of hidden treasure, in one of Æsop's fables, which the proprietor of a vineyard desired his son to dig for: in this instance, as well as in the fable, the explorers have been cultivators, perhaps beyond their intentions; if they have not found any remains which can be certainly identified with the antiquities sought, the pains with which they have turned up every part of the field have been rewarded with the fruit of much positive knowledge. Pliny's Itinerary thus concludes: "To the city of Palibothra, 425 ; Asiatic Journ.-No. 29. to the mouth of the Ganges, 638 mill passuum. Major Rennell was the first to assign PATNA as the site of the After the capital of the Prasii. passage which has been adduced at the commencement of the THIRD POINT ASSUMED, he thus proceeds : "Palibothra, by the account of Me"gasthenes, who resided there, was of very great dimensions, being 80 stadia "in length and 15 broad. If we reckon "these measures to produce 9 miles in "length and 14 in width, it does not "exceed the dimensions of some of the "capitals of the Indian viceroyalties. The "ruins of Gour in Bengal are more ex"tensive; that of ancient Delhi mush VOL. V. 3 L 66 more so. The plans of the Indian cities "contain a vast proportion of gardens "and reservoirs of water, and the houses "of the common people consist of one "floor only, which may account for "their enormous dimensions. "As Pliny's Itinerary enumerates the "particulars of the whole distance be"tween the Indus and the mouth of the "Ganges, and particularizes the site of "Palibothra, it could hardly be doubted "that some very large city stood in the "position assigned to it; but I had al66 ways a doubt of its being the capital of "the Prasii visited by Megasthenes. "Late enquiries, made on the spot, have, "however, brought out this interesting "discovery, that a very large city, which "anciently stood on or very near the site "of Patna, was named Patelpoot-her, (or "Pataliputra, according to Sir William "Jones); and THAT THE RIVER SOANE, "whose confluence with the Ganges is "NOW AT MONEAH, 22 miles above Pat"na, ONCE JOINED IT UNDER THE WALLS OF PATELPOOT'HER, This name agrees so nearly with Palibothra, and the in"telligence altogether furnishes such po"sitive kind of proof, that my former "conjectures respecting Canoge must all "fall to the ground; notwithstanding "that Canoge was unquestionably the "capital of a large kingdom from very "early times. '66 66 "The conflux of the Ganges and Jum"nah ON THE MAP is 990 of Pliny's miles "from the Beyah (Hyphasis,) and 1032 "above the mouth of the Ganges; and "the ITINERARY makes the length of the "first interval 959, the other 1063. "Palibothra he places 425 miles" [from the conflux of the Jumna and the Ganges]," or so many parts in 1063 "of the distance from that conflux to the "mouth of the Ganges; and this is the "point we are to attend to. Patna in"deed is only 345 of Pliny's miles below "the present conflux ; and this difference "of 80 of Pliny's, or about 44 geogra"phical miles, however considerable it may appear to those who expect nice "coincidences in such matters as these, "does not, in my idea, lessen the general "authority of the Itinerary; because if we admit only what is literally proved, "Palibothra must still have been situated "within 44 miles of Patna. And as the "people there have a tradition that Patna "stands on, or near, the site of Patel "Strabo gives the distance of Palibo"thra above the mouth of the Ganges at "6000 stadia; and though we cannot fix "the exact length of the stade, we can "collect enough to understand that 6000 66 stades, laid off from the mouth of the Ganges, would not reach far, if at all "proportion fixed upon by D'Anville. "beyond Patna; 1050 to a degree is the "Nor must we forget the passage of Ar"rian in Indicis, in which Palibothra, "the chief city of the Indians upon the "Ganges, is said to lie TOWARDS THE "MOUTHS OF THAT RIVER."+ Major Rennel then makes a native probable in the next degree transition to Canouge, as an alterto Patna; which passage has been already quoted under the FIRST † Memoir, pp. 52–54. POINT ASSUMED. But such a supposition is inconsistent with the slightest reliance on Pliny's Iti nerary. "Pliny's Palibothra, however, is clear. "ly PATNA; and it is probable that "Strabo meant the same place, by the distance from the mouth of the Ganges. "Patna is the chief city of Bahar, and "is very extensive and populous, built along the southern bank of the Ganges, "about 400 miles from Calcutta and 500 "from the mouth of the river. Having "been often the seat of war, it is fortified " in the Indian manner, with a wall and 66 a small citadel. It is a place of very "considerable trade. Most of the salt66 petre imported by the East-India Com"pany is manufactured within the pro"vince of Bahar. It is a very ancient "city; and probably its modern name may be derived from Pataliputra, which "we have supposed above to be the an 66 "cient Palibothra.* The latitude of Pat 66 na is 25° 37' north." It seemed due to Major Rennel to cite very fully the foundations which he was the first to lay for this hypothesis. In reviewing these, it has occurred to me that minute objections may be offered to his details in the construction of Pliny; points on which a difference of judgment may be sustained, but which I am neither desirous to advert to as materially affecting his conclusions, nor to acquiesce in silently as perfectly ac travelling distances, nothing can be gained towards making up the deficiency, by converting either into horizontal distance. I am aware, indeed, that D'Anville and others HAVE ASSUMED that Pliny turned the Greek stadia into Roman miles, at 8 to a mile, and upon this ground have turned Pliny's miles into stadia, and then made another conversion of the stadia, sometimes into coss, sometimes into British, and sometimes into geographical miles, upon principles equally arbitrary. Others HAVE ASSUMED that Pliny found part of the distances expressed in coss, and then have gratuitously determined by what scale he reduced them to Roman miles. If we look back to the primary authorities, it may indeed be conceded, as next to certain, that the first part of the Itinerary taken from Alexander's surveyors was originally expressed in stadia; but, on the other hand, from the limit where India commences, it is probable that they might adopt the standard measures in coss, either in all the parts of the royal road which they found already measured, or at least in those parts which they had not time to survey. The same may reasonably be supposed of the rest of the line, from the Hyphasis to the mouth of the Ganges, said to be measured by Seleucus Nicator. This would form a sufficient ground for dispensing with exact agreement between the numbers of the Itinerary and the ascertained distances; but let us leave Pliny's numbers and denominations as we find them, content to make any small uniform allowance which can be supported on a general scale of comparison. Why should we suppose that he did not know the true module of the stadium employed in his original Greek authorities compared with the Roman mile, or transmute his figures by two gratuitous reductions? Patna, then, is 158 Roman mfles nearer the junction of the Jomanes and Ganges, than Palibothra was according to Pliny's Itinerary. Major Rennell has said, that this difference does not lessen the general authority of the Itinerary. Certainly not. Pliny's is a connected account; not to be shaken, like an isolated notice stating but one numerical point which conflicts with other ancient authorities, and may therefore be wholly incorrect. The next resource is this possible alternative: that there is an error crept into the copies. I have met with a variation, in the Preface to Bertius' edition of Ptolemy, which may countenance this in some degree. Pliny's Itinerary is there cited; giving several numbers differently from the current copies. Among others: "Ad oppidum Palibotra...... 325." Bertius cites no MS. for this reading, if it deserve to be so considered, and not as an error of the press. The preceding interval from Calinipaxa to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges is given as 635 mill. which is a monstrous variation from the received text of Pliny, and from the truth. As the sum in Bertius wants authority, so neither does the diminution go far enough. If we contract the distance to Palibothra by a gratuitous alteration of the numbers, we at the same time shorten the distance to the mouth of the Ganges, and thus disturb the proportions of the whole line, leaving a chasm of 127 miles to be filled up by some other accommodation to hypothesis of which the readiest would be, to take quantum sufficit of the Delta of the Ganges and convert it into a bay with lagunes. In fine, conjectural emendations should not be admitted, unless the information with which they are made to correspond is altogether positive. By the same canon I would try the other alternative, that the point Folio, Amsterdam, 1618. of conflux of the Jumna with the Ganges has undergone a change. Has this idea the countenance of any positive information? Is there any tradition to that effect, any vestiges of a deserted channel, as in the cases of the Soane and the Cosa rivers, to which Major Rennell refers? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the junction was carried 150 miles higher, or up to any point between the present channel of the rivers which might leave a sufficient interval,the previous part of the Itinerary would be perfectly inexplicable, the entire scale would be dislocated. If conjecture would supply a lost leaf in the book of knowledge, or even an obliterated line, let it be founded on some evidence. In Francklin's Enquiry, the distance from Allahabad to Patna, exhibited in six stages, amounts only to 108 coss 216 British miles ;* but possibly the main street of each intermediate town is omitted. I have contested the proposition, that "Pliny's Palibothra is clearly "Patna," merely that the THIRD POINT ASSUMED may rest on its true grounds. Some persons may be induced to admit its probability, independent of any support derived to it from Pliny. First, the passage in Arrian has been appealed to, thus translated by Dr. Vincent : "The largest city in India is Palim"bothra, at the confluence of Erranaboas "and the Ganges. The Erranaboas is "the THIRD IN RANK of the Indian "rivers, and larger than those of other "countries; but UPON JOINING THE "GANGES, ITS NAME IS LOST."+ In a citation already given, Major Rennell has candidly said, "I "cannot apply the name Errana"boas to any particular river;" but subsequently Sir William Jones discovered, in the Amera Cosa, a classical Sanscrit vocabulary of |