sary part of female education, instead of the fascinations which glare and dazzle rather than delight, and are more fitted for the stare and gaze of public admiration, than for the chaste and sober ornaments of domestic life. Having probably some friendly connexions in India, they arrive there generally under the protection of kind and matronlike residents, with whom they become domiciled, and who, from their experience of the characters and morals of the male society at their respective presidencies, are enabled to give them the most salutary advice as to the important choice on which depends the woe or the weal of their afterlives. What is there mercenary or venal in this? It is an egregious blunder to imagine that there can be no real affection in these marriages. I never heard that the little god of love could make no use of his wings for being encumbered with rupees, or that his arrows were less efficacious because they were tipped with gold.

But let those who sneer at English marriages in India, look to the unbroken constancy of the union: I mean in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Can there be a more conclusive proof that the affections of the young spinsters, so invidiously ridiculed as forming part of the ship's cargo, find there a secure and honourable asylum? A crim. con., which in

London is served up every morning at breakfast to your wives and daughters, is of such rare occurTM rence in India, that all the affairs of that nature, which have broken out in English families from the first moment of our having so much as a factory there, to the present day, when what were once factories have become populous capitals, put together, would not amount to thirty-three, which, to speak with statistical precision, is not so much as half a This has the appearance of a one per annum. problem, inasmuch as the female heart there, as well as at home, is beset with frailties and exposed to temptation. But the solution of it will be found in those exterior circumstances to which I have before adverted, as disciplining and fashioning dispositions and characters. It may, perhaps, diminish the value of the compliment, but it is almost an obvious truth, that in India our wives are better guarded by one little circumstance in their domestic economy, than if they were secluded with Turkish jealousy from every eye, or secured from contact by ramparts of brass. Conjugal infidelity is next to impracticable; and what do you think it is which renders it impracticable ?

In the first place (do not smile, reader), in every house, through every apartment, the doors of which, from the necessity of the climate, are always open,

there are constantly gliding along, with noiseless and inaudible rtead, a variety of domestics, with various names, and acting in various offices. They are eternally at the elbow of their mistress. If she shakes off Ramasawmy, Vencatah is sure to succeed him. The moment the kansumar leaves the saloon, the kitmugar steals into it. So unheard and unperceived is their foot-fall, that they are like flies with respect to their exits and entrances. He who does not perceive the influence that so perpetual an exposure to observation will have upon the female conduct, must needs have the dullest apprehension in the world. The force of such a restraint is almost incalculable. It acts upon the wife as a supernumerary conscience, and it has all the efficacy of the severest penalties which law could inflict. In truth, your black servants, whose eyes are those of lynxes, and who are endued with a kind of invisible ubiquity, may be relied upon by the most jealous husband as so many walking statutes against adultery. Nor are there in your houses in India any of those snug receptacles of intrigue, those petits boudoirs, which in England are considered by every lady to be inviolable-her castellum, her sanctuary, into which none but a few foolishly indulgent wives will permit even their husbands to intrude. The eye may command at

once every apartment of the mansion, which is seldom of more than one story, as distinctly as Don Cleofas inspected the interior of the houses of Madrid which his friend the lame devil had unroofed to his curiosity. Consider, again, I beseech you, the necessary effect of this one circumstance, in the formation as well as the preservation of chaste and guarded habits, and the bridling irregular and licentious passions, by the almost entire impossibility of indulging them, and you will set a proper value on a moral restraint at once so gentle and so effectual.

Another most invaluable restraint, which keeps down in India this worst of domestic scourges in English society,-that pernicious crime which, in our world of fashion, is so often snapping asunder the golden cord of wedded affection—is a restraint of a physical rather than moral kind; but it operates with equal force on the seducer and the victim. What I mean is, the almost absolute impracticability of eloping. There are no posthorses to carry off the erring couple, as it were, on the wings of love, or at least with the degree of velocity which their escape from shame and retribution requires. Palanquins are out of the question. As for running away on horseback, it is quite impossible. No lady in that torrid climate could endure

the fatigues incident to a mode of travelling so disconcerting to the female nerves. Every successive bump would be a lecture upon her imprudence; her misplaced desires would be completely jolted to pieces; and I question whether the gallant himself, whilst spurring his flagging Arab under a burning sun, would not be inclined to think that he had at least gone far enough, and begin to vote the whole affair to be a bore. Then there are not, as in England, delightful inns, stored with exquisite viands and admirable wines, with smiling landlords and obsequious waiters, where the fugitive pair may halt, to recruit their spirits, and drown in champagne or claret the squeamish and uncomfortable risings of remorse, that may obtrude upon their felicity. But for these there are, at occasional distances, certain buildings called choultries, facetiously said to have been erected for the comfort of travellers; desolate, cheerless, uninhabited, echoing to no sounds but the howl of jackals and the hum of musquitoes. In these inhospitable edifices there is nothing to cheer or support you, and a much better chance of your being yourself eaten up, than of finding any thing to eat. Now absolute famine, or even bad fare, is a decisive antidote to love of any kind, lawful or unlawful. Travellers who refresh themselves at these places.