Bishop Heber to Hon. C. W. W. Wynn-Visit to a Brahmin. This is, I feel, an unreasonable letter, but I know your friendship will not be indifferent to details in which I am so much interested; and I have not been sorry, while the novelty yet. remained, to communicate to you my first impressions of a country in all respects so unlike our own, and yet so important to an Englishman. Lord Hastings appears to have been very popular here, and to have done much good. The roads which he made in different parts of Calcutta and its neighborhood, his splendor and his extreme courtesy, made him liked both by natives and Europeans. Adieu, dear Wynn. Present our mutual best regards to Mrs. Williams Wynn and young folk, and believe me ever, Your obliged and affectionate friend, REGINALD CALCUTTA. XVIII-VISIT TO A BRAHMIN-TALK ABOUT FRANKLIN, AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Bishop Heber to Hon. C. W. W. Wynn. FORT WILLIAMS, Dec. 1st, 1823. MY DEAR WYNN: I hope you will, ere this reaches you, have received a long letter from Barrackpoor, giving an account of my first impressions of India. By all which I have yet seen, I do not think they were too favorable. The climate since I wrote is very materially improved, and is now scarcely hotter, and to the full as pleasant as our finest August weather. The mornings and evenings are particularly agreeable, and the sun during the day time, though still too hot to admit of taking exercise, is any thing but oppressive to those who are setting still under a roof or driving in a carriage. The only plague, and a sore plague too, are the musquitoes. Bishop Heber to Hon. C. W. W. Wynn-Visit to a Brahmin. I am constantly and sometimes intensely occupied, insomuch that I have as yet had no time whatever for my usual literary pursuits, and scarcely any time for the study of Hindoostanee and Persian, or the composition of sermons, of which last, unluckily owing to a mistake, my main stock was sent by another ship, which has not yet arrived, so that I have more trouble in this way than I expected, or than is very consistent with my other duties. Since my last letter I have become acquainted with some of the wealthy natives of whom I spoke, and we are just returned from passing the evening at one of their country houses. This is more like an Italian villa than what one should have expected as the residence of Baboo Hurree Mohun Thakoor. Nor are his carriages, the furniture of his house, or the style of his conversation, of a character less decidedly European. He is a fine old man, who speaks English well, is well informed on most topics of general discussion, and talks with the appearance of much familiarity on Franklin, chemistry, natural philosophy, etc. His family is Brahminical, and of singular purity of descent; but about 400 years ago, during the Mohammedan invasion of India, one of his ancestors having become polluted by the conquerors intruding into his Zennanah, the race is conceived to have lost claim to the knotted cord, and the more rigid Brahmins will not eat with them. Being, however, one of the principal landholders in Bengal, and of a family so ancient, they still enjoy to a great degree the veneration of the common people, which the present head of the house appears to value, since I can hardly reconcile in any other manner his philosophical studies and imitation of many European habits, with the daily and austere devotion which he is said to practise toward the Gan Bishop Heber to Hon. C. W. W. Wynn-Visit to a Brahmin. ges (in which he bathes three times every twenty-four hours), and his veneration for all the other duties of his ancestors. He is now said, however, to be aiming at the dignity of Raja, a title which at present bears pretty much the same estimation here as a peerage in England, and is conferred by Government in almost the same manner. The house is surrounded by an extensive garden, laid out in formal parterres of roses, intersected by straight walks, with some fine trees, and a chain of tanks, fountains, and summerhouses, not ill adapted to a climate where air, water, and sweet smells are almost the only natural objects which can be relished during the greater part of the year. The whole is little less Italian than the façade of his house; but on my mentioning this similarity he observed that the taste for such things was brought into India by the Mussulmans. There are also swings, whirligigs, and other amusements for the females of his family, but the strangest was a sort of "Montagne Russe" of masonry, very steep, and covered with plaster, down which, he said, the ladies used to slide. Of these females, however, we saw none; indeed, they were all staying at his town-house in Calcutta. He himself received us, at the head of a whole tribe of relations and descendants, on a handsome flight of steps, in a splendid shawl by way of mantle, with a large rosary of coral set in gold, leaning on an ebony crutch with a gold head. Of his grandsons, four very pretty boys, two were dressed like English children of the same age, but the round hat, jacket, and trowsers by no means suited their dusky skins so well as the splendid brocade caftans and turbans covered with diamonds, which the two elder wore. On the whole, both Emily and I have been greatly interested with the family, both now and during our pre Bishop Heber to Ion. C. W. W. Wynn-Visit to a Brahmin. vious interviews. We have several other Eastern acquaintance, but none of equal talent, though several learned Moolahs, and one Persian doctor, of considerable reputed sanctity, have called on me. The Raja of Calcutta, and one of the sons of Tippoo Sultan, do not choose, I am told, to call till I have left the fort, since they are not permitted to bring their silver sticks, led horses, carriages, and armed attendants, within the ramparts. In all this nothing strikes me more than the apparent indifference of these men to the measures employed for extending Christianity, and rendering it more conspicuous in Hindoostan. They seem to think it only right and decent that the conquering nation should have its hierarchy and establishment on a handsome scale, and to regard with something little short of approbation the means we take for educating the children of the poor. One of their men of rank has absolutely promised to found a college at Burdwan, with one of our missionaries at its head, and where little children should be clothed and educated under his care. All this is very short indeed of embracing Christianity themselves, but it proves how completely those feelings are gone by, in Bengal at least, which made even the presence of a single missionary the occasion of tumult and alarm. I only hope that no imprudence or overforwardness on our part will revive these angry feelings. Believe me, dear Charles, ever your obliged friend, REGINALD CALCUTTA. |