6 Anticipated Changes in the Indian Administration. is happily on the wane, since the liberal employment of those whom they had consigned to proscription, after the Madras mutiny and if Lord Wellesley should now be placed at the head of the Home Department, as President of the India Board, we shall be disposed to anticipate considerable benefit to that country, from the ascendency which he is sure to give to the more enlarged and statesman-like policy of the liberal part of the Cabinet, and the consequent depression of the influence now exercised by the narrow-minded and illiberal part of the Direction, under whose entire control, except in disputed questions of patronage, Mr. Wynn seems to have always been. An angry and petulant negotiation is said to have been going on for some time between the Court of Directors in Leadenhall-street, and the Board of Control, or rather, it might be said, between the Directors and the Horse Guards, who seem to have taken the discussion out of the hands of the Commissioners for the Affairs of India-regarding the reinforcement of European soldiers, which are now required for that country, where, since the commencement of the present war, their want has been pressingly felt. The Court are said to have intimated their earnest desire to raise men immediately, in their own name, and in England, sufficient for six battalions of infantry, to be formed into six European regiments, for the augmentation of the East India Company's army. This, however, has been met at the Horse Guards by an offer of six disciplined battalions of the King's troops, ready formed, completely officered, and fit in every respect for immediate service. The Company remonstrate, and state, that they have officers in India in sufficient abundance, which is notoriously untrue, as the paucity of officers for the troops now there is matter of universal complaint. The Duke of York replies, that he has a large half-pay list of meritorious but almost starving individuals, who deserve to be better provided for: and adds, moreover, that the nation ought to be relieved from this expense, when such a fine opportunity occurs for employing them. His Royal Highness is said to have intimated, also, that although there might be superior officers enough on the Company's establishment in India to fill the higher commands, yet, as it was known that all their regiments, native and European, were deficient in their complement of subalterns, it was to be inferred that the Directors intended sending out a proper number of cadets to supply the places of those ensigns who had been promoted to higher ranks in the new regiments recently formed in India. This morsel of patronage the Duke thought might as fairly be exercised by the Horse Guards as by the Company's Court and when the relief which this would afford to the half-pay list of the army is considered, when it is also remembered that the number of King's regiments in India was reduced, at the renewal of the charter, by a number about equal to these six battalions now proposed to be sent out, it must be admitted that his Royal Highness did not want for reason in his view of this question of military patronage. It will remind those of our older readers of the not altogether dissimilar contests in 1786, followed by the famous declaratory law, affecting to clear up doubts, but really giving a new power to Mr. Pitt's new Board of Control, the first of that series of covert encroachments by which the wily Dundas induced the country gentlemen and proprietors of India stock to acquiesce in that effectual destruction of the charter, in a circuitous and tortuous mode, Lines written at the Source of the Ganges. 7 which Mr. Fox proposed doing by more direct and straight-forward enactments. According to the latest advices from the field of this diplomatic warfare, a sort of mezzo-termino proposition had been made by the East India Directors, which was to give half the subalternships of the new battalions to officers on the King's half-pay list. This, however, was first declined at the Horse Guards; but was immediately afterwards proposed to be accepted, provided half the superior officers might be also furnished from the King's army. This was in its return rejected by the India Company, so that the affair remains in the status in quo; and the Leadenhall-street Dignitaries, incensed at this encroachment on their patronage, which, with many of them at least, is the sole god of their idolatry, prefer that matters should remain in the status ante bellum. Sir Archibald Campbell, who commands the Burmese expedition, will, perhaps, decide this knotty question, and compel the contending parties to agree, ere long, on some specific measures; for he appears to be doing every thing with European soldiers only, although he has so fine a native army under his command. The waste of life, from fatigue and exposure, among the Europeans on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, during the rainy and tempestuous monsoon, must be very great;-and to supply this waste, fresh levies must be made and sent. In the end, too, the Court of Directors must yield to the superior weight of the Horse Guards; but in the mean time there exists considerable coldness, not to say a total want of cordiality, between the East India Company and his Majesty's Ministers, owing to these disputes, and to those also concerning the disposal of the Governorships in India, and other anticipated good things, soon likely to be objects of contention between hungry expectants and keen hunters after place, power, and emolument in the East. Out of evil, good may come: and as we are persuaded that much more injury is likely to arise from too close a union, than from occasional differences, between the Company and those set in authority over them, we bail all such contests as those, as indications of the dawn of brighter days; and hope, that when these temporary clouds are dispersed, the bright sun of a better system may pour its light on India, and raise it to that station which it ought long since to have held among the nations of the earth. LINES WRITTEN AT THE SOURCE OF THE GANGES. By an English Lady. An! who can wonder that the holy Seer And through far distant regions takes his course, ON THE CONDITION OF WOMEN IN THE EAST. Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit. Old Proverb. THE thing aimed at in woman's education should be, domestic happiness. It is our present intention to examine how and with what success this has been attempted to be attained in the East. The condition of Oriental women seems indeed to have been a subject of curious interest to the learned of all ages, and much has been written concerning their manners and character; but nevertheless it does not appear that Europeans have yet come to any just and settled conclusions on the point. We have thought, therefore, that our readers would not be displeased to follow us through a field so full of moral interest, and which possibly more than any other "comes home to men's business and bosoms." Woman is essentially the same in every climate; her nature an enigma, not less to the wise than to the foolish: her perfection, her happiness, her misery, identically our own. "Where the education of women is neglected," said Aristotle, "a nation can be but half happy." But, where such is their fortune, even this half-happiness may be disputed; nature seeming, as far as participated happiness is concerned, to have made them the all in all of man. From this it would seem, that the education of women should stand amongst the first cares of a legislator ; for human nature is formed in their bosoms, and the fate of the greatest nations flows from their character, as from a fountain. 2 Appearing nothing in political institutions, they are nevertheless the soul of all. Their influence, it must be owned, is secret; but, like the spirit of nature, it pervades every atom of the social system, and is frequently most felt there, where its existence is least suspected. This arises from one of the greatest anomalies of woman's character, her being satisfied with power without fame. Reasoning by analogy from our coarser natures, we cannot comprehend this peculiarity, especially as we observe that the more lofty and impassioned female minds are most careless of their own proper renown, and most anxious for that of those they love. There have, it is confessed, been exceptions to this rule; but the appetite of popularity appears vulgar and unamiable in woman; it is a violence done to her nature; it takes away "the divinity that dwells within her," and makes her one of us; it disenchants our imagination; it dissipates, it annihilates our love. Modern gallantry affects to be shocked exceedingly at this principle, and always points to the East, where, it imagines, the moral degradation of women is an effect of excessive domestication." It will be seen, in the course of this inquiry, whether the suspicion be well founded, or merely one of those vulgar errors which arise out of ignorance and idleness, and subsist in spite of increasing knowledge. 1 Rhetoric, Book i. c. 5. of Gillies' Translation. A king of Sparta was fined for marrying a little woman; but we nowhere find that it was accounted criminal to marry an immoral one. There was, however, at Athens, a particular magistrate to watch over the morals of the women. 3 The Spartans were a most warlike and fierce people, but were yet governed by their wives.-Arisi. Polit. By renown we mean celebrity, fame, not reputation. 5 See in Plutarch the Laws of Solon respecting women; and in the Orations of Lysias, their exact manner of life. See particularly the one on the murder of Eratosthenes. The prejudice is fostered, however, by a numerous body of travellers, who, because they see much, consider themselves entitled to decide upon every thing. But unless a man hold himself free from the tyranny of national peculiarities and customs, and go forth with a mind bared to the influences of truth, he will only by travelling increase his prejudices, as an axe exposed to the air only becomes the more rusty and useless the longer it is uncovered. Travelling is mischievous to more persons than it is useful; for the greater part of those who seek wisdom in motion, only add to the ignorance and errors of their own country whatever they can pick up of a like kind in others. Without sound common sense, and something more, it is in vain that a traveller marches abroad, armed with classical notions, as they are called, and the capacity to design a ruin; his learning and picturesque abilities desert him when he comes to judge of men, and the habits, manners, customs, and peculiarities induced by climate, and political and religious institutions. To draw a faithful picture of these he leaves to the man who has been trained in the school of vicissitude, from whose eyes the rough hand of danger has removed the scales of prejudice, who studies human nature from the level of plain reason, and who neither knows nor cares for the systems of the schools. Your true university traveller is sure, after all, in spite of his Greek and Latin, to apply the square and compass of his own creed and manners to every thing he sees, and to consider them absurd and preposterous, or otherwise, as they happen to differ or agree with so admirable a standard of excellence. He observes that in Oriental countries the female sex leads a purely domestic life, full, in general, of ease and tranquillity, neither meddling with war, nor agriculture, nor literature, nor government; but contenting itself with fulfilling the duties of a daughter, a wife, a mother, or a friend; for those trifling duties are fulfilled by Oriental women. He then forms to himself his beau ideal of a Turkish or Persian man, ignorant, brutal, lustful, and an opium eater; and then sends him into the haram to scare the women! Admirable judge of human life! Did it never occur to this looker upon strange customs, that in all vast empires there must be thousands of country gentlemen, as well as many dwellers in cities, upon whom the kindly affections of the heart will have their due influence? That in very few indeed can the natural feelings of a husband or father be totally obdurated or subdued? That love will break through custom; that beauty will kindle love, and softness and tenderness maintain its empire over the soul? That the lisps and smiles of children, murmuring and glittering round the bosom that nourished them, and lighting up serene delight in the eyes of their mother, can never fail to endear the domestic hearth to man; still less if that hearth be a sanctuary sacred to such feelings alone? The poet's imagi nation was for once chaste who exclaimed, Oh! what a pure and holy thing Is Beauty, curtained from the sight One only mansion with her light! That heart must be exceedingly corrupt which, when a Turkish father retires to the peaceful fire-side of his haram, can imagine him bent on nothing but the gratification of sensuality. Let travellers and philosophers 6 As an illustration of this, see Chateaubriand's Travels. He is one striking instance; we could enumerate a hundred. think they are describing men, when they speak of the Orientals, and they will avoid many errors and contradictions, which he who neither travels into distant countries nor learned theories, may correct or discover. We shall hardly be suspected of being the apologists of Eastern institutions, as in speaking thus we merely endeavour to defend human nature in the persons of the Eastern people, from aspersions cast upon it by intemperate prejudice. It is partly the aim of THE ORIENTAL HERALD to explain the nature of Eastern society, and to show for what the Asiatics deserve blame, and for what, approbation; and not to unite with any literary sect or faction in heaping upon them unthinking, indiscriminate censure or praise. For the more complete understanding of the subject it will be necessary to inquire, first, in what Eastern countries women are actually secluded; and, secondly, what kind of treatment they receive in those countries where they live apart from the society of men. The first portion of the article will, we fear, be somewhat dry, and may perhaps be looked upon as ostentatiously crowded with citations: but Truth delights in simplicity, and in a number of witnesses, that she may look easily into the character of each, and draw from the whole a just conclusion. It is, in fact, through an affectation of pompous reasoning, supported on a slender, inadequate basis, and through a real ignorance of the state of the case, that so much absurd theory and childish philosophizing have prevailed. Nothing but investigation can dissipate the mist. We proceed, therefore, to prove, that women are not immured universally in the East; that, in reality, they are immured in but very few countries; and that the probability is, considering the institutions which prevail generally in Asia, and which their freedom would not, and could not alter, that those who are secluded, are far happier than such liberty as they could enjoy would render them. We make, and the reader of course will make, a very wide distinction between treating the women as inferiors, and shutting them up from all society. We know no country in which the laws and customs do not suppose in the female sex an inferiority of some kind or another; and this is the strongest proof existing of the imperfection of prevailing institutions. A wise legislator, without supposing or admitting any inferiority at all in woman, will deal out to each sex its distinct duties, and see that the feminine character is not lost in any absurd endeavours to harden or bend it into manhood, in which, if he could succeed, his whole triumph. would be for having rendered one half of the state totally unfit for per forming its duties towards the other, or towards itself. This, as Aristotle very justly remarks, was the error of Lycurgus: he was desirous of converting his women into men, and succeeded in rendering them shameless Montesquieu, of course, has his errors, like other writers; but the reader will find in his Spirit of Laws, some of the most profound and rational views of the condition of women, that are any where to be met with. We have seldom seen him attacked by any writer who possessed half his knowledge or penetration. People often confute him to their own satisfaction, but to no one's in the world besides. Politics, Book ii. ch. 7. p. 123, &c. Plutarch relates some of the strokes of the comic poets against the Spartan women; and Bayle, art. Lycurgue, details their failings most minutely. Their short tunics, open at the sides, were excessively immodest; but were trifles to ladies accustomed to wrestle naked before all the youths of the city. The genius of Lycurgus was great, but we prefer Solon: the latter knew the female character, and was anxious to preserve it pure, |