time. Probably she was the more sceptical, as she loved from her heart an occasional glass of eau de vie, provided it was of a good quality.

For India, perhaps Asia in general, is the seat of the most stupendous images and gigantic associations, that can fill the mind. It has been in all ages the theatre of what is vast or surprising in the history of the species; the cradle in which its infancy was nursed, and a country so teeming with life and population, that northern Europe, which has been called the officina gentium, is a mere costermonger's stall in the comparison. Every thing in India refuses to accommodate itself to the narrowness of European conceptions. The illimitable antiquity of its institutions; the faint and shadowy lines in which its history fades into its mythology; the mystic divisions of caste, like rivers coeval with the Indus and the Ganges, and flowing like them for ever apart; the awful and giddy pile of its chronology, hiding its head in the darkest mists of time; the beasts of prey, at whose roar the primaval forests tremble; elephants, on whose backs battalions ride to combat; its serpents of immeasurable coil; its banian trees, each of them a forest;all present to us the wildest exaggerations of nature, and discourse of the great and the infinite in a language intelligible to man. This taste for the

vast and unbounded is better cultivated in India than any other part of the world, and I advise those who have a dull and uninteresting method of telling their facts, to travel thither and improve it.

For myself, I perceived the taste ripening within me, in the same ratio as I acquired the habit of believing the improbable, or rather the avagibuov, as the Greeks call it, of the old colonel's adventures. Nothing is so dull in general as military operations; but his campaigns were fruitful of the wildest combinations of fortune, and even in times of peace, his life abounded with episodes, of a less stirring character indeed, but equally strange and interesting.

One evening, a small party of us were sitting at his hospitable table. The bottle went languidly round, for, to speak the truth, his claret was unusually acrid, and the Madeira yielded no refuge, for if possible it was worse. But he soon drew our attention from so insignificant a circumstance, and began thus:

"A mutiny broke out amongst the sepoys of a battalion I commanded at Trichinopoly,-the 2d battalion of the 5th regiment of Native Infantry.” These particulars he never neglected,—they were fascines and gabions, as it were, to protect the cavities of his story. "There were few officers on duty with us, except three lieutenants, an ensign

or two, and Captain Fireworker Fondlepan, commanding a small corps of artillery at the same station. What was to be done? It was a critical exigency, and no time was to be lost. I had no one to consult with, for my juniors were mere boys, and when the time for decisive action came, I found Captain Fireworker Fondlepan, who was a great epicure, standing over his mulligatawney, which was then on the fire. To have got him away from his stewpan would have been as hopeless as to remove a projector from his pots at the moment of projection. I was determined, however, to quell the mutiny at the hazard of my life. The chief cause of the discontent was a strong suspicion that the English were bent upon extirpating the Hindoo religion and establishing their own in its stead: I resolved, therefore, to remove the suspicion, taking it for granted that the sepoys, as soon as that was done, would return to their duty.

"Now, as good luck would have it, that very day was the grand festival of Jaggernaut, the day on which the immense car of the god is wheeled about, and thousands of his devotees rush to throw themselves down before it for the honour of being crushed to atoms as it passes over them. Now I well knew that what had principally given birth to the dissatisfaction of the sepoys was the sneering

irreverent way in which English officers were accustomed to speak of that ceremony, calling those, who tried all they could to be killed on that occasion, so many fools and asses for their pains.

"What do you think, I did? You will swear it is incredible-but it is all true, and you may swear till you are black in your faces.

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Extraordinary evils require extraordinary remedies. I heard the rumbling of the dreadful chariot, and the roar and shouts of the myriads that thronged around it. I was prepared: for I marched up towards it at the head of my regiment, colours flying, drums beating. There was something truly terrific in the noise of that mighty machine. It was like mount Atlas moving upon wheels. At length it approached the place where I stood.

"Make way!" said I, in four several languages, Hindostanee, Canarese, Tamul, Malayalum; make way! I will shew you all, that, though the English are attached to their own faith, they respect yours also, and venerate its mysteries.'

"So saying, I threw myself beneath the forewheel on the left side of the ponderous engine. At the same instant, loud murmurs of applause sounded in my ears like the rushing of many

waters. It was a terrible moment.

The chariot,

indeed, did not do me much injury, for, luckily, my gorget gave way at the instant the forewheel passed over me, and by slipping on one side, turned the wheel also into another direction;-but the myriads of blockheads that ran over me, each eager to be crushed to death in honour of the god, were too much for endurance. Never can I forget the innumerable hoofs, some bare, some sandaled, that kneaded me that morning almost into clay.

"You will ask what supported me on this trying occasion ?-The gratifying consciousness, that I was saving the Company's dominions; for if that mutiny had not been quelled, there would have been a general insurrection of the native troops through the whole peninsula. Besides, what is life to a brave man? I had eaten the Company's salt from my youth upwards. How then could I hesitate? It is inconceivable how these feelings kept up my spirits, whilst I lay motionless beneath the immense avalanches of human flesh, that came tumbling in succession over me. But-you would not think it well, think as you like, but it is true, every word of it,—I derived considerable encouragement from a circumstance, that seems a trifling one-it was, however, a good omen, and I made the most of it.