so far annihilated space, that it will probably be found of easier accomplishment, and equally economical, to proceed to any of the ocean sanitaria in question, than to reach any of our hill stations, which moreover do not offer a tithe of the advantages as connected with the main question-health. Mauritius is now brought within eighteen days steam of Calcutta, a distance in point of time less than from the latter to Allahabad. Mauritius possesses some peculiar advantages amongst others, that of having the English language in current use; the search of health may moreover be pursued without much difficulty, as all its favorite places of resort may be approached in carriages, a point which may have its value in the eyes of the aged, the infirm or of the indolent. Of its general character, our author offers the following remarks. In reference to Port Louis, he

states:

I have never seen a town of similar dimensions, with so much of the genuine elements of the great business of life, or exhibiting on so small a scale so large an amount of healthy activity. Although a latent spirit of the old French and English antagonism is deeply grafted in its constitution, and occasionally exhibits itself in an unseemly brawl, or an ominous growl; yet does it appear, on the whole, to be a thriving, prosperous, and tolerably united settlement. One is apt to wonder where the numerous shops that crowd its well-peopled streets, can possibly find customers to dispose of their multifarious, and, in general, extremely dear wares. Its well-regulated, clean and inodorous market-place is by far the best thing of the kind in the east, and a striking contrast to the dirty, noisy, ill-regulated bazars of Calcutta. The plentiful supply of sparkling wholesome water, distributed in every direction through neat and tasteful fountains; the order, decorum, and cleanliness of the rectangular streets; the number of well dressed, good-looking ladies perambulating its busy thoroughfares; and the stand of carriages for hire in front of the Government House, some of them with no mean pretensions to elegance, strike the visitor from India as something more suggestive of home, and pleasing, than even the imposing wealth of the City of Palaces, the fine roads and park-like compounds of Madras, or the pretty and picturesque appearance of the well-watered capital of Ceylon, with its cinnamon gardens, lakes, and

islands !

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Invalids need stand in no fear of starvation in the Mauritius, and there can be no doubt that the establishment of steam communication, by keeping the demands of the Colony constantly known, will regulate the supply, and render it, in future, much less subject to fluctuation than it has been heretofore.

There is a good table d' hote at both the hotels d' Europe and Masse, and from the latter, dinners can be obtained by those who prefer living at home in lodgings of their own. The greatest want of the colony is servants, and these it is nearly impossible to obtain at any cost.

Those in India who have old and trustworthy attendants should take them with them, paying them at the current rate of wages in the island, which is more than double that of this country. Madrasees and Cingalese are preferable to the servants of Northern India. They are less given to prejudices of caste, are more generally useful, and have no objection to sea voyages. The Mauritius has now, however, become so well known as to have ceased to be a bug-bear, and little difficulty will be experienced in inducing natives to follow their masters. For ladies with families visiting the colony, it is absolutely necessary to take every species of female attendant with them. Those procurable are of an order seldom or never employed in India, have generally engrafted colonial upon native vices, and are usually more troublesome than useful, in addition to rating such service as

they are capable of performing, at an unduly extravagant estimate. The Creoles of the inferior classes are little, if at all, better. The only European female ser. vants available are soldiers' wives. They are few in number, as well as too commonly given to gin, bitters, and barrack habits, to be tolerated in a quiet household.

There are, doubtless, exceptions to this statement, as there are to every general rule; regarding the mass it conveys the conclusion which I deduced from the information gathered in many places.

There are public baths on the Chaussée of Port Louis, opposite the Company's Garden, which are open every day, and good of their kind. The two hotels also furnish hot and cold baths. The majority of private houses are not furnished with baths of any kind.

For sea bathing, a strip of beach near the old salt pans, and within a short distance of the mouth of Grand River, has been appropriated. Small thatched huts have been erected there for the accommodation of ladies, and as the bottom is smooth, sandy, and slopes gradually towards the reef, within which, free from any danger of the invasion of sharks or other sea monsters, whose acquaintance is undesirable, this forms a sheltered and delightful spot for the most healthful of all recreations. The favourite bathing places for gentlemen are the creek at the mouth of Grand River, and a place alongside of the Tromelin causeway.

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The Mauritius must certainly be among the healthiest portions of the earth for Europeans, if immunity from some of the most severe and dangerous diseases of other countries be taken as an evidence of salubrity. To the drunken and depraved there is no safety in any climate, and they are as liable there as elsewhere to pay the penalty of their folly and vices; but for those who lead well-regulated lives, and are possessed of the means of living in comfort, the chances of prolonged existence are as great in the Mauritius as in the most favoured regions of the globe.

The formidable types of Indian fever are nearly unknown, and those of European character are so mild as to be less severe and fatal than in any other place in the world in which British troops are quartered. The mortality of those attacked is less than 1 per cent., and when the reckless habits of European soldiery, from whom the calculation is made, is taken into account, it is an indisputable proof of the singular healthiness of the climate, dependent in some degree also upon the absence of most of the causes of a class of disease too well and fatally known in India.

Of Ceylon, in conclusion, we can have little to say. It can never rival either of the lovely isles previously referred to, either in point of salubrity or general eligibility. Its sanitaria, like our Indian hill stations, are mere watering pots. Bourbon unquestionably stands at the head of the list, and the sister island will, in almost all cases, form the head-quarters of Indian visitors, thus adding the charm of variety to the other advantages of such a voyage. We should strongly recommend visitors to Bourbon to make themselves up into little parties, this disposition would render the arrangements complete, and obviate the inconveniences generally experienced by parties unacquainted with the language, and offering in other respects benefits on which it is unnecessary here to enlarge.

We conclude, as we began, by recommending these Rough Notes to all who are deliberating as to the quarter to which they shall turn their steps in pursuit of health. If they decide on following in the footsteps of our author, they will not fail to make his notes their guidebook. To the general reader, who seeks merely a lively book, des

criptive of men and manners, and the places of their habitation, the book will be an acceptable one. It is unexceptionably printed and "got up ;" and the lithographed illustrations are very creditable to Mr. C. Grant, whom, we believe, we may call the inventor of a method of illustration that we have seen adopted with good effect by artists in England, and which, we believe, will be extensively used ere long.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES.

Journal of a tour in Ceylon and India, undertaken at the request of the Baptist Missionary Society, in company with the Rev. J. Leechman, M. A., with observations and remarks. By Joshua Russel. London. 1852.

We have much pleasure in noticing this work. It is one of very little pretension, but one that we think likely to be of great use among a certain class of readers at home. Of those who take an interest in missions, a great proportion, we believe, belong to the unlearned and industrious classes. To this numerous and most important part of the Christian community at home, general works on India, and other foreign countries, are comparatively unknown; and we extend the remark even to such lighter works as journals of travellers, letters from abroad, and the like. And yet the persons of whom we speak do take an interest, more or less deep, in foreign countries, and especially in those in which are established the missions to which they are accustomed to contribute their money and their good wishes. And it is precisely to meet the wants of that class of readers, that the now prolific crop of Christian travellers' journals, Christian letters from abroad, Missionary Annuals, &c., has sprung up.

But we regard the book before us as belonging to a class which has peculiar attributes and, (we believe) for the class of readers referred to, peculiar attractions. It is a book about foreign missions, missionaries, and missionary life, by one who has seen for himself on the spot, and has formed his own independent judgment of every thing after personal investigation, but who is not a missionary. We hold this to be a great advantage, which missionary books of this kind have over those which are written by missionaries themselves. Books of this kind have certain advantages, which books of the other and more numerous class cannot have, and therefore the well-wishers of missions ought to rejoice in every addition that is made to the catalogue.

Missionaries in general go out (say to India) when they are young and inexperienced. And, although their youth may have the effect of exciting a feeling of paternal interest, as it were, in the minds of the elder portion of the Christian community at home, still the mere fact of their youth renders it impossible that they should be much more than strangers to all the members of the Church or Society with which they are connected, excepting their own personal friends, and the few congregations to which they may have once or twice ministered before going abroad. What we mean to express is, that there is a sort of severance made between the Church at home

e

and its missionaries abroad, which it would be well to get rid of. It is true, that now and then a missionary goes home in bad health, and tells the good people of what he and his brethren are doing among the heathen. But to most of the people whom he addresses he is a stranger; and after all is most likely a broken-down invalid, at least for the time being, and more fit for a quiet sojourn in the country or by the sea-side, than for the stirring and laborious work of speechmaking, which seems somehow to be regarded as the natural vocation of the missionary on furlough. Now, apart from the cruelty and impolicy of asking a man to rush hither and thither, and to be always ready at a moment's notice to speechify by the hour, or (what is worse) to do the talking at some good but weak old spinster's tea party, when he ought to be exercising his feeble frame and resting his weary lungs amid the reviving and soothing influences of a quiet country life, we ask, apart from the cruelty and impolicy of such a course, is it the best that could be adopted to secure the end in view? We submit that it is not.

The end in view is to render more intelligent and more intense the interest which the Christian people at home take in the progress of missionary work abroad. Now, it is true that the best man to render that interest more intelligent is certainly the missionary himself, who is able to answer all questions, to clear up all doubts, and to rebut and expose all mis-representations. But what we maintain is this, that his testimony would, in most cases, be vastly strengthened, and rendered much more likely to reach the hearts, and, perhaps, the understandings of those whom he addresses as a stranger, if they also had their own man standing by-the man whom they had known and reverenced for years, and who could say to them, "You bade me go and see 'those things, I have gone and seen them, and I can assure you, that all 'that my friend (as I now can call him) has told you, is true, and much more which I can tell you, although his modesty leads him to pass it over."

We do not mean to insinuate that there is in general any inclination on the part of Christian people at home to doubt or disbelieve the accounts given by missionaries of the people among whom they labour, and the nature of their labours, difficulties, trials, &c. Neither do we mean to insinuate that missionaries are in general apt to err (unconsciously, we mean of course) in the way of mis-statement or exaggeration. We believe that in general the contrary is the case, and that missionaries are more careful in guarding against exaggeration of statement than the Christian people at home are in guarding against too facile belief. But still we hold, that there are many advantages in the plan adopted by the Baptist Missionary Society, of sending out a deputation to visit their mission stations, and report at head-quarters, the results of their personal inquiries. In the present instance, the deputies, Mr. Russel and Mr. Leechman, were instructed to visit the Society's stations in Ceylon and India, and to report. Mr. Leechman, we believe, was formerly a missionary in Bengal himself, so that Mr.