Absit Omen! It is not too late in Oude, and the policy pursued there leads us to hope the opportunity will not be lost, to organize this useful body of political auxiliaries. Even in the North-west something may still be done. The utmost that can be expected by a peasantry too ignorant to recognize their well-wishers, is protection to life and property -the common right of all subjects. But the large estates, at any rate, should be kept in the hands of men who fully understand their position, and who will not usually be so fool-hardy as to face the consequences which can easily be attached to the commission or concealment of heinous crime, or the withholding of the Government demand. May we not go farther, and hope that the best of this class may become deputy magistrates, gradually imbued with some of the principles of British justice, in districts to be divested of some of the worse features of British Regulation and Red Tape? That associating with European officers on something like a footing of official equality, they may be gradually led to substitute feelings of patriotic friendship for motives of selfish fear; and form some day that sensitive but faithful link between governors and governed, which the Governmemt of British India has hitherto failed to establish? The natives have a proverb which tells us, that the trees intercept blessings intended for the lowlier growth of the soil. Let us teach them that a dome of crystal admits light while it wards off tempests.

NOTE. [It may be thought a practical difficulty attaching to the patriarchal system here sought to be applied to each district, that with such a multiplicity of districts confusion of practice might arise. To this objection great attention is due; but it is believed that much of its force would be abated if the number of the districts were fewer, and, of course, larger than at present-the commissionership of the present system is too large again for one man's managementabout half the present number of districts, say fifteen for the Northwest, and so on, would seem a fit arrangement. And farther, so much control from the provincial Government as would ensure attention on the part of the prefect (or by whatever name the local Governor was known) to a simple code of procedure, turning in judicial cases, upon a general use of arbitration. But the prefect must be trusted, or his authority will not stand.]

COLONIZATION IN INDIA.

ART. IX.-A Gazetteer of the Territories under the Government of the East India Company, and of the Native States on the Continent of India. By EDWARD THORNTON, Esq., Author of the "History of the British Empire in India." London. W. H. Allen and Co. 1857.

IN

N this unhappy country, the habitation of degenerate Mohammedans and quibbling idolaters; sub curru nimium propinqui solis in terris domibus negatis; where the intolerable heat of the climate renders impossible the active labor of Europeans out of doors, or even their permanent settlement as inhabitants; where Portuguese, and Armenians have begotten an offspring which shares the worst physical and mental characteristics of the indigenous native; it may seem to many of the best informed that the very thought of colonization by Englishmen is the idlest of chimæras. In the plains which form the greater part of Hindustan above the tropic, the heat, whether from purely natural causes or not, is of the most frightful character for two months in the year; and during the monsoon is only partially relieved by the deluges of rain, which leave the saturated soil to reek with malaria throughout the greater part of September and October; the land moreover is highly cultivated and shewing symptoms of exhausture, while every square foot is literally fought for by the teeming population and by money dealers of the greatest possible shrewdness and personal frugality, (qualities which render them most formidable competitors to any outsider inclined to speculate in land.) In the hill-districts evils of an opposite character prevail; uncertain seasons, an inconceivably sparse population, poverty of soil, distance of markets.

And yet the instinctive eagerness with which so many of us, both here and in England, are seizing on the idea, proves that Indian colonization must possess at least speculative advantages; while it is undeniable that the cultivation of Indigo in Bengal is carried out to a highly advantageous extent by Europeans. Now, what is the inference fairly flowing from this one ascertained source? Surely that the profitable employment of European agency for this country lies in supervision, direction, and control. Thus it is in all other walks of life; we require a large Native Army, but it is nearly useless unless governed by European officers; Civil Government, Railway, and Canal Works, all alike proceed on the same basis. Precisely similar is the principle at work in the slave states of the American Union, where white labor is so debased and unprosperous; nay,

it is so strong a law that, when Toussaint L'Ouverture had subjugated the island of Hayti, he positively took the greatest trouble to retain the unfortunate French planters in a position of respect and influence, that they might continue to manage the plantations of which they had once been the owners. This law then assumed, it seems to follow that the only sort of European settlement desirable in this country, in view of the interests alike of India and England, is the substitution, by fair means of course, of English for native landlords: that is, connection with a certain class of staples of a kind which, from high price in proportion to bulk, will pay for the extra cost of European superintendence. This is not likely to take place on a large scale in our oldest provinces, where property has been long settled, or in the Punjab where many of the Sikh gentry have a firm footing; but it may take place in districts where the Government has the command of large estates greatly increased by the confiscations involved by the late rebellion. Still more possible does it seem to be in the lands below the Himalayan range, where at present the wealth of waters is chiefly wasted on swamps and forests, the home of the tiger and alligator. Here material wealth exists in its most valuable forms; the hills abound in fine iron, magnificent timber, and excellent limestone ; plentiful streams and a rich virgin soil stretch for hundreds of miles along the lower land; while far above, a climate of delightful temperature, bracing breezes, or eternal snow, are matters respectively of height and distance. All these elements can be utilized by capital, enterprize, and skill of an order superior to what is usually possessed by Asiatics. It is to one of these, which we believe to unite these advantages with some more peculiarly its own, that we wish now to draw attention.

*

The Doon of Dehra is a valley naturally bounded on the north, east, south, and west, by the Himalayas, the river Ganges, the Siwalik Range and the river Jumna. The eastern drainage runs by the local rivers Song and Soosowa into the Ganges; and the western into the Jumna by the Asun. The town of Dehra is nearly on the crest of the watershed between them. The two parallel mountain ranges are drained by streams running perpendicularly into these tributaries; and thus abundant means are provided by nature for the irrigation of the soil.

The area of the valley is 673.8 square miles, while the population (as estimated in 1852) is 32,083 souls, considerably

* Doon is a Hindee word for the sloping land at the foot of a mountain range, connected by Sir H. Elliott with our "Down," &c. The affectation of writing "Dhoon" is unwarranted either by etymology or native usage.