quiet inoffensive people with the most sovereign contempt, and scattering our elephant rupees among them with all the condescending pride of the greatest magnate of the earth. It always ended in getting most dreadfully sun-burnt, our clothes torn trying to climb the trees, and fagged to death by the exertion of our superfluous follies.

There is a great charm in the early morning land-winds that steal off from the shores in India, on both sides of the Coromandel peninsula. I hardly know which seemed most delightful, the half-yearly change of the monsoon, leaving by turns both sides calm and inviting; to be sure there is always a long rolling swell across the bay of Bengal, setting in on the eastern beach, even in the finest weather, to the eye scarcely perceptible, but plain enough by watching the rolling of the ships anchored on the coast; whether in Madras roads, Pondicherry, or farther down, at Ceylon, decreasing towards Masulipatam, Juggernaut, &c.

After our eternal bright, hot days, how cool and sweet were those winds to us, as we dabbled barefoot about the decks in the morning watch! Then came the swabbing up, hammocks stowed, and putting ourselves to rights to breakfast with the Captain (if on board), or in the gun-room (if a mate of the watch). There was positively more expectancy, more pleasure in those breakfasts, than now-now! to dine at any one well-appointed house, from Russell to Grosvenor squares,-more delight going on shore in the beef-boat, when we could get across the surf, and fairly on the beach, than now cantering round Hyde-park, or listlessly standing our horse under the shade in Rotten-row, to look at our listless Almack's belles getting a little air before dinner, and a little -how little! exercise. Pleasure! pleasure!-what are yc, deceitful vision of foolish youth. Ignorance, folly, high health, high youth!—alone is pleasure unalloyed! Later, we refine it to death. Who that in those days rode in our parks, went to the opera, to the fêtes, to every possible thing, but must have pitied a parcel of nameless boys on men-of-wars' quarter-decks on Indian coasts,- -a sort of banishment from the world; and yet youth extracts sweets from life alone. I question very much whether we have any positive enjoyment sublimated from our early animal nature!

But let no stern moralist carp at this; no, let him hug himself or herself, in all his or her visual bliss;-it is enough to imagine it, and therein consists the reality. I can no longer imagine it;-all now is stale, flat, and unprofitable, save alone the woods and fields, and wild nature and her works untouched. So too I love old ocean; but what she bears, her decks, I'm sick of. Where am I rambling ?-to myself in the wane of life: let me look back to Paddiman and Catamarans,-to the "yell, yeldi, seravelly" of the Masullah boats. What a fuss those naked beings make going over the surf; they would make you think upsetting among the boiling foam and sharks inevitable. We mostly got wet, however, as we were shot on the beach, and scrambled out, "devil take the hindmost," for the next surge following in, hit her such a whack, as nearly to knock her bottom up, and bestow a briny showerbath on spruce shore-going officers. Be it known-(I wonder if things are changed?)-anything below the rank of Captain was not acknowledged on shore in India. They alone were dinnered and fêted at most of the authorities' and leading civil servants' palaces and gardenhouses. At Madras they lived on shore, coming off now and then just to look at us.

The lieutenants, &c., went to the taverns, &c., in Blacktown, across the esplanade, ordered a good dinner, and kicked about in palanquins till they were tired, and so off again. The mids did much the same with their twelve or twenty-four hours' leave-and so an end. These shore-cruises comprehended every species of nonsense and folly, as usual with "Jack ashore," to the wonder, sometimes the sorrow, of the poor natives who had to do with us, but a rupee salved all ills. The southern Indians (on the coasts) are the most patient, submissive creatures under heaven-of the up-country people we know nothing. But I forget that occasionally we got acquainted with the officers of the regiments on the station, and thus saw the interior of their barrack mess-room. It always ended by a most complete intoxication-a “glorious jollification:" all the messes in India drank like fishes; some of us stole away. We sighed for the softer sex and more refinement. But where find it? Those garden-houses, those lofty tattied saloons were sacred to the bi-epauletted!-beyond our reach at the "Mount," or at the "Red Hills." But by dint of inquiry and good luck, two or three of us youngsters found out a temple dedicated to the Muses! full of lovely girls, presided over by a sage lady, in a word-a "seminary," where once a-week they gave a dance, and two or three young Malay fiddlers played country-dances as well as Musard. Yes, indeed, the Malays in India are remarkable for fine ears, and are very clever and expert musicians, while the Hindoos seldom get out of their own droning, melancholy, monotonous notes. So away we went, as smart as scraped carrots, and made our bow to Madame, and led out her pretty scholars, and invariably fell violently in love, and went on board from our tavern next morning, looking and feeling very, very woe-begone!

Oh, how irksome was our duty after that! and hoisting out and in water-butts, with the ship rolling three or four streaks under from side to side, silently and never ceasing-this was perpetual motion,-perchance to the mast-head,-when we described the segment of a circle in the air, seeing from our detested perch the very groves that sheltered our last night's houris. It seemed indeed a paradise. Violent fits don't last long-we soon came to, and very likely (sailing across the bay) forgot the very name of the dear girl long before we got sight of that delectable spot Pulo Penang, to which I mean, now I am there, to dedicate a whole paper of scribble anon.

How our ideas of things fade and waste to nothing as we advance in life! It is in vain talking of the "intrinsic value of any thing" in the world except Virtue, which must ever be content to be "its own reward:"-and what more would we have? It was but yesterday I pitied a care-worn old post-captain sitting on that bench just by the Achilles. A post-captain!-yes, poor fellow, I knew he had a wife neither young, nor handsome, nor amiable; with a house full of children, he is trying to keep up appearances in town on a very few hundreds besides his half-pay. He was a clever fellow and a tolerable magistrate in his own ship-an abominable 28 was the biggest craft he ever could get the command of. How has he, how does he sigh to get a decent frigate, without raising his eyes either to the Vernon, the Castor, or any of that set. Now I have a very pretty bit of blood that carries me gracefully to the band across the Park, and we curvet together very comfortably along Rotten Row, somewhat aristocratic.

I really felt, I know not what of humility, as I came opposite the sea captain. It was not that I made comparisons, or dwelt on one order or another, but here was the end of his career as well as mine,we come to this-later in life, to this-who has the best of it? To be sure there is not a more melancholy thing in nature (art, I should say) than an old midshipman, but then you must see him repeating orders on a quarter-deck, or sipping his bohea or grog in his dungeon of a berth, cursing the fates and his immediate superiors. Unhappy mid, be quiet, be quiet; you may here, in town, see what it all comes to,-where a captaincy sinks to nothing in a banker's eyes,—who himself rises to a coronet, to the court, to the Park, to town and country mansions-mansions of the blessed! But what has all this to do with India or my own reminiscences?

I was thinking how the tables are turned since I was a little boy waving at the back of the Madras surf. Those Atlantic waves! how they rolled in-how the musquito fleet of Padimars rolled responsive; anchored close in to the beach, just to leeward of where we used to wait for the purser's steward and his beef and vegetables. Then, O my soul! how I longed to be a post-captain-lolling on luxurious couches at the garden-houses, or driving out to the Mount with some particular friend of a civil servant. The captains were as demi-gods. How sick I have been of that eternal back of the surf, watching the sharks and the Massulah boats and the catamarans-to seaward a vast expanse of waving prairie of blue sea-the frigates' and two-deckers' masts all acting as pendulums inverted. The very sight was enough to make a bilious creature like me sick, sea-sick; but I bore it-all the better for frequent mast-headings, as up we went for the least fault, without the smallest ceremony, but from this nettle pain and hardship we pluck this flower pleasure! I recollect there was a very good fellow, one Knox (let his name stand recorded), who used to ask some of us small ones to come and tiff with him; he lived in the Beach Buildings, government offices chiefly, built opposite Blacktown at the landing place for a mile or two along the shore opposite the Fort (St. George), it was rocky and the sands more abrupt and difficult.

There sat my

What a feast for the gods his tiffins appeared to me. dear good fellow Knox, with his silver covers over prawn, curry-rice, curried vegetables of divers sorts, fish, &c.; in short, the board covered with good things. The Madeira looked amber-bright and tasted delicious-it had certainly gone to India! Then there were other luxuries, cheese and bottled beer from old England. How we feasted!—how cool, how delicious his waving punkah, pulled in the adjoining room. by one of his bearers, after the sweatings we were constantly kept in in our berth on board-when we returned, like condemned souls, to serve out our time!" Then, then could we have jumped to a captaincy, the delight would have been ineffable. Now, now-what now? 'Tis past, 'tis gone-youth, that gilds all things, has fled-how threadbare are all human distinctions !-all, all is faded, and nothing is that was, but glorious Nature, that in early youth we heed not or contemn, -as we advance, how bright, how glorious does it grow upon the anxious and inquiring eye, jaded and disappointed in the crowded streets, the supercilious office, or the gilded hall." THE MID.

66

[To be continued.]

THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER.

THE day has now gone by when the Russian soldier was driven along by stripes, and marched in chains to his regiment. No change, however, has taken place in his political condition; and the improvement for such it is in the recruiting system is solely the effect of the moral progress of the people. At the present moment it will not, perhaps, be uninteresting to inquire very briefly what that system is, and what is the real nature of the raw material of the Russian army.

The early history of the country in question is so obscure, that it is impossible to trace with accuracy the commencement of slavery among the people. The long period of the Tartar domination-the consequent admixture of oriental forms and customs with those of Scandinavian origin-the confusion arising from the perpetual struggles of the various principalities which composed the empire-all conspire to render the subject more difficult. The student, however, will see his way more clearly if he will only consider that the very existence of such circumstances accounts for many of the anomalies which perplex him. Russian slavery, in fact, presents no fixed character whatever. In every reign it received some new modification, and sometimes it wholly disappeared. Till the time of Peter the Great it cannot be said to have been definitely sanctioned by the laws of the country.

Towards the middle of the sixteenth century the peasants enjoyed the right of removing at pleasure from the lands they occupied; for an ukase of that date prohibits their doing so, except at one period of the year a week before, and a week after-St. George's day. This was a grand experiment on the part of the nobility; and the intended victims having stood it without wincing, an ukase followed in less than half a century, rendering migration altogether unlawful, and chaining down the serf to the soil whereon he was born.

The Russian peasant, however, was never, any more than now, so stupid and brute-like an animal as he is represented to be by liberal Europe; and from the period of the reign of the Tsar Theodor Ivanovitch, the utmost confusion prevailed up to the advent of Peter the Great. The capitation-tax of that monarch-liberal and enlightened as he was -destroyed the liberty of myriads of his countrymen. The nobles had now not merely a pretext, but were actually obliged, to keep fast hold of those tenants for whom they were to pay a stipulated sum, and among whom they were to raise a certain number of recruits; and as the imperial will of Peter was as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, the spirit of tyranny enjoyed a triumph which was perhaps altogether undesired and unforeseen on the part of the emperor.

The peasants now became the property of the lords of the land, and were sold with the estate. If proper laws had prevailed, the indignity might have rested here; for in reality it would matter little to the serf what was the name of his owner. But by degrees a class of peasants was formed, or rather arose out of absolute necessity, which had no immediate connexion with the soil. The domestic servants received into the family of the chief had of course no farms to cultivate,-neither they nor their children; and yet, being his property, like the rest, they

could be sold. Thus the hideous enormity came to be exhibited in Russia of men selling their fellow-men and fellow-subjects like cattle in the market, without even the pretext of considering them as tenants transferred with the land they cultivated! This abuse, however, it should be observed, grew out of the existing state of things, and was never sanctioned by any express law.

The traveller in Russia who has not the leisure or the power to insinuate himself behind the curtain, will never find out that this slavemarket exists at the present moment. The fact is carefully concealed; the advertisements of sales in the newspapers ingeniously worded; and even persons of honour and consideration are at all times ready to hide, by a direct untruth, an enormity so disgraceful to their country and to human nature. In America, where an equally brutish slavery prevails, the enlightened republicans defend themselves by the plea of a difference of colour between the two races, the sellers and the sold; but in Russia the slave is of the same blood and ancestry as his master. The former country is therefore, by a shade, the less barbarous of the two, though neither can be conceded a place within the pale of civilization.

The writer of these pages does not pledge himself to numerical accuracy; but he believes that the number of slaves in Russia who can be, and are sold, independently of the land, does not fall far short of a million and a half. The price of a woman is arbitrary; but that of a man depends principally upon the amount which is given for a military substitute. At present, a stout young fellow will fetch about 2000 roubles, or 871. 10s.

In civilized countries slavery is considered the most enormous evil which human nature can endure; but in Russia, where the lower classes are sunk in profound ignorance, the serf is comparatively satisfied and happy. This at least is the case with the majority; and the fact is proved by the horror with which they in general regard the military conscription-the signal of freedom. The emperor of Russia is no more served by slaves than the other potentates of Europe; for the instant a peasant enters the army he becomes a freeman.

The number of recruits drawn is according to the wants or will of the emperor; but in general it is limited to two out of every five hundred male peasants, including infants. Among the serfs of the nobles, the choice is made by the lord of the land or his steward; and among the government serfs, by the peasant-magistrates of the village. In either case, it may be assumed, that the first anxiety is to get rid of all the mauvais sujets, and that thus the army becomes a receptacle for the scoundrelocracy of the country.

But in the villages of the nobles, the steward or his lord have an opportunity of serving themselves as well as the community. Sometimes, for instance, the wife, sometimes the daughter, of a peasant is pretty, and it may be desirable to get the husband or father out of the way. But to search for motives of this kind would be to ransack all the bad part of the human heart; for vice as well as misery is the unfailing offspring of irresponsible power.

When the peasant is chosen, he is, generally speaking, in despair. Sometimes he flies to the woods, but this is rarely of any avail; for the whole of the village being made answerable for his forthcoming, he is speedily caught, pinioned, and so conducted by his brother peasants to