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EMPLOYMENT-DANGER.

Mr. Close returned to Madras, after having visited Seringapatam. I remained in Bangalore, and was kindly entertained by Mr. Malkin for several weeks, whilst waiting the arrival of Mr. Mowat, and until I could engage a house for our residence.

I deferred any arrangements for the commencement of Missionary labours in public, till my colleague could arrive, that we might in all things act in concert. The man I employed to assist me in Tamul reading and composition, hazarded some advice on the subject, very illustrative of his own character as a heathen and Hindoo. I had finished a sermon in Tamul, which had cost me considerable pains both as to matter and composition, and to ascertain its intelligibleness and its effect, I read it to my teacher, who thus criticised it,—"The people will not hear it, because it tells of Christ; when I, who can explain things better, mention him, they say it is all lie:" he then proceeded to recommend that I should first acquire great influence among the people, and then attempt the promotion of Christianity.

Whilst residing with Mr. Malkin, I usually rose early; and finding I could bear the heat of the sun for two hours after its rise, I gratified my curiosity, and enlarged my acquaintance with the immediate neighbourhood of Bangalore, by taking long walks in every quarter successively. Study of the Tamul language employed me during the day; and in the evenings I was generally accompanied by my kind host to some neighbouring gardens, kept by natives, for the growth of the aromatic and pungent herbs used for curry; of roots of various kinds; and of the kerbuja, or water melon, usually the object of our inquiry, which, though seldom brought to the tables of Europeans in India, is a most pleasant and refreshing fruit.

In one of these evening excursions I was near setting foot on a serpent; it was creeping on the other side of a hedge, which I had taken a leap to cross: I cleared the

my

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dangerous reptile, and gave warning to Mr. M. not to follow. The serpent concealed himself in the hedge; we disturbed him, and he twined up one of the shrubs: again he found a hole in the ground, from whence we dug him up with a gardener's spade and despatched him. He was about three feet long, and was said to be of a venomous kind, whose bite frequently occasions death.

The garden I was most fond of visiting, was one (the property of a wealthy and respectable old Hindoo,) in which there was an abundance of fruit trees of various kinds; but its chief attraction was the clearness of the water in its stone tank, and the profusion of roses which adorned it, at almost every season of the year: these latter were, I believe, made an article of profit, being sold for the manufacture of rose water, of which the natives make plentiful use at their feasts.

The numerous tribe of Monkeys that inhabit the jungle round the Pettah of Bangalore, sometimes attracted my attention, and induced me to enter the jungle and observe their habits. Some were as large as a good sized mastiff. They seemed very fond of plantains, and would crowd around me at the distance of a few paces, when they saw my hands filled with them, but none would approach near enough to receive them from my hands, except the females with young ones clinging about them. I was amused with the appearance of order and government maintained amongst them; the largest or oldest always claiming to be served before the younger. A smart junior, one day, stepped nimbly before one of his seniors, and snatching up a plantain I had just thrown, thrust it into his mouth, hoping to retire with it in safety; but in a moment found himself in the gripe of his offended and grinning superior, who threw him to the ground, and, thrusting his hand into his mouth, drew out the plantain, and safely deposited it in his own. These animals seemed to have a great dislike to

F

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JOURNEY-KINGAIRY.

dogs, perhaps because frequently robbed by them of the rice or other food placed for them by pious Hindoos.

After Mr. Mowat's arrival, I commenced reading my sermons to the people in the villages, who in general were not unwilling to hear. A Christian native of Tranquebar accompanied me, to explain my intentions more fully than my present acquaintance with the language enabled me to do. Several of them attended the service in our own house on Friday evenings, when we talked and prayed with them, in the manner we thought best calculated to interest and benefit them.

Having received an invitation to Seringapatam, which we thought might also prove a place of importance, I set out in my palankeen on Wednesday the 25th of July, and passed that day at Kingairy, a large village with a fort in ruins and an excellent bungalow for the accommodation of travellers. The bungalows erected by the munificence of the Rajah of Mysore, on every road likely to be travelled by English gentlemen throughout the whole of his territory, render it much more pleasant and easy to be traversed than other parts of the country.

A general invitation to the inhabitants of Kingairy was successful in bringing a room full of natives, to whom I read a sermon in Tamul, which one undertook to explain in Teloogoo to those who did not understand the former language. I presented to them four different tracts in Teloogoo, which I found they were more generally acquainted with than Tamul: they were all read aloud, and excited attention and interest.

I now passed through a rough, desert-like country, uncultivated in most parts, and apparently incapable of cultivation. Early in the morning of Thursday, parched with heat and thirst, we stopped for a few minutes in front of a heathen temple, to avail ourselves of the water of the tank in its neighbourhood: I purchased two cocoa-nuts for

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forty cash, not quite a penny, and was much refreshed by the water they contained within the kernel.

About ten A. M. we arrived at the bungalow near Chinnapatnam, which, as its name imports, is a small town, having a neat little fort. I was immediately visited by the Cutwal, a sort of head police officer, a venerable old Mahommedan with a white beard, who spoke Tamul, and was very communicative as to the history and present state of the town. I asked him if he could read Tamul or Teloogoo; he boldly replied he could read both, but when I tried him, confessed he did not know a letter; and thus destroyed any confidence I might have been inclined to place in his previous statements. A heavy storm gathered in the evening, and prevented me from visiting the streets of the town, to converse with the people, of whom I understood a good number were acquainted with Tamul.

The next day we were detained a short time, by the swollen state of the Madoor river, occasioned by the rains. of the preceding night. Its depth and rapidity made it difficult to pass, and perhaps dangerous also: the bearers exhausted their stock of objections, and after a little delay, carried me safely to the other side.

We found the town of Madoor fairly depopulated, by that dreadful and unaccountable disease, the Cholera Morbus. The rain detained me at Mundium till nine A. M. on Saturday; when we again set out, and for some miles travelled through such a wilderness as I had not hitherto seen; uninhabited, rocky, and barren; hardly a stunted shrub or a blade of grass to relieve the eye.

A little after noon, we stood at the head of the valley in which are situated the fort and island of Seringapatam; through this valley, the Cauvery, a river deemed sacred by the Hindoos, has its course, and, by separating and again uniting, forms the island, (about four miles in length and one and a half in breadth,) on which stands the most

celebrated fortress in India. Canals, commencing from the river at some distance up the country, conduct the water to the higher grounds of the valley, and, by an aqueduct over the river, into the island and fort itself, which would otherwise be without means of irrigation; and thus extend the verdure of cultivation far beyond the immediate banks of the Cauvery. The lovely green of the fields and gardens that adorn the valley, formed a most delightful contrast to the appearance of the country I had just traversed; and the sight of the minarets and towers within the fort of Seringapatam, excited most interesting historic recollections, which gladly mingled with the feeling, that this former seat of tyrannical usurpation and cruel Mahommedan bigotry, was now in the peaceful possession of my own countrymen. For though in the midst of the dominions of the Rajah of Mysore, the fort and island of Seringapatam have been retained by the British Government, ever since the successful siege and storming by General Harris in 1799.

About three P. M. we entered the gates of the fort; I was soon recognised and conducted to the bungalow prepared for my reception. I waited on the Commandant Col. S. who received me with friendly politeness; the Fort Adjutant Lieut. Lawler was not at home when I called at his house, but afterwards came to see me and shewed me many attentions. I was conducted to the chapel, erected about twelve months before, by the Protestants residing in Seringapatam: they are chiefly descendants of Europeans, and are employed in the Gun carriage manufactory within the fort. In erecting the chapel, they were liberally assisted by the Honble. A. C. Resident at the Court of Mysore, and by the Officers of the Garrison: it will contain a congregation of one hundred persons. They had been accustomed to assemble in it, for prayer and reading, every Sunday; but no minister had preached there before Mr. Close, who