to be my bounden duty to lift up my voice against the atrocities of the place. Many appeared to feel and acknowledge the force of what I said. Some fell at my feet, lamenting what they had done, and saying they had done it in ignorance; others said they would not discharge the vows which they had taken upon them. Most of the devotees were of the Shoodra caste, and a few Bramins among them contrived to discharge their vows by proxy."

I am happy to find that the government has relinquished the revenue which it derived from this festival; and it would be well that it had nothing to do with it. In consequence of some disagreement between the Poojaries who are Shoodras, and the Koolkurnees who are Bramins, about the division of the fees; government has appointed four Bramins as trustees to collect, and take charge of the offerings. The Poojaries are dissatisfied with arrangement, and say that they have a claim to all and receive nothing. The impression produced on the minds of the people, is that the fees are collected by the authority of government.

this

Soloman, and Jonas-native teachers from Bangalore, labour with diligence and assiduity, with great satisfaction to the missionaries, and with a pleasing measure of success. The members of the church are about twenty in number. On Sabbath morning, the congregation amounts to about a hundred, composed of the members of the church, children connected with the mission, and strangers,

both heathen and Roman Catholics. In the course of 1837, there were five persons baptized and received into the church-a Mussulman and his wife, two Roman Catholics, and one heathen. As the Mahommedans have hitherto been the most determined enemies of our missions in India, it is very pleasing to hear, at this station and at the other, that some are renouncing their enmity, and their delusion, and are taking upon them the reproach of Christ. Many are surprised that more attempts are not made on behalf of the Mahommedans. But it is not strange. Could all the Mussulmen of India, be collected into one district, then, their claims would be manifest, and would be attended to. But they are only a fraction of the population; they are, like the Jews, scattered up and down over the provinces; they speak a dialect different from the Hindoos; and it is only here and there that a missionary can find an opportunity of addressing them, even should he understand their language.

What a splendid field for missionary enterprise, does the province of Bejapore, and the adjoining kingdoms of the Deccan present to our view! In that immense tract of territory which lies between the Nerbudda and the Crishna, stretching from the river Hoogly to the western coast, and which might well be termed the centre of India, what large and populous districts unvisited by the light of the gospel! Irrespective of the northern Circars,

and the Telloogoo countries to which allusion has already been made, there cannot be less, in the different kingdoms of the Deccan, than twenty-five millions of souls. The Gonds, the Ooriayas, the Mahrattas, the Mahommedans, the Canarese are a multitude of tribes, and peoples and tongues. With the exception of a Baptist mission in Orrissa, a Scottish mission in the Concan, and our own mission at Belgaum, nothing has yet been done to teach and to evangelize these races of men. Sunk in idolatry, delusion, and crime, they perish not in hundreds, nor in thousands, but in millions at the shrine of evil. Satan rules over the territories with an unlimited sway, he riots in the number of his victims and the value of his spoils, he hopes to render his reign there immortal, and has increased, to a thousand fold, the exactions of his despotism. Weep, my soul, over these dark places of the earth; take a right estimate of the calamities to which these tribes are subject, and the greater evils to which they are exposed; and though thy efforts should be worthless and thy tears unavailing, try to rouse the Christian world to sympathy and commiseration, and continue to hold the arm of the Almighty, till Satan is driven from his strong-holds, and till these nations are emancipated from his thraldom.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MYSORE.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MYSORE-FACE OF THE PROVINCE-HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS-INHABITANTS-CUSTOMS RESEMBLING THOSE OF JUDEA-CANARESE

LANGUAGE-THE

EXPOSITION

OF THE SHASTERS-PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL-ANCIENT TIMES-HYDER ALI-MAHOMMEDAN METHOD OF CONVERSION -THE CONTRAST FAVOURABLE TO CHRISTIANITY.

THE Mysore Country occupies the great proportion of that elevated table-land which stretches across the Peninsula of India, from the eastern to the western Ghauts. In its extent, it is larger than Scotland, and contains about three millions of inhabitants. Elevated 3000 feet above the level of the sea, very picturesque in its scenery and salubrious in its climate, it abounds with all the freshness and fragrance and variety of European gardens. The height of the land collects the clouds into a canopy over our heads, so as to prevent the rays of the sun from exercising that withering influence over us, which they do in the Carnatic and in the lower parts of the country. It enjoys the former and the latter rain. Scarcely any thing

can exceed the beauty of its landscapes, the richness of its soil, and the abundance of its harvests. Rice, ragee, mustard, gram, and every kind of Indian grain are among the productions of its fields. Excellent potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnips, beetroot, cauliflower, cucumbers and other sorts of European vegetables grow in the gardens, and some of them are exported to all parts of the country. The peach, the apple, the pear, the plum, the strawberry, the vine and the pomegranate, as well as the plantain, the orange, the mangoe, the guava and the pine-apple, are the fruits which, in their different seasons, adorn the table, and afford, to the desert, a refreshing and beautiful variety. The flowers too are charming, and though on the plains, they have beauty without any fragrance, they possess both on the table-land; and the rose, the violet, the mignionette, the geranium, and such like English blossoms, as well as those that are native, are gathered, are formed into splendid boquets, and send their perfumes through the mansions. In the estimation of the Christian natives, the country is the land of Canaan-the land that flows with milk and with honey. The God of Providence has rendered it a pleasant and delightsome province. "He waters the ridges thereof abundantly, and settles the furrows thereof; He makes it soft with showers and blesses the springing thereof; He crowns the with his goodness and his paths drop fatness.

year

They drop