Belgaum and Dharwar.

143 the area, have all tended to reduce the cultivation carried on under them to a tithe of its former extent. Thus we find Captain Wingate stating, in page 59 of his "Report on certain Talooks of the Dharwar Collectorate," that in Kode "these (the garden lands) have been gradually deteriorating for many years past in many villages, and in some have been nearly destroyed by neglect.' The same is the case in Hungul and the other districts to the east. It is not a light assessment which will remedy this growing and almost accomplished evil, and the suggestion thrown out by Lieutenant Fanning is probably correct. This officer observes, in page 96 of the aforesaid compilation :-"These reductions and remissions seem, however, to have had little effect in causing any improvement in the state of the garden cultivation. To fix an assessment which is certainly not too high, but is still sufficiently so to render imperative exertion on the part of the cultivator to raise produce enough to meet all demands upon him, is perhaps what in most cases should be done."

Again, Lieutenant Fanning observes (page 97):-" In by far the majority of cases, the garden cultivators with whom I am acquainted will rest satisfied with the condition of their gardens, however poor it be, if the profits derivable from them are sufficient to enable them to pay their rent without inconvenience, rather than exert energy enough to draw from the soil all that with proper treatment it would yield. If the rent is high, but still within the capabilities of the garden, the land will in more cases be made the most of than will happen when a quarter of the burden is imposed on it."

Yes-we think that Mr. Fanning has here hit the right nail on the head, and enunciated a principle which should, as observed in a former part of this paper, be kept in view in all our survey arrangements.

What then can be done for these once rich but now impoverished districts? Let us proceed as we have reason to believe is even now being done. We observe in the Government Gazette for the twelfth of June last an advertisement for experienced masons and maistrees. Seven maistree gowndies, to be employed as superintendents of repairs to tanks, are there called for. This is a good beginning. The works to be executed are not such as demand great engineering skill, but simply the application of honest labour under the direction of men of some experience in such matters. Look at what has been done in Mharwara and Ajmere by Major Dickson,-by Major French in Nimar,-under circumstances much more unfavourable.

The tanks once built up, cleared out, and the grounds under them given for cultivation on the principle enunciated by Lieutenant Fanning, must not be left to mere Native agency.

In such

a garden district it is important that a European assistant should be permanently stationed,—an assistant who has a pride in his work, and who can do something more than merely "get up cases nicely for the Sudder." Such an assistant will have to settle many disputes, to repress the continual encroachments of the moneyed and sacerdotal class on the industrious cultivator,-and in fact he must be such as French and Dickson were in Nimar and Ajmere. True, that the pressure of our judicial system, of our Regulations and our Acts, will too often render his efforts abortive; but the very knowledge that such an officer is on the spot, ready to take up the case of the ryot when he is pushed to the wall under the gripe of the usurer, will do something towards keeping matters square. We have lately seen, in the case of the Santhal population, how seldom the soundest maxims of political economy can be unreservedly applied to a Native community, and the warning ought not to be lost on us.

The roads and openings to the coast in the Dharwar and Belgaum collectorates demand a separate consideration, as the subject is much interwoven with that of the roads and ghat lines of the adjacent Presidency. We hope also to take up on another occasion the consideration of several districts which have been partially or not at all noticed in the present article. Some which we have now in our eye present many features of interest to one who is watching and consulting how the country may be improved, and they differ in many respects from the districts, the physical aspect of which we have here attempted to describe.

ART. VI.-BURTON'S PILGRIMAGE TO EL-MEDINAH AND MECCAH.

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah. By RICHARD F. BURTON, Lieutenant Bombay Army. Longman; 1855-6.

THOSE Overland travellers who passed through Egypt in the early part of 1854 will remember the mysterious rumours that passed current at tables-d'hôte of an Englishman who had performed the Haj in Mussulman disguise. The adventurer was described with a mixture of wonder and repugnance. His subtlety and bravery were beyond question. He had carried his life in his hand, but he had bowed in the house of Rimmon-he joined in the Anti-Christian rites of Islam-he had "turned Turk." Some were even fortunate enough to get a sight of the interesting renegade at Cairo-a dark-browed bearded personage in exceedingly dirty long clothes, and with a guttural pronunciation-oriental enough, in all conscience, as it appeared, to defy discovery by any one or more of the five senses. We have now before us the authentic account of this gentleman's Pilgrimage; and we hope that the good persons who whispered doubts of his Christianity will accept his assurance that (though, to be candid, in many respects he prefers Mussulman to Christian institutions) he has never ex animo embraced the tenets of Islam. Othello therefore, having washed off his paint, divested himself of his turban, kicked away his yellow slippers, and hung up his crooked scymitar, becomes again plain Mr. Brown, unconscious of great emotions and untainted with the blood of Desdemona (Miss Smith), and sits down in vulgar Wellington boots and trousers to write a criticism of his own performance. Hence three handsome volumes published by Longman, adorned with lithographic views of Arabic localities, and portraits of the author" as he appeared" in various phases of his oriental masquerade.

We think that Mr. Burton has a claim upon our notice, as being an officer in the Bombay army. Literary activity is so very rare in India, that wherever it is found it deserves indulgence and encouragement, and we particularly acknowledge our obligation to all authors who are connected with this Presidency. So

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provincial newspapers in England and elsewhere love to dwell with patriotic exultation on the achievements of "our talented fellowtownsman.' This is a natural, and, if not exaggerated, a wholesome feeling, and we shall always be ready to indulge in it; but we are far from wishing to confound Mr. Burton with the troop of amateur writers who may at any time demand our consideraation solely because they are connected with Bombay. Indeed, he is no mere soldier author-his subject is unique, and his book is no common book.

Of Mr. Burton's literary qualifications he had given ample proof before the production of the work before us. Goa and Sind supplied him with materials for books, which, if somewhat slighted by professional critics, were full of cleverness and promise, and at all events were the means of training his pen to write with fluency and point. When he entered the military service of the East India Company, he was already furnished with a knowledge of books and a knowledge of men such as cadets do not commonly bring from Addiscombe. He had spent years of his life in France and Italy, and thoroughly acquired the languages of those delightful countries. With a view of taking orders he had received the somewhat discordant training afforded by the University of Pisa, and the University of Oxford,* and, with views of rather a different kind, more congenial to his temperament, he had accomplished himself in the arts of boxing, fencing, and wrestling

we are quoting from his own account of himself—and imbibed a taste for caricature, both with pen and pencil, and dabbled, so he tells us, in medicine, in falconry, and, we are not jesting, in astrology and the mystic sciences, whatever they may be. It was not to be expected that a young gentleman furnished with these various accomplishments-who had dipped somewhat deeply into the peculiar pleasures of modern Europe, enough to give him the privileges of an homme blasé-who was blessed with an energetic temperament, considerable self-esteem, and a craving for novelty and excitement, should rest contented with the monotony of a regimental life in India. He soon singled himself out from his comrades, by a process infinitely creditable to him, and which showed that he was not the dilettante pleasure-seeker that he

He says that he could not succeed in anything in the latter academy. Certainly if he will forgive us for saying so) the exceeding badness of his Latiu notes to the "Personal Narrative" justifies the dissatisfaction with which the Alma Mater seems to have regarded him. In a second edition he should get some competent scholar to re-write them, or at least to strike out some Judicrous and grotesque bluuders wlieli at present appear in them.

The author's peculiarities.

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appeared to be. Unobservant friends might perhaps shake their heads with misgivings at the danger of his falling into the idle and dissipated habits supposed to be appropriate to the military profession in peace, and contrast his prospects unfavourably with those of the steady, hard-working, home-bred youths who are now so frequently sent out to join the Company's service. It might indeed be expected that he would be a good soldier in the field-"fast" men generally fight well-but the Afghan war was just over, there was no hope of active service, and Ensign Burton had to withstand the more dangerous trial of out-station life in Guzerat and Sind.

The risk, however, was not quite so great as might be supposed. It does not require powers of very keen observation to discover that Mr. Burton is subject to one or two little tricks of affectation, which veil his real character, and which probably he will get rid of as he grows older. One of these is a disposition to play the part of mauvais sujet. This pervades all his writings, where it can be made to appear. He is perpetually telling us, like Topsy in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that he expects he's awful wickeda Mephistophiles in a shell-jacket. He makes daring jokes, which oscillate between the styles of the late Monsieur de Voltaire and the living and flourishing Monsieur Paul de Kock-just the happy mixture of profanity and indelicacy which proclaims the wit and the man of the world. In fact he would have you believe that he is a very wild, bad boy indeed. No such thing. He has picked up the costume de démon at some Carnival ball at Paris. The black is nothing but good broadcloth, the teeth are harmless, the horns and divided hoof designate a herbivorous, not a carnivorous animal. The smell of brimstone is nothing but a lucifer-match used in lighting a cheroot. Notwithstanding all this air of levity, he has as clear a view of the duties attaching to his professional life as the most anxious parent could desire; as much or rather much more self-control than a cold-blooded child just loosed from the apron-string of his mother; as much genuine love of study and information as the pet pupil of a College Don; and, if we may venture to use evidence which does not appear on the flickering surface of his writings, as good and true a heart as if he had never learned in Italy to scent corruption, and Paris had never taught him how to sneer.

Another of the little airs which he assumes with amusing selfconsciousness is a contempt for "civilisation." We don't believe a bit more in the reality of this disposition than in the other. Every blasé man is apt to talk so. We assign little importance