which this will effect in the condition, habits,
and manners, of the people, as well as in the
enterprise, industry, and comforts, of our own
countrymen? Mr. Laing, who never takes a
sanguine view of things except in a strictly
business-like manner, told us lately that there
are no bounds to the prosperity at which India
is capable of arriving, if her resources are
fairly brought into play; and almost every mail
brings us news of some new road to wealth, or
some old one not sufficiently traversed. A few
years ago the China wars gave an impetus to
the cultivation of tea; India already shares a
considerable portion of the market, with the
country which has hitherto supplied the world.
A few years more, and she may render us
independent of China altogether. The war broke
out in America, and shut off the Southern States
from the cotton market. It is from India that
we have drawn much relief in the difficulty;
and, with proper encouragement, the cultivation
may be so extended in that country as to render
it of little importance—as far as our cotton
manufacture is concerned—if the North and the
South go on fighting till doomsday. For the
production of silk, too, India has a far greater
field than has hitherto been employed; and in
this article of manufacture she may easily be
the rival of China in a few years.

As regards means of postal communication,
India is in advance even of home. We pride
ourselves upon our penny post. They have a
three-farthing post in India, which extends
anywhere between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin
—through the whole length and breadth of
the land. This is an improvement effected
within the last ten years. There must be more
roads and railways, however, before the department
can be as efficient as it might be; and a
great deal has to be done in canals, before the
commerce of the country can be fairly developed.
But these are only questions of time. The
policy of pushing forward public works and
opening India to all comers, being once determined
on, the rest is easy enough; already
the effects of the immense material progress
made since the mutinies, is seen in the extraordinary
rise in the revenue, which—combined
with a judicious reduction of expenditure—has
resulted in the transformation of an apparently
chronic deficit into a surplus of which any
Chancellor of the Exchequer might be proud.

What cannot fail to impress the new arrival
are the social changes which have taken place
in India during the last few years. Time was,
when the traveller on arriving, say at Calcutta,
was such an object of interest to the residents that
he might proceed at once to almost anybody's
house, and make it his castle as long as he pleased.
The barest introduction was sufficient to ensure
him a welcome. Now, nobody thinks of going
to stay at a private house, unless it be that
of a particular friend or connexion. There are
monster hotels where any number of travellers
may be put up, and may be as well accommodated
as in Europe, and the new comer who presents a
letter of introduction gets only the conventional
invitation to dinner—which is most likely to be
à la Russe. Time was, when to this dinner (not
then à la Russe) he would go dressed in white
or nankeen jacket, waistcoat, and trousers of the
same pleasant fabric. After that, came a period
when a man was expected to go in a black coat,
but was uniformly asked by the host or hostess
if he would not have a white jacket instead,
which he as uniformly said he would; and the
arrangement became such a regular one that
people who gave parties always provided jackets
for their guests, some of whom, however, who
were particular about fit, sent their own by their
servants, and kept them furtively in the verandah
until it was time to put them on. Now, everybody
dresses for dinner as they do in Europe,
and even white pantaloons are the exception
instead of the rule. In past times, the hookah was
the invariable companion of every male guest.
Towards the conclusion of dinner a faint scent
filled the air, which heralded the approach of
the hookah-badars, of whom each placed the
standing bowl of his master's pipe on a little
piece of carpet behind his chair, brought the
snake round conveniently, and insinuated the
mouthpiece into its owner's hand. Then came
such a hubble-bubbling as the new generation
has never heard, and such a perfume as may be
imagined from the composition of the chillum,
which besides tobacco includes various perfumes,
and condiments of a sweet character, among
which I may mention the article of raspberry jam.
Everybody was then supposed to be at the
pinnacle of enjoyment—even the ladies liked the
odour, and often, it is whispered, produced it
for themselves when at home. Now, the scent
of a hookah in a house is considered almost
disreputable—more especially as it gives rise to
surmises that it is not the only respect in which
the master of the house accommodates himself
to native habits. As for taking a hookah out
to dinner, nobody ever dreams of such a thing.
Some seven years ago, I saw such a proceeding
on the part of one or two old Indians—privileged
persons in houses where they were well known—
and at the mess of a Native Infantry regiment,
about the same time, they were sometimes introduced
after dinner. But at the same station
(this was in the provinces) a hookah which was
brought by some innocent guest to the mess of a
"Queen's" regiment, so scandalised the colonel
that there was nothing for it but to take it
away as fast as possible. Even up the country,
where hospitality is more free than in
Calcutta, there are hotels at every station—bad
hotels to be sure, but still hotels—besides the
government bungalows: so that no traveller
need have an excuse for intruding upon his
friends, unless they particularly wish to be intruded
upon.

I have hinted at other native habits in
connexion with hookahs—of course I mean the
habit of having a zenana attached to the house
for the accommodation of one or more native
ladies. This is no longer a habit, I need
scarcely say, with our countrymen, and if ever
practised is scarcely ever known. Nor do old