"a wild bull in a net," and who, catching their ruler for one moment asleep, would soon cease to be governed. But the ground of complaint alleged against him is, that he "acts as a savage among savage men," instead of showing them that a Christian can never wield the iron sceptre without staining it by needless cruelty -without following some of the worst fashions of his worst neighbours. Under this rule, summary hangings have been added to the native catalogue of punishments, and not a bad one either, when properly used; but the ostentation of adding two or three to the string suspended from the gibbet, on special days and festivals, added to a very evident habitual carelessness of life, lead one to fear that small pains are taken to distinguish between innocence and guilt, and that many a man, ignorant of the alleged crime, pays with his life the price of blood. It is the general's system, when, as often happens, a sikh, or any other of his own men, disappears at or near any village in the Peshawur territory, to fine that village, or to make it give up the murderer or murderers. The latter is the cheapest plan; a victim or victims are given up, and justice is satisfied. He might be as energetic and summary as he pleased, and no one would object to his dealing with a lawless people in such a way as to restrain their evil practices; but such scenes as frequently occur in the streets of Peshawur, equally revolting to humanity and decency, might be dispensed with.

Still, General Avitabili has many of the attributes of a good ruler; he is bold, active, and intelligent, seeing every thing with his own eyes; up early and late. He has, at the expense of his own character for humanity, by the terror of his name, saved much life. It is but just to state, that the peaceful and well-disposed inhabitants of Peshawur, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, united in praise of his administration, though all with one voice declared that mercy seldom mingled in his decrees. Believed to fear neither man nor devil, Avitabili keeps down by grim fear what nothing else would keep down-the unruly spirits around him, who, if let slip, would riot in carnage; his severity may therefore be extenuated, as the least of two evils.

Avitabili's whole system of morals is oriental, avowedly eschewing force, when artifice can gain the point, and looking on subjects as made to be squeezed. In person he is tall and stout, with bushy beard, whiskers and moustache; marked with the small-pox, and with a countenance exhibiting at times the workings of human passion, but again lighted up into even a pleasing expression. With little education, but strong natural sense and ability, he has acquired a good knowledge of Persian, and of the Punjabi dialect. Strangely influencing those around him, and influenced by them, his history is a curious study, and, when his own generation has passed away, will hardly be believed.

Nothing can be more spirited and characteristic than the first introduction of the hero, Bellasis, to Runjit Singh.

The next day but one was fixed for my appearance at court; attired and attended as when I entered Lahor, I proceeded to the palace. Before arriving there, I met Runjit himself, returning from his morning's ride; and, much as I had heard of the insignificance of his first appearance, it startled me; the more so, perhaps, from the contrast it presented to the wiry and athletic forms that surrounded him. He rode gracefully, on a handsome, active horse, and was followed by his principal Sirdars, each with his silken chāthā carried by a running footman, and the whole cortège, followed by an escort of five hundred well-mounted horsemen, and as many foot. They consisted of all tribes and castes, Sikhs, Pathāns, Hindus, Ghurkhās, &c., all gaily attired in scarlet and yellow silk, the cavalry, sitting in high-peaked saddles, and armed to the teeth with matchlock, pistol, blunderbuss, sword, and spear; the others more lightly, but still efficiently armed. Some few Akālis too were present, conspicuous by their high blue turbans, girdled with quoits; but more so by their wild maniac look, and insolent gestures. On secing me approach, some of these hailed me with curses and abuse, but Azizūdin sent one of his orderlies to withdraw me.

As the train approached the entrance to the Shalimar gardens, the cavalry filed off, leaving the Maharajah, with his train, followed by the running footmen, to pass through a lane, formed by a regiment of his newly-raised infantry, who received him with presented arms. I was kept at the gate for some minutes after the Maharajah had entered; and while thus detained, many of the soldiers broke their ranks and crowded round me; some gazed respectfully at my train and accoutrements.

but more remarked, with a sneer, on my want of beard, and my half-European cos

tume.

Some of the horsemen also drew up, and were more especially insolent; one of them, Nand Singh, second in command of one of the newly-raised cavalry corps (a scoundrel with whom I soon became better acquainted), was the most forward; he was a smart, active young man, with a bold and dissolute cast of countenance. He commenced caracolling his spirited little nag in circles closer and closer round me, half-muttering, half-chanting a ribald song. As he neared me, I warned him that my horse kicked; to this he deigned no answer, but, after a little, rode tilt by, grazing me, as if accidentally, with his steel-clad shoulder. I touched the rein of my good steed, gave him half a turn, pressed him with my sword-hand the veriest trifle on the loins, and, with one tremendous kick, he sent Nand Singh, horse and all, head over heels.

A dozen swords were instantly drawn, and as many matchlocks presented at me, but my four stout followers closed around; and, without affecting to believe my adversaries in earnest, I calmly expressed a hope that the fallen man was not hurt, regretting that he should not have taken my caution, and avoided my horse's heels. Whether owing to our firm aspect, or to the royal vicinity, I know not; but the bystanders held off, and treated us with vastly more civility during the few remaining minutes that I was kept waiting: and they looked with much curiosity when an orderly of the prince's came to tell me I was summoned to the durbār.

When ushered in, I found the monarch seated in a golden chair, surrounded by about a dozen of his ministers; several reporters were in the distance, catching every word, and noting it in the "court circular" for transmission to every corner of the empire. As I entered, the Maharajah half arose, and greeted me with much courtesy; my nazar of a hundred-and-one rupees was removed, and I was told to be seated on the farsh, or carpet, near his majesty. My own name and my father's, my place of birth, and my age, were asked and told; and it was explained that, though a wilayati, I was not an Englishman. I was then asked what I knew, what I could do, and what I wanted-all in a breath: and my reply was to the effect that I could do any thing, was ignorant of nothing, and, having heard the fame of the king, was come from a far country to offer my services.

"You speak Persian?"

"Yes, I have been some time in Persia."

"Can you build a fort? Can you cure a long-standing disease? Can you cast a gun? Can you shoe a horse? Can you mend my watch, which has stopped?"

66

All, through your highness's iqbal, is in the reach of mortal; and what other men have done, what should prevent Bellasis from doing ?"

"Shāhbāsh, faqir, he is a bold jawan, this friend of yours!"

66

He is, your highness, but try him, and you will find his merits exceed his words; the King of Rum, the Shah of Persia, the Amirs of Scinde, all asked him to join them as a brother; but he would devote his sword to none but the lion of the Punjab."

During this flourish in my behalf, two nearly naked wretches were dragged in, caught in the act of pilfering at the garden gate: they did not deny the charge; and the nose of one and ears of the other were sentenced to be cut off. In as short a time as I can write it the sentence was executed, and the culprits, bleeding as they were, were driven out.

66

Sharp work, Bellasis,” observed the king, as I looked after the mutilated thieves: "we do not take life, but we punish."

My heart sickened, and I ventured to remark, that perhaps they were led on by hunger. A dozen voices stirred to hush me, and the faqir gave me an admonitory look. "Let him alone," said Runjit, "I like plain speaking, and he is but a nyajawan. You ride well, I hear, friend?”

"I have strode a horse from my youth, your highness."

'Well, you faringis leap your horses. show you the way over that fence."

There is a fellow just entering who will

I looked at the man pointed out, and recognised Nand Singh, who as an acknowledged favourite, had been allowed to force his way in, probably to ascertain whether mention had been made of the fracas at the door. I saluted him gravely, but politely; he returned the salām with a half-surly, half-defying air; and we were all forthwith, vazirs, scribes, omedwārs, plaintiffs, defendants, and prisoners, bundled out to the garden.

The sikhs are indubitably bad horsemen, however common report may say to the contrary; their horses are so hard worked, so scantily fed, and so badly bred, that they have no spirit for the rider to quell: however, Nand Singh was by profession a chabuk sowār, and at Ludianā had followed the hounds in the train of some European he had there served.

Delighted at the opportunity of showing off against me, he urged his horse towards the fence pointed out by the Maharajah; but the animal, being tightly curbed and bitted, failed to clear it, insignificant as it was, and fell heavily with his rider. I took the signal, gently touched Chanda with my heel, and springing over the barricade, wheeled round, and, on my return, cleared both it and the body of my prostrate foe. In another instant, I was at the feet of the Māharājah.

"Shahbash, Bellasis, you shall teach my lancers. You are a colonel now in my service, and shall have a khilat on the spot. If you are but as bold in the field as in the garden, we shall soon be good friends."

The result of this interview is that Bellasis becomes a great favourite with the Maharajah, and, consequently, the object of all sorts of jealousies and intrigues on the part of the native officials, and the incidents of the narrative arise chiefly out of these intrigues, and their results on the movements of Bellasis and his friends and followers-among the former of whom is a beautiful young girl, the daughter of one of the hill chiefs who had been dispossessed by Runjit, and whom Bellasis afterwards marries. This latter incident, and the fatal catastrophe attending it, give rise to many highly characteristic scenes, which afford the reader a better, because a more life-like insight into the social condition of the country in question than any professedly true narratives with which we are acquainted.

But we must abstain from further detail regarding this original and novel production. We should, however, be doing it injustice not to state that it contains many important and well considered views on the political condition and prospects of the Punjaub, which, coming from such a quarter, must be read with strong interest, and deserve the deepest consideration; and that the historical portions of the work are more comprehensive, and, consequently, more available to the superficial and ordinary inquirer, than are to be found within the same space in any other production that has arisen out of our Indian rule.

HILLINGDON HALL.*

AMONG the few rarities that are to be met with in this age of nonnovelty, when all the world are trying to play at "follow-the-leader," and the leaders themselves are content to follow one another,the rarest of all is an original book: and here is one in the strictest sense of the phrase. The characteristic of the entire bulk of our modern literature is, that taking any individual case, any body having an equal amount of talent and knowledge with the actual author, could have written the book. But in the case of "Hillingdon Hall," nobody living could have written it except the author of "Handley Cross."

But a book may be original without being any thing else at any rate without having any other valuable quality; and, among the few original books that we have, not a few are of this description: nobody but the

Hillingdon Hall; or, the Cockney Squire. A Tale of Country Life. By the author of "Handley Cross," &c. 3 vols.

author could have been silly enough or crotchetty enough to write them. But "Hillingdon Hall" is not one of these. True, it has faults, -both of taste as regards style, and of selection and treatment as regards the materials of which it is composed. But taking these errors at the most unfavourable estimate that can be made of them, the balance in the other scale causes it to kick the beam triumphantly. "Hillingdon Hall” is, in fact, not only one of the most amusing books that have been written during the last twenty years, but it is one from which more may be learned of the actual life and society among which its scenes are laid, and more good may be done upon the vices and follies which its wholesome satire so mercilessly scourges, than can be hoped for from any half score of the best of those broad satirical farces of Foote and O'Keefe, which it most resembles, or by any conceivable number of those vapid "legitimate comedies" of our own day, which it resembles not at all.

The reader has only to fancy a retired citizen, the owner of the exquisite old Manor House of Hillingdon Hall, and the fine estate thereunto appertaining, and to suppose him fairly installed in the same, together with his larger half, her maid Betsy, and their "man" Binjimin,—and prepared to carry out, in his new capacity of the cockney squire, all those new lights, touching guano, bone manure, nitrate o' sober "hashes, soot, salt, sand, and every thing in fact," which he has been imbibing from the agricultural column of his Sunday paper any time these seven years last past. One of the incidents is an invite from the Duke and Duchess of Donkeyton, to a dinner at Donkeyton Castle,-politics being able, like love, to level all ranks.

It need scarcely be said that in a work of this nature, there is a thread of narrative to hold the pearls together-and a golden thread it is—for it is no other than "glorious John" himself, whose "linked sweetness long drawn out," keeps every thing in its place,-not excepting whole chapters of love passages between the Duke of Donkeyton's dandy son and heir, the Marquis of Bray, and a brace of village flirts, whose respective anglings for a dukedom, aided by their rival mammas, give rise to some capital scenes of a somewhat different character from the uproarious and rollicking fun of the satire, which forms the staple of the book; and among these scenes we may particularly specify a long one at Donkeyton Castle, between its noble owners and one of the said mammas, who goes thither on the forlorn hope of claiming the incipient duke for her silly daughter. The pictures of the high aristocracy which these admirable scenes present to us, are equal to any thing of the kind in the most fashionable of our fashionable novelists.

Among other notable events in this remarkable book is a contested election, in which our cockney hero, to his own infinite astonishment, and the dismay and scandal of all the Donkeytons, is returned member for the county, in opposition to his dear dandy friend the "markis." It cannot fail to give zest to the perusal of this (in its way) capital production, for the reader to know that it is written by a gentleman whose position in society has given him the most ample means of depicting every class of society with which he has busied himself, and of none more so than those scenes at Donkeyton Castle, which contrast so brilliantly with the other portions of the work, and yet are as true to the life as every thing else in the book-indeed, they are more so-for in them there is no tinge of exaggeration, or caricature.

INDEX

TO THE

THIRD PART OF 1844.

Dec.-VOL. LXXII. NO. CCLXXXVIII.