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together , and seeming contradictions to be . reconciled . Then as inallbra&cbes of human knowledge , With such data to build upon , in the hands of master minds a key may he discovered to the maze which , however imperfectly , is here Iplaced before the reader , and for which the merit of careful and painstaking industry may fairly be claimed . We believe Lord Bacon was the first to throw oufc a hint that the aboriginal languages of America were not derived from the same source as those of the Old World . " If you consider well of the people of the West Indies /' are his words , " it is very probable that they are a newer or younger
people than the people of the Old TV orld , and it is to be noted that , in the destructions by deluge and earthquake , the remnant of people which happen to be reserved are commonly ignorant and mountainous people , that can give no account of the time past . It is most likely that the destruction that hath heretofore been , there was not by earthquakes , but by some particular deluge ; for earthquakes are seldom in those parts . But oil the other side they have such pouring rivers , that the rivers of Asia , Africa , and Europe , are but brooks to them , aud their Andes , too , or mountains , are far higher than those with us , whereby it seems probable that the
remnants of generations of men were saved in some particular deluge . " Indeed , the more the ancient languages of the Red Indian nations are examined , the more we are inclined to think with Lord Bacon , that these races are not to be identified as pertaining to the families of the Old World ; for there is no affinity between them and . those extinct or still spoken in the Eastern hemisphere . It is true , that the remains of ancient buildings . in Central America , and Mexican hieroglyphics , might , at the first blush , lead to a different conclusion ; but the more closely the matter is investigated , the more difficult is it to reconcile the descent of the abori g ines of America from the peoples of remote antiquity . The subject is one of the deepest interest to all who would trace the rise and progress of the human family from the
Creation downwards , as well as to those who seek to master the nature and origin of language , the confusion of tongues , and the natural history of the various races which are spread over the face of the globe . We . have here the list of monuments still existing , of an almost innumerable series of languages and dialects of the American continent . The greater part of Indian , grammars and vocabularies exist still only in manuscript , and were compiled chiefly by missionaries of the various branches of the Christian church , and to Dr . Ludewig and Mr . Triibner , we are , therefore , the more indebted , for the great care with which they have pointed out ¦ where such are to be found , as well as for enumerating those which have been printed , either , in a separate shape , in collections , or in voyages and travels , and elsewhere . 7
As " Old Mortality ' cleaned the inscriptions on the Covenanters' tombs , so did Dr . Ludewig endeavour to rub off the rust of ages from the scattered remains of the aborigines of America . Had it not been , a labour of love like hie , it would not have been attempted . Unimportant as such labours may seem to men engaged in the more bustling occupations of life , all must at least acknowledge that these records of the past , like the sternlights of a departing ship , are the last glimmers of savage life ,, as it becomes absorbed , or recedes before the tide of civiliaatiou .
Mr . Triibner has adopted the sphere turning on itsliiis as liis "trade mark , with the motto from Juvenal-- " Una avulsa non deficit altera" and we believe ho has already a second volume of his Bibliotheca Qlottica in preparation , which will embrace the aboriginal languages of South Africa , iii proof that he does not do so idly , but with tho full intention of completing tho whole on . the same plan and with the same completeness with which he has produced his specimen volume .
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MORE BOOKS ON IN DI A . Stroica and Adventure with' t / io jK 7 fflm ^ Jtmnln / r ?~* ' * '" ™~ Meerul Volunteer Jlortte , ditrim / tha Muti ' iiin of 1857-58 . By Itobort Hunry Wnliaoo Dunlop , UX- » - \{ . Jtontlay . $ iu Months in British Burmith , or , India beyond the Ganges in 1857 . My Curlstoplior T . Winter . } i . Uontloy . Mn . Wallace Dunlop had observed without apprehension , during February and March , 1 S 5 / , tl » o remarkable transmission among tho Indian natives of certain littlo oukos , or chupateos . Ho still , " . i i
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and he thought the disparity was too great . Under the former , a man may have earned , one . ' thousand rupees a month as a cavalry officer under a native rajah , while his son , as an unadvauceable sub-comma uder in a corps of our . own may not' get-beyond eighty . The native courts were a field for natives of enterprise . Active meu might in these hotbeds of vice and enervation become rich and honoured . The annexation of each petty principality was the knell of family and individual hopes , and the monster gulp with which the British lion bolted Oudh must have crushed the aspirations and vested inte-_ I . _ . . . •>¦ ' •' . ¦ , . 1 TT . _ 1 _ _
classwc were of course detested . Again , to use the words of the author—There Ayero many other innocent sufferers by the change of Government . Thousands of citizens fouiul employ in providing for the ordinary wants of the court and nobility . There were several hundreds iti manufacturers of hooquah snakes . The embroiderers . of gold and silver thread were also reckoned by hundreds . The makers of rich dresses , line turbans , highly ornamented shoes , and many other subordinate trades , —1 .. ™« •• 'Mitn nt . rt / % ii »« r » r \ # 1 ¦_» ( rt C I' f ~ * f 1 rt fl ^! l llA , in lion . ! liis
suffered severely from the cessation of the demand for articles which they manufactured . When we cap this column of " ready-made enemies" with the discontent of the urban population at the tax on opium , which more than balanced their satisfaction at the withdrawal of many old imposts , and the general hostility of all irregular classes to an established government , we shall have completed our rapid survey of the causes which , to our mind , though not to the Commissioner ' s , were sufficient to rauire the inhabitants of Oudh with the
outraged Brahmins of the Sepoy army , as promoters of the revolt , and to raise that occurrence from the level of a military mutiny to that of a provincial if not a national rebellion . How the fabric of our Upper Indian Empire wa 3 riven— -how it tottered on its base—are now matters of ¦ history ; but , if truth must be told , the above causes might all have been in fruitless operation but for the detect in military organisation , to . which reference has been made ; the blind confidence which lulled men like Lawrence , Wheeler , and many more , while such restless spirits as Alec Nuclcee and ~ Nun : \ . Sahib' were . scheming , a ,. national vendetta with barbaric ferocity and Oriental finesse ; and , lastly , the " one great capital error , " as Gubbins says , of denuding , or nil but denuding , our old aud recent conquests alike of European troops .
From Meerut , in the north-west , to Dinapoqr , in the south-east , two weak English regiments only were to be found . These were the 3 rd Bengal Fusiliers , at Agra , ami the 32 nd Foot , at Xucknow . All our principal cities were without European troops . There were none at Delhi or at liareilly ; none at . Fyzabad , at Mirzap ' oor , or at Benaies . And / worst of all , the important fortress of Allahabad , the key of the North-Western Provinces , was equally unprotected ! At the important station of Cawnpore was only the depot of the 32 nd Foot , and a weak reserve company of Artillery . Throughout tbe entire province of Oudh we possessed but one English battery of artillery—all the rest were native .
For the future , Mr . Gubbins augurs peace , tran quillity , and content . He is persuaded that the mass ol the Oudh population , though their rajpoot class has ever recruited the ranks of the Beng . il army , are not , upon the whole , martial , but naturally orderly and peaceable , and driven only to draw the sword by extreme insult or oppression . The turbulent talookdars once quelled , their forts effectually dismantled , their ordnance taken away , the new land settlement permitted to continue its
salutary operation , and the faithful discruninately rewarded , lie believes that a really cllccl ive , not a mere paper , government , based visibly on physical power of British arms and British bayonets—which he holds , as now do all men , indispensable—may justly , conciliatingly , and yet without-truckling fear of native prejudices , support the civilisation of the West in our Eastern empire until it may in time have force to stand alone .
We have reviewed this work at unusual length , that such as arc not likely to possess it may have a fuidy accurate idea of its breadth and purport . It is the , bpok . of ,, the day ; and will long , in our opinion , be indispensable to ovcry-day readers who would protend to talk upon its subject matter . Wo hardly look , we confess , for a more generally sound or comprehensive performance . Its publication is of decided importance , and , if what wo lio : u ' bo true—that an edition was disposed of in a few days of tho dullest soason—we are but conllrnimg instead of , aa wo could have wished , anticipating and directing the opinion of tho public to llwt efleot .
rests of many a military clan as well as of many a vermin nest of pimps and parasites . Mr . Gubbins , swayed doubtless by civilian esprit de corps , puts in an admirably lucid manner the advantages the British rule has introduced into Oudh ; but he has also shown so dearly the confusion thrown into the interests of large bodies and classes by the annexation , that we are ourselves utterly unable , to disconnect , as he would have us , that event from the recent rebellion . lie urges , and with justice , that the party most benefited by the . introduction , of our rule was the Sepoy class , i . e . the
class from which our late Bengal Sepoy army was almost entirely drawn , aud who form the peasantry of the country . He shows cause enough for contentment that theoretically should have prevailed , but he fails to make out its existence , still less its effect in contracting the stream of the revolt . If the presence of all dear to them within the disturbed area , in fear of a rapacious talookdar to-day , and of Company Bahadoor to-morrow ; prey , m turn , to each regular corps of belligerents , each
freebooting horde of disbanded janissaries lrom Lucknow , and every wandering band of dacoifs , —if what we may term the enormous aggregate stake of the . 'mutinous army in the welfare and soil itself of a grand province but just emerging from under the harrow of our annexation , availed nothing to keep it round its colours , it must follow that no such pressure was placed by the enormous body of Sepoy peasantry in Oudh upon their connexions' in that army as would have sprung from any real partiality for British rule .
It is plain that among the upper classes m Oudh we had enemies enough ready made . The valuable chapters we are now noticing set forth how the most powerful of the oppressive talookdars , or native landholders , were , of necessity , inimical to a rule under which hundreds upon hundreds of opulent villages melted away from their grasp into that of the Sepoy class , whose petitions for justice , filtering , as they used > through British regimental officer , civil officer , central officer , residentiary officer , to the foot of the Lucknow Musnud ,
obtained in former days but scant and tardy recognition . We , who have studied for ourselves , and according to our own light , the Oudh papers of the session of 1856 , have no hesitation in accepting the author ' s forcible conspectus of the state of Oudh , the barbarous brutality of the talookdar class , and the value , as well as justice , of the resettlement of the land which followed our annexation . But , so admitting hi $ review of this and of other powerful interests dislocated upon our advent , we cannot fail at once to couple their writhings with subsequent transactions .
Besides the semi-regular and rabble adherents of the landholders ( who , it must be remembered , arc in point of income no mere squireens , but men with incomes , raised by right and wrong , varying frbhi 50 , 000 / . to 200 , 000 / . per annum ) , we had to face the animosity of the disbanded royal army of 00 , 000 men , who liad been accustomed , while eating nominall y the bread of tho royal family of Oudh , to lead a life of licence and rapine . Of these 15 , 000 took , servico in our now local force 5 tho majority , however , could brook no discipline , and all , or nearly all , of them mig ht eventually be traced to tho ranks of the mutineers .
THE MUTINIES IN OUDH . ^ -An ^ acaunLo / Lt / ie ^ ueinfai ^ pu d ^ and of the Sieae of tho JMoknow Residency ; xott / t some Observationson"thT Condition of tho Province of Oudh , and on the Causes of the Mutiny of the Bengal Army . By Martin Richard Oubbfn ? , 0 ? tho Bengal Civil Sorvioo , Financial Commissioner for Oudh . ' Richard Bentley . [ Second Notio ^ iJ With the underpayment of tho native officers finds tho roll of elements of discontentment in the Sepoy : army . Sir Henry Lawrence was wont to compare tho status and emoluments a native gentleman could attain to under native governments ., with . those attainable jn the British Indinuarmy ,
The court families , again , comprising tho innumerable branches of the royal house and their de-^ mdeniriribesT ^ enlmviM pagandism of Alee Nuekco , the prime agent of tho dethroned prince . Compensation had been promised to all by the incoming government , but during tho investigation of their claims , tho most deserving , and well affected wero reduced to the same positive want as the base and fraudulent claimants . All the thousands whoso solo business it had been to minister to the degrading vices and debauchery of the profligate Court of Lucknow found their occupation gone with tho dynasty that had engendered and nursed their foul pnrasitioal growth . By this
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940 THE I / E A D E U , ^^ P _ : J ^ l ^^ — _^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ 7 ~ ~
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 940, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2259/page/20/
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