I said, were following in skirmishing order at a considerable distance behind; and then, and not till then, consented to pull up and ascertain whether their heads were still on their shoulders. I am not in a position to deny that during the performance of this rapid act I put in the spurs myself as warmly as anybody.

Our valiant irregulars were so infinitely satisfied with what they had just received that they declined to go in for any more, and resolutely refused to advance again, although their commandant, a plucky Pole, dashing at them sword in hand, made fierce attempts to drive them on. The officer in command of the dragoons might now, I think, have formed his men and charged with advantage; he preferred putting them about as they stood, and retreating at a walk, still in skirmishing order, without even taking the precaution of retiring by alternate lines. The Russians, however, who were doubtless pretty well blown in the pursuit, drew up to a walk likewise, and extending right and left in a line of skirmishers, followed us in an order similar to our own. "Whew -whe-e-e-ew" came the Cossack bullets, whistling viciously; then a loud bang from the Russian position, and another-each followed by a most awful whistle, like the screech of a carbine ball magnified by a hundred, and only to be expressed by big letters, "WH-E-E-EW"-told us that the enemy had got horse-artillery into action.

The pursuit of the Cossacks had somewhat slackened, and our distance from them somewhat increased, when my attention was attracted to a cluster of dismounted horsemen near me, holding their beasts by the bridle, and by the sight of a sabre vigorously brandished in the air. I drew near to investigate, and beheld an agreeable spectacle. The commandant of the Bashi-Bazouks, a grim red-moustached Pole, Yacoub Agha (or, as the Turks pronounce it, YacoubAh) by name, had been naturally ruffled by the behaviour of his men, and had seized the lull in the storm as a fitting opportunity for a ceremony which he would himself have

described as making a Bashi "toucher deux cents coups de bâton;" in other words, he was, in defiance of the advancing enemy, administering with his own hand corporal punishment to one of the horsemen who had been the most backward in coming forward. A Bashi-Bazouk was extended on the ground on his face, with a soldier holding him down as much as possible of his voluminous trousers had been packed aside to give a fair field for the flat of the culprit's own sabre, which, wielded by the commandant, was being applied to him in a manner which was likely to make horse-exercise unpleasant for some time to come. The operation concluded, all remounted, but_were scarcely in their saddles when I saw the commandant again on foot engagingly beckoning to two more to come and be flagellated. The victims, whose natural disinclination to be flogged was much aggravated_by their dread of the advancing Cossacks, made pitiful remonstrances, setting forth the approach of the Giaour as a reason for at least delaying the transaction; but the wrathful Yacoub-Ah mercilessly laid them on their faces, and in spite of their shouts of "Aman" and the great agility of their kicks and wriggles, beat them to his heart's content, and as a further punishment deprived them of their horses, and condemned them to make their escape on foot. I do not know whether the Turks in general have lost their soothing faith in predestination, or whether the sufferers in question thought that they were clearly predestined to be spitted on a Cossack lance, and could not restrain a natural agitation at the prospect; but certainly, as they woefully scuttled along in their great clumsy boots and baggy breeches, they did not look so spiritually supported as one might have wished. This penance lasted for some time; at length a more rapid advance on the part of the enemy induced the dragoons who were leading the culprits' horses to restore them, whether through mercy or a desire to be off on their own accounts, I can't say.

By this time we were perhaps halfway back to the concealed infantry.

It was plain that, if the Turks meant this ambuscade to do anything, the first step was to keep it quiet. Instead of doing this, they had commenced operations by perching a whole tribe of mounted and dismounted staff-officers on the ridge immediately in front of it, as if expressly to hint to the enemy that there was something behind; and now, just as there seemed to be some chance of drawing on the Russians, they opened fire with their artillery. The only explanation of this peculiar move that I have ever heard suggest ed was, that the Turkish commandant got into a fright at the approaching Cossacks, and, sending his ambuscade to the devil, turned all his faculties towards getting rid of them by the shortest process. So, bang went his first gun, followed by a kind of jizjiz-jiz-jiz-jiz through the air as though a fiery dragon were rushing along; then another; then the Russians replied, sending in a shrapnel which burst high up in the air, leaving the white smoke hanging in the blue sky in a compact mass like a white cloud; and so on till twelve or fifteen shots had passed on the two sides. By this time our cavalry skirmishers were falling back over the ridge. I followed them, and found the two infantry battalions and the lancers drawn up in close column immediately behind, with the Chasseurs lying on their chests behind a small bank which commanded the downward slope leading towards the Russians. But the latter astute persons declined taking advantage of these little arrangements, and quietly retired, vanishing behind the hillock and small ridge where our flight had commenced, and just leaving a few scattered_skirmishers to occupy them. Our Bashi-Bazouks again advanced, and exchanged shots with them; but the Russians would not show again, so we all went home. The loss on the two sides was one Bashi-Bazouk dead or taken, and one Cossack killed-whom the Turks, with a speed and presence of mind, and utter absence of truth that much pleased me, instantly magnified into two. Things must have changed since the time when Montecuculi wrote that " one ought to avoid engaging

the Turk in great skirmishes, as he has too much the advantage in them;" since the days when, as Saxe tells us, the hussars of the Emperor in Hungary "n'osoient pas quitter les grandes gardes de vue" for fear of the Turkish cavalry, and the natural result was 66 que nous ne marchions qu'à tâtons, que nous n'avions nulles nouvelles des Turcs;" and even since the commencement of the present century, when, according to Valentini, the Russian cavalry could never be hazarded away from the protection of its infantry and artillery until the Turks were in flight or at the least half-beaten, and when the order of battle in which it could best encounter the Turkish horse consisted of an oblong protected by guns and infantry placed upon two of its diagonal angles so as to sweep every face with fire; an arrangement which it was so undesirable to depart from, that Valentini exhorts it to execute its advances at a slow trot in order that the infantry may be able to run alongside. And what has caused this change? Whence comes this moral degeneracy? Not certainly from physical degeneracy. These very fugitives, running so alacritously before Cossacks whose little value in fight subsequent experience showed in the Crimea, were fine stalwart men, riding with the air of horsemen and soldiers born. Nor could any excuse be found for them on the score of being ill mounted, for their horses, though, according to English ideas, mere ponies in size, were compact, active, high-bred, and highly-broken. There is something strange in the way in which the military valour of certain races has declined without visible cause. Knowing as one does how much personal courage, as a general rule, holds of personal strength, of familiarity with weapons, and of the self-confidence engendered by pride of race and a contempt for all other races, one is puzzled to say why men who in all these respects have so much to induce valour as these Turkish horsemen, should be so deficient in it. friend Yacoub-Ah had a theory of his own on the subject. He used to maintain that no man would ever make the Bashi-Bazouks fight till he should

Our

succeed in rousing their religious feelings; and that the first man who, whether fanatic or hypocrite himself, should enter with fanatical zeal into their religious observances, would have a chance of raising an enthusiasm which might lead to great things. Possibly he might; but the question still remains-seeing that worse men than the Bashi-Bazouks frequently fight well without religious enthusiasm, why should they be so perfectly inefficient without it?

This was not the only occasion on which I saw the Turkish Irregulars brought into collision with the Cossacks. A few days after, I had the fortune to see the performances repeated, with very slight variation, on the very same ground; the part of enemy being taken by five Cossacks. The Turkish commandant halted his regular cavalry a very long way off; the Bashi-Bazouks, a hundred or so in number, were instigated to close with the foe. To comply with this request, one or two of the most valiant would every now and then dash forward at a gallop with a shout of Allah! and a look as if they were going to eat every infidel on the face

of the earth, and wheeling in a circle at speed (never approaching the enemy nearer than four hundred yards) would fire, and instantly retire to reload. The Cossacks held their ground, returning the fire, and, like the Turks, always putting their horses to speed at the moment of firing; presenting a picturesque appearance enough, with their long lances slung at their backs, and the long tails of their horses streaming in the wind. This lasted till a body of about a hundred fresh Cossacks coming up threw out skirmishers in a very leisurely manner and advanced; of course we retired; none the less willingly that two black columns, supposed to consist of several squadrons of Russian cavalry, showed themselves in the distance. The Cossacks quietly followed for a time, and retired just as we came under the lines of Kalafat; which we presently entered, driving before us on foot eight Bashi-Bazouks who were compelled to make this ignominious entry as a punishment for misbehaviour before the enemy.

(To be continued.)

WE do not wonder that John Bull is puzzled with India. That peninsular cul-de-sac of Asia-that vast Italy of the East-is the greatest puzzle in the world to those who examine it. It is so full of variety and contradictions. Its religious creeds, especially, are alternately the laughing-stock and the admiration of European philosophers,-a mass of absurdities or a fountain of light. All depends on what part is looked at. We are too apt to pick up a fragment, and judge as if that fragment were the vast whole. Every country, alike in its life and in its literature, exhibits many diversities of religious belief. Even in our own islands, where the various parts of the population are as thoroughly fused as anywhere in the world, how many diversities, even opposites, may be found side by side! The Calvinist,

with his bald ritual, rigidity of creed, and Christian fatalism,-the Romanist, with his pompous ceremonial, superstitious dogmas, and idol-worship, the Positivist who believes in no Church, and the Universalist who believes in all-may be found mingling in the same circles; while Mormonism finds converts in the ruder districts; and a practical belief in sorcery, witchcraft, spirit-rapping, and the "black arts" generally, is very far from being extinct either in our upper or lower classes. Wherever there are diversities of temperament or gradations of intellect, there will be corresponding diversities and gradations of religious belief-gross and materialistic in the ignorant, spiritual in the enlightened; narrow and bigoted, or tolerant and mild; some in which the moving power is Fear, others in which it is Love.

Such diversities are manifested in the life or literature of almost every nation, however homogeneous. But in India such diversity is enhanced to an unusual degree by the unparalleled mixture of races that has occurred within its sea-and-mountaingirdled area. From the remotest times there has been a ceaseless march of tribes into that vast peninsula from which there is no outlet. Pouring across the Indus, or straggling down through the passes of the Himalaya, each wave of incomers pushed its predecessors farther into the country. The later the settlers, the more powerful,-the earlier, the more ignorant and weak. And thus it happened, in this hurtling of race upon race, that some of the earliest almost or entirely disappeared, and others of them were forced into the hills and woody fastnesses of the land; while the better organised peoples of the second great wave of immigration maintained their existence, but took on in part the civilisation of the still superior Aryan nations who followed in turn-at the same time reacting powerfully on the creeds and usages of that gifted dominant race.

Geology shows that the crust of the earth consists of various layers or strata, all formed out of the same elementary substance, but each presenting different aspects and qualities, according to the time of its formation and the influences to which it has been subjected,-which strata coexist and intermingle, each predominant in certain localities, and often with some of the others cropping through it. The human population of the globe exhibits similar strata, and with diversities quite as marked as any in the geological world. The gigantic clumsy coppercoloured Patagonian differs from the rather short square-built yellowfaced Chinese, and the black pigmy root-eating Bushman of Africa differs from the white-skinned highly

developed Englishman, as widely and more obviously than do the strata of dead rock from one another; although, owing to their migratory power and capacity for fusion, the races of mankind sometimes pass into one another by gradations more subtle and less easily defined than those which distinguish the inorganic world.

Nowhere are those human strata (if we may so speak) more observable than in the Indian peninsula. There, various remnants of the rude earliest races are seen surrounded by the more numerous after-comers, just as the bald bleak peaks of the primary rocks stand out here and there amidst the wide expanse of more recent formations. These barbarous races are to be found chiefly in the hill-regions and woody fastnesses of the peninsula; also, in lesser degree, in quarters where the configuration of the country is such, that the earliest tribes were hemmed in, without possibility of further retreat, between the later-comers and the sea, in which latter localities they may no longer appear separate and distinct, but only as a leaven of darker colour and ruder civilisation in the general population. The immense level region of Hindostan, the vast plains constituting the basins of the Indus and Ganges, offered no places of refuge from the waves of invasion; hence, with the exception of some who were shut up and absorbed into the population of Lower Bengal, not only did the Tamul and other kindred peoples, forming the second great wave of immigration, sweep the earliest races southwards into the hills of central and southern India, but the Tamulese and Canarese themselves were forced to migrate in the same direction before the strong flood of the Brahmanical invasion.

From the latitude of the Vindhya chain down to Cape Comorin and the forests of Ceylon, the rude aboriginal*

or first-come population of India are still to be met with in detached communities, barbarous, and quite distinct in customs and manners from the general population. Many of them are quite distinct also from one another, evidently belonging to different eras of an indefinitely remote and abysmal past. Like scattered islets, relics of a primeval world, appear the uplands tenanted by those aboriginal tribes. Hardly do we cross the lower Indus than we come upon one of those relics of a pre-historic past in the tall and athletic black Koolies of Guzerat-the remains of some early tribe pushed southwards into this corner, where the sea prevented further flight, and where the locality allowed of their remaining distinct from the surrounding population. The broad wooded and jungly belt of the Vindhya Hills, extending eastwards from Guzerat across the peninsula to the Bay of Bengal, with offshoot ridges running far up in to Central India, is still for the most part in possession of aboriginal tribes. Scattered over the rugged ridges in Malwa, we find the black short Bheels, with thick rugged hair and beards, who (unlike the Hindoos) readily eat flesh, even of cows, and are very fond of intoxicating drinks. They are the most numerous of the aboriginal tribes, and at Neemuch the Rajpoots virtually acknowledge that many of the cities and fortresses were founded by Bheel chiefs; but it is long since they were driven south by the Rajpoots into their present quarters, where they lead a savage life apart as freebooters, or else live amongst their conquerors as cultivators and village watchmen. The same race are found in Guzerat, and also in Candeish. South of the Nerbudda, and almost in the heart of the Vindhya chain, we come to Gondwana, where, amidst almost inaccessible forests and rocky ravines, we find another of those early and now outcast tribes the Gonds. Jet-black, short, thick-lipped, with small deepset eyes, they live in miserable huts, surrounded by their swine and poultry, and sometimes buffaloes. They pay no reverence to Brahmans-have no priesthood-and the little religion which they have seemingly consists

in a worship of demons, to whom they are reported to sacrifice children. The vast hilly province of Orissa, verging on Gondwana and comprising the eastern portion of the Vindhya chain, contains no less than three different tribes of rude aborigines,-the Khonds, the Koles, and the Sourahs. Human sacrifices prevail amongst them also. The religion of the Khonds is somewhat remarkable. They regard the EarthSpirit as in rebellion against the Supreme Deity, and as needing to be propitiated by mankind as the most potent influencer of their lot. And as, like all peoples who are unacquainted with astronomy, the Earth is to the Khonds the universe, we have here the dogma, so widely acknowledged or implied elsewhere, of Creation at feud with the Creator

the doctrine of Satan opposed to God: but, at utter variance with the Christian's form of the same creed, this barbarous people direct their worship, not to the Supreme, but to the rebel Earth-Spirit, their "prince of this world," and seek to propitiate her by human sacrifices. Farther south, in the very apex of India, among the hill-districts of southern Madras, we find other, and for the most part gentler tribes, belonging to an equally or still more remote past. The Tudas of the Nilgherry hills, indeed, although living uncivilised and in complete isolation, may be fancied a later intruding tribe, they are so superior in mental and bodily organisation to the (other?) earliest tribes, -an idea which obtains countenance from the fact that the Cholas and other Nilgherry tribes look to them as lords and superiors. They are described as a noble race,-tall and athletic, with symmetric features, half-way between the Roman and Jewish in type,-large-eyed, and with long fine hair falling in natural locks. The comparatively treeless character of the hills where they dwell, appears to indicate that in former times large spaces had been cleared for agriculture. In the same quarter-in the Dendigal and neighbouring Wynaad hills we find humanity in the lowest and least developed form which is to be met with in India. The Shanars, Ku