THE PRODUCTIONS OF INDIA. PERHAPS Some of you may become sailors, and find yourselves on the shores of India, in some merchant vessel gone there to "fetch home spices rare," or other productions of that fertile country. You will get pepper there, which warms your soup on a cold day; nutmeg and ginger, that are often added to beer on the same occasion; rice, that makes such excellent puddings; tea, which becomes cheaper and cheaper, because it is now grown in regions where it had not hitherto been cultivated; cotton for your frocks; and that useful thing India-rubber, which makes waterproof coats and cloaks, keeps your feet dry in wet weather, and perhaps you will think it is particularly valuable in enabling you to rub out your pencil mistakes. It is obtained by making a hole in the stem of a tree, as if it were going to be bled, and the juice that flows out of it hardens into India-rubber. Silk-worms do well there, and, mixed with camel's hair, silk is woven into the lovely Indian shawls that you may see hanging in the silk mercers' shops. They are sometimes worth hundreds of pounds. You will also see fields full of poppies, from which laudanum and opium are made. It is to be wished that we did not import so much of this last article. If given by a doctor to soothe violent pain, it is often a blessing; but if taken merely to raise the spirits, by making us forget our troubles, it is most mischievous. People become fit for nothing who have the habit of flying to laudanum when they feel miserable. The soothing syrups that are advertised as good for send ing children to sleep, often contain opium, and are very bad for them, and sometimes produce idiotcy. From India comes indigo, that beautiful bright blue colour that you think so pretty. Muslin used to be woven there, so fine that it was called woven air, and a whole breadth would go through a ring. It cost £1, 1s. a yard, but they do not make much of it now. India supplies us with jewels; you may see imitations made of glass in the first jeweller's window that you pass, that look just like them, but the natives give immense prices for the real Little children, without a stitch of clothes, will wear endless anklets and bracelets, nose-rings, and earrings, and are frequently murdered for the sake of their ornaments. ones. One of the most useful things produced in India is the palm tree. At a little distance the trees look rather like the feathers of a hearse at a funeral. The cocoa-nut palm gives us oil which greases railway carriages; the white nut is good to eat, and the milk to drink; the shell can be formed into cups and basins; cables for ships are spun out of its rough fibre, and these hold as nothing else will when a ship is riding at anchor in the teeth of a heavy gale. It makes charming bed mattresses, as well as matting for kitchens and staircases. The stem furnishes the means of making a boat, with masts, spars, and cordage. But though India is in parts such a fertile country, it is subject to terrible visitations from the want of rain, as you have already read in the account of the famine in 1837. Quite lately there has been a plague of locusts, which is thus described :-"The locusts swarm like dust in the air; they will cover a space seven miles long, and five in breadth, and green trees are stripped by them in five minutes; the large branches will break with their weight. The moment they are born, they begin to crawl towards the east, destroying everything in their path. As soon as their wings grow, they take to flying. Crowds of villagers, beating tom-toms, will drive them north or south. They will swim through water, climb over walls; but there are little birds, called bayahs, said to pierce. a hundred locusts for one they eat, which follow them in flocks. The locusts travel east, twenty-four miles a day, till they get to the sea, when the salt kills them, and the poor people pick up their dead bodies, pound them, and eat them." The poisonous snakes that abound in India make it not a very pleasant thing to walk much in the jungle. Indeed, they often come into houses during the rains; a lady putting her hand into a cupboard was bitten by one called a cobra de capello, the most deadly of them; she only lived an hour. Then white ants destroy almost everything they can reach; they come in a swarm, and in one night will devour a table and a shelf full of books. The number of servants that English people keep in India seems almost incredible, but they cost very little, and do very little. A lady and gentleman having about £800 a year there, kept an elephant, four horses, nine or ten dogs, twenty cows, and twenty-four servants, but only one of the latter was a woman. They are neither fed nor clothed by their masters. They are all forbidden by their religion to do each other's work. When the lady of the house had a fall from her horse, a servant of hers who was near would not come to her assistance, because that horse was not his business. The ayahs, or nurses, are said to be much attached to the children, and in the mutiny gave great proofs of it, in some cases betraying the secrets of their relations in the army, to save the lives of the children they had nursed. THE TELEGRAPH CABLE TO INDIA. How all the old ways of intercourse have ceased, Are bound by stress of state, or gross reward, To aid the mystic courier at its work 'Twixt land and sea. Soon, without wave or wind, Our statesmen shall despatch their "how" and "why," And charge the lightning with their policy; Nor shall our home affections lag behind; For all that longs, and loves, and craves reply, Shall move the needles on the shores of Ind. CHARLES TURNER. AN INDIAN NIGHT. How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain Breaks the serene of heaven; In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine The desert-circle spreads, Like the round ocean girdled with the sky. How beautiful is night! SOUTHEY. ON A LADY WHO SET HER SLAVES FREE. SHE dwells by great Kenhawa's side, In valleys green and cool; Her soul, like the transparent air And thus she walks among her girls, She reads to them at eventide And oft the blessed time foretells When all men shall be free, And musical as silver bells Their falling chains shall be. |