FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1: ([return]) This must have been one of the vakeels or envoys, whose departure from Bombay, in March 1839, is mentioned in the Asiatic Journal, (xxix. 178;) the party is there said, on the authority of the Durpun, (a native newspaper,) to have consisted of eleven, Mahrattas and Purbhoos, no mention being made of Moulavi Afzul Ali. We have been unable to trace the further proceedings of the deputation in this country; but they probably found on their arrival, that the fate of their master was already decided, as he was dethroned by the Company, in favour of his cousin Appa Sahib, in September of the same year, on the charge of having participated in a conspiracy against the English power. The justice, as well as policy of this measure, was, however, strongly canvassed, and gave rise to repeated and violent debates in the Court of Proprietors.
Footnote 2: ([return]) The native servants of the Governor-General at Calcutta, on state occasions, wear splendid scarlet and gold caftans.—See Bishop Heber's Journal.
Footnote 3: ([return]) The Khan nowhere exactly explains the surprise which he expresses, here and at other times, at the shouts of hurra!—perhaps his ear was wounded by the resemblance of the sound to certain Hindustani epithets, by no means refined or complimentary.
Footnote 4: ([return]) The views of Mirza Abu-Talib on this important subject, are far more enlightened and correct than those of Kerim Khan. "The public revenue of England," he observes, "is not, as in India, raised merely from the land, or by duties levied on a few kinds of merchandise, but almost every article of consumption pays its portion. The taxes are levied by the authority and decree of parliament; and are in general so framed as to bear lightly on the poor, and that every person should pay in proportion to his income. Thus bread, meat, and coals, being articles of indispensable use, are exempt; but spirits, wines, &c., are taxed very high; and the rich are obliged to pay for every horse, dog, and man-servant they keep; also for the privilege of throwing flour on their heads, and having their arms (insignia of the antiquity and rank of their family) painted on their carriages, &c. Since the commencement of the present war, a new law has been passed, compelling every person to pay annually a tenth of his whole income. Most of the taxes are permanent, but some of them are changed at the pleasure of parliament. Abu-Talib visited the country in the first years of the present century, when the capability of taxation was strained to the utmost, but the words which we have given in italics, contain the secret which Kerim failed to detect."
Footnote 5: ([return]) "The Parsees," says Mirza Abu-Talib, describing those whom he saw at Bombay on his return to India, "are not possessed of a spark of liberality or gentility.... The only Parsee I was ever acquainted with who had received a liberal education, was Moula Firoz, whom I met at the house of a friend; he was a sensible and well-informed man, who had travelled into Persia, and there studied mathematics, astronomy, and the sciences of Zoroaster." If this account be correct, a marvellous improvement must have taken place during the last forty years. Many of the Parsees of the present day are almost on a level with Europeans in education and acquirements; and in their adoption of our manners and customs, they stand alone among the various nations of our Oriental subjects—but their exclusive addiction to mercantile pursuits, and their pacific habits, (in both which points they are hardly exceeded by the Quakers of Europe,) make them objects of contempt to the haughty Moslems.
Footnote 6: ([return]) The Persian princes go more into detail; but we doubt whether their description will much facilitate the construction of a railway from Ispahan to Shiraz. "The roads on which the coaches are placed and fixed, are made of iron bars; all that seems to draw them is a box of iron, in which they put water to boil; underneath, this iron box is like an urn, and from it rises the steam which gives the wonderful force; when the steam rises up, the wheels take their motion, the coach spreads its wings, and the travellers become like birds."
Footnote 7: ([return]) The Parsees, in their account of the Tunnel, mention a fact now not generally remembered, that the attempt was far from a new one:—"In 1802, a Cornish miner having been selected for the purpose, operations were commenced 330 feet from the Thames, on the Rotherhithe side. Two or three different engineers were engaged, and the affair was nearly abandoned, till in 1809 it was quite given up."
Footnote 8: ([return]) Bishop Heber, in his journal, also mentions the wonder of his Bengali servants on their first sight of a piece of ice in Himalaya, and their regret on finding that they could not carry it home to Calcutta as a curiosity.
Footnote 9: ([return]) The sober prose of the Parsees presents, as usual, an amusing contrast with the highflown rhapsodies of the Moslem; their remarks on the same lady are comprised in the pithy observation—"We should not have taken her for more than twenty-six years of age; but we are told she is near fifty."
Footnote 10: ([return]) The ten days' lamentation for the martyred imams, Hassan and Hussein, the grandsons of the Prophet, who were murdered by the Ommiyades. Some notice of this ceremonial is given at the beginning of his narrative by the Khan, who attended it just before he sailed from Calcutta.
Footnote 11: ([return]) To explain the Khan's ignorance of the form of an English entertainment, it should be remembered that his religious scruples excluded him from dinner parties—and that, except on occasions of form like the present, or the party on hoard the Oriental at Southampton, he had probably never witnessed a banquet in England.
Footnote 12: ([return]) CEYLON, AND ITS CAPABILITIES. BY J. W. Bennett, Esq. F.L.S. London Allen: 1843. With Plain and Coloured Illustrations. 4to.
Footnote 13: ([return]) "Hailstone chorus:"—Handel's Israel in Egypt.
Footnote 14: ([return]) St Mark, iv. 31, 32.
Footnote 15: ([return]) Unicorn: and strange it is, that, in ancient dilapidated monuments of the Ceylonese, religious sculptures, &c., the unicorn of Scotland frequently appears according to its true heraldic (i.e. fabulous) type.
Footnote 16: ([return]) See Dr Robison on Rivers.
Footnote 17: ([return]) Deut. xxxiv. 6.
Footnote 18: ([return]) Fugitive, observe. There were some others, and amongst them Major Davie, who, for private reasons, were suffered to survive as prisoners.
Footnote 19: ([return]) "Took Kandy in his route." This phrase is equivocal, it bears two senses—the traveller's sense, and the soldier's. But we rarely make such errors in the use of words; the error is original in the Government documents themselves.
Footnote 20: ([return]) Why were they "all-suffering?" will be the demand of the reader, and he will doubt the fact simply because he will not apprehend any sufficient motive. That motive we believe to have been this: war, even just or necessary war, is costly; now, the governor and his council knew that their own individual chances of promotion were in the exact ratio of the economy which they could exhibit.
Footnote 21: ([return]) We say living, because every attempt hitherto made to explain sensation, has been founded on certain appearances manifested in the dead subject. By inspecting a dead carcass we shall never discover the principle of vision. Yet, though there is no seeing in a dead eye, or in a camera obscura, optics deal exclusively with such inanimate materials; and hence the student who studies them will do well to remember, that optics are the science of vision, with the fact of vision left entirely out of the consideration.
Footnote 22: ([return]) This is the first impediment to an oceanic canal, and one equally felt on the other proposed lines. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, when recently surveying the western coasts of America, availed himself of the opportunity to explore the Estero Real, a river on the Pacific side, which he did by ascending it to the distance of thirty miles from its mouth, but he found that it only admits a vessel drawing ten feet water. That intelligent officer considered this an advantageous line for a canal, which by lake navigation, he concluded might be connected with San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and extended to the Atlantic; but the distance is immense, the country thinly inhabited, and besides unhealthy, and, after all, it could only serve for boats.
Footnote 23: ([return]) Lord Grenville in his speech on Indian affairs, April 9, 1813.
Footnote 24: ([return]) The result of their labours was published in the Philosophic Transactions for 1830, accompanied by drawings.
Footnote 25: ([return]) Ulloa (Book iii. chap. 11) remarks, that although the greater part of the houses in Panama were formerly built of wood, fires very rarely occurred; the nature of the timber being such, that if lighted embers are laid upon the floor, or wall made of it, the only consequence is, that it makes a hole without producing a flame.
Footnote 26: ([return]) America and the Pacific, 1838.
Footnote 27: ([return]) Ulloa affirms, that the greater part of the houses in Panama are now built of stone; all sorts of materials for edifices of this kind being found there in the greatest abundance. Mr Scarlett also acknowledges that he there saw more specimens of architectural beauty than in any other town of South America which he had occasion to visit.
Footnote 28: ([return]) In 1814 the writer had coal in his possession, in London, brought from the vicinity of Lima, which he had coked and tried in a variety of ways. It was gaseous and resembled that dug in the United States. Since that period coal has been found near Talcahuano and at Valdivia, on the coast of Chili; on the island of Chiloe, and on that of San Lorenzo, opposite to Lima; in the valley of Tambo, near Islay; at Guacho, and even further down on the coast of Guayaquil. Mr Scarlett quotes a letter from the Earl of Dundonald. (Lord Cochrane,) in which his lordship affirms, "that there is plenty of coal at Talcahuano, in the province of Conception." It was used on board of her Majesty's ship Blossom; and Mr Mason, of her Majesty's ship Seringspatam, pronounced it good when not taken too near the surface. Mr Wheelright, the American gentleman who formed the Steam Navigation Company along the western coast, coked the coal found there; and in the general plan for the formation of his company, assured the public that "coal exists on various parts of the Chili coast in great abundance, and will afford an ample supply for steam operations on the Pacific at a very moderate expense." The fact is confirmed by various other testimonies, and there is every reason to believe that coal will be hereafter found at no great distance from Panama.
Footnote 29: ([return]) Mr Scarlett says, that the depth of water at Chagre is sufficient for steamers and large schooners, which can be navigated without obstruction as far up as the mouth of the Trinidad. By descending that river, he himself crossed the isthmus in seventeen hours—viz. from Panama to Cruces, eight; and thence to Chagre, nine. Mr Wheelright, the American gentleman above quoted, says that the transit of the isthmus during the dry season, (from November to June—and wet from June to November,) is neither inconvenient nor unpleasant. The canoes are covered, provisions and fruits cheap along the banks of the Chagre, and there is always personal security. The temperature, although warm, is healthy. At the same time it must be confessed, that in the rainy season a traveller is subject to great exposure and consequent illness; but if the railroad was roofed this objection might be removed. It is on all hands agreed, that the climate of the isthmus would be greatly improved by drainage, and clearing the country of the immense quantities of vegetable matter left rotting on the ground. The beds of seaweed, in a constant state of decomposition on the Pacific shore, create miasmata unquestionably injurious to health.
Footnote 30: ([return]) "Mechanic arts of education:"—Merely in reading and writing, the reader must not forget, that according to absolute documents laid before Parliament, Ireland, in some counties, takes rank before Prussia; whilst probably, in both countries, that real education of life and practice, which moves by the commerce of thought and the contagion of feelings, is at the lowest ebb.
Footnote 31: ([return]) The allusion is to Mr O'Connell's past experience as a defendant, on political offences, here the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin; an experience which most people have forgotten; and which we also at this moment should be glad to forget as the ominous precedent for the present crisis, were it not that Conservative honesty and Conservative energy were now at the helm, instead of the Whig spirit of intrigue with all public enemies.