the wild hog at his everlasting work busily digging away at the roots of the old trees and saluting you with a grunt, and a great rush of the unseen herd as they hurry away to the darker forest. There too, last but not least, is the monster buffalo, with carcass near as huge as that of the rhinoceros, but with short round horns. There also in the slime and mud, on the banks of nullah or river, is seen the great crocodile with his ugly head, frightful jaws, lizard-shaped body, and tough, hard skin, almost impervious to ball,-lazily gliding into the water and disappearing with a splash. These are the principal fauna of the Soonderbuns, and right good sport do they afford to a sportsman, who has a stout pair of legs, a good rifle on his shoulder, and a compass in his pocket. On the sea-side, particularly in the eastern Soonderbuns, where the virgin forest stands as planted by the hand of nature, the towering trees prevent in a great measure the growth of underwood, and the sportsman may roam for miles with comparative ease; it is where the larger trees have been felled, and underwood has sprung up, that it is difficult to penetrate the woods. There too, at times, the sportsman comes across a great opening in the heart of the forest, where huge trunks are lying rotting; and the sun is shining brightly down, dazzling the eyes with the sudden change from the twilight of the woods to the blazing light of the open glade. The natives call these openings bageparahs, and attribute them to the agency of their Jins, and mighty spirits of the woods. But from the manner in which the huge trunks are lying, some snapped off, others rooted up, and all as if beaten down by the agency of some wondrous force, there is no doubt the spirits of the wind and tempest have been at work, and the typhoon has spent his force there, the whirlwind twisting and contorting the great trees as if they had been so many reeds. There are several of these bageparahs in the woods, and they are well-known to the woodcutters. We have remarked that they are invariably within ten or twelve miles of the sea. They are the favorite haunts of the deer. There are sand hills to be seen on the shores of the Bay at the points of Barabassdea, Chaplee and Tiger Point, and these places are perfect sanitaria for health. The scenery also is beautiful, after the flat plains of Bengal. The country assumes somewhat the character of hill and dale, the trees seem purposely planted as in a park, the woods grow to the water's edge, and the blue expanse of the sea affords a pleasing variety to the view. The feathered tribes of Bengal are to be met with in the Soonderbuns. The most common are the jungle fowl; the shrill clarion of the cock, and the cackling of the hen, with her brood of chickens, domestic sounds common to a village, sound strange in the dense and lonely forest, without any human habitation for miles and miles. Wild geese and ducks of various kinds are to be found in abundance on the sea coast, and on the banks of the larger streams. The snipe we believe breed in the Soonderbuns, for they are to be found at all seasons of the year. Quail are also found in the cultivated parts, in the stumps of the dhan; and the strong, clear whistle or call of the grey-curlew is a familiar sound in all the rivers and creeks during the cold season. There is a bird which the natives call mudduntak, it stands about four feet high, and is precisely like the common hargelah or adjutant, so common in Calcutta, but without the bag-it has about eight or ten long white feathers or plumes below the tail, each feather is about ten or twelve inches long, and the finest are to be gathered in February and March. This bird is greatly sought after by native shikaries; it is only met with in the deep forest, and never beyond twenty miles from the sea; the plumes sell for their weight in silver. We are not aware that these birds are to be found in other parts of Bengal, and even in the Soonderbuns they are becoming scarce from the numbers shot by the shikaries for their plumes. The name of the bird is Leptoptilos Argula, and the plumes are known as Marabón plumes. The Soonderbuns, though almost within sight of Calcutta, is an unknown land to the generality of our readers; we have therefore been purposely minute in our descriptions. We anticipate bright things for that land of flood and forest. Lord Dalhousie's rules, we have no doubt, will accomplish the purpose for which they were passed; the allotments bordering on the district of the 24-pergunnahs, those on the Mutlah and in its vicinity, and the lands in the eastern Soonderbuns, will in the course of a few years be brought into cultivation; we despair only of the forest bordering on the Jessore district, on account of the desertion of the zemindarree lands adjoining that part of the jungles, and we believe other measures must be adopted before the Jessore Soonderbuns will be reclaimed. The forest in this direction is yearly gaining on the cultivation. It has already extended to the Coirah river, and even villages to the north of that river are being deserted. Three-fourths of Pergunah Jameerah which borders on the forest, is already under jungle. The proposed Railway to the head of the Mutlah, and the cultivation of cotton, are already acting as stimulants to the clearing of the jungles. Nor must we forget that the Soonderbuns may be regarded as the granary of Bengal. Hundreds of reapers come from different parts of Bengal to assist in reaping and gathering the rich harvest, and carry away boats loaded with rice, receiving in some parts a fifth and in others even a fourth of the quantity reaped, in return for their labor. The country is in a great measure independent of rain, the rice crop seldom fails, and an acre of land yields five times as much as it yields in the cultivated districts. The Lieut. Governor of Bengal has turned his attention to the improvement of the great traffic channels of the Soonderbuns; towing paths and bridges are being constructed in different parts, shorter and more convenient routes have been directed to be surveyed, and the entire passage has been placed under the superintendence of a civil engineer. Police boats patrol the rivers and creeks for the protection of the native craft, under the command of a European constable; a deputy magistrate has been located at Kallegunge, another at Khoolnah, and a third will be immediately stationed on the Bulissur river. A police station has been placed in the heart of the Soonderbuns, where river decoities were recently so frequent. These improvements we owe to the Lieut. Governor of Bengal, and we have no doubt as the resources of the Soonderbuns are developed, this tract of land will continue to attract the fostering care of the Bengal Government. ART. VI.-1. An Act for the better Government of India. 2nd 2. The Friend of India. Serampore. 1858. 5. The Daily News. London. 1858. E have just reached a great turning point in the history of our Indian administration. Two years ago the East India Company had under their Government the most splendid appanage that any European monarchy ever knew. Large provinces were ruled and disciplined by public functionaries who, whether soldiers or civilians, were proud to call themselves the Company's servants. A treasury, if not filled to overflowing, was yet sufficiently stored to meet all the ordinary exigencies of a wide-spread sway. A vast army, composed of men whose good birth was unquestionable, whose bravery had scarcely been doubted, and whose faithfulness had passed into a proverb, would have been ready, at the bidding of the chief servants of the Company, to have overrun the Deckan, to have humbled the pride of Persia, or to have penetrated into unknown regions beyond the Suliman range. At that time the treasury of the Company, the jail of the Company, the mile-stones erected by the Company along their greatest channel of communication, were as sacred from injury as the throne of England itself; and under the shadow of that powerful name, which had been thrown, in the space of a century, from seaboard to mountain barrier, the most helpless of Europeans might have travelled, unprotected and ignorant of the language, from one end of the empire to the other, without perhaps encountering a word of contumely or a look of insult. What changes have come over the spirit of the Indian dream, need not be dilated on. The centres of wealth and commerce have been ransacked and despoiled by cutthroats. Some of the fairest of cities have streamed with blood. Rich districts have been overrun by marauders. The labours of years, the records of the rights of communities, have perished in a moment. The white face, that commanded respect, before which murmurs were stilled and disturbances sunk down quietly, that appeared only as the harbinger of peace, or the herald of commerce, or the messenger of reason and law, has been the signal for the most violent outburst of suppressed rage, defiance and hatred. And after eighteen months of convulsions, which have shaken but not overthrown the fabric of our authority, we commence a new year with the native army evaporated, the rebellion dying, and the Company dead. Such a momentous change cannot be passed over in silence by a periodical which is in the habit of discussing all the most prominent topics of the day; and though the abrupt termination of the charter has been fully commented on in all the leading journals at home and in India, it still appears to us expedient to group together in a few pages the main points of the new bill, and the most prominent merits and defects of the mighty corporation which has just sunk into its grave. A resumé of striking characteristics, however familiar, is not without its uses, even in these days, when the world lives at a pace that outstrips quarterly publications. Some of the present generation may be thankful for a paper that brings together the salient features of the new measure. Some of the next may look with curiosity or surprise on the doubts or the suggestions made contemporaneously with the Act, of which the one may be rendered illusory, and the other meet only with neglect. Even the history of human error may be instructive, while a partial apprehension of a coming truth in politics, dating in 1858, may be disinterred in 1900, by the diligent student of history, from the trunks and portmanteaus of 1859, for the amusement or the edification of his readers. The successive attacks to which the Company has yielded its most cherished privileges, are naturally familiar to the larger portion of our readers. It is in the memory of several statesmen yet living, that the Indian trade was thrown open in 1813. Many of us can recall the debates of 1833 which ended in the annihilation of the China monopoly. All are versed in the animated discussions of five years ago, by which the most telling blow was inflicted on the Company, the civil service was thrown open to competition, and the charter renewed for no definite term of years. It was this last provision, more than any, that excited the hopes of the Company's enemies, and the fears of its friends. Indian affairs might at any moment become the topic of the day. A lull in public affairs, the absorption of a new territory, a startling case of administrative or judicial incapacity, the anxiety of a jaunty or unscrupulous minister to stave off enquiry from matters more perilous to his tenure of office, the mere lack of subjects for political controversy, one or all of these causes might at any time have brought India to the bar of the Commons. An energetic Anglo-Saxon with a good grievance of |