it as a mark of vigour in the present ad- | fall into the Baltic in the Prussian dominions, ministration that they are intent on pro- pass through some of the countries where moting the culture of this important arti- Hemp is cultivated; but as such countries cle in whatever parts of the British do- belong to Russia, and she commands the minions, or dependencies, may best suit it.. course of the rivers, the whole of the Hemp near the Baltic may, with propriety, be said Mr. W. proposes," hereafter, to give to be in the power of that government. Hemp a descriptive account of the various uses is grown in Persia, Egypt, and various parts to which hemp is applicable, such as rope of the East Indies, China, New Zealand, making, the weaving of sail cloth, sack- Canada, Nova Scotia, &c. A small quan ing, and other important branches of ma- tity is cultivated in England and Ireland; nufacture, in which not only the interest perhaps not more than three hundred tons. of individuals but the prosperity of the country is materially involved :-manufactures, whose very existence becomes endangered the moment they cease to be at a certainty of being enabled to command the Raw Material in abundance. These will form the contents of a third Part; and in a fourth, I shall offer some considerations, tending to demonstrate, politically and commercially, the necessity of taking effectual measures for rendering the nation less dependent on foreigners for the supply of a commodity, so necessary in every respect," as well for the defence of the realm as for the annoyance of our enemies." Works, of the greatest public utility seldom afford much entertainment to general readers. The very detail into which they enter, and from which they derive their merit, is tedious and dry, except to those whom it more immediately concerns. It will not, therefore, be expect ed from us that we should investigate the contents of this interesting volume, but, after the general report that we have made, we shall set before our readers specimens of the manner in which it is conducted, with a few remarks, en passant. In the northern parts of Europe, the best crops of Hemp are produced on black, not morassy, open, gravelly soil. Where the ground is over-rich, the growth becomes exnberant, and consequently coarse. As quality is preferable to quantity, care is taken to reduce such a superior soil to the state of culti vation in which the article is found to thrive best. An inferior soit requires to be raised to the like state. SUNN requires a dry soil, such as is esteemed poor land in Bengal. To the westward it is grown on raised banks of tanks. It will succeed on grounds which are incapable of bearing any other crop. It cannot bear being overflowed with rain; and one crop entirely exhausts the soil on which it is planted, so that it must lie fallow at least a year. The lands to the westward of Cossimbazar River arc generally of a stiff soil, inclining somewhat to clay, especially the higher lands. It is likewise produced on low rich soils, such as are not liable to be flooded; but it is not very common to raise it on such lands, as they The Ghore-Sunn, produced on rich land, is are capable of yielding more productive crops. of a coarser and worse quality, than of high dry situations. The Hemp in Europe requires a rich, deep, moist soil, and cannot bear strong clayey land; on the contrary, the Ghore-Sunn affects a dry, hungry, stiff soil, tending to clay; and although it will grow in rich deep soils, yet the Hemp (Sunn) produced in such situations is coarser than that from more dry and poor lands. As soon as the Hemp-seed is sown, it must be carefully covered with earth; either by means of a harrow, if the ground has been ploughed; or with a rake, if it has been dug by hand. Although Hemp, either in its wild or cultivated state, is to be found in almost every part of the globe, yet, as the present con sumption is for naval purposes, the growth of it, upon an extended scale, is more immediately confined within the limits of Europe. It is raised in various parts of France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and in several of the Italian States; but, with the excep Notwithstanding this precaution, the Hemp tion of a trifling export from Italy, none of ground must be constantly and assiduously these countries produce it in quantities suf- watched, till the whole of the seed is risen; ficient for their internal consumption. The for otherwise numbers of birds, and especialgrand mart for it, as an article of commerce, ly pigeons, will destroy it entirely, without is Russia, where it is grown in large quanti-sparing even the seeds which have been well ties, and of the best quality, in the southern and western provinces, bordering upon PoJand, and in the provinces of Poland, which, in the late partition of that kingdom, have fallen to the share of Russia. The rivers of Poland, which flow to the northward, and buried It is true, that pigeons and birds which do not scratch, do no great hurt to the grains of corn that are well covered with earth: but the husks of these grains do not rise up out of the ground with their green shoots, as those of Hemp always do, and then it is, that these birds, mistaking them for perfect seeds, tear them away with the young plants to which they adhere, and thereby commit vast havock. Happily this troublesome work does not last long; for when the Hemp has put forth a few leaves, it requires no further tending. After the plants have come up, the Hempgrounds require very little care or labour till the gathering of the produce. In general, it is deemed sufficient to keep the ditches in order and toprevent the cattle from entering them. In Bengal, a native, who had an opportunity of observing the mode of cultivating and preparing the Hemp raised by Mr. Douglas at Rishera, has offered to the Board of Trade to contract with them for supplying a very considerable quantity, I believe five hundred maunds, of properly dressed Hemp next season, at the rate of ten Sicca rupees per maund. Dressed Hemp might probably be soon procured at eight Sicca rupees per maund, or £28 per ton, but hardly at a lower rate, at least for some time. SUNN. Mode of cultivating at Hurripaul. It should be raised on high ground, where no water will lie. First, dung is thrown upon the earth; after lying ten days, it is plough ed; five days after it is harrowed once; in two days more the seed is generally sown. The sowing never should be delayed beyond seven days. After strewing the seed, it is ploughed and harrowed. In three days the seed will begin to shoot, and appear plainly in four or five. No further process is requied, not even weeding; the Sunn being set so close, and growing so thick, that nothing else can easily come up. In a month and a half it will be seven feet and a half or eight feet high, at which time it bears a yellow flower. At this time it is cut down, except what may be left for seed, the fibre from which will be inferior. The season begins about the 10th May, and the crop is gathered within two months. If sown every year in the same spot, the soil would be impoverished, and the produce inferior; the land is, therefore, every other year, appropriated to sugar, cotton, or early grain. A good deal of Hemp (Crotolaria) is annually cultivated in Salsette. It is generally sown on the sides of hills, as it would not pay for the expence of better ground. Its cultivation costs but little; the ground is slightly scratched by an instrument, when the seed is sown, towards the end of the rainy season. It grows luxuriantly, without further trouble, to the height of seven or eight feet, or more; and soon after the conclusion of the rainy season it is ripe. There are vast tracts of mountainous ground in Salsette, where Hemp would grow to perfection; and there is also much uncultivated low land, on which it could be raised without interfering with its present agriculture. In this manner Mr. W. proceeds to compare the different methods pursued in the cultivation of Hemp in Europe, and of Sunn in India. It should seem, that either of these plants, or both might be procured from the East in any quantities: whether at such a price as would pay for the freight and other charges unavoidable in bringing it from so great a distance, can only be ascertained by experiment. It is not a commodity calculated to lie in a small space, or to serve as ballast: yet, possibly, when manufactured in some degree, its bulk might be so far reduced, as to prove no insuperable obstacle to its importation. The profit arising from the cultivation of hemp is, in some places considerable ; to which parliament adds a bounty of three pence per stone: it might be still greater if land could be obtained at a low rent: but where wheat, &c. are settled crops, the variation to include hemp, will not be attempted without great circumspection. The same obtains also in India. for the hemp (Sunn), barley, and wheat, it At Benares. The same ground being used may be necessary to observe, that the former has been hitherto less profitable to the farmer than wheat or barley for the price has been generally the same; but a begah will produce of either of the latter about eight maunds of grain; add to which that the straw is valuable, whereas in Hemp (Sunn) there is no more than about three maunds produced from a begah. It has yet only been cultivated for home consumption, so that there is no saying how the price might be affected if it were to be come an article of export; and as it is cultivated without much risk or trouble, it is but reasonable to suppose, if it were to become so, that the cultivation would be inereased; and in proportion to the increased demand for it, the price would probably rise, in the same manner as the price of Indigo has risen from sixty and seventy-five to one hundred and twenty, one hundred and eighty rupees per maund, and that of Sugar from six to nearly eight rupees per maund. Commercolly. Hemp is cultivated here only by the fishermen, for their nets and ropes. It is reckoned a very unprofitable article, and for that reason no more is cultivated than what is wanted for the above purpose. the opinions of those who think that hemp Mr. W. states at a considerable length ought to be dried, after it is gathered, before it is placed in the water for retting; vice the opinions of others who think it may be placed in the water without being dried. It is probable, that in this ques Mr. Du Hamel says, that Hemp exposed to the excessive heat of the weather for any length of time will make it perish. Mr. W adds in a note, this is an undoubted fact. The sun will have an effect on the Hemp even in the act of spinning. This led to the forming of spinning-walks under the shade of trees; and of late years under covered walks, where the parties have been enabled to encounter the expence. tion, much depends on climate: how-plicate, without any adequate good resulting ever, we find equal diversity of opinion from it, and it approaches too much to runIn India, respecting the treatment of Sunn. ning water, which all condemn. The bark of the plant is properly the Kemp; and this cannot be separated from the reed or woody part unless it has been steeped in water for several days. As the properties which the hemp communicates to the water, are deleterious, the law restricts the practice to pits and ponds. These answer the purpose better than streams; the fish of which would die, if the hemp were steeped in them. (rea In Russia, Sweden, and Livonia, where there is much snow, they rot the Hemp in winter under the snow. After the first fall, they spread the Hemp (which has been dried in the sun or otherwise) on the snow, leave it there to be covered with other falls of snow until spring, when it is usually found to be sufficiently rotted. They then collect it into handfuls, for breaking, or peeling by the hand, or for breaking by mills where the quantity is great. and As the Russian hemp is esteemed the best in Europe, we take a pleasure in communicating the steeping process employed in that country. The interference of the French minister in procuring it, cannot fail of adding to its importance in the eye of our readers. When the Duke de Choiseul was Minister for Foreign Affairs in France, the States of Brittany solicited of him, that the Ambassador at the Russian Court might be directed to obtain au account of the method practised by the Livonians in steeping the Henip-plant. The common method, it seems, was to make troles, as near the spot of its growth as might be; but the plant so steeped produced a Hemp that always sold from twenty-five to thirty per cent. less than when steeped after their better method thus described : The Livonians choose a spot where there is a fall of clear water, and there make five or six basons, one tinder the other, at the most two feet deep. These basons are only separated by slight banks of clay, in which a small aperture is easily made and stopped up at pleasure; and by there means the water is Tet off from one to the other. They put the i plant first into the uppermost bason at the end of two or three days they remove it into the second, and so on to the last. At each steeping the first bason is filled with fresh plants, and the water removed in all the basons. It is further said, that the English and Dutch import no Hemp from Riga that hath not been steeped after this manner. But I do not, says Mr. Frushard, find that the French ever availed themselves of this infor nation; and indeed this method seems com With equal intelligence Mr. W. describes the processes of beating, skutching, and heckling by which the fibres are cleared from the woody particles, and brought into regularity and order. We should have been glad, if, in the course of his researches, Mr. W. had met with any mode of counteracting the effects of that peculiarly strong and offensive smell, which arises from hemp while steeping, and during its state of wetness. Where great quantities of the plant are in this process, the smell is equally sensible and injurious. On the Continent, hemp in such a state is forbidden to be carried through the towns in the day time and is even tolerated by night, only in case there be no other convenient road. Another part of the preparation of hemp, the heckling, we have known to prove fatal to the workmen engaged in it: the finer particles of the dust which rises in this process, being received into the stomach, there formed balls, which no art could remove: digestion being hindered by their means, the consequences may easily be anticipated. The performing of this operation under well ventilated sheds, or in the open air, may diminish the evil, we wish it could be wholly avoided. There are other disadvantages connected with the manufacture of this plant, and with its applications, in the marine, &c. which are not unworthy Mr. W.'s notice; and, especially, if he should happily meet with the means of obviating them, he will lay the public under additional, and lasting, obligations. Our review of this work is from a copy printed only for Official purposes some time ago; but we understand Mr. W. has at length resolved to make it general, on account of the present stoppage of the importation of Hemp from Russia: an edition will soon be published. * The East India Company has recently ordered 20,000 tons of hemp, from India. A Journey from Madras, through the engrav Sir W. Jones, has well observed, that there is a kind of infinity in whatever relates to India: and this work may be quoted in proof of the correctness of that observation. Like the banian tree of the Continent to which it relates, it is but one, yet by the numerous branches which depend from it, and communicate with the earth, it offers a thousand different paths, and form a thousand different mazes. We recommend these volumes to the detractors of the Company, and especially to those of the noble marquis, THE oldest Reviewer need feel no by whose command this journey was performed. Those who accuse either the shame in confessing his inability to do Company or its superior servants of being justice to the work before us within insensible to the welfare of their Indian that space which our Journal can spare territories, will here find reason to retract for his Report, It involves political mat their opinion: and though it should be ters of the highest importance to the inter-said, that government had its own advan ests of the East India Company, remarks tages in view, when this excursion was extremely well adapted to improve the planned, yet it will appear that the benecondition of the newly acquired provin fit of the individual subject, has in geneces, striking views of human nature, se- ral been no less, consulted than that of veral of them distinguished by their no- the sovereign. We acknowledge that in velty, the characters of sovereigns and of one or two instances we conceive Dr. B. their adherents, drawn from their actions, has used too favourable terms in speaking demonstrations of the evil effects of biof certain European individuals. gotry and superstition, of the excessive calamities consequent on repeated wars, and of the difficulties of recovering a country from a state of devastation, partly produced by predatory hordes of, banditti, and partly prolonged by the prevalence of wild beasts against the dispirited inhabi tants. But, if we were sure that our suspicions were just, we could hardly tell how to blame so few exceptions among so many particulars which do honour to the traveller : and since we cannot from personal knowledge deny the much greater probability that even in these instances the Dr. is correct, we shall not invidiously point them out. We recommend this work also to We are also obliged to Dr. Buchanan for a variety of information on the man-naturalists; who will find interspersed iners and resources of the people, on the many remarks connected with their fasubjects of their cultivation and labour, vourite science. The elephant and the with numerous particulars relative to geo- tiger, conspicuous among the wild graphy, natural history, mineralogy, and animals of Indian forests: the growth of other sciences. Neither are the devia-sandal wood, and of teak, the cultivation tions of the human mind forgotten, the of pepper, of cardamoms; of the differopinions of the almost inumerable" clas-ent kinds of grain, especially of the disses of natives, their opposition to each other, their mutual contempt, and, not seldom, derision: the oppression of their Mohammedan conquerors, and the sufferings arising from differences of religion. This gentleman travelled with the sanc tion of authority, and he has well availed himself of the advantages which he enjoyed. His work is a compendium of the observations he made during his progress; and often of those official answers to his enquiries, which an ordinary, traveller could not have expected.. tinctions of rice, cotton, &c. &c. will engage the attention of the man of science, as well as of the man of the world. But the merchant who wishes to procure foreign commodities from as near to the first hand as possible, may derive information from these volumes, not to be found elsewhere: and the statesman, especially, may discover in the accounts they contain, the rudiments of future greatness, and the means of communicating to expecting myriads blessings never yet enjoyed. The heart of the benevolent statesman will rejoice at such an opportu- the differences of cast. Those who hold that the offering of blood to the deity is inconsistent with the purity of his nature, will with great reluctance, accept a reli nity put into his power, such an opportunity of doing extensive good: of conferring benefits on distant provinces, and distant generations of giving comfortable breadgion founded on the Old Testament, and to those who will venerate his name, though they know not how to pronounce it correctly. We recommend these volumes, also, to whoever is desirous of further acquaintance with the human heart. He will here see duplicity, concealment, fraud, employed to counteract usurpation and tyranny, as well by the untutored as by the learned; those who cannot read, to whom, in fact, letters are forbidden, yet practice the same arts to delude their oppressors, as those who have been in the language of soi disant philosophy, sophisticated by over refinement, misled by the vagaries of priesteraft, and seduced to error for the benefit of the state. so far, on rites in which blood was constantly shed. Those who affirm that to live by begging, is living immediately on God, is the highest exaltation of the human character, and by this a man may become a partial incarnation of deity, will hardly become zealous in that religion which lays it down as a principle, "if any man will not work, neither let him eat" And if there be any so profoundly ignorant of the state of things, as to wish to establish by coercion a religion which abhors any compulsion, and stops' at benevolent invitation, to these we recommend the pictures incidentally drawn by Dr. B., in various parts of his work, of the bigotry and intolerance of Tippoo Saib; a mussulman, whose zeal for "the right way" induced him to blow up Hindoo temples, wherever his arms prevail were destroyed at the same time; who surrounded whole towns, and eircumcised, by force, every inhabitant who was not so fortunate as to escape to the Customs which simple reason, if there be such a thing in this world as simple reason, would pronounce abhorrent, we here find practiced, and that not in soli-ed, though the towns in which they stood tary instances, but by whole tribes, dis tant from each other. Is there in the human heart a more rational or more powerful principle than parental affee tion?-yet, Dr. B. states various socie-woods, to avoid violation, though is ties which forbid a man to love his own children, especially, and command him to interest himself with most affection in those which are not his descendants. Even regal power is transmitted-not from father to son, but by the nephews of the family. What could be the origin of that custom which, when a man has married a wife, forbids him to live with her, and consigns to another the enjoyment of her company? If this be wisdom, we resign it to those who can accept it under that character the institutions of social life, as warranted by that authority which claims our obedience, are better entitled to that appellation, even on the principles of simple reason. the face of death by hunger; who forbad his subjects from commerce with the infidel nations on his borders, and thereby deprived them of that intercourse on which their subsistence depended; and who meditated no less than the substitution of mohammedism for the braminical religion throughout the vast empire in which that prevails. To shew this potentate in his true cha racter, when withdrawn from public observation, we avail ourselves of Dr. B's description of Tippoo's private apartment in his palace at Seringapatam. From the principal front of the palace, which served as a revenue-office, and as a place from whence the Sultan occasionally Lastly, we recommend these volumes shewed himself to the populace; the chief to the attention of those who have under-entry into the private square was through a taken the benevolent office of establishing the Christian religion in India. They will here perceive the numerous difficulties which surround their attempt. The differences of language may be surmounted; the differences of cast are stronger than the differences of language; there are other principles stronger even than strong narrow passage, wherein were chained four tigers, which although somewhat tame, would, in case of any disturbance, become unruly. Within these was the hall in which Tippoo wrote, and into which very few persons, except Meer Saduc, were ever admit ted. Immediately behind this, was the bedchamber, which communicated with the hall by a door and two windows, and was |