Chapter XV: Part 15

Our traveller’s journey through Rajpootana was attended by circumstances flattering to his personal feelings. The petty sovereigns through whose dominions his route lay invariably received him hospitably when he visited their capitals, and on some occasions, when he did not choose to diverge so far from the road, sent messengers expressly to meet him on the way with polite invitations to their court. He pushed on, however, with considerable expedition, and having traversed the territories, and beheld the capitals of Jyepoor, Ajmere, Bunaira, and others, proceeded, by way of Neemuch and Baroda, to Bombay. His time, during his stay in this city, was principally occupied with ecclesiastical business, in promoting the founding of schools, and in conversing with that venerable statesman and traveller, Mr. Elphinstone, the governor, who, from the most humane and enlightened motives, has endeavoured, with success, to diffuse among the natives a knowledge of our literature and sciences. Here Heber had the satisfaction of being joined by his wife and elder child. With these, shortly afterward, he visited the cavern temples of Elephanta and Kennery; and subsequently, in company with Archdeacon Barnes, made an excursion across the Western Ghants to Poonah, in the Deccan, during which he enjoyed an opportunity of examining another celebrated cavern temple at Carlee. I cannot refuse myself the pleasure, or deprive the reader of the advantage, of inserting in this place the character which Heber has drawn of the most extraordinary man whom he encountered during his travels. “Mr. Elphinstone,” says he, “is in every respect an extraordinary man, possessing great activity of body and mind; remarkable talent for and application to public business; a love of literature, and a degree of almost universal information, such as I have met with in no other person similarly situated, and manners and conversation of the most amiable and interesting character. While he has seen more of India and the adjoining countries than any man now living, and has been engaged in active political and sometimes military duties since the age of eighteen, he has found time, not only to cultivate the languages of Hindostan and Persia, but to preserve and extend his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics, with the French and Italian, with all the elder and more distinguished English writers, and with the current and popular literature of the day, both in poetry, history, politics, and political economy. With these remarkable accomplishments, and notwithstanding a temperance amounting to rigid abstinence, he is fond of society; and it is a common subject of surprise with his friends, at what hour of the day or night he found time for the acquisition of knowledge. His policy, so far as India is concerned, appeared to me peculiarly wise and liberal, and he is evidently attached to, and thinks well of, the country and its inhabitants. His public measures, in their general tendency, evince a steady wish to improve their present condition. No government in India pays so much attention to schools and public institutions for education. In none are the taxes lighter; and in the administration of justice to the natives in their own languages, in the establishment of punchacts, in the degree in which he employs the natives in official situations, and the countenance and familiarity which he extends to all the natives of rank who approach him, he seems to have reduced to practice almost all the reforms which had struck me as most required in the system of government pursued in those provinces of our eastern empire which I had previously visited.”

From Bombay, Heber sailed with his wife and daughter to Ceylon, a large portion of which he visited. He then proceeded to Calcutta. On the 30th of January, 1826, shortly after his recovery from a fever, he again quitted his family for the purpose of visiting Madras and the southern provinces of India. At Madras he was received with great kindness by Sir Thomas Munro, who was warmly desirous of rendering his position as little disagreeable as the season and climate would permit. From thence he proceeded through Caddalore and Tanjore to Trichinopoly, where, on the 3d of April, 1826, his pious, active, and valuable life was closed. “It were a useless,” says Mrs. Heber, “and a deeply painful task to enter into any detail of the apparent cause of his death: it is sufficient to say that disease had, unsuspected, been existing for some time; and that it was the opinion of all the medical men in attendance, that under no circumstances could his invaluable life have been very long preserved, though the event was undoubtedly hastened by the effects of climate, by intense mental application to those duties which increased in interest with every step he took, and was finally caused by the effects of cold on a frame exhausted by heat and fatigue.” His mortal remains were attended to the grave with the highest honours, and followed by the tears of the inhabitants of Trichinopoly. They rest on the north side of the altar in St. John’s Church.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Cover image is in the public domain.