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JAMES THOMASON

with his ideas that he was commissioned to draw up a general scheme for the education of the Natives. It was for the sake of urging this plan that he was desirous of accompanying His Lordship on this protracted march from Calcutta up the country. His letters written during the journey are full of his anxieties on this behalf. His sad heart might have been comforted could he have foreknown that in the next generation his son James would become the father of elementary education.

During this vast tour of many hundred miles, through the richest and most famous parts of India, the only place that pleased him was Hardwár, where the Ganges debouches from the Himálaya. Arriving at Benares, he writes: —

'I ventured to visit the shrine held so sacred. It was an oppressive sight. The avenues to it are narrow, crowded with Bráhmans and bulls. ... The horrid din of Bráhmans and religious mendicants, and bulls, and beggars and bells was too much to he endured. I hastened from the place, as from Pandemonium, and thanked God for the Gospel.'

After a tedious voyage in boats up the Ganges he reaches Allahábád, and then proceeds by daily marches, sleeping in tents. His route lies through the heart of Hindustán proper, and the Doáb or Mesopotamia of the Ganges and the Jumna. His view of the country is not cheering; he says: —

'Conceive an immense plain on which are scattered thousands of villages; a few principal towns without variety