Residences for the Governor - Parell - Its Gardens - Profusion of
Roses - Receptions at Government-house - The evening-parties - The
grounds and gardens of Parell inferior to those at Barrackpore - The
Duke of Wellington partial to Parell - Anecdotes of his Grace
in India - Sir James Mackintosh - His forgetfulness of India - The
Horticultural Society - Malabar Point, a retreat in the hot
weather - The Sea-view beautiful - The nuisance of fish - Serious effects
at Bombay of the stoppage of the trade with China - Ill-condition
of the poorer classes of Natives - Frequency of Fires - Houses of the
Parsees - Parsee Women - Masculine air of the other Native Females
of the lower orders who appear in
public - Bangle-shops - Liqueur-shops - Drunkenness amongst Natives
not uncommon here, from the temptations held out - The Sailors'
Home - Arabs, Greeks, Chinamen - The latter few and shabby - Portuguese
Padres - Superiority of the Native Town of Bombay over that of
Calcutta - Statue of Lord Cornwallis - Bullock-carriages - High price and
inferiority of horses in Bombay - Hay-stacks - Novel mode of stacking
* * * * *
CHAPTER XII.
BOMBAY - (Continued).
The Climate of Bombay treacherous in the cold season - The land-wind
injurious to health - The Air freely admitted into Rooms - The
Climate of the Red Sea not injurious to Silk dresses - Advice to
lady-passengers on the subject of dress - The Shops of Bombay badly
provided - Speculations on the site of the City, should the seat of
Government be removed hither - The Esplanade - Exercise of Sailors
on Shore and on Ship-board - Mock-fight - Departure of Sir Henry
Fane - Visit to a fair in Mahim Wood - Prophecy - Shrine of Mugdooree
Sahib - Description of the Fair - Visit to the mansion of a
Moonshee - His Family - Crowds of Vehicles returning from the
Fair - Tanks - Festival of the Duwallee - Visit to a Parsee - Singular
ceremony - The Women of India impede the advance of improvement - They
oppose every departure from established rules - Effect of Education in
Bombay yet superficial - Cause of the backwardness of Native Education
MEMOIR.
* * * * *
Experience has, especially of late years, amply refuted the barbarous
error, which attributes to Nature a niggardliness towards the minds
of that sex to which she has been most prodigal of personal gifts;
the highest walks of science and literature in this country have been
graced by female authors, and, perhaps, the purity and refinement
which pervade our works of imagination, compared with those of former
days, may not unjustly be traced to the larger share which feminine
pens now have in the production of these works. It would appear to
countenance the heretical notion just condemned, to assume that
a robust organization is essential to the proper development and
exercise of the powers of the understanding; but it is certain
that, in several instances, individuals, who have exhibited the most
striking examples of female pre-eminence, have not reached the full
maturity of their intellectual growth, but have been lost to the world
in a premature grave: to the names of Felicia Hemans and Laetitia
E. Landon, besides others, is now added that of Emma Roberts, who,
although in respect of poetical genius she cannot be placed upon
a level with the two writers just named, yet in the vigour of her
faculties, and in the variety of her talents, is worthy of being
associated with them as another evidence against the asserted mental
inequality of the sexes.
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