Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1838.pdf/64

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By thee are royal gardens, each possessing A summer in its hues, Which still thy wave renews, Where'er thou flowest dost thou bear a blessing.

Such, O my country! should be thy advancing— A glorious progress, known As is that river's, shown By the glad sunshine on its waters glancing.

So should thy moral light be onwards flowing— So should its course be bound By benefits around, The blessings which itself hath known bestowing.

Faith—commerce—knowledge—laws—these should be springing Where'er thy standard flies Amid the azure skies, Whose highest gifts that red-cross flag is bringing.

Already much for man has been effected; The weak and poor man's cause Is strengthened by the laws, The equal right, born with us, all respected.

But much awaits, O England! thy redressing; Thou hast no nobler guide Than yon bright river's tide Bear as that bears—where’er thou goest, blessing!

Will General Fagan permit me to quote an expression of his which struck me most forcibly? "We have," said he, "been the conquerors of India: we have now to be its benefactors, its legislators, its instructors, and its liberators."

The Ganges (called by the natives Ganga, the river,) takes its rise among the loftiest of the Himalayan peaks, and, after winding for a hundred and fifty miles through a stupendous labyrinth of mountains, enters the plains of Hindostan through an opening in the mountains of Hurdwar. It exchanges the character of a raging torrent for that of a clear broad stream, and glides tranquilly, for a distance of twelve hundred miles, to the ocean. The Brahmins of India venerate the Ganges much, and pretend to believe, that its first descent from heaven was designed to fill up the "hollowed, but then empty, bed of ocean itself;" and all Hindoos imagine that it springs up at the feet of Brama. The distant hill, in the illustration, is the Chandnee Pahar, (or Silver Mountain,) on the summit of which, an elevation of six thousand feet, a white temple to Mahadeva is erected, to whose altar the pilgrims, after performing their ablutions in the river, repair to fulfil their devotions. In the British-Indian courts of justice, the water of the Ganges is used for swearing Hindoos, as the Bible is for Christians.