Travels in India a Hundred Years Ago : being Notes
and Re- miniscences of Thomas Twining. (Osgood, Mellvaine, and Co.)— Mr. Thomas Twining sailed for India in April, 1792, and reached Madras on the last day of July. He was then just sixteen. Two years afterwards we find him in a position of authority, settling, for instance, a fierce dispute about water, which a few years before had been fought out with the loss of several hundred lives. His recollections are, we need not say, full of interest. Among them is a visit to the Great Mogul at Delhi (Ally Gohar). Other more or less famous personages, European and native, appear in his pages. The editor has not thought it necessary to give any help to readers. An occasional note would have been decidedly useful, for every one does not possess the familiarity with Indian affairs which he doubtless possesses. Later on we get an account of Lord Wellesley. The "Great Proconsul" was exceedingly civil to Mr. Twining, who had the courage to advise him against a project of imposing certain duties which had struck his fancy very strongly. The description which Mr. Twining gives of the Governor-General's magnificence is entertaining, This reminis- cence belongs to a later period. To this also belongs the descrip- tion of a suttee. Mr. Twining made an effort to save the victim, but failed. She could not rouse herself to make the exertion. His Indian career was cut short by ill-health at a time when it seemed to promise a brilliant future. This ill-health did not prevent his reaching, however, a good old age, for he lived well into his eighty-sixth year. So his son tells us ; the son himself is not far from his eighty-eighth year. Part of the volume is occupied with the account of a visit to the 'United States. The most im- portant incident which he relates, is an interview which he had with General Washington, by whose presence he was greatly impressed. There is much that is curious in his descriptions of American life.
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