and egress; affords excellent anchoring ground; is capacious beyond the utmost probable demands of commerce; and, owing to the great rise and fall of the tides, is admirably adapted for docks of every description.  The climate is healthy; and the country, being diversified by numerous small ridges and hills, furnishes an endless choice of situations for forts, towns, bazaars, and villages, not to say bungalows or villas, and all sorts of country-houses, and some very splendid retreats from the bustle of business.  The roads which intersect this charming island were beautifully Macadamised, as I well remember, long before that grand improvement was heard of in England; and as the soil of the island is made up of that rich kind of mould resulting from decomposed basalt or lava, the whole surface affords a good sample of the perennial verdure of tropical scenery, which dazzles and surprises the new-comer, while its interest seldom fails to rise still higher upon a more prolonged and intimate acquaintance.

Such are among the eminent physical advantages enjoyed by Bombay; but even these, had they been many times greater, would have been light in the balance compared to those of a moral, or rather of a political nature, which conspired in 1812 to render it one of the most important spots in that quarter of the globe.  At the time I speak of, it was almost the only possession exclusively British within several hundred miles in any direction.  The enormous territory of the Mahrattas lay close to Bombay on the east.

On the morning after my arrival at Bombay, I got up with the first blush of the dawn, and hastily drawing on my clothes, proceeded along greedily in search of adventures.  I had not gone far, before I saw a native sleeping on a mat spread in the little verandah extending along the front of his house, which was made of basket-work plastered over with mud.  He was wrapped up in a long web of white linen, or cotton cloth, called, I think, his cummer-bund, or waist-cloth.  As soon as the first rays of the sun peeped into his rude sleeping-chamber, he “arose, took up his bed, and went into his house.”  I saw immediately an explanation of this expression, which, with slight variations, occurs frequently in the Bible, in connection with several of the most striking and impressive of Christ’s miracles, particularly with that of the man sick of the palsy.  My honest friend the Hindoo got on his feet, cast the long folds of his wrapper over his shoulder, stooped down, and having rolled up his mat, which was all the bed he required, he walked into the house with it, and then proceeded to the nearest tank to perform his morning ablutions.

I remember mentioning this, amongst many other illustrations of the incidents recorded in Scripture, to a worthy old Scotch lady, upon whom I expected it to produce the same pleasing and satisfactory effect which it had wrought on me.  I made, however, a great mistake; for so far from raising myself in her estimation, on the score of correct observation, I sunk, I fear, irrecoverably, in her good graces, by presuming, as she alleged, to interfere with the wonder of the miracle, the essence of which, according to her, I discovered to consist, not in the recovery of “the man, who was made whole,” but in his being able to shoulder a four-post bed, and carry it off without inconvenience!