busied my fancy with painting, in colours
drawn partly from the Arabian Nights and Persian Tales, and partly, if
not chiefly, from those brilliant clusters of oriental images which
crowd and adorn the pages of Scripture.

Captain Cook asserts somewhere, speaking of the delights of voyaging
and travelling, that to such rovers as he and his companions nothing
came amiss; and I can safely venture to boast, that, as far as this
goes, I may claim a corner of my great brother officer's mantle. At
all events, in sailing over the Indian seas, or travelling in those
countries by land, I hardly ever met anything which did not so much
exceed in interest what I had looked for, that the grand perplexity
became, how to record what I felt, or in any adequate terms to
describe even the simplest facts which struck the eye at every turn in
that "wide realm of wild reality."

Of all places in the noble range of countries so happily called the
Eastern world, from the pitch of the Cape to the islands of Japan,
from Bengal to Batavia, there are few which can compare with Bombay.
If, indeed, I were consulted by any one who wished as expeditiously
and economically as possible to see all that was essentially
characteristic of the Oriental world, I would say, without hesitation,
"Take a run to Bombay; remain there a week or two; and having also
visited the scenes in the immediate neighbourhood, Eliphanta, Carli,
and Poonah, you will have examined good specimens of most things that
are curious or interesting in the East."

For this remarkable distinction, peculiar, as far as I know, to that
one spot on the earth's surface, this presidency is indebted to a
variety of interesting circumstances. Bombay is an island, and by no
means a large one, being only between six and seven miles long by one
or two broad. It is not, however, by geographical dimensions that the
wealth of towns, any more than the power and wealth of nations, is
determined. The harbour unites every possible desideratum of a great
sea port; it is easy of access 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, an