4. A dismal suggestion arises from the present condition of Bengal, which possibly it is too late now to regard as a warning. Ravaged by bands of marauders, no village safe from incursion, the usual culture of the soil must have been dangerously interrupted. Next, therefore, comes FAMINE (and note that the famines of India have been always excessive, from want of adequate carriage), and in the train of famine, inaudibly but surely, comes cholera; and then, perhaps, the guiltiest of races will pay down an expiation at which centuries will tremble. For in the grave of famishing nations treason languishes; the murderer has no escape; and the infant with its mother sleeps at last in peace. * * * * * _P.S._--The following memoranda, more or less connected with points noticed in the preceding paper, but received later, seem to merit attention:-- 1. As to the strength of our army before Delhi, it seems, from better accounts, to be hardly less than 5000 men, of which one-half are British infantry; and the besieged seem, by the closest inquiries, to reach at the least 22,000 men. 2. Colonel Edwardes, so well known in connection with Moultan, has published an important fact--namely, that the sepoys _did_ rely, in a very great degree, upon the whole country rising, and that their disappointment and despair are consequently proportionable. 3. A great question arises--How it was possible for the sepoys--unquestionably not harbouring the smallest ill-will to the British--suddenly and almost universally to assail them with atrocities arguing the greatest. Even their own countrymen, with all their childish credulity, would not be made to believe that they really hated people with whom they had never had any but the kindest and most indulgent intercourse. I should imagine that the solution must do sought in two facts--first, in the deadly ennui and _taedium_ of sepoy life, which disposes them to catch maniacally at any opening for furious excitement; but, secondly, in the wish to forward the ends of the conspiracy under Mahometan misleading. Hence, in particular, the cruelties practised on women and children: for they argued that, though the British _men_ would face anything in their own persons before they would relax their hold on India, they would yet be appalled by the miseries of their female partners and children. 4. It is most unfair, undoubtedly, to attack any man in our present imperfect state of information. But some neglects are unsusceptible of after excuse. One I have noticed, which cannot be denied or varnished, in Lord Canning. Another is this:--Had he offered 10,000 rupees (L1000 sterling) for the head of Nena Sahib, he would have got it in ten days, besides inflicting misery on the hell-kite. III. SUGGESTIONS UPON THE SECRET OF THE MUTINY. (_January, 1858._)