The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-12-20
BALTIMORE.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1859

The first of two steamers intended for the regu-
lar navigation Of the Ganges, has just been
launched in England. Railways already intersect
each other on the plains of Bengal, and the whistle
of the locomotive has signalled TO a once cult
waited but stationary race the advance of more
active and progressive civilization The solemn
little idols, that had their abodes beneath the
shady banyan trees and in the clumps of fragrant
sandal wood are seeking remoter shrines; for their
quaint temples are profaned daily by the tread Of
irreverent feet. And now the palm groves of the
Ganges will resound with the CHATTER of the engines
that drive the putting steamers up against its Ian
guild current. The holy waters, upon which fair
maidens were wont to launch their tiny love
lamps, and in which, when they became fond
mothers, they religiously drowned their babies,
will glide no longer in silent stiffness to the sea.
The sacred mud, on which the Shiny crOcodiles
basked in undisturbed repose, and in which pious
Hndoos wallowed to cleanse themselves of sin,
will be continually stirred by the revolving
paddle-whees, and its oozy depths will never
henceforth subside into their primeval stagnaton.
When the steamboats, first began TO ply upon our
Western streams, the red man felt himself to be in
the presence of a power it was hopeless TO resist,
and he has steadily fallen back at the approach of
superior intelligence and skill; and results some
what similar and equally striking will ensue
when the arts rather than the arms of Britain,
are energeticay employed in the subjugaton of
India. The improvements already introduced are
but precursors of hundred still to follow and are
significant of the sweeping changes they will
necessarily effect. With telegraphs railways and
steamboats,, all the other machinery with which
Europe is so familiar will enter the country.
Factories will spring up around the towns, and
saw-mills make havoc in the great teak forests
More effective agricultural implements will super
sede in the fields the Anticipated and cumbrous in
ventions that originated a thousand years ago;
and the light palanquins will go to the limbo of
departed sedan-chairs, and be replaced on
the road by wagons that are scarcely
heavier. AS novelties multiply, ancient modes
and customs will disappear; and as new
ideas are developed, the institutions that are al
most coeval with the aborigines will gradually
give way and the people be brought into nearer
conformity with the usages of modern civilization.
1t seems like an idle dream to look forward to all
this but it may nevertheless find its fulflment
Not that such results are TO be wrought out
through sudden and rapid transformations of ex-
isting conditions, but they will be accomplished,
if at all, by the slow and patient processes of
years The nation has already lost many of its
distinctive features, and the faded pageant which
now represents the living history of Hindostan
bears little resemblance to the glowing and splen-
did panorama that illustrated it century ago
The binding light Of countless diamonds no lon
ger blazes from the throne of the Moguls, and the
keen scimetars of the Mahratta squadrons have
ceased to CLEAN in the Deckan, Juggernaut no
more goes crashing over rows of PROSTATE pilgrims
COWS are slaughtered despite the devout horror of
learned Brahmns; and widows take out letters
testamentary when their husbands die, instead of
affectionately roasting themselves The tigers are
dying out in the tangled jungles, and their places
usurped by pigs. The lordly elephant that
used to travel so serenely along the highways
with his howdah full fturbanned princes will soon
be ranked with the beasts of burthen that are re-
served only for gnoble tasks; and he will be left to
plod along with his heavy load, and enjoy his
dim reflections undistractedly, save when some
hurrying train stares him into unwonted ac-
tivity as he numbers across its track. The pic
turesque succumbs TO the practical. The maid
ems of Dacca will doubtless forego its gossamer
muslins for the gaudier tissues of the Manchester
looms, and give the preference 10 RowLAND's
Macassar, when it completes in the markets with
the costly altar of roses; and damsels whose feet
as yet, unfettered by artistic rules keep time only
to the tinkling Of their bangles, will whirl in
nterminable polkas amid the din of operate
music. All those therefore, who would behold
the vanishing glores Of the India of their youthful
imaginations, should repair thther without delay.
The movement which has begun in that quarter of
the world has already shattered the social system
which served the purposes of millions of men for
unuumbered generations, and its final ruin in
which their customs and creed5 will be involved,
may come much sooner than we anticipate. Fifty
years hence the traveller may. perhagsc fnd these
that they will not only have abandoned their own
primitive fashions, but will have initiated success
fully the most favored nations of the earth; and
if he be denizen of this hemisphere, he may learn
with gratifed surprise that the Thugs hold annual
elections at Delhi and the people are blessed with
a ''mode Mayor" at Benares