exquisitely fine, and such as discovered an uncommon elegance of taste in the contriver. When they are large they make in them caves and grottoes, with openings, through which you discover distant prospects. They cover them in different places, with trees, shrubs, briars, and moss; placing on their tops little temples, or other buildings, to which you ascend by rugged and irregular steps cut in the rock. When there is a sufficient supply of water, and proper ground, the Chinese never fail to form cascades in their gardens. They avoid all regularity in these works, observ ing nature according to her operations in that mountainous country. The waters burst out from among the caverns and windings of the rocks. In some places a large and impetu ous cataract appears; in others are seen many lesser falls. Sometimes the view of the cascade is intercepted by trees, whose leaves and branches only leave room to discover the waters, in some places, as they fall down the sides of the mountain. They frequently throw rough wooden bridges from one rock to another, over the steepest part of the cataract; and often intercept its passage by trees and heaps of stones, that seem to have been brought down by the violence of the torrent. In their plantations they vary the forms and colours of the trees; mixing such as have large and spreading branches with those of pyramidical figures, and dark greens with brighter, interspersing among them such as produce flowers, of which they have some that flourish a great part of the year. The weeping-willow is one of their favourite trees, and always among those that border their lakes and rivers, being so planted as to have its branches hanging over the water. They likewise introduce trunks of decayed trees, sometimes erect, and at other times lying on the ground, being very nice about their forms, and the colour of the bark and moss on them. Various are the artifices they employ to surprise.. Sometimes they lead you through dark caverns and gloomy passages, at the issue of which you are, on a sudden, struck with the view of a delicious landscape, enriched with every thing that luxuriant nature affords most beautiful. At other times you are conducted through avenues and walks, that gradually diminish and grow rugged, till the passage is at length entirely intercepted, and rendered impracticable, by bushes, briars, and stones; when unexpectedly a rich and extensive prospect opens to view, so much the more pleasing, as it was less looked for. Another of their artifices is to hide some part of a com position by trees, or other intermediate objects. This na turally excites the curiosity of the spectator to take a nearer view; when he is surprised by some unexpected scene, or some representation totally opposite to the thing he looked for. The termination of their lakes they always hide, leaving room for the imagination to work; and the same rule they observe in other compositions, wherever it can be put in practice. Though the Chinese are not well versed in optics, yet experience has taught them that objects appear less in size, and grow dim in colour, in proportion as they are more removed from the eye of the spectator. These discoveries have given rise to an artifice, which they sometimes put in practice. It is the forming prospects in perspective, by introducing buildings, vessels, and other objects, lessened according as they are more distant from the point in view; and that the deception may be still more striking, they give a greyish tinge to the distant parts of the composition, and plant in the remoter parts of these scenes, trees of a fainter colour, and smaller growth, than those that appear in the front, or fore-ground; by these means rendering what in reality is trifling and limited, great and considerable in ap pearance. The Chinese generally avoid straight lines; yet they do not absolutely reject them. They sometimes make avenues, when they have any interesting object to expose to view, Roads they always make straight, unless the unevenness of the ground, or other impediments, afford at least a pretext for doing otherwise. Where the ground is entirely level, they look upon it as an absurdity to make a serpentine road; for they say, that it must either be made by art, or worn by the constant passage of travellers: in either of which cases it is not natural to suppose men would choose a crooked line when they might go by a straight one. What we call clumps, the Chinese gardeners are not unacquainted with; but they use them somewhat more spar ingly than we do. They never fill a whole piece of ground with clumps; they consider a plantation as painters do a picture, and group their trees in the same manner as these do their figures, having their principal and subservient Inasses. This is the substance of what I learned during my stay in China, partly from my own observation, but chiefly from the lessons of Lopqua. And from what has been said it may be inferred, that the art of laying out grounds after the Chinese manner is exceedingly difficult, and not to be attained by persons of narrow intellects: for though the precepts. are simple and obvious, yet the putting them in execution requires genius, judgment, and experience, a strong imagination, and a thorough knowledge of the human mind; this method being fixed to no certain rule, but liable to as many variations as there are different arrangements in the works of the creation. 1757, May. - XXVI. A genuine Narrative of the sufferings of the Persons who were confined in the Prison called the Black Hole, in Fort William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal, after the surrender of that Place to the In- J. Z. Holwell, Esq. to William THE ill conduct of Drake, the late governor of Calcutta, who had, among other things, unjustly imprisoned a very considerable merchant of the country, whose name was Omychund, and who was a Gentoo, having drawn the resentment of the viceroy upon the factory, he marched against it in person, with a very considerable force, and laid siege to the fort. Drake, who had brought on his misfortune, no sooner saw it approach, than he deserted his station, and left the gentlemen of the factory and the garrison to shift for themselves. As soon as Drake was gone, Mr. Holwell, from whose letter this account is taken, took the command upon himself, and resolved to defend the place as long as he could. This voluntary opposition of Mr. Holwell incensed the viceroy against him; and supposing that he would not have undertaken a work of supererogation, attended with such fatigue and danger, upon disinterested principles, he made no doubt but that there were very great treasures in the fort, in which he was deeply concerned as a proprietor; he therefore pushed on the siege with great vigour, and gained possession of the fort about five o'clock in the evening of the 20th of June, 1756. The number of men then in the fort was 145. One Leech, who had served the company as a smith, and was the parish clerk, made his escape through a private passage, with which very few were acquainted, when the Moors first entered the fort; and 144, being all the rest, were made prisoners of war. Mr. Holwell was thrice sent for and examined by the viceroy, before seven o'clock; the last time the viceroy sat in council, and when he dismissed his prisoner, he repeated the assurance that he had before given him, declaring on the word of a soldier, that no harm should come either to him or his people. He ordered, however, that they should be secured for that night, and they were immediately committed to the custody of some subordinate officers called Jemmautdaars. In order perfectly to understand the sequel of this account, it is necessary to describe that part of the fort where the prison called the Black Hole is situated. The east windows of the governor's apartment look into a pretty spacious court of guard, on the east side of which, over against the windows, and under the eastern curtain of the fort, there is a piazza; at the south end of the piazza there is a flight of stairs, that lead up to one of the bastions of the fort, and at the north end is the parade: within the piazza there are barracks for the soldiers that reach all along the side of the square, with a platform, reaching the whole length of these barracks for the soldiers to sleep on, and they are open towards the piazza, with arches that correspond to the arches of the piazza. Between these arches there is a small parapet wall, which goes from arch to arch the whole length of the barracks, and divides them from the piazza, but they are not divided into separate apartments within. At the southernmost end of the barracks, and in a line with them, is a room about eighteen feet square, which was used as a kind of round-house, for confining such of the soldiers as had been guilty of any irregularity; this place, which is a continuation of the barracks, is closely walled up on the north, east, and south sides, and is open only on the west side towards the passage; in this side there are two windows, strongly secured by iron bars, and the dungeon, being close and dark, was called the Black Hole. To the north, without the court of guard, was the armory and laboratory, and to the south, the carpenter's yard belonging to the factory. The guard that received charge of the prisoners ordered them all to sit down under the piazza, and soon after one of the soldiers stripped Mr. Holwell of his waistcoat, as he was sitting without his coat, which the heat of the weather would not permit him to wear. While they were waiting to be farther disposed of as their new masters should think fit, they discovered that the factory was in flames on each side of them, the armory and laboratory to the left, and the carpenter's yard to the right. They were alarmed at this unexpected conflagration, and it was the prevailing opinion, that, notwithstanding the viceroy's promise to Mr. Holwell, there was a design formed to suffocate them between the two fires. At about half an hour after seven, this dreadful apprehension was confirmed by the appearance of several people with lighted torches, who ran into all the apartments to the right of them under the eastern curtain, as it was supposed, to set them all on fire. But Mr. Holwell, at the request of some gentlemen, who were near him, going up to see what was really doing, found that the men with torches, being strangers to the fort, were only seeking a proper place to confine them in till the morning. Soon after he had satisfied his friends that their fears of being burnt were groundless, he was surprised by the appearance of Leech, who escaped through the private passage. This man having in many instances been obliged by Mr. Holwell's kindness, determined not to escape himself without attempting to bring off his benefactor; having returned into the fort at the risk of his life, he told him in a few words, that he had provided a boat, and that if he would follow him through the private passage by which he had entered, he would ensure his deliverance. Mr. Holwell was most sensibly affected by this instance of heroic generosity; but the viceroy having assured him that the prisoners should suffer no personal injury, and the gentlemen and garrison having put themselves under his protection, he thanked Leech in the best terms he could, but told him he did not think himself at liberty to desert his friends, and therefore could not possibly accept his offer; to which Leech gallantly replied, that he would then live and die with him; and though Mr. Holwell urged him many times to provide for his own safety, he persisted in his resolution, and could not be prevailed upon to leave the place. Very soon afterwards, part of the guard that had been drawn up on the parade, with the officers who had been viewing the rooms by torch-light, advanced towards the prisoners, and ordered them to rise and go into the barracks. This command they obeyed with great cheerfulness and alacrity, pleasing themselves with the hopes of passing the night comfortably on the platform; but they were no sooner within the barracks, than the guard advanced to the inner arches and parapet wall, and, with their musquets presented, ordered them into that part which was walled in at the south |