Khoutah, 30 miles from Cuttack, December 16, 1844.

ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN RELIGIONS.

I am now writing in a tent in which, with the exception of Christmas week, I expect to spend the next month or two, travelling in search of health. The cool weather has refreshed me much, and I feel far better than I did. A question has been asked me respecting the antiquity of the religions of this country. I believe the Buddhist religion to be more ancient than the Brahminical in India; though I think that the latter is the older in reality, as I imagine it to have existed almost in its present form in ancient Egypt. The Hindus burn their dead, the Mohammedans bury them: but there are very many of the former who are too poor to purchase wood; in this case the bodies are simply thrown out for the jackals and vultures.