94 CAJ.CUTTA. 



I secured a passage in the French steamer " Meinam " 

 to start for Madras in the course of the following 

 week. 



Of Calcutta I have very little to say — everybody 

 lias heard of the black hole of 1756, and the horrible 

 sufferings which only few survived. The town differs 

 but little from any other of similar size in Ein^ope ; it 

 has its Viceregal palace of considerable architectural 

 pretensions, a park — rather bare, and not like an 

 English park — containing a number of large tanks, and 

 some fine broad roads called the " Course," where the 

 fashionable world take their airing about sunset, stared 

 at by a fraction of the lower classes. Here is a string 

 of elegant and well-appointed carriages, each accom- 

 panied by three or four servants in Indian livery, 

 white coat and trousers, with coloured sash and turban; 

 there a wealthy Mohamedan in a showy sort of 

 dressing gown and white or green turban, luxuriously 

 reclining in an old-fashioned barouche ; again a large 

 carriage crammed full of a Hindu family, the men in 

 white, a shawl thrown over the shoulder and an em- 

 broidered skull cap on their heads, giving them a very 

 rakish appearance, the women all rings and tinsel, but 

 their servants often dress even more absurdly. One 

 of these carriages passed me, with a coachman seated 

 on a scarlet hammercloth, the very counterpart of those 



