256 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
at Delhi, Agra, and Lucknow, there are edifices of 
a far superior order in point of architecture, than the 
finest at Calcutta, and which indeed may fairly chal- 
lenge comparison with anything of a similar kind in 
Europe. 
Next to the Government house the principal build- 
ing is the Custom-house, a low but capacious edifice 
with an elegant front, and containing extensive and 
commodious warerooms. At Cheringhee, the fashion- 
able part of the town, there is a line of magnificent 
houses, extending like a row of palaces, and almost 
realizing some of the fictions of Eastern splendour. 
These houses are all inhabited by Europeans. They 
are mostly stuccoed, and stand each within a large 
area, being" well ventilated ; nor indeed is there want- 
ing anything which the greatest refinement in luxury 
can suggest to remove the inconveniences of climate, 
and render them delightful abodes. 
Although the portion of Calcutta inhabited by 
Europeans is airy, attractive, and imposing, nothing 
can exceed the wretchedness of that part of it oc- 
cupied by natives. The streets are narrow, dirty, 
and unpaved. The great proportion of houses are 
little better than mud hovels, swarming with a 
squalid, half-starved, miserable population. Here dis- 
ease, that constant ally of poverty and privation, is 
perpetually raging, and thousands are yearly victims 
to the awful evils thus superinduced to the miseries 
of destitution ; nor does there appear any prospect of 
amelioration to those wretched beings who crowd to- 
gether in the suburbs of this vast metropolis, only to 
form a sad community of wretchedness. While the 
