260 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
twenty miles is supposed to contain a population of 
nearly two millions and half. 
Just before sunrise the air is cool and refreshing ; 
it is therefore the custom to rise early and take a 
ride before breakfast, which is ready about nine. At 
halfpast one o’clock tiffin, or luncheon, is served, 
and dinner at sunset. The wines chiefly drunk are 
Madeira and claret. The tables are served with a 
variety of game, partridges, quails, peafowl, wild 
ducks, ortolans, hares, and venison. Fruits are to be 
had in great profusion and exceedingly cheap. But 
the chief luxury at Calcutta is the mango fish, so 
called from its only appearing during the mango sea- 
son, and which is not approached in delicacy of flavour 
by any fish known in Europe. The style in which 
civilians live can scarcely be imagined by any one 
who has not crossed the Indian ocean. Even young 
writers affect such an air of state, and keep such 
expensive establishments, that notwithstanding their 
liberal allowances they often become so deeply in- 
volved as to be ever after unable to release them- 
selves from the incumbrance. 
Nearly a hundred miles below Calcutta, at the 
embouchure of the Hoogley, is the delta of the Ganges, 
called the Sunderbunds, composed of a labyrinth of 
streams and creeks, all of which are salt, except 
those that communicate immediately with the prin- 
cipal arm of the sacred river ; those numerous canals 
being so disposed, as to form a complete inland na- 
vigation. 
A few years before our visit to Calcutta, the cap- 
tain of a country ship, while passing the Sunderbunds, 
