CALCUTTA
In a heavy storm of rain, thunder and lightning early one Sunday
morning the British India Company's steamship _Bengala_, on which I
had travelled from Rangoon, began making her way up the Hooghly.
Grey mud-banks appeared vaguely in the stinging drift. There were
toddy-palms here and there and villages of thatched huts with
plantains about them, the broad green leaves standing out against the
darker background. Leaves, blown on the wind, whirled aimlessly
across the dirty sea.
The few passengers on the _Bengala_ were all eager to see "James and
Mary"; and beyond another village on a spit of sand with a crowd of
small fishing-boats at anchor, we passed the now celebrated spot
where a couple of masts still protruded above the water. All hands
had been called to be ready before we reached this fatal place, but
no siren voices sounded from the tragic sands.
At Budge Bridge, about 14 miles from Calcutta, where there are large
oil storage {106} tanks, we began to pass jute-mills on the opposite
bank and many brick-making places. At Garden Reach we dropped the
pilot and picked up the Harbour Master just as a Natal coolie
emigrant ship, the _Umfuli_, passed us on her way out.
Then--a crowd of shipping--the usual slow scramble of
disembarking--and I stood in the capital city of all India.
In a large park called the Maidan, a tall white-fluted column rises
from an Egyptian base. This is the Auchterlony Monument, and from
the top of it a splendid view is obtained of the general plan of the
town. At one end of the Maidan you can see Government House, and at
the other the race-course and polo-ground beyond the skating rink,
boxing-booths and circus tents. Fort William lies on the riverside
and opposite to it, looking on to the Maidan as Piccadilly does on to
the Green Park, lies Chowringhee, with the Grand Hotel, clubs,
stores, museums and English residences.
[Illustration: Bengal Government Offices, Calcutta]
And beyond Chowringhee, north of all this, is an immense city of
native streets, bazaars, squares, temples and theatres; while at
Howrah, on the south side of the river, extends a long series of
mighty factories, jute-mills and engineering works. It is on this
side that is situated the great Howrah Railway Station, the terminus
of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, and there {107} is as yet only
one bridge to carry the heavy traffic across the river. This is in
appearance a kind of glorified pontoon, but its series of projecting
barge ends recalls a little the long line of buttresses on old London
Bridge, seen in Van Wyngaerde's drawing. At every hour of the day
this great artery of pulsing life is a close-packed moving mass of
men and traffic (at night for a couple of hours it is sometimes
closed to vehicles).
The English stranger, anxious for his mail, will probably soon find
his way to the white marble steps of the General Post Office. At the
top of the steps seven tall columns support the great dome, and the
round-arched entries between them are closed as to the upper part by
wooden screens with cross shutter-bars. At first as you walk into
the shadow out of the blazing sunlight all seems dark as Erebus, and
then gradually you make out between columns the various bureaux with
their little brown-framed peep-holes like railway station
booking-offices.
Inside the poste restante division a native gentleman, in gold-rimmed
spectacles and a shawl of a reddish-yellow plaid over his shoulders,
is looking through the letters of a mail just arrived, and some empty
chairs at a neighbouring writing-table covered with blue cloth offer
comfort for immediate perusal. In the roof {108} yellow light comes
faintly through the covered windows which circle it just below the
dome--that vast white dome which dominates the city more than do the
towers of the High Court, even as news is more clamorous than justice.
Chuprassees and servants come and go and presently you thread your
way among them and emerge again, as I did, into the glare of daylight
in Dalhousie Square, where the Bengal Government Offices are
reflected in the blue water of a large "tank."
I crossed Koda Ghat Street, among bullock-carts and gharries, and
turned to look back at the Post Office clock with its black hands
pointing to black figures. At the gate into the square a policeman
was buying betel, and close by, with sage-green railings round it, I
saw the white marble statue of Dharbanga sitting cross-legged, with
sword in one hand held across his knees and the other resting on a
small shield target,--a fine piece by Onslow Ford. This is a
stopping-place for electric trams, and great blocks of office
buildings face the road on this side of the square, such as those of
the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the Standard Life
Assurance Company, and, in slate-coloured plaster and red brick, the
Central Telegraph Office. Opposite to them on the edge of the square
the Doric columns of the Dalhousie Institute shield a statue of the
Marquis of Hastings.
{109}
A young man was carrying an old one upon his shoulders, as Aeneas
carried his father Anchises: beggars importuned: and as I turned up
Old Courthouse Street a child, weighed down by a heavy baby, touched
my arm appealingly. I hurried on past great shops, Cook's Offices
and a jeweller's shining in white and gold, big chemists and diamond
merchants. Four nearly naked coolies carrying a black palanquin
knocked against me at the end of Government Place.
Crossing the West Entrance to Government House you notice how the
lawns in front are covered with great marquee offices on either side
of the dragon-borne gun on the red ground-space in front of the main
building. I was now on the Maidan, and walking past a group of
Chinamen across the grass to cut off the corner, soon reached
Chowringhee and my rooms in the Grand Hotel, that huge straggling
caravanserai, otherwise known as "Mrs Monks!" They were in a part of
the building dubbed by Calcutta youth "The Monastery," from its
proximity to the stage-door of a Vaudeville Opera House. The windows
of the auditorium, always open, were only separated by a few yards
from my rooms.
_A Door must be Open or Shut_ is the title of one of De Musset's
plays, but I had already learned that in India a door locked is by no
means shut. It is often a mere skeleton of wood {110} provided with
cross slats; and although an inner curtain ensures privacy, no
external sound escapes the inmate. During my stay in Calcutta, until
after each midnight, _The Merry Widow_, alternated with other musical
comedies and like Coleridge's _Wedding Guest_--"I could not choose
but hear."
The other inmates of the hotel consisted partly of tourists, partly
of residents, partly of men "on short leave" with nothing to do, and
partly of officials whose patronage they desired. My immediate
neighbour, who borrowed a new shirt from me, which he did not return,
was by no means a typical member of the service. He would have
afforded copy to an anti-English agitator, but to me appeared merely
an instance of a man whose character was unsuited to the mixture of
freedom and isolation which life in India involves.
A very different type of man was D. who had just come up from the
Malabar Coast. In that part of the country long settled, or rather
long unsettled, there are a number of people of Arab descent. A
riotous and lawless crew, they gave such constant trouble that a law
was finally passed called the Mopla Law, under which any Mopla, as
these people are called, could be instantly deported "on suspicion of
being a suspect." Still they were rampageous, and not infrequently a
party of pillaging {111} scoundrels would only be overcome by
military aid.
Now, shortly after my acquaintance was moved to that part of the
Madras Presidency a party of Moplas, after generally running riot,
entrenched themselves in a strong position on a rocky hilltop. D.
was called over to the place in a hurry, and a captain in command of
some British troops at hand was eager for action. "Just give me the
word," said he, "and we'll soon have them out of that." He could
not, of course, move without the civil authority giving permission.
"No," D. replied; "if I gave you the word, you would shoot or take
these Moplas, but in doing it you would certainly lose some of your
own men. Every soldier killed means incalculable harm, and I don't
intend one single life to be lost over this affair." He insisted on
their merely sitting round the hill to prevent escape, and in a few
days' time down came the Moplas to treat. D. talked to them,
deported nobody, and for many many years there has, he told me, not
been one serious case of Mopla trouble on the Malabar Coast. Well,
there's nothing in that story warranting any general statement. It
only shows one of the countless situations with which the Indian
civil servant has to deal. The English officer was ready to risk his
own and his men's lives in a moment, as he should {112} be, and the
English magistrate knew when to hold him back. Both were needed and
both were there.
On my first evening in Calcutta, wishing to see the largest number of
Europeans together that I could, I went to the evening service at St
Paul's Cathedral. The church consists of an unusually wide nave,
with a green barrelled roof studded with Tudor roses--side aisles and
a tall spire at the western end. The rain had stopped and the roads
were drying a little, but it was cold and raw, and many ladies were
actually wearing furs! Choir-boys in violet gowns and white
surplices began to congregate near the large organ at the north-east
corner. Gradually the church filled. There was just a small
sprinkling of Eurasians and here and there a native face, but the
congregation was almost entirely European.
Hanging from the ceiling were candelabras of electric lights, but a
brighter galaxy of ecclesiastical stars was shortly to appear. A
Synod had been held during the previous week, and ten out of its
eleven bishops took part in this service. The procession, with so
many pastoral staffs, was quite an imposing one, and it was most
interesting to compare the genuflexions of these people, the rich
vestments, gilded staffs and various emblems of worship and authority
with those of the native religions. {113} The sermon, which was
preached by the then Bishop of Calcutta, dealt largely with the
allegory of the Church as the Bride of Christ, and the duties of
bishops in her preparation for Marriage. It was rambling and
tedious, but the choir sang well and the playing of the fine organ
was admirable.
The 12th of January was the ninth day of the ten days' Hindoo
festival of the Sankarati Puja. I went over to the Howrah Bridge to
see the bathing. On the stone building on the right, as I looked
over the bridge railing at the top of the great flight of steps, a
slab is let into the wall inscribed in English:--
"This stone is dedicated by a few Englishwomen to the memory of those
pilgrims, mostly women, who perished with the 'Sir John Lawrence' in
the cyclone of the 25th May, 1887."
A golden-brown butterfly was settled near the stone on the grey
stucco wall. The river, dirty everywhere, was here thickly strewn
with floating rubbish. The whole of the steps and the edge of the
river were crowded with bathers and people ministering to them--some
grave and deliberate, others lively and splashing, washing their
bright-coloured draperies and clothes and rubbing their own brown
bodies with the sacred water.
They were Mahrattas, these people, and about {114} the steps squatted
men ready to paint the caste mark afresh upon their foreheads for a
few pice. They trimmed and twisted and smoothed their hair, gazing
in little looking-glasses for the final touches, and passing through
the stone shelter building above the steps, put pice into a brass
tray in the street, where a trunk of sandalwood was set up in plaster
and four lingams, two white and two black, were heaped with marigolds
and other flower garlands in an altar shaped like a well-head.
All this was, of course, going on cheek by jowl with the traffic of
the town. The stream of laden bullock-carts, gharries and palkis
flowed over the bridge as swiftly as the water beneath it. On the
opposite, the Howrah side, are many works and factories, including
the chief jute-mills. From there to Ulabaria, far down the river,
there are on the Hooghly banks seventy-eight jute- and cotton-mills
and presses. They have doubled during the past eight or ten years,
and in the works I visited of one company some distance south of the
great Howrah Railway Station, from 110 to 120 tons of sacks called
gunnies and Hessian cloth are turned out daily. That company alone
employs 8000 hands. I saw the great piles of raw jute in coarse
strands as it comes up from the country, and the carding machines and
weaving machines. For the weaving and finishing, most of the
machinery {115} comes from Dundee, and for the spinning from Leeds.
Amid the ceaseless whirr, buzz and bustle of the workshops, I watched
the dexterous children using their feet with almost equal skill as
their hands, catching bobbins between their toes while twisting up
broken threads with their fingers. I saw the main driving
engines--from Hargreaves, Bolton--of 2020 horse-power, and outside in
a narrow and squalid alley I saw a shrine of Juggernaut, grotesque
and hideous!
I visited the great Iron Foundry of Burn & Co., who have also, 100
miles away on the East India Railway, great pottery works, whence
30-inch drain-pipes and stoneware and tesselated pavements are sent
all over India. At the engineering works they employ 5000 natives
and as many as sixty Europeans. Here was a batch of plate girders
just finished, each 10 feet deep, the largest yet made in India. In
one of the vast and deafening workshops three 10-ton overhead
electric trains were moving up and down. Here were
electrically-driven machines for heavy punching and shearing, and I
asked the young English clerk, who was taking me round, how he liked
the native people. He said:--"I like 'em well enough, but you
know--the fact is--they're chronic"; and at one side of a noisy yard,
on a small square landing at the top of some steps, I saw a
Mohammedan at prayer.
{116}
In the afternoon of the same day I went out by tram to Kalighat.
Near one side of the road where I left the tram was a pond--an
old-established washing- and drying-ground--where, from early days,
the clothes of Calcutta have been severely banged. I walked under
some linen flapping from clothes-lines to watch a dhobie at the
water-edge beating clothes upon a ridged wooden board. He punctuated
the action with such ejaculations as "Oo-er! oo-er! oo-er! oo-er! om!
om! om!" and "e-ay! e-ay! ee-ay!"
These men are all independent dhobies who pay to the Government one
rupee per annum for the right to wash here and to use the
drying-ground.
I turned up a side road for the famous Kali Temple past a building
labelled "Dispensary," with plaster falling away from its brickwork
and several rows of dung-cakes patted on to the wall to dry for fuel.
There were a number of loiterers hereabouts, and a man soon tacked
himself on to me as "guide." I came to a temple of Siva (husband of
the blood-loving Kali), where there was a well-shaped depression
under a stone octagonal-pillared canopy or cupola. I went up some
brick steps outside at the back, whence looking down from above I
could see in the centre of the shallow well the flower-adorned lingam
of the god who is {117} worshipped here with garlands and Ganges
water. At each side of the narrow road were now small shops filled
with large crude hand-paintings and coloured plaster figures of the
terrible goddess.
Here, another would-be guide assailed me with these words:--"I will
explain myself to you: follow me, please; no need to listen to other
people"--and another:--
"I am an old priest here--talk with me"--and another:--
"Listen to me and I will explain all things here."
Then the third, pushing one of the others aside:--"Let him listen to
me, an old priest."
I passed another Siva shrine with a copper cobra attached to a
lingam. On the left of the road here was an old tank, a
filthy-looking pond covered with green scum, with some coconut palms
hanging over it. "Barren women bathe here and then they get
children," said one of the would-be guides.
The other men now tried to get my recognition. "What is the
necessity of so many to explain--I am the priest."
"_You_ the priest--ah! _who_ are you--you are the _broker_!"
They were beginning to quarrel, and I settled the matter by declaring
I would have for guide the oldest among them.
I had now reached the precincts of the Temple {118} of Kali and
passed under an arch into a quad where three small cows were eating
accumulated leaf and flower refuse, trodden marigold garlands and
scattered leaves.
The temple, which had very little beauty, was in the centre of this
quad. At one corner was a Munshi tree. "If any man will be bite of
a snake," said the old priest, "and come here, he will be cured from
the bite; and the barren women who get no sons, they will tie stones
like this"--upon the branches many small pieces of stone hung by
short strings. The trunk of this tree was patched and smutched with
dabs of red colour put on by pilgrims.
"And this," pointing to the building in the centre, "is Mother Kali's
Temple, and the image of Mother Kali is in the inside of this temple."
The worshippers of Siva's wives, of whom Kali is the most popular,
make one of three divisions of modern Hinduism, the other two being
that of the Siva worshippers and that of the Vaishnavas or
worshippers of Vishnu.
As I walked round to the other side I saw some women upon the ground
with bleeding heads of kids and goats. These women are the servants
of the temple. They and "the poor" have the heads as perquisites;
the bodies of the victims are taken away by those pilgrims who
brought them for sacrifice, and {119} are either cooked and eaten
upon the Ganges bank or at home.
Two forked posts, one very much larger than the other, stood upright
in the ground. The creatures to be killed have their heads forced
down between the forks of wood--to be cut off by one blow of a sword.
The larger post is for buffaloes, slaughtered one day a week; and the
smaller for goats and kids, many of which are killed every day. A
stream of blood trickled away from this smaller post, and a number of
crows were hopping about the ground. "If you will kindly come a
little earlier at time of sacrifice, that is very nice," said the
priest; but I had no eagerness for that sight. It was far from the
sides of Latmos--here was no sacred sward, and the poor flowers
crushed into a sodden mass had long forgot the dew. Paris' voice was
silent here. The deeper feelings of these people were of dread
rather than veneration, the scene lacked all dignity and squalor
reigned.
The man who kills is a blacksmith--a low caste man, and two pice are
paid to him by the pilgrims for every goat killed. There were many
naked and half-naked children about and a few mangy and diseased
dogs. To most English people flesh is, of course, not the rare
luxury it is to these Hindoos, and the English avoid the sight of its
preparation for the table, although some still invoke the blessing of
God upon its {120} consumption. The scene was disagreeable, but so
also is that of the more protracted family pig-killing outside a
Wiltshire labourer's cottage!
In another corner of the quad I looked at a shrine to Vishnu--the
creator, and his favourite lady, Radha--and then turned down the
narrow street between the temple and the river, lined with shops
containing articles for the pilgrims. Some were filled with little
sets at three pice each of the following articles: a small purple mat
which, if wetted, will give blood-colour to water, three thin
bracelets, two red and one black, and a tiny box of red powder.
Near was another shrine--a red Ganesh--Mother Kali's son--and more
Siva lingams garlanded with marigolds. There were men with faces
painted red near some pilgrim's restrooms, and stalls of Bengali toys
such as pilgrims take home to their children. There were also on
sale here English tin-made abominations with the familiar poisonous
colouring, trumpets and hansom cabs--perhaps more appropriate in the
vicinity of the death-delighting goddess than in Ealing or
Bermondsey. The whole of this narrow street, which is long and leads
all the way to the river, had been paved with flagstones by one,
Gobordhour Dass, as an offering to Kali.
Juggernaut, Hanuman, and in addition to these Hindoo
deities--Buddha--I saw together in one shrine. On the bank of the
river are {121} some large houses for pilgrims, painted all over with
various subjects. Kali, holding her head in two of her four hands,
spouts blood in tall fountains: Hanuman, the monkey god, fights with
the eagle god, and the wife of Vishnu plays peacefully with her
husband's legs.
Near by were five trees (not pictured but actual) growing together as
one, with their roots intertwined--Peepul, Bodh, Banyan, Neem and
Oshhuck, their many-shaped leaves trembling in the air in an arboreal
_pas de cinq_, with lingams round the base of the joined trunks.
Four men passed me here carrying a dead body.
I had to walk back the same way that I had come; and as I crossed the
courtyard of the Kali temple a strange figure in rags stood blowing
upon a large white conch-shell a long, long strange note. A white
conch-shell on the wrist marks a pilgrimage to the great seaside Siva
Temple of Rameswaram in the South, but the conch-shell is also one of
the marks of the Vaishnavas. "He is a mad one," said the priest; "he
eats the mouse and snakes."
While I was in Calcutta I wanted to go to one of the native theatres,
but the only one the hotel people knew about was a Parsee theatre in
Durumtolla Street. I saw there _Kismatka Sitara_, a serious version
of _Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves_; but I was determined to see a
Bengali company, in spite of the remonstrances {122} of my table
companions at the Grand Hotel, who were perfectly satisfied with the
Merry Widow touring company, and declared it was not reasonable for
an Englishman to visit native theatres at all.
It was a Sunday evening when I drove along Bentinck Street and
approached the neighbourhood of Beadon Square. The performances at
the Bengali theatres begin very early, so it was not yet dark and a
soft after-sunset light irradiated the thousands of tiny shops with
all the myriad kinds of work going on in them.
There were large three-storeyed houses on each side of the road, now
with balconies full of women; then I passed a vast building with tall
Ionic columns and two great porticoes--a Nawab's palace; then
hundreds more little houses, and at last Beadon Square with its palm
trees and white statue. And the warm glow fell upon the ample robes
of many people walking up and down after the heat and turmoil of the
day and upon many white oxen, and against the sky, rows of seated
figures watched from the tops of walls and from the edges of roofs;
while all the time, interwoven with humanity like the warp and woof
of Indian city life, here, there and everywhere skipped and walked
and flapped and scrimmaged the squawking black innumerable crows.
[Illustration: BENGALEE ACTRESS, MISS TIN CORRY DASS THE YOUNGER.]
After I had been in to the box-office in front {123} of the theatre
and purchased my ticket--an orchestra stall for three rupees--I
waited in a rectangular court at one side of the building. Over the
row of doors giving entrance to various parts of the house, there was
a veranda, and facing this, some seats by an oval-railed enclosure
containing ornamental plants. On the other side of this gambolled
fifteen or twenty white rabbits behind wire-netting. One star was
just showing in the sky, which was now a pale rose colour, and
against it I could see the top of a coconut-palm.
Most of the baboos waiting outside the two rupee places wore socks
and leather shoes and white muslin drapery over which they had a
short coat and then the toga-like outer coloured robe. I was
thinking of the first scene in _Cyrano de Bergerac_ when I saw
someone setting up a stall of mineral waters, but was still more
reminded of it when I was admitted before the other doors were
opened, and watched a man lighting the lamps in the vast empty
theatre.
The interior was arranged very much like most of the London theatres,
with a few special differences. There was one row of orchestra
stalls, then rows of seats at two rupees, and behind, the "pit" of
one rupee places. When their door was opened, the pit crowd came in,
laughing and scampering over the benches. I caught sight of my
servant, Tambusami, among {124} them. He had bought a grand
orange-red scarf with silk flowers on it for this occasion, and with
his long black hair tied up behind, had a droll air of vanity mingled
with restrained and decorous enjoyment.
Over the pit hung the oil-lamps, but now electric lights flashed out
from the ceiling. I had thought at first there was only one floor
above the ground level, a tier of loges or boxes (some of which were
arranged so that their occupants could lie or sit upon cushions),
with a large one in the centre facing the stage. Suddenly I realized
that what I had taken to be dark hangings over the lofty wall-space
above this tier of boxes was net blind, and a momentary effect of
light showed me that behind it zenana ladies, safe in its reticulated
seclusion from roving eyes, were examining the house with more eager
curiosity than was shown by the male audience.
Behind me a boy brought two baboos some betel (green betel leaves
wrapping the crushed areca nut and lime). The orchestra in this
theatre was under the boxes to the left of the stalls, and the
musicians in white robes were now moving to their places.
The name of the play was _Sarola_, a serious drama of modern Indian
life, and fearfully pathetic--Richepin rather than Balzac--and yet a
study of manners. The hero, Shoshifuzu, who {125} has hitherto lived
on the bounty of a more prosperous brother, is brought by the
meanness and intolerance of that brother's wife to leave his own wife
Sarola and their child at home, while he journeys on foot to the
distant capital to seek for remunerative employment. The journey
itself is full of picturesque incident, but the greatest interest
centres in the home of Shoshifuzu, where an ingenious scoundrel,
Godadhar, played with great drollery and inimitable skill by Kasi
Nath Chatterjee, intercepts all the supplies forwarded by the absent
husband. Godadhar has far more real villainy about him than either
Jingle or old Eccles, but is yet a low comedy character and is played
by Chatterjee with an unction and humour that none but the elder
Coquelin could have surpassed.
The day when no woman acted at the native theatres is evidently as
much forgotten as it is with us; and Miss Tara Dasse, who played the
intensely pathetic part of Sarola with a most tender voice, recalled
to a Western mind in a protracted end some of the most appealing
deaths of Sarah Bernhardt.
Another evening I went to the Minerva, also a Bengali theatre close
to Beadon Square, and saw _Dolita Fronini_. A gentleman, who
introduced himself to me as the stage-manager, came and sat by me for
some time, kindly telling me the story of the piece, and for the sake
of his {126} new interpretation of "melodrama," as well as for the
light thrown on the life of any people by a study of its amusements,
I made the following note of his actual words:--
"It is an opera," said the stage-manager, "like full of music and
dramatic of course--there are a good many melodies, so you can call
it a melodrama. Dolita Fronini is a name according only to the
circumstances of the heroine, so that she is not liked by the lover
and therefore she is as if a smashed snake. That snake bites very
ferociously, and that snake is her. A Bengali baboo went to Bombay
to see: and he waited to a friend of his who is a Mahratta, and he
has been very carefully taken in to the family and is allowed to wait
till he fully sees the Bombay city. And that Dolita Fronini was not
named that, but her name was Bilas Bottee. She was a Bengali lady
too, long living in Bombay with that Mahratta gentleman and his wife.
When the Bengali gentleman was first introduced into the family, he
was unaware about the family custom of the Bombay Mahrattas. There
is no zenana system with them--their ladies are open to all. This
baboo looked at their behaviours with a strange look, because the
Bengali family system is the zenana; but that Bilas Bottee, who was
an inmate long in the Mahratta house, was a Bram-maker, a follower of
Brahma, and she had no zenana system also. {127} This lady Bilas
Bottee loved the gentleman, that Bengali baboo, but the baboo loved
the Mahratta lady. The Mahratta lady, according to their customs,
behaved with the baboo freely. The baboo thought that she loved him,
but she did not--she behaved freely, only not with any viciousness.
The Mahratta lady explained to the baboo that her husband was
examining him about the firmness of his character. When the mystery
is all out and the baboo came to understand, Bilas Bottee went away
as a mendicant,--Dolita Fronini!"
But the gun, which is the curtain signal at the Minerva, had sounded
before this--the opera had begun and a chorus was singing. "They are
singing," said the stage-manager, "that you will never see such a
city in the world as Bombay. The climate is temperate here, not very
bitter wind too, and there is no cold. You ought to come to walk in
the morning and the evening in Bombay, and you would forget all about
the world, wine is very cheap here, and if you drink a little you
will be jolly all about."
Between the acts an old gentleman was introduced to me as a very
famous actor--he was a Mr A. Mustaphi, and his greatest role is that
of Mirzapha in the historical play, _Siraj ud Doulah_.
After another act I was entertained behind the scenes by the actor
who was playing the part of the Bengali baboo. He received me in a
{128} pale-blue quilted dressing-gown, and wanted me to sketch every
member of the company in my notebook. His crowning attention was to
send for the scene-painter of the theatre to sit on one side of me
for the rest of the evening!
At these theatres I met with extreme courtesy from first to last, and
shall long cherish the kind attention of a charming old gentleman
from Delhi (to judge by his head-dress) who, speaking little English,
showed me the miniatures of his children upon his watch-chain and
went out, between the acts, to buy me a little buttonhole of roses.
The mention of roses reminds me to say a few words of the Calcutta
Gardens. At one end of the Maidan, beyond the race-course, are the
Zoological Gardens laid out, I know not by whom, with very good
taste--worthy of Milner or Sir Joseph Paxton. The houses are
handsome and commodious, the open air enclosures are both wide and
spacious, and there are good collections to fill them. I especially
enjoyed watching here a native of the Nepaul Terai, a big one-horned
rhinoceros. On the evening of my visit he was energetic and lively
after a splash in his tank. There was an irresistible comicality
about the great unwieldy brute--a very Falstaff of
quadrupeds--trotting at express speed.
[Illustration: "A CHARMING OLD GENTLEMAN FROM DELHI."]
But more beautiful is the Kampani Bagan, {129} the botanical garden
on the other side of the Hooghly. In that garden there is no traffic
and no dust--only a few delicate little Anglo-Indian children taking
tea under the giant banyan.
March is the time to see the orchids, of which these gardens have a
large variety, but few plants were in flower at the time I was there.
The houses are curiously different from such as we know at Kew. They
are simply wire frames covered with creepers to keep off greatest
heat and heaviest rain--creepers such as the _Tinas pora crispa_ from
Java, with its hanging roots. Sometimes the roof is covered with dry
palm-leaves (_Phoenix sylvestris_).
There is one tree in the garden which I think quite as interesting as
the world-famous great Banyan--a large handsome tree fifty or sixty
feet high, with big leaves. Dr Gage, the Director of the Gardens,
told me it is the only specimen of its kind known in the world, and
that every leaf shown in European herbaria has come from Kampani
Bagan. Unfortunately, the trunk is being honeycombed by big black
boring bees (it is dangerous to go up into the tree because of them).
This solitary giant is called _Anthocephalus macrophyllus_. It came
many years ago from Abornia, a small island in the Malay Archipelago,
and has a flower like a miniature drumstick.
In the palm-house in "Griffith Avenue" I {130} saw some double
coconuts (coco de mer) from the Seychelles.
Along the waterside is a handsome row of the country almond-tree,
which grows in the moister regions of Bengal and Siam. This is the
_Terminalia catappa_ with large leaves and is not in the least like
the almond proper.
The avenue of toddy-palms is deservedly famous, though these gardens
cannot compete in grandeur with those of Peradeniya in Ceylon. In
one part of the grounds (the Gardens cover 270 acres) are many
screw-pines (_Pandanus utilissimus_), but best of all I liked the
long avenue of stately _Oreodoxa regia_. At the head of this there
is a white marble monument of singular beauty, called "Kyd's
Monument." It is by the sculptor Banks, and takes the form of a
Grecian urn with figures round it on a tall plinth surmounting a
circular platform.
[Illustration: Avenue of Oreodoxa Palms, Botanical Gardens, Calcutta.]
After sundown when all visitors had gone away, as the light of the
afterglow bathed it in a soft effulgence, and the wide, long avenue
of palms stretched away into mist, the lovely marble seemed to have
found perfect setting. As the light waned again the jackals began
calling and filled the air with strange melancholy.
{131}