SIGHTS AND SCENES IN CALCUTTA.
RIVER SCENE BELOW CALCUTTA.
Several miles below Calcutta the river widens into Garden Reach, an expanse of water that is comparatively straight, and where both banks of the stream are so richly clad in tropical verdure as to suggest the name of garden to the early-comers. The first buildings of importance are the structures composing the palace of the King of Oude; they are on the east bank of the river, and the buildings and the walls that surround them are of a dazzling whiteness, which the captain of the steamer said was not at all indicative of the purity within the palace. One of the boys asked who the King of Oude was, and why he lived there; Doctor Bronson undertook an explanation, which was supplemented by a few words from the captain.
"At the time of the Mutiny, in 1857," said the Doctor, "the King of Oude—one of the richest provinces of India—joined the revolt and took part in the war. Lucknow was his capital and residence, and after the war he was deposed from his throne and ordered to live in Calcutta, where he could be immediately under the eye of the governor-general. He has no power whatever at present, but the Government gives him an allowance of $600,000 a year, and allows him to spend it as he pleases inside the white walls that you are looking at. He rarely goes outside, and then only for a drive along the roads that are least frequented by the English. He has an undying hatred for the English, and will not admit them to his palace: once in a while he invites an American or other foreigner to pay him a visit, but these occasions are not numerous. He is not allowed to return to Lucknow under any pretence whatever, and he cannot go more than a mile from his palace without permission of the governor."
"And I don't think," said the captain, "that, apart from the curiosity of seeing an Eastern king, you would care to visit him. He is a brutal-looking fellow, speaks no English, and is apt to be rude even to the visitors he invites to his palace. His habits of life are not of the best character, and some strange stories are told about him: he is very much married, as he can count his wives by the dozen, and he spends much of his time among his wild beasts, of which he has a very fine assortment. He is particularly fond of snakes, and his collection of those reptiles is said to be the finest in all India, and to contain the largest serpents. It has been rumored that when his wives did not please him he caused them to be fed to the snakes and wild beasts, but the story is not likely to be true. Although his palace is his own, and he can live about as he chooses, it is probable that the Government would interfere and put a stop to any amusement of this sort."
BUMBOAT ON THE HOOGLY.
As the steamer neared the city, boats on the river became more and more numerous, and, some of them dropped along-side and made fast. They were small craft of the kind known to sailors as "bumboats," and the most of them had fruits of various kinds to sell. Bananas, mangoes, and other tropical products were offered, but as the steamer had made daily landings all the way from Point de Galle to Calcutta, and had enjoyed frequent opportunities for laying in a stock of food, the boatmen found a poor market. The case is different when a ship comes in from New York or Liverpool, having been a hundred days or more at sea; everybody is longing for a taste of fruit, and the boatman that can first make fast to her is sure to sell his cargo at a handsome profit.
The forest of shipping, the roofs and domes of the city, and the great bridge over the Hoogly, indicated the end of the voyage. The steamer anchored in the stream, and our friends prepared to descend the ladder to the swarm of boats that gathered around. "How much?" said the Doctor to the first native that presented himself: the fellow indicated by counting four of his fingers and pronouncing the word "rupee;" and the Doctor understood that for four rupees, or two dollars, they could have the boat to take them ashore. A second boatman offered to take them for three rupees; the first man descended to two, and then the other offered to take them for one. The result was they closed with him, and in a little while were at the landing, leaving their baggage to be sent for from the hotel.
LANDING-PLACE AT CALCUTTA.
There was a horde of palanquins and garries at the landing, and any number of porters and guides, who proffered their assistance. Doctor Bronson and the boys entered a garry, and were driven along the level streets to the Great Eastern Hotel, an establishment that proved to be as imposing in extent as it was wretched in other respects. The manager of the hotel assigned the strangers to rooms, and then told them to select their servants. As he did so, he pointed to a row of servants that had filed in from a yard just outside the hall, and stood there a little way from the office. Frank and Fred inquired what it all meant, and the manager thus explained,
"It is the custom here for each person staying in the house to have a servant to himself. You pay him half a rupee a day, and as much more as you choose, if you are satisfied with what he has done for you."
STREET SCENE IN CALCUTTA.
The boys laughed at the oddity of the situation, and then followed the Doctor's example, and each chose a man. An order was then written for the baggage, and the servants went to the steamer to get it; while they were absent the boys took a short stroll along the street, having first inquired the way to the post-office, so that they could get the letters that were expected. At the same time the Doctor engaged a garry, and went to the consulate on a similar errand; the three returned to the hotel at pretty nearly the same time, and their united parcels of letters were a welcome sight.
The whole party was busy with its messages from home till near the hour for dinner. Everybody was well, and everybody had read with great satisfaction what the boys had written about their journey in the Far East. Each mail from Asia was eagerly watched for; and if a steamer happened to arrive without any letter from Frank or Fred there was great disappointment. Mary and Miss Effie declared they had never known a tenth part as much about the countries on the underside of the world as they had learned from the letters of the boys, and Miss Effie intimated to Frank that the knowledge she had acquired had been a partial consolation for his absence; and she naïvely added that her mind was about as full as it could hold of what is to be seen in strange countries, and the sooner he came home the more gratified should she be. Mary had something to say about cashmere shawls, paintings on ivory, sandal-wood carvings, and other things that come from India; and she hinted that she should not be displeased if he sent or brought some of those curiosities to America. She closed her letter with the announcement that Miss Effie was looking over her shoulder and reading every word, and in all probability approving it.
After this there could be no doubt that Frank would be on the search for Indian manufactures in order to afford delight to his sister and sweetheart. He would have a double pleasure in doing so, as he would add to his own stock of knowledge while carrying out the wishes of the bright-eyed girls.
They retired to their rooms to dress for dinner, as their baggage had arrived from the steamer and was ready for them. When they went to the dining-room the servants of the Doctor and Fred were there, but the attendant of Frank was missing, and the others did not know what had become of him. Consequently, Frank was waited upon by one of the other servants, much to his dissatisfaction: he said he had never waited on more than one person at a time, and it was the custom in India for each servant to take care of no one but his master.
After dinner Frank hunted up his attendant, and demanded an explanation of his absence from the dinner-table. With some difficulty Frank drew from him the information that he belonged to a caste that did not wait at table, but only performed work about the rooms. The case was reported to the manager of the hotel, who suggested the employment of two servants, one for the room and one for the table, and the division between them of the half-rupee per day. After some discussion the proposal was accepted, and Master Frank had two servants all to himself. He thought he would have too much attention, but discovered in practice that he was about as badly served as he had been at any time during the journey; he made a careful mathematical calculation, and determined that with half a dozen servants like those about him he would have been obliged to wait upon himself altogether.
"You see," said the Doctor, "how this superabundance of servants in India works; we were talking about it a few days ago, and I suggested you had better wait till we got farther into India before discussing the question. Each person in the dining-room has a servant to himself, and theoretically they ought to care for us very promptly; the fact is they are constantly in each other's way, and nearly everything is cold before it reaches us. The service in the dining-room of the Great Eastern Hotel is abominable, and a large part of its poor character is due to the great number of servants; a hotel in Now York, where there is one servant to six or eight patrons, would do far better than this.
A NATIVE NURSE.
"If you lived in a house," he continued, "you would find it worse, at least until you became accustomed to it, and secured an efficient man to manage the servants. The man who brings the water for your bath will not empty the bath-tub when you have done with it; he can handle clean water, but the touch of a European pollutes it, and only a person of a lower caste can remove it. If a lady sees something lying on the floor, and tells the nurse in charge of her child to pick it up, the nurse goes to the woman who has control of the servants and tells her something is to be picked up; the head-servant sends the one whose particular duty it is to sweep the floor, and the work is performed. So it goes through everything; each one has his or her particular duty, and will be discharged rather than do the least thing that pertains to another.
"Twenty years ago, when a man went out to dinner in India, it was necessary for him to take along his servant to wait upon him, and most persons do so at the present time. The man who neglected this rule was unable to get a morsel to eat, as no servant, not even that of host or hostess, would condescend to bring him anything, even though ordered by his own employer. This custom has been broken down to the extent that you can now go to a private house to dine without taking a servant along, although it is generally expected you will do so."
"I remember a picture in an American comic paper," said Fred, "that showed how the same feeling prevails among servants in our own country. A man who looked like a laborer was sitting before an open fireplace where a fire was blazing, and a small child had crept into the flames; a woman was rushing into the room to seize the child, and under the picture was this dialogue:
"'You lazy fellow!' screamed the woman, 'why didn't you pull my baby out of the fire?'
"'Well, mum,' replied the man, 'I didn't hire out to do housework.'"
"Not a bad commentary on the conduct of some of our foreign servants in America," the Doctor remarked, "and the characteristic is not altogether confined to naturalized Americans. Some of our native-born citizens are very fearful of doing something that belongs to others, and very often, for fear of making a mistake, they do nothing whatever."
The evening was passed among letters and papers, and it was pretty well into the night before all three of our friends were asleep. They were out in good season in the morning, and went for a stroll through the streets and a ride on the Esplanade of Calcutta. According to the custom of the country they had a chota hazree, or light breakfast, before starting, and returned about eleven o'clock for the burra hazree, or substantial meal of the first half of the day. The chota hazree consisted of a cup of tea or coffee and a bit of toast with an egg or two; the burra hazree was a more serious affair, and kept the party at table for a full hour before it was finished.
There was more sight-seeing in the afternoon; in the evening the boys set at work on their letters describing their first day in Calcutta, on the plan they had followed in visiting other cities of the Far East. They had plenty to occupy themselves with, and after writing till their eyes were heavy, they laid aside their labor for the most convenient hours of the next and the following days. Here is their letter, leaving out the personal messages for friends, and other matters that could have no interest for the general reader:
"We have been greatly impressed with the way that Calcutta differs from the other cities we have seen; we thought it might be like Canton, or Yokohama, or Batavia, but it isn't like any of them. The people are different, and they have different manners, customs, religions, and ways of life generally, so that it is not easy to make comparisons; and then they differ a good deal among themselves, and you will see perhaps a dozen kinds of dress in a walk of an hour or so.
"Calcutta stands on a level plain, and the surveyors who laid it out acted liberally by giving it wide streets, and plenty of ground for everything that was needed. The part where the Europeans live is full of fine buildings, both public and private, and wherever you go you see evidences that there was plenty of money at command when it was built. In a hot country like this they wanted lots of room, and all the houses are surrounded by large yards, with an abundance of shade-trees.
"The population is about half a million, and includes Hindoos, Moslems, Christians, and Buddhists, together with a miscellaneous lot that it would be difficult to classify. The Hindoos comprise more than half the population: there are 150,000 Moslems, and about 25,000 Christians, mostly Europeans and Eurasians.
"On the streets the mingling of costumes forms a curious scene. Red turbans and white, blue turbans and gray, skull-caps, tarbooshes, straw-hats, and sola-topees are thrown together like the combinations of a kaleidoscope; but the turbans are most numerous, and frequently crowd some of the other head-gear out of sight. Most of the natives are dressed in white: much of it is spotlessly clean, and evidently fresh from the laundryman; but there are many who cannot afford clean linen every day, and consequently their garments are the reverse of pleasing in appearance. Evidently the natives of India have no trouble with the change of fashions, as their garments are said to be of exactly the same cut and material from one century to another.
THE MAIDAN, OR ESPLANADE OF CALCUTTA.
"The English have done much for Calcutta, and an inhabitant of two hundred years ago would hardly recognize his old home if he should revisit it to-day. There are many public buildings that would do honor to a large city in Europe or America; there are public gardens, beautiful little parks, handsome lawns, artificial ponds, and the like, which are collectively very attractive. There is a large open space called the Maidan, or Esplanade, with several roads across it, and one along the bank of the river, and the society of Calcutta comes here for its daily drive at sunset. We rode there last evening and saw a great many showy turnouts, some of them belonging to wealthy natives, who seem to be fond of display. Drivers and footmen were in native dress, which is constructed so as to present the most attractive colors in the most attractive forms. Red and green and blue turbans rolled by us in rapid succession, till we began to wonder if the swiftly-moving panorama would ever come to an end. Those whose rank allows it have the additional attraction of outriders, and these fellows are by no means less picturesque than the rest.
A COLLISION.
"The drive lasted an hour or so, and when it was fairly dusk the carriages filed away, and the Maidan became perfectly quiet with the exception of a stray vehicle now and then which had been belated, or the matter-of-fact bullock cart or wagon of the lower classes. Sometimes the fashionable carriages come in collision with each other, but generally the accidents that occur are the result of carriages and bullock-carts meeting, owing to bad management by the drivers of the latter. We saw one of these encounters, and for a few seconds it seemed as though the bullock would step into the carriage, in spite of the efforts of his driver, and also of the gentleman on the box of the carriage, to keep him out.
"The compradors attached to the foreign commission houses have a special kind of light cart with two wheels, which they use in going from their offices to the harbor and back again. The comprador is his own driver, and it is not an unusual sight in the busy hours of the day to see one of these fellows dashing along to the great peril of the people on foot; he is generally in a hurry, or at least pretends to be, but his hurry is confined to his riding rather than to his walking. If you watch him when he is on foot, you find that he moves with as much dignity as any one else, and does not intend to throw himself into a perspiration.
"Every carriage of any distinction has a syce or groom to run ahead of it, and they tell us that these men will keep up with the horses as fast as the latter can go, and will often be practically unwearied when the animals are tired out. They are all Moslems, and are fine muscular fellows, with only a turban on the head and a strip of cloth around the waist, so that they have perfect freedom for the movements of their limbs.
AN UNPLEASANT OCCURRENCE.
"In one of the smaller streets we saw a collision between two palanquins, which resulted in the occupant of one being spilled out, and a general mixing up of the little crowd around it. For a few minutes it looked as though there would be a fight, but nothing of the kind happened, and the whole affair was soon over. The natives are very careless while driving or walking, and you must keep a sharp lookout for the poles of palanquins or palkees. They are as cunning as they are careless, and we have heard some funny stories about their tricks. Here is one of them:
"An Englishman bought a black horse one day from a native dealer, and particularly admired the glossy coat of the animal. That night an attempt was made to steal him from the stable, and it came very near succeeding; the next day the purchaser discovered that the horse had been dyed with a peculiar preparation that would wash off with strong soap and water. It was the intention of the dealer to steal the horse before the trick could be discovered, and then by washing him he could not be identified, as the natural color of his coat was gray; the gentleman learned that the horse had been sold and stolen at least half a dozen times. Doctor Bronson says the American horse jockeys might learn some useful lessons by coming to India, and he hopes a good many of them will come—and stay.
HARBOR OF CALCUTTA.
"The river forms the harbor of Calcutta, and sometimes the amount of shipping here is very great. Nearly all the ships are English, as they have the most of the carrying-trade of the world, and as we drove along the bank of the river to-day we saw only four vessels flying the American flag. Twenty-five years ago we should have seen ten times as many and perhaps more; American ships are fast disappearing from the ports of the East, and at the rate they are going we should not be able to find one of them in the harbor of Calcutta a decade hence. What a pity it is! as our flag flying from the mast of a ship, when we are so far away from home, is always a most welcome sight to a travelling American. We wonder if our foreign trade will ever revive so that our ships will be as abundant in Eastern waters as we are told they were before our civil war?
"The ships lie against the bank of the river for two or three miles, and in some places they are three or four deep, so that at a distance their masts resemble a forest of trees stripped of their foliage. Twice in recent times Calcutta has been visited by hurricanes or typhoons—in 1842 and 1864—and on both these occasions nearly all the ships in the harbor were driven from their moorings, and many sunk. A gentleman who was here during the last of these storms says the ships were actually piled one above another, and that the loss of property was very great. This was the storm that flooded Saugur Island and all the lower part of the Hoogly, and caused an enormous loss of life. The centre of the typhoon of 1842 passed directly over Calcutta, and that of 1864 within a few miles of it.
"Going up the bank of the river from the Maidan we pass a long line of great warehouses that front on the water, and come to the bridge over the Hoogly. Doctor Bronson says this is the largest bridge of the kind in the world, as it is neither on piles nor suspended, but is supported by pontoons. He advises us to describe it, as it will be interesting to all boys whose fathers are engineers, and to a good many others besides; so we'll try.
"Owing to the treacherous sands of the river, and the great depth necessary for piers for a fixed bridge, it was determined to build a floating one, so that it could be economically constructed, and easily repaired in case of accident. The bridge is more than 1500 feet long from one abutment to the other, has a roadway forty-eight feet wide, and footways seven feet broad on each side, and is said to have cost at the rate of ten dollars for every square foot of platform. The platform is of wood, resting on iron girders, which are supported twenty-four feet above the water by timber trusses resting on iron pontoons. There are twenty-eight of these pontoons, each 160 feet long and ten feet broad; they are each divided into eleven water-tight compartments, and moored both up and down stream by means of iron cables. Viewed from the lower part of the harbor as one approaches from the sea, the bridge appears like a massive fixed structure, and we could hardly believe the captain of the steamer when he told us that it was only a floating affair, resting on pontoons.
"There, we've described the bridge the best way we can, and the Doctor says it is very well done for inexperienced boys like ourselves. We'll stop now and rest awhile."