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 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.
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 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.