Calcutta, the City of the Black Venus, Kali.—The River Hoogley.—Cremation-Towers.—Chowringee, the Fashionable Suburb of Calcutta.—The Black Hole.—Battles of Plassey and Assaye.—The Brahmo-Somaj.—Temple of Kali.—Feast of Juggurnath.—Benares and the Taj Mahal.
After eight or nine days' steaming from the fair and picturesque island of Bombay our captain announced that we were about to enter the Hoogley, a river made famous in Indian song and story as "the strong arm of the beautiful goddess Gunga, the compassionate daughter of the proud Himâlayas," but which is in reality a great muddy estuary. The burning sun poured down upon its heavy waters as they loomed out of the distant plain and rolled sluggishly toward the sea, every wave seeming to bear on its troubled brow an impress of the dark history of the land through which it has flowed for centuries.
Late in the same evening the pilot-boat came out to meet us, and not long after we cast anchor at a place called Saugor, where there is a lighthouse. I remember distinctly the oppressive night we passed here, owing no doubt to the combined impurities rising out of the turbid waves and the fetid odors of the adjoining land. Early next morning we were again in motion, sailing up the dusky Hoogley. Its low, muddy banks were dotted with wretched-looking mud huts, relieved only by the ever-graceful palm trees that waved above them. What a contrast this river was to the clear, limpid, and joyous Krishna, the high-banked and proudly isolated Godaveri, the genial, broad-breasted Taptee, and the grand, impetuous Vishwamitra of Western India!
Another day was nearly gone before we reached our moorings. We cast anchor once more amid a dense forest of masts, funnels, and native craft in the harbor of Calcutta. We were met at the Champhool Ghaut, or landing-place, by kind friends. Ascending a magnificent flight of stone steps and passing under a great archway, we hurried into a European carriage, and were driven rapidly from the strange conflicting mass of humanity that always abounds at a great seaport, but especially at the seaports of all the British settlements in India.
The house of our friends here was in many respects furnished like a European dwelling, and one might almost fancy himself in an English home but for the pillared halls; the spacious chambers, with long punkahs or fans suspended from the ceilings, some of which are kept going night and day; the dark, silent barefooted domestics, robed in pure white, who are seen gliding noiselessly to and fro, which lend a powerful magic charm, a flavor of the Arabian Nights, to the interior of even the most ordinary of British homes in the East.
Calcutta, the capital of British India, still bears the name of the black goddess Kali, who is supposed to spread pestilence, famine, and death over the land of which she is the presiding deity whenever her altars are neglected and her thirst for vengeance unappeased. Unhealthy as the spot is, it was rendered infinitely more so by the innumerable corpses that were until within a few years cast upon the waters of the Hoogley: the poverty-stricken inhabitants of the land, unable to pay the expenses of a funeral by cremation, committed their dead to these waters in the belief that its mystic current would purify them from all taint of sin. This, however, has been prohibited by the British authorities. Huge cremation-towers now receive all bodies cast upon its waters, whence the never-dying flames are seen constantly ascending, dark and lurid, toward the tranquil blue sky.
The town of Calcutta lies on the eastern bank of the Hoogley, which is the eastern arm of the old Ganges, and held almost as sacred as that river; the natives daily repair in great numbers to its banks to offer up prayers and praises. Here also, amid the din and noise and hurry of native craft, trading vessels, and all manner of river commerce, may be seen at any hour of the day or night the sick and dying of the Hindoo population stretched on the edge of the river's banks, half immersed in the sacred stream, their faces turned to the sky, convulsed or calm, breathing their lives away.
At high water the Hoogley is nearly a mile broad in front of the town, and is very pleasant to look upon. Fine ships and steamers of all nations and countries lie here within sight and sound; picturesque-looking craft of every kind are seen gliding swiftly hither and thither. But at low water the scene suddenly changes; the river becomes a shrunken and muddy ghost of itself, with filthy borders, whence myriad floating particles of miasma are wafted on the air to the poor humanity who are doomed to live and labor in its vicinity.
After passing the triumphal archway you emerge on a spacious open area called the Meidân, or plain; here all the principal roads part and meet, and here on either side one sees a grand display of really stately architecture. This is the handsome and fashionable suburb of Chowringee, and in every respect worthy of being called, as it is, "the City of Palaces." The houses are all European, three and four stories high, some detached, others connected by handsome terraces or open sunny balconies, many with shady verandahs, high carriage-porches supported by stately pillars, while not a few are rendered still more attractive and home-like with gay flower-gardens and fine forest and fruit trees, which latter are not as fine as those found in the gardens of Bombay, owing to the destructive influence of the periodical cyclones that sweep over the valley of the Ganges.
Our first drive was through this the European part of the city, which extends about five miles along the river. A noble and much-frequented esplanade divides the town from Fort William. On one side stands the new Government-house, said to have been erected by the marquis of Wellesley. It is a noble pile, an Ionic structure on a simple rustic basement. A flight of stone steps leads to the north entrance. The south part of the building is ornamented with a circular colonnade surmounted with a lofty dome. There are spacious corridors at each of the four corners, with circular passages leading to the private apartments of the family. This princely building contains magnificent chambers, some of which are richly decorated and filled with valuable portraits of the great viceroys of India. Near the Government-house stand the Town-hall, Treasury, and High Court; opposite is Fort William, commenced by Clive soon after the famous battle of Plassey in 1775, the most systematically-constructed fortress in India. It is said to have cost the East India Company the immense sum of one million pounds sterling. In shape it is an irregular octagon, with bombproof quarters for a garrison of no less than ten thousand men and with room for six hundred pieces of cannon. Toward the front it presents a regular massive appearance, and is not unlike most European fortifications, but on the side overlooking the river it is strikingly varied and picturesque, owing to the extremely irregular and broken character of the structure. It was designed to bear upon objects that might approach the town on either side of the river, and is eminently effective in warding off danger. Immediately beyond the fort the fine steeple of the cathedral is seen rising pure and high above the surrounding foliage. There is also here a palatial residence for an Anglican bishop, and in 1844 the Rev. H. Heber was the first Christian divine appointed to this see, with a salary of five thousand pounds per annum.