The most delicious oranges have been procured here, the rinds fine and thin, the flavour excellent; the natives call them “cintra;” most likely they were introduced by the Portuguese. The station extends along the side of the river, which is well banked, and offers a cool and refreshing evening walk to the residents. I was tempted to buy some of the carved ivory chess-men, an elephant, &c., all very cheap, and well carved in good ivory; nor could I resist some silk nets for the horses.
12th.—At Cutwa cotton cloth was offered for sale; I bought some, but the purchase gave more trouble than the cloth was worth. The men asked eighteen sicca-rupees for each piece of eighteen yards, and took eleven Furrukhabad rupees; the mosquito curtains, for which they asked five rupees each, they sold for three.
14th.—Arrived at Culna, to which place the tide comes up. Here we anchored, to buy charcoal and clarified butter for my own consumption, and rice for the dāndees. We have passed a great many timber rafts that are floating down to Calcutta, with wood, for sale; the timber is cut in the hills. The stems of two large trees are lashed across a boat, and, passing over the sides to a considerable distance, support a number of trees, which float on the water, fastened along both sides of the boat; on the boat itself is a thatched shed. On each raft are two hill-men, their black bodies and heads completely shaved; with no clothing but a bit of cloth passed between the limbs, and supported by a string tied round the waist. They have a wild look as they row with their bamboo oars the unwieldy rafts, three or four of which are fastened together;—a picture in itself is the wild and strange-looking timber raft. A small canoe, hollowed out of a single tree, is always the accompaniment to a raft; I saw four men in a canoe of this sort crossing the river; one man steered by using an oar, while the other three, by leaning forward, made use of their hands alone as paddles; you may therefore imagine how narrow the boat was, when a man could use a hand at each side at the same time in the water, to paddle her forward. The men were laughing and shouting most happily. They cut the timber in the hills, and come down with it for scarcely any payment, merely just enough to feed them.
When the boats have delivered their wood in Calcutta, they take up one boat, and put it into another, and in this way the double boats return to the hills; for this reason two men alone come with one boat down the stream, but in returning, more men are required to track against it; the two boats being put one on the other, the four men suffice to take them back again.
15th.—This evening we anchored at Chandar-nagar, the town of Chandar, the moon, commonly called Chander-nagore, and took a walk to see a Bengālee temple, which looked well from the river. The building consisted of a temple in the centre, containing an image of the goddess Kalī, and five smaller temples on each side, each containing an image of Mahadēo; a little further on were two images, gaily dressed in tarnished silk and tinsel; the one a female figure, Unapurna, the other Mahadēo, as a Bairāgī or religious mendicant. The village was pretty. I stopped at a fisherman’s, to look at the curiously-shaped floats he used for his very large and heavy fishing nets; each float was formed of eight pieces of sholā, tied together by the ends, the four smaller within the four larger. When this light and spongy pith is wetted, it can be cut into thin layers, which, pasted together, are formed into hats; Chinese paper appears to be made of the same material. The banks of the river, the whole distance from Hoogly to Chinsurah and Chandar-nagar, presents a view of fine houses, situated in good gardens, and interspersed with the dwellings of the natives. There is a church at Chandar-nagar, where there are also cantonments; and the grand depôt for the wood from the up-country rafts appears to be at this place; the river-side was completely covered with timber for some distance. The natives were amusing themselves as we passed, sending up small fire balloons, and brilliantly blue sky rockets.
The view is beautiful at Barrackpūr; the fine trees of the park stretching along the side of the river; the bright green turf that slopes gently down to the water; the number of handsome houses, with their lawns and gardens; the Government-house and the buildings around it, stuccoed to resemble white stone; the handsome verandahs which surround the houses, supported by pillars; and the great number of boats gliding about, render it peculiarly pleasing.
In front, on the opposite side of the river, is the Danish settlement of Serampūr; its houses, which are large and handsome, are two or three stories high. We are floating gently down with the tide; I can scarcely write, the scenery attracts me so much,—the Bengālee mandaps (places of worship) close to the water, the fine trees of every description, and the pretty stone ghāts. We have just passed a ruined ghāt, situated in the midst of fine old trees; at the top of the flight of steps are the ruins of two Hindoo temples of picturesque form; an old peepul tree overshadows them; its twisted roots are exposed, the earth having been washed away during the rains. A number of women are bathing, others carrying water away in gharās poised on their heads: the men take it away in water vessels, which are hung to either end of a split bamboo, called a bahangī, which is carried balanced on the shoulder. We fly past the objects with the ebbing tide; what an infinity of beauty there is in all the native boats! could my pencil do justice to the scenery, how valuable would be my sketch-book!
The Governor-General, Lord Auckland, lives partly in Calcutta, and partly at the Government-house at Barrackpūr. At Cassipūr is the house of the agent for gunpowder, its white pillars half-hidden by fine trees. At Chitpore is a high, red, Birmingham-looking, long-chimnied building, with another in the same style near it; the high chimneys of the latter emitting a dark volume of smoke, such as one only sees in this country pouring from the black funnel of a steamer: corn is here ground in the English fashion, and oil extracted from divers seeds. The establishment cost a great sum of money, and I think I have heard it has failed, owing to each native family in India grinding their own corn, in the old original fashion of one flat circular mill-stone over another, called a chakkī.
From this point I first caught a view of the shipping off Calcutta: for ten years I had not beheld an English vessel: how it made me long for a glimpse of all the dear ones in England! “The desire of the garden never leaves the heart of the nightingale[15].”
Passing through the different vessels that crowd the Hoogly off Calcutta, gave me great pleasure; the fine merchant-ships, the gay, well-trimmed American vessels, the grotesque forms of the Arab ships, the Chinese vessels with an eye on each side the bows to enable the vessel to see her way across the deep waters, the native vessels in all their fanciful and picturesque forms, the pleasure-boats of private gentlemen, the beautiful private residences in Chowringhee, the Government-house, the crowds of people, and vehicles of all descriptions, both European and Asiatic,—form a scene of beauty of which I know not the equal.