"After running the gauntlet of the crowd of natives on the beach, and getting a carriage, we drove to the principal hotel of the city. We found it a series of houses disconnected from each other, and the rooms that they gave us were in the building most distant of all from the dining-room. Peddlers and jugglers followed us to the door, and we had hard work to keep them out of our rooms till we called a servant, and told him to drive them away.
WESTERN ENTRANCE OF FORT GEORGE.
"We rode about Madras,and the first thing we went to see was the fort, which we reached by crossing a bridge at its western entrance. It covers a great deal of ground, and was a strong enough place before the improvements of the last twenty years in artillery. Its full name is Fort St. George,and it is designed to resist attack both by land and sea; on the side facing the sea it has a front of 1500 feet,and on the land side it has a double line of bomb-proof defences built of stone and covered with earth.
"We were surprised at the quantity of things in the fort. There were small guns of all the kinds you ever heard of, and some you never did; there were cannon captured in the various wars with the native princes and kings, cannon from China and other parts of the Far East, swords, pistols, muskets, firelocks, flags, wagons, saddles, spears, and a thousand other things that the auctioneers would say are too numerous to mention. The fort is large enough for a garrison of 1000 men, and in time of war it could hold many more. All the European inhabitants of Madras could be taken inside in case of trouble, but they would be crowded rather closely when their numbers were added to those of the garrison.
GOVERNOR'S RESIDENCE, FORT GEORGE.
"The Governor of the Presidency of Madras lives here, and his house is inside the fort. It is a great building two stories high, and has wide verandas, where there is plenty of air without the necessity of sitting in the sunlight. We saw elephants in the enclosure of the fort, some with soldiers on their backs, and others with great burdens of freight that they were employed in bringing inside. As we crossed the bridge we met an elephant, and a little farther on a camel, while down by the bank of the canal a couple of hump-backed oxen were looking into the water, and possibly admiring themselves. We have seen quite a lot of these oxen and cows to-day, and wherever they were grazing or standing idle under the trees the crows were perched on their backs, and seemed to be on good terms with the beasts. The crows here are as impudent as those of Ceylon, and we are told that we shall find them so all the way through India.