After some difficulty in getting a tickorgary—the Indian equivalent for a “four-wheeler”—we had rather a long drive to the Grand Hotel, crossing the river by a bridge just outside the station, where there was a bathing ghat, gaily populous at that hour, the bathing operations being followed by breakfast on the steps or in the pavilions on the terrace behind.
The streets of Calcutta looked rather dingy and neglected. The hotel was vast but gloomy, and the prices high; but a bath and a rest after the long railway journey were very welcome, and we were glad to get our letters. We found the temperature much warmer, however, and more like Bombay.
The Minto Fête—a sort of bazaar and military tournament combined—absorbed a great deal of attention among the residents. This occupied a large enclosure on the Esplanade, under canvas. The familiar posters used for the Military Tournament in London met the eye on all sides, with gay fluttering bunting strung across the streets as it appeared the Amir was expected here too, though his visit was to be considered “private.”
THE SOOTHSAYER AT CALCUTTA—(OR PALMISTRY UNDER THE PALMS)
One of our introductions here was to Miss Sorabji, a Parsee lady of much influence, and a most interesting personality, well known and beloved by a large circle of English friends. She had a charming house, in a garden of palms, in Carnac Street. We found her entertaining a party of fashionable ladies at afternoon tea, on a shady lawn in front of her house. In the midst of the group, squatting on the grass, was a soothsayer and palmist—a Hindu “wise man,” robed in white, but without any turban. He had some oblong-shaped pages out of an ancient book of palmistry, and some curious phrenological-looking diagrams lying on the grass in front of him, and these he appeared to be consulting from time to time, while with great deliberation he examined the hands of the ladies, who gazed at him quite anxiously, as if he were really an inspired diviner of their lives. This man was supposed to be gifted with very special powers, and seemed to be taken quite seriously, but as far as we could gather, he was only mentioning the usual range of probable or not impossible events which might happen in the course of any life, though, no doubt, more or less adapted to the circumstances and character of the lady before him, as far as he could guess it, and calculated to fit individual cases. He certainly looked wily and cunning enough for anything, as he moved his finger mysteriously over the charts, or pretended to count or reckon something while keeping the lady’s left hand open before him. A curious scene altogether, with the afternoon tea-table, and the ordinary chatter going on.
There was an Industrial Exhibition open on some open ground near a large, yellow-washed, eighteenth century style of church. It combined a switchback railway, and some of the popular attractions of Earl’s Court, with an interesting show of hand-weaving in linens, silks, and carpets, with dyeing, printing, and other industries, the exhibits being those of societies or firms. In some cases the work of various schools of Art were shown, as that of the Maharajah’s, at Jaipur, chiefly metal work and enamelling. Among the brass work were to be seen the spherical brass rolling lamps, pierced with an all-over intricate floral design, that left fairly evenly distributed apertures through which the rays of light would strike when the lamp was lighted within. This, by an ingenious piece of mechanism, always maintained its level position, though the sphere might be rolled along the ground like a ball. It could be opened by hinges in two equal hemispherical halves. These lamps are used at festivals in the temples, and have a beautiful effect.
Calcutta is not impressive architecturally, certainly. The modern buildings are of the usual commercial type as a rule. Government House has a certain stateliness with its white columned porticoes among the palms and greenery of other trees; and Carnac Street is a long wide street of large detached residences standing in ample gardens. The Esplanade is a wide open plain in the midst of the town, with some groups of trees upon it, but rather brown and desolate, the turf being burned by the sun. The native quarters are very squalid. The bazaars and shops were often tumble-down temporary-looking sheds and structures of bamboo sticks and straw, old tins being often seen thrown on to weight the rotten matting or thatch which formed the roofs, which were often, too, patched with corrugated iron. Occasionally there was a house-front which had seen better days—a former villa or mansion, with a columned portico, but now become a squalid tenement house.
These were at least one’s impressions on a very short visit; but it was so oppressive that we were anxious to get away to Darjeeling, and so took our departure on January 28th by an afternoon train from the Iscaldah station. For about an hour or so after leaving Calcutta, the train runs through beautiful groves of palms and mangoes, plantains and bamboos, intersected by tanks of water, vegetable gardens, and thatched villages among the trees. Later we crossed the great open plains of Bengal, cultivated and fertile under irrigation, with but few trees, stretching as far as the eye could see under the full moon.
At Sara we changed, having to leave the train to cross the river Ganges. The scene was a strange one. The waiting steamer lying ready, had to be approached over the wide shallows by two long narrow gangways, constructed out of a few planks, suspended from bamboo sticks stuck upright in the shallow water, with lights at intervals. A troop of European and American travellers wending their way from the train along one of the gangways to the white steamer, and a procession of natives with their bundles crowding along the other to the same vessel.