CHAPTER XXII.
EASTERN INDIA.
We have at least reached India—and what extremes are here! Southern India penetrates the Indian Ocean and is so near the Equator that the inhabitants swelter under the heat of a perpetual summer, while the rocky sentinels that guard the northern frontier are clad in the ice of an eternal winter. As might be expected in a land which has every altitude from sea level to nearly thirty thousand feet, one finds all varieties of vegetation, from the delicate fern of the tropics to the sturdy edelweiss that blossoms in the snow—from the grain and orchards of Agra, Oudh and the Punjab to the cotton, rice and fruits of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The extremes are as noticeable among the people as in nature's realm. In learning there is a great gulf between the Hindu pundit and the ignorant ryot; there is a wide sea between the wealth of the native prince and the poverty of the masses; and there is a boundless ocean between the government and the people.
Eastern India is entered through Calcutta, a city of more than a million inhabitants which has been built up under British occupancy. It is the capital of the province of Bengal and the winter capital of British India. I say winter capital because the higher English officials have their headquarters at Simla, eight thousand feet up in the Himalayas, during eight months of the year. Calcutta is on the Hooghly river, one of the numerous mouths of the Ganges; and the Ganges, it may be added, is a little disappointing to one who has read about it from youth. Instead of being a large river, flowing down from the Himalayas directly to the sea, it is neither of great length nor of great width. It runs for hundreds of miles along the foot of the range and joins the Brahmaputra, which comes from an opposite direction and apparently is much longer. The mouths of the joint stream form a delta like that of the Nile, which at the coast is something like two hundred miles wide.
Lacking the antiquity of the cities of the interior, Calcutta does not possess many things of interest to the tourist, no elaborate tombs, no massive mosques and few temples of importance, although all shades of religion are represented here. There is a very pretty Jain temple in the suburbs, and in the city there is a Hindu temple where goats are offered as a sacrifice, but the center of Hinduism is at Benares, while Agra, Delhi and Lucknow furnish the finest specimens of the taste of the Mohammedan rulers. There are at Calcutta some fine public buildings and less pretentious private blocks, some beautiful parks and a very extensive museum.
