not only the multifarious and party-coloured costumes, but also the features and complexions of almost every inhabited country in the world.

The solemn profound heavy-bearded Persian, the flaunting saucy Arabs, with their copious turbans, the weasel-backed Turkish Musalman, the opiumsmoking Tartar-headed Chinese, the wanderers from the resting-place of the ark, always distinguishable for their quiet demeanour and respectable deportment, the peddling Greek and unbelieving Jew, the jetty African and yellow Hottentot, the chattering Frenchman and smoking Hollander, the greasy Russian and whiskered Pole, the industrious German, Spanish merchant, and Portuguese fiddler, are all to be met with about the public marts of the city, elbowing and jostling one another through its tortuous streets whilst in pursuit of their different callings and avocations.

The picturesque dresses, the various Asiatic outlines of form and feature thus met with at every turn render these every-day groups exceedingly attractive and interesting to the new arrival in Calcutta. This variety and change is moreover continuous, for the different cities of Asia are ever pouring forth portions of their vast populations in search of marts for traffic, and these all direct their steps towards this great metropolitan emporium, a short description of which I may as well begin a

fresh chapter with, and in the conclusion of this one, I may here express a hope that the reader has not considered the introductory observations in this and the preceding chapter either tedious, unnecessary, or uninteresting.

CHAPTER III.

Calcutta-Origin of the name-A stranger's reflections on arrival -Fascination of tropical foliage and landscape-Environs -Garden Reach-Botanical Gardens-Fort William-Saugor Island-Esplanade Ghat-Bathing scenes-Chaundpāll Ghāt -The Strand.

Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.”—Horace. "It does not happen to every man to go to Corinth."

ALTHOUGH it is not to be supposed that all men can possess the same opportunities, or recur to the same sources of information, yet I could wish some more masterly pen had described the city of Calcutta, otherwise called "the city of palaces." For I fear these humble tracings of mine will scarcely do justice to or give a proper idea of its external appearance and internal economy.

The name of Calcutta or Kalkatta is of Sanscrit origin; and is derived from Kālī, the goddess of blood, and Katta, a house or temple.

The effect on the eye, as the traveller lands on the ghāt, or wharf, is strange in the extreme. Perhaps Calcutta is not like any other city in the world.

Certainly it does not resemble any other Indian one. Composed of irregular streets, alternate Venetianlooking houses, and dingy wattle and daub huts, the stranger is at first quite at a loss to reconcile and account for the apparent proximity of luxury and squalid misery, the neighbourly approach of Dives and Lazarus to each other. It has only been within the last decade or so of years that the exclusion of T native huts from the European portion of the city has been in any degree accomplished a measure perfectly necessary and indispensable for health, comfort and sightliness, as all must admit who have any acquaintance with Asiatic towns. Of recent years much greater progress has been made in furtherance of this most desirable object. The bazaars and native huts which used to occupy every bit of spare ground in the very heart of the city, extending almost to the very portals of Government House, have disappeared, and gradually retired, as the wild denizens of the uncultivated tracts have everywhere done before the steps of the cultivator of the soil.

On the broad bank of the river Hoogly, or western branch of the Ganges, is situated the port of Calcutta, navigable for the largest ships up to the very esplanade which has for many years been easily reached by the powerful aid of steam.

The winding of this expansive, deep and rapid

river is rendered highly picturesque by the classic buildings and neat villas along its verdant banks for some distance both below and above the city. Here dwell the rich merchants, judges, and other magnificos of the land. The grounds attached to these residences are tastefully laid out, rich shrubberies everywhere shade and adorn them, giving some idea to the eye of the stranger of the luxuriant green of a tropical landscape.

How little does the European traveller reflect, when for the first time he surveys this luxuriant scene, and its rich and startling beauty, that this very luxuriance of the painted paradise in all its Eastern effulgence, that this glabrous metallic sheen which he sees stretched enchantingly around, constitute the bane-the upas tree-the destroyer of health, that great satellite, which the fell destroyer Death boasts of as being most successful in leading his subjects into early and eternal captivity.

About a mile seaward from Calcutta the eye is arrested by a suburban refuge for the fevered and parched inhabitants, called Garden Reach, consisting of detached edifices, some of which in the classic taste displayed in their erection, interior elegance and general arrangement might well vie with palaces.

Hither those who can steal a few hours from the busy hum and sultry atmosphere of the city resort for cool shade and the quiet repose which is to be