unheeded, takes his idle flight of observation close over the heads of the bathers, descending every now and then with rapid flight and prying eye, to spy and peep into the folds of some bather's garments floating on the undulating surface of the water, or peers with curious eye into the half-filled lota which sits restlessly on the bosom of the stream.

The snow-white paddy bird, with elegant and outstretched neck and stork-like dignity, walks carelessly; unheeded, undisturbed, unscared he pursues his watchful employment of fishing in the shallows, with an almost domestic familiarity and fearlessness of the presence of man.

Indeed, the very great carelessness shown by the whole feathered tribe of India of the approach of the natives is a very remarkable feature, and is generally a matter of great surprise to Europeans on their first arrival in the country.

After the several processes of ablution of the body, the washing of the clothes, and cleansing of the hair and figure of the little sable family is gone through and completed, then sufficient water for the day's consumption is raised on the hip or head in large gharās of either earthenware or brass, and carried home by the women.

One would think it almost impossible for them to carry, for such long distances, such heavy weights as they often do; and perhaps it is to this practice

that we must look for the secret of their universally perfect development of form and majestic gait.

A short distance from the ghat I have just described brings you to a famous and very anciently established one called Chaundpall Ghat, which leads up direct to Government House. It has always been the appointed landing-place of all the governors-general and commanders-in-chief for time out of mind, both on arrival and departure, whether from the country or

PALANQUIN.

for the upper provinces. As might be expected, the riverside is choked up with native boats which congregate into an almost immovable mass. The owners of these craft have cads or touts on the ghat, who solicit fares for their individual boats from every one who approaches. These boats are provided with a round roof of coarse canvas, hooped down to the gunwale of the boat, into which the passenger creeps for protection against the scorching rays of the sun. They are mostly employed to go backwards and forwards between the Strand and the different ships

which lay out at anchor in the middle of the stream, or between Calcutta and Hourah, which forms one of the suburbs.

On the Strand crowding and jostling each other most unceremoniously are ranks of palankeens, so closely wedged together as to form an impenetrable barrier to the passenger who steps out of a boat for the first time. His attention is called by fifty voices at the same moment to their respective conveyances; whilst in the same breath the speakers are bestowing most unparliamentary compliments and benisons on the wife mother and daughters, and indeed on all the female sections of each other's families. This very extraordinary style of conferring abuse on each other is very generally practised all over Bengal; but is not peculiar to it, being equally common throughout the whole of the East. Amidst this dim and confusion, this Babel of tongues, this scolding of dingy wallahs, hustling of palankeen bearers, pushing of chatta holders, scorching heat of the sun, screaming of hawks, clouds of dust, and flavour of betel-nut, the stranger for the time sets his foot ashore at Calcutta.

CHAPTER IV.

Obsequious land sharks-Sircar, or agent-Mode of watering the streets-Improved municipal and sanitary regulations -Scenes in a Hindoo cemetery-Harbour scenes-Sailor's home Steam flour-mills-Prejudices against them-Disappointed expectations Hand mills-Bank of Bengal and Banks Hall--The Mint-The Government House-Town Hall-Wide-awake gastronomes.

"Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo."-Horace. "Like a leech which does not quit the skin until it is full of blood."

WHEN a European for the first time sets his foot on Chaundpall Ghat he is, in an instant, surrounded by crowds of assiduous natives, who immediately press on "master's" attention the very great service and use they will all be to him by his accepting of their several attentions and attendance; that in fact his future success and prosperity in India will mainly depend on his retention of their respective services. Thus numberless umbrella holders, palankeen bearers, naukars, khidmatgārs and darzees press, and are pressed on his attention; but among this motley group there is one description of person, who forms so very important a distinction both in appear

ance at the time, and very often in after-life, that he may as well at the outset be more particularly introduced to the reader. The personage is the sircar or agent, through whose hands the business of every transaction in the life of the master shall pass.

Behold him advancing towards the doorway of the palankeen in which the new arrival is extended. Dressed in snow-white drapery and clean pagree or turban, he bows his head, and pressing the heel of his right hand on his brow, he in a sleek and insidious manner pronounces his salaam, and then in broken English offers his assistance in every possible way, from the purchase of a shirt button to the loan of a thousand rupees.

SIRCAR OR AGENT.

He then, having indelibly fixed your likeness on the retina of his memory and having read your inmost soul, modestly retires from the pressing throng, and, hastening away, either prepares for commencing his labours of thraldom himself, or sets some one else of the same class, though more suitable for master's condition or habits,