alcutta at the most unfavourable period
possible. Three years of unfruitfulness through almost the whole of
Europe had been followed by a commercial crisis, which threatened
the town with entire destruction. Every mail from Europe brought
intelligence of some failure, in which the richest firms here were
involved. No merchant could say, "I am worth so much;"--the next
post might inform him that he was a beggar. A feeling of dread and
anxiety had seized every family. The sums already lost in England
and this place were reckoned at thirty millions of pounds sterling,
and yet the crisis was far from being at an end.

Misfortunes of this kind fall particularly hard upon persons who,
like the Europeans here, have been accustomed to every kind of
comfort and luxury. No one can have any idea of the mode of life in
India. Each family has an entire palace, the rent of which amounts
to two hundred rupees (20 pounds), or more, a month. The household
is composed of from twenty-five to thirty servants; namely--two
cooks, a scullion, two water-carriers, four servants to wait at
table, four housemaids, a lamp-cleaner, and half-a-dozen seis or
grooms. Besides this, there are at least six horses, to every one
of which there is a separate groom; two coachmen, two gardeners, a
nurse and servant for each child, a lady's maid, a girl to wait on
the nurses, two tailors, two men to work the punkahs, and one
porter. The wages vary from four to eleven rupees (8s. to 1 pounds
2s.) a month. None of the domestics are boarded, and but few of
them sleep in the house: they are mostly married, and eat and sleep
at home. The only portion of their dress which they have given to
them is their turban and belt; they are obliged to find the rest
themselves, and also to pay for their own washing. The linen
belonging to the family is never, in spite of the number of
servants, washed at home, but is all put out, at the cost of three
rupees (6s.) for a hundred articles. The amount of linen used is
something extraordinary; everything is white, and the whole is
generally changed twice a day.

Provisions are not dear, though the contrary is true of horses,
carriages, furniture, and wearing apparel. The last three are
imported from Europe; the horses come either from Europe, New
Holland, or Java.

In some European families I visited there were from sixty to seventy
servants, and from fifteen to twenty horses.

In my opinion, the Europeans them