decently when she was removed
by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner
each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before
the image of the goddess Khali.

[Illustration: GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA]

Calcutta has improved greatly since Kipling wrote of it as the "City of
Dreadful Night"; but it is yet a place of striking contrasts, of
official splendor and native squalor, of garish palaces abutting in rear
allies upon filthy hovels. The good is extremely good--that is for the
British official; the bad is worse than awful--and that is for the
native.

Viewed superficially, Calcutta looks like a prosperous city in Europe,
perhaps in England; but rear streets and suburbs are as filthy and
congested as any town in vast India. What the average tourist beholds is
spick and span in a modern sense; and what he doesn't see is intensely
Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the
visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the
footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while
through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin
calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of a Mohammedan mosque
close by.

The Indian metropolis presents an array of fine homes, bungalows and
stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a
penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has
depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the
Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and
livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine.
Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along
the rail of the race-course, cannot be found short of Europe. The
viceroy is often seen driving a mail phaeton, preceded by two native
lancers and followed by four others. The automobile has many devotees in
Calcutta, and bicycle-riding natives are everywhere. The babu is
exceedingly fond of wheeling on the Maidan whenever he can escape from
his account books. Nearly every carriage on the Maidan in the afternoon
has two men on the box and two footmen behind, all gorgeously
dressed--servants are cheap in India. At sundown nowadays half the
pianos in Chowringee--where Calcutta's officials and prosperous
commercial people reside--seem to be playing airs from American light
operas, and not infrequently a regimental