CHAPTER III.

Pagodas Barrackpoor-Serampoor: Decoits-Chandernagore-Christmas-boxes-Idols-Titty-ghur-Suttee-Bore in the River-Saltpetre -Confirmation-Governor-General's Native Levee.

On the 27th of December I paid a visit of two days to the Governor at Barrackpoor. I went by water early enough in the morning to preach to the congregation, which, for want of a church, assembles in the great hall of the Government-house. The distance is about 24 miles, which, with a favourable tide and a good set of rowers, may be ascended in two hours and a half, and descended in less than two hours. The river continues of nearly the same width as at Calcutta ; its banks are covered with fruit-trees and villages, with many very handsome pagodas, of which buildings Calcutta only offers some small, mean, and neglected specimens. The general style of these buildings is, a large square court, sometimes merely surrounded by a low wall, with brick balustrades, plaistered so as to resemble stone, or indented at the top, with two or sometimes four towers at the angles, generally, in the present day, of Grecian architecture, and ornamented with pilasters, balustrades, and friezes. In the centre of the principal front is, for the most part, an entrance resembling in its general character, and style of arrangement, the beautiful Propy

læum at Chester castle. When the pagoda adjoins the river, a noble flight of steps, the whole breadth of the portico, generally leads from the water to this entrance. Sometimes the whole court is surrounded by a number of square towers, detached by a small interval from each other, and looking not unlike tea-canisters, having such a propylæum as I have described in the centre of the principal front.

In the middle of the quadrangle, or at least in the midde of one of its sides, opposite to the main entrance, is the temple of the principal deity, sometimes octagonal, with pinnacles and buttresses, greatly resembling a Gothic Chapter House, but in some instances taller and larger, with three domes, one large in the centre, and a smaller at each side, with three gilded ornaments on the summit of each, extremely like the old churches in Russia. All these buildings are vaulted with brick, and the manner in which the Hindoos raise their square or oblong domes seems to me simple and ingenious, and applicable to many useful purposes.

It is very seldom that any thing like a congregation assembles in these temples. A few priests and dancing women live in them, whose business it is to keep the shrines clean, to receive the offerings of the individuals who come from time to time to worship, and to beat their gongs in honour of their idols, which is done three or four times in the twenty-four hours. On more solemn occasions, however, wealthy Hindoos give money to illuminate the building, and throw up fire-works which

are to be had in Calcutta of great excellence and beauty. And in one instance, which I omitted to mention before, on the celebration of the festival of the goddess Kali at the pagoda of Kalighât, near Russipugla, I saw the towers at the corners of the building hung round with an immense quantity of gilt paper, tinsel, and flowers, the court crowded with coloured plaister statues as big or bigger than life, representing Sepoys, horse and foot, drawn up in the act of presenting arms, and a figure in their front on an elephant, to represent the Governor-General, also in the act of taking off his cocked hat. In the middle of the court, and before the gate of the sanctuary, was a very large temporary pavilion, I should suppose 60 feet long by about 20, composed of coarse white cotton, but glittering with ribbands, gilding, tinsel, and flounces of various coloured silks, with slender gilded pillars, overshadowing a yast Plateau, for it had exactly this appearance, of plaister filled with painted gods and goddesses, Kali and all her family with all their respective heads and arms, while the whole building rang with the clamour, tinkling, and strumming of gongs, bells, and stringed instruments. Yet there were not many worshippers even then. These pagodas are often endowed with lands as well as rent-charges on lands, though some of them depend entirely on voluntary contributions. Most of the larger ones are kept externally very neat, and diligently whitewashed, while the Grecian ornaments of which I have spoken, and which must have been borrowed

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