In such a place, however, an idler has no business; and, although I fully employed myself in excursions to the mountain, and in geological researches, yet I was not sorry when the Osprey was under way again. I bade farewell heartily to my honest, simple friends, leaving some little memorial with each; and, on the eighth day after I had landed, was sailing out of Glass Bay again, on my way to the Cape. On arriving there, I found Kabob had already made preparations for returning to Calcutta, and I speedily followed his example. CHAPTER XI. A GHOST STORY. A GUN is fired upon the ramparts of Fort William, in Calcutta, every morning, to announce to the drowsy Anglo-Indians of the neighbourhood the first faint dawn of day. Those who are anxious to preserve their health in so uncongenial a climate, take warning by the gun, and, leaping from their couches, prepare for the usual morning walk or ride, before the increasing heat renders all exercise in the open air unpleasant or dangerous. The European quarter of the town-its "West End," in fact-called Chouringhee, is in the immediate neighbourhood of the Fort, so that the report of the early gun may be heard by most of the Anglo-Indians, if they wish. Round the Fort stretches, as I have before mentioned, an extensive plain as level as a bowling-green, called the maidaun, a plain covered with brilliant green vegetation after the rains, but parched, brown, and sear, during the heats of April, May, and June. The maidaun is the usual scene of the pedestrian or equestrian exploits of the good people of Calcutta, first in the early morning, and again at the close of the day, when a delicious hour of coolness after the sun has set is snatched from the night. On three sides only, however, does this plain surround the Fort; on the fourth, the Hooghly, with its turbid, muddy waters, foul with human corpses, rushes along, a long narrow road alone separating the two. Of all sacred rivers, the Hooghly is the muddiest and foulest. Hoarse-grumbling along on its earthen bed, it rushes on, ever bearing down to the ocean its horrid freight of dead men, women, and children chasing each other along in a race of death—their bleached bodies gleaming in the sunlight, ghost-like, out of the yellow murky fluid which surrounds them, and here and there, too, still more horrid to contemplate, dotted with crows tearing out their entrails, or quietly pluming themselves after their disgusting repast. Ever past the green glacis and picturesque ramparts of Fort William, glides the river sullenly along, the mouths of cannon looking down upon it like the eyes of monsters emerged from its own horrid depths. Many such iron mouths does the Hooghly see on its course to the Indian ocean, as it hurries past the oriental spires of Moorshedabad, the Muhammadan minarets of Cossimbazar, the Hindu temples of Kutwa, or the Christian churches of Calcutta, for in close proximity to each of these are the death-dealing weapons of modern warfare, frowning grimly upon it, and telling of far other passions than the aspirations and fervour of religious devotion should give birth to. Past the dinghy, or ferry-boat of the Hindu river-man, and the gig of the English merchant ship, and the junk of China, and the coir-bound uncouth bark of the Malays, the Hooghly glides by them all on its course, reflecting each as perfectly as its muddy nature will admit, and dashing its burden of human corpses indifferently against one or the other, as it hurries on with speed to the ocean. An impetuous, persevering monster this Hooghly, that tells the lazy Asiatic, with his luxurious do-nothingness, how work should be accomplished, how success can alone be achieved in these days—a lesson the lazy Asiatic, with his luxurious do-nothingness, will not learn, leaves rather for his European fellow-man to learn, and refuses utterly to study for himself-Fort William and the East India Company, English Governors-General and red-tape Members of Council the notable result. The morning gun has fired, and we must be up and away, to breathe the fresh air whilst yet we may whilst yet the sun remains hidden behind the salt lake and its vegetation, that lies to the east of the town. I want a companion for my morning's walk, and I insist on carrying off the reader with me-to a church-yard. Believe me, kind reader, we shall see much that is note-worthy at this early hour, as we cross the maidaun and make our way towards the road that skirts the river and separates it from the Fort. True, all is at present gloom, and the heavy mantle of night has not yet been fully lifted from the plain itself, or from the surrounding objects, but it will grow clearer, and |