North-east of Government House runs Old Court-house Street—so called from the old Court-house which, as we have stated, stood at or near the site of St. Andrew's Church. The broad street, with its lofty row of houses and splendid shops, would do credit to any European capital. In fact, it is a Continental street transplanted to the East. Far different is the Burra Bazaar, with its old and shabby native houses, whose wooden verandahs face the street, and the marvellous dens on the ground floor filled with goods of every class and description. Here are to be found rich shawls from Cashmere, and piece goods of every vulgar colour from Manchester. Jewellers are sitting cross-legged before their charcoal pans, making silver bracelets and earrings, and loud is the din from the hammers of the workers in brass. There are stands for crockery, and there are stalls at which are sold drugs of every description. There are dens filled with pulse and grain, and sweet-meat shops send forth a savoury smell. A strange tide of life ebbs through the street ; the sleek and calm money-lender from Marwar ; the mendicant who begs from door to door ; the vendors of fruit and vegetables, with heavy basket-loads on their heads ; the bustling Bengali broker who fills the air with the voice of cheap bargains. It is a scene for a painter, but words can convey no accurate impression of an Oriental street.
Great is the transition from the Burra Bazaar to the Chowringhee Road, whose eastern side is bounded by a row of lofty white houses elaborately porticoed and colonnaded. Each stands in its own bright garden, trimly kept, and faces the Maidan, or wide plain, which is the characteristic feature of Calcutta. It is from these houses, designed by Italian architects in the days when the pagoda tree •flourished, that Calcutta derives its popular name, " The City of Palaces." It was Lord Macaulay who gave currency to the flattering but somewhat inaccurate title ; but he stole the epithet from Lord Valentia, and, as was his wont, slightly disguised the theft. Lord Valentia wrote :—" On a line with this edifice (Government House) is a range of excellent houses, chunamed and ornamented with verandahs. Chowringhee, an entire village of palaces, runs for a considerable length at right angles with it, and altogether forms the finest view I ever beheld in my life." When Lord Valentia wrote, Chowringhee had just begun to cease to be a village on the outskirts of Calcutta. Ten years before he visited the city there were only twenty-four houses in the locality. In 1792 was advertised for private sale at 1,5oo Sicca rupees, " A neat, compact, and new built garden-house, pleasantly situated at Chowringhee, and from its contiguity to Fort William, peculiarly well calcu lated for an officer. It would," continues the advertisement, " likewise be a handsome provision for a native lady or a child," which throws light on the morals of the day. Eng fish facile's were few in number, and men took unto thent selves savage women to rear their dusky race.
Sir Elijah Impey was one of the first to erect a spacious garden-house at Chowringhee, and Park Street was so called because it bordered his wide domain. Here the Chief Justice—who besides being an able and learned lawyer was an accomplished scholar—devoted his leisure moments to the study of Persian, of which he acquired an extensive and accurate knowledge, and Bengali, which he soon learned to speak fluently. At Chowringhee also resided his accuser, Thomas Babington Macaulay. In one of his letters he writes—" I have a house almost as large as Lord Dudley's in Park Lane, or rather larger." The residence of the Whig
historian now forms the main building of the Bengal Club, an institution known to all the dwellers of the East. Some of its past glory has departed, owing to the depreciated rupee, but it still remains one of the most comfortable and hospitable clubs in Asia. Travellers who bring proper credentials are freely elected as honorary members, and they can have a bedroom in the club if one be vacant. Be sides the Bengal Club, Calcutta has the United Service Club, whose doors are closed to all who do not belong to the army or one of the civil departments of the State. Like the Ben gal Club, the United Service Club is situated on Chowringhee Road and faces the Maidan. Next to it are the rooms of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded by Sir William Jones, aided by the sympathy and active co-operation of Warren Hastings. " As the first liberal promoter of useful know ledge in Bengal," to use the words of the address, " and especially as the great encourager of Persian and Sanscrit literature," Hastings was requested to accept the title of President ; but he refused the proffered honour, and William Jones was appointed President. The pages of the early volumes of The Asiatic Journal were enriched by his elo quent discourses, which even now, though almost a century has elapsed since they were delivered, are well worth reading, on account of their eloquence and the wide scholarship dis played in them. Sir William Jones may have been lacking in the accuracy of the German School of Oriental Scholar ship, but he was undoubtedly a man of genius.
Nearly opposite the United Service Club rises the fine bronze statue of Outram : " faithful servant of England ; large-minded and kingly ruler of her subjects ; doing nought through vain-glory, but ever esteeming others better than himself ; valiant, uncorrupt, self-denying, magnanimous : in all the true knight." It was the poet-Viceroy who spoke of Calcutta as the " City of Statues " ; and few capitals in Europe contain finer examples of the sculptor's art. Fac ing the south entrance of Government House is a full length bronze statue of John Lawrence, and it conveys the dignity and power of the saviour of the Punjab. Near him is the statue of Canning, who steered the Empire through the tempestuous waves of mutiny into the calm waters of material and moral progress. At the south-east of Govern ment House is a splendid equestrian statue of the " young soldier with the eye of a general and the soul of a hero." An inscription on the pedestal informs us that " The statue was erected by the inhabitants of British India, of various races and creeds, to Henry Viscount Hardinge, in grateful commemoration of a Governor who, trained in war, sought by the acts of peace to elevate and improve the vari ous nations committed to his charge." It was well said of him that he had crowded into one short administration all the services of the highest order, both civil and military. Not far from the statue raised to perpetuate his memory rises a lofty minaret, erected to commemorate the services of David Ochterlony : " for fifty years a soldier, he had served in every Indian war from the time of Hyder down wards." The monument is a bad imitation of the London Monument, and the future historian of the Empire will note that the Moghuls erected the Kutub Minar at Delhi, and the English erected the Ochterlony monument. The gulf which separates the artistic instincts of the two races will be illustrated by these two structures.