Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/172

 for sale in the warehouses. Calcutta is the great emporium of India. Ite staple com- modities of expert, are indiga, opium, cot - ton, sugar, rice and silk, and by means of the Gangez, and ite extensive eonnection with the interior, it commands an immense commerce,

Almost two centuries ago, tha Emperor of Dalhi granted ta the East India Com: pany, tract oflandon the banks cf the Hooghly, which is the site now occupied by Caleutts.. On it was then a native village, called “Kallouttan,” from Hali, a goddess, Cutiah, a temple, hence the name of what is now one of the most spiendidcitiea of Asin, and the seat of the supreme government of the British in Indis. Many yesrs age, in the time of Warren Hastings, when Hug: lish power in India was almost extinguished, after a long sieze, Caloutta was surrendered to Jrjad Dowlah, the Rajah of Bengal. and one hundred and fifty Huglishmen were shut up for a night ia sn under ground cell, The next morning all were found suffocated in the “Black Hole” of Caleutia. The ex: act location of thia spot, which is so often quoted, is between the Post Office and Court Houses, both large marble buildings oa the strand.

Since the Sepoy rebellion in 1857 that ereat monopoly, the “Hsst India Company,” has cessed toexist It was aa anomaly in hiz- tory, an imperium in imperio, with sn army of over two hundred thousand men, levy- ing war aud making trestles, and ruling with despotic sway more than a hundred and fifty millions of human beings. The terrible exectiona of this powerful corpora tion culminated in a blocdy rebellion, which was trampled ont with sn iron heel at a cost to England of $200,000,000. During the mutiny the horrible atrocities of the half- elvilized natives, goaded on by religious fansticisms, were not more shocking to tha world than the terrible punishment inflicted by Christian Englishmen in blowing Sepoy prisoners from the mouths of their cannon. After the mutiny was suppressed, the Eng- Neh government assumed the sovereignty of this immense territory, extending from the Himalsyas two thousand miles fo Caps Cormorin, and from the Indian ocean on the weat fifteen hundred miles to the Bay of Bengal—as large ss all the States east of the Misciasippl. The change in the goyern- woont bag reeulted in the reform of many abuser, Which, in the old times of Lord Clivo and Warren Hastings, were the text