Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/152

 before: forty biggahs were added to Belvedere, and the remaining sixty biggahs were subsequently made over to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society. At that time there was an old house on the ground, which was removed to make way for the Society's present building.

About the identity of the Alipore magistrate's house with the Lodge of Philip Francis, there is no question. When Francis owned it the house was a small lower-roomed dwelling, containing a hall and four rooms. The grounds were larger even than those of Belvedere, which bounded them on the west, and included the present jail, reformatory, and other buildings, the Nullah being the boundary on the other three sides. The entrance gate was near Belvedere, and the carriage drive, a portion of which is now the public road, remains unaltered to the present day. It was this house, in its splendid park, which Macrabie, Francis' brother-in-law, described as "pleasant to the last degree," and where choice spirits of Francis' acquaintance used to gather for a weekly symposium. Francis bought the property in 1775, about a year after his arrival in the country, and sold it for Rs. 30,000 in April, 1780, six months before he left India, to his friend Livius.

It is curious that Francis should not have