Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/154

 dark: the road itself was next mentioned, but was thought by everybody too public, as it was near riding time, and people might want to pass that way: it was therefore agreed to walk towards Mr. Barwell's house, on an old road that separated his ground from Belvidere, and, before we had gone far, a retired dry spot was chosen as a proper place."

It will be noticed that Colonel Pearce wrote of "the road leading to Allipore" which implies that Belvedere was not included in Alipore, and that the name which may be taken as "the township of Ali" was applied, at that time, only to the group of the principal houses which had been occupied by Jaffir Ali. Hastings wrote repeatedly in his letters of his house as "Allypore Gardens," and the same name is used in the title-deeds of Hastings House, in one of which, dated 1806, the property is described as premises "known by the name of Allypore Gardens."

Colonel Pearce continued his description: "at the crossing of it through a double row of trees." The last survivors of a double row of trees, an avenue, still stand on the west side of the Alipore Road, opposite the west gate of Belvedere, and it is not a far-fetched