Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/212

184 Hindus; but, on two or three streets next the seaside are the dwellings of Portuguese, Armenian, and East Indian (or half-caste) families. Upon the beach are the offices of merchants, the court-house, custom-house, and other large and imposing buildings. A large Armenian church gives its name to a street running parallel with the beach; and in this street we had for a time a very comfortable dwelling-place.

The streets of the Black-town are regular, commonly crossing each other at right angles. They are wide enough for the wants of the community, and some of them well-built. Most of them, however, would have a mean appearance to one from a more enlightened land, (as the houses are ordinarily but one story in height,) did not their completely Oriental and Indian look give them an air of pleasing novelty and romance.

One of the main streets, known as Popham's Broadway, is semi-European in its appearance, as the houses, though built partly in Indian style, are used as shops, and residences by Englishmen and East Indians. Some of them are large establishments, with valuable assortments of European and Asiatic goods; and their doorways are thronged every afternoon