Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/570

500 suitable residence for the governor-general of all India. It is surrounded by a handsome square, with a tank and beautiful shrubbery. The newly-arrived stranger is much amused by the strange forms of the multitude of adjutants, not of the military but of the bird-kind, that are perched here and there all over the buildings. These peculiar birds, with their long legs, long necks, and great pouches pendant from their throats, stand on the balustrades and porticos, ready to remove from the streets carrion of every kind. Dead rats, bones, and even whole cats, are received as tit-bits into their capacious maws. It gives rather a ludicrous air to the grave marble lions, emblematic of the supremacy of England, to see these great, gawky birds perched upon their heads and backs.

The English residences lie on the further side of the esplanade and public square, and are of a lordly character. Large, two-storied, with pillared fronts, and close-shutting Venetian verandahs, and occupying each a separate enclosure surrounded by a high substantial wall, they have an air of grandeur and wealth. The compounds are smaller than in Madras, giving more the appearance of a city, and the houses