Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/577

Rh of the English quarter, and consists of a dense network of narrow and dirty lanes, lined with houses of a small and mean appearance. Some of them have walls of brick or of mud, but whole streets will consist of houses made with walls of bamboo-mat and roofs of palm-leaf thatch. When a fire breaks out in these streets, it sweeps every thing before it, and would entail boundless misery were it not for the mildness of the climate.

Some of the native residences are extensive and showy; for there are many rich “babus," or native gentlemen, in Calcutta, and these are surrounded by large compounds with tanks, palm-trees, and the appliances of Eastern luxury; but the mass of the people live in houses much meaner than those of the native city in Madras. The bazaars are scenes of much interest and novelty to the stranger; the burra (great) bazaar, especially, is a complete hive of shops, swarming with tradesmen and purchasers, who fill and choke up every avenue through the rows of cell-like stores. The concentration at this port of the commerce of all the East, from Arabia to Singapore and China, brings together a wonderful assemblage of national dress, language, and looks. It is one of the great centres