Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/665

Rh these tanks. Their contents more or less resemble pea-soup in color, and their composition has been officially reported as similar to concentrated London sewage. Those conversant with the uses to which these tanks are put will not be surprised at this statement. And yet these ponds of filth are constantly resorted to for the cleansing of utensils and the soaking, maceration, and washing of the rice and dahl, and in the preparation of sweetmeats.

The nullah can be waded across at low tide, but it is the receptacle of unspeakable filth of all kinds. After describing the insanitary arrangements of the neighborhood. Dr. Simpson remarks that "without a good water supply, or drainage, or proper means of disposal of the excreta and sulliage, with crowding together of huts and houses irregularly placed, and with the filthy tidal nullah, which is practically the sewer of the district, and with numerous polluted tanks, Kalighat, it may be surmised, is at no time a healthy spot, and at all times a danger to pilgrims." On the occasion in question at least 150,000 people came into Calcutta in the first and second weeks in February. Great throngs came on foot whose numbers were not noted, 25,000 came by boat up the nullah, 90,000 came by the Eastern Bengal State Railway, and 32,000 by the East Indian Railway. Obviously the influence of railways in intensifying the danger of quick and wide diffusion of cholera after great festivals must not be neglected.

To describe the crowding which occurred in the nullah on the festival day is difficult. Perhaps the accompanying photographs will give some idea of the scene, and of the recklessness with which the filthy water was being bathed in and splashed over the head and even drunk. A large proportion of the pilgrims would not drink filtered water. They had come, they said, to bathe in and drink Ganges water, and they would have none from the standposts or the carts. Happily, the tube-well near the police station was not considered unholy, and was in lively requisition. The picture shows the crush to be very great, and it is marvelous that no accidents happened.

Among the large number assembled there it was not likely that cholera would be entirely absent, and if present it was certain to be spread by the customs of the festival, and thus it happened that in the second week in February nearly two hundred of the pilgrims died from cholera. The pilgrims soon had to be dispersed, and though their dispersal checked a larger outbreak at Kalighat, which would only have widened its circle afterward, it could not prevent those already infected from suffering on their way home. Consequently, at some of the railway stations sick people had to be taken out of the trains; passengers by boat died on their voyage, their bodies being thrown overboard; while travelers on foot were picked up dying or dead on the roads.