Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/439

 CHAPTER LXIV.

SKETCHES ON THE RIVER FROM CALCUTTA TO COLGONG.

Calcutta—Mango Fish—Lord Ellenborough recalled—Fall of Fish—The Hoogly—The Bore—Quitted Calcutta—Ishapūr—Chagdah—Happiness of Dying in Sight of the Ganges—Quitted the Tropics—Cutwa—Plassey—Berhampūr—Morus Indica—Jungipūr—Quitted the Bhagirathī—Night Blindness—Sikrī-galī—Herd of Buffaloes—Patturgatta Hill—Rocks of Colgong—An Ajgar—A Wild and Singular Scene.

1844, April 1st.—We took a house in Chowringhee, and found soon after that the cholera and small-pox were prevalent in Calcutta: how ill the dampness and the heat of this Bengal climate render me!—they destroy all energy. Calcutta is famous for its tapsi machhī (mango fish), in this month they are in perfection. "Mangoes and fish meet of necessity ;" they come in at the same season, and the unripe mango is also used in cooking fish: the dāndīs bring them in small baskets fresh from the boats to the Course of an evening, and sell them twenty for a rupee, at the time a khansamān charges his master one rupee for five of them. Parties are made, to Fulta and Budge-Budge, down the river, to eat mango fish,—after the fashion of white-bait parties in town; they are excellent—smoked in the same manner as anwarī fish—for breakfast.

28th.—A fine fall of rain,—perhaps it will clear the air, and drive off the cholera, which is raging strongly at present.