In both these rooms there is a row of
columns on each side, and the floor of the latter is composed of
Agra marble. The pillars and walls are covered with a white cement,
which is equal to marble for its polish. The private rooms are not
worth looking at; they merely afford the spectator an opportunity of
admiring the skill of the architect, who has managed to turn the
large space at his command to the smallest imaginable profit.
Among the other buildings worthy of notice are the Town-hall, the
Hospital, the Museum, Ochterlony's Monument, the Mint, and the
English Cathedral.
The Town-hall is large and handsome. The hall itself extends
through one entire story. There are a few monuments in white marble
to the memory of several distinguished men of modern times. It is
here that all kinds of meetings are held, all speculations and
undertakings discussed, and concerts, balls, and other
entertainments given.
The Hospital consists of several small houses, each standing in the
midst of a grass plot. The male patients are lodged in one house,
the females and children in a second, while the lunatics are
confined in the third. The wards were spacious, airy, and
excessively clean. Only Christians are received as patients.
The hospital for natives is similar, but considerably smaller. The
patients are received for nothing, and numbers who cannot be
accommodated in the building itself are supplied with drugs and
medicines.
The Museum, which was only founded in 1836, possesses, considering
the short space of time that has elapsed since its establishment, a
very rich collection, particularly of quadrupeds and skeletons, but
there are very few specimens of insects, and most of those are
injured. In one of the rooms is a beautifully-executed model of the
celebrated Tatch in Agra; several sculptures and bas-reliefs were
lying around. The figures seemed to me very clumsy; the
architecture, however, is decidedly superior. The museum is open
daily. I visited it several times, and, on every occasion, to my
great astonishment, met a number of natives, who seemed to take the
greatest interest in the objects before them.
Ochterlony's Monument is a simple stone column, 165 feet in height,
standing, like a large note of admiration, on a solitary grassplot,
in memory of General Ochterlony, who was equally celebrated as a
statesman and a warrior. Whoever is not afraid of mounting 222
steps will be recompensed by an extensive view of the town, the
river, and the surrounding country; the last, however, is very
monotonous, consisting of an endless succession of plains bounded
only by the horizon.
Not far from the column is a neat little mosque, whose countless
towers and cupolas are ornamented with gilt metal balls, which
glitter and glisten like so many stars in the heavens. It is
surrounded by a pretty court-yard, at the entrance of which those
who wish to enter the mosque are obliged to leave their shoes. I
complied with this regulation, but did not feel recompensed for so
doing, as I saw merely a small empty hall, the roof of which was
supported by a few stone pillars. Glass lamps were suspended from
the roof and walls, and the floor was paved with Agra marble, which
is very common in Calcutta, being brought down the Ganges.
The Mint presents a most handsome appearance; it is built in the
pure Grecian style, except that it is not surrounded by pillars on
all its four sides. The machinery in it is said to be especially
good, surpassing anything of the kind to be seen even in Europe. I
am unable to express any opinion on the subject, and can only say
that all I saw appeared excessively ingenious and perfect. The
metal is softened by heat and then flattened into plates by means of
cylinders. These plates are cut into strips and stamped. The rooms
in which the operations take place are spacious, lofty, and airy.
The motive-power is mostly steam.
Of all the Christian places of worship, the English Cathedral is the
most magnificent. It is built in the Gothic style, with a fine
large tower rising above half-a-dozen smaller ones. There are other
churches with Gothic towers, but these edifices are all extremely
simple in the interior, with the exception of the Armenian church,
which has the wall near the altar crowded with pictures in gold
frames.
The notorious "Black Hole," in which the Rajah Suraja Dowla cast 150
of the principal prisoners when he obtained possession of Calcutta
in 1756, is at present changed into a warehouse. At the entrance
stands an obelisk fifty feet high, and on it are inscribed the names
of his victims.
The Botanical Garden lies five miles distant from the town. It was
founded in the year 1743, but is more like a natural park than a
garden, as it is by no means so remarkable for its collection of
flowers and plants as for the number of trees and shrubs, which are
distributed here and there with studied negligence in the midst of
large grass-plots. A neat little monument, with a marble bust, is
erected to the memory of the founder. The most remarkable objects
are two banana-trees. These trees belong to the fig-tree species,
and sometimes attain a height of forty feet. The fruit is very
small, round, and of a dark-red; it yields oil when burnt. When the
trunk has reached an elevation of about fifteen feet, a number of
small branches shoot out horizontally in all directions, and from
these quantity of threadlike roots descend perpendicularly to the
ground, in which they soon firmly fix themselves. When they are
sufficiently grown, they send out shoots like the parent trunk; and
this process is repeated ad infinitum, so that it is easy to
understand how a single tree may end by forming a whole forest, in
which thousands may find a cool and shady retreat.
