a bewildering medley of sailing vessels and
steamers, flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the earth--all
but the Stars and Stripes of Uncle Sam.

Bombay, on the other side of India, and immediately on the sea, would
make a better capital than Calcutta. But the malodorous city of the
Hooghly will probably ever be the seat of Britain's rule.

While the names of Warren Hastings and Clive dominate the printed page
dealing with modern India, Calcutta fairly throbs with recollections of
Job Charnock, the audacious Englishman who raised the red flag of
Britain just two hundred and seventeen years ago over a collection of
mud hovels and straw huts on the site of what to-day is the capital of
the Indian Empire.

Charnock, perhaps the founder of England's rule in the East, was the
agent of the old East Indian Company. Having been granted permission by
the Mogul rulers to establish a post on the Hooghly convenient for
trading purposes, he chose a spot having the advantage of a generous
shade tree. The spot and neighborhood now is Calcutta, the chief city of
India, with over a million inhabitants. A Hindu village in the vicinity
of the place where Charnock established his trading post was called
Khali-ghat--these words, corrupted by use, have come to mean
"Calcutta." The quaint pioneer obviously had no realization of the part
he was playing in empire-making, and Great Britain has never made
adequate acknowledgment of the gratitude clearly this man's due.
Calcutta residents delight to recount Charnock's exploits, and they take
visitors to St. John's churchyard to view the substantial monument
beneath which rest his bones. The inscription states that he died
January 10, 1693.

A single story proves Charnock's independence of character. He went with
his ordinary guard of soldiers to witness the burning of the body of a
Hindu grandee, whose wife was reputed more than passing fair. It was
known that the rite of the suttee was to be performed--the widow was to
sacrifice herself upon the blazing pyre of the deceased, in keeping with
Hindu custom. Charnock was so impressed by the young widow's charms that
he ordered his soldiers to rescue her and by force take her to his home.
They were speedily married, had several children and lived happily for
many years. Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a
proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter
remarkable in him was the burying of her