The Maidan is three-quarters of a mile wide at its
beginning and it broadens out to one and one-quarter miles in width at
its lower end. Government House, the residence of the Viceroy, is
opposite the northern end of the Maidan, while at the southern end is
Belvedere, the headquarters of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. With
historic Fort William on one side and most of the large hotels, the big
clubs and the Imperial Museum on the other, the Maidan is really the
center of all civic life. At the southeast end is the race course; not
far away is the fine cathedral. Near by are the beautiful Eden Gardens
(the gift of the sisters of the great Lord Auckland), which are
noteworthy for the Burmese pagoda, transported from Prome and set up
here on the water's edge. It is seldom that a city is laid out on such
magnificent lines as is Calcutta. It reminds one of Washington in its
picturesque boulevards and avenues, all finely shaded with noble mango
trees. And it also has the distinction of green turf even in the heat
of summer, owing to the heavy dews that refresh the grass like showers.

Calcutta is associated in the minds of most readers with the infamous
Black Hole into which one hundred and forty-six wretched white people
were crowded on a hot night of June in 1750 and out of which only
twenty-three emerged alive on the following morning. The Black Hole was
the regimental jail of old Fort William and its site is now marked by a
pavement of black marble and a tablet adjoining the fine postoffice
building, while across the street is an imposing monument to the memory
of the victims, whose names are all enumerated. The hole was twenty-two
by fourteen feet, while it was only eighteen feet in height. These
prisoners who were flung into this little jail were residents of
Calcutta who fell into the hands of the Nawab of Murshedabad. Calcutta
is also famous as the birthplace of Thackeray, a bust of whom ornaments
the art gallery of the Imperial Museum. Scattered about the Maidan are
statues of a dozen men whose deeds have shed luster on English arms or
diplomacy.

Calcutta, as the first city of India that I had seen, impressed me very
strongly, although the native life has been colored somewhat by contact
with British and other Europeans. Here, for the first time, one sees
ninety-nine out of one hundred people in the streets wearing turbans.
Here also the women mingle freely in the streets, wearing long robes
which they wind dex