w matters stood, withdrew his opposition to the erection of the
factory at Hoogly. The English, however, preferred another situation,
and chose Calcutta, where a building was soon erected, the same which
is now called the old fort." This account, which is in fact more
favourable to the English than that given by their own writers, is the
only notice of these transactions we have ever found from a Mahommedan
author; for so small was the importance attached by the Moguls to
these obscure squabbles with a few Frank merchants, that even the
historian Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's representative for
settling the differences which broke out about the same time in
Bombay, makes no allusion to the simultaneous rupture in Bengal.

[10] "So called from _Kali_, the Hindu goddess, and
_kata_, laughter; because human victims were formerly
here sacrificed to her."

[11] From the sanctity attached by Oriental ideas to the
privacy of the harem, it is a high crime and
misdemeanour, punishable by law in all Moslem countries,
to erect buildings overlooking the residence of a
neighbour. At Constantinople, there is an officer called
the Minar Aga, or superintendent of edifices, whose
especial duty it is to prevent this.

Our author, like Bishop Heber,[12] and other travellers on the same
route, is struck by the contrast between the robust and well-fed
peasantry of Hindustan Proper, and the puny rice-eaters of Bengal;
"who eat fish, boiled rice, bitter oil; and an infinite variety of
vegetables; but of wheaten or barley bread, and of pulse, they know
not the taste, nor of mutton, fowl, or _ghee_, (clarified butter.) The
author of the _Riaz-es-Selatin_, is indeed of opinion that such food
does not suit their constitutions, and would make them ill if they
were to eat it"--an invaluable doctrine to establish in dieting a
pauper population! "As to their dress, they have barely enough to
cover them--only a piece of cloth, called a _dhoti_, wrapped round
their loins, while their head-dress consists of a dirty rag rolled two
or three times round the temples, and leaving the crown bare. But the
natives of Hindustan, and even their descendants to the second and
third generation, always wear the _jamah_, or long muslin robe, out of
doors, though in the house they adopt the Bengali custom. The author
of the _Kholasat-al Tow[=a]rikh_, (an historical work,) says that both
men and women formerly went na