RIDING IN A PALANQUIN IN CALCUTTA
What a beautiful road this is! Wouldn’t you like to take a peep around the curve and see what is beyond? But such a queer way of travelling!
These men can go very rapidly, but they have stopped here to let us look at them. The lady seems to be enjoying her ride very much in her palanquin. Isn’t that a funny thing to ride in?
This road is in one of the beautiful parks in Calcutta, the city in India where the Governor General lives. It is such an attractive city, with oh, so many parks and gardens! one where there are numberless kinds of animals, another filled with rare trees and plants. There are also many private gardens. There are so many fine buildings that Calcutta is sometimes called the “City of Palaces.” The most beautiful part of the city has a queer name, Chowringhee. Here there is a large park where there is much driving; sometimes the band plays and it is very gay.
“Black Town,” where the natives live, is not so attractive, but very dirty, with narrow streets and ugly little houses of mud or bamboo. Here and there are idols made of plaster or painted wood, looking like those we sometimes see in pictures. The natives of Calcutta make many useful things, among them gunny-bags, the very coarse bags that coffee and cotton are packed in. These bags are used by people all over the world.
A Lady in her Palanquin going through the Geological Gardens, Calcutta
From Stereograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York