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INDIA

with little in the way of comfort, rather preferring hard
seats and a chattering mass of close-packed compatriots,
which adds any profitable returns to the gross earnings of
the state or company. And in this connection the traffic
returns which are directly due to the attraction afforded
by religious festivals, #“ mélas,” and fairs, are worthy of
note. On the occasion of the great fair at Hardwar, for
instance, pilgrims in hundreds of thousands collect on one
line and for one purpose from all parts of India. Then
indeed are the resources of the railway officials (and their
temper) taxed to the uttermost. It is not possible to
convey the crowds that silently mass themselves at the
stations awaiting their turn for forward movement.
Whether that waiting involves one hour or one week,
seems a matter of indifference. Natives will sit in patient
ancomplaining rows, unmarking the lapse of time, so long
as their turn may come at last—that turn which will
enable them to reach the sacred banks of the holy Gunga,
to plunge in regardless of possible drowning, regardless
indeed of all except this one great washing of themselves
slean from their sins; and possibly the necessity of
paying handsome fees to their priests afterwards.
So far as we have travelled south-eastwards from
Delhi along the length of the Gangetic plain, there is not
a city which we have encountered which cannot boast of
some distinguishing attraction. It may have been dignified
by architectural art, by antiquity, or by history. Something
 of living oriental grandeur still clings to them, and
something of the pathos of a magnificent past. A Brummagem
 dir of contented commercial prosperity has never
been theirs. It is only when we pass from the north-west
into Bengal that we find dull utilitarianism prevailing—
no architecture, no art, no manufactures even, beyond the
products of village handicraft.
Calcutta, with its 800,000 or goo,000 inhabitants, is the
second city of the whole British empire, but there is
nothing but wealth to make it famous. There is not a
public building worth looking at. Even the historic
Government House can only be described as the ugliest