I shall not follow out its history, for you will hear
enough of that as you visit the various localities."
"I used to think Calicut and Calcutta were the same city," said Louis.
"Not at all, though the names of the two may have been derived from the
same source. The name of the great city is from Kali, a Hindu goddess of
whom you heard in Bombay, and cuttah, a temple; and doubtless there was
such a building here. Calicut is on the south-west coast of India, and was
a very rich and populous city when it was visited by Vasco da Gama, who was
the first to double the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498. The cotton cloth,
calico, generally called print, gets its name from this city."
Dinner was brought into the carriages; and the tourists slept in the
afternoon, arriving at Calcutta in the evening. The Great Eastern, one of
the two largest hotels in the city, was prepared to receive them. Here, as
in Bombay and elsewhere, every guest is attended by his own servant. Half a
dozen of them had been retained, but when the omnibuses set them down at
the hotel a hundred more could have been readily procured.
The business of sight-seeing began early the next morning with a visit to
the esplanade, which may be called a park, though it contains a variety of
buildings besides Fort William, which is half a mile in diameter. The
enclosure is a mile and three-quarters in length by about one mile in depth
from the river.
Pages:
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335