Every Week Brings Round The Anniversary Of Some Day Of
Rejoicing Of The Mohamedans, Hindus, Parsees, Jews, Roman Catholics,
Or Armenians, And Bombay May Therefore Be Said To Present One
Universal Holiday.
Passing the other evening one of the handsomest
pagodas in the island, an oblong square building of yellow stone,
with a mitre-shaped tower at one end, I was surprised by the number
of European carriages in waiting.
The exterior had all the air of
a Christian church, the situation beautiful, a platform of rock
overlooking the sea; and I could not help indulging the hope, that the
substitution of chariots and buggies for palanquins and rhuts would
lead to the introduction of a purer and better creed.
CHAPTER X.
* * * * *
BOMBAY - (Continued).
* * * * *
Bombay the rising Presidency - Probability of its becoming the Seat of
Government - The Anglo-Indian Society of Bombay - Style of Living - The
Gardens inferior to those of Bengal - Interiors of the Houses more
embellished - Absence of Glass-windows an evil - The Bungalows - The
Encamping-ground - Facility and despatch of a change of
residence - Visit to a tent entertainment - Inconveniences attending a
residence in tents - Want of Hotels and Boarding-houses - Deficiency of
public Amusements in Bombay - Lectures and Conversaziones suggested,
as means of bringing the native community into more frequent
intercourse with Europeans - English spoken by the superior classes
of natives - Natives form a very large portion of the wealth and
intelligence of Bombay - Nothing approaching the idea of a City to be
seen - The climate more salubrious than that of Bengal - Wind blows hot
and cold at the same time - Convenience a stranger finds in so many
domestic servants speaking English - Their peculiar mode of speaking
it - Dress of servants - Their wages - The Cooks - Improved by Lord
Clare - Appointments of the tables - The Ramoosee Watchmen - Their
vociferations during the night - Fidelity of the natives - Controversy
concerning their disregard of truth.
Comparisons are so frequently both unfair and invidious, that I had
determined, upon my arrival at Bombay, to abstain from making them,
and to judge of it according to its own merits, without reference to
those of the rival presidency. It was impossible, however, to adhere
to this resolution, and being called upon continually to give an
opinion concerning its claims to superiority over Calcutta, I was
reluctantly compelled to consider it in a less favourable point of
view than I should have done had the City of Palaces been left out of
the question.
That Bombay is the rising presidency there can be no doubt, and there
seems to be every probability of its becoming the seat of the Supreme
Government; nothing short of a rail-road between the two presidencies
can avert this catastrophe; the number of days which elapse before
important news reaching Bombay can be known and acted upon by the
authorities of Calcutta rendering the measure almost imperative.
Bengal, too proudly triumphing in her greatness, has now to bear
the mortifications to which she delighted to subject Bombay, a
place contemptuously designated as "a fishing village," while its
inhabitants, in consequence of their isolated situation, were called
"the Benighted."
Steam-communication brought the news to Bombay of the accession of
Queen Victoria to the throne of England, and this event was celebrated
at the same time that the Bengallees were toasting the health of
William the Fourth at a dinner given in honour of his birth-day.
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