A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
- Page 296 of 708 - First - Home
The Most Magnificent Palaces Lay Around In The Midst Of Splendid
Gardens, Into One Of Which The Palanquin-Bearers Turned, And Set Me
Down Under A Handsome Portico Before The House Of Herr Heilgers, To
Whom I Had Brought Letters Of Recommendation.
The young and amiable
mistress of the house greeted me as a countrywoman (she was from the
north and I from the south of Germany), and received me most
cordially.
I was lodged with Indian luxury, having a drawing-room,
a bed-room, and a bath-room especially assigned to me.
I happened to arrive in Calcutta at the most unfavourable period
possible. Three years of unfruitfulness through almost the whole of
Europe had been followed by a commercial crisis, which threatened
the town with entire destruction. Every mail from Europe brought
intelligence of some failure, in which the richest firms here were
involved. No merchant could say, "I am worth so much;" - the next
post might inform him that he was a beggar. A feeling of dread and
anxiety had seized every family. The sums already lost in England
and this place were reckoned at thirty millions of pounds sterling,
and yet the crisis was far from being at an end.
Misfortunes of this kind fall particularly hard upon persons who,
like the Europeans here, have been accustomed to every kind of
comfort and luxury. No one can have any idea of the mode of life in
India. Each family has an entire palace, the rent of which amounts
to two hundred rupees (20 pounds), or more, a month.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 296 of 708
Words from 78818 to 79079
of 187810