Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/An evening in "the city of palaces"
AN EVENING IN “THE CITY OF
PALACES.”
ABOUT six o’clock every evening the beau monde of Calcutta begins to take the air on the Course, a very pleasant drive which runs along the bank of the river. There are quite as many carriages as by the Serpentine in the most crowded part of the season; but it must he confessed that none of them would be likely to excite the envy of an owner of a “fashionable turn-out” at home unless indeed it might be now and then for the sake of their occupants. However incongruous a native driver may look on the box of an English carriage, and absurd a couple of turbaned grooms painfully crouching behind, or standing on one leg each on the “dickey” steps, a sweet English face, surrounded by the edge of a lovely little bonnet, is always a pleasant sight. The riding habit, too, is graced by some of these pretty faces and figures—the most graceful of all being Lady Canning. It is delightful to see her canter along, the centre of a brilliant group, her intelligent and beautiful eyes animated in conversation, or with their not less charming expression of repose—fiére and gentle at the same time.
Long before the Course begins to thin, it is almost dark, and then—at least if the poor lounger is “unattached,” and, instead of being seated in one of the before-mentioned enviable voitures, or, perhaps happier still, walking his horse across the plain beside some well-trained Arab, he is sharing his buggy with a friend as unfortunate as himself—the general effect of the scene before him is the most interesting object for his gaze. The carriages continue to whirl past, but one sees hardly more of them than their lamps. The river glides, cold and shining, along silvery light under the opposite bank, while trees and masts and rigging relieve themselves, as in a picture of Giorgione’s, against the golden bars of the distant sky. But the band ceases to play, and we all go home to dress.
If the traveller chooses—which, they say, is rare with Englishmen abroad—to leave the society of his compatriots, he may find many an amusing drive in the native parts of the town. Tall Sikhs, whose hair and beards have never known scissors or razor, and who stride along with a trooper-like swagger and high caste dignity; effeminate Cingalese; Hindoo clerks, smirking and conceited, and dandified, too, according to their own notions; almost naked palkee-bearers, who, nevertheless, if there is the slightest Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/247 Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/248