reigned all day and no pernicious ray of sunlight fell. "This is Room 66 in the Hotel in Calcutta, one of the best in the house," said an American lecturer once, and at sight of the lantern picture the audience roared with laughter.
"Go and see the Black Hole of Calcutta," said the Viceroy, who had finally determined and marked the exact spot. "I have no need to, Your Excellency. I live there now. Room 18, Hotel," said another winter visitor.
There is little of stock sight-seeing for the tourist—only the Zoölogical and Botanical Gardens and the Temple of Kali; there are no specialties or local opportunities in souvenir shopping in Calcutta, and the European life is not what one comes half-way around the world to see; so that the traveler's stay in this city is usually brief. The fact of its being the capital for so short a season gives Calcutta much of a watering-place atmosphere.
Except for innumerable turbaned and bare-footed servants, the pankha, and the use of many Hinustani words, the life is the life of London—a London with the chill taken off and the sun shining gloriously. Every one waits for the London Times to know the real news of the world; and although the Calcutta newspapers hold diverting advertisements of cinder-picking and ash-sifting rights for sale, and "20 Rhinoceroses Wanted, Rupees 2000 each," local opinion waits on the daily arrival of the Allahahad Pioneer, a nursery of genius wherein Sinnett and Kipling and Marion Crawford first won public applause.
