The "L. G." or Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, ruler of sixty millions of people, carries on an elaborate program of hospitalities at Belvidere, his beautiful villa beyond the race-course, and the commander-in-chief and the local military officers at the fort do their part to crowd the January weeks with social events for the keenly pleasure-loving English in exile. It is only at investment ceremonies and at durbars on the arrival of a new viceroy that the native princes assemble at the Calcutta court in great numbers. A few Parsi women in graceful head draperies of pale silks, and loaded with jewels, attend the functions at Government House, and a few elderly and widowed Hindu ladies of rank receive visitors of their own sex; but otherwise the native women of the higher classes remain in as great seclusion as ever, veiled even when they drive in closed carriages. On one afternoon of the week, the India Museum is closed to men visitors, and native women and children come by the gharry-load to the "wonder-house." Foreign women can enter the museum then, mingle with their purdah sisters, and watch the jeweled persons as they stroll about as curious and as ignorant as the smaller children.
The India Museum is rich beyond rivalry in treasures of ancient art. The magnificent carved gateway and rail from the Buddhist tope at Sanchi, original of the casts in London and in Paris, bas-reliefs and images from Gandhara and Amraoti, with treasures and relics from the great temple at Buddha-Gaya, have long made the fame of the
