A single story proves Charnock's independence of character. He went with his ordinary guard of soldiers to witness the burning of the body of a Hindu grandee, whose wife was reputed more than passing fair. It was known that the rite of the suttee was to be performed--the widow was to sacrifice herself upon the blazing pyre of the deceased, in keeping with Hindu custom. Charnock was so impressed by the young widow's charms that he ordered his soldiers to rescue her and by force take her to his home. They were speedily married, had several children and lived happily for many years. Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter remarkable in him was the burying of her decently when she was removed by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before the image of the goddess Khali. [Illustration: GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA] Calcutta has improved greatly since Kipling wrote of it as the "City of Dreadful Night"; but it is yet a place of striking contrasts, of official splendor and native squalor, of garish palaces abutting in rear allies upon filthy hovels. The good is extremely good--that is for the British official; the bad is worse than awful--and that is for the native. Viewed superficially, Calcutta looks like a prosperous city in Europe, perhaps in England; but rear streets and suburbs are as filthy and congested as any town in vast India. What the average tourist beholds is spick and span in a modern sense; and what he doesn't see is intensely Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of a Mohammedan mosque close by.