From the palaces of the conquering Anglo-Indians the drive to the "Black Town," as the native portion of the city is still called, is enough to discourage the most enthusiastic of Christians in the world. This quarter of Calcutta stretches for some miles toward the north, presenting at once a sad contrast to the stately and grand portion occupied by the English. The transition is all the more marked because of the architectural pretensions of the one and the rude mud habitations of the other. Here reside at least three-fourths of the entire population of Calcutta. The streets are more or less narrow, filthy, unpaved, and unswept. The houses are built principally of mud, bamboo, or other coarse woods, swarming with an excess of population. Within this wretched vicinity are found no less than twenty entire bazaars extending from one end of the "Black Town" to the other, well stocked with goods from all parts of the world, rare and valuable products of the Indian loom, shawls and paintings from Cashmere, kinkaubs from Benares, teas and silks from China, spices, pearls, and precious stones from Ceylon, rupees from Pegu, coffee from Java and Arabia, nutmegs from Singapore; in fact, everything that the wide world has ever produced is displayed in shops that are nothing but miserably patched mud or bamboo dwellings. Through these native bazaars the teeming population seemed to flow and gurgle unchanged through all changes of governors, constitutions, and rulers--the same to-day, in type, character, feeling, religion, and occupation, as it was before the beginning of the earliest known history. Here, assembled from the four winds of the heaven, were all the elements of an unspeakably motley crowd--nut-brown, graceful Hindoo maidens tripping daintily with rows of water-jars nicely balanced on their heads; dark-hued young Hindoo men, all clean and washed, robed in pure white, laughing, talking, or loitering around; handsomely-dressed baboos--as the native gentlemen of Bengal are called--in Oriental costumes, but with European stockings and shoes, sauntering carelessly along; dancing-girls brilliantly attired; common street-women jewelled and bedizened with innumerable trinkets and in their distinctive garb; bheesties with water-skins on their backs; Borahs, brokers, Brahmans, Musulmans, sepoys, fakeers, and gossains, in their peculiar costumes, shouting in manifold tongues and various dialects; and, above all, there may be seen strolling jugglers, snake-charmers, and fortune-tellers plying their curious arts and completing the picture of an Oriental bazaar. In some of the streets a small stream of water, a rivulet of the sacred Ganges, flows bright and clear through artificial channels. Many of the native shops open on it, and all day long hosts of men, women, and children may be seen seated beside it, busy or idle, but always grateful for this truly precious gift of the gods.