While anchored in the lower reaches of the river, we experienced a slight foretaste of some of the pleasures that awaited us in the land we were about to reside in; our night’s rest was ever and anon disturbed by the weird and startling cry of a jackal; and the dermic irritation caused by mosquito-bites was a source of great pain to novices. At last the tug arrived, and we once more got under weigh, rapidly bridging over the remaining part of the voyage, and perhaps, too, the most dangerous, on account of the St. James and Mary shoals, and many others almost equally hazardous. But these were passed in safety; the river became narrower and narrower—crowded, too, with all manner of small craft freighted _en route_ to market. The whole scene was certainly striking, rendered, indeed, still more picturesque by the setting sun; so that, as we passed up that suburb of Calcutta so appropriately called “Garden Reach,” the entire bank was bathed in a flood of light, while our ears were assailed by the chants of natives pulling at their oars—chants not devoid of a weird kind of beauty. Not far above this we dropped anchor, and the ship swung round with the tide. All was bustle and excitement; and with a shake of the hand, and a hurried “Good-bye; mind you call on us soon,” &c., &c., the passengers dropped one by one over the side; and in this wise the voyage of those days came to an end. CHAPTER III. THE CITY OF PALACES. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” FRANKLIN. For my own part I remained on board till the deck had assumed a less chaotic appearance, when I resolved to migrate temporarily to one of the hotels. This, however was not to be; for an old friend, anticipating my resolve, and bent on frustrating it, suddenly appeared on board with the welcome information that he had hired a room for me at his quarters. Nothing loth, I bundled my traps into the boat, and prepared to accompany my friend, bidding _au revoir_ to the officers with no little regret; they had throughout the voyage treated me with the utmost courtesy, and I had almost grown to look upon the old ship as my home. Nor was the City of Palaces just then calculated to impress a new arrival very favourably, or to raise his spirit-barometer. Darkness was coming on apace, as it always does in the East, and the dim, weird light afforded by the few oil lamps scattered about was considerably obscured by the dense mist that was rising from a large open space, through which we drove in my friend’s “buggy.” This sombre picture was completed by the dusky figures that flitted hither and thither; and, taken altogether, I found it gruesome and depressing.