On we rowed with the rapid tide, and after coursing along two or three hold sweeps of the river, Calcutta once more broke on my sight—the native town—Howrah—the splendid white buildings of the European quarter—its forest of shipping—swarming ghauts—multitudinous boats—and all the ant-hill scene of commerce, hustle, and animation, opening upon us in rapid succession, like the scenes of a diorama. This approach to the City of Palaces, however, is by no means equal, in my opinion, to that from the seaward side. Widely different were my emotions when I next visited this spot. After many years’ residence in the Upper Provinces, amongst rajahs, hill forts and Hindoo temples, holy shrines and sacred prayagas, groves resounding with the cry of the peacock, and Mahomedan ruins of departed grandeur, exploring the haunts of the savage Bheel, and pursuing the plundering Pindarry through the scenes of his maraudings, familiarized with scenes, manners, and customs wearing the impress of a hoary antiquity, and as far removed from the go-ahead things of European civilization as it is possible to imagine, I once more found myself off Calcutta. With my mind thus saturated with new ideas—a sort of “sleepy hollow” state having come over me, and the recollections of “father-land” fast escaping from my still fondly tenacious grasp, the first sight of the tall masts of the shipping, as they burst on my view, on rounding a point, produced sensations of pleasure as hard to describe, as difficult to be forgotten; nor were these feelings diminished, when, gliding past the vessels themselves, I read “London,” “Liverpool,” and so forth, on their sterns, and beheld the rough red-shirted tars, my ruddy stalwart countrymen, as they gazed at us over the sides, or lounged in groups on the forecastle, and thought that in very truth but a brief period had elapsed since those fortunate fellows had been lying in some crowded bustling port of my own dear native land, with “all her faults,” still beloved and dear to me. A visit subsequently to one of them served, by exhibiting once familiar things, to awaken still more forcibly the recollections of Old England, and to rekindle that love of country, which, next to that of God and kindred, is, perhaps, the noblest feeling that can swell the bosom. I will venture to say there are many of my Anglo-Indian brethren who have experienced that which I have here feebly attempted to describe. We landed at Chundpaul ghaut, a spot memorable in my eyes as that of my disembarkation in Calcutta some two or three months before, and of my incipient acquaintance with my grandiloquent factotum Chattermohun Ghose. From the ghaut we proceeded, in ticca palankeens, to the fort, where Rattleton and I had been invited to take up our quarters with Lieut. Rantipole, of the Zubberdust Bullumteers, then on duty there with his company.