The costumes and buildings of the East, and possibly of all semi-barbarous countries, harmonize well with pageantry and spectacle; all is in keeping, and nought appears to wound the sense of fitness and congruity. Not so, it strikes me, in our own country, where the pomp and glitter of the Middle Ages form strange patchwork with spinning-jennies and the homely toggery of our utilitarian and go-ahead times. Fancy going to a tournament by a railroad, or seeing a mailed champion riding cheek by jowl with a Kennington “’bus,” or one of Barclay and Perkins’s drays. If we must have splendour, let it be in unison with the age. The next day, having replenished our stores with several additions from the colonel’s garden and farm-yard, for it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge this liberality—a truly Indian virtue—we once more resumed our voyage. Burhampore, like most of the great military stations of India, is intended to operate as a check on a large and important city; not that from Moorshedabad—once the capital of Bengal, a place long since sunk into comparative insignificance—much danger is now to be apprehended. It is the head-quarters of a brigade, partly composed of European troops. The barracks and officers’ quarters are superb, and form a vast square, of which the former constitute the face farthest from the river; that nearest to it is a continuous range of handsome houses and gardens, with colonnades and verandahs, occupied by civilians and superior military officers. There are also other ranges of buildings running perpendicular to the river, partly barracks and in part officers’ quarters. The whole is separated from the Baghiriti by a broad bund, or esplanade. The sepoy lines are about a mile inland, but the officers reside in the quarters, or in the fine bungalows scattered about. The scene here in the evening was very lively; soldiers exercising in the square; officers riding on horseback, or driving in gigs; the band playing on the esplanade; groups promenading; in short, I was pleased with the place, and should have had no objection to have terminated my voyage there. The morning of our departure, we were besieged by the vendors of silk piece-goods and handkerchiefs, as also of ivory toys and chessmen, for both of which this place and its neighbour, Cossim Bazar, have acquired a great reputation. Some of the chessmen shown us were large beyond anything of the kind I had ever seen before; so much so, that to play with an irascible man with such ponderous and massive pieces might be unsafe.