Here and there along the banks of the river nestle rustic villages, the houses of which are generally square, and from sixteen to twenty feet on the sides, with pointed thatched roofs. The walls are of bamboo poles, interwoven with grass mats or plastered with mortar. There are no wooden floors, no furniture, and the only utensils are a few bowls of clay for cooking, baking vessels of brass, some straw mats spread on the clay floor to sleep on during the night. The country is low and flat, and during the wet season, which lasts from July to October, destructive inundations are quite frequent. [Illustration: NATIVE HOUSES.] Our steamers soon approached Barrackpoor, a garrisoned city on the east bank of the river. This place, which is one of the summer residences of the viceroy, has a very beautiful park, where there are several samples of the remarkable banyan or sacred fig-tree. From the branches of the tree certain shoots grow downward, and when they reach the ground they strike root and grow into new trunks, so that one and the same tree finally covers a vast space of ground, and looks like a pillared hall. In the park at Barrackpoor may be seen one of these trees, large enough to cover one thousand men. On the west side of the river, directly opposite, lies the old city of Serampoor, which formerly belonged to Denmark, but was taken by the English in the beginning of this century, and now has only a few inscriptions and documents which remind us of the Danish period. [Illustration: BANYAN TREE.] In the river, midway between these cities, a gigantic government barge was anchored. On this occasion it was covered with canvas, and served as a dining room where a tiffin, or lunch, for four hundred persons was served. Our steamers anchored, and we sat down at the sumptuous tables. A band of forty pieces from a Sepoy regiment garrisoned at Barrackpoor struck up an English march, the champagne bottles popped, and all was life and joy. After lunch we witnessed six different boat races, all between Englishmen, and, the prizes having been awarded, the whole company walked on foot about a mile through a fine park to the railway station, whence a special train carried the excursionists back to Calcutta.