[Illustration] THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT By RUDYARD KIPLING With Illustrations by CHARLES D. FARRAND [Illustration: colophon] ALEX. GROSSET & CO. 11 EAST SIXTEENTH ST., NEW YORK 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1899 BY ALEX. GROSSET & CO. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE A Real Live City, 5 CHAPTER II. The Reflections of a Savage, 14 CHAPTER III. The Council of the Gods, 25 CHAPTER IV. On the Banks of the Hugli, 37 CHAPTER V. With the Calcutta Police, 49 CHAPTER VI. The City of Dreadful Night, 58 CHAPTER VII. Deeper and Deeper Still, 72 CHAPTER VIII. Concerning Lucia, 82 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT. CHAPTER I. A REAL LIVE CITY. We are all backwoodsmen and barbarians together--we others dwelling beyond the Ditch, in the outer darkness of the Mofussil. There are no such things as commissioners and heads of departments in the world, and there is only one city in India. Bombay is too green, too pretty, and too stragglesome; and Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the smoky, the magnificent, as we drive in over the Hugli Bridge in the dawn of a still February morning. We have left India behind us at Howrah Station, and now we enter foreign parts. No, not wholly foreign. Say rather too familiar.