Calcutta

the capital of British India. It is situated on the east bank of the Hoogly, a short cut from the Ganges to the sea, and is about eighty miles from the Bay of Bengal. Its wharves extend for ten miles along the Hoogly. The water front is well built with warehouses and places of business. The river is crossed by a pontoon bridge. The government house occupies six acres. Fort William, begun by Governor Clive, has been completed at a cost of $10,000,000. There are fine parks and drives, tramways, and electric lights. Outside of the modern city lie extensive native suburbs of mud huts, little better, travelers assert, than pigsties. Water obtained from the Hoogly, twelve miles up, is filtered in huge tanks. Such provision has been made for sewers as is possible in a city built on a dead level only a few feet above the river. The death rate has been reduced to about 30 per 1,000 inhabitants annually. Cholera is said never to be absent from the filthy native quarters. Rainy July and August are the healthful season; midwinter is the worst. The annual rainfall is about sixty-six inches; the mean temperature for the year about 79 degree.

Calcutta is the center of an extensive railway system. It is the chief port of foreign commerce, exceeding even Bombay in this respect. There are seldom fewer than 200 ships at the wharves. Calcutta is reputed to have the largest tea warehouse in the world. The export trade of the city amounts to about forty-three per cent of that of all India. It is carried on chiefly with London by way of the Suez Canal. It exceeds $250,000,000 a year. Opium is exported to China. The principal articles of export are cotton, cotton-seed, jute, wheat, tea, rice, indigo, leather, hides, furs, coffee, lac, and wool. The principal imports are cotton and woolen cloth, yarn, iron goods, and machinery. The present population is about 1,026,000.

See Bombay; India; Black Hole; Opium; Brahmans