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Updated: June 6, 2025
The river scenery near Ishapoor is much superior to what it is lower down; and a good view of the pretty town of Chinsurah, on the opposite bank of the Hooghly, is commanded from Major Timbrel's verandah. Acra farm is situated some twelve or fifteen miles below Calcutta. I visited it as a stranger, while waiting in a ship for the flood tide; and its proprietor gave me a most hospitable reception.
The rumour was spread abroad, as it has been more than once since, that the Hooghly was silting up and Calcutta as a port was doomed. The idea, which originated with a German, was to build a port with docks and jetties and all other conveniences at Canning Town which was then already connected with Calcutta by a railway.
The winds, as before, were light and, as the northeast monsoon was still blowing, the rate of progress was slow. "I wish we could have got into the Hooghly," Fairclough said, as he walked impatiently up and down the quarterdeck, "before the monsoon broke; but I don't see much chance of it. It generally changes about the middle of April, and we are well on in the first week, now.
On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of the Hooghly were closing in, imperceptibly constricting the narrow channel through which the tawny tide swirled down to the sea at the full force of its ebb.
A Hooghly pilot is the very maximum of a nautical swell, and one's boarding of a ship attended by man-servant and a mass of belongings partakes somewhat of the character of a function. This Calcutta pilot is a fine fellow well-bred, educated, and entitled to the splendid compensation and social position which he enjoys.
Whether in 1690 Job Charnock made a wise selection in fixing his trading-station where Calcutta now stands, may be open to doubt. He certainly had the broad Hooghly at his doors, affording plenty of water not only for trading-vessels, but also for men-of-war in cases of emergency.
There were half-a-dozen men of the Duke's Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and three or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who leaned well forward, their elbows on their knees, twirling battered straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the instant off the defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a Greek, with earrings.
Branch pilots generally command pilot brigs, which cruise off the mouth of the Hooghly for the purpose of supplying vessels that come from sea with pilots to take them up the river, and of taking the pilots out of ships bound to sea.
Calcutta Hooghly pilots Government House A Durbar The sulky Rajah The customary formalities An ingenious interpreter The sailing clippers in the Hooghly-Calcutta Cathedral A succulent banquet The mistaken Ministre The "Gordons" Barrackpore A Swiss Family Robinson aerial house The child and the elephants The merry midshipmen Some of their escapades A huge haul of fishes Queen Victoria and Hindustani The Hills The Manipur outbreak A riding tour A wise old Anglo-Indian Incidents The fidelity of native servants A novel printing-press Lucknow The loss of an illusion.
The current of the Ganges is here very strong, and its breadth much lessened: the river runs between high banks of alluvium, containing much kunker. At Benares it expands into a broad stream, with a current which during the rains is said to flow eight miles an hour, when the waters rise 43 feet. The fall hence is 300 feet to its junction with the Hooghly, viz., one foot to every mile.
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