Although, as I have before remarked, these scattered houses impart an air of rural enjoyment to the island, yet their being spread over its whole surface prevents Bombay from appearing to be so important a place as it is in reality.  There is nothing approaching to the idea of a city to be seen, nothing solid or substantial to indicate the presence of wealth or of extensive commerce.  Calcutta, on the contrary, offers to the stranger’s eye an aspect so striking and imposing, brings so strongly to the mind the notion that its merchants are princes, and that it ranks crowned heads amongst its vassals and its tributaries, that we see at once that it must be the seat of a powerful and permanently established government.  Nor does it seem possible, even in the event of Bombay taking the ascendance as the capital of British India, that the proud City of Palaces shall upon that account dwindle and sink into decay.  Stranger things, and even more melancholy destinies, have befallen the mighty Babylons of the earth; but with all its faults of situation and of climate, I should at least, for one, regret the fate that would render the glories of a city so distinct in its character, and so proudly vying with the capitals of Europe, a tale of the past.  A new direction in the course of the Ganges may reduce it to a swamp, and its palaces and pleasant places may be left to desolate creatures, but it will never be rivalled by any modern creation.  The days of Anglo-Indian magnificence are gone by, and though we may hope for all that is conveyed by the words comfort and prosperity, splendour will no longer form a feature in the scene.

The climate of Bombay is said to be superior in point of salubrity to that of Bengal; what is termed the cold season, however, can scarcely merit the name, there being nothing like the bracing weather experienced at the same period of the year in the neighbouring presidency.  One peculiarity of Bombay consists in the wind blowing hot and cold at the same time, so that persons who are liable to rheumatic pains are obliged to wrap themselves up much more warmly than is agreeable.  While enduring a very uncomfortable degree of heat, a puff of wind from the land or the sea will produce a sudden revulsion, and in these alternations the whole day will pass away, while at night they become still more dangerous.  It is said that the hot season is not so hot as in Bengal, and the absence of punkahs in the drawing-rooms and bed-chambers favours the statement; but if the atmosphere be much more sultry in the hot season than it is in what is by courtesy called cold, it must be rather difficult to bear.