Upon it stands a bell-shaped case about three feet in height, and three feet in diameter at the base.  It is made of silver, elaborately gilt, and decorated with a number of costly jewels.  A peacock in the middle blazes with jewels.  Six smaller cases, reputed to be of gold, are enclosed within the large one, and under the last is the tooth of Buddha.  As it is as large as that of a great bull, one trembles to think how monstrous must have been the jaw of the Indian creed-founder!

[Native boat, Madras:  page89.jpg]

* * * * *

Madame Ida Pfeiffer arrived at Madras on the 30th of October.  She describes the process of disembarkation; but as her details are few, and refer to a comparatively distant date, we propose to rely on the narrative of a recent traveller.

From time immemorial, he says, the system of landing and embarking passengers and cargo has been by means of native Massulah boats, constructed of mango wood, calked with straw, and sewn together with cocoa-nut fibre.  The ships drop their anchors in the roads half a mile from the shore; the Massulah boat pulls off alongside, receives its cargo at the gangway, and is then beached through the surf.  It is no uncommon circumstance for the boat alongside, assisted by the rolling of the ship, to rise and fall twenty-five feet relatively to the height of the ship’s deck at each undulation.  Ladies are lashed into chairs, and from the ship’s yard-arm lowered into the boat.  In 1860 some improvement was effected by the construction of an iron pier, about nine hundred feet in length, and twenty feet in height.  But a spacious and sheltered harbour is now being provided, by means of piers running out from the shore five hundred yards north and south respectively of the screw pile pier now existing, so as to enclose a rectangular area of one thousand yards in length by eight hundred and thirty yards in width, or one hundred and seventy acres.  The foundation-stone was laid by the Prince of Wales in the course of his Indian progress in 1876.

Madame Pfeiffer stayed but a few hours at Madras, and her notes respecting it are of no value.  We will proceed at once to Calcutta, the “City of Palaces,” as it has been called, and the capital of our Indian Empire.

She speaks of the Viceroy’s Palace as a magnificent building, and one that would ornament any city in the world.  Other noticeable edifices are the Town Hall, the Hospital, the Museum, Ochterlony’s Monument, the Mint, and the Cathedral.  Ochterlony’s Monument is a plain stone column, one hundred and sixty-five feet high, erected in commemoration of a sagacious statesman and an able soldier.  From its summit, to which access is obtained by two hundred and twenty-two steps, may be obtained a noble view of the city, the broad reaches of the Ganges, and the fertile plains of Bengal.