Thacker's Guide to Calcutta |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alipore Artillery Asoka Bank Bar.-at-Law Barrackpore Bazár Belvedere Bengal Bishop Brahmans British Buddha Buddhist building Calcutta Review Captain Cathedral Chandernagore Chinsurah Chowringhi Church Circular Road Clive cloth College Colonel Company Council Court House Crown 8vo Dalhousie Square Demy 8vo died Dutch East elephant English erected European factory famous Fcap feet Fort William Francis French gallery gate Gazette Ghât Governor Governor-General Governor-General of India ground Heber Hindu Hon'ble honour Hughli Illustrations India inscription interest Jain John Kalighat Kidderpore King Lady land Lord Lord Curzon Madras marble Marshman Mission Missionary native Nawab North Nuncomar officers Old Calcutta palace Park Street passed pillar Portuguese present Raja reader residence river Royal 8vo rupees School Sealdah Second Edition Serampore sewed ships side Society South SPINK stands stupa Temple THACKER tion tree Viceroy Victoria Memorial Hall Warren Hastings William
Popular passages
Page 20 - ... and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated, they entreated, but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them. Nothing in history or fiction...
Page 20 - The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and...
Page 41 - to stand forth as Diwan and by the agency of the Company's servants to take upon themselves the entire care and management of the revenues."!
Page 19 - Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole.
Page 90 - Ah ! what avails the sceptred race ! Ah ! what the form divine ! What every virtue, every grace ! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see. A night of memories and of sighs. I consecrate to thee."* Twelve years later the body of James Thomas Aylmer, Rose's brother, was consigned to a Calcutta tomb.
Page 83 - ... their systems of morality, grammar, rhetoric and dialectic; their skill in chirurgery and medicine, and their advancement, whatever it may be, in anatomy and chemistry. To this you will add researches into their agriculture...
Page 81 - Hindoo who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as a matter of policy, but many profess themselves pure deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence.
Page 20 - Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to foe 68 HOW THE SURVIVORS WERE TREATED.
Page 234 - He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his frailties be remembered; he was a very great man.
Page 19 - Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans.