Thacker's Guide to Calcutta

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...places for the accommodation of gentlemen, and an additional well for the Oysters." Goquin de sort, Creighton, you deserve your toast in Vermouth and Bitters. We have devoured our oysters and sipped our porter, and are now prepared for the turtle soup. The next item on the bill of fare is a highly seasoned Burdwan stew, served up in a silver saucepan and consisting of a mixture of flesh fish, and fowl. Our menu is, however, subject to the proviso that we do not prefer 'cold ham, cold chickens, cold snubs." We now go in search of a place where to sleep, and as the time we are keeping is vague in the extreme, we may perhaps wake up five years later and dine with my Lord Cornwallis on New Year's Day at the Old Court House.at 3-30 P.M., on turtle and turkey. We shall dance from 9-30 to supper at 12-0 P.M., and then go home with a satisfied feeling that we cannot remember any previous "FOUR BOTTLE MKN. 155 occasion on which the gentlemen could have danced a minuet after supper, for as our contemporary, the authoress of Hartly House has recorded "Every lady, even to your humble servant drink at least a bottle per diem, and the gentlemen drink four times as much.' But we can't dine with Lord Cornwallis every day so in ordinary we have a light supper about 10 o'clock, a glass or two of wine with a crust and cheese. Our kookahburdar brings us the smoking vessel which our great-grandsons will not tolerate at any cost, and then about 11-0 P.M. we shall not turn in, but lie outside. CHAPTER IX. Dum Dum. To visit Dum Dum, the former home of the illustrious Bengal Artillery and the birth-place of the world-dreaded bullet, one has a choice of routes. The most comfortable plan is to take a first class ghari and drive there and back....