English studies . of Bengal, wherenothing is stabler than the water almost much longer will that quicksand support theseat of empire ? The English have never been ableto raise a monument upon the field of Plassey whereClive laid the foundation of their empire, for theGanges carried the battlefield bodily away andlodged it, one vast sandbank, to block the estuaryof their capital. In vain trade and enterprise en-gineer new channels, cut and bind the resistlesssand. Before another hundred years are overCalcutta will inevitably rank amid the dead capitalsof India, with Goa and Paniya
English studies . of Bengal, wherenothing is stabler than the water almost much longer will that quicksand support theseat of empire ? The English have never been ableto raise a monument upon the field of Plassey whereClive laid the foundation of their empire, for theGanges carried the battlefield bodily away andlodged it, one vast sandbank, to block the estuaryof their capital. In vain trade and enterprise en-gineer new channels, cut and bind the resistlesssand. Before another hundred years are overCalcutta will inevitably rank amid the dead capitalsof India, with Goa and Paniya and exodus does but forestall a little the inevitabledecree of the Ganges. I know of one traveller who,having spent three days at Calcutta, found no otherentry to make in his note book but these fewlines : * Calcutta.—The ancient Capital of the English in India. An antique custom requires that the Viceroy should dance there every winter. Uttrcs siir Ihide, par James Darmesteter. Lemerre, Two Indian Boo^s, Visha-Vriksha, the Poison Tree, is a Bengaleenovel, written by the first Bengalee novelist of thePresidency, Baboo Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Ithas made a great stir in Bengal as the first novel ofcontempory manners ever written in those parts. Itis an unexpected fact that this audacious innovationis made at the expense of Young Bengal, and to thedetriment of the freethinkers, deists, members of theBrahmo-Somaj, and other would-be reformers who,if we are to believe our novelist, shake off, togetherwith the trappings of their ancient faith, the trammelsof conventional morality. As you per ceive, ThPoison Tree might have been written in Europe!So says Mrs. Knight, the translator, who, in herdelicate, quaint English, presents the Octave Feuilletof Bengal to an European public. The PoisonTree is something like the Jacques of GeorgesSand turned inside out. Nagendra and his wife,Sarya Mukhi, have taken to their hearth a poororphan, Kunda Nandini. As might
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