Excerpt from Calcutta Past and Present In gathering material for these pages I have had the great advantage of a family connection with Calcutta, extending over many years, which has placed at my disposal old diaries and other personal records, besides maps of the town on which changes and improvements were recorded as they were made. These, together with an intimate knowledge of the city, gained during several years' residence in it, have enabled me to construct a mental picture of the life of old Calcutta, which is so vivid as to leave an impres sion of having really borne a part in it myself. It is this picture, this sense of reality, which I have tried - inadequate as I feel the effort has been - to convey to my readers. For the illustrations I am greatly indebted to the publishers, who have spared neither trouble nor expense in reproducing old portraits and engravings, as well as modern photographs. They will be found to be, some of them unique, and all, we believe, of great interest, and such as are not readily available to the larger number of those who are interested in the subject. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.