On  coming  to  the  top,  I  saw  nothing  of  the  cow,
calf,  or  poor  old  Ford.  On  board  he  had,  of  course,
a  capital  story  to  tell.
CHAPTER    XI

The  Magicienne

On  return  from  the  funeral  I   was  sent  in  a  native    1833.
boat  to  Calcutta,  with  a  despatch  to  the  Governor-  Feb-  !I-
General.      It  was  slow  work  against  stream,  and  at
night  very  cold,  for  which  I  was  unprepared.
However,   I   arrived  the  following  morning,  and  Feb.  I2-
landed  at  the  Shampur  ghat.      A  palanquin  conveyed
me  to  Government  House.     Lord  William  Cavendish
Bentinck  was  well  known  ;    twenty  years  previously
he  had  been  Governor  of  Madras.
I  was  not  kept  long.  Instead  of  finding  myself
ushered  into  the  presence  of  a  potentate  with  twenty
A.D.C.'s,  I  found  His  Excellency  in  plain  clothes  :
his  only  companion,  a  parrot  on  his  finger.  He  was
kindness  itself.  I  had  been  but  little  in  the  London
world,  but  he  seemed  to  know  everybody  I  had  seen,
or  even  heard  of.
The  ship  arrived  in  the  afternoon,  and  anchored
off  the  esplanade.  Although  many  fine  Indiamen  and
larger  ships  were  here,  nothing  came  up  to  Magicienne
in  appearance.  In  due  time  His  Excellency  paid  an
official  visit.
A  salute  with  yards  manned  is  a  pretty  sight,  and
our  Magicienne  was,  even  for  a  man-of-war,  unusually
taunt,  and  on  shore  attracted  a  large  concourse.     The


tr


a


c

B


chap,  xi  The  Magicie?ine  155

Hooghly  was  not  a  bright  and  limpid  stream.     Of  a   1833.
morning  we  often  had  to  clear  our    hawse   of  dark   Calcutta.
bodies,  hardly  visible  from  the  darker  mud.
Quarters  were  provided  for  officers  in  Fort
William.  The  ancient  one,  in  which  was  the  famous
Black  Hole,  was  two  miles  farther  up  the  river.
