whole company.

Then amid a thousand jokes the tiffin-baskets were brought out, and we
had a royal lunch while the tiger was "padded"--i.e., placed on one
of the unoccupied elephants; and finally we got us back to camp, where
the rest of the day was devoted to dinner and cheroots.

From the tiger to the town, from the cries of jackals to those of
street-venders,--this is an easy transition in India; and it was only
the late afternoon of the second day after the tiger-hunt when my
companion and I were strolling along the magnificent Esplanade of
Calcutta, having cut across the mountains, elephant-back, early in the
morning to a station where we caught the down-train.

[Illustration: BENGALESE OF LOW CASTE.]

Solidity, wealth, trade, ponderous ledgers, capacious ships'
bottoms, merchandise transformed to magnificence, an ample-stomached
_bourgeoisie_,--this is what comes to one's mind as one faces the
broad walk in front of Fort William and looks across the open space to
the palaces, the domes, the columns of modern and English Calcutta;
or again as one wanders along the strand in the evening when the
aristocrats of commerce do congregate, and, as it were, gazette the
lengths of their bank-balances in the glitter of their equipages and
appointments; or again as one strolls about the great public gardens
or the amplitudes of Tank Square, whose great tank of water suggests
the luxury of the dwellers hereabout; or the numerous other paths of
comfort which are kept so by constant lustrations from the skins
of the water-bearers. The whole situation seems that of ease and
indulgence. The very circular verandahs of the rich men's dwellings