Nor has one to go so very far from the heart of Calcutta to be reminded
that the "premier city" of modern India derives its name from Kali, the
most sinister of Indian goddesses. She was the tutelary deity of
Kali-Kata, one of the three villages to which Job Charnock removed the
first British settlement in Bengal when he abandoned Hugli in 1690, and
her shrine has grown in wealth and fame with the growth of Calcutta.
Kali-Kata is to-day only a suburb of the modern city, but in entering it
one passes into another world--the world of popular Hinduism. In its
narrow streets every shop is stocked with the paraphernalia that Hindus
require for their devotions, for everything centres in Kali-Kata round
the popular shrine sacred to Kali, the black goddess of destruction,
with a protruding blood-red tongue, who wears a necklace of human skulls
and a belt of human hands and tongues, and, holding in one of her many
hands a severed human head, tramples under foot the dead bodies of her
victims. From the _ghats_, or long flights of steps, that descend to the
muddy waters of a narrow creek which claims a more or less remote
connection with the sacred Ganges, crowds of pious Hindus go through
their ablutions in accordance with a long and complicated ritual, whilst
high-caste ladies perform them in mid-stream out of covered boats and
behind curtains deftly drawn to protect their _purdah_. Past an ancient
banyan tree, from whose branches streamers of coloured stuffs depend
with other votive offerings from grateful mothers who have not prayed
for male offspring in vain, past the minor shrines of many favourite
deities, a road lined with closely packed beggars and ascetics,
thrusting forth their sores and their shrivelled limbs in the hope of a
few coppers, leads up to the place of sacrifice in front of the temple.
The pavement is still red with the blood of goats immolated to the Great
Goddess, and her devotees who may have just missed the spectacle can at
least embrace the posts to which the victims were tied. On an open