coupled on to the train, into which the pilgrims were wedged as
tightly as possible, a second engine was attached, and we started.
Next morning I was awakened by a nephew of mine, who cried with an
awestruck face, "My God! It is perfectly awful! Look out of the
window!" It was a fearful sight. The waters of Tolly Gunge had done
their work, and cholera had broken out during the night amongst the
densely packed pilgrims. Men were carrying out dead bodies from the
train; there were already at least fifty corpses laid on the platform,
and the tale of dead increased every minute. Others, stricken with the
fell disease, were lying on the platform, still alive, but in a state
of collapse, or in the agonising cramps of this swift-slaying scourge.
There happened to be two white doctors in the train, who did all that
was possible for the sufferers, but, beyond the administration of
opium, medical science is powerless in cholera cases. The horrors of
that railway platform fixed themselves indelibly on my memory. I can
never forget it.

The late Maharajah of Cooch Behar had had a long minority, the soil of
his principality was very fertile and well-cultivated, and so
efficiently was the little State administered by the British Resident
that the Maharajah found himself at his majority the fortunate
possessor of vast sums of ready money. The Government of India had
erected him out of his surplus revenues a gigantic palace of
red-brick, a singularly infelicitous building material for that
burning climate. Nor can it be said that the English architect had
been very successful in his elevation. He had apparently anticipated
the design of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and had managed to
produce a building even less satisfactory to the eye than the vast
pile at the corner of Cromwell Road. He had also crowned his edifice
with a great dome. The one practical feature of the building was that