The principal European landing place in Bengal, and therefore the first hundred square yards of India that almost every Briton in Calcutta ever stood on.
Description
The principal European landing place in Bengal, and therefore the first hundred square yards of India that almost every Briton in Calcutta ever stood on. It is not a dock and it is not a quay. It is a broad flight of worn stone steps running down into the Hooghly below the Esplanade, a few hundred yards north of Fort William.
Ships anchor out in the stream and passengers come ashore in hired boats, which means the steps are a permanent scrimmage of budgerow crews shouting for fares, palanquin bearers converging on anyone in European dress, and coolies taking hold of luggage without waiting to be engaged.
Notable Features
- The register. A customs chowkidar wants papers and a clerk under an umbrella writes down names. Arrivals enter the Company’s record within minutes of landing, which is the mechanism by which Calcutta knows everything about a newcomer inside forty-eight hours.
- No privacy of arrival. There is no way into this city by water that avoids being seen, counted and written down.
- The stone. Green with algae below the waterline, slick above it, worn into hollows by a century and a quarter of feet.
The Senses
- Smell. Wet jute, river mud, cooking oil, and the sharp animal smell of a great many people working in the wet.
- Sound. Forty men shouting over each other in three languages, and under all of it the flat continuous hiss of rain on the river.
- Colour. Grey water, grey sky, wet black stone, and against it palanquin cloth and turbans in reds and yellows that look hallucinatory after five weeks at sea.
Connections
- The Strand runs along the top of the bank above the steps
- Fort William a few hundred yards south
- The Hooghly River
- Scene: Scene 02 Chandpal Ghat
Appearances
Relationships
- Part of Calcutta 1814 — The European landing place of the city
- Part of The Hooghly River — Steps running down into the river
- Site of Havildar Pratap Singh — Where the escort presents himself