Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CALCUTTA OF QUEEN ANNE. 'e have more than one picture from contemporary hands of the Calcutta of Queen Anne and King George the First. The pivot of the settlement must be sought in what is now Dalhousie Square, but was then known as the Lall Bagh or Park. In the centre was the Lall Dighi, or great Tank, which had bern in existence before the coming of Charnock within what was once the enclosure of the cutcherry of the former zemindars. It ttas deepened and lengthened in 1709 and converted from a dirty pond full of weeds and noxious matter into a much needed reservoir of sweet water. The greater part of the western or riverside edge of the Park was given over to the Fort, which lay between the points now demarcated by Fairlie Place and Koila Ghat. It was now strong enough to ward off any attack by the country powers, but the buildings within it had been erected very leisurely. Of the new Factory House only one storey had been finished when the United Council came into power in 17114. The consultation book shows us Sir Edward Littleton calling in Calcutta on his way up the river Hooghly, and sitting down at the head of the Council-table to discuss where he is to live. He thinks that a house in the town will be most convenient to him, there being but few good rooms being fmished in the Fort. There was no Strand Road, and the waves of the Hooghly lapped the ramparts of the Fort. To the south, there extended from Koila Ghat to Chandpal Ghat the mouth of a creek, navigable for large boats, which passed along Hastings Street and made its way through Creek Row and Wellington Square to Ballia- ghatta near the Salt-lakes. On the other side of this creek were bushy trees (which were afterwards removed by degrees), thatched hovels and pools of fetid water which r...