CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
compare a view of this part of the river-bank, as it is at the present day, with Baillie's "General View of Calcutta," in 1794, which shows the same locality. When Baillie made his sketch, the trees of Respondentia Walk had not been planted, to intercept the view, and to-day only one or two gnarled old survivors of their once regular rows are left to mark where stretched the Promenade. The principal object in the modern view is the massive turreted building of the High Court. In Baillie's "View" the same site is occupied by the old Supreme Court, low, and dark in spite of its long verandah, which, with the two adjoining houses, made way for the present Court, so recently as in 1872.
The present-day picture shows, facing the Strand, the Bank of Bengal. When Baillie painted his "View" the King's Bench Walk crossed this spot, just above the muddy bank of the river, on which floated the wooden ships which the brave seamen of old sailed up the treacherous Hughly, under the guidance of the skilful pilots of the Ganges, and without the aid of steam or the service of tugs. Not more marked is the difference between these two pictures, of Calcutta at the end of the eighteenth century and Calcutta at the beginning of the
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