CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
of economy. Being without friends in Calcutta to receive them, they, on their captain's advice, proceeded up the river by boat, and found quarters at Serampore, where they were made welcome by the Danish officials. An amusing printer's error in a Calcutta newspaper led to their remaining at Serampore for the rest of their lives. Their arrival was announced in the paper as that of four Papist, instead of Baptist, missionaries, and, as there was much talk at the time of French spies entering the country in the guise of priests, the notice attracted the attention of the Calcutta Government, and placed the new-comers under suspicion, which left a feeling of distrust long after the mistake had been explained. The occurrence decided the missionaries to remain at Serampore; there Carey joined them, and there the devoted band laboured, as their memorial in the church records, "to the end of their lives, in the cause of religion and humanity."
Before leaving the old settlements and factories on the right bank of the Hughly, it may be well to pause, and recall something of the appearance the river must have presented to the dwellers on its shores, and some of the scenes that were enacted on its banks.
Up to the time when, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, railways began to ramify
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