NEAR AND FAR
and the Governor-General, a very numerous and respectable company."
Dum Dum is now a quiet and dull little station, with an undesirable reputation for damp and malaria. In its early years it was the scene of many brilliant entertainments, and the centre of much generous hospitality. As the station grew, it became the fashionable resort for Calcutta society, and many a gay cavalcade of fine ladies and gentlemen passed along the raised Dum Dum Road to be present at a grand review, or to grace a performance in the little theatre with their presence, and wind up with an elaborate supper, when toasts were honoured with it "three times three" The gay dames and gallants have long slept quietly in their far-scattered tombs, but the memory of their bright passing to and fro lingers in the country-side, where the simple village folk, as they gazed after them across the level expanse of their rice-fields, threaded their own exclamations of pleasure at the sight on the melody of a song, which may yet be heard when, in the quiet evening hour, mothers croon their babes to rest:—
"Dekho meri jan!
Kampani nishan!
Bibi gia Dum Dumma
Oora hai nishan.
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