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"Calcutta: Past and Present" by Kathleen Blechynden, published in 1905, lays before the reader a vivid picture in lucid style of the colonial Calcutta, then capital of British India, from its initial days at the time of Job Charnock till the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of India. Adorned with rare engravings and photographs, this work was written by a British lady from a somewhat unusual perspective. In the author's own words, "My aim has not been to give any account of the great deeds by which the men of old Calcutta laid the foundations of the British Empire in the East, but rather to try and depict the lives they led, their daily cares and amusements, the wives and daughters who lightened their exile, the houses in which they dwelt, the servants who waited on them, the food they ate, the wines they drank, the scenes amid which they moved, the graves in which they laid their loved ones or sank themselves to rest."

A DAY in August in the height of the rainy season in Bengal. The muddy waters of the Hughly, beaten level by the ceaseless downpour of the rain descending in heavy unbroken rush, heaved sullenly in thick turbid swell, rising higher and ever higher as the strong downward current was met and checked by the force of the rising tide, rushing in from the distant sea. In the great circling whirlpools formed by the opposing forces, the bloated carcases of drowned animals, great branches of trees, or whole trees with a tangled mass of roots, swept round, lashed by the rain and whirling flood into semblance of some living monster, stretching octopus-like arms. Once and again would sweep by a human form, charred from the funeral pyre, borne on the rushing waters of the sacred stream to meet its final dissolution, devoured by the alligators, vultures, crows, and jackals who haunted the river waves and shores in watchful eagerness for their prey.

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CURRENT COLLABORATIONS

The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to WikiProject NARA Recent collaborations: Tenth Anniversary Contest, Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

The current Proofread of the Month is Moralia (Tr. Holland)  (1911) by Plutarch. Recent collaborations: The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1), How to Keep Bees, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work, Report of a Tour through the Bengal Provinces, Poets of John Company, Poems (Seeger), Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906, Panchatantra, Hunger, Fountains Abbey, The Comic English Grammar, The Kiss and its History, Various Forces of Matter

The current Maintenance of the Month task is Work index revision Recent collaborations: Orphans, Proposed policies and guidelines, Author page connection with Wikidata items, Help page improvement, Undated works

NEW TEXTS

The Special 301 Report, Issue 1994 (April 30, 1994)
 by Office of the United States Trade Representative
Bills of Mortality (1908)
 by William Alfred Brend
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade (1788)
 by John Newton (1725-1807)
Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume 7, number 2 (1906)
 by Frederic George Young
The Analyst: a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician (1734)
 by George Berkeley
A Girl of the Limberlost (1909)
 by Gene Stratton-Porter
The Special 301 Report, Issue 1992 (April 29, 1992)
 by Office of the United States Trade Representative

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