on the Bidyádharí, off the rice-mills. These mills were and are still the most conspicuous feature in the landscape. There was also a desolate-looking hotel with a small railway station. This was all the town, with the exception of a few native huts and thatched bungalows. The rest was marsh land. The railway line did not reach to any of the moorings, but goods had to be landed at the ends of the jetties, then carried by coolies to railway waggons at the shore end of the said jetties, then hand-shunted along a tramway to the railway station, where an engine was finally attached to them and took them off to Calcutta, twenty-eight miles off. I understand that lately the India General Steam Navigation Company resorted temporarily to Port Canning for discharging and loading their eastern river ships. The pilotage and port-dues on the Matlá were reported to me as practically one-half of those on the Húglí; the hire of Government moorings and boats, and harbour-master’s charges, being about the same as on the Húglí.
I condense the following narrative of the attempt to form a seat of maritime trade at Port Canning from papers furnished to me by the Bengal Government.
The first step towards creating a town and municipality on the Matlá appears to have been made in 1853, when, in consequence of the deterioration of the navigation of the Húglí, which it was feared at that time was rapidly closing, the Chamber of Commerce addressed Government on the necessity of providing an auxiliary shipping port on the Matlá, and opening communication with Calcutta by means of a railway or canal. Lord Dalhousie’s Government, although not participating in these fears, took the precaution of acquiring the land on the proposed site of the new port, afterwards named Port Canning, and in July 1853, lot No. 54 of the Sundarban Grants was purchased for the sum of £1100 from the grantee; the whole comprising upwards of eight thousand acres, or twenty-five thousand bighás of land, of which about one-seventh was cultivated, the remainder being jungle. About the same time, the adjoining lot having lapsed to Government, a portion, consisting of 650 acres, was reserved for the town. A committee was appointed to survey and report upon the site. Plans for laying out a town were submitted, and a position was fixed upon for the terminus of a railway to connect the new port with Calcutta. This line received the sanction of the Secretary of State in 1858.
In June 1862, Act No. XXVI. of 1850 was extended to the town,
