ordered to die at his post, and inflexibly
determined to do so.

Sleep— hot and exhaustive— has set its
seal upon the major part of the City of
Palaces. It might be midnight, with the sun
shining down upon the hushed streets instead
of the moon, so still is everything. Timbuctoo
dozes in the Presidency and Engineering
Colleges. Cairo sleeps soundly in the Bazaar and
the Baboo's court-yard. Paris and Timbuctoo
slumber heavily in the darkened rooms,
and shaded vestibules of Park Street and
Theatre Road. From the Member of Council
on his downy couch, to the swarthy Syce
in the stable; from the pallid mother and her
infant shut in from the light of day, to the
stalwart Durwahu at the gate; all are
buried in mid-day sleep. The unfinished
letter on the table, the toys upon the floor,
the open novel on the couch, the empty
claret case, the neglected barrel near the
Durwahu's lodge—whereon those spruce
guardians of the spot are wont for ten hours
in the twelve to trim their sable whiskers,
and twirl their gaunt moustaches—these
and other things tell how completely the
temperature of noonday in the hot season
of Calcutta overpowers the faculties of
mankind.

You are still gazing upon the closed
windows, the shaded doors, and wondering how
a fly or a ray of daylight could steal into one
of those heat-barricaded mansions, when you
hear a rumbling noise in the distance,
proceeding from the north-west. It may be
thunder; it may be a salute of heavy artillery;
it may be the explosion of some
powder-magazine, or steam-boiler; for, being
a Griffin, you know nothing of Nor'-westers
during the hot season, nothing of their fury
and their destructiveness. Whilst you are
turning the cause over and over in your
mind, and in less time than I can describe
it, the sky becomes overcast, the distant
rumbling noise approaches, and sounds rush
down upon you like a thousand wagons
booming and clattering over an iron bridge.
The whirlwind is upon you: you stagger
against a wall or cling for safety to an iron
railing, and find yourself shrouded in a vast
winding-sheet of brick-red dust. The dust-
cloud rises like a mighty sea surging over
breakers; it covers and hides everything.
Looking across the Midaun, from the corner
of Chowringhee, you see nothing of the
cathedral, save the small cross on its topmost
pinnacle, looking like a stone star amidst
the blood-red cloud and the clear sky above.
The Governor-General's palace is also
enveloped in one mighty rolling dust-storm
which has swallowed all its grandeur and its
beauty save the round dome on its summit;
which is still visible like a little globe floating
on a sea of tempest. The bold adjutant
struggles with flapping wings and out-
stretched neck, to keep his footing against
the raging whirlwind; but in vain. The
wagons dash on over the iron bridge more
madly than ever; the sky assumes an inky
darkness; the dust-storm is victor over
everything in its way; the daring bird struggling
and screaming is swept from his post,
and the red cloud of dust-waves roll higher
and wilder. Lofty trees groan and give up
the ghost, measuring their tall lengths on
field and road. Verandahs are peeled away
from noble mansions, as the sail is split
and torn from the yard. Huts are caught
up, shot high in the air, and deposited in
tanks, in gardens, in glass-houses, and aboard
ships. Houses are unroofed with the ease
and completeness that a thirsty negro peels
an orange. Cattle are jostled and swept
off their legs into the Hooghly. Ships are
torn from their moorings, whirled round like
humming-tops and swept away. Fleets of
country trading-boats are crushed, jammed,
splintered, and rendered helpless; and such
of them as do not sink at the moment are
huddled into ruined masses, and thus driven,
spinning and whirling, in mad imitation of
their bigger brethren far down the foaming
river, only to find destruction amidst the
myriad ships groaning at their anchors, or
drifting out towards the sea.

Let us step in and see what is doing
at one or two of the City of Palaces
colleges. These national institutions for
spending money under false pretences, are
worth a passing glance; inasmuch as they
are the means of filling several hundreds of
pages of letterpress, annually, in the shape of
Reports on Palatial Education. The halls
and rooms are vast enough; the punkahs
swing lazily enough; the professors—with
one or two exceptions—do little enough; the
classes are select, enough; and truly the cost
is heavy enough, to satisfy the most highly-
gifted of the covenanted. Consequently, these
expensive gardens for cultivating the Great
Sahara tree of knowledge, are eminently
successful—in their way.

It is true there are one or two (certainly
not more) gentlemen of distinguished ability
and character filling the chairs, but the bulk
of the Seated are worthy of the covenanted
head of the department; who, not long
since, maintained that chemistry is a branch
of electricity! The salaries of the
professors and principals range between twelve
hundred pounds and four hundred pounds
per annum; the highest rate securiug the
least amount of labour, namely, four hours
a-week: the average toil for each professor
being eight hours weekly. The ordinary
instruction imparted, is, by means of reading
aloud, and a few questions asked by the
chair upon the subject in hand. Sometimes
one or two sentences may be given the
youths of the class; who write their
construction of them on slips of paper. A
professor of literature was recently desired by
the head of the department who has such
original ideas concerning chemistry, to