undertake the geological class, in addition to his
own. The gentleman pleaded his utter
ignorance of geology, but was assured that
his non-acquaintance with the science did not
in the least disqualify him in the eyes of the
department: he could very easily cram, and
read lectures from books, of which there
were plenty in the library. All this
accounts for the immense proficiency attained
by the pupils who go to school in the City of
Palaces.

The General Post-Office, the Post-Office
for all Eastern, Central and Northern India
—with branch offices two thousand miles
distant, at the foot of the snowy Himalayas,
in the remotest corner of cold Assam, on
the borders of Cabal, next door to the Vale
of Cashmere, round the corner of the Bay
of Bengal, amidst the golden pagodas of
Burmah,—is, indeed, a remarkable establishment:
an institution worthy of our closest
attention! There it stands, opposite to
Metcalf Hall, close to the muddy banks of
the Hooghly. Round the old rickety pair
of gates, are a number of Indo-Hibernian
jaunting-cars, very dirty, very old, and very
crowded with dirty old Arabs, or Hindoos,
or Assamese. It is not easy to tell who
they are, bedecked with shabby many-
coloured robes of green, blue, red, and
yellow. These are the Calcutta local postmen.
Within the neglected gates you
gaze about the narrow crowded court-yard
searching for the Lahore Mail, or the Express
for the Himalayas. Is it a light camel-cart,
an elephant-coach, or a buffalo spring-
wagon? Nothing of the kind is to be seen
within these queer pent-up premises. You
perceive nothing but a crowd of dirty carts,
some light and very weak vans, and no end
of broken tin cases and wooden boxes,
scattered about in all directions.

Along one side and end of the yard are
a series of disjointed tiled buildings; low
decent-looking sheds with small doors and
wooden-barred windows. No two of them
are alike. They appear to have been built
by masons of a multiplicity of tastes; and,
were it not for a number of apertures for
Letters stamped and unstamped, and
Newspapers for Europe in various odd corners of
the yard under small verandahs and
behind dwarf-windows, no one could for a
moment imagine that any postal transactions
were carried on within the premises. In
one small, dark room a Bengalee clerk is
busily occupied at a rickety table. The floor
is scattered in every part with parcels
enveloped in yellow wax-cloth; and, amongst
them seated on their haunches, are a brace of
half-clad coolies, melting, on the parcels,
numberless small lumps of dirty sealing-wax—
very leisurely, as though the post was not
going out before the week after next. This
is the despatching room. Within the unlettered
grasp of those two coolies, is placed
the correspondence of Europe, Africa, and
America, with the north-west of India and
the Punjaub. You inquire of the Hindoo
scribe at the small table, where the Overland
Letter-box is? He has grown grey in postal
duties, yet pleads utter ignorance of any
such receptacle. He does not even know what
office is next to his own small, dark room: so
small is his own dark intellect. All he knows,
is, that the largest bundle of yellow,
buttoned over with lumps of wax, is for Agra;
that the long thin parcel is for Lucknow;
and that the Punjaub claims the three dumpy
packets.

In a little narrow verandah, before a series
of barred apertures, sits a turbaned youth at
a desk, retailing postage-stamps, from the
value of three farthings to one shilling. In
no part of the world are letters conveyed
more cheaply than in British India. A half-
anna, or three farthing postage-stamp, will
frank a letter of the proper weight, from the
northernmost post-office in the Punjaub to
the most southern village of Cape Comorin.
How many hundreds of miles such an epistle
would have to travel, the reader may soon
satisfy himself by reference to a map of Asia.
And, over all this distance, from north to south,
the despatches, letters, chits, hoondies, and
other documents making up an Indian letter-
bag, or "dauk-parcel," are conveyed, not by
fleet horses, or camels, not in coaches, mail-
carts, or vans. The yellow, wax-cloth
bundles, in the rainy season smeared all over
with resinous matter, are slung at the opposite
ends of a bamboo or other elastic stick,
and are so carried across the shoulders by
the Dauk-runners, or letter-carriers, who
travel at an easy run for seven or eight
miles, when they pass the load to the next
Runner in waiting for it. In this way the
dauk-coolies convey the Indian correspondence
across lofty mountains, sandy plains,
fierce rivers, deep ravines, and dense jungles
and swamps; by day and by night, in fair
weather or foul. The Dauk never rests; yet
it rarely has happened that any losses have
occurred.

Our Calcutta Post-Office comprises one or
two long low offices in which the accounts
are kept and the correspondence is carried
on. These offices form a strange collection
of little square courts with a few
shrubs and a little grass growing in them,
each surrounded by its own particular dusty
verandahs, heaped up with wooden boxes,
old chairs, cart-axles, wagon wheels, and,
in short, anything belonging to a broker's
shop or a furniture store. In one room, a
knot of Bengalees are squatting on the ground,
groping amidst a few thousands of "dead
letters," without any perceptible object in
view. In a cool secluded room, at the
dusky extremity of the broker's verandah,
there is a group of Dauk officials listlessly
watching the opening of a packet just in
from the north-west. The portly Baboo
at their head, with his eyes half-closed,