These mansions are to be recognised by the abundance of ornament, by
gateways surmounted by nondescript monsters, after the fashion of
the lions or bears of carved stone, which are sometimes seen at the
entrance of a nobleman's grounds in England. At others, they are gaily
painted in a variety of colours, while a profusion of many-coloured
lamps, hanging in the verandah and porticoes on the occasion of every
fete, shed great brilliance on the evening scene. These residences are
scattered all over Bombay, the interiors being all richly furnished,
and many fitted up with infinite taste and elegance.
Although, as I have before remarked, these scattered houses impart an
air of rural enjoyment to the island, yet their being spread over
its whole surface prevents Bombay from appearing to be so important a
place as it is in reality. There is nothing approaching to the idea
of a city to be seen, nothing solid or substantial to indicate
the presence of wealth or of extensive commerce. Calcutta, on the
contrary, offers to the stranger's eye an aspect so striking and
imposing, brings so strongly to the mind the notion that its merchants
are princes, and that it ranks crowned heads amongst its vassals and
its tributaries, that we see at once that it must be the seat of a
powerful and permanently established government.
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