CHAPTER IV - CALCUTTA

Summary

In passing Cossipoor on my return to Tittyghur, I called on Mr. C. Shakespear, and looked at his rope-bridges, which are likely to be most useful, in this country at least, if not in Europe. Their principle differs from that of chain-bridges, in the centre being a little elevated, and in their needing no abutments. It is in fact an application of a ship's standing rigging to a new purpose, and it is not even necessary that there should be any foundation at all, as the whole may be made to rest on flat timbers, and, with the complete apparatus of cordage, iron, and bamboos, may be taken to pieces and set up again in a few hours, and removed from place to place by the aid of a few camels and elephants. One of these over a torrent near Benares, of 160 feet span, stood a severe test during last year's inundation, when, if ever, the cordage might have been expected to suffer from the rain, and when a vast crowd of neighbouring villagers took refuge on it as the only safe place in the neighbourhood, and indeed almost the only object which continued to hold itself above the water. He has now finished another bridge for the Caramnasa, at the expense of Ramchunder Narain, whom I met at the Durbar, and who may expect to reap much popularity with his countrymen from such a public benefit, not only as facilitating intercourse, but as freeing their religious pilgrims from a great anxiety.