Sketches of social life in India

The author offers a series of descriptive sketches of social life in the lower provinces of Bengal, portraying the British administrative elite and the growing non-official European community, their residences, seasonal migration to hill stations, and ceremonial society; he contrasts older figures associated with ostentatious wealth with more recent colonial habits, traces how railways and telegraph have reshaped travel, commerce, and pilgrimage, and outlines the workings and social place of the Bengal civil service alongside observations on indigenous customs, urban life, and the changing interactions between European residents and native society.