Part 7 - Menoka Tea Estate entry: journey via Calcutta to Rangiya

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SUMMARY:
Entry headed 18th June from Menoka Tea Estate notes heavy monsoon rain in Calcutta, arrival there on the 16th, breakfast at Collins’ chummery, intensive shopping including withdrawing silver rupees, and a hurried departure on the Assam Mail. The party changed trains at Parbatipur and reached Rangiya in rain, where Babu Pradhan met them.

CONTENT:
18th June MENOKA TEA ESTATE. 576' (temp 78°). It was pretty warm all the way in the train until the morning we reached Calcutta. The monsoon broke there on 15th evening, and they had very heavy rain. Cherrapunji I see had 18 inches. We arrived at 6.30 am on 16th, and found that Spencers had sent a lorry to Howrah to cart our kit and selves over to Sealdah. Having booked it on to Rangiya we went off to Collins chummery in Old Ballygunge Rd. He very kindly gave us breakfast and a bath, but we could only stay till shortly after 9.0 as there was lots to be done in the shopping line. We shopped hard all morning and among other things took a box of 2000 rupees in silver from the Bank. At Sealdah we only had ten minutes to spare, and Ramzana was warned of this, but went off and was not back by 1.00 pm when the Assam mail should have started. We held it up a minute or two, and he just managed to get in in time. It was quite decently cool in the train and we reached Parbatipur at 7.45 pm and changed to the metre gauge railway there. We reached Rangiya at 5.30 am, over ½ hour late, to find it raining hard. Babu Pradhan was on the station to meet