Posted on: 13 October 2012

View of Chittagong c.1825, showing the Washing Green. From an album compiled with his brother William.

Watercolour by Thomas Prinsep (1800-1830), of a view of Chittagong, in Bangladesh, dated c.1825. This image, from an album compiled with his brother William, shows the washing green, where cloths were laid out to dry in the sun, and is inscribed in the original sketch book: 'Chittagong looking inland'. Thomas was in charge of the surveying of the Sunderbunds; a large area of fresh and saltwater mangrove swamp in Bengal covering sixty to eighty miles and consisting of flat marshy islands covered with dense forests, inhabited by crocodiles and forming the final retreat of the Bengal Tiger. In 1826, after the outbreak of the First Burmese War, he was sent to Chittagong, formerly in East Bengal.

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RBSI, if you look carefully you will see the ancient three-domed mosque in the foreground. This is Bayazid Bostami Dargah Sharif. Jalalabad Hill (where our Chittagong boys fought the Battle of Jalalabad) is close by. In the distance you see 3 hillocks with buildings at the top and the Karnaphuli river just beyond. One of those buildings (the one to the extreme left) is the Fairy Hill Courthouse (built atop Pari -pahar) where Master-da was tried. To its right in the centre are the residences of the Divisional Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner situated on top of a hill range known as the Tempest Hills. It was popularly called DC Hill by the time our Chittagong boys were growing up. Lonely Planet review for Fairy Hill: Fairy Hill is said to be named for the fairies and genies that were believed to occupy it when the Sufi saint Badar Shah first came to Chittagong. Legend says that he made a number of requests to the fairies before they would allow him to build a place of worship.