February 9 Sunday – In Calcutta, Sam went sightseeing. From his notebook:

Drove through native quarter & to Black Hole. Saw them excavating old brick cellars under the old Fort William [NB 36 TS 40].

The supposed site of the Black Hole is marked by an engraved plate. I saw that and better that than nothing. The Black Hole was a prison — a cell is nearer the right word — eighteen feet square, the dimensions of an ordinary bed chamber; and into this place the victorious Nabob of Bengal packed 146 of his English prisoners. There was hardly standing room for them; scarcely a breath of air was to be got; the time was night, the weather sweltering hot. Before the dawn came, the captives were all dead but twenty-three [FE ch LIV 520].