Khijri

Khijri (or Khejuri) today is a small village about 65 miles south of Calcutta on the right bank of the Hooghly river at 21° 52' N. and 87° 59' E.

In the first half of the 19th Century it was known as Kedgeree, and was one of the most important post offices in Bengal. The British established their control over the area in 1765 and by 1780 had established a port and factory there. Later in the 18th Century the British established the post office. Vessels sailing to Calcutta from elsewhere would generally stop there to land their mail for onward carriage to Calcutta by land. (Adverse tides or winds might otherwise delay the mail's arrival by vessel.) The postmaster at Kedgeree maintained a small fleet of row boats to meet arriving and departing vessels, collecting mail from the arrivals and sending last minute mails on the departures.

In 1851-52, the British government laid an underwater telegraph cable 2,070 yards long across up the Hooghly at Diamond Harbour, and another, 1,400 yards long, across the Haldi River at Kedgeree.

Unfortunately, on 5 October 1864, a terrible cyclone came ashore directly on Kedgeree. The cyclone destroyed the town and the surrounding area as far as Calcutta. It also killed 60,000 people in the region and destroyed more than 160 vessels as it brought with it a wave of water some 25 to 30 feet above the high-water mark. Khijri never recovered from the devastation. The cyclone was probably the single largest disaster ever to hit British shipping.

The town contains an old English cemetery where Europeans who died on shipboard on the way to Calcutta are buried. Many of the headstones are still legible and the oldest dates from circa 1800.