From Egypt to Japan Part 6

So in later ages holy men who wished to shun the temptations of cities, that they might lead lives of meditation and prayer, fled to the desert, that they might forget the world and live for G.o.d alone.

This was one of the favorite retreats of Monasticism in the early Christian centuries. The tombs of the Thebad were filled with monks.

Convents were built on the cliffs of Mount Sinai that remain to this day.

We do not feel the need of such seclusion and separation from the world, but this pa.s.sing over the desert sets the mind at work and supplies a theme for religious meditation. Is not life a desert, where, as on the sea, all paths are lost, and the traveller can only keep his course by observations on the stars? And are we not all pilgrims? Do we not all belong to that slow moving caravan, that marches steadily across the waste and disappears in the horizon? Can we not help some poor wanderer who may be lonely and friendless, or who may have faltered by the way; or guide another, if it be only to go before him, and leave our footprints in the sands, that

"A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing may take heart again?"

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE RED SEA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN.

Suez lies between the desert and the sea, and is the point of departure both for ships and caravans. But the great ca.n.a.l to which it gives its name, has not returned the favor by giving it prosperity.

Indeed the country through which it pa.s.ses derives little benefit from its construction. Before it was opened, Egypt was on the overland route to India, from which it derived a large revenue. All pa.s.sengers had to disembark at Alexandria and cross by railroad to Suez; while freight had to be unshipped at the one city and reshipped at the other, and thus pay tribute to both. Now ships pa.s.s directly from the Mediterranean into the ca.n.a.l, and from the ca.n.a.l into the Red Sea, so that the Englishman who embarks at Southampton, need not set his foot on the soil of Egypt. Thus it is not Egypt but England that profits by the opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l; while Egypt really suffers by the completion of a work which is of immense benefit to the commerce of the world.

Though the Suez Ca.n.a.l is an achievement of modern times, yet the idea is not modern, nor indeed the first execution. It was projected from almost the earliest period of history, and was begun under the Pharaohs, and was at one time completed, though not, as now, solely for the pa.s.sage of ships, but also as a defence, a gigantic moat, which might serve as a barrier against invasions from Asia.

There is nothing in Suez to detain a traveller, and with the morning we were sailing out in one of the native boats, before a light wind, to the great ship lying in the harbor, which was to take us to India.

We had, indeed, a foretaste, or rather fore_sight_, of what we were soon to look upon in the farthest East, as we saw some huge elephants moving along the quay; but these were not familiar inhabitants, but had just been disembarked from a ship arrived only the day before from Bombay--a present from the Viceroy of India to the Viceroy of Egypt.

Once on board ship I was as in mine own country, for now, for the first time in many months, did I hear constantly the English language.

We had been so long in Europe, and heard French, German, Italian, Greek and Turkish; and Arabic in Egypt; that at first I started to hear my own mother tongue. I could not at once get accustomed to it, but called to the waiter "garcon," and was much surprised that he answered in English. But it was very pleasant to come back to the speech of my childhood. Henceforth English will carry me around the globe. It is the language of the sea, and of "the ends of the earth;"

and it seems almost as if the good time were coming when the whole earth should be of one language and of one speech.

And now we are on the Red Sea, one of the historical seas of the world. Not far below the town of Suez is supposed to be the spot where the Israelites were hemmed in between the mountains and the sea; where Moses bade the waves divide, and the fleeing host rushed in between the uplifted walls, feeling that, if they perished, the waters were more merciful than their oppressors; while behind them came the chariots of their pursuers.

It was long before we lost sight of Egypt. On our right was the Egyptian coast, still in view, though growing dimmer on the horizon; and as we sat on deck at evening the gorgeous sunsets flamed over those sh.o.r.es, as they did on the Nile, as if reluctant to leave the scene of so much glory.

On the other side of the sea stretched the Peninsula of Sinai, with its range of rugged mountains, among which the eye sought the awful summit from which G.o.d gave the law.

This eastern side of the Red Sea has been the birthplace of religions.

Half way down the coast is Jhidda, the port of Mecca. Thus Islam was born not far from the birthplace of Judaism, of which in many features it is a close imitation.

I have asked many times, What gave the name to the Red Sea? Certainly it is not the color of the water, which is blue as the sea anywhere.

It is said that there is a phosph.o.r.escent glow, given by a marine insect, which at night causes the waters to sparkle with a faint red light. Others say it is from the sh.o.r.es, which being the borders of the desert, have its general sandy red, or yellow, appearance. I remember years ago, when sailing along the southern coast of Wales, a gentleman, pointing to some red-banked hills, said they reminded him of the sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea.

But whether they have given it its name or not, these surrounding deserts have undoubtedly given it its extreme heat, from which it has become famous as "the hottest place in the world." The wind blowing off from these burning sands, scorches like a sirocco; nor is the heat much tempered by the coolness of the sea--for indeed the water itself becomes heated to such a degree as to be a serious impediment to the rapid condensation of steam.

We began to feel the heat immediately after leaving Suez. The very next day officers of the ship appeared in white linen pantaloons, which seemed to me a little out of season; but I soon found that they were wiser than I, especially as the heat increased from day to day as we got more into the tropics. Then, to confess the truth, they sometimes appeared on deck in the early morning in the most neglige attire. At first I was a little shocked to see, not only officers of the ship, but officers of the army, of high rank, coming on deck after their baths barefoot; but I soon came to understand how they should be eager, when they were almost burning with fever, to be relieved of even the slightest addition to weight or warmth. In the cabin, _punkas_, long screens, were hung over the tables, and kept swinging all day long. The deck was hung with double awnings to keep off the sun; and here the "old Indians" who had made this voyage before, and knew how to take their comfort in the hot climate, were generally stretched out in their reclining bamboo-chairs, with a cigar in one hand and a novel in the other.

The common work of the ship was done by Lascars, from India, as they can stand the heat much better than English sailors. They are docile and obedient, and under the training of English officers make excellent seamen.

But we must not complain, for they tell us our voyage has been a very cool one. The thermometer has never been above 88 degrees, which however, considering that this is _midwinter_, is doing pretty well!

If such be the heat in January, what must it be in July? Then it is fairly blistering; the thermometer rises to 110 and 112 degrees in the shade; men stripped of clothing to barely a garment to cover them, are panting with the heat; driven from the deck, they retreat to the lower part of the ship, to find a place to breathe; sometimes in despair, the captain tells me, they turn the ship about, and steam a few miles in the opposite direction, to get a breath of air; and yet, with all precautions, he adds that it is not an infrequent thing, that pa.s.sengers overpowered sink under a sunstroke or apoplexy.

Such heat would make the voyage to India one of real suffering, and of serious exposure, were it not for the admirable ships in which it can be made. But these of the Peninsular and Oriental company are about as perfect as anything that swims the seas. We were fortunate in hitting upon the largest and best of the fleet, the Peshawur. Accustomed as we have been of late to the smaller steamers on the Mediterranean, she seems of enormous bulk, and is of great strength as well as size; and being intended for hot climates, is constructed especially for coolness and ventilation. The state-rooms are much larger than in most sea-going steamers, and though intended for three persons, as the ship was not crowded (there were berths for 170 pa.s.sengers, while we had but 34, just one-fifth the full complement) we had each a whole state-room to ourselves. There were bath-rooms in ample supply, and we took our baths every morning as regularly as on land.

On the Peshawur, as on all English ships, the order and discipline were admirable. Every man knew his place, and attended to his duty.

Everything was done silently, and yet so regularly that one felt that there was a sharp eye in every corner of the ship; that there was a vigilant watch night and day, and this gave us such a sense of safety, that we lay down and rose up with a feeling of perfect security.

Besides, the officers, from the captain down, not only took good care for the safety of our lives, but did everything for our comfort. They tried to make us feel at home, and were never so well pleased as when they saw us all pleasantly occupied; some enjoying games, and others listening to music, when some amateur was playing on the piano, at times accompanied by a dozen manly and womanly voices. Music at sea helps greatly to beguile the tedium of a voyage. Often the piano was brought on deck, at which an extemporized choir practised the hymns for public service; among which there was one that always recurred, and that none can forget:

"Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bid'st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep: Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea."

And when the Sunday morning came and the same prayers were read which they had been accustomed to hear in England, many who listened felt that, whatever oceans they might cross, here was a tie that bound them to their island home, and to the religion of their fathers.

On the morning of the sixth day we pa.s.sed the island of Perim, which guards the Gates of the Red Sea, and during the day pa.s.sed many islands, and were in full sight of the Arabian coast, and at the evening touched at Aden. Here the heat reaches the superlative. In going down the Red Sea, one may use all degrees of comparison--hot, hotter, hottest--and the last is Aden. It is a barren point of rock and sand, within twelve degrees of the Equator, and the town is actually in the crater of an extinct volcano, into which the sun beats down with the heat of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. But the British Government holds it, as it commands the entrance to the Red Sea, and has fortified it, and keeps a garrison here. However it mercifully sends few English soldiers to such a spot, but supplies the place chiefly with native regiments from India. All the officers hold the place in horror, counting it a very purgatory, from which it is Paradise to be transferred to India.

But from this point the great oppression of the heat ceased. Rounding this rock of Aden, we no longer bore southward (which would have taken us along the Eastern coast of Africa, to the island of Zanzibar, the point of departure for Livingstone to explore the interior, and of Stanley to find him), but turned to the East, and soon met the Northeast monsoon, which, blowing in our faces, kept us comparatively cool all the way across the Indian Ocean.

And now our thoughts began to be busy with the strange land which we were soon to see, a land to which most of those on board belonged, and of which they were always ready to converse. Strangers to each other, we soon became acquainted, and exchanged our experiences of travel.

Beside me at the table sat a barrister from Bombay, and next to him three merchants of that city, who, leaving their families in England, were returning to pursue their fortunes in India. One had been a member of the Governor's Council, and all were familiar with the politics and the business of that great Empire. There was also a missionary of the Free Church of Scotland, who, after ten years'

service, had been allowed a year and a half to recruit in the mother country, and was now returning to his field of labor in Bombay, with whom I had many long talks about the religions of India and the prospects of missions. There was a fine old gentleman who had made his fortune in Australia, to which he was returning with his family after a visit to England.

The military element, of course, was very prominent. A large proportion of the pa.s.sengers were connected in some way with the army, officers returning to their regiments, or officers' wives returning to their husbands. Of course those who live long in India, have many experiences to relate; and it was somewhat exciting to hear one describe the particulars of a tiger hunt--how the game of all kind was driven in from a circuit of miles around by beaters, and by elephants trained for the work; how the deer and lesser animals fled frightened by, while the hunter, bent on royal game, disdained such feeble prey, and every man reserved his fire, sitting in his howdah on the back of an elephant till at last a magnificent Bengal tiger sprang into view, and as the b.a.l.l.s rained on his sides, with a tremendous bound he fell at the feet of the hunters; or to hear a Major who had been in India during the Mutiny, describe the blowing away of the Sepoys from the mouths of cannon; with what fierce pride, like Indian warriors at the stake, they shrank not from the trial, but even when not bound, stood unmoved before the guns, till they were blown to pieces, their legs and arms and mangled b.r.e.a.s.t.s scattered wide over the field.

There was a surgeon in the Bengal Staff Corps, Dr. Bellew, who had travelled extensively in the interior of Asia, attached to several missions of the Government, and had published a volume, ent.i.tled "From the Indus to the Tigris." He gave me some of his experiences in Afghanistan, among the men of Cabul, and in Persia. Three years since he was attached to the mission of Sir Douglas Forsyth to Kashgar and Yarkund. This was a secret emba.s.sy of the government to Yakoob Beg, the Tartar chief, who by his courage as a soldier had established his power in those distant regions of Central Asia. In carrying out this mission, the party crossed the Himalayas at a height far greater than the top of Mont Blanc. Our fellow traveller gave us some fearful pictures of the desolation of those snowy wastes, as well as some entertaining ones of the strange manners of some parts of High Asia.

He pa.s.sed through Little Thibet, where prevails the singular custom of polyandry--instead of one man having many wives, one woman may have many husbands, although they cannot be of different families. She can marry half a dozen brothers at once, but must not extend her household into another family. He was now bound for Nepaul, under the shadow of the Himalayas, being ordered to report at once to the Maharajah, who is preparing to receive the Prince of Wales, and to entertain him with the grandest tiger hunt ever known in India.

With such variety of company, and such talk to enliven the hours, as we sat on deck at twilight, or by moonlight--for we had the full moon on the Indian Ocean--the days did not seem long, and we were almost taken by surprise as we approached the end of our voyage.

On the afternoon of the twelfth day from Suez we were nearing our destined port, and eyes and gla.s.ses were turned in that direction; but it was not till the sun was setting that his light shone full on the Ghauts, the range of mountains that line the western coast of India--steps, as their name implies, to the high table-land of the interior. Presently as the darkness deepened, the revolving light of the lighthouse shot across the deep; signal guns from the city announced the arrival of the mail from England; rows of lamps shining for miles round the bay lighted up the waters and the encircling sh.o.r.e; and, there was India!

CHAPTER X.

BOMBAY--FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF INDIA.

Never did travellers open their eyes with more of wonder and curiosity than we, as we awoke the next morning and went on deck and turned to the unaccustomed sh.o.r.e. The sun had risen over the Ghauts, and now cast his light on the islands, covered with cocoanut palms, and on the forest of shipping that lay on the tranquil waters. Here were ships from all parts of the world, not only from the Mediterranean and from England, but from every part of Asia and Africa, and from Australia. A few weeks before had been witnessed here a brilliant sight at the landing of the Prince of Wales. A long arched way of trellis work, still hung with faded wreaths, marked the spot where the future Emperor of India first set foot upon its soil. Our ship, which had anch.o.r.ed off the mouth of the harbor, now steamed up to her moorings, a tug took us off to the Mazagon Bunder, the landing place of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, where we mounted a long flight of granite steps to the quay--and were in India.

Pa.s.sing through the Custom House gates, we were greeted not by the donkey-boys of Egypt, but by a crowd of barefooted and barelegged Hindoos, clad in snowy white, and with mountainous turbans on their heads, who were ambitious of the honor of driving us into the city.

The native carriage (or _gharri_, as it is called) is not a handsome equipage. It is a mere box, oblong in shape, set on wheels, having latticed windows like a palanquin, to admit the air and shut out the sun. Mounting into such a "State carriage," our solemn Hindoo gave rein to his steed, and we trotted off into Bombay. As our destination was Watson's Hotel, in the English quarter at the extreme end of the city, we traversed almost its whole extent. The streets seemed endless. On and on we rode for miles, till we were able to realize that we were in the second city in the British empire--larger than any in Great Britain except London--larger than Liverpool or Glasgow, or Manchester or Birmingham.

Of course the population is chiefly native, and this it is which excites my constant wonder. As I ride about I ask myself, Am I on the earth, or in the moon? Surely this must be some other planet than the one that I have known before. I see men as trees walking, but they are not of any familiar form or speech. Perhaps it is because we are on the other side of the world, and everything is turned topsy-turvy, and men are walking on their heads. We may have to adopt the Darwinian theory of the origin of man; for these seem to be of another species, to belong to another department of the animal kingdom. That old Hindoo that I see yonder, sitting against the wall, with his legs curled up under him, seems more like a chimpanzee than a man. He has a way of sitting on his _heels_ (a posture which would be impossible for a European, but which he will keep for hours), which is more like an animal than a human creature.

Truly we have never been in such a state of bewilderment since we began our travels, as since we landed in Bombay. Constantinople seemed strange, and Egypt stranger still; but India is strangest of all. The streets are swarming with life, as a hive swarms with bees. The bazaars are like so many ant-hills, but the creatures that go in and out are not like any race that we have seen before. They are not white like Europeans, nor black like Africans, nor red like our American Indians; but are pure Asiatics, of a dark-brown color, the effect of which is the greater, as they are generally clad in the garments which nature gives them. The laboring cla.s.s go half naked, or more than half. It is only the house-servants that wear anything that can be called a costume. The coolies, or common laborers, have only a strip of cloth around their loins, which they wear for decency, for in this climate they scarcely need any garment for warmth. One thing which is never omitted is the turban, or in its place a thick blanket, to shield the head from the direct rays of the sun. But there is nothing to hide the swarthy breast or limbs. Those of a better condition, who do put on clothing, show the Oriental fondness for gorgeous apparel by having the richest silk turbans and flowing robes. The women find a way to show their feminine vanity, being tricked out in many colors, dark red, crimson and scarlet, with yellow and orange and green and blue--the mingling of which produces a strange effect as one rides through the bazaars and crowded streets, which gleam with all the colors of the rainbow. The effect of this tawdry finery is heightened by the gewgaws which depend from different parts of their persons.

Earrings are not sufficiently conspicuous for a Hindoo damsel, who has a ring of gold and pearl hung in her nose; which is considered a great addition to female beauty. Heavy bracelets of silver also adorn her wrists and ankles. Almost every woman who shows herself in the street, though of the lowest condition, and barefoot, still gratifies her pride by huge silver anklets clasping her naked feet.

But these Asiatic faces, strange as they are, would not be unattractive but for artificial disfigurements--if men did not chew the betel nut, which turns the lips to a brilliant red, and did not have their foreheads striped with coa.r.s.e pigments, which are the badges of their different castes!

Imagine a whole city crowded with dark skinned men and women thus dressed--or not dressed--half naked on the one hand, or bedizened like harlequins on the other, walking about, or perchance riding in little carriages _drawn by oxen_--a small breed that trot off almost as fast as the donkeys we had in Cairo--and one may have some idea of the picturesque appearance of the streets of Bombay.