Observations on the Mussulmauns of India Part 31

Fortunately the tempest is not of very long continuance. I have never known it to last more than half an hour; yet in that time how much might have been destroyed of life and property, but for the interposing care of Divine mercy, whose gracious Providence over the works of His hand is seen in such seasons as these! The sound of thunder is hailed as a messenger of peace; the Natives are then aware that the fury of the tempest is spent, as a few drops of rain indicate a speedy termination; and when it has subsided they run to see what damage has been done to the premises without.

It often occurs, that trees are torn up by their roots, the thatched houses and huts unroofed, and, if due care has not been taken to quench the fires in time, huts and bungalows are frequently found burnt, by the sparks conveyed in the dense clouds of sand which pa.s.s with the rapidity of lightning.

These tufauns occur generally in April, May, and June, before the commencement of the periodical rains. I shall never forget the awe I felt upon witnessing the first after my arrival, nor the grat.i.tude which filled my heart when the light reappeared. The Natives on such occasions gave me a bright example: they ceased not in the hour of peril to call on G.o.d for safety and protection; and when refreshed by the return of calm, they forgot not that their helper was the merciful Being in whom they had trusted, and to whom they gave praise and thanksgiving.

The rainy season is at first hailed with a delight not easily to be explained. The long continuance of the hot winds,--during which period (three months or more) the sky is of the colour of copper, without the shadow of a cloud to shield the earth from the fiery heat of the sun, which has, in that time, scorched the earth and its inhabitants, stunted vegetation, and even affected the very houses--renders the season when the clouds pour out their welcome moisture a period which is looked forward to with anxiety, and received with universal joy.

The smell of the earth after the first shower is more dearly loved than the finest aromatics or the purest otta. Vegetation revives and human nature exults in the favourable shower. As long as the novelty lasts, and the benefit is sensibly felt, all seem to rejoice; but when the intervals of clouds without rain occur, and send forth, as they separate, the bright glare untempered by a pa.s.sing breeze, poor weak human nature is too apt to revolt against the season they cannot control, and sometimes a murmuring voice is heard to cry out, 'Oh, when will the rainy season end!'

The thunder and lightning during the rainy season are beyond my ability to describe. The loud peals of thunder roll for several minutes in succession, magnificently, awfully grand. The lightning is proportionably vivid, yet with fewer instances of conveying the electric fluid to houses than might be expected when the combustible nature of the roofs is considered; the chief of which are thatched with coa.r.s.e dry gra.s.s. The casualties are by no means frequent; and although trees surround most of the dwellings, yet we seldom hear of any injury by lightning befalling them or their habitations. Fiery meteors frequently fall; one within my recollection was a superb phenomenon, and was visible for several seconds.

The shocks from earthquakes are frequently felt in the Upper Provinces of India;[11] I was sensible of the motion on one occasion (rather a severe one), for at least twenty seconds. The effect on me, however, was attended with no inconvenience beyond a sensation of giddiness, as if on board ship in a calm, when the vessel rolls from side to side.

At Kannoge, now little more than a village in population, between Cawnpore and Futtyghur, I have rambled amongst the ruins of what formerly was an immense city, but which was overturned by an earthquake some centuries past. At the present period numerous relics of antiquity, as coins, jewels, &c., are occasionally discovered, particularly after the rains, when the torrents break down fragments of the ruins, and carry with the streams of water the long-buried mementos of the riches of former generations to the profit of the researching villagers, and to the gratification of curious travellers, who generally prove willing purchasers.[12]

I propose giving in another letter the remarks I was led to make on Kannoge during my pleasant sojourn in that retired situation, as it possesses many singular antiquities and contains the ashes of many holy Mussulmaun saints. The Mussulmauns, I may here observe, reverence the memory of the good and the pious of all persuasions, but more particularly those of their own faith. I have sketches of the lives and actions of many of their sainted characters, received through the medium of my husband and his most amiable father, that are both amusing and instructive; and notwithstanding their particular faith be not in accordance with our own, it is only an act of justice to admit, that they were men who lived in the fear of G.o.d, and obeyed his commandments according to the instruction they had received; and which, I hope, may prove agreeable to my readers when they come to those pages I have set apart for such articles.

My catalogue of the trying circ.u.mstances attached to the comforts which are to be met with in India are nearly brought to a close; but I must not omit mentioning one 'blessing in disguise' which occurs annually, and which affects Natives and Europeans indiscriminately, during the hot winds and the rainy season: the name of this common visitor is, by Europeans, called 'the p.r.i.c.kly heat'; by Natives it is denominated 'Gurhum dahnie'[13]

(warm rash). It is a painful irritating rash, often spreading over the whole body, mostly prevailing, however, wherever the clothes screen the body from the power of the air; we rarely find it on the hands or face. I suppose it to be induced by excessive perspiration, more particularly as those persons who are deficient in this freedom of the pores, so essential to healthiness, are not liable to be distressed by the rash; but then they suffer more severely in their const.i.tution by many other painful attacks of fever, &c. So greatly is this rash esteemed the harbinger of good health, that they say in India, 'the person so afflicted has received his life-lease for the year'; and wherever it does not make its appearance, a sort of apprehension is entertained of some latent illness.

Children suffer exceedingly from the irritation, which to scratch is dangerous. In Native nurseries I have seen applications used of pounded sandal-wood, camphor, and rose-water; with the peasantry a cooling earth, called mooltanie mittee,[14] similar to our fuller's-earth, is moistened with water and plastered over the back and stomach, or wherever the rash mostly prevails; all this is but a temporary relief, for as soon as it is dry, the irritation and burning are as bad as ever.

The best remedy I have met with, beyond patient endurance of the evil, is bathing in rain-water, which soothes the violent sensations, and eventually cools the body. Those people who indulge most in the good things of this life are the greatest sufferers by this annual attack. The benefits attending temperance are sure to bring an ample reward to the possessors of that virtue under all circ.u.mstances, but in India more particularly; I have invariably observed the most abstemious people are the least subject to attacks from the prevailing complaints of the country, whether fever or cholera, and when attacked the most likely subjects to recover from those alarming disorders.

At this moment of anxious solicitude throughout Europe, when that awful malady, the cholera, is spreading from city to city with rapid strides, the observations I have been enabled to make by personal acquaintance with afflicted subjects in India, may be acceptable to my readers; although I heartily pray our Heavenly Father may in His goodness and mercy preserve our country from that awful calamity, which has been so generally fatal in other parts of the world.

The Natives of India designate cholera by the word 'Hyza', which with them signifies 'the plague'. By this term, however, they do not mean that direful disorder so well known to us by the same appellation; as, if I except the Mussulmaun pilgrims, who have seen, felt, and described its ravages on their journey to Mecca, that complaint seems to be unknown to the present race of Native inhabitants of Hindoostaun. The word 'hyza', or 'plague', would be applied by them to all complaints of an epidemic or contagious nature by which the population were suddenly attacked, and death ensued. When the cholera first appeared in India (which I believe was in 1817), it was considered by the Natives a new complaint.[15]

In all cases of irritation of the stomach, disordered bowels, or severe feverish symptoms, the Mussulmaun doctors strongly urge the adoption of 'starving out the complaint'. This has become a law of Nature with all the sensible part of the community; and when the cholera first made its appearance in the Upper Provinces of Hindoostaun, those Natives who observed their prescribed temperance were, when attacked, most generally preserved from the fatal consequences of the disorder.

On the very first symptom of cholera occurring in a member of a Mussulmaun family, a small portion of zahur morah[16] (derived from zahur, poison; morah, to kill or destroy, and thence understood as an antidote to poison, some specimens of which I have brought with me to England) moistened with rosewater, is promptly administered, and, if necessary, repeated at short intervals; due care being taken to prevent the patient from receiving anything into the stomach, excepting rosewater, the older the more efficacious in its property to remove the malady. Wherever zahur morah was not available, secun-gebeen[17] (syrup of vinegar) was administered with much the same effect. The person once attacked, although the symptoms should have subsided by this application, is rigidly deprived of nourishment for two or three days, and even longer if deemed expedient; occasionally allowing only a small quant.i.ty of rose-water, which they say effectually removes from the stomach and bowels those corrupt adhesions which, in their opinion, is the primary cause of the complaint.

The cholera, I observed, seldom attacked abstemious people; when, however, this was the case, it generally followed a full meal; whether of rice or bread made but little difference, much I believe depending on the general habit of the subject; as among the peasantry and their superiors the complaint raged with equal malignity, wherever a second meal was resorted to whilst the person had reason to believe the former one had not been well digested. An instance of this occurred under my own immediate observation in a woman, the wife of an old and favourite servant. She had imprudently eaten a second dinner, before her stomach, by her own account, had digested the preceding meal. She was not a strong woman, but in tolerable good health; and but a few hours previous to the attack I saw her in excellent spirits, without the most remote appearance of indisposition. The usual applications failed of success, and she died in a few hours. This poor woman never could be persuaded to abstain from food at the stated period of meals; and the Natives were disposed to conclude that this had been the actual cause of her sufferings and dissolution.

In 1821 the cholera raged with even greater violence than on its first appearance in Hindoostaun; by that time many remedies had been suggested, through the medium of the press, by the philanthropy and skill of European medical pract.i.tioners, the chief of whom recommended calomel in large doses, from twenty to thirty grains, and opium proportioned to the age and strength of the patient. I never found the Natives, however, willing to accept this as a remedy, but I have heard that amongst Europeans it was practised with success. From a paragraph which I read in the Bengal papers, I prepared a mixture that I have reason to think, through the goodness of Divine Providence, was beneficial to many poor people who applied for it in the early stages of the complaint, and who followed the rule laid down of complete abstinence, until they were out of danger from a relapse, and even then for a long time to be cautious in the quant.i.ty and digestible quality of their daily meal. The mixture was as follows:

Brandy, one pint; oil or spirit of peppermint, if the former half an ounce--if the latter, one ounce; ground black pepper, two ounces; yellow rind of oranges grated, without any of the white, one ounce; these were kept closely stopped and occasionally shook, a table-spoonful administered for each dose, the patient well covered up from the air, and warmth created by blankets or any other means within their power, repeating the close as the case required.

Of the many individuals who were attacked with this severe malady in our house very few died, and those, it was believed, were victims to an imprudent determination to partake of food before they were convalescent,--individuals who never could be prevailed on to practise abstemious habits, which we had good reason for believing was the best preventive against the complaint during those sickly seasons. The general opinion entertained both by Natives and Europeans, at those awful periods, was, that the cholera was conveyed in the air; very few imagined that it was infectious, as it frequently attacked some members of a family and the rest escaped, although in close attendance--even such as failed not to pay the last duties to the deceased according to Mussulmaun custom, which exposed them more immediately to danger if infection existed;--yet no fears were ever entertained, nor did I ever hear an opinion expressed amongst them, that it had been or could be conveyed from one person to another.

Native children generally escaped the attack, and I never heard of an infant being in the slightest degree visited by this malady. It is, however, expedient, to use such precautionary measures as sound sense and reason may suggest, since wherever the cholera has appeared, it has proved a national calamity, and not a partial scourge to a few individuals; all are alike in danger of its consequences, whether the disorder be considered infectious or not, and therefore the precautions I have urged in India, amongst the Native communities, I recommend with all humility here, that cleanliness and abstemious diet be observed among all cla.s.ses of people.

In accordance with the prescribed antidote to infection from scarlet fever in England, I gave camphor (to be worn about the person) to the poor in my vicinity, and to all the Natives over whom I had either influence or control; I caused the rooms to be frequently fumigated with vinegar or tobacco, and labaun[18] (frankincense) burnt occasionally. I would not, however, be so presumptuous to insinuate even that these were preventives to cholera, yet in such cases of universal terror as the one in question, there can be no impropriety in recommending measures which cannot injure, and may benefit, if only by giving a purer atmosphere to the room inhabited by individuals either in sickness or in health. But above all things, aware that human aid or skill can never effect a remedy unaided by the mercy and power of Divine Providence, let our trust be properly placed in His goodness, 'who giveth medicine to heal our sickness', and humbly intreat that He may be pleased to avert the awful calamity from our sh.o.r.es which threatens and disturbs Europe generally at this moment.

Were we to consult Nature rather than inordinate gratifications, we should find in following her dictates the best security to health at all times, but more particularly in seasons of prevailing sickness. Upon the first indications of cholera, I have observed the stomach becomes irritable, the bowels are attacked by griping pains, and unnatural evacuations; then follow sensations of faintness, weakness, excessive thirst, the pulse becomes languid, the surface of the body cold and clammy, whilst the patient feels inward burning heat, with spasms in the legs and arms.

In the practice of Native doctors, I have noticed that they administer saffron to alleviate violent sickness with the best possible effect. A case came under my immediate observation, of a young female who had suffered from a severe illness similar in every way to the cholera; it was not, however, suspected to be that complaint, because it was not then prevailing at Lucknow: after some days the symptoms subsided, excepting the irritation of her stomach, which, by her father's account, obstinately rejected everything offered for eleven days. When I saw her, she was apparently sinking under exhaustion; I immediately tendered the remedy recommended by my husband, viz. twelve grains of saffron, moistened with a little rose-water; and found with real joy that it proved efficacious; half the quant.i.ty in doses were twice repeated that night, and in the morning the patient was enabled to take a little gruel, and in a reasonable time entirely recovered her usual health and strength.

I have heard of people being frightened into an attack of cholera by apprehending the evil: this, however, can only occur with very weak minds, and such as have neglected in prosperity to prepare their hearts for adversity. When I first reached India, the fear of snakes, which I expected to find in every path, embittered my existence. This weakness was effectually corrected by the wise admonitions of Meer Hadjee Shaah, 'If you trust in G.o.d, he will preserve you from every evil; be a.s.sured the snake has no power to wound without permission.'

[1] The _Cantharis resicatoria_ is imported into India for use in blisters.

But there is a local subst.i.tute, _mylabris_, of which there are several varieties (Watt, _Economic Dictionary_, ii. 128, v. 309).

[2] The reference is perhaps to what is known as the Dehli Boil, a form of oriental sore, like the Biskra b.u.t.ton, Aleppo Evil, Lah.o.r.e and Multan Sore (Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_, 302); possibly only to hot-weather boils.

[3] _Chadar_.

[4] For a good account of the ways of Indian ants, see M. Thornton, _Haunts and Hobbies of an Indian Official,_ 2 ff.

[5] _Khidmatgar_.

[6] The habit of laying sugar near ants' nests is a piece of fertility magic, and common to Jains and Vishnu-worshippers; see J. Fryor, _A New Account of East India and Persia_, Hakluyt Society ed., I, 278.

[7] _Pipal, Ficus religiosa_.

[8] An esteemed friend has since referred me to the second chapter of the prophet Joel, part of the seventh and eighth verses, as a better comparison. [_Author._]

[9] The variety of locust seen in India is _acridium peregrinum_, which is said to range throughout the arid region from Algeria to N.W. India.

They have extended as far south as the Kistna District of Madras (Watt, _Economic Dictionary_, VI, part i, 154).

[10] _Tufan_, storm, _andhi_, darkness.

[11] Earthquakes tend generally to be more frequent in the regions of extra-peninsular India, where the rocks have been more recently folded, than in the more stable Peninsula. Serious earthquakes have occurred recently in a.s.sam, June, 1897, and in Kangra, Panjab, April, 1907. (_Imperial Gazetteer of India_, 1907, i. 98 f.)

[12] Kanauj, in the Farrukhabad District, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The ruin of the great city was due to attacks by Mahmud of Ghazni, A.D. 1019, and by Shihab-ud-din, Muhammad Ghori, in 1194.

[13] _Garm dahani_, hot inflammation, p.r.i.c.kly heat.

[14] _Multani mitti_, 'Multan Earth', a soft, drab-coloured saponaceous earth, like fuller's earth, used in medicine and for cleansing the hair.

[15] Cholera (_haiza_) was known to the Hindus long before the arrival of the Portuguese, who first described it (Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_[2], 586 ff.). The attention of English physicians was first seriously called to it in 1817, when it broke out in the Jessore District of Bengal, and in the camp of Marquess Hastings in the Datiya State, Central India. (See Sleeman, _Rambles_, 163, 232.)

[16] _Zahr-mohra_, 'poison vanguard': the bezoar stone, believed to be an antidote to poison (Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_[2], 90 f.).

[17] _Sikanjabin_, oxymel, vinegar, lime-juice, or other acid, mixed with sugar or honey.

[18] _Loban_.

LETTER XIX

Kannoge.--Formerly the capital of Hindoostaun.--Ancient castle.--Durability of the bricks made by the aborigines.--Prospect from the Killaah (castle).--Ruins.--Treasures found therein.--The Durgah Baallee Peer Kee.--Mukhburrahs.--Ancient Mosque.--Singular structure of some stone pillars.--The Durgah Mukdoom Jhaunneer.--Conversions to the Mussulmaun Faith.--Anecdote.--Ignorance of the Hindoos.--Sculpture of the Ancients.--Mosque inhabited by thieves.--Discovery of Nitre.--Method of extracting it.--Conjectures of its produce.--Residence in the castle.--Reflections.

Kannoge, now comparatively a Native village, situated about midway between Cawnpore and Futtyghur, is said to have been the capital of Hindoostaun, and according to Hindoo tradition was the seat of the reigning Rajahs two thousand years prior to the invasion of India by the Sultaun Timoor. If credit be given to current report, the Hindoos deny that the Deluge extended to India[1] as confidently as the Chinese declare that it never reached China.