Round the World Part 10

Do you remember with what laughter the sun-spot theory was received? At least I know I laughed when I first heard of it--but here in India, where the rainfall is the prime condition of existence to millions and the sun is much more powerful than with us, the Meteorological Department has just reported that there is apparently a sure connection between the rainfall and its distribution and the spots upon the sun. When these spots are at the minimum there is a tendency to prolonged excessive pressure over the land and an unusual amount and irregular distribution of rain.

"There is blood upon the moon,"

still stands as a poetic expression; but "there are great spots upon the sun" must pa.s.s as presaging famine. There seems to have been an element of truth after all in "the signs of the heavens"

of the astrologer, only the great law which governs them was unknown.

THURSDAY, February 6.

We left Calcutta for the Hindoo Mecca, Benares, tonight, and had our first experience of Indian railway travel, which proved to be very comfortable. We had all to ourselves a first-cla.s.s carriage compartment containing two sofas lengthwise of the car and one across; above these were three upper berths, to be let down, if necessary, and used as beds. A smaller compartment contained dressing-room, etc., for all of which there is no extra charge.

Evidently there is no field here for my enterprising friend Mr.

Pullman. Our route lay through the opium-growing district, and the white poppies were just beginning to bloom. I did not know before that only the white variety is grown, but, curiously enough, the red flower is not nearly so productive. This set us to thinking that there may, after all, be something in the Chinaman's preference for a black dog to one of another color. By all means let us have the two kinds a.n.a.lyzed and see whether the blood be just the same. The opium question has given rise to much angry discussion upon which we do not propose to pa.s.s an opinion. My readers may safely a.s.sume, I think, that the difficulties we encounter in restraining or abolishing the use of liquor among ourselves, also surround the opium question in the East. It is their liquor. China grows most of what she consumes, and I believe would grow it all if the Indian drug was not admitted. Its exclusion by the Chinese would not therefore seriously lessen its use. Still it places England in a false position before the world to enforce its admission by treaty stipulations. The sum involved to the Indian revenue exceeds seven millions sterling per annum ($35,000,000); that is the net yearly profit made out of the growth of the poppy. It would not all be lost, and perhaps not be seriously reduced, were China free to exclude it, for large quant.i.ties would be smuggled in, and the people would have it. I wish England's hands were entirely free from all stain in connection with this business. China should not be compelled by England to admit a drug which is considered pernicious.

The total exports this year were ninety-one thousand chests, valued at thirteen millions sterling, most of it to China. The growing of the poppy is a government monopoly in the Bengal province (Calcutta). Each year government enters into contracts with cultivators to devote so many acres to its cultivation--an advance upon the expected crops is made and final settlements at the end of the season according to amount and quality produced.

The drug is extracted at two government factories. In the other district, the produce of which pa.s.ses through the Bombay presidency, the cultivation of the plant is free, but a duty is collected upon the opium.

We are in the dry season, and where not irrigated the vast plains of India are parched. The soil is a light brown clay, and turns readily to fine dust, which seems to blow over everything and make all of one hue. Even the scanty muslin clothing of the people becomes of this dusty color. The houses are only mud huts one story high and roofed with coa.r.s.e straw; an opening in one side serves as a door, but with this exception the hovel is closed; neither window nor chimney appears, and when fires are made the smoke escapes through all parts of the roof, and when the roof is closer than usual, through the door. This dusty, dirty mud color of soil, streets, houses, dress, and people gives one an impression of a more squalid poverty even than that of the overcrowded Chinese in Shanghai. These latter have more clothing and no dust, and their dirtiness seems a less objectionable form of dirt.

One remarkable difference between these people and the Chinese is that we never see the former eating, while the latter eat frequently. I am told that the Indians have but two meals a day--at noon and at eight in the evening, with a bite early in the morning. As is well known, the Hindoos are strict vegetarians, neither meat, fish, poultry, nor even eggs being allowed. The result of a vegetable diet, if they are to be taken as a fair example, is not such as to favor its general adoption. The Mohammedans, on the other hand, eat everything but pork; like the Jews, they forbid this one article, and I am informed that the Mohammedans are a far st.u.r.dier race than their neighbors the Hindoos; but they should be superior, as the advance from Hindooism, with its numerous G.o.ds and idolatrous worship, to Mohammedanism with its one G.o.d is an immense one. The claims which Mohammed has upon the grat.i.tude of mankind rest upon a solid basis, for he it was who proclaimed to the East that there is but one G.o.d, and announced himself as his prophet only, instead of demanding that he himself should be worshipped as divine; but he performed another great service, for he abolished the abominable system of caste, and thus it comes that the most popular religion in existence hails all its disciples, from the peasant to the Sultan, as of one brotherhood, as Christianity does with hers.

There are nearly fifty millions of Mohammedans among the two hundred and fifty millions of India's population, and it is to them we must chiefly look for the regeneration of the native races.

As we pa.s.s through the country we are surprised at the crowds of gayly-dressed natives waiting at the crossings to pa.s.s the line, and at the stations to take the trains. All the colors of the rainbow are to be seen in their wraps. It is the season of idleness just now, their two months of rest in the country, and the entire population seem to be running about in holiday attire, forming a striking contrast to their fellows in the towns, who sit in their hovels hard at work, one crowding another in his seat.

Before England established free dispensaries for these ma.s.ses the rate of mortality must have been something incredible; even now it is very high, although last year in the two provinces alone no fewer than eleven hundred thousand patients were treated or prescribed for by these inst.i.tutions, which we rejoice to see scattered throughout the country wherever we go. Nor in all her ill.u.s.trious record do we know a brighter page than that which chronicles the rise and progress of these truly English organizations.

Manufactures in India are not profitable at present: during the scarcity of cotton, owing to the American war, large quant.i.ties were grown here and fortunes made in the business; eventually cotton mills were built in Bombay and jute mills in Calcutta, which prospered for a time, but now that America, under the system of free labor, has demonstrated her ability to supply cheaper and better cotton than India, these enterprises languish. I counted thirty-eight spinning and weaving companies in Bombay, and twenty- one cotton-press companies; the shares of which were quoted in the market, and found that on an average these would not command to-day one-half the actual capital paid in. It is much the same with the seven Calcutta jute companies. Cotton, both as to growth and manufacture, in India, I believe has no future, save one contingent upon the interruption of the American supply, of which there does not appear much danger. But it must be borne in mind that the fall in the value of silver so far is a direct gain to native productions.

The planter and manufacturer alike pay in the debased currency and sell the product as far as it is exported for gold, upon which they realize a handsome premium. America needs a continuance of low rates for transportation to counterbalance this advantage of her Indian rival.

BENARES, Sat.u.r.day, February 8.

We started from our hotel early this morning to see the Hindoos bathing in the sacred waters of the Ganges. Benares is to the pious Hindoo all that Mecca is to the good son of the Prophet, and much more beside, and he esteems himself happy if it is vouchsafed him to die in sight of this stream and this city. Pilgrims flock here from all parts of India, and thousands are carried from long distances, while dying, that their eyes may behold, ere they close, the holy city of G.o.d. At the junction yesterday, six miles out, we came upon our first band of pilgrims, for they now patronize the rail freely, men and women, each with the inevitable bundle of rags which serves as his bed _en route_ and as a change of clothing, to be blessed by washing in the Ganges. It requires about a month to worship at every temple and do all that the priests persuade these pilgrims to be essential for their salvation, every ceremony, of course, producing revenue for this cla.s.s. Each Rajah of India has his temple upon the bank of the river, and it is these handsome structures, situated on the cliff which overhangs the river, that give to Benares its unparalleled beauty. In each temple a priest is maintained who prays constantly and bathes every morning as a subst.i.tute for his master, the Rajah, but the latter comes in person also for one month each year to perform the sacred rites. We were fortunate this morning in seeing the Rajah of Nepaul at his devotions. He has a small covered boat of his own, and we found him on his knees, in front of it, gazing upon the sun, as we pulled slowly past in our boat, his staff standing behind him in reverential att.i.tudes. For one full month this intelligent ruler, who speaks English fluently and is well informed of the views Europeans hold of his religious ideas, will nevertheless work hard, visiting daily the temples, going through various exercises, and bathing every morning in the Ganges. One other Rajah is here, and others are shortly to come and do likewise. It seems so strange that these men still remain slaves to such superst.i.tions; but how few among ourselves succeed in rising beyond what we happen to have been taught in our childhood! It is very different, I am told, with those who have received English ideas in their youth at the government colleges.

They make quick work of the Hindoo idols; but so far every one here agrees with the Rev. Dr. Field when he says: "It needs very little learning to convince the Hindoo that his sacred books are a ma.s.s of fable. But this does not make him a Christian. It only lands him in infidelity, and leaves him there." The _Encyclopedia Britannica_ says that "the progress of Protestant missions amounts at present to almost nothing." In Dr.

Mullen's report, down to 1871, the "whole force of English missionaries--579, and of native preachers, 1,993--had produced a native Christian population of only 280,600. There was probably a much larger number in the south of India about the middle of the eighteenth century." I heard everywhere corroborations of this statement.

The wife of the Rajah, we heard, had yesterday performed the most sacred of all the ceremonies under conditions of considerable popular excitement. The sacred well, the stairs leading from it to the river, and the bathing place at the river, were all covered in; the crowd could only see the sedan chair which carried the queen to the well, but the spectacle attracted great numbers. This well is simply a trench about twenty-five feet long and not more than three feet wide, but it must be thirty feet below the surface. Broad steps lead to it from all sides. In this well every Hindoo of good caste is permitted to wash, and there are always many in it. The water is foul and offensive, yet such is its reputed sanct.i.ty that no sin can be committed so heinous that it cannot be washed away by it. The ceremony, fortunately, is incomplete until one, rising from its stench, walks to the pure water of the Ganges and bathes there. I think the ceremony must typify man before purification, foul with sin, and then cleansed by bathing in the pure Jordan afterward; but no one could give me any information upon this point. At all events it was into this sink that the Rajah's wife bravely immersed herself yesterday, and it is here, too, the Rajah himself must come before he leaves--poor man!

The place where the dead are burned was pointed out as we drifted past in our boat, but it was then unoccupied. As we returned, however, one body was in the hands of the attendants, who had taken it into the river and were just in the act of pouring the sacred water down the throat preparatory to the final scene. One woman alone sat on the sh.o.r.e weeping, and two small children at her side seemed not to understand why. It was still early morning, and all was quiet. Our guide pointed out some who were evidently friends, in conversation with men on a parapet above. They were bargaining for the sacred fire to light the funeral pile.

Government prohibits the burning of the forlorn widow with her husband's body, as was formerly the custom, but it is said many widows wish this privilege even yet, nor can I blame them much.

I'm sure I don't see why, beyond the mere instinct of self- preservation, they should have a wish to live on. Those educated people among us who commit suicide have prospects before them which might be called blissful compared with what confronts poor widows in India.

We visited the princ.i.p.al temples and shrines in succession, but I do not propose to rehea.r.s.e their names and special virtues. There is a great sameness about them, but the Monkey Temple differs from the others in having several hundred monkeys running over it in every direction. Like the rest, this is owned by a number of people, and its shares are marketable property. Dr. Lazarus, the chief of the medical department, tells us that the "river people," a term embracing those who own the temples on the stream--just as we would say the "steel rail" or the "pig metal" people at home--are very much depressed, complaining bitterly that the revenues have fallen away. One owner in the Monkey Temple, probably the most prosperous of all, had some time ago asked what this trouble meant. He was advised to sell his monkey stock as soon as possible, but up to the present day he has found no one willing to invest in the property.

One of the high priests of another sacred shrine said to my informant that he had seen in his day three ages--one of gold, one of silver, and now he had reached the age of copper, and was only thankful when he saw a few pieces of that. "The people still come as of old, to worship, which costs nothing," he said, "but they don't pay the G.o.ds more than a pittance. I wonder what we are coming to?"

While great allowance has to be made for the changed condition of affairs throughout the world, which has seriously affected the revenues of religious establishments everywhere, and which India has had to share, aggravated by the loss of her cotton industry, still it can hardly be doubted that Hindooism as a vital force is crumbling slowly to pieces, and that the priests are losing their sway over the ma.s.ses. Caste also goes slowly with the tide of change, and Brahmans are now occasionally found taking employment below that of their caste; and while a high-caste Hindoo some years ago would have considered himself defiled if even the garments of a low-caste person touched him, he now rushes into the same railway compartment among the general crowd and struggles for a seat with various castes, and says nothing about it. One stand the English home Government took, in deference to English ideas as opposed to those of the Anglo-Indian authorities, which alone dooms caste, sooner or later, to extinction: it would not permit different cla.s.ses on the railways to be established for Hindoos or Mohammedans, or for castes of the former. Many residents in India feared that this would prevent the natives from using the lines, but the result has wonderfully belied these fears and vindicated the sagacity of those who ventured to inaugurate this system; and now one sees Hindoos and Mohammedans, high caste and low caste, jostling each other in their efforts to get desirable seats in the third-cla.s.s compartments, where, by the way, they travel for less per mile than anywhere else in the world, third-cla.s.s fares in India being uniformly one-half of a cent per mile. First-cla.s.s fares, with such sleeping-car luxuries as I have before described included, are just about our rates with sleeping-cars not included--viz., three cents per mile.

While Hindooism is thus pa.s.sing away, but little progress is made with Islam. The fifty millions of Mohammedans stand to-day where they have stood for ages, and cry from their mosques morning and night, "There is but one G.o.d, and Mohammed is his prophet." No idols, no drunkenness, no caste. The contrast between their faith and that of Christians is therefore much less marked, and our guide says to us, with evident pride, "Hindoos believe many G.o.ds, worship idols. _I believe like you_, one G.o.d, no idols."

India is thus in a state of transition, her caste and religion both pa.s.sing away. The work before this generation and probably the next is to pull down and destroy. It will remain for those who come after to begin the more difficult labor of building up.

We met at Benares strings of water-carriers, carrying bra.s.s vessels on each end of a pole borne over the shoulder. These come here for hundreds of miles on foot, and take back to their customers in the country the sacred water of the blessed river. It is a regular business, and furnishes employment for thousands of men. Upon no account must this water be carried by railway and deprived of its healing powers by being handled by unbelievers. It must be carried by Hindoos of the proper caste on foot, or it has no virtue.

Science invades everything nowadays, and the officials have recently had the water of one of the sacred wells a.n.a.lyzed by a chemist--audacious dog of an infidel--and here he comes with his CO2 and all the virtue of this water of life is gone. It is found unfit for human use, and the well is ordered to be closed. The chemist, in the eyes of the ignorant natives, has sacrificed spiritual for physical health; preferred the welfare of their bodies to that of their souls, as is the custom with these wicked scientists.

We pa.s.s booths in which native jewellers sit hard at work fashioning rings, brooches, and other articles of personal adornment. Their dexterity is marvellous; without elaborate appliances of any kind, with only a small blow pipe and a few rude tools, they will take a gold coin from you and before your eyes shape it into any form selected. But it is said they must have a model to copy from; no original design emanates from them. The booths, or little shops, are curious affairs. They are built of mud, with neither window nor door, the floor on which the artisans sit being about four feet above the narrow street level.

I never was more thoroughly impressed with the position of the European of India than to-day when pushing through the crowded, narrow lanes of Benares. Our native guide went before us carrying a whip which he cracked and brandished among the crowd, calling out "Sahib! Sahib!" and the people, casting one glance behind, at once hurried out of our way, making a clear track for our august person supposed to represent the conquering race. The respectful salaams, as we caught the eye of one native after another, their deferential, not to say obsequious, att.i.tude as we pa.s.sed--all this tells its story. That "all men are born free and equal" will not enter the Hindoo mind for centuries--not till England has brought it up to the standard of self-government, which it is gradually doing, however, by its schools and colleges.

Benares has been famous for centuries for its manufacture of gold and silver embroideries. I remember that Macaulay speaks of them in his essay on Warren Hastings as decorating alike the court of Versailles and the halls of St. James. We went to the native village and saw the work carried on. How such exquisite fabrics come from the antiquated looms situated in mud hovels it is hard to understand, but they do. We saw one man who had no less than thirty-three different tiny spools to work from in a piece not more than a yard wide. All of these he had in turn to introduce in the web, and pa.s.s through a greater or lesser number of threads, the one starting in where the other left the woof, before one single thread was complete from end to end of the warp and could be driven into the pattern. The people of Benares also excel as workers in bra.s.s.

To-day we had a unique experience indeed, being carried through the princ.i.p.al streets of Benares on State elephants, kindly provided for us by the Rajah of Benares. Mr. H., of New York, whom we have met on his way round the world, and Vandy and I were the riders. We were driven to the palace, and found there two huge animals, gayly caparisoned, awaiting our arrival, surrounded by servants in resplendent liveries. The elephants very kindly got upon their knees, which rendered a short ladder only necessary for us to mount by. The motion is decidedly peculiar, and, until one becomes used to it, I should think very fatiguing; but we enjoyed our elephant ride greatly, and the Rajah has our hearty thanks.

We are in the land of the cheapest labor in the world. It is doubtful if men can be found anywhere else to do a day's work for as little as they are paid in India. Railway laborers and coolies of all kinds receive only four rupees per month, and find themselves; these are worth just now forty cents each, or, say, $1.60 (6s. 6d.) in gold for a month's service. Upon this a man has to exist. Is it any wonder that the ma.s.ses are constantly upon the verge of starvation? Women earn much less, and of course every member of a family has to work and earn something.

The common food is a pulse called gran; the better cla.s.s indulge in a pea called daahl. Anything beyond a vegetable diet is not dreamed of.

Before leaving Benares I must speak again of the scene at the river, which far excels any representation I have seen of it or any description I have read. Photographs cannot be made to convey a just idea of its picturesque beauty, because the view is enlivened by such ma.s.ses and combinations of color as Turner alone could do justice to. Indeed, my first thought as I saw the thousands on the ascending banks--one tier of resting-places above another, culminating in the grand temples' towering at the tops--was that I had seen something akin to this in a dazzling picture somewhere. Need I say that it is in the Turner Gallery alone where such color can be seen? He should have painted the "Hindoo Bathers at Benares," and given the world one more gem revealing what he alone, in his generation, fully saw in the mind's eye, "the light which never shone on sea or sh.o.r.e." We have voted this scene at Benares the finest sight we have yet witnessed.

LUCKNOW, Tuesday, February 11.

We reached Lucknow at night. The moon was not yet shining, but the stars shed their peaceful halo around this spot, to which the eyes of the civilized world were so long directed during the dark days of the mutiny. At the hotel upon arrival a lady's voice was heard singing the universal refrain which nearest touches all English hearts in India and expresses the ever dominant longing, "Home, Sweet, Sweet Home."

There is no trace here of the ma.s.sacres which have made this region memorable. But is the past to be repeated? Who can a.s.sure us that these bronzed figures which surround us by millions may not again in some mad moment catch the fever of revolt? This is the anxious question which I find intruding itself upon me every hour. Truly it is a dangerous game, this, to undertake the permanent subjection of a conquered race; and I do not believe that after General Grant sees India he will regret that the foolish Santo Domingo craze pa.s.sed away. If America can learn one lesson from England, it is the folly of conquest, where conquest involves the government of an alien race.

Our first visit was to the ruins of the Residency, where for six long months Sir Henry Lawrence and his devoted band were shut up and surrounded by fifty thousand armed rebels. The grounds, which I should say are about thirty acres in extent, were fortunately encompa.s.sed by an earthen rampart six feet in height. You need not be told of the heroic resistance of the two regiments of British soldiers and one of natives, nor of the famous rescue. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and month after month, the three hundred women and children, shut in a cellar under ground, watched and prayed for the sound of Have-lock's bugles, but it came not. Hope, wearied out at last, had almost given place to despair. Through the day the attacks of the infuriated mob could be seen and repelled, but who was to answer that when darkness fell the wall was not to be pierced at some weak point of the extended line? One officer in command of a critical point failing--not to do his duty, there was never a fear of that--but failing to judge correctly of what the occasion demanded, and the struggle was over. Death was the last of the fears of these poor women night after night as the days rolled slowly away. One night there was graver silence than usual in the room; all were despondent, and lay resigned to their seemingly impending fate. No rescue came, nor any tidings of relief. In the darkness one piercing scream was heard from the narrow window. A Highland nurse had clambered up to gaze through the bars and strain her ears once more. The cooling breeze of night blew in her face and wafted such music as she could not stay to hear. One spring to the ground, a clapping of hands above the head, and such a shriek as appalled her sisters who cl.u.s.tered round; but all she could say between the sobs was: "The slogan--the slogan!" But few knew what the slogan was. "Didna ye hear--didna ye hear?" cried the demented girl, and then listening one moment, that she might not be deceived, she muttered, "It's the Macgregors gathering, the grandest o' them a'," and fell senseless to the ground. Truly, my la.s.sie, the "grandest o' them a'," for never came such strains before to mortal ears. And so Jessie of Lucknow takes her place in history as one of the finest themes for painter, dramatist, poet or historian henceforth and forever. I have been hesitating whether the next paragraph in my note-book should go down here or be omitted. Probably it would be in better taste if quietly ignored, but then it would be so finely natural if put in. Well, I shall be natural or nothing, and recount that I could not help rejoicing that Jessie was Scotch, and that Scotchmen first broke the rebels'

lines and reached the fort, and that the bagpipes led the way.

That's all. I feel better now that this is also set down.

Lucknow, so rich in historical a.s.sociations, is poverty itself in genuine architectural attractions, magnificent as it appears at a distance. It is a modern capital. About a century ago a king of Oude, in a moment of caprice, I suppose, determined to remove his capital from Fyzabad to Lucknow. Palaces on a great scale were hastily erected of common bricks and covered with white plaster.

These look very fine at a distance, but closer inspection reveals the sham, and one is provoked because his admiration has been unworthily excited. Several other kings followed and carried on this imposture, each building his palace and tomb in this untruthful way. What could we expect from kings content to lie in such tombs but lives of disgusting dissipation? A simple marble slab were surely better than these pretentious lies: anything so it be genuine. However, retribution came, and the dynasty is extinct, the present king living as a prisoner in Calcutta.

The bazaars of Lucknow are well worth seeing, with their native jewellers, bra.s.s-workers, and other artificers, working in s.p.a.ces not more than six feet square. We begin to see persons and modes which remind us of scriptural expressions--the water-carrier with the goat-skin filled, "the hewers of wood and drawers of water,"

the latter usually working in gangs of five. An earthen incline is built, leading up to the top of the wall which surrounds the well; the well-rope pa.s.ses over the shoulders of the drawers, and in marching down the incline they raise the bucket. We came to-day upon a lot of women grinding the coa.r.s.e daahl. Two work at each mill, sitting opposite one another, pushing around the upper stone by means of upright handles fastened into it.

"And two women shall be grinding at the mill, and one shall be taken and the other left,"

saith the Scriptures of old, but our coming revised and corrected edition, I could not help hoping to-day, as I saw this picture for the first time, will note an error, or at least intimate a doubt of the correct translation of this pa.s.sage; or, if not, the age may require some commentator "more powerful than the rest" to console us with the hope that while at the first call one was indeed left, there would be a second, yea, and a third, a seventh, and a seventy times seventh call, in one of which even she would partic.i.p.ate.

We have been this afternoon among the tombs of heroes--Lawrence and Havelock, Banks and McNeil, Hodson and Arthur--men who fell in the days of the mutiny. Lawrence's tomb is most touching from its simplicity--a short record, no eulogy, only

"Here lies Henry Lawrence, Who tried to do his duty."

"I have tried to do my duty," he said, as he breathed his last, and this is all his tomb has to say of him; but isn't it enough?

One day in our drive we came upon our first elephant and our first camel camp, hundreds of the latter and nearly two hundred of the former being attached to the transportation department of the army. They are said to perform work which could never be done by other animals in this climate. Bullocks are the third cla.s.s used as carriers; these are taught to trot, and do trot well. I remember one day in Ceylon one of them in a hackery gave us in the mail coach quite a spirited race for a short distance, but it was only to-day that I learned that camels are also so trained and used as mail or despatch bearers where speed is necessary, and the gait of a really good trained camel is said to be quite easy. If development goes forward in this line, our posterity may be using the camel in trotting matches with the horse. He would possess the advantage over that favorite animal which the Chinaman has over the European; he could go longer between drinks, and that counts for much.

The quarters for troops at Lucknow are models; the officers'

quarters are surrounded and in some cases almost embowered by vines and flowers; lawn-tennis courts, cricket grounds, ball courts, and a gymnasium are provided for the private soldiers, and are finer than we have seen elsewhere, and serve to make Lucknow, with its beautiful gardens and long shady avenues, the one really pretty rural spot we have seen in India.