India
Madras, Tuesday, January 28.
We arose to find ourselves at anchor in the open sea opposite Madras. There is not a harbor upon the whole western coast of Hindostan. Government is engaged in constructing one, but it is slow work, as the immense blocks of concrete used can be handled and laid only in smooth seas, which seldom occur. Sometimes the mail steamers find it impossible to land passengers or cargo, and are compelled to carry both to Calcutta. The surf often sweeps over the top of the iron pier, which is certainly twenty feet high. Passengers are taken ashore in native boats twenty feet long and five feet deep. Across the boat, on small round poles, sit ten rowers, five on each side; another man steers, and in the bow stand two boys prepared to bail out the water which sweeps in as we plunge through the surf. Fortunately the sea was unusually calm, and we had no difficulty in reaching dry land. When the surf is too strong for even these boats to encounter, natives communicate with ships by tying together three small logs, upon which they manage to sit and paddle about, carrying letters in bags fastened upon their heads. As the solid logs cannot sink, they are safe as long as they can cling to them, and an upset is to them an occurrence of little consequence. We saw many of these curious contrivances, but one must have a good deal of the amphibious in his nature, or full faith that he was not born to be drowned, to trust himself upon them through the Madras surf.
India at last! How strange everything looks! Brahmans, Cullrees and Banians, devotees of the three different gods, with foreheads marked to denote their status, the white sandal-wood paste upon the Brahman’s brow. Our first glimpse of caste, of which these are the three main divisions, to one of which all persons must belong or be of the lowest order, the residuum, who are coolies. There are many subdivisions of these, and indeed every trade or calling constitutes a different order, the members of which do not intermarry, or associate, or even eat with one another. Generations pursuing the same calling, and only marrying within themselves, acquire a peculiar appearance, and this effectually creates a caste. Carpenters, masons, merchants, each are distinct, and the occupation of a man can readily be known by his dress or manner.
Caste! what is caste? whence did it spring? and what are its effects today in India? Whatever story I tell about its origin, some great authority will flatly contradict it. The beginning of caste, like that of most existing institutions, is lost in obscurity; but the most likely guess to my mind is that which founds caste upon this natural train of reasoning.
Before men travelled much, when the race were serfs and all their needs were supplied by those immediately about them, it was almost inevitable that the son should be put to his father’s handicraft. He could be of service there at a much earlier age than if he had to go to a stranger. Besides, he had a chance from his infancy to become familiar with the work, and again, his father’s reputation would serve a purpose. Therefore, successive generations remained bakers, smiths, carpenters, agriculturists, laborers, and eventually this developed special aptitudes under the law of inherited tendencies and each occupation became a caste.
Those who were in the highest employments being the best educated, they soon took measures to secure their privileges, and in the past ages nothing could rivet the chains so effectually as the sanction of the gods. Therefore, we need not be surprised that in good time a revelation came to this effect: “When man was divided how many did they make him? What was his mouth? What his arms? What his legs and feet? Brahma was his mouth, Kshatriya his arms, Vaisya his thighs, and Sudra his feet.”
This gives four grand divisions for the race, and their duties toward the State and to each other are clearly defined by the part of the “Grand Man” or “God” from which they sprang. The following are a few of the principal items of the code which regulates these classes: To the first, or Brahman, belongs the religious department—he studies and expounds the sacred books, officiates at sacrifices, and is the recipient of the “presents” offered to the gods. These are modern clergymen. To the second, or Kshatriyas, are given the war department, force, and criminal justice. These are our human butchers, the military class, who are yet not ashamed of the “profession of arms.” To the third, or Vaisyas, belong commerce and agriculture, and to the poor fourth estate, or Sudras, are left the mechanical arts and service to the other castes. The first three alone wear the sacred thread.
The Brahman is entitled by primogeniture to the whole universe. He may seize the goods of a Sudra, and whatever, beyond a certain amount, the latter acquires by labor or succession. If he slanders any of the other castes he pays only nominal fines graduated according to classes. Whatever crime he may commit his personal property cannot be injured, but whoever strikes a Brahman even with a blade of grass becomes an inferior quadruped for twenty-one generations. He is the physician for men’s bodies as well as for their souls.
The one duty of the Sudra is to serve all the three superior castes “without depreciating their worth.” In administering oaths, a Brahman swears only by his veracity—“his honor as a gentleman.” A Kshatriya swears by his weapons, a Vaisya by his cattle, while the poor Sudra has to swear by all the most frightful penalties of perjury.
A curious survival of this same idea lingers in England, where the theory is that all men are equal before the law. Nevertheless members of the Royal Family are still released from the suspicion that they would not tell the truth unless they took an oath to do so. They are not required to take an oath before testifying in court. But imagine Herbert Spencer and the average Prince giving evidence; whose word would go the farther the wide world over? Yet the former would be insulted by being compelled to swear, while the latter would be allowed to testify upon the “honor of a prince,” a very scanty foundation as princes have ever been and must ever be. History seems to teach us that it has been difficult to get this class to keep the oaths they did take. If I were an M. P., I would move that this be changed. The Brahman, notwithstanding his superior station, is nevertheless held to be much more liable to pollution than the lower orders, and is therefore required to bathe more frequently, and to be much more watchful against the tempter. Our Brahmans at home might take a lesson from this. A high authority has told us that
“Life can be lived well,
Even in a palace.”
But Burns has the truth:
“And certes in fair Virtue’s heavenly road
The cottage leaves the palace far behind.”
I have given you the ideal of caste and its laws. Their administration is a far different matter. It is no longer possible for Brahmans to enforce strictly their claims. Caste crumbles away before the progress of the age. Your railway is a “sure destroyer” of all branches of inequality among men. The Press a still greater; but ages will pass ere we have among the two hundred and fifty millions of Hindostan anything approaching that degree of equality and intermarriage of classes which even England possesses, to say nothing of America. The marvel is that caste took such root throughout India apparently in opposition to the teachings of Gautama Buddha. But it is scarcely less strange than that the fighting Christian nations found their system upon the teachings of the Prince of Peace.
Here is the true doctrine of the Eastern Christ: As the four rivers which fall into the Ganges lose their names as soon as they mingle their waters with the holy river, so all who believe in Buddha cease to be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras. The same doctrine is beautifully expressed in the “Light of Asia.” Buddha asks for a drink of milk from a shepherd.
“‘Ah, my Lord,
I cannot give thee,’ quoth the lad; ‘thou seest
I am a Sudra, and my touch defiles!’
Then the world-honored spoke: ‘Pity and need
Make all flesh kin. There is no caste in blood,
Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears,
Which trickle salt with all; neither comes man
To birth with tilka-mark stamped on the brow,
Nor sacred thread on neck. Who doeth right deeds
Is twice-born, and who doeth ill deeds vile.
Give me to drink, my brother. ‘”
Our friend in Madras gave us a rare treat by driving us out to see the celebrated Madras tigers, for nowhere else in the world are such tigers kept as here, and indeed I go so far as to declare that until one has seen these grand animals he has no adequate idea of what a tiger is. All that I have seen hitherto—and I do not forget the “Zoo” in London—are but tame mockeries of the genuine monster. I walked up to a large cage, but was startled by such a fright. A tiger was in an instant flat against the cage, and between me and it were only a few small iron rods which rattled like reeds as he struck them. I thought the whole cage was in pieces, and that beast upon me. Such glaring eyes, burning like immense topazes in his head! and then when he found himself unable to get at his prey, such a yell! but I was many feet from him ere this came, I assure you. He had sprung from the back of his cage against the bars, a distance of at least fifteen or eighteen feet, the moment he saw me, and no doubt hurt himself as he dashed against them. The keeper told us this one had only been caught a few months ago. His stripes were glossy black, and his coat not that sickly tawny color we are so familiar with, but a light fiery brown. Compared with the tiger, it is impossible but that even the noblest lion must seem tame and inert. We took no interest in the lions, although there were some fine specimens. In the evening we enjoyed hearing the Governor’s band performing on the beach and seeing Madras society congregated there, and for the first time since we left America saw full-sized horses again. Several gentlemen were riding animals that would pass muster in Central Park. Thus far we have found only little ponies in use.
Our races have never been brought face to face with famine, but in India the masses are always upon the brink of starvation; a little too much, or too little, rain during the monsoon, and the lives of millions are endangered. The miserable wretches—mere skeletons—we saw to-day sitting on the dusty road sides beseeching passers-by for a pittance, are traces which still remain of the terrible famine of the years 1876 and 1877. Both the monsoons of the former year failed, and the season of 1877 was little better, although the government spent more than eleven millions sterling ($55,000,000) in strenuous efforts to supply enough food to render existence possible. More than five million human beings, more than the entire population of the State of Pennsylvania—far more than that of Scotland—were sacrificed from want and disease resulting from the famine of these two years. There is no doubt about the correctness of this startling statement, for it is founded upon the increased death rate in the afflicted districts.
It was while the shadow of this calamity, unparalleled since the beginning of British rule in India, was over the land that the most gorgeous “durbar” ever held in India was ordered for the purpose of gratifying a whim of Queen Victoria, who had induced Lord Beaconsfield to have her proclaimed Empress of India, or, as is far more probable, which he had instigated her to accept. The natives who spoke of this to us were outraged at the act, and quoted it as proof that their lives and sufferings were held as nothing by England. This does England gross injustice, for, as I was able to tell them, English opinion was itself averse to giving the Queen a title in India which they could not be induced to tolerate at home, and only acquiesced because Victoria had really done so much that was good during her long reign that they did not wish to deny her what she had unfortunately set her heart upon; and then after all the poor Queen probably did not know about the famine. Her books show that her interest in life is confined strictly to the petty details of her household and narrow circle of satellites.
Today our Sunday-school recollections were again aroused by a sight of the terrible car of Juggernaut. It is really an immense affair, elaborately carved in bold relief, and on the top is a platform for the priests. I should say the car is twenty-five feet high and about eight by twelve at the base; it has six wheels, four outside and two in the centre, the former nine feet in diameter and the latter six, all of solid wood clamped together with iron bands, and all at least two feet in width of tread. Such a mass, drawn through the streets by elephants and accompanied by excited devotees, its hundred bells jangling as it rolled along where there was not another vehicle of any kind with which to compare it, or a house more than one small story high, must have appeared to the ignorant natives something akin to the supernatural; and I can now well understand how wretches, working themselves into a state of frenzy, should have felt impelled to dash under its wheels. It is still paraded upon certain festival days, invariably surrounded, however, by policemen, who keep the natives clear of the wheels, for even to-day, if they were not prevented, its victims would be as numerous as ever. Imagine, if you can, with what feelings we stood and gazed upon this car, which has crushed under its ponderous wheels religious enthusiasts by the thousand, and which still retains its fascination over men anxious to be allowed the glory of such self-immolation, at the supposed call of God, who would be a fiend if he desired such sacrifice.
We left Madras on Wednesday morning, and had a fine smooth sail across the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta, the City of Palaces and centre of the British power in India. Coming up the river we pass the shipping in review, and never before have we seen so many large, magnificent sailing ships in one port, not even in Liverpool or London. The trade requires large clippers, and these splendid vessels lie four and five deep for two miles along the river, all in fine trim, flags flying, and looking their best. We pass the palace of the old King of Oude, who was brought here when deposed for his misdeeds. He is allowed a pension of $50,000 per month, which seems a great waste of money, as it is mostly squandered by the old reprobate. His collection of birds and beasts is a wonderful one, for he pays any price for animals; last month he paid $12,500 for two grand tigers, but they escaped a few days afterward and swam across the river.
The first queer thing that strikes you at your hotel is that two natives take you in custody without even saying “by your leave,” and never while you are in Calcutta will you be able to get out of sight of one or the other of these officers. One attends in person to your room, brings you your tea and toast at six, prepares your bath, takes your shoes to the proper “caste” man below (he wouldn’t black them for the world, bless you!), and plays the valet while you dress. At night you find him stretched out across your door, like a dog on the watch, and there he lies all night, subject to master’s call. I hurt my man’s feelings one night by gently stepping over his prostrate form and getting into my room and going to bed without his aid. I turned the key when I got inside, and not many moments after I heard him move. Missing the key, he suspected something was wrong, and tried the door several times; but as he met with no response he finally gave it over, and lay down to sleep. The other attendant is our waiter at table and out-door servant. You find these people curled up and lying at every step through the halls, and are in constant danger of stumbling over them. Every guest generally has two, although the hotel professes to keep an efficient staff of its own. We hear amusing stories told of servants in India, their duties being so strictly defined by caste that one must be kept for every trifling duty. Our friend the Major tells us, for instance, that upon a recent occasion his wife wished to send a note to him at the Fort, a very short distance from his residence. The proper messenger happening to have been sent elsewhere, she asked the coachman to please take it to master, but he explained how impossible it would be for him to comply, much as he wished to do so. Persuasion was useless; but madame thought of a remedy—order the carriage. The grooms prepare and harness the horses, the coachman mounts the box and appears at the door. “Now drive to master’s, and, attendant, deliver this note.” All right. This brought it within the sphere of his caste. He is bound to obey all orders connected with the carriage. Incidents of this nature are too numerous to recount. It is in India that political economists can best study the division of labor in its most advanced stage of development. My friend Mrs. K. kindly gave me her list of servants and their various duties, They numbered twenty-two, although Mr. K.’s establishment is a moderate one.
We find the Zoological Gardens very interesting. Here we saw for the first time monkeys running about unfettered among the trees, and a lion chained to a dog-kennel doing watch duty like a mastiff. We also saw an entire house devoted to the display of pheasants. These birds make a fine collection, for there are numerous varieties, and some exceedingly beautiful. There are here two full-grown orang-outangs and one child, the former even more human than the pets we had recently been in charge of. The huge crocodile in a large pond failed to make his appearance yesterday, and while we were there five natives with long poles and two in a small boat were detailed to stir him up and see what was the matter. It was amusing to see these naked attendants as they waded in a few feet and poked about, ready to jump back at every movement of the water, and sometimes frightened at each other’s strokes; but all will agree with me that this business of stirring up crocodiles at twenty cents per day yields no fair compensation for the risks involved. There are good tigers here also, but having seen the tiger of the world at Madras, all others are but shadows. It is the same now with peacocks, which in these latitudes are far superior to those with us, but the peacock is at Saigon, in Cochin China, and we never see one without saying, one to the other, “How poor!” We are in a few days to see the Taj, and I suppose it will be the same as to buildings hereafter. Even Walter Scott’s monument at Edinburgh—my favorite piece of stone and lime—must be surpassed by this marvel of perfection.
I have been considering whether it is more productive of pleasure really to have seen or heard the admitted best of everything, beyond which you can never expect to go, and as compared with which you must actually hereafter be content invariably to meet the inferior, or whether one had better, for the retention of future interest in things, not see the very topmost and unrivalled of each. I have met people whose ears, for instance, were so cultivated as to render it painful for them to listen even to the grandest music if indifferently performed; some who had “atmosphere” and “chiaro-oscuro” so fully developed that copies of even the “Madonna di San Sisto” were only daubs offensive to the eye; others who, having seen Macready in Macbeth, find the tragedy stale in others’ hands. Now I don’t believe this ensues where the love of the art itself is genuine; and I rejoice to say that having once listened to an oratorio at the Handel Festival with four thousand selected performers, that oratorio becomes forever a source of exquisite enjoyment, performed where or how it may be. If poorly done, the mind floats up toward the region, if it does not attain quite the same height, where it soared at the perfect recital; the distinct images there seen, which Confucius justly gives music the power of creating, come vividly again as the notes swell forth. The priests who call are different, indeed, but the gods who respond are one and the same. So having seen Janauschek in Lady Macbeth, all other Lady Macbeths participate in her quality. Having almost worshipped Raphael’s Madonna, all other Madonnas have a touch of her power. It is of the very essence of genius that it educates one to find beauty and harmony where before he would only have trodden over barren sands, and the grand and poor performances of any masterpiece are not a contrast to the truly receptive, but are as steps leading from the lowest to the highest in the same temple. Because one has been awe-stricken by Niagara’s torrent, are the other waterfalls of the world to be uninteresting? No; to the man whose soul has really been impressed, every tiny stream that tumbles down in foam is related to the greater wonder, partaking to some extent of its beauty and grandeur. Having seen the Himalayas, are the more modest but not less dear Alleghanies to lose their charm and power? Never! Let me go forward, then, and revel without misgivings in the highest of human and divine creations, as I may be privileged to see or hear or know them. I do not fear that I shall ever become a member of the extensive band we meet in our travels who have become incapable of enjoying anything but the best.
We paid a visit to the river one morning to see the Hindoos performing the sacred rite of bathing, which their religion commands. Crowds of men and women enter the water promiscuously and pray together. What a mercy that Brahma thought of elevating, personal cleanliness to the rank of the virtues! What thousands are saved every year in consequence! What this crowded hive of human beings in hot India would become without this custom it is fearful to contemplate. I find our friends all regretting that Mohammed was less imperative upon this point. His followers take rather to sprinkling than immersion, for dipping hands and feet in water is held by them as quite sufficient, and both are not equally efficacious as purifiers in the tropics, however they may be as religious ceremonies.
A Boston clipper ship was being unloaded of its cargo of Wenham Ice as we strolled along the wharf in the warm early morning. The great blocks were carried upon the heads of the naked Sudras, one at a time, and even at this early hour the ice was melting fast, the drops of cool water forming tiny rills on the soiled, dark skins of the carriers, who no doubt enjoyed the rare luxury of something really cold. The exportation of ice to the East was a great Boston industry at that time; today it is wholly gone, the artificial being now made and sold at every centre for one-third the price commanded by the natural product. A slight improvement in the mode of manufacture, and, presto! here at the Equator, where the temperature is always at our summer heat, we make ice by the ton and are able to sell it at prices which the poorest population in the world can readily pay. Where are we going to stop in the domain of invention?
One day we visited the temple sacred to the bloody goddess “Kali,” from whom Calcutta derives its name. She took her rise, as many gods have done, from her insatiable thirst for human blood. One powerful giant alone was able for many years to withstand her arts, he being secretly informed by a spirit that when she pursued he had only to stand in water, and if one drop of his blood was spilled, other giants would spring forth and devour “Kali” herself. This secret she divined, however, and one day attacked him even in the water, strangling him and sucking every drop of his blood without spilling one. But her tongue grew so large and red that she was never afterward able to get it back into her mouth, and now she stands fixed in this temple, her big red tongue hanging out, a most revolting sight. So powerful is she esteemed that pilgrims to her shrine, who have spent months in coming hundreds of miles by measuring their bodies upon the dusty ground, are sometimes seen passing through the by-lanes of Calcutta. Lying flat, they mark their length, rise, and lie down again at this mark, and go on this way, never leaving the path day or night, and begging food and water enough to sustain them as they proceed. I was told of one man who travelled eight hundred miles in this manner. Imagine the strength of the superstition which can so blind its dupes. But even this is nothing compared with the self-inflicted torture practised by many “who seek to merit heaven by making earth a hell.” It is not rare for fakirs to stand in postures that cripple them for life. One elects to stand on one foot until it becomes impossible for him ever to put the other to the ground. Another determines to raise his arms to heaven, never taking them down. In a short time, after excruciating pain, the joints stiffen so as to render any change impossible, and the arms shrivel until little but bone is left. Some let their nails grow into their flesh and through their hands. The forms of these penances are innumerable, and those who undergo them are regarded as holy men and are worshipped and supported by their less religious fellows. Kali must still have her blood, and hundreds of kids, goats, buffaloes, and other animals are sacrificed daily at her shrine. We saw the bloody work going forward. Crowds of pilgrims, numbering at least three hundred during our short stay, came in bands from the country to propitiate the goddess. Each one presents an offering as the idol is shown. It is the most disgusting object I have ever seen, and a sight of it would, I am sure, frighten children into crying. The business is skilfully managed. A small dark hall, capable of holding about twenty-five worshippers, occupies the space before the idol. This is filled with people and the doors closed; then, amid the murmurs of priests and beating of gongs, two sliding-doors are drawn aside, and the horrible she-demon, with swollen blood-red tongue, comes into view for a moment only, and the gifts are thrown at her. The crowd is excited by fear and awe, but ere the figure can be closely scrutinized the doors close, and the poor ignorant wretches seem stupefied with what has been revealed. They pass slowly out, looking as if they had been almost blinded with a glimpse of the forbidden mysteries, and another batch crowds in to be similarly worked upon. We saw other forms and figures of worship too gross to speak of. Nothing yet seen can be called idolatry when compared with this, and I felt like giving up all hope of improvement in these people; but then when one sees the extent and character of the superstitions of the East he cannot help having doubts of the advancement or elevation of the species. There is, however, this consoling knowledge, that the worshippers, such young girls and boys as we saw today excepted, know that Kali is but the symbol of power, not the power itself. Around this fact the forces able to overthrow superstition may be evolved hereafter. The germ is there.
The hundreds of young, pretty, innocent children whom we saw brought to-day to witness such rites by kind, dutiful, religious parents—the most conscientious and most respectable of the native race—were dressed with as much care and pride as a corresponding number of young Christians would be when taken to the rite of confirmation. How could I be otherwise than sad and murmur, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Thus far is plain sailing, for every one will agree with me; but when I denounced to the priests the pools of clotted blood as offensive, even to coarse men, and wholly unfit as a satisfactory offering to any power to whom we can ascribe the name of God, they retorted by saying this is also part of the Christian system: the God of Abraham demands his sacrifice of blood also. It is in vain to intimate that this day is past and that our Father in heaven no longer takes delight in the blood of rams or of bullocks. I shall never forget the malicious inquiry: “Does your God change, then?” “No, certainly not; but our conceptions of him change year by year as we gain knowledge.” They smile, and I am troubled. Let us pause and reflect before we rashly assail any form of religion until we know that what we have to offer in its place is really free from the errors we mourn over in others. In the progress of the race such dreadful conceptions of God must apparently exist for a time. Has not Herbert Spencer himself assured us that,
“Speaking generally, the religion current in each age and among each people has been as near an approximation to the truth as it was then and there possible for men to receive.”
I needed all this from the philosopher to restrain my indignation at first and afterward to mitigate my sorrow. Even this was not quite sufficient, but how much an anecdote will sometimes do, and this one the philosopher above quoted told me himself. At times, when disposed to take gloomy views of man’s advance, and sickened by certain of his still barbarous beliefs and acts, he had found relief in the story Emerson tells of himself when in similar moods. After attending a meeting—perhaps the one where he was hissed from the platform for denouncing human slavery—he walked home burning with indignation; but entering his grounds, and wandering among the green grass and the flowers, silently growing in the cool moonlight, he looked up at the big trees and the big trees looking down upon him seemed to say: “What! so hot, my little sir!” Yes, we must upon our “distemper sprinkle cool patience.” If all is not well, yet all is coming well. In this faith we find peace. The endless progress of the race is assured now that evolution has come with its message and shed light where before there was darkness, reassuring those who thought and who therefore doubted most.
General Litchfield, United States Consul, fortunately accompanied us upon this visit, and he knew two of the officiating priests, who spoke English perfectly. These escorted us round and told us about everything. The history of these two natives is most suggestive. They were educated by the government in one of its colleges, and very soon saw the falsity of their religious tenets, but failing to get suitable employment, they had to return to their families, who owned a share in the Kali Temple, which is still profitable property, held like any other building. The revenues are now divided among a hundred priests, and maintain these and their families, all of whom are of the same family. Should another son marry he becomes entitled to a certain share, and so on. They carry this imposture on simply as a matter of business, and laughed at us when we said they knew it was all humbug. If it be true that no religion can long retain vital force after its priests know it to be false, then there is hope for the speedy fall of idolatry in India; but I fear there will be no lack of men who will, like these hypocrites, continue to preach what they know better than to believe, as long as rich livings are at stake.
In one of our drives General Litchfield pointed out the house where Macaulay wrote some of his essays while here laying the foundations of the law code which has proved such a boon to India. I see one great tribute paid to this monument of his genius: the codification of the law in England is urged forward by pointing to the indisputable success of the Indian code.
India has also great capabilities in regard to another article of the largest consumption—tea. In this it is not improbable she will some day rival even China. We have been travelling for some days with a gentleman largely interested in its cultivation in the Assam district, and learn from him that the tea grown there commands a higher price than the Chinese article. It also prospers in several other parts of India, and the amount grown is increasing rapidly. The total export in 1878 was 34,000,000 pounds, while last year, 1883, it reached, it is stated, 57,000,000 pounds, a large increase, while the tea culture in China is about at a stand-still, the amount exported to England in 1868, £11,000,000, exceeding that in any year since. India, therefore gains rapidly upon China, and prophets are not wanting who assert that as India was the original home of the plant (as some authorities claim), so India is going to furnish the world in future most of its tea. This may all be true and yet the amount grown in India be a bagatelle to the product of China, which consumes at home about nine times the amount exported. Indian tea is pure, while that raised by both the Japanese and Chinese is adulterated. It is also much stronger. I advise all to give the Indian tea a fair trial.
India, you see, has great possibilities. She is distanced in cotton, is a good second in wheat, and has a place in the race for tea, with odds in her favor in the latter as far as export goes. I think this describes her situation fairly.
There are very few really successful equestrian statues in the world, but Calcutta boasts one of these—Noble’s statue of General Outram. The artist has taken a bold departure, and instead of the traditional eagle glance of the hero, the general is represented as just checking his impetuous speed and casting a look behind; the body turned round, and one hand resting on the horse’s flank, while the other reins in the horse; his head bare, as if in the attack he had outrun his troops, lost his helmet, and was stopping a moment for them to overtake him. I liked this statue much, and wished that some others of which I wot partook of its merits.
We attended the Viceroy’s ball on Wednesday evening, and enjoyed the brilliant scene. The uniforms of British officers as well as those of the Civil Service are gorgeous, and set off a ball-room effectively. We saw more ladies here than upon all other occasions combined during our travels, and their general appearance was certainly better than elsewhere, showing the climate to be less severe upon them. Lord Lytton is a small man of unimposing appearance, and entirely destitute of style, but the Commander-in-Chief, General Haines, seems every inch a soldier, as do many of his subordinate officers. Native princes were formerly invited to these balls, and their presence, attended by their suites in Oriental costumes, added much to the brilliancy of the scene, but it was found desirable to discontinue the practice; they could not partake of European refreshments nor understand the appearance of women in public, and especially their dancing, nor, I fancy, could they look with becoming gravity upon dignitaries so engaged, as they employ people to do their dancing. I confess it struck me as bordering upon the farcical to see Lord Lytton, charged with the government of more than two hundred millions, and General Haines, Commander-in-Chief, with an active campaign on his hands, Sir Thomas Wade, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to China, and the Lieutenant-General, all in uniform, and the two former in knee-breeches, “all of ye olden time,” doing “forward four and turn your partner” in the same quadrille. Imagine President Lincoln, Secretaries Seward and Stanton, and General Grant so engaged.
The Viceroy of India has certainly to do his part in the way of ceremonial. Flaming handbills of an English circus announce that the performances are under his direct patronage. “Victoria, the Empress of the Arena,” is to-night to perform her unparalleled feats in the ring in the presence of His Excellency. This was the only tribute we saw paid in India to Her Majesty’s spick-and-span brand-new title of Empress. We attended the performance, which was really creditable, but the natives sat unmoved throughout every scene; so different from the conduct of the Japanese, who scream with delight like children under similar circumstances. The Indians seem to take their pleasures sadly, like ourselves.
We did not fail to visit the famous banyan tree of Calcutta, by far the largest in the world. Vandy and I started and paced it around until we met, counting three hundred and thirteen steps, or, say, three hundred yards; the main trunk is probably about thirty feet in circumference, but from each main branch roots have descended to the earth and become supporters of these branches, allowing them to extend still farther. In this way a branch may have in its course three or four supporters at intervals of twenty or thirty feet; the leaves are thick, and much resemble those of the rubber tree in size and character.
We see numerous native barbers engaged in shaving the people. Victim and operator squat down in a corner on their “hunkers,” facing each other, and the operation then begins, the utensils being laid out upon a rag on the ground. It seems the most unnatural posture in the world for shaving or hair-dressing, but as it is the custom there must be some advantages in it which we cannot even guess.
One morning we drove to the burning ghat, and from personal examination of cremation, I am able to express my preference for Christian burial. The business of burning the dead—for in India it is a business like any other, and belongs to a low caste—is carried on in the most heartless manner. A building is erected upon the river-bank, about a hundred feet in length and twenty-five feet in width, and open on the side toward the river. The dead are brought there upon stretchers wrapped in a little cloth, and are first shaved by the attendants, who open the mouth and pour down a vial of the water of the sacred Ganges. The body is then bent into a sitting posture, carried out to the middle of the building, and wood built around it. We saw the embers of several piles which had just done their work, and one pile blazing, through the interstices of which parts of the body were plainly visible. It was all horrible to me as conducted here, but I can conceive of the grand funeral piles of the high priests being made most impressive; and so I am told they are, but the cremation of the poor lacks every element of this nature. My heart bled for a poor widow whose husband had just been taken to the pile. She was of a very low caste, but her grief was heartrending; not loud, but I thought I could taste the saltness of her tears, they seemed so bitter; but she has this consolation to comfort her after the outburst, that she insured the eternal happiness of her mate by having his ashes mingled with the sacred river of God. No one will touch or associate with the caste who dress and burn the dead, nor could any one be induced, save one branch of this caste, to furnish the fire which lights the funeral pile, for which sometimes large sums are exacted, in case the relatives of the dead are wealthy.
The absence of women, other than coolies, which has struck us everywhere in the East, is if anything even more marked in India, where, so far, we have scarcely seen one woman of high caste. The Mohammedans do not permit their ladies ever to leave the house, and upon rare occasions, when temples must be visited, they are closely concealed from view and driven in a close carriage or carried in a sedan chair. The Hindoos are not quite so strict, and we have seen a few in secluded streets going a few steps, but closely muffled up and with faces covered.
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 pass 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-class 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 analyzed 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 pass an opinion. My readers may safely assume, 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 quantities 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 passes 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 coarse 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 sturdier race than their neighbors the Hindoos; but they should be superior, as the advance from Hindooism, with its numerous gods and idolatrous worship, to Mohammedanism with its one god is an immense one. The claims which Mohammed has upon the gratitude of mankind rest upon a solid basis, for he it was who proclaimed to the East that there is but one God, 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 pass through the country we are surprised at the crowds of gayly-dressed natives waiting at the crossings to pass 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 masses 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 institutions, which we rejoice to see scattered throughout the country wherever we go. Nor in all her illustrious 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 quantities 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, Saturday, 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 God. 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 class. 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 substitute 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 attitudes. 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 superstitions; 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 mass 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 sanctity 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 shore 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 principal temples and shrines in succession, but I do not propose to rehearse 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 gods 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 masses. 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 classes 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-class compartments, where, by the way, they travel for less per mile than anywhere else in the world, third-class fares in India being uniformly one-half of a cent per mile. First-class 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 passing 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 God, 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 gods, worship idols. I believe like you, one God, no idols.”
India is thus in a state of transition, her caste and religion both passing 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 brass 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 analyzed 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 pass 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, attitude as we passed—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 pass 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 brass.
To-day we had a unique experience indeed, being carried through the principal 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 masses 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 class 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 masses 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 shore.” 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 massacres which have made this region memorable. But is the past to be repeated? Who can assure 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 passed 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 encompassed 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 clustered 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 lassie, 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 associations, 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, brass-workers, and other artificers, working in spaces 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 passes 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 coarse 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 passage; 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 participate.
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 class 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.
Wednesday, February 12.
We are on our way to Agra by rail, and expect to arrive in time to drive out and see the Taj by moonlight. I have been reading more carefully than before some descriptions of it, and keep wondering whether this gem of the world is to prove a disappointment or not. Most things which have been heralded like the Taj fail to fulfil expectations at first, and how can stone and lime be so formed as to justify such fulsome praises as have been bestowed upon this tomb? One writer, for instance, exclaims, “There is no mystery, no sense of partial failure about the Taj. A thing of perfect beauty and of absolute finish in every detail, it might pass for the work of genii, who knew naught of the weakness and ills with which mankind were afflicted.” The exact and prosaic Bernier had to express doubts whether “I may not be somewhat infected with ‘Indianisme,’ but I must needs say I believe it ought to be reckoned amongst the wonders of the world.” Bayard Taylor exhausts eulogy upon the Pearl Mosque, calling it “a sanctuary so pure and stainless, revealing so exalted a spirit of worship, that I felt humbled as a Christian that our noble religion had never inspired its architects to surpass this temple to God and Mohammed;” but when he comes to the Taj itself he is lost in rapture. There is nothing, however, which the critics—those men who have failed in literature and art—will not venture to attack, and I thought it advisable to tone down my expectations by taking a dose of carping criticism. Unfortunately for me, however, when I had got fairly in with a writer who assures me “the design is weak and feeble,” the “shadows are much too thin,” this misleader left me in a worse condition than ever, for succumbing at last to the sweet overpowering charms of the structure as a whole, and apparently ashamed of himself for ever having dared to say one word against its perfections, he adds—just after he had bravely done the “design” and the “shadows”—“but the Taj is like a lovely woman: abuse her as you please, the moment you come into her presence you submit to her fascinations.” Pretty criticism this for one who wishes the faults of this beauty clearly set forth! I put this lover of the Taj aside at once and try another writer, who does indeed give me a page of preventive, well suited to one in my condition, but upon turning over the page he too falls sadly away, for here is his last line:
“The rare genius of the calm building finds its way unchallenged to the heart.”
Well, then, gentlemen, if all this be so, what’s the use of your petty criticism? If this marvel, before whose spell all men, even you yourselves, must bow, has a “rigidity of outline,” an “air of littleness and luxury,” a “poverty of relief,” and if “the inlaid work has been vulgarly employed,” and the patterns are “meagre in the extreme,” wasn’t it the highest aim that its builder could probably have had in view, to entrance the world and give to it a thing of beauty which is indeed a joy forever? and doesn’t the Taj do this so far beyond all other human structures that no one thinks of naming another in comparison? And should not this incontrovertible fact teach you a lesson—just a little bit of modesty? No, gentlemen; it isn’t the Taj that must be changed, either in its outline or shadows, to conform to your canons of criticism, but your canons of art that must be changed to embrace the Taj, or rather to set it apart, as a stroke of original genius, and consequently above and beyond the domain of criticism; for criticism, like science, works solidly only upon what is absolutely known, formulating its fixed decrees upon the past. All great geniuses have encountered the critics of their day. How Shakespeare violated the unities! and didn’t Napoleon win battles which he should have lost? Let these people then be silent, and know that when a transcendent exhibition of original genius wins success beyond the reach of measurement by their plumb and line and square and compass, the higher law governing the seeming miracle will be duly revealed: and the Taj is just such a miracle, from all I can learn of its power.
The evidences of the intense summer heat are seen everywhere. The railway carriages have false tops, leaving an air space of a foot between the roof and the cover. Awnings cover the windows outside, and there are posted up directions for the use of the cooling apparatus applied to each first-class compartment; the frames for punkas are seen in the railway waiting-rooms, and we notice in the army regulations that during the hot season soldiers are required to stay in-doors between the hours of eleven and three. We are told of revolving fans being used to cool rooms, and that it is very common to fill doors and windows with thick mats of scented grass, which are kept constantly wet; the wind, passing through these, is cooled to about ninety degrees, and large banana leaves furnish a cool bed in extreme cases, from all of which, “Good Lord, deliver us!” We thank our stars every day that we are doing India when the heat, though great at midday, is not unbearable. We are five hundred and fifty miles north of Calcutta, and find the temperature much cooler. The people look stronger, and necessarily wear more clothing, which means that another piece of coarse bagging is wrapped around their shoulders. We are at the best hotel in Agra, and I notice as remarkable, in the printed list of prices, that a man to pull the punka in one’s bedroom all night can be obtained for the sum of three annas, or six cents in silver. Washing costs two cents per piece, but while these strike us as cheap, the next item tells us that each guest during the hot season is chargeable with twenty cents per day for ice used at table etc. It is very sparingly used, but yet the little bit of ice you see costs as much as the labor of three men all night. All the employees of the railways in India are required to join the volunteer forces, and to drill under the supervision of regular army officers, appointed by the government for this purpose. An excellent auxiliary force numbering many thousands is thus secured at trifling expense. One significant announcement posted at stations attracted my attention, and gave me an insight into one department in which India is in advance of us. This placard set forth that certain employees having been found under the influence of liquor while on duty, the district court had sentenced them to six months’ imprisonment. This betokens a decided step forward, I take it, and one which it would be advisable for us to follow. A captain, pilot, engineer, railway conductor, or any one directly charged with the care of human lives convicted of being drunk while on duty should be held guilty of a criminal offence and punished by the State.
I have been admiring all through India three magnificent vines, now in full bloom. One, the Begonia, resembles our honeysuckle, but the flower is larger and hangs in large clusters; the second, called the Bouganviella, is purple in color and like our morning-glory, and the two are often seen climbing together up tall trees almost to their very tops, covering them with a mass of flowers. The third favorite, Poinsetta, is a leaf of rich magenta color. These three are the special glories of India. Some of our own flowers do tolerably well in this region, and the inherent love of the English for flowers and plants is seen in the numerous pretty plots and gardens.
Life in India is only rendered tolerable by the opportunity people have to enjoy things which would be beyond their reach at home without fortunes. All residences have grounds connected with them, more or less extensive, and laid out in fine gardens. Lawn-tennis and croquet grounds are the rule. Horses and carriages, or at least a vehicle of some kind, are indispensable, and no one who strolls around the European quarters in early morning and sees the large staff of servants lounging about the spacious verandas, awaiting the call of “Sahib” or “Mem Sahiba,” can be at a loss to account for the disappointment often experienced by those who, after years of longing, at last go home to enjoy themselves in their fancied Elysium. Alas! ten times the sum that supports them here in style would not suffice in England. Here Sahib awakes and drawls out, “Qui hi” (you of my people who are in waiting). There is a stir among several servants who have lain the whole night long at his door, to be in readiness, and the moaning reply comes, “S-a-h-i-b,” and he is surrounded by those who minister to his slightest wish all day, leaving him again at night only to repeat the performance on the morrow. When he drives his gig to town one servant stands at his back to wait upon him, and Madame appears in the afternoon upon the Mall in her grand equipage, two on the box and two standing behind, as if she were a duchess. As a European walks the streets he is salaamed by every native he chances to look at. He moves about, one of a superior race and rank. As he approaches a crowd, to look at a passing sight, a clear lane is made for him; and if he steps into the post-office to ask for letters, the natives instinctively fall back until Sahib is served. All this spoils a man for residence at home, where “one man is as good as another and a good deal better,” unless a tremendous fortune is at one’s back to purchase precedence, which nowadays is scarcely obtainable at any price even in England where traces of by-gone days linger longest: and so it falls out that many who have prayed for long years for the day to come for their return to England, find the coveted change but Dead Sea fruit when it is gained at last. A few even return to the land they had so long prayed to be allowed to leave, and take up their final abode among the hills. For these people I cannot help feeling deeply sorry. It is impossible that their lives can be full and rich to overflowing here. A tone of sadness, of vain regret, must pervade the mind. The prize so ardently struggled for has been found unsatisfactory, and at best their lives must draw to a close tinged by a sense of partial failure.
How many human beings can the land maintain to the square mile? About three hundred and fifty in Europe say the authorities, provided the soil is fertile and climate good. This is close upon the English and Belgian standard; but some parts of India are cursed with more than double this number; indeed one district has nearly eight hundred to the square mile. This seems to be the limit even for India, as population does not increase beyond it, and female infanticide begins to protrude its monstrous form whenever population becomes so dense. In the Punjaub, for instance, the males exceed the females sixteen per cent.—a fearful revelation; but it is just the same in many parts of China. All authorities agree that male children are tenderly cared for, and even desired. This is especially so in China, for no greater evil can befall a Chinaman than the absence of sons to keep unbroken the worship. of ancestors. Death is nothing if he passes away with dutiful sons around his bedside ready to perform the sacred rites. To die without these is to send his soul forth a wanderer without claims upon his gods. The commercial aspect, however, has mostly to do with the question in India. Where is food for the little mouths, to come from, and how can a girl be reared by a family who live from day to day upon the brink of starvation, even when every member labors like a slave?
One morning we drove to the jail—one of the sights of India—and were fortunate in meeting the Inspector-General, Mr. Walker, an authority on all matters relating to prison discipline, and Dr. Tyler, the Chief for Agra. These officials kindly conducted us through the vast establishment. The prison labor is not, as generally with us, contracted out—a vicious plan which necessitates the intercourse of outsiders with the criminals and invariably leads to bad results. Here the prisoners deal with none but their keepers; but what pleased me most was the admirable system of rewards and promotions for good conduct which has been established. Marks are given and worn upon the clothes which shorten one’s sentence from one day up to several, and it is possible for a prisoner in this way to acquire marks enough to take as much as one tenth from his imprisonment. The best behaved of all can rise to the position of wardens. Several hundreds have reached this prize, and are distinguished by better clothing, and also by ornamental badges. These wardens are placed over the other malefactors, and there is no difficulty experienced in enforcing the strictest discipline through them. Foremen of shops and of the various departments are all appointed from among the prisoners themselves, and, with the exception of the one in charge of the complicated machinery, there are no others employed in such capacities. The armed guards are, however, not of this class. In ordinary years the cost of maintenance per person is one rupee a month (40 cents gold); clothing 75 cents a year, including cost of supervision and all expenses of the jail department; prisoners in India thus cost only about $14 per year each. This prison maintains itself by the labor of its inmates, and last year showed an actual profit of about $40,000. Twenty-three hundred prisoners were confined within its walls when we were there. The total number of inmates of the jail in this and the Northwest Province is just now 39,000; but last year, owing to the famine, the number rose to 42,000. This seems a great number, but I am informed that, taking the population into account, it is not quite up to the average in England. We saw the prisoners working the celebrated Agra jail carpets and rugs, for which there is such demand that orders given to-day cannot be filled for many months. A new building has just been erected and filled with looms to increase the supply. Native dyes and materials alone are used, and one can thus rest assured that a carpet obtained here is genuine throughout. France takes the finest qualities, and we saw some so fine that the day’s task of men sitting as close as they could the entire width of the web was only one inch per day. These carpets, which are really works of art, cost here $10 gold per square yard, and certainly not less than double that when retailed in Paris. Of the inmates about one hundred were women, their special crime being that of child-stealing, which is very common in India, the ornaments worn by the little ones being a strong temptation. We saw two young lads sentenced for life for this crime. They had stolen and robbed a child, and afterward thrown the body into a well. We left Messrs. Walker and Tyler strongly imbued with the feeling that we had seen the model prison of the world in Agra jail.
India gives us valuable hints upon the land question. There is no private tenure; at least it is not general, for when one speaks of a continent with two hundred and fifty millions of people possessed of different customs it is unsafe to say that anything does not exist. Speaking generally, the land of India belongs to village communities in which every family has its right. The State first taxes a certain portion of the produce. Akbar the first Mogul fixed it at one-third of the gross amount, which the head man of each village was required first to set apart for government. The remainder was divided among the community. For untold generations these village communities have preserved intact their traditions, which neither anarchy nor conquest have abolished. Unfortunately the English in the early days were disposed to introduce their system of landlord and tenant, and in the Bengal province this has led to infinite trouble. Men had arisen there who undertook the collection of the land tax of a district and paid the government an agreed-upon sum. They were in fact contractors (Zemindars); this was certainly the easiest mode for the British Government to obtain the revenue, but in recognizing these contractors it raised them virtually to the position of landlord. The poor cultivator could not reach the government at all. He was in the power of the Zemindar, who alone dealt with the authorities. As was to have been expected, the result was just as it has been found in Ireland. The Zemindars squeezed every penny out of the poor farmer which he could be made to yield, until finally the government was compelled to embark upon that perilous sea, land legislation, tenant rights, judicial rents, and all the rest of it.
In the Bombay presidency, however, wiser councils have prevailed. The cultivator deals directly with the government; has a lease as it were subject to revaluation every thirty years. In time the poor cultivator will no doubt rise to the advantages of this system by a process of natural selection. It was certain that many unfit occupiers would be found, and this has been the case so far. The plan is bound, however, to develop and sustain the most competent, and this means that it is the right plan. The land yields the government twenty-two millions sterling per annum ($110,000,000). Had the land owners of England not released themselves while acting as M. P.’s of the tax under which till then land was held by them, England would be in position to-day to remit many taxes which bear heavily upon the people.
We had a talk to-day with an officer of the forest department of India, which vainly strives to save the forests from wandering tribes who practice nomadic agriculture, reaping indeed where they sow, but rarely sowing twice in the same place, which is the difficulty. These tribes inhabit the hills of India, and depend for food solely upon crops grown in the forests. They make a clearing by burning the timber and scatter the seed, rarely taking the trouble to turn up the soil, although some tribes scratch the surface with sticks. The virgin soil yields forty and fifty fold of rice as a first crop. This is gathered and off go the gypsies to another locality for next season. The destruction of timber upon these small clearings is nothing, as our friend explained, compared to that caused by the spread of the fires. The government imposes heavy penalties upon these nomads, if discovered, but vast, tracts remain where no restraint is possible. He was on his way to solitude among the hills, which he preferred to even the plains with their crowds. But England, England some day! was his dream. Ah, poor fellow! the chances are that he will fall and lie in his Indian forest; or, sadder yet, should fortune reach him and he realize his dream, that he would find life in England intolerable and return to die here a disappointed man. We have met several such, and for no class am I so profoundly sorry. Never to realize one’s life dream is bad enough, but to have it sent you and then find it naught—that seems to me the keenest thrust which can enter the soul of man.
Among the attractions of Agra are the palaces and tombs of the Great Moguls, and we have been busy visiting them day after day. This was the capital during the most brilliant period of that extraordinary family’s reign. The founder, Baber, lies buried at Cabool, which was the chief place before the invaders penetrated farther south. Six of these Moguls reigned, and no dynasty in history has six consecutive names of equal power to boast. Hereditary genius has strong support in the careers of these illustrious men; besides this, Baber was a lineal descendant of Tamerlane himself, on his father’s side, and of a scarcely less able Tartar leader on his mother’s side. So much for blood.
The greatest of the six was Akbar, who proved to be that rare combination, soldier and statesman in one. He, Mohammedan by birth, dared to marry a Hindoo princess as an example for his people to follow, but which, unfortunately, they have failed to do. It is strange to remember that the Moguls were seated on their thrones only three hundred years ago, Akbar being contemporaneous with Henry VIII., and ruling India when Shakespeare was still on earth.
Six successive generations of great men, like the Great Moguls, cannot be matched, I think, elsewhere; but it would not be fair to attribute this unbroken line altogether to the doctrine of hereditary genius. Much lies in the fact that upon each of these rulers in turn, depended the maintenance and success of his empire. The Moguls were real powers, indeed the only powers, and not only reigned but governed. Had the doctrine of the divine right of kings been overthrown in India during the reign of even the ablest of the six, and the heir to the throne been debarred the exercise of power; taught from his infancy that his role was to be wholly ornamental, a sham king whose chief end and use was the opening of fancy bazaars or the laying of foundation stones, he too would have developed into something suited for the purpose in view, just as heirs apparent have done elsewhere. It was the continual exercise of high functions which made the race great and kept it so. To play the part of king when one knows himself the political valet of his prime minister, would soon have taken manhood out of Akbar himself, if we can imagine such a man willing to play the part.
I am not going to give a catalogue of what is to be seen in Agra, having no notion of writing a guide-book or of filling notes with long passages from such sources, as I see many writers have done; but I must speak of three or four structures which have pleased me most.
The “Fort” is a most impressive pile of masonry, a Warwick Castle upon a large scale, the ramparts being one and a quarter miles in circumference. This was Akbar’s principal palace, or rather series of palaces, for it embraces the Pearl Mosque, Public Audience Hall, and Jessamine Tower, all of which are within its walls.
The tomb of her father, built by that rare woman, Noor Mahal, she who sleeps in the Taj, is a marble structure of exquisite proportions, and quite unlike others because of the great number and extent of the perforated screens of marble of which it is principally composed. Up to the time we had seen this I think I liked it the best of any; but then Noor Mahal had built it for her father, and I was predisposed to like this proof of her filial devotion.
There is one romantic and perfect love story concerning her in the annals of the Moguls. Akbar’s son, the future ruler, fell desperately in love with a young lady, but for reasons of state she was not eligible, and the emperor quietly provided a husband for her in the person of one of his generals. The young heir only knew that she was married and he condemned to take to wife the woman provided for him. Two years after he had become emperor the husband of his first love died, and although she was then a middle-aged woman, he, the emperor, sought her out and not only married her (she could have been his slave), but raised her to the throne with himself, stamping her image with his own upon the coin of the realm. Such an unbounded influence did this capable and high-spirited woman acquire over not only her devoted husband but the circle of the court, that she became the constant adviser in all important affairs; and that she might not be less thoroughly feminine, I am glad to see it recorded that she introduced improved modes of dress and manners among her ladies. The emperor told his priests one day that until he had married this paragon he had not known what marriage meant. But her grandest achievement is yet to be told. The emperor had previously been dissolute, probably from his first pure dream of love having been so cruelly dispelled—who knows?—but Noor Mahal lifted him into higher regions, and made him a better man. She loved him fervently, and, on more than one occasion, when the emperor was attacked, she imperilled her own life to save his. As they grew old they became more and more to each other, and at her death was it any wonder the emperor ordered that a tomb should rise excelling all previous tombs as much, if possible, as Noor Mahal excelled all other women? This tomb, the Taj Mahal (Diadem Tomb), is said to have cost more than two millions sterling, which is equal to an expenditure of fifty millions of dollars with us to-day. Truly a costly monument, you say. No doubt, but if it has given to mankind one proof that the loftiest ideal can be wrought out and realized in practice, the Taj would be cheap even if its erection had emptied the Comstock lode; and there are men—wise men too—who affirm that it performs this miracle and inspires them with the pleasing hope that in the far ages yet to come the real and the ideal may grow closer together. The emperor built no tomb for himself, as was customary, but as the kind fates decreed, he was placed side by side with her who had been to him so much, and they rest together, under the noblest canopy ever made by human hands. Taking into account the degraded position accorded to women, and remembering to what Noor Mahal raised herself, I think she must be allowed to rank as the greatest woman who ever reigned, and perhaps the greatest who ever lived, for no one has climbed from such a depth to such a height as she, as far as I know. Assuming that Cleopatra was all that Shakespeare has made her for us, a human being of whom it could be truly said
“Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety,”
yet the Egyptian was born to the purple, a queen recognized by her nation, and entitled to rule from the first. What was this general’s daughter in India? A woman, to begin with, which in India meant an inferior being, and yet she rose to equality with the Mogul and was consulted upon affairs of state—not simply because she was, in a bad sense, the ruler’s favorite, but by the inherent force of her own abilities.
Akbar’s Tomb amazes one by its gigantic size, which dwarfs all other tombs. The amount of inlaid work, composed of jasper, carnelian, and other precious stones, seen at every step, inclines one to believe that it cost the fabulous sum stated. It should be remembered that it was the custom among these monarchs always to erect during their lives a palace in which great ceremonies took place while they lived, and which became their tomb at their death. A similar custom prevailed in Egypt, where each ruler began a pyramid when he began his reign. It was in this way that so many splendid structures were built. Akbar did not live to see this vast building completed, but his son carried on the work. The stern simplicity of Akbar’s tomb, which is in the centre of the building and under ground, pleased me. It is a plain solid block of marble, without one word upon it, or mark of any kind; as if it would say to all time, What need to tell the world that the great Akbar lies here?
Speaking generally, the palaces and tombs of Agra are far finer than I had imagined them to be, and the relief experienced in getting away from the plaster shams of Lucknow—cheap magnificence, to genuine grandeur at Agra—can be easily imagined.
Our train having been delayed in reaching Agra, we had arrived too late to visit the Taj by moonlight; and in deference to the strong remonstrance of every one we have met here, we have not yet attempted to see the wonder. “Oh! don’t think, please don’t think of seeing the Taj until the very last, because, if you do, every thing else will seem so coarse,” has been in substance the exclamation of every friend. But now we are through with all else, and we start, two o’clock P.M., February 14th, 1879. Vandy has just come to announce that our carriage is ready. Good-bye! Am I to be disappointed? Of course I am. I have made up my mind to that, and having just had tiffin, and drank a whole pint of bitter beer, I feel myself quite competent to criticise the Taj with the best of them, and especially well fitted just now to stand no nonsense. We met an American who was travelling as a matter of duty, and had found, as far as travel was concerned, I suspect, that he belonged to the class represented by the grumbler in paradise, whose “halo didn’t fit his head exactly.” He had found nothing in India, he said, but a lot of rubbish, but checked himself at once, “except the Taj. Now that building—that is—perfectly satisfactory,” as if he had ordered a suit of clothes from his tailor and had nothing to find fault with. On the other hand, I have just come across a statement “that stern men, overpowered by the sight of it, have been known to burst into tears.” It is this miracle of inanimate matter we are now to see. But here comes Vandy again. “Come on, Andrew; carriage waiting.” I’m off—particulars in our next.
Friday Night, February 14.
We have seen it, but I am without the slightest desire to burst into rapturous adjectives. Do not expect me to attempt a description of it, or to try to express my feelings. There are some subjects too sacred for analysis, or even for words, and I now know that there is a human structure so exquisitely fine, or unearthly, as to lift it into this holy domain. Let me say little about it; only tell you that, lingering until the sun went down, we turned in the noble gateway which forms a frame through which you see the Taj in the distance, with only the blue sky in the background, around and above it, and there took our last fond sad farewell, as the shades of night were wrapping the lovely jewel in their embrace, as if it were a charge too sweetly precious not to be safely enveloped in night’s black mantle, till it could again shine forth at the dawn in all its beauty to adorn the earth. Full in its face we gazed. How kindly it seemed to look upon us! And as one parts for the last time from one whose eye glistens at his glance, we turned never to look upon the Taj again, hiding our eyes as the carriage rolled away, lest by any mischance a partial view should intrude to mar the perfect image our mind has grasped to tarry with us forever. We had been so deliciously sad, and at the same time so thrillingly but yet so solemnly happy for hours, and now came pain alone, the inevitable finale to all our joys on earth—the parting forever. But till the day I die, amid mountain streams or moonlight strolls in the forest, wherever and whenever the mood comes, when all that is most sacred, most elevated, and most pure recur to shed their radiance upon the tranquil mind, there will be found among my treasures the memory of that lovely charm—the Taj.
We had engaged to meet some friends at the club as we drove homeward, but was it any wonder that neither of us remembered this until the stoppage of the carriage at our hotel awoke us from our reveries! What was to be done? Vandy’s reply expressed our condition exactly: “Go out to enjoy myself when I feel that I want to go and put on mourning! I couldn’t do it.” And we didn’t. Our friends will please accept this intimation.
In reading these pages at home so long after the visit one can bring one’s self to be a little prosaic in regard to this marvel, and tell his readers just what the Taj is. As before stated, it is the structure erected by the Emperor Jehanghir in memory of that paragon Noor Mahal. That a tomb should be erected at all for a woman in India is of itself significant, to begin with, and the Roman Emperor who put his horse’s head upon the coin and who is supposed to have consulted him in political affairs did not take a much wider departure from custom than did this true lover when he put upon the coin a woman’s image with his own.
The Taj is built of a light creamy marble, so that it does not chill one as pure cold white marble does. It is warm and sympathetic as a woman. One great critic has finely called the Taj a feminine structure. There is nothing masculine about it, says he; its charms are all feminine. This creamy marble is inlaid with fine black marble lines, the entire Koran in Arabic letters, it is said, being thus interwoven.
The following description is condensed from Fergusson: The enclosure, which includes an inner and an outer court, the whole about a fifth of a mile wide, extends along the banks of the Jumna River one-third of a mile. The principal gateway, opening into the inner court, is a hundred and forty feet high by a hundred and ten feet wide. The mausoleum stands in the centre of a raised marble platform, eighteen feet high, and exactly three hundred and thirteen feet square. At each angle of this terrace rises a minaret, a hundred and thirty-three feet high, and of exquisite proportions, “more beautiful, perhaps,” says Ferguson, “than any other in India.” The mausoleum itself is a square of one hundred and eighty-six feet, with the corners cut off to the extent of about thirty-four feet. In the centre is the principal dome, fifty-eight feet in diameter, and eighty feet high, and at each angle is a smaller dome surmounting a two-story apartment, about twenty-seven feet in diameter.
The light to the central apartment is admitted through double screens of white marble trellis-work of the most exquisite designs. In any climate but that of India this would produce darkness within, but here, in a building constructed wholly of white marble, it serves to temper the glare of the blinding light. No words can express the chastened beauty of that dim religious light, the unearthly effect of the subdued sunshine, sparkling now and then upon the brilliant stones of which the graceful mosaics, vines and flowers are composed. Twenty thousand workmen are said to have been employed upon this marvel for twenty-two years. I would think the time and labor and money bestowed upon it well spent had it been twenty times—aye, a hundred times—as great. There is no price too dear to pay for perfection.
The mosaics of the interior are exquisitely graceful. Flowers and fruits are represented by precious stones, formerly genuine stones, but these having been stolen by the Jats and others, have been replaced by glass, colored to represent the originals. In the centre of the dome lie Noor Mahal and Jehanghir side by side, this being, I believe, the only instance where any emperor of India has condescended to be buried by the side of a woman. The sweetest echo in the known world answers a call at the side of this tomb. Of course the architect could not have had this attraction in view when he planned the structure, and the natives who throng this unique gem of architecture do well to ascribe this apparent voice from heaven to the continual presence and approval of the good gods who like to linger over the tomb of true lovers.
The guide steps forward without a word of warning and raises the cry, “Great is God, and Mohammed is his prophet! Allah! Allah!” At first three distinct musical notes are heard in the echo; I mean different notes upon the musical scale, as distinct from each other as “do, sol, do.” These reverberate round the dome and ascend until they reach the smaller dome, where they reunite and escape from the temple as one tone. Some readers may recall the echo in the baptistery at Pisa, as we did when we heard this new delight in the Taj, but that echo compares with this, well, say as the Taj compares to Milan Cathedral—and now I repent me for comparing the Taj to any other material structure. It is not proper to do so. We shall say as the piano compares with the organ.
If I am ever sentenced to hard labor for life for some unlawful outburst of my wild republicanism, I will make one request as I throw myself upon the mercy of the court: Let me be transported to India, and allowed to perform my daily task in beautifying and preserving the Taj. This would be a labor of love, and I should not be unhappy with my idol to worship, doing my part to hand it down untarnished to future generations.
The Taj is really a very large temple, yet such is its grace, its exquisite proportions, its unapproachable charm—it never occurs to the beholder that it is of such great size. It is neither big nor little, nor heavy nor light—it is simply perfect. You can’t tell why it is perfect, and you don’t want to. You stand and look at the gem through the great gateway which serves as a frame for the picture, for the Taj is directly in front of the arch, probably five hundred yards distant. A narrow walk, lined on both sides with the choicest Indian plants, leads to it, but it is many minutes before you can be induced to advance. Never before have you gazed upon stone and lime which you deemed worthy of being called beautiful. All you have seen becomes mean, coarse, material; this alone is entirely worthy. There is grace and beauty brought down to us from above, the realization of the ideal; it really seems an inspiration. Vandy and I separated instinctively without a word. You want to be with the Taj alone, for it leads you captive and invites to secret communion. I wandered around many hours, gazing at every turn, deliciously, not joyously happy; there was no disposition to croon over a melody, nor any bracing quality in my thoughts—not a trace of the heroic—but I was filled with happiness which seemed to fall upon me gently as the snow-flakes fall, as the zephyr comes when laden with sweet odors. I sat down at length in the garden in full view of the Taj, but had not rested long before an Englishman approached, and something in our faces telling that we were both in the blissful state and the worshipful mood, he came and sat down quietly, without speaking a word, but with a slight and slow nod of recognition, and broke out without one word of introduction—partly as if talking to himself—as follows:
“I stayed away from this in England as long as I could. It is seven years since I was here before. I have been here for two weeks wandering about the grounds; I must tear myself away to-morrow and my great grief is, that I know that I cannot take and carry with me a perfect image—of that—and so I may have to return again.” I said that my feeling was the reverse, for I felt that its image could never leave me. He envied me that, he said. I have often regretted that I did not get the name and address of this worthy devotee, but under the spell of the spirit neither he nor I cared much for other companionship; but should this ever meet his eye surely he will address me and perhaps we may shake hands in silence over the memory of our idol.
It began to grow dark at length, and I thought of finding Vandy to tell him—for no apology seemed necessary—that I could not possibly resist the spell which had carried me away even from him all the afternoon. I was at once relieved, for I found him in the archway. He was first to speak. “A. C.,” he said, “I’m very sorry. I know I ought to have looked for you long ago, but really I could not leave this spot. Look! there is no place like this.” So it was all right. When one is called upward by the spirit, even the dearest of humanity must be left behind. But Vandy was in the right place certainly for one to take his farewell. If ever an inanimate object spoke to man, the Taj did to me when I said farewell; the tear was not alone in the eye of the beholder as he took his last fond look, for that spiritual face of the Taj seemed to beam kindly in return. It said—yes, smile, reader, if you will—I know it said, “This is not farewell, for we understand each other.” There never is a farewell between souls completely sympathetic. They live forever in the bonds of a sacred friendship which separation cannot break.
Delhi, Sunday, February 16.
Delhi at last—he Rome of Asia! Baber established his capital in Agra, a hundred and forty miles south, and therefore farther into India, but his son Humayun returned to Delhi because the summer heats of Agra were found to be insupportable. But it had before been the principal seat of the Pathans or Afghan kings, and, back of them, of several Hindoo dynasties. There are ruins of palaces and forts here dating to one hundred years before Christ, and for eighteen hundred years we have the ruins of the structures of the kings of Delhi and their most noted subordinates, comprising prime ministers, favorite slaves, barbers, architects, etc. For eleven miles along the Imperial Way, on both sides, these ruins stretch, ending in the Kuttub Minar, the glory of Delhi, as the Taj is of Agra. This is a tower standing alone, two hundred and forty feet in height, fifty feet in diameter at the base, and tapering to nine feet at the top. But pictures and photographs have made all familiar with this superb monument. It and the tomb of Humayun, father of the great Akbar, alone remain vividly impressed upon my memory. A ruin now and then is acceptable, but eleven miles of them in one or two days are rather embarrassing, and it is impossible to examine them in detail and retain interest in the work; besides this, a great similarity pervades the mass. It seems to me the entire population must have been oppressed to the last degree, and every surplus penny secured in some way to be expended in the erection and maintenance of these palaces, and for the support of the classes who occupied them.
One most important department of government in the management of a conquered race is that of its police and intelligence bureau, and this is admirably administered in India. A special department was organized years ago, and specially gifted officers of the army placed at its head. To the present chief, Major Henderson, whose face we see in all the photographs of the Prince of Wales’s party, we are deeply indebted for Indian items. This department has almost succeeded in stamping out the Thugs, and it is very seldom that murders are now committed by these religious fanatics. Their goddess Kali demanded blood, but she was fastidious; nothing but human blood would meet her tastes, and so her devotees strangled and waylaid and shot the victims marked out for sacrifice. Some Thugs confessed to between seventy and eighty murders, and one to the incredible number of one hundred and ninety-two (what saints they would make!). The members of the sect-were classified into spies, stranglers, and grave-diggers, the spies being in the first stage and not ranking with the two more advanced degrees. Assuming usually the garb of merchants or pilgrims, they often craved the protection of their intended victims. Their favorite instrument for strangulation was a handkerchief, in the use of which they were most expert. The secret that these wretches were linked together as a religious fraternity, bound by all the hopes of future bliss and the terrors of eternal damnation as they satisfied or failed to satisfy the craving of their horrible gods for human blood, was not discovered until about a half century ago. The government purchased the secret with the names and address of every member and relative of a member of the sect, arrested them all in 1837 and colonized them at Jubbulpore, where they were taught trades. Their names and those of their descendants remain on the list of persons suspect, and should Thugism ever show its head again, the presence of any member near the scene of the offence would be held almost conclusive evidence against him.
The Major’s department has on its records the names and descriptions of more than four thousand of these people, and also of nearly nine thousand professional gang robbers. Murder has been done when the booty did not exceed six cents. But the systematic hunting down of these dangerous classes is fast ridding India of this curse. If a man will murder another for a sixpence he can be induced to betray his fellow-murderers for a moderate sum. Is it not a blessing for the race that evil disintegrates? Only for good ends can men permanently combine; then no feared betrayal works dismay. As great movements, whether for good or evil, require many supporters, society has its safe-guard; nothing really good can be destroyed by conspirators.
The fort at Delhi resembles in its general features that of Agra, but is famous as having been the receptacle of the Peacock Throne, which was valued by a French jeweller at not less than six millions sterling, say thirty millions of dollars. On such a precious pedestal as this the Moguls sat and ruled this land. The throne was plundered of its jewels by the Persians, but its frame is still shown in the local museum. The fort remains in an unusually good state of preservation, making it by far the most satisfactory specimen of the gorgeous residences of the Moguls that we have seen. The walls are of marble, inlaid in the interior with genuine precious stones of various colors worked into the forms of vines and flowers for a height of about six feet. The floors are similarly decorated. The upper portions of the walls have the same patterns, but these are painted, not inlaid. Every part is gilded in the most elaborate manner, and, in short, here alone of all places that I have seen, one could fancy himself wandering through the resplendent wonders of the Arabian Nights.
Of course we did not neglect the many places rendered historical by the mutiny. These are seen upon every side in this district, but none was more interesting to me than the Cashmere Gate. The rebels held the fort, and it was determined to assault it. Here is the record of the men who volunteered to lay the train to the Gate:
“Salkfied laid his bags, but was shot through the arm and leg, and fell back on the bridge, handing the portfire to Sergeant Burgess, bidding him light the fuse. Burgess was instantly shot dead in the attempt. Sergeant Carmichael then advanced, took up the portfire, and succeeded in the attempt, but immediately fell mortally wounded. Sergeant Smith, seeing him fall, advanced at a run, but finding that the fuse was already burning, threw himself into the ditch.”
The age of miracles is admittedly past, but it is certain that the age of heroes existed in 1857.
The finest mosque in Delhi, and one of the finest in the world, is the Jumma Musjid. We happened to visit it just as the priests were calling the faithful to prayer, which they do by ascending to the foot of the minarets and turning toward Mecca and there chanting the call. Numerous worshippers came, and having washed in the pool, went to the Mosque and began their worship on their knees. Our guide was a Mohammedan, and I asked him what a good man is required to do daily in the way of external worship. Here is the programme as he gave it to me: Five times each day he washes hands and feet and prays; first in the morning when he rises, and then at one, four, after sunset, and before he goes to bed, repeating the prayer to Allah and some words from the Koran, and touching the ground with his forehead no less than thirty-eight times during the day. This must be done every day, Saturday and Sunday alike. The prayers are simple exclamations reciting the greatness of God and the insignificance of his servants, and ask for nothing. How very close to their daily lives must this constant appeal at short intervals, through each day, bring the Unknown, unless, as is said to be the case, it becomes a more matter of form, familiarity breeding contempt.
SAUGOR, GREAT PENINSULAR RAILWAY, February 19.
We are now en route to Bombay from Delhi, a distance of about thirteen hundred miles. We have been two nights in our sleeping-car, and shall spend the night on the line and reach Bombay in the morning. General Grant just passed us going toward Calcutta, but there was no chance for us to get at him to shake hands in India. This is the Pacific Railway of India, connecting Calcutta and all the eastern portion with the western coast, upon which Bombay is situated. The time between Calcutta and England has been shortened almost a whole week by its construction. The railways of India, of which there are at present about nine thousand miles in operation, were principally constructed under a guarantee of five per cent, by the Indian Government, and some of them yield more than that already. In a short time there will be none that will remain a charge upon the revenues. The government retained the right, at intervals of twenty or twenty-five years, to acquire possession and ownership of these lines upon certain terms, and at no distant day will enjoy large revenues from its railway property. If the days of guarantees and subsidies be not hopelessly gone with us, here is an idea worth considering by our government. Fancy what the ownership of the Union and Central Pacific lines would mean as recompense for the amounts advanced.
The government has established several model farms in different provinces, for the purpose of testing articles thought suitable for cultivation in India, and of diffusing among the natives improved methods of agriculture. Such farms under able scientific management must eventually bring to the country what it is best calculated to produce. The success attendant upon the growth of a substitute for cinchona is significant. India must have quinine in large quantities as a preventive of malaria. Experiments prove that while the genuine article does not thrive here, a kindred species, possessing nearly the same properties, although to a less degree, will grow well. This has been cultivated in large quantities, and I notice that the medical chief orders it to be used in all dispensaries where quinine has hitherto been required, although the medical officers are permitted in extreme cases to order the dearer drug.
We are now traversing a level plain, and as this region was blessed with rain in season, it seems much more fertile than some other portions of the country; but the poorest harvests I ever saw in any part of America would be rated as abundant here. We have seen everywhere herds of buffaloes, bullocks, and sheep grazing in fields which seemed to us entirely destitute of everything; not a green leaf of any kind to be seen, and we could not understand how animals could even get a mouthful of food in the brown parched lands. But I am told they do nibble away at the short stalks and roots of corn or sugar-cane left in the ground when the crop was cut, and in this way manage to eke out a scanty existence. They are at best little but skin and bone. When it is merely a question of keeping life in the body, man and beast alike prove that but little is required.
While everything about us partakes of a dusty clayey hue, we must not forget that we see the plains of India in the winter. Let the blessed Monsoon burst, and these fields, now so parched and dead, are covered at once “as if the earth had given a subterranean birth to heaven.” As Roderick Dhu’s host rose up at the blast of his bugle, vegetation springs forth, and the land we now wonder at is no longer barren, but teems with tropical luxuriance. Then come the snakes and insects to poison and annoy. Last year, sixteen thousand seven hundred and seventy human beings were reported killed by snakes, while eight hundred and nineteen only were killed by tigers.
One has difficulty in imagining such a change in any land as is implied by these startling figures, for to-day as we travel not a fly nor insect of any kind is to be seen. If it were not for the intense heat, which I know I could not endure, I should like to spend a summer in India, snakes notwithstanding, just to see so complete a reversal of conditions, for no matter what reflection may do to tell, as we see India only under winter conditions, we shall always have a bias to rate it as the miserable, barren land it appears to us. Travellers should be on their guard against this tendency, for it leads to many false conclusions. If both sides of a question need to be considered, all seasons of a country must be experienced before a true judgment can be passed upon it. This is especially true of India, where the change is, as it were, from life to death.
We see wood-gatherers entering the cities, each with a bundle of sticks, or twigs rather, on his head, the result of the day’s gathering—scarcely one of the sticks thicker than one’s finger, and the great bulk of the bundle composed of mere switches, so closely is everything shaven in crowded Hindostan. To-day we stood and looked at a native who had led his goat into the country to pick up a meal. He bent the boughs of small trees one after another so that the goat could strip them of their leaves. The poor skeleton was ravenous. Nothing goes to waste in India, nor anywhere in the East. Garbage and sewage have value, and all is swept clean and kept clean in every hole and corner in consequence. This simplifies life very much. Our elaborate system of underground pipes, our sewers, drains, and modern conveniences of all kinds, and our sanitary arrangements which are of such prime importance to health, and to which we are fortunately giving so much more attention—these the East wholly escapes. We have to cure; they have prevention. Human labor at four or five cents per day (2 to 2 1/2d.) changes the conditions of existence. It pays to do so many things which, under our rates for labor, cannot be thought of. I have mentioned that in Japan the refuse of all kinds from a residence is not only taken away at any hours each day one fixes, but a small sum is actually paid for it, which the servants of the establishment consider a perquisite.
Bombay, Thursday, February 20.
We reached this city on time this morning, feeling not in the least fatigued by our three nights in the train. In the evening we were fortunate enough to stroll down to the pier, where the band was playing. Nowhere have we seen so varied a concourse of people. The drive at Calcutta has long been noted as excelling any other scene in the gorgeousness of its oriental coloring, but this of the pier at Bombay surpasses by far what we saw there. Calcutta can boast no wealthy native Parsees, who attend here in large numbers in fine equipages with servants in livery. The Parsee ladies especially are resplendent in jewels and color; and the rich turbaned Mohammedan adds to the variety. The assemblage moved to and fro among the carriages and along the edges of the broad pier chatting gayly, while the music seemed to set everything in motion. Native boatmen in their picturesque garbs passed now and then plying their trade, carrying a Sahib’s portmanteau or a lady’s bundle. I sat down and imagined myself in the midst of all that I had seen of pretty seaports in grand opera, the ship scene in L’Africaine, the landing of Desdemona in the Isle of Cyprus, the fishermen in Masaniello, and I thought I had never seen anything of this description so pleasing. I lost Vandy in the crowd, and sat drinking it all in till dark. Certainly among the fine things in the East is to be ranked the music upon the Apollo Bunder, Bombay.
Friday, February 21.
We rose early, and were off before breakfast for a drive to the “Tower of Silence.” This is the mountain top where the Parsees give their dead to be torn by the vultures. We shudder at cremation, but the sacred fire of the funeral pile as it flames to heaven has something awe-inspiring about it. Man sprung from the dust mingles at last with the purer element of fire, and “vanishes into air, into thin air,” leaving no trace behind. But deliberately to throw our dead out to be torn in pieces and devoured by vultures—who can endure the thought! And yet many of the inhabitants here would be most unhappy if denied the consolation of believing that their bodies were to be served in this manner. Nor are these poor and ignorant; on the contrary, next to the English they are the best educated and the principal merchants in the city. It is simply that they have been taught in their youth that the earth must not be defiled by contact with the dead. They cannot bury, therefore, neither can they burn, because fire, one of the elements, is sacred; neither can they cast their dead into the sea, for it, too, is holy. There seems to them no way but this—of getting the birds of the air to come and take the flesh. We were received at the foot of the mound by a Parsee guide, who conducted us through every part. The towers, of which there are five, are approached by long flights of easy stairs. We entered a door at the top, and the first objects which struck our eyes were the vultures. They sat motionless, as close together as possible, on top of the wall of the round tower, with their tails toward us and their beaks toward the centre of the tower where the bodies are placed. The wall is about twenty feet high and fifty feet in diameter. There did not appear to be room for one more bird upon it, every inch of it being occupied, their bodies almost touching each other. What a revolting coping they formed to the otherwise plain round wall. More birds were perched on trees, and on the other towers; and indeed everywhere we looked these disgusting objects met our view. At ten o’clock every morning the dead are taken from the dead-house, rich and poor alike being previously divested of clothing; and were we to revisit the spot at that hour, we are told the quiet stillness which pervaded the grove would be found no longer. We inwardly congratulated ourselves that the dreaded heat of a Bombay sun had sent us to this place at so early an hour—ere the repast began—and rapidly withdrew. It isn’t much, yet I would not be robbed of it—such a disposition of our dead as would still render it possible for us to say with Laertes:
“Lay her i’ the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring.”
Hard times are everywhere, and produce some strange changes. The Banyan caste of Suerah has just resolved to abolish caste dinners after funerals, but if a wealthy Hindoo still wishes to indulge in these affairs he is permitted to do so after one year has elapsed. I fear many of the dear departed will never be honored by the feast after this interval. At marriages hereafter only one feast is to be given, instead of four, which were formerly considered the thing. Retrenchment is the word even where caste customs of long standing are involved.
I note that yesterday a native was fined ten rupees for driving a lame horse. What a singular race he must think these English! Before their day he could have done what he liked with horse or servant, male or female, “because he bought them,” and now he can’t even be the judge when to use his horse. The more I see of the thoroughness of the English Government in the East—its attention to the minutest details, the exceptional ability of its officials as evinced in the excellence of the courts, jails, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, roads, railways, canals, etc.,—the more I am amazed. I had before no idea of what was implied by the government of India. It would have been madness for any other people than the English to undertake it. Not that we have not in America a class of men of equal organizing power, but these have careers at home open to them, and could not be induced to leave their own land. Even if this were not so, America requires an improved civil service to bring its ablest men forward. I am sure no such body of officials exists as that comprising the civil service of India, whether judged by its purity or its ability.
The British army has been reformed of late years in India to a degree beyond popular knowledge of the subject. Every one agrees in attributing the spread of the great mutiny to the fact that there were at two or three critical points superannuated veterans, unable to take before it was too late the most obvious measures for its suppression. In short, it was here just as it was in Washington when the Civil War began. I remember seeing General Scott, the commander-in-chief, when Bull Run was lost, carried or assisted from his carriage across the pavement to his office, he being too old and infirm to walk. There were others scarcely less feeble in charge of departments. It was just so in India; but now mark the change. No man can retain the command of a regiment in the British army more than five years, nor can generals serve longer. These officers retire on pensions, and the next in seniority takes his turn, always provided he passes successfully the most searching examination at each successive promotion. I was told that upon a recent examination only two officers out of thirteen passed. No favoritism is shown, and I have met young men related to the highest officials to whom it has been kindly intimated that another career than the army had better be sought. I have met many officers, and the impression made upon me is an exceedingly favorable one. I do not believe that in case of war now the blunder of those in command would have to be atoned for by the superior fighting qualities of the rank and file, as was notoriously the case during the Crimean War. The promotion of General Wolseley means business. The Duke of Cambridge, because he is a royal duke, is allowed to reign, but Wolseley is to govern.
I was struck with the full length portraits of the real man and the sham in last year’s Royal Academy. General Winfield Scott in all his glory was not more brilliant than the duke, military hat in hand with its white waving plumes, booted and spurred, his breast a mass of decorations, “Old Fuss and Feathers” over again. Beside him was a man in plain attire, about as ornamental as General Grant; but this was the man of war, one of those very rare characters who does what there is to do—in Egypt as in Abyssinia—and never fails.
Bombay and Calcutta are again rivals for supremacy. Bombay Island, upon which Bombay City stands, another of the keys of the world, was given to Britain by Portugal as part of the dower of Catherine of Braganza when she married Charles II. Think of a woman giving anything for the privilege of marrying such a wretch! but so little was it esteemed that the government gave it in 1688 to the East India Company for a rental of £10 per annum. It was subsequently made the principal seat of their power, but it had no access to the interior, and Calcutta, which stands at the mouth of a river system of inland transportation rivalled only by that of our smoky Pittsburgh, soon eclipsed it. There was no chance for Bombay against this natural advantage, and she had to succumb; but now, since railways have penetrated the interior, and especially since the opening of the Suez Canal route has brought Bombay so very much nearer to Europe, the struggle for supremacy has begun anew. The European traffic now goes mainly to her, and Calcutta gets her portion by rail through her ancient rival. In 1872 the exports and imports of Bombay were £50,000,000, and those of Calcutta £54,000,000; so you see it is not going to be a walk over for Calcutta, though her population still exceeds that of her challenger by about a hundred thousand. It is water vs. rail on a large scale, and the result will be looked for with interest. I think the former capital, once dethroned, will eventually regain the crown; but there is plenty of room for both, and the rivalry between them should be a generous one.
Bombay is by far the finest city in the East, but it has been inflated more than any other, and is now undergoing severe contraction. Its public buildings would do credit to any European capital. Government concluded to sell the land fronting on the bay, which had been used as the site of an antiquated fort, and such was the rage for speculation at the time that five million dollars’ worth of land was disposed of and enough retained to give Bombay a beautiful little park and a long drive along the beach. Government took the money and erected on part of the land retained the magnificent buildings referred to. We met one gentleman who had bought one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the new lots, for which he admitted he could not get today more than twenty thousand dollars. But Bombay is only learning the universal lesson which the world seems to need to have repeated every ten or twelve years. It is fortunate that this city is our last in India, because it so far excels any other. Nowhere else is such oriental richness to be seen. The colors of the masses as they move rapidly to and fro remind you of the combinations of the kaleidoscope. The native women of the lowest order work in gangs, and it is their dress which chiefly brightens the scene. A dark-green tight-fitting jacket, a magenta mantle festooned about the body and legs in some very graceful manner and reaching to the knees, the feet and legs bare to the knees, a purple veil on the head but thrown back over the shoulders—this is the dress as well as I can describe it. The habit of carrying loads upon the head makes them as straight as arrows, and as they march along with majestic stride they completely eclipse the poor-looking male, who seems to have had his manhood ground out of him by generations of oppression, while his companion has passed through subjugation without losing her personal dignity.
It seems homelike to see street railways, of which there are several prosperous lines here. For this enterprise an American gentleman has to be thanked. All classes ride together, and caste in Bombay gets serious knocks in consequence. From Bombay as a centre civilization is destined to radiate. A palpable breach has already been made in the solid walls which have hitherto shut India from the entrance of new ideas, and through this gate the assaulting columns must eventually gain possession; but it will not be within the span of men now living, nor for several generations to come. The Sailors’ Home and the hospitals of the city are highly creditable, and among the charitable institutions I must not forget the Hindoo hospital for wretched animals, where some of each kind are tenderly cared for, to signify the reverence paid by this sect to all kinds of life, for the meanest form is sacred to them. We had a curious illustration of this while in Benares examining the richest specimens of the delicate embroideries for which that city is celebrated. A little nasty intruder showed itself on one of the finest, and a gentleman with us involuntarily reached forth to kill it, but the three Hindoos caught his arm at once, and exhibited great anxiety to save the insect. One of them did get it, and taking it to the window set it at liberty. It was Uncle Toby and the troublesome fly over again, as immortalized by the genius of Sterne: “Get thee gone, poor devil! there is room enough in the world for thee and for me,” quoth Uncle Toby. And does not Cowper say—
“I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish’d manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.”
Well, these Hindoos wouldn’t do it either. Let them be credited accordingly, heathen though they be.
It begins to grow too hot here; I could not live one season in India—that I am convinced of. The tropical sun has no mercy, piercing through thick pith helmet, white umbrella, and driving one into the house. We are to leave none too soon. This evening we were surprised to see, as we strolled along the beach, more Parsees than ever before, and more Parsee ladies richly dressed; all seemed wending their way to the sea. It was the first of the new moon, a period sacred to these worshippers of the elements; and here on the shores of the ocean, as the sun was sinking in the sea, and the slender silver thread of the crescent moon was faintly shining in the horizon, they congregated to perform their religious rites. Fire was there in its grandest form—the sun—and water in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean outstretched before them. The earth was under their feet, and wafted across the sea the air came laden with the perfumes of “Araby the Blest.” Surely no time nor place could be more fitly chosen than this for lifting up the soul to the realms beyond sense. I could not but participate with these worshippers in what was so grandly beautiful. There was no music save the solemn moan of the waves as they broke into foam on the beach,
“With their ain eerie croon
Working their appointed work,
And never, never done.”
But where shall we find so mighty an organ, or so grand an anthem? How inexpressibly sublime the scene appeared to me, and how insignificant and unworthy of the Unknown seemed even our cathedrals, “made with human hands,” when compared to this looking up through Nature unto Nature’s God! I stood and drank in the serene happiness which seemed to fill the air. I have seen many modes and forms of worship, some disgusting, others saddening, a few elevating when the organ pealed forth its tones, but all poor in comparison to this. Nor do I ever expect in all my life to witness a religious ceremony which will so powerfully affect me as that of the Parsees on the beach at Bombay. While I gazed upon the scene I stood conscious only that I was privileged to catch a glimpse of something that was not of the earth, but, as I sauntered homeward, Wordsworth’s lines came to me as the fittest expression of my feelings. The passage is too long to quote at length; besides I have to confess I cannot at this moment recall it all. But he tells first how in his youth Nature was all in all to him, “nor needed a moral sense unborrowed from the eye,” but later the inner light came; and hear him in his maturer years:
“For I have learned
To look on Nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A Presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
“The still sad music of humanity!”—it was that I heard sounding in the prayers of those devout Parsees and in the moan of that mighty sea. Sweet, refreshing it was, though tinged with sadness, as all our more precious musings must be, “since all we know is, nothing can be known.”
In one of my strolls along the beach I met a Parsee gentleman who spoke excellent English. From him I learned that the disciples of Zoroaster number only about two hundred thousand, and of those no fewer than fifty thousand are in Bombay. They were driven from Persia by the Mohammedans and settled here, where they have prospered.
They do not intermarry with other sects, believe in one God, and worship the sun, moon, earth, and stars only as being the visible angels of God, as he termed them. In themselves these are nothing, but are the best steps by which we can ascend to God. Good men will be happy forever; bad men will be unhappy for a long time after death, and very bad men will be severely punished. But I was delighted to be assured that no one will be punished forever, all life being sacred to God because he made it, and all life must eventually be purified, return to its Maker, and be merged in Him. Parsees cannot burn the dead, because fire should not be prostituted to so vile a use. They cannot bury, because the earth should not be desecrated with the dead, neither should the sea; and therefore God has provided vultures, which cannot be defiled, to absorb the flesh of the dead. I said to him that the mere thought of violence offered to our dead caused us to shudder. “Then what do you think of the worms?” he asked. This was certainly an effective estoppel. “It comes to this,” he continued, “a question of birds or worms.” “You are right” (I had to admit it), I said; “after all, it’s not worth disputing about.” When I had asked him a great many questions, I suppose he thought turn-about was fair play, and he began to cross-examine me upon many points of Christian doctrine, which I did my best to put in the proper form. We finally agreed that no good men or good women of any form of religion would be eternally miserable, and upon this platform we said good-bye and parted.
On looking around, I saw that we had become the centre of quite a circle of Parsees, Hindoos, and Mohammedans, who had been attracted by our conversation, their earnest bronze faces, surmounted by the flaming red turbans, so very close to mine, forming with the gorgeous colors of their flowing robes, a picture I shall not soon forget. They opened a way of egress, and Sahib passed out of the throng amid their salaams, evidently an object of intense curiosity.
Our excursion to the Caves of Elephanta was very enjoyable. They are decidedly worth seeing. Here is the strongest contrast to the grand open-air worship of the Parsees, for the Hindoos sought to hide their worship in caves which shut out the light of day, and to seek their gods in the dark recesses. The carved figures and columns of the Temple are fine, the principal idol being of great size—a huge representation of the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, which make the three-headed god. The effect of such a monster, seen dimly by the lighted torch, upon ignorant natures, could not but be overpowering. When examined closely there is nothing repulsive in the faces; on the contrary, the expression of all three is rather pleasing than otherwise, like that of Buddha. It is evident that the gods of the Hindoos are good natured, kind, and disposed to forgiveness.
Bombay, Monday, February 24.
We sailed at six in the evening by the splendid Peninsula and Oriental mail steamer Pekin. The city was bathed in the rays of a brilliant sunset as we steamed slowly out of the harbor, and we bade farewell to India when it looked the fairest.
And now for something on the great Indian Question, for it would never do for a traveller to visit India and not to have his decided opinion upon matters and things there, and his clearly-defined policy embracing the management of the most intricate problems involved in the government of two hundred and fifty millions of the most ignorant races known, and all founded upon a few weeks’ hurried travel among them. There is, however, a much more extensive class who are even more presumptuous, for they have just as complete a policy upon this subject, although they have never seen India at all.
The vast country we know as India, then, is held and governed, not as one country, but district by district. One province, for instance, has a native ruler with whom England has nothing whatever to do except that, by right of treaty, she sends a political agent to his court, supported in some cases, and in others not, by a certain number of soldiers. This Resident is expected to confer with and advise the Rajah, and keep him and his officials from outrageous courses. Especially are they prevented from warring upon neighboring States. In extreme cases, when counsel and remonstrance avail not, the government has had either to depose the ruling Rajah and substitute another, as in the recent affair of the Rajah of Baroda, or to confiscate the province and merge it in the Empire, as in the case of the King of Oude. But what must be borne in mind is that no two native rulers govern alike. Laws and customs prevailing in one province are unknown in another. Land is held by one tenure in one place, and by an entirely different system in another. India is therefore not one nation, but a vast conglomeration of different races and principalities, each independent of the other, differing as much as France does from Germany, and much more than England does from America. Add to this the fact that the people of any one district are not a homogeneous community, but subdivided into distinct castes, which refuse to intermarry or even to eat with one another, and a faint idea of the magnitude of the Indian question will begin to dawn upon one.
It is this mass which England has to rule and keep firmly in order with her sixty thousand troops, and which constitutes the government of India the most difficult problem with which, I believe, statesmen have to deal. The amount of knowledge, statesmanship, tact, temper, patience and resource absolutely put in requisition by the men who rule India equals, I feel sure, that required for the government of the whole of civilized Europe combined; for it is always easy to govern a homogeneous people, the rulers being of the people themselves, and having the good of their respective countries at heart. It seems to me that an unnecessary element of danger arises from the fact that these Rajahs are permitted to maintain no fewer than three hundred thousand native troops, mainly to swell their importance. The question of enforcing reductions in these armaments is now under consideration, I observe, but I should decidedly say with Hamlet.
“Oh! reform it altogether.”
I would not allow a Rajah to keep more than one hundred armed troops, except as a body-guard, beyond the number actually required to enforce order. Upon this point I have decided views.
The existence of Rajahs is perhaps a necessary evil. They are maintained in consequence of a well-grounded reluctance on the part of the government to assume the task of governing more territory. It is to be regretted that it has been necessary to extend the sway so far already; nevertheless, the day will come when the petty courts must be swept away, as they have been in Japan and Germany, and the whole country given the benefits of uniform rule. It is estimated that the Rajahs tax the people to an extent equal to the revenues of the government—about $300,000,000 per annum: of this much is squandered in upholding their state—a grievous exaction from so poor a country. This will soon be one of the burning questions of India.
The Rajah of Jeypoor draws from the people $6,000,000 per annum, and one or two others exceed this sum. Poor fellow! the other day he had to marry his tenth wife—a sister of two of his previous wives, for whom no suitable husband could be found. There were but two families in the realm, I believe, of the proper rank, and neither happened just then to have a nice young man on hand. The disgrace of having an unmarried woman in the family was not to be borne, and the old Rajah had to husband her, as he had her other sister some time ago. Although so well provided with wives, he has never been blessed with an heir, and at his death his first wife will adopt a son, who will be his successor.
What do I think of India? is asked me every day; but I feel that one accustomed to the exceptional fertility and advantages of America—a land so wonderfully endowed that it seems to me more and more the special favorite of fortune—is very apt to underrate India. We saw it after two years of bad harvests, and a third most unpromising one coming on. Judged from what I saw, I can only say that I, as a lover of England, find it impossible to repress the wish that springs up at every turn, Would she were safely and honorably out of it! Retiring now is out of the question; she has abolished the native system in large districts, and must perforce continue the glorious task of giving to these millions the blessings of order.
Her withdrawal would be the signal for internecine strife, and such a saturnalia of blood and rapine as the world has never known; but were the question whether Britain should to-day accept India as a gift, and I had the privilege of replying, then, “Declined with thanks;” and yet it is the fashion just now to call India “the brightest jewel in the crown.” The glitter of that jewel may be red again some day. I have heard only two reasons advanced in favor of India as an English possession. The first is, it furnishes official station and employment for a large number who would otherwise have no field; but I think there is yet plenty of unoccupied territory in which these gentlemen can find work if they can hold their own in the struggle for existence. Besides, the official class requires less protection, not greater, than it has hitherto been favored with, if the true interest of England is to be considered.
The second reason is a commercial one, and it is pointed out that the trade of England is thereby extended; to which it may be said in reply that the occupation of foreign countries and the subjugation of foreign races are in no measure required by the demands of trade. The possession of small islands at proper points secures all this. Hong Kong and a small strip at Shanghai and one or two other ports, afford all the facilities required for England to obtain the trade. Penang on the west of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore at the south end, do the same. All of these have the precious silver thread surrounding them, and can be held easily by Britannia against the world without and native races struggling within for independence, as they are bound to do some day.
There is another view to be taken of this question by a well-wisher of Britain which cannot be ignored. She, the mother of nations and champion of oppressed nationalities, necessarily occupies a false position in India; there she must assume the rôle of the conqueror. I do not speak of this to disapprove of it, or even of the Press Laws recently adopted; to avert still greater evils she is compelled to go to any length. Nevertheless, it is a false position; the stars in their courses fight against it, and sooner or later England will retire from it. In short, the pole-star of Indian policy is to bend every energy to the sowing of seed which will produce a native class capable at first of participating in the government, and which will eventually become such as can be trusted with entire control, so that England may stand to India as she stands to-day to Canada and Australia. There is one course for England, and one only, and this let her adopt speedily. Let her call around her Indian government the best men of India, explain to them her aim and end, show them how noble her aspirations are; point to Canada and Australia as proofs of her colonial system, and say, To this condition we hope to bring your country. Can you resist our appeal to come and help us?
Since all this was written the Ilbert bill question has arisen. It will be understood at once that such a measure is believed by me to be emphatically a step not only in the right direction, but in the only direction, if grave dangers are to be avoided in India. Let me tell my English readers that, travelling as I did, an American, and not, in Indian parlance, as one of the governing class—one of the usurpers—I had many opportunities of hearing educated natives speak the thoughts of their hearts, which to an Englishman’s ears would have been treason. Such trustworthy indications of the forces moving under the crust should be considered as invaluable by the rulers of India. While, therefore, educated natives give assent to the claims made for English rule, that it keeps order and enforces justice as far as its courts can reach, they are yet antagonistic to it. It is the old story: You have taught people to read, and placed before them as types of highest excellence our rebels, Cromwell, Hampden, Sidney, Russell, Washington, Franklin. In so far as a native Indian dwells contentedly while his country is ruled by a foreign race, by just so much do we despise him in our heart, for loyalty to England means treachery to his country, and one cannot depend upon traitors.
If India were told that the chief delight of England was not to hold dependencies but to bring forth nations competent to govern themselves—a much grander mission—and were England slowly, but steadily to introduce, little by little, the native element in government whenever practicable—and that it is practicable to do so in every department to a greater or less degree I am convinced—then I should feel that sufficient pressure had been relieved to give hope that peace would reign there. The greatest danger England will have to contend with in every measure taken toward this great end will be the violent opposition of the Anglo-Indian. It will be difficult to carry reform against the advice of The only class which seems competent to advise, viz., such Englishmen as have had experience of India. I hold such to be Totally incompetent as a class to take proper views of Indian problems—such men as Sir Richard Temple are the exception. His articles upon India seem to me most salutary and to denote a statesmanlike grasp of a subject of paramount importance to England. The reason why the Englishman in India is likely to be entirely wrong in his views of Indian government is because he sits on the safety valve of the terrible boiler. He hears every now and then the sharp rush of the confined steam, which startles the ear as it passes. When it is proposed to relieve the pressure and allow more steam to escape he is frightened, and protests that his position would thereby become unendurable.
But we who stand afar off and know the play of the forces in that boiler, as I know them from sources sealed to him, see that the steam must be allowed vent in constantly increasing volume if a terrible catastrophe is to be averted. John Bright, of all English public men of the first rank, seems to me to understand the Indian problem best; hence the interest he takes in it—an interest which every public man would share did he realize the situation England occupies in Hindostan.
I have before referred to the fact that the Anglo-Indian authorities protested against railway travel being conducted without special reference to caste, and that they were overruled by the Home Government. The result is that more impression has been made upon caste, and is made daily and hourly, by the rush of every grade to get the best seats in the same carriage, than by all other influences combined. The Home Office judged more wisely than those who were too close to the problem to get a clear view; and so it must be in every measure calculated to elevate the people of India to a higher stage of civilization. In my opinion England can scarcely move too rapidly in the imperative task of attaching able natives, as these arise, to her side, and giving them power—at least the danger is that she will move too slowly rather than too fast.
The business of colonizing, as a whole, does not appear to me to pay. As a mission there is none so noble or to be compared with it, next to governing well at home; but beyond this England’s share of the material good looks small. If the colony is rich and prosperous it sets up for itself; if weak and unsuccessful, it becomes a Natal, and calls upon the generous-hearted mother for assistance. The gain to the colonies is obvious; nothing could be finer for them; and if it be clearly understood that England elects to play the tender nurse and receive her reward in the consciousness of doing good—all right. Let her continue! But if it be thought that these dependencies enhance her own power and promote her prosperity, the sooner the books are balanced the better. Only one prayer, May heaven keep America from the colonizing craze! Cuba! Santo Domingo! avaunt, and quit our sight!
From another point of view one keeps inquiring whether all the advantages flowing from the introduction of English ideas, as far as these can really be introduced in the government of subject races—whether, after all, the result is, upon the whole, for the real permanent good of these inferior races. To the uninformed man, who has never been beyond his own island, it seems fanciful, perhaps, to raise this question. English civilization, freedom, civil and religious liberty, order, law, Christianity—these not beneficial, think you! Softly, my friend, softly. These may be growths admirable for English-speaking people who can assimilate them, but yet unsuitable for the Hottentot. You press man’s food upon babes to their injury, may be. The true evolutionist must regard these attempts with sorrow.
Speaking broadly, I do not believe that it is in the power of England—and of course much less of any other country—to confer upon another race benefits which are not more than cancelled by the evil which usually follows from her interference. Rob even the lowest people in development today of the necessity of governing themselves, take this responsibility away from them, as interference does take it away, and the natural growth of that people is not only checked, but it is diverted into channels foreign to it.
If colonization can follow occupation it is a different matter— the interference is temporary, and Australians, Canadians and Americans soon come forth and govern themselves, the native-born soon grow patriotic, and work out their own destiny. In such cases England’s share is her glory, a glory of which no other nation partakes, for she alone is the grand old mother of nations, God bless her! It is different with India. No one pretends that Our race can ever obtain a foothold there. Conquerors the English are, and conquerors they must remain as long as they remain at all, which I ardently trust may not be long; not longer than the natives are willing to accept the task of self-government. Meanwhile surely no further rash responsibilities should be taken upon herself by England. She can do most good by example. The little islands of Hong Kong and Singapore, and the other Straits Settlements, Shanghai, and even Ceylon, which is not too big—these teach the races of the East what western civilization means, and serve as models to which they can move with such differentiation as circumstances require and without losing the inestimable advantages of thinking and acting for themselves. Even Christianity will make more progress from such examples than if through the efforts of a paid propaganda we try to force it upon people. Rob them of this freedom to act, to accept, and to reject, and all that England can give in return will not atone for the injury she inflicts. A nation should have much to offer in exchange, more than I see that any nation has, which stifles in the breast of the most ignorant people in the world the sacred germ of self-development.
The total acreage under wheat in India is not much, if any, less than that of the United States, and the average yield about the same—thirteen bushels per acre. The quality is excellent. America cannot afford to ignore this potential rival. The cheaper labor of India is quite an element in her favor, but cheap labor is not always cheap. One educated Minnesotan, with his machinery, must count for many spindle-shanked Hindoos with their wooden rakes. India’s remoteness from Europe and the lack of inland transportation facilities, give America the vantage-ground. The present low price of wheat in Liverpool today, however, warns our western friends that there are other great sources of supply. Until 1873, only ten years ago, an export duty was laid upon Indian wheat. The amount exported in that year was valued at only £167,000; last year, 1882, the exports were £8,869,000 ($45,000,000), more than one-third as much as the United States exported in that year ($112,000,000), to which, however, should be added $35,000,000 worth of wheat flour exported, making the total United States export $157,000,000. It must be remembered that India has scarcely yet entered the race with us for the supremacy in this department, for while we have 110,000 miles of railway with 55,000,000 of people, she has 250,000,000 of people with only 10,000 miles of rail. This may seem alarming to the untravelled Yankee, but let him possess his soul in patience. It is a very safe wager that notwithstanding this seemingly uncalled-for disparity in railway facilities, the American railway system is still to increase at a far greater ratio than the Indian. Last year only three hundred and eighty-seven miles of line were built in India as against our six thousand, and even my friend, William Fowler, M.P., in his most interesting article in the Fortnightly Review for February, 1884, “India, Her Wheat, and Her Railways,” to which I beg to refer such of my readers as are specially interested in this subject—even he only suggests that twelve hundred miles should be built every year in India; to secure which he urges the government to give a guarantee upon $50,000,000 per year, in order to obtain the necessary capital, which he admits cannot be obtained otherwise. This the government is not likely to do until the people rule England and sweep away the privileged classes, who live mainly through wars, and would be relegated to obscurity were the resources of England once spent for peaceful development, as those of Republican America are. Friend Fowler will get a vote to add millions to England’s burden by an Afghan or Zulu war, or even to squander her means upon worthless members of a more than useless royal family and its dependents of the court long before he will get a pound for his Indian railways. The Republic will hold control of the world’s wheat market for a hundred years and more, but prices must rule lower in consequence of India. Beyond that let posterity wrestle with the question.
As to cotton, of which America holds a firmer grasp upon the world’s supply than it appears she does of wheat, India is not an impossible second if from any cause the American supply were forced to extreme prices. During the civil war in the United States, cotton cultivation in India, as I have before said, reached an extraordinary development. In 1866 the exports amounted to thirty-seven millions of pounds sterling, $185,000,000; now the average has fallen to about $40,000,000 per year. If the staple were equal to the American, India would be formidable as a rival, but it is not, and consequently the growth of cotton in the South seems sure to increase as rapidly as ever.
After six days’ delightful sail we had our first glimpse of Arabia this morning, and are now skirting the Arabian coast. Aden was reached Sunday morning, and we drove out to the native town and saw the tanks said to have been constructed thousands of years ago. It rains only once in every year or two, and a supply of water is obtained by storing the torrents which then flow from the hills. A more desolate desert than that which surrounds the city surely does not exist. Aden itself illustrates how the whirligig of time revolves. Before the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope it was the chief entrepôt for the trade between Europe and Asia. It fell into insignificance when the stream of traffic left for the new route around the Cape of Good Hope; but now the Suez Canal, which restores the original route via the Red Sea, to its former supremacy, once more raises Aden to her former commanding position. The population, which in 1839 had dwindled to fewer than a thousand, now numbers nearly thirty thousand.
Aden is just one of those natural keys of the world which England should hold, and I doubt not will hold to the last. The town stands upon a narrow peninsula composed of desolate volcanic rocks, five miles long from east to west, and three from north to south, connected with the main land by a neck of flat sandy ground only a few feet high. The town itself is surrounded by precipitous rocks, which really make it a natural fortress impregnable against attack. All that I urge against conquest in general is inapplicable here, and I say let England guard such spots. As long as she does she is mistress of the sea. Her influence at such points is always for good. The thirty thousand natives of Aden, for instance, may now be considered subjects of Britain by their own act. They have flocked to the town attracted by the advantages to be derived from a residence there, just as the Chinese have done at Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. There is no coercion in the matter. One foreigner electing to come under the British flag is worth ten thousand held down by force, whether considered as an element of strength to the Empire, or as conducive to its glory.
This is the market of the world for ostrich feathers. We saw droves of the birds wandering about Aden and its suburbs at home in the sand. The natives keep ostriches as their chief dependence, and we are besieged at every turn with offers of rare feathers—feathers—feathers—nothing but feathers.
Our trip on the Pekin was the most delightful we ever had at sea; even Vandy was well, and gained by the journey. We had very agreeable company on board, and were especially fortunate in our neighbors, Mr., Mrs., and Miss G., of Edinburgh, at table. The ship was crowded with officers and officers’ wives and children returning from India to England, for children must be taken home out of the climate of India. Nothing can exceed the discipline and general management of the Peninsula and Oriental ships. Promotion from the ranks is the rule, and they certainly are served by a class of men which it would be difficult to equal elsewhere. The Cunard line is probably the only counterpart of the Peninsula and Oriental line in existence.
This was our first experience of life upon a vessel crowded with various ranks of English people. On the Atlantic our steamer acquaintances are with few exceptions Americans. The contrast is great in one respect: the tendency of the English passengers is to form themselves into a great number of small cliques. No doubt this tendency prevails to some extent upon the Atlantic also, but then congenial tastes and education form the divisions there and every one is in his proper sphere. Upon the Pekin we found that rank and position formed a strong element in the case—regardless of merit. Vandy and I being republicans, not caring a rap about either birth or position, and without social status in England, seemed to be the only cosmopolitans on board. From the major-general and family down to the clerk of a mercantile house and his nice wife and children, we had the free run of the ship. But when we met intelligent and interesting people in one or the other grade, and proposed to make them known to others, as, had both parties been Americans, would have given much pleasure, and from whose acquaintance mutual benefit would have resulted, we found that the miserable barriers of artificial distinction stood in the way.
I wished two young ladies to know each other, for they were akin in education, manners, feelings, and accomplishments, and one morning I said to the one who surely was not the less desirable acquaintance: “You and Miss——should know each other; would you not like to make her acquaintance? If so, I shall ask her, and I am sure she would be pleased to make yours. Both will be the gainers.”
“Mr. Carnegie, excuse me, but she is a major-general’s daughter, the advance must come from her. If she ever expresses a wish to know me, then you come to me and I’ll tell you. This is the proper thing, you know.”
Happy American young ladies, into whose pretty heads the thought would never enter that another would be so silly as to stand upon position, and if by any chance it did momentarily arise, it would be scouted as inconsistent with one’s own self-respect as a woman. England will never be truly homogeneous till throne and aristocracy give place to the higher republican form.
India claims many victims. We had yesterday a young man near us who had been in India only a short time, and who was returning invalided. Poor fellow! He lay in the hatchway in his easy-chair from morning until night, gazing wistfully over the sea toward his beloved England. There he would soon get well. Only last night as I passed to bed I stopped to encourage him, telling him how finely we were dancing along homeward. At dawn I heard the pulsations of the engine cease for a few moments only, but in those moments he had been cast into the sea. Scarcely any one knew of his death except the doctor and a few of the crew; not a soul on board knew anything of him; he was an entire stranger to all. But think of the mother and sisters who were to meet him on arrival and convey him “to the green lanes of Surrey!” See them hastening on board and casting anxious glances around! No one will know them, but every one will suspect who they are, and what their errand, and instinctively avoid them—for who would be the messenger to strike a mother down with a word? The death and burial were sad—sad enough; but the real tragedy is yet to be played in Southampton, when the living are to envy the fate of the dead, who, “after life’s fitful fever,” sleeps so well in the depths of the Indian Ocean.
Suez, Friday, February 28.
We reached Suez at six o’clock in the morning, and anchored within the bay. An enterprising sailboat captain came alongside and offered to take us across the bay to the town in time to catch the only train leaving for Cairo for twenty-four hours. It was two long hours’ sail, but the breeze was strong, and Vandy and I resolved to try it, bargaining with the captain, however, upon the basis of no train no pay. The few passengers on deck at that early hour gathered to give the adventurers a farewell cheer, and we were off. We made it just in time, and grasping a bottle of wine and some bread at the station—for we had had no breakfast—we started for Cairo.
The railway runs parallel to the Suez Canal, which, by the way, was a canal in the days of the Pharaohs, but, of course, much smaller and only used for irrigation. We saw the top-masts of several steamers above the sandy banks as they crawled slowly through the desert. How great the traffic already is and with what strides it grows is well known. Its capacity can at any time be doubled by lighting it with electricity, but at present vessels are compelled by rule to lie still after sunset. All is dead through the night. In a few years this will be changed; and indeed the canal must be widened ere long and made a double track throughout to accommodate the continual stream of ships plying between the East and the West. At present it is just like one of our single-track railways with sidings or passing places. The distance from end to end is only about a hundred miles, but ships sometimes take three and even four days to squeeze through. This must be remedied. Twenty-four hours seems to be about the proper time-table. When past Ismailia, the line leaves the canal and runs westward through the land of Goshen. After the parched plains of India, it was refreshing once more to look upon “deep waving fields and pastures green.” We were within the regions watered by the Nile, and the harvests resembled those of the carse of Gowrie.
We reached Cairo on time, and our first inquiries were about our friends, Mr. H., Miss N., and party, who were expected there from their three months’ excursion upon the Nile. Fortunately, we found their dalbeah anchored in the stream, and we drove to it without delay. Sure enough, as we reached the bank, there lay the Nubia, that little gem, with the Stars and Stripes floating above her. We were rowed on board only to find that our friends were in the city. However, we made ourselves at home in the charming saloon, and awaited their return. Unfortunately, some sailor on shore had told them of two strangers going aboard, and there was not the entire surprise we had intended; but if there was no surprise there was no lack of cordial welcome, and we realized to the fullest extent what a world of meaning lies in the quaint simile, “as the face of a friend in a far-off country.”
This reunion at Cairo was one of the fine incidents of our tour. Many months ago we had parted from Mr. H. and family, and half in jest appointed Cairo as our next meeting-place. They went in one direction, we in another, and without special reference to each other’s movements it had so turned out that we caught them here. It was a narrow hit, however, as they were to leave next day for Alexandria; and had we remained on the Pekin, as all the other passengers did, and not undertaken the sail across the bay, we should have missed them. We grasped hands once more and sat down to dinner, the Nile gurgling past, the Pyramids with their forty centuries looking down upon us, and here was one more happy band drawing more closely to each other since separated from friends at home, enacting over again such scenes as the famous river has witnessed upon its bosom for thousands of years—one generation going and another coming, but the mysterious Nile remaining to welcome each succeeding host; and thus,
“Thro’ plots and counterplots—
Thro’ gain and loss—thro’ glory and disgrace—
…still the holy stream
Of human happiness glides on!”
Today sight-seeing was subordinated to the rare pleasure of enjoying the company of our friends, but we all drove through Cairo streets and saw one memorable sight—the great college of Islam, where more than ten thousand students are constantly under preparation as priests of the Prophet. We saw them in hundreds sitting on their mats in the extensive open courts, all busily engaged in learning to recite the Koran to masters, or listening to professors who expounded it. Their intense earnestness soon impresses you. From this centre radiate every year thousands of these propagandists, scattering themselves over Arabia and to the farthest boundaries of Islam, and even beyond, warring upon idolatry and proclaiming the unity of God. No one can fail, I think, to receive from such a visit as we paid a much higher estimate of the vitality of Mohammedanism, and, having seen what it has to supplant, we cannot refrain from wishing these missionaries God-speed. The race rises step by step, never by leaps and bounds. Upon this point I am much impressed by a paragraph from a lecture delivered by Marcus Dodd, D.D., at the Presbyterian College, London, which seems to me to take a wider and sounder view than one usually finds from such a source, and is therefore specially pleasing. He says: “The great lesson in comparative religion which we learn from the connection of Judaism and Christianity is that men are not always ripe for the highest religion; that there is a fulness of time which it may take four thousand years to produce. The Mosaic religion, imperfect as it was, compared with Christianity, was better for Israel during its period and preparation than the religion of Christ would have been.” Then, referring to the Mohammedan religion, he says: “It is not denied that this religion did at once effect reforms which Christianity had failed to effect. It accomplished more for Arabia in a few years than Christianity had accomplished for centuries. It abolished at a stroke the idolatry which Christianity had fought in vain.” It is to such men as Mr. Dodd that we are to look to keep religion abreast of the age.
Max Müller says: “In one sense every religion was a true religion, being the only religion which was possible at the time, which was compatible with the language, the thoughts, and the sentiments of each generation, which was appropriate to the age of the world.” The Brahman has found the same truth. “Men of an enlightened understanding well know,” says he, “that the Supreme has imparted to each nation the doctrine most suitable for it, and He, therefore, beholds with satisfaction the various ways in which He is worshipped.” In other words, religion is the highest expression of which a people is capable. There is no reason why we should not try to prepare a people for a better one, but note this, they must be prepared. To force new religions upon any race is a sad mistake. In a late address on missionary methods in India, Rev. Phillips Brooks said: “That which makes people distrust foreign missions is the testimony that the Europeans in India will not trust the Christianized Indian. It is not strange that some poor creature should bring discredit on the religion he professes. He worships in strange houses and in a strange way. He kneels in American-style churches and is taught by men full of American ideas. Christianity will never be the religion of India until it comes there imbued with the spirit of the day. In time there must come forth an Indian Christianity, rich, full of power and goodness. The missionaries want this, and are perfectly aware it must come. The influence that now goes to India carries with it the curse as well as the blessing. Let the divisions of church creeds be kept at home, and let the Indian religion be developed from within.”
We visited several mosques, but they are such poor affairs compared to those of India that we took little interest in them. While the other countries we have thus far visited have all appeared stranger than expected, this is not so with Egypt. Everything seems to be just as I had imagined it. We know too much about the land of the Pharaohs to be taken thoroughly by surprise. Perhaps there is something in our having seen so much that our perceptions are no longer as keen as when we landed in Japan. The appetite for sight-seeing becomes sated, like any other, and I fear we are not as impressionable as before. So we decide not to visit Turkey and Greece upon this trip but to take these when fresh. The crowds of squalid wretches who surround us at every turn, clamoring for backsheesh; the mud hovels in which they manage to live, and the coarse food upon which they exist; the mass of greasy, unwashed rags which hang loosely upon them—such things no longer excite our wonder, or even our pity. We have seen so much of such misery before that I fear we begin to grow callous.
Cairo, as a city, is most picturesque, with its commanding citadel, and its hundreds of mosques with their slender spires and conspicuous minarets; while surrounding all this in the desert lie the ruins of older cities and of tombs and temples innumerable. The Desert of Sahara reaches to the very gates of the city on the east. The city lies between that and the Nile; then comes a narrow strip of green about ten miles in width, and after that the boundless Libyan Desert. The Pyramids stand upon the very edge of this desert, so that it is sand, sand, sand! everywhere around the city of the Caliphs, save and except this little green border along the Nile. But indeed the whole of Egypt is only a narrow green ribbon stretching along the river for some six hundred miles, and widening at the delta, where the waters divide and reach the sea by various channels. All the rest is sand. Egypt has not more cultivable soil than Belgium, and would not make a fair sized State with us.
The Khedive Ismail was determined to make Cairo a miniature Paris, and we see much that recalls Paris to us. The new boulevards, the opera-house, circus, cafés, new hotel—all show how much has already been done in this direction; but he is in hard straits just now, and the cry there, as elsewhere, is for retrenchment and reform. The new streets are Parisian, but it is in the old, narrow streets of the city that one sees oriental life distinctively Egyptian in its character. Indeed these are sights of Cairo which I enjoy most. Muffled ladies pass by, resembling nothing I can think of so much as big black bats as they sit man-fashion on their donkeys, wrapped in black silk cloaks; men in gorgeous silks, also on donkeys, ride along, while laden camels and asses carrying large panniers of clover slowly pick their way through the crowd. Harem ladies, too (there is the weight which pulls Egypt down), roll slowly by in their covered carriages, preceded by the running Lyces. I never saw such a miscellaneous throng in any street before.
The great event of a visit to Cairo is Pyramid Day. The Pyramids are eight miles distant, and an early start has to be made to insure a return in season. Yesterday was our day. These wonders do not impress one at first—few really stupendous works ever do; and even when at their base you think but meanly of their magnitude, so much so that you never hesitate as to whether you will ascend Cheops, the largest. Three Arabs, whose duty it is to assist you, are at once assigned to you by the Sheikh; two of these take your hands, while the third stands behind to “boost” you up at the moment the others pull. It is a hard climb even when so assisted, and many who start are fain to content themselves with getting up one third the distance. I think I rested three times in making the ascent, and each time I found my feeling of disappointment growing beautifully less; while by the time the shout came from my Arabs announcing that they were on the top stone, I was filled with respectful admiration for Cheops, I assure you, and whatever one may say about the equator, I feel sure no one will ever hear me speak disrespectfully of the Pyramids.
They are without doubt the greatest masses ever built by man. Cheops is four hundred and fifty feet high, and covers thirteen acres at the base, tapering to the top, which is only about thirty feet square, where one false step would be certain death, as, contrary to my opinion at first, I saw that one in falling could not possibly rest on any of the layers of projecting stone. I do not like high places, and I felt, while on the top, I would give a handsome sum just to be safe on level ground again. But I got down, or rather was taken down by my three attendants, without much difficulty, and after luncheon we went into the centre of the pile—a work of considerable trouble—and saw the sarcophagus. Attempts have been made to invest the Pyramids with some mysterious meaning, but, I take it, there will be no more of this, since an explanation is now given which meets every objection. They are simply the tombs of various kings, and differ in size because the kings ruled for different periods of time. The mode of procedure was this: When a king came to the throne he began to build his tomb; perhaps this was an excellent way of keeping before him the fact that he also must surely die, and that ere long; successive courses of stone were built around the pile, one course per year, and when the king died the building ceased, his successor taking care to finish the course under progress at the death of his predecessor; hence the great size of Cheops, for the monarch who constructed it reigned forty-two years and built his forty-two courses. This Pyramid is either sixty-five hundred or five thousand years old, according as you decide for one or another mode of computation. Either date will, however, entitle it to the honors of a hoary old age. The old Arabian proverb, “That all things fear Time, but Time fears the Pyramids,” holds good no longer, for “the tooth of Time” is slowly but surely disintegrating even these masses. The entire finishing course of huge stone blocks, from top to bottom of Cheops, has already crumbled away, and lies in dust at the base. This is also the case with the second in size, except that a portion still clings around its top; this will fall some day, and leave it stripped like its greater neighbor.
Our Arab guide told us, as he pointed to the numerous monograms carved on the top of Cheops, that a lover who cuts the initials of his adored there, and calls upon Allah to prosper his suit, is certain to win her. Would you believe it, soon after this I saw Vandy secretly carving away.
The Sphinx—the mysterious Sphinx—which has baffled all inquisitive inquirers for centuries without number, stands in the sand only a. short distance from Cheops. Imagine, if you can, with what feelings one gazes upon it. It is as old as the Pyramids, perhaps older, and there it still looks out upon the green and fertile banks of the Nile with the Libyan Desert behind. Its countenance has the same benignant cast, but it tells neither of sorrow nor of anger, neither of triumph nor of defeat. It tells you of no human passion, and yet seems to tell you of all—the end of all—and yet it is not a sad face. It is every thing and yet nothing. I never was so utterly unable to vivify an image with at least some imaginings. It could be made one thing or another, but no sooner had I thought it indicated one sentiment than a second look made the idea seem absurd. Like so many countless thousands before me, I gave it up. You cannot extract anything from that face. I thought the lesson might be in its position, and I pleased myself with drawing one from that. There this mystery stands, gazing only upon what is rich and fertile and instinct with life, the life-giving Nile rolling before it, and the fields of golden grain in view. Its back turned resolutely to the dreary sandy waste of death behind; and so it said to me as plainly as if it could speak, This is your lesson: let the dead past bury its dead; look forward only upon that which has life and grows steadily towards perfection. It is upon the bright things of life we must fix our gaze if we would be of use in our day and generation.
When in Alexandria we visited with deep interest the site of the famous Alexandrian Library, in which lay stored the most precious treasures of the world. Had it escaped destruction, how many questions which have vexed scholars would never have arisen, and how much ground which it has been necessary for genius to reconquer would have come to us as our heritage!
The Cleopatra’s Needle now in New York, the counterpart of the one in London, was still in Alexandria when we were there. Seventeen hundred years before Christ this huge monolith, which is cut out of solid rock, was erected at Heliopolis, and it was transported thence several hundred miles to its present site. It measures sixty-eight feet in height, and is not less than eight feet square at its base—one solid shaft of granite; but this is exceeded by the one still at Thebes, which is a hundred feet high. It struck me as a notable coincidence that the ingenious Frenchman who first proved the truth of the supposed hieroglyphic alphabet should have done so by assuming that the name repeated so frequently upon a certain stone extolling the virtues of Ptolemy Soter, must be that of the famous Cleopatra, and so it proved. Thus this extraordinary woman, who filled the world with her name during her life, and for centuries after, once more renews her tenure by linking herself with the world’s history two thousand years after her death.
The museum in Cairo is said to comprise more Egyptian antiquities than are possessed in the world besides. It is filled with mummies, sarcophagi, jewelry, coins and statues, one wooden statue shown being no less than four thousand six hundred years old. Anything less than five thousand years of age one gets to consider rather too modern to suit his taste. Upon some of the lids of the tombs the inscriptions are as fresh as if cut yesterday. Egypt furnishes the earliest records of our race, because the dry sands of the desert on each side of the Nile, blowing over the cities of the past until these were completely buried, hermetically sealed them, and this preserved them from decay, and would have done so for ages yet to come. Is it any wonder that this narrow strip, filled with buried cities, should have given rise to a body of men who devote themselves to the search for rich spoils of the past and to deciphering the inscriptions? You meet occasionally an Egyptologist, and seem to know him instinctively.
But grand as is Egypt’s past, and varied as her fortunes have been, it may surely be said that never during all her misfortunes has she occupied a position as deplorable as that which saddens the traveller of today. If any one wants to see what personal rule in its fullest development is capable of producing, let him visit Egypt. The condition of its finances is notorious, but we did not expect to witness such convincing proofs of insolvency.
The Khedive has been maintaining a standing army of sixty thousand men, but it has not been paid for more than two years. Retrenchment having been insisted upon by England and France, it was resolved to reduce the force to some eight thousand, and orders of dismissal were accordingly issued. But about two hundred officers who were in Cairo and had not yet been paid, entered the Prime Minister’s chambers a few days before our arrival in the city, clamoring for their dues, and refused to leave until paid. Some slight violence was even used toward that functionary, and the English agent, who came manfully to his assistance, was roughly pushed about. It was finally arranged to pay all dismissed soldiers two months of their arrears. The train upon which we travelled from Cairo carried many of these men to their homes. While the army is not paid, we see on every hand unmistakable proofs of the Khedive’s reckless personal extravagance. Here lies his grand steam yacht rotting in the harbor. In the station we noticed the imperial cars stowed away; on the river his large summer boat; and every other remarkably fine house in Cairo seemed to be one or another of the Khedive’s palaces or harems. The man does not seem to have had the faintest idea of what was due to his country, or, even worse, what was due to himself. But take the greatest and best man in the world, surround him by people who assure him morn, noon and night that he differs from other men, and has a born right to their obedience—make a khedive, or czar, or king out of him—if kind nature has not made a fool of him at the start, men will do it, and if he has brains, brutality will soon be added to his folly. If he hasn’t brains, then he becomes the fool pure and simple. George Washington himself would have been spoiled by royal notions in less than six months—good as he was and sound republican to boot.
One becomes indignant with a people so supine as to endure such waste and oppression. Everything is taxed, and the masses of the people are ground down to the lowest stage compatible with mere animal existence. England and France have been compelled recently to take strong measures in order to prevent impending ruin. The Khedive not long since dismissed the only one of his ministers who seemed to comprehend the state of affairs, but I see the faint remonstrance of these powers has sufficed to reinstate him; in other words, the Khedive has been told he is a figure-head, to reign, not to govern, and we may hope for an improvement in consequence. The population is only five millions, and it is estimated that at least two millions more could be supported by the country; so it seems that only good government is required to restore Egypt to prosperity.
The tenure of land is an important question just now, and men’s minds are disposed to give the subject consideration. Mr. George’s exciting book has attracted surprising attention. “Thou shalt not sell the land of the Lord thy God for ever,” seems likely to prove correct. Egypt has a land history of much significance. Anciently the land was the property of the priests, and of the king and the military class. Although there were no castes, still the fact that the son usually followed his father’s occupation, served the purpose of caste. Even Joseph did not purchase the land of the priests when he bought all the rest. Before the time of Mehemet Ali, say up to about a hundred years ago, a kind of feudal system prevailed, but by the massacre of the Mamelukes the feudal system was destroyed. Mehemet Ali seized almost all the landed property, and gave the owners pensions for life. There is scarcely such a thing as private tenure of land now in Egypt.
This little bit of cultivated land has actually borrowed in the last fifteen years no less than £80,000,000 sterling ($400,000,000). Twelve hundred miles of railway have been built, and numerous canals, harbors, and lighthouses constructed; but the amount spent in useful works bears but a small proportion to that squandered. The greatest item of all, however, is the discount paid upon the five successive loans by which funds were obtained. None of these loans cost less than 12 per cent, per annum, while the one for railways cost 26 per cent, per annum. These rates, I believe, are calculated upon the issue prices; what commissions the bankers received is unknown. A report upon the finances states that the Government received only about one-half the amount of the loans.
I have referred to the discontent which had shown itself in the army during our stay in Cairo. How rapidly events have travelled since then! The rise of a popular leader, Arabi, who possessed the confidence, or at least, who was accepted by the people as their only instrument of reform,—effectually put down by the English Government, which surely was misled by its agents in Egypt.
Now that England has been so foolish as to interfere, but two courses are open. She must either rule Egypt as she does India, or, what would be infinitely better both for Egypt and for England, retire, and allow the people of Egypt to undertake the management of their own affairs. This would be unfortunate for the bondholders, no doubt, but it would sooner or later secure for Egypt those institutions for which she is suited. I am convinced that England is to see the day, and that ere long, when she will bitterly repent ever having thrown her power in the scale against men who revolted at a state of affairs against which revolt was meritorious, and gave to the world the best proof that sufficient sound timber existed in Egypt to form the nucleus of firm national institutions. England’s position in Egypt is all wrong. She of all nations should know that there are stages in the life of nations where oppression can be overthrown only by violent means. Ah! John Bright proved himself here once more the true statesman. Had his advice been followed, how different might have been the result! But ere the Egyptian question is settled we may see stranger events still than those which have surprised us.
The cry from the moment you set foot in Egypt until the steamer sails is “Backsheesh! Backsheesh!” Give! give! give! Crowds surround you at every place, and from child to withered eld it is an incessant chorus. If one is weak enough to give a piastre he is done for; the crowd increases, and the roars of the beggars with it. There is no place in Egypt which can be enjoyed, owing to this nuisance; even on the top of the Pyramid the evil is unabated. Travellers must be to blame for such an annoyance. For our part we resolved never to give anything to a beggar, and adhered strictly to the rule, which preserved us from many a fierce attack; but the objects begging were sometimes piteous-looking enough to haunt one.
The surest means of obtaining a livelihood as a beggar in Egypt is to feign idiocy, which, I am told, is frequently done. Idiots are regarded as saints, and are never restricted in their movements, maniacs alone being confined, and they are often met with in the streets. My Swedenborgian friends might account for the absence of sense being held proof positive of the saintly character by urging that idiots were certainly free from one of the worst evils of this generation denounced by the Swedish Seer as “self-derived intelligence.”
The never ending work of creation is finely illustrated in the remarkable depression of the northern shore of Egypt, which is continually going on, notwithstanding the vast deposits from the many mouths of the Nile annually discharged upon it, while on the southern shore, near Suez, a contrary phenomenon is observable. The consequence of this movement is seen in the ruins of places on the Mediterranean shore, and the drying up of large portions of the Gulf of Suez. Indeed the bed of the Red Sea may be traced for miles north of the town of Suez, which is now at the head of the gulf, and places far north of the town were on the coast in historic times. An equally remarkable change is observable in the level of the Nile. Two thousand years B.C. it is found that at Semneh the mean height of the famous river was twenty-three feet greater than it is to-day. Imagine what results would flow from a change of the level of the Mississippi twenty-three feet higher or lower than now! It would change the continent. While such startling changes are found right under our own eyes, surely we do not require the “doctrine of catastrophes” to explain the creation of this little ball—the earth! The silent, irresistible, unchanging laws of Nature suffice.
We arrived too late to get a run up the Nile, as the boats had ceased to ply for the season. There remained but Cairo and Alexandria to visit, and a few days spent at each place exhausts the sights; but we concluded that nothing could be more enjoyable than a three-months’ sail upon the Nile, in one’s own boat, breathing the remarkably pure and dry air as it comes from the desert, moving day by day from one to another scene of the far past, and at night enjoying the unequalled sunsets, when it seems, as some one has beautifully said, that “the day was slowly dying of its own glory.” This is the trip of trips for an invalid, or for one overtaxed by work or oppressed with sorrow; and for a bridal tour—to give the lovers plenty of time and opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with each other—it can be highly recommended.
The rapid rise of our western rivers is very different from the gradual swelling of the Nile, which begins at Khartoum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, as early as April each year, but which is not felt at Cairo until after the summer solstice, while the greatest height is not reached till autumn. A good flood gives a rise of forty feet at the first cataract, and about twenty-five at Cairo; a scanty rise is when only between eighteen or twenty feet occurs at Cairo. The inundation is good if it is between twenty-four and twenty-seven feet; if beyond the latter it becomes a destructive flood. Upon such a narrow margin—the rise of a few feet more or less in the Nile—depends the entire crop of Egypt! Once for a period of seven years (A.D. 457-464), the rise failed and seven years of famine ensued. A great engineering work, designed to regulate the inundation by means of a barrage across both branches of the river below Cairo, was begun some years ago, but, I believe, has been abandoned. When Egypt reaches good government from within herself, not through foreigners, one of its first works should be to complete the barrage. Surplus water will then be allowed free escape, and inundations prevented. When the flow is scanty, egress at the river mouths will be retarded, and thus Egypt will be secured regular harvests. We watch men at work everywhere raising water from narrow ditches to higher levels, that all parts may be irrigated from the fruitful Nile. We could get no estimate of the amount of water which one man can raise in a day; but when human labor is so cheap, we guessed that it was, upon the whole, an economical mode. At all events a complete revolution in the management of land, and probably of its tenure, must precede the general use of machinery for this purpose. The “shadoof” of today is the same in form as that used by the ancient Egyptians. Two columns of mud, or brick, erected at the side of the ditch, support a beam of wood, across which is a pole with a weight at one end, and a rude wooden bowl-shaped bucket, suspended by a stick, at the other. A man stands under the bucket and pulls it down into the water. The weight helps him to push it up to the ditch above, where it is emptied. The operation is very quickly performed, and the bucket kept constantly going. It would be hard to beat these ancient Egyptian shadoofs by any device requiring human labor where the amount of water required is small. Water-wheels, driven by bullocks or cows, and sometimes by one animal only, are sometimes used. There is also a double shadoof worked by two men, and even steam pumps are used in extreme cases where the volume of water desired is unusually large. Steam, no doubt, is ultimately to drive out the shadoof, ancient as it is. We had a strange meeting at Cairo upon entering the breakfast-room the morning after our arrival. Whom should we be placed opposite to but my friend the Rev. Mr. D., of Dunfermline, my aunty’s minister, nae less! He was en route to the Holy Land with his father-in-law; but we had several days together at Cairo, and talked upon many subjects, from theology to town affairs. I had received a telegram the day of his departure which told me my mother was to sail from New York that very day to join me in Scotland, as had been arranged, and we drank her health and wished her bon voyage in good style.
Before bidding farewell to the East, I wish to indulge in just a few general reflections. Life there lacks two of its most important elements—the want of intelligent and refined women as the companion of man, and a Sunday. It has been a strange experience to me to be for several months without the society of some of this class of women—sometimes many weeks without even speaking to one, and often a whole week without even seeing the face of an educated woman. And, bachelor as I am, let me confess what a miserable, dark, dreary, and insipid life this would be without their constant companionship! This brings everything that is good in its train, everything that is bright and elevating. I cannot satisfy myself as to what the man of the East has to struggle for, since he has dethroned woman and practically left her out of his life. To see a wealthy Chinaman driving along in his carriage alone was pitiable. His efforts had been successful, but for what? There was no joy in his world. The very soul of European civilization, its crown and special glory, lies in the elevation of woman to her present position (she will rise even higher yet with the coming years), and this favor she has repaid a thousand-fold by making herself the fountain of all that is best in man. In life, without her there is nothing. Much as the lot of woman in the East is to be deplored, that of man is still more deplorable. The revenge she takes is terrible, for she drags down with her, in her debasement, the higher life of man. I had noted the absence of music as one great want. Not an opera nor a concert—not even a hand-organ. Scarcely a sweet sound in all our journey. When we found an English church or a regimental band, we rejoiced. I went to hear the organ upon every occasion, and was seldom absent when the band played; but were women there as with us, wouldn’t music spring forth also! so that even this want I am disposed to attribute to the first cause.
The absence of a regularly recurring day of rest ranks next in importance, I believe, in the list of causes which keep the East down in the scale of nations. With few exceptions, the race is doomed to a life of unremitting toil—from morning till night, and every day without respite; for festival and fête days recurring at long, irregular intervals are no substitute for the one regular day to which labor looks forward with us. The prospect of one day of rest frequently intervening gives a toiler something bright to look forward to, without which his life must stretch before him as one unceasing, unvarying drag. In this one blessed day his slavery ceases, the shackles fall. He is no longer a brute—fed and clothed solely because of his physical powers, his capacity to bear burdens—but a higher being, with tastes, pleasures, friends. Life becomes worth living. The man puts on his best clothes—and there is much in this—the woman gives her cottage an extra brushing up. Something extra is prepared for dinner—there is a great deal in this, too—and, in short, the day is marked by a hundred little differences from those of labor—a stroll in the fields, a visit to relatives, or a meeting with neighbors at church, all in their best; and then the swelling organ and the choir—these things lie closely at the root of all improvements; and if ever the race is to be lifted to a higher platform—and who shall dare doubt it?—the weekly day of rest will prove itself an agency in the good work only second to the elevation of woman.
The best mode of improving its most precious hours for the toiling masses is therefore a question of infinite moment, apart altogether from the question of its divine character, and viewed only as a human enactment of the highest wisdom. It would seem clear that to make this only respite from manual labor a day exclusively set apart for the mournful duty of bemoaning our manifold shortcomings—which must at best give rise to gloomy thoughts—would defeat the purposes I have indicated. I want a compromise—church service in the morning, with a sermon “leaning to the side of mercy,” as Sidney Smith suggested, which meant that it should not exceed twenty minutes, for, as one wit says, “a minister who can’t strike ile in twenty minutes should quit boring”—and then the fields and streams for the toilers who are cooped up in factories and workshops all the week long, or a visit to picture galleries, museums, or to musical concerts of a high order in huge centres—for in London and a village it is not the same question at all—to anything that would tend to brighten their existence. I am now convinced that there is an important change to be made in the mode of keeping our Sundays—the cessation of labor, as far as it is possible, to remain a cardinal point, but better facilities to be provided for cultivating the higher tastes of our poor workers, that the day may be to them indeed “the golden jewel which clasps the circle of the week.”
One more observation upon the East and I am done: the work that England is doing there. You know that she has in one way or another obtained the keys to the East. Some islands she owns; some small strips of the mainland she also has acquired and governs; at Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other points in China; at Singapore, Penang, Ceylon, Aden, Malta, and indeed all through our journey, we stand now and then on British soil. And wherever the meteor flag floats, there you find order, freedom, schools, churches, dispensaries, clean streets, hospitals, newspapers, justice; and under that flag you will find thousands of Chinamen and Malays, Indians, Cingalese, Arabs—indeed men of all races—settled and enjoying the blessings of good government. No revolution there, no slavery, no arbitrary arrest, nor forced levy. As a native lawyer in India said to me—he talked freely because of our American look—“There is between natives under English rule perfect justice; but,” he added, “every one must behave himself. There is no war nor plundering when one settles under them, for these English won’t stand any nonsense, and they will have peace.”
England, therefore, has planted throughout the East small models of perfectly governed little States, enjoying all the blessings of the highest civilization. Daily and hourly these teach their lesson to the native races, and when they do acquire this lesson—and who that believes in the progress of mankind can doubt but the day must come?—they will look westward with grateful hearts and say, “All this we owe to thee, noble England!”
But while this is true, there is another phase of England’s work to which I have referred in my remarks upon India. The source of England’s good work springs from example. It is where the native races are drawn to her standard, as at the many points named, where their freedom is not destroyed, that great results can alone be looked for. This is the very reverse of England’s position in India. She stands there as the destroyer of native institutions, and forces her views upon an unwilling people wholly unprepared to receive them, instead of resting, as at Hong Kong, Singapore, Aden, and such places, saying to the natives, “Come, try our system, and, if you like it, remain and share its benefits.” Nothing but good can result from the latter, and nothing really good can flow from the former; the injury done must more than absorb any temporary gains. Force is no remedy; and some of these years, unless the ablest natives are induced to participate in the government of India, and soon allowed the chief control, England will rise to a rude awakening.
Alexandria, Friday, March 14.
Off at nine this morning for Naples, taking Sicily en route. The voyage was a smooth one, and we landed at Catania upon the morning of the fourth day. As we stepped ashore we felt in a moment that we were once more within the bounds of civilization. What a difference between this and the East! And there frowned Mount Etna, ten thousand feet above the sea level, thirty miles distant, and yet seemingly so near we thought that we could almost walk over to its base after breakfast. We ascended a small hill in the centre of the city—which, by the way, has a population of a hundred thousand—and there lay Sicily spread out before us in all its wondrous beauty. Lemon and orange groves in full bearing, and fields of vines just budding; and in the town clean paved streets and pavements, which are unknown in the East; people with shoes and stockings on; statues and fountains, and a good old cathedral; harps and violins, and the chime of church going bells. Ah! Western civilization is not a mistake, nor a myth, nor a thing of doubtful value, as we can testify. At least so thought two happy travellers in Sicily that bright balmy morning, as they felt how blessed a thing it was to be once more in a civilized country.
The pretty island of Sicily (Sechelia, as the Italians pronounce it) contains nearly three millions of people—nearly as many as Scotland—and supports them almost entirely by the produce of the land, for manufactures are little known. The olive and the vine are everywhere, and the crops of oranges and lemons go to most parts of the world. An English gentleman told us he had bought oranges in the season for one cent per dozen. There is one item of export of rather peculiar character—sulphur—which is obtained from the volcano. We saw it drawn through the streets in large blocks.
Only two hundred years ago an eruption of Mount Etna took place, and 27,000 people were buried by the lava. We saw where the stream had rushed down from the crater through part of the town, and far into the sea—almost a mile in width, and thirty miles from its source, bearing destruction to everything in its course, and yet to-day fine new houses stand upon the cold lava, and away up and along the sides of the volcano for miles are to be seen cottages clustering thickly together, the inmates busily engaged in cultivating their vineyards. It was only a few days ago—the monster gave a warning and shook these houses; but they still “sit under their vine and sing the merry songs of peace to all their neighbors”—these merry, light-hearted Sicilians!—as if they had Mount Etna under perfect control.
The railway skirts the shores of the island for its entire length—some fifty miles—and a more beautiful ride is not to be seen in all the world. It is a succession of fine old castles, in perfect ruin, upon every petty promontory, and we go through nothing but orange and lemon groves and vineyards. We pass at the base of Mount Etna; but although all was smiling in the valleys below, its top was enveloped in dark clouds and busy with the thunder and the storm.
Messina is a very quaint Italian city. The funeral services of a distinguished lady were in progress when we stepped into the cathedral, which was illuminated with hundreds of candles—I think I might say almost a thousand—the interior being one mass of light, which shone with strange effect upon the rich black velvet with which the walls were draped. A lady in our party counted the carriages as they passed, and told us there were fifty-three, most of which would compare favorably with those of New York or London. This will give you some idea of the richness of Messina, which we had thought to be an unimportant town.
The Sicilians are strict Roman Catholics and completely under the dominion of that faith. There is scarcely a trace of dissent to be found. When we were about to sail from Messina for Naples a priest walked upon the deck and collected contributions from the devout passengers, for which in return he was expected to give to our good ship the august protection of Holy Mother Church. We noticed that all the passengers contributed and received his blessing with much solemnity. Faith is still there. They were going to sea—probably a first experience to most if not all of them, and were naturally apprehensive. Should we have a stormy night, no doubt, notwithstanding their bargain with the priest, some will resolve with good Dame Partington that under like circumstances if ever she set her foot on dry land she would never again trust herself “so far out of the reach of Providence.” But my mother remembers well that when a member of the congregation was about to start from Dunfermline to London, a rare event in those days, though not so very long ago, that his safety was always prayed for in church. I mentioned this to Vandy when he was deploring the ignorance and, as he thought, the impiety of the Sicilians. We are not entirely free from superstition ourselves, and were in the last generation where the Sicilians are in this.
The scene in “The Tempest,” the enchanted isle, must have been in the neighborhood of Sechelia, and surely no fitter region in all the world could be found; indeed I found sweet Sechelia so enchanting that I voted it the very spot, and selected my Prospero’s Cave on the glittering shore within sight of Mount Etna.
Bay Of Naples, Thursday, March 20.
Early morning! Yes, my dear friends, it is round. Here stands Mount Vesuvius in full view this morning, making for itself pure white clouds of steam, which float in the otherwise clear, cloudless sky of Italy. No entering the crater now as we did before, for the volcano is no longer at rest. Vandy and I shake hands and recall our pledge made in the crater years ago, and say, “Well, that is now fulfilled, and may life only have for us in its unknown future another such five months of unalloyed happiness (save where the dark shades of death among friends at home have saddened the hours) as those we have been so privileged to enjoy.”
It is well never to be without something to look forward to, and speculate upon; and by a happy chance Vandy and I have hit upon our next excursion, when we shall have earned another vacation by useful work. The very thought of it already brings us pleasure. And so, all hail, sunny Italia! What a picture this Bay of Naples is! We sail past our former haunts, Capri and Sorrento, and are soon in our hotel at Naples, where we are delighted to rejoin our friends.
From this time forth it is impossible but that a change must occur in the character of these notes. There is a first time to everything, and it is first impressions which I have endeavored honestly to convey; but my first impressions of Europe were obtained years ago. The gloss and enthusiasm of novelty are wanting. The sober second thought is proverbial; but there is a sober second sight as well, and it is this I am about to take. Besides this, Europe is more familiar to everybody than the East. Many know it through personal experience, and I shall therefore content myself with giving the salient features of our homeward progress from this point.
We find Naples, Sorrento, Capri, and all the pretty spots around the bay much improved since our last visit. The people seem to us to be remarkably fine-looking, but perhaps this is mainly owing to the miserable races we have been seeing lately. The museum which contains the principal treasures found at Pompeii and Herculaneum is greatly improved, and one has no difficulty now in determining just how the people of those cities lived. There are even models of the houses shown. The frescoes and sculptures are far finer than I had remembered them, and indeed there are so many articles of furniture and domestic utensils that one cannot help admitting that those who argue that man travels in a circle just as the world goes round, and never advances, have some ground for their theory in these remarkable productions of the first century. We are in the land of music, sure enough!—Here is the list of operas to be performed to-night, apart from numerous dramatic performances: “Norma,” “Sonnambula,” “La Belle Hélène,” “Martha.” You will please take it for granted that our nights here, with few exceptions, will be spent hearing one or another opera, for of all the pleasures of civilized society which we have missed most in our travels, we rank first after the absence of refined women the total absence of music. We hunger for sweet sounds.
We were fortunate this time in getting into the Blue Grotto—the sea being quite smooth. The reflections upon the rocky roof were not as fine as we expected; but Miss N. pronounced the water “the prettiest blue that ever was,” and she is an authority upon color. While at Capri we ascended to the villa of Tiberius, on the edge of a perpendicular cliff nearly two thousand feet high. It was from this rock that ruler was wont to throw his victims into the sea. He found they never troubled him again. And now I write amid the orange groves of Sorrento, where we have been spending a few days.
We have just finished, in company with our friends, a three-days’ excursion to Pæstum, embracing the famous drive along the coast to Amalfi. Certainly I know nothing of the kind in the world equal to this road in grandeur, and if any of you ever visit Naples I advise you to let nothing interfere with your going to Amalfi. At Sorrento we joined our friends, Mr. H. and party, and our Windsor Hotel delegation was further and happily augmented by Mr. and Mrs. I. and family. Can you wonder that our daily excursions were delightful?
Rome, March 26.
Rome once more! What a change! A miniature Paris has been added to old Rome since we first saw it, and even old Rome itself is modernized completely. Much of the picturesque is lost, but well lost, since it brings us clean streets, improved dwellings, and all the accompaniments of progress; but, notwithstanding its now greater likeness to modern cities, it is not with these Rome vies. Her empire is not of to-day, but over the mighty past she alone holds undisputed sway, and the spirit of ages gone still infuses itself into everything in Rome. I thought even modern structures were unlike their fellows elsewhere, as if the mere fact that they stood in Rome invested them with a peculiar halo of classic dignity and importance. Then Rome still has to boast of so many of the best things which the world has to show. No other cathedral is so grand as St. Peter’s nor so beautiful as St. Paul’s; no other “bit of color” is equal to the Transfiguration; no other heroic statue is to be compared with the Augustus; nowhere else is so sweet a girl-face as the Cenci; no other group is to be named with the Laocoon, no other fresco with the Aurora; and where is there another Moses, or Apollo Belvedere, or Antinous, or where is there vocal music so heavenly as that of the Pope’s choir? Nowhere. And so it comes that the world still flocks to Rome, and must continue its pilgrimage hither to this Mecca for a thousand years to come; and artists by the score, day after day, multiply copies of these wonders of art, the recognized “best” in their various classes which man has yet brought forth. All these works, and others unmentioned, I returned to with enhanced pleasure. They all seemed greater and finer to me than when I saw them before. I had not forgotten them, while the mass of mediocre works had left no trace.
It is thus that the true fire of genius vindicates its right to immortality. Generations may come and go, fashions and tastes may change, but “a thing of beauty” remains “a joy forever.” While the statues and pictures of Rome, therefore, gave me far greater pleasure than before, I have to confess that the historical associations gave me much less. When in Rome before I was overflowing with Shakespeare, Byron and Macaulay, and would wander away alone and recite to myself on the appropriate sites the passages connected with them. This time I fear our friends proved too congenial. We dwelt too much in the happy present to give ourselves up to the historical past; but I do not think one gets the sweetest juices out of Rome unless he gives way to the melancholy vein now and then, and “stalks apart in joyless reverie.”
Another reason for the difference suggests itself. One fresh from Egypt, where he has been digging among the five thousand years B.C., and lost in amazement at what the race was even then producing, must experience some difficulty in getting up a respectable amount of enthusiasm for structures so recent as the time of Christ; the “rascally comparative” intrudes to chill it with its cold breath.
There is a third reason, perhaps—and reasons do seem as plenty as blackberries, now that I begin to write them down—we are so near home the echoes of business affairs begin to sound in our ears. We snuff the battle as it were afar off. It is impossible to become so entirely absorbed in the story of the Cenci as to prevent the morning’s telegram from home intruding, and so it came about that this time we did less moralizing than before. We were fortunate in being in Rome during Easter Week, which gave us an opportunity to hear the best music; and certainly there is no choir for vocal music which can rank with that of the Pope. It is the only choir I ever heard which I felt the finest organ would spoil. It produces a strange and powerful effect, the music itself seeming to be of a peculiar order unlike any other. One of our young ladies, describing her feelings to a friend, said that at one time she felt she was really in heaven; but when the “Miserere” broke forth, she knew she was only a poor sinner struggling to get there.
We visited, with our friends, the various studios. In painting there does not appear to be a high standard of excellence. The Roman school does not stand well, but in statuary it is better. A young American artist, Mr. Harnisch, seemed to me to be doing the most creditable work. His busts have already given him reputation, and he has a figure now in plaster, “Antigone,” which I rate as the best classical statue in process of completion which we saw. This young artist is not probably as good a manager as some of his more pretentious countrymen, and, I fear, we are to wait some time before a Congressional committee can be induced to give him a commission; but in the opinion of real Italian sculptors he is an artist. There are those who have “adorned” our public edifices with huge works to whom certainly no one outside of America would apply the name. We shall hear of Mr. Harnisch by-and-by; he is young, and can wait. I was highly gratified at making the acquaintance of Dr. Smiles, author of “Self-Help,” and that favorite of mine, “The Scotch Naturalist,” and other valued works. He is a most delightful companion and a true Scotchman, and hadn’t we “a canny day thegether” at Tivoli! Through him I met Mr. William Black, who is a small, young man, with a face that lights up, and eyes that sparkle through his spectacles. Mr. Petty, R.A., and he were doing Italy together, and no doubt we are to see traces of their travels in their respective lines ere long.
Florence, Wednesday, April 9.
We spent a few days in Florence, but it rained almost continually, as indeed it has done all winter. This has been the most disagreeable season ever known in Italy, we hear from every quarter. Sight-seeing requires sunshine: but we nevertheless did the galleries, and were delighted with the masterpieces for which the city is famed. The statuary, however, is much inferior to that of Rome. In the way of painting I was most interested in comparing the numerous Madonnas of Raphael, and seeing how he, at last, reached “the face of all the world” in the San Sisto. He seems to have held as loyally as a true knight to his first love. His Madonnas have all the same type of face. You could never hesitate about their authorship. Emphatically they are one and all “Raphael’s Madonnas,” and very much alike—even the one which the Grand Duke loved so fondly as to take it about with him wherever he travelled is only a little sweeter than the rest. It is a strange fact that it was not by painting Madonnas at all the master obtained his inspiration. He painted the portrait of a lady, which is still seen in the Pitti Palace, from whose face he drew the lacking halo of awe and sublimity. He idealized this woman’s face, and the San Sisto came to satisfy all one can imagine about the Madonna. But the face of Christ! Who shall paint it satisfactorily? No one. This is something beyond the region of art. A divine-human face cannot be depicted, and all the efforts I have seen are not only failures which one can lament, but many are caricatures at which one becomes indignant. I was greatly pleased that a true artist, Leonardo da Vinci, realized this, and painted his Christ with averted head. Every great painter in older times seems to have thought it incumbent upon him to paint a Christ, and consequently you meet them everywhere. As for the “Fathers” (i.e., Jehovah) one sees, these seem to me positively sacrilegious. I wonder the arms of the men who ventured upon such sacred ground did not wither at their sides. To paint old men with tremendous white flowing beards—a cross between Santa Claus and Bluebeard—and call them God! Here is materialism for you with a vengeance. These audacious men forgot that He was not seen in the whirlwind, neither in the storm, but never seen at all; only heard in the still, small voice.
Of course I visited Mrs. Browning’s grave in Florence. I had the melancholy satisfaction of hearing, from one who knew her intimately, many details concerning her life here. Mr. Browning left Florence the day after she died, leaving the house, his books, papers, and even unfinished letters, as they were when he was called to her bedside the night before, and has never returned; nor has he ever been known to mention her name, or to refer to the blow which left him alone in the world. He seems to have been worthy even of a love like hers. We stayed over two days at Milan to see friends, and while there ascended to see once more the celebrated cathedral. It is finer—I do not say grander—but much finer, especially as seen from the roof, than any other building in Europe.
From Milan we went to Turin, and spent a day there, as we had never seen that city. It is prettily situated, very clean, with regular streets, but without any special objects of interest. The splendid view of the snow-clad Alps, and the fertile valley of the Po, as seen from the monastery, fully repaid us for the day given to Turin. We leave Italy in the morning. It is impossible not to like the country and to be deeply interested in its future. While it has made considerable progress since the genius of Cavour made it once more a nation, still its path is just now beset with dangers. A standing army of six hundred thousand and all the concomitants of royalty to maintain, and a large national debt upon which interest has to be paid—these require severe taxation, and even with this the revenues show a deficit. That last resort, paper currency, has been sought, and now the circulating medium—although “based on the entire property of the nation,” as our demagogues phrase it—is at a discount of ten per cent., which threatens to increase.
But the chief trouble arises from the religious difficulty—that sad legacy from the past, of which, fortunately, a new land like America knows nothing. The Pope and all strict Catholics stand coldly aloof from the government, ready to give trouble whenever opportunity offers. But I have faith in Italy. She will conquer her enemies, and once again be a great power worthy of her glorious past. All her troubles, however, are not to seek.
Paris, Thursday, May 1.
Now comes somewhat of a return to the more prosaic side of life. We made an excursion to the famous iron and steel works of the Schneider Company at Creuzot. What a concern this is, and how small we all are upon the other side of the Atlantic! Fifteen thousand five hundred men are employed here. We saw fifteen steam hammers in one shop. The mill for rolling only is 1,500 by 350 feet, filled with trains. The giant, however, is the 80-ton steam hammer, with its huge appliances. Masses of steel 35 tons in weight are handled as readily as we move a rail ingot. One ingot of steel weighing 120 tons was shown to us. This monster hammer is required only for armor plate and guns—war material. The happier demands of peaceful industry are met with ordinary machinery. Long may it be, therefore, before America can boast an engine of even half the size. Our visit to Creuzot was both interesting and instructive. Mr. Schneider and his officers were most cordial and attentive to us.
We spend a few days in Paris, which shows even more than the other cities we have revisited the march of improvement. It is farther beyond competition in its line than it ever was. I appreciate its attractions more than I have done upon previous visits; but one must be exceptionally strong who can persist in leading an earnest and useful life here, where so much exists to persuade one that after all amusement is the principal thing to be sought for. Most of the American residents seem to me to sink naturally to the level of thinking most—or certainly talking most—of the newest opera, or even the best ballet, or where is to be found the best table d’hôte; but, after all, what can a man do who leaves his own country, and the duties incumbent upon him there, to become a man about town here, with no work in the world to do. Good Americans come here when they die, it is said. I think it would be well for most of them if they did postpone their journey until then.
As we have travelled through France bands of the “Reserves” have been constantly seen repairing to their camps. Every Frenchman now, without exception, must serve as a soldier and drill at least one month every year. No substitutes are allowed. Soldiers! soldiers everywhere! Not a petty town at which we have stayed over night but has its barracks—its troops who parade its streets every morning. The entire male population is being trained so as most skilfully to murder, upon the first favorable opportunity, such of their fellow-Christians who may happen to be called Germans, while in Germany a similar state of affairs is rendered necessary to prevent the success of their “brothers’” intention. You see there was a frontier that was not “scientific,” and it was “rectified” a few years ago; but these rectifications, of all things in the world, never remain rectified, and so we are to awake some fine morning to find the “civilized” Christian (!) nations (save the mark!) nobly engaged in butchering each other, even if this is the nineteenth century and we all worship Christ and have the same Father in heaven. That thoughtful educated people, even in England and America, can still deliberately send a son “to the army,” to be taught the butchering trade, his victims being human, always saddens me when I think of it. The progress of the world has not only been slow but small, till the profession of arms, as it is called, is held to be unfit except for men of brutal natures.
In Italy it is much the same. She has 600,000 men under arms, and is drilling others, while Russia has just ordered an addition to her hosts exceeding five-fold the entire American army. England’s war expenditure this year exceeds that of only five years ago by $30,000,000, which is more than America spends for her army altogether. And so the whole of Europe is armed and arming, as if conscious that a storm is about to burst, or at least that such a stupendous drain upon her productive resources has to be endured to insure safety. Happy America! she alone seems to occupy a position free from grave and imminent dangers.