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Modern India

by William Eleroy Curtis · English · Gutenberg #11212 · 862,911 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Modern India

Author: William Eleroy Curtis


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11212]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11212

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN INDIA ***

[Illustration]


MODERN INDIA

BY WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS

_Author of "The Turk and His Lost Provinces," "To-day in Syria
and Palestine," "Egypt, Burma and British Malaysia," etc._




To LADY CURZON

An ideal american woman




This volume contains a series of letters written for _The Chicago
Record-Herald_ during the winter of 1903-04, and are published
in permanent form through the courtesy of Mr. Frank B. Noyes,
Editor and publisher of that paper.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

      I. The Eye of India
     II. The City of Bombay
    III. Servants, Hotels, and Cave Temples
     IV. The Empire of India
      V. Two Hindu Weddings
     VI. The Religions of India
    VII. How India Is Governed
   VIII. The Railways of India
     IX. The City of Ahmedabad
      X. Jeypore and its Maharaja
     XI. About Snakes and Tigers
    XII. The Rajputs and Their Country
   XIII. The Ancient Mogul Empire
    XIV. The Architecture of the Moguls
     XV. The Most Beautiful of Buildings
    XVI. The Quaint Old City of Delhi
   XVII. The Temples and Tombs at Delhi
  XVIII. Thugs, Fakirs and Nautch Dancers
    XIX. Simla and the Punjab
     XX. Famines and Their Antidotes
    XXI. The Frontier Question
   XXII. The Army in India
  XXIII. Muttra, Lucknow and Cawnpore
   XXIV. Caste and the Women of India
    XXV. Education in India
   XXVI. The Himalyas and the Invasion of Thibet
  XXVII. Benares, the Sacred City
 XXVIII. American Missions in India
   XXIX. Cotton, Tea and Opium
    XXX. Calcutta, the Capital of India




ILLUSTRATIONS

  Map of India
  A Bombay Street
  The Clock Tower and University Buildings, Bombay
  Victoria Railway Station, Bombay
  Nautch Dancers
  Body ready for Funeral Pyre, Bombay Burning Ghat
  Mohammedans at Prayer
  Huthi Singh's Tomb, Ahmedabad
  Street Corner, Jeypore
  The Maharaja of Jeypore
  Hall of the Winds, Jeypore
  Elephant Belonging to the Maharaja of Jeypore
  Tomb of Etmah Dowlah, Agra
  Portrait of Shah Jehan
  Portrait of Akbar, the Great Mogul
  The Taj Mahal
  Interior of Taj Mahal
  Tomb of Sheik Salim, Fattehpur
  A Corner in Delhi
  Hall of Marble and Mosaics, Palace of Moguls, Delhi
  Tomb of Amir Khusran, Persian Poet, Delhi
  "Kim," the Chela and the Old Lama
  A Ekka, or Road Cart
  A Team of "Critters"
  Group of Famous Brahmin Pundits
  Tomb of Akbar, the Great Mogul
  Audience Chamber of the Mogul Palace, Agra
  A Hindu Ascetic
  A Hindu Barber
  Bodies ready for Burning, Benares
  Great Banyan Tree, Botanical Garden, Calcutta
  The Princes of Pearls




I

THE EYE OF INDIA

A voyage to India nowadays is a continuous social event. The
passengers compose a house party, being guests of the Steamship
company for the time. The decks of the steamer are like broad
verandas and are covered with comfortable chairs, in which the
owners lounge about all day. Some of the more industrious women
knit and embroider, and I saw one good mother with a basket full of
mending, at which she was busily engaged at least three mornings.
Others play cards upon folding tables or write letters with
portfolios on their laps, and we had several artists who sketched
the sky and sea, but the majority read novels and guide books,
and gossiped. As birds of a feather flock together on the sea
as well as on land, previous acquaintances and congenial new
ones form little circles and cliques and entertain themselves
and each other, and, after a day or two, move their chairs around
so that they can be together. Americans and English do not mix
as readily as you might expect, although there is nothing like
coolness between them. It is only a natural restraint. They are
accustomed to their ways, and we to ours, and it is natural for
us to drift toward our own fellow countrymen.

In the afternoon nettings are hung around one of the broad decks
and games of cricket are played. One day it is the army against
the navy; another day the united service against a civilian team,
and then the cricketers in the second-class salon are invited
to come forward and try their skill against a team made up of
first-classers. In the evening there is dancing, a piano being
placed upon the deck for that purpose, and for two hours it is
very gay. The ladies are all in white, and several English women
insisted upon coming out on the deck in low-cut and short-sleeved
gowns. It is said to be the latest fashion, and is not half as
bad as their cigarette smoking or the ostentatious display of
jewelry that is made on the deck every morning. Several women,
and some of them with titles, sprawl around in steamer chairs,
wearing necklaces of pearls, diamonds, emeralds and other precious
stones, fit for only a banquet or a ball, with their fingers
blazing with jewels and their wrists covered with bracelets.
There seemed to be a rivalry among the aristocracy on our steamer
as to which could make the most vulgar display of gold, silver
and precious stones, and it occurs to me that these Englishwomen
had lived in India so long that they must have acquired the Hindu
barbaric love of jewelry.

My attention was called not long ago to a cartoon in a British
illustrated paper comparing the traveling outfits of American
and English girls. The American girl had a car load of trunks
and bags and bundles, a big bunch of umbrellas and parasols,
golf sticks, tennis racquets and all sorts of queer things, and
was dressed in a most conspicuous and elaborate manner. She was
represented as striding up and down a railway platform covered
with diamonds, boa, flashy hat and fancy finery, while the English
girl, in a close fitting ulster and an Alpine hat, leaned quietly
upon her umbrella near a small "box," as they call a trunk, and a
modest traveling bag. But that picture isn't accurate. According
to my observation it ought to be reversed. I have never known
the most vulgar or the commonest American woman to make such a
display of herself in a public place as we witnessed daily among
the titled women upon the P. and O. steamer Mongolia, bound for
Bombay. Nor is it exceptional. Whenever you see an overdressed
woman loaded with jewelry in a public place in the East, you may
take it for granted that she belongs to the British nobility.
Germans, French, Italians and other women of continental Europe
are never guilty of similar vulgarity, and among Americans it
is absolutely unknown.

It is customary for everybody to dress for dinner, and, while the
practice has serious objections in stormy weather it is entirely
permissible and comfortable during the long, warm nights on the
Indian Ocean. The weather, however, was not nearly as warm as we
expected to find it. We were four days on the Red Sea and six
days on the Indian Ocean, and were entirely comfortable except
for two days when the wind was so strong and kicked up so much
water that the port-holes had to be closed, and it was very close
and stuffy in the cabin. While the sun was hot there was always
a cool breeze from one direction or another, and the captain
told me it was customary during the winter season.

The passengers on our steamer were mostly English, with a few
East Indians, and Americans. You cannot board a steamer in any
part of the world nowadays without finding some of your fellow
countrymen. They are becoming the greatest travelers of any nation
and are penetrating to uttermost parts of the earth. Many of
the English passengers were army officers returning to India
from furloughs or going out for service, and officers' families
who had been spending the hot months in England. We had lots of
lords and sirs and lady dowagers, generals, colonels and officers
of lesser rank, and the usual number of brides and bridegrooms,
on their wedding tours; others were officials of the government
in India, who had been home to be married. And we had several
young women who were going out to be married. Their lovers were
not able to leave their business to make the long voyage, and
were waiting for them in Bombay, Calcutta or in some of the other
cities. But perhaps the largest contingent were "civil servants,"
as employes of the government are called, who had been home on
leave. The climate of India is very trying to white people, and,
recognizing that fact, the government gives its officials six
months' leave with full pay or twelve months' leave with half
pay every five years. In that way an official who has served five
consecutive years in India can spend the sixth year in England
or anywhere else he likes.

We had several notable natives, including Judge Nayar, a judicial
magistrate at Madras who has gained eminence at the Indian bar
and was received with honors in England. He is a Parsee, a member
of that remarkable race which is descended from the Persian fire
worshipers. He dresses and talks and acts exactly like an ordinary
English barrister. There were three brothers in the attractive
native dress, Mohammedans, sons of Adamjee Peerbhoy, one of the
largest cotton manufacturers and wealthiest men in India, who
employs more than 15,000 operatives in his mills and furnished the
canvas for the tents and the khaki for the uniforms of the British
soldiers during the South African war. These young gentlemen had
been making a tour of Europe, combining business with pleasure,
and had inspected nearly all the great cotton mills in England and
on the continent, picking up points for their own improvement.
They are intelligent and enterprising men and their reputation
for integrity, ability and loyalty to the British government
has frequently been recognized in a conspicuous manner.

Our most notable shipmate was the Right Honorable Lord Lamington,
recently governor of one of the Australian provinces, on his way
to assume similar responsibility at Bombay, which is considered
a more responsible post. He is a youngish looking, handsome man,
and might easily be mistaken for Governor Myron T. Herrick of
Ohio. One night at dinner his lordship was toasted by an Indian
prince we had on board, and made a pleasant reply, although it
was plain to see that he was not an orator. Captain Preston,
the commander of the ship, who was afterward called upon, made
a much more brilliant speech.

The prince was Ranjitsinhji, a famous cricket player, whom some
consider the champion in that line of sport. He went over to
the United States with an English team and will be pleasantly
remembered at all the places he visited. He is a handsome fellow,
25 years old, about the color of a mulatto, with a slender athletic
figure, graceful manners, a pleasant smile, and a romantic history.
His father was ruler of one of the native states, and dying, left
his throne, title and estates to his eldest son. The latter,
being many years older than Ranjitsinhji, adopted him as his
heir and sent him to England to be educated for the important
duty he was destined to perform. He went through the school at
Harrow and Cambridge University and took honors in scholarship
as well as athletics, and was about to return to assume his
hereditary responsibility in Indian when, to the astonishment
of all concerned, a boy baby was born in his brother's harem,
the first and only child of a rajah 78 years of age. The mother
was a Mohammedan woman, and, according to a strict construction
of the laws governing such things among the Hindus, the child
was not entitled to any consideration whatever. Without going
into details, it is sufficient for the story to say that the
public at large did not believe that the old rajah was the father
of the child, or that the infant was entitled to succeed him
even if he had been. But the old man was so pleased at the birth
of the baby that he immediately proclaimed him his heir, the act
was confirmed by Lord Elgin, the viceroy, and the honors and
estates which Ranjitsinhji expected to inherit vanished like a
dream. The old man gave him an allowance of $10,000 a year and
he has since lived in London consoling himself with cricket.

Another distinguished passenger was Sir Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney,
an Indian baronet, who inherited immense wealth from a long line
of Parsee bankers. They have adopted as a sort of trademark,
a nickname given by some wag to the founder of the family, in
the last century because of his immense fortune and success in
trade. Mr. Readymoney, or Sir Jehangir, as he is commonly known,
the present head of the house, was accompanied by his wife, two
daughters, their governess, and his son, who had been spending
several months in London, where he had been the object of much
gratifying attention. His father received his title as an
acknowledgment of his generosity in presenting $250,000 to the
Indian Institute in London, and for other public benefactions,
estimated at $1,300,000. He built colleges, hospitals, insane
asylums and other institutions. He founded a Strangers' Home
at Bombay for the refuge of people of respectability who find
themselves destitute or friendless or become ill in that city.
He erected drinking fountains of artistic architecture at several
convenient places in Bombay, and gave enormous sums to various
charities in London and elsewhere without respect to race or
creed. Both the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian missions in
India have been the recipients of large gifts, and the university
at Bombay owes him for its finest building.

[Illustration: A BOMBAY STREET]

Several of the most prominent native families in India have followed
the example of Mr. Readymoney by adopting the nicknames that were
given their ancestors. Indian names are difficult to pronounce.
What, for example, would you call Mr. Jamshijdji or Mr. Jijibhai,
and those are comparatively simple? Hence, in early times it was
the habit of foreigners to call the natives with whom they came
in contact by names that were appropriate to their character or
their business. For example, "Mr. Reporter," one of the editors
of the Times of India, as his father was before him, is known
honorably by a name given by people who were unable to pronounce
his father's Indian name.

Sir Jamsetjed Jeejeebhoy, one of the most prominent and wealthy
Parsees, who is known all over India for his integrity and
enterprise, and has given millions of dollars to colleges, schools,
hospitals, asylums and other charities, is commonly known as Mr.
Bottlewaller. "Waller" is the native word for trader, and his
grandfather was engaged in selling and manufacturing bottles. He
began by picking up empty soda and brandy bottles about the saloons,
clubs and hotels, and in that humble way laid the foundation of
an immense fortune and a reputation that any man might envy. The
family have always signed their letters and checks "Bottlewaller,"
and have been known by that name in business and society. But
when Queen Victoria made the grandfather a baronet because of
distinguished services, the title was conferred upon Jamsetjed
Jeejeebhoy, which was his lawful name.

Another similar case is that of the Petit family, one of the
richest in India and the owners and occupants of the finest palaces
in Bombay. Their ancestor, or the first of the family who
distinguished himself, was a man of very small stature, almost
a dwarf, who was known as Le Petit. He accepted the christening
and bore the name honorably, as his sons and grandsons have since
done. They are now baronets, but have never dropped it, and the
present head of the house is Sir Manockji Petit.

The Eye of India, as Bombay is called, sits on an island facing
the Arabian Sea on one side and a large bay on the other, but the
water is quite shallow, except where channels have been dredged
to the docks. The scenery is not attractive. Low hills rise in
a semicircle from the horizon, half concealed by a curtain of
mist, and a few green islands scattered about promiscuously are
occupied by hospitals, military barracks, villas and plantations.
Nor is the harbor impressive. It is not worth description, but
the pile of buildings which rises on the city side as the steamer
approaches its dock is imposing, being a picturesque mingling
of oriental and European architecture. Indeed, I do not know of
any city that presents a braver front to those who arrive by sea.
At the upper end, which you see first, is a group of five-story
apartment houses, with oriental balconies and colonnades. Then
comes a monstrous new hotel, built by a stock company under the
direction of the late J. N. Tata, a Parsee merchant who visited
the United States several times and obtained his inspirations
and many of his ideas there. Beside the hotel rise the buildings
of the yacht club, a hospitable association of Englishmen, to
which natives, no matter how great and good they may be, are
never admitted. Connected with the club is an apartment house
for gentlemen, and so hospitable are the members that a traveler
can secure quarters there without difficulty if he brings a letter
of introduction.

Next toward the docks is an old castle whose gray and lichen-covered
walls are a striking contrast to the new modern buildings that
surround it. These walls inclose a considerable area, which by
courtesy is called a fort. It was a formidable defense at one
time, and has been the scene of much exciting history, but is
obsolete now. The walls are of heavy masonry, but a shot from
a modern gun would shatter them. They inclose the military
headquarters of the Bombay province, or Presidency, as it is
called in the Indian gazetteer, the cathedral of this diocese,
quarters and barracks for the garrison, an arsenal, magazines
and other military buildings and a palatial sailors' home, one
of the finest and largest institution of the kind in the world,
which is supported by contributions from the various shipping
companies that patronize this place. There are also several machine
shops, factories and warehouses which contain vast stores of
war material of every sort sufficient to equip an army at a
fortnight's notice. About twelve hundred men are constantly employed
in the arsenal and shops making and repairing military arms and
equipments. There is a museum of ancient weapons, and many which
were captured from the natives in the early days of India's
occupation are quite curious; and there the visitor will have
his first view of one of the greatest wonders of nature, a banyan
tree, which drops its branches to take root in the soil beneath
its over-spreading boughs. But you must wait until you get to
Calcutta before you can see the best specimens.

Bombay is not fortified, except by a few guns behind some earthworks
at the entrance of the harbor, but it must be if the Russians
secure a port upon the Arabian Sea; not only Bombay, but the
entire west coast of India. The only protection for the city
now is a small fleet of battle ships, monitors and gunboats that
lie in the harbor, and there are usually several visiting men
of war at the anchorage.

Bombay is the second city in population in India, Calcutta standing
first on the list with 1,350,000 people, and, if you will take
your map for a moment, you will see that the two cities lie in
almost the same latitude, one on each side of the monstrous
peninsula--Bombay at the top of the Arabian Sea and Calcutta at
the top of the Bay of Bengal. By the census of 1891 Bombay had
821,764 population. By the census of 1901 the total was 776,006,
the decrease of 45,758 being attributed to the frightful mortality
by the plague in 1900 and 1901. It is the most enterprising, the
most modern, the most active, the richest and the most prosperous
city in India. More than 90 per cent of the travelers who enter
and leave the country pass over the docks, and more than half the
foreign commerce of the country goes through its custom-house.
It is by all odds the finest city between modern Cairo and San
Francisco, and its commercial and industrial interests exceed
that of any other.

The arrangements for landing passengers are admirable. On the
ship all our baggage was marked with numbers corresponding to
that of our declaration to the collector of customs. The steamer
anchored out about a quarter of a mile from a fine covered pier.
We were detained on board until the baggage, even our small pieces,
was taken ashore on one launch and after a while we followed it
on another. Upon reaching the dock we passed up a long aisle to
where several deputy collectors were seated behind desks. As we
gave our names they looked through the bundles of declarations
which had been arranged alphabetically, and, finding the proper
one, told us that we would have to pay a duty of 5 per cent upon
our typewriter and kodaks, and that a receipt and certificate
would be furnished by which we could recover the money at any
port by which we left India. Nothing else was taxed, although
I noticed that nearly every passenger had to pay on something
else. There is only one rate of duty--5 per cent ad valorem upon
everything--jewelry, furniture, machinery--all pay the same,
which simplified the transaction. But the importation of arms
and ammunition is strictly prohibited and every gun, pistol and
cartridge is confiscated in the custom-house unless the owner
can present evidence that he is an officer of the army or navy
and that they are the tools of his trade, or has a permit issued
by the proper authority. This precaution is intended to anticipate
any conspiracy similar to that which led to the great mutiny
of 1857. The natives are not allowed to carry guns or even to
own them, and every gun or other weapon found in the hands of a
Hindu is confiscated unless he has a permit. And as an additional
precaution the rifles issued to the native regiments in the army
have a range of only twelve hundred yards, while those issued to
the white regiments will kill at sixteen hundred yards; thus giving
the latter an important advantage in case of an insurrection.

After having interviewed the deputy collector, we were admitted
to a great pen or corral in the middle of the pier, which is
inclosed by a high fence, and there found all our luggage piled
up together on a bench. And all the trunks and bags and baskets
from the ship were similarly assorted, according to the numbers
they bore. We were not asked to open anything, none of our packages
were examined, the declarations of passengers usually being accepted
as truthful and final unless the inspectors have reason to believe
or suspect deception. Gangs of coolies in livery, each wearing a
brass tag with his number, stood by ready to seize the baggage
and carry it to the hotel wagons, which stood outside, where we
followed it and directed by a polite Sikh policeman, took the
first carriage in line. Everything was conducted in a most orderly
manner. There was no confusion, no jostling and no excitement,
which indicates that the Bombay officials have correct notions
of what is proper and carry them into practice.

The docks of Bombay are the finest in Asia, and when the extensions
now in progress are carried out few cities in Europe can surpass
them. They are planned for a century in advance. The people of
Bombay are not boastful, but they are confident of the growth
of their city and its commerce. Attached to the docks is a story
of integrity and fidelity worth telling. In 1735 the municipal
authorities of the young city, anticipating commercial prosperity,
decided to improve their harbor and build piers for the accommodation
of vessels, but nobody around the place had experience in such
matters and a commission was sent off to other cities of India to
find a man to take charge. The commission was very much pleased
with the appearance and ability of Lowji Naushirwanji, the Parsee
foreman of the harbor at the neighboring town of Surat, and tried
to coax him away by making a very lucrative offer, much in advance
of the pay he was then receiving. He was too loyal and honest to
accept it, and read the commission a lecture on business integrity
which greatly impressed them. When they returned to Bombay and
related their experience, the municipal authorities communicated
with those of Surat and inclosed an invitation to Naushirwanji
to come down and build a dock for Bombay. The offer was so
advantageous that his employers advised him to accept it. He
did so, and from that day to this a man of his name, and one of
his descendants, has been superintendent of the docks of this
city. The office has practically become hereditary in the family.

[Illustration: CLOCK TOWER AND UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS--BOMBAY]

A decided sensation awaits the traveler when he passes out from
the pier into the street, particularly if it is his first visit
to the East. He already has had a glimpse of the gorgeous costumes
of the Hindu gentleman and the priestly looking Parsees, and
the long, cool white robes of the common people, for several
of each class were gathered at the end of the pier to welcome
friends who arrived by the steamer, but the moment that he emerges
from the dock he enters a new and a strange world filled with
vivid colors and fantastic costumes. He sees his first "gherry,"
a queer-looking vehicle made of bamboo, painted in odd patterns
and bright tints, and drawn by a cow or a bullock that will trot
almost as fast as a horse. All vehicles, however, are now called
"gherrys" in India, no matter where they come from nor how they
are built--the chariot of the viceroy as well as the little donkey
cart of the native fruit peddler.

The extent of bare flesh visible--masculine and feminine--startles
you at first, and the scanty apparel worn by the common people
of both sexes. Working women walk by with their legs bare from
the thighs down, wearing nothing but a single garment wrapped in
graceful folds around their slender bodies. They look very small,
compared with the men, and the first question every stranger asks
is the reason. You are told that they are married in infancy,
that they begin to bear children by the time they are 12 and 14
years old, and consequently do not have time to grow; and perhaps
that is the correct explanation for the diminutive stature of the
women of India. There are exceptions. You see a few stalwart
amazons, but ninety per cent or more of the sex are under size.
Perhaps there is another reason, which does not apply to the upper
classes, and that is the manual labor the coolies women perform,
the loads they carry on their heads and the heavy lifting that
is required of them. If you approach a building in course of
erection you will find that the stone, brick, mortar and other
material is carried up the ladders and across the scaffolding on
the heads of women and girls, and some of these "hod carriers"
are not more than 10 or 12 years old. They carry everything on
their heads, and usually it requires two other women or girls to
hoist the heavy burden to the head of the third. All the weight
comes on the spine, and must necessarily prevent or retard growth,
although it gives them an erect and stately carriage, which women
in America might imitate with profit. At the same time, perhaps,
our women might prefer to acquire their carriage in some other
way than "toting" a hodful of bricks to the top of a four-story
building.

The second thing that impresses you is the amount of glistening
silver the working women wear upon their naked limbs. To drop
into poetry, like Silas Wegg, they wear rings in their noses
and rings on their toeses, and bands of silver wherever they can
fasten them on their arms and legs and neck. They have bracelets,
anklets, armlets, necklaces, and their noses as well as their
ears are pierced for pendants. You wonder how a woman can eat,
drink or sleep with a great big ornament hanging over her lips,
and some of the earrings must weigh several ounces, for they fall
almost to the shoulders. You will meet a dozen coolie women every
block with two or three pounds of silver ornaments distributed
over their persons, which represent their savings bank, for every
spare rupee is invested in a ring, bracelet or a necklace, which,
of course, does not pay interest, but can be disposed of for
full value in case of an emergency. The workmanship is rude,
but the designs are often pretty, and a collection of the silver
ornaments worn by Hindu women would make an interesting exhibit
for a museum. They are often a burden to them, particularly in hot
weather, when they chafe and burn the flesh, and our Bombay friends
tell us that in the summer the fountain basins, the hydrants and
every other place where water can be found will be surrounded
by women bathing the spots where the silver ornaments have seared
the skin and cooling the metal, which is often so hot as to burn
the fingers.

Another feature of Bombay life which immediately seizes the attention
is the gay colors worn by everybody, which makes the streets
look like animated rainbows or the kaleidoscopes that you can
buy at the 10-cent stores. Orange and scarlet predominate, but
yellow, pink, purple, green, blue and every other tint that was
ever invented appears in the robes of the Hindus you meet upon the
street. A dignified old gentleman will cross your path with a pink
turban on his head and a green scarf wound around his shoulders.
The next man you meet may have a pair of scarlet stockings, a
purple robe and a tunic of wine-colored velvet embroidered in
gold. There seems to be no rule or regulation about the use of
colors and no set fashion for raiment. The only uniformity in
the costume worn by the men of India is that everybody's legs
are bare. Most men wear sandals; some wear shoes, but trousers
are as rare as stovepipe hats. The native merchant goes to his
counting-room, the banker to his desk, the clergyman discourses
from a pulpit, the lawyer addresses the court, the professor
expounds to his students and the coolie carries his load, all
with limbs naked from the ankles to the thighs, and never more
than half-concealed by a muslin divided skirt.

The race, the caste and often the province of a resident of India
may be determined by his headgear. The Parsees wear tall fly-trap
hats made of horse hair, with a top like a cow's foot; the
Mohammedans wear the fez, and the Hindus the turban, and there
are infinite varieties of turbans, both in the material used
and in the manner in which they are put up. An old resident of
India can usually tell where a man comes from by looking at his
turban.




II

THE CITY OF BOMBAY

There are two cities in Bombay, the native city and the foreign
city. The foreign city spreads out over a large area, and, although
the population is only a small per cent of that of the native
city, it occupies a much larger space, which is devoted to groves,
gardens, lawns, and other breathing places and pleasure grounds,
while, as is the custom in the Orient, the natives are packed
away several hundred to the acre in tall houses, which, with
over-hanging balconies and tile roofs, line the crooked and narrow
streets on both sides. Behind some of these tall and narrow fronts,
however, are dwellings that cover a good deal of ground, being
much larger than the houses we are accustomed to, because the
Hindus have larger families and they all live together. When
a young man marries he brings his bride home to his father's
house, unless his mother-in-law happens to be a widow, when they
often take up their abode with her. But it is not common for
young couples to have their own homes; hence the dwellings in
the native quarters are packed with several generations of the
same family, and that makes the occupants easy prey to plagues,
famine and other agents of human destruction.

The Parsees love air and light, and many rich Hindus have followed
the foreign colony out into the suburbs, where you find a succession
of handsome villas or bungalows, as they are called, half-hidden by
high walls that inclose charming gardens. Some of these bungalows
are very attractive, some are even sumptuous in their
appointments--veritable palaces, filled with costly furniture
and ornaments--but the climate forbids the use of many of the
creature comforts which American and European taste demands. The
floors must be of tiles or cement and the curtains of bamboo,
because hangings, carpets, rugs and upholstery furnish shelter for
destructive and disagreeable insects, and the aim of everybody
is to secure as much air as possible without admitting the heat.

Bombay is justly proud of her public buildings. Few cities have
such a splendid array. None that I have ever visited except Vienna
can show an assemblage so imposing, with such harmony and artistic
uniformity combined with convenience of location, taste of
arrangement and general architectural effect. There is nothing,
of course, in Bombay that will compare with our Capitol or Library
at Washington, and its state and municipal buildings cannot compete
individually with the Parliament House in London, the Hotel de
Ville de Paris or the Palace of Justice in Brussels, or many
others I might name. But neither Washington nor London nor Paris
nor any other European or American city possesses such a broad,
shaded boulevard as Bombay, with the Indian Ocean upon one side
and on the other, stretching for a mile or more, a succession of
stately edifices. Vienna has the boulevard and the buildings,
but lacks the water effect. It is as if all the buildings of
the University of Chicago were scattered along the lake front
in Chicago from the river to Twelfth street.

The Bombay buildings are a mixture of Hindu, Gothic and Saracenic
architecture, blended with taste and success, and in the center,
to crown the group, rises a stately clock tower of beautiful
proportions. All of these buildings have been erected during
the last thirty years, the most of them with public money, many
by private munificence. The material is chiefly green and gray
stone. Each has ample approaches from all directions, which
contribute to the general effect, and is surrounded by large
grounds, so that it can be seen to advantage from any point of
view. Groves of full-grown trees furnish a noble background, and
wide lawns stretch before and between. There is parking along
the shore of the bay, then a broad drive, with two sidewalks, a
track for bicycles and a soft path for equestrians, all overhung
with far-stretching boughs of immense and ancient trees, which
furnish a grateful shade against the sun and add to the beauty
of the landscape. I do not know of any such driveway elsewhere,
and it extends for several miles, starting from an extensive
common or parade ground, which is given up to games and sports.
Poor people are allowed to camp there in tents in hot weather, for
there, if anywhere, they can keep cool, because the peninsula upon
which Bombay stands is narrow at that point, and if a breeze is
blowing from any direction they get it. At intervals the boulevard
is intersected by small, well-kept parks with band stands, and is
broken by walks, drives, beds of flowers, foliage, plants and
other landscape decorations; and this in the midst of a great
city.

On the inside of the boulevard, following the contour of the shore
of the bay, is first, Elphinstone College, then the Secretariat,
which is the headquarters of the government and contains several
state apartments of noble proportions and costly decorations. The
building is 443 feet long, with a tower 170 feet high. Next it
are the buildings of the University of Bombay, a library with a
tower 260 feet high, a convocation hall of beautiful design and
perfect proportions and other buildings. Then comes the Courts
of Justice; an immense structure nearly 600 feet long, with a
tower 175 feet high, which resembles the Law Courts of London,
and is as appropriate as it is imposing. The department of public
works has the next building; then the postoffice department, the
telegraph department, the state archives building and patent
office in order. The town hall contains several fine rooms and
important historic pictures. The mint is close to the town hall,
and next beyond it are the offices of the Port Trust, which would
correspond to our harbor commissioners. Then follow in order the
Holy Trinity Church, the High School, St. Xavier's College, the
Momey Institute, Wilson College, long rows of barracks, officers'
quarters and clubs, the Sailors' Home, several hospitals, a school
of art and Elphinstone High School, which is 452 by 370 feet in
size and one of the most palatial educational institutions I
have ever seen, the splendid group culminating in the Victoria
Railway station, which is the finest in the world and almost
as large as any we have in the United States.

[Illustration: VICTORIA RAILWAY STATION--BOMBAY]

It is a vast building of Italian Gothic, with oriental towers
and pinnacles, elaborately decorated with sculpture and carving,
and a large central dome surmounted by a huge bronze figure of
Progress. The architect was Mr. F. W. Stevens, a Bombay engineer;
it was finished in 1888 at a cost of $2,500,000, and the wood
carving, the tiles, the ornamental iron and brass railings, the
grills for the ticket offices, the restaurant and refreshment
rooms, the balustrades for the grand staircases, are all the
work of the students of the Bombay School of Art, which gives
it additional interest, although critics have contended that
the architecture and decorations are too ornate for the purpose
for which it is used.

Wilson College, one of the most imposing of the long line of
buildings, is a memorial to a great Scotch missionary who lived
a strenuous and useful life and impressed his principles and
his character upon the people of India in a remarkable manner.
He was famous for his common sense and accurate judgment; and
till the end of his days retained the respect and confidence of
every class of the community, from the viceroy and the council
of state down to the coolies that sweep the streets. All of them
knew and loved Dr. Wilson, and although he never ceased to preach
the gospel of Christ, his Master, with the energy, zeal and plain
speaking that is characteristic of Scotchmen, the Hindus,
Mohammedans, Parsees, Jains, Jews and every other sect admired
and encouraged him as much as those of his own faith.

One-fourth of all these buildings were presented to the city by
rich and patriotic residents, most of them Parsees and Hindus. The
Sailors' Home was the gift of the Maharajah of Baroda; University
Hall was founded by Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Readymoney, who also
built Elphinstone College. He placed the great fountain in front
of the cathedral, and, although a Parsee, built the spire on
the Church of St. John the Evangelist.

Mr. Dharmsala, another Parsee, built the Ophthalmic Hospital and
the European Strangers' Home and put drinking fountains about
the town. David Sassoon, a Persian Jew, founded the Mechanics'
Institute, and his brother, Sir Albert Sassoon, built the tower
of the Elphinstone High School. Mr. Premchand Raichand built
the university library and clock tower in memory of his mother.
Sir Jamsetji Jijibhal gave the school of art and the Parsee
Benevolent Institute; the sons of Jarahji Parak erected the
almshouse. Mr. Rustam Jamshidji founded the Hospital for Women,
the East India Company built the Town Hall and other men gave
other buildings with the greatest degree of public spirit and
patriotism I have ever seen displayed in any town. The guidebook
says that during the last quarter of a century patriotic residents
of Bombay, mostly natives, have given more than $5,000,000 for
public edifices. It is a new form for the expression of patriotism
that might be encouraged in the United States.

Several statues were also gifts to the city; that of Queen Victoria,
which is one of the finest I have ever seen, having been erected
by the Maharajah of Baroda, and that of the Prince of Wales by Sir
Edward Beohm. These are the best, but there are several others.
Queen Victoria's monument, which stands in the most prominent
plaza, where the busiest thoroughfares meet, represents that
good woman sitting upon her throne under a lofty Gothic canopy
of marble. The carving is elaborate and exquisite. In the center
of the canopy appears the Star of India, and above it the Rose
of England, united with the Lotus of India, with the mottoes of
both countries intertwined--"God and My Right" and "Heaven's
Light Our Guide."

Queen Victoria was no stranger to the people of India. They felt a
personal relationship with their empress, and many touching incidents
are told that have occurred from time to time to illustrate the
affection of the Hindus for her. They were taught to call her
"The Good Lady of England," and almost every mail, while she
was living, carried letters from India to London bearing that
address. They came mostly from Hindu women who had learned of
her goodness, sympathy and benevolence and hired public scribes
at the market places to tell her of their sufferings and wrongs.

In the center of another plaza facing a street called Rampart
row, which is lined by lofty buildings containing the best retail
shops in town, is a figure of Edward VII. in bronze, on horseback,
presented by a local merchant. Near the cathedral is a statute
to Lord Cornwallis, who was governor general of India in 1786,
and, as the inscription informs us, died at Ghazipur, Oct. 5,
1805. This was erected by the merchants of Bombay, who paid a
similar honor to the Marquis of Wellesley, younger brother of
the Duke of Wellington, who was also governor general during
the days of the East India Company, and did a great deal for the
country. He was given a purse of $100,000, and his statue was
erected in Bombay, but he died unhappy because the king refused
to create him Duke of Hindustan, the only honor that would have
satisfied his soul. There are several fine libraries in Bombay,
and the Asiatic Society, which has existed since the beginning of
the nineteenth century, has one of the largest and most valuable
collections of oriental literature in existence.

For three miles and a half the boulevard, and its several branches
are bounded by charming residences, which overlook the bay and
the roofs of the city. Malabar Point at the end of the drive,
the extreme end of the island upon which Bombay is built, is
the government house, the residence of the Lord Lamington, who
represents King Edward VII. in this beautiful city. It is a series
of bungalows, with large, cool rooms and deep verandas, shaded
by immense trees and luxurious vines, and has accommodations
altogether for about 100 people. The staff of the governor is
quite large. He has all kinds of aides-de-camp, secretaries and
attaches, and maintains quite a little court. Indeed, his quarters,
his staff and his style of living are much more pretentious than
those of the President of the United States, and his salary is
quite as large. Everywhere he goes he is escorted by a bodyguard
of splendid looking native soldiers in scarlet uniforms, big
turbans and long spears. They are Sikhs, from the north of India,
the greatest fighters in the empire, men of large stature, military
bearing and unswerving loyalty to the British crown, and when
the Governor of Bombay drives in to his office in the morning
or drives back again to his lovely home at night, his carriage
is surrounded by a squad of those tawny warriors, who ride as
well as they look.

About half-way on the road to the government house is the Gymkhana,
and I venture to say that nobody who has not been in India can
guess what that means. And if you want another conundrum, what
is a chotohazree? It is customary for smart people to have their
chotohazree at the Gymkhana, and I think that you would be pleased
to join them after taking the beautiful drive which leads to the
place. Nobody knows what the word was derived from, but it is used
to describe a country club--a bungalow hidden under a beautiful
grove on the brow of a cliff that overhangs the bay--with all of
the appurtenances, golf links, tennis courts, cricket grounds,
racquet courts and indoor gymnasium, and everybody stops there on
their afternoon drive to have chotohazree, which is the local
term for afternoon tea and for early morning coffee.

There are peculiar customs in Bombay. The proper time for making
visits everywhere in India is between 11 a. m. and 1:30 p. m.,
and fashionable ladies are always at home between those hours
and seldom at any other. It seems unnatural, because they are
the hottest of the day. One would think that common sense as
well as comfort would induce people to stay at home at noon and
make themselves as cool as possible. In other tropical countries
these are the hours of the siesta, the noonday nap, which is as
common and as necessary as breakfast or dinner, and none but
a lunatic would think of calling upon a friend after 11 in the
morning or before 3 in the afternoon. It would be as ridiculous
as to return a social visit at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning,
and the same reasons which govern that custom ought to apply
in India as well as in Egypt, Cuba or Brazil. But here ladies
put on their best gowns, order their carriages, take their card
cases, and start out in the burning noontide glare to return
visits and make formal dinner and party calls. Strangers are
expected to do the same, and if you have letters of introduction
you are expected to present them during those hours, and not at
any other time. In the cool of the day, after 5 o'clock, everybody
who owns or can hire a carriage goes out to drive, and usually
stops at the Gymkhana in the country or at the Yacht Club in
the city for chotohazree. It is a good custom to admit women
to clubs as they do here. The wives and daughters of members
have every privilege, and can give tea parties and luncheons in
the clubhouses, while on certain evenings of the week a band is
brought from the military barracks and everybody of any account
in European society is expected to be present. Tables are spread
over the lawn, and are engaged in advance by ladies, who sit
behind them, receive visits and pour tea just as they would do
in their own houses. It is a very pleasant custom.

All visitors who intend to remain in Bombay for any length of
time are expected to call upon the governor and his wife, but it
is not necessary for them to drive out to Malabar Point for such a
purpose. On a table in the reception room of the government building
down-town are two books in which you write your name and address,
and that is considered equivalent to a formal visit. One book is
intended exclusively for those who have been "presented" and by
signing it they are reminding his excellency and her excellency
of their continued existence and notifying them where invitations
to dinners and balls can reach them. The other book is designed for
strangers and travelers, who inscribe their names and professions,
where they live when they are at home, how long they expect to
be in Bombay and where they are stopping. Anybody who desires
can sign this book and the act is considered equivalent to a
call upon the governor. If the caller has a letter of introduction
to His Excellency he can leave it, with a card, in charge of the
clerk who looks after the visitors' book, and if he desires to
see the governor personally for business or social reasons he
can express that desire upon a sheet of note paper, which will
be attached to the letter of introduction and delivered some time
during the day. The latter, if he is so disposed will then give
the necessary instructions and an aide-de-camp will send a "chit,"
as they call a note over here, inviting the traveler to call at
an hour named. There is a great deal of formality in official
and social life. The ceremonies and etiquette are modeled upon
those of the royal palaces in England, and the governor of each
province, as well as the viceroy of India in Calcutta, has his
little court.

A different code of etiquette must be followed in social relations
with natives, because they do not usually open their houses to
strangers. Letters of introduction should be sent with cards
by messengers or through the mails. Then, if the gentleman to
whom they are addressed desires, he will call at your hotel.
Many of the wealthier natives, and especially the Parsees, are
adopting European customs, but the more conservative Hindus still
adhere to their traditional exclusive habits, their families are
invisible and never mentioned, and strangers are never admitted
to their homes.

Natives are not admitted to the European clubs. There is no mingling
of the races in society, except in a few isolated cases of wealthy
families, who have been educated in Europe and have adopted European
customs. While the same prejudice does not exist theoretically,
there is actually a social gulf as wide and as deep as that which
lies between white and black families in Savannah or New Orleans.
Occasionally there is a marriage between a European and a native,
but the social consequences have not encouraged others to imitate
the example. Such unions are not approved by public sentiment in
either race, and are not usually attended with happiness. Some
of the Parsees, who are always excepted, and are treated as a
distinct race and community, mingle with Europeans to a certain
degree, but even in their case the line is sharply drawn.

The native district of Bombay is not so dirty nor so densely
populated as in most other Indian cities. The streets are wider and
some of them will admit of a carriage, although the cross-streets
are nearly all too narrow. The houses are from three to five
stories in height, built of brick or stone, with overhanging
balconies and broad eaves. Sometimes the entire front and rear
are of lattice work, the side walls being solid. Few of them are
plastered, ceilings are unknown and partitions, for the sake of
promoting circulation, seldom go more than half way to the top of
a room. No glass is used, but every window has heavy blinds as a
protection from the hot air and the rays of the sun. While our
taste does not approve the arrangements in many cases, experience
has taught the people of India how to live through the hot summers
with the greatest degree of comfort, and anyone who attempts
to introduce innovations is apt to make mistakes. The fronts
of many of the houses are handsomely carved and decorated, the
columns and pillars and brackets which support the balconies,
the railings, the door frames, the eaves and architraves, are
often beautiful examples of the carvers' skill, and the exterior
walls are usually painted in gay colors and fanciful designs.
Within doors the houses look very bare to us, and contain few
comforts.

The lower floor of the house is commonly used for a shop, and
different lines of business are classified and gathered in the
same neighborhood. The food market, the grocery and provision
dealers, the dealers in cotton goods and other fabrics, the silk
merchants, the shoe and leather men, the workers in copper and
brass, the goldsmiths, jewelers and dealers in precious stones
each have their street or quarter, which is a great convenience
to purchasers, and scattered among them are frequent cook-shops
and eating places, which do not resemble our restaurants in any
way, but have a large patronage. A considerable portion of the
population of Bombay, and the same is true of all other Indian
cities, depends upon these cook-shops for food as a measure of
economy and convenience. People can send out for dinner, lunch,
or breakfast at any hour, and have it served by their own servants
without being troubled to keep up a kitchen or buy fuel.

There are said to be 6,000 dealers in jewelry and precious stones
in the city of Bombay, and they all seem to be doing a flourishing
business, chiefly with the natives, who are very fond of display
and invest their money in precious stones and personal adornments
of gold and silver, which are safer and give more satisfaction
than banks.

You can see specimens of every race and nation in the native
city, nearly always in their own distinctive costumes, and they
are the source of never-ending interest--Arabs, Persians, Afghans,
Rajputs, Parsees, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Lascars, Negroes
from Zanzibar, Madagascar and the Congo, Abyssinians. Nubians,
Sikhs, Thibetans, Burmese, Singalese, Siamese and Bengalis mingle
with Jews, Greeks and Europeans on common terms, and, unlike the
population of most eastern cities, the people of Bombay always
seem to be busy.

Many enterprises usually left for the municipal authorities of a
city to carry on cannot be undertaken by the government of India
because of the laws of caste, religious customs and fanatical
prejudices of the people. The Hindu allows no man to enter his
home; the women of a Mohammedan household are kept in seclusion,
the teachings of the priests are contrary to modern sanitary
regulations, and if the municipal authorities should condemn
a block of buildings and tear it down, or discover a nuisance
and attempt to remove it, they might easily provoke a riot and
perhaps a revolution. This has happened frequently. During the
last plague a public tumult had to be quelled by soldiers at a
large cost of life because of the efforts of the government to
isolate and quarantine infected persons and houses. These peculiar
conditions suggested in Bombay the advantage of a semi-public body
called "The Improvement Trust," which was organized a few years
ago by Lord Sandhurst, then governor. The original object was to
clear out the slums and infected places after the last plague,
to tear down blocks of rotten and filthy tenement-houses and erect
new buildings on the ground; to widen the streets, to let air and
light into moldering, festering sink holes of poverty, vice and
wretchedness; to lay sewers and furnish a water supply, and to
redeem and regenerate certain portions of the city that were a
menace to the public health and morals. This work was intrusted
to twelve eminent citizens, representing each of the races and
all of the large interests in Bombay, who commanded the respect
and enjoyed the confidence of the fanatical element of the people,
and would be permitted to do many things and introduce innovations
that would not be tolerated if suggested by foreigners, or the
government.

After the special duty which they were organized to perform had
been accomplished The Improvement Trust was made permanent as a
useful agency to undertake works of public utility of a similar
character which the government could not carry on. The twelve
trustees serve without pay or allowances; not one of them receives
a penny of compensation for his time or trouble, or even the
reimbursement of incidental expenses made necessary in the
performance of his duties. This is an exhibition of unusual
patriotism, but it is considered perfectly natural in Bombay. To
carry out the plans of the Trust, salaried officials are employed,
and a large force is necessary. The trustees have assumed great
responsibilities, and supply the place of a board of public works,
with larger powers than are usually granted to such officials.
The municipality has turned over to them large tracts of real
estate, some of which has been improved with great profit; it has
secured funds by borrowing from banks upon the personal credit
of its members, and by issuing bonds which sell at a high premium,
and the money has been used in the improvement of the city, in
the introduction of sanitary reforms, in building model tenements
for the poor, in creating institutions of public necessity or
advantage and by serving the people in various other ways.

The street car system of Bombay belongs to an American company,
having been organized by a Mr. Kittridge, who came over here as
consul during President Lincoln's administration. Recognizing
the advantage of street cars, in 1874 he interested some American
capitalists in the enterprise, got a franchise, laid rails on
a few of the principal streets and has been running horse cars
ever since.

The introduction of electricity and the extension of the street
railway system is imperatively needed. Distances are very great
in the foreign section, and during the hot months, from March
to November, it is impossible for white men to walk in the sun,
so that everybody is compelled to keep or hire a carriage; while
on the other hand the density of the population in other sections
is so great as to be a continual and increasing public peril.
Bombay has more than 800,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are
packed into very narrow limits, and in the native quarters it
is estimated that there is one human being to every ten square
yards of space. It will be realized that this is a dangerous
condition of affairs for a city that is constantly afflicted
with epidemics and in which contagious diseases always prevail.
The extension of the street car service would do something to
relieve this congestion and scatter many of the people out among
the suburbs, but the Orientals always swarm together and pack
themselves away in most uncomfortable and unhealthful limits,
and it will always be a great danger when the plagues or the
cholera come around. Multitudes have no homes at all. They have
no property except the one or two strips of dirty cotton which
the police require them to wear for clothing. They lie down to
sleep anywhere, in the parks, on the sidewalks, in hallways,
and drawing their robes over their faces are utterly indifferent
to what happens. They get their meals at the cook shops for a
few farthings, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are
sleepy and go through life without a fixed abode.

In addition to the street car company the United States is
represented by the Standard Oil Company, the Vacuum Oil Company,
and the New York Export and Import Company. Other American firms
of merchants and manufacturers have resident agents, but they
are mostly Englishmen or Germans.

There is, however, very little demand in India for agricultural
implements, although three-fourths of the people are employed in
tilling the soil. Each farmer owns or rents a very small piece
of ground, hardly big enough to justify the use of anything but
the simple, primitive tools that have been handed down to him
through long lines of ancestors for 3,000 years. Nearly all his
implements are home-made, or come from the village blacksmith
shop, and are of the rudest, most awkward description. They plow
with a crooked stick, they dig ditches with their fingers, and
carry everything that has to be moved in little baskets on their
heads. The harvesting is done with a primitive-looking sickle,
and root crops are taken out of the ground with a two-tined fork
with a handle only a foot long. The Hindu does everything in a
squatting posture, hence he uses only short-handled tools. Fifty
or seventy-five cents each would easily replace the outfit of
three-fourths of the farmers in the empire. Occasionally there
is a rajah with large estates under cultivation upon which modern
machinery is used, but even there its introduction is discouraged;
first, because the natives are very conservative and disinclined
to adopt new means and new methods; and, second, and what is
more important, every labor-saving implement and machine that
comes into the country deprives hundreds of poor coolies of
employment.

The development of the material resources of India is slowly going
on, and mechanical industries are being gradually established,
with the encouragement of the government, for the purpose of
attracting the surplus labor from the farms and villages and
employing it in factories and mills, and in the mines of southern
India, which are supposed to be very rich. These enterprises
offer limited possibilities for the sale of machinery, and
American-made machines are recognized as superior to all others.
There is also a demand for everything that can be used by the foreign
population, which in India is numbered somewhere about a million
people, but the trade is controlled largely by British merchants
who have life-long connections at home, and it is difficult to
remove their prejudices or persuade them to see the superiority
of American goods. Nevertheless, our manufactories, on their
merits, are gradually getting a footing in the market.

When Mark Twain was in Bombay, a few years ago, he met with an
unusual experience for a mortal. He was a guest of the late Mr.
Tata, a famous Parsee merchant, and received a great deal of
attention. All the foreigners in the city knew him, and had read
his books, and there are in Bombay hundreds of highly cultivated
and educated natives. He hired a servant, as every stranger does,
and was delighted when he discovered a native by the name of
Satan among the numerous applicants. He engaged him instantly
on his name; no other recommendation was necessary. To have a
servant by the name of Satan was a privilege no humorist had
ever before enjoyed, and the possibilities to his imagination
were without limit. And it so happened that on the very day Satan
was employed, Prince Aga Khan, the head of a Persian sect of
Mohammedans, who is supposed to have a divine origin and will
be worshiped as a god when he dies, came to call on Mr. Clemens.
Satan was in attendance, and when he appeared with the card upon
a tray, Mr. Clemens asked if he knew anything about the caller;
if he could give him some idea who he was, because, when a prince
calls in person upon an American tourist, it is considered a
distinguished honor. Aga Khan is well known to everybody in Bombay,
and one of the most conspicuous men in the city. He is a great
favorite in the foreign colony, and is as able a scholar as he
is a charming gentleman. Satan, with all the reverence of his
race, appreciated the religious aspect of the visitor more highly
than any other, and in reply to the question of his new master
explained that Aga Khan was a god.

It was a very gratifying meeting for both gentlemen, who found
each other entirely congenial. Aga Khan has a keen sense of humor
and had read everything Mark Twain had written, while, on the other
hand, the latter was distinctly impressed with the personality of
his caller. That evening, when he came down to dinner, his host
asked how he had passed the day:

"I have had the time of my life," was the prompt reply, "and
the greatest honor I have ever experienced. I have hired Satan
for a servant, and a God called to tell me how much he liked
Huck Finn."




III

SERVANTS, HOTELS AND CAVE TEMPLES

Everybody who comes to India must have a personal servant, a
native who performs the duty of valet, waiter and errand boy and
does other things that he is told. It is said to be impossible
to do without one and I am inclined to think that is true, for it
is a fixed custom of the country, and when a stranger attempts
to resist, or avoid or reform the customs of a country his trouble
begins. Many of the Indian hotels expect guests to bring their own
servants--to furnish their own chambermaids and waiters--hence are
short-handed, and the traveler who hasn't provided himself with
that indispensable piece of baggage has to look after himself.
On the railways a native servant is even more important, for
travelers are required to carry their own bedding, make their
own beds and furnish their own towels. The company provides a
bench for them to sleep on, similar to those we have in freight
cabooses at home, a wash room and sometimes water. But if you
want to wash your face and hands in the morning it is always
better to send your servant to the station master before the
trains starts to see that the tank is filled. Then a naked Hindu
with a goat-skin of water comes along, fills the tank and stands
around touching his forehead respectfully every time you look
his way until you give him a penny. The eating houses along the
railway lines also expect travelers to bring their own servants,
who raid their shelves and tables for food and drink and take it
out to the cars. That is another of the customs of the country.

For these reasons a special occupation has been created, peculiar
to India--that of travelers' servants, or "bearers" as they are
called. I have never been able to satisfy myself as to the derivation
of the name. Some wise men say that formerly, before the days of
railroads, people were carried about in sedan chairs, as they
are still in China, and the men who carried them were called
"bearers;" others contend that the name is due to the circumstance
that these servants bear the white man's burden, which is not at
all likely. They certainly do not bear his baggage. They hire
coolies to do it. A self-respecting "bearer" will employ somebody
at your expense to do everything he can avoid doing and will
never demean himself by carrying a trunk, or a bag, or even a
parcel. You give him money to pay incidental expenses, for you
don't want him bothering you all the time, and he hires other
natives to do the work. But his wages are small. A first-class
bearer, who can talk English and cook, pack trunks, look after
tickets, luggage and other business of travel, serve as guide
at all places of interest and compel merchants to pay him a
commission upon everything his employer purchases, can be obtained
for forty-five rupees, which is $15 a month, and keep himself.
He gets his board for nothing at the hotels for waiting on his
master, and on the pretext that he induced him to come there.
But you have to pay his railway fare, third class, and give him
$3 to buy warm clothing. He never buys it, because he does not
need it, but that's another custom of the country. Then again,
at the end of the engagement he expects a present--a little
backsheesh--two or three dollars, and a certificate that you are
pleased with his services.

That is the cost of the highest priced man, who can be guide
as well as servant, but you can get "bearers" with lesser
accomplishments for almost any wages, down as low as $2 a month.
But they are not only worthless; they actually imperil your soul
because of their exasperating ways and general cussedness. You
often hear that servants are cheap in India, that families pay
their cooks $3 a month and their housemen $2, which is true;
but they do not earn any more. One Swede girl will do as much
work as a dozen Hindus, and do it much better than they, and,
what is even more important to the housewife, can be relied upon.
In India women never go out to service except as nurses, but
in every household you will find not less than seven or eight
men servants, and sometimes twenty, who receive from $1 to $5
a month each in wages, but the total amounts up, and they have
to be fed, and they will steal, every one of them, and lie and
loaf, and cause an infinite amount of trouble and confusion,
simply because they are cheap. High-priced servants usually are
an economy--good things always cost money, but give better
satisfaction.

Another common mistake is that Indian hotel prices are low. They are
just as high as anywhere else in the world for the accommodations.
I have noticed that wherever you go the same amount of luxury and
comfort costs about the same amount of money. You pay for all
you get in an Indian hotel. The service is bad because travelers
are expected to bring their own servants to answer their calls,
to look after their rooms and make their beds, and in some places
to wait on them in the dining-room. There are no women about the
houses. Men do everything, and if they have been well trained as
cleaners the hotel is neat. If they have been badly trained the
contrary may be expected. The same may be said of the cooking.
The landlord and his guest are entirely at the mercy of the cook,
and the food is prepared according to his ability and education.
You get very little beef because cows are sacred and steers are
too valuable to kill. The mutton is excellent, and there is plenty
of it. You cannot get better anywhere, and at places near the
sea they serve an abundance of fish. Vegetables are plenty and
are usually well cooked. The coffee is poor and almost everybody
drinks tea. You seldom sit down to a hotel table in India without
finding chickens cooked in a palatable way for breakfast, lunch
and dinner, and eggs are equally good and plenty. The bread is
usually bad, and everybody calls for toast. The deserts are usually
quite good.

It takes a stranger some time to become accustomed to barefooted
servants, but few of the natives in India of whatever class wear
shoes. Rich people, business men, merchants, bankers and others
who come in contact on equal terms with the foreign population
usually wear them in the streets, but kick them off and go around
barefooted as soon as they reach their own offices or their homes.
Although a servant may be dressed in elaborate livery, he never
wears shoes. The butlers, footmen, ushers and other servants
at the government house in Calcutta, at the viceregal lodge at
Simla, at the palace of the governor of Bombay, and the residences
of the other high officials, are all barefooted.

Everybody with experience agrees that well-trained Hindu servants
are quick, attentive and respectful and ingenious. F. Marion
Crawford in "Mr. Isaacs" says: "It has always been a mystery
to me how native servants manage always to turn up at the right
moment. You say to your man, 'Go there and wait for me,' and you
arrive and find him waiting; though how he transferred himself
thither, with his queer-looking bundle, and his lota and cooking
utensils and your best teapot wrapped up in a newspaper and ready
for use, and with all the hundred and one things that a native
servant contrives to carry about without breaking or losing one of
them, is an unsolved puzzle. Yet there he is, clean and grinning
as ever, and if he were not clean and grinning and provided with
tea and cheroots, you would not keep him in your service a day,
though you would be incapable of looking half so spotless and
pleased under the same circumstances yourself."

Every upper servant in an Indian household has to have an under
servant to assist him. A butler will not wash dishes or dust or
sweep. He will go to market and wait on the table, but nothing
more. A cook must have a coolie to wash the kitchen utensils,
and wait on him. He will do nothing but prepare the food for
the table. A coachman will do nothing but drive. He must have
a coolie to take care of the horse, and if there are two horses
the owner must hire another stable man, for no Hindu hostler
can take care of more than one, at least he is not willing to
do so. An American friend has told me of his experience trying
to break down one of the customs of the East, and compelling
one native to groom two horses. It is too long and tearful to
relate here, for he was finally compelled to give in and hire
a man for every horse and prove the truth of Kipling's poem:

  "It is not good for the Christian race
  To worry the Aryan brown;
    For the white man riles,
    And the brown man smiles,
  And it weareth the Christian down
    And the end of the fight
    Is a tombstone white
  With the name of the late deceased,
    And the epitaph clear:
    A fool lies here,
  Who tried to hustle the East."

That's the fate of everybody who goes up against established customs.
And so we hired a "bearer."

There were plenty of candidates. They appeared in swarms before
our trunks had come up from the steamer, and continued to come by
ones and twos until we had made a selection. They camped outside
our rooms and watched every movement we made. They sprang up in
our way from behind columns and gate-posts whenever we left the
hotel or returned to it. They accosted us in the street with
insinuating smiles and politely opened the carriage door as we
returned from our drives. They were of all sizes and ages, castes
and religions, and, strange to say, most of them had become
Christians and Protestants from their strong desire to please.
Each had a bunch of "chits," as they call them--recommendations
from previous employers, testifying to their intelligence, honesty
and fidelity, and insisted upon our reading them. Finally, in
self-defense, we engaged a stalwart Mohammedan wearing a snow-white
robe, a monstrous turban and a big bushy beard. He is an imposing
spectacle; he moves like an emperor; his poses are as dignified
as those of the Sheik el Islam when he lifts his hands to bestow
a blessing. And we engaged Ram Zon Abdullet Mutmammet on his
shape.

It was a mistake. Beauty is skin deep. No one can judge merit by
outside appearances, as many persons can ascertain by glancing
in a mirror. Ram Zon, and that was what we called him for short,
was a splendid illusion. It turned out that he could not scrape
together enough English to keep an account of his expenditures
and had to trust to his memory, which is very defective in money
matters. He cannot read or write, he cannot carry a message or
receive one; he is no use as a guide, for, although information
and ideas may be bulging from his noble brow, he lacks the power
to communicate them, and, worse than all, he is surly, lazy and
a constitutional kicker. He was always hanging around when we
didn't want him, and when we did want him he was never to be
found.

Ram had not been engaged two hours before he appeared in our
sitting room, enveloped in a dignity that permeated the entire
hotel, stood erect like a soldier, brought his hand to his forehead
and held it there for a long time--the salute of great respect--and
gave me a sealed note, which I opened and found to read as follows:

"Most Honored Sir:--I most humbly beg to inform you this to your
kind consideration and generousitee and trusting which will submit
myself to your grant benevolence for avoid the troublesomeness to
you and your families, that the servant Ram Zon you have been so
honorable and benovelent to engage is a great rogue and conjurer.
He will make your mind buzzling and will steal your properties,
and can run away with you midway. In proof you please touch his
right hand shoulder and see what and how big charm he has. Such
a bad temperature man you have in your service. Besides he only
grown up taller and looks like a dandee as it true but he is
not fit to act in case not to disappeared. I beg of you kindly
consult about those matters and select and choose much experienced
man than him otherwise certainly you could be put in to great
danger by his conjuring and into troubles.

"Hoping to excuse me for this troubles I taking, though he is my
caste and countryman much like not to do so, but his temperature
is not good therefore liable to your honourablesness, etc., etc."

When I told Ram about this indictment, he stoutly denied the
charges, saying that it was customary for envious "bearers" to
say bad things of one another when they lost good jobs. We did not
feel of his right arm and he did not try to conjure us, but his
temperature is certainly very bad, and he soon became a nuisance,
which we abated by paying him a month's wages and sending him off.
Then, upon the recommendation of the consul we got a treasure,
although he does not show it in his looks.

The hotels of India have a very bad name. There are several good
ones in the empire, however, and every experienced traveler and
every clubman you meet can tell you the names of all of them.
Hence it is not impossible to keep a good hotel in India with
profit. The best are at Lucknow and Darjeeling. Those at Caucutta
are the worst, although one would think that the vice-regal capital
would have pride enough to entertain its many visitors decently.

Bombay at last has such a hotel as ought to be found in Calcutta
and all the other large cities, an architectural monument, and
an ornament to the country. It is due to the enterprise of the
late Mr. J. N. Tata, a Parsee merchant and manufacturer, and it
is to be hoped that its success will be sufficient to stimulate
similar enterprises elsewhere. It would be much better for the people
of India to coax tourists over here by offering them comforts,
luxuries and pleasures than to allow the few who do come, to go
away grumbling. The thousands who visit Cairo every winter are
attracted there by the hotels, for no city has better ones, and
no hotels give more for the money. Hence they pay big profits,
and are a source of prosperity to the city, as well as a pleasure
to the idle public.

The most interesting study in Bombay is the people, but there
are several excursions into the country around well worth making,
particularly those that take you to the cave temples of the Hindus,
which have been excavated with infinite labor and pains out of the
solid rock. With their primitive tools the people of ancient times
chiseled great caverns in the sides of rocky cliffs and hills and
fashioned them after the conventional designs of temples, with
columns, pillars, vaulted ceilings, platforms for their idols
and pulpits for their priests. The nearest of these wonderful
examples of stone cutting is on an island in the harbor of Bombay,
called Elephanta, because at one time a colossal stone elephant
stood on the slope near the landing place, but it was destroyed
by the Portuguese several centuries ago. The island rises about
600 feet above the water, its summit is crowned with a glorious
growth of forest, its sides are covered with dense jungles, and
the beach is skirted by mangrove swamps. You get there by a steam
launch provided by the managers of your hotel, or by Cook & Sons,
the tourist agents, whenever a sufficiently large party is willing
to pay them for their trouble. Or if you prefer a sail you can
hire one of the native boats with a peculiar rigging and usually
get a good breeze in the morning, although it is apt to die down
in the afternoon, and you have to take your chances of staying
out all night. The only landing place at Elephanta Island is a
wall of concrete which has been built out across the beach into
four or five feet of water, and you have to step gingerly lest
you slip on the slime. At the end of the wall a solid stairway
cut in the hillside leads up to the temple. It was formerly used
daily by thousands of worshipers, but in this degenerate age
nobody but tourists ever climb it. Every boat load that lands
is greeted by a group of bright-eyed children, who follow the
sahibs (gentlemen) and mem-sahibs (ladies) up the stairs, begging
for backsheesh and offering for sale curios beetles and other
insects of brilliant hues that abound on the island. Coolies
are waiting at the foot of the stairs with chairs fastened to
poles, in which they will carry a person up the steep stairway
to the temple for 10 cents. Reaching the top you find a solid
fence with a gateway, which is opened by a retired army officer
who has been appointed custodian of the place and collects small
fees, which are devoted to keeping the temples clean and in repair.

The island is dedicated to Siva, the demon god of the Hindus, and
it is therefore appropriate that its swamps and jungles should
abound with poisonous reptiles and insects. The largest of the
several temples is 130 feet square and from 32 to 58 feet high,
an artificial cave chiseled out of the granite mountain side.
The roof is sustained by sixteen pilasters and twenty-six massive
fluted pillars. In a recess in the center is a gigantic figure
of Siva in his character as The Destroyer. His face is turned to
the east and wears a stern, commanding expression. His head-dress
is elaborate and crowned by a tiara beautifully carved. In one
hand he holds a citron and in the other the head of a cobra,
which is twisted around his arm and is reaching towards his face.
His neck is adorned with strings of pearls, from which hangs
a pendant in the form of a heart. Another necklace supports a
human skull, the peculiar symbol of Siva, with twisted snakes
growing from the head instead of hair. This is the great image
of the temple and represents the most cruel and revengeful of all
the Hindu gods. Ten centuries ago he wore altogether a different
character, but human sacrifices have always been made to propitiate
him. Around the walls of the cave are other gods of smaller stature
representing several of the most prominent and powerful of the
Hindu pantheon, all of them chiseled from the solid granite.
There are several chambers or chapels also for different forms of
worship, and a well which receives its water from some mysterious
source, and is said to be very deep.

The Portuguese did great damage here several centuries ago in
a war with India, for they fired several cannon balls straight
into the mouth of the cave, which carried away several of the
columns and destroyed the ornamentation of others, but the Royal
Asiatic Society has taken the trouble to make careful and accurate
repairs.

Although the caves at Elephanta are wonderful, they are greatly
inferior in size and beauty to a larger group at Ellora, a day's
journey by train from Bombay, and after that a carriage or horseback
ride of two hours. There are 100 cave temples, carved out of
the solid rock between the second and the tenth centuries. They
are scattered along the base of a range of beautifully wooded
hills about 500 feet above the plain, and the amount of labor and
patience expended in their construction is appalling, especially
when one considers that the men who made them were without the
appliances and tools of modern times, knew nothing of explosives
and were dependent solely upon chisels of flint and other stones.
The greatest and finest of them is as perfect in its details and
as elaborate in its ornamentations as the cathedrals at Milan
or Toledo, except that it has been cut out of a single piece of
stone instead of being built up of many small pieces.

The architect made his plans with the most prodigal detail and
executed them with the greatest perfection. He took a solid rock,
an absolute monolith, and chiseled out of it a cathedral 365
feet long, 192 feet wide and 96 feet high, with four rows of
mighty columns sustaining a vaulted roof that is covered with
pictures in relief illustrating the power and the adventures
and the achievements of his gods. It would accommodate 5,000
worshippers. Around the walls he left rough projections, which
were afterward carved into symbolical figures and images, eight,
ten and twelve feet high, of elephants lions, tigers, oxen, rams,
swans and eagles, larger than life. Corner niches and recesses
have been enriched with the most intricate ornamentation, and
in them, still of the same rock, without the introduction of
an atom of outside material, the sculptors chiseled the figures
of forty or more of the principal Hindu deities. And on each
of the four sides is a massive altar carved out of the side of
the cliff with the most ornate and elaborate traceries and other
embellishment.

Indeed, my pen is not capable of describing these most wonderful
achievements of human genius and patience. But all of them have
been described in great detail and with copious illustrations
in books that refer to nothing else. I can only say that they
are the most wonderful of all the human monuments in India.

  "From one vast mount of solid stone
  A mighty temple has been cored
  By nut-brown children of the sun,
  When stars were newly bright, and blithe
  Of song along the rim of dawn--
  A mighty monolith."

The thirty principal temples are scattered along the rocky mountain
side within a distance of two miles, and seventy-nine others are
in the immediate neighborhood. The smallest of the principal group
is 90 feet long, 40 feet wide, with a roof 40 feet high sustained
by thirty-four columns. They are all alike in one particular. No
mortar was used in their construction or any outside material.
Every atom of the walls and ceilings, the columns, the altars
and the images and ornaments stands exactly where the Creator
placed it at the birth of the universe.

There are several groups of cave temples in the same neighborhood.
Some of them were made by the Buddhists, for it seems to have
been fashionable in those days to chisel places of worship out
of the rocky hillsides instead of erecting them in the open air,
according to the ordinary rules of architecture. There are not
less than 300 in western India which are believed to have been
made within a period of a thousand years. Archæologists dispute
over their ages, just as they disagree about everything else. Some
claim that the first of the cave temples antedates the Christian
era; others declare that the oldest was not begun for 300 years
after Christ, but to the ordinary citizen these are questions of
little significance. It is not so important for us to know when
this great work was done, but it would be extremely gratifying if
somebody could tell us who did it--what genius first conceived
the idea of carving a magnificent house of worship out of the
heart of a mountain, and what means he used to accomplish the
amazing results.

We would like to know for example, who made the designs of the
Vishwa Karma, or carpenter's cave, one of the most exquisite in
India, a single excavation 85 by 45 feet in area and 35 feet
high, which has an arched roof similar to the Gothic chapels
of England and a balcony or gallery over a richly sculptured
gateway very similar to the organ loft of a modern church. At
the upper end, sitting cross-legged in a niche, is a figure four
feet high, with a serene and contemplative expression upon its
face. Because it has none of the usual signs and symbols and
ornaments that appertain to the different gods, archæologists
have pronounced it a figure of the founder of the temple, who,
according to a popular legend, carved it all with his own hands,
but there is nothing to indicate for whom the statue was intended,
and the various stories told of it are pure conjectures that only
exasperate one who studies the details. Each stroke of the chisel
upon the surface of the interior was as delicate and exact as
if a jewel instead of a granite mountain was being carved.

There are temples to all of the great gods in the Hindu catalogue;
there are several in honor of Buddha, and others for Jain, all
more or less of the same design and the same style of execution.
Those who care to know more about them can find full descriptions
in Fergusson's "Indian Architecture."

South of Bombay, on the coast, is the little Portuguese colony
of Goa, the oldest European settlement in India. You will be
surprised to know that there are four or five of these colonies
belonging to other European governments within the limits of British
India, entirely independent of the viceroy and the authority of
Edward VII. The French have two towns of limited area in Bengal,
one of them only an hour's ride from Calcutta. They are entirely
outside of the British jurisdiction and under the authority of
the French Republic, which has always been respected. The Dutch
have two colonies in India also, and Goa, the most important of
all, is subject to Portugal. The territory is sixty-two miles
long by forty miles wide, and has a population of 446,982. The
inhabitants are nearly all Roman Catholics, and the archbishop
of Goa is primate of the East, having jurisdiction over all Roman
Catholics between Cairo and Hong-Kong.

More than half of the population are converted Hindus, descendants
of the original occupants of the place, who were overcome by
the Duke of Albuquerque in 1510, and after seventy or eighty
years of fighting were converted by the celebrated and saintly
Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier. He lived and preached
and died in Goa, and was buried in the Church of the Good Jesus,
which was erected by him during the golden age of Portugal--for
at one time that little kingdom exercised a military, political,
ecclesiastical and commercial influence throughout the world
quite as great, comparatively speaking, as that of Great Britain
to-day. Goa was then the most important city in the East, for
its wealth and commerce rivaled that of Genoa or Venice. It was
as large as Paris or London, and the viceroy lived in a palace
as fine as that occupied by the king. But very little evidence of
its former magnificence remains. Its grandeur was soon exhausted
when the Dutch and the East India Company came into competition
with the Portuguese. The Latin race has never been tenacious either
in politics or commerce. Like the Spaniards, the Portuguese have
no staying power, and after a struggle lasting seventy years,
all of the wide Portuguese possessions in the East fell into the
hands of the Dutch and the British, and nothing is now left but
Goa, with its ruins and reminiscences and the beautiful shrine
of marble and jasper, which the Grand Duke of Tuscany erected
in honor of the first great missionary to the East.




IV

THE EMPIRE OF INDIA

India is a great triangle, 1,900 miles across its greatest length
and an equal distance across its greatest breadth. It extends
from a region of perpetual snow in the Himalayas, almost to the
equator. The superficial area is 1,766,642 square miles, and
you can understand better what that means when I tell you that
the United States has an area of 2,970,230 square miles, without
counting Alaska or Hawaii. India is about as large as that portion
of the United States lying east of a line drawn southward along
the western boundary of the Dakotas, Kansas and Texas.

The population of India in 1901 was 294,361,056 or about one-fifth
of the human race, and it comprises more than 100 distinct nations
and peoples in every grade of civilization from absolute savages to
the most complete and complex commercial and social organizations.
It has every variety of climate from the tropical humidity along
the southern coast to the frigid cold of the mountains; peaks of
ice, reefs of coral, impenetrable jungles and bleak, treeless
plains. One portion of its territory records the greatest rainfall
of any spot on earth; another, of several hundred thousand square
miles, is seldom watered with a drop of rain and is entirely
dependent for moisture upon the melting snows of the mountains.
Twelve thousands different kinds of animals are enumerated in
its fauna, 28,000 plants in its flora, and the statistical survey
prepared by the government fills 128 volumes of the size of our
census reports. One hundred and eighteen distinct languages are
spoken in various parts of India and fifty-nine of these languages
are spoken by more than 100,000 people each. A large number of
other languages and dialects are spoken by different tribes and
clans of less than 100,000 population. The British Bible Society
has published the whole or parts of the Holy Scriptures in forty-two
languages which reach 220,000,000 people, but leave 74,000,000
without the Holy Word. In order to give the Bible to the remainder
of the population of India it would be necessary to publish 108
additional translations, which the society has no money and no
men to prepare. From this little statement some conception of
the variety of the people of India may be obtained, because each
of the tribes and clans has its own distinct organization and
individuality, and each is practically a separate nation.

  Language.        Spoken by   Language.       Spoken by
  Hindi           85,675,373   Malayalam       5,428,250
  Bengali         41,343,762   Masalmani       3,669,390
  Telugu          19,885,137   Sindhi          2,592,341
  Marathi         18,892,875   Santhal         1,709,680
  Punjabi         17,724,610   Western Pahari  1,523,098
  Tamil           15,229,759   Assamese        1,435,820
  Gujarathi       10,619,789   Gond            1,379,580
  Kanarese         9,751,885   Central Pahari  1,153,384
  Uriya            9,010,957   Marwadi         1,147,480
  Burmese          5,926,864   Pashtu          1,080,931

The Province of Bengal, for example, is nearly as large as all
our North Atlantic states combined, and contains an area of 122,548
square miles. The Province of Rajputana is even larger, and has a
population of 74,744,886, almost as great as that of the entire
United States. Madras has a population of 38,000,000, and the
central provinces 47,000,000, while several of the 160 different
states into which India is divided have more than 10,000,000
each.

The population is divided according to religions as follows:

  Hindus        207,146,422   Sikhs           2,195,268
  Mohammedans    62,458,061   Jains           1,334,148
  Buddhists       9,476,750   Parsees            94,190
  Animistic       8,711,300   Jews               18,228
  Christians      2,923,241

It will be interesting to know that of the Christians enumerated
at the last census 1,202,039 were Roman Catholics, 453,612 belonged
to the established Church of England, 322,586 were orthodox Greeks,
220,863 were Baptists, 155,455 Lutherans, 53,829 Presbyterians
and 157,847 put themselves down as Protestants without giving
the sect to which they adhere.

The foreign population of India is very small. The British-born
number only 96,653; 104,583 were born on the continent of Europe,
and only 641,854 out of nearly 300,000,000 were born outside
the boundaries of India.

India consists of four separate and well-defined regions: the
jungles of the coast and the vast tract of country known as the
Deccan, which make up the southern half of the Empire; the great
plain which stretches southward from the Himalayas and constitutes
what was formerly known as Hindustan; and a three-sided tableland
which lies between, in the center of the empire, and is drained
by a thousand rivers, which carry the water off as fast as it
falls and leave but little to refresh the earth. This is the
scene of periodical famine, but the government is pushing the
irrigation system so rapidly that before many years the danger
from that source will be much diminished.

The whole of southern India, according to the geologists, was once
covered by a great forest, and indeed there are still 66,305,506
acres in trees which are carefully protected. The black soil of
that region is proverbial for its fertility and produces cotton,
sugar cane, rice and other tropical and semi-tropical plants with
an abundance surpassed by no other region. The fruit-bearing
palms require a chapter to themselves in the botanies, and are a
source of surprising wealth. According to the latest census the
enormous area of 546,224,964 acres is under cultivation, which
is an average of nearly two acres per capita of population, and
probably two-thirds of it is actually cropped. About one-fourth
of this area is under irrigation and more than 22,000,000 acres
produce two crops a year.

Most of the population is scattered in villages, and the number
of people who are not supported by farms is much smaller than would
be supposed from the figures of the census. A large proportion of
the inhabitants returned as engaged in trade and other employments
really belong to the agricultural community, because they are the
agents of middlemen through whose hands the produce of the farms
passes. These people live in villages among the farming community.
In all the Empire there are only eight towns with more than 200,000
inhabitants; only three with more than 500,000, and only one with
a million, which is Calcutta. The other seven in order of size are
Bombay, Madras, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Rangoon, Benares and Delhi.
There are only twenty-nine towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants;
forty-nine with more than 50,000; 471 with more than 10,000; 877
with more than 5,000, and 2,134 organized municipalities with
a population of 1,000 or more. These municipalities represent an
aggregate population of 29,244,221 out of a total of 294,361,056,
leaving 265,134,722 inhabitants scattered upon farms and in 729,752
villages. The city population, however, is growing more rapidly
than that of the country, because of the efforts of the government
to divert labor from the farms to the factories. In Germany,
France, England and other countries of Europe and in the United
States the reverse policy is pursued. Their rural population is
drifting too rapidly to the cities, and the cities are growing
faster than is considered healthful. In India, during the ten
years from= 1891 to 1901 the city population has increased only
2,452,083, while the rural population has increased only 4,567,032.

The following table shows the number of people supported by each
of the principal occupations named:

  Agriculture                                    191,691,731
  Earth work and general labor (not agriculture)  17,953,261
  Producing food, drink and stimulants            16,758,726
  Producing textile fabrics                       11,214,158
  Personal, household and sanitary                10,717,500
  Rent payers (tenants)                          106,873,575
  Rent receivers (landlords)                      45,810,673
  Field laborers                                  29,325,985
  General laborers                                16,941,026
  Cotton weavers                                   5,460,515
  Farm servants                                    4,196,697
  Beggars (non-religious)                          4,222,241
  Priests and others engaged in religion           2,728,812
  Workers and dealers in wood, bamboo, etc.        2,499,531
  Barbers and shampooers                           2,331,598
  Grain and pulse dealers                          2,264,481
  Herdsmen (cattle, sheep and goats)               2,215,791
  Indoor servants                                  2,078,018
  Washermen                                        2,011,624
  Workers and dealers in earthen and stone ware    2,125,225
  Shoe, boot and sandal makers                     1,957,291
  Shopkeepers                                      1,839,958
  Workers and dealers in gold and silver           1,768,597
  Cart and pack animal owners                      1,605,529
  Iron and steel workers                           1,475,883
  Watchmen and other village servants              1,605,118
  Grocery dealers                                  1,587,225
  Sweepers and scavengers                          1,518,482
  Fishermen and fish curers                        1,280,358
  Fish dealers                                     1,269,435
  Workers in cane and matting                      1,290,961
  Bankers, money lenders, etc.                     1,200,998
  Tailors, milliners and dressmakers               1,142,153
  Officers of the civil service                    1,043,872
  Water carriers                                   1,089,574
  Oil pressers                                     1,055,933
  Dairy men, milk and butter dealers               1,013,000

The enormous number of 1,563,000, which is equal to the population of
half our states, are engaged in what the census terms "disreputable"
occupations. There are about eighty other classes, but none of
them embraces more than a million members.

Among the curiosities of the census we find that 603,741 people
are engaged in making and selling sweetmeats, and 550,241 in selling
cardamon seeds and betel leaves, and 548,829 in manufacturing
and selling bangles, necklaces, beads and sacred threads. There
are 497,509 teachers and professors, 562,055 actors, singers
and dancers, 520,044 doctors and 279,646 lawyers.

The chewing of betel leaves is one of the peculiar customs of
the country, even more common than tobacco chewing ever was with
us. At almost every street corner, in the porticos of the temples,
at the railway stations and in the parks, you will see women and
men, squatting on the ground behind little trays covered with
green leaves, powdered nuts and a white paste, made of the ashes
of cocoanut fiber, the skins of potatoes and a little lime. They
take a leaf, smear it with the lime paste, which is intended
to increase the saliva, and then wrap it around the powder of
the betel nut. Natives stop at these stands, drop a copper, pick
up one of these folded leaves, put it in their mouths, and go
off chewing, and spitting out saliva as red as blood. Strangers
are frequently attracted by dark red stains upon pavements and
floors which look as if somebody had suffered from a hemorrhage or
had opened an artery, but they are only traces of the chewers of
the betel nut. The habit is no more harmful than chewing tobacco.
The influence of the juice is slightly stimulating to the nerves,
but not injurious, although it is filthy and unclean.

It is a popular impression that the poor of India live almost
exclusively upon rice, which is very cheap and nourishing, hence
it is possible for a family to subsist upon a few cents a day.
This is one of the many delusions that are destroyed when you
visit the country. Rice in India is a luxury that can be afforded
only by the people of good incomes, and throughout four-fifths of
the country is sold at prices beyond the reach of common working
people. Sixty per cent. of the population live upon wheat, barley,
fruit, various kinds of pulses and maize. Rice can be grown only in
hot and damp climates, where there are ample means of irrigation,
and only where the conditions of soil, climate and water supply
allow its abundant production does it enter into the diet of the
working classes. Three-fourths of the people are vegetarians,
and live upon what they produce themselves.

The density of the population is very great, notwithstanding
the enormous area of the empire, being an average of 167 to the
square mile, including mountains, deserts and jungles, as against
21.4 to the square mile in the United States. Bengal, the province
of which Calcutta is the capital, on the eastern coast of India,
is the most densely populated, having 588 people to the square
mile. Behar in the south has 548, Oudh in the north 531; Agra,
also in the north, 419, and Bombay 202. Some parts of India have
a larger population to the acre than any other part of the world.
The peasants, or coolies, as they are called, are born and live
and die like animals. Indeed animals seldom are so closely herded
together, or live such wretched lives. In 1900, 54,000,000 people
were more or less affected by the famine, and 5,607,000 were fed
by the government for several months, simply because there was
no other way for them to obtain food. There was no labor they
could perform for wages, and those who were fortunate enough to
secure employment could not earn enough to buy bread to satisfy
the hunger of their families. It is estimated that 30,000,000
human beings starved to death in India during the nineteenth
century, and in one year alone, the year in which that good woman,
Queen Victoria, assumed the title of empress, more than 5,000,000
of her subjects died from hunger. Yet the population without
immigration is continually increasing from natural causes. The
net increase during the ten years from 1891 to 1901 was 7,046,385.
The, struggle for life is becoming greater every year; wages are
going down instead of up, notwithstanding the rapid increase
of manufacturing industries, the extension of the railway system
and other sources of wealth and employment that are being rapidly
developed.

More than 200,000,000 persons in India are living upon less than
5 cents a day of our money; more than 100,000,000 are living
upon less than 3 cents; more than 50,000,000 upon less than 1
cent and at least two-thirds of the entire population do not
have food enough during any year of their lives to supply the
nourishment demanded by the human system. As I have already shown,
there are only two acres of land under cultivation for each
inhabitant of India. This includes gardens, parks and pastures,
and it is not evenly distributed. In many parts of the country,
millions are compelled to live upon an average of one-fourth
of an acre of land and millions more upon half an acre each,
whereas an average of five acres of agricultural land per capita
of population is believed to be necessary to the prosperity of
a nation.

Few countries have such an enormous birth rate and death rate.
Nowhere else are babies born in such enormous numbers, and nowhere
does death reap such awful harvests. Sometimes a single famine or
plague suddenly sweeps millions into eternity, and their absence
is scarcely noticed. Before the present sanitary regulations and
inspections were introduced the death rate was nearly double
what it is now; indeed, some experts estimate that it must have
been several times as great, but no records were kept in some
of the provinces, and in most of them, they were incomplete and
inaccurate. India is now in a healthier condition than ever before,
and yet the death rate varies from 31.10 per 1,000 in the cold
provinces of Agra and Oudh to 82.7 per 1,000 in the tropical
regions of Behar. In Bombay last year the rate was 70.07 per
1,000; in the central provinces 56.75; in the Punjab, which has
a wide area in northwestern India, it was 47.7 and in Bengal
36.63.

The birth rate is almost as large, the following table being reported
from the principal provinces named:

                    Births per                     Births per
                    1,000 pop.                     1,000 pop.
  Behar                   50.5   Burmah                  37.4
  Punjab                  48.4   Bombay                  36.3
  Agra                    48.9   Assam                   35.4
  Central provinces       47.3   Madras                  31.3
  Bengal                  42.9

Even with the continual peril from plague and famine, the government
does not encourage emigration, as you think would be considered
a wise policy, but retards it by all sorts of regulations and
restrictions, and it is difficult to drive the Hindus out of
the wretched hovels in which they live and thrive and breed like
rats or rabbits. The more wretched and comfortless a home, the
more attached the natives are to it. The less they have to leave
the more reluctant they are to leave it, but the same rule applies
to every race and every nation in the south of Europe and the
Turkish Empire, in Syria, Egypt, the East India Islands, and
wherever the population is dense and wages are low. It is the
semi-prosperous middle class who emigrate in the hope of bettering
their condition.

There is less emigration from India than from any other country.
During the last twenty years the total number of persons emigrating
from the Indian Empire was only 316,349, less than come to the
United States annually from Italy, and the statistics show that
138,660 of these persons returned to their former homes during
that period, leaving the net emigration since 1882 only 177,689
out of 300,000,000 of population. And most of these settled in
other British colonies. We have a few Hindu merchants and Parsees
in the United States, but no coolies whatever. The coolies are
working classes that have gone to British Guiana, Trinidad, Jamaica
and other West Indies, Natal, East Africa, Fiji and other British
possessions in the Pacific. There has been a considerable flow
of workmen back and forth between India and Burma and Ceylon,
for in those provinces labor is scarce, wages are high and large
numbers of Hindus are employed in the rice paddies and tea
plantations.

The government prevents irregular emigration. It has a "protectorate
of emigrants" who is intrusted with the enforcement of the laws.
Natives of India are not permitted to leave the country unless
they are certain of obtaining employment at the place where they
desire to go, and even then each intending emigrant must file
a copy of his contract with the commissioner in order that he
may be looked after in his new home, for the Indian government
always sends an agent to protect the interests of its coolies to
every country where they have gone in any considerable numbers.
Every intending emigrant must submit to a medical examination also,
for the navigation laws prohibit vessels from taking aboard any
native who does not show a certificate from an official that he
is in full possession of his health and faculties and physically
fit to earn his living in a strange country. Vessels carrying
emigrants are subject to inspection, and are obliged to take out
licenses, which require them to observe certain rules regarding
space occupied, ventilation, sanitation and the supply of food and
water. Most of the emigrants leaving India go out under contract
and the terms must be approved by the agent of the government.

The fact that the government and the benevolent people of Europe
and America have twice within the last ten years been compelled to
intervene to save the people of India from perishing of starvation
has created an impression that they are always in the lowest
depths of distress and continually suffering from any privations.
This is not unnatural, and might under ordinary circumstances
be accepted as conclusive proof of the growing poverty of the
country and the inability of the people to preserve their own
lives. Such a conclusion, however, is very far from the fact, and
every visitor to India from foreign lands has a surprise awaiting
him concerning its condition and progress. When three-fifths of
a population of 300,000,000 have all their eggs in one basket
and depend entirely upon little spots of soil for sustenance,
and when their crops are entirely dependent upon the rains, and
when for a succession of years the rains are not sufficient,
there must be failures of harvest and a vast amount of suffering
is inevitable. But the recuperative power of the empire is
astonishing.

Although a famine may extend over its total length and breadth
one season, and require all the resources of the government to
prevent the entire population from perishing, a normal rainfall
will restore almost immediate prosperity, because the soil is so
rich, the sun is so hot, and vegetation is so rapid that sometimes
three and even four crops are produced from the same soil in a
single year. All the people want in time of famine is sufficient
seed to replant their farms and food enough to last them until
a crop is ripe. The fact that a famine exists in one part of
the country, it must also be considered, is no evidence that
the remainder of the empire is not abounding in prosperity, and
every table of statistics dealing with the material conditions of
the country shows that famine and plague have in no manner impeded
their progress. On the other hand they demonstrate the existence
of an increased power of endurance and rapid recuperation, which,
compared with the past, affords ground for hope and confidence
of an even more rapid advance in the future.

Comparing the material condition of India in 1904 with what it
was ten years previous, we find that the area of soil under
cultivation has increased 229,000,000 acres. What we call internal
revenue has increased 17 per cent during the last ten years; sea
borne foreign commerce has risen in value from £130,500,000 to
£163,750,000; the coasting trade from £48,500,000 to £63,000,000,
and the foreign trade by land from £5,500,000 to £9,000,000.
Similar signs of progress and prosperity are to be found in the
development of organized manufactures, in the increased investment
of capital in commerce and industry, in dividends paid by various
enterprises, in the extended use of the railways, the postoffice
and the telegraph. The number of operatives in cotton mills has
increased during the last ten years from 118,000 to 174,000, in
jute mills from 65,000 to 114,000, in coal and other mines from
35,000 to 95,000, and in miscellaneous industries from 184,000
to 500,000. The railway employes have increased in number from
284,000 to 357,000 in ten years.

A corresponding development and improvement is found in all lines
of investment. During the ten years from 1894 to 1904 the number
of joint stock companies having more than $100,000 capital has
increased from 950 to 1,366, and their paid up capital from
£17,750,000 to £24,500,000. The paid in capital of banks has
advanced from £9,000,000 to £14,750,000; deposits have increased
from £7,500,000 to £23,650,000, and the deposits in postal savings
banks from £4,800,000 to £7,200,000, which is an encouraging
indication of the growth of habits of thrift. The passenger traffic
on the railways has increased from 123,000,000 to 195,000,000,
and the freight from 20,000,000 to 34,000,000 tons. The number of
letters and parcels passing through the postoffice has increased
during the ten years from 340,000,000 to 560,000,000; the postal
money orders from £9,000,000 to £19,000,000, and the telegraph
messages from 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 in number.

The income tax is an excellent barometer of prosperity. It exempts
ordinary wage earners entirely--persons with incomes of less than
500 rupees, a rupee being worth about 33 cents of our money.
The whole number of persons paying the income tax has increased
from 354,594 to 495,605, which is about 40 per cent in ten years,
and the average tax paid has increased from 37.09 rupees to 48.68
rupees. The proceeds of the tax have increased steadily from
year to year, with the exception of the famine years.

There are four classifications of taxpayers, and the proportion
paid by each during the last year, 1902, was as follows:

                                         Per cent.
  Salaries and pensions                      29.07
  Dividends from companies and business       7.22
  Interest on securities                      4.63
  Miscellaneous sources of income            59.08

The last item is very significant. It shows that nearly 60 per
cent of the income taxpayers of India are supported by miscellaneous
investments other than securities and joint stock companies. The
item includes the names of merchants, individual manufacturers,
farmers, mechanics, professional men and tradesmen of every class.

The returns of the postal savings banks show the following classes
of depositors:

                                           Number.
  Wage earners                             352,349
  Professional men with fixed incomes      233,108
  Professional men with variable incomes    58,130
  Domestics, or house servants             151,204
  Tradesmen                                 32,065
  Farmers                                   12,387
  Mechanics                                 27,450

The interest allowed by the savings bank government of India is
3-1/2 per cent.

Considering the awful misfortunes and distress which the country
has endured during the last ten years, these facts are not only
satisfactory but remarkable, and if it can progress so rapidly
during times of plague and famine, what could be expected from
it during a cycle of seasons of full crops.

During the ten years which ended with 1894 the seasons were all
favorable, generally speaking, although local failures of harvests
occurred here and there in districts of several provinces, but
they were not sufficient in area, duration or intensity to affect
the material conditions of the people. The ten succeeding years,
however, ending with 1904 witnessed a succession of calamities
that were unprecedented either in India or anywhere else on earth,
with the exception of a famine that occurred in the latter part
of the eighteenth century. Those ten years not only saw two of
the worst famines, but repeated visitations of widespread and
fatal epidemics. It is estimated that during the ten years ending
December, 1903, a million and a half of deaths were caused by the
bubonic plague alone, and that the mortality from that pestilence
was small in comparison with that caused by cholera, fever and
famine. The effects of those epidemics had been to hamper trade,
to alarm and demoralize the people, to obstruct foreign commerce,
prevent investments and the development of material resources.
Yet during the years 1902 and 1903 throughout all India there
was abundant prosperity. This restoration of prosperity is most
noticeable in several of the districts that suffered most severely
from famine. To a large measure the agricultural population have
been restored to their normal condition.

It is difficult in a great country like India where wages are
so small and the cost of living is so insignificant compared
with our own country, to judge accurately of the condition of
the laboring classes. The empire is so vast and so diverse in
all its features that a statement which may accurately apply
to one province will misrepresent another. But, taking one
consideration with another, as the song says, and drawing an
average, it is plainly evident that the peasant population of
India is slowly improving in condition. The scales of wages have
undoubtedly risen; there has been an improvement in the housing
and the feeding of the masses; their sanitary condition has been
radically changed, although they have fought against it, and
the slow but gradual development of the material resources of
the country promises to make the improvement permanent.

The chief source of revenue in India from ancient times has been
a share in the crops of the farmers. The present system has been
handed down through the centuries with very little modification, and
as three-fifths of the people are entirely and directly dependent
upon the cultivation of the land, the whole fabric of society
has been based upon that source of wealth. The census gives
191,691,731 people as agriculturists, of whom 131,000,000 till
their own or rented land, 18,750,000 receive incomes as landlord
owners and the remainder are agricultural laborers. The landlord
caste are the descendants of hereditary chiefs, of former revenue
farmers and persons of importance to whom land grants were made
in ancient times. Large tracts of land in northern India are
owned by municipalities and village communities, whose officials
receive the rents and pay the taxes. Other large tracts have
been inherited from the invaders and conquerors of the country.
It is customary in India for the landlord to receive his rent
in a part of the crop, and the government in turn receives a
share of this rent in lieu of taxes. This is an ancient system
which the British government has never interfered with, and any
attempt to modify or change it would undoubtedly be resisted.
At the same time the rents are largely regulated by the taxes.
These customs, which have come down from the Mogul empire, have
been defined and strengthened by time and experience. Nearly
every province has its own and different laws and customs on
the subject, but the variation is due not to legislation, but
to public sentiment. The tenant as well as the landlord insists
that the assessments of taxes shall be made before the rent rate
is determined, and this occurs in almost every province, although
variations in rent and changes of proprietorship and tenantry
very seldom occur. Wherever there has been a change during the
present generation it has been in favor of the tenants. The rates
of rent and taxation naturally vary according to the productive
power of the land, the advantages of climate and rainfall, the
facilities for reaching market and other conditions. But the
average tax represents about two-thirds of a rupee per acre, or
21 cents in American money.

We have been accustomed to consider India a great wheat producing
country, and you often hear of apprehension on the part of American
political economists lest its cheap labor and enormous area should
give our wheat growers serious competition. But there is not
the slightest ground for apprehension. While the area planted
to wheat in India might be doubled, and farm labor earns only
a few cents a day, the methods of cultivation are so primitive
and the results of that cheap labor are comparatively so small,
that they can never count seriously against our wheat farms which
are tilled and harvested with machinery and intelligence. No
article in the Indian export trade has been so irregular or has
experienced greater vicissitudes than wheat. The highest figure
ever reached in the value of exports was during the years 1891-92,
when there was an exceptional crop, and the exports reached
$47,500,000. The average for the preceding ten years was $25,970,000,
while the average for the succeeding ten years, ending 1901-02,
was only $12,740,000. This extraordinary decrease was due to
the failure of the crop year after year and the influence of
the famines of 1897 and 1900. The bulk of the wheat produced
in India is consumed within the districts where it is raised,
and the average size of the wheat farms is less than five acres.
More than three-fourths of the India wheat crop is grown on little
patches of ground only a few feet square, and sold in the local
markets. The great bulk of the wheat exported comes from the large
farms or is turned in to the owners of land rented to tenants
for shares of the crops produced.

The coal industry is becoming important. There are 329 mines
in operation, which yielded 7,424,480 tons during the calendar
year of 1902, an increase of nearly 1,000,000 tons in the five
years ending 1903. It is a fair grade of bituminous coal and
does well for steaming purposes. Twenty-eight per cent of the
total output was consumed by the local railway locomotives in
1902, and 431,552 tons was exported to Ceylon and other neighboring
countries. The first mine was opened in India as long ago as
1820, but it was the only one worked for twenty years, and the
development of the industry has been very slow, simply keeping
pace with the increase of railways, mills, factories and other
consumers. But the production is entirely sufficient to meet
the local demand, and only 23,417 tons was imported in 1902,
all of which came as ballast. The industry gives employment to
about 98,000 persons. Most of the stock in the mining companies
is owned by private citizens of India. The prices in Calcutta
and Bombay vary from $2.30 to $2.85 a ton.

India is rich in mineral deposits, but few of them have been
developed, chiefly on account of the lack of capital and enterprise.
After coal, petroleum is the most important item, and in 1902
nearly 57,000,000 gallons was refined and sold in the India market,
but this was not sufficient to meet half the demand, and about
81,000,000 gallons was imported from the United States and Russia.

Gold mining is carried on in a primitive way in several of the
provinces, chiefly by the washing of river sand. Valuable gold
deposits are known to exist, but no one has had the enterprise
or the capital to undertake their development, simply because
costly machinery is required and would call for a heavy investment.
Most of the gold washing is done by natives with rude, home-made
implements, and the total production reported for 1902 was 517,639
ounces, valued at $20 an ounce. This, however, does not tell
more than half the story. It represents only the amount of gold
shipped out of the country, while at least as much again, if
not more, was consumed by local artisans in the manufacture of
the jewelry which is so popular among the natives. When a Hindu
man or woman gets a little money ahead he or she invariably buys
silver or gold ornaments with it, instead of placing it in a
savings bank or making other investments. Nearly all women and
children that you see are loaded with silver ornaments, their
legs and feet as well as their hands and arms, and necklaces of
silver weighing a pound or more are common. Girdles of beautifully
wrought silver are sometimes worn next to the bare skin by ordinary
coolies working on the roads or on the docks of the rivers, and
in every town you visit you will find hundreds of shops devoted
to the sale of silver and gold adornments of rude workmanship
but put metal. The upper classes invest their savings in gold
and precious stones for similar reasons. There is scarcely a
family of the middle class without a jewel case containing many
articles of great value, while both the men and women of the rich
and noble castes own and wear on ceremonial occasions amazing
collections of precious stones and gold ornaments which have
been handed down by their ancestors who invested their surplus
wealth in them at a time when no safe securities were to be had
and savings banks had not been introduced into India. A large
proportion of the native gold is consumed by local artisans in
the manufacture of these ornaments, and is not counted in the
official returns. An equal amount, perhaps, is worked up into
gold foil and used for gilding temples, palaces and the houses
of the rich. Like all orientals, the Indians are very fond of
gilding, and immense quantities of pure gold leaf are manufactured
in little shops that may be seen in every bazaar you visit.

India now ranks second among the manganese ore producing countries
of the world, and has an inexhaustible supply of the highest
grade. The quality of the ores from the central provinces permits
their export in the face of a railway haul of 500 miles and sea
transportation to England, Belgium, Germany and the United States,
but, speaking generally, the mineral development of India has
not yet begun.




V

TWO HINDU WEDDINGS

There was a notable wedding at Baroda, the capital of one of the
Native States of the same name, while we were in India, and the
Gaikwar, as the ruling prince is called, expressed a desire for us
to be present. He has a becoming respect for and appreciation of
the influence and usefulness of the press, and it was a pleasure
to find so sensible a man among the native rulers. But, owing
to circumstances over which we had no control, we had to deny
ourselves the gratification of witnessing an event which few
foreigners have ever been allowed to see. It is a pity winter
is so short in the East, for there are so many countries one
cannot comfortably visit any other time of year.

Baroda is a non-tributary, independent native state of the first
rank, lying directly north of the province of Bombay, and its
ruler is called a "gaikwar," which signifies "cowherd," and the
present possessor of that title is one of the biggest men in the
empire, one of the richest and one of the greatest swells. He
is entitled to a salute of twenty-one guns, an honor conferred
upon only two other native princes, the Maharajah of Mysore and
the Nizam of Hyderabad. He is one of the ablest and one of the
most progressive of the native princes. His family trace their
descent back to the gods of mythology, but he is entirely human
himself, and a handsome man of middle age. When we saw him for
the first time he had half a dozen garlands of flowers hanging
around his neck, and three or four big bouquets in his hand,
which, according to the custom of the country, had been presented
to him by affectionate friends. It was he who presented to the City
of Bombay the beautiful statue of Queen Victoria which ornaments
the principal public square. It is one of the finest monuments to
be seen anywhere, and expressed his admiration of his empress,
who had shown particular interest in his career. The present
gaikwar was placed upon the throne in 1874 by Lord Northbrook,
when he was Viceroy of India, to succeed Malhar Rao, one of those
fantastic persons we read about in fairy stories but seldom find
in real life. For extravagant phantasies and barbaric splendors
he beat the world. He surpassed even those old spendthrifts of
the Roman Empire, Nero, Caligula and Tiberius. He spent a million
of rupees to celebrate the marriage ceremonies of a favorite
pigeon of his aviary, which was mated with one belonging to his
prime minister. But the most remarkable of his extravagant freaks
was a rug and two pillow covers of pearls, probably the greatest
marvel of all fabrics that were ever woven since the world was
made.

The carpet, ten feet six inches by six feet in size, is woven
entirely of strings of perfect pearls. A border eleven inches wide
and a center ornament are worked out in diamonds. The pillow covers
are three feet by two feet six inches in size. For three years
the jewel merchants of India, and they are many, were searching
for the material for this extraordinary affair. It cost several
millions of dollars and was intended as a present for a Mohammedan
lady of doubtful reputation, who had fascinated His Highness.
The British Resident at his capital intervened and prohibited
the gift on the ground that the State of Baroda could not afford
to indulge its ruler in such generosity, and that the scandal
would reflect upon the administration of the Indian Empire. The
carpet still belongs to the State and may be seen by visitors
upon a permit from one of the higher authorities. It is kept at
Baroda in a safe place with the rest of the state jewels, which
are the richest in India and probably the most costly belonging
to any government in the world.

The regalia of the gaikwar intended for state occasions, which
was worn by him at the wedding, is valued at $15,000,000. He
appeared in it at the Delhi durbar in 1903. It consists of a
collar and shoulder pieces made of 500 diamonds, some of them as
large as walnuts. The smallest would be considered a treasure by
any lady in the land. The border of this collar is made of three
bands of emeralds, of graduated sizes, the outer row consisting
of jewels nearly an inch square. From the collar, as a pendant,
hangs one of the largest and most famous diamonds in the world,
known as the "Star of the Deccan." Its history may be found in
any work on jewels. There is an aigrette to match the collar,
which His Highness wears in his turban.

This is only one of several sets to be found in the collection,
which altogether would make as brave a show as you can find at
Tiffany's. There are strings of pearls as large as marbles, and
a rope of pearls nearly four feet long braided of four strands.
Every pearl is said to be perfect and the size of a pea. The
rope is about an inch in diameter. Besides these are necklaces,
bracelets, brooches, rings and every conceivable ornament set
with jewels of every variety, which have been handed down from
generation to generation in this princely family for several
hundred years. One of the most interesting of the necklaces is
made of uncut rubies said to have been found in India. It has
been worn for more than a thousand years. These jewels are kept
in a treasure-room in the heart of the Nazar Bgah Palace, guarded
night and day by a battalion of soldiers. At night when the palace
is closed half a dozen huge cheetahs, savage beasts of the leopard
family, are released in the corridors, and, as you may imagine, they
are efficient watchmen. They would make a burglar very unhappy.
During the daytime they are allowed to wander about the palace
grounds, but are carefully muzzled.

Malhar Rao built a superb palace at a cost of $1,500,000 which
is considered the most perfect and beautiful example of the
Hindu-Saracenic order of architecture in existence, and its interior
finish and decoration are wonderful for their artistic beauty,
detail and variety. In front of the main entrance are two guns
of solid gold, weighing two hundred and eighty pounds each, and
the carriages, ammunition wagons and other accoutrements are made
of solid silver. The present Maharajah is said to have decided
to melt them down and have them coined into good money, with
which he desires to endow a technical school.

Behind the palace is a great walled arena in which previous rulers
of Baroda have had fights between elephants, tigers, lions and other
wild beasts for the amusement of their court and the population
generally. And they remind you of those we read about in the
Colosseum in the time of Nero and other Roman emperors. Baroda
has one of the finest zoological gardens in the world, but most of
the animals are native to India. It is surrounded by a botanical
garden, in which the late gaikwar, who was passionately fond of
plants and flowers, took a great deal of interest and spent a
great deal of money.

He built a temple at Dakar, a few miles from Baroda, which cost
an enormous sum of money, in honor of an ancient image of the Hindu
god, Krishna. It has been the resort of pilgrims for hundreds of
years, and is considered one of the most sacred idols of India.
In addition to the temple he constructed hospices for the shelter
and entertainment of pilgrims, who come nowadays in larger numbers
than ever, sometimes as many as a hundred thousand in a year, and
are all fed and cared for, furnished comfortable clothing and
medical attendance, bathed, healed and comforted at the expense
of His Highness, whose generosity and hospitality are not limited
to his own subjects. The throne of the idol Krishna in that temple
is a masterpiece of wood carving and bears $60,000 worth of gold
ornaments. Artists say that this temple, although entirely modern,
surpasses in the beauty of its detail, both in design and
workmanship, any of the old temples in India which people corne
thousands of miles to see.

Fate at last overtook the strange man who did all these things
and he came to grief. Indignant at Colonel Phayre, the British
Resident, for interfering with his wishes in regard to the pearl
carpet and some other little fancies, he attempted to poison
him in an imperial manner. He caused a lot of diamonds to be
ground up into powder and dropped into a cup of pomolo juice,
which he tried to induce his prudent adviser to drink. Ordinary
drug store poison was beneath him. When Malhar Rao committed a
crime he did it, as he did everything else, with royal splendor.
He had tried the same trick successfully upon his brother and
predecessor, Gaikwar Khande Rao, the man who built a beautiful
sailors' home at Bombay in 1870 to commemorate the visit of the
Duke of Edinburgh to India. Colonel Phayre suspected something
wrong, and declined to drink the toast His Highness offered. The
plot was soon afterward discovered and Viceroy Lord Northbrook,
who had tolerated his tyranny and fantastic performances as long
as possible, made an investigation and ordered him before a court
over which the chief justice of Bengal presided. The evidence
disclosed a most scandalous condition of affairs throughout the
entire province. Public offices were sold to the highest bidder;
demands for blackmail were enforced by torture; the wives and
daughters of his subjects were seized at his will and carried
to his palace whenever their beauty attracted his attention. The
condition of the people was desperate. In one district there was
open rebellion; discontent prevailed everywhere and the methods
of administration were infamous. It was shown that a previous
prime minister had been poisoned by direct orders of his chief
and that with his own hands the gaikwar had beaten one of his
own servants to death. Two Hindu judges of the court voted for
acquittal, but the remainder found him guilty. As the judgment
was not unanimous, Mahal Rao escaped the death penalty which he
deserved, and would have suffered but for the sympathy of his
judicial co-religionists. He was deposed and sent to prison,
and when an investigation of his finances was made, it was found
that during the last year of his reign he had wasted $3,500,000
in gifts to his favorites, in gratifying his whims and fancies,
and for personal pleasures. All of which was wrung from the people
by taxation.

After his conviction the widow of his brother and predecessor,
Khande Rao, whom he had poisoned, was allowed to exercise the
right of adoption, and her choice fell upon the present gaikwar,
then a lad of eleven, belonging to a collateral branch of the
family. He was provided with English tutors and afterward sent to
England to complete his education. He proved a brilliant scholar,
an industrious, earnest, practical man, and, as I have said,
Queen Victoria took a great personal interest in him. When he
came to the throne in 1874, he immediately applied himself with
energy and intelligence to the administration of the government
and surrounded himself with the best English advisers he could
get. Since his accession the condition of Baroda has entirely
changed and is in striking contrast with that which existed under
his predecessors. Many taxes have been abolished and more have
been reduced. Public works have been constructed everywhere;
schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums, markets, water works,
electric lighting plants, manufactories and sanitary improvements
have been introduced, competent courts have been established and
the province has become one of the most prosperous in India.

Baroda is called "The Garden of India." It occupies a fine plain
with rich alluvial soil, well watered, and almost entirely under
cultivation. It produces luxurious crops of grain, cotton, sugar,
tobacco and other staples, and the greater part of them are turned
from raw material into the finished product in factories scattered
through the state. We were advised that Baroda is the best place
in India to study the native arts and fabrics. The manufacturing
is chiefly controlled by Parsees, descendants of Persian fugitives
who fled to India and settled in Baroda more than a thousand years
ago, and in their temple at Navasari, a thriving manufacturing
town, the sacred fire has been burning uninterruptedly for five
hundred years. The City of Baroda has about 125,000 population.
The principal streets are lined with houses of teakwood, whose
fronts are elaborately carved. Their like cannot be seen elsewhere.
The maharajah keeps up the elephant stables of his predecessor
in which are bred and kept the finest animals in India. He also
breeds the best oxen in the empire.

Through the good offices of Mr. Fee, our consul at Bombay, we
received invitations to a Hindu wedding in high life. The groom
was a young widower, a merchant of wealth and important commercial
connections, a graduate of Elphinstone College, speaks English
fluently, and is a favorite with the foreign colony. The bride
was the daughter of a widow whose late husband was similarly
situated, a partner in a rich mercantile and commission house,
well known and respected. The family ate liberal in their views,
and the daughter has been educated at one of the American mission
schools, although they still adhere to Hinduism, their ancestral
religion. The groom's family are equally liberal, but, like many
prominent families of educated natives, do not have the moral
courage or the independence to renounce the faith in which they
were born. The inhabitants of India are the most conservative of
all peoples, and while an educated and progressive Hindu will
tell you freely that he does not believe in the gods and
superstitions of his fathers, and will denounce the Brahmins as
ignorant impostors, respect for public opinion will not permit
him to make an open declaration of his loss of faith. These two
families are examples, and when their sons and daughters are
married, or when they die, observe all the social and religious
customs of their race and preserve the family traditions unbroken.

The home of the bridegroom's family is an immense wooden house
in the native quarter, and when we reached it we had to pass
through a crowd of coolies that filled the street. The gate and
outside walls were gayly decorated with bunting and Japanese
lanterns, all ready to be lighted as soon as the sun went down.
A native orchestra was playing doleful music in one of the courts,
and a brass band of twenty pieces in military uniforms from the
barracks was waiting its turn. A hallway which leads to a large
drawing-room in the rear of the house was spread with scarlet
matting, the walls were hung with gay prints, and Japanese lanterns
were suspended from the ceiling at intervals of three or four
feet. The first room was filled with women and children eating
ices and sweetmeats. Men guests were not allowed to join them.
It was then half past four, and we were told that they had been
enjoying themselves in that innocent way since noon, and would
remain until late in the evening, for it was the only share they
could have in the wedding ceremonies. Hindu women and men cannot
mingle even on such occasions.

The men folks were in the large drawing-room, seated in rows
of chairs facing each other, with an aisle four or five feet
wide in the center. There were all sorts and conditions of men,
for the groom has a wide acquaintance and intimate friends among
Mohammedans, Jains, Parsees, Roman Catholics, Protestants and all
the many other religious in Bombay, and he invited them to his
marriage. Several foreign ladies were given seats in the place of
honor at the head of the room around a large gilt chair or throne
which stood in the center with a wreath of flowers carelessly
thrown over the back. There were two American missionaries and
their wives, a Jesuit priest and several English women.

[Illustration: NAUTCH DANCERS]

Soon after we were seated there was a stir on the outside and
the groom appeared arrayed in the whitest of white linen robes,
a turban of white and gold silk, an exquisite cashmere shawl over
his shoulders, and a string of diamonds around his neck that
were worth a rajah's ransom. His hands were adorned with several
handsome rings, including one great emerald set in diamonds, so
big that you could see it across the room. Around his neck was
a garland of marigolds that fell to his waist, and he carried a
big bridal bouquet in his hand. As soon as he was seated a group
of nautch dancers, accompanied by a native orchestra, appeared
and performed one of their melancholy dances. The nautches may be
very wicked, but they certainly are not attractive in appearance.
Their dances are very much like an exercise in the Delsarte method
of elocution, being done with the arms more than with the legs,
and consisting of slow, graceful gesticulations such as a dreamy
poet might use when he soliloquizes to the stars. There is nothing
sensuous or suggestive in them. The movements are no more immodest
than knitting or quilting a comfortable--and are just about as
exciting. Each dance is supposed to be a poem expressed by gesture
and posturing--the poetry of motion--a sentimental pantomime,
and imaginative Hindus claim to be able to follow the story.
The orchestra, playing several queer looking fiddles, drums,
clarinets and other instruments, is employed to assist in the
interpretation, and produces the most dreary and monotonous sounds
without the slightest trace of theme or melody or rhythm. While I
don't want to be irreverent, they reminded me of a slang phrase
you hear in the country about "the tune the old cow died of."
Hindu music is worse than that you hear in China or Japan, because
it is so awfully solemn and slow. The Chinese and Japanese give
you a lot of noise if they lack harmony, but when a Hindu band
reaches a fortissimo passage it sounds exactly as if some child
were trying to play a bagpipe for the first time.

When I made an observation concerning the apparent innocence
and unattractiveness of the nautch girls to a missionary lady
who sat in the next seat, she looked horrified, and admonished
me in a whisper that, while there was nothing immodest in the
performance, they were depraved, deceitful and dissolute creatures,
arrayed in gorgeous raiment for the purpose of enticing men. And
it is certainly true that they were clad in the most dazzling
costumes of gold brocades and gauzy stuffs that floated like
clouds around their heads and shoulders, and their ears, noses,
arms, ankles, necks, fingers and toes were all loaded with jewelry.

But their costumes were not half as gay as those worn by some
of the gentlemen guests. The Parsees wore black or white with
closely buttoned frocks and caps that look like fly-traps; the
Mohammedans wore flowing robes of white, and the Hindus silks
of the liveliest patterns and the most vivid colors. No ballroom
belle ever was enveloped by brighter tinted fabrics than the silks,
satins, brocades and velvets that were worn by the dignified
Hindu gentlemen at this wedding, and their jewels were such as
our richest women wear. A Hindu gentleman in full dress must
have a necklace, an aigrette of diamonds, a sunburst in front
of his turban, and two or three brooches upon his shoulders or
breast. And all this over bare legs and bare feet. They wear
slippers or sandals out of doors, but leave them in the hallway
or in the vestibule, and cross the threshold of the house in
naked feet. The bridegroom was bare legged, but had a pair of
embroidered slippers on his feet, because he was soon to take
a long walk and could not very well stop to put them on without
sacrificing appearances.

They brought us trays of native refreshments, while the nautch girls
danced, handed each guest a nosegay and placed a pair of cocoanuts
at his feet, which had some deep significance--I could not quite
understand what. The groom did not appear to be enjoying himself.
He looked very unhappy. He evidently did not like to sit up in a
gilded chair so that everybody could stare and make remarks about
him, for that is exactly what his guests were doing, criticising
his bare legs, commenting upon his jewels and guessing how much
his diamond necklace cost. He was quite relieved when a couple
of gentlemen, who seemed to be acting as masters of ceremonies,
placed a second garland of flowers around his neck--which one
of them whispered to me had just come from the bride, the first
one having been the gift of his mother--and led him out of the
room like a lamb to the slaughter.

When we reached the street a procession of the guests of honor
was formed, while policemen drove the crowd back. First came
the military band, then the masters of ceremonies--each having
a cane in his hand, with which he motioned back the crowd that
lined the road on both sides six or eight tiers deep. Then the
groom marched all alone with a dejected look on his face, and
his hands clasped before him. After him came the foreign guests,
two and two, as long as they were able to keep the formation,
but after going a hundred feet the crowd became so great and
were so anxious to see all that was going on, that they broke
the line and mixed up with the wedding party, and even surrounded
the solitary groom like a bodyguard, so that we who were coming
directly after could scarcely see him. The noisy music of the
band had aroused the entire neighborhood, and in the march to
the residence of the bride's family we passed between thousands
of spectators. The groom was exceedingly nervous. Although night
had fallen and the temperature was quite cool, the perspiration
was rolling down his face in torrents, and he was relieved when we
entered a narrow passage which bad been cleared by the policemen.

The bride's house was decorated in the same manner as the groom's,
and upon a tray in the middle of a big room a small slow fire of
perfumed wood was burning. The groom was led to the side of it,
and stood there, while the guests were seated around him--hooded
Hindu women on one side and men and foreign ladies on the other.
Then his trainers made him sit down on the floor, cross-legged,
like a tailor. Hindus seldom use chairs, or even cushions. Very
soon four Brahmins, or priests, appeared from somewhere in the
background and seated themselves on the opposite side of the
fire. They wore no robes, and were only half dressed. Two were
naked to the waist, as well as barefooted and barelegged. One,
who had his head shaved like a prize fighter and seemed to be
the officiating clergyman, had on what looked like a red flannel
shirt. He brought his tools with him, and conducted a mysterious
ceremony, which I cannot describe, because it was too long and
complicated, and I could not make any notes. A gentleman who
had been requested to look after me attempted to explain what
it meant, as the ceremony proceeded, but his English was very
imperfect, and I lost a good deal of the show trying to clear up
his meaning. While the chief priest was going through a ritual
his deputies chanted mournful and monotonous strains in a minor
key--repetitions of the same lines over and over again. They
were praying for the favor of the gods, and their approval of
the marriage.

After the groom had endured it alone for a while the bride was
brought in by her brother-in-law, who, since the death of her
father, has been the head of the household. He was clad in a
white gauze undershirt, with short sleeves, and the ordinary
Hindu robe wrapped around his waist, and hanging down to his
bare knees. The bride had a big bunch of pearls hanging from
her upper lip, gold and silver rings and anklets upon her bare
feet, and her head was so concealed under wrappings of shawls
that she would have smothered in the hot room had not one of
her playmates gone up and removed the coverings from her face.
This playmate was a lively matron of 14 years, a fellow pupil
at the missionary school, who had been married at the age of
9, so she knew all about it, and had adopted foreign manners
and customs sufficiently to permit her to go about among the
guests, chatting with both gentlemen and ladies with perfect
self-possession. She told us all about the bride, who was her
dearest friend, received and passed around the presents as they
arrived, and took charge of the proceedings.

The bride sat down on the floor beside the husband that had been
chosen for her and timidly clasped his hand while the priests
continued chanting, stopping now and then to breathe or to anoint
the foreheads of the couple, or to throw something on the fire. There
were bowls of several kinds of food, each having its significance,
and several kinds of plants and flowers, and incense, which was
thrown into the flames. At one time the chief priest arose from
the floor, stretched his legs and read a long passage from a
book, which my escort said was the sacred writing in Sanskrit
laying down rules and regulations for the government of Hindu
wives. But the bride and groom paid very little attention to
the priests or to the ceremony. After the first embarrassment
was over they chatted familiarly with their friends, both foreign
and native, who came and squatted down beside them. The bride's
mother came quietly into the circle after a while and sat down
beside her son-in-law--a slight woman, whose face was entirely
concealed. When the performance had been going on for about an
hour four more priests appeared and took seats in the background.
When I asked my guardian their object, he replied, sarcastically,
that it was money, that they were present as witnesses, and each
of them would expect a big fee as well as a good supper.

"Poor people get married with one priest," he added, "but rich
people have to have many. It costs a lot of money to get married."

Every now and then parcels were brought in by servants, and handed
to the bride, who opened them with the same eagerness that American
girls show about their wedding presents, but before she had been
given half a chance to examine them they were snatched away from
her and passed around. There were enough jewels to set the groom
up in business, for all the relatives on both sides are rich,
several beautifully embroidered shawls, a copy of Tennyson's
poems, a full set of Ruskin's works, a flexible covered Bible
from the bride's school teacher, and other gifts too numerous
to mention. The ceremony soon became tedious and the crowded
room was hot and stuffy. It was an ordeal for us to stay as long
as we did, and we endured it for a couple of hours, but it was
ten times worse for the bride and groom, for they had to sit on
the floor over the fire, and couldn't even stretch their legs.
They told us that it would take four hours more to finish the
ritual. So we asked our hosts to excuse us, offered our sympathy
and congratulations to the happy couple, who laughed and joked
with us in English, while the priests continued to sing and pray.




VI

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA

The most interesting of all the many religious sects in India are
the Parsees, the residue of one of the world's greatest creeds,
descendants of the disciples of Zoroaster, and the Persian fire
worshipers, who sought refuge in India from the persecution of
the all-conquering Mohammedans about the seventh century. They
have not increased and probably have diminished in numbers, but
have retained the faith of their fathers undefiled, which has
been described as "the most sublime expression of religious purity
and thought except the teachings of Christ." It is a curious
fact, however, that although the Parsees are commercially the
most enterprising people in India, and the most highly educated,
they have never attempted to propagate or even to make known
their faith to the world. It remained for Anquetil Duperron, a
young Frenchman, a Persian scholar, to translate the Zend Avesta,
which contains the teachings of Zoroaster, and may be called
the Parsee bible. And even now the highest authority in Parsee
theology and literature is Professor Jackson, who holds the chair
of oriental languages in Columbia University, New York. At this
writing Professor Jackson is in Persia engaged upon investigations
of direct interest to the Parsees, who have the highest regard
and affection for him, and perfect confidence in the accuracy
of his treatment of their theology in which they permit him to
instruct them.

The Parsees have undoubtedly made more stir in the world in
proportion to their population than any other race. They are
a small community, and number only 94,000 altogether, of whom
76,000 reside in Bombay. They are almost without exception
industrious and prosperous, nearly all being engaged in trade and
manufacturing, and to them the city of Bombay owes the greatest
part of its wealth and commercial influence.

While the Parsees teach pure and lofty morality, and are famous
for their integrity, benevolence, good thoughts, good works and
good deeds, their method of disposing of their dead is revolting.
For, stripped of every thread of clothing, the bodies of their
nearest and dearest are exposed to dozens of hungry vultures,
which quickly tear the flesh from the bones.

In a beautiful grove upon the top of a hill overlooking the city
of Bombay and the sea, surrounded by a high, ugly wall, are the
so-called Towers of Silence, upon which these hideous birds can
always be seen, waiting for their feast. They roost upon palm
trees in the neighborhood, and, often in their flight, drop pieces
of human flesh from their beaks or their talons, which lie rotting
in the fields below. An English lady driving past the Towers of
Silence was naturally horrified when the finger of a dead man
was dropped into her carriage by one of those awful birds; and
an army officer told me, that he once picked up by the roadside
the forearm and hand of a woman which had been torn from a body
only a few hours dead and had evidently fallen during a fight
between the birds. The reservoir which stores the water supply
of Bombay is situated upon the same hill, not more than half a
mile distant, and for obvious reasons had been covered with a
roof. Some years ago the municipal authorities, having had their
attention called to possible pollution of the water, notified
the Parsees that the Towers of Silence would have to be removed
to a distance from the city, but the rich members of that faith
preferred to pay the expense of roofing over the reservoir to
abandoning what to them is not only sacred but precious ground.
The human mind can adjust itself to almost any conditions and
associations, and a cultured Parsee will endeavor to convince
you by clever arguments that their method is not only humane and
natural, but the best sanitary method ever devised of disposing
of the dead.

Funeral ceremonies are held at the residence of the dead; prayers
are offered and eulogies are pronounced. Then a procession is
formed and the hearse is preceded by priests and followed by
the male members of the family and by friends. The body is not
placed in a coffin, but is covered with rich shawls and vestments.
When the gateway of the outer temple is reached, priests who
are permanently attached to the Towers of Silence and reside
within the inclosure, meet the procession and take charge of
the body, which is first carried to a temple, where prayers are
offered, and a sacred fire, kept continually burning there, is
replenished. While the friends and mourners are engaged in worship,
Nasr Salars, as the attendants are called, take the bier to the
ante-room of one of the towers. There are five, of circular shape,
with walls forty feet high, perfectly plain, and whitewashed.
The largest is 276 feet in circumference and cost $150,000. The
entrance is about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground and is
reached by a flight of steps. The inside plan of the building
resembles a circular gridiron gradually depressed toward the
center, at which there is a pit, five feet in diameter. From
this pit cement walks radiate like the spokes of a wheel, and
between them are three series of compartments extending around
the entire tower. Those nearest the center are about four feet
long, two feet wide and six inches deep. The next series are a
little larger, and the third, larger still, and they are intended
respectively for men, women and children.

When the bearers have brought the body into the anteroom of the
tower they strip it entirely of its clothing. Valuable coverings
are carefully laid away and sent to the chamber of purification,
where they are thoroughly fumigated, and afterward returned to
the friends. The cotton wrappings are burned. The body is laid
in one of the compartments entirely naked, and in half an hour
the flesh is completely stripped from the bones by voracious
birds that have been eagerly watching the proceedings from the
tops of the tall palms that overlook the cemetery. There are
about two hundred vultures around the place; most of them are
old birds and are thoroughly educated. They know exactly what
to expect, and behave with greatest decorum. They never enter
the tower until the bearers have left it, and usually are as
deliberate and solemn in their movements as a lot of undertakers.
But sometimes, when they are particularly hungry, their greed
gets the better of their dignity and they quarrel and fight over
their prey.

After the bones are stripped they are allowed to lie in the sun
and bleach and decay until the compartment they occupy is needed
for another body, when the Nasr Salars enter with gloves and
tongs and cast them into the central pit, where they finally
crumble into dust. The floor of the tower is so arranged that all
the rain that falls upon it passes into the pit, and the moisture
promotes decomposition. The bottom of the pit is perforated and
the water impregnated with the dust from the bones is filtered
through charcoal and becomes thoroughly disinfected before it
is allowed to pass through a sewer into the bay. The pits are
the receptacles of the dust of generations, and I am told that
so much of it is drained off by the rainfall, as described, that
they have never been filled. The carriers are not allowed to
leave the grounds, and when a man engages in that occupation
he must retire forever from the world, as much as if he were
a Trappist monk. Nor can he communicate with anyone except the
priests who have charge of the temple.

The grounds are beautifully laid out. No money or labor has been
spared to make them attractive, and comfortable benches have
been placed along the walks where relatives and friends may sit
and converse or meditate after the ceremonies are concluded.
The Parsees are firm believers in the resurrection, and they
expect their mutilated bodies to rise again glorified and
incorruptible. The theory upon which their peculiar custom is
based is veneration for the elements. Fire is the chief object
of their worship, and they cannot allow it to be polluted by
burning the dead; water is almost as sacred, and the soil of
the earth is the source of their food, their strength and almost
everything that is beautiful. Furthermore, they believe in the
equality of all creatures before God, and hence the dust of the
rich and the poor mingles in the pit.

Parsee temples are very plain and the form of worship is extremely
simple. None but members of the faith are admitted. The interior
of the temple is almost empty, except for a reading desk occupied
by the priest. The walls are without the slightest decoration and
are usually whitewashed. The sacred fire, the emblem of spiritual
life, which is never extinguished, is kept in a small recess
in a golden receptacle, and is attended by priests without
interruption. They relieve each other every two hours, but the
fire is never left alone.

The Mohammedans have many mosques in Bombay, but none of them
is of particular interest. The Hindu or Brahmin temples are also
commonplace, with two exceptions. One of them, known as the Monkey
Temple, is covered with carved images of monkeys and other animals.
There are said to be 300 of them, measuring from six inches to
two feet in height. The other is the "Walkeshwar," dedicated to
the "Sand Lord" occupying a point upon the shore of the bay not
far from the water. It has been a holy place for many centuries.
The legend says that not long after the creation of the world
Rama, one of the most powerful of the gods, while on his way
to Ceylon to recover Stia, his bride, who had been kidnaped,
halted and camped there for a night and went through various
experiences which make a long and tedious story, but of profound
interest to Hindu theologians and students of mythology. The
temple is about 150 years old, but does not compare with those
in other cities of India. It is surrounded by various buildings
for the residence of the Brahmins, lodging places for pilgrims
and devotees, which are considered excellent examples of Hindu
architecture. Several wealthy families have cottages on the grounds
which they occupy for a few days each year on festival occasions
or as retreats.

[Illustration: BODY READY FOR THE FUNERAL PYRE--BOMBAY BURNING
GHATS]

Upon the land side of the boulevard which skirts the shore of
the bay, not far from the university of Bombay, is the burning
ghat of the Hindus, where the bodies of their dead are cremated
in the open air and in a remarkably rude and indifferent manner.
The proceedings may be witnessed by any person who takes the
trouble to visit the place and has the patience to wait for the
arrival of a body. It is just as public as a burial in any cemetery
in the United States. Bodies are kept only a few hours after
death. Those who die at night are burned the first thing in the
morning, so that curious people are usually gratified if they
visit the place early. Immediately after a poor Hindu sufferer
breathes his last the family retire and professional undertakers
are brought in. The latter bathe the body carefully, dress it
in plain white cotton cloth, wrap it in a sheet, with the head
carefully concealed, place it upon a rude bier made of two bamboo
poles and cross pieces, with a net work of ropes between, and
four men, with the ends of the poles on their shoulders, start
for the burning ghat at a dog trot, singing a mournful song.
Sometimes they are followed by the sons or the brothers of the
deceased, who remain through the burning to see that it is properly
done, but more often that duty is entrusted to an employe or a
servant or some humble friend of the family in whom they have
confidence. Arriving at the burning ghat, negotiations are opened
with the superintendent or manager, for they are usually private
enterprises or belong to corporations and are conducted very
much like our cemeteries. The cheapest sort of fire that can be
provided costs two rupees, which is sixty-six cents in American
money, and prices range from that amount upwards according to the
caste and the wealth of the family. When a rich man's body is
burned sandal-wood and other scented fuel is used and sometimes
the fire is very expensive. After an agreement is reached coolies
employed on the place make a pile of wood, one layer pointing
one way and the next crossed at right angles, a hole left in
the center being filled with kindling and quick-burning reeds.
The body is lifted from the bier and placed upon it, then more
wood is piled on and the kindling is lit with a torch. If there
is plenty of dry fuel the corpse is reduced to ashes in about
two hours. Usually the ashes are claimed by friends, who take
them to the nearest temple and after prayers and other ceremonies
cast them into the waters of the bay.

The death rate in Bombay is very large. The bubonic plague prevails
there with a frightful mortality. Hence cremation is safer than
burial. In the province of Bombay the total deaths from all diseases
average about 600,000 a year, and you can calculate what an enormous
area would be required for cemeteries. In 1900, on account of
the famine, the deaths ran up to 1,318,783, and in 1902 they
were more than 800,000. Of these 128,259 were from the plague,
13,600 from cholera, 5,340 from smallpox, and 2,212 from other
contagious diseases. Hence the burning ghats were very useful,
for at least 80 percent of the dead were Brahmins and their bodies
were disposed of in that way.

It is difficult to give an accurate idea of Brahminism in a brief
manner, but theoretically it is based upon the principles set
forth in a series of sacred books known as the Vedas, written
about 4,000 years ago. Its gods were originally physical forces
and phenomena--nature worship,--which was once common to all
men, the sun, fire, water, light, wind, the procreative and
productive energies and the mystery of sex and birth, which impressed
with wonder and awe the mind of primitive humanity. As these
deities became more and more vague and indefinite in the popular
mind, and the simple, instinctive appeal of the human soul to
a Power it could not see or comprehend was gradually debased
into what is now known as Brahminism, and the most repugnant,
revolting, cruel, obscene and vicious rites ever practiced by
savages or barbarians. There is nothing in the Vedas to justify
the cruelties of the Hindu gods and the practices of the priests.
They do not authorize animal worship, caste, child-marriage,
the burning of widows or perpetual widowhood, but the Brahmins
have built up a stupendous system of superstition, of which they
alone pretend to know the mystic meaning, and their supremacy is
established. Thus the nature worship of the Vedas has disappeared
and has given place to terrorism, demon worship, obscenity, and
idolatry.

The three great gods of the Hindus are Siva, Vishnu and Brahma,
with innumerable minor deities, some 30,000,000 altogether, which
have been created during emergencies from time to time by worshipers
of vivid imaginations. When we speak of Hinduism or Brahminism as
a religion, however, it is only a conventional use of a term,
because it is not a religion in the sense that we are accustomed
to apply that word. In all other creeds there is an element of
ethics; morality, purity, justice and faith in men, but none of
these qualities is taught by the Brahmins. With them the fear
of unseen powers and the desire to obtain their favor is the
only rule of life and the only maxim taught to the people. And
it is the foundation upon which the influence and power of the
Brahmins depend. The world and all its inhabitants are at the
mercy of cruel, fickle and unjust gods; the gods are under the
influence of the Brahmins; hence the Brahmins are holy men and
must be treated accordingly. No Hindu will offend a Brahmin under
any circumstances, lest his curse may call down all forms of
misfortune. A Hindu proverb says:

"What is in the Brahmin's books, that is in the Brahmin's heart.
Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world."

The power of the priests or Brahmins over the Hindus is one of
the phenomena of India. I do not know where you can get a better
idea of their influence and of the reverence that is paid to
them than in "Kim," Rudyard Kipling's story of an Irish boy who
was a disciple of an old Thibetan lama or Buddhist monk. That
story is appreciated much more keenly by people who have lived
or traveled in India, because it appeals to them. There is a
familiar picture on every page, and it is particularly valuable
as illustrating the relations between the Brahmins and the people.
"These priests are invested," said one of the ablest writers on
Indian affairs, "with a reverence which no extreme of abject
poverty, no infamy of private conduct can impair, and which is
beyond anything that a mind not immediately conversant with the
fact can conceive. They are invariably addressed with titles of
divinity, and are paid the highest earthly honors. The oldest
and highest members of other castes implore the blessing of the
youngest and poorest of theirs; they are the chosen recipients
of all charities, and are allowed a license in their private
relations which would be resented as a deadly injury in any but
themselves."

This reverence is largely due to superstitions which the Brahmins
do their best to cultivate and encourage. There are 30,000,000
gods in the Hindu pantheon, and each attends to the affairs of his
own particular jurisdiction. Most of them are wicked, cruel and
unkind, and delight in bringing misfortunes upon their devotees,
which can only be averted by the intercession of a priest. Gods and
demons haunt every hill and grove and gorge and dark corner. Their
names are usually unknown, but they go on multiplying as events
or incidents occur to which the priests can give a supernatural
interpretation. These gods are extremely sensitive to disrespect
or neglect, and unless they are constantly propitiated they will
bring all sorts of disasters. The Brahmin is the only man who
knows how to make them good-natured. He can handle them exactly
as he likes, and they will obey his will. Hence the superstitious
peasants yield everything, their money, their virtue, their lives,
as compensation for the intercession of the priests in their
behalf.

The census of 1901 returned 2,728,812 priests, which is an average
of one for every seventy-two members of the Hindu faith, and
it is believed that, altogether, there are more than 9,000,000
persons including monks, nuns, ascetics, fakirs, sorcerers, chelas,
and mendicants or various kinds and attendants employed about
the temples who are dependent upon the public for support. A
large part of the income of the pious Hindu is devoted to the
support of priests and the feeding of pilgrims. Wherever you
see it, wherever you meet it, and especially when you come in
contact with it as a sightseer, Brahminism excites nothing but
pity, indignation and abhorrence.

Buddhism is very different, although Buddha lived and died a
Hindu, and the members of that sect still claim that he was the
greatest, the wisest and the best of all Brahmins. No two religions
are so contradictory and incompatible as that taught by Buddha and
the modern teachings of the Brahmins. The underlying principles of
Buddha's faith are love, charity, self-sacrifice, unselfishness,
universal brotherhood and spiritual and physical purity. He believed
in none of the present practices of the Hindu priests. There is
a striking resemblance between the teachings of Buddha and the
teachings of Christ. Passages in the New Testament, reporting
the words of the Savior, seem like plagiarisms from the maxims of
Buddha, and, indeed, Buddhist scholars tell of a myth concerning
a young Jew who about five centuries after Buddha, and twenty
centuries ago, came from Syria with a caravan and spent several
years under instruction in a Buddhist monastery in Thibet. Thus
they account for the silence of the scriptures concerning the
doings of Christ between the ages of 12 and 20, and for the
similarity between his sermons and those preached by the founder
of their religion. Buddha taught that good actions bring happiness
and bad actions misery; that selfishness is the cause of sin,
sorrow and suffering, and that the abolition of self, sacrifices
for others and the suppression of passions and desires is the
only true plan of salvation. He died 543 years before Jesus was
born, and within the next two centuries his teachings were accepted
by two-thirds of the people of India, but by the tenth century
of our era they had been forgotten, and a great transformation
had taken place among the Indo-Ayran races, who began to worship
demons instead of angels and teach fear instead of hope, until
now there are practically no Buddhists in India with the exception
of the Burmese, who are almost unanimous in the confession of
that faith. It is a singular phenomenon that Buddhism should
so disappear from the land of its birth, although 450,000,000
of the human race still turn to its founder with pure affection
as the wisest of teachers and the noblest of ideals.

The teachings of Buddha survive in a sect known as the Jains,
founded by Jina, or Mahavira, a Buddhist priest, about a thousand
years ago, as a protest against the cruel encroachments of the
Hindus. Jina was a Perfect One, who subdued all worldly desires;
who lived an unselfish life, practiced the golden rule, harmed
no living thing, and attained the highest aim of the soul, right
knowledge, right conduct, temperance, sobriety, chastity and a
Holy Calm.

There are now 1,334,148 Jains in India, and among them are the
wealthiest, most highly cultured and most charitable of all people.
They carry their love of life to extremes. A true believer will
not harm an insect, not even a mosquito or a flea. All Hindus
are kind to animals, except when they ill treat them through
ignorance, as is often the case. The Brahmins represent that
murder, robbery, deception and every other form of crime and
vice may be committed in the worship of their gods. They teach
that the gods themselves are guilty of the most hideous depravity,
and that the sacrifice of wives, children, brothers, sisters
and friends to convenience or expediency for selfish ends is
justifiable. Indeed, the British government has been compelled to
interfere and prohibit the sacrifice of human life to propitiate
the Hindu gods. It has suppressed the thugs, who, as you have
read, formerly went about the country killing people in order
to acquire holiness; it has prohibited the awful processions
of the car of Juggernaut, before which hysterical fanatics used
to throw their own bodies, and the bodies of their children, to
be crushed under the iron wheels, in the hope of pleasing some
monster among their deities. The suppression of infanticide,
which is still encouraged by the Brahmins, is now receiving the
vigilant attention of the authorities.

Every effort has been made during the last fifty years to prevent
the awful cruelties to human beings that formerly were common in
Hindu worship, but no police intervention has ever been necessary
to protect dumb animals; nobody was ever punished for cruelty to
them; on the contrary, animal worship is one of the most general
of practices among the Hindus, and many beasts and reptiles are
sacred. But the Jains go still further and establish hospitals
for aged and infirm animals. You can see them in Bombay, in Delhi,
Lucknow, Calcutta and other places where the Jains are strong.
Behind their walls may be found hundreds of decrepit horses,
diseased cows and bullocks, many dogs and cats and every kind of
sick, lame and infirm beast. Absurd stories are told strangers
concerning the extremes to which this benevolence is carried,
and some of them have actually appeared in published narratives
of travel in India. One popular story is that when a flea lights
upon the body of a Jain he captures it carefully, puts it in
a receptacle and sends it to an asylum where fat coolies are
hired to sit around all day and night and allow fleas, mosquitoes
and other insects to feed upon them. But although untrue, these
ridiculous stories are valuable as illustrating the principles
in which the Jains believe. They are strict vegetarians. The
true believers will not kill an animal or a fish or a bird, or
anything that breathes, for any purpose, and everybody can see
that they strictly practice what they preach.

His most gracious majesty, King of Great Britain and Ireland and
Emperor of India, has more Mohammedan subjects than the Great
Turk or any other ruler. They numbered 62,458,061 at the last
census. They are a clean, manly, honorable and industrious portion
of the population. Commercially they do not rank as high as the
Parsees, who number only 94,190, or the Jains, who number 1,334,148,
but are vastly superior to the Hindus from any point of view.
They are not so ignorant nor so filthy nor so superstitious nor
so submissive to their priests. They are self-respecting and
independent, and while the believers in no other creed are more
scrupulous in the performance of their religious duties, they
are not in any measure under the control or the dictation of
their mullahs. They have their own schools, called kuttebs, they
take care of their own poor very largely; drunkenness and gambling
are very rare among them. They are hospitable, kind to animals
and generous. The difference between the Mohammedans and the
Hindus may be seen in the most forcible manner in their temples.
It is an old saying that while one god created all men, each
man creates his own god, and that is strikingly true among the
ignorant, superstitious people of the East. The Hindu crouches in
a shadow to escape the attention of his god, while the Mohammedan
publicly prays to his five times a day in the nearest mosque,
and if no mosque is near he kneels where he stands, and takes
full satisfaction in a religion of hope instead of fear.

From the political standpoint the Mohammedans are a very important
factor in the situation in India. They are more independent than the
Hindus; they occupy a more influential position than their numbers
entitle them to; they have most profound pride in their religion
and race, and in their social and intellectual superiority, and
the more highly they are educated the more manly, self-reliant and
independent they become, and the feeling between the Mohammedans
and the Hindus is bitterly hostile. So much so as to make them
a bulwark of the government. Several authorities told me that
Mohammedans make the best officials in the service and can be
trusted farther than any other class, but, speaking generally,
Islam has been corrupted and debased in India just as it has
been everywhere else.

One of the results of this corruption is the sect known as Sikhs,
which numbers about 2,195,268. It thrives best in the northern
part of India, and furnishes the most reliable policemen and
the best soldiers for the native army. The Sikhs retain much
that is good among the teachings of Mohammed, but have a bible
of their own, called the Abi-granth, made up of the sermons of
Nanak, the founder of the sect, who died in the year 1530. It
is full of excellent moral precepts; it teaches the brotherhood
of man, the equality of the sexes; it rejects caste, and embraces
all of the good points in Buddhism, with a pantheism that is
very confusing. It would seem that the Sikhs worship all gods
who are good to men, and reject the demonology of the Hindus.
They believe in one Supreme Being, with attributes similar to the
Allah of the Mohammedans, and recognize Mohammed as his prophet
and exponent of his will. They have also adopted several Hindu
deities in a sort of indirect way, although the Sikhs strictly
prohibit idolatry. Their worship is pure and simple. Their temples
are houses of prayer, where they, meet, sing hymns, repeat a
ritual and receive pieces of "karah prasad," a consecrated pastry,
which means "the effectual offering." They are tolerant, and
not only admit strangers to their worship, but invite them to
participate in their communion.

The morning we arrived in Agra we swallowed a hasty breakfast
and hurried off to the great mosque to witness the ceremonies
of what might be termed the Mohammedan Easter, although the
anniversary has an entirely different significance. The month
of Ramadan is spent by the faithful followers of the Prophet
in a long fast, and the night before it is broken, called
Lailatul-Kadr, or "night of power," is celebrated in rejoicing,
because it is the night on which the Koran is supposed to have
come down from heaven. In the morning following, which is as
much a day of rejoicing as our Christmas, the men of Islam gather
at the mosques and engage in a service of thanksgiving to Allah
for the blessings they and their families have enjoyed during
the year past, and pray for a repetition of the same mercies for
the year to come. This festival is called the "Idu I-Fitr," and
we were fortunate enough to witness one of the most impressive
spectacles I have ever seen. Women never appear, but the entire
male population, with their children assembled at the great park
which surrounds the mosque, clad in festival attire, each bringing
a prayer rug to spread upon the ground. About ten thousand persons
of all ages and all classes came on foot and in all sorts of
vehicles, with joyous voices and congratulations to each other
that seemed hearty enough to include the whole world. Taking
advantage of their good humor and the thankful spirits hundreds
of beggars were squatting along the roadside and appealing to
every passerby in pitiful tones. And nearly everyone responded.
Some people brought bags of rice, beans and wheat; others brought
cakes and bread, but the greater number invested in little sea
shells which are used in the interior of India as currency, and
one hundred of them are worth a penny.

Rich people filled their pockets with these shells and scattered
them by handsful among the crowd, and the shrieking beggars scrambled
for them on the ground. There were long lines of food peddlers,
with portable stoves, and tables upon which were spread morsels
which the natives of India considered delicacies, but they were
not very tempting to us. The food peddlers drove a profitable
trade because almost every person present had been fasting for
a lunar month and had a sharp appetite to satisfy. After the
services the rich and the poor ate together, masters and servants,
because Mohammed knew no caste, and it was an interesting sight
to see the democratic spirit of the worshipers, for the rich
and the poor, the master and the servant, knelt down side by
side upon the same rug or strip of matting and bowed their heads
to the ground in homage of the God that made them all. Families
came together in carriages, bullock carts, on the backs of camels,
horses, mules, donkeys, all the male members of the household
from the baby to the grandfather, and were attended by all men
servants of the family or the farm. They washed together at the
basins where the fountains were spouting more joyously than usual,
and then moved forward, laughing and chattering, toward the great
mosque, selected places which seemed most convenient, spread
their rugs, matting, blankets and sheets upon the ground, sat in
long rows facing Mecca, and gossiped cheerfully together until
the great high priest, surrounded by mullahs or lower priests,
appeared in front of the Midrab, the place in every mosque from
which the Koran is read, and shouted for attention.

Ram Zon, one of our "bearers," who is a Mohammedan, disappeared
without permission or notice early in the morning, and did not
report for duty that day. His piety was greater than his sense of
obligation to his employers, and I saw him in the crowd earnestly
going through the violent exercise which attends the worship of
Islam.

[Illustration: MOHAMMEDANS AT PRAYER]

When the hour for commencing the ceremony drew near the entire
courtyard, several acres in extent, was covered with worshipers
arranged in rows about eight feet apart from north to south,
all facing the west, with their eyes toward Mecca in expectant
attitudes. The sheikh has a powerful voice, and by long experience
has acquired the faculty of throwing it a long distance, and,
as he intoned the service, mullahs were stationed at different
points to repeat his words so that everybody could hear. The
first sound was a long wailing cry like the call of the muezzeins
from the minarets at the hour of prayer. It was for the purpose
of concentrating the attention of the vast audience which arose
to its feet and stood motionless with hands clasped across their
breasts. Then, as the reading proceeded, the great crowd, in perfect
unison, as if it had practiced daily for months, performed the
same motions one after the other. It was a remarkable exhibition
of precision. No army of well drilled troops could have done
better.

The following were the motions, each in response to the intonation
of a prayer by the high priest:

1. Both hands to forehead, palms and fingers together, in the
attitude of prayer.

2. Bend body forward at right angles, three times in succession,
keeping hands in the same position.

3. Return to upright position, with hands lowered to the breast.

4. Bow head three times to the ground.

5. Rise and stand motionless with hands at sides.

6. Hands lifted to ears and returned to side, motions three times
repeated.

7. Body at right angles again, with hands clasped at forehead.

8. Body erect, kneel and bow forward, touching the forehead three
times to the earth.

9. Fall back upon knees and with folded hands.

10. Rise, stand at attention with clasped hands until the cry
of the mullah announced that the ceremony was over; whereupon
everybody turned to embrace his family and friends in a most
affectionate manner, again and again. Some were crying, some
were laughing, and all seemed to be in a state of suppressed
excitement. Their emotions had been deeply stirred, and long fasting
is apt to produce hysteria.

The boom of a cannon in a neighboring fortress, was a signal
that the obligations of Ramadan had been fulfilled, that the
fast was broken, and thousands of people rushed pell-mell to
the eating stands to gorge themselves with sweetmeats and other
food. The more dignified and aristocratic portion of the crowd
calmly sat down again upon their rugs and mats and watched their
servants unload baskets of provisions upon tablecloths, napkins
and trays which they spread upon the ground. Not less than seven
or eight thousand persons indulged in this picnic, but there was
no wine or beer; nothing stronger than tea or coffee, because
the Koran forbids it. And after their feast at the mosque the
rest of the day was spent in rejoicing. Gay banners of all colors
were displayed from the windows of Mohammedan houses, festoons
of flowers were hung over the doors, and from the windowsills;
boys were seen rushing through the streets loaded with bouquets
sent from friend to friend with compliments and congratulations;
firecrackers were exploded in the gardens and parks, and during
the evening displays of fireworks were made to entertain the
Moslem population, who were assembled in each other's houses
or at their favorite cafes, or were promenading the streets,
singing and shouting and behaving very much as our people do on
the Fourth of July.




VII

HOW INDIA IS GOVERNED

The present form of government in India was adopted in 1858,
after the terrible Sepoy mutiny had demonstrated the inability of
the East India Company to control affairs. By an act of parliament
all territory, revenues, tributes and property of that great
corporation, which had a monopoly of the Indian trade, and, next
to the Hanseatic League of Germany, was the greatest Trust ever
formed, were vested in the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland,
who in 1876 assumed the additional title of Empress of India. The
title and authority were inherited by Edward VII. He governs through
the Secretary of State for India, who is a Cabinet minister, and
a Council of not less than ten members, nine of whom must have
the practical knowledge and experience gained by a residence of at
least ten years in India and not more than ten years previous to
the date of their appointment. This Council is more of an advisory
than an executive body. It has no initiative or authority, but
is expected to confer with and review the acts of the Secretary
of State for India, who can make no grants or appropriations
from the revenues or decide any questions of importance without
the concurrence of a majority of its members. The Council meets
every week in London, receives reports and communications and
acts upon them.

The supreme authority in India is the Viceroy, the direct personal
representative of the emperor in all his relations with his
300,000,000 Indian subjects; but, as a matter of convenience,
he makes his reports to and receives his instructions from the
Secretary of State for India, who represents that part of the
empire both in the ministry and in parliament. The present viceroy
is the Right Honorable George Nathaniel Curzon, who was raised
to the peerage in October, 1898, as Baron Curzon of Kedleston.
He is the eldest son of Lord Scarsdale, was born Jan. 11, 1859,
was educated at Eton and Oxford; selected journalism as his
profession; became correspondent of the London Times in China,
India and Persia; was elected to parliament from Lancashire in
1886, and served until 1898; was private secretary to the Marquis
of Salisbury, and under-secretary of state for India in 1891-92;
under-secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1895-98; married
Mary Leiter, daughter of Mr. L. Z. Leiter of Washington and Chicago,
in 1895, and was appointed viceroy of India to succeed the Earl
of Elgin, September, 1898.

There have been twenty-five viceroys or governors general of
India since Warren Hastings in 1774, and the list includes some
of the ablest statesmen in English history, but Lord Curzon is
the only man in the list who has ever been his own successor.
When his first term expired in September, 1903, he was immediately
reappointed for another five years. Whether he continues through
the second term depends upon certain contingencies, but it is
entirely probable that he will remain, because he has undertaken
certain reforms and enterprises that he desires to complete. His
administration has been not only a conspicuous but a remarkable
success. Although he has been severely criticised for his
administrative policy and many of his official acts have been
opposed and condemned, the sources from which the criticisms
have come often corroborate the wisdom and confirm the success
of the acts complained of. Lord Cornwallis was twice Governor
General of India, but there was a long interval between his terms,
the first beginning in 1786 and the second in 1805. He is the only
man except Lord Curzon who has been twice honored by appointment
to the highest office and the greatest responsibility under the
British crown except that of the prime minister.

The Viceroy is assisted in the administration of the government
by a cabinet or council of five members, selected by himself,
subject to the approval of the king. Each member is assigned to
the supervision of one of the executive departments,--finance,
military, public works, revenue, agriculture and legislative.
The viceroy himself takes personal charge of foreign affairs.
The commander in chief of the army in India, at present Lord
Kitchener, is ex-officio member of the council.

For legislative purposes the council is expanded by the addition of
ten members, appointed by the Viceroy from among the most competent
British and native residents of India upon the recommendation
of provincial, industrial and commercial bodies. The remaining
members are the heads of the various executive departments of the
government. By these men, who serve for a period of five years,
and whose proceedings are open to the public and are reported and
printed verbatim, like the proceedings of Congress, the laws
governing India are made, subject to the approval of the Viceroy,
who retains the right of veto, and in turn is responsible to
the British parliament and to the king.

Thus it will be seen that the system of government in India is
simple and liberal. The various industries and financial interests,
and all of the great provinces which make up the empire, have a
voice in framing the laws that apply to the people at large;
but for convenience the territory is divided into nine great
provinces, as follows:

Madras, with a governor whose salary is $40,000 a year.

Bombay, whose governor receives the same salary.

Bengal, with a lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

United Provinces, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Punjab, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Burma, lieutenant governor; salary, $33,000.

Assam, chief commissioner; salary, $16,500.

Central Provinces, chief commissioner, $16,500.

Northwestern Frontier Province, governed by an agent to the governor
general, whose salary is $16,500.

The governors of Bombay and Madras are appointed by the king;
the lieutenant governors and commissioners by the Viceroy. All of
them have legislative councils and complete executive organizations
similar to that of the general government at Calcutta. Each makes
its own local laws and enjoys administrative independence similar to
that of the states of the American Union, and is seldom interfered
with by the Viceroy or the authorities in London, the purpose
being to encourage home rule as far as possible. The provinces
are divided into districts, which are the units of administration,
and each district is under the control of an executive officer,
who is responsible to the governor of the province.

Exclusive of the great provinces named are eighty-two of the
ancient principalities, most of them retaining their original
boundaries, governed by native chiefs, who are allowed more or
less independence, according to their ability, wisdom and zeal.
The control exercised by the central government varies in the
different states, but there are certain general rules which are
applied to all. The native princes have no right to make war or
peace, or communicate officially with each other or with foreign
governments except through the Viceroy. They are permitted to
maintain a limited independent military force; they are allowed
to impose a certain amount of taxes; no European is allowed to
reside at their courts without their consent, but commerce, trade,
industry, education, religious worship, the press and other rights
and privileges are free to all just as much as in England or the
United States. The native chiefs are not permitted to interfere with
the judiciary, which has a separate and independent organization,
as in Great Britain, with the Viceroy and the council of state
corresponding to the House of Lords, as the highest court of
appeal. Each native chief is "assisted" in his government by a
"Resident," who is appointed by and reports to the Viceroy, and
is expected to guide the policy and official acts of the native
ruler with tact and delicacy. He remains in the background as much
as possible, assumes no authority and exercises no prerogatives,
but serves as a sort of ambassador from the Viceroy and friendly
adviser to the native prince.

The following is a list of the ruling native princes in the order
of their rank as recognized by the British government, and the
salutes to which they are entitled:

Salute of twenty-one guns--
  Baroda, the Maharaja (Gaikwar) of.
  Hyderabad, the Nizam of.
  Mysore, the Maharaja of.

Salute of nineteen guns--
  Bhopal, the Begam (or Newab) of.
  Gwalior, the Maharaja (Singhai) of.
  Indore, the Maharaja (Holkar) of.
  Jammu and Kashmire, the Maharaja of.
  Kalat, the Khan of.
  Kolhapur, the Maharaja of.
  Mewar (Udaipur), the Maharaja of.
  Travancore, the Maharaja of.

Salute of seventeen guns--
  Bahawalpur, the Nawab of.
  Bharatpur, the Maharaja of.
  Bikanir, the Maharaja of.
  Bundi, the Maharao Raja of.
  Cochin, the Raja of.
  Cutch, the Rao of.
  Jeypore, the Maharaja of.
  Karauli, the Maharaja of.
  Kota, the Maharao of.
  Marwar (Jodhpur), the Maharaja of.
  Patiala, the Maharaja of.
  Rewa, the Maharaja of.
  Tonk, the Newab of.

Salute of fifteen guns--
  Alwar, the Maharaja of.
  Banswara, the Maharawal of.
  Datia, the Maharaja of.
  Dewas (senior branch), the Raja of.
  Dewas (junior branch), the Raja of.
  Dhar, the Raja of.
  Dholpur, the Maharaja Rana of.
  Dungarpur, the Maharawal of.
  Idar, the Maharaja of.
  Jaisalmir, the Maharawal of.
  Khairpur, the Mir of.
  Kishangarh, the Maharaja of.
  Orchha, the Maharaja of.
  Partabgarth, the Marharawat of.
  Sikkam, the Maharaja of.
  Sirohi, the Maharao of.

Salute of thirteen guns--
  Benares, the Raja of.
  Cooch Behar, the Maharaja of.
  Jaora, the Nawab of.
  Rampur, the Newab of.
  Tippera, the Raja of.

Salute of eleven guns--
  Agaigarh, the Maharaja of.
  Baoni, the Newab of.
  Bhaunagar, the Thakur Sahib of.
  Bijawar, the Maharaja of.
  Cambay, the Nawab of.
  Chamba, the Raja of.
  Charkhari, the Maharaja of.
  Chhatarpur, the Raja of.
  Faridkot, the Raja of.
  Gondal, the Thakur Sahib of.
  Janjira, the Newab of.
  Jhabua, the Raja of.
  Jahllawar, the Raj-Rana of.
  Jind, the Raja of.
  Gunagarth, the Newab of.
  Kahlur, the Rajah of.
  Kapurthala, the Raja of.
  Mandi, the Raja of.
  Manipur, the Raja of.
  Morvi, the Thakur Sahib of.
  Nabha, the Raja of.
  Narsingarh, the Raja of.
  Nawanagar, the Jam of.
  Palanpur, the Diwan of.
  Panna, the Maharaja of.
  Porbandar, the Rana of.
  Pudukota, the Raja of.
  Radhanpur, the Newab of.
  Rajgarth, the Raja of.
  Rajpipla, the Raja of.
  Ratlam, the Raja of.
  Sailana, the Raja of.
  Samthar, the Raja of.
  Sirmur (Nahan), the Raja of.
  Sitamau, the Raja of.
  Suket, the Raja of.
  Tehri (Garhwal), the Raja of.

The Viceroy has a veto over the acts of the native princes as
he has over those of the provincial governors, and can depose
them at will, but such heroic measures are not adopted except
in extreme cases of bad behavior or misgovernment. Lord Curzon
has deposed two rajahs during the five years he has been Viceroy,
but his general policy has been to stimulate their ambitions,
to induce them to adopt modern ideas and methods and to educate
their people.

Within the districts are municipalities which have local magistrates
and councils, commissioners, district and local boards and other
bodies for various purposes similar to those of our county and
city organizations. The elective franchise is being extended in
more or less degree, according to circumstances, all over India,
suffrage being conferred upon taxpayers only. The municipal boards
have care of the roads, water supply, sewerage, sanitation, public
lighting, markets, schools, hospitals and other institutions
and enterprises of public utility. They impose taxes, collect
revenues and expend them subject to the approval of the provincial
governments. In all of the large cities a number of Englishmen
and other foreigners are members of boards and committees and
take an active part in local administration, but in the smaller
towns and villa

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