^m^^XSiMM&- 1^ // *iyr-ii'%->;gf^^^'MM^'^j»' "Is' %.i^ W^ %A,<' §-'■ Ahf¥'.^^W^ W t^ 5) ;^l&^ ~^&'t-l'i ?*./V^>^''^ '^' '^ '.V^^" '-■Cs ^r J&A.'^ - ^^> iC*".' ;%*l\J^ ?!?* «; ^J^ %^, r '?,-L vfV J t^' ■!i^l JilWfe^ -u.»S^"^ ) -fs. H> ,'^^ CCe'^^ s Q O o a INDIA ILLUSTRATED WITH PEN AND PENCIL ,BY THE REV. W.'^mWICK, M. A. AUTHOR OF " INCIDENTS OF A TOUR AROUND THE WORLD," ETC. REVISED AND ENLARGED BY PROF. EDWARD P. THWING, M. D., Ph. D. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, CHINA BRANCH ; AUTHOR OF " OUTDOOR LIFE IN EUROPE," " OUTDOOR LIFE IN THE ORIENT," ETC. NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY, Publishers 134-136 Grand Street ^ \N ARGYLE PRESS, pRmTINQ AND BOOKBINDING, 265 &. 267 CHERRY 6T. , N. V. > COPYRIGHT ISt'l, CONTENTS, The Golden Temple, Amritsar Frontispiece Heading — The Palace, Lahore, v Map of India, viii //eadin£-~-PAi.ANQVW, xiii Ci}YI['i'5{si< ix'i^i^ Sa^i^xc^Y, MOUNT ABU— UDAIPUR AND CHITTORE—ADJMERE— JAIPUR— ALWAR—GWALIOR— SONAGHUR— SANCHI— BHOPAL pages 169-176 lilitsiratioits. Tope of Sanchi, Northern Gate Ncadinff — Palace of BirsJng Deo, and Lake Datiia, , Tomb at Alwdr, Rajputana, PAGE . 168 169 ■ 171 Sculptured Cave in Gwalior, Sacred Hill, Son.ighur. . The Moharrcm in Bhopal, PAGE • J73 '75 . 176 SomSSY IS^llEj^lDl^KCY. JABALPUR. AJANTA. AND ELURA— BOMBAY— CAVES OF ELEPHANTA, KENNERY, KARLI— MAT- AERAN— POONA— MAIIABLESHWAR— SURAT— BARODA— KUTCH— SINDE, . . . pages 179-197 Illitstraiioiis. PAGR The Gaikwar's Elephant in the Great Sowari at Baroda, . 178 Heading— ^\iOX^ Ghat Railway, 179 Buddha, i3i Street in Bombay, 183 Cotton Weighing, 185 Entrance to the Cave of Elephantc 187 Grotto at Kennery, igg Bas-reliefs. Gateway of Karli, 189 Interior of Great Dagoba of Karli, 190 Mabableshwar, 192 Jewesses, Bombay, 103 The Girnar Rock, 195 On the Indus. , 195 In the Christian G'ris' School, Agra, 197 •o^fi^^tfo INDIA, a stately and sonorous word ! To the thoughtful scholar it suggests dis- tance, vastness, wealth, scenic and historic charms, ancient art, barbaric wealth, as well as potential factors of national greatness. Sir Edwin Arnold has not unduly exalted the importance of a visit to India in any liberal education. No thinker can be an intellectual exile here. The student of language, history, ancient philosophy, or antique civilization finds a treasure house in the India of the past. She has been the nurse of useful arts, of subtle thought, and of epic verse. Fantastic mytholo- gies, curious speculations, and occult sciences have here had their home. India has been the arena of chivalric deeds and of appalling tragedy, the battle ground of truth and error, the field of some of the most inspiring conquests of Christianity. But the India of the future is to be a nobler study still. We even now see a gradual unifica- tion of its many principalities and powers on a grander scale than that of Italy or Germany, with the gradual growth and supremacy of the English tongue and the surer domination of Western science and Christian thought. We furthermore see the development of her industrial arts, and so the opening of hitherto unutilized natural products of this vast empire. We see rural communi- ties changing into the grander features of civic life, swayed, as we believe they will be, by wiser legislation and purer morality than past centuries have seen. We see, even now, the multiplication of schools, colleges, churches, and other features of Christian civilization, molded by Occidental ideas, yet adapted to Oriental conditions. In journeying forty-five hundred miles from place to place in India, the past year, the writer has been impressed by the intellectual ferment found, by the advances in science and by the urgency and promise of the m.issionary enterprise. That 8000 entries are yearly made in the official catalogue of vernacular and Eng- lish works written mainly by Hindus, and on religion more than on any theme, is a notable evidence of that ferment. A pile of missionary reports examined, and per- sonal inspection of work doing in schools and churches, satisfy me that Buddhist theosophy will never " tear Christianity in tatters." Whatever may be said of Brit- ish rule in other days, — and its severest critics have been Englishmen, — I have a hopeful outlook for the future. Her thinkers are here and her men of science, in every department. A member of the Royal Asiatic Society at Calcutta, a numis- matologist, told me of 5000 rare coins sent him yearly for examination. Wider and quicker weather reports — aided by a quadruplex telegraph system, by hard copper wire, and other improvements — -are perfecting meteorological science. A vast and IN TROD UCTOR V. growing railway system, — surpassed by none, perhaps, outside America, — museums, libraries, Industrial schools like the Technological Institute at Bombay, and other educational enterprises, inspire confidence In India's future. These pages, therefore, possess a special attractiveness at the present time. . . . Rev. Mr. Urwick some years since made a wide tour, beginning with Galle, formerly the starting point, and proceeding, as his itinerary indicates, northward and westward. His pages are full of Instruction. He avails himself of the helpful materials of Fer- gusson, Hunter, and other authors. The whole Is profusely illustrated by pen and pencil. Foot notes have been added. The volume is offered to the thousands of American readers, young and old, to whom the past and the future of this land of romance presents a vivid and an imperishable charm. Edward Payson Thwing. Brooklyn, N. Y., January, 1891. z • w u CEYLON. morning was beautifully fine, and the prospect was most extensive and delightful. The sea was visible in the distance toward the west and south, Adam's Peak to the west, the hills of Kandy to the north, and those of Badulla to the east. From Newera Ellia to Badulla the road descends three thousand feet in forty miles, and commands splendid views. No scene in nature can be more peaceful and lovely than the valley of the Badulla Oya. At Ella the river forces its way through a wild ravine in a series of falls. There are no lakes, properly speaking, in Ceylon, but from these mountain ranges one sees what look like lakes, the immense tanks, relics of a former civilization, formed by means of artificial dams drawn across valleys KANDY. shut in by hills, and making sheets of water six, eight, or ten miles long, by two or three wide. The embankments are from sixty to seventy feet high, and two hundred feet broad at the base ; they consist of earthwork, faced in some cases with stone. The design of these immense reservoirs was to supply water for the paddy lands in the districts lying north of the mountains. Every village northward was provided with a tank, and canals conveyed the water to the fields. They date from the seventh century downward. Descending from Pedro-talla-galla, I came upon the track of a wild elephant. The jungle was freshly trodden down, soil disturbed, and trees uprooted. It is an Eastern saying that the last word can never be said about an elephant. When the British first came elephants were numerous, but now they are rare. Very few Ceylon elephants have tusks. They are smaller than the African ; twice the circumference of the foot gives the animal's height, which is usually eight or nine feet. They are CEYLON. said to live seventy years, and it is a trite saying, "A dead elephant is never seen." The elephant has marvelous facility in ascending and descending mountains, the joints of the hind legs bending inward, and enabling them to kneel like a man, and in this posture to slide down, the forelegs being kept straight out. At the approach of the white man they retire ; they possess defective sight but powerful scent. A story is told of a wild elephant at Goa which had got loose in the market-place, and was destroying all before it ; but recognizing in the crowd the child of a woman TEMPLE OF THE DALADA. who had been in the habit of feeding him when passing her shop, he took it up in his trunk and carried it safely home. Elephants have been exported from Ceylon to India ever since the First Punic War. Of late their numbers have been considerably reduced. They cannot lift the head above the level of the shoulder, and they show timidity and shyness at the sight of man. They like the mountains and the shady thickets. They go in herds, and a solitary elephant is usually a thief. The famous Adam's Peak may be ascended either from Newera Ellia or the Maskeliya side, where the climb is comparatively easy, or from Ratnapura, on the south side, which is reached by coach from Colombo. The rocky cone which forms its summit is climbed with the help of chains fastened in the rock. A fearful ladder, forty feet high, lands us on the top, where is a small temple, and beneath a sheltered space beside is the Sri pada, or footprint, a natural indentation in the rock, artificially 26 CEYLON. made to assume the shape of a man's left foot, five feet long by two and a half broad. The Brahmans call it the footstep of Siva, the Buddhists that of Buddha, the Chi- nese that of Fo, i.e., Buddha, and afterward the Mohammedans called it the foot- print of Adam. Adam, it was fabled, when driven from Paradise took refuge in Ceylon, and spent years of exile on this mountain before his reunion with Eve on Mount Arafath near Mecca. Hence the name Adam's Peak. Between Adam's Peak and the sea, quantities of precious stones have been found ; indeed, this is the liUDUlll.^l ILMILL, LAK.L ul KANDY. region where still they are sought — sapphires, amethysts, topazes, rubies. Ratna- pura means "the city of rubies," and the sands of the rivers still abound with small particles of tiny gems. Lapidaries use it to polish softer stones. The cat's eye, a green translucent quartz, is specially appreciated by the Singalese. The preca- rious occupation of gem-hunting is chiefly carried on at Saffragam. The chief pol- ishers and sellers of gems are Moormen. The tourist in these mountain districts is almost sure to find something he does not want, in the form of leeches, whose presence is first discovered by the chill_ feel- ing of the creature hanging heavily on the skin when full and distended. They are about an inch in length, and only one-eighth of an inch in thickness, but they swell into more than twice that length and size. They make their way through the finest stocking. They live not in pools, but in rank and damp herb- age. In moving, they plant one extremity on the buddha's tooth. ground and advance by semicircular strides. You may often see them hang- ing like tassels round the ankles of the palanquin bearers, and dogs and horses are tormented by them. Crocodiles too, are occasionally seen across one's path in dry weather when the tanks are low, making their way in search of water. They are very tenacious of life, indeed it is almost impossible to kill them. Kandy, the ancient capital of the Highland Singalese, is a beautifully situated lit- tle city, of about ten thousand inhabitants, in a nest of hills, itself fifteen hundred feet 27 CEYLON. above the sea ; and the thickly wooded hills around it are fully two thousand feet high. At the foot of its main street, which slopes down a hill, is a long artificial lake, made in 1807 by the then King of Kandy ; and this sheet of water adds much to the loveliness of the scene. Here, for centuries, the Kandyan kings lived secure, as if in their mountain fastnesses ; but upon the conquest of the place by the British in 18 1 5, a road was constructed through the mountains to the coast, which even still presents wonders of engineering skill ; and now a railway sends two trains daily to and from Colombo in a four hours' journey. The climate is delightful and the scenery charming. From the fourteenth century downward, the place has been dis- SACRED BP TREE, ANURAJAPURA, 2IOO YEARS OLD. tinguished as the headquarters of Buddhism, finding its center in the Temple of the Dalada, the shrine of Buddha's tooth, round which the Buddhist hierarchy gather. This, with the adjoining palace, is the most interesting building in Ceylon. There is an octagonal stone edifice of two stories, in the upper part of which is an Oriental library, containing several valuable Pali manuscripts, and the Buddhist scriptures written on wood and sumptuously bound. A balcony runs outside, on which the kings of Kandy were wont in former times to appear before the people, and to wit- ness performances on the green below. The relic of the left eye-tooth of Gautama Buddha, here said to be enshrined, has a curious history. Rescued from his funeral pile, b. c. 543, it was preserved for eight centuries at Dantapura in South India, and brought to Ceylon a. d. 310. The Malabars afterward captured it, and took it back to India, but the great Prakrama recovered it. The Portuguese missionaries got possession of it in the sixteenth cen- tury, carried it away to Goa, and after refusing a large ransom offered for it by the Singalese, reduced it to powder and destroyed it at Goa in the presence of witnesses. 28 CEYLON. The account of this destruction of the tooth is most circumstantial in the Portuguese records. Nevertheless, the Buddhist priests at Kandy produced another tooth, which they affirmed to be the real relic, that taken by the Portuguese being a counter- feit, and they conducted this to the shrine with great pomp and ceremonial. This is the relic now treasured with such care and reverence. It is probably not a human tooth at all, being, as those who have seen it affirm, much too large (two inches long) ever to have belonged to man. When the British got possession of it in 1815, there was great excitement, the relic being regarded as a sort of national palladium. They allowed it, however, to be restored to its shrine amid great festivi- ties. The sanctuary in which it reposes is a small chamber, without a ray of light, in which the air is stifling, hot and heavy with the perfume of flowers, situated in the GATEWAY LEADING TO THE SACRED TREE, ANURAJAPURA. inmost recesses of the temple. The frames of the doors of this chamber are inlaid with carved ivory, and on a massive silver table stands the bell-shaped shrine, jeweled and hung round with chains, and consisting of six cases of silver gilt, inlaid with rubies. On removing the innermost one, about one foot in height, a golden lotus is disclosed, on which reposes the sacred relic. In front of the silver altar is a table upon which worshipers deposit their gifts. The hills round Kandy command charming views of the city and the outlying district. Gregory's Drive is a new road that winds up the hill above the miniature lake, with bungalows looking out on lovely scenery ; and a path through the opposite woods, called Lady Horton's Walk, leads up to a point commanding a panoramic view of the Vale of Dumbera and the Knuckles range of hills, the river Mahawelli- ganga flowing rapidly below. The Peridenia Botanical Garden, covering one hundred and fifty acres, is about three miles from the town, and is rich in all varieties of palms and other tropical plants. A fine avenue of India rubber trees leads to a noble group of palms — the palmyra, thetalipat, the areca, the date palm, the cocoa-nut, and a huge Kew Palm House in the open air, with a river overhung with bamboos flowing through. The sacred Bo tree of the Singalese, to which they, as Buddhists, attach 29 CEYLON. symbolically the same importance as Christians do to the cross, is found close to every dagoba. Buddha himself is said to have made frequent allusions to the growth of this tree as an emblem of the rapid propagation of his faith. It differs from the CARVED STONE AT ANURAJAPURA. banyan by sending down no roots from its branches, but its heart-shaped leaves are attached to the stem by so slender a stalk that they appear to be ever in motion, and thus, like the leaves of the aspen, of which the cross was thought to be made, whose CARVED STONE AT ANURAJAPURA. leaves are said to tremble in recollection of the crucifixion, those of the Bo tree are supposed by the Buddhists to tremble in remembrance of the sacred scene of which they were the witnesses. It was while reclining under the shade of this tree at Budh 30 * CEYLON. Gaya in Magadha or Bihar that Gautama received Buddhahood. The first Bo tree in Ceylon is said to have been sent by Asoka, king of Magadha, a branch from the parent-tree at Uruwela, b. c. 245, and to have been planted at the old capital Anura- japura. It is still pointed out as the oldest tree in the world, and is said to be the parent-tree from which all other Bo trees in the island have been propagated. A wall is now built round it, and a flight of stone steps leads to the sacred inclosure. Pil- grims come to visit it from China, and even from Japan. The solitary column on the JETAWAN-ARA.MA DAGOCA. right marks the place where Elala, a Malabar invader, who reigned with justice and moderation, fell (b. c. 160). It was erected by his rival in admiration of his bravery, and it is still regarded with veneration. Among the neighboring ruins is a beautifully carved stone of great antiquity, now forming a doorstep, and representing the lotus flower in the center, a procession of wild animals on the outside, and in the inter- mediate circle the hanza, or sacred goose, an object of veneration formerly in all parts of India. Pollonarua and Anurajapura, the two ancient and long ruined capitals of Ceylon, lie to the northeast and north of Kandy. The tourist starts by the road to Trincomalee as far as Matale, sixteen miles. Three miles off is a cave temple, called the Alti, Wihare, curiously built, amid loose and tumbled masses of rock. The place is specially interesting as the spot where, as the Mahawanso says, the books of Buddhism 31 CEYLON. were first compiled, and its precepts reduced to writing. The statement runs : "The wise monks of former days handed down the text of the Three Pitakas by word of mouth. But seeing the destruction of men, the monks of this time assembled, and, that the Faith might last, wrote them in books." Leaving Matale, we make our way through Nalande, fourteen miles, to Dambulla,' fifteen miles, where is one of the oldest rock temples in Ceylon. The rock is five hundred feet high, and is visible from afar. The temple is reached by hewn steps, and upon climbing these, we behold a noble gateway adorned with carvings. The building was known as "the cave of the golden rock," darkness being the characteristic of the interior of all Bud- dhist temples. Indeed, the word Wihara or Vihara, now denoting any Buddhist temple or monastery, literally signifies "a residence." In the forest stretching south of Dam- fs^- GAL-WIHARA, PULASTIPURA ; IMAGE OF BUDDHA RECUMBENT. bulla there stands a colossal statue of Buddha carved in a mass of rock. It is upward of fifty feet high, and reminds one of the Daibutz of Japan. It would appear that in early times this statue was roofed over. It is called the Aukana Wihara. The road leads on through jungle by the great tank of Topare to Pollonarua, or Pulastipura, where are the ruins of a city built by the famous King Prakrama Bahu, which continued to be the capital of the Kandyan monarchs till the fourteenth century. The remains are extensive and display beauty of design and excellence of execution. The forest abounds with them, but perhaps the most striking is the Jayata-wanarama, a huge Buddhist temple, containing, between two octagonal towers forming the main entrance, a statue of Buddha fifty feet high, formed of brick covered with polished chunam or cement. The side view gives a good idea of the elaborate carving and extensive range of this building. Another still more curious building at Pulastipura is the Gal-wihara, a rock temple, which has in front four richly-carved columns, a raised altar, with a statue of Buddha seated, a statue of Buddha standing, and a statue of the same famous saint forty-five feet in length, representing the state of Nirvana. 32 CE YLON. North of Matale, about sixty miles, is another, and still more ancient ruined city, called Anurajapura. According to the narrative of the Mahawanso, this city was founded four hundred years b. c. When King Asoka sent his son Mahinda to intro- duce Buddhism to Ceylon, the reigning monarch was Tissa (250-230 b. c), who re- ceived him with favor and espoused the new religion. He built the famous temple called the Thuparama Dagoba, of bell-shaped outline, the most elegant in Ceylon, which still rises sixty-three feet from the ground, and stands on a platform fifty RUANVELLV DAGOBA, ANURAJAPURA. yards square, with three rows of monolith pillars twenty-six feet high, one hundred and fifty in all. He erected it as a shrine for the right collar-bone of Buddha. The pillars are supposed to represent and answer to the stone rail surrounding the topes in India. They were probably connected with each other by beams of wood and frames of canvas covered with paintings. Paintings, as distinct from sculptures, are characteristic of Ceylon temples. A precipitous rocky hill, a thousand feet high, eight miles to the east, connected with the city by a long street, was chosen as an appropriate site for another huge temple of brick, under which was deposited another relic of Buddha — a hair which grew on the mole between his eyebrows. Regarding this hill, the hill of Mihintale, a visitor to it thus writes : " It was on this hill, the three peaks of which, each now surmounted by a dagoba, form so striking an object from the central trunk road which 33 CEYLON. runs along its side, that the famous missionarj^ Mahinda spent most of his after years. Here, on the precipitous western side of the hill, under a large mass of granite rock, at a spot which, completely shut out from the world, affords a magnificent view of the plains below, he had his study hollowed out, and steps cut in the rock over which alone it could be reached. The great rock effectually protects the cave from the heat of the sun, in whose warm light the valley below lies basking ; not a sound reaches it from the plain, now a far-reaching forest, then full of busy homesteads ; there is only heard that hum of insects which never ceases, and the rustling of the leaves of the trees which cling to the sides of the precpice. I shall not easily forget the day when I first entered that lonely, cool, and quiet chamber, so simple and yet so beautiful, where more than two thousand years ago the great teacher of Ceylon had sat and thought and worked through long )'ears of his peaceful and useful life. On that hill he afterward died, and his ashes still rest under the dagoba, which is the principal object of the reverence and care of the few monks who still reside in the Mahintale Wihare." ' The square of the entire city of An- urajapura, including tanks, was walled in about B. c, 48, by Queen Anula, and each side is said to have been sixteen miles long. The entire distance from Anuraja- pura to Colombo by way of Kandy is one hundred and sixty miles. Conjectures have been eagerly made concerning traces of Christianity in Ceylon in the early centuries ; but if in those days there were any Christians in Ceylon, they must have been sojourners only from among the Syrian Christians on the Coromandel Coast. " Its light appears," says Sir J. E. Tennent, " to have been transiently kindled, and to have speedily become extinguished." Cosmas, a. d. 535, speaks of Christians here, with a priest and deacon ordained in Persia. These were probably Nestorians. The two Mohammedan travelers of the ninth century, whose narratives have been translated, are silent as to the existence of any form of Christianity, and Marco Polo, a. d. 1290, declares that the inhabitants were idolaters. The Portuguese in the sixteenth century brought with them Romanism, and Xavier was invited in 1 544 to come to Jaffna ; but though many were baptized, he has recorded his disap- pointment at the inward unsoundness of all he had outwardly achieved. Many na- tives, both in the north and in the south, became Roman Catholics ; but in the charges officially brought against the Jesuits, it was alleged to be doubtful whether by affecting idolatry, and tolerating it among their proselytes, they had not them- ' Buddhism, by T. W. Rhys Davids. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 34 MUDALIYAR OR HEADMAN. CEYLON. selves become converts to Hinduism rather than made Hindus converts to Chris- tianity. They assumed the character of Brahmans of a superior caste, and even composed a pretended Veda. They conducted images of the Virgin in triumphal procession, imitated from the orgies of Juggernaut. Among their most distinguished preachers has been Joseph Vaz (died at Kandy, 1711), who added to the Church COLOSSAL niAGE OF BUDDHA. thirty thousand converts from the heathen. The Dutch on their coming established the Reformed Church of Holland as the religion of the colony, and the first Presby- terian clergyman began his ministrations in 1642. In 1658 they forbade the presence of Roman Catholic priests. They pulled down and broke the Romanist images, and in Jaffna took possession of the churches. But in spite of all this severity, Romanism kept its ground, and the Dutch missionaries did not succeed. Since the British rule began, this coercive policy has ceased, and the Gospel has been preached in a Chris- tian spirit. In 1816 Ceylon was made an archdeaconry under the see of Calcutta. 35 CEYLON. It was made a bishopric in 1845. Protestant missions, set on foot by the American Board in 1816, have been uninterruptedly efficient. Upward of six hundred stu- dents have been under instruction from time to time in the American seminary at Batticotta ; and of these more than half have openly professed Christianity, and all have been more or less imbued with its spirit. The majority are filling situations of credit and responsibility in the island. The Wesleyans' also have been and are still extensively at work with churches, colleges, and schools in North and South Ceylon. The Baptists have useful missions at Ratnapura, at the foot of Adam's Peak and among the pilgrims thither, at Colombo, and at Kandy. Lastly, the Church Mis- sionary Society has been successful in several stations, though of late years unfor- tunate hindrances have sprung up through Ritualistic tendencies and claims of the newly appointed bishop. Out of the taxes levied upon the native population the sum of sixty thousand dollars is annually paid by the government in support of this epis- copate and other religious establishments in the island. The Kandy Collegiate School educates a large number of boys and young men. Nevertheless, Brahmanism has still a strong hold upon the Tamils of the north, and Buddhism, with its flower-offering and devil worship, is still vigorous among the Singalese. Books, too, in favor of Buddhism, with extracts from English writers who extol its early literature, are pub- lished and circulated. Evangelical Christianity is, however, gaining ground, and the present census will probably show the. number of Protestants to be upward of seventy thousand. A scheme of disendowment is proposed, to take effect in five years.^ ' They report, August, 1890, 70 ministers, 155 lay preachers, 4,644 church members, 20,000 in the congregations, — to which sermons in four diiTerent languages are preached, — and 21,435 day and Sunday-school pupils. " Entire freedom from state patronage and control is now granted to all religions. The proportion of Christians, including Romanists, is ten per cent, higher in Ceylon than in India. Vide, " Ceylon in the Jubilee Year," James Fergusson, Colombo, 1887.. 36 COCOA-NUT PALMS AND JUNGLE. ■Ill :iiiniii:Tii«iinii:iii*!*iiijiii:!isis(U;i!Sf:faainiii 1 '|l|||lli||ll|l|M jlpip^^Fli ' z a w Pi u < m < < A P o o s < w > •-^ o u < o o o o z; <; 00 CHAPEL OF THE SACRED BULL, CHILLAMBARAM. MADRAS PRESIDENCY. TINNEVELLY AND TRAVAXCORE THE DRAVIDIAX TEMPLES MADURA — TRICHINOPOLY- TAN'IORE MADRAS — THE COAS 1' VOYAGE NORTHWARD. Colo dred CEYLON is linked on to India not only naturally and politicall)', but by a continual transfer of population. The Tamils, -vvho are the chief work- people on the coffee plantations of Ceylon, come from the Madras Presidency, and they do not gen- erally settle permanently in the island. There is a continual stream of comers and ooers. There are six ports on the western coast of Ceylon, to and from which vessels run to the Coromandel Coast, as the eastern side of Southern India is called. Of these six ports the chief are Pesalai and Vankalai in the north, and Colombo on the west. In 1874, for example, there arrived in Ceylon one hundred and twenty-five thousand of these Indian coolies,' and the departures numbered ninety thousand. A great exodus always follows the gathering of the crop ; in the steamer in which we crossed from mbo to Tuticorin, one hundred and fifty miles, there were about five hun- Tamils, men, women, and children, on board, returning to their native land. ■ In 1SS7 there were 206,495 employed on Ceylon estates, nearly all Tamil immigrants. — Ed. 39 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. Many of them crowded the deck all night, and, in spite of much roughness from the sailors and boatmen, seemed patient and light-hearted. The noise and jab- bering as the boats conveying them from shore swarmed round the steamer was amusing, and almost deafening. After a calm starlight night we found our vessel anchored off the flat, sandy coast of India, about six miles from shore. The steamer could not be brought nearer on account of the shallows. Though the sea was calm the billows of a heavy swell chased each other over the sand banks with a long lazy sweep toward the land. A fleet of heavy native sail-boats came out to take the MAKE, MALABAR COAST. passengers ashore ; and in a four-oared boat, after passing Hare Island, we reached the landing stage of Tuticorin in an hour. Tuticorin was once celebrated for its pearl fishery, and is now a town rising in importance as the terminus of the South Indian Railway. It is the main port of the District of Tinnevelly, a district which, together with the Native State of Travancore, forms the southern part of India. Cape Comorin itself is within the boundary of Travancore, but Tinnevelly occupies two-thirds of the breadth of the peninsula. These two provinces are separated by the range of Western Ghauts, which run north and south along the western coast, rising to the height of seven thousand feet, and are the highest mountains to be met with till we come to the Himalayas. Tinnevelly has a population of a million and a half. Northward, the country is well cultivated, and of a green, fertile aspect, paddy lands extending for miles on either side the railway ; but southward there stretches 40 >< ■J > w 2; 2; <; o o o MADRAS PRESIDENCY. a vast sandy plain of a fiery red color, dotted over by groves of tall, majestic Palmyra palms. While all around is parched and arid, this tree strikes its roots forty feet below the surface, gathers up the moisture, and daily gives forth quantities of sap h i, , i fc h ^ npgi^"'-i::.7^ • -'ri'Jiii CHRISTIAN KATIVE GIRLS. called "toddy," which is collected in small earthen vessels attached to the tree, and is largely manufactured into sugar. The Shanar laborer climbs thirty or forty trees seveiity feet high twice every day to collect the sap. The Hindus call the Palmyra " the tree of life," and dedicate it to Ganesh. It gives three quarts of " toddy " daily, its wood is hard and durable, and its leaves thatch the native houses, are woven into 43 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. mats and baskets, or, smoothed by pressure, they serve for books and parchments. In a word, the Palmyra palm in South India as well as in the northeast of Ceylon supplies shelter, furniture, food, drink, oil, and fuel for the people, with forage for their cattle and utensils for their farms. It is an interesting fact that Tinnevelly and Travancore, more than any other part of India, have been brought under the influence of Christianity, and this from the earliest times. The Christians of St. Thomas, as they are called, early in the third century, it is supposed, occupied portions of the Coromandel Coast on the east, and of the Malabar Coast on the west. Indeed, the Syrian Churches here claim to have sprung from the preaching of the Apostle Thomas himself \^ however this may TAMILS OF SOUTH INDIA. be, a Syriac MS. of theBible, brought from this district, now at Cambridge, is said to date from the eighth century. And in modern times Christian missions have been more successful here than anywhere else in India. Travancore, unlike Tinnevelly, is a mountainous country, full of diversified scenery. In its northern part, the Malayalam language is spoken. The view from the Peak of Agastya, seven thou- sand feet high, which is usually ascended from Trivanderum, is said to be the finest in Southern India. As on the east the Palmyra, so on the west of these mountains the cocoa-nut palm flourishes. Here there is a group of missions. The population of Travancore numbers upward of two millions, of whom one-fifth is Christian. The London Missionary Society takes the lead, and the census report witnesses that " by the indefatigable labors and self-denying earnestness of the learned body of the missionaries' in the country, the large community of Native Christians are rapidly advancing in their moral, intellectual, and material condition." Travancore is per- haps one of the best governed and most enlightened native states in India. North of it, on the west coast, is Cochin, near to which is the old Hebrew colony known as "the Black Jews of Malabar." Their religious knowledge is much narrower than that of the " White Jews," who have been settled there since the destruction of ' It is declared by modern scholars that there is no evidence that he ever came to India at all, but that the myth is of the same spurious origin as that of Peter's visit at Rome. — Ed. 44 < < <; ►J •J S u 6< O < o o o ^.l (i;>^- r-*^ , , ,,, ".mm BHISTI, OR WATER-CARRIER. natives, with the varying symbols of their caste painted on their foreheads, filled the stations and thronged the carriages. There are first, the Brahmans, or priests, sprung from the mouth of Brahma, distinguished by the sacred cord around their bodies ; secondly, the Kshuttries, or warriors, sprung from his arms ; third, the Vaisyas, from his thighs, the merchants, men of commerce, industry, and agriculture ; and fourth, the Sudras, the cultivators of the soil, laborers, and servants, sprung from the feet of Brahma. Below these are those of no caste, the Pariahs or out- casts. One sees men of all these several castes, crowded together, jostling one another on the railway platform and crowding into the same carriage ; for though there are four classes of carriages on Indian railways, many of the highest castes are the poorest, and have to travel fourth class, and you will see the Brahman sitting side by side with the Pariah. The railway is the great antagonist to caste in India.' Tanjore is a large city of a hundred thousand inhabitants. In former times it was the seat of Brahminical learning, and it contains several pagodas in large, green areas or gardens, and two large walled forts. As you approach the city, the Great Pagoda, with its lofty tower, is a conspicuous object, impressive and graceful. Its ' The Institutes of Menu provide that if Sudras, comprising three-fourths of the Hindus, dare to sit with their superiors, they shall be gashed on the buttocks or suffer exile. For sitting with a Brahman the penalty was maiming for life. — Ed. 62 GOPURA AT COMBACONUM. 64 MADRAS rRESIDENCY. base measures eighty feet square, and the pyramid rises fourteen stories to the height of two hundred feet. The top-stone is a huge monoHth, beautifully carved and weighing eighty tons. The courts are not covered over as at Madura, but are open to light and air, and within the precincts is a large open square six hundred feet by PAGODA AT POXDICHERRV. two hundred. Here is the colossal stone bull Nundi, fifteen feet long and twelve feet high, in a couching posture. It rests upon a platform which you ascend by twelve steps, and has over it a large canopy supported by granite pillars. This bull, sacred to Siva, faces the magnificent temple, an oblong building of red sandstone, with the huge tower rising nobly over the shrine. Farther on to the left, but within the inclosure, is another but much smaller shrine, of beautifully carved stone, and cloisters surround the court, covered with coarse pictures of heroes. To the right, within the court, is the Temple of Soubramanya, " as exquisite a piece of decorative 65 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. architecture," says Mr. Fergusson, " as is to be found in the south of India." The steps up to its entrance are supported by small carved elephants with men, in singular attitudes, sitting on or falling from their trunks. The palace of the Princess of Tan- jore contains an open court, with singular figures in stone, and a statue in white marble of the late Rajah. In the Protestant mission church, built by Schwartz, the remains of this German missionary lie. A slab behind the pulpit, with an inscription, marks the spot. The country about Tanjore looked peculiarly rich and fertile. The great river Kaveri here opens out into a delta, and irrigation works of considerable extent distribute its fertilizinsf waters. PAGODA OF CHILLAMBARAM : INTERIOR COURT. The Danes were the first among Protestant nations to send the Gospel to India, for in the year 1705 Ziegenbalg came to Tranquebar on the east coast, and made his vvav to Tanjore dressed in native costume. The Rajah at first objected, but after- ward sancfioned the mission. Ziegenbalg, having translated the New Testament into Tamil, died in 1719, and his work was resumed by Schultze, and several congre- gations of Christians grew up in the kingdom of Tanjore. Then followed the war between France and England which ended i«n the conquests of the latter under Clive, and the chaplaincy of the garrison of Trichinopoly by the equally eminent soldier, although of the Prince of Peace, the well-known Schwartz, whom the Rajah requested to remove from Trichinopoly and to reside at Tanjore. Here he was em- ployed upon several occasions to treat with the native princes. " Let them send the Christian," said they; " he will not deceive us." On two occasions, when the Fort 66 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. of Tanjore was threatened with famine, and the Rajah was powerless to obtain sup- plies, Schwartz, at his earnest request, undertook to relieve it, and succeeded in saving its inmates from starvation. A few hours before his death the Rajah requested Schwartz to act as a guardian to his infant son. Schwartz, in fact, was revered as a father by the people as well as by the Rajah of Tanjore. The Tanjore mission was his chief work, and he continued its guiding spirit to the end. At his death in 1798, after forty-eight years spent in the country, a long and bitter cry of lamentation arose from multitudes, and the Rajah shed a flood of tears over his body, and covered it with a gold cloth. The Christian Knowledge Society sustained the mission after Schwartz's death, and the Leipzig missionaries commended their Chris- tianity to the Hindus by the adoption of caste, a step which has made the prosecution of Christian work very difficult. But the Propagation Society has nine central mis- sions in the provinces of Tanjore and Trichinopoly. The new railway between Tanjore and Madras was not yet complete, the bridges over the Peravanur not being built. In the middle of the night we were conveyed in bullock wagons inland and across this estuary, thus giving us an idea of what trav- eling must have been in the country before railways were made.' The line runs along the tract of country long known as the Coromandel Coast, which stretches for about four hundred miles north from Adam's Bridee. Throughout O its whole extent this coast does not afford any secure port or harbor. A heavy surf rolls in upon the flat, sandy shore. The soil near the coast is a mixture of sea-sand and loam, often in dry weather covered with salt. Farther inland low hills commence, and the soil, when irrigated, is fertile, but the upper part of the hills is sterile. This coast, though destitute of harbors, has been the favorite country for Euro- pean settlements. Here is Pondicherry, still belonging to the French, divided into two portions : the white town orderly, neat, with beautiful boulevards, the black, or native town, with a large pagoda. Its lower part is quite plain, but from its cornice upward there are large and fantastic figures, those in the center somewhat resem- bling Buddha, and indicating the influence of his system, even in South India. The summit seems to represent the Buddhist trinitj'. Pondicherry is a town of fifty thousand inhabitants, including about a thousand Europeans. The Missions dtrangercs de France have a settlement here. They are successful among the natives ; but they conform in great part to their idolatrous customs and caste prejudices. The priests have assumed the character of Brahmans of a superior caste from the Western world. In fact, at one time they were wont to wear the cavy, or orange robe, peculiar to the most venerated Brahmans, and carried on their foreheads the sacred spot of sandal-wood powder. " If," says Abbe Dubois, "any mode of Christian worship is calculated to gain ground in India, it is no doubt the Catholic form, which Protestants consider idolatry. Its external pomp and show are well suited to the genius of the natives. It has a pooja, or sacrifice, viz., the mass ; processions, images, and statues ; tirtan, or holy water ; feasts, fasts, and prayers for the dead ; invocation of saints and other practices which bear more or less resemblance to that of the Hindus." Here, too, is Cuddalore, now a handsome town of forty thousand inhabitants, formerly belonging to the French, but yielded by treaty in 1795, and Tranquebar, ' The custom of reckoning time from midnight is now introduced on some Indian railwaj'S. Midnight is zero, noon, 12 ; I P.M. is 13, and so on to 23.59, one minute before the next midnight. 67 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. once a Danish settlement. The entire district abounds in specimens of Dravidiaii architecture. Far south by Paumban Passage is the great Pagoda of Ramessveram, exhibiting all the beauties of the Dravidian style, with four stone towers and cor- ridors with columns elaborately carved. On the railway, twenty-four miles northeast from Tanjore, we pass Combaco- num, a town of forty-five thousand inhabitants, one of the old capitals of the native Chola kingdom. It was once called the Oxford of Southern India, on account of its. learning. It has a richly ornamented tower, twelve stories, and is one hundred and fifty feet high. The Chola kingdom was one of that triarchy of kingdoms which existed in South India in the time of Asoka, and down to the Mohammedan conquests, the other two being the Chera and the Pandya. The large pagoda here is dedicated to Vishnu, another indication of Buddhist influ- ence, for Siva is the favorite deity of the south, and Vishnuism, Mr. Fergus- son observes, is a bad and corrupt form of Buddhism. The great tower can be ascended, but the stone steps, are old and broken, and there is no hand-rail ; the floors are of stone, and shake alarmingly to the tread. Near the temple is a large sacred tank into which it is said that the Ganges flows- every year. So vast is the concourse of people who descend into the water to bathe at one time, that the surface rises some inches. This confirms their belief in the miracle. The idol cars are drawn through the streets, as at Puri, and every year persons are acci- dentally crushed beneath their wheels. The tank is surrounded by a number of small pagodas, each containing a /zV/^aw. The Beauchamp College at Combaconum is one of the best educational institutions in South India, and there is a very good school for girls, with upward of a hundred scholars. Farther north is Chillambaram, with a very large tank, and at the four car- dinal points four vast towers, together with the usual hall of a thousand pillars. On the west of the tank is the Temple of Parvati, sixty-eight feet high, and on the south the Temple of Siva, containing the sacred image of the dancing Siva. The roof is cov- ered with plates of copper gilt. This temple is reputed to be one of the most ancient of the Dravidian pagodas. It is highly venerated by the people, who believe it to be the work of a king in the sixth century whose name signifies "golden-colored em- peror." The tradition is that he was a leper, but miraculously recovered by bathing in the sacred waters of the tank at Chillambaram. In gratitude he rebuilt the temple. The outer wall is six hundred yards by five hundred, and in the center lies the cele- 68 ■ \ t 1 C t t ( d ■ ' ' \ r : fe. *Ka "^^ r ^ fiCCKcer. se SPECIMENS OF SCULPTURE ON PILLARS, IN THE GRAND GALLERY, CHILLAMBARAM. MADRAS PRESIDENCY. brated tank around which the buildings cluster. The four points of the compass are marked by four large gopuras or towers. In the sixteenth century the kings of the triarchy made many donations to the fane. The oldest thing now existing is, in Mr. Fergusson's judgment, a little shrine in the inmost incloSure with a little porch of two pillars, more graceful and more elegantly executed than any other of their class. A chain cut out of solid stone connects two similar and corre- sponding pillars, upon which dancing figures are engraved in honor of Venna, the god of dancing, of Kashmir, with whom a legend has connected the building. A double gallery with plain and chaste columns runs along the in- terior inclosure wall. But the most ele- gant workmanship is found in the porch of the Temple of Parvati, the central aisle of which is seven yards wide. Here the architect has put forth all his power. The temple is an aggregate of buildings of different styles of architec- ture. Portions could not have been raised till after the Mohammedans had settled in the south and taught the Hin- dus their methods. It is of (rranite, and now covers thirty-nine acres of ground. At CoNjEVERAM, One of the seven holy cities of India, and the Benares of the south, once a city of the Hindu kingdom of Chola, there are two groups of temples, with commanding gopuras nearly two hundred feet high. A symbol like a horse- shoe on the wall of the inner inclosure is said to be the first letter of the word Vishnu, and there has been hard fighting for nearly a century about the form of this symbol ; indeed, the Tamils are still at law about it. The one party contend that the mark or symbol— made with a kind of white paint on the forehead — should be made with a plain line, while the other party make it with a little boss at the bot- tom, extending half-way down the nose I These are the two sects of the Vishnuvites. The usual mark worn by the Vishnu wor- shipers is two perpendicular strokes meet- ing below in a curve ; that of the Siva worshipers is quite different, consisting of three horizontal lines, usually white. The town of Conjeveram is full of fine trees and low houses. Fantastic figures in wood in the thousand-pillared hall are carried in procession on festival occasions. A large number of naiitch girls are kept in this 6q CHAIN CUT OUT OF A SINGLE STONE; PILLARS 27 FEET APART, CHILLAMBARAM. S MM^^^^^ ll DOUBLE GALLERY, CHILLAMBARAM. MADRAS PRESIDENCY. temple. The gopuras are full of chambers, but all unoccupied. This is strange, for their great height must conduce to airiness and coolness. But when asked, the Brahmans said they dared not sleep there, for fear of being attacked by evil spirits, ghosts of Brahmans turned into devils ; and they used both the Sanscrit and Eng- lish word explaining the forms as high-caste devils. About three hours before reaching Madras forty miles south, on the coast, are the ruins of an extensive town cut in rock, and called Mahavalipur, or the Seven Pagodas. Here are many curious excavations and carvings in the rock — groups of monkeys ; the boar's temple, representing Vishnu as a boar ; the tiger's cave, a cave surrounded with tiger's heads carved in the rock. Another singularly sculptured rock, forty feet high and twice as long presents a hundred strange figures of men, women, monkeys, and elephants. The shore temple is washed by the waves, and the legend tells of many similar buildings partially submerged. ENTRANCE TO THE PAGODA, CONJEVERAM. Southey, in his Curse of Kekama, refers to this legend of a submerged city thus : " For many an age Hath ocean warred against his palaces. Till overwhelmed beneath the waves — Not overthrown — so well the awful chief Had laid their deep foundations Their golden summits in the noonday light Shone o'er the dark green deep that rolled between, Her domes and pinnacles and spires were seen Peering above the sea, a mournful sight. And on the sandy shore, beside the verge Of ocean, here and there a rock-cut fane Resisted in its strength the surf and surge That on their deep foundations beat in vain." Mahavalipur is, according to Mr. Fergusson, a petrified Buddhist village, applied to the purposes of another religion, but representing Buddhist forms in the seventh 70 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. century, when Buddhism was dying out. Doubtless it had some connection with Ceylon. The people who carved these curious monuments seem, says Mr. F., sud- denly to have settled on a spot where no temples existed before, and to have set to work at once to fashion the detached granite boulders they found on the shore into nine raths or miniature temples. They pierced the side of the hill with fourteen caves, carved two long bas-reliefs, and then abandoned them unfinished. The raths are close together on the sandy beach south of the hill of caves. The roofs are ornamented with ranges of little recesses or simulated cells, which characterize the MAHAVALIPUR : THE CHAITIYA. Dravidian temples, and are surmounted by a dome, an equally universal feature. These singular ruins, while they are memorials of Buddhism in its decay, throw light upon the history of the Dravidian buildings, which probably were originally of wood, and from about the seventh century began to be constructed in stone. Regarding the Hinduism of Southern India, as embodied in these temples. Dr. Monier Williams says : " Religion is even more closely interwoven with every affair of daily life, and is even more showily demonstrative in the south of India than in the north. A dis- tinction must be pointed out between Brahmanism and Hinduism. Brahmanism is the purely pantheistic and not necessarily idolatrous creed evolved by the Brahmans out of the religion of the Veda. Hinduism is that complicated system of polytheistic doctrines, idolatrous superstitions, and caste usages which have been developed out of Brahmanism after its contact with Buddhism and its admixture with the non-Aryan 71 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. GREAT RATH AT MAHAVALIPUR. creeds of the Dravidians and aborigines of Southern India. Brahmanism and Hinduism, though infinitely remote from each other, are integral parts of the same system. One is the germ or root, the other is the rank and diseased outgrowth. . . . . Vaishnavism and Saivism, or the worship of Vishnu and Siva, constitute the very heart and soul of Southern Hinduism. As to Brahma, the third member of the Hindu Triad, and original creator of the world, he is not worshiped at all, except in the person of his alleged offspring, the Brahmans. Moreover, Vaishnavism and Saivism are nowhere so pro- nounced and imposing as in Southern India. The temples of Conjeveram, Tanjore, Trlchi- nopoly, Madura, Tinnevelly, and Ramessveram are as superior in magnitude to those of Ben- ares as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's are to the other churches of London. Further- more, it must not be forgotten that although a belief in devils, and homage to bhutas, or spirits of all kinds, are common all over India, yet what is called ' devil worship ' is far more systemati- cally practiced in the South of India and in Ceylon than in the North. The god Siva is constantly connected with demoniacal agencies, either as superintending and controlling them, ■or as himself possessing, especially in the person of his wife Kali, all. the fierce- ness and malignity usually attributed to demons All honor to those noble- hearted missionaries who are seeking by the establishment of female schools to supply India with its most pressing need — good wives and mothers — and are training 72 DETAILS OF ENTRANCES TO SUBTERRANEAN TEMPLES, MAHAVALIPUR. MADRAS PRESIDENCY. girls to act as high-class schoohnistresses, and sending them forth to form new centers of female education in various parts of Southern India." No city, perhaps, in the world has a site so utterly unpropitious and disadvan- tageous as Madras. On a coast exposed without shelter to the northeast monsoon, with a barrier of sand lashed continually by a surf passable in fine weather only by native boats of singular construction, manned by native boatmen, and in foul weather insurmountable even by these, with no navigable river flowing into the sea, it spreads along the border of a wilderness of barren sand in the torrid zone, exposed to the un- sheltered glare of a scorching sun. The first British settlement was at Armagan, sixty miles north, but in 1639 was abandoned for the miserable spot, granted in irony by a native prince, upon which Fort St. George was built. Nothing more strikingly illus- trates the power of British pluck and enterprise than the present aspect of Madras. Along that inhospitable coast for a distance of nine miles, and covering that sandy waste, there now stretches a thriving city, with an area of twenty-seven square miles, and a population of four hundred thousand. Along that unprotected roadstead the ships of all nations ride at anchor to take in or discharge cargo ; and from the city the iron horse wends its way northwesterly across the continent, eight hundred miles in forty hours, to Bombay, and sends its tracks southward almost to Cape Comorin. The meridian of Madras now gives its time to the entire railway system of India. Spreading over this wide area, Madras is an aggregation of no less than twenty-three towns and villages, with public buildings, Euro- pean residences, warehouses, and even shops, in park-like inclosures, filling up the intervening spaces. Beginning with the north, there is Roya- puram, with the Tinnevelly settlement ; then the Black Town, defended from the encroachments of the sea by a strong stone bulwark, and with seven wells of water, filtered through the sand, pure and wholesome. The population of these two is one hundred and fifty thousand. Next comes Fort St. George, the first nucleus of the city, strongly fortified, containing the arsenal, council house, and the Fort church, with its monument to the missionary Schwartz ; and be- yond, the island and the Governor's house and gardens. Then southward, Tripli- cane, the Mohammedan quarter, with eighty thousand souls ; and beyond this St. Thome, the traditional site of the martyrdom of the Apostle Thomas. Inland, be- yond the Fort and the Black Town, are Chintadrepettah and Vepery, in which stands the church where the Lutheran missionary Sartorius preached for many years, and where the London Mission has its compound. The view from the lighthouse, one hundred and eleven feet high, is extensive ; one sees the entire city, and%he shore for miles. The houses for the most part are yellow, covered with the stucco called chunam, which when dried and polished has the appearance of the finest marble. The grounds round the European houses are well planted, and the country now presents ENTRANCES TO SUBTERRANEAN TEMPLES, MAHAVALIPUR. 73 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. TIGER CAVE, MAHAVALIPUR. a green and cheerful aspect. Mount Road, running south and inland, leads to many- bungalows and hotels. The drive along the beach to the Capper House is the pleasantest in Madras. Here one meets the sea breeze, appropriately called by the residents "The Doctor." Here we pass the most impos- ing of the public buildings of the city, in partic- ular the University. It was strange to see on the Sunday the punkas swinging during service in the churches. Like huge weavers ' beams with heavy curtains, they are kept in motion by means of cords pulled from the outside by two natives, who keep each other awake. However strict a Sabbatarian, the minister as well as the people must have the punka kept going over his head throughout the service, In Madras we visited two large hospitals ; the one in the Foreign Town supported by Europeans and conducted upon the English system, the other in the Native Town and under native superintendence. The general hospital in the Foreign Town is a very large and well- ventilated building. It has spacious corridors, wide and shady verandas, and noble wards. The doors were open on every hand, mainly toward the verandas ; and a refreshing breeze, passing gently through, relieved the heat, which in this climate is so oppressive to the patient. In every ward freshness and cheerfulness seemed to bespeak a cure. Hopefulness was upon the countenances even of the most afflicted, and pleasant pictures and beautiful flowers gladdened the ej'e. The matron is a lady, clever and kind. Her apart- ments are at the top of the building, on which a garden is laid out, and which commands an ex- tensive view. The other hospital, that in the Black Town, was, I regret to say, a contrast to all this. It is called the Choultry Poorhouse and Hospital. Here mute misery was written on every face. The patients had no bedclothes. The paupers lie on a mat on the floor. The portion set apart for lepers presented a most painful spectacle. Those who were in the early stages of the disease were all oiled, and were sitting on their haunches, rubbing and scratch- ing themselves uneasily. Two young men, brothers, presented two different types of the disease. The one was not in the least disfigured ; the other was frightfully so, the face being covered with blotches. But whatever the form it assumes, the disease is incurable. In its later stages ulcers appear, and eat off fingers and toes, features 74 ENTRANCE TO ROCK TEMPLE, MAHAVA- LIPUR. MADRA S PRESIDENC \ \ and limbs. Several poor wretches in great suffering- were plastering their own sores, the materials for doing so being handed to them at the point of a long wand. It was a revolting sight. Most of the sufferers were natives, but a few knew English. To these I spoke a few words about the Lord Jesus and the lepers. It was all one could then do. Sickened and saddened, we next went through bare and comfortless wards for aged and infirm men and women, who here drag out the residue of their days of sorrow. There is also a foundling ward. The foundlings seemed to be in great wretchedness. In this hospital there were 250 patients, and the average was at that time ten deaths a week.' During the awful famine of 1878, there were nine thousand inmates kept in a sort of camp, and an average of thirty deaths a day. The dead were burnt in heaps SELLERS OF MILK, MADRAS. by contract daily. In this lazar house there were, when we visited it, 250 patients in hospital, 265 in the almshouses, 42 in the Rajah's Choultry, and 250 lepers ; mak- ing a total of 817 souls. The horrors of that famine year are untold and untellable. As the wagons of grain passed from the shore to the railway, they had to be guarded with a strong military force ; but the starving would risk blows and sabers and horses' hoofs to pierce the sacks, so that the grain might trickle out ; and after- ward hundreds might be seen eagerly picking up the grains that had fallen upon the road. In punishment for this offense all who could be captured were driven into pens set up upon the shore, and confined there without food or water, and under the blaze of the sun, for four and twenty hours. Thus many perished. And this was not in re- mote districts, but at the headquarters of British power, pomp, and fashion in South India — in Madras itself! Inland, they died of famine by hundreds. "I do not ' Great advance has been made in India, latterly, in all departments of medical work. I visited 208 lepers in one hospital where everything was scrupulously neat and where the only odor was the perfume of flowers. — Ed. 75 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. know," said an eye witness, a government dispenser of relief, " I do not know what we should have done without the dogs and vultures." No account of Madras would be complete without a reference to the Free Church College, which stands first among the educational establishments of Southern India. It was begun in 1837 by the well-known missionary, Dr. Anderson, whose name is in the south what the name of Dr. Duff is in the north, and within a year there were two hundred and seventy scholars. But then it was suddenly broken up by the agency of " that hydra-headed monster," Caste. Two Pariah boys were admitted, and the rest left. Dr. Anderson was entreated to dismiss the Pariah boys, but he was firm, and he gained the victory. By-and-by the youths returned, and Pariah and Brahman might be seen sitting side by side on the same bench, learning the same lessons. This was a blow given to caste that has been felt throughout Southern India, and felt to the present day. The numbers soon rose to five hundred, and ever since the college has maintained its position as the most efficient in Madras. It is a striking fact that the three Presidency cities in India — Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay — possess colleges organized by Scotchmen, which have accomplished greater results in producing an enlightened and well-trained body of natives in India than any other society, nay more, than the Government itself. At Tirupetty, about fifty miles from Madras, there is an old temple much fre- quented by pilgrims, and very interesting to the student of Indian architecture. Pursuing the path up the hill, we go through three towers curiously carved. The hill is two thousand five hundred feet high, and has seven summits, on the last of which is the pagoda. Along the top are ruined houses, forming a quadrangle, with stone wall inclosure. A tower rises above these, and around is a broad belt of mango, tamarind, and sandal trees. It is said to be one of the oldest Dravidian temples. West of Madras about sixty miles is Arcot^ the famous town which Clive pounced upon in 1751, that he might relieve Trichinopoly. The garrison, seeing Clive's troops marching on steadily in the teeth of a thunder storm, thought they were fireproof, and abandoned the place. Entering it, Clive held the place during a fifty days' siege, and repelled the assaults of Mohammedan troops. Arcot is now a large and prosperous town.' Beyond lies Mysore, one of the most flourishing of the native tributary states in India, occupying a table-land, lofty, well-wooded, and cool, where is the famous Seringapatam, now almost in ruins, and Bangalore, one of the healthiest cities in India, with a large British settlement. Scattered over the table- land are many huge isolated rocks called drilgs, four thousand feet above the sea, and formerly used as fortresses. Coorg is a mountainous district, thickly wooded, with extensive coffee and tea plantations. Worthiest of record is the name of a native, Samuel Flavel, a man of great originality, intellectual power, and untiring zeal, who for twenty years, 1 826-1 847, was instrumental in spreading Christianity, with its civilizing influences, in Mysore. The coast voyage from Madras to Calcutta occupies eight days, and gives an opportunity of seeing the main ports, the steamer calling daily at some place on the way, and stopping four or six hours. Of the entire voyage the most difficult and dis- agreeable part often is the passage over the surf from the shore to the ship. The ' Occupied by the American Board in 1851. Dr. Henry Martyn Scudder started the mission. He was afterward pastor in Brooklyn and Chicago. Seven sons of John Scudder, M. D., became missionaries in the land of their birth. — Ed. 76 ^8 PORTION OF GOPURA AT TIRUPETTY. MADRAS PRESIDENCY. MADRAS SURF. morning was calm ; yet the huge billows were rolling in in all their majesty and strength. There lay our Masulah boat waiting to receive us. These boats are twenty-five feet long, eight feet broad, six feet deep, flat bottomed, pointed, and curved up high at either end. They are exceedingly light, drawing only three inches of water. There is not a nail in theni nor a rib of timber. They are sewn too-ether withcocoanut fiber, and padded inside with straw, outside with tow. Thej^ yield to the force of the wave and to the bump of the shore. As they lie on the sand, they seem to you immovable ; but the native boatmen, twelve in number, soon push their obedient and easily managed craft into the advancing lip of the wave ; it is carried out as this retreats, and they dexterously jump in, lay hold of their paddles, and pull with their might. The helmsman steers with a long and pow- erful oar, and thus keeps the bow to the waves. And now you see approachino- the next yawning wave high above you, and threatening to engulf you ; but meeting it, the sloping bow mounts up perpendicularly, shipping perhaps a quantity of spray, but springing first to the top and then over the crest of the huge billow, and down again into the shallow water left as the wave rolls on. In calm weather only three of these huge billows are dangerous, and these surmounted you are safe. But the boatmen have been trained to the work from boyhood, and handle their craft with marvelous skill. Though a daily feat, the novelty seems never to wear off. They are all excitement, and cheer over each leap and plunge. Besides the Masulah boats, another kind of craft is used by the natives, called a catamaran, which is simply a raft constructed of three pieces of timber ten or twelve feet long, tied together, the mid- dle one being longer than the others and curved upward at the ends. It is driven through the surf by a man with a paddle, who is often washed off, but is so well practiced that he leaps on again in an instant. With these amphibious creatures the catamaran keeps on its way where a boat would inevitably be lost. It took us half an hour in the Masulah boat to reach our ship, the boatmen keeping time to a monotonous soncr. 79 MADRAS PRESIDENCY. The first port off which we anchored on our coasting voyage northward was Masulipatam, a very old city, of forty thousand inhabitants, situated in the Telugu District, between the deltas of the two mighty rivers, the Krishna and the Godavery. Telugu is the most melodious and soft of the Dravidian languages, and is spoken throughout the portion of the Madras Presidency extending northward to Orissa. It is also spoken far inland in the Nizam's dominions. The great rivers the Krishna and the Godavery form the characteristic physical features of the country. Both rise in the Western Ghauts, seventy miles northwest of Bombay, and sweep across the vast table-land from west to east, flowing right across the Indian peninsula, winding their way by deep defiles through the Eastern Ghauts, and spreading over the country in immense deltas as they empty themselves into the sea. Formerly these rivers were a peril to the country, overflowing their banks and sweeping whole villages away. PALMYRAS IN THE GODAVERY. But the irrigation works of modern enterprise " have turned the furious streams into ministering angels." Colossal anic2its, or dams, have with immense labor been thrown across them, and the water is carried by canals over the whole country, which has thus become one of the richest grain-producing districts in India. Masulipatam possesses a cotton manufacture, distinguished for the bright and beautiful colors of its cloth. In the center of the city, where the streets meet, are thirty-three huge limestone slabs covered with alto- and bas-reliefs brought from the ruins of a neigh- boring pagoda. Masulipatam is the center of the operations of the Church Mis- sionary Society in this part of India ; the noble high school for the thorough education of young Hindus is distinguished in influence and success, and its pupils are to be found in almost every department as sub-magistrates, schoolmasters, and even deputy collectors. Inland, at Guntur, the American Lutherans have a flour- ishing mission. In this district are the Buddhist topes of Amravati, fragments of which are in the British Museum. The rails are the most richly ornamented in India, and furnish a series of pictures of Buddhism, "unsurpassed " says Fergusson, "by anything now known to exist in India." So '^ii^!i%^4 ■ ■ ■■'• 2; << o (J w o w H O K H P O W w W U g 2 Ph W > O P3 P P '** MADRAS PRESIDENCY. Another night's vogage brought us northward to Cocanada, north of the river in tlie Godavery District, where we spent our second day. Landing in the morning, we made our way to the compound of the Canadian Baptist Mission, dehghtfully shaded with banyan and pipul trees, and there we heard much of the marvelous conversions at Nellore and Ongole, where eight thousand natives had in one month embraced Christianity, owing to Christian Ivindness during the famine. Here we traveled inland about five miles in coffin-like palanquins, with twelve bearers to each, — who went dolefully along on the high banks of a canal, keeping time with their voices in the heat of the day,— to a lonely pagoda whose high tower is a revolting sight. It is, BRAHMAN PREPARED 1-OR PRAYERS. in fact, a mass of obscenity cut in stone, such as one could hardly imagine depravity itself capable of inventing. Yet this is part and parcel of the religion of Brahma, that religion upon the excellency of which some Sanscrit professors expatiate ! One sight of this temple at Cocanada would suffice to disabuse them of their fine pictures of Hinduism and of the elevating power of the Yedas. A few pet quotations are always at hand when one would praise Brahmanism. They are, in the oldest Vedas, grains of wheat in the bushel of chaff. If we would learn what the Hindu religion really is, and what are its practical fruits, we must visit the temples of India. Next morning we reached Vizag. The headland, one thousand seven hundred feet, as approached from the south, is called the Dolphin's Nose ; there is a huge cave on the sea-line, and the cliffs are imposing. On the hill above the creek three strik- es MADRAS PRESIDENCY. ing buildings meet the eye : a heathen temple, a Mohammedan mosque, and a Roman Catholic church. As we landed, we saw crowds of poor women working as porters, and carrying huge boxes of cargo. Vizag is in the province called the Northern Circars, extending about five hundred miles along the Bay of Bengal, and among the earliest possessions of the East India Company. The natives are a fine class of men, both in physique and in character, and live under the simple form of village government. The London Mission here was founded in 1805, at a time when the Company dis- countenanced missions. But it has held its ground, and its missionaries have trans- lated the Scriptures into Telugu. I met the venerable John Hay, the chief translator and master of the language, who has been here for forty years. The Telugu language is, Mr. Hay says, in its primitive forms, much simpler than in its more modern development. On account of its soft accent and musical tones, it has been called by Europeans the Italian of the East. Eight miles from Gopalpur is Berhampur, chief town of the district of Ganjam. Here there is a flourishing Baptist Mission. This district forms the extreme north of the Madras Presidency. Inland, and behind the strip of the Madras Presidency, running up thus far north along the coast, are two large tracts of territory, the Central Provinces, now belong- ing to Britain, and Haidarabad, belonging to the Nizam of the Deccan. The district called the Central Provinces is not thickly peopled, the country being hilly and forest land. The chief town, Nagpur, contains about eighty thousand inhabitants. There are extensive coal-fields, and cotton is much cultivated. The Deccan is a name applied to the entire central plateau of the Indian Peninsula, of which Haidarabad forms the northern portion. The Vindhya Mountains, running east and west, form a great wall, separating the Deccan and the Ganges valley. They extend from Mount Parasnath in the east to Mount Abu in the west. Near the city of Haidarabad is the British settlement called Secunderabad, eighteen hundred feet above the sea, where are the largest barracks in India. The Godavery river flows though this district east- ward, and it is crossed by the railway connecting Madras with Bombay. Not far from Haidarabad is Golconda ; and near the fort, on the top of a conical hill, the tombs of the kings are well worth a visit. Their vastness and solidity are most impressive. The diamonds of Golconda were merely cut and polished here, being found at Partial. Chanda stands amid charming scenery. The Free Church of Scotland has flourishlng missions at Nagpur and at the settlement called Jalna, a British cantonment in the Nizam's dominions. 84 H a o o O s w 00 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. ORISSA AND JUGGERNAUT— CALCUTTA AND ITS SURROUNDINGS — BARRACKPORE — SERAM- PORE DARJEELING AND THE HIMALAYAS — THE GREAT GANGETIC PLAIN. IN the coasting voyage from Madras we have the Madras Presidency still on our left, northward as far as Gopalpur. Here the country of the Northern Circars ends, and the coast of Orissa begins. The maritime part of Orissa forms the British district of Cuttack, called by seamen the Orissa Coast. The shore is flat and dreary, and inland appear several "saddle-hills" terminating in a chain of mountains running south. The extensive Chilka Lake is joined < I .(J to the sea by a narrow strait. ' >'Ci After leaving Gopalpur, our good steamer, keeping near to shore, brought us next mornino- to Pun in Orissa, and the far-famed Temple of Jugger- naut. This part of the coast is considered healthy, and the sea breeze is found very refreshincr. The houses of English residents are on the seashore, and the native town and temple, surrounded by high wall and luxuriant vegetation, lie a little inland. The temple inclosure measures four hundred and twenty by three hundred and fifteen feet, and the height of the great tower is one hundred and ninety-two feet. "Whitewash and paint," says Mr. Fergusson, "have done their worst to add vulgarity to forms already sufficiently ungraceful, and this, the most famous ' HIMALAYAN WOMAN. IS 87 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. also the most disappointing of Northern Hindu temples." It was erected in A. D. 1 1 74, and is the latest of the Orissa group of temples. It is dedi- cated to Vishnu, and pilgrims are continually on their way through Bengal to and from this temple. It is calculated that ten thousand pilgrims annually die either of disease or fatigue and want at Puri, or on the return journey. Those who live bring back with them umbrellas made of cane and palm-leaves, bundles of painted rattan canes, and backbones of cuttle-fish, to show that they have been on the seashore. These fish bones are called by the poetic name of "ocean foam." The street leading to the temple is full of sacred buildings, and the inhabitants of the town number thirty thousand. Three wooden images of revolting aspect, six feet high, represent the god Juggernaut, his brother, and his sister. Once a year, in the month of March, these are taken through the town, each idol in its car, that of Juggernaut being thirty-four feet high, with sixteen wheels. On these occasions a hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims are assembled. The Eng- lish Government has interfered to put an end to the self-immolations beneath its wheels. Mounted police, armed with heavy whips, accompany the car in its progress, and when a frenzied devotee throws himself in its way the whip is applied, and he immediately jumps up and runs away, forgetting that if he is willing to be killed he should be willing to bear the lash. The tradition of a bone of Krishna being con- tained in the image is regarded as a Brahmanical form of Buddhist relic worship, and the three images are supposed to be only the Buddhist Trinity — Buddha, Dharma, Sanga. The idol is, in fact, an imitation of the Buddhist emblem. Buddhism for- merly existed in Orissa, and the tooth-relic of Buddha was preserved at Puri. Every- thing at Puri is redolent of Buddhism. Another significant vestige of this system is the absence of all recog-nition of caste during the festivals. In the neighborhood of Juggernaut, on the coast, is the so-called Black Pagoda at Kanarak, of which only the beautiful three-storied porch remains, carved with elegance and variety. Orissa, indeed, abounds with temples, all of the same type, and very different from those of Southern India. The towers, or vimanas, have a curved outline ; they are not storied, and the buildings have no pillars. The Temple of Juggernaut is the latest, and the oldest is supposed to be the great Temple of Bhuvaneswar. " The Temple of Bhuvaneswar is," says Fergusson, " perhaps the finest example of a purely Hindu temple in India." It is three hundred feet long by seventj^-five broad. It consisted of a vimana, or tower, and a porch. It has a singularly solemn and pleasing aspect. Its height is one hundred and ^ighty feet, wholly of stone, and every inch of the surface is covered with elaborate carving. " Infinite labor be- stowed on every detail was the mode in which a Hindu thought he could render his temple most worthy of the deity ; and, whether he was right or wrong, the effect of the whole is marvelously beautiful." On Sunday, as we were passing Juggernaut Puri, our ship's company of passen- gers and officers were quietly gathered on deck to offer our common prayers to the great Father in heaven, to read His Word and to hear His Gospel. Again it was my lot to conduct service at sea, and the heaving of the ship formed an accompani- ment to the lessons and the sermon. On board was an officer high in rank, and in- spector of military schools, who spoke of what he had seen of the brutal treatment of the natives. A passing Hindu, he said, was rudely taken to task by Captain for not making a salaam to him. " Why should I ?" said the man ; "you have con- 90 LLACK PAGODA Al' KANAKAK, ORISSA. THE BENGAL PROVINCES. querecl our race, and I won't salaam." " Let us see the general," said the captain. The general said, "Make a salaam, sir." The man still firmly but calmly refused, and the general seized him by the neck, threw him to the ground, buried his face in the dust, and ordered the man fifty lashes. Thus by sheer brute force was this PAGODA, NEAR CUTTACK. Hindu punished for an independence which we should honor in an Englishman. The mild Hindu submits to the English as to a conquering race, and all he can do is to be patient and bide his time. If not subdued by justice and kindness, he will seek his revenge some day. In the afternoon we anchored at False Point, outside the mud-locked harbor at the mouth of the JMahanadi River. It is a dismal spot, with a house on the beach and a lio-hthouse in the distance. A few cargo boats and native vessels were swing- ing at anchor and rolling lazily with the tide. From this place a steam-launch runs, 91 THE BENGAL PRO VINCES. Or rather crawls up the river to Cuttack, the capital of Orissa, whither some of our passengers were bound. When Akbar built Attock, or Attack, on the Indus, Kattack and Attack were spoken of as the two extremes of the Mogul Empire. Seventy miles be- yond Cuttack is the famous Bar- mul Pass, eight miles long, between peaked ridges and hills covered with jungle, through which the Mahanadi flows rapidly. The scenery is said somewhat to re- semble the Lower Danube. And now weighing anchor, and taking our pilot on board, we started up that narrow and dan- gerous branch of the Ganges called the Hoogly. After stopping at Diamond Harbor, a turn or reach in the river with its signal flagstaff, where particulars are given as to the height of the tide at the bars, we made our way cautiously up past "James and Mary," the most dangerous of the rapids, all hands on board being in readiness to let go the anchor if we should ground. At Garden Reach our ship was turned round, and was steamed stern foremost up to Government House, Calcutta, amidst a crowd of shipping reminding one of Liverpool. Calcutta, City of Karli, ninety miles from the sea, and on the east bank of the Hoogly, which here flows directly south, is a city not two centuries old. It was founded by Job Charnock, who set up a factory here in 1690, mar- ried a Hindu wife, and as to religion led a Hindu life. In 1742 the famous ditch was cut to pro- tect the settlement against the Mahratta cavalry. It ran along the ground now marked by the Circular Road. The settlement, in spite of this, was captured by the Nawab, wjien, on the 19th of June, 1756, a hundred and forty-six Europeans were imprisoned 92 H P O ►J < < < en M 2; > O w ►J s w H o 2; < THE BENGAL PROVINCES. in the Black Hole, a small chamber eighteen feet square in the Fort, and one liun- dred and twenty-three were smothered to death. The Black Hole was destroyed in 1818. In January of 1757 Clive won back the settlement; and the place has gradually grown in size and importance until now it is the center of Government, the seat of the Viceroy, and, if we include Howrah, on the opposite bank of the river, now connected with the city by a bridge, it numbers nine hundred thousand inhabitants. The Government House is a huge and imposing building, and in it is that famous Council Room, with the portraits of Hastings and others on its i.valls, where the welfare or fate of millions of souls has often hung in the balance. In the immediate neighborhood are the modern and majestic Law Courts, with towers and fretted roof. Behind, rises the dome of the Post Office, a noble building ; and BANYAN IN CALCUTTA BOTANIC GARDENS. along the road called Chowringee, looking out upon the Maidan, or common, six miles in circumference, are the large houses, each within its gardens or "compound," that have won for the place the name " City of Palaces"; while the ravages of climate upon the health of European residents have suggested the parody, "City of Pale Faces." There are many statues and monuments about the Maidan, the creatures of official inspiration. To the west is the river, with its forest of masts ; and Fort William, which covers some acres between the Maidan and the river to the south, is an imposing barrack with a very noble church. To the north runs the Chidpore Road, through the Black Town, full of natives and native shops, and parallel with it Cornwallis Street, noted for its charitable and educational institu- tions. These institutions all over Calcutta stand as the memorials of illustrious names. Here it was that Bishop Wilson toiled, and here stands his church, St. John's. Here, too, in a conspicuous position, stands the Scotch Church, where the zealous and self-denying Dr. Duff labored. In Cornwallis Square is the College which he first founded, now in the hands of the Scotch Established Church ; near it is the Free Church College, afterward built by Dr. Duff, in which he taught for 95 THE BENGAL PRO VINCES. many years, and where a thousand young men and boys are daily assembled for religious and secular education. It is a giant building, and in the center hall, where the school is wont to assemble to hear the Scriptures every morning, now stands a bust of that noble presence, placed there in loving remembrance of the founder. Not far off, on the banks of the river, is the Burning Ghaut, in the native quarter, where the process of cremation may be wit- nessed every day. Early one morning, after the usual CJiota Hazri, or " little breakfast," served in the bedroom before rising, I was taken by a friend in a boat down the Hoogly to the Botanic Gardens, beyond the deserted- lookine Bishop's College. The air on the and damp, reminding one a little of London fog, a strange contrast to the noonday heat of the city. A few boatmen were ply- ing their craft lazily along. Opposite was the palace of the deposed monarch of Oude, who keeps tigers in his grounds. Landinof at a wharf on the west bank, we at once entered the gardens, which cover three hundred acres, and happily combine the nat- ural with the artificial ; they contain beautiful specimens of the Maurit- ius, the talipot, the sago, and other palms, a large variety of crotons, and, above all, a great ban- yan tree, with a girth of eighteen yards, whose branches and descending roots extend to a circum- ference of three hundred yards. The same day we visited Kalighat, which gave its name to Calcutta, and is situated on the bank of an old bed of the Ganges, four miles south of the city. The legend is that when the corpse of the goddess Kali, wife of Siva, was cut in pieces by order of the gods, one of her fingers fell here, and a temple was raised in her honor. The present temple was built three hundred years ago, and renewed in 1809; its priests are called " Haldar," and amass great wealth from the daily offerings of pilgrims. 96 RELIGIOUS MENDICANT. THE BENGAL PRO VINCES. There are many festivals, to which immense crowds resort, especially on the second day of the Diirja Puja, the great Bengali religious festival in honor of the goddess, held at the autumnal equinox. The street off which the temple lies is full of shops for the sale of idol pictures, images, and charms. When we arrived, sacrifices were being offered in the midst of an excited crowd. In an area before the temple stood the priest, and beside him the executioner, sword in hand. We saw three kids and two buffaloes sacrificed. The head of the victim is fastened in a wooden vise, its body is held up by the hind legs, and the sacrificer strikes with his sword. If the head is severed with one stroke, the victim is considered acceptable to the goddess, and its blood is collected by the priest, carried into the shrine, and sprinkled upon her huge projecting tongue. We could see in the distance the hideous idol within, its tongue streaming with blood. If the head of the animal is not severed with the first stroke, it is considered unacceptable, and is cast aside. The officiating Brahman, almost naked, with the sacred cord round his neck, was a fierce-looking, but very shrewd man. He could speak English. We found that he had been, when a boy, five years at the Bhowanipore Mission School, and that a near kinsman of his was a convert to Christianity and a missionary. Upon my saying, " How can you carry on these revolting rites? You know that they are vain, and a pretense," he replied, " Yes, I know it ; but the people will have it, and I must get my living." The man evidently disbelieved in his heathenism, and might be a professor of Christianity, if he saw it would pay. It was strange and saddening to see these bloody, exciting, and degfrading- rites amid a huge oratherinor of devotees, within a few miles of English civ- ilization and fashion. Only a mile away is the large college and compound of the London Mission. Two miles nearer town stands the cathedral of St. Paul, in Gothic style, with its library and statue of Bishop Heber. And in the evening the fashion- ables of Calcutta, pale and listless, might be seen rolling in gay equipages, in lines three deep, across the Maidan, and by the shipping along the river-side, and eatherinof round the band in the Eden Gardens. In the temple area at Kali- ohat, around the shrine of Kali, von see Hindu caste and idolatry in all their proud and devout barbarism ; the same day, at evening, in the Eden Gardens, around the band, you may witness the pomp and vanity of Anglo- Indian caste, from the haught}' Col- lector, who lives upon the taxes, to the industrious tradesman who pays them. Brahman and Sudra you find alike in both assemblies ; and it is not easy to decide which is the more unreasonable and inexcusable, the heathen or the official pride. The Mohammedans of Calcutta have a large educational establishment, called the Madrisa, wdiere the pupils are instructed in languages and Mohammedan law, and graduate at the Calcutta Uni- 97 SERAMPORE COLLEGE. THE BENGAL PROVINCES. versity. The new theistic sect called the Brahmosomaj has a mandir, or church, for the " Progressive Brahmos," as the party headed by K. C. Sen is called. They have normal and adult schools, and a small girls' school. The Hindu College, in College Square, is a handsome building of the Ionic order. Starting one morning early by railway from Sealdah Station, we traveled about eighteen miles north to Samnuggur, where we were taken over a cotton factory, and found the rooms as airy as in Lancashire, though, of course, hotter. The MARTYN S HOME, ALDEEN, SERAMPORE. workpeople looked healthy and content. The average wages per month are, for a girl, ten shillings ; a woman, sixteen shillings ; a man, thirty-two shillings. The Hoogly, which flows close by, is deep and wide, and there is an interesting old temple, with beautifully carved stone, in the neighborhood. The view is very picturesque, commanding a reach of the river, teeming with rural beauty. Farther up are Hugh and Bandel, where is a monastery said to be the oldest in Bengal, dating from 1599. Returning to Barrackpore, on the same line, we drove through the park, a charming, quiet retreat, not unlike Kew Gardens, on the banks of the Hoogly, whither the Viceroy usually comes to spend the Sunday. The house com- mands a noble prospect six miles down the river. A short distance off is Lady Canning's tomb, which occupies a charming spot on the banks of the river. Her 98 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. remains have long since been removed to England. The park contains many good trees, palms of various kinds, banyan trees, lovely pine-like casuarinas, and graceful bamboos. In the neighborhood are the filtering-beds, through which the waters of the Ganges pass to supply Calcutta. Immediately opposite, on the west bank of the river, is Serampore, — once a Danish settlement, — thirteen miles from Calcutta, where are the famous Baptist Col- lege and the scenes of the labors of Carey, Marshman, and Ward. Carey landed at Calcutta in 1793, and after some struggles for subsistence set up a printing press. His colleagues came in 1797; and they would all have been reshipped by the authorities, had they not found refuge at Serampore, under the protection of the Danish flag. The college is a substantial building, with a noble staircase, and possesses a fine library, in which is an interesting collection of Bibles in Oriental languages, and some valuable manuscripts. One of Carey's, a ployglot dictionary of Sanscrit words, with the corresponding word in six languages, is beautifully Avritten, and shows the toil and perseverance of its author. The burial-ground is about half a mile distant, where lie the mortal remains of Carey, Ward, and Marsh, man. Carey's tomb has this inscription : William Carey. Born, 17th August, 1761 ; Died, 9th June, 1834. A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I (all. The tombs of all three missionaries have domes, supported on pillars ; but the ground has the air of neglect and decay, and the wall near Carey's tomb is broken down. We next drove to the Danish church in which Carey preached. It is now in the hands of the Establishment. Near the mission chapel a large jute factory has been erected. Not far off, on the river side, at Aldeen, stood the pagoda where another eminent missionary, Henry Martyn, took up his abode on his arrival in India in the year 1806, and where he spent many hours in learning Hindustani and translating portions of the Scriptures. It is a picturesque spot. He thus speaks of it in his journal : " The habitation assigned me by Mr. Brown is a pagoda in his grounds, on the edge of the river. Thither I retired at night, and really felt something like superstitious dread at being in a place once inhabited, as it were, by devils ; but yet felt disposed to be triumphantly joyful, that the temple where they were worshiped was become Christ's Oratory. I prayed out aloud to my God, and the echoes returned from the vaulted roof. Oh ! may I so pray that the dome of heaven may resound ! I like my dwelling much, it is so retired and free from noise ; it has so many recesses and cells that I can hardly find my way in and out." The building has in part been washed away by the river. Serampore has a calm and cheerful aspect, with its clean, shady roads. It is a pleasant suburban retreat, but factories are gaining ground, and the mission has the air of decay. Carey's Botanical Garden of six acres, which contained three thousand species of plants and trees, is now jungle, and has recently been sold for business purposes. There is a considerable silk manufacture here. It is sad to see the scenes of many 3'ears of Christian labor, and the fruits of missionary enterprise associated with revered names, thus on the decline. The headquarters of the mission, it should 99 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. however, be remembered, have been removed to Calcutta, Twelve miles farther on is the French settlement of Chandernagore, dating from 1688, pleasantly situated on the river side. It consists of a long row of white buildings interspersed with trees. But, as has been quaintly said, " it looks a little out at elbows, and has about it a shabby genteel sort ..„^^^ iiLfiiij *^; u t i All depend for fjj air. Assam, with its capital Shillong, in the Khasi Hills, in- cludes the fertile Brahmaputra valley, with its rich black soil. Its hills in the \ east contain lime- / stone and coal beds, c and tea is largelj^ cultivated on their '.' > lower slopes. The population is four millions, chiefly Hin- dus and Mohammedans, their livelihood upon agriculture, and the staple crop is rice. The climate is very humid, and fogs often rise from the river. Darjeeling, " Holy Spot," as the word signifies, the hill station nearest to Cal- cutta, lies north about four hundred miles. The Eastern Bengal Railway runs in a northerly direction for about a hundred miles over the plains of Bengal, in about five hours, to Damookdea on the Ganges. It passes near Krishnuggur, a town of forty thousand inhabitants, where the Church Mission has its headquarters for the district ; and thirty miles west is Plassey, where Clive won, in 1757, the memorable victory from which virtually dates the British supremacy in North India. A large steam ferry conveyed us across the Ganges from Damookdea in forty minutes. It is a perilous passage, owing to the strong current and the shoals ; two men were taking soundings, one on each side the vessel, all the way across. At Sara Ghat, we again entered the train, and traveled all night, two hundred miles, stopping at many sta- tions, till we reached the temporary terminus, Silliguri, at about 10 a. m. Here, with much difficulty, and after some hours' delay, we obtained wretched ponies to take us on to Kursiong, half-way to Darjeeling ; but our ponies traveled so slowly across the Serai, or swamp of low-lying jungle, the seat of malarious fever, which forms a deadly belt along the foot of the hills across the north of India, separating the ON THE WAY TO THE HIMALAYAS. THE BENGAL PROVINCES. Himalayas, that darkness came on before we began to ascend, and we rode in faith along the road, which at the time was undergoing repair, till we reached the Dak Bungalow of Chambattie, where we put up for the night.' The Dak Bungalow is an Inn, or Rest House, provided by Government for travelers, one-storied, with verandas, often perched on a knoll ; with scanty furniture and scantier fare. It is in charge of a native called a Khansamah, who locks it up when empty, and appears on the ground to open it when you call. A tariff of prices, — very moderate, — a list of rules, a list of articles provided, and a carefully drawn map of the district hang on the walls. After some delay we got candles and chocolate and bread ; but it was too late to procure the usual repast of roast fowl, or " sudden death," as this dish is called in the East, the creature being usually killed and dressed TRAVELLR r. iiLNc.ALUi within half-an-hour of your arrival. We turned in, after giving directions to the khansamah to look after our ponies, and to prepare an early morning meal. The silence of the hills was impressive : here and there a firefly; here and there, across the valley, or through the trees, the twinkle of the light in a native hut. At daybreak next morning we were again in the saddle, and rode ten miles, over lovely hills with wooded sides and varied ravines, clad in forest and brushwood, to Kursiong. The views were fine, and the verdure beautiful. The air was delightfully clear and cool, and peasants of the native tribes were passing to their work along the mountain, paths. Kursiong is four thousand six hundred feet above the sea, a village perched on the ridge of a hill ; and here we had our first sight of the Himalayas. Kinchinjunga, the second highest of the range, twenty-eight thousand feet, was full in view, though sixty miles away. The sight was grand and impressive. The air be- came more keen and bracing, and after the refreshment of breakfast in a comfortable inn, we mounted fresh ponies and started on the remaining twenty miles. The road is lovely in the extreme, skirting the flanks and rounding the spurs of the mountains, ' The time from Calcutta to Darjeeling, 379 miles, is now about twenty-four hours, all rail. — [Ed. 103 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. carried by bridges over deep ravines with roaring torrents, and adorned with luxuriant tropical vegetation, splendid orchids, graceful tree-ferns, flowering creepers, and noble trees. After crossing the ridge called " the Saddle," we came through the barracks used as a convalescent depot, and rode on to the delightfully placed lodgings which we had beforehand engaged, distant just fifteen minutes' walk from the Observatory Hill and the Mall, and with the sublime snows towering high before us — a spot much frequented by Calcutta officials during the hot season. At sunrise on Sunday morning I walked round the Mall and up to the Observa- tory, which commands a full view of the stupendous scenery. Never did I under- stand so fully the force of the apostle's expression, " depth and height," as now that I had before me the giant mountains, and looked down into the depths, deeper and deeper still, six thousand feet, into the forest-clad ravine of the Great Ranjit river, and then slowly raised my eyes higher and higher, through the successive ridges of foliage and rocks, till they reached the eternal snows, and still far up and up to the peaks soaring into the sky. From the lowest point which the eye can reach in the Ranjit valley to the highest peak of Kinchinjunga, the verti- cal height is not less than five miles- — such a thickness of the earth's crust being pro- bably nowhere else visible on the earth's surface. More than twelve peaks can be counted which rise above twenty thousand feet. The air was cold and bracing, the grass was crisp and white with frost ; the sun shot his raj's across in dazzling splendor, and in the stillness and bright- ness of the scene one felt as if transported to another world. After morning service in the little English church, I went down to the square bazaar, or market-place, which is crowded on Sundays with strange nationalities. Here were the old aborigines, the Lepchas, with Mongolian type of face, oblique eyes, high cheek-bones, clad in striped cotton garments ; the men with pigtails like the Chinese, the women with nose-rings and large silver ornaments, some with strings of rupees. They are a small, plain, but powerful-looking race, inured to hardship, nomadic, but amiable. Their besetting sin is gambling. They are a merry and careless people, with but lit- tle thought of the morrow. They are very fond of quoits, using pieces of slate for the purpose, which they throw with great dexterity. They always wear a long knife, curved like a sickle and stuck in the girdle, which serves them to fell trees, skin ani- mals, build huts, pare their nails, sever their food, and even pick their teeth. Rice is their staple food. Their language is a Thibetan dialect, and their religion a cor- rupt Buddhism. HIMALAYA HII.L GIRL. t4 < •J o THE BENGAL FROi^JNCES. Here, too, in large numbers, were the Bhooteas, tall and robust, sturdy, flat- faced people, weather-beaten, with broad mouths and flat noses ; their complexion whitish yellow, but incrusted with dirt, and tar, and smoke. They seldom wash. They are dressed in loose blankets, girt about the waist with a leather belt, in which they place their brass pipes, their long knives, chopsticks, tinder-box, tobacco-pouch, and tweezers, with which they pluck away all trace of beard. They wear stout woven boots— boot and stocking in one. The women have their faces tarred, and their hair is plaited in two tails, the neck loaded with strings of coral and amber, large, heavy, round earrings dragging down the lobe of the ear. They are always spinning. The Bhooteas are Buddhists, and believe in the efficacy of praying- machines. When crossing mountains they hang little scraps of rag on the bushes, as a prayer for safety, and place grains of rice along the hill-side to propitiate evil spirits They bury their dead on the mountains, raising cairns over them. Here, again, one might see the light and agile Nepalese, with intelligent and pleasing countenances, active and enduring, and brave to a degree, as the Nepal war of 1816 witnesses. Their secluded valleys are rich in forest and minerals, and on the frontier indigo is largely grown. Their dogs are yellow-fanged, wolf-like, fierce, surly creatures, but invaluable watch-dogs. Nepal proper is a small valley twelve miles by nine at the foot of this part of the Himalayan range, but the country extends west from Sikkim to Kumaon. The ruling race are called Ghurkas. Here Buddhism and Vaishnavism are found side by side. The temples are of wood, and remind one of those of Japan. The temple of Mahadeva at Patan presents both styles of architecture, the Hindu and the Thibetan, or Turanian, side by side. The capital of Nepal is Khatmandu, and contains a beautiful temple in the Chinese style. The view of the Himalayas to the northeast is very grand. The ragged Lama mendicant is also to be met with, and Sherbas and Thibetan beggars, jovial, but easily excited. Intermingled with these native mountain tribes were stolid China- men, proud Mohammedans, and graceful Hindus. In the midst of the bustle and bartering, the missionary had his open room, or shed, into which the people came to hear hymn, or prayer, or Scripture. In the Bhootea village there is a small, dirty Buddhist temple called Bhootea Bustee. The Lamas, or priests, are also of a low type — unctuous, sly, insolent. They sell praying-machines and use them in their worship, continually turning them round. Indeed, you enter the temple between two huge cylinders, like pillars, two feet in diameter and six feet high, which are gigantic praying-machines, turned by means of a winch. Here we met many Thibet- ans returning to their country with heavy burdens. Rising one morning while it was yet dark and starlight, we mounted our ponies, and, with guides, started for the ascent of the Si.xxhal Mountain, eight thousand three hundred feet, six miles from Darjeeling. Riding through the military sana- torium to " the Saddle," or Johr Bungalow, we began the ascent up a steep winding track through the jungle, and after an hour's climb reached the Chimneys — the ruins of the first military station — perched upon a ridge, or shoulder, of Sinchal, where Kinchinjunga and its neighbor peaks burst on our view, kindled with the rays of the rising sun. The air was perfectly clear, and the sky cloudless. Here we dis- mounted, and scrambled through brushwood and snow to the summit, which is specially celebrated because of the glorious "prospect it commands— the sweep of the Himalayan range, including Everest itself, the presiding monarch of them all, 107 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. the highest mountain in the world. There he rose to our view, of sugarloaf shape, far off, but clear cut against the sky. The entire range, " Pelion on Ossa piled," was now before us as far as the eye could reach in a clear atmosphere and a cloudless sky. It was like looking from a Pisgah across the valleys and over mountains to a PALACE AND TEMPLE, KHATMANUU, NEPAL. new and loftier country. Here one is overwhelmed with the majesty of Nature and the power of the Almighty. The deep blue sky, the pure white snows, the clear-cut precipices, the dark, shady ravines, the dense primeval forests, all impress the spec- tator with the presence of God. Having filled the eye and mind with the sublimity of a prospect never to be forgotten during two hours spent on that green, but now frost-whitened mountain, we reluctantly descended to the shoulder where our ponies were, and returned thankful and exultant that we had been so favored in the weather ; for these grandeurs are often enveloped in mist or cloud for days together. The annual average rainfall at Darjeeling is nine feet eight inches — one hundred and sixteen inches — June to September being the wettest months. 1 08 THE BENGAL PROVINCES. ■M The descent from Darjeeling to the Ranjit river, which separates it from the Himalayan range, is six thousand feet in eleven miles, and the river is crossed by one of those cane bridges which are peculiar to this part of the world. The main chains supporting the bridge are branches of trees and rattan canes ; the sides are of split canes, hanging from each main chain, two feet apart. Into these loops the foot-path is laid, composed of three bamboos, the thickness of a man's arm, laid side by side, the section of the bridge resembling the letter V, in the angle or base of which tiie traveler finds footing. The piers' of these bridges are gene- ' ,' - Vv, A rally two«;onvenient trees through whose branches the main chains are passed and pegged into the ground beyond. Only one traveler can pass over at a time, and the spring and oscillation are considerable, but strong bamboos are placed under- neath and connected with the main chains by split rattan ropes to pre- vent the bridge from collapsing with the weisfht. At the lower edo^e of the orreat forest which clothes the Sinchal lies a botanical garden, lonely and lovely, the Rungaroon Garden, where wt- found roses, scarlet geraniums, ver- benas, and many English plants and flowers in the midst of tropical lux- uriance. The garden is to be de- voted to such indigenous plants, epiphytes, orchids, and gingers, which are not likely to thrive in the moister and more shady forest sections. The path leading to this spot is rich in forest beauty. Beyond are some of the tea and cinchona plantations for which Darjeeling is famous, and which, as the slopes are cleared, mar in some degree the beauty of the nearer hills. The tea gardens are laid out in the most unromantic fashion, acre upon acre planted with straight rows of bushes, two feet high, with small glazed dark green leaves, and in the center the manager's bungalow, flanked by long ranges of low buildings, where the process of drying, sorting, and packing is carried on. The Bhootea coolies, both men and women, may be seen carrying chests of immense weight up the steepest hills. They leave the railway porters of England far behind. A story is told that one of these sturdy women actually brought up a grand piano on her back from Kursiong to the station. The work on the plantations is not so laborious. It consists mainly in deep hoeing between the lines of trees as weeds appear, and careful hand weed- ing. In November of the third year, when the plant is four feet high, it is pruned down to twenty inches, that the young leaves may be plucked easily ; and six weeks 109 ,?J'/":'-'V./-,. o M O P 5 sacred place of pilgrimage, and in January and February, during the Mela, it presents the appearance of a continual fair, with proces- sions, banners, booths, and bathers. Thousands go down into the water — all classes and all ages — in the vain hope of washing away their guilt. The Sarai in Allahabad is a square high-walled garden, contain- ing three stone Mohammedan mau- soleums, surmounted by marble domes. They are the tombs of the two sons of Jehanjir and their mother. That in the center, of the unhappy Khusru, the eldest son, and victim of his father's cruelty, is the largest ; that of the mother, on the right, comes next ; but they do not allow her to have a quiet sleep, for the upper floor of her tomb has been fitted up into a bil- liard room. That of the younger son, on the left, is smaller, and is surmounted by a graceful dome. The walls of all three are out- wardly ornamented, and the in- teriors are beautifully painted, though the colors are faded. Near the Sarai is the pretty church of the Episcopal Methodist Mission, which is very successful among the Hindus. The American Presby- terian Mission, whose operations stretch far up into the Punjab, has its headquarters here, and its schools are most efficient. It has asylums for the blind and for lep- ers, a printing-press, and deposi- tory. Allahabad, as the great rail- way center, where the lines from Delhi, Calcutta, and Bombay meet, is a rapidly growing city. 142 TOMBS IN THE SARAI, ALLAHABAD. 144 Iil!iii!llll!li:ii!!lllilll!i|l!!lllillllllflillliilllllillll IP Ills iNPaiiillllJi,;,,,, BAS-RELIEFS IN THE MUSEUM, PESHAWAR. THE PUNJAB. ITS CONDITION AND EXTENT DELHI AND ITS PLAINS AMRITSAR AND LAHORE- PESHAWAR AND KASHMIR — SIML.\ LANDOUR DHARMSALA DALHOUSIE. T' HE Punjab is the most promising of English conquests in India. It is nearest to England byway of Kar- achi ; it has a cooler and more bracing climate, though the south parts about Multan are almost rainless, and from the proximity of the desert the air becomes scorching. It has accessible hill stations, and it has a population of twenty-three millions, friendly and loyal, as well as quiet and industrious. " When I first crossed the Sutlej," says the lamented John Lawrence, " there was not the trace of a road in the country ; now we have several thousand miles of road and railways. The people were our enemies ; one class in the country preyed on the other ; there was little real security. Now all this has changed. Life and property are wonderfully safe. The people are peaceable and well-disposed. All this has been proved beyond question in 1857, when, but for the general contentment of the people, it would not have been possible to maintain the public tranquillity, still 147 WATER-CARRIERS. THE PUNJAB. less to have assisted in the reconquest of Hindustan. For all these advantages I acknowledge myself indebted to the great Author of all good. Without His guiding and protecting hand, what would indeed have become of us all?" Henry and John Lawrence, and indeed most of their coadjutors and successors in the government of the Punjab, were men who openly avowed their faith in Chris- tianity, and their desire to give it to the people they governed. They supported missionary effort, and the results are evident. Sir Herbert Edwardes, the Com- missioner, openly declared at Peshawar : " The East has been given to our country for a mission, neither to the minds nor bodies, but to the souls of men. Our mis- sion in India is to do for other nations what we have done for our own. To the Hindus we have to preach one God, and to the Mohammedans to preach one Medi- ator." The Americans were the pioneers of missions throughout the district ; and the foundations of a sound Bible Christianity have been deeply laid. Besides efficient schools, they have founded orphanages, asylums, and hospitals. No fewer than eight Missionary Societies, with thirty central missions, are now at work in the Punjab ; and no stronger argument for Christian missions could be urged than that afforded by the state of the country. The name Punjab signifies "the five rivers," the five great tributaries of the Indus ; and the tracts of country between the rivers are called Doabs. But the Sutlej, the limit of the conquests of Alexander the Great, does not form the eastern boundary. The province of Delhi itself has since the Mutiny been included ; and when one enters Delhi one enters the Punjab. Many hill states are also embraced under the name ; and to these must be added ill-governed Kashmir, extending beyond the Himalayas, and unjustly handed over to the tender mercies of an alien Maharajah. Delhi, the Rome of Asia during three thousand years, is a thousand miles from Calcutta, and fifteen hours by railway from Cawnpore. The city is on the river Jumna, just outside the boundary of the Northwest Provinces, and within the Punjab. It had a long history before the Moguls. It is said to have been de- stroyed and rebuilt seven times ; and the remains of these successive cities cover the plain for miles. The great fort, built by Shah Jehan, is a mile and a half in circuit, with a wall forty feet high. Entering by the Lahore Gate, a splendid Gothic arch in the center of the tower is succeeded by a long vaulted aisle ; and drivino- through, we come to the Hall of Public Audience, of red sandstone, and then by the Motee Musjid, the Mosque of Pearls, well named from its pearly loveli- ness, to the Hall of Private Audience, all of polished marble, and looking out over the wide Jumna. Here, between each pair of pillars, is a beautiful balustrade of marble, chastely carved. The roof has at each corner a marble kiosk with a gilt dome. The ceiling is composed of gold and silver filigree work, and in the center stood the famous peacock throne of solid gold, with gems and diamonds estimated as worth thirty million dollars. It was captured by the Persian, Nadir Shah, in 1739. All this wealth and grandeur have been taken away; but the building still witnesses to its former magnificence, and along the cornice on each side of the chamber the inscription is repeated in flourishing Arabic, inlaid : " If there be a paradise on earth, it is this ! it is this ! it is this ! " Vanitas vanitatum, would be a more appropriate motto now. The great Mosque of Delhi, built of red sandstone and white marble, — the snowy 148 THE PUNJAB. domes marble, the needle-like minarets red sandstone, ^ — perched high upon a rock, and approached by forty deep steps on three of its sides, is the one object that meets the eye everywhere about Delhi and is the finest mosque in India, and the chief shrine of Indian Mohammedanism. Like all great mosques, it is named Jumma Musjid, i. e., the Friday Mosque, Friday being the Mohammedan Sabbath. The HALL OF PRIVATE AUDIENCE, DELHI. Empress, Queen Victoria, has forty millions of Mohammedan subjects in India. Their bearing strikes you at once as different from that of the Hindus. They are conquered conquerors. Once the rulers, they are in turn the ruled ; and as they walk haughtily along, when they pass an Englishman, they grind their teeth. Pride and hatred, the two most prominent features in a Mohammedan, are apparent on every hand. To describe this mosque will be to describe all. A huge quadrangle open to the sky, four hundred and fifty feet square ; a fountain in the middle, for the ablu- 149 THE PUNJAB. tions of the faithful ; a colonnade on three sides, north, south, and east, of red sand- stone, with open arches. On the west, toward Mecca, a building open in front, of white marble, covered with three graceful white marble domes, surmounted by spires of copper, richly gilt. Its front — with a majestic opening in the center and smaller arches on either side — is all of white marble with Arabic inscriptions. The interior is paved throughout with nine hundred immense oblong slabs of white marble, bordered with black, and in the wall, at the center, is the niche, or kibla, to- ward sacred Mecca, where prayers are directed. At either corner is a minaret, one hundred and forty feet high, of white marble and red sandstone placed vertically in alternate stripes. Up these the muezzin goes to call to prayers ; and the summit commands a magnificent view. On Fridays you may see the vast area filled with JUMMA MUSJID, DELHI. worshipers, kneeling and rising, standing up and prostrating themselves as one man. Women are seldom seen within the precincts. Women, according to the Moham- medans, practically have no souls. They exist for, and are the chattels of men. The Koran itself allows a man four wives, to say nothing of concubines ; and its paradise is a paradise of lust. It is the fashion to praise Mohammed and the Koran ; but history, and the present character of the Moslems of every land, testify that whatever excellence there may appear in the founder, or his great work, hatred, cruelty, pride, and lust are the graces which it fosters. From treating his women with savage coolness, or beating them with rage, the Mohammedan will turn to- ward Mecca, and in Pharisaic devoutness, taking off his shoes and spreading his gar- ment in the most conspicuous place, he will go through his gesticulations and per- form his prayers. Here in Delhi, at Agra, Allahabad, and Bombay, in Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Constantinople, London, by land and on board ship, I have witnessed the performance, and always has it left this impression on my mind. There are in the neighborhood of what we may call the Mohammedan Delhi the ruins of a series of successive cities that have been razed to the ground. Among these stands the Lat of Feroz Shah, a monolith of red sandstone, covered with an THE PUNJAB. inscription in Pali, wliich tells that it was erected by Asoka. The column is, there- fore, at least two thousand two hundred years old, and the inscription upon it is probably the oldest writing in India. The tomb of Humayun, Akbar's father, a tyrant of great cruelty, the patron of Thuggism, and now revered as a saint, is colossal in size and marvelous in workmanship ; red sandstone inlaid with marble, and white marble domes. It took sixteen years in building, and the quadrangle of solid masonry in which it stands is four hundred yards square. Near it is the sixty- CLOISTERS, MOSQUE OF KUTUB, NEAR DELHI. four pillared hall, and a beautifully carved tomb of a Mussulman saint of the four- teenth century. Another sumptuous tomb is in honor of a scoundrel who killed himself by drinking cherry-brandy, of which liquor he used to swallow a glass an hour ! Here also is the simple sodded grave of the faithful daughter of Shah Jehan, faithful to him when he was imprisoned by his son in the midst of his grandeur, and with the Inscription on a stone at the head in Arabic : " Let no rich canopy cover my grave. This grass is the best covering for the tomb of the poor in spirit." Such simplicity is refreshing amid gigantic Idolatry in stone of man and the basest of men. At hand, in a small deep tank, forty feet square, miserable Hindus turn a penny by jumping with a run from a dome top, feet foremost, from a height of fifty feet, shooting like arrows straight Into the water, with the sound of a dead man's dive, and presently coming up to you, quite exhausted, to beg backsheesh for the feat. 151 THE P UN JAB. After traversing the wide sandy plain covered with these buildings and ruins for a distance of eleven miles, it is a relief to reach an oasis of green sward and shady- trees. Here, in the midst of verdure, stand the most gigantic and impressive remains of old Delhi's splendor. Passing through Aladin's Gate, a majestic arch, remindino- one almost of Furness Abbey, and with the celebrated iron pillar about fifty feet in length before it, you see before you a massive column, like an isolated minaret, with five successive galleries. This is the celebrated Kutub Minar, a fluted column two hundred and forty feet high, one hundred feet circumference at the base, and aladin's gate, with iron pillar. gradually diminishing in a series of five stories, like joints in a telescope, to thirty feet circumference at the summit. The view from the top is extensive, modern Delhi and the hills beyond being perfectly clear in outline. What the column was built for it is difficult to say. It is supposed to be, not a Mohammedan, but a Hindu building, dating from the twelfth century ; but it certainly looks much more like the Moslem buildings in modern. Delhi ; and the more probable tradition is that it was erected in 1193 to celebrate the overthrow of the last of the Hindu Rajahs of Delhi. A sultan named A',a;/?^/5, who succeeded Ghori (a. d. 1206), a general and administrator, is said to have built this minar, or "pillar," of victory. Round about it are the ruins of a mosque, built out of the previous ruins of Hindu temples, like the cloisters of a great cathedral. The enigmatical iron pillar, sixty feet long, smooth and black with 152 THE PUNJAB. age, and the elaborately carved columns of the temple indicate a Brahmanical- origin. In the midst of these ruins the trees and shrubs and creepers are most luxuriant and refreshing after the heat and dust and glare of the plain. The Siege of Delhi was one of the most tragic and important events of the Mutiny year. In the Chowk, or main thoroughfare, seventy-four feet wide, with a raised shaded footpath running down the center and planted with trees. Captain Hodson exposed the bodies of the aged King of Delhi's two sons, whom he had himself shot without trial and with his own hand after their surrender. In this street, too, stands the kotwali, or court-house, before which the defenders of the city durino- the sieo-e were one after another executed by the English. The inhabitants may well tremble at the very name of this street. But it is very gay ; full of shops ; in fact, it is called the Regent Street of Delhi, which now glories in Lord Lytton's burlesque Durbar of 1876, held while famine was stalking through the peninsula and preparing its holocaust of five million souls. Delhi is a convenient, sociable, and popular station for the judicial, military, and revenue officers. Driving to the Ridge outside the city to the north, we passed through the Kashmir Gate, blown up bravely by the English when they stormed the city ; and close by it is the spot where Nicholson fell, who, as his tombstone tells, led the assault of Delhi, but was in the hour of victory mortally wounded. Crowning the height, a mile away, and commanding a magnificent view over Delhi, is the Flagstaff Tower ; and, farther on, the Memorial, appropriately giving on its sides the details of encampment and of siege. It bears the inscription : '* In memory of the officers and soldiers of the Delhi field force who were killed in action, or died of wounds or disease, between the 30th of May and the 20th of Sep- tember, 1857. Erected by their comrades and government."' Turning from these sad reminiscences it was a relief on the Sunday to attend Christian services and to mark the progress of Christian missions. The name of England is in North India associated everywhere so palpably with troops, canton- ments, battles, and bloodshed, that were it not for missions and missionaries there ^ February lo, iSgo, the day that Prince Albert Victor arrived at Delhi, the writer stood among the graves of English soldiers not far from the Kashmir Gate. Recollections of the Mutiny of 1857 suggested these lines ; The slcies of Asia, warm nnd blue. My heart a-glowing kindle too ; While gazing on e.ich sacrcj dome, ' A wanderer now so far from home, I feel the spell of ages gone. Laved by fair Jumna's flowing tide. Stand Delhi's battered walls beside ; The gorgeous mosque, the tapering tower. Barbaric wealth and Moslem power All charm for me the passing hour. Hibiscus red and Indian rose — This every stranger's heart well knows— Scent not the air with breath more sweet Than ine iiories rich which here do meet, Alluring now my pilgrim feet. But tenderest of the thoughts that rise And lift my heart above the skies. Come to me now 'mid these green graves A quiet streamlet softly laves. Where mango shades and palm tree waves. Here fell our honored kinsmen brave, Imperilled India's life lo save ; Not 'gainst a strange marauder's band Did English soldiers make a stand — The foes were nourished in the land ! The frenzy of that hour has p.issed. Too fierce and sudden long to last ; Victoria's heir to-day is here. Hailed with loud greetings far and near — Bring garlands to these graves so dear. Still fiercer foes of India's life Are battling yet in bloodless strife With Christian heroes, called to stand For God's own truth a bannered band. To save from error this fair land. But when Immanuel shall appear In princely pomp and victory here, A loyal peiple at His feet His royal coming then shall greet, Each heart and home His seat. Garlands befit the soldier's grave Who fell his country's flag to save ; Rut love more grateful shall embalm And raise for ihcm a holier psalm Who bear aloft the martyr's palm ! The Light of Asia's Christ our King ! His glory all the earth shall sing ; And future, grand, millennial days Shall hear no sweeter song of praise Than that which India then shall raise ! -Ed. 153 THE PUNJAB. would be nothing to show that our country is also associated with the Gospel of the Prince of Peace. It is an old native proverb, " English religion, devil religion." Bayonets rather than Bibles, gunpowder rather than goodness, are associated with our country in native experience. Even attendance at church is accompanied with the clank of swords and the beat of drums. Still, the Christian religion is not without its champions and its votaries in the army as well as outside. Missionaries are often the objects of careless hilarious ridicule at other tables besides mess- tables, but usually on the part of men who do not really know them nor take an) pains to examine their work. For the most part their lives are quiet and -^53 obscure ; but they are nevertheless ___ ^ the true and consistent ambassadors of the Prince of Peace and King of Righteousness. Here in Delhi the Cambridge mission is making its way among different classes of the in- habitants. There is a square of houses on the northeast of the city occupied almost entirely by native Christians ; and several weekly Bible classes are attended by Hindus. The high schools have many Christian na- tive teachers. The Baptists have been in Delhi v. sixty years, ■' *'- and have an exten- sive field of operations. Their rag- ged schools T^, receive like most miss- ion schools in I ndia. Govern- ment aid, and are do- ing a very good work among the poorest classes, teaching the pupils to read the Gospels. Their Basil meetings in the open air, amid the dwellings of the poor, 154 KUTUK MINAR, NEAR DELHI. THE PUNJAB. after the day's work is done, are attended by from fifty to a hundred heathens or Mohammedans. There are five-and-twenty places where these singing meetings nre held three or four evenings a week. The tunes are native. The Zenana Mission is also effectively worked, and many women are under Christian influence and instruction. Leaving Delhi at 1.30 p. m., and traveling all night northwest by railway three CHANDI CHOWK, DELHI. hundred and sixteen miles, we find ourselves next morning at six o'clock in Amritsar, "fountain of immortality," a great emporium of trade, and the sacred city of the religious community called Sikhs. The word Sikhs signifies "disciples," and the religion thus designated is a mixture of Hinduism and Mohammedanism, inculcating the worship of one God, but attaching extreme reverence to the cow. The spiritual teachers of these "disciples" are called Gurus ; and many of the population, includ- ing most of the upper classes, are of this persuasion. Its Bible is called the Grunth, and is regarded with great reverence. It has been translated into English, and the translator describes it as "shallow and incoherent in the extreme." 155 THE PUNJAB. Amrltsar is a very Oriental-looking city, and a great place for ivory carving and for the manufacture of Kashmir shawls. The process is exceedingly tedious and try- ing to the workman's eyes. A separate shuttle is used for every color, and a whole day may be spent over a section of the shawl scarcely perceptible to the eye. The rooms in which they are woven are close and narrow, in fact, dirty and wretched dens, a strange contrast to the picturesque city outside. But the one great sight of Amritsar is the Golden Temple of the Sikhs. It is of pure white marble, rising out of a large tank, and its roof is of plates of copper, richly gilded. The blue rippling GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS, AMRITSAR. waves wash against the polished marble courtyard which surrounds the tank. The temple is connected by a broad roadway, also of white marble, with golden balus- trades and lamps (see frontispiece to this volume). The lower half of the walls are carved white marble, the doors solid silver, the windows golden ; while the upper half and the roof seem a mass of gfold. The outside dazzles, elistenine in the bril- liant sunlight, and is reflected in the sparkling waters. There is much mosaic work in the marble flooring, and the interior is highly gilded. The temple is not large, but somewhat resembles the Alhambra. Lahore is only two hours by railway from Amritsar. It was a great city a thou- sand years ago. In the time of the Moguls it is said to have had a circumference of 156 THE PUNJAB. eighteen miles. But now it is a mere shadow of its former self. It is only about three miles in circumference, and a circular road runs round it with a belt of orna- mental garden. The Great Mosque built by Aurangzeb is a stately pile, and has in its quadrangle a noble banyan and other trees peopled with flocks of starlings. But, like that at Benares, the mosque is deserted. The high-perched white fort com- mands an admirable view of the city and the dusty wilderness around. One of the chief sights in Lahore is the tomb erected by the beautiful and talented Nurjehan over her drunken husband, the Emperor Jehanjeer. It is in the style of the Taj, TOMB OF RUNGIT SIXG, LAHORE. and stands in a beautiful garden planted with orange groves far to the west of the city across the Ravee. The European quarters, including the military station, cover an area of fourteen square miles. In the Lawrence Hall Gardens are eighty thousand trees. The res- idence of the Lieutenant-governor is opposite. Three miles from IMianmir, the mil- itary station, where there is a splendid church, are the stately Shalamar Gardens. The church in the civil station is said to have been originally the tomb of a dancing- girl. Two hundred miles southwest by rail, over arid desert from Lahore, lies Mul- TAN, well known for its dust storms and fiery heat, but of historic interest from Alex- ander the Great downward, till it was taken by the British in 1849. ^^ contains many mosques and a beautiful Hindu temple. Westward across the Indus is Dera 157 THE PUNJAB. Ghazi Khan ; and thirty miles beyond, at the foot of the SuHman range, running north and south as a natural wall separating Afghanistan, is Sakhi Sarwar. This being in existence, it was remarked by some native that it was unnecessary for the gods to have made hell also ; the heat, dust, and barrenness are choking and oppres- sive. The name is derived from that of a Mohammedan saint whose tomb, close by, a large square, tower-like building, with spires or minarets, draws many pilgrims. An annual festival, or fair, in his honor is held in the month of April. The walls of the shrine within are hung with small pillows variously ornamented, offerings of the pil- SAKHI SARWAR. grims to the saint. Near the building is a defile called the Robber's Leap, inclosed with cliffs formed of gravelly layers, and rocks uneasily resting in fantastic positions. Farther on is a cave with the finger-print of the saint, and again the print of his left foot on a slanting ledge of rock ; this place is called the Moza. His companions are said to be buried in an adjacent mound, on which are only pebbles and stunted brambles. The Northern State Railway now runs all the way to Peshawar, crosses Jhelum, the ancient Hystaspes, and passes through Rawal Pindee, a healthy military station situated on an elevated ridsfe. From this station we ascend in ten or twelve hours' dhooly journey to Muree, a gay and festive hill station upon a ridge seven thousand five hundred feet high. Northward the slopes are clothed with oa,ks, pines, and horse-chestnuts. Srinagur, the capital of Kashmir, is one hundred and sixty miles 158 THE PUNJAB. from Miirree. Sixty miles beyond Rawal Pindee tlie railway brings us to Attock, a fortress on the Indus, which here is two hundred and sixty yards wide and flows in a strong turbulent torrent, crossed only by a bridge of boats. Overhanging the river is a crag, looking out upon a wide tract of desert. Near to this Darius crossed the STREET IN PESHAWAR. Indus, B. c. 518; and not far from Rawal Pindee Alexander the Great won his fa- mous victory over Porus, B. c. 326. Forty miles more bring us to Peshawar, the frontier city, eighteen miles east of the Kyber Pass. Peshawar has fifty thousand inhabitants, but its liability to earthquakes gives the buildings an unstable character. In the museum there are several interesting bas-reliefs, illustrative of early Indian sculpture, and showing the influence of Greek art. What the Buddhists were to the architecture of Northern India the Greeks were to its sculpture. Greek faces con- 159 THE F UN JAB. stantly occur in ancient Buddhist statuary, and the blending of these with Hindu forms and features is distinctly traceable. As by degrees Greek influence faded away, the coarser representations of full-blown Hinduism asserted their sway, as at Am- ravati and Sanchi, and afterward at Elephanta. From Peshawar may be seen the dark range of serrated mountains, with the black chasm of the Kyber Pass, and far away the Hindu Koosh. The beautiful val- ley in the flush of spring, when the horseshoe of mountains is still clad in snow, while its peach and quince gardens are in full flower, must be enchanting. The climate is temperate. ATTOCK. Another way into Kashmir is by the pretty station of Sealkote, which Mr. Grant Duff describes as the prettiest in India, the Pir Punjal and other great Himalayan ranges being full in view. He was journeying to Jummoo, the winter capital of the Maharajah of Kashmir. " We had crossed most of the woodland, and had descended from our elephants, when we reached a point where, in the clearer morning, the moun- tains stood out in all their beauty. On the left stretched the mighty snowy chain of the Pir Punjal, rising eighteen thousand feet. Then in the middle of the background came an outer range, not snowy ; lastly, far to the right, another snowy range on the borders of Thibet. Between us and the mountains lay Jummoo, with its white pyra- midal temples shining in the sun, and surrounded by a near landscape which wanted nothing to make It perfect. It was the most beautiful land view I ever beheld. The Maharajah is a lucky man, with heaven for his winter, and the seventh heaven for his summer capital." The easiest way, however, into " the Happy Valley," is by way of Rawal Pindee 1 60 THE FUXJAB. and Murree ; and Mr. Anthony Shiell has given us a graphic account of the journey. The distance is a hundred and sixty miles, occupying five days on pony, and two by boat (doongah) on the river. The vale of Kashmir is an oval, a hundred miles long and twenty-five broad, traversed by the Jhelum and fringed by glens and minor valleys, encompassed by the snow-wall of the Himalaya. Midway is the capital, Srinagur, with a population of 150,000. It lies upon a flat, intersected by canals, diversified by orchards, and lined by stately poplars. It is, like Venice, a city of canals, and a city of bridges — " Kandals " as they are called — quaint struc- tures, centuries old, of "the incorruptible Himalayan cedar, the invaluable deodara.'' There are two lakes, one celebrated for its historic and poetic associations, the other for the snowy mountains which it reflects. The river Jhelum forms the main thoroughfare of the city. Buildings cluster on either side down to the water's edge, mostly high four- storied wooden houses with pent roofs, overlaid with earth, which is clothed with grass and other plants ; and broad flights of stone steps lead down to the stream. The narrow streets are lit- tle better than the beds of open sewers. The panor- ama of mountains from the splintered crests of Pir Panjal on the south, to the broad brow of hoary Hara- mook on the north, and the snowy summit of " the Naked Mountain," is mag- nificent. The hill called " The Throne of Solomon," six thousand two hundred and sixty-three feet above the sea, and a thousand feet above the valley, has a stone Buddhist temple on the top, now converted into a mosque. The panor- amic view from this point is very grand of Peri Mahal Fort, Apple-tree Canal, and Poplar Avenue, and of the city lake, with the gardens, summer-houses, and fountains, where lay the scene of Lalla Rookh. To the west lies Gulmarg, a favorite sanitarium, on a mountain common high up the hills, three thousand feet above Srinagur, the air cold, bracing, and salubrious, and the plateau surrounded by forests of pine. Forty miles to the east and up the Himalayas is the cave of Ambernath, a place of pilgrimage sacred to Siva, who is said " to have had the cool- ness to assume" the form of a block of ice and to take up his abode here. The cave is visited by thousands of pilgrims in July. It lies far up the Laddar Valley, sixteen thousand feet above the sea. It is of gypsum, fifty yards deep and fifty wide, thirty yards high. The scenery is of titanic splendor, and there is a noble glacier, Avith red sandstone serrated cliffs rising one thousand feet on either side the defile. From the railway at Umballa you drive northward thirty-eight miles In Tonga 161 BAS-RET.IEFS IN THE MUSEUM, Pr.SHAWAK. THE P UN JAB. Dak — a covered spring-cart drawn by a pair of ponies, with a center-board which divides the two front from the two back passengers — to Kalka, from which place there are two roads, the old road and the new road, to Simla. The old road is a difficult mountain path, up which, if you are not carried in a sort of a sedan, called AWi^taTiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiimiiiiiiiiii III BAS-RELIEFS IN THE MUSEUM, PESHAWAR. " a jampan," you had better ride or walk. The views are commanding all the way. The new road is a masterpiece of engineering, cut out of the sides of the mountains, and supported in many places by massive walls. The gradients are nicely adjusted, and you can drive the fifty-seven miles in eight hours by Tonga Delk. Simla is seven thousand feet above the sea, and fir-clad Jacko eight thousand. What with graceful deodaras, firs, oaks, rhododendrons, the magnificent scenery, 162 THE PUNJAB. and the snow panorama, Simla is exceedingly beautiful. The rain and mist in June and July are dismal in the extreme; but from October the weather is enchanting. Simla is the seat of the Supreme Government for half the year, " where it slumbers with a revolver under its pillow " ; and it is therefore a place full of caste and cost, a sort of Indian Olympus, from whose heights the officials living at Government expense look down with disdain upon the toilers in the plains beneath. It may be FLOATING GARDENS, LAKE OF SRINAGUR called a third heaven of flirtation and fashion. Indeed, one part is called Elysium. It is, as we say, "out of the world"; but it seems, when you get there, as if the world with its pomps and vanities had been caught up hither out of the world. It is an Indian Capua. You look over a billowy sea of hills to the great snowy range fifty miles away, its icy pinnacles glistening in the silent air as far as the eye can reach. The bazaar slopes gradually down the valle)'. The snows as seen from Simla are not so striking ; but from neighboring mountains, such as the Chore summit, the sacred sources of the Ganges can be seen, as represented by domes, towers, and pin- 163 THE PUNJAB. nacles of dazzling snow. It is a glorious tour, occupying about a month to go from Simla by Kotgur, where the Church Mission has a station, over the Burunghatti, fifteen thousand feet above the sea level. Landour, which is the oldest of the hill stations, lies about a hundred miles east of Simla, and is usually approached by way of Saharunpore, from which rail- way station an omnibus runs along a well-metaled, shaded, undulating road, across the Sewalic range and dipping into a lovely valley, the Deyra Doon, to Rajpore. From Rajpore the remaining nine miles may be accomplished on foot, by pony, or in jampan. The road passes over deep precipices, and troops of monkeys, and here and there peacocks, may be seen as we climb. Passing through Mussoorie — some- times called the Ramsgate of India — we reach Landour, on the crest of the moun- tain. There is not an acre of level land in view. It is a simple line of peaks, but every rock on which a house could be fastened has been seized upon, until villages of considerable size have sprung up. Roads, houses, and gardens have ingeniously SHOPS, SRINAGUR, KASHMIR. been cut or scooped out of the hill-sides. Some white cottages cling like limpets to the ledges. The magnificent views have been thus described : " On one side lies the Deyra Doon, one of the fairest valleys in all the East, smiling in its verdure and foliage, although it was now mid-winter. Farther on is the Sewalic range of the Himalayas, and still farther, in full view, the great plain of India, fifteen hundred miles in extent, with the silver threads of the Jumna and Ganges. On the opposite side, toward the northeast, separated by a confused mass of mountain, much of which is densely wooded, peak after peak of the snowy range, stretching out into Thibet and Kashmir, lifts its snowy head into the clouds." We are in the presence of the highest mountains on the globe, on the border of that table-land which the Arabs call " the roof of the world." Wilson, the author of The Abode of Snow, says : " There is nothing in the Alps which can afford even a faint idea of the savage desolation and appalling sublimity of many of the Himalayan scenes. No- where have the faces of the rocks been so scarred and riven by the nightly action of 164 THE PUNJAB. frost and the mid-day floods from melting snow. In almost every valley we see places where vi^hole peaks or sides of great mountains have recently come shatter- ing down." The climate of Landour is delightful ; " its warmth," says the Eastern proverb, "is not heat, its coolness is not cold." Perhaps the purest air breathed by man is found in the Himalayas, close to the snows, and at Landour it is almost as good, except where tainted by man. It is said to be the very best place in India for European children. The hill stations for the Punjab are Dharmsala and Dalhousie. Dharmsala is SIMLA. noted for excessive rains. In other parts of the Himalayas the effect of the snow mountains is softened by intermediate ranges, but here they seem almost to over- hang the spectator. Looking up from Kangra, the lower hills are like ripples on the sea, and the eye rests on the sublime titanic rocks, sharp cut against the sky. The winding streams, the irrigated valley, — said to be next to Kashmir in beautj^ — the bamboo clumps, the branching oaks, the stately pines, the blooming rhododendra, the ruins of hill castles, the towering old Kangra Fort, combine to make this one of the most fascinating hill stations in India. Nothing can be more impressive than the hills and mountains here lit up in solitary splendor and savage beauty by the crimson glory of an autumn sunset. The cold gray rocks become rose pink, and as 165 THE P UN JAB. <' '^n < Ti. , ^^ 1 J J -J ,vv^ J, r c-V ^•-•k/' \ v-V; t'^s,*^ this fades the silvery moon sheds her sheen over the valley and the fir-clad hills, realizing the sad solemnity of the most impressive funeral. Here Lord Elgin sickened and died in 1863. Dalhousie is still farther to the northwest, and is by some reckoned as the best of the hill stations, but to reach it involves a long and fatiguing journey from Amritsar. It spreads over three hills, the highest of which is nearly eight thousand feet above the sea. Beyond is a charming and well-wooded forest, while the famous Needle Rock, the highest of the peaks here visible, rises to the height of twenty-one thousand feet. 166 TOPE OF SANCHI, NORTHERN GATE. I68 PALACE OK BIRSING DEO, AND LAKE DATTIA. RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. MOUNT ABU UDAIPUR AND CIIITTORE AJMERE JAIPUR GHUR SAXCHI P.HOPAI,. ■AI.WAR — GWALIOR SONA- THE large district of Rajputana, made up of eighteen different native states, with a population of eleven millions, is traversed from northeast to southwest by a system of mountains called the Aravalis, west of which is desert, and east lie a num- ber of interesting cities. A railway now runs from Delhi along the mountain ranges, and joins tne Baroda line from the south. The Agent of the British Government lives at Mount Abu, which rises five thousand feet above the sandy plain, and incloses a lovely valley and a small lake called the Pearl Lake. This is a majestic hill sacred both for Hindus and for Jains; and they have here four temples ar- ranged in the form of a cross, built of white marble brought from a distance, and dat- ing as far back as the eleventh century. That built by the Prince Vincala Sah, though plain outside, is magnificent within, but bearing marks of decay. It contains a colossal statue of the deified coryphsus of the Jains Parswanatha. Eastward from Mount Abu is Udaipur, situated on a low ridge, with two summer tanks, one of which faces the city and reflects its palaces. There are a few islands, on which are built handsome residences. Looking from the east, the palace, built of 169 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. granite, a hundred feet high, overlooks the lake and the city. It is considered one of the finest buildings in Rajputana, and is sometimes compared to Windsor. Eastward again from Udaipur is the ancient capital, Chittore, whose fortress is conspicuous from afar, perched upon a lofty rock, which stretches northward about two miles, forming a plateau, still covered with the remains of departed splendor. Chittore was long the stronghold of Hindu independence against the wave of Mo- hammedan conquest. Its prince was called the Rana. Three times it was besieged and sacked. First in a. d. 1300, when Ala-ud-din volunteered to raise the siege, pro- vided the Rana's wife, the beautiful Pudmani, were surrendered to him. She stipu- lated to enter the conqueror's camp attended by the ladies of her household. On the appointed day seven hundred litters accompanied her, each litter carried by six armed soldiers, disguised as porters, and containing not ladies, but warriors armed to the teeth. A bloody fray ensued, but the plot failed, the husband and wife escaped, and the siege was renewed ; and rather than surrender, thousands of the wives and daughters of the inhabitants performed \}i\^ johui'-, i. e., immolated them- selves upon burning piles of timber, while the men rushed out of the city and perished sword in hand. The second siege was under the Sultan of Guzerat, in 1533, when the women performed 3.x\ot\\eT jo/mr. The princess before dying sent her bracelet as a challenge to Humayun to be her avenger. He afterward fulfilled the pledge and restored the Rana. The third and final siege was in 1567, by the famous Ak- bar. The women again threw themselves on burning piles, while the men put on saf- fron garments and perished sword in hand. Chittore was thenceforward deserted, and the Rana sought refuge in the Aravali Hills, and founded Udaipur. Within the ruined fortress are several antique buildings. Besides the palace of the Rana, which was a plain building, are two vast temples with tanks or reservoirs. Inscriptions upon them state that they were built out of the ruins of former temples brought from Nagara, five miles north. The most striking of the two is the Temple of Vriji. The style of architecture is good, and the masonry excellent. Perhaps the most singular building among the ruins is the Pillar of Victory, erected in 1439, by the Rana. It stands on a platform fourteen yards square, and is a hundred and fifty feet high. There are nine stories, and on the summit is a lantern tower and a dome. The whole is one mass of elaborate sculpture in white marble, representing various subjects in Hindu mythology. The tower commands a glorious view of the country round. A railway is being constructed which runs northward from Indore through Chittore to Ajmere, and joins the Rajputana line. Ajmere is a city of great antiquity and interest, surrounded by a wall with five strong gateways in a beautiful style of architecture. It is in a lovely valley with a magnificent lake. The modern streets have noble buildings, and the ancient narrow bazaars remind one of Cairo. The Dargah, or shrine of the Mohammedan Khwaja Sahib, stands at the end of a long broad bazaar; and behind, to the northeast, rises Taragar, a hill about one thousand feet above the valley, on the lower part of which are the remains of a Jain temple, converted into a mosque, called "the mosque of two days and a half," because it probably just took this length of time to knock off the heads of the pillars on the columns, and to destroy the memorials of the former worship. The roof is supported by four rows of graceful pillars, all carved in patterns up to the very top ; and the celling is covered with various designs, the lotus flower being frequent, indicating its 170 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. connection with Buddhism. In Ajmere are the winter quarters of the Government Agent for Rajputana. Mayo College is intended for the education of the upper classes belonging to the various native states. The railway now brings us northward eighty miles from Ajmere to Jaipur, one of the most enlightened of the Rajputana states. The city dates from 1730, when the government was removed from the old capital Amber, five miles distant. Here there is a collegiate institution for the training of native youths, and a school of art in connection with it. The houses are stuccoed and painted in pink and white, and the public gardens are tastefully laid out. The neighborhood abounds in game. TOMB AT ALWAR, RAJPUTANA. The streets are wide, the houses two stories high, the second story having only loop- holes, throuo-h which the women can look without being seen. The dresses of the people are gay and varied, the colors brilliant. The view of the old town of Amber from the Durbar Hall is very beautiful.' When the Prince of Wales was at Jaipur, the Mohammedan festival of the Moharrem was celebrated Avith great pomp. This festival is in memory of the martyrdom of the sons of Ali, the immediate descendants of the Prophet, who were put to death by rival claimants to the headship of Islam. The dress of the women in Rajputana is thus described by a lady writer : " The ' Visitors are furnished elephants by the king of Jeypore and enjoy a four-miles ride, attended by his servants, among whom a rupee divided will prove generous compensation. — Ed. 171 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. Hindu women wear petticoats; the Mohammedans rather tight trousers, with scarfs of brilliantly-colored muslin over their heads and bodies ; many bracelets of glass, silver, or lead, reaching nearly to the elbow, with an armlet above ; ear-rings all round the ears, seven, ten, or more ; large anklets of silver or lead ; toe-rings that jingle as they shuffle along, their feet bare, of course." On the borders of Jaipur is the Sambar Salt Lake ; and salt is manufactured by evaporation all over this part of Rajputana. From Jaipur northward, a hundred miles by rail, we reach Alwar, on the way to Delhi, which stands two thousand feet above the sea level, with tooth-like hills of quartz and slate, crowned with forts. The Rajah's palace faces these hills, and from a window at the back you look out upon a tank, on the opposite side of which is a series of small temples, and on the left, or south, the tomb of Baktawar Sing, erected within the present century, of white marble upon a platform of rose-colored sandstone. It affords a good specimen of the foliated arch. The singular dome terminates in a massive stone pinnacle. On the north there rises a fantastic hill a thousand feet high, with blocks of marble interspersed among trees, and crowned by a castle. The whole scene, in its still calm, the buildings mirrored in the water below, looks so unlike a bit of the common world, so picture-like, as seen out of that small opening, that one almost expects to see it disappear as in a panorama, and another picture take its place. The story is told that the Government Agent proposed to plant an avenue of pipal trees {Fictis religiosd), considered sacred by the Hindus, on either side the road in front of the shops ; but the Bun^iiahs, or native shopkeepers, one and all declared that if this were done they would not take the shops ; and when pressed for a reason, replied that " it was because they could not tell untruths or swear falsely under their shade," adding, "and how can we carry on business otherwise?" The force of this argument seems to have been acknowledged, as the point was yielded, and other trees have been planted instead. The pipal is regarded as occupied by the gfod Brahma, and it is sometimes invested with the sacred thread, as if it were a real person. The planting of it is accompanied by a religious ceremony, and the prayer offered, " O Vishnu ! grant that for planting this tree I may continue as many years in heaven as this tree shall remain growing in the earth." It is never injured, cut down, or burnt by devout Hindus ; but the proximity of the tree does not always guarantee truthfulness. The aborigines of the Central Provinces are called Gonds, a very peculiar race, with black skin, thick lips, and flat nose, and wearing for clothing only the loin-cloth. They are of dirty habits, tatooed, and a~ddicted to drinking. As to their religion. Dr. Hunter tells us that "they worship cholera and small-pox, and to appease the v^rrath of these divinities they offer sacrifices ; cleaning their villages, they place the sweepings on a road or track, in the hope that some traveler will be infected, and so convey the disease away into another village." East of Rajputana is the Central India Agency, with a population of eight millions, embracing not fewer than seventy different states, the chief of which are Gwalior, Indore, Bhopal, Rewah, and Bundelcund. They all formed part of the extensive Mahratta kingdom, which stretched from Gwalior as far south as Goa. The Mahrattas are supposed to have been among the original tribes of India, driven south by the Aryans. They were a bold and industrious race, husbandmen, for the most part strong and self-reliant ; and they appear in history first under Sivaji, who united the several tribes in a valiant crusade against the Mogul con- querors of India, and maintained the conflict with unflinching courage till his death, 172 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. in 1680. The Mahrattas are born horsemen ; they ride sturdy ponies, and show great skill and bravery as skirmishers. They not only checked, but in effect sub- dued the Mohammedan power, which declined from the time of Sivaji. In his rule the Brahman element was strong, and to the Peishwas the military authority was subservient. One of these Peishwas raised the Scindia family of Mahrattas to the SCULPTUKEU CAVE IN GWALIUK. highest place as military leaders, and under them the Mahrattas were found to be formidable foes, even by well-equipped English troops. Their capital is still GwALiOR, with its huge isolated rock, three hundred feet high, with perpendicular sides, and a mile and a half long, impregnable against any native force. On the summit is King Pal, a fortress and palace in one, as if growing out of the rock ; and farther on the huge temple of Adinath, a striking specimen of Jain architecture. In the center is the Vihara Temple, conspicuous from afar, dating probably from the eleventh century, and now a hundred and twenty feet high, though probably it 173 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. was in its complete state much higher. On the west of the plateau the rock is split into a deep, narrow gorge, full of curious carvings on either side ; chiefly colossal figures with sphinx-like faces representing Adinath, thirty-five feet high, and other Tirthankars, or Jain deities. Above each statue is a canopy of richly carved stone. Jainism prevails in these districts, and was by some viewed as an offshoot of Bud- dhism ; but it is now generally regarded as having an independent origin, dating back as far as Buddhism itself. It lays great stress upon the doctrine of transmigra- tion, and care for animal life is carried to an absurd length. The Jains retain caste distinctions, and are divided into two sects, the "clothed in white," and the "sky- clothed." Their sacred books are called Agamas. Though they dissent from the Veda, they call themselves Hindus. They pay great reverence to any Jina, or " conquering saint," who by long discipline aims at Divine perfection. BuNDELcuND, which lies to the east, is the classic land of brigandism, and in its somber forests was born the terrible religion of the Thugs. It is one of the least known parts of India. Its capital is Duttiah, and to the west of this city stands the palace of Birsing-Deo, a square block of building (see p. 169), each side of which is a hundred yards long and ninety feet high. The whole is of granite, built upon a vaulted terrace. The rooms are large, but badly lighted. Everything is somber and massive, like a keep, and it is abandoned to the bats and the owls. Its gardens lead down to the lake, which, with its tombs opposite, presents a very striking and inter- esting picture. One of the most famous places of pilgrimage for the Jains of Central India is Sonaghur, "the golden mountain." On the road from Dattia the hills pre- sent the appearance of broken pyramidal blocks of granite, and some like cromlechs and Druidical remains in single huge blocks. Many of these monoliths are wor- shiped as lingas, and are smeared with red ochre. Sonaghur rises in strange and picturesque outline, a granite hill, with large loose masses of primitive rock, among which stand from eighty to a hundred temples of various shapes and sizes, with bul- bous domes, and copied in some degree from Moslem art. There is no vegetation ; the rocks are bare, and look as if they would fall upon and crush the buildings, which are inhabited only by a few Jain monks. A pretty little village, half hidden in trees, lies at the foot of the hill. One of the most interesting collections of Buddhist remains is found at Sanchi, in the neighborhood of Bhilsa, and in the district of Bhopal. The small village of Sanchi is on the ridge of a sandstone hill, five miles from Bhilsa and twenty miles northeast from the town of Bhopal. The hill is fiat-topped and isolated, with a steep cliff eastward. Its height is three hundred feet, the rock is light red sand- stone, and the ruins are on the top. They lie so remote from the sweep of Moham- medan and British conquest that they have escaped the damage and destruction that have befallen many Indian monuments of antiquity. They consist mainly of topes, or stupas, i.e., huge hemispherical mounds usually raised in early Buddhism to mark the place of relics or graves. There are upward of twenty-five within a dis- tance of ten miles. They were doubtless raised by King Asoka, or Mahinda, his son ; and perhaps the great tope may be a monument in remembrance of Asoka's wife, the royal mother of Mahinda. It has been dug into, and is found solid, nothing but bricks laid in mud, save the layers of smooth stones covered with plaster on the out- side surface. No relics have been discovered. Topes were built by forced labor, the foundations being trodden firm by elephants. This tope is almost hemispherical, a hundred and six feet in diameter at the base, and forty-two feet in height. The 174 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. Ill VIHII hemisphere stands upon a base twelve feet high and forming a path seven feet wide, with a staircase, up which it is supposed processions used to walk on festival occa- sions. The circumference of the building is five hundred and fifty feet. It has a stone railing, nine feet high, mortised and fitted like those at Stonehencre. There are four gateways, facing the four points of the compass. The red sandstone has been used for all the topes, where hardness was required, and in the gateways, a fine white sandstone from a place three miles ofl was employed. Three of these gateways were standing thirty years ago, but one w^as knocked down by some clumsj'- Englishmen ; and only two, the east gate and the north gate, now remain. The east gate has been 23 r t C > modeled for South Kensington Museum. The Northern Gate is the finest and most elaborate, its height is thirty-five feet, and its extreme width is twenty feet. Two vertical monoliths, eighteen feet high, support a third placed horizon- 175 RAJPUTANA AND CENTRAL INDIA AGENCY. tally and mortised in like woodwork, and somewhat resembling the Torii in Japan. Above this, two small blocks support a second horizontal monolith, and again two blocks support the topmost horizontal stone. The whole is elaborately w- ?' <% THE MOHARREM IN BHOHAL. carved, back and front, with sculptures supposed to represent scenes from the life of Buddha. If so, the scenes must be from Buddha's life before he became an ascetic, for drinking and love-making are portrayed, several nude female figures are intro- duced, and imaees of the gfoddess Devi, the wife of Vishnu. The emblems on the top closely resemble those of Dharma and Juggernaut. 176 BHORE GHAT RAILWAY. BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. JABALPUR, AJANTA, AND ELURA BOMBAY CAVES OF ELEPHANTA, KENNERY, KARLI MATAERAN POONA MAHABLESHWAR — SURAT BARODA KUTCH SINDE. THE tourist across India from Allahabad to Bombay, or vice versa, usually breaks the long railway journey (eight hundred and fifty miles and thirty-six hours) at Jabalpur, a large and flourishing city in the Central Provinces, in order to visit the Marble Rocks, one of the most remarkable scenes of natural beauty to be found in India. Jabalpur is two hundred and thirty miles from Allahabad and a thousand feet above the sea. It is overlooked by a range of hills, consisting of granite, gneiss, hornblende, dolomite, and always covered with verdure. The Marble Rocks are eleven miles from Jabalpur. On the way you pass Mudden Mahal, with curious hills commanding an extensive view of Jabalpur and the country round, and crowned with a ruined temple on the top of a huge black bowlder, while about the base are numerous tanks and mango groves. At the Marble Rocks the deep blue Narbada for two miles flows between two radiant snow-white walls, a hundred feet in height. The river, now entering the gorge with a leap, has excavated this deep channel for itself, and can be traversed in a flat-bottomed boat, which is rowed or poled along as I7q BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. far as the cascade. The rocks rise precipitously from the water, and are in parts extremely white, seamed by veins of dark green or black volcanic rock. The boat passes through the gradually contracting gorge, amid the hum of bees, the chatter- ing of monkeys, and the rustling of forest leaves. Above the rocks the river is a hundred yards broad ; here it is compressed into some twenty yards ; it has a great depth, and glides very smoothly. When a full, strong light from sun or moon is thrown upon the rocks above, the combined effect of the marble and its reflection is quite dazzling. The play of light forms a striking contrast with the deep hues of the waters ; by moonlight the rocks look ghostlike and mysterious. But the place is not free from danger. High up above you hang from the cliffs the semicircular combs of bees, which infest the gorge, and which, if disturbed by the firing of a gun or otherwise, swarm down upon the intruders, and there is no means of avoiding their cruel stings. Nevertheless the natives, by means of bamboo ladders suspended from the cliffs, manage at night to smother the bees with torches, and to rob the honey. On the summit of a low hill, overlooking the Marble Rocks, there are sev- eral Hindu Sivoid temples, and the Hindus still hold annually a religious gather- ing and a fair, attended by thousands during the moonlight of November. In the neighborhood of Jabalpur are the Mopani coal-fields and mines of haematite ore ; but the amount of coal raised is not more than about a thousand tons per month, and even when sold at ten rupees a ton, barely covers working expenses. In the Bombay Presidency English coal is used, and of course the prices are very high. Few stations in India can show such majestic mango trees as Jabal- pur ; and it is remarkable for its pine-apples. The bamboo thickets of the higher hills, with their light feathery foliage, beautifully supplement the heavier masses of the sal that climb their skirts. The graciousness of nature in furnishing such plenti- ful shade cannot but be admired. Just at the time when the face of the country begins to quiver in the fierce sun and burning blasts of April, the banyan and peepul figs and the ever-present mango throw out a fresh crop of leaves ; those of the banyan being then, moreover, charged with a thick milky juice that forms an im- penetrable non-conductor to the sun's rays. These are in substance the observations of the late Captain Forsyth, who spent a considerable time in the Narbada Valley. While a keen observer of nature, he was an ardent sportsman, and has left us some interesting facts relating to the tiger, the inhabitant of the Indian jungle, and the devastator of the country in days gone by. Though tiger-hunting is inferior, as a mere exercise or an effort of skill, to some other pursuits, yet it furnishes a test of coolness and nerve ; and there is an excite- ment unsurpassed in attacking an animal before whom every other beast of the forest quails, and unarmed man is helpless as the mouse under the paw of a cat. It is dif- ficult to get information from natives as to the whereabouts of tigers. The hunter and his train of overbearing, swindling servants are shunned by the poor inhabitants. The tiger himself is, in fact, far more endurable than those who, encamping against him, demand grain and other supplies, and force the natives to beat for the tiger, with a considerable chance of getting killed, and very little chance of being paid for theii* services. The native, moreover, regards the tiger as a sort of protector, de- stroying the wild animals which feed upon the crops. The confirmed man-eater, however, is a deadly foe, and much real courage is shown in tiger-hunting, when it is not carried on in large multitudinous companies. l8o BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. Tigers are now very much rarer to meet with than they once were, when Govern- ment offered a reward for each tiger's head sufficient to maintain a peasant's family in comfort for three months. All this is now changed, and it is a frequent complaint that one can so seldom get a shot at a tiger. The only animal, says Dr. W. W. Hunter, that has defied the energy of the British official is the snake. The ascertained num- ber of persons who died from snake-bite in 1875 was seventeen thousand, out of a total of twenty-one thousand three hundred and ninety-one killed by snakes and all other wild animals.' Leaving Jabalpur, the great Indian Peninsula Railway conveys us through the picturesque valley of the Narbada, wild, woody, uncultivated, and thinly peopled. The railway stations are like oases, few and distant from each other, bright with flowers, and well supplied with refreshments, in the midst of jungle. At Khandwa, the branch line to Indore turns northward toward Delhi, opening up a very fertile and productive country for cotton, tobacco, and opium. In- dore itself is an ill-built city with a few mos- ques, but with little to demand the tourist's attention. The large military cantonment of Mhow, about twelve miles southwest from Indore, is quite a European town. Fifty miles farther on along the main line, we come to the branch for Nagpur, a straggling city in a swampy hollow, but much improved by tanks and watercourses, and the largest city in the Central Provinces. Nine miles from Nagpur is the cantonment of Kamthi. In order to visit the famous caves of Ajanta and Elura, we take a slow train from Bhosawal to Pachora, from which the caves are about thirty-two miles distant. Visitors from Bombay usually leave the train at Nandgaon. The Buddhist caves at Ajanta, in a deep glen, penetrating far into the mountain, are twenty-nine in number, with fresco paintings on the walls and ceilings, illustrative of the religious and social life of the people when Buddhism still flourished. None of the caves are high, and there is nothing imposing connected with them. The principal object within is either a Chaitya, a Dagoba, i.e., relic-shrine, or an image of Buddha. In some of the rock- temples here, as may be seen in the illustration, the older Buddhism had disappeared, and Brahmanism had begun to reassert its sway. Instead of paintings, we find sculptures and images not of Buddha only, but of Hindu gods and goddesses. It is supposed that this revolution in religious belief was commenced before the fourth century of our era, and indeed that images of Buddha were hardly known in India nor worshiped after the seventh century. The series of excavations extends along the face of a tall cliff for a distance of five hundred yards ; and some of the caverns ' In 18S2 there were 895 lives sacrificed by tigers, and 16,517 cattle ; also, 114 persons were killed by bears, 60 by elephants. In 1880 there were 10,064 persons who died from snake-bites. — Ed. 181 BUDDHA. BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. are a hundred feet deep and forty wide. Below them is a beautiful waterfall, which, bounds from rock to rock from a height of three hundred feet, and the glen is green and shady with forest trees and numerous creepers. We pursue our way from Ajanta by road to Aurangabad, near which is the far- famed fortress of Doulatabad, an extraordinary hill, consisting of a huge conical rock five hundred feet high, and cut perpendicular all around for a height of forty yards, A winding passage inside leads first to a chamber and then to the summit, which is occupied by the fortress. Leaving this place, we ascend the Ghat, or mountain-ridge, to Roza, where, on the plateau, we see several Mohammedan tombs, one of which has been converted into a bungalow. Descending the Ghat on the other side, we reach the caves of Elura, situated near the base of a crescent-shaped range of hills six hundred feet high. There are thirty caves, of which ten are Buddhist, toward the south, the most ancient ; fourteen Brahmanical, in the center, the most elaborate ; and six Jaina, northward. They are cut in greenstone rock, and extend a mile and a half along the amphitheater. Cascades fall in front of the caves, and the base of the mountain is frinred with brushwood and trees. The best time for a visit is after the rains, when the country is green and the waterfalls full. The Kailas, or Paradise Cave, is the most wonderful. Within a pit is an entire temple cut out of the solid rock, a monolithic Brahmanical temple of the eighth century, with columns and walls elaborately carved, and a pyramidal spire over the shrine. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, when he visited this cave, preached the gospel in it to a congregation of thirty natives. " Some of our auditors," he says, " pointed to the magnificent arches and stupendous figures around us, as the very works of God's own hand ; but we pointed them to the marks of the instrument of the mason, to the innumerable proofs of decay everywhere exhibited, and to the unsuitableness, absurdity, and impiety of the representations. They could not resist our appeal. Little did the formers of this wonderful structure anticipate an event of this kind. We were probably the first messengers of peace who have declared within it the claims of Jehovah." Resuming our railway journey toward Bombay at Nandgaum, we make another halt sixty miles farther on at Nassick, which lies at the foot of the great Western Ghats on their eastern side, where the Godavery rises. Nassick is called the Benares of Western India, and is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Godavery, which here is broad but shallow, and lined with temples. The country is fertile and well wooded ; the town is eighteen hundred feet above the sea, and its advantages are so great that Sir G. Campbell seriously proposed to make it the capital of India. Its population is thirty-five thousand, including ten thousand Brahmans. There is a very pleasant excursion to Gungapore, eight miles farther up the Godavery, where there are nine temples and a pretty waterfall ; but the chief sight is the Buddhist caves of Pandu Lena, running round a conical hill five miles from the town. They are seventeen in number, and were excavated in the fourth century of our era, though, from an inscription over the entrance of one of them, it seems to bear date B. c. 129. The mountains round are very majestic, but everything is so associated with the reigning superstition, that one of these is called the Bed of Rama, its summit being a table-land. The river is an object of great attraction, and besides the great Rama-Kunda, or pool for bathing, there are eleven other pools, sacred to some of the gods. The Church Mission has established here an 182 BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. industrial settlement, called Sharanpur, or " city of refuge," where there is a Chris- tian congregation, schools, an orphanage, and an asylum. And now, resuming our journey along the main line, we see our way blocked up by rocks ahead ; and the apparently impassable barrier of the Western Ghats, which runs parallel to the west coast of India northward from the Nilgiri Hills, rises in all its majesty before us. But the iron horse gradually winds its way snake- STREET IN BOMBAY. like, now round this shoulder, and now across that ravine, till at length we are on the top of the ridge of the ThuU Ghat. The line curves round precipices like the worm of a screw, while you look out on one side of the carriage at the overhanging rocks, and on the other see below the deep ravine with its roaring torrent. It is a noble piece of engineering. The incline is nine miles long, with many zigzags and thirteen tunnels. The sharpest curve is one of seventeen chains radius, and the maximum gradient is one in thirty-seven. There are fifteen bridges and six viaducts. The descent down the sea-face of the ThuU Ghat is very fine. Lofty clilTs, green slopes, wooded gorges, roaring streams, forests of palm and teak, aromatic groves — combine to present a picture of grandeur and loveliness. At l83 BO MB A Y PRESIDENCY. length we reach the Konkan, the level strip of country intervening between the mountains and the sea ; and passing through Tanna, on the Island of Salsette, we arrive at the terminus in Bombay. How grateful is the sweet smell of the sea and its refreshing breeze, after three thousand miles of inland travel and several weeks of inland sojourn in North India! And these breezes, Bombay — " fair haven," as the name signifies — enjoys in double measure, for it is a city built upon a chain of islands, branching out southward from the mainland, and inclosing a splendid harbor of forty square miles. The fort was ceded by the Portuguese, in 1661, to Charles II., who handed it over to ■^he East India Company in 166S for an annual rent of "ten pounds in gold." Owing to the increased growth of Indian cotton, and still more to the opening of the Suez Canal, Bombay has rapidly grown during the present century into a city of seven hundred thousand inhabitants. Of these four hundred thousand are Hindus, one hundred and fifty thousand Mohammedans, fifty thousand Parsis, and the remainder Jains, Eurasians, and Europeans. The variety of nationality and costume is per- haps more striking here than anywhere else in India. Crowds of coolies, or labor- ers, with their dark skins, turbaned heads, and the strip of cloth around their loins, native women, graceful in figure and features, decked out in many colors — crimson and white and yellow, orange, green, and blue — with heavy bracelets on arms and ankles ; Parsis, with white garments and dark towering- hats, and Mohammedans, proud and stately, all bustling along beneath the tropical sun, and in an atmosphere transparent and bright, present a scene most picturesque and exhilarating.' The native town stretches northward, and here is the center of trade. There is, how- ever, no distinctively European quarter in Bombay, Englishmen and natives having their offices side by side. Southward, beyond the Green, is the Fort, now no longer a fort, but an esplanade with leveled ramparts and with noble buildings — the new Secretariat, the new Post-office, the High Court, the University Library and Tower, all European in their style. Beyond these is the promontory of Lower Colaba, with mainly a seafaring population. To one coming for the first time into Bombay from the sea, it is a new sensa- tion to be in this Asiatic atmosphere, surrounded and waited upon by soft-footed Hindus, who glide about noiselessly like cats, watching every look, eager to antici- pate every wish ; indeed, you cannot enter the hotel without a dozen servants rising to their feet and making salaams with profound reverence, as you pass. But one soon learns to accept these obeisances, and to play the English grandee. Native service in India is so cheap that every Englishman has his attendants; and no sooner does the youth, who at home was wont to do everything for himself, set foot here, than he discovers that, by virtue of his belonging to the conquering race, he can hold his head high, smoke at leisure, and be waited upon by mild Hindus, making obeisance to him from the moment he rises in the morning till he is asleep at night. Nay, his servant, like a faithful dog, lies in readiness on the mat outside his door all through the night, and two others are pulling the punkah through the silent hours over sahib's head. He falls moreover into the habit of drinking " pegs," as drams of spirits with or without soda water are called. The name arose from the mode of marking, by pegs opposite his name, each soldier's allowance as ' " Bombay is the fitting tlireshold of India, an inde^f, an illustrated catalogue of all the Eastern races." Edwin Lord Weeks. John Caird says in the Nineteenth Century that Bombay is the most picturesque city in India. — Ed. 184 BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. he got it twice daily in the barrack canteen. An old officer, returning from the country, said to me, " I know no worse school for a young man than India. I have two nephews who have inherited land in Oude ; I am trying to persuade their guardians to sell the land there, and to buy farms for them in New Zealand or America. There they must learn industry and self-dependence. Here in India they learn to be haughty, idle, imperious, self-indulgent." This is the temptation, and this is the threatening danger; for the Hindu is not slow to perceive that by COTTON WEIGHING. hard taxation he really pays for the pomp and retinue of English officials, their incomes, from the Viceroy downward, being practically drawn from the sweat of his brow. But to the prevailing arrogance there are many noble exceptions, men who fear God, who respect the Hindu as a man, not merely regard him as a brute; who fulfill the duty for which they are paid by the people with conscientiousness and kindness; who eschew " pegs," and live temperate and pure lives; who treat the people with justice and humanity. These men are our strength in India. The favorite suburb for the wealthy is Malabar Hill, a lofty ridge about five hundred feet high, which stretches as a separate promontory for two miles out to sea in a southwesterly direction. This thickly-wooded ridge commands glorious views of the city and the ocean. It is dotted over with bungalows, shaded with 185 BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. palms, and embowered in tropical foliage. Here at evening, on the broad veran- das, the merchant or official, stretched in his long bamboo chair, can enjoy the cool ocean breeze. The Government bungalow is at the extreme point, and from it the drive of five miles down the slope and along the beach leads to the Apollo Bunder, where the fashion of Bombay drives in the afternoon until sunset, and gathers to the music of the band. The equipages of the wealthy Parsis and of the English residents sweep along with trails of native footmen. The Parsis, who are descendants of the ancient Persians, and who settled at Surat a thousand years ago, are now an intelligent and enterprising community, rivaling Europeans in opulence. Much of the mercantile business of the East is in their hands. They speak English with fluency, and in their schools English is uni- versally taught. As to religion, they are the followers of Zoroaster, whose precepts in the Zendavesta are summed up thus : " Good thoughts," " good words," " good deeds." Theoretically they claim to be monotheists, but they adore the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water ; they will not contaminate earth by any burial, nor fire by cremation. In their own cemetery on Malabar Hill are five mysterious stone receptacles for their dead, about eight yards high and twenty wide, called " Towers of Silence." Each tower possesses usually an extraordinary coping, not of dead stone but of living vultures. There they sit motionless, with their heads pointed inward. Inside each tower are a number of stone receptacles, like the spokes of a wheel pointing inward, open at the top and sloping toward the center, where is a deep well with charcoal and sand below. When a funeral occurs the body is brought to the bottom of the incline leading to the tower, and here the mourners retire, leaving the bearers to advance with their burden. The corpse is silently conveyed into the interior, laid uncovered in one of the open stone recep- tacles, and left there. Scarcely is the door closed when the vultures swoop down upon the body, and in five minutes the satiated birds fly back and settle down again upon the parapet. Meanwhile the mourners change their clothes, leaving their funeral garments behind them. The dry skeleton is afterward placed in the center well, gradually to disappear below. A Parsi merchant with whom I traveled for several days strongly vindicated this use of birds of prey, as reverential to the four sacred elements, as less revolting than worms, and as best contributing to the health of the living. The best account of Parseeism is Dr. Wilson's work. The Parsi Religion. Under his instruction several Parsis embraced Christianity, and two are now ordained missionaries. Besides the Grant Medical Hospital, so well known for its efficiency, may be named the Panjrapul, a hospital for diseased and decrepit animals. This has been founded and is supported mainly by the Jains, with whom tenderness for animal life is a distinguishing tenet. They are most careful lest they should tread on or crush any insect, or by accident swallow the tiniest mite. They strain the water which they drink (a wise precaution for sanitary reasons), and they will not eat or drink in the dark lest they should inadvertently swallow life. This care arises from their belief that life everywhere, whether in trees or animals or man, is one and the same ; they contend for the identity of life in all kinds of existences. In the hospital all sick or maimed animals are treated, from the elephant to the dog ; even fleas and other vermin are carefully nursed. Crows, cows, monkeys, serpents are regarded as more or less pervaded by Divinity, and any noxious insect or reptile may be an 1 86 BO MB A Y PRESIDENCY. incarnation of a deceased relative. Tlie Jina is "a conquering saint," and the principal point in the creed of Jainas is the reverence paid to holy men u^ho have attained perfection. One way of winning perfection is to found a hospital for broken-down animals, or to build a new temple. Having hired a steam-launch, we started one beautiful morning fosr the island of Elephanta, six miles southeast of Bombay, and after a delightful passage reached the landing-place, a long narrow pier, in an hour and a half. A stone pathway and ENTRANCE TO THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA. steps lead up to the famous caves, where the custodian furnishes you with ; ticket of admission ; and with the guide-book you can decipher all that is to be seen. Three massive columns, cut out of the solid rock, divide the entrance, and support a huge overhanging clif? mantled with verdure and draped with flowering creepers. The regularity of the pillars, which run in parallel lines, and the coarseness of the work- manship, indicate the comparative lateness of the work. The great cave is about one hundred and thirty feet deep and equally wide, hollowed out of trap rock, huge pillars being left in rows to support the roof, which is about twenty feet high. This is a very fair specimen of the rock temples of the Hindus. Facing you in the dis- tance, at the back of the cave as you enter, is a fine colossal cutting of the Hindu trinity: Brahma the creator in the center, Vishnu the preserver on your left, Siva the destroyer on your right. The three faces are combined as if in three huge heads, 187 BOMB A V PRESIDENCY. and the carving of the head-dresses is very carefully executed. On every hand huge bas-reliefs stare passively from the rocky walls around, and represent Siva in various forms, with his wife Parvati. The fact that all the designs in the cavern clearly refer GROTTO AT KENNERY. to Siva only, has led to the conclusion that the entire temple was dedicated to him, under the name Trimurti, and that the three colossal heads in the center represent him only, in three different characters ; the center being in feature calm and benev- olent, that on the left merry and joyous, that on the right fierce and revengeful. On the west side of this monster hall is the most holy place, wherein there rises an I8S BOMB A V PRESIDENCY. immense linga shrine, the emblem of the creative powers of the universe, and the most frequent, indeed, the universal object of idolatry throughout India. Around are giant Brahmans in stone placed as guards ; and hither, in the days when worship was celebrated in the temple, the costliest offerings were brought. We pause before BAS-RELIEFS, GATEWAY OF KARLI. this in horror and sadness, as we think of the age which could revel in the beliefs which these figures embody. On the east side a panel depicts the birth o^ the ele- phant-headed god of wisdom, Gancsh. Here, too, is what Is called the Lions' Cave, on account of two colossal lions in basalt, which were discovered in some excavations, and have been placed here. Again you have Siva as an ascetic, and Siva m the dance. In fact, there is quite a theogony here. The flat, ponderous roof of moun- tain, the pillars as if pressed down and bulging out with its weight, the somber gloom 189 BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. pervading the recesses, and the weird and fantastic carvings on every hand, give to the place an air of mysteriousness and gloom. If civilized man views it with amaze- ment, and is impressed with its grandeur, no wonder that devout and credulous Hindus once regarded it with awe as the dwelling-place of an omnipotent and re- lentless deity. This huge and gloomy rock-temple dates as far back as the ninth century of our era. Outside, the land is fertile, romantic, and hilly, a delightful contrast, as the temple of the Almighty, to the dark idol shrine within. Boys brought for sale beautifully colored flies and pendent birds' nests. The excursion to and from INTERIOR OF GREAT DAGOBA OF KARLI. Elephanta is easily accomplished in a day, and there is no pleasanter one in the neighborhood of Bombay. What the caves of Elephanta were for Brahmanism the Kennery oaves were for Buddhism. The visitor at Bombay has within a day's excursion a very interesting :specimen of both these classes of cave architecture. The Kennery caves are six miles from Tanna railway station. They are almost a hundred in number, and are hollowed out of a large hill in a tract of thick forest. The pillars of the great cave are somewhat like those of Elephanta ; but in the Vihara, which is about forty yards long, there is a colossal figure of Buddha on either side. Flights of steps lead up to the top of the hill, which commands an extensive view, and here are a number of smaller caves, all with indications of Buddhist worship. Traces of plaster and paint- igo BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. ing are observable, supposed to be the work of the Buddhists when driven from Karli. Many of these rock-temples were no doubt originally natural caves. Being carved in the living rock, and not built up with stone, they remain just as they were at the beginning, and have not been altered or repaired. The Kennery caves bear date about the fifth century of our era. Dr. Wilson enumerates no fewer than thirty- seven groups of these cave temples in the Bombay Presidency, the greater number beine of Buddhist oriorin. Those of Elura were the first, then followed the Karli caves, and the latest imitations of them are the Jain excavations. Of all these rock- temples the finest perhaps are those of Karli, about eighty miles by railway from Bombay. The great Chaitya cave here is hewn in the face of a precipice, two-thirds up the side of a thickly wooded hill. In front of it stands the Lion Pillar, a monolith of exquisite architectural proportions, with four stone lions back to back in its capi- tal. The doorway is through a screen carved with colossal figures. The cave itself looks like an oblong church, with a nave and side aisles. It is forty yards long by twelve yards wide, and has a semicircular apse behind the shrine. The roof is dome- like, ornamented by a series of wooden rafters, and resting on forty pillars, each hav- ing a richly molded capital on which kneel two elephants, each bearing two figures. The Chaitya, or dagoba, is a dome on a circular drum surmounted by the remains of a wooden chattar, or umbrella. The only light which is admitted from without comes from a horseshoe window, and falls on this object with great effect. The sculptures represent the aboriginal tribes doing obeisance to Buddha. From in- scriptions that have been deciphered, the date of this Buddhist temple is about b. c. 78. There is nothing in ancient Buddhist architecture that so closely resembles mediaeval Christian building. Not the least wonderful here are the reservoirs of ever cool water, some of them of great depth and cut out of the living rock. The finest cathedrals of Europe do not always excite such emotions as the Karli temple dedicated to Gautama Buddha. It bears this inscription : " By the victorious and most exalted king, this rock mansion has been established, the most excellent in India." Leaving Bombay by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, two hours will find us at Narel, fifty-three miles distant, and within six miles of Matheran, a healthy hill station about two thousand five hundred feet above the sea, where we find ourselves away from the noise and heat of the city, in the midst of lovely scenery and a pure and buoyant atmosphere, with the scent of wild flowers and the songs of birds. There are fine views of the Ghats from Garbut Point, and Panorama Point com- mands the wide expanse of the Konkan, with the sea beyond. On the east of the hill is a noble grove, where magnificent trees are to be seen festooned by gigantic ■creepers. Many Bombay merchants come out hither daily during the hot months. Resuming our railway journey, we now ascend the Bhore Ghat, which is two thou- sand feet above the sea-level. Here the mountains are precipitously scarped, and the railway wends its way, round precipices and in zigzags, to the summit of the tremendous ravine. At one point the angle is so sharp that trains cannot turn, and they reverse their direction on a level terrace. This range was considered the key ■of the Deccan in the early wars of the English with the Mahrattas, and a proposal was made to fortify it. Better far is the traversing of it first by an excellent road, and next by a railway, which surmounts the barrier and brings Ponaa within six hours of Bombay. 191 BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. PooNA is one of the old capitals of the Mahratta, or " Great Kingdom," as the word signifies, the other two capitals being Satura and Kolhapore. Here the Peishwa ruled till his defeat in 1818; and since that time the city has not been so flourish- ing. It is situated in a wide-stretching treeless plain, and is divided into seven quarters, called by the seven days of the week. The inhabitants are chiefly Hindus, and there are many Brahmans, fat and sleek, to be seen in the streets. The shrine of Parvati is on an eminence overlooking the town. Here are the Government English Schools, the Sanscrit College, and the military headquarters for Western India. Seventy miles journey south, by a good but hilly road, brings us to Mahable- SHWAR, a glorious sanitarium, four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, and the Simla of the Bombay Presidency. It is now more easily approached by steam from Bombay to Dasgaum, and thence by the new Ghat road through Poladpur and MAHABLESHWAR. Warra. The late Rev. Dr. John Wilson, who had a bungalow here for many years, says it is " the most lovely spot that you can imagine. The scenery around is the grandest, the most beautiful, and the most sublime which I have yet witnessed dur- ing my earthly wanderings, extensive though they have been. The Mahableshwar is part of the Great Western Ghats, and four thousand seven hundred feet high, a loftiness surpassing the highest of Caledonia's mountains. The vegetation partakes of the magnificence of the tropics, but is enchanting to the dwellers in the climes of the sun, as in some respects resembling that of our beloved native land. At a dis- tance the ocean is seen as a vast mirror of brilliancy, reflecting the glory of the sky. The clouds baffle all description. Their various and changing hues, and multifarious forms and motions, as they descend to kiss the mountain brow, or remain above as our fleecy mantle, or interpose between us and the luminary of heaven to catch its rays, and to reveal their colored splendor, fill the mind with the most intense de- light. The fort is curiously formed on the summit of one of the highest elevations ; and it is associated with all the interest and romance of Mahratti history. The 192 ' BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. native town is spacious, busy, and regular, to a degree seldom seen in this country. The camp is very agreeably situated ; and the Residency has a beautiful neighbor- hood." No European knew the Bombay Presidency so well as did Dr. Wilson. He went out in 1829, and soon became an eminent champion of the Christian religion with Parsis, Mohammedans, and Hindus. He x2.'CiV&A facile princeps among Oriental scholars, was President of the _ _ Bombay Asiatic Society, wrote ^~^^^^~^~~"" several valuable treatises, and was consulted upon political questions by the highest au- thorities in India. He trav- eled through every part of the Bombay Presidency ; and after a life-sojourn of forty- seven years, he died, esteemed and lamented by all classes, on the 1st of December, 1875. The Free Church Institute stands a monument of his labors in the city. I went through the several class- rooms with deep interest and surprise, and addressed the senior class of native stu- dents, who spoke English flu- ently, and greatly astonished me with their intelligent ques- tions. I also visited the Jews School, in which Dr. Wilson took deep interest, for there are man)' Beni-Israel, as they are called, in Bombay. Here are nearly a hundred Jewish children, boys and girls, learn- ing Hebrew and English, and reading the Hebrew Bible. The American Board missions in Bombay date from 1813, and have been all along conducted with zeal and efficiency. Driving across the Esplanade one Saturday, I saw a large crowd of Hindus gathered at the foot of one of the statues ; and in the midst of them stood the venerable Rev. George Bowen, holding an open- air service, and preaching the Gospel of Christ. He, like Dr. Wilson, is a veteran in mission work, and is highly esteemed by the Hindus. The Bombay Presidency extends southward past the Portuguese settlement of Goa, and includes North Kanara. The first sigrht of Goa is maofnificent, and the houses look substantial ; but it is evident that little remains but the churches and some other public buildings. The view from the turrets of the Augistinian convent 193 JEWESSES, BOMBAY. BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. is magnificent. The four Gairsoppa Falls, three hundred and forty miles south of Bombay, in North Kanara, are reckoned among the chief wonders of India. No- vember is the best month to visit them. They are named the " Rajah," the " Roarer," the " Rocket," and " Dame Blanche." The first falls in a single leap a depth of eight hundred feet, but the other three glide in a thick body of water down the sloping rocks. Northward the Bombay Presidency embraces the peninsular lands of Gujarat and Kutch, and the district called Sinde, which includes the mouths of the Indus. Taking the Bombay and Baroda line, we reach Surat, one hundred and sixty-seven miles, in eight hours, an ugly town, but famous in history, and an outpost of the Mah- rattas. It was one of the first English settlements in India, and declined as Bombay supplanted it. Here there are several factories, and the place is well known for its cotton. The inhabitants of Surat have shown great intelligence and spirit in re- sisting unjust taxation. The tombs of the governors of the English and Dutch fac- tories are immense structures, in imitation of Mohammedans, and meant to impress the natives with the greatness and wealth of the owners. The railway stations along this line are beautifully kept, and have gardens smiling with flowers. Another hundred miles are traversed in about five hours, and we reach Baroda, the capital of the Mahratta chief called the Gaikwar, or "cowherd." The city is divided into four quarters by wide streets, meeting in the center at a spacious market-place. The population is said to be two hundred thousand. The houses are mostly of wood, and the country around is charmingly fertile. The Gaikwar's court is a scene of great splendor. He entertains European guests sumptuously, though the enter- tainments are somewhat of a barbaric character, involving the cruelty of elephant and rhinoceros fights, and combats of gladiators, which sometimes prove fatal. " Baroda," says Dr. Wilson, " is considered a cesspool of moral corruption. Not- withstanding the productions of much of its soil, it has seldom, if ever, been free from embarrassments of debt. Much caprice is shown in the exactions made from the agricultural population. The administration of justice has been most imperfect and partial." The grandeur of the sowaris, or processions of the Gaikwar, is quite daz- zling. The prince himself rides on a noble elephant, whose howra is of silver, pre- sented by the Queen of England ; and in the procession comes the standard-bearer, also mounted on an elephant. Here to this day we see how, as Milton says : The gorgeous East Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. In the neighborhood of Gogo, north of Baroda, in the peninsula of Kathiawar, where are the best Lascars, or sailors, in India, is the famous Jain hill of temples called Palitana. The Jains regard temple-building as a virtue, and these temples range in date from the fifth century of our era down to the present time. The grouping together of temples is a peculiarity which the Jains practice to a greater ex- tent than the followers of any other religion in India. The hill commands an exten- sive view, and the temples are among the most costly in India, built of sandstone or basalt, the floors and doorposts of marble, and a good deal of the workmanship is mosaic. The images are decorated with ear-rings, necklaces, armlets, and the wonder is that such an amount of treasure has remained unmolested. The Jaina priests here wear cloth shoes. They carry a broom to sweep the road and put all insects 194 BOMB A Y PRESIDENCY. out of the way of harm, and a mouth-cloth to prevent insects from entering their mouths when praying. They believe that all life— the life of vegetables, brutes, men, gods — however diffused, is equally sacred. " How many lives are there," asked Dr. Wilson, " in a pound of water?" "An infinite number," was the reply. "How many are there in a bullock?" "One." " You kill then thiDusands of lives, while the Mussulman butcher kills one." The city which bears the clearest marks of Mohammedan conquests in Gujarat is Ahmadabad, where there are several large mosques ; but even these indicate the power of Jainism reacting upon the Moslem conquerors. A drive to the long deserted, but once lordly -pleasure-place, at some distance from the city, on the banks of the river, reveals to the tourist the parklike character of Gujarat. Wheat is ex- tensively grown, especially in the northern part, rice and the sugar cane flourish, and mango trees are in great abun- dance. Southward cotton is widely cultivated. Along the coast there lies Somnath, where was the temple regarding which Lord Ellenborough became the laughing-stock of India when, in his heated and unprincipled policy, he made his empty boast that he would return with a flourish the Somnath Gates car- ried away by the Afghans eight centuries before. The gates never got beyond Agra ; they probably never belonged to the temple, which is a ruin, now ut- terly forsaken, traversed by the village swine. The image in it which the Moslems destroyed was the Linga, and the remains of the temple carvings which they broke are of such a character that their destruc- tion is scarcely a matter for surprise or regret. Farther north we reach the granite rock of GiRNAR, containing the Asoka inscriptions. On the mountain are the ruins of Buddhist dagobas, and from one of the peaks Hindus who get tired of life throw themselves down, in the hope of making a speedy journey to heaven. The view from the top embraces the adjoining hills and a wide range of low country. But the Gir- nar Rock ranks in historical literature with the Rosetta stone. It was first deci- phered in 1835 by Dr. Wilson, who writes : " After comparing the letters with several Sanscrit alphabets in my possession, I found myself able, to my great joy and that of the Brahmans who were with me, to make out several words, and to decide as to the probable possibility of making out the whole." The inscriptions cover a hundred square feet of the uneven surface of a huge rounded and conical granite bowlder twelve feet high. They record the character of the great and good Asoka. Sailing still northwest along the coast of Gujarat we reach Dwarka, which was once in the west of India what Puri, the shrine of Juggernaut, is still in the east. 195 THE GIRNAR ROCK. BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. The temple has a lofty steeple, and it stands on an elevated piece of ground with a flight of steps leading down to a creek of the sea, which is regarded as a sacred bath- ing-place. Its celebrity is greatly on the wane, and the decreasing number of pil- grims witnesses to the gradual decline of superstition among the people. The state called Kutch forms a connecting link between Gujarat and Sinde. It is almost an island, two hundred miles long by one hundred broad, intersected bytwo mountain ranges, and somewhat sterile in character, owing to lack of water. Cotton is the main crop. Under the influence of British counsel, specially of the excellent Dr. Gray, the Rao adopted many beneficent measures, suppressed the slave-trade and infanticide, and proved himself one of the most learned and humane of the Indian princes. His capital is Bhooj, which was converted into a heap of ruins in 1819 by the great earthquake that was felt throughout India, even to Calcutta and ON THE INDUS. Pondicherry. The Runn of Kutch is a flat region of seven thousand square miles, the dried-up bed of an inland sea, barren and unfruitful, and sometimes overflowed by the sea, which leaves large salt deposits. The sudden changes of land into sea, and sea into land, show the revolutions still possible on the earth. The most northerly portion of the Bombay Presidency is Sinde, which includes the delta of the Indus. The morale of the policy which conquered and annexed this country in 1843 '^^s well .summed up in the parody upon the short dispatch of Sir C. Napier, Peccavi, " I have Sinde." But whatever may have been the errors of early English rule, the wise policy of Lord Dalhousie provided for such administra- tive and engineering improvements in Sinde, as promise to make " young" Kgypt," as it is called, more than rival o/d; although the Indus can never equal the Nile. Dr. Wil- son, of Bombay, was the first Protestant missionary who opened his lips in Sinde ; this was in 1850, and at Karachi. By the battle-field of MianI and the fort of Haidarabad, where the governor had just received the homage of the chiefs, the two missionaries. Duff and Wilson, met thirty years ago, and made plans for educational iq6 BOMB A V PRESIDENCY. and mission work which since have borne abundant fruit. The rising port of Karachi has now upward of fifty thousand inhabitants. It is connected by railway with Calcutta, by telegraph with Bassora and Europe, and by steamship, like Bom- bay, with all parts of the world. The prosperity of India depends upon the steady growth and spread of political justice, male and female education, Christian missions, and literature. Justice must be done by the legal recognition of peasant right, making ryot and tenant joint sharers in the increasinsf value of the land : by reduced taxation, re- lieving the burdens which now crush the people ; by careful cur- tailment of military and civil ser- vice expenditure, moderating sal- aries, employing native talent ; by wise expenditure in irrigation and other public works, thus averting famine and increasing the food supply ; and by a steady course of firm, just, and wise legislation. In education more must be done by Government for the mass of the population, elementary schools for the people being supported, and advanced colleges for the rich being left to support them- selves ; while schools and colleges under missionary management are more liberally aided and encour- aged, and zenana work and board- ing schools for girls and orphanages supplemented by grants in aid. But, above all, our hope for India is in the circulation of the Scriptures and of a healthy Christian periodical literature, weekly and monthly, as in other parts of the world, and in the humble, zealous, self-denying labors of the " fishers of men " called and sent by the Lord Jesus, publishing the gospel of peace, bringing good tidings to the sin- burdened and sin-bound. Thus Christ's Kingdom shall prevail, and India will become hopeful, enlightened, self-governed, prosperous, and free. IN CHRISTIAN GIRLS SCHOOL, AGRA. 197 INDEX. Adam's Bridge, 13 Adam's Footprint, 27 Adam's Peak, 20, 26 Adinath, 173 Agra, 134 ■ Ahmadabad, 195 Ajanta, 181 Ajmere, 170 Aldeen, 99 Allahabad, 142 A^u H'l'har^, 31 Alwar, 172 Ambernath Cave, i6i Cawnpore, 133 Central India Agency, 172 Ceylon, 13 Ceylon, Christianity in, 34 Chaitya, iSi, igi Chanda, 84 Chandernagore, 100 Chidpore Road, 95 Chillambaram, 39, 68 Chittore, 170 Chotia Nagpur, 115 Choultries, 51 Chowky The, 129 American Missions, 36, 56. Church Missionary Society, 80, 100, 129, 164, 182 Cinchona Plantations, 110 Circars, Northern, 87 144, 140 Amravati, 80, 160 Amritsar, 155 Anderson, Dr., 76 Amira-japflra, 12, 31, 33 Arcot, 76 Armagan,*73 Asoka, King, 31, 33. "6, 125, 151 Assam, 100 Attock, 92 Aukana Wihara, 32 Baktawar Sing, 172 Bangalore, 76, 85 Banyan Tree, 96 Baptist Missions, 100, 154 Bareilly, 131 Barmul Pass, 92 Baroda 194 Barrackpore, 98 Batticotta, 36 Bees, 180 Behar, 116 Bells, Church, 48, 121 Benares, 69, 119, 157 Betel, The, 18 Bhilsa, 174 Bhisti, 66 Bhooj, 196 Bhooteas, 107 Bhopal, 174 Bhore Ghat, 179, igt Bhowries, 115 Bhutas, T2 Bhuvaneswar, 88 Birsing Deo, 194 Bithoor, 134 Black Hole of Calcutta, 95 Bo Tree, 29, 116 Boats on Ganges, 116 Bombay, 184 Botanical Gardens, 29, 96, 109 Brahma, iSg Brahmanism, 72, 120, 181 Erahmans, 62, 97 Brahmaputra, The, 100 Brahmo-somaj, 98 Brass Work, 123 Euddh Gaya, 31, 116 Buddha, 28, 88 Buddha's tooth, 28, 88 Buddhism, 28, 36, 71, 88, 107, Ti6, 181 Bull, sacred, 39, 65 Bundelcund, 194 Calcutta, 92 Canadian Mission, 83 Canarese, 50 Cane bridges, log Canoes, 18 Carey, William, 99 Carnatic, The, 50 Cashmere Gate, poetrj', 153 Caste, 62, 76 Catamarans, 79 Clivc, Lord, 76, 95, 100 Coal Fields, 115, 180 Cocoa-nut Palm, 44 Coconada, 83 Coimbatore, 6r Colaba, 184 Collector, The, 97 Colombo, 16, 19 Combaconum, 63 Comorin Cape, 40, 47 Conjeveram. 69 CooiUs, 20, 39 Coorg, 76 Coromaudel Coast. 39, 88 Cotton Factories, 98, 194 Cruelty, 91 Cuddalore, 67 Cuttack, 87,92 Dak Bungalows, 103 Dalada, The, 26 Dalhousie, 166 Dambulla, 32 Darjeeling, 100 Darwinism, 121 Deccan The, 84, igi Delhi, 112, 136 Dhamek, 126 Dharmsala, 165 Dipawansa, The, 17 Doabs, 148 Doulatabad, 182 Dravidian Architecture, 51 Dravidians, 50 Duff, Dr.. 95, 196 Durga, 121 Duttiah, 174 Dwarka, 195 Elephant. The, 25, 129 Elephanta Caves, 160, 187 Elk of Ceylon, 22 Elura Caves, 182 Elysium, 163 Eurasians, 184 Gautama, 17, 28, 31, 116, 125, 191 Gaya, 31, 116, 125 Ghdts, The, 40, 80, 119 Goa, 172, 193 Godavery, The, S3, 84, 182 Gogo, 194 Gonds, 172 Gopuras, 51 Greek Invasion, 159 Gujarat, 195 Gungapore, 182 Gwalior, 173 Haidarabad, 84, 196 Happy Valley, The, 160 Hastings, Warren, 95 Havelock. Sir Henry, 131 Himalayas, 103, no, 164 Hindu Trinity, 187 Hinduism, 35,71, 120 Hoogly, The, 92, 96,-98 Hospitals, 74, 186 Hunter. Dr. W. W., 181 Iambara, The, 129 Idolatry, 120 Indore, 170, 17a, x8i Indus, The, 112, 157, 159 Introductory, ix, x Jabalpur, 179 Jaffna, 36 Jains, The, 115, 169, 1741 187, 194 Jaipur, 171 Jalna, 84 yampan^ 162 Jina, The, 187 yiziah. The, 123 Juggernaut, 89. 176, 195 Jumna Musjid, 149 Kailas, The, 182 Kali Ghat. 96 Kanarak, 88 Kandy, 13, 27 Karli, 191 Kashmir, 160 Kathiwar, 194 Kennery Caves, 190 Khansaviahy The, 103 Khatmandu, 107 King Pal, 173 Kolhapore, 192 Kols, The, 115 Konkan, The, 184, 191 Krishna, 88 Kshuttries, 62 Kutch ,196 Kutub Minar, 154 Laddar Vallev, 161 Lahore, 112. 156 Land in India, zi2 Malabar Hill, iSs Malayalam, 44 Mango trees, 180 Marble Rocks, The, 180 Mahrattas, 172, 191 Martiniere, The, 126 Martyn, Henry, 199 Masulah Boats, 79 Masulipatam, 80 Minakshi, 51 Moguls, The, 136, 140, 172 Mohammedans, 149 Mongolians, 104 Mopani Coalfields, 180 Mudden Mahal, 179 Muezzin, The, 150 Multan, 147^ 157 Mysore, 76 Nagpur. 84, 181 Naini, Tal, 132 Narbada, The, 179 Nassick, 182 Nepal, 107 Newera Ella, 21 Nilgiri Hills. 6r Northwest Provinces, iig, 132 Opium, 112 Oraons, The, 115 Orchids, 21 Orissa, 87 Oude, 96, 136 Fakirs, 121 False Point, 91 Famine. 75, 83 Fergusson, Sir James, 67, 69, Landour, 164 Ldts, 150 Lavinia, Mt., 20 70 Feroz Shah, 149 Flavel, Samuel, 76 Free Church Colleges : Madras, 76 ; Calcutta, 95 ; Bombay, 193 Free Church Missions, 84 French Settlements, 67, k>o Futtepore Sikri, 141 Gal-wihar, 32 Galle, 13 Ganesh, 43. 122, 189 Ganges, 92, 96, loo, 163 Ganjam, 84 Lepers, 75 Lepcha'J, 104 i/«.'aw/, 68, 123, 174 London Missionary Society, 44' 73. 84. 97i 121 Lotus flower, 126 Lucknow, 126 Madras, 73 Madura, 50 Magadha, 31 Mahableshwar, 192 Mahavalipur, 70 Palanquins, 83 Palimcotta, 47 Palitana, 195 Palmyra Palms, 43, 83 Pandu Lena, 182 Pandya Kingdom, 68 Parasnath, Mount, 84, 115 Parawas, The, 17 Pariahs, 62 Parsis, 184 Parvati,68» 188, 192 Patan, 107 Patna District, 115 Pats, 115 Pedro-talla-galla, 21 Peridinia Gardens, 29 Perur, 61 Peshawar, 112, 159 Phear, Sir J. B., 55, 113 Pitakas, The, 17, 32 Plassey, 100 PoUonarua, 32 Pondicherry, 67, 196 Poona, 191 Portuguese, The, 17, 34, 184, »93 Poverty of the people, 113 Pulastipura, 32 . Punjab, The, 147 Puri, 73, 87, 195 Rajputana, 169 Rama, 182 Ramboddie, 21 Ranigung Coalfield, 115 Ratnapura, 26, 36 Reformed Church of Hol- land, 35 Religious Mendicants, 97 Romanism, 17, 34. 62 Ruanvelly Dagoba, 34 Rungaroon Gardens, 109 Runjit Sing, 157 Sacrifices. 97 Saivism, 68, 69 Sakhi Sanvar, 158 Salsette, 184 Salt-tax, 113, 172 Sambar Salt Lake, 172 Samnuggur, 08 Sanchi, 160, 174 Sanscrit, 112, 120 Samath, 125 Satura, 192 Schwartz, C. F., 48, 59, 66, 73 Scudder, 76 Sealkote, 160 Secunderabad. 84 Secunder Bagh, The, 129 Sen, K. C.,98 Sepoys, 134 Seringapatam, 76 Seringham, 60 Seven Pagodas, The, 70 Shillong, 100 Shraddhas, n6 Sikhs, The, 155 Simla, 162 Singalese, 14 Siva, 27, 65, 69, 96, 120, 187 Snakes, 181 Somnath Gates, 136, 195 Sonaghur, 174 Srinagur, 158, 161 Stupds, 125. 174 Sudras, 62 Taj, The, 134 Tambiravami, The, 47 Tamil, 14, 48 Tamils, 20, 39, 47 Tanjore, 59 Taragar, 170 Tea, 21, 109 Telugu, 80, 84 Teppu-kulam, 55 Thibetans, 107 Thomas, 44 Thuggism, 114, 151 Thugs, 114, 174 ThuU Ghat, 183 Titans and Jewelers, 135 Tiger Cave, 73 Tigers, 96, 180 Tinnevelly, 44 Tirupetty, 76 Towers of Silence, 1006 Transmigration of souls, 174 Travancore, 44 Trichinopoly, 59 Trincomalee, 13, 31 Tudas, 61, 62 Tuticorin, 40 Udaipur, 169 Vaisyas, 62 Vedas, The, 83, 120 Vimana., 51, 88, Vindhya Mountains, 84 Vishnu, 69, 88, 116, 120, 187 Vishnuvism, 68, 69, 72 Well of Salvation, 122 Wesleyan Missions, 36 Williams, Dr. Monier, 71 Wilson, Bishop, 95 Wilson, Dr. John, 182, 192 Woman's strength, 169 Zamindars, 112 Zenanas Mission, 155 Zendavesta, The, 186 Zoroaster, 186 '' ft ^^m&^ O *^ .j:\,v.-, ttv::?. it%-.' \^%\ -"^ r«?'t^s;nv:V'' "f » :k./¥L >:^-vi; M^ .^1??^ ^%d t5i"J,i». 1'^^'*' •« , LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 0029903 286 3