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Winter India 
 
THE SACRED BO-TEEE AND THE DIAMOND THRONE, EUDDHA-GATA. 
 
 THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE VERANDA OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
Winter India 
 
 By 
 
 Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore 
 
 Author of " Jinrikisha Days in Japan," "Java: The Garden of the East,' 
 and "China; The Long-Lived Empire" 
 
 
 New York 
 
 The Century Co. 
 
 1903 
 
THE LibRARY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 MAR 20 1903 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 
 CLASS 0^ XXc. No. 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published March, IQ03 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS 
 
 \^ 
 
 lY 
 
 \^ 
 
 ^^v 
 
TO 
 
 CAROLINE TOUSEY BURKAM 
 
 THE FRIEND OF 
 
 AN INDIAN WINTER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I On India's Coral Strand 3 
 
 II Trichinopoli and Tanjore 21 
 
 III With Chidambram's Brahmans 34 
 
 IV For the Honor and Glory of Shiva .... 51 
 V Madras and the Seven Pagodas 64 
 
 VI Madras and Calcutta 80 
 
 VII Calcutta in Christmas Week 89 
 
 VIII The Greatest Thing in the World .... 105 
 
 IX Mahabodhi, the Place of Great Intelligence 116 
 
 X The Sacred Bo-tree 133 
 
 XI The Greatest Sight in the World .... 149 >• 
 
 XII Benares 165 
 
 XIII LucKNow 177 
 
 XIV Agra 185 
 
 XV Akbar, the Greatest Mogul of Them All . 202 
 
 XVI Delhi 213 
 
 XVII Old Delhi 227 
 
 XVIII Lahore 239 
 
 XIX The End of the Indian Empire 256 
 
 XX Through Khyber Pass with the Caravans . 276 
 
 XXI Amritsar 298 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE P-*-<^^ 
 
 XXII Simla 312 
 
 XXIII Alwar 323 
 
 XXIV GWALIOR 335 
 
 XXV Jeypoke 344 
 
 XXVI Mount Abu and Ahmedabad 357 
 
 XXVII The Caves op Ellora and Kaeli 369 
 
 XXVIII Bombay 383 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Sacred Bo-tree and the Diamond Throne, 
 Buddha-Gaya Frontispiece. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tamil Children 5 
 
 The Great Gopura, Madura Temple 13 
 
 Detail of Gopura, Madura Temple 19 
 
 Indian Lotas 27 
 
 Gopura and Tank, Chidambram Temple 43 
 
 Pattu Thacheadar 57 
 
 Monolithic Temples at Mahabalipur 67 
 
 The Village Street 77 
 
 The Euins and Pagodas of Pagan 91 
 
 From photograph by Bourne & Shepard. 
 
 The Fort at Mandalay 91 
 
 Vases from the Sakya Stupa at Piprawah .... 121 
 
 The Sarcophagus in the Cave 121 
 
 The Ekka 124 
 
 The Great Temple at Buddha-Gaya and the Sacred 
 
 Bo-tree 127 
 
 Asoka's Bail, Buddha-Gaya 143 
 
 The Women's Ghat, Benares 151 
 
 The Burning-Ghat, Benares 159 
 
 Fakirs at Benares 169 
 
 On the Ganges 173 
 
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Taj Mahal 187 
 
 Private Audience-Hall and Jasmine Tower in Agra 
 
 Palace. Taj Mahal in Distance 197 
 
 Mausoleum of Selim Chisti, Fatehpur Sikri . . . 207' 
 
 kutab minar 219 
 
 Detail of Kutab minar 231 
 
 Street Dancers, Delhi 237 
 
 The Eoofs and Balconies of Lahore 245 ■ 
 
 School-boys in the Vazir Khan Mosque, Lahore . . 251 
 
 Afghan Falconer, Peshawar 251 - 
 
 The Mad Molla, Peshawar 269 
 
 Caravans in the Khyber Pass 287 
 
 The Golden Temple, Amritsar 301 
 
 Window at Gwalior 307 
 
 The Hall of Audience, Jeypore 315 
 
 The Old City of Amber, from the Top of the De- 
 serted Palace 325 
 
 The Deserted Palace, from the Lake, Amber . . . 331 
 
 The Hall of Mirrors . 337 
 
 Interior of Jain Temple, Mount Abu 349 
 
 Ceiling of Jain Temple, Mount Abu 359 
 
 Tracery "Window, Ahmedabad 365 
 
 Rock-cut Temple at Ellora 371 
 
 The Great Cave-temple, Karli 379 
 
 "Please Buy My Niklass" 387 
 
INTEODUCTION 
 
 >T can hardly be said with literalness 
 I that one enjoys India. I had not ex- 
 pected to enjoy it, and it proved itself, 
 despite its color and picturesqueness, 
 quite as melancholy and depressing 
 a country as I had thought it would be; but so ab- 
 sorbingly interesting, so packed with problems, so 
 replete with miracles accomplished by alien rule, so 
 ripe with possibilities, that one soon overlooked the 
 unnecessary hardships and discomforts of travel — 
 travel as plain and primitive as in the Klondike, or 
 as if the country had been conquered only within 
 this decade. 
 
 The surprises, the contrasts, and the contradic- 
 tions administer perpetual shock and mental stimu- 
 lus, and the unexpected continually confronts one. 
 Never have I suffered with cold as in India. Not a 
 snake did I see or hear of in the cold-weather, tourist 
 season, save in zoological gardens or snake-charmers' 
 baskets, and the tigers were likewise caged. 
 
 There are so many Indias that no one person can 
 know them all, and the Winter India which the 
 tourist sees during the cold-weather weeks is not the 
 real one which the Anglo-Indian knows the year 
 around. The military man, the civilian officer, the 
 
xu INTRODUCTION 
 
 missionary, planter, and merchant has each his own 
 India and view-point; and the British visitor, who 
 is passed from home to home by the endless chain 
 of Anglo-Indian hospitality, sees and thinks differ- 
 ently from the other tourists who suffer the drear 
 hotels, the dak banglas, and the railway-station 
 rooms. 
 
 The worst hotels in the world are those of India, 
 and a British traveler has truthfully written: "You 
 will enjoy your traveling in India if you have so 
 many friends there that you need never put foot 
 in a hotel. If you have not, you had better go some- 
 where else." Each winter the peninsula holds a 
 growing number of surprised and resentful tourists, 
 who, whether they land at Bombay or Calcutta, usu- 
 ally conclude that the shortest route across India 
 is the best one. One month or six weeks is the 
 average stay; and very few tourists ever go to 
 the hills for the summer and come back to the plains 
 for a second cold-weather season of travel. The 
 average tourist sacrifices itineraries without com- 
 punction, and lives to warn away aged and invalid 
 tourists and to convince those with weak lungs and 
 impaired digestions that death waits in Indian 
 hotels. 
 
 The glamour of the East does not often or for long 
 enthrall one while touring Hindustan. Later it as- 
 serts itself, reveals its haunting charm; and then, 
 be it months or years afterward, he "hears the East 
 a-callin'." He forgets the ice in the bath-tubs at 
 Agra and Delhi, the bitterly cold nights in drafty, 
 dusty, springles's cars, and in visions he sees only 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 "the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinldy 
 temple bells," the brilliantly costumed people, and 
 the miracles of architecture scattered so lavislily 
 from end to end of the empire. 
 
 A new India for the tourist will date from the 
 great durbar at Delhi in 1903, and India, which has 
 been a winter preserve for visiting English, will be 
 virtually discovered and opened to a wider clientele, 
 made as possible and fit for luxurious travel as 
 Egypt. Equally this day of cheap travel and cheap 
 living will vanish as completely as on the Nile. 
 
 For one to announce that he will spend a winter 
 in India is hardly more definite or precise than to 
 say that he will winter in Europe. India is a very 
 large country,— several large countries,— since it 
 equals in area and population all of Europe outside 
 of Russia; and one travels the nineteen hundred 
 miles of its extent from south to north through as 
 many political divisions as there are great divisions 
 of Europe, and differing as greatly in climate, phy- 
 sical features, and inhabitants. The Spaniard does 
 not differ more from the- Laplander than the sooty 
 Tamil from the blue-eyed Afridi, the weak Bengali 
 from the fighting Rajput or the fierce Sikh. Besides 
 the thirteen provinces under British rule, there are 
 six hundred and fifty native states; but only two 
 hundred of them are of great importance, since na- 
 tive states range in size from Hyderabad, the size of 
 Italy, to single villages in Kathiawar and tiny valleys 
 in the Himalayan foot-hills, empires two miles 
 square. 
 
 The census of 1901 gave a total of 294,360,356 in- 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 habitants— five times as many Hindus as Moham- 
 medans, and one hundred and nine times as many- 
 natives as English. The fourteen distinct races fol- 
 low eight forms of religious belief, and speak some 
 two hundred and forty languages and three hundred 
 dialects ; all legislative acts are published in English, 
 Persian, Bengali, and Hindustani— and then only 
 one man in ten can read. The permanence of British 
 rule and the safety of British interests lie in this 
 diversity of race, language, government, and religion. 
 In division is strength, in discord is stability, since 
 their race hatreds, jealousies, animosities, and an- 
 tipathies would never permit a native leader to be 
 acceptable to all the native malcontents, and patriot- 
 ism or any national spirit is as lacking as the sense 
 of those words, and of even the word for gratitude. 
 With no common language or religion, no national 
 feeling, in this congress of nations, one may para- 
 phrase a certain interrogative and exclaim: "The 
 Indians ! Who are they ? " 
 
 One fifth of the human race dwells between the 
 Himalayas and the ocean ; the records of their civil- 
 ization go back for three thousand years, and his- 
 tory has been written upon history on those plains. 
 Rice — two hundred and ninety-five kinds of rice, 
 called by as many names in as many tongues— and 
 pulse are the staple food of this great agricultural 
 people, drought and famine the lot of some state or 
 province each year, with plague and cholera seldom 
 absent. Two great famines and the continual rav- 
 ages of the bubonic pest greatly reduced the popu- 
 lation during the last decade of the past century, 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 the decrease in the native states being many times 
 greater than in the British provinces. Increased 
 areas of irrigation and cultivation have made it pos- 
 sible for the increasing millions to live— to half live, 
 according to European standards, for the Indian 
 coolie or agricultural worker is lowest in the scale of 
 living and wages and in standard of comfort of any 
 Asiatic. Great calamities and scourges afford the 
 only relief from over-population, — a population in 
 which the women are in deficit to the number of six 
 millions, and their illiteracy so great that only one 
 woman in one hundred and sixty can read. 
 
 All these diverse races and peoples are picturesque 
 to look upon, with their graceful draperies of bril- 
 liant colors and the myriad forms of turbans; hut 
 they are not an attractive, a winning, a sympathetic, 
 or a lovable people. They are as antipathetic and de- 
 void of charm as the Chinese, as callous, as deficient 
 in sympathy and the sense of pity as those next 
 neighbors of theirs in Asia, and as impossible for the 
 Occidental to fathom or comprehend, — an irresisti- 
 ble, inexplicable, unintelligible repulsion controlling 
 one. India vexes one sadly because of the irrational, 
 illogical turns of the Indian mind and character, the 
 strange impasses in the Indian brain, the contra- 
 dictions of traits; and, because of the many things 
 he cannot account for or reach solution of, he quits 
 the country baffled and in irritation— forever the 
 great gulf yawning between the Occidental and the 
 Asiatic. ''East is East, and West is West." 
 
 Not one of the innumerable tongues that he hears 
 spoken by the common people in the bazaars falls 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 musically on the ear, and beyond the numerals and 
 a few utility words he is little tempted to dabble even 
 with Urdu, the camp language, the lingua franca 
 of the upper part of the peninsula. Jao! (Begone!) 
 is the first word he learns and most constantly uses, 
 the last syllable uttered on leaving. 
 
 From the babel of tongues, with no common al- 
 phabet, has come a confusion of spelling, and 'the 
 modem or Hunterian method, although officially 
 adopted by the government in 1880, does not enjoy 
 general acceptance and use in India. Sir William 
 Hunter gave years to investigating and recording 
 local usages, to transliterating from Sanskrit and the 
 vernacular the geographic names of the peninsula, 
 and the publication of his great Gazetteer should 
 have ended the confusion of nomenclature. Many 
 of his departures were too radical for the older 
 Anglo-Indians to accept — hangla was not the same 
 as bungalow to them, kuli did not represent coolie, 
 nor pankha the cooling punka; and five, eleven, and 
 seventy-two ways of spelling a single place-name 
 continue in common use— three distinct systems of 
 spelling and local usage still prevailing, often in 
 determined opposition to the Hunterian method. 
 The first American authority, which is followed in 
 this volume, does not wholly accept Sir William 
 Hunter 's decisions. The new method will ultimately 
 prevail, but with another generation. 
 
WINTER INDIA 
 
WINTER INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON INDIA S CORAL STRAND 
 
 jHE monkeys built a bridge for Rama to 
 cross to Ceylon, and sections of the 
 causeway by which Adam traversed 
 the Palk Strait remain as evidence of 
 his good fortune on tour; but for us 
 there was the worst of many bad "B. I." boats, and 
 a night of never to be forgotten misery, disgust, and 
 discomfort on the Gulf of Manaar 's deceptive waters. 
 Of all dream nights in the tropics, none matched 
 that night on which we coursed slowly along the 
 south shore of Ceylon, from Colombo westward. 
 Enormous stars pulsed in an intense indigo sky, the 
 moon rose and, streaming across a summer sea, made 
 a heaven above, beneath, and far around us. In the 
 midst of this silvery world floated the odorous, un- 
 tidy coasting steamer, from whose decks we in- 
 stinctively lifted our skirts by day, and across which 
 by dark sped myriads of enormous brown roaches. 
 The dark boxes of cabins rustled with these fleeing 
 insects when a light was brought, and we retreated 
 to spend the night in deck chairs. 
 
4 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Some cross current in that pent-up pocket of. 
 Manaar makes it a rival of the English Channel for 
 nausea; but at daylight the ship anchored in shal- 
 low, gray-green waters seven miles off the low-ly- 
 ing coast of the Indian peninsula— "India's coral 
 strand"— and for two hours it rocked there more 
 fully to complete the misery of two hundred coolie 
 passengers, heaped together on the forward deck like 
 so much cargo. It was slow work disembarking 
 these limp folk, who fell prone in every stage and 
 attitude of misery fore and aft on the reeling tender, 
 A greasy bench was reserved for us amidships, fairly 
 touching the boilers, and, after inhaling steam and 
 engine grease for an hour, we reached the snow- 
 white beach. Inky-black cargo coolies in red and 
 white draperies filed up and down the sandy shore 
 and the narrow pier of Tuticorin, and there was local 
 color to spare; color, too, in the Custom-house, 
 where an aldermanic black official, with an exag- 
 gerated sausage of a turban linked around his caste- 
 marked brow, received us with unctuous gravity, 
 listened to our declaration that we had neither 
 spirits, ammunition, nor firearms, and let us go 
 with our unopened luggage, free to wander at will 
 from that furthest end of the empire to the utter- 
 most mountain wall, without official interference or 
 question, welcome without passport or permit, free 
 from espionage and annoyance : a liberty of entrance, 
 a courteously opened door, that covers the American 
 tourist with chagrin as he contrasts it with the land- 
 ing at any of his own ports. 
 
 Tuticorin 's white walls and houses, white sand 
 
ON INDIA'S CORAL STRAND 7 
 
 streets, and the paling turquoise sky were back- 
 ground only for the stage processions and groups of 
 the blackest people on earth. Heavens! how black 
 they were! How very black! When Marco Polo 
 came to the Malabar coast, he said: ''The children 
 that are born here are black enough, but the blacker 
 they are, the more they are thought of, so that they 
 become as black as devils." 
 
 The Tamil people, ebony black, inky black, sooty 
 black, tall and spare to emaciation, lilted past us on 
 the thin, spindle legs of storks. A mountain of red 
 peppers was heaped in one white square, and scores 
 of the blackest Tamil women, in pepper-red dra- 
 peries and much silver jewelry, slowly walked and 
 worked around its edges. It was too theatrical, too 
 barefacedly a color tableau set to catch the tourist 
 eye, and I was convinced that it lasted only for that 
 half-hour. The primitive hotel facing the railway 
 station was but a loge looking upon the white road- 
 way of a stage, where a specially engaged troupe of 
 tall Tamils and noble white sacred bullocks paraded 
 for our delight. When the train came in there was 
 bedlam drama at the station's street door; then all 
 the black troupe made exit and melted away to dis- 
 tance and shade; there was an interval, an entr'acte, 
 and we went over and behind the scenes for a while. 
 
 The station-master was black, the telegraph op- 
 erator was shades blacker, and an uncut emerald, 
 swinging from the upper rim of one ear, held me with 
 a great fascination while he skimmed the handful of 
 despatches. First and last, and all of the time, in 
 Indian travel, one telegraphs, and then sends more 
 
8 WINTER INDIA 
 
 telegrams, ahead, to any and every person connected 
 with his future movements. One telegraphs to dak 
 banglas, to station rooms and hotels, that he is com- 
 ing; to station-masters that he shall want sleeping 
 accommodation on certain trains; to local guides to 
 secure their services; to high priests, magistrates, 
 commissioners, and commandants that he wishes to 
 see certain temples or sacred treasuries of jewels; 
 and— the government telegraphs being moderate in 
 price— one may ''wire" away as recklessly as an 
 American railway president for a comparative trifle. 
 The Tuticorin station walls were hung with notices 
 and framed regulations, and there was posted a 
 formidable black list of fines and punishments judi- 
 cially awarded ; the offender and his offense paraded 
 to all who travel. Pattu This and Moolie That were 
 fined * ' for letting their cattle stray and be killed on 
 the track"; another had been caught ''riding on the 
 trucks without a ticket"— presumably some passen- 
 gers, having tickets, do ride on the trucks. They 
 run the Indian railways for the good of the stock- 
 holders evidently, and receivers of unhappy railways 
 in America might learn lessons of economy in this 
 land of want, for this is only a periodical advertise- 
 ment which I cut from a Calcutta paper : 
 
 EAST INDIAN EAILWAY 
 
 Tenders for the right of picking cinders from ashpits and 
 
 pumping engines during the twelve months 
 
 ending 31st March 
 
 Tenders will be received at the office of the Controller of 
 Stores, East Indian Railway, Calcutta, up to noon of Thurs- 
 
ON INDIA'S CORAL STRAND 9 
 
 day, the 14th February , for the right of picking cinders 
 
 from ashes removed from ashpits and pumping engines 
 throughout the line during the twelve months from 1st April 
 to 31st March 
 
 Form of tender, embodying full particulars, can be had on 
 payment of Re. 1 to the Company's Chief Paymaster, Cal- 
 cutta, or to the Store-keepers at Asansol, Jamalpur, Dinaj- 
 pur, Allahabad and Cawnpore, to whom applications, with 
 remittance, should be addressed. Applicants are also referred 
 to the hand-bills posted at railway stations. 
 
 AU other payments, including a deposit of Rs. 100 as 
 earnest money, will have to be made direct to the Company's 
 Chief Paymaster in Calcutta, whose receipt alone will be 
 recognized, and no payment in respect thereof will be re- 
 ceived in the Store Department. Hoondees and stamps will 
 not be accepted. 
 
 The Company will net be bound to accept the highest, or 
 any, tender, and reserves the right to accept any tender in 
 part only. 
 
 By order, 
 J. OATES, 
 Controller of Stores. 
 
 Calcutta. 
 
 We had heard much of the luxury of Indian rail- 
 way travel, of the roomy compartment and dress- 
 ing-room that came to the holder of a first-class 
 ticket without extra charge. We found that the 
 roomy compartment was destined for four people, 
 and contained two long leather-covered seats, or 
 couches, along the side of the car, with two hanging 
 berths that could be dropped at night. The seats 
 had no springs and no backs, unless one chose to 
 lean against the single, rattling window-pane, that 
 lifted by a strap like a carriage window. The cast- 
 iron fittings in the dressing-room were ruder and 
 
10 WINTER INDIA 
 
 more primitive than those of any American emigrant 
 car, and when the train began its deliberate progress, 
 we found that the body of the ear swung so low, so 
 nearly rested on the trucks, that we were jolted and 
 shaken and deafened, as if in a coal-car, and covered 
 with the dust of the road-Bed. Nothing different 
 or better was found, save once, in any part of India. 
 When night came, a feeble oil-lamp was introduced 
 through the roof, that made it possible to distinguish 
 outlines and large objects, but not to read. 
 
 The train jogged along northward through a flat, 
 cultivated country, with aloe and thorn hedges in- 
 closing the tracks. After the rank greenness of Cey- 
 lon, these dusty fields of the dry season seemed poor 
 and sterile. The train halted near mud villages, and 
 the station platforms were covered with lean and 
 leisurely black folks in red and white cotton dra- 
 peries, standing at ease, their foreheads so dotted 
 and striped with red, white, and ocher caste-marks, 
 those ciphers, crests, and hall-marks of their creed, 
 that they looked like so many painted red Indians of 
 our West on the war-path. There was the usual sta- 
 tion bedlam when the train drew up in darkness at 
 Madura, and we followed a Tamil leader out to 
 blacker darkness across the tracks to the dak bangla. 
 The coolie who carried the bearer's tin trunk on his 
 head stumbled over tree roots and finally struck a 
 branch overhead. There was a crash, a bang, and 
 a wreck of Tamil property, and then a flood of Tamil 
 language, as David, our venerable traveling servant, 
 poured out his wrath on the whining offender, who 
 had been bruised and dented a little himself. 
 
ON INDIA'S CORAL STRAND 11 
 
 The dak bangla was Spartan in its simplicity, the 
 government providing only beds, chairs, tables, and 
 bath-tubs, the stern necessities of comfort in a hot 
 climate. The stillness was as intense as the dark- 
 ness all night, and after the chota hazri (little break- 
 fast) of the Indian dawn we drove three miles 
 across awakening Madura— a city of low, white 
 houses, with green cocoa-palms and broad banana 
 leaves the only strong color notes. The white houses 
 were dusted and clouded with the red earth sur- 
 rounding them, all dilapidated and in need of repair, 
 of fall cleaning and whitewash. All Madura was 
 awakening at that dewy hour, — tousled folks who 
 came to the doors, yawned like alligators, stretched 
 their leans arms in air, and scratched their heads 
 vigorously. Men lounged face down on charpoys, 
 or string-beds, or lolled on the high shelves built 
 in the alcoves beside the house doors, and chatted 
 with neighbors who had also spent the night in the 
 open; babies sprawled on the warm red earth, and 
 pious women traced religious symbols in white chalk 
 on the red thresholds. Every door had its sect-mark, 
 its religious symbol and monogram, as much as the 
 foreheads of the people. Every blank wall, too, was 
 plastered over with flat manure cakes, the common 
 and universal fuel of the country, which one sees 
 in process of manufacture and use from end to end 
 of the empire; a fuel whose rank smoke can be de- 
 tected in everything one eats and drinks in India, 
 from the earliest tea and toast of the morning to the 
 final rice pudding and coffee at night ; a fuel whose 
 use deprives the fields of their natural enrichment 
 
12 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and adds to the general poverty ; a fuel whose manu- 
 facture—the gathering, kneading, and shaping into 
 flat cakes to be slapped against a wall to dry— is 
 such ignoble work that rarely any but women are em- 
 ployed in the unending task. 
 
 After these early morning sights in the streets, 
 the fantastic Teppa Kulam was a bit of fairyland, 
 a great tank inclosed in a striped red and white 
 stone parapet, with a dazzling marble platform in 
 its center upholding the most fanciful little white 
 coroneted temple, the glorified pavilion of a con- 
 fectioner's dreams, four mites of lesser pavilions re- 
 flected from each corner of the platform. We drove 
 down shady lanes, past the elephant stables, to the 
 garden of the English judge to see the great banian 
 tree, whose main trunk, over seventy feet in circum- 
 ference, is surrounded by a hundred lesser trunks 
 and newly rooted filaments — a leafy hall of columns, 
 measuring one hundred and eighty feet across. 
 
 We went to the spacious Moorish and Hindu sev- 
 enteenth-century palace of the great ruler, Tirumala 
 Nayak, and after a small boy of the neighbor- 
 hood had taken us in charge and scolded, stamped 
 his foot, and pushed an old gray-haired sweeper 
 about, that abject being produced the keys and ad- 
 mitted us to cool, shadowy halls and council-cham- 
 bers with richly carved and paneled ceilings, to the 
 king's bedchamber, where a carved and gilded bed 
 once swung by chains from latticed ceilings, and 
 down whose chains the clever thief slid to steal the 
 crown jewels ; and from the terraced roof where the 
 prime minister used to dwell we saw the whole, 
 
THE GKEAT GOPUliA. MADriJA TEMPLE. 
 
ON INDIA'S CORAL STRAND 15 
 
 flat-roofed city with the great gopuras, or temple 
 gateways, standing like so many Gibraltars in its 
 midst. 
 
 These gopuras loom and dwindle away toward the 
 sky in such a way as to make all things seem toys, 
 and the people pygmies. One such monument would 
 be architectural fame for any city, but Madura's 
 rich shrine is protected by nine such soaring, py- 
 ramidal sky-scrapers, the four in the outer wall nine 
 stories in height. These most ornamental of de- 
 fensive constructions begin with door-posts of single 
 stones, sixty feet in height, and rise, course upon 
 course, carved with rows of gods and goddesses, pea- 
 cocks. Bulls, elephants, horses, lions, and a bewilder- 
 ing entanglement of symbolical ornament all colored 
 and gilded, diminishing with distance until the 
 stone trisul at the top, two hundred and fifty feet 
 in air, looks like the finest jeweler's work. This 
 great shrine of Shiva and his fish-eyed consort is a 
 labyrinth where one easily wanders a whole morn- 
 ing. The anteroom or vestibule of the temple is a 
 long hall or choltry, an open pavilion divided by 
 four rows of most elaborately carved columns, where 
 the king used to receive the annual visits of Shiva — 
 a miserable little black image. Neither kings nor 
 idols occupied it then, but a legion of shopkeepers 
 were gathered there, who vaunted their goods and 
 pushed their wares upon us with fury and zeal — 
 cloth, cotton, lace, brass, glass, perfumes, incense, 
 and fruits. One spectacled merchant was casting up 
 his accounts in a ledger made of strips of talipot 
 palm leaves, an orthodox fashion as old as writing. 
 
16 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Others pressed upon us pieces of filmy, gold-bor- 
 dered Madras muslins, eight yards of which are re- 
 quired for a turban or a woman's sari. There were 
 none of the ancient India muslins, those ''floating 
 mists," or "webs of the air," of which one has 
 heard but never sees in this day of Manchester piece 
 goods, steam-mills, and spindles. 
 
 Our Tamil servant, being a Christian, would not 
 enter the heathen temple, so consigned us to a high- 
 caste Brahman draped superbly in a white sheet, 
 and striped between his eyebrows with the frown- 
 ing mark of Shiva. Inside the temple compound, 
 every forehead was freshly painted, breasts and 
 arms striped and smeared with other hall-marks of 
 piety. The black images were streaming with oil 
 and butter, garlanded with chains of marigolds, and 
 surrounded by abject worshipers. In that temple 
 one may fully realize what heathenism and idolatry 
 really are. One meets there the India of the Sun- 
 day-school books, and is appalled with the seeming 
 hopelessness of the missionary's task, of the impos- 
 sibility of ever making any impression upon such a 
 people, of coping with such superstition. Yet the 
 American Mission in Madura is one of the largest 
 and most successful in India, and in this southern 
 presidency one fifth of the people are Christians. 
 "Whole villages even are Christian, Syrian, Nestorian, 
 and early Jesuit missionaries having labored there 
 since the third and fourth centuries. 
 
 "We could look down dark temple corridors to 
 darker shrines, where faint lights glimmered and 
 the highest-caste Brahmans were tending the images 
 
ON INDIA'S CORAL STRAND 17 
 
 of Shiva and Minakshi. Every May these idols are 
 paraded in state to another part of the temple, and 
 the gold and silver chariots and palanquins, the 
 jeweled elephant trappings, and all the treasury of 
 gems belonging to the shrine are brought to light. 
 The Madura temple jewels are among the finest in 
 southern India, and one sees them by special permit, 
 and afterward pays a fee for the cleansing of the 
 jewels. Despite the rupees and rupees that pour in 
 during the cold- weather season of tourists' defile- 
 ment, no one has ever seen the famous sapphires 
 and big pearls when they were not greasy and 
 gummed over from much tourist and Brahman 
 handling. Other famous treasures are a ruby-covered 
 scepter, three feet long ; several pairs of golden shoes 
 and gauntlets coated with rubies; and a head-dress 
 fringed with tallow-drop emeralds. 
 
 The famous Hall of a Thousand Columns does not 
 contain nearly that many columns or carved pillars, 
 and, despite the miracle of stone- worker 's art lav- 
 ished on them, and Fergusson's praises, it was dis- 
 appointing. The tank in the heart of the labyrinth, 
 a water court or quadrangle, was most picturesque 
 with the crowds descending the steps to purify them- 
 selves in the water, where broken reflections of the 
 great gopuras wavered across the thick and oily 
 liquid. Sacred elephants came shufHing across sunny 
 courts, their bells, swinging by long ropes over their 
 embroidered trappings, clanging an alarum. Hav- 
 ing returned from the river with the gold lotas filled 
 with water for the daily bath of the goddess, they 
 stood at ease in a shady hall, swinging their painted 
 
18 WINTER INDIA 
 
 trunks and shifting their weight from one foot to the 
 other. At the word of command, the hugest of them 
 tossed his trunk in salute, made a court courtesy, 
 and, nosing the ground, picked up the tiniest silver 
 three-anna piece. The elephants flicked their flanks 
 with fly-brushes of green twigs as they stood guard 
 benignly over the hall where jewelers were hammer- 
 ing, welding, and carving gold and silver ornaments. 
 Veiled women sat around a merchant of cheaper 
 gauds, who, with a small prentice boy, cracked or 
 filed off the old bracelets and soldered on the new. 
 
 It was then ten o'clock in the morning, the heat 
 was terrific, the sun blinding, and we had spent five 
 busy hours abroad. The dak bangla was an asylum 
 of coolness and shade, and after a bountiful tiffin the 
 keeper presented his account-book, we entered the 
 items, added up the bill, and settled our score with 
 the British government in India. The keeper bowed 
 profoundly, and wished the "ladyships" a good 
 health, when a fee had gone his way; and then, in 
 strict order of social precedence, the cook and the 
 coolie, the sweeper, the water-carrier, and what not, 
 presented themselves, bowing, at different doors. 
 They rubbed their palms upward across their faces, 
 extended them to us, wobbling their fingers as if 
 gathering grains of rice, and whined: "Prissint! 
 Prissint ! Memsahib ! ' ' We gave to each one, and, 
 without stopping to bow or to thank us, each one 
 looked greedily into the other's palm and went away 
 loudly wrangling — a first encounter with the most 
 cringing, graceless, shameless tribe of alms-seekers 
 in all the world. 
 

 
 DETAIL OF GOPCKA. MADUKA TEMPLE 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TRICHESrOPOLI AND TANJORE 
 
 E rumbled and jolted along all that 
 hot afternoon over a monotonous, dry- 
 brown plain of parched fields and 
 thorn hedges. There was uproar in 
 the forward part of the train as it 
 left Dindigal station, a hundred voices clamored 
 and shrieked, and a hundred heads hung from 
 the windows of the third-class cars. The train 
 halted, men leaped from it and ran back, while all 
 on the station platform ran up the track toward a 
 small object beside the rails. The station-master 
 came on toward the train, holding fast to a lean 
 little black imp, who was struggling to release him- 
 self and fairly bursting with wrath. An excited 
 woman, wailing and declaiming with uncovered face, 
 leaned from a forward car window, talking to an ex- 
 cited group on the ground. At last, an oily babu 
 came to tell us that the small boy had ''had a dis- 
 pute with his mother," and, not wishing to leave 
 Dindigal, had jumped out of the window. "His 
 fearful mother had thought him killed," said the 
 babu, but at sight of the lost heir her fear gave way 
 to fury. She raved and ranted like an Indian Bern- 
 hardt as she leaned from the window, unveiled, talk- 
 
 21 
 
22 WINTER INDIA 
 
 ing to the station officers ; and the small boy talked 
 back to everybody, until he was suddenly lifted by 
 the back, like a kitten, and handed through the win- 
 dow to ''his fearful mother's" arms. "Because of 
 his youth they will not arrest him, ' ' said the babu ; 
 and, from the shrieks that came from that compart- 
 ment, there was no need for the law to add aught 
 to the chastisement of the barefaced, nose-ringed 
 mother. 
 
 We were in the heart of the tobacco country, and 
 Trichinopoli in these modern days is as much a 
 synonym for cheroots as Dindigal. Samuel Daniel, 
 the local guide, who claimed us in the darkness of 
 Trichinopoli station, had the advertisement of his 
 own cigar factory on the back of his card, and every- 
 where we saw and smelled the local cheroot. "We slept 
 in the travelers' rooms in the Trichinopoli station, 
 after dining at a table trailed over with bougain- 
 villea vines and set with glasses of great double hibis- 
 cus. Trains rumbled by all night, the mosquitos 
 sang a deafening chorus, and at sunrise we sped 
 across another city of dirty white houses, whose in- 
 habitants were just waking and scratching, and 
 whose Brahman families were marking the door-sills 
 and themselves for the day, the houses' toilet as 
 necessary as their own. 
 
 The rock of Trichinopoli, exactly as it looked in 
 old geography pictures, loomed ahead; and after a 
 few turns in the narrow streets we came to the 
 carved entrance of the staircase, tunneled up through 
 the solid rock to temples on the side and summit. 
 Two elephants went past on their way to the river 
 
TRICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE 23 
 
 to fill the sacred water-vessels, and we started to 
 climb the two hundred and ninety steps worn slip- 
 pery with the tread of generations of barefooted 
 worshipers and painted with the perpendicular red 
 and white stripes of Shiva. Our elderly, pompous 
 guide was voluble, measured, and minute, and per- 
 mitted no trifling nor omissions. Samuel Daniel 
 talked like Samuel Johnson, using the grandiloquent, 
 polysyllabic literary language of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. We had engaged him to show us the sights, 
 and he did it thoroughly. "Here is the place where 
 many hundreds of people were crushed to death in 
 the dark of the afternoon of a festival in 1849," he 
 said. Since then, the British government has cut 
 windows in the rock, placed lamps, and forbidden 
 climbing after four o'clock. At one landing we 
 found a group of little boys sitting before a greasy, 
 black image of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, 
 receiving instruction from a Brahman teacher; at 
 another landing a high priest stood statuesque in 
 yellow robes, the sacred white Brahman thread and 
 bead on his neck, his forehead smeared with ashes; 
 and at last we came out to the air at a small shrine 
 on an outer shelf of the rock, where we had a far- 
 reaching view of the level plain. After one more 
 tunnel staircase we gained the open summit, climbed 
 a last pinnacle, and found ourselves two hundred 
 and thirty-six feet above the city, that lay like a 
 relief-map at our feet, the fortress-like gopuras of 
 the Srirangam temples rising from green groves 
 southward. A little temple to Ganesha crowns the 
 rock, the goal of the breathless pilgrimage. Half- 
 
24 WINTER INDIA 
 
 way down the staircase, we were deafened by the 
 flutes and flageolets of the priests and flag-bearers 
 toiling up with water- jars just brought from the 
 river. The sacred elephants at the foot of the stairs 
 saluted us with lifted fore feet and waving trunks, 
 rubbing their foreheads as they begged, plainly de- 
 manding a "prissint," after the custom of the 
 country. 
 
 It was a short drive of three miles down to the 
 temple of Vishnu at Srirangam, on an island in the 
 dry bed of the Kaveri. This, the largest temple in 
 southern India, is on a magnificent scale, its fifteen 
 gopuras so many marvels of architecture ; the great- 
 est of them falling short of its intended three hun- 
 dred feet by the interruption of building during 
 the French and English wars of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, when the French intrenched themselves at Sri- 
 rangam and mounted cannon on the gopuras. The 
 outer, inclosing wall of the temple measures three 
 thousand feet each way, and within that lies a first 
 quadrangle of bazaars. A second gopura admits to 
 a quadrangle where the three thousand high-caste 
 Brahmans of the temple dwell. We drove on through 
 a third and a fourth gopura, in one passage disputing 
 right of way with a temple elephant, who backed out 
 before our brougham, and, with the courtesy of a 
 well-bred creature, swept his trunk and lifted a fore 
 foot in apology. The last gateway had great teak 
 doors, and the doctor of the temple and director of 
 the Srirangam government hospital met us there; 
 also the council of priests and five huge elephants, 
 their foreheads striped with the same yellow and 
 
TRICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE 25 
 
 white tridents of Vishnu as their piously frescoed 
 keepers. We saw the famous Hall of the Horse Col- 
 umns, where single blocks of granite are as intricately 
 carved as wood or ivory, and we saw the other curi- 
 osities of the stone-cutter's art, serried columns dis- 
 playing the many incarnations of Vishnu. We saw, 
 too, the Hall of a Thousand Columns— nine hundred 
 odd shabby, whitewashed pillars only— and from the 
 roof we were given a glimpse of the golden cupola 
 covering the shrine of the sacred image— the identi- 
 cal image brought by Rama in the age of fable, and 
 which grew fast to the ground when left for a 
 moment. They were then preparing for the great 
 mela or festival of early December, when forty 
 thousand pilgrims assemble, crowds spending day 
 and night in the temple for three weeks. 
 
 We were shown to a last pavilion, given arm- 
 chairs before a table, the five elephants were sta- 
 tioned in line across the entrance, and fierce-fore- 
 headed Brahmans multiplied. Strings of keys 
 clanged on the table, five clumsy wooden chests were 
 lugged in, five padlocks yielded to blows and 
 wrenches, and the table was heaped with riches ; the 
 feast of jewels was spread, and a flood of color and 
 light illuminated the shadowy pavilion. Gold armor 
 and ornaments and utensils incrusted with jewels 
 were heaped on the table and handed us to examine, 
 until one wondered if any more rubies, emeralds, sap- 
 phires, diamonds, or pearls were left in southern In- 
 dia. Gold helmets, crowns, breastplates, gauntlets, 
 brassards, belts, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, were 
 sown with rubies of thumb-nail size, with sapphires 
 
26 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and diamonds seeded between, and fringed with 
 pearls and uncut emeralds. Plain gold salvers, water- 
 bottles, gourds, and bowls had neither value nor in- 
 terest in our eyes after the play of gems. Even the 
 Prince of Wales's gold salver, inscribed "Dec. 11th, 
 1875, " to commemorate his visit to the temple, seemed 
 dull and commonplace. Far better was the gold 
 breastplate fringed with tallow-drop emeralds, which 
 he also gave as a souvenir of his visit to this great 
 shrine of Vishnu. There were several Vishnu tri- 
 dents in diamonds, and jeweled feathers trembling 
 with diamond fringes; turban ornaments in which 
 jeweled birds held great drops of rubies and emeralds 
 in their beaks ; a jeweled umbrella-stick with an inch- 
 long sapphire for its ferrule, a crust of rubies for its 
 handle, and a fringe of tinkling bo-leaves edged with 
 pearls. Four great wings of head-ornaments cov- 
 ered with jewels had been given by a pious beggar, 
 who had gathered more than fifty thousand rupees 
 in alms to spend for such gifts to the gods and gauds 
 for the temple, his stones better cut and set and of 
 better quality than any others in the treasury. 
 Strings and strings of pearls— pearls strung alone 
 or alternating with balls of emerald, ruby, or carved 
 gold— slipped through our hands to weariness. Our 
 eyes were sated with splendor and color when, as a 
 climax, they produced a fine bit of gold carving, 
 representing a religious procession, the idol in the 
 state chair cut from a large ruby, the tiny face, the 
 drapery, and the many ornaments most cleverly 
 done. 
 It was a characteristic and a picturesque scene 
 
TRICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE 29 
 
 there under the mandapan, the riches of India laid 
 out on a dirty cotton table-cover !— the wise elephants 
 a contrast in good manners to the horde of noisy 
 and excited Brahraans. Although it had required 
 the intervention of three officials to permit us to see 
 the jewels, and each chest is locked with five keys 
 and sealed with five seals of that many Brahman 
 keepers, thefts are frequent, and fifty thousand 
 rupees' worth of jewels vanished at one time. The 
 police kept their eyes on each of the priestly band, 
 the elephants blinked and watched too ; and when we 
 had offered our rupees to clean the jewels, the 
 Brahmans set up an approving shout, dropped gar- 
 lands of marigolds around our necks, and presented 
 us with fragrant lemons. We rose to go, and the 
 most gaudily painted and blackest old Brahman of 
 them all pushed forward, shouting : * ' I want my pho- 
 tograph now. You have it in that box. You took 
 it an hour ago. I am Venketerama lyenzar, revenue 
 inspector of Srirangara. Send it to me by the 
 post." And with the elephants trumpeting and 
 nosing for two-anna pieces in the dust, we drove 
 away to the silk and silver and muslin shops of 
 "Triehi," as one soon learns to call it. There the 
 tahsildar spied our brougham, and, descending from 
 his bullock-cart, paid us a visit at the silk merchant 's 
 shop front— the courteous, gracious old tahsildar, 
 a fine product of two civilizations. 
 
 Samuel Daniel, our guide with the tobacco fac- 
 tory attached, was radiant with the success of the 
 whole morning. Elated from his converse with 
 Brahmans, doctors, and tahsildar, he dropped so 
 
30 WINTER INDIA 
 
 much architectural and historical information about 
 Chidambram, Conjeveram, and Mahabalipur, that 
 we said: "Why, you must have read Fergusson?" 
 
 "Yes, your ladyship. I have the book. Ten 
 rupees." 
 
 ' ' Then you had better go with us as guide. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, your ladyship," and he went and made our 
 way so plain, so smooth and interesting, that we com- 
 pared all other guides in India with him to their 
 detriment. 
 
 A Catholic priest in cool white robes tiffined also 
 at the station, and told of some of the great successes 
 in mission work in the south; how whole villages 
 have become Christian when the priest permits them 
 to retain their caste. "It is among our converts, or 
 in places where we have worked before them, that 
 your Protestant missionaries have most success," he 
 said. 
 
 From the rock of Trichinopoli we had seen the 
 great pagoda tower of Tanjore on the horizon, and 
 as we rumbled the thirty miles across the Kaveri 
 plain in the early, showery afternoon it rose in 
 height as we advanced, and the train stopped fairly 
 in. its shadow. Leaving David to watch the luggage 
 at the station, Samuel Daniel hurried us to the 
 temple gate and under the two gopuras to the striped 
 inner court, where the thirteen-story vimana, or 
 tower, of Shiva tapers away until its great trisul 
 seems to touch the very sky. 
 
 "Ah ! you see here the cleverosity of the Old World 
 builders and the numerosity of their carvings, ' ' said 
 Daniel, proudly. 
 
TEICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE 31 
 
 After the French occupied the temple as a fortress 
 in 1777, it was never purified or sanctified again, and 
 the deserted court was a contrast to the other temples 
 we had seen. Two barefooted priests slipped silently 
 across an angle of the cloisters, the colossal stone 
 bull crouched under its grease md garlands, and 
 only the fluttering parrakeets ga" e any sign or sound 
 of life to the vast inclosure. We gazed in wonder- 
 ment at the court, the tower, and the exquisite little 
 temple of Subrahmanya, the martial son of Shiva, on 
 whose steps we met two glib, sightseeing babus, who 
 began at once to upbraid us for the proselytizing 
 work of the missionaries. The one with the largest 
 Vishnu mark on his brow had graduated as a civil en- 
 gineer at Calcutta University, but the exact sciences 
 had not taught him to disbelieve in greasy images, 
 or opened his eyes to any absurdities in his creed, 
 and his torrent of words came like the flow of a 
 phonograph. "Why do you come here to destroy 
 our religion?" he pattered. I denied the charge. 
 "Why do you wish us to give up our gods for your 
 gods?" I denied the plural, and after the twittering 
 parrakeet had followed us awhile, we left him shout- 
 ing the rest of his set speech to the empty court. 
 
 It was a rest to find one heathen temple deserted, 
 to be spared the oily Brahman guide, and to trace 
 in peace the details of this most beautiful of Dra- 
 vidian temples, the purest example of that style. 
 The great vimana, or pagoda, thirteen stories in 
 height, mounts like the gopuras of Madura, course 
 upon course, carved over with figures and ornaments, 
 two hundred feet to the ball at the peak— a granite 
 
32 WINTER INDIA 
 
 mass weighing more than twelve tons, and which 
 could have been placed there only by rolling it up 
 an inclined plane more than a mile in length. In 
 repairing the tower a few centuries ago, the sculptors 
 introduced a face in one floral medallion that was not 
 of any Hindu type. The local prophets said that it 
 wore the features of the people who would conquer 
 India, and it is easily recognized now as an admir- 
 able portrait of John Bright. We found Flaxman's 
 beautiful tablet to the memory of Schwartz in the 
 church where the great missionary preached. The 
 church faces a tank where picturesque files of women 
 with brass. jars on their heads went up and down four 
 separate flights of terrace steps, each for a special 
 caste. 
 
 The elephants, which are kept ' ' for the honor and 
 glory of the palace," now that rajas ride in landaus 
 and automobiles, were swaying uneasily at their 
 posts in the palace courtyard, trumpeting and toss- 
 ing trunk-loads of leaves and straw on their backs. 
 "We were shown the black and white marble durbar 
 hall of the palace, and the library full of illuminated 
 Persian books, and of precious Tamil manuscripts 
 written on strips of palm leaves. When we had wan- 
 dered through all the inner courts, such a train of 
 guides, lackeys, ushers, keepers, sweepers, porters, 
 and gardeners fawned with extended palms that even 
 Samuel Daniel was dismayed, laid the coins on the 
 flagstones, and walked away from the ensuing scene 
 of combat. We were just in time to see the mahouts 
 scramble to the elephants' necks as a fanfare of 
 trumpets and two scarlet lancers heralded a landau 
 
TRICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE 33 
 
 holding two pale yellow, heavily jeweled grandchil- 
 dren of the raja returning from a drive. A bearer 
 with a red umbrella ran after them, the elephants 
 saluted with trunk and foot, and the sad-faced 
 princelings disappeared in the palace. 
 
 The railway station was as deserted as the temple 
 court in the late afternoon, and we had the table 
 brought out to the platform and enjoyed tea in the 
 open air. A white tramp, a pure specimen of the 
 genus hobo, the only one of his kind encountered in 
 India, appeared silently with: "You are a European 
 like myself, lady. Please give me a few rupees to get 
 to Tuticorin." David and Daniel came running in 
 alarm, and hastily swept table, books, chairs, and 
 ourselves inside the refreshment-room and banged 
 the doors, and the beery beggar slunk away to the 
 native bazaar. The butler was decorating his white 
 dinner-cloth with interlacing arabesques of black 
 seeds dropped from a funnel, after which he arranged 
 finger-bowls filled with black-eyed marigolds among 
 his traceries and stood off to admire the effect. 
 Again and again we marveled that the Hindu, with 
 his gross stupidities and incompetencies, had yet 
 been able so thoroughly to master the intricacies 
 of an English dinner, the decoration of the table, 
 the procession of the courses, the ceremony and de- 
 corum of it all, with little of the incongruity and 
 inequalities, the mixed splendor and shabbiness, that 
 mark everything of the Hindu's own. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WITH CHIDAMBRAM^S BRAHMANS 
 
 was our fine old Tamil Turveydrop, 
 Samuel Daniel, who induced us to visit 
 Chidambram after we had abandoned 
 it in favor of Conjeveram, where the 
 temple was said to be richer, the jewels 
 more splendid. This artful one pictured ' ' the clever- 
 osity and numerosity of the sculptures," also "the 
 numberlesses of the goddesses and the beauteousness 
 of the temple's dancers, which makes it so popular 
 for visitors," and our interest revived. 
 
 As necessary precedent to every move one makes 
 in India, enough telegrams were sent to negotiate a 
 treaty. We wired the Chidambram station-master to 
 have conveyances ready the next midnight to take 
 us the three miles to the dak bangla. We wired the 
 bangla-keeper that we were coming, two beds strong. 
 We informed the local magistrate and the high 
 priest that we wished to make an offering to the 
 temple and to celebrate in honor of the goddess with 
 a great dance in the Hall of a Thousand Columns 
 and to see the famous temple jewels. Last, we be- 
 sought the section superintendent of the railway to 
 reserve a compartment in the next midnight train 
 that would bear us away from Chidambram. 
 
 34 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 35 
 
 With the remoteness and seeming isolation among 
 the black faces one has no fear or concern in these 
 Hindu communities, trusting implicitly to that safety 
 and order guaranteed one wherever the British flag 
 floats and Kaiser-i-Hind's initial letters grace offi- 
 cial property. Else, when we stepped out on the 
 lonely platform at Chidambram that rainy midnight, 
 we would have thought twice before picking our way 
 through sleeping pilgrims in the open waiting-room, 
 and stowing ourselves away with every joint bent 
 in a tiny box of a native cart, or ' ' lie-down-bandy, ' ' 
 for the ride into unknown blackness beyond. Daniel 
 compressed himself with David and the larger lug- 
 gage bundles into another small box on wheels, and 
 the ponies spattered down a muddy road in the black 
 shadows of overarching trees. Our driver had no 
 turban, his hair was long and snaky, and the jerky 
 motion of the bandy, and the driver's frequent 
 flights out over the shafts to lead the pony by the 
 bridle over bridges and around corners, sent those 
 locks rippling down his l5a.ck — and ray back, too, as 
 I sat hatless, crouched flat on the bandy floor behind 
 him. After what seemed a long race through the 
 reek and blackness, past sodden fields and through 
 dreary mud hamlets, we came in under the shadows 
 of the great trees surrounding the dak bangla. 
 
 With the abrupt reining up we slid out, or fell 
 out, of the bandbox of a bandy, and our cramped 
 members slowly jointed out straight again. Knocks, 
 thumps, and calls brought no response from two 
 front doors, and there was an uncanny quarter-hour 
 of waiting before the swaying lantern of Daniel and 
 
36 WINTER INDIA 
 
 David's bandy turned in at the gates— and yet an- 
 other eerie quarter of an hour while the bandy 
 drivers muttered in the near darkness, and our two 
 protectors pounded and shouted at a far-away door. 
 The moon struggled out in rare glimpses and gave 
 us suggestion now and then of a great lawn and trees, 
 a long, low, white building whose eaves extended 
 over a continuous flagged porch— the regulation rest- 
 house built by government for the use of traveling 
 officials and other Europeans. 
 
 A babel of angry voices came from the back of 
 the compound, the loud talk and back talk, the in- 
 cessant wrangle and jangle of untuned bells and 
 Hindu servants, the most quarrelsome lower class 
 in the world, after the Chinese. Their bickerings are 
 an annoyance that frets the spirit and wears the 
 nerves of the most adamantine traveler, and it is 
 no wonder that the Buddha, and all saints and re- 
 formers, first fled to the jungle for years of silent 
 meditation. The keeper of the bangla appeared with 
 his keys and a lantern. ''Oh, yes, certingly, mem- 
 sahib, ' ' he had received the telegram in due time and 
 had tightly locked up the bangla and his own quar- 
 ters and gone soundly to sleep— Hindu irresponsi- 
 bility, ungraciousness, and indifference to the usual 
 degree. 
 
 The door clanged open and showed us the regu- 
 lation lofty, cheerless, cement-floored room, as fit for 
 prison as superior occupancy. One remembered 
 those creepy "other stories" of Rudyard Kipling 
 where lunatics and delirium tremens subjects hab- 
 ited, and suicides took themselves off in, just such 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 37 
 
 cheerless rooms, and that other more grisly story of 
 the dead man concealed on rafters overhead in just 
 such a forlorn place. The candles burning sullenly 
 in tall glass bells showed us a great dining-table, 
 ponderous arm-chairs and lounging-chair, and a 
 broad cane-seated settee for a bed. Another such 
 hygienic couch of the country was brought in 
 from a black, echoing room beyond, and the ser- 
 vants spread out our red razais, or wadded calico 
 quilts, which every traveler in India must carry 
 with him as bedding and covering, just as the 
 Klondike miner carries his blankets when he "hits 
 the trail." The rubber pillows were inflated, and 
 the apartment was completely furnished and in 
 order for occupancy. Before the alcohol lamp had 
 boiled the water for the beef-tea of our midnight 
 feast, the servants were snoring on the flags of the 
 portico, lying on the door-mats wath only a thin bit 
 of dhurrie covering them, despite all one hears of 
 the deadly effect of night air and the chill before the 
 dawn. The most awful stillness succeeded, a silence 
 that made one's ears ring, hushed our voices, and 
 made us unconsciously put down spoons and cups 
 noiselessly. No one had raised my terrors then with 
 tales of the still occasionally existent thugs of 
 southern India, of thieves who throttle by night and 
 stealthily kill or maim an unbeliever as an act ac- 
 ceptable to Kali and the other destroying divinities. 
 The situation was all novel and amusing, and the 
 poverty-stricken interior, the forlorn banquet-hall of 
 this Waldorf of the neighborhood, furnished all the 
 real color one could want. The stealthy dripping 
 
38 WINTER INDIA 
 
 of the trees told of another gentle shower, and the 
 steady snoring on the porch was as comforting and 
 hypnotic as the purring of a home cat by the hearth 
 — sufficient assurance that all was well at one o'clock 
 and that the British government in India still lived 
 and protected us. 
 
 At seven o'clock repeated calls brought no answer 
 from the portico ; the silence of broad daylight was 
 more complete than that of midnight. The flagstones 
 were deserted, and not a sign of life appeared on 
 either side of the bangla. David and Daniel had 
 most literally taken up their beds and walked — far 
 away beyond hearing. A little girl with a nose-ring 
 crept out and looked at us, another one joined her, 
 and the two stared and smiled, nodded their nose- 
 rings with friendly flops, and looked their fill — a 
 steady, continuous, fascinated scrutiny— for a whole 
 half -hour before David and Daniel appeared bearing 
 tea and toast. Then David's irate voice rose in 
 volume, well-sweeps creaked and tubs were filled, 
 chickens ran cackling, smoke rose and sounds of life 
 and cheer came from the keeper's house and kitchen. 
 David wrathfully told how he had had to go to the 
 village bazaar, a mile away, to get even the firewood 
 to cook the first breakfast. 
 
 While David ruled in the primitive mud kitchen 
 the keeper of the bangla laid the table on the front 
 portico, overlooking the broad, glistening green 
 lawn, where squirrels frisked and little green par- 
 rots squawked and flew about. The china, glass, 
 and cutlery provided at these dak banglas are always 
 good, and therfe is usually some attempt at splendor 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 39 
 
 in electroplated toast-racks and marmalade-stands. 
 Our esthetic keeper of Chidambram put a great 
 bouquet of yellow crysanthemums on the table, but 
 the tablecloth was a thick honeycomb stuff, either a 
 bed-spread or a bath-towel that some guest had left 
 behind ; and it was frescoed with hospitable records 
 of a useful past in egg, coffee, and claret stains on a 
 ground toned by the roadside's red dust of a season. 
 
 The local magistrate appeared for a morning call, 
 entering the gates in a large bullock-bandy, or cov- 
 ered cart, drawn by two magnificent white bul- 
 locks with humps on their shoulders, the bells on 
 their necks announcing the pace of their leisurely 
 trot. The turbaned and white-draperied grandee 
 had hardly descended from this seeming vehicle of 
 state or chariot of religious ceremony when the 
 driver loosened the yoke, tilted the bandy over, and 
 turned the splendid creatures loose to graze on the 
 lawn. This custom of southern India, of releasing 
 bullocks and ponies of their harness at once, gives 
 hotel and bangla grounds in the Madras Presidency 
 always a homely look, suggestive alike of pasture, 
 race-course, and stable-yard. 
 
 The magistrate was one of the finer types of high- 
 caste Hindu, who added to his own Brahmanic cul- 
 ture and inherited refinement an English university 
 education and acquaintance with other ways of liv- 
 ing and thinking. He had all the Oriental suavity 
 and graceful address, and talked with us two of the 
 despised sex quite on a social equality. He sat long 
 at his ease, commenting upon the customs of his peo- 
 ple and the peculiarities of life and architecture in 
 
40 WINTER INDIA 
 
 southern India. He deplored the low estate and 
 want of education among women; praised the new 
 era and the blessings of British rule, the good roads, 
 schools, hospitals, and things not dreamed of before, 
 that had come with the Western education, which 
 had only begun to reach the mass of the people. His 
 Western education had not, however, steeled him to 
 shaking hands with a casteless unbeliever, and he 
 kept tables and chairs between us as he rose to go. 
 
 "I must go and hurry up the priests," said the 
 suave judicial. "Since they know you cannot leave 
 until midnight, they will not try to be ready before 
 late afternoon. At one o 'clock I will send my bandy 
 and peon for you. You will find my bullocks faster 
 than those you would get from the bazaar." And 
 with more beautiful speeches about the honor of our 
 visit to Chidambram and our appreciation of Dra- 
 vidian art, he backed and bowed himself away to 
 his bandy, with furtive glances lest we yet lay de- 
 filing hand on him, and send him through all the 
 details of his morning toilet again, as the least of 
 ills. 
 
 It was past one o'clock when the stately Bullocks 
 again tinkled down the road to the bangla; a peon 
 with a broad sash and metal plate on his breast 
 forming an escort of honor. There was no telling 
 how much our occupancy defiled the magistrate's 
 bandy while we progressed magnificently along a 
 shaded road, between garnered fields and the lines of 
 mud houses constituting villages— mud houses with 
 mud floors, and mud porticos or shelves where the 
 occupants loll by day and sleep at night. Men and 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 41 
 
 women gave friendly looks, the women draped grace- 
 fully in the single long sari, or winding-cloth, that, 
 either red or white, is a foil to the dark skin and 
 lends majesty and picturesqueness to the frowziest. 
 Nearly every woman wore silver bracelets and ank- 
 lets, armlets, finger-rings, ear-rings, nose-rings, and 
 necklaces past counting, and one never knows what 
 silver jewelry can effect, nor its artistic value, until 
 he sees it against these sooty Tamil skins. 
 
 The village of Chidambram clusters low before the 
 soaring gopura of this oldest Shivaite temple of the 
 south, and its seventy rest-houses shelter thousands 
 of pilgrims at every December mela. Four of these 
 great pagoda-like structures, each 160 feet in height, 
 carved, painted, and gilded over, with a massive 
 trisul, or trident ornament of Shiva, for capstone, 
 admit to the quadrangular space of thirty-two acres 
 occupied by the labyrinth of shrines and courts and 
 halls around the great tank. The temple was built 
 a thousand years ago by a pious raja, who had seen 
 Shiva and Parvati dancing on the near-by sea-shore ; 
 and the holy of holies is a golden shrine dedicated 
 to the god of dancing. Another tradition says that 
 a Kashmir prince of the fifth century brought three 
 thousand Brahmans with him from the north and 
 founded the temple. The greatest popularity was 
 given the temple when "the golden-colored em- 
 peror, ' ' a leper prince who had come south on a 
 pilgrimage, was cured by bathing in the temple tank, 
 and thousands emulate him every year. 
 
 Repairs were being executed in many places, at 
 the instance of a pious Hindu of Madras, and we 
 
42 WINTER INDIA 
 
 picked our way through damp and dripping courts 
 littered with freshly carved stones, crawled under 
 scaffoldings and inclined planks, until we were well 
 confused with the multiplicity of shrines, the gar- 
 landed and greased images of Shiva, Parvati, Gane- 
 sha, and the Bull, and always the figure of the danc- 
 ing god with one knee acutely bent and the other foot 
 flung with abandon. The courts were empty, the 
 shrines deserted, no worshipers, no workmen, no 
 priests, no crowd of idlers, as in the busy Madura 
 and Srirangam temples. No signs of preparation 
 for our visit were evident, and we sent the peon and 
 Daniel and lay brethren in hot haste to give the 
 alarm, lest the function be delayed past sunset. A 
 few languid villagers stole in and stared, the longi- 
 tudinal sect-mark of Vishnu on the forehead and the 
 loosely drawn dhotee drapery around their shoulders 
 giving them a strong resemblance to our red Indians 
 of the prairies in war-paint and reservation blankets. 
 Then more waiting succeeded, more messengers were 
 despatched with more vehement advices, and Daniel, 
 with the air of great cares pressing on him, paced 
 the arcades meditating, spealdng now and then with 
 magnificent gestures, like a real raja. "My birthly 
 is Christian, ' ' he had informed us in the first sanctu- 
 ary of heathendom, that we might feel free to com- 
 ment and question at will. 
 
 A band of Brahmans in fresh war-paint finally 
 arrived, and their fierce hawk-like gaze, their eager, 
 excited, hurried air, might have given one qualms of 
 alarm at our isolation in this labyrinthine fortress 
 of a temple, temote from any European settlement. 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 45 
 
 and miles from a white official or any pale-face. But 
 Daniel reassured one by his calm magnificence, his 
 grandiloquent phrases and evident pride in the 
 amazing spectacle which he, as grand impresario, 
 was about to present. Three hundred of these high- 
 est-caste Dikshatar Brahmans, or priestly ones, de- 
 scended from a first Cholukyan king, they say, live 
 with their families within the temple inclosure. All 
 are rich, enjoying inherited wealth and the great 
 income which this popular temple derives from its 
 votaries and pilgrims. There were fine, intelligent 
 faces among them, and, barring the disfigurement 
 of the painted sect-mark on the forehead, one could 
 easily appreciate how much finer is the type and the 
 cast of countenance of these long-descended aris- 
 tocrats than the common Hindu face seen in bazaars 
 and street crowds. All had fine, straight noses, level 
 brows, and well-formed heads, the hair shaved all 
 around the edges as though for a Chinese queue, and 
 then drawn and knotted at the side behind the 
 left ear, precisely as small children in north China 
 twist their locks. All wore the white dhotee, twisted 
 as a skirt around the body, left nude to the waist, 
 save as one and another chose to fling the end of the 
 long cloth over the head and shoulders as protec- 
 tion from the alternating sun and rain. The sacred 
 white cord over one shoulder and the carved Brah- 
 man bead on a thread around the neck were the only 
 other bits of apparel worn, although each one car- 
 ried, in a twist of the girdle, a silver or brass box 
 filled with the ashes of sandalwood or the dung of 
 the sacred cow, with which to paint the caste- and 
 
46 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sect-marks on their brows. Generations of superior 
 folk, carefully nurtured, highly educated and cul- 
 tivated in Brahman lore, have produced these splen- 
 did specimens of their race, these fine intellectual 
 faces and athletic bodies overlaid with dark-brown 
 skin of a grain and patina finer than any inani- 
 mate bronze— aristocrats of thirty centuries' direct 
 descent. 
 
 They looked at us, their prey, with eager interest, 
 and with shouts appropriate to those about to offer 
 living sacrifice to the gods; with whoops and hur- 
 rahs this band of Brahmans conducted us to the 
 main shrine and struck the gong to announce our 
 presence to the god— an ugly, greasy, black little 
 image, hidden somewhere out of sight in an inner- 
 most sanctuary. We saw only an open-fronted 
 chapel, whose floor was three or four feet above the 
 level of the court-yard; and as we advanced to it 
 the priests brought gold plates heaped with garlands 
 of strung flowers, which they flung around our necks. 
 The gold plate was extended for our offerings, and 
 at sight of the rupees of propitiation the Brahmans 
 pushed, pointed, gesticulated, and shouted to one 
 another. Only the Arabs of the Nile, or the boat- 
 women of Canton, could raise such din and hulla- 
 baloo, produce such waves and volumes of harsh, 
 ear-splitting sounds. It seemed as if they were about 
 to tear us to pieces and were quarreling about the 
 lead, but it was only intense interest, pleased excite- 
 ment, and glee at the prospect of another gala day 
 for Chidambram, with a fine lot of rupees to be 
 divided afterward among the charter members of the 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMANS 17 
 
 close corporation. They shouted, screamed, pushed, 
 and all but defiled themselves by touching us, in 
 order to point out things to us and attract attention. 
 A half-dozen tried to be leaders of the expedition, 
 to establish a special protectorate over us, each lead- 
 ing a separate way, the magistrate's peon making 
 appealing dumb show for us to follow him in an- 
 other direction, while Daniel, disentangling himself 
 from the Brahman mob, made deprecatory gestures 
 to them, bowed low to us, swept his hand obsequiously 
 to guide us in a still different quarter, and said in 
 mild, honeyed tones: ''This way, your ladyships, 
 this way." His suavity won, and all garlanded, as 
 if ready for slaughter, and preceded by the band of 
 temple musicians, we were led on and on, from shrine 
 to shrine, the hawk-eyed Brahmans shouting wild 
 acclaims, just as in a triumphant progress on the 
 stage. It was all well-mounted grand opera, a deaf- 
 ening Wagnerian representation ; and when we stood 
 with the great chorus grouped before one gilded 
 shrine with a golden roof and a golden flag-staff — 
 a mainmast plated with hammered gold — it Avas a 
 fine scene for the curtain to have fallen on. They led 
 us to a store-room full of silver palanquins, chariots 
 and platforms, silver bulls, elephants, goats, and pea- 
 cocks, and explained how these and the sacred images 
 are drawn in procession through Chidambram streets 
 and courts on the great days of the heathen year. 
 There the temple musicians fought and won chance 
 for fullest action ; and drum, trumpets, and castanets 
 raised such echoing din in the holy inclosure that we 
 were literally distracted when, having "visited the 
 
48 WINTER INDIA 
 
 architectures, "we were conducted to the treasury and 
 given chairs around a long, low table covered with a 
 greasy red-silk cover. Deafened by the thump and 
 blast of instruments and the vent of sacerdotal lungs, 
 and overpowered by the weight and suffocating odors 
 of the garlands of jasmine, tuberoses, marigolds, 
 and chrysanthemums around our necks, we let those 
 twenty-pound weights of vegetable adornments slip 
 on to the backs of the chairs, and had Daniel hint to 
 the Brahmans that our presents to the temple would 
 be greater if the noise were less. He explained deli- 
 cately that we were from another country than that 
 of the usual visitors to Chidambram ; that people in 
 America were accustomed to speak in soft, low voices, 
 and to keep very silent in their temples. What a 
 Talleyrand was spoiled when that soul in its present 
 incarnation habited the body of Trichinopoli's great 
 guide ! Daniel spoke, and the hush of midnight suc- 
 ceeded for about ten seconds. Then the Brahmans 
 whispered ; their buzz rose to audible speech, and our 
 ear-drums were again violently beaten until the 
 mercenary company was hushed by significant ges- 
 tures from Daniel. The musicians fingered their 
 instruments sadly, but Daniel was supreme, and 
 when one strapping head Brahman fully caught the 
 cue, he outdid Daniel in silencing the sacerdotal 
 screamers for the rest of the afternoon. 
 
 When the magistrate came, followed by temple 
 peons bearing great boxes tied up in red silk, he 
 brought with him his six-year-old daughter, Thun- 
 gama, the * 'little golden lady," as her pet name was 
 
WITH CHIDAMBRAM'S BRAHMAN S 49 
 
 translated, a disdainful, arrogant mite, who snubbed 
 us soundly, but gave such cool, supercilious glances 
 of high-caste scorn from such deep, dark, liquid, 
 mysterious eyes that we forgave her. She wore a 
 little cotton skirt and jacket, and silver anklets ; and 
 her hair, divided at the brow in two plaits that 
 framed the face, held a semicircular rayed ornament 
 of pearls. This star-eyed beauty did not want to 
 be looked at nor addressed by us, and had a dread of 
 being touched by pale strangers with uncovered 
 faces and no caste-marks, stamps, or guarantees of 
 position on their brows. This imperious mite ruled 
 her father royally, received the respectful homage 
 of the sleek old Brahmans, and was petted and 
 passed from papa to priest and peon as suited her 
 whims. There was the finest ethnological exhibit 
 around that treasury table, — the magistrate, his 
 daughter, and ourselves in front, and the Brahmans 
 ranged in triple circle of fine, spirited faces above 
 splendid shoulders, a prosperous-looking, sleek, and 
 well-groomed board of temple aldermen, directors of 
 that close corporation of Chidambram, living for 
 so many generations on the fat of the land and the 
 offerings of pilgrims, and inheriting the intellectual 
 monopoly of ages. Each one had been invested in 
 his youth with the sacred white cord, had served his 
 time of probation, had married and raised a family, 
 and now was enjoying his magnificent prime before 
 disappearing from Chidambram and following the 
 strict Brahman routine of the end of life. It seemed 
 amazing that there should be a community where 
 
50 WINTER INDIA 
 
 the physical average was so high; and commenting 
 on the many fine, noble, and dignified countenances 
 and the statuesque shoulders, Daniel explained it 
 all: "Yes, the Brahmans are always splendid of 
 appearance like these. It is the hereditary heirness 
 of their high descent." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 
 
 I HE temple jewels are kept in iron- 
 bound chests in a room fastened by 
 many locks. The magistrate, the high 
 priest, and a half-dozen other Brah- 
 mans of different castes each holds a 
 key, and all must be present to unlock the room. 
 Count and record are kept of each article; many of 
 the jewels are historic and famous, and all are so 
 well known to the community that the loss of even 
 one stone would be as quickly noted on display days 
 as the disappearance of an idol itself. When the 
 jewels are thus shown, it is customary for visitors 
 to leave from ten to twenty rupees for cleansing 
 them pure from outcast touch. The rupee is a 
 great level er, and has purifying effect unaided; 
 for nothing could be dingier, greasier, more in need 
 of alcohol, jeweler's sawdust, and a touch of chamois 
 than these jewels of Chidambram, unless it were 
 the jewels at Srirangam or the famously dirty sap- 
 phires at Madura. 
 
 There was earnest effort and long parley over a 
 first iron-bound chest that would not open. All the 
 head Brahmans shouted and struggled with the ob- 
 durate padlock until the key broke. An agile brother 
 
 51 
 
52 WINTER INDIA 
 
 whipped out a knife and tried to pick the lock, with 
 an assurance that bespoke familiarity with such pro- 
 cesses, but the rusty clamp would not yield. A longer 
 and a louder clamor, and then a lusty Brahman 
 seized one of the big keys on the table, a bar of iron 
 as solid as the key of the Bastille, and began ham- 
 mering the clasp, laying on. blacksmith's blows with 
 a will. The padlock flew off, the heavy lid creaked 
 back, and with deafening yells the riches of Chidam- 
 bram came in view. 
 
 They drew out all the jeweled ornaments, the 
 crowns, caps, hand- and arm-coverings, necklaces, 
 ear-rings, nose-rings, bracelets, anklets, and staffs 
 given to the temple's precious idols for centuries 
 back, laid them on the table, and passed them to us 
 to handle and defile at will. The Brahmans shouted, 
 talked, oh'd and ah'd, stretched hands over our 
 shoulders to call attention to some special beauty or 
 marvel, and even snatched them from our hands. 
 Their eyes shone and their faces glowed with pride 
 and joy in these treasures, their delight at seeing 
 them childlike in its expression. They all told at 
 once how the ruby bracelets were given the goddess 
 by the rani, wife of the Raja of Tanjore, in fulfil- 
 ment of a vow ; and how, when the pious rani learned 
 that the goddess had no ear-bosses, she despoiled her 
 own jewel-boxes of her most magnificent ones. Then 
 they told of Patcheapper Mudalier, the rich man of 
 Madras, who had given the goddess pairs of gold 
 serpents scaled over with great jewels; and, at the 
 sale of the effects of the late Raja of Tanjore in 
 1891, had bought and presented the temple with a 
 
FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 53 
 
 huge Phrygian cap, or war-bonnet, covered with 
 hundreds of cabochon rubies and table-cut diamonds, 
 along with a great breastplate over six inches 
 square, set solidly with large flat rubies — rubies of 
 the most perfect tint, and set double, ruby on top 
 of ruby, as was the old Hindu custom, until the 
 depth and richness of color surpass anything to be 
 otherwise obtained. Patcheapper had not only given 
 modern jewels, but he had had the old gems reset, 
 adding lost stones to historic settings, and putting 
 the accumulation of loose stones into telling form. 
 
 Two enormous water-bottles of solid gold were 
 lifted out— "for bringing the sacred water to wash 
 the goddess," said Daniel. "Six thousand rupees! 
 Six thousand rupees ! ' ' yelled the Brahmans, anxious 
 to impress us with the exceeding value of these toilet 
 articles. A two-foot-long pendant of linked medal- 
 lions set with rubies and diamonds, worn hanging 
 from the back of the goddess's crown, was vouched 
 for as valued at twenty-five thousand rupees, and a 
 huge crested headpiece glowing with gems was 
 quoted at thirty thousand rupees ; and then, through 
 Daniel, the Brahmans were besought kindly to omit 
 price-marks and quarreling over and outbidding one 
 another in values, since we had not come to buy nor 
 to appraise the temple jewels, and had no interest in 
 their money value. 
 
 That shabby table was spread over with more 
 precious things than one can remember— gold 
 crowns, crests, tiaras, plumes, bosses for the ears, 
 ornaments for the hair and the forehead, nose-rings, 
 necklaces, armlets, bracelets, zones, girdles, anklets, 
 
54 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and every possible article of Hindu jewelry worn 
 for these two thousand years — forms and designs 
 but little changed in two thousand years; the same 
 ancient, archaic Swami or Dravidian style of orna- 
 ments having been worn centuries before Chidam- 
 bram's building, according to the sculptured records 
 of the Buddhist monuments. Every piece was 
 crusted over, inlaid with rubies and diamonds, sap- 
 phires, emeralds, and pearls ; with emeralds as big 
 as bullets — great drops of green dew ; with sapphires 
 the size of filberts and walnuts, sunk in pure, dull 
 yellow gold as soft as wax. There were rubies, 
 rubies, rubies — rubies everywhere — thick as pebbles 
 on a beach,— and all of them smoothly rounded 
 drops, blobs, or uneven lumps of warm and splendid 
 color that went to the heart. A Western lapidary 
 or jeweler would scoff at and perhaps scorn these 
 masses of roughly cut cabochon gems, whose flaws 
 and feathers and cloudings make them of little com- 
 mercial but of such great artistic value. Crystalline 
 perfection was not the first test which the old Hindu 
 jewelers applied to their gems. With an eye first 
 to color effects and rich combinations of color, all 
 the flawed stones, the splinters and scales and pin- 
 points of color, had their value to them, and with 
 them they achieved results of such richness, such 
 gorgeousness and splendor, that our mechanically 
 perfect, geometrically exact, many-faceted, flashing 
 gems of Western jewelry seem cold, characterless, 
 expressionless beside these living gems of the East. 
 We were fairly dizzy with the glow and glitter and 
 gorgeousness of the display, the feast of gems and 
 
FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 55 
 
 flow of jewels, the barbaric splendors literally heaped 
 upon Oriental magnificence within touch before us. 
 One hardly knows the ruby, its glorious tones, its 
 true uses and possibilities, until he has had some 
 such feast of rubies in an Indian temple, and the 
 taste there acquired is little satisfied afterward with 
 the glassy, regular polyhedrons of the West. That 
 deep, clear, warm red ruby, the concentration of all 
 heat and gorgeous light, the glowing, burning stone 
 of the tropics, is India's own, its most typical, trop- 
 ical gem. It became hard to believe, though, that 
 rubies were rare and precious when, after all seen 
 elsewhere, Chidambram's Brahmans laid plates and 
 sheets of rubies— dozens, hundreds, thousands of 
 them— before us. One could almost think they came 
 like buttons on a haberdasher's card, and that one 
 bought them by the gross or great gross as required, 
 or by dry measure perhaps— by heaped-up pints 
 and overflowing quarts. 
 
 For nearly two hours we handled the collars and 
 crowns and ornaments passed out to us, until we 
 were well surfeited with splendors, until pear- 
 shaped pearls in rains and fringes could excite no 
 more surprise, until big tallow-drop emeralds were 
 the common thing, and star sapphires had to be of 
 thumb 's-end size to command any praise. Ropes of 
 necklaces made of overlapping gold pieces clanged in 
 dead weight on the table; the famous parrot cut 
 from a single emerald was produced with cheers, 
 and broad manacle-bracelets, set with ancient stones 
 recut in European facetings, closed the list. The 
 lid of the last chest was slammed down, the Brah- 
 
56 WINTER INDIA 
 
 mans voiced their pent-up joy, and we sank back in 
 our chairs, well exhausted with the strain of long- 
 continued attention to such dazzling surprises. More 
 flower garlands were dropped on our shoulders and 
 enormous bouquets were presented us. Trays of 
 fruit and cake and sugar things were offered, which 
 we formally praised, accepted, and touched accord- 
 ing to custom; and, by the same sign and custom, 
 we never saw the defiled stuff again. 
 
 The musicians struck up a deafening paean, the 
 crowd in the courtyard made way, and we were borne 
 triumphantly on for the great Nautch dance in the 
 choltry, or Hall of a Thousand Columns. That 
 noblest Brahman of them all, who had maintained a 
 particular protectorate over us in the jewel-room 
 and so summarily checked the other Brahmans when 
 they extolled the jewels too full-lunged, all but gave 
 his arm as he escorted us across the court, waving 
 the others aside or pushing them with force when 
 necessary. This arch-heathen, Pattu Thacheadar, 
 the Superb, highest-caste Dikshatar Brahman of the 
 white cord and the carved bead, was altogether 
 the finest specimen Chidambram afforded, and 
 sculptor or painter would equally delight in him as 
 model. This big Brahman beau-ed us gallantly 
 across the courts, up into the lofty pillared hall, and 
 seated us in the waiting arm-chairs with a grace and 
 address that would have become a leader of cotillions 
 — barefooted, with only a red-bordered sheet for his 
 full-dress uniform of social eeremony! 
 
 The magistrate, in his scholarly, gold-bowed 
 spectacles, and the disdainful little goddess, Thun- 
 
TAlTr TUAniKAHAI 
 
FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 59 
 
 gama, throned upon the peons' shoulders, were with 
 us; and the august company of Brahmans seated 
 themselves in a half-circle upon the stone floor, 
 Pattu, the Superb, towering head and shoulders in 
 the front row of the highest-caste marks. There was 
 a May-pole in the middle of the vaulted hall, hung 
 over with long streamers. 
 
 Six barefooted, neat-looking colored girls in 
 starched muslin dress skirts and velvet jackets of 
 antiquated cut and no fit whatever, stepped forward 
 and, in methodical march and countermarch to a 
 nasal chorus, braided the May-pole's ribbons down 
 to their hands; in reverse order unbraided them, 
 and stepped demurely back in line. We were breath- 
 less with surprise. 
 
 Was that the famous sacred temple dance ? Could 
 six octoroons, matter-of-fact young " yaller gals," 
 shuffling slowly around a May-pole, ever give rise to 
 such visions of beauty and grace as only the name 
 of the Nauteh dance conjures up ? Oh, no ! It was 
 surely coming next. There would be something 
 graceful and bewitching, something in gorgeous na- 
 tive costume, after this purposely tame and tedious 
 cake-walk by colored church members in velveteen 
 basques trimmed with cotton lace. 
 
 The same wooden young persons marched out 
 again in line. We cheered ourselves, noting then 
 that they were almost Oriental from the collar up- 
 ward—what with necklaces and ear-studs and ear- 
 rings looped back to the decorated waterfall, the 
 "bath bun" of hair at the back of their heads, and 
 nose-rings whose lowest pearl trembled on their 
 
60 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lips, the literal pearls of speech. We questioned 
 Daniel closely to know if these really were the 
 picked dancers, the flower of Chidambram's beauties ; 
 if he had never seen them dance in voluminous, 
 diaphanous, graceful native dress? 
 
 "No, your ladyship. These are their richest 
 clothings. You see the magnificent velvets of their 
 costumes. They never wear the common sari now 
 that they have these. It is always this splendid 
 dress they wear for the dancing when I bring Euro- 
 pean visitors." 
 
 The dance went on, a tame and tedious cake-walk, 
 purely callisthenic school-girl exercise to the end, 
 save in one or two less shuffling measures where they 
 made undeniable eyes at us, posed one finger against 
 the cheek, and looked unutterable archness. "Notice 
 the postures, see the sentiments of the countenance," 
 said Daniel, who was a connoisseur in such dances, 
 and gifted with the second sight needed to make 
 anything at all fascinating out of the languid 
 measures. "It is praise of the goddess," said the 
 old gentleman, rapturously, delighted with the 
 spectacle. But such a dreary ballet! Such a mo- 
 notonous walk-around to minor airs thumped and 
 blown by the earnest temple musicians, and plaintive 
 choruses wailed by the dancers themselves, would 
 never fill a theater nor a side-show in the West, and 
 the Midway Plaisance would have closed for lack 
 of patronage had its Oriental dances been like this. 
 
 The sun struggled through the clouds and sent 
 shafts and ladders of gold down from the high win- 
 dows, that, touching the white draperies of the seated 
 
FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 61 
 
 Brahmans, illuminated them as if with lime-light. 
 Pattu Thaeheadar was radiant and smiling, nodding 
 his approval and delight, and enjoying the great 
 day and his prominent part in it with all of a boy's 
 vain glee. He hung upon and watched closely the 
 evolutions of the dancers, and all the Brahmans 
 buzzed approval when the six advanced and re- 
 treated, rapping little sticks together in the measure 
 of some very old dance to Shiva. That was the live- 
 liest measure trod — very literally trod, with the flat 
 of the bare foot— by these star-eyed serpents and en- 
 chanters of the Coromandel coast. 
 
 "It is the most difficult to do this dance, you see. 
 They are trained to it from little girls. Their limbs 
 are very movable," said Daniel, aglow with delight. 
 
 When the placid program came to an end, Daniel 
 put on his spectacles, took his place by the May-pole, 
 and, more like a head schoolmaster giving diplomas 
 than like the grand almoner of royalty, presented 
 a rupee to each girl. Each one advanced and re- 
 ceived it with a bow, and each one then stepped on 
 to us, stood rigid, and made the regulation military 
 salute with one hand — a figure only a little more 
 formal and automatic than the whole gay revel of 
 the sacred dance had been, something very plainly 
 learned from a British drill-sergeant's code. The 
 musicians received their gratuities in the same formal 
 manner, and the Brahmans, dancers, and orchestra 
 trooped with us down the hall to the court surround- 
 ing the temple tank, where the afternoon sun lighted 
 a scene of splendor and picturesqueness. Despite 
 the late and yellow light, I snapped the camera to 
 
62 WINTER INDIA 
 
 right and left, on gilded gopuras, the mirror tank, 
 and the staircase of the great hall where the dancers 
 and Brahmans were grouped unconscious. Little 
 Thungama and her adoring peon stood for me ; and 
 then Pattu Thacheadar, special protector and per- 
 sonal conductor, impresario, and grand manager of 
 the Brahman troupe, was asked to take the steps, to 
 pose magnificent, all flower-garlanded as he was. He 
 assented with excited delight, the other Brahmans 
 shouted their satisfaction, and with much chaff and 
 back-talk to his Brahman brethren, this splendid 
 creature spread out his flower necklaces and stood, 
 facing the sun, breathing slowly and not winking 
 for seconds after the button was pressed. 
 
 The bullock-bandy carried us and our load of floral 
 gifts home to the bangla, and after a quick dinner and 
 long nap carried us on to the station, where Pattu, 
 the Superb, was parading the platform in waiting. 
 He had walked the eight miles to take leave of us, 
 to present more flower garlands and a rare lemon 
 brought from a grove some miles away on the Coro- 
 mandel coast. He wore classic sandals, or shoes 
 bound by rawhide thongs, and the end of his long 
 white drapery was thrown up over his head and 
 shoulders like an Arab burnoose. He swung a quaint, 
 archaic lantern, and in the flashes of light from the 
 station-rooms he was more paintable and operatic 
 than at the temple. And this son of the Sun, de- 
 scendant of ten thousand Brahmans, masher of most 
 magnificent order, was posing for effect as unmis- 
 takably as others of his kind pose in Western draw- 
 ing-rooms—the handsome man and his little arts— 
 the same transparency the world over. 
 
FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF SHIVA 63 
 
 The station-master interpreted for him while we 
 waited a whole midnight hour for the train. Pattu 
 wanted to know when we would come to Chidam- 
 bram again ; how far away was America ; how many- 
 days would it take us to get back there; how much 
 would it cost ; had we railways there ; or any tem- 
 ples as splendid as Chidambram, 
 
 "Then," said the station-master, "he has been 
 telling me of the great festival at the temple to-day. 
 He says there was a crowd there to see the dance, 
 more than two hundred Brahmans, and he was the 
 best-looking man there, and you took his picture to 
 carry to America to show." 
 
 Oh ! Pattu ! Pattu Thacheadar ! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 
 
 E had expected to have another feast 
 of jewels at Conjeveram, the Benares 
 of southern India, but at Chingleput 
 Junction the constable from that sa- 
 cred city was waiting to tell us that 
 we could not see the temple jewels, owing to a recent 
 theft of three thousand rupees' worth of treasure 
 and the arrest of the head high priest, who held one of 
 the five keys. "I have just brought forty Brahmans 
 up with me as witnesses. There has been a big quar- 
 rel on among the high-caste families, one trying 
 to run the other out; but as all the temple offices, 
 even the keepers of the oil, are hereditary, only civil 
 suits and criminal imprisonment ever oust them. 
 Each steals a little from the god himself, lout does 
 not want any one else to do so. ' ' 
 
 When we arrived at the great railway station of 
 Madras, the largest and oldest city in southern India, 
 with a population of half a million, there were no 
 European vehicles to be had— only bullock-carts and 
 the bandbox jutkas, or native pony-cabs. "There 
 is a convention of Theosophists on now, ' ' said the sta- 
 tion-master in explanation, but he could not tell what 
 people with astral bodies wanted with material cabs. 
 
 64 
 
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 65 
 
 The jutka was such torture and indignity that we 
 walked the last block to the hotel in a great garden, 
 where a hen-brained lot of "don't-know" servants 
 held the summer-house, which served as hotel office. 
 
 There were no manager, no rooms, no memoran- 
 dum of our telegrams, no anything at this only hotel. 
 There was no other place to go ; no steamer leaving 
 for five days. The butler led us to a neglected row 
 of rooms that we might prepare for tiffin and await 
 the return of the manager. Ants ran riot over the 
 beds and the torn matting on the dirty cement 
 floor; the ragged, brown mosquito-netting suggested 
 horrors in the darkness ; and the bath-water of days 
 ago stood iridescent in the tubs. We retreated to 
 the stone porch and then to the dining-room, where 
 there was painted as a decorative frieze: "Recom- 
 mend us. Recommend us. The best hotel in India. ' ' 
 There was a veteran table cloth, but a charming floral 
 decoration, and we were served a pallid and taste- 
 less soup, potato croquettes, grilled bones, and ''corn- 
 flower cream, ' ' i. e., a watery blanc-mange. Mean- 
 while, our robust British table neighbors— all resi- 
 dent Anglo-Indians, with a proper scorn for tourists 
 —ate broiled birds, dressed the most inviting tomato- 
 salads, and closed their feast with red bananas and 
 cheese. " Oh ! that belongs gentlemans. Gentlemans 
 self buy bazaar," hissed the butler, when we had 
 sternly pointed to and ordered birds and salad and 
 bananas. 
 
 Then the manager came and bowed us into a car- 
 riage and off to a branch house, "a residential 
 hotel," where he said he had most spacious rooms 
 
66 WINTER INDIA 
 
 reserved. Remembering the bath-tubs, the grilled 
 Kones, and the legend on the dining-room walls of 
 the parent establishment, we had small expectation 
 of anything sybaritic at the offshoot hostelry. Yet 
 we were rewarded with a great mansion, in a garden 
 that was almost a park ; the house was clean and ad- 
 mirably kept by a black, black butler, twin to the 
 end-man of the old minstrel shows. 
 
 "We drove miles and miles through tree-lined streets 
 to the water-front of the city to find the post, tele- 
 graph, and steamship offices and the bank. All Ma- 
 dras and all southern India, planters from Banga- 
 lur and the Nilgiri Hills, and officials from every- 
 where, were doing their Christmas shopping those 
 days, the races were on, and the streets and bazaars 
 were full of life and animation. We drove into 
 beautiful grounds and around under a great portico 
 of a mansion to find the chemist's shop ; into another 
 splendid place to find, not the lord chief justice, but 
 the grocer; and this extravagance of space makes 
 Madras a city of frightfully magnificent distances. 
 
 The burnt-cork butler welcomed us home to our 
 residential hotel, himself brought the dainty tea-tray 
 to the marble-floored portico, and stood by with 
 ear-to-ear smiles, watching us enjoy his crisp toast 
 and fresh seed-cakes. We began to have a Christmas 
 feeling of peace and good will to all Madras. The 
 loggia was so attractive that we ordered dinner to 
 be served there, rather than dress and dine with any 
 more self -supplying guests, as at that "best hotel in 
 India." The butler assented joyfully, a whole min- 
 strel troupe ran in with bouquets, fruit pyramids, 
 
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 69 
 
 candle-bells, and a British profusion of electroplated 
 furnishings. The butler, three assistants, David and 
 Daniel, a pankha boy, and whispering coolies un- 
 counted beyond the latticed door, combined to serve 
 a good dinner to perfection. We wondered how the 
 residential guests were faring with so much of the 
 headquarters staff on duty in our apartment, and 
 the next day learned that we were the only guests 
 in the new hotel ; that the invisible manager was a 
 myth, and the black butler the greatest Pooh Bah 
 off the stage. 
 
 Madras residents had, long in advance, engaged all 
 the " budgery-boats " on the Buckingham Canal for 
 Christmas week; and instead of one of those com- 
 fortable house-boats, where civilized existence con- 
 tinues its regular routine, we had to content our- 
 selves with a coal-barge— a "spacious and com- 
 modious fourteen-passenger-boat, " Samuel Daniel 
 called it— for the visit to the Seven Pagodas, the 
 ruins of Mahabalipur. Our Turveydrop assured us 
 that all tourists went in such craft ; that Bishop 
 Phillips Brooks had traveled that way to see this one 
 of the seven great wonders of the Indian world ; and 
 as he talked on, we almost forgot the ignominious 
 cargo-lighter. 
 
 The guide-book said to pay seven rupees for such 
 a boat to go to the Seven Pagodas; the butler said 
 fifty rupees; Daniel and David stoutly maintained 
 fifteen rupees ; and we finally gave ten rupees. Coal- 
 barge No. 1350 was some twenty feet long, with a 
 mat roof, side awnings, and a single mast ; and when 
 swept, scrubbed, and drenched under our eyes, we 
 
70 WINTER INDIA 
 
 embarked with mattresses, chairs, a few pots and 
 pans and provisions from the hotel, and a great sup- 
 ply of our own stores to augment the tifSn-basket. 
 Instead of driving to Marmalong or Guindy Bridge, 
 and trusting to meet the dilatory boatmen there, we 
 embarked at Governor's Basin, and for reward 
 found the Buckingham Canal drag a stagnant, sew- 
 ery way past Madras commons and dead walls, past 
 hedges and kitchen-gardens, for six miles to Guindy 
 Bridge, where the open country began. We posted 
 a letter in the mail-box at the bridge, ordering a 
 carriage to be waiting there at five o 'clock the second 
 morning, and then were towed and poled at a com- 
 fortable gait southward through the long, lazy after- 
 noon, curtained from the western sun, with a fresh 
 little breeze from the sea pleasantly stirring the air. 
 It was a flat, level country, lying close to the 
 Coromandel coast. Once the canal debouched into 
 a great lagoon, and the trackers plashed like a file 
 of storks across a few miles of shallow water, and 
 often we heard the long boom of the breakers. Vil- 
 lages nestled under palm and banian groves; vil- 
 lagers trod the high embankment paths like so many 
 white storks or red flamingos; and market, cargo, 
 and fire-wood boats slipped silently by. We walked 
 past a series of locks in the late afternoon, and when 
 the great triangular sail dropped we took our chairs 
 to the roof and glided down such a sunset stretch as 
 met one's ideal of the tropics. Two Tamil coolies, tan- 
 dem, towed us; a tall boatman poled; and Daniel's 
 brilliant red turban at the fore gave the high key- 
 note to the sunset color scheme, while his voice rose 
 
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 71 
 
 in sonorous passages descriptive of his country and 
 his people. Even the untutored blacks of the crew 
 crept close to hear the foreign language roll from 
 his tongue in such unctuous streams. He told of the 
 temple jewels we had not seen; of the stores of the 
 finest old Indian jewels which the Nautch girls every- 
 where own, since the women of the great families 
 are continually robbed by degenerate sons, who have 
 learned only more forms of vice and extravagance 
 with Western education. Then of the Brahmans and 
 their ' ' hereditary heirness ' ' he said with a sneer : 
 ' ' Those Brahman priests say they are the gods visible 
 in the world. Once they may have taught truths, 
 but now they only humbug the poor people." Bud- 
 dhism as it flourishes in Ceylon ? ' ' More humbug, ' ' 
 he averred. 
 
 The palm-trees grew darker than violet against 
 the rosy west, until they were black skeletons against 
 a steely blue, star-spangled firmament, where Jupiter 
 shone like a small moon and Orion 's three great belt- 
 jewels streamed golden tracks across the lagoon. We 
 could hear the boom of the Coromandel surf; dark 
 palm groves stopped the gentle sea breeze; the sail, 
 spread to catch any breath, dragged and flapped 
 against the mast, then filled with the soft sea air 
 when the star-dotted horizon was visible again, and 
 drew canal-boat No. 1350 along through the en- 
 chanted night. 
 
 In the middle of the darkness came the clatter of 
 the falling sail and an angry colloquy by the bank- 
 side, David and Daniel together venting their strong- 
 est language at invisible retorters. 
 
72 WINTER INDIA 
 
 **It is the twenty-mile lock," said David, shaking 
 with wrath. ''The manager has gone to bed and 
 will not open the lock again until morning, and we 
 shall not get to Seven Pagodas before ten o'clock. 
 They will always do it for the gentries, but they do 
 not believe when poor native says he has gentries 
 waiting in a boat. ' ' With one lantern and an escort 
 of innumerable shadows in ghostly clothes, we went 
 and pounded on the lock-keeper 's door, and besought 
 him as the most courteous of a whole race of kindly 
 disposed people to consider a tourist's precious time 
 and consuming zeal for rock-sculpture, and open his 
 locks and let us wing and track our way to Mahabali- 
 pur. "Certingly, certingly. Eight away, mem- 
 sahib," and the lock-keeper came out with his keys, 
 our crew worked the gates and levers, and while we 
 walked and talked with our benefactor of the tropic 
 night, the waters swirled in and lifted the boat to 
 the next level. 
 
 They drove a stake in the soft sand and made fast 
 at three in the morning, and in the gray-blue dawn 
 we woke to find ourselves and three budgery-boats 
 lying at the edge of a great sandy flat, beyond which 
 a white house and some palm-trees promised govern- 
 ment cheer. We went over to the dak bangla and 
 demanded baths, breakfasts, and chair-bearers at 
 once. The first two demands were complied with; 
 but at six o'clock it was " wait a little," as it had 
 been at five-thirty, and, realizing that the sooner we 
 began the five-mile walk in the sun and sand the 
 better were our chances of surviving and accomplish- 
 ing it all before noon, we set forth in the cool of the 
 
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 73 
 
 December morning. Slowly, quite slowly, we strolled 
 out past great lily-ponds, through sandy commons 
 and underbrush, for a mile and a half to the sculp- 
 tured raths of Mahabalipur, the boulder-temples of 
 the once great city of Bali. 
 
 When the pious ones of that place, whether in the 
 sixth century or still earlier, wished to build a temple 
 they took a boulder of the desired size, carved it out- 
 wardly until it looked as if built by masons' hands, 
 block by block and course by course, and then hol- 
 lowed the interior into chambers, even one and two 
 stories of pillared and vaulted chambers. Five such 
 monolithic raths, or temples, remain in this lonely 
 strand, with guardian lions, elephants, and bulls 
 hewn from lesser boulders before them. Two of the 
 raths are mere sentry-box shrines, or image-cells, 
 eleven feet square and twenty feet high, carved with 
 a wealth of exterior and interior ornament. The 
 largest rath is the Split Temple, forty-two feet in 
 length, with an impressive interior hall. All the 
 raths stand empty and deserted, as if touched by 
 the enchanter's wand, miraculously turned to stone. 
 There was no moving thing, no sound but the distant 
 moan of the surf and the rustling clash of palm- 
 branches. The seven-o'clock sun already burned the 
 sands and was reflected scorchingly from the rock 
 masses, whose burned, yellow-brown tones seemed the 
 very expression of heat. 
 
 Very slowly we walked for a mile through a 
 plantation of young fir-trees, proof that the gov- 
 ernment of India considers the welfare of this re- 
 gion, whose long-denuded sands are being reforested 
 
74 WINTER INDIA 
 
 for both economic and climatic reasons. We came 
 ' out on the hard sand beach where the ocean lapped 
 in soft, creamy wavelets, and the terrible Coromandel 
 surges we had heard and read of only splashed 
 gently on the steps of a quaint little pyramidal tem- 
 ple carved, course upon course, to its final bell-cap. 
 Posts and columns stand far out in the water, and a 
 line of breakers, a mile still further out, mark where 
 legend says other pagodas stand intact beneath the 
 waves. Southey has imaged it in "The Curse of 
 Kehama," but prosaic surveyors say that there is 
 only a reef of needle-rocks below the surface. That 
 lonely little temple at the edge of the loud-sounding 
 sea, although a common thing of masons' construc- 
 tion, is most impressive of all the seven temples. Its 
 stone facade is rounded with sand-blast, spray, and 
 surge, its walls are broken, its portico and platform 
 half wrecked by the fury of past storms, and its 
 cool, wet chambers hold Vishnu's images in his dif- 
 ferent incarnations,— Buddha, Vishnu's ninth ava- 
 tar, occupying a last cool grotto. 
 
 The sun was burning with full strength then, and 
 we sought the mud and thatch Tamil village un- 
 der a cluster of palm-trees. The villagers swarmed 
 out, and an inky, sooty flock of cherubs ran beside 
 us to another boulder-temple, where we sat in the 
 shade and regarded a huge stone hollowed like a 
 churn or bowl, where "the gopis made butter for 
 Krishna in the forest" — "But the cat ran away with 
 the butter," said Daniel, regretfully. Krishna, the 
 dancing god of Hindu mythology, very nearly cor- 
 responds to the Greek Apollo or Hercules, and the 
 gopis parallel the naiads and muses. 
 
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 75 
 
 The palm-tree was our Christmas-tree that day, 
 and the villagers, having already stripped it of gifts, 
 pierced the green cocoanuts and gave us reviving 
 drinks. The Tamil cupids folded palm-leaves into 
 drinking-cups and drank such portions as their el- 
 ders gave them. It was a pretty, primitive scene, 
 purely and ideally Indian, when around the rock 
 came a British tourist in a pith helmet, a lady 
 in a helmet, too, with streaming green veil ends. 
 They looked at the churn, they looked at the temple 
 on which we sat, but they saw us no more than they 
 would see canal-boat No. 1350 at anchor beside their 
 splendid budgery-boat. We opened more cocoanuts 
 and drank to the merry day, to the Superior Person, 
 to the Pharisee wherever he may find himself. 
 " Peace on earth— good will to men." Blessed is 
 the Christmas spirit and the Briton's sense of de- 
 corum. Alas, that we had no letters of introduction 
 with us ! 
 
 Slowly we walked up over a great scarped rock — 
 and it was like walking across a hot stove — and 
 descended steps in its front to see the carving known 
 as Arjuna's Penance— a rock-front, thirty-seven feet 
 high and ninety feet long, carved all over with life- 
 sized figures and animals in high relief, a whole 
 picture-book of earliest mythology. The wicked cat 
 who stole the gopi's lump of butter was triumph- 
 antly pointed out, standing on its hind legs in pen- 
 ance, while mice ran about its feet. " Really," said 
 Daniel, "he is waiting for the sea to dry that he 
 may eat all the fish in it." This gigantic bas-relief 
 sculpture, beside which Thorvaldsen's lion at Lu- 
 
76 WINTER INDIA 
 
 cerne is a toy, is from an earlier time than the mono- 
 lithic raths by the sea, and marks the dateless era of 
 serpent-worship. But the sunny rock-front radiated 
 heat like a bonfire, and there was no wish to stand 
 and study it. 
 
 It was then past nine o'clock, the sun was scorch- 
 ing high overhead, and nothing Daniel could say 
 about the "numberlesses of gods and goddesses," 
 or lesser cave-temples, could stir us. Not "Krishna 
 and the gopis, his sweethearts in paradise," not 
 Ganesha, all black, greasy, and garlanded in his own 
 rock-cut temple, could attract us longer— all interest 
 in art, archeeology, and architecture scorched and 
 scotched for the day. For a half-mile we had made 
 Daniel give guarantees of importance before we 
 would look within a cave or take one extra step in 
 that terrible scorch and sun-glare of a midwinter 
 morning. 
 
 The sands were Blinding and our boats quivered 
 in heat-waves as we went toward them at noon ; tut 
 while the coolies splashed along over tow-paths sub- 
 merged by the tide, we were cooled by a gentle head- 
 wind all the afternoon. The water was a-splash with 
 bits of silver, and one of the trackers stopped, 
 wrestled with something under his foot, and threw 
 a large fish into the boat. At sunset we could see a 
 faint line of surf beyond the sand wastes, and the 
 beat of the sea was heard through hours of darkness 
 succeeding the most beautiful, moist pink sunset. 
 
 When the candles were lighted a great, two-inch 
 brown cockroach ran up the side of the boat, stood up- 
 side down on the mat ceiling, and waved his feelers. 
 
MADEAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS 79 
 
 Others followed the beckoning leader until the place 
 was swarming, and we retreated to the chairs at 
 the stern, where, with breakneck naps, we spent the 
 night, shuddering to think of the preceding night, 
 when, preferring starlight to candles, we had gone 
 to bed in the dark. 
 
 The sky was full of big, yellow, pulsing stars, but 
 the Southern Cross was not visible. Orion gradu- 
 ally changed its angle and tilted itself almost in re- 
 verse; and Orion was a great offense to me in those 
 low latitudes. As if one went to latitude 0° and to 
 6° N. and 13° N. to see one's most familiar northern 
 constellation ! 
 
 "Mehlady! Meh lady! The Holy Cross is here 
 in the sky now, ' ' said faithful David at four o 'clock, 
 and he crossed himself as became a good Romanist. 
 There, straightaway in our wake to southward, were 
 two lopsided crosses, or diamonds, each outlined by 
 four great, glowing yellow stars where the narrow 
 cut of the Buckingham Canal exactly underlay and 
 reflected the great southern constellation, the filmy 
 trails of Magellan's clouds floating near. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MADRAS AND CALCUTTA 
 
 ^HERE is a splendid show of old armor 
 and weapons in the Madras Museum, 
 but those trophies of metal-work are 
 not unique like the relics and frag- 
 ments from the great Buddhist shrines 
 of the south. Room after room is filled with bas- 
 reliefs and images dating from the noblest period 
 of Greco-Buddhist art, the great tope of Amraoti 
 having been, like the temple of Boro Boedor in Java, 
 a picture-Bible of Buddhism. The exquisite marble 
 bas-reliefs, portraying events in the life of Buddha 
 and scenes of religious ceremony, and the bands of 
 ornament give but a starting-point for the imagina- 
 tion to reconstruct the shrines of twelve and fifteen 
 centuries ago. There are treasured relics dating cen- 
 turies before the Christian era, and one bit of bone 
 in a beryl cylinder, found in the excavations at the 
 Bhattiprolu mound, is an undoubted fragment of 
 the body of Gautama Buddha. Our guides were not 
 eloquent over these Buddhist relics, knowing more 
 about the jeweled and damascened swords, goads, 
 spears, and daggers of the late Raja of Tanjore, 
 whose treasures had lately come to the "wonder- 
 
 80 
 
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA 81 
 
 house," as the natives term a museum. A wonder- 
 guide had attached himself to us as we made the 
 rounds, greatly to the annoyance of Samuel Daniel, 
 whose severest manner could not rout him. At the 
 door each handed us an umbrella, and as we went 
 down the steps Daniel thrust away the self-appointed 
 guide and began: "Your ladyships"; but the rival 
 slipped past, opened the carriage door, and, bowing, 
 said: "Your highnesses." The constant "lady- 
 ships ' ' that we everywhere received declared how the 
 wily Hindu sees and plays upon the weaknesses of 
 the alien race he knows best, and the "highnesses" 
 was climax of the play upon snobbery. 
 
 One never could have greater need for an astral 
 body than in Madras, where we drove and drove to 
 get to any place— through miles of banian tunnels 
 and green-vaulted avenues, along the Marina road 
 by the sea, and through the Adyar suburb, where 
 Theosophists still congregate, despite the cruel ex- 
 posure of the whole Blavatsky-Mahatma-Yogi frauds 
 in that very quarter years ago. 
 
 Life is lived on narrow margins in India. One 
 cannot get "something for nothing" in Madras; and 
 every purchase sent to the hotel came with a foot- 
 note to the bill: "Coolie not paid." When Samuel 
 Daniel had left for his home, the next post brought 
 us a card: "Your ladyships: I forgetfully leave 
 my carpet and blanket with David's bed at Guindy 
 Bridge. Please David have send to, as railway par- 
 cel, to station-master at Trichinopoli." We ordered 
 the room butler to send a responsible person to the 
 station and— but before I could finish my remarks 
 
 5 
 
82 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and tell how to prepay the parcel, his grins changed 
 and he began to storm angrily: "Who pays that 
 coolie? Who pays that railway? I am poor man. 
 Suppose I never see Daniel again? Suppose I die, 
 and Daniel does n't come? What becomes of my 
 family then? You pay the coolie. You pay the 
 coolie. God will bless you. God will bless the good 
 lady who helps the poor. Think of my family ! Oh, 
 think of my family ! You pay the coolie ! You pay 
 the coolie ! God will bless you ! " he implored, work- 
 ing himself into a very frenzy. There was a rush 
 and rustle of starched clothing and the frenzy sud- 
 denly ended as David cuffed him out of the room 
 with word that the memsahib had expected to pay the 
 coolie anyhow. 
 
 The butler presented a bill that was many rupees 
 too much. ' ' I must see the manager about this, ' ' I 
 said, rising to leave the room. ' ' Oh, your ladyship ! 
 Your ladyship ! Write a chit ! Write only a little 
 chit— a little chit to the manager, and he will under- 
 stand and make it right," implored the end-man. 
 "But I must see him," I said. A torrent of agitated 
 pleas poured from the minstrel. "The manager is 
 away. He is at the fort." 
 
 "Then I will wait and speak to him when he 
 returns. ' ' 
 
 "But, your ladyship, suppose your ship comes! 
 Oh, your ladyship, write just a little chit," and the 
 butler wrung his hands in real despair. 
 
 That act of the farce having lasted long enough, 
 I wrote "too much" on the back of the bill. The 
 butler carried it out on the silver salver, went to a 
 
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA 83 
 
 table at the end of the hall, and wrote something on 
 the face of the bill. Pooh Bah had literally gone over 
 to the other side of the stage and become manager 
 himself. He returned in less than three minutes 
 with the corrected bill, with apologies from the man- 
 ager three miles away at the fort, and with his 
 autograph '' Thanks" written at the end. Then the 
 combination butler-manager-bookkeeper took the 
 money, went back to the hall table, and receipted 
 the bill, which was all in the one handwriting. 
 
 All the doors of my room, the windows, the hall, 
 staircase, and portico were full of salaaming ser- 
 vants when leave-taking came. The neighborhood 
 must have been emptied for our farewell, as well as 
 the village of servants in the back yard. From the 
 triple-part chief to the humblest coolie, gardener, 
 water-carrier, sweeper, and the despised woman 
 slavey, all stood expectant, rubbing their noses 
 upward with their palms and extending their hands 
 as they wailed : ' ' Prissint ! Prissint ! Oh, memsahib, 
 prissint ! ' ' 
 
 "Will you kindly telephone to the hotel when the 
 ship is sighted Sunday morning. There are eight 
 passengers there," I had said to the clerk on Satur- 
 day. "Oh, madam," said the pink Englishman in 
 a shocked tone, "the telephone cannot be used on 
 Sundays. The telephone office is closed." 
 
 At sunrise and at sunset we drove to the empty 
 harbor, and a black babu at the door of the steam- 
 ship office said: "The Khedive, she will not come 
 until morning now. She cannot get in the entrance 
 of the breakwater without daylight." 
 
84 WINTER INDIA 
 
 "When will the launch go off to the ship?" 
 ''Oh, we don't get the passengers out. You just 
 put yourself in a massoula-boat when you see the 
 ship and go out to it yourself. ' ' 
 
 We engaged a massoula-boat from him with the 
 agreement that one of the crew should rouse the 
 hotel when the Khedive was sighted. And he did, 
 with such fervor and fury that we all drove at a 
 Gilpin-speed for the harbor lest we miss the ship. 
 Black boatmen ran the last mile beside us, screeching 
 their numbers, holding out their tin license-tags, and 
 dodging the blows of our own courier boatman, who 
 resented any approaches toward his legal fares. We 
 and our trunks and traps were but atoms in the 
 bottom of the cavernous massoula-boat that the black 
 babu had engaged for us— a primitive native boat 
 whose timbers, fitted and tied together, only can 
 withstand the famous Madras surf. Six black man- 
 apes plied arrow-headed poles that passed for oars, 
 and with a wild, resounding chant shot away from 
 the iron pier. We clung to the high gunwales as 
 we stood on the loose lattice of poles and mats and 
 wondered when the first great roller would lift us. 
 But we rowed only a few hundred yards to a ship 
 within the still pool of the artificial harbor, sheltered 
 by a breakwater whose opposing arms, bearing twin 
 lighthouses, were far enough apart for fleets to have 
 manoeuvered there after dark. Madras people went 
 past us in dingies and dories and any sort of row- 
 boats, and we in our arks of massoula-boats were a^ 
 ridiculous as tourists generally are in strange lands. 
 Enough tourists had been duped into engaging these 
 
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA 85 
 
 huge surf -boats to make a very imposing appearance 
 when the fleet approached the gangway in line. 
 There was a smooth, smiling sunlit sea flickering 
 beyond the breakwater that serene December day, 
 and the fabled surf of the Coromandel coast and the 
 "life-in-your-hand" embarkations at Madras were 
 other outlived illusions. 
 
 There had been a bedlam of coolies at the pier, but 
 there was ten times more bedlam at the one gangway 
 of the Khedive; one stream of passengers, servants, 
 and baggage-coolies ascending the narrow, swaying 
 gangway, and another stream trying to descend, 
 every lung and muscle in the lot working overtime. 
 We hesitated long, but David, scenting a fray, was 
 as intractable as a war-horse, and, leaping ahead, 
 screamed, pushed, kicked, and slapped a way for us 
 through the struggling bearers, the toppling trunks 
 and bags. The others did the same, and one would 
 rather have jumped over than have attempted to 
 return. As one woman was jerked up by both arms 
 from the rocking massoula-boat, a lurch sent her 
 against the gangway chains and knocked her cha- 
 telaine-bag ofi' and into the water. With it went 
 watch, purse, keys, tickets, and letter of credit. And 
 the ship was to sail in an hour ! The purser sent a 
 boatman in haste, a lighter came alongside, and the 
 diver was dressed, his headpiece screwed on before 
 our eyes, and his leaden knapsack arranged as his 
 weighted feet were lowered from rung to rung of the 
 ladder until beneath the water. A line of bubbles 
 showed where he walked about at the bottom of the 
 sea, and in five minutes he came up with the bag on 
 
86 WINTER INDIA 
 
 his wrist, the whole proceeding as orderly and mat- 
 ter-of-fact as if it were the usual thing to drop and 
 recover articles in Madras harbor. 
 
 The completed railway now gives one choice of a 
 land route to Calcutta in half the time a ship re- 
 quires ; but with the dust, heat, and discomfort con- 
 sidered, it is not always preferred. 
 
 "The Khedive, she" made the seven hundred and 
 eighty miles from Madras to Calcutta in four days 
 and a half, counting in the whole night that we 
 anchored among a brilliant constellation of ships' 
 lights at the Hugli mouth of the Ganges. When the 
 ship started up the sacred, muddy stream of such 
 ill omen, with a famous Hugli pilot in an enormous 
 mushroom solar hat shading him like an umbrella, 
 ports were closed, ropes laid out, and every officer, 
 lascar, and stoker was at his post. The ship sailed 
 smoothly over the shoals and quicksands of such dire 
 record and nothing happened. 
 
 "We hastened to the Great Eastern Hotel, to which 
 we had written in November, again in December, and 
 twice telegraphed of our coming from Madras. 
 
 ' ' "We never reserve rooms unless money is inclosed 
 with the order," said the haughty brown clerk. 
 "This hotel is full." 
 
 "Have you any mail for us?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Many letters. They have Been coming 
 for some time. The bank messenger brought many 
 to-day. You will find them in that desk over there," 
 pointing to a box where every one rummaged and 
 chose at will. 
 
 "We drove in the fast-falling dusk to five hotels 
 
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA 87 
 
 and four boarding-houses. Not a room nor a tent 
 could be had, and we were deciding whether to lay 
 ourselves on an orphan asylum's door-step, seek the 
 consul as really distressed Americans, or go back to 
 the ship and insist upon their keeping us until morn- 
 ing, when the peon of one of the hotels screamed 
 and ran after us as we drove past. We hurried in 
 and sat on the upper backstairs until we could make 
 an instantaneous exchange of luggage with an officer 
 called back to his hill station. The small back room 
 had such shabby furnishings as would cause an 
 American cook to give notice, and we commanded a 
 view of tin roofs, chimney-pots, and clothes-lines. A 
 half-clad, hairy man came in with a bloated goatskin 
 of water over his shoulder. He pulled the goatskin 
 neck around and filled the bath-tub from the leather 
 reservoir— this primitive method surviving in the 
 "city of palaces" after a century of British rule 
 and long official example of luxury and splendor. 
 
 In the dining-room each guest had his own servant 
 standing behind his chair. One hundred guests sat 
 at meat, and more than that many turbaned bearers 
 stepped silently over the marble floor. Each re- 
 tainer looked grim determination, and had a row 
 of knives, forks, and spoons thrust dagger-wise in 
 his belt. Then we discovered that the table d'hote 
 was the battle-ground of the bearers, that food and 
 forks were for the forehanded, for the swiftest and 
 strongest only. Our Tamil was quivering for the 
 fray and soon in the midst of it, wresting soup and 
 fish, entree, roast, and game, trophy by trophy, and 
 emerging from each hand-to-hand struggle with 
 
88 WINTER INDIA 
 
 turban awry and eyes flashing. Although this foot- 
 ball rush was going on in the pantry and dining- 
 room, the swiftly moving, barefooted contestants 
 made no sound on the marble floor, and only a sup- 
 pressed hissing indicated the death-scuffle behind the 
 screen. Each bearer put down the hard-won plate 
 before his master, pulled a fresh knife and fork 
 from his belt, gave them a rub on his voluminous 
 garments, and fell into statuesque pose again behind 
 the chair. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 ANOTHER winter I took heed and 
 reached Calcutta betimes, making sure 
 of hotel accommodations for Christmas 
 week, the gala season of the Anglo- 
 Indian year, when all the fifteen hun- 
 dred civilians who rule India, and all the officers who 
 can be spared from cantonments, seek the capital. 
 
 Going from and returning to Singapore there was 
 opportunity to stop in Burma, politically a province 
 of India, but a country quite unique, where the life 
 and the people are so distinct from those of India 
 that one cannot class it with Hindustan any more 
 than Siam. A different religion has made the Bur- 
 mese a different people, and the absence of caste, 
 the freedom, the equality, in fact, the acknowledged 
 superiority of the attractive, capable, Burmese wo- 
 men have evolved a wholly different social order. 
 There is light, and laughter and gaiety among its 
 people, and the Burman is Malay enough to enjoy a 
 life of leisure. The Chinese come and do the trad- 
 ing, and the Madrasi come to do the work, and the 
 Burmese woman keeps the shop, rules the family, 
 
 89 
 
90 WINTER INDIA 
 
 smokes her "whacking white cheroot" with grace, 
 and exerts rare charm. 
 
 In all sight-seeing nothing is such surprise, so Ori- 
 ental, so dazzling and fascinating as the great Shoe- 
 dagong pagoda at Rangoon. It repays one for all 
 the entomological revels of the '* B, I." boats to see 
 that colossal, gilded, and jeweled monument sur- 
 rounded by picturesque worshipers; to watch "the 
 elephants a-pilin' teak"; to see the colossal Sleeping 
 Buddha at Pegu; and to travel past one hundred 
 miles of sacked rice awaiting the overtaxed railway 
 transportation, as one rumbles by rail to Manda- 
 lay, where the fantastic gilt and mirror-covered 
 temples, monasteries, and palaces equal one's 
 dreams of "the gorgeous East." Only seeing can 
 convince one what Buddhism can do for a people 
 in contrast with Hinduism or Mohammedanism, and 
 that the pagoda is always in sight in Burma— the 
 swelling, white bodies tapering to needle spires 
 often gilded and tipped with jewels— the sites of 
 deserted cities like Amarapura and Pagan on the 
 lower Irawadi dotted as thickly with temples and 
 pagodas as ever they could have been with houses. 
 Too many chapters would be required for anything 
 like an adequate exploitation of this picturesque 
 country and attractive people; but until the great 
 European mail-steamers touch at Rangoon the plea- 
 sure traveler is warned against the slow coasting 
 steamers on which one lives with the heat and the 
 smells and the motion at the very stern, and where 
 huge brown tropical roaches swarm, past any figures 
 of speech to give idea. 
 

 
 
 
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CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 93 
 
 There were brilliant panoramas on Calcutta streets, 
 those glittering noondays and golden afternoons, 
 but the hotels had only increased in numbers, and 
 advanced in price in the few years. Hotels in 
 India are all conducted on the pension or American 
 plan of a fixed rate per day, with everything save 
 wine included, and the charges had risen from the 
 average five and seven rupees to ten and fifteen 
 rupees, to the indignation of Anglo-Indians, who, 
 in no gentle terms, blame increasing tourist travel 
 for the increased cost of living. 
 
 I was conducted across a back yard and up a 
 flight of outer steps to a room whose reed matting 
 had not been disturbed in many seasons. *' But the 
 Bishop of New York occupied that room last year 
 and made no complaint, ' ' said the landlady, dramat- 
 ically. 
 
 " Think how much more Christian fortitude and 
 saving grace a bishop has to have "—and she coun- 
 termanded the order for a new matting to be laid on 
 top of the old one in shiftless Indian fashion, and 
 decreed a cleaning instead. Two inches of dust, that 
 had to be shoveled ofi^, underlay the matting, then 
 the cement floor was washed with disinfectants, and 
 there was one clean room in one Calcutta hotel that 
 night. When the washstand, grimed with the wear 
 of many seasons, had received a coat of white paint, 
 —without a bowl or article being removed,— it was 
 a splendid apartment— for an Indian hotel. I al- 
 most hesitated to exchange it for '' one of the best 
 rooms in the house"— a lofty, whitewashed cell 
 with worn cocoa matting on the floor, where twilight 
 
94 WINTER INDIA 
 
 reigned all day and no pernicious ray of sunlight 
 fell. ''This is Room 66 in the Hotel in Cal- 
 cutta, one of the best in the house," said an Ameri- 
 can lecturer once, and at sight of the lantern picture 
 the audience roared with laughter. 
 
 " Go and see the Black Hole of Calcutta," said 
 the Viceroy, who had finally determined and marked 
 the exact spot. " I have no need to. Your Excel- 
 lency. I live there now. Room 18, Hotel, ' ' said 
 
 another winter visitor. 
 
 There is little of stock sight-seeing for the tourist 
 — only the Zoological and Botanical Gardens and 
 the Temple of Kali; there are no specialties or local 
 opportunities in souvenir shopping in Calcutta, and 
 the European life is not what one comes half-way 
 around the world to see ; so that the traveler 's stay 
 in this city is usually brief. The fact of its being 
 the capital for so short a season gives Calcutta much 
 of a watering-place atmosphere. 
 
 Except for innumerable turbaned and bare-footed 
 servants, the pankha, and the use of many Hin- 
 dustani words, the life is the life of London— a 
 London with the chill taken off and the sun shining 
 gloriously. Every one waits for the London 
 Times to know the real news of the world; and 
 although the Calcutta newspapers hold diverting 
 advertisements of cinder-picking and ash-sifting 
 rights for sale, and "20 Rhinoceroses Wanted, 
 Rupees 2000 each, ' ' local opinion waits on the daily 
 arrival of the Allahabad Pioneer, a nursery of ge- 
 nius wherein Sinnett and Kipling and Marion Craw- 
 ford first won public applause. 
 
CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 95 
 
 Even in December there is summer heat at noon, 
 and one wears the white gowns of the tropics at 
 that high social hour in Calcutta; for one writes 
 his name in the visitors' book at Government House, 
 all formal calls are made, and letters of introduction 
 are presented between twelve and two o'clock; and 
 on Sundays, after church, every drawing-room hums 
 with visitors' chat. The solid two-o'clock tiffin, fol- 
 lowing the heavy ten-o 'clock breakfast, is so soon suc- 
 ceeded by the four-o'clock tea and the eight-o'clock 
 dinner, that it is a surprise that any one survives the 
 constant feasting which fills Anglo-Indian life. Lit- 
 tle can be urged against a climate that permits such 
 Gargantuan feats. The London menu goes with the 
 British drum-beat round the world, and the beef and 
 beer and cheese, the boiled potato, the cauliflower, 
 and orange marmalade are fixed and omnipresent. 
 More continuous than the imperial drum-beat is the 
 sound of the soda-water bottle, on which, with the 
 quinine sulphate, British rule rests. A chill and 
 piercing dampness succeeds sunset, and often at 
 night dense fogs shroud lamp-posts and landmarks 
 until street travel is at a standstill. The modem 
 Calcutta houses have fireplaces where a few lumps 
 of coal diffuse a cheerful dryness, but in the older 
 mansions one is bidden quite seriously to sit nearer 
 the lamp and enjoy its benign radiation. 
 
 The Viceroy comes down from Simla in November, 
 and goes on a provincial tour, reaching Calcutta be- 
 fore Christmas, when tents for extra guests decorate 
 the lawns of Government House, of the clubs and 
 great residences ; and the empire revolves within the 
 
96 WINTER INDIA 
 
 white viceregal palace. The standard flies above the 
 main entrance, red lancers of the body-guard pose 
 statuesque before the portico, and at times a red 
 carpet rolls down the steps and the Viceroy goes in 
 state to return princely visits, or to stand on a pearl 
 and bullion embroidered carpet before his silver 
 arm-chair and lay a corner-stone, unveil a statue, 
 or open some new public building. The great event 
 of the racing week is the Viceroy's Cup, when all 
 sporting India has its eye on the Maidan, remotest 
 cantonments as heavily interested as the cheering 
 crowds on the oval. The Viceroy comes in state, and 
 his loge and lawn are the center of interest and the 
 social heaven of the ambitious, who, between events, 
 parade in the hats and gowns brought out from 
 London and Paris for the races. Rajas and nabobs 
 of degree make a brave show too, with their jeweled 
 turbans, and necklaces worn outside frock coats of 
 flowered satins; the tight-fitting trousers to match 
 as often trimmed with tinsel braid and French 
 passementerie. Thousands of natives, in the univer- 
 sal white garments and turbans of every hue, make 
 such patches of shifting rainbow color in the field, 
 such a living tulip-bed, as fascinates the eye more 
 than any scramble of running horses. 
 
 Then all the world drives in the Maidan, making 
 a grand defile down the Red Road and the avenue 
 of statues, along the Strand and the Esplanade by 
 the Eden Gardens, where the band plays at sunset. 
 Eastern and Western fashions are strangely con- 
 trasted. The bhisti, with swollen goatskins on their 
 backs, sprinkle the dust, as in the times of Alexander 
 
CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 97 
 
 the Great and Cyrus, while automobiles fly by, elec- 
 tric lights prick the blue mists of distance, and night 
 falls with tropic swiftness. 
 
 The Viceroy and his wife together hold a draw- 
 ing-room a few days after Christmas, when a pro- 
 cession of women winds slowly up the white stair- 
 case of Government House lined with red-coated 
 red-turbaned servants, and past the many barriers 
 to the throne-room, where the knee is bent to vice- 
 royalty, and one train and bouquet give way to the 
 long procession of trains and bouquets. One does 
 not soon forget the scenes of Lord Curzon's rule 
 in India. The Viceroy, in his white satin small- 
 clothes, girt with his orders and stars and the in- 
 signia of the Garter, and Lady Curzon, that su- 
 premely beautiful woman of her day, on the dais 
 beside him in glittering tiara and ropes of pearls, 
 her long train rippling away over the edge of the 
 steps, remind one of certain of David's historical 
 pictures. Lady Curzon has held all native and Anglo- 
 India under the spell of her charm during her stay. 
 There could be no rivalry in beauty, and her unfail- 
 ing tact and sweet gentleness carry all before her. 
 The Indian people exhausted the imagery of their 
 several hundred languages to describe her beauty, 
 the sun, moon, stars, jewels, and all the goddesses 
 and gopis of their pantheon being drawn into com- 
 parison to describe the lovely "Lady Sahib." 
 
 A still larger company of men are presented to 
 the Viceroy, receiving alone, at the levee, and then 
 the state balls and state dinners, small dinners and 
 dances rapidly succeed one another, while the Vice- 
 
98 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 roy's private hospitalities are continuous. At the 
 end of each week the viceregal family go to their 
 country house at Barrackpur, fourteen miles up 
 the Hugli, the large house-party reinforced by a 
 company of guests brought up on the yacht to 
 lunch under the great banian-tree. Like Lord 
 Auckland, Lord Curzon, with the Dowager Empress 
 of China, rules half the human race and still finds 
 time to breakfast under that banian-tree. Pos- 
 sessed of that same tireless energy as those two other 
 strenuous rulers of his day, President Roosevelt and 
 the Emperor William, Lord Curzon has given Anglo- 
 India daily shock and sensation since his arrival, 
 and sleepy bureaus and slow officials were galvan- 
 ized to a life that has known no resting since. There 
 has been no monotony during Lord Curzon 's time, 
 and those who have waited for him to weary of hus- 
 tling the East, to sit back in conventional viceregal 
 fashion and sign the papers brought him, have had 
 to resign themselves to his omnipresence and ter- 
 rible activity, his thirst for information, and his 
 frenzy for work. He has impressed his vigorous per- 
 sonality upon every branch of the imperial service, 
 and already has visited more native states and dis- 
 tant provinces than any predecessor; ordering, 
 with equal attention to minutice, the least details 
 of the increased state and ceremony now attending 
 the viceregal court, the methods of famine relief 
 and plague control, and of the organization of the 
 new district created on the northwest frontier. He 
 has brought India to the world's attention and given 
 it an impetus in the path of progress and prosperity. 
 
CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 99 
 
 The " L. G. " or Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 
 ruler of sixty millions of people, carries on an elabo- 
 rate program of hospitalities at Belvidere, his beau- 
 tiful villa beyond the race-course, and the com- 
 mander-in-chief and the local military officers at the 
 fort do their part to crowd the January weeks with 
 social events for the keenly pleasure-loving English 
 in exile. It is only at investment ceremonies and at 
 durbars on the arrival of a new viceroy that the 
 native princes assemble at the Calcutta court in 
 great numbers. A few Parsi women in graceful 
 head draperies of pale silks, and loaded with jewels, 
 attend the functions at Government House, and a 
 few elderly and widowed Hindu ladies of rank re- 
 ceive visitors of their own sex; but otherwise the 
 native women of the higher classes remain in as 
 great seclusion as ever, veiled even when they drive 
 in closed carriages. On one afternoon of the week, 
 the India JMuseum is closed to men visitors, and na- 
 tive women and children come by the gharry-load 
 to the ''wonder-house." Foreign women can en- 
 ter the museum then, mingle with their purdah sis- 
 ters, and watch the jeweled persons as they stroll 
 about as curious and as ignorant as the smaller 
 children. 
 
 The India Museum is rich beyond rivalry in 
 treasures of ancient art. The magnificent carved 
 gateway and rail from the Buddhist tope at Sanchi, 
 original of the casts in London and in Paris, 
 bas-reliefs and images from Gandhara and Amra- 
 oti, with treasures and relics from the great tem- 
 ple at Buddha-Gaya, have long made the fame of the 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
100 WINTER INDIA 
 
 museum. When the Piprawah mound at Padaria on 
 the Nepal frontier was excavated, and the stone 
 coffer containing the relics and fragments of the 
 body of Gautama Buddha were found, no archas- 
 ologist or representative of the government was pres- 
 ent, and the " L. G." of the Northwest Provinces, 
 when communicated with, divided the treasures be- 
 tween the India Museum and the King of Siam, the 
 only Buddhist sovereign of this day. The sandstone 
 coffer, a soapstone vase, a crystal vase, some bits of 
 bone and crumbling particles of wood, many pearls, 
 tiny gold beads and flowers, and cut amethyst, topaz, 
 carnelian, coral, garnet, beryl, and jade stars, to- 
 gether with larger beaten gold ornaments in the 
 shape of the swastika, came to this museum— more 
 authentic relics of the founder of a great religion 
 than any European cathedral contains. It pos- 
 sesses also the inscription recording the deposit of 
 these relics of the body of the Buddha in that mound 
 by the members of the Sakya clan— a treasure of 
 archeology which makes real the personality of the 
 Buddha, the founder of that religion no longer a 
 solar myth. This museum has an average of sixty 
 thousand visitors a month, equaling nearly the 
 throngs at the Louvre; but the company of bare- 
 footed, sheeted Bengalis are so aimless and vacant- 
 looking that one questions whether the carefully 
 planned exhibits reach beyond the retina, whether 
 they have any comprehension of the objects. 
 
 One does not expect to find a great leisure class 
 in India, where the struggle for existence is so close 
 and bitter, but watching the idle drift of natives 
 
CALCUTTA IN CHKISTMAS WEEK 101 
 
 past this stretch of Chowringee Road, and the Mai- 
 dan before the museum, even more than through 
 the labyrinthine bazaars, one is appalled and op- 
 pressed with the realization of India's population— 
 294,360,356. All day the lean, wistful, apathetic 
 men stream up and down, up and down, going no- 
 where, doing nothing— hundreds passing at any mo- 
 ment, thousands in an hour, with no women and 
 rarely a child in sight. Each Hindu, in his dirty 
 head-sheet, represents a family crowded back some- 
 where in the city slums or in mud villages beyond. 
 One easily believes the census figures, and sees how 
 the frightful problem of over-population besets the 
 empire ; how necessary, almost, are plague and fam- 
 ine, in lieu of wars, to reduce the swarms and herds 
 of these lank, inert, torpid, half-fed, half-clothed, 
 half-alive Bengalis. When the sixty million Ben- 
 galis are crowded seven hundred and even nine 
 hundred to the square mile of this fertile prov- 
 ince, and are the most prolific of Indian races, they 
 must reap three harvests a year even to half live, as 
 they do. Long-continued peace and the sanitary 
 blessings of English rule have so preserved and in- 
 creased human life that disease and starvation seem 
 too slow agents to accomplish the necessary reduc- 
 tion. Only tidal waves and earthquakes, annual 
 disasters like those of Pompeii and Martinique, could 
 keep the population within bounds. 
 
 The Hindus are not a laughing, light-hearted, joy- 
 ous people, and the Bengali is the most melancholy 
 of them. He has little, almost no sense of humor, 
 his voice is always in a sad minor key when not 
 
102 WINTER INDIA 
 
 quarreling, and the comers of his mouth are perma- 
 nently drawn down. A sad sobriety is his sense of 
 dignity and good form. The hotel porter calls a 
 "fitton" (phaeton), not with the tyrant voice of 
 command, but with the sad, piercing wail of a ban- 
 shee. The sais, wrapped in melancholy and a 
 quilted bed-spread, responds with a mournful loon 
 cry, and urges his lean, despondent horses forward, 
 the running sais in tattered sheet hanging on be- 
 hind, like an old dust-cloth, with bags of green fod- 
 der. He jeers but never laughs, and one wonders 
 if he can, with so little room for a normal pair of 
 lungs in that thin, flat body and narrow chest. With 
 no oxygen to speak of for generations, they can 
 hardly be cheerful or energetic. Athletic sports are 
 not in the line of the young Bengalis of the Brah- 
 man castes who crowd the schools, take all the 
 prizes, and fill the government offices, — Young Ben- 
 gal being usually a superficially educated poll-par- 
 rot quite as offensive and hopeless as Young China. 
 The Bengalis are slow to reward the Christian mis- 
 sionaries who have worked among them for a cen- 
 tury, but they are converted to Mohammedanism in 
 droves, whole villages adopting that casteless creed. 
 The laboring Hindu seems generally incompetent, 
 and sadly lacks inventiveness, originality, ingenuity, 
 and the all-embracing but indescribable faculty 
 known as " gumption." His appliances, tools, and 
 instruments are unchanged since the day of Alexan- 
 der, and the mechanical sense seems wholly denied 
 him. Everything has come to him with his con- 
 querors. With spindle legs, flat chest, and shrunken 
 
 I 
 
CALCUTTA IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 103 
 
 arms, one wonders how one of them can do the heavy 
 work of dock-yards, harbors, railway yards, and 
 iron foundries. Everything is hoisted on the head 
 and shoulder, and so little is carried in the hand 
 that handles are superfluous ornaments on luggage. 
 One meets grand pianos and packing-cases of equal 
 size carried on the heads of eight and twelve men, 
 who step together with locked arms. I watched one 
 coolie's seven attempts to carry ten pasteboard boxes 
 from one shop counter to another. Each time he 
 heaped the load on one arm his draped head-sheet 
 fell away. Each time he reflung the sheet the boxes 
 dropped from the limp arm, and the alternating 
 play went on, until one would have expected an 
 employer to deal blows— or for any rational creature 
 to throw away the sheet and get to work. Centuries 
 have not evolved a way of tying or pinning the 
 woman's veil fast, and weary housekeepers describe 
 the ayah's efforts to make a bed and keep her veil 
 in place as an alternating affair like that of my 
 coolie and the ten boxes. 
 
 The curse of caste and all the difficulties its ob- 
 servance implies further complicate dealings with 
 these people, and a century of enlightened rule has 
 not freed them from its tyranny. The railway has 
 done something toward leveling castes, but for the 
 journey only. Instead of reviling and recoiling 
 from the railway as an invention of the defiling 
 European for the express purpose of destroying 
 caste, the Brahman artfully calls steam one of the 
 thousand and eight uncatalogued manifestations of 
 Vishnu. He conceals his sacred thread, washes off 
 
104 WINTER INDIA 
 
 his caste-mark, and rides in the jam of a third-class 
 car, touching sweepers and water-carriers and 
 corpse-burners, and trusts to after-purification. In- 
 stead of the Chinese hostility to railways, they have 
 so much adopted them for their own that there is al- 
 ready a hereditary railway caste, and railway work- 
 ers of the third generation are following their fa- 
 thers' occupation as naturally as if it were an oc- 
 cupation of centuries' inheritance. One never ar- 
 rives at an end of the puzzling caste distinctions. 
 With the four great castes of Brahmans subdivided 
 into eighteen hundred and eighty-six castes, it is 
 beyond any European mind to master its intricacies. 
 Because of caste, no one jostles you in the street, 
 and insistent touts keep a safe distance. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 |iN traveling north from Calcutta toward 
 Darjiling, we had the same springless, 
 cheerless, dusty railway cars as in 
 ■ southern India; the same bare floors, 
 'hard, leather-covered sofas, and rat- 
 tling windows of violet glass that gave a wintry, 
 melancholy look to the flat Bengal plain that we 
 jolted over all the afternoon. After sunset it grew 
 really cold in the bare, dimly lighted box, that 
 finally halted amid clamoring torch-bearers on a sid- 
 ing by a river bank. It might as well have been the 
 crumbling mud banks of the upper Missouri as 
 those of the sacred Ganges that we descended to 
 reach a flat-bottomed, stem-wheel river steamer of 
 American model; but no band cf Sioux or Crees on 
 the war-path ever raised such din as the coolies at 
 Damookdea when the '' up-mail " arrived. The 
 very stars seemed to reel from the noise, and we 
 breathed deep sighs of thanksgiving when the boat 
 wheezed away from the movable station and on 
 across "sacred Mother Ganges" to Sara Ghat, 
 where another horde of coolies lay in wait, shriek- 
 ing and gesticulating in the torchlight as the boat 
 
 105 
 
106 WINTER INDIA 
 
 advanced. "I catch coolies," said David, and he 
 did so, dragging them on board by leg, arm, or turban 
 end, as chanced. Although we had telegraphed to 
 have lower sofas reserved, the Anglo-Indian rail- 
 way brain has not been equal to devising or borrow- 
 ing a system of numbering and definitely securing 
 such a reservation. Possession was to the swiftest, 
 and the foot-race up a soft bank and over ends of 
 railway ties by torchlight warmed one at least. 
 The air grew colder, and bitterly colder, as we rum- 
 bled along through the night, and the loose-fitting 
 doors and windows sent frosty currents across us. 
 From dreams of Pullman curtains, blankets, soft 
 mattresses and springs, of double windows and 
 thick carpets, of sixteen-wheeled trucks with cylin- 
 drical springs under long cars hung far above the 
 dusty roaid-bed, we woke to the cold reality of our 
 freight- and cattle-car comforts. Before daylight 
 tea-trays flashed in the lamplight of way stations, 
 and cups of freshly made tea thawed one and 
 cheered the gray hour of dawn, while the thick frost 
 haze of the plain half obscured the sky. 
 
 By six o'clock it was light enough to see that the 
 people had changed overnight with the temperature. 
 We had left the sleek, supple, barefooted Bengali 
 in his sheeted drapery, with his thin nose and deep 
 eyes, and come to a race with high cheek bones and 
 flat Mongol faces, first cousins to the Chinese, even 
 to the cut of their loose-sleeved coats with over- 
 lapping fronts, and their high cloth boots. The 
 queue and the turban were worn together ; and that 
 was not more incongruous than the Hindu caste- 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 107 
 
 mark on the brow of a flat, Mongol face. There 
 were ruddy-faced mountaineers in Tatar caps on 
 the platforms, and unveiled women with elaborate 
 head-dresses and necklaces of silver, coral, and tur- 
 quoises. Beyond the trees and houses of Haldibari 
 station there loomed a great rose-pink line of peaks 
 and snowy battlements, stretching across the upper 
 sky and resting above ridges of tremendous blue 
 and hazily purple mountains. As the sun rose, the 
 peaks paled, turned to gold and silvery white, and 
 the greatest mountain wall in the world stood 
 sharply revealed, twenty-eight thousand feet in air, 
 a parapet of high heaven, the first sight of which 
 leaves one breathless. Beyond all other mountain 
 views is that first sight of the Himalayas, as the 
 great line of snow-peaks towers from the Siliguri- 
 plain. 
 
 After such mundane things as coffee and eggs, the 
 most absurd little narrow-gage cars, with only can- 
 vas curtains as protection from the changes of moun- 
 tain weather, trundled us across a few level miles, 
 and more slowly began climbing through shady 
 jungles and along cleared hillsides, with now a view 
 out to the level, yellow plain where a shining river 
 stretched to hazy distance, and now a view toward 
 silvery peaks that rose continually higher. The tiny 
 engine gained a thousand feet in altitude each hour, 
 creeping along hillsides planted with monotonous 
 lines of tea-bushes, through dry and dusty jungles 
 where trees and tree-ferns, creepers and underbrush, 
 were parched and frost-nipped, dull with the dust 
 of the dry season. The toy train crawled over 
 
108 WINTER INDIA 
 
 curves and loops, and one wished that the Gladstone 
 family, owning the line, had provided, instead of the 
 string of cabs linked together, one well-built and 
 windowed trolley-car, that one might sit in comfort 
 and enjoy the views that continually opened. Flat- 
 faced Lepcha and Bhutia women stared with un- 
 covered faces and Chinese stolidity as the train 
 slowly passed them, each woman a family savings- 
 bank with the hoarded rupees strung in overlapping 
 rows on her head and neck. Tibetans, too, were seen, 
 and at Kurseong, five thousand feet above the sea, 
 in the midst of tea-gardens, we were only nineteen 
 miles from the Tibetan frontier. After tiffin in the 
 chill, whitewashed dining-room of the Kurseong 
 hotel, we thawed ourselves in the sunny garden, 
 where a Catholic priest from the adjoining mission- 
 house pointed the way to the pass at the edge of 
 Tibet, where he had been spending some months. 
 Although the Tibetans come freely across the boun- 
 dary to trade and to work in the tea plantations, all 
 English and Europeans are rigorously excluded, 
 and none of the Indian tea openly reaches Tibet; 
 the Chinese monopoly of the tea trade being the 
 chief reason for the severe exclusion laws the lamas 
 maintain, 
 
 Kunchinjinga seemed no nearer, only higher, 
 still higher, and looming larger against the sky. The 
 air was decidedly a nipping one, and with all our 
 rugs and razais and hot-water cans at our feet, we 
 found the foolish little open tram-car anything but 
 a rational conveyance for high mountain travel, still 
 less appropriate when we ran into a dense, woolly 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 109 
 
 white cloud that hid everything for half an hour. 
 The toy engine screeched, wheezed, panted, and 
 slowly drew us up to cloudland by many loops and 
 switchbacks; going backward and forward, but al- 
 ways upward, until we came to Ghoom, a double row 
 of huts lining the track. There were picturesque 
 folk in that bazaar, and foremost was the "witch of 
 Ghoom," a wrinkled squaw who claimed to be one 
 hundred years old, and begged for an anna on that 
 account, A stumpy little Gurkha officer boarded 
 the train there, his breast covered with war medals, 
 and his wife covered with rows and rows of gold and 
 silver coin necklaces and strings of coral, turquoise, 
 and amber beads; her head as thickly plated with 
 family assets, and her costume only richer in mate- 
 rial than the bright purple, red, green, orange, and 
 yellow garments of the hill folk that made Ghoom 's 
 one street a lane of color and light. Children rode 
 pickaback instead of astride the Hindu hip ; all 
 loads were carried on the back by a strap over the 
 brow, and after the inert and melancholy Hindus, 
 these hill folk seemed a light-hearted, laughing 
 people. 
 
 We were eight hours in accomplishing the fifty 
 miles, reaching an elevation of 7470 feet at Ghoom, 
 and descending to 6000 feet at Darjiling, a whole 
 daylight of child's play with a toy train to any one 
 who has traveled on Colorado's narrow-gage moun- 
 tain railways. 
 
 We were carried from the station to the hotel in 
 dandy-wallahs, carrying-chairs like the swan and 
 shell chariots of stage pantomimes, the bearers 
 
110 WINTER INDIA 
 
 turning them backward to climb steps or steep 
 places. From the hotel windows and the terraced 
 roads of the town, which occupies the crest of a 
 knife-edged ridge, one has a full view of the front of 
 Kunchinjinga and the long running line of snows 
 across the deep chasm of the Ran jit. All too soon 
 sunset reversed the pageant of the morning, and as 
 the white peaks changed to gold, flame color, and 
 rose-pink, blue and purple mists filled each ravine 
 and valley. The rosy phantom lingered long before 
 fading to cold gray and silver, the western sky glow- 
 ing for a full hour, and a young white moon showing 
 through the leafless trees. 
 
 The bazaar or market-place was empty then, for its 
 gala time is on Sunday morning, when the tea-pick- 
 ers come from remotest plantations to show and buy 
 their finery ; but there was a curio-shop whose owner 
 was chief est curio of the lot— one of the many who 
 announce that they will surely reach Lhasa. He 
 was then studying Tibetan, and produced an alleged 
 lama who was disloyally teaching him the language 
 and the religious exercises and formula that would 
 help him to enter Lhasa in disguise. The lama 
 fitted well into the room full of prayer- wheels, skull 
 drums, skull bowls, tobacco-pouches, relic-boxes, 
 bells, and images, and his presence surely helped 
 business. With serious face the would-be explorer 
 told how he should be welcomed to Lhasa as an 
 envoy of the Theosophical Societies of Paris and 
 London; how he should gather religious objects for 
 Prince Ferdinand d'Este, and butterflies for Baron 
 Rothschild, the latter guaranteeing all the expenses 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 111 
 
 of the trip for the sake of the resulting collections. 
 He had butterflies by the hundreds, great jewel- 
 winged creatures of every color, with iridescent 
 shadings and velvet bloom that were a delight to 
 the eye. Tibet may still be worth penetrating for 
 unknown butterflies, but from the early visits of 
 French priests and English travelers down to the re- 
 cent visit of Pundit Chandra Das, of native members 
 of the Geological Survey of India, and of the Japan- 
 ese Buddhist priests, about all that the world in gen- 
 eral wants to know about Lhasa is known. Photo- 
 graphs of its streets and monasteries prove the cor- 
 rectness of the old engravings; Dr. Waddell has 
 translated and edited the very complete local guide 
 for Lhasa; and three women have gone as near to 
 Lhasa as any explorer since Abbe Hue. All the 
 blue-eyed travelers naturally failed to disguise them- 
 selves, and the Japanese had least difficulty in the 
 enterprise. 
 
 Long before daylight the next morning we started 
 in chairs in frosty darkness, a sky full of glittering 
 stars lighting dimly the gigantic white shadows so 
 strangely high in the sky. We passed through the 
 military station and sanatorium of Jelapahar, along 
 the side of the knife-ridge to Ghoom, and up to the 
 isolated summit of Tiger Hill, fifteen hundred feet 
 higher than Darjiling, where nothing interrupts the 
 view of the whole range of snow-peaks from Kun- 
 chinjinga to Mount Everest. We sat in the lee of a 
 boulder, wrapped in rugs and razais, our veins freez- 
 ing in that thin, icy, mountain-top air, while the 
 mixed lot of coolies and horse-boys accompanying 
 
112 WINTER INDIA 
 
 the tourist contingent were unconscious of the cold ; 
 coolie No, 108 improving the time by tying large 
 turquoises to holes in the lobes of his ears. They all 
 wore these rough Tibetan turquoise ornaments, and 
 turned many rupees by their sale while we waited for 
 the sun, the lobe of the ear being the regulation show- 
 ease for these regular agents of a regular jewel mer- 
 chant. The smart tourist always suspects the 
 professional dealer, and much more confidingly 
 trusts the simple hillman, and pays him a better 
 price for bits of chalk dyed blue or ground glass 
 of cerulean hue. The tip of Kunchinjinga, 28,150 
 feet in air, first turned rose-red and then caught the 
 sun's rays, that flashed electrically down the long 
 white line— a spectacle unequaled. Even the tour- 
 ist's perpetual-motion tongue was silenced as the 
 color pageant proceeded, and Kunchinjinga, with 
 half of its height snow-covered, so transcended all 
 one's imaginings that it did not seem the vision 
 could be reality. Mount Everest, to our bitter disap- 
 pointment, sulked in a tent of clouds to westward; 
 but Kunchinjinga was visible all day long from 
 our windows, and at sunset ran through its color 
 changes once more. 
 
 It was degrees and degrees colder the next morn- 
 ing, but the sky was clearer, and the dazzling stars 
 lighted the white phantom across the Eanjit more 
 clearly. The frost lay like snow on Tiger Hill ; the 
 water by the wayside was frozen; and the wind 
 blew with glacial edge that benumbed the little com- 
 pany of sun-worshipers gathered there at dawn. 
 Again the world was suffused with a rose flush, a 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 113 
 
 flash of sunlight touched Kunchinjinga and ran 
 along the line of peaks clear to the three white pin- 
 nacles that rise above the depression of Chola Pass. 
 I had not expected Mount Everest to be merely one 
 small finger-tip of snow one hundred and twenty- 
 miles away. It was hardly worth while to hold up 
 field-glasses in that arctic wind to look at that tri- 
 fling nodule on the far horizon. It did not look 
 like the greatest mountain in the world, "the high- 
 est measured elevation on earth." Imagination 
 could not invest it with any superiority— not while 
 splendid Kunchinjinga was there before us, with 
 snow streamers and pennants and rosy cloud-ban- 
 ners floating away from those storehouse peaks of 
 gold, silver, gems, and grains, as the Tibetans de- 
 scribe the five summits. 
 
 " Why are the globe-trotters so bent on seeing 
 Mount Everest?" asked a Geological Survey officer. 
 "It is not the finest peak, if it is the highest. It 
 is only megalomania that takes the tourists off to 
 Tiger Hill to see the highest peak in the world. 
 Everest is not to be compared for looks with Peak 
 XIII and Peak D^. Those are the finest arrange- 
 ments in rock and snow in the Himalayas. And 
 then, Mount Everest is not in British territory, you 
 know, and until we annex Nepal, I object to its be- 
 ing made so much of." 
 
 When we had come down from the Himalayan 
 heights to the commonplace level of the plains again, 
 and recrossed the Ganges, we had to share the two- 
 sofa compartment with a severely silent and resent- 
 ful Anglo-Indian matron, who stared at us heart- 
 
114 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lessly, contemptuously, and evidently denied us the 
 right to occupy any part of her 'compartment and 
 hemisphere. For the trip to Calcutta, she had 
 brought with her into the compartment a tin 
 steamer-trunk, a canvas hold-all, two dressing-bags, 
 a Gladstone bag, a tiffin-basket, a basket tea-pot, a 
 tin bonnet-box, a roll of razais and fur rugs, a shawl- 
 strap bundle of cloaks and jackets, and one large 
 bouquet. Her ' ' boxes ' ' were in the luggage- van. 
 
 But this lady of luggage was only forerunner to 
 the memsahib we met when .we left Calcutta the 
 next night. We had sent the bearer ahead with our 
 luggage two hours before train time. When we 
 reached the Howrah station, we found that while our 
 man was called off to pay a charge for extra luggage 
 the paper of reservation had been unpinned from one 
 lower berth and fastened to the upper one by an 
 Anglo-Indian lady, who then unrolled her bedding, 
 seated herself on it, and became deaf to any remarks 
 or remonstrance. She had brought with her into the 
 compartment the usual British impedimenta — tin 
 steamer-trunk, canvas hold-all, Gladstone bag, laun- 
 dry-bag, dressing-bag, tiffin-basket, a roll of um- 
 brellas, a tennis racket, a bag with her pith hat, also 
 a wicker chair, a collection of garments which hung 
 from every available hook, and a large round-topped 
 Saratoga trunk. When we protested to the station- 
 master about the changing of his reservations, he 
 could or dared do nothing. Possession was nine 
 points, and the tenth was a gleam in her eye that 
 might have warned away a lion-tamer. We pro- 
 duced our receipts and insisted that the station-mas- 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 115 
 
 ter should send our large trunks into the compart- 
 ment, too, and give us back the sixteen rupees we 
 had paid for extra luggage, or else the memsahib's 
 trunks should go. They went; and she paid six 
 rupees through the window wuth wrath and threats. 
 Only the thinnest veneer of civilization prevented 
 her from laying violent hands upon us then, or 
 strangling us in the night. Nothing so shocks and 
 offends the Anglo-Indian traveler on American 
 transcontinental trains as the publicity of the Pull- 
 man cars, where each berth has its curtain and num- 
 ber, and is as securely reserved as a theater chair. 
 May they always occupy four-berthed, uncurtained 
 carriages with infuriated strangers who have stolen 
 their lower berths and owe them a grudge besides ! 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MAHABODHI, THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 
 
 OT Jerusalem nor even Mecca is held 
 in greater reverence by the millions of 
 Christians and Mohammedans than is 
 Buddha-Gaya by many more millions 
 of Buddhists, who, inhabiting every 
 part of Asia save India, look upon the temple at 
 Mahabodhi as their greatest shrine, to the Sacred 
 Bo-tree beside it as their most holy relic and living 
 symbol, the most venerated, if not strictly the most 
 venerable, tree on earth — Bodhi-druma, the Tree 
 of Knowledge, beneath which Gautama became the 
 Buddha, the Awakened, the Enlightened. 
 
 The so-called Buddhist Holy Land, the ancient 
 Magadha, lies east of Benares and south of the 
 Ganges River, within a radius of one hundred and 
 fifty miles from Buddha-Gaya. The birthplace of 
 the Nepalese prince Siddhartha, and the original 
 burial-place of Gautama Buddha, so recently iden- 
 tified and excavated, are two hundred miles north of 
 Buddha-Gaya, near the Nepal frontier. Every place 
 associated with the life of the Great Teacher was 
 marked by an inscribed column or a votive stupa 
 by the emperor Asoka 250 b.c. ; and from the abun- 
 
 116 
 
THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 117 
 
 dant Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese accounts, every 
 place has been exactly determined, the recent finding 
 of the very bones of the body of Buddha in the in- 
 scribed casket which his family had deposited be- 
 neath the great mound at Piprawah adding the last 
 historic link in the chain, and leaving the life of 
 Gautama Buddha an open book. 
 
 Very evidently no other place in India has such 
 historical importance, and yet no place is so seldom 
 visited by the legion of winter tourists, as this 
 Buddha-Gaya of modern Behar, the Uruwela of an- 
 cient Magadha, the birthplace of one of the world's 
 greatest religions. Until Lord Elgin's visit in 1895, 
 no viceroy had sought this most ancient and historic 
 spot in the empire. Outward India and the life of 
 the people have changed so little that one easily 
 pictures the scenes occurring twenty-five centuries 
 ago in the same setting— when the Great Knight, 
 Siddhartha, the Rajput, having made the Great Re- 
 nunciation, left family and home and high estate 
 on the full-moon night of July, and, with his five 
 disciples, journeyed southward from his capital at 
 Kapilavastu to Rajagriha, and finally along the 
 river bank to the jungles of Uruwela, where, for 
 six years, he practised the most rigorous penance, 
 self-torture, and mortification. When he had re- 
 duced himself to living on one grain of rice a day, 
 he fell as in death ; and then, convinced of the use- 
 lessness of such a life of extreme bodily penance, 
 he partook of food. His disciples forsook this 
 starved ascetic for so basely yielding to the body, 
 and the monk Gautama wandered to the river 
 
118 WINTER INDIA 
 
 bank, where Sujata, a villager's daughter, gave him 
 a bowl of milk and honey which he consumed in 
 the shade of a bo-tree. Still sitting there, facing 
 eastward, he attained full and perfect wisdom, the 
 supreme knowledge, in four meditations. For seven 
 times seven days and nights he continued his vigils, 
 assailed by all temptations and evils, say the legends. 
 For one space he paced to and fro beyond the Bo- 
 tree— a path immortalized and literally made the 
 Jeweled Cloister. For another space he regarded 
 the tree day and night, without removing his eyes, 
 the great Nagas, or cobra kings, protecting him with 
 their outspread hoods from the chilling rain, and the 
 snails covering his head with their cool, moist bodies 
 from the scorching sun. He could then have entered 
 into Nirvana, but upon further meditation he de- 
 termined to share his treasure of wisdom with his 
 fellow-men. Eesuming his staff and begging-bowl, 
 he walked on to Benares and there converted his lost 
 disciples and ultimately the world, Gautama Bud- 
 dha being first to preach universal equality and the 
 brotherhood of man; enjoining pity, love, and char- 
 ity for all; protesting against caste distinctions, 
 against propitiation by sacrifices, penances, and of- 
 ferings ; and teaching that man must attain divine 
 favor and perfect wisdom by his moral qualities and 
 pure life alone, and thus reach the peace of Nirvana, 
 the calm that follows upon self -victory, the extinc- 
 tion of anger, lust, and ignorance. 
 
 At the end of six months he sent his sixty disci- 
 ples forth to preach the new wisdom, and himself re- 
 turned to the foot of this Bo-tree at Uruwela, and, 
 
 I 
 
THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 110 
 
 there converting the three fire-worshiping Brahmau 
 hermits who lived in that solitude, he gained Ka- 
 syapa, best-beloved disciple after his cousin Ananda. 
 As a mendicant, begging from door to door, he re- 
 visited Kapilavastu and saw again his aged father 
 and his widowed wife, Yasodhara, who adopted the 
 religious life and became the first Buddhist nun. 
 His son, Rahula, demanding his inheritance, was en- 
 dowed with some of the wisdom acquired by the 
 Buddha beneath the Bo-tree and admitted to the 
 order, and Gautama's half-brother also assumed the 
 mendicant's robe and bowl. For forty- four years 
 after the great struggle beneath the Bo-tree, Bud- 
 dha taught in the Deer Park at Benares, beneath 
 this sacred Bo-tree at Uruwela, or in the Bamboo 
 Grove at Rajagriha during the rainy season; and 
 for the rest of the year wandered through Magadha, 
 preaching the religion that has held sway over a 
 great part of Asia for twenty-five centuries, and 
 in corrupt form now holds more adherents than 
 any other faith. Preaching the equality of men, he 
 yet attracted disciples of high birth and station; 
 and with no praises or reverence for women, voicing 
 only the bitterest accusations and charges against 
 the whole sex, women flocked to his teachings, and 
 he established unwillingly, after much hesitation, 
 the crowded orders of female mendicants. 
 
 After these forty-four years of active proselytism 
 and conversion, he announced that he was about to 
 die. He was then in his eightieth year; and Avhile 
 begging his way toward Kapilavastu, he ate of some 
 rice and young pork given him in his begging-bowl. 
 
120 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and died that night beneath a bo-tree in a grove 
 near Kusinagara — 543 b.c, if we accept the older 
 Pali or Cingalese records of the southern Buddhists, 
 400 B.C., or 478 B.C., according to the Sanskrit rec- 
 ords. Then all nature mourned, and the Bo-tree, 
 for the only time, shed its leaves. His remains were 
 cremated on the spot where he died, and a great 
 stupa raised by the Sakya clan over the one-eighth 
 portion of the ashes and relics allotted them. The 
 rest of the relics were distributed to seven centers 
 of his doctrinal teachings, where similar monuments 
 were raised. Excavations at Buddha-Gaya, Bhatti- 
 prolu, and Piprawah have yielded relic-caskets 
 containing these undoubted fragments of the body 
 of Buddha, accompanied in every instance by stores 
 of pearls and precious stones, gold-leaf ornaments 
 in the form of swastikas, seals, and inscribed tablets. 
 The soapstone, crystal, and beryl vases and cylin- 
 ders containing these relics are admirable pieces of 
 workmanship, but the only inscriptions dating from 
 Gautama's lifetime now visible are those from the 
 Piprawah mound, housed in the India Museum at 
 Calcutta. 
 
 The doctrines were preserved in oral versions, 
 which were correctly chanted for months at a time 
 by the priests participating in the First and Second 
 Councils, held one hundred and two hundred years 
 after his death. At the Third Council, called ^y the 
 emperor Asoka in 244 B.C., a first record of the 
 Orthodox Canon was written on palm leaves in 
 Pali, the language of Magadha. A fourth council 
 of Buddhists was held by the Scythian king Ka- 
 

 
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THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 123 
 
 nishka in 1, or 40 a.d., and elaborate commentaries 
 were written in Sanskrit and, it is said, engraved 
 on copper plates and buried beneath a great stupa — 
 a prize for archaeologists to search for, and for sen- 
 sation-seekers to manufacture fraudulently. The 
 separation between the Northern or Sanskrit school 
 and the Pali or Southern school of Buddhists was 
 definite then, and in 634 a.d. Hiouen Thsang, the 
 Chinese priest, attended the great Sanskrit Council 
 of Siladitya, when the Cingalese versions, the "Lit- 
 tle Vehicle" of the Pali teachers, were formally 
 condemned by the adherents of the Sanskrit "Great 
 Vehicle." Hiouen Thsang acquired both languages, 
 and studied both vehicles in monasteries in Kash- 
 mir and Magadha, translated innumerable works 
 into Chinese, and by his description of the sur- 
 roundings, the monuments, the images, treasures, 
 and relics of the sacred places, made the work of 
 archaeologists and historians comparatively easy — 
 his descriptions as precise as those of a modern Bae- 
 deker, his services comparable to those of Pausanias 
 in classic Greece. A modern council of Buddhists 
 was held in Ceylon in 1875, looking to the transla- 
 tion, revision, and publication of the Cingalese and 
 Pali texts, and a Pali Text Society has forwarded 
 the effort to present these oldest Buddhist books to 
 modern readers, Dr. Rhys Davids having done most 
 to introduce Buddhist literature to English-speaking 
 people. Dr. Max Miiller and many Continental 
 scholars have given translations of the Sacred San- 
 skrit books. 
 
 It was a raw January morning, with the yellow 
 
124 
 
 WINTER INDIA 
 
 dust whirling in clouds, when I reached Gaya sta- 
 tion on my pilgrimage to the Tree of Knowledge, 
 and it was a cold, dull, prosaic drive of a mile in 
 a rattling gharry to Gaya town and the dak bangla, 
 where the government provides chill cheer for the 
 few European travelers who ever rest there. One 
 
 JgfeTJ^^i^ 
 
 THE EKKA. 
 
 elephant passed by on the station road,— a touch 
 of the ancient East, the Hindu India, that did not 
 accord with the background of barbed-wire fences, 
 telegraph poles, and railway tracks, nor with the 
 well-metaled highway of British India that the 
 creature trod upon. A string of dusty brown 
 camels filed across the neutral, dusty distance, and 
 turbaned folk sped by in bullock-carts or gay 
 ekkas, the native cabs, mere curtained canopies hung 
 with balls and bells, and the ponies caparisoned to 
 match, with high, peaked collars and blue bead neck- 
 laces. 
 
THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 125 
 
 Modern Gaya, the Sahibs' market, is an orderly 
 new town witli broad thoroughfares and busy ba- 
 zaars, the whitewashed houses, the tidy streets and 
 drains betraying the infallible signs of model Brit- 
 ish rule, prosperity, and eternal sanitation. It is 
 distinct from the more ancient Brahm-Gaya, where 
 huddled houses cut by narrow streets crowd around 
 the great Brahman temple of the Vishnupad by the 
 river bank, to which more than one hundred thou- 
 sand Hindu pilgrims come to bathe and pray each 
 year— a temple crowded with Buddhist sculptures 
 and wreck from older temples. 
 
 The dak bangla at Gaya stands in a great shady 
 compound, which looks upon a busy part of a main 
 street, a continuous panorama of half-clad and 
 sheeted figures, of absurd ekkas and Kullock-carts 
 going by beyond the bangla lawn, as if drawn 
 across a stage for one's delight. There is a well 
 at one side of the compound, to which we watched 
 all the neighbor folk come to fill their brass lotas 
 or heavy, red earthen jars — half- veiled women, who 
 needed help to lift the great weights and poise them 
 on their heads, their slender, feeble figures bending 
 under the weight. Others, balancing these great am- 
 phora? with ease, passed out with the graceful, noble 
 tread of goddesses, the living figures of a Greek frieze. 
 On the bangla 's covered portico we were sheltered 
 from the wind and dust, the sun shone warmly, and 
 little parrakeets twittered and shrieked, flying about 
 the lawn. "We were so well entertained with this 
 spectacle and play of Hindu life, that we sat for 
 an hour— balanced ourselves, rather, for that space 
 
126 WINTER INDIA 
 
 — on decrepit chairs which, rocking on uncertain legs, 
 threatened momently to fall beneath us, if the torn 
 and sagging rush seats did not sooner engulf us. 
 *' If the dak bangla's chairs were then as they are 
 now, no wonder Buddha sat for six years under the 
 Bo-tree," wrote the one American visitor of six 
 seasons in the visitors' book. In time we ate an 
 early and hurried tiffin— our daily goat-chop, gar- 
 nished with green peas that rattled upon the plate 
 like so much bird-shot, and the usual cold and sod- 
 den Indian rice poured over with a blackish curry 
 mixture diversified by pools of clear grease — the 
 worst-made curry in the world, always served one 
 at Indian hotels, dak banglas, and railway refresh- 
 ment-rooms. ' ' Chutney ? Chutney ? No ! " came 
 the regular Indian response of surprise when we 
 asked for some palliative, some condiment to make 
 the dish of the country go down protesting throats; 
 but the khansamah boasted that he would be able 
 to produce '' a vary splendid dinner, with cauli- 
 flower, mem," in the evening. 
 
 The road southward for seven miles to Buddha- 
 Gaya was broad, smooth, and well made, shaded 
 with tamarisk- and bo-trees, strung along with lit- 
 tle hamlets and mud huts, and following the banks 
 of the Phalgu River. Each group of dwellings had 
 its common well, and, under some wide-spreading 
 tree, a plaster ed-up terrace or altar supported a 
 tiny shrine, or the greasy image of a Hindu god, — 
 this the same pagan, heathen India, the life little 
 changed since the all-perfect Gautama Buddha used 
 to pass this way in his yellow robes, with his golden 
 
^ 
 
i 
 
THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 129 
 
 begging-bowl and a glory of six cubits height ex- 
 tending around his head. Brown fields stretched 
 on either hand ; brown hills bounded the view ; and 
 narrow streams loitered here and there among the 
 stones of the broad, sandy river-bed. A few bare- 
 footed people moved by in silence, and the brown 
 monotony, the comforting warmth of the hot midday 
 sun, and the quivering heat-rays in the air, soon 
 gave an eerie, unreal look to things, a strange, hazy, 
 hypnotic effect, a sense of dreamy spell. 
 
 We turned from the Gaya road to a massive white 
 gateway, where sheeted Brahmans and turbaned folk 
 lay in leisured wait for us, and noble white bullocks 
 rested beside tilted carts that had brought priestly 
 visitors to this Sannyasi or Shivaite college of Bud- 
 dha-Gaya. A much-marked Brahman, with the sa- 
 cred white thread across his shoulder, led us off by 
 a sandy path toward the pinnacle of a temple roof 
 just showing beyond some tree-tops, when suddenly 
 all Mahabodhi, the Place of Great Intelligence, was 
 revealed to us. The sunken courtyard of the Sacred 
 Bo-tree lay at our feet, and a great nine-storied, 
 pyramidal temple soared one hundred and sixty feet 
 in air, seemingly perfect in every line, from foun- 
 dation-stone to the gilded pineapple pinnacle,— 
 precisely the temple built in the second or in the 
 sixth century, as may some time be agreed upon, 
 but certainly the great temple that Hiouen Thsang 
 saw. There was, at the first glance, nothing ruinous 
 or hoary or venerable about the apparently well- 
 preserved monument. The good repair was too dis- 
 enchantingly obtrusive and conspicuous, and for sen- 
 
130 WINTER INDIA 
 
 timent's sake one would almost rather have seen 
 the temple crumbling and vine-grown in a rubbish- 
 choked court, as it was in 1860. There was a chill- 
 ing neatness and a forbidding order, too, about the 
 crowded monuments, remains of monuments, and 
 foundations of monuments in that flagged area 
 thirty feet below us, which told of the archseologist 
 with his tape-measure, his numbers and labels, the 
 restorer with his healing plaster and illusive cement. 
 The view came so suddenly, there was such silence, 
 with no moving object anywhere in sight, that it 
 was as unreal as if a vast drop-curtain had blocked 
 the path. The silence, too, was befitting the sacred 
 place, the actual scene of the great penance and 
 struggle, the illumining of the Light of Asia, the 
 birthplace of India's noblest religious system, a 
 place hallowed by the traditions and associations of 
 twenty-five centuries of religious life. No other 
 visitors, not a pilgrim nor a worshiper, came to that 
 court for hours. Our melancholy Moslem servant, 
 the big, sheeted Brahman, who knew as little as the 
 Moslem of this treasure-spot, and the languid, lesser 
 Brahman, more brainless still, were the only moving 
 creatures in all that sunny space. The shrieks of 
 little parakeets, as they flew with flashes of emerald 
 light in and out of the niches of the temple and the 
 branches of the Sacred Bo-tree, were the only sounds 
 in the mellow, slumbering air, that same perfect 
 midday atmosphere that belongs to the ideal days 
 of the East Indian winter, as to the sun-ripe days 
 of the American Indian summer. All the world 
 drowsed in that golden calm— it was the ideal Ma- 
 habodhi. 
 
THE PLACE OF GREAT INTELLIGENCE 131 
 
 In Hiouen Thsang's time buildings and monu- 
 ments were crowded together, almost touching for 
 a mile and a half, all round the Sacred Tree. There 
 remain only what one sees in the single glance at 
 the sunken area ; save as archasologists, digging here 
 and there, have found the remnants of palace and 
 temple and monastery walls, of cloisters and tanks 
 and towers. Where we stood had been the great 
 entrance of the monastery, where three thousand 
 priests once lived, and treasures incalculable accu- 
 mulated around an inner arcanum, whose solid gold 
 statue was covered from foot to crown with jewel 
 offerings. Instead of the great tower-capped walls 
 stretching a thousand feet either way, and the 
 throngs of yellow-robed priests, there is a very mod- 
 ern little galvanized iron pavilion sheltering a col- 
 lection of broken images, sculptured and inscribed 
 stones, salved from the pits and rubbish-heaps 
 around, wreckage gathered after centuries of aban- 
 donment and final Mohammedan vandalism. The 
 most valuable and interesting stones have been sent 
 to the Calcutta Museum, and some few to London. 
 The guides, of course, knew next to nothing about 
 these relics. " General Cunningham put them 
 there " — *' General Cunningham vary high ess- 
 teemed them," etc. The Brahman knew nothing of 
 the history of the temple, the tree, or the place, and 
 was perhaps the most aggravatingly disappointing 
 of all his vampire tribe that fasten upon one in the 
 show-places of India. Our gloomy and monosylla- 
 bic Mohammedan— -may all travelers in India be- 
 ware of that professional traveling servant, Fog- 
 
132 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lou Rahman!— knew far, far less. I had to cross- 
 question, call for and demand to be shown this and 
 that ; to poke and pry, push and insist and rack my 
 memory for the very little it held of Fahien's or 
 Hiouen Thsang's travels. "He duss-sunt know-ah. 
 People never ask — just memsahib want to know," 
 sighed the melancholy Moslem. 
 
 ''Where are the caves in the hills where the 
 Buddha lived? Up there?" I asked, pointing. "Is 
 there a cave there with carvings all over the walls ? ' ' 
 
 The Brahman could not have looked blanker if 
 I had asked for the Eiffel Tower. It took long con- 
 sultation and visible guesswork by both Brahman 
 and Foglou Rahman for them to answer: "Maybe 
 there are some holes in the hills over there— but 
 — he duss-sunt know, memsahib." One might hope 
 for better things in the next incarnation of the 
 twice-born Brahman blockhead, the long-descended 
 Aryan decadent and degenerate— but for the Mos- 
 lem there ought to be all that the wrath of the 
 Prophet has promised to the unworthy. The ex- 
 asperation of being there, of having eyes, yet almost 
 seeing not, went far toward quelling any deep emo- 
 tions and dissipating the spell of the place, the som- 
 nolent calm, the soothing peace, the atmosphere 
 almost as of Nirvana which brooded there, as we sat 
 on the ancient stones and looked down upon the 
 Place of Great Intelligence, the Veranda of and the 
 veritable Tree of Knowledge. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SACRED BO-TREE 
 
 I HE broad stone staircase which leads 
 down to the court from the north 
 commands the view of the temple and 
 tree which uncounted thousands have 
 drunk in with ecstasy, a place which 
 has resounded for centuries with prayers and chants ; 
 for Gautama Buddha said in his lifetime: "If any 
 one look with a pleasant mind at a dagoba, or at the 
 Court of the Bo-tree, he will undoubtedly be born in 
 a dewa loka," ^ a pilgrimage to Buddha-Gaya being 
 therefore a certain advance toward Nirvana. Aside 
 from the historic and religious associations of this 
 particular bo- or pipul-tree, the Ficus religiosa has a 
 character and interest quite its own, the effect of 
 its symmetrical growth and well-balanced foliage 
 masses, heightened by the continual agitation of its 
 brilliant, dark-green leaves. Even on that still after- 
 noon each individual, heart-shaped leaf, with its long- 
 drawn, tapering tendril tip, was trembling and spin- 
 ning on its slender foot-stalk, until the whole tree 
 mass was in agitation— every one of the myriad 
 
 1 Dewa loTca is one of the six celestial worlds between 
 earth and heaven. 
 
 133 
 
134 WINTER INDIA 
 
 glossy, green leaves flashing with a separate light as 
 these thousands of perpetually moving mirrors 
 caught the sun. The restlessness and activity of these 
 bo-leaves, vibrating and striking together with a tin- 
 kling noise like the patter of soft raindrops on still 
 nights, make the pipul the most grateful shade-tree, 
 and the reflections of its glossy leaves suggest always 
 the first stir of a rising breeze. This flashing, spar- 
 kling, flickering play of light all over the tree gives 
 the pipul its unique and individual character— some- 
 thing like the dazzling, glittering trees that one sees 
 in pictures by imperfect vitascope. The pipul trem- 
 bles to this day in reverence for the one who became 
 Buddha beneath its branches, and as symbol of the 
 continual change and motion, the impermanency of 
 the world. The pipul whispers to Rishaba, the Hindus 
 say, every word it hears, for which reason it is never 
 planted in the bazaar where trade must employ the 
 lie. Brahmans claim that Brahma planted the pipul- 
 tree, and that Vishnu, who in his ninth avatar became 
 Buddha, was born beneath a pipul-tree. The Hindu 
 pilgrims, who come in such thousands every year 
 to offer unleavened cakes and repeat mantras to 
 this tree at Buddha-Gaya, before worshiping the 
 print of Vishnu's footsteps at Brahm-Gaya, believe 
 that a service beneath its branches will relieve their 
 ancestors for one hundred generations back. 
 
 The Bo-tree was always worshiped, swept around, 
 sprinkled with milk and perfumes, and hung with 
 offerings in the Buddha's lifetime, and he taught, 
 from his seat, beneath it, that he was but one of a 
 series of Buddhas who appear on earth as faith 
 
THE SACRED BO-TREE 135 
 
 wanes and the world needs purification; that his 
 religious system would continue for five thousand 
 years and then sufi:'er extinction, when all relics, 
 having lost honor and worshipers, would return to 
 the foot of this same Bo-tree, and there, assuming 
 the form of the Buddha's body, be consumed in their 
 own refulgence, as in a flame. Then a new Buddha 
 shall come, Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of Kind- 
 ness, who shall redeem the world by love and again 
 show the way to Nirvana. 
 
 To devout Buddhists the Sacred Bo-tree is the 
 most sacred symbol and object in all the world, the 
 living representative of Buddha himself, who dis- 
 tinctly enjoined its worship. When the pilgrims, 
 bringing flowers and perfumes and ofl^erings to 
 Sewet, failed to find him, Ananda suggested that 
 some object be designated for them to worship in 
 his absence, and Buddha said: " The objects that 
 are proper to receive worship are of three kinds. 
 . . . In the last division is the tree at the foot 
 of which I became Buddha. Therefore send to ob- 
 tain a branch of that tree and set it in the court of 
 this vihara. He who worships it wdll receive the 
 same reward as if he worshiped me in person." 
 When requested to honor this tree by sitting at the 
 foot of it, Buddha said that when he sat under 
 the tree at Gaya he became Buddha, and that "it 
 was not meet he should sit in the same manner near 
 any other tree." 
 
 Buddhists regard the Bo-tree as too sacred to be 
 touched or robbed of a leaf, and devout Burmese 
 pilgrims kneel, fix their eyes upon it, and in a trance 
 
136 WINTER INDIA 
 
 of prayer wait until a miraculous leaf detaches itself 
 and flutters down. It seemed sacrilege when the 
 Brahman snapped off a leaf and offered it to me 
 with the universal Indian gesture of the begging 
 palm, and, at a request for more, snatched off a 
 whole handful of trembling green hearts, as ruth- 
 lessly and brainlessly as the troop of monkeys in 
 the bo-tree at Anuradhpura had done a few weeks 
 before. 
 
 Despite the reverently worded mantra with which 
 his own people address the tree, this Brahman 
 butcher, responsive to a single rupee, continued to 
 snatch off and break away twig after twig until I 
 had a great green bouquet of nearly one hundred 
 living, quivering leaves of Buddhist prayer. With 
 no seeming appreciation of the sacrilege, he said: 
 ' ' Some people are satisfied with just one leaf. They 
 bow to it, pray to it, and carry it away in a gold 
 box." Then he set himself down on the Vajrasana, 
 the Diamond Throne, the Bodhi Manda, or Veranda 
 of Knowledge, to yawn and scratch his lean arms 
 as he adjusted his drapery. 
 
 Three centuries after the death of the Buddha 
 the emperor Asoka, grandson of that Asoka who 
 drove the Greeks from India and who ruled from 
 Kabul to the sea, began a relentless persecution of 
 Buddhists. He ordered the Sacred Bo-tree cut 
 down and burned ; but when two trees sprang unin- 
 jured from the flames and a priest emerged un- 
 harmed, the "raging Asoka" was humbled, con- 
 verted. He built a wall around the tree, and marked 
 the Great Teacher's seat by a carved stone altar 
 
THE SACKED BO-TREE 137 
 
 or table— the Vajrasana, or Diamond Throne, the 
 reputed center of the universe, the jewel that came 
 up from the center of the earth to mark where 
 Buddha sat when he attained perfect wisdom— 
 Bodhi Manda, the Veranda of Knowledge. Asoka 
 erected a small brick temple, made pilgrimages to 
 every spot connected with the life of Buddha, and 
 marked them by stupas, or inscribed columns. He 
 summoned the Great Council, when the doctrines 
 were first put in writing in the square Pali charac- 
 ters of his day; he sent missionaries to all parts of 
 the world, even despatching his own son as evangel- 
 ist to Ceylon, and making his daughter bearer of 
 the cutting of the Sacred Bo-tree sent to Anuradh- 
 pura. 
 
 Asoka 's wife became jealous of the sacred tree, 
 and tried vainly to destroy it; persecuting rajas 
 cut it down and filled the roots with fire; but it 
 sprang always to the same stature again. The Chi- 
 nese pilgrims saw and described it ; the first English 
 travelers found it green and vigorous, and it was 
 perpetuated, of course, like its congener at Anuradh- 
 pura, by the dropping of a seed in the fork or hol- 
 low of the dying trunk. The archaeologists found in 
 1861 that the tree was growing forty-five feet above 
 the original level of the court, traces of sixteen suc- 
 cessive cement platforms showing where that many 
 trees had mounted upon the roots of preceding trees. 
 That venerable pipul, with many dead branches and 
 stumps, was blown over in 1876, and the stripling 
 Bo-tree flourishing in its mold was carefully re- 
 planted at the level of the earliest tree, and the 
 
138 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Diamond Throne, a slab of polished sandstone, re- 
 placed in its afternoon shade. There were unusual 
 numbers of pilgrims for a few years, and the pious 
 Burmese covered the stem and branches with so 
 much gold leaf, poured so much milk, perfumery, 
 cologne, oil, incense, tins of sardines, European food 
 and confections around its roots, that it began to 
 droop and die. General Cunningham put in a new 
 tree in 1885, and surrounded it by a brick wall inlaid 
 with old carved stones around the window openings 
 on each side. A marble table or altar was erected 
 by a pious Cingalese to receive the Burmese and 
 Hindu offerings, and that sturdy tree glitters and 
 grows magnificently. 
 
 There was no building of any kind at Mahabodhi 
 in the Buddha's lifetime, nor can any stone or in- 
 scription be traced to his day. The First Council 
 met in the great sculptured cave on the hillside, 
 and it was not until the Third Council, 244 B.C., that 
 Asoka erected a temple. Buddhism, having found 
 its Constantine in the ' ' sorrowless Asoka, ' ' remained 
 the state religion throughout the great empire. 
 
 The temple became a treasury of relics and riches. 
 The window-frames and door-frames of gold and 
 silver were set with gems, the Diamond Throne was 
 heaped with all the jewels of the East, and, like the 
 Jeweled Cloister, was literally what its name in- 
 dicates. Archseologists are not all agreed whether 
 the present temple was built by the Scythian con- 
 querors in the second century, or by a Brahman in 
 the sixth century. Between the second and fourth 
 centuries the priests had left Mahabodhi, and Bud- 
 
THE SACRED BO-TREE 139 
 
 dhism was at such an ebb that Brahmans seized the 
 temple, cast out the golden image, and installed their 
 emblems in its place. "All was desolate and aban- 
 doned" when Fahien arrived from China, 400 a.d. ; 
 but, later, Hiouen Thsang saw and minutely de- 
 scribed the great temple which stands to-day where 
 stood "the chief of the eighty- four thousand shrines 
 erected by Dharma Asoka, ruler of the earth at the 
 close of the two hvmdred and eighteenth year of 
 Buddha's Nirvana, upon the holy spot where our 
 Lord tasted the milk and honey," as the inscribed 
 stone declares. 
 
 In all the romance of religion, nothing equals the 
 vicissitudes and alternating fortunes of this sacred 
 place; for, soon after Hiouen Thsang 's visit. Bud- 
 dhism degenerated, the Brahmans again took over 
 the sanctuary, and the monastery became a fort. 
 In the sixteenth century of Buddhism, about 1000 
 A.D., there was a revival and a reformation of the 
 faith ; the temple w^as restored, and priests gathered 
 in numbers. Again it fell away, and at the time 
 of the Mohammedan conquest the Buddhists were 
 persecuted like other infidels, and the ruins of their 
 temples and monasteries tell how hundreds of priests 
 met death by fire and sword in such asylums. In 
 the fourteenth century the King of Burma sent an 
 embassy to restore the temple, when a few Buddhist 
 priests were found in the lonely place. 
 
 Floods came and left their sand deposits in the 
 court, brick and plaster crumbled, the jungle crept 
 upon the open space, trees flourished in every piece 
 of masonry, and Mahabodhi was without a history 
 
140 WINTER INDIA 
 
 until a Shivaite mendicant wandered there in the 
 first years of the eighteenth century, as the mendi- 
 cant Gautama had come in his yellow robe so long 
 before. He lived a hermit among the ruins, attract- 
 ing other wanderers until he had a sufficient follow- 
 ing to build a monastery by the river bank. Little 
 heed was paid these pious squatters, but as their 
 numbers increased the chief mahant obtained a 
 firman from the emperor Shah Alum, confirming 
 them in their ownership of the ground they had 
 built upon. The sacred courtyard was the quarry 
 for these builders, and they chose the most accessible 
 stones— frequently those that were carved and in- 
 scribed. 
 
 The King of Burma sent missions to rebuild and 
 restore the temple in 1805 and in 1831, and one 
 of the Shivaite priests, who later guided Buchanan 
 Hamilton around the ruins, claimed to have been con- 
 verted by the Burmese visitors, and from their books 
 to have been taught the history of each monument 
 within the sacred court. The Archseological Survey 
 made examinations and excavations at Buddha-Gaya 
 in 1861 and 1863, found the true level of the old 
 court, and brought to light the Diamond Throne and 
 the greater part of Asoka's rail. 
 
 In 1877 another mission from the King of Burma 
 obtained the consent of the Bengal government and 
 of the mahant at Buddha-Gaya to restore the tem- 
 ple. Word reached Calcutta of the zeal with which 
 these Burmese were razing and obliterating old 
 structures and monuments, and Dr. Mitra was sent 
 to investigate; but the wreck and transformation of 
 
 i 
 
THE SACRED BO-TREE 141 
 
 the temple court had gone too far for any interfer- 
 ence to avail. The Burmese had demolished gate- 
 ways, pavilions, and monuments, leveled ruin-heaps, 
 swept away terraces and votive stupas, used carved 
 stones for foundations or minor constructions; or, 
 casting them recklessly on different rubbish-heaps, 
 made it impossible to identify what Hiouen Thsang 
 had so carefully described. 
 
 In 1879 General Cunningham, chief of the Ar- 
 chaeological Survey, cleared out the entire temple 
 court of the sand and rubbish of ages, completely 
 restored the temple within and without, and rebuilt 
 the portico over the east entrance door and the four 
 corner pavilions. A miniature stone temple found 
 in excavating, and repeated in bas-reliefs and 
 Buddhist sculptures everywhere from Amraoti to 
 Gandhara, and at many places in Burma, gave the 
 model for the restorations. Every measurement now 
 corresponds precisely to the Chinese priest's account, 
 and the temple lacks only the hundreds of gilded 
 images in the tiers of niches that mount to the gilded 
 amalika at the summit. The temple stands exactly 
 over the site of Asoka's temple, and the original 
 floor and altar are uncovered. A ball of clay in an 
 altar niche contained a rich treasure— bits of gold 
 leaf and beaten gold in the form of flowers and 
 stars, pearls, rough sapphires and rubies, bits of 
 beryl, jade, agate, and crystal. Even the plaster 
 of this altar was composed of pounded coral, pearl, 
 ivory, and precious stones mixed with lime. A 
 similar treasure was found in a vase beneath the im- 
 age niched in the outer temple wall; and all these 
 
14:2 WINTER INDIA 
 
 relics are now to be seen in the India Museum at 
 Calcutta, together with tablets bearing Chinese in- 
 scriptions and scores of terra-cotta lamps, seals, and 
 votive tablets molded within the outlines of a bo- 
 leaf. 
 
 Of the Jeweled Cloister— that long pavilion cov- 
 ering the path where Buddha paced to and fro and 
 flowers sprang up as he trod, whose carved columns 
 were hung with garlands of flowers and strings of 
 jewels and half incased in silver and gold— only- 
 fragments remain to mark the position and extent. 
 Asoka's carved sandstone rail, "the oldest sculp- 
 tured monument in India," has been carefully re- 
 placed, as far as possible, and in long stretches 
 shows us that curious carpenter's arrangement of 
 mortised posts and rails and carved rosette orna- 
 ments over each joint and cross-piece. The great 
 pillars and cross-beams of the toran gateway, precur- 
 sor of the Chinese pailow and the Japanese torii, 
 have been raised before the entrance, but too much 
 of it is missing to tell whether it was as splendid 
 and monumental as the toran of Sanehi which Asoka 
 later began erecting. Twenty posts and many ro- 
 settes of the carved rail had been built into the walls 
 and courts of the mahants' college, and no amount 
 of persuasion could induce the heathens to restore 
 them to the temple court. 
 
 All about the Bo-tree, the Diamond Throne, the 
 Cloister, and the temple doorway, the stones were 
 daubed with gold-leaf and ocher. The Brahman 
 guide was just able to tell that these yellow smears 
 were the offerings of pious Burmese, but to any 
 
■ 
 
THE SACRED BO-TREE 145 
 
 further questions concerning the Burmese and their 
 intermittent gilding the Brahman returned a dumb 
 stare. He led us up into the temple, through an 
 archway in a wall twenty feet thick, to a square 
 whitewashed cell, and up to a second chilly, white 
 vault where the light fell through a triangular east 
 window full upon the image on the carved basalt 
 altar. It was a tawdry, gilded image, more asleep 
 than serenely meditating, with a Hindu caste-mark 
 on its brow— "Buddha's mother!" said the Brah- 
 man. For further shock and disillusionment, it was 
 only necessary to note that the image was attired 
 in a red merino petticoat and a tinsel-bordered cape 
 —"to keep the image warm," said the Brahman, 
 winding his grimy sheet more closely around him 
 in that chill sanctuary. There was a litter of food 
 and flower, incense and candle offerings on the altar 
 in true Burmese fashion, scores of Tibetan flags and 
 streamers in the corners of the room, while old Bud- 
 dhist bas-reliefs built into the wall were buttered 
 and garlanded in the Hindu manner— a medley of 
 religions in the one shrine. It was hard to believe 
 that this untidy vault, this religious lumber-room, 
 was the supreme shrine, the ark, the tabernacle, the 
 holy of holies. It was harder to realize that the 
 stone image, the shabby old "Buddha's mother," 
 all daubed with gold-leaf, successor to innumerable 
 images of gold, perfumed paste, basalt, sandstone, 
 and stucco— this clumsy image, with its stolid, va- 
 cant face, was intended for the same beautiful, pas- 
 sionless Teacher who meditates, steeped in the peace 
 of eternal Nirvana, in the gilded temples of Japan 
 or beneath Kamakura's pine-trees. 
 
146 WINTER INDIA 
 
 The Brahman had little interest in the big Bur- 
 mese bells by the temple door, in the venerable stat- 
 ues, or in the sacred sites. Whether this place was 
 the cloistered flower-tank or the lotus-pond, or only 
 where Buddha washed his robe or his bowl, he cared 
 not; but he showed us insistently the cylindrical 
 monument to the first mahant of the Shivaite mon- 
 astery, who there performed the great penance, or 
 rather feat, of "the five fires." To attain great 
 spiritual reward, this sacred salamander sat be- 
 tween four fires, with the midsummer sun overhead, 
 and survived to enjoy the expected sanctity. An- 
 other monument marked where one of the fraternity 
 had been devoured by a tiger while at prayer, and 
 the Brahman could not understand our affected de- 
 pression when he had assured us and reassured us 
 that the tigers did not come to the courtyard now— 
 "not eat the priests any more, surely, truly, mem- 
 sahib. Be not uneasy." 
 
 The Brahman boasted of the number of pilgrims 
 who came to Buddha- Gaya— "from everywhere!— 
 from Colombo, Rangoon, Tibet-ty, China, Japan!— 
 oh, from everywhere! Now is there a Japanese 
 over there at the palace," pointing toward the mon- 
 astery by the river bank. He led us to the mahants' 
 college, and through a labyrinth of stone courts, 
 where scores of Shivaite priests lounged and loafed 
 over their bowls and messes of food, and across a gar- 
 den full of little Burmese pagodas, to the rest-house 
 built for resting Burmese by King Mindon Min. The 
 Brahman routed out a languid creature in loose 
 garments with yards of a pale pink sarong wobbling 
 
THE SACRED BO-TREE 147 
 
 between his knees, a short white jacket fastened 
 closely at the neck, and a topknot of hair under a 
 cap. A queer-looking Japanese, surely. 
 
 "Where are you from?" we asked. 
 
 "Rangoon!" drawled the ghostly Maung Some- 
 body, and when we protested to the Brahman that 
 he had deceived us with a mere every-day, near-by 
 Burmese, he said: "Oh! Burmese, Japanese, just 
 the same. Their country is a long way off, but they 
 all come to Buddha-Gaya. " 
 
 The shadows were lengthening and palms and pi- 
 puls were rustling in the afternoon wind, but even 
 after hours spent in Mahabodhi there was something 
 wanting, something inharmonious in one's general 
 impression. The temple was too well preserved, and 
 proclaimed too loudly the plumb-line and the trow- 
 el's work. Sentiment and day-dreams could not 
 play upon those precise angles and sharp edges. 
 And the Tree of Knowledge ! as trim, compact and 
 shapely as a California orange-tree, with squawking 
 parrots flashing in and out of its flickering foliage, 
 as if it were but a common tree for birds to perch 
 upon ! There was too much of shock and disillusion- 
 ment at Mahabodhi ; too much of the garish every 
 day; a lack of romance and mystery, and of any 
 real sense of antiquity and of chance for imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 We drove back with our treasure of sacred leaves, 
 and saw the busy bazaars of Gaya before a salmon 
 and saffron sunset of blinding glory held us at the 
 dak bangla's gate, while the blind beggar wailed by 
 the roadside, the women went to and fro with their 
 
148 WINTER INDIA 
 
 water-jars, the parrakeets flew shrieking among the 
 tamarind-trees before they settled for the night, and 
 our lank Moslem knelt and bent to the ground in 
 repeated prayers to the Mecca beyond the sunset. 
 
 When we went to the midnight train that was to 
 take us away, a raja and his suite were just arriving 
 from Bankipur. There was hurry and excitement, 
 a rushing to and fro of richly dressed attendants, 
 and much glitter and splendor and flash of color, 
 as the torch-bearers led the raja in his jeweled tur- 
 ban to the low dhoolie suspended from a curved 
 silver yoke, and, lifting it, bore him out into the 
 night. The voices of his followers died away as the 
 flicker of the torches was finally lost down the road, 
 but the last impression of Gaya was of that raja 
 sitting cross-legged, like a god, in his silver and vel- 
 vet car, departing by torch-light to some palace, 
 whence he would issue before sunrise to bathe in the 
 Phalgu, to worship the Bo-tree and the Vishnupad— 
 all living traces of the great religion obliterated, 
 like Gautama's own footprints in that dusty road; 
 the Light of Asia forever extinguished on the spot 
 where it first rose upon the world ; the great temple 
 and the Sacred Bo-tree drowsing, neglected, in the 
 sunshine of an empty, lifeless court; the temple of 
 a sleeping Buddha, of a dead religion, everything 
 turned to stone, when there have passed but half of 
 those five thousand years that the Master declared 
 his religion would endure, an annihilation greater 
 and more complete than Nirvana already come to 
 the faith in its birthplace. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE WORLD 
 
 jT Mogul Sarai junction, three Eng- 
 lishmen stood over as many hillocks of 
 leather- and tin-covered luggage, direct- 
 ing its removal to the Benares train. 
 The servants bore it off and flung it 
 through doors and windows, covering the floor, heap- 
 ing the seats, filling all the racks and hooks, until 
 the owners themselves, looking in, said: "Oh, I 
 say, now. There is no room left for us. We had 
 best sit in this next carriage, where we can watch 
 them." When I spoke of this dilemma of the men 
 and their luggage to others of their nationality, 
 they said bewilderedly : "For the life of me, I do 
 not see why you Americans should laugh at that. 
 I thought you always traveled with so much luggage. 
 Those enormous trunks— Saratogas, you call them." 
 It argued nothing to them, no matter how much we 
 explained it, that we sent the Saratogas to the bag- 
 gage-car and never sat with malodorous sole-leather 
 heaped around us in our richly finished and fur- 
 nished cars. 
 
 We crossed a muddy river by a high bridge with 
 fortress turrets at either end— the very bridge of 
 "Voices in the Night"— and were then in the usual 
 
 149 
 
150 WINTER INDIA 
 
 glaring, sun-baked European suburb, where broad 
 roads and waste spaces, new houses in large grounds, 
 and dusty lines of banian-trees certainly did not go 
 to make up the Benares of one's dreams. The hotel 
 was more like the hotels of Java, the dining-room in 
 a central building by itself, and long rows of bed- 
 rooms in adjacent buildings. Peddlers, guides, jug- 
 glers, and snake-charmers haunted the long, flagged 
 porches all the afternoon. Cobras were drawn out 
 from small, round baskets like so many yards of sau- 
 sage, and made to dance on their tails to plaintive 
 pipings, and then crowded back into their baskets 
 with as little ceremony ; and a weary little mongoose 
 was shaken and cuffed and made to battle with the 
 hooded horror. 
 
 Chaturgam Lai, in a flowered and cotton-wadded 
 chintz overcoat, a worsted comforter around his 
 neck, large spectacles under a fat turban, the caste- 
 mark freshly painted on his brow, and an unctuous 
 smile set for the day, rapped on our door long 
 before dawn. We looked out to see a long line of 
 sleeping bearers on the brick-floored portico, each 
 before his master 's door, every turban-topped bundle 
 rolled in a stripped dhurrie with a pair of bare 
 brown legs protruding. The air was keen and frosty, 
 and I wondered if any estate on earth, any future 
 reincarnation, could be more replete with bodily 
 misery and discomfort than the regular life of an 
 Indian bearer or traveling servant— sleeping on cold 
 stone porches, snatching bits of food at irregular 
 hours, traveling all day and all night, and as often 
 standing for hours in the crowded compartments. 
 
THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE WORLD 153 
 
 The greatest human spectacle in India, the chief 
 incident and motive of Benares life, and the most 
 extraordinary manifestation of religious zeal and 
 superstition in all the world, begins at sunrise by the 
 Ganges bank and lasts for several hours. We started 
 in the first gray light of the dawn, drove two miles 
 across the city, and, descending the ghats, or broad 
 staircases, to the water's edge, were rowed slowly 
 up and down the three-mile crescent of river-front, 
 watching Brahmans and humbler believers bathe 
 and pray to the rising sun, repeating the oldest Ve- 
 dic hymns. That picturesque sweep of the city front 
 —a high cliff with palaces, temples, and gardens 
 clinging to its terraced embankments and long 
 flights of steps descending to the water— is spectacle 
 enough when lighted by the first yellow flash of 
 sunlight, without the thousands of white-clad wor- 
 shipers at the Ganges brink and far out in its tur- 
 bid flood. After three sunrise visits to the river 
 bank, the spectacle was as amazing and incompre- 
 hensible as at first, as incredible, as dreamlike, as the 
 afternoon memory of it. I saw it with equal surprise 
 each time, the key-note, the soul of India revealed in 
 Benares as nowhere else,— since all India flocks to 
 Benares in sickness and health, in trouble and re- 
 joicing, to pray and to commit crimes, the sacred 
 city being the meeting-place and hiding-place of all 
 criminals, the hatching-place of all conspiracies. 
 
 We sped through empty cantonment streets, but 
 in the native city every thoroughfare was crowded. 
 All were streaming one way, and a hum of voices 
 filled the air as we reached the ghats and came upon 
 
154 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sight of the multitude standing waist-deep in the 
 sacred stream or crouching on platforms built out 
 over the water. From twenty-five to fifty thousand 
 people regularly — on special occasions one hun- 
 dred thousand bathers and worshipers, Brahmans 
 and believers of every caste — perform their daily 
 rites in the Ganges. They are so rapt, ecstatic, bent 
 on and absorbed in the mechanical formula, the 
 endless minutiee of their worship, that they are 
 unconscious of the few curious strangers who may 
 drift up and down the river-front in the brief tour- 
 ist season. A Bralnnan cannot let eye or mind wan- 
 der for one moment lest, omitting something, or 
 changing the order of invocation, prayers, and move- 
 ments, he should have to begin the long ritual afresh. 
 The daily religious observances should occupy nearly 
 twelve hours, so that a repetition is something of a 
 penance. 
 
 The lowlands across the river were veiled in haze 
 as, seated in our comfortable arm-chairs on the boat 's 
 deck, we floated olf into the stream. Just as the 
 sun's disk rose above the hazy, blue plain, a louder 
 murmur arose, a general chant, the measured re- 
 sponses of a great congregation. Each one stand- 
 ing in the stream lifted up an offering of water, 
 tossed a handful three times in the air, dipped 
 the body beneath the surface, repeating the while 
 the sacred mantras, the ancient Vedic hjinns, the 
 names of the gods, and the sacred syllable "Om." 
 They sipped handfuls of the holy water, rinsed 
 their mouths, lifted the water and let it stream 
 through their fingers or pour back down the arm. 
 
THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE WORLD 155 
 
 facing always to the east, and moving their lips 
 in prayer. They filled their water- jars and poured 
 it over their heads, and they drank it 'Ho purify 
 themselves," our mentor said, although one group 
 of purity-seekers stood two feet from the mouth 
 of a rapidly discharging sewer, every sort of city 
 filth floating to their hands and water- jars, the 
 bodies of men and animals and decaying flowers 
 floating by. They drank the pestilent fluid, they 
 carried it home for household use, and bottles were 
 being filled to be sent and carried to the remotest 
 parts of India. Western education and sanitary 
 science avail nothing against the Ganges supersti- 
 tion. The British have provided a pure water sup- 
 ply for Benares, but the people prefer the sacred 
 dilution of sewerage and cremation-ground refuse, 
 thus inviting and encouraging every disease. 
 
 Whole platforms of Brahmans went through their 
 morning ceremonies before us as if on a theater 
 stage. Some sat with fixed or upraised eyes, some 
 with eyes closed— all absorbed, as if in hypnotic 
 trance, slowly whispering and muttering their 
 prayers, lost in contemplation of their fingers, sym- 
 bols of different gods, dipping each one in the river 
 many times and praying to it fervently as the water 
 trickled off. They dipped wisps of grass in the 
 river and contemplated them prayerfully, meditat- 
 ing on the one hundred and eight manifestations 
 of Shiva, the ten hundred and eight manifestations 
 of Vishnu. They emptied their jars by rule; they 
 prayed, touching their arms, breasts, knees in slow 
 callisthenics as they vowed themselves to one and an- 
 
156 WINTER INDIA 
 
 other of the pantheon ; they produced boxes of ashes 
 of sacred cow-dung and painted their foreheads 
 and smeared their arms and breasts for the day. 
 Others, standing in the stream, drew in deep breaths, 
 closed first one nostril, then the other, and then held 
 both nostrils with the fingers for uncounted seconds. 
 "They hold the nose so. It is a prayer. It is a 
 ceremony," said Chaturgam Lai, beaming with 
 proud omniscience. "Sometimes they pray with the 
 right nose, sometimes with the left nose. ' ' 
 
 There were some serious and thorough ablutions 
 going on also, vigorous scrubbings and tubbings that 
 were good imitations of the Anglo-Indian form of 
 godliness. Men waded out to their shoulders, re- 
 moved their garments, and washed them in the holy 
 water, assuming dry garments as they dropped the 
 wet ones at the steps. Others energetically sham- 
 pooed their heads with river mud, for soap is im- 
 pure to their notion. Women came down to the 
 river's edge, scoured their brass jars, rinsed, filled 
 them, and walked away in never-ending processions 
 upon the broad steps. Even babus in gold specta- 
 cles and worsted comforters carried off jars of water 
 to pour over some chosen image. The high-caste 
 women had bathed and gone before sunrise, the 
 wives of rajas and potentates rowed off in cur- 
 tained boats to bathe and pray far from the com- 
 mon horde. The women specially congregate at one 
 ghat, barely uncovering their faces to the rising 
 sun, and gracefully and ingeniously draping the 
 fresh sari over the wet one as they reach the steps 
 again, "These are nearly all widows," said our 
 
THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE WORLD 157 
 
 guide, condescendingly; and certainly no people in 
 the world have more need to implore divine aid 
 than these Indian widows, accursed things who, as 
 they themselves and all others believe, have brought 
 the calamity of death upon their husbands. 
 
 And then there were the fakirs; the real things 
 of one's Sunday-school books, ragged, unkempt, ash- 
 smeared objects that seemed hardly human, sitting 
 rigid in their insane, consequential sanctity. Some 
 were so utterly absurd and ridiculous with their 
 fantastic ash powderings, that the young American 
 boy on our boat vented peal after peal of laughter 
 that continued to tears as one ash-heap, crouched 
 like Humpty Dumpty on a sunny wall, mouthed and 
 gibbered back at him spitefully. There were lean 
 old fakirs, mere wrinkles of skin laid loosely over 
 some bones, and strapping young fakirs, whom the 
 police should move on or put to road-making. One 
 able-bodied specimen of lazy holiness sat with 
 clenched hand and uplifted arm, wearing the most 
 consciously self-righteous air; another posed like a 
 dirty salt image on a broken stone pedestal at a cor- 
 ner of the ghat ; and a row of toothless old relics sat 
 in their dirt and ashes waiting for certain Brahman 
 princes to come along, as in a stage tableau, and 
 distribute daily alms of rice— "to acquire merit." 
 Each whining, mumbling old fakir held out his 
 hands, his begging-bowl, or a dirty end of rag dra- 
 pery, the almoner doled out a few spoonfuls of cheap 
 rice, and the rich man moved on to a chorus of bless- 
 ings, conspicuously well pleased with himself and 
 the increased assets of acquired merit— precisely the 
 
158 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Pharisee of Judea. There are more than two mil- 
 lion fakirs in India, all leading lives of leisure and 
 comparative plenty; but the prize fakir of them 
 all on the Ganges bank was surely the well-fed and 
 plumped out one who had all his bones painted in 
 white outline on his brown skin, and sat comfort- 
 ably in the sun, waiting for his breakfast to come to 
 him— a living skeleton of the impressionist school. 
 There was finally a dead fakir, propped up against a 
 wall, covered with flower garlands, and soon to be 
 richly spiced and committed to the Ganges, since 
 fire is not needed to purify such holy men. 
 
 At sunrise the ghouls of the cremation-ground 
 or burning-ghat began heaping funeral piles for the 
 day's work, and others of this lowest caste were 
 carrying yesterday's ashes to the water's edge, 
 washing them in sieves and pans like any placer- 
 miner to recover the gold, silver, and jewels burned 
 with the bodies. The domri, who conduct crema- 
 tions, surpass the Occidental undertakers in their ex- 
 tortionate charges — for firewood, oil, and the flam- 
 ing brand for starting the blaze. Shrouded and 
 flower-decked bodies, lashed to litters of poles, were 
 borne down the steps and laid at the water's edge, 
 the feet resting in the sacred river while the pyre 
 was made ready and the relatives paid the domri 
 and paid for prayers by the "Sons of the Ganges"— 
 a legion of fat priests shouting under great umbrel- 
 las—brigand Brahmans of the river bank, no less 
 mercenary and rapacious than the outcast domri. 
 A dead woman shrouded in white and roped over 
 with marigold chains was laid where the foul waters 
 
THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE \YORLD 161 
 
 could lave the feet, a sewer arch discharging but 
 a yard away, and the evil domri panning out their 
 treasure close by. When the pyre was ready, the 
 body was completely immersed for a moment, car- 
 ried up and laid on the fagots, and a sobbing, fright- 
 ened little boy, his tunic wet in Ganges water, laid 
 sandalwood and spices on his mother's body, ran 
 five times around the pile as priests and relatives 
 pushed and pulled him through his part, and, 
 touching the torch to the oil-drenched fagots, ran 
 shrieking to a servant's arms. The flames leaped 
 and crackled, jets of thick smoke curled around, 
 the fire lapped over the edges of the grave-clothes, 
 and smoke mercifully concealed the rest. The domri 
 stood by with long irons arranging the fire, adding 
 wood and oil, while the family group waited there 
 until all should be consumed. A prisoner's body 
 from the jail was laid by the sewer's mouth, and in- 
 stead of being burned in the later, cheaper hours of 
 the afternoon, was to be cremated at once at the ex- 
 pense of a rich Brahman, who waited to commit the 
 ashes to the river and thereby "acquire merit." 
 
 At the near-by ghat a boy's body had been laid on 
 the lowest step, and without cover or shroud, clothed 
 as in life, his relatives wailed and dashed Ganges 
 water over him. He had probably died within the 
 hour. He might even have been gasping as they hur- 
 ried him through the streets to be burned and com- 
 mitted to the Ganges before noon. The body was 
 not yet rigid as the relatives poured and sprinkled 
 water over the graceful young statue, wrapped it in 
 a Ganges-soaked sheet, fastened it to a litter of 
 
162 WINTER INDIA 
 
 boughs, and bore it off to the burning-ghat. The 
 group of women remained behind, and standing in 
 a circle facing inward, wailed and tossed their arms. 
 Some were dry-eyed and watched us while they 
 wailed and beat their breasts, but the mother was 
 unmistakable in the group— her cries and gestures 
 in pathetic contrast to those of the others. 
 
 "When we had twice gone the length of the ghats, 
 drifting down to the railroad bridge and rowing 
 back to the upper ghats, reviewing seven miles 
 of bathing, praying, misguided people, we landed 
 where the crowds were thickest, the din loudest. 
 The well filled with Vishnu's perspiration, and in 
 which Devi dropped her ear-jewel, and the stone foot- 
 print of Vishnu make this spot the center of busiest 
 religious life on the river bank. There priests and 
 people swarmed thickest, all bellowing the history of 
 the pool in one 's ears ; and the sick and the well, the 
 diseased and the robust, crowded the inclosing steps 
 of this tank of filth, an abominable ooze of Ganges 
 slime, decaying flowers, spices, sweetmeats, butter, 
 and milk. They sipped and drank this liquid death, 
 and we hastened from the noisy crowd of priests, 
 pilgrims, fakirs, beggars, Brahmans, jugglers, snake- 
 charmers, money-changers, and idlers with sacred 
 cows wearing bead and flower necklaces, pushing 
 their way when it was not obsequiously cleared for 
 them. 
 
 Processions of people carrying water to their 
 homes and the temples, and spilling it as they went, 
 made walking dangerously slippery, and we barely 
 looked into the court of the Golden Temple, where 
 
THE GREATEST SIGHT IN THE WORLD 163 
 
 worshipers crowded to jangle the bells, sprinkle 
 grease, and garland the images. The courtyard of 
 the Well of Knowledge, in which Shiva resides, was 
 so offensive that we had no wish to approach the 
 curb and see the pit of decaying food, flowers, in- 
 cense, milk, and butter. We took a peep at the 
 Temple of the Stick, where sugar dogs are the ac- 
 ceptable offering, and a greedy Brahman whips re- 
 pentent sinners and then grants them absolution and 
 indulgence— whips them with peacock feathers — 
 even gives the unbeliever a swish of the feathers 
 for two annas and laughs with him at the deluded 
 divinity he serves ! 
 
 It was then ten o'clock, and after four hours in 
 the headquarters of heathendom we were glad to 
 return to the quiet, empty spaces of the cantonment, 
 realizing more than before what an appalling task 
 confronts the missionaries, and what generations of 
 such blindly bigoted Ganges worshipers must pass 
 away before any change can be hoped for. A cen- 
 tury of British law, order, cleanliness, and sanitary 
 improvement avails nothing against the superstitions 
 and practices of twenty-five centuries. Yet in this 
 same center of bigotry and superstition Gautama 
 Buddha won the people from their idolatry, their 
 superstitions and caste creed, and for eight hundred 
 years his doctrines prevailed. With this precedent, 
 the ultimate conversion of the Hindus need not be 
 despaired of. We drove out that afternoon by a 
 dusty, tamarind-shaded road to Sarnath, the Deer 
 Park of Benares, where the Buddha preached, de- 
 fied the Brahmans, and built up his great following. 
 
164 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Only a few ruins remain of the great group of build- 
 ings, the crumbling tope in a deserted common the 
 only object above ground described by Fahien and 
 Hiouen Thsang. ''Did Sarnath pay?" asked my 
 table d'hote neighbor that night, and I stammered 
 for an answer. "Because," she said, "they told 
 us there was nothing to see, that it would n't pay 
 us to drive out there just to see some rubbishy old 
 stones and brick heaps. ' ' 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 BENARES 
 
 l)T did not seem possible that the Ganges 
 I banks could ever show such another sight ; 
 yet a second and a third morning we 
 rose by starlight, drove through streets 
 all blue and lilac with frost haze, to 
 the ghats where the rising sun again glorified the 
 whole fantastic, picturesque line; turning adobe, 
 sandstone and grimy whitewashed buildings into 
 the richest temples and palaces of dreams, and 
 lighting the faces of the thousands of believers 
 standing in the swirling mud stream, as thousands 
 have stood at sunrise for centuries. Even then, 
 one can figure it out that many thousands shirk 
 their religious duties— a cheering sign in a way— for, 
 if the two thousand temples of Benares with their 
 five hundred thousand idols are tended by eighty 
 thousand priests, the sacerdotal company alone would 
 exceed the crowds we saw on any one morning. The 
 priests are supposed to be driven all day, to have 
 time for nothing but sacred observances, the bath- 
 ing, buttering, garlanding, tiring, fanning, and 
 tending of the idols, and always to begin the day 
 with the dip in the Ganges. Many of them surely 
 
 1G5 
 
166 WINTER INDIA 
 
 omit it on these frosty mornings. While the mum- 
 mery goes on in the temples, the babus and pundits, 
 even those who have taken degrees in Western uni- 
 versities, insist that this worship is not idolatry, 
 that these images of Vishnu, Shiva, Parvati, Krishna, 
 Ganesha, and the rest, the stone bulls, the sacred 
 cows, sacred wells, and sacred monkeys, are but sym- 
 bols — symbols of the purest and simplest creed, of 
 the noblest faith, the highest philosophy— a sym- 
 bolism that the masses of course recognize. One 
 has all of a Mohammedan's impatience and con- 
 tempt for the puerilities, the grossness, the unrea- 
 sonable imbecility of it all. 
 
 One remembers the Scala Santa in Eome, the 
 scenes at Assisi and Lourdes, when he sees fakirs 
 and fanatics making the rounds of all the shrines 
 of Benares on their knees, and measuring with their 
 bodies the fifty miles of sacred road that sweeps in 
 a semicircle around the suburbs of the holy city of 
 the Brahman's soul, known to the pious Hindu as 
 Kasi the Magnificent— a city which rests, not on 
 the earth, but on the point of Shiva's trident. 
 
 The bazaars of Benares, particularly the noisy 
 brass bazaar, are picturesque in a general way, but 
 the wares exposed are the coarsest and crudest that 
 the debased taste and careless hand of the day can 
 produce. Heavy, ill-shapen, vulgar brass pieces 
 scratched over with thin and poor designs replace 
 the deeply cut and finely chased brass-work that 
 used to distinguish Benares. But the glint and glow 
 and color of the base metal in its myriad forms make 
 of the narrow street of brass-beaters' dens a long 
 
BENARES 167 
 
 genre picture. The fruit and flower bazaar carries 
 on the dominant, decorative yellow note, and the 
 orange of marigolds blends well with the rich reds 
 of earthenware in the pottery bazaar, where the 
 lotas and chatties have preserved the same lines from 
 earliest times recorded in sculptures. The kincobs, or 
 gold brocades, of Benares are tawdry and tinselly 
 past belief, commonplace in design and color. 
 
 If anything could further disenchant one with 
 Hindu forms of worship, it is provided at the tem- 
 ple of Durga, the Monkey Temple. One steps into 
 a red sandstone and pink stucco court, where priests 
 wait for gifts and gray apes with red faces sit in 
 rows on the parapets, cornice, and roof, swarm 
 up and down columns, drop noiselessly beside one 
 and stretch long, lean, gray arms over his shoulder 
 and clutch at his garments. The big apes chatter 
 and mouth and make faces, and the little ones run 
 screaming to safety, for when gift cakes are im- 
 pending, the big apes are violent. The priests seem 
 little more intelligent than the other sacred servi- 
 tors, and as more and more apes drop noiselessly to 
 the crowded pavement the tourist turns and flees. 
 
 I had unceasingly demanded the great mahatma, 
 a certain holy man and miracle-worker who was re- 
 ported as living in some palace garden of Benares, 
 and but a little way beyond the Monkey Temple. 
 We left the carriage, disputed passage with a sacred 
 cow in a narrow lane, and found the green paradise 
 of the Annanbag Garden, where dwelt Swamji, the 
 living god. This aged seer and sage, a Brahman of 
 so high a caste and sphere that no touch or deed can 
 
168 WINTER INDIA 
 
 defile him, to whom no sin is possible, sits in his gar- 
 den, ' ' air clad, ' ' summer and winter alike, indifferent 
 to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, feeling neither 
 joy nor sorrow, a soul uplifted beyond all further 
 test or trial. He sits there imparting wisdom to 
 his disciples and followers, as Gautama Buddha 
 taught once in the Deer Park, presenting the same 
 old unchanging picture of religious life in the East. 
 Like the Prince Siddhartha, Swamji left home and 
 wife upon the birth of a son. His duty to the 
 world was then done, and all the years since have 
 been given to study, meditation, and the welfare 
 of his soul, learning the great yoga mysteries and 
 passing continually to higher stages. Two disciples 
 early attached themselves to him, begged for him, 
 and devoutly served him, accompanying the holy 
 man on his pilgrimages to sacred places, and finally 
 to his home, where with tearless indifference he 
 learned of the death of his son, and addressing 
 words of wisdom to his parents and wife, passed on. 
 "Without money, with only a shred of clothing, and 
 no care for the morrow, he traveled all India, and, 
 preserved through heat and snow, flood, storm, cold, 
 hunger, and sickness, he came finally to Benares 
 when he felt that he had attained supreme wisdom 
 and triumphed over the world. A pious raja put 
 the beautiful Annanbag (Garden of Happiness) at 
 his disposal, and, dropping the one bit of raiment, 
 his last earthly possession, Paribrajakacharya Sri 
 Bhaskarananda Saraswati Swamji lives, air clad, 
 in the same state of nature as primeval man, 
 sitting beneath the trees by day discoursing to the 
 
BENARES 171 
 
 circle of disciples, sleeping uncovered on the bare 
 earth at night, and eating only the offerings of fruit 
 and rice which his devotees bring him. A jeweled 
 youth with a great caste-mark on his brow was sit- 
 ting with the holy man when we were announced 
 by Chaturgam Lai and the favor of an audience 
 asked; and the worshiping youth threw his own 
 silky white chudda around the saint as we ad- 
 vanced down the garden path. The holy man sat 
 there with knees bent, soles turned upward, and 
 hand lifted in precisely the attitude of the Bud- 
 dha in art. Birds twittered and the rustling trees 
 overhead cast checkered shadows on the lean and 
 wrinkled old ascetic beneath. He had a kindly face, 
 a gentle, benevolent manner; he was very gracious, 
 courteous, and human, and the living god began at 
 once to talk of the impermanence of the world, of the 
 delusions and fleeting joys of which we mistakenly 
 make so much. His richly turbaned native visitors 
 soon forgot our interruption, listening with rapt 
 attention, and each one bowed reverently whenever 
 the saint 's eyes were directly turned in his direction. 
 At Swamji's request, a disciple led us to a little 
 marble shrine in the garden to see a portrait statue 
 of the holy man, for this living god is worshiped 
 in the flesh and in the image, there and in other 
 cities. 
 
 When we returned to the teacher, he had evi- 
 dently had more information concerning us from the 
 omniscient Chaturgam Lai. ''You write books," 
 said the living god. "So do I. My books are com- 
 mentaries on the Vedas and encouragements to the 
 
172 WINTER INDIA 
 
 true religious life, I like your spirit. I will give 
 you my book. And you shall learn Sanskrit and 
 read it. You will give me your book. I already 
 know English." 
 
 **You are yogi, you are mahatma. You are all- 
 knowing and can perform miracles. Can you see 
 to America and tell me what happens there?" I 
 asked, "you can read my mind." 
 
 The smile faded from the venerable face. He 
 looked pityingly, kindly at me. "No, my daughter. 
 No one in India can see to America. Put away care. 
 Do not think sorrow. Do not think money." And 
 the renowned seer of seers, sage of sages, the living 
 god, the Brahman above caste laid his hand in bless- 
 ing like any noble old bishop. We spent a charming 
 half-hour under the Annanbag trees, eating the 
 saint's oranges, talking with him and his visitors 
 as at any garden tea. When we were leaving, the 
 saint threw over our shoulders the jasmine garlands 
 his worshipers had laid at his feet, wound the bor- 
 rowed chudda around him, and, rising, stalked with 
 the swaying gait of extreme age to the gateway. 
 He shook hands with us fearlessly and convention- 
 ally, for he was beyond defilement, and urged us to 
 come again and talk with him in his garden. 
 
 Then Chaturgam Lai's tongue was loosened and 
 he told us more of the great mahatma and of the mir- 
 acles he had performed. "Why, once they sent 
 officials to invite him to come to America. They 
 wished him to perform miracles at the World's 
 Fair in Chicago." This was shock and anticlimax, 
 surely. 
 
WW!l!M'"lt'^^3l^:''''' ■ milfi 
 
 Rlf/" 
 
BENARES 175 
 
 We took a boat at the next ghat, and were towed 
 up-stream by a rope made fast to the tip of the 
 mast, in the crazy Yang-tse and Asiatic fashion, and 
 then were rowed quickly across to the marble palace 
 of the Maharaja of Benares. Instead of landing 
 at the inviting marble steps, we climbed the mud 
 bank and walked around to an untidy back gate, 
 the land entrance, seeing there an ill-kept menagerie 
 and the frowzy soldiers of the body-guard. We 
 passed through several courts and marble halls to 
 the state apartments, where splendid rugs, tawdry 
 European ornaments, and mechanical toys made ex- 
 treme contrasts, and came out on the marble terraces 
 and latticed loggias overlooking the river and the 
 city's long line of palaces and temples. The jeweled 
 beauties of the zenana should have been lounging 
 there to complete the picture, but they were shut 
 up behind latticed windows looking on the inside 
 court. This Ramnuggur palace would seem to be the 
 most desirable place to live in, but there is a strong 
 prejudice against dying there or anywhere on that 
 opposite bank of the Ganges. Generations ago, the 
 maharaja tormented a Brahman by asking ninety- 
 nine times where his soul would go to from the 
 palace, and the Brahman, at the hundredth query, 
 assured the great man that his soul would enter a 
 donkey if he died there. Now when an illness be- 
 comes at all serious in Ramnuggur precincts, the 
 victim is hurried to a boat and frantically ferried 
 across. 
 
 As we were leaving the palace a fanfare of trum- 
 pets and bugles announced the arrival of the maha- 
 
176 WINTER INDIA 
 
 raja, and we stopped to watch the passing of the 
 handsome young Hindu in his white and gold tur- 
 ban, a becoming red chudda wound around his 
 shoulders. He stopped in front of us, bowed in- 
 quiringly, and Chaturgam Lai, in his flowered dress- 
 ing-gown, introduced us by name, as democratically as 
 any constituent might stop and introduce one to his 
 congressman on the court-house steps. After a short 
 conversation on lines of democratic equality, the 
 maharaja asked us to return and see more rooms of 
 the palace and take a cup of tea ; but it was then sun- 
 set, darkness soon to follow, and we had instead to 
 hurry around to the mud-bank landing, and drift 
 back to the ghats by twinkling lamplights, a last 
 dull glow indicating where the domri were burning 
 the bodies of the poorest believers. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LUCKNOW 
 
 jHERE was a truly Oriental hotel at 
 Lucknow— a great, long, low, white 
 palace of a building, with an areaded 
 front upon which the rooms opened. 
 There was a noble drawing-room, 
 strewn with the myriad little tables, dwarf chairs, 
 and knickknacks of British middle-class esthetic 
 fashion, but glorified by a great display of mari- 
 golds. The dinner-table was such another feast of 
 marigolds that one forgave, or forgot, what came on 
 the plates. The bedchambers were vast, cavernous, 
 sunless caves, with their ceilings lost in remote shad- 
 ows; the beds high, hard catafalques in the center 
 of each such town hall. We spread rugs, blankets, 
 and razais on these state couches, and, although the 
 bundles of bedding had grown until they covered 
 the top of a gharry, not all of them could soften or 
 level those beds. 
 
 A typical, listless, shiftless, incompetent poll-par- 
 rot of a guide undertook to show us Lucknow. The 
 most meager idea of the Mutiny, only the set phrases 
 of local incident, had ever entered his head, along 
 with a sordid idea of profit. "Two rupees a day, 
 10 177 
 
178 WINTER INDIA 
 
 your ladyship," whined the creature, "and, if you 
 like me, a little more for bakshish, your ladyship." 
 And so his woolen comforter and embroidered cap 
 rode on our carriage-box to the Kaiserbaugh, where 
 in its walled garden the wicked Queen of Oudh and 
 the three hundred women of the zenana lived in 
 jewels and idleness, envied and hated by the ninety 
 nauteh dancers housed in the gate pavilion. 
 
 Lucknow's museum is indeed a "wonder-house," 
 and, fortunate in having most energetic archaeolo- 
 gists and ethnologists as its curators, its collections 
 in those lines are most complete. This palace in a 
 park contains in its first hall life-sized figures and 
 groups illustrating the many races, tribes, and types 
 of men in the empire, from the blue-eyed men of the 
 Northwest to the inkiest Tamil and Andaman Is- 
 lander. There is a distracting show of textiles and 
 embroideries, of beasts, birds, metal-work, wood and 
 ivory carving, and such treasures of sculptured rel- 
 ics from Buddhist ruins that the India of fifteen 
 and twenty centuries ago is as well portrayed. The 
 guide knew nothing about any of these things, and 
 to our questions answered moodily: "If your lady- 
 ship wishes me to tell you of the Mutiny, I can. If 
 you will come down-stairs, I will explain the model 
 of the Residency. ' ' Arrived at the model, the parrot 
 glibly read off the names printed on each tiny roof, 
 wall, and gate. "This is the Bailly Gate. This is 
 the hospital," etc., etc. "Yes, yes," we answered. 
 "We can read that. You go on and explain the 
 model, and we will follow you." "But, your lady- 
 ship, ' ' wailed the parrot, " I am explaining it to you 
 
LUCKNOW 179 
 
 now. This is the Bailly Gate." ''Gate to what?" 
 we asked pitilessly. "Who was Bailly that they 
 should name a gate for him?" The poor poll-par- 
 rot's only answer to such conundrmns was a rigma- 
 role about the size of the Residency. "The muti- 
 neers," "the rebels," "our forces," "the natives," 
 and "the king's forces" rolled from his tongue 
 without any mental effort. "Eighteen hundred 
 people were besieged here for six months. Many 
 died. More than two thousand of them were buried 
 here." "VNTien asked to explain how two thousand 
 could die if there were only eighteen hundred in 
 the beginning, he whimpered: "But, your ladyship, 
 let me tell you a little more about the Mutiny. Those 
 poor people, how they suffered !" 
 
 One has rather too much of the Mutiny in India. 
 It is decidedly overdone. It may be well to keep the 
 great incident alive in native memory, along with 
 the justly terrible reprisals; but the tourist gets 
 sated with England's woes and foes of '57, and 
 recalls other wars and sieges since, and trusts that 
 the next generation is not to be harrowed with the 
 sieges of Ladysmith and Mafeking, Tientsin and 
 Peking. Yet that tale of English courage and en- 
 durance is so familiar to all of us, that none can 
 fail to be deeply stirred by the sight of the battered 
 Bailly Gate and the pathetic, roofless Residency— - 
 a vine-wreathed, eloquent monument, England's flag 
 still flying night and day from the tower that never 
 surrendered. It is the most eloquent, the most hu- 
 man and speaking ruin that I know; and in that 
 beautiful garden not a voice is raised, nor an irrev- 
 
180 WINTER INDIA 
 
 erent word heard, every sound unconsciously hushed 
 by the associations. The climax is reached at the 
 grave of Henry Lawrence, that great soldier who 
 "tried to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy 
 on his soul." 
 
 We turned away from the Eesidency door sur- 
 feited with sorrows. We could stand no more mute 
 memorials of suffering. "What, memsahib! Will 
 you not even see that cellar?" implored the guide, 
 a chastened, tongue-tied soul since being informed 
 that he would be dismissed with six annas only if 
 he again addressed us as ladyships. "But the mem- 
 sahibs all like it. AVe do it to please," he wailed. 
 An old soldier, survivor of the scene, is guardian of 
 the Eesidency, and he saw that we saw every bullet- 
 hole and shell-mark, and visited every room down to 
 the underground chambers intended as luxurious re- 
 treats in hot weather. The old veteran who had 
 come in with Outram's relief in September, and 
 fought through the second siege until Colin Camp- 
 bell's final relief in November, made very real to us 
 how a thousand people lived in that one building all 
 the unusually hot summer of '57, with a plague 
 of flies that covered the floors and walls and buzzed 
 sickeningly over the people and their food. 
 
 We had then supped full of Mutiny horrors, and 
 we broke with the program of sight-seeing and drove 
 for hours,— first to the river bank where the dhobie- 
 men were swinging, pounding, slapping wet gar- 
 ments with might and main, and spreading them out 
 in acres of white mosaic on bank and common. We 
 heeded not ruined Dilkusha, where Havelock died. 
 
LUCKNOW 181 
 
 nor the route of Campbell's advance. "Will the 
 memsahib not even see the Seeunderabad 1 " wailed 
 the guide when we refused to look into that slaugh- 
 ter-pen, where sixteen hundred and forty sepoys, 
 fleeing from the Highlanders, were bayoneted in a 
 cul-de-sac. Even Lord Roberts has said that that 
 surging heap of dead and dying, more than shoulder 
 high against the wall, was an incident of war that 
 sickened men bent on avenging the atrocities of 
 Cawnpore. 
 
 We saw with interest the great Mohammedan 
 Imambara, the arches of its court framing pictures 
 of other domes and minarets, its mihrab pointing 
 westward to Mecca, and its deep baoli, or well, with 
 encircling marble galleries where it is always cool 
 in summer. The clock-tower, the white mosque 
 filled with mirrors like a Champs-Elysees cafe, and 
 the old palace of the kings of Oudh hung with por- 
 traits of those flabby and ill-favored royalties, were 
 tedious stock sights. We saw with far more interest 
 the latest American magazines lying on the table 
 of the United Service Club, which now occupies the 
 old Umbrella House of the nawab, an important 
 place during the siege. 
 
 Although it M^as a real city of palaces long before 
 the Mutiny, and a larger place then than Calcutta or 
 Bombay, the bazaars of this old native capital were 
 not so very interesting; and, except in the silver 
 bazaar, a plague of torpid flies tormented us. The 
 perfume-shops were countless, and we sniffed gums, 
 grasses, woods, and attars of all the flowers, until 
 we could not tell the precious rose attar, that sells at 
 
182 WINTER INDIA 
 
 four times its weight in silver, from the rose-water 
 at twelve cents a quart that one carries for ablu- 
 tions on railway trains. 
 
 Again we caught sight of the square gray tower, 
 —the tower that Mrs. Steele has introduced so well 
 in "Voices of the Night,"— and the dreadful de- 
 pression of Mutiny memories fell upon us. The 
 dark, vaulted bedchambers of the hotel were too 
 suggestive of the Residency cellar, and rather than 
 pass a night in the city of such associations, or stop 
 the next day to feed on the greater horrors of Cawn- 
 pore, we took the afternoon train for Agra. Some 
 tourists came on at Cawnpore, anxious to escape 
 from the horror of it. They had seen it all, and suf- 
 fered all the terrible deaths in imagination, from the 
 ghats where the boat-loads of English were burned, 
 drowned, or murdered in cold blood by the fiendish 
 Nana Sahib, to the room where the women and chil- 
 dren were bayoneted and clubbed against the wall, 
 and the crowning agony of the memorial angel over 
 the well of burial— all explained in detail by an 
 old soldier survivor. 
 
 Regarding Agra as the most important tourist 
 place in India, it is disconcerting to have to reach 
 it by cross-roads, way-trains, and branch lines, ar- 
 riving always between midnight and daylight. We 
 changed at Tundla Junction in a deluge of rain, 
 and rode in a crowded ear, seven in a single com- 
 partment, without any lamps, for an hour to Agra. 
 
 A huge turban from the hotel claimed us, and 
 when the file of baggage coolies had trailed after us 
 to the entrance, I said, "Get me a gharry." "Very 
 
LUCKNOW 183 
 
 well, madam. Very well. Very well, ' ' said the tur- 
 ban, flourishing his cane. After five minutes I re- 
 peated the order to turban tramping madly up and 
 down the flagstones, cuffing coolies and bawling at 
 every one and no one. "Very well, very well, mad- 
 am," said this madman of Agra. Another appeal 
 only pulled the string for another shower of "very 
 wells," and nothing happened. I bade the bearer 
 bring a gharry at once, and after big turban had 
 beaten the air, beaten the bearer, and the two had 
 screeched a mad dialogue, two lean horses and a rat- 
 tletrap night-liner drew up and took us inside, the 
 luggage on the roof, the turban on the box, and the 
 bearer on behind. The ill-matched horses made a dash 
 out from the lamplighted station, across the great 
 common before Akbar's red sandstone fort, and took 
 a turn entirely round a tree-box. After a second 
 and a third turn around the tree, I put my head out 
 
 and said severely, " Take us to the Hotel ." 
 
 "Very well. Very well, madam," floated down 
 from the box, and with a jerk and a leap the ponies 
 made another tour of the tree. We continued to 
 whirl and circle around that sapling by the light of a 
 thin, wet moon, wrangling voices and whip-crackings 
 from overhead drowning any further directions to 
 drive to the hotel. Our friends, following in the 
 next gharry, thought the first circlings a runaway; 
 then, hearing the voices from the box, arrived at 
 another idea, and cried: "Oh, come on to the hotel. 
 It 's no use trying to see the Taj now. It is after 
 one o'clock." 
 
 Our answer was lost as the ponies ran around the 
 
184 WINTER INDIA 
 
 tree again. In time the bearer was made to under- 
 stand, and to lead the ponies by the bridle out of 
 the enchanted square, and they splashed along so- 
 berly enough through wet and gloomy avenues to the 
 far-away hotel. This was an incongruous, opera- 
 bouffe sort of arrival in and introduction to the 
 city of one's soul and dreams, where more of sen- 
 timent, beauty, and haunting charm aBide than in 
 all the peninsula; but sentiment with difficulty sur- 
 vives the disenchantment and jarring contacts of 
 Indian travel. One must see India and spend his 
 sentiment on it afterward. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AGRA 
 
 !0 the traveler Agra means, stands for, 
 the Taj alone, the most interesting ob- 
 ject in India; and, arrived there, one 
 almost fears to precipitate the supreme 
 moment, to put it to the test, to take 
 the first look. There was no inspiration in the gray, 
 cloudy morning or the tedious drive from the hotel 
 in the farthest suburb three miles to the walled 
 garden by the river bank. A sandstone gateway 
 in a long wall admitted us to the serai, or outer 
 court, where cabs and bullock-carts stood and touts, 
 peddlers, and guides squatted waiting for prey, 
 scenting the first tourist rupee of the day. There 
 fronted the Great Gateway, a magnificent sandstone 
 tower in itself worth coming to see, its arch inlaid 
 with white verses and flowers, and a row of airy 
 little bell cupolas fringing the roof-line. We went 
 in through the drafty rotunda of a hall, and 
 straight before us was the vision of beauty, the Taj 
 Mahal— the most supremely beautiful building in 
 all the world— the most perfect creation of that kind 
 that the mind and hand of man have ever achieved— 
 one of the great objectives of travel that does not 
 
 185 
 
186 WINTER INDIA 
 
 disappoint, but far exceeds all anticipations— a re- 
 ward for all the distance one may travel to reach 
 it — recompense for all one endures in Indian travel. 
 Well as one knows it from photographs and engrav- 
 ings, the reality is as astonishing, as overwhelming, 
 as if he had never heard of it. Even while he first 
 looks through the arch to the white dome above the 
 cypress-trees, it seems too rarely perfect to be real, 
 too incredibly beautiful to be true. It would not 
 have surprised me if the light had faded, a curtain 
 had fallen; or, still less, if one had found he could 
 not enter, that no foot could touch the garden-path 
 or the white terrace, which is mere pedestal for this 
 marvelous work of art. After watching the en- 
 trance of some others, we paused for a first stead- 
 fast look, and then, all excitement and exaltation, 
 followed the marble path and mounted the half-way 
 platform that affords the perfect view-point, the 
 white wonder reflected in the long marble canal at 
 their feet. 
 
 The Taj on its high platform, with the red sand- 
 stone mosque at the west, the complementary build- 
 ing or ''Response" on the east, and the whole sky- 
 space over and beyond the river as background, 
 presents the most harmonious and perfectly bal- 
 anced composition and is the most admirably placed 
 building in India. The eye travels from feature 
 to feature and detail to detail, and the wonder of 
 its perfection continually grows. The bands of low- 
 relief carving, the panels and borders of inlaid work, 
 afford endless study, and one easily accepts the 
 guide's set story that forty varieties of carnelian 
 
AGRA 189 
 
 are inlaid in one small flower, and that the whole 
 Koran is inlaid, verse by verse, on the walls. There 
 is a whole new set of sensations when one enters the 
 softly lighted, dim white interior, with the echo re- 
 peating each word like the response of a chanted 
 service — a single note from flute or guitar a whole 
 theme. A trellis of marble tracery, with inlaid bor- 
 ders, screens the two tombs, low sarcophagi of jew- 
 eled marble resting on inlaid platforms. Mumtaz-i- 
 Mahal in the center, where the Great Mogul laid 
 her, and with Shah Jahan at her side are laid away 
 in real simple white tombs in a vault immediately 
 below the sarcophagi ; and to them the aged guardian 
 conducts one with a lantern. 
 
 We went back at sunset, and saw only an unin- 
 teresting yellow ball sink against a hazy horizon, 
 and the clear-cut shadows in the arches of the Taj 
 fade to white and gray. In a little while the yel- 
 low ball of the full moon rose beyond the river, and 
 flooded the eastern arch with a splendor unimag- 
 ined. On the platform in mid-garden were other 
 moonlight pilgrims, and what did they talk about 
 in face of this glorious apparition, this wonder of 
 the world? The German professor told how the 
 mutton chops were served at his hotel— brought in 
 and passed around sizzling on the hot grill ! Could 
 sacrilege go further? 
 
 There was a British artist at our hotel, "painting 
 Tajes," as he naively explained, for the "London 
 spring market"— "four rather nice ones" already 
 finished, and more to do while the fine weather 
 lasted; since early in March the hot winds begin, 
 
190 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 a scorching gale is blowing by noon, and the air is 
 filled with dust. "Yes, it is a bit chilly sitting in 
 the garden so long, these days," he said, "and the 
 tourists do bother a bit, you know; looking over 
 one's shoulder and asking one if it is hard to do." 
 When we hurried from dinner the next night for a 
 second moonlight view, the artist said : ' ' Oh, I say ! 
 You Americans have such a notion for seeing the Taj 
 by moonlight. There were some American ladies 
 here last month at the full of the moon, and they 
 went down there after dinner, too." 
 
 "Have n't you seen it by moonlight yet?" 
 * ' Oh, dear, no ! I am there all day, you know. ' ' 
 "But are you not going to-night?" we asked in 
 amazement. 
 
 " No, I think not. I will go sometime, though. 
 It might be nice to paint a moonlight Taj," and he 
 went on eating cheese ! 
 
 With the round silver moon shining high in the 
 vault of the intense, indigo-blue sky, the Taj Mahal 
 was the frost-palace of one's dreams, and from the 
 dark arch of the entrance gateway it seemed fairly 
 to shine and flash in the strong light poured 
 full on its eastern face. There was silence in the 
 enchanted garden, and as we walked toward the 
 luminous white palace only the far murmur of run- 
 ning water and the scent of violets and mignonette 
 told upon the other senses. We had the place to our- 
 selves for one hour of silence and charm, sitting in 
 the shadows of the Response. Then the chatter, clat- 
 ter of the tourist contingent was heard at the gate- 
 way and down the path. " Ach, Wunderschon! 
 
AGRA 191 
 
 Wu7iderschdn!" the loudest voice proclaimed. Then 
 clouds skimmed over the moon, dimming the Taj, 
 which was suddenly transformed to silver and frosted 
 ivory again as the moon rode out. The "Wunder- 
 schon" voices continued down the path until smoth- 
 ered in the staircase inside the platform, came out 
 full-lunged on the terrace, and there proclaimed with 
 greater volume the wonderful beauty of the white 
 building. Echoes came from the domed hall, then 
 the faint, glow-worm light of the custodian's lan- 
 tern led the voluble gutturals around the octagon 
 and down to the tombs. Next cockney voices came 
 down the garden walk— some "Tommies" from the 
 cantonment with their "'Arriets," who, skylarking 
 down to the terrace, with an all-hands-round at the 
 entrance of the platform stairway, chased, shrieking, 
 up the inner stairway and came out on the platform 
 with shouts of laughter, each slim, trim figure in 
 red coat and box cap standing out distinct in color 
 in the moonlight. Disenchanted, we fled through 
 the darkest garden paths. It was sacrilege of the 
 rankest kind for those sweethearting couples to be 
 skylarking around the marble screen of the tombs, 
 dropping their barbarous "h's" to summon the echo, 
 the pure soul of the Taj Mahal. 
 
 For four days we haunted the garden of the Taj, 
 for by noonday, sunset, and moonlight it took on as 
 many rarer qualities and aspects ; and six times a 
 day, as we drove those long miles to and from the 
 gateway, we berated the hotel-keepers for not put- 
 ting the hotel where it should be. The guardians 
 and keepers at the Taj came to know us, the touts 
 
192 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 and guides let us alone. We found, after many 
 comparative tests, that the best full view of the Taj 
 is to be had from the second story of the entrance 
 gateway; the best sunset view from the west pavil- 
 ion over the river angle of the terrace, reached by 
 a staircase in the mosque; and the best moonlight 
 effect is that obtained from the opposite east pa- 
 vilion, reached by the corresponding stairway in the 
 Response. 
 
 There were Philistines among some of the early 
 English commanders at Agra, the most soulless of 
 them all being that Lord William Bentinck who 
 wanted to sell the Taj Mahal, and actually con- 
 sidered the offer of thirty thousand pounds from a 
 rich Hindu. One gasps, too, to hear how the Maha- 
 raja of Sindhia entertained a viceroy in the en- 
 chanted garden, serving supper in the Response, 
 ham and champagne, "swine's flesh and wine," in 
 the architectural counterpart of the Mosque. Lord 
 Auckland also was entertained in the Taj, when there 
 were games in the garden, with roars of laughter, 
 and ham and champagne again in the Response, In 
 the same way, a ball was given for Lord Ellenborough 
 after the siege of Kabul, lanterns were strung on the 
 cypress-trees, there was dancing to military music on 
 the marble platform, and supper in the Response, as 
 usual. The native press denounced this desecration 
 of a tomb and place of worship, but the Agra officials 
 argued that the Response was not a mosque, and, if 
 it were, it had long since lost sanctity by its desecra- 
 tion by Jats and Hindus. Moreover, they said that 
 the literal translation of its name was "the feast- 
 
AGEA 193 
 
 place"— it was before the tomb was built, Tatar 
 and Mogul alike preparing a beautiful garden in 
 life that it might become their burial-place, after 
 which it was never used for pleasuring, but given 
 over to the care of priests. The Taj Mahal was held 
 in great reverence in Mohammedan days, and visitors 
 were blindfolded at the entrance and not uncovered 
 until they reached the place of prayer. When the 
 Jats took Agra and looted its palaces, they carried 
 off the entrance gates with their thousands of silver 
 nails, each with a rupee as its head. They took away 
 the inner doors of the Taj, each a single translucent 
 slab of agate, the gold spire and crescent, and the 
 precious carpets laid three and four deep on the 
 floor. No vandalism of that kind has taken place 
 in British days, and there has been great interest 
 shown in keeping the gardens in their original con- 
 dition. In 1876 the whole place was thoroughly 
 repaired and restored in preparation for the Prince 
 of Wales's visit, and the closest watch is kept to pre- 
 vent natives, soldiers, and tourists from picking out 
 the precious bits of inlaid stone. Severe punish- 
 ment is visited upon natives who pick flowers or 
 otherwise transgress within the inclosure, and the 
 query was always in my mind whether or not the 
 natives had any comprehension of the beauty and 
 sentiment of the place. It was ever a growing 
 wonder that these people, the Hindus, had ever ac- 
 complished it— how even twenty-two thousand of 
 them, working for seventeen or for twenty-two years 
 under Moslem directors, had ever reared it. Like 
 Sir Charles Dilke, one finds it hard to believe that 
 
194 WINTER INDIA 
 
 "a people who paint their cows pink with green 
 spots, and their houses orange or bright red, should 
 be the authors of the Pearl Mosque or the Taj. It 
 would be too wonderful." It is easier to credit the 
 plans to the Frenchman Austin de Bordeaux or to 
 any of the master masons or carvers who came from 
 Bagdad, Constantinople, Samarkand, and from every 
 Moslem center of note, and worked here during the 
 same years that the Pilgrim Fathers were building 
 their first log-house on Plymouth Bay. 
 
 Driving through the great fortress gate, we saw 
 first the red palace of Akbar, sandstone prelude to 
 the jeweled marble halls of Shah Jahan, the great- 
 est builder of all the Moguls. The first or private 
 audience-hall, the Khas Mahal, lies across the Grape 
 Garden, its windows set in the solid battlemented 
 walls that rise sheer from the moats. It is a dream 
 in white — arches and walls of pure white marble 
 carved in scrolls, traceries, and flowers in low relief, 
 the windows filled with marble lattices. The scheme 
 of white on white is offset by a ceiling of gold and 
 colors, and the Khas Mahal is a model for architects 
 and decorators for all time. By an open terrace 
 on the battlements, and a series of marble halls with 
 walls inlaid with graceful Persian arabesques and 
 flowers in colored stones, we came to the Jasmine 
 Tower, Shah Jahan 's finest construction. The 
 rounded balcony of the tower projects beyond the 
 walls and commands the moats below, the long curve 
 of the Jumna, and the white bubbles of the Taj be- 
 yond a flat, green foreground of river bottom mo- 
 saiced over with the washermen 's white patches. The 
 
AGRA 195 
 
 lovely Mumtaz-i-Mahal lived in these rooms around 
 the fountain court, all their surface a maze of pre- 
 cious inlay, the floor of the court a marble pachisi- 
 board, the walls of the inner chambers fitted with 
 long, sunken pockets for jewels that only a woman's 
 slender hand and wrist could reach into. A stair- 
 ease leads down to the Shish Mahal, or Hall of Mir- 
 rors, a cool grotto of a bath set with tiny mirrors in 
 carved plaster, where a cascade once tinkled down 
 a stepped arrangement over colored lights. Over- 
 head is the tiny Gem Mosque, where the women 
 prayed the Prophet to grant them souls; this ex- 
 quisite marble cell being afterward the prison place 
 of Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan, the accepted Great 
 Mogul of Europeans, and contemporary of Crom- 
 well, was deposed by his son, Jahangir, but cheered in 
 his seven years' captivity by his faithful daughter, 
 Jahanira. Another passage leads along above the 
 battlements from the Jasmine Tower to the Diwan-i- 
 Khas, another private audience-hall with an inner 
 decoration of white on w^hite in low relief, the outer 
 pillars and arches inlaid with color. A considerable 
 annual outlay is required to keep these inlaid walls 
 in order, to replace the bits of carnelian, jade, jas- 
 per, amethyst, agate, and lapis lazuli dug out by 
 vicious tourists and idling hooligans of soldiers. 
 This audience-hall fronts upon a terrace flush with 
 the battlements, and there at close of day the Great 
 Mogul used to lounge on a black marble throne, 
 watching the domes and minarets of the Taj grow 
 beneath the hands of the thousands of workmen. 
 When the marauding Jats captured the fort they 
 
196 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sacked the palace, despoiled the Diwan-i-Khas of its 
 silver ceiling, but when they attempted to sit on this 
 seat of the Great Mogul it broke under the indig- 
 nity. Half of the court space was once a sunken 
 pond, with a carved niche or throne in the sur- 
 rounding gallery, where the great one used to sit 
 to fish at ease. It is now but a dry stone court, and 
 no trace remains of the bath-room of precious green 
 marble, whose interior was stripped by the Marquis 
 of Hastings, who wished to send it to England to 
 be reerected as a bath-room for George IV. The 
 loose marbles lay around for years, uncared for, 
 and were finally sold for a trifle. It is not necessary 
 for any outsider to vent his indignation at this bar- 
 baric proceeding, as Sir James Fergusson has said 
 it all, with a vehemence none can approach, and has 
 sufficiently laid the lash of his terrible sarcasm on 
 his Philistine countrymen. 
 
 From this Court of the Fish-pond a door admits 
 one directly to the Diwan-i-Am, or great audience- 
 hall, its marble lattices and inlaid throne splendid 
 reminders of the past, the rows of British cannon 
 and the red-coated sentries beyond sufficient evi- 
 dences of the present. We crossed the court and 
 ascended the staircase to the Moti Musjid, the Pearl 
 Mosque, over which three generations of writers 
 have raved as an architectural chef-d'oeuvre second 
 only to the Taj. After all the splendid creations 
 of Shah Jahan, this in some way failed to produce 
 an equal impression, and it gave us a distinct sense 
 of disappointment. The simplicity of the white 
 mosque, relieved only by the blue and gray veins 
 
AGRA 199 
 
 of the marble and the one long inscription in 
 black inlay, did not appeal. The white court with 
 its mirror tank, the white cloisters, the vista of 
 white arches and columns, and the pale shadows of 
 the interior had beauty, — Vereshchagin 's painting 
 had told one that,— but the Moti Musjid gave the 
 chill of the first disappointment in Agra. 
 
 The tomb of I 'tamadu-daulah, father of Nur Ja- 
 han, the famous wife of Jahangir, and grandfather 
 of Mumtaz-i-Mahal, is on the opposite side of the 
 Jumna; far above the Taj and from the high rail- 
 way bridge and from the garden terraces one has 
 still different views of the Taj. All the roads lead- 
 ing there were crowded one Sunday afternoon with 
 strings of ekkas and bullock-carts overflowing with 
 women and children, and the garden-paths and the 
 marble platform around the marquetry tomb of 
 the Persian treasurer were crowded with family par- 
 ties. The women and children were all in their most 
 brilliant holiday attire, their jewels and tinsel, fan- 
 tastic fineries and fripperies of every kind making 
 the green garden around the white pavilion a dazzle 
 of color, a dream of India. Complacent fathers sat 
 stocking-footed on outspread blankets, their veiled 
 women and children, huddled near, regarding the 
 superior being with awe— a joyous Indian family 
 holiday of the middle classes. A small boy flashed 
 by in a petunia satin coat and gold-embroidered 
 cap, bare-legged and tugging at a bow and arrow. 
 Another boy in gorgeous red satin top-clothes 
 munched a green apple, and the petunia archer flew 
 at him with the fury of a tiger. Screams from the 
 
200 WINTER INDIA 
 
 combatants and all their female followers rent the 
 air, and when forcibly separated neither was to be 
 appeased by proffered peanuts. Then a small sister 
 of the petunia coat dashed forward and dealt the 
 green-apple boy such a clap on the ear that the 
 female parliament was paralyzed. When we pre- 
 sented the intrepid little woman with some annas of 
 admiration our dumfounded bearer asked, "Why 
 do such curious thing?" and afterward tried half- 
 heartedly to explain to the crouching women that it 
 was our testimonial to the first woman in India with 
 any backbone. With laughter, the four wives, the 
 two daughters, and the wrinkled old nurse in pew- 
 ter jewelry, who were with the father of the little 
 **new woman," promised to keep her in the habit of 
 resenting tyrant man and redressing promptly all 
 the wrongs that came to her notice. 
 
 The garden rang with jingling anklets, and the 
 play of colors was kaleidoscopic. Two beautiful 
 young women raised their white head-sheets to look 
 at us as they passed, red shoes and full yellow skirts 
 and much coin jewelry making them fantastic fig- 
 ures fit for a fancy-dress ball. Scores of women 
 flounced by in red skirts, green skirts, changeable 
 silk skirts with tinsel borders, and wearing purple, 
 green, yellow, and white head-sheets. A nautch- 
 girl came jingling By, her pale-blue skirts the only 
 touch of that color in the whole garden. After 
 we had seen the tombs in the mosaic pavilion, 
 whose inlaid walls were the first to be decorated in 
 pietra dura in India, we mounted to the terrace roof 
 around the upper story of the marble reliquary, 
 
AGRA 201 
 
 which is a mass of fine relief-carving and lattice- 
 work, and looked down upon the brilliant scene 
 in the garden. And this spectacular gathering of 
 so many hundreds of women and children was all 
 to celebrate the ceremonial hair-cutting of the year 
 — the clippings of the children's hair being brought 
 to the terrace and there thrown into the Jumna, with 
 flower offerings. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL OP THEM ALL 
 
 'T Agra, Akbar, the greatest of all the 
 Mogul sovereigns, descendant of Baber 
 and Timur, and of tribal connec- 
 tion with Genghis Khan, becomes a 
 very real personage. He lived, in that 
 age of great sovereigns when Henry IV, Philip II, 
 and Queen Elizabeth ruled in Europe. He has been 
 called the Marcus Aurelius and the Frederick the 
 Great of India, and he was the greatest builder the 
 country had then known. Ports, palaces, tombs, 
 and whole cities sprang up by his command, and at 
 his court literature, art, and all religions were hon- 
 ored. Brahmans, Mohammedans, Sikhs, Jains, and 
 Catholic priests expounded and argued with him 
 in a first parliament of religions, and, regarding 
 them all impartially, he devised a universal theology, 
 a compromise creed which his vizier and not a few 
 courtiers adopted. He himself worshiped the sun 
 every morning, as representative of the divinity 
 which animates and rules the world. He was a 
 strenuous sort of ruler too, walking twenty and 
 thirty miles a day, to the dismay of his courtiers; 
 and once he rode from Ajmir to Agra in two days, 
 
 202 
 
AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL OF THEM ALL 203 
 
 covering the two hundred and twenty miles by innu- 
 merable relays of fast horses. Akbar wrote his mem- 
 oirs, in worthy emulation of Baber, whose autobiog- 
 raphy in illuminated Persian text is treasured in the 
 Agra College library. 
 
 In the usual reverse order of all Indian sight-see- 
 ing, we first saw Akbar 's tomb, and then his City 
 of Victory. The tomb is at Secundra, a suburb of 
 Agra. A great red sandstone gateway admits one to 
 the flagged court, and the impressive pillared pa- 
 vilion, rising story upon story, after the oldest Bud- 
 dhist constructions, covers the remains of the great- 
 est of the Moguls. A pierced marble screen walls 
 the upper terrace, where the white sarcophagus, cov- 
 ered with carving, lies open to the sun and sky, 
 the intended white dome never having been com- 
 pleted by Akbar 's successors. The real tomb is 
 reached by a sloping passageway, and the monarch 
 lies in a grave scooped in the earth like the graves 
 of his desert-chief ancestors. 
 
 Never on any sleigh-ride, nor in winter travel in 
 the North, have I known such suffering from cold as 
 during the twenty-two-mile ride from Agra to Fateh- 
 pur Sikri, Akbar 's City of Victory. The heaviest 
 winter clothing and all the wraps, rugs, razais, and 
 hot-water bottles could not defy the insidious air. 
 The sun shone, the trees were green, the road was 
 smooth and well kept, but the keen, raw, icy wind 
 of a Canadian March so benumbed us on our way 
 to Akbar 's Versailles that several times we ran be- 
 side the victoria in our efforts to restore circula- 
 tion. We paused not for sights when once ar- 
 
204 WINTER INDIA 
 
 rived there. "What were Akbar's outer walls, his 
 treasury, mint, or any lot of ruined stonework to 
 us until we could reach the cold splendors of the 
 dak bangla, once the Record Office and Akbar's 
 House of Dreams, and thaw our fingers over the 
 cook-house charcoals 1 We shut the mullioned win- 
 dows in the cliff-like outer walls commanding the 
 vast prospect of the plain, and supplemented the 
 slight and shadowy, the sketchy, impressionist im- 
 itation of a breakfast of the Agra hotel with scald- 
 ing chocolate and really hot toast, and embarked 
 the sympathetic old khansamah on a more solid 
 tiffin than he had contemplated. We proposed to 
 stoke up with all the bodily fuel possible for the 
 return drive in the teeth of the wind. 
 
 A troop of guides lay in wait for us, and luck 
 let us have another of those stupid parrots who, 
 in embroidered caps and winding chuddas, mis- 
 lead one over all the show-places of India. This one 
 stuttered — may all others know and avoid him by 
 that sign !— and, like all of his gild, reversed the 
 guide-book order of sight-seeing. We had already 
 suffered enough in that way, and we ordered him 
 to right about face and march to the Turkish 
 queen's house, first on the Murray list and first 
 object before the Hall of Records. ''But, lady- 
 ship, I wish f-f-first to sh-sh-show you the mosque 
 and my ancestor's grave." But we wanted none 
 of his ancestors, except in their regular order. 
 *'0h, your ladyship, your ladyship, take me, take 
 me. God is good. Take me, take me," mumbled a 
 toothless collection of wrinkles in white grave-clothes. 
 
AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL OF THEM ALL 205 
 
 "I know the palace well. I know the Turkish 
 queen. I showed the Prince of Wales all Fateh- 
 pur Sikri." And then guides grew thick and thicker 
 around us, rising from the very flagstones. They 
 whined in procession after us across the court, and 
 it was easy to make compact with our guide, who 
 was almost exploding with spasms of stuttering 
 wrath at the interlopers. He was to lead us in 
 the straight and direct path of the "Murray book," 
 and receive bakshish in proportion to his success 
 in keeping his rivals away and in omitting his ' ' lady- 
 ships. ' ' 
 
 As we wandered in admiration through the sun- 
 warmed courts, sheltered from the biting blast, our 
 benumbed senses revived, and we warmed to real 
 enthusiasm over this "romance in stone," over all 
 the exquisite fantasies, the veritable maisons hijoux 
 Akbar had built for his favorite wives. The Great 
 Mogul was as eclectic and as far-reaching in his con- 
 sort collecting as in his religion, and we were shown 
 the house of his Turkish queen Miriam ; that of his 
 Christian Portuguese wife ; the house of Birbal, his 
 Hindu wife, and a great zenana. Of the same order 
 of lavish ornamentation is the wonderful council- 
 chamber with its central pillar, all these structures 
 carved over every inch of surface with the finest 
 and most intricate ornament, geometrical patterns, 
 and traceries. Outside, inside, over all the walls and 
 ceilings spreads the revel of ornament, and the win- 
 dows hold perforated stone and marble screens as 
 fine as woven reed-work. This was the real In- 
 dia of the imagination, the setting for "The Nau- 
 
206 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lahka," every part of the carved labyrinth a scene 
 for melodrama. There was one great five-story 
 pavilion, strangely like Akbar's tomb in design, each 
 pillared and open hall of fairy lightness, with a 
 row of fantastic bell-cupolas on top. There the 
 zenana women took the air, and near by was Akbar's 
 great pachisi-board inlaid in a court pavement, 
 where he played the game with his vizier, using 
 slave-girls for pawns, and the successful one keeping 
 the beauties he won. On the seat overlooking this 
 checker-board, Akbar doubtless flourished his fa- 
 mous bon-bon box, with its harmless delights in one 
 compartment, perfumed poison in the other. After 
 having dealt death to many courtiers deliberately, 
 he accidentally took the wrong sugar-plum himself 
 one day, and ended his life in the most satisfactory, 
 retributive, story-book way. 
 
 Our guide finally led us through the inlaid gate 
 to the court of the mosque, and was about to launch 
 full-lunged on his ancestors of honorable burial 
 when our eyes fell upon the little white marble tomb 
 of Selim Chisti, the hermit saint and local genius, 
 whose prophecies led Akbar to build this palace and 
 city on the arid plain. The saint's tomb is the most 
 exquisite thing of its kind in India, a tiny marble 
 jewel-box, hardly larger than an elephant's howdah, 
 a filigree reliquary, with fine lattice walls, fantastic 
 brackets, and a domed roof shining in the sunlight. 
 The ebony doors admit one to the tomb, where os- 
 trich eggs hang and ebony panels are inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl. One looks through the marble 
 screens, as fine as basketry, at the Indian sky, as 
 
AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL OF THEM ALL 209 
 
 clearly blue as sapphire. We forgot the inlaid arches 
 and the tiled facings of the mosque, which is a copy 
 of the mosque at Mecca, and turned only to look 
 again and again at the tiny white tomb shining like 
 a frost creation in the empty stone court, the reality 
 infinitely more satisfactory than even Vereshcha- 
 gin's painting had led us to expect. In front of this 
 little prettiness the great gate of Victory opens to 
 the plain and the ruined city, a broad staircase lead- 
 ing down to the rubbish-strewn common. We went 
 through the great domed arch, the doors studded 
 with votive nail-heads and horseshoes, and from the 
 foot of the staircase had the intended view of this 
 gate which Fergusson calls "noble beyond that of 
 any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps 
 in the whole world." Across the front of this gate 
 Akbar inlaid the famous inscription: "Isa [Jesus], 
 on whom be peace, said : ' The world is a bridge, pass 
 over it, but build no house on it. The world endures 
 but an hour, spend it in devotion. ' ' ' There is a great 
 green, oval well, with a parapet and arched chambers 
 surrounding it, close beside the steps and the high, 
 battlemented walls. Despite the keen and wintry 
 air, lean men and boys, shivering in a few flutters 
 of cotton drapery, offered to jump the eighty feet 
 from the battlements into the well. While we de- 
 murred, covered with goose-flesh at the mere idea, 
 there was a shout from above, a brown figure shot 
 out into the air, whirling his arms frantically to 
 keep the body upright, and dropped feet foremost 
 into the pool. The green scum closed over him, and 
 before we could recover breath the black head swam 
 
210 WINTER INDIA 
 
 to the steps, wound on a dry sheet, and came, all 
 green and shivering, to claim a rupee for the feat. 
 He dashed instantly out of sight, reappeared on the 
 battlements, and made a second plummet drop 
 into the well. Only the fact that those two dearly 
 earned rupees assured him food for the day could 
 ease one's conscience for aiding and abetting such 
 inhuman sport. Two Scotch tourists, who had 
 watched the cold plunger from the head of the steps, 
 refused to pay a rupee apiece, or even one anna, to 
 the ''poor man with family to feed." We could 
 hear theni say that they had not engaged the man 
 to jump, the ladies had arranged that. "But you 
 saw me. You watched me. You all looked at me," 
 howled the jumper, following them. And the Scotch- 
 men said: "Those Americans can just pay more, 
 then. We won't give you an anna. Jao!" 
 
 After the arctic drive back to Agra, we had time 
 only for a cup of scalding tea before hurrying to 
 the Taj to witness the most wonderful sunset of 
 all, an amber afterglow illuminating every inner 
 curve and recess and dispelling all shadows, the light 
 seeming to radiate from the glowing marble, to 
 emanate from the white surface itself. As if that 
 six-mile pilgrimage, added to our forty-four-mile 
 drive of the day, were not enough, the clear sparkle 
 of the stars and the nipping air of that night sug- 
 gested a different Taj, and after dinner we rattled 
 down the Strand Eoad to see by moonlight such a 
 glitteringly white, splendidly snowy frost-palace as 
 we had not dreamed of finding in India. 
 
 We essayed a rainy day of rest, taking our ease 
 
AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL OF THEM ALL 211 
 
 at our inn, myself in a superior, sunless, fireless, 
 cheerless room, which, was but a long, whitewashed 
 vault with a carefully curtained door opening on 
 a brick portico. Drafts that were small gales 
 blew through, making reading, writing, or anything 
 but sneezing impossible. The peddlers marked us 
 for their own that day, and every few moments there 
 was a tap on the glass door, a brown hand was thrust 
 in with some object for sale; and a plaintive "mem- 
 sahib" or "ladyship" distracted one. "Please buy. 
 Please buy. I am poor man," rang in my ears all 
 day, and the transfer of packs from the bricks out- 
 side to the dirty matting within was accomplished 
 imperceptibly. I was first aware of some pleading, 
 whining creature with a shop spread on the floor 
 around him — silver, jewelry, embroideries, shawls, 
 beetle-winged gauzes, gay pulkharries, and souvenir 
 spoons. Every day a huge damascened fork or tri- 
 dent was offered me as I passed in or out,— whether 
 a dagger or an elephant goad I could not say. "Oh, 
 yes, your ladyship," said the oily one in answer, 
 "this is toast-fork. Very nice. Very comfortable 
 thing for traveling. Please buy. I am poor man." 
 But he and his tribe were ordered to begone, and 
 as the toast-master shuffled out with his bundle he 
 paused at the threshold to slip into his Mohamme- 
 dan shoes, using the big fork for a shoe-horn. 
 "Very useful. See, your ladyship, ' ' he said, adjust- 
 ing the second shoe with the combination toasting- 
 fork. "Silputs [slippers] help on, also." 
 
 When the sky cleared in the late afternoon we 
 betook ourselves to the fort to await the rose-red 
 
212 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sunset that the humid atmosphere promised. The 
 old chuprassy welcomed us to the Jasmine Tower, 
 and gave us wicker stools that we might comfortably 
 watch the white bubbles beyond the green fore- 
 ground flame to rose-red and then fade away, effaced 
 in the gray mists that rolled up the river, presage 
 of the deluge rain that followed. The keeper brought 
 torches and led us down to the labyrinth of dark 
 chambers and vaults that underlie the zenana and 
 the Grape Garden. Six thousand people found ref- 
 uge in the fort during the Mutiny, and then all this 
 underground world was explored, with its oubliettes 
 and long passages reaching to the moats and the 
 water-gate. The rooms we saw were the prisons for 
 zenana offenders, and by dumb show and much 
 mixed language we were informed that it was Ak- 
 bar's wives who suffered most often here by torture 
 and the rope, the sack, and the drop down the echo- 
 ing well. No screams could be heard in the sunny 
 Grape Garden, nor in the beautiful audience-hall; 
 and, after Akbar's career of domestic tyranny, it 
 was fitting that his son, Jahangir, should be ruled 
 by his Persian wife, Nur Jahan, and that Shah 
 Jahan, the grandson, should worship in life, and 
 after her death, Mumtaz-i-Mahal. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DELHI 
 
 ,T was in the regular order of discomfort 
 I that we should leave Agra late at night 
 and reach Delhi at four o'clock in the 
 morning; the last straw lay in the 
 fact that we departed in a pouring 
 rain and made the midnight change at Tundla 
 Junction in a cloud-burst. Fires had warmed the 
 rooms (which we reached by a roof or terrace) 
 when we arrived at the much commended Delhi 
 hotel, and we fell asleep to dream of Madura 
 noondays until an unusual hour of the morning. 
 Then we found that the rooms had no windows, 
 so that when the doors were closed and the fire- 
 places heaped with wood, we had easily enjoyed 
 the climate of the tropics. That hotel, named for 
 a great viceroy, was by far the worst, the most for- 
 lorn, run-down, and dilapidated of any we found 
 up-country. The drawing-room was a muddle of 
 broken furniture, of dusty and disorderly draperies, 
 the dining-room infragrant and time-stained, and 
 the manager— there are no landlords or innkeepers 
 in British realms any more— a listless, depressed, 
 poor white creature, a definite failure in life, who 
 
 213 
 
214 WINTER INDIA 
 
 roamed the portico in pajamas and long ulster, 
 smoking a German student pipe. We removed forth- 
 with to another hotel, that had once been a splendid 
 official residence. Our rooms opened by long win- 
 dows upon a cement terrace flush with the battle- 
 ments of the city walls, and from that high para- 
 pet we looked down upon the Jumna and green 
 wooded spaces where the jackals howled all night 
 and wherein are laid some of the scenes of "On 
 the Face of the "Waters." The entrance portico 
 of the mansion was used as a dining-room, the great 
 stone arches partly closed at night by bamboo blinds, 
 ventilated curtains that swayed and swung in the 
 drafts and breezes which blew over us as we dined 
 there, practically out of doors, on those cold Janu- 
 ary nights, with the humidity great and the ther- 
 mometer registering 38 to 40 degrees. 
 
 "It is a land of misery," cried a great American 
 litterateur who was doing India with a rapidity un- 
 equal ed by any personally conducted tourist. "All 
 I want to do is to get out of it ; to get away ; to get 
 something an American stomach is used to eating; 
 to get some Apollinaris instead of this hygienic soda ; 
 to get warm again. If I get within one hundred 
 miles of any place, I will say I have seen it. I don't 
 want any more architecture at this price." And 
 this tirade was in the same key and vein indulged in 
 by all the coughing, sneezing, rheumatic, and neu- 
 ralgic tourists. All were cross, half ill, and thor- 
 oughly homesick in this chill land of supposed 
 tropic splendors. 
 
 When the sour mists or the frost hazes of those 
 
DELHI 215 
 
 Delhi mornings had cleared away, we had sunshine 
 that mellowed grumblers to amiability, and they 
 basked in the hot beams of noonday; but gloom 
 settled on them with the damp chill of sunset, and 
 there were the same depressed and depressing groups 
 huddled before the few hissing twigs in the fireplaces 
 of the chill white caves of rooms. Then the jackals 
 came under our windows and laughed and shrieked 
 hysterically, as well they might, at calling such a 
 tour pleasure travel. 
 
 The old capital of the Moguls has great charm 
 in sunshine, and Delhi's main thoroughfare, the 
 Chandni Chauk (Silver Square), was the most bril- 
 liant and spectacular place we had seen. All native 
 life was crowded into that street, which is a contin- 
 uous market-place for a mile, with rainbow crowds 
 of people streaming up and down, buying and selling 
 everything from crown diamonds and jeweled jade 
 to sheepskins and raw meat. The street has run 
 with blood many times, and has been strewn and 
 stacked with corpses. Nadir Shah put one hundred 
 thousand to death, Timur had done worse, and the 
 Mahrattas were the worst of all; so that the 
 butchery after the Mutiny siege of Delhi was but an- 
 other regrettable incident in its history. At the far 
 end of the street towers the red sandstone gateway 
 of Shah Jahan's fort, and driving in under this 
 portal fit for kings and triumphal armies, we found 
 sepoys lounging on charpoys by the guard-house 
 door, tunics unbuttoned, turbans awry and at loose 
 ends, and Moslem shoes hanging from one bare toe 
 —the salts gene of the race undisturbed by the noble 
 
216 WINTER INDIA 
 
 environment or the contrasting presence of the 
 tramping sentry on duty, turbaned and accoutred 
 to perfection, spindle legs wound with smooth put- 
 ties, and the enormous English shoes blacked to a 
 drill-sergeant's dream. Such loungers at the guard- 
 house door are on view at every show fort and 
 palace in India, incongruous, disillusioning, but 
 thereby the real thing. Incongruity is the regular 
 order in India, splendor and shabbiness, dirt and 
 riches, luxury and squalor always going together. 
 We were free to roam the courts and garden spaces 
 of the palace unhindered, from Shah Jahan's open 
 audience-hall, or music-room,' with its panels of 
 Florentine mosaic on black marble ground, to that 
 inner throne-room, the most splendid in the world. 
 This peerless Diwan-i-Khas, one mass of rich deco- 
 ration from the inlaid floor to the golden ceiling, 
 was worthy setting for the Peacock Throne. The 
 renegade Frenchman or Italian who planned the 
 palaces of Shah Jahan, and the skilled workmen 
 brought from all the centers of Mohammedan lux- 
 ury, made the Delhi palace equal in decorative 
 details to the Agra palace and the Taj. "If 
 there is on earth an Eden of bliss, it is this, 
 it is this, it is this," was appropriately inlaid in 
 Persian letters in this throne-room, whose square 
 columns, arches, spandrils, frieze, and moldings 
 are decorated with exquisite pietra dura. A small 
 dais shows where stood the Peacock Throne, that 
 low, square chair completely sheathed in rubies, 
 pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and other stones, the 
 Koh-i-nur one of the peacock's eyes, and a life-sized 
 
DELHI 217 
 
 parrot cut from a single emerald its crowning orna- 
 ment. That fabled emerald parrot, like the so-called 
 emerald Buddha at Bangkok, was undoubtedly noth- 
 ing but a very fine and clear piece of /'ei tsui jade, 
 but it went with all the other loot that Nadir Shah 
 carried away in 1739— loot the value of which 
 amounted to thirty-eight million"* pounds, and which 
 was scattered by the Kurds when he was murdered. 
 India was drained of its riches then, for no good 
 end. After Nadir Shah had gone his way with 
 the Peacock and nine other jeweled thrones, this 
 palace suffered neglect as well as sacking. When 
 Lord Auckland's sisters saw it in 1838, the old 
 King of Delhi sat in a neglected garden, his own 
 dirty soldiers lounged on dirty charpoys in the beau- 
 tiful inlaid bath-rooms, and the precious inlays were 
 being stolen, bit by bit, from the rooms of the 
 princes. One regrets the destruction that fcdlowed 
 the Mutiny, when the zenana and whole labyrinths 
 of guest-rooms were torn away to make space for 
 barracks. Sir James Fergusson has dealt with these 
 destroying British barbarians very thoroughly in 
 "Indian and Eastern Architecture" (Vol. II,p.208), 
 and hands on to immortality the name of Sir John 
 Jones, who tore up the platform of the Peacock 
 Throne and divided it into sections which he sold as 
 table-tops, the pair now in the India Museum at 
 London having fetched him five hundred pounds. 
 
 The audience-halls, the baths, and the rooms 
 around the Diwan-i-Khas were repaired and restored 
 at great expense in preparation for the Prince of 
 Wales's visit in 187G, and close watchfulness has 
 
218 WINTER INDIA 
 
 maintained them in that condition. One can only 
 wish that for completeness' sake a glass copy of the 
 Peacock Throne might be installed in the original's 
 place. Tourists would gladly contribute their annas 
 to that worthy end. 
 
 The Jama Mas j id, the largest and certainly the 
 most imposing mosque in India, lifts its minarets 
 across a great park where troops of great apes race 
 madly, alert for the pious Hindus, whom one often 
 sees ostentatiously feeding them inferior boiled rice, 
 "to acquire merit." The great gateway of the 
 mosque, high on a terraced platform, is second only 
 to Akbar's Gate of Victory, and, opening formerly 
 only for the Mogul emperor, swings widely now 
 when the Viceroy visits it. On Friday mornings 
 ten and twelve thousand people worship there ; in fes- 
 tival times four times as many assemble. The priests 
 are friendly, and in one of the lesser minarets show 
 one richly illuminated copies of the Koran, Moham- 
 med's slipper filled with jasmine blossoms, and finally 
 one henna-red hair from the beard of the Prophet. 
 There is a busy market around the steps of the great 
 gateway on certain days, when grotesque two-story 
 camel-wagons bring in country produce; dealers in 
 poultry hold one side of the terrace steps and bird- 
 fanciers the other. We had eaten mutton-chops 
 from Tuticorin northward, but had never seen a live 
 sheep until we heard its familiar voice by Jama 
 Masjid's steps. But what flocks of goats we had 
 seen in pastures, on country roads and city streets ! 
 "It is poultry," said the bearer as we regarded the 
 fat-tailed sheep with curiosity, his application of 
 
KUTAB MINAK, 
 
DELHI 221 
 
 the word "poultry" meaning tame or domestic as 
 distinguished from "jungle," which defines a wild 
 fowl or animal. "Yes, the peacock is poultry," he 
 answered quickly, but when we inquired about the 
 elephants and camels standing round he hesitated. 
 "Yes. Certainly. The elephant once was jungle, 
 and the camble too ; but now they both are poultry." 
 
 The little Jain temple and the Black Temple of 
 the Hindus are sanctuaries of other Delhi sects, 
 but we forgot conventional sights and the rivalry 
 of religions when we met a wedding procession in 
 the labyrinth of streets in that quarter. The horses 
 wore gold, silver, and jeweled bridles, head-stalls 
 and necklaces to match, and gold-embroidered cloths 
 and trappings. The bridegroom's brother was a 
 dazzling, kincob-clad person, jeweled to distraction, 
 with wreaths and tassels of jasmine covering him 
 from crown to waist, and the bridegroom was twice 
 as splendid. The populace gaped and ran after the 
 cavalcade, and half-naked beggars flocked with ex- 
 tended palms. "Jao! Jao!" said the bridegroom's 
 brother in a voice to make a policeman tremble ; and 
 swish! came his jeweled whip on the bare shoulders 
 of one insistent petitioner. With a yelp of pain and 
 a spiritless whine, the beggar slunk away. 
 
 Delhi remains the center of all Indian art indus- 
 tries. The most skilful jewelers and gem-cutters, 
 painters, carvers, embroiderers, and craftsmen whose 
 creations could tempt the purse or minister to the 
 luxury of the greater and lesser Moguls, have gath- 
 ered there for centuries, and trade habits are but 
 slowly broken. Along Chandni Chauk plump mer- 
 
222 WINTER INDIA 
 
 chants iu snow-white clothes and tiny jeweler's tur- 
 bans invite one to their white, washed, felt-floored 
 inner rooms; and there, treading cat-like in stock- 
 inged feet, they unroll gold and silver embroideries, 
 Kashmir shawls, and " camble 's-hair " stuffs, and 
 cover the last inches of floor space with jewels. 
 Necklaces, girdles, and a queen's ornaments are 
 drawn from battered boxes, scraps of paper, cotton 
 cloth, or old flannel. Nothing seems quite as in- 
 congruous in this land of the misfit and the incon- 
 gruous as the way in which the jewels of a raja 
 are produced from old biscuit-tins, pickle-bottles, 
 and marmalade- jars. One buys the gems of a 
 temple goddess, and they are laid in grimy cotton- 
 wool and packed in rusty little tin boxes of a crudity 
 inconceivable. While on the claim the Klondike 
 miner considers the makeshift of a baking-powder 
 box, as a safe deposit for his nuggets and dust, as 
 a huge joke ; but the Hindu jeweler does it with no 
 sense of the unfitness of things, of relative propri- 
 ety in splendor. "Memsahib does not like tin 
 box? Very well. See!" and the ruby necklace was 
 wrapped in a bit of newspaper, and put in a broken 
 pasteboard box that had held a druggist's pre- 
 scription. When they have covered the floor with 
 their most valuable stuffs, the shopmen walk over 
 them without compunction, pull them here and 
 there, and throw them in heaps into the corners. 
 When this happens several times a day, and the 
 traps are bundled to and from the hotels night and 
 morning, it is small wonder that everything offered 
 one is mussy, wrinkled, and shop-worn. Despite the 
 
DELHI 223 
 
 lures and promises of the toy turban tribe, no 
 important pieces of carved or jeweled jade were 
 seen. To them any green stone was jade, and under 
 that name they brought out serpentine, bowenite, 
 and chloro-melanite — anything soft and easily 
 worked that would look as well. Three generations 
 of one family are no longer employed in carving 
 one jade bowl, as in Mogul times. Art is fleeting 
 now, and the lapidaries want quick sales and as 
 large returns as the tourist's enlightenment permits. 
 One may handle these Delhi jewels by the hour 
 and not see a flawless stone, a spherical pearl, or 
 any string of pearls matched perfectly in size, shape, 
 skin, or luster; and one moves in and breathes such 
 an atmosphere of jewels in Delhi that he soon re- 
 gards precious stones as the usual, serious accom- 
 paniment of daily life. A prosaic tourist, never 
 given to such weaknesses, soon finds himself hanging 
 and haggling over jewels, Buying unset stones and 
 gewgaws to indiscretion. From the earliest break- 
 fast hour to the last home-coming at dusk, and until 
 the train bears him away from the station platform, 
 open jewel-boxes and rows of necklaces spread on 
 cloths or shawl-ends are put before him. Some in- 
 sinuating Lai This or Lai That, with caste-marked 
 brow and tiny turban, is always salaaming and beg- 
 ging him to buy his blue ferozees (turquoises), or 
 necklaces of the nine lucky stones. A tap at the 
 door, and it opens to show a brown face and a tassel 
 of necklaces swinging from a brown hand; and in 
 time the victim is hypnotized by the glittering ob- 
 jects. Thefe is bitter trade rivalry among the jew- 
 
224 WINTER INDIA 
 
 elers and their touts, and one cannot visit the shop 
 or buy of one of the Lais without being denounced 
 and upbraided for partiality by all the other Lais. 
 "Please come my shop. Please buy my shop. I am 
 only honest man. I am poor man," said one oily 
 tongue, putting his fingers to his mouth in dumb 
 show of rice-eating. "Yes, yes," we said to the 
 importunate as we drove away from the hotel, and 
 a fierce-eyed, viperish-looking Hindu made a flying 
 leap to the other step of the carriage and hissed: 
 "Don't go his shop. He is bad man. He cheat. 
 He lie. His ferozees are all glass, chalk. I speak 
 true. I am honest man. I have true stones, I am 
 poor man. Please buy my shop." An emphatic 
 " Jao !" made him drop away from the carriage step. 
 Winding up his loose end of red shawl, he went back 
 to the door-step and squatted there in apparent fra- 
 ternity with the wicked rival — both blood-brothers 
 in lying and cheating, both waiting for fresh prey, 
 the tourist the righteous victim for such swindlers 
 in all countries. 
 
 After much looking and comparing, a friend of 
 that Indian winter bought a ruby necklace, and 
 as she stowed it away in her inside strong pocket 
 her particular Lai said, "Please, ladyship, do not 
 show any one here in Delhi. Let no man know that 
 I have sold, that you have bought my 'niklass. ' 
 Those bad fellows at hotel do something if they 
 know I sell." We strolled for an hour along the 
 Chandni Chauk, when we were met by our servant 
 with a closed carriage and drove to the Ridge. As 
 the horses slowed down for the long hill climb, 
 
DELHI 225 
 
 the box was opened for a look at the new purchase. 
 Hardly had the owner wound it over her hand, 
 when the kincob turban and viper countenance of 
 the rival jeweler was thrust in the open window. 
 There was an ''Ah" of such venomous rage that we 
 screamed in alarm. The head vanished, and this 
 sleuth-hound of jewelers, who had shadowed us all 
 day and clung to the back of the carriage, was seen 
 speeding like a deer back to the city. 
 
 "Oh, I found Delhi so sad, so depressing. All 
 those scenes of the Mutiny, you know— the Kashmir 
 Gate and the Ridge, don't you know. It was so 
 terrible that I was really glad to get away," said 
 an English visitor. The ruby collar and the detec- 
 tive jeweler had put us beyond any depression inci- 
 dent to the visit to the Ridge, familiar as is its his- 
 tory when one has read Lord Roberts's "Forty-one 
 Years in India" and Mrs. Steele's "On the Face of 
 the Waters." At Delhi, too, one feels that there 
 have been too many sieges and reliefs in these later 
 days for the events of 1857 to be dinned into one 
 quite so endlessly. Newspaper readers are all stra- 
 tegical experts now, and they balance and measure 
 the horrors and heroisms of the siege of Delhi against 
 the modern ones; match the storming of the Kash- 
 mir Gate with the glorious storming of the South 
 Gate of Tientsin and of the East Gate of Peking 
 by the Japanese in the China campaign of 1900. 
 
 From the Ridge one looks down upon the great 
 plain where the annual camp of exercise, or the 
 great military manoeuvers, are held each year. The 
 great durbar or Delhi meeting of 1877 was held on 
 
226 WINTER INDIA 
 
 this same plain, when Lord Lytton proclaimed the 
 Queen of England as Empress of India in the pres- 
 ence of all the feudatory princes and an assemblage 
 of more than one hundred thousand people. The 
 plain was the scene also of the greater durbar of 
 1903, when Lord Curzon proclaimed King Edward 
 VII of England as Emperor of India, with a pagean- 
 try and splendor unapproached in modern times, — 
 the most magnificent state ceremony that has ever 
 .been seen. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OLD DELHI 
 
 ^NE gets the full sense of antiquity in 
 driving south from Delhi for eleven 
 miles over a plain strewn with the 
 ruins of seven earlier cities that pre- 
 s:;^^^^^ - ceded this modern Delhi, or Shah Ja- 
 hanabad. Dwellings have crumbled away, but forts 
 and tombs have withstood the ages, and there is a very 
 feast of graveyards all the way to the Kutab minar. 
 Hoariest of all the memorials is the carved stone col- 
 umn of Asoka^240 B.C.), inscribed with the Buddha's 
 precepts against the taking of life, and which stands 
 in Tughlak's ruined fort at Firozabad, At ruined 
 Indrapat are the remains of the lovely inlaid 
 mosque and the tall tower from which the emperor 
 Humayum fell while studying the stars ; and near 
 by is the splendid red sandstone mausoleum erected 
 for him by his widow and his son Akbar. A cen- 
 tury after its erection, this domed tomb of Huma- 
 yum furnished the model for the Taj Mahal, and one 
 quickly notes the main points of resemblance between 
 this massive red building and the white dream at 
 Agra. Ilumayuui's tomb stands upon the same sort 
 of high platform, but lacks the slender minarets 
 
 227 
 
228 WINTER INDIA 
 
 at the corners. The red building and its white 
 marble dome are larger than the more delicately 
 modeled, the more ornate, poetic, and feminine 
 structure at Agra. The last scene of the Mutiny- 
 was played here when Hobson's men overtook Baha- 
 dur Shah, the fugitive Delhi king, and returned the 
 next day for the princes, shot them, and exposed 
 their bodies in the blood-soaked, corpse-strewn 
 Chandni Chauk. Bahadur Shah lived in exile at 
 Rangoon for forty years, and his son, childless and 
 born in exile, a harmless nonentity, was permitted 
 to return to India for the durbar of 1903. 
 
 At Humayum's tomb we left the tree-bordered 
 Muttra road, where camel-wagons and strings of 
 donkeys moved phantom-like through the dusty 
 frost haze : the air so very sharp that one wondered 
 how pipul- and tamarind-trees could retain their 
 foliage. The revel of death and ruins, the feast of 
 tombs and mortuary architecture, continued for 
 miles, the names of the honored dead conveying no 
 idea of personality, having no association of indi- 
 viduality to one, all this past so vague and unfa- 
 miliar that one moralizes, like Omar, on the vanity 
 of man. One at last identifies four tombs— that 
 of Akbar's brother, that of the Chisti saint, that of 
 a Persian poet and that of the unhappy emperor Mo- 
 hammed Shah, last occupant of the Peacock Throne 
 so thoroughly despoiled by Nadir Shah. The saint, 
 who was something of a juggler and miracle-worker, 
 a Mohammedan mahatma, rests in a little white 
 jewel-box of marble, whose red awnings give a 
 comforting color-note to the chill court. The saint 
 
 J 
 
OLD DELHI 229 
 
 built a well guaranteed not to drown any one who 
 leaped into it, and a lean boy in a tattered sheet 
 begged us to see him jump. "One rupee— only 
 one rupee, memsahib. Ek rupia.^^ He fell, anna by 
 anna, to half that price. We shivered in furs to think 
 of a cold plunge in that icy air and keen wind, and 
 finally bargained, in the presence of the priest, to 
 give him six annas if he would go home, put on more 
 clothes, and not jump that day. One crazy foreigner 
 more or less, with notions crazier than the last one, 
 could not disturb a molla ; but as it was past his 
 prophesying what we might not pay six annas for, in 
 the course of our crass philanthropy, he himself con- 
 ducted us about and to the tomb of Khusrau, " the 
 sweet-singing parrot of India, memsahib. ' ' Khusrau 
 was a Turk, but his Persian verses were so beautiful 
 that Sadi made a pilgrimage from Persia to pay hom- 
 age, and to this day all the gild of Delhi musicians 
 and dancers remember him with garlands and bou- 
 quets. In this group of tombs is that of Jahanira, 
 the daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz-i-Mahal, 
 who is a very real personage. Her years of devotion 
 to her blind and captive father, her long life of 
 piety and goodness, dying unmarried at the age of 
 sixty-seven, warranted her burial in the Taj Mahal, 
 or the Jama Mas j id at Agra, built especially for her, 
 rather than with that mixed but interesting com- 
 pany in the suburbs of Delhi. 
 
 The most beautiful tomb of them all is that of 
 Mirza Jahangir, Akbar's son,— a platform of white 
 marble supporting a white marble screen, with heavy 
 doors of marble carved in low relief, likewise the 
 
230 
 
 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lintels, cornice, and base— a dream of decoration, a 
 symphony in white. Near by is another arrange- 
 ment in white marble in low relief and latticework 
 surrounding unhappy Mohammed, once the wearer 
 of the Koh-i-nur and occupant of the Peacock 
 Throne, who concealed the great diamond in his 
 turban and then was courteously invited to change 
 turbans by Nadir Shah. If ever death had beautiful 
 and artistic recompense, "it is here, it is here, it is 
 here," surely. Remembering the monstrosities of 
 monuments and mausoleums in our Western grave- 
 yards, the broken columns, cremation urns, and mis- 
 applied Greek vase shapes that make our cemeteries 
 places of horror, one wishes that committees on 
 American public monuments and memorials might 
 study these Indian tombs. Akbar's brother has also 
 a marble sarcophagus carved in finest lacework, that 
 rests under a great open pavilion, a marble canopy 
 supported by sixty-four carved columns. While we 
 stood enthusiastic by this exquisite tomb, comparing 
 it with the domed sentry-box by the Hudson where 
 lies America's greatest soldier, a piercing wail arose. 
 A lone turban on a near roof was waving a yak-tail 
 in air as the voice wailed so dismally. Soon black 
 specks in the furthest sky defined themselves as hur- 
 rying bird-shapes, hovered like gigantic butterflies 
 directly between us and the zenith sun, and whirled 
 in prismatic beauty to our feet, a homing flock of 
 pigeons. Like foot-soldiers, these winged creatures 
 obeyed the voice and signals of their keeper, went 
 through their evolutions, and caught the grain 
 thrown in air. Afterward we recognized the pigeon- 
 
I)1:TA1L of KUTAIi JIINAK. 
 
OLD DELHI 233 
 
 keeper's frequent cry from Delhi roofs, and watched 
 obedient flocks circle and wheel at the will of in- 
 visible owners. 
 
 After five miles of temples, tombs, and graves we 
 had had our fill of mortuary constructions, and, to 
 the consternation of the bearer, refused to descend 
 for Safdar Jang's tomb. "What, memsahib! Not 
 see Safdar Jang? Everybody must see. Very nice 
 tomb. Three-story place, that tomb. Gentries al- 
 ways go see that tomb." But we were obdurate. 
 Safdar Jang was only the unlucky vizier of an in- 
 conspicuous Somebody Shah, and Fergusson had 
 said that the mausoleum would ''not bear close in- 
 spection." 
 
 All this time we were conscious of a slender, dark 
 lance lifted against the sky-line. It was what we 
 had come so far to see — the Kutab minar, one of the 
 seven great sights of India, and certainly the most 
 beautiful tower in the world. It grew as we ad- 
 vanced, until each angle, balcony, and band of let- 
 tering on its three red sandstone sections declared 
 itself, and the flat, white marble sections at the sum- 
 mit were merged in inconspicuous perspective. This 
 remarkable Kutab is emphatically such a departure 
 from all the round or square towers ever seen that 
 one has no wish to consider how it might have looked 
 if constructed of one material throughout, or if the 
 bands of ornament, the balconies, and the honey- 
 comb work had been omitted. It is so richly deco- 
 rated, it is itself so decorative, that at moments it 
 seems as if it were only the fancy of a season, a mere 
 World's Fair fantasy in staff or stucco, instead of a 
 
234 WINTER INDIA 
 
 solidly built tower that has stood there for a thou- 
 sand years, enduring earthquakes and sieges, and 
 restorations by the later Moguls. One has to mount 
 the roof of the mosque and see the great shaft at the 
 level of its lowest bands of ornament to realize its 
 size and the beauty and sharpness of those bold let- 
 ters. One willingly traverses rubbish-heaps to do 
 homage to the builder, Kutab-uddin, the Pathan 
 ruler, who rose from slavery to the throne, and who, 
 before the completion of his Tower of Victory, was 
 laid away. One feels a personal loss and depriva- 
 tion, too, that Ala-uddin, two centuries later, did 
 not finish his great minaret, which would have re- 
 peated the Kutab on larger lines, and mounted five 
 hundred feet in air, — twice the height of the Kutab, 
 — the entire surface faced with carved stones. View- 
 ing the Kutab at close range and from afar, one re- 
 members pityingly the campaniles and giraldas, obe- 
 lisks, spires, and pinnacles of the West. They used 
 to do this thing so much better in India. 
 
 The Kutab is so entirely the thing at Old Delhi, 
 that one lags in enthusiasm over the mosque, with 
 its ruined arches and its hundred carved columns, 
 spoil of Buddhist and Jain temples that the Pathans 
 destroyed. To-day interest in the mosque court cen- 
 ters in the wrought-iron column, whose Sanskrit 
 inscription dates back to the first century of our era. 
 Native tourists flock to it as the great sight, and 
 believe that if one reaches around the column back- 
 ward and touches his hands together, good luck will 
 follow him. The tomb of Altamsh, who built the 
 mosque, and the one remaining gate of the court 
 
OLD DELHI 235 
 
 declare the scale of ornamentation that once covered 
 all these crumbled walls and arches. Every inch of 
 the roofless tomb is covered with carved ornament,— 
 inscriptions, traceries, arabesques, and geometrical 
 designs— the most ornamented mausoleum in India. 
 
 In the chilly, whitewashed vaults of the rest- 
 house in the shadow of the Kutab, with dusty 
 chicks to exclude any pernicious sunshine, we shiv- 
 ered over the cold, cold tiffin we had brought with us. 
 Not hot bouillion nor hot chocolate could mitigate 
 the death chill of that interior, or our interiors, and 
 we hastened to drive with the wind four miles to the 
 tomb of Tughlak. That massive, fortress-like place, 
 of characteristic Egyptian solidity, was in extreme 
 contrast to the highly ornamented tombs we had 
 been seeing all day. The sloping walls and the en- 
 tire absence of ornament came as a surprise, but the 
 Pathan emperor has the ideal warrior's tomb. A 
 crumbling wall half screens the ruins of his de- 
 serted capital of Tughlakabad, within which Tugh- 
 lak 's fortress is as Egyptian as his suburban tomb. 
 
 Some street-dancers pleaded with us at the hotel 
 door, followed around and tapped on our windows, 
 and we relented and moved the tea-table to the ter- 
 race, where it was really warmer than in the house. 
 The two women, in cheap cottons and cheap jew- 
 elry, posed and whirled to a monotonous measure 
 beaten on a skin drum. One woman gracefully car- 
 ried a tiny child on her hip, or set it down on the 
 cold flags, where it played contentedly with its fin- 
 gers. Both dancers wore voluminous accordion- 
 plaited skirts of red cotton, with yellow head-sheets 
 
236 WINTER INDIA 
 
 patterned in red, and they were covered, as with 
 breastplates, by many silver-coin necklaces. One 
 dancer was a tall, sinuous creature, with a mark- 
 edly Jewish or Egyptian face, who did the serpen- 
 tine dance of Cairo cafes, and bent backward to pick 
 up a rupee from the ground with her eyelids. 
 Every step was marked by the jingle and clash of 
 her bracelets and anklets, and this serpent of old 
 Jumna, after one lively measure, paused and spread 
 out her crinkled draperies in great butterfly- wings 
 behind her in a "Loie Fuller pose" as old as Delhi. 
 We had lamps and more lamps brought, eyes and 
 turbans uncounted gathered in the dusk, and, in- 
 spired by native approval and tourist rupees, the 
 skirt dance went on through many figures. 
 
 We sent runners to find them the next morn- 
 ing. We wanted them to dance at noon, that we 
 might turn a battery of kodaks upon them. "Those 
 are very poor, common dancers," said the bearer, 
 scornfully. "I will get very splendid nautches, in 
 silk and kincob saris and very splendid jewels, in 
 'niklasses' and 'griddles' of rubies and pearls." 
 But we wanted only those same dancers in their 
 cheap clothes and silver necklaces and girdles; and 
 it took insistence to get them. They came; and in 
 the sunlight their silver and glass, brass and lac jew- 
 elry were as gems, and our enthusiasm was greater 
 than that of the night before. They danced their 
 best, held their poses interminably for the time ex- 
 posures, and we reeled film away so recklessly that 
 the hotel manager said: "Oh, madam, if you have 
 so many plates to spare, won't you take my baby?" 
 
^^':hm 
 
 o* 
 
 sti;ket daxceks, df.liii. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 LAHORE 
 
 VEN the Delhi bullocks were blanketed 
 the day we left for Lahore and the 
 farther, colder Northwest. We had 
 bought more and more razais as we 
 went up-country, until the bichauna, 
 or rolls of traveling bedding, would barely pass 
 through a car door, and, finally, yards of heavy pash- 
 mina cloth to wind around us in makeshift Indian 
 fashion. The memorial Mutiny cross, standing high 
 on the Ridge, was the last seen of Delhi; and there 
 followed a few wayside stations with shivering plat- 
 form groups, an uninteresting sunset over a dusty, 
 barren plain; dinner at Saharanpur, and merciful 
 darkness, while we jolted on until five o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 It was dark night when we were whirled through 
 Lahore's frosty streets, to find warm rooms with 
 real coal fires in open grates. We reappeared with the 
 latest British breakfasters at the long table d'hote, 
 and in the city of his youth we found a whole table 
 full of Kipling characters— English army people 
 and civil servants. We could almost call them all 
 by name, and life at that hotel was a continuous 
 
 239 
 
240 WINTER INDIA 
 
 dramatization of stories known by heart. What a 
 company they were ! And how they denied their 
 maker, or portrait-painter, when we said Kipling to 
 them! There was the major's wife, fat, brune, and 
 long past forty, wrinkles drawn in lines of pearl 
 powder around her eyes and under her chin. She 
 wore a youthful sailor-hat, a frizzed front, and a 
 Bath bun, and had all the kittenish ways of sweet 
 sixteen. Her most devoted cavalier, in a cloud of 
 attentive subalterns, was a callow blond, young 
 enough to be her grandson ; and if there had been no 
 one else in the hotel, we should have had entertain- 
 ment enough in the kitten-play of this elderly 
 charmer. When not making eyes and simpering at 
 her courtiers, she queened it over the ''lef tenants' " 
 and captains' wives, and was inclined to snub a 
 commissioner's daughter. She looked us over criti- 
 cally through a lorgnette, just as we had stared at 
 the tigers and chetahs at the Zoo, and put to us 
 those direct British questions that the rural Yankee 
 cannot match. Having disclosed our relationships, 
 our nationality, our past and future itinerary, and 
 explained the other tourists as far as we knew 
 them, we reversed the situation in Li Hung Chang 
 fashion, and interviewed the interviewer. It always 
 touches the sensitive nerve and presses the button of 
 Anglo-Indian loquacity to mention Kipling, and 
 away went the major's lady like a steeplechaser 
 when we said that Lahore only meant Kipling to 
 us. "No one in India reads Kipling," she said im- 
 pressively. "We do not esteem him at aU. He does 
 not tell the truth about anything. Why, he was a 
 
LAHORE 241 
 
 very common, low sort of person here. He only- 
 associated with the 'Tommies,' as you see by his 
 books— all full of things about the sergeants' and 
 the soldiers' wives and their class. Of course, as he 
 never associated with ladies, or went with the nice 
 chaps of the regiments, how could he know anything 
 about society, about Government House, or the 
 Simla sets? Why, in that ridiculous story—" and 
 she told me in detail how he had it all wrong about 
 the Gadsbj^s, the Hauksbees, and others ; for she knew 
 some people who were in Simla that year, and it was 
 this way, etc., etc. In fact, all those ancient and 
 historic scandals were degrees worse than Kipling 
 makes them out; for the Anglo-Indians allow no 
 imagination to the novelist, every tale must be iden- 
 tified with some real event in their own experience. 
 As to whether Kipling truly delineated native char- 
 acter— "Dear me, how should I know anything 
 about the nasty creatures! As if we paid any at- 
 tention to them ! Government has schools and does 
 altogether too much for them, anyhow." And then 
 the memsahib, who of course did not speak Hindu- 
 stani, who never came in contact with native women 
 of any but the servant class, and who fitted exactly 
 into the situation that Mrs. Steele upbraids, de- 
 nounced that champion of the native people. It was 
 quite like the Creoles of New Orleans and Mr. Cable ; 
 but having heard Macaulay berated, Max Miiller 
 scoffed at, and Sir William Hunter denounced, it 
 was taken with many grains of salt. 
 
 More interesting than anything inside the La- 
 hore Museum is the fine old bronze cannon before its 
 
242 WINTER INDIA 
 
 door— the Sikhs cherished Zamzamah, a national 
 trophy glorified to them by history and legend, and 
 immortalized to all English-speaking people as the 
 gun bestrode by Kim the Rishti, when the Lama 
 first appeared to him. The rich collections in the 
 "wonder-house" were assembled and arranged by 
 the elder Kipling, the white-bearded curator whom 
 the Lama met there. Its unique treasures are the 
 Greco-Buddhist sculptures which General Cunning- 
 ham found on the site of the ancient Gandhara 
 (modem Peshawar), capital of the Scythian empire 
 when Buddhism was the state religion— majestic 
 statues of Gautama as priest and prince, and bas- 
 reliefs as exquisite as the Alexander sarcophagus. 
 The arts of later India are well shown, and fine old 
 carved and inlaid doors, panels, balconies, window 
 latticings, and house-fronts serve as models for the 
 students of the art school which J. L. Kjpling 
 founded and directed to such successful degree be- 
 fore he left India. Copies of these old carvings are 
 sold at prices that torment the American, who, after 
 paying their cost and transportation, nearly must 
 pay for them over again at his home custom-house, 
 in order to protect steam furniture-factories. Sil- 
 ver, brass- and copper-work, lacquers, potteries, tex- 
 tiles, and embroideries from the Panjab are gathered 
 there, and the model of the Koh-i-nur has pathetic 
 interest in Lahore, its last home. In January the 
 stone walls and stone floors of the museum create 
 an ice-edged- atmosphere more benumbing than the 
 death-dealing chill of the Lateran galleries in Rome, 
 and one soon flees from it. 
 
LAHORE 243 
 
 The toml) of Anarkali, given first place in the 
 guide-book, and warranted the most interesting thing 
 in Lahore, drew us to the domed white building, in 
 turn occupied as the English civilian church and as 
 local offices, Anarkali, pretty "Pomegranate Blos- 
 som," was one of Akbar's wives, and, being seen 
 to smile .when Akbar's son, Jahangir, entered the 
 harem, was buried alive. Akbar held the trial after 
 the execution, and must have had a very bad con- 
 science, judging from the beauty of the little mau- 
 soleum and the white marble sarcophagus, covered 
 every inch with the finest ornament and lettering 
 in relief. It is a thing to be kept under glass and 
 shown as the chief treasure of a museum ; but Brit- 
 ish officialdom has shoved it aside, out from under 
 the center of its dome, to an alcove where we pur- 
 sued it around desks and braziers and wooden chairs, 
 a babu in woolen neck-comforter obligingly lifting 
 a heap of papers that we might see all the sculptured 
 surface. Throughout Lahore splendid Moslem 
 tombs were turned to practical use after British 
 occupation. Even Government House was adapted 
 from the tomb of Akbar's cousin, with additions to 
 meet later requirements. When such desecration be- 
 gan, the angry Mohammedans foretold death within 
 a year to all such vandals, and when any prophet's 
 reputation was at stake he took care that poison, as 
 a last resort, should verify his forecast. The Bengali 
 babus perched on high stools around the mauso- 
 leum were amused at our indignant comments. No- 
 thing could please them more than any affronts to 
 Mohammedan prejudices or sensibilities, and the 
 
244 WINTER INDIA 
 
 hatred between the men of the two religions is 
 something one slowly realizes. The Mohammedan 
 despises the Hindu and his sacred cow, and loves to 
 kill and eat the peacock, while, in return, the Hindu 
 delights in defiling Mohammedan precincts with the 
 loathed dog and pig; and in Lahore the Sikhs are 
 against both religions and have long scores to settle. 
 In ''On the City Walls," Kipling shows the tur- 
 moil accompanying any religious festival. The Mo- 
 hammedan deeply hates the babu, but until the re- 
 cent establishment of the Aligarh College had made 
 no effort to put forward Mohammedan youth as rival 
 to the glib Bengali in preparing for public service. 
 The street crowds of Lahore were more pictur- 
 esque even than those of Delhi. A different type of 
 man had appeared overnight, or rather the occa- 
 sional whiskered giants seen on the Chandni Chauk 
 were here universal— more beard, more turban, 
 yards and yards more cloth in the baggy trousers 
 and shoulder shawls. The long coats of the Persians, 
 the flaring, crossed Chinese coat of Turkestan and 
 Tibet appeared, and there were stray Afghans, too, 
 picturesque and ferocious giants, wearing peaked tur- 
 bans, sheepskin coats, and striped shoulder shawls. 
 When we had left the orderly civil lines and had 
 gone through the city gates, we entered the land 
 of the Arabian Nights, more of color, incident, and 
 picturesqueness to be seen in the bazaars of Lahore 
 than anywhere else in India. Queer, ramshackle 
 houses towered along the narrow streets, some fres- 
 coed in colors, their fronts broken by balconies, log- 
 gias, bay-windows, and latticings of dark, caryed 
 
LAHORE 247 
 
 wood, with flat roofs and parapets at every elevation 
 —roofs that Kim ran over, roofs where the women 
 gasped in "The City of Dreadful Night"; for, al- 
 though Lahore is so far north, it is one of the hottest 
 places in summer,— Meean Mir cantonment the ac- 
 knowledged "oven of India," where epidemics al- 
 ways rage their worst. 
 
 All Lahore was raufiSed and bundled in cotton 
 clothes and brilliant chuddas, and all sought the 
 sun that crisp, frosty morning, until the streets held 
 a living, moving rainbow mass and every shop-front 
 seemed set for color effect. Women in gay head- 
 sheets and children in satin jackets sunned them- 
 selves in window-frames of dark-brown fretted wood- 
 work; and Mohammedan women in white cloaks 
 falling full from round crown-pieces, with latticed 
 holes for the eyes, wandered in the brilliant company, 
 giving it still more the air of a fancy-dress ball. The 
 carnival crowds, moving against such fantastic back- 
 ground, made one listen for slow music to accom- 
 pany this stately spectacular march. It seemed as 
 though the Lahore bazaars were but painted wings, 
 drops, and flies, the crowds one well-drilled theatri- 
 cal troupe— a continuous performance kept up for 
 our benefit. All the industries were picturesque, 
 every shop decorative, and we stood fascinated, 
 to watch the baker reaching down into the deep mud 
 oven with a hooked wire and bringing out pancake 
 loaves of bread; the dyer stirring his vats, wring- 
 ing out lengths of cloth and festooning them over 
 the front of his shop ; the printer, next door, stamp- 
 ing block patterns on turban ends, and the Kash- 
 
248 WINTER INDIA 
 
 miri men and boys, cross-legged in alcoves, em- 
 broidering gold turban ends or fine shawl borders. 
 One Kashmiri in purple satin jacket and a yellow 
 turban worked with gold wire, while a small boy 
 in a sleeveless red jacket and a woman in a head- 
 sheet of vivid pink looked on. Heaps of oranges 
 and pale bananas, red Kashmiri apples, and green 
 Kabul grapes made set color studies on every fruit- 
 stand. The dried-sweetmeat shops were as rich in 
 combinations of browns and tawny orange, and the 
 curry-shops were as satisfying with their strands 
 of red peppers and baskets of red, white, yellow, 
 brown, and greenish meal. Candy-sellers crouched 
 in the open with trays of sticky sweets, beseeching 
 us to keep our shadows away. Having thus defiled a 
 tray of gujack, we bought it and found many idlers 
 willing to eat the defiled sesame brittle, made of 
 sesame seeds, sorghum syrup, seedless raisins, al- 
 mond meal, and crescents of thin cocoanut strips, 
 the rich "fudge" rolled out in a thin pancake over 
 a foot in diameter. Silk-shops, brass- and pottery- 
 shops, gem-cutters' and shoemakers' dens, were all 
 decorative and interesting. The tea-shops, with 
 steaming samovars, were significant of the dreaded 
 Russian advance and influence. The red beans of 
 New England and pop-corn had a familiar look even 
 in such strange environment. 
 
 After a revel in this living picturesqueness we 
 went ruefully back to conventional sight-seeing and 
 did the Jama Masjid, with its superb inlaid arches, 
 and saw the relics of the Prophet. We saw Run- 
 jeet Singh's tomb, its carved doors and gay mirror 
 
LAHORE 249 
 
 and plaster interior, where Sikh priests shouted 
 from the sacred books, waved peacock feathers, and 
 threw jasmine garlands over us. We saw also Ak- 
 bar's fort and palace— tawdry and flat after the 
 splendors of Delhi ; our fancy arrested by the inlaid 
 hall known as the Naulahka, name also of a quar- 
 ter of the outer city of Lahore. When the Sikhs 
 captured Lahore they wreaked themselves on these 
 halls of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, and the British 
 barrack-builder has done the rest. The Scotch cor- 
 poral who showed us through dwelt mostly on some 
 finely damascened and grained guns, chain-mail, 
 swords, and Sikh knives in the armory. In one 
 pavilion the fantastic mirror and plaster walls were 
 crying aloud at some hideous European carpets and 
 furniture— the rankest of ''Tottenham Court Road 
 furniture. ' ' Small wonder that the Viceroy exhorted 
 the Indian princes to patronize their own craftsmen 
 when it came to palace furnishings. This pavilion 
 commands a fine view out over the parapet of the 
 city wall to the park below, with the blue windings 
 of the Ravi beyond distant trees; but the best-re- 
 membered palace sight was a Sikh sergeant's wife, 
 who was a walking jewel-show, covered from crown 
 to ringed toe with such an array of ornaments as 
 one might expect an emperor's favorite to wear. We 
 expressed our thanks for the pleasure of seeing her, 
 to the amusement of the Scot and the pride of the 
 Sikh proprietor of the jeweled jade. 
 
 After a hasty tiffin with the Kipling crowd, who 
 were full bent on the regimental tea and polo-match 
 of the afternoon, we took a hastier look at the un- 
 
250 WINTER INDIA 
 
 usual animals of the '4ion and tiger museum," 
 where the most remarkable sight was a monkey hold- 
 ing a looking-glass that it might see to pick its 
 teeth and prick its throat with a dangerous-looking 
 darning-needle. We hastened back to the native 
 ci^, and from the time we left the ' ' Europe shops ' ' 
 and the avenue of trees with shabby tram-cars jin- 
 gling by and penetrated the city gate, we moved 
 in an ideal East, an Arabian Nights' revel of Mo- 
 hammedan picturesqueness. The half-mile bazaar 
 between Vazir Khan's and the Golden Mosque is 
 the heart of Lahore, all the people and trades of 
 the Panjab being exhibited there. In that narrow 
 lane between the balconied houses, where every win- 
 dow flaunted some flaming turban or shawl, and 
 each alcove shop was set for theatrical effect and 
 overflowed to the street, there moved the same bril- 
 liantly costumed company of the morning. All pic- 
 turesqueness and color centered in greatest intensity 
 at the gateway of the Yazir Khan Mosque, single 
 figures and groups in tableaux tempting the kodak, 
 until we feared we should have no more film left 
 after Lahore. Before that glorious portal, its fa- 
 cade a dream of soft old Persian tiles, there con- 
 gregated barbers, beggars, peddlers, money-chang- 
 ers, letter-writers, and smithies, prostrate bullocks, 
 venders of fat-tailed sheep, donkeys loaded with 
 vegetables, hawkers, idlers, and busy people of every 
 kind. "Remove thy heart from the gardens of the 
 world, and know that this building is the true abode 
 of man," is written in slender letters on the blue 
 and green Persian tiles of the mosque front; and 
 
LAHORE 263 
 
 a legion of beggars have taken the Vazir at his 
 word, lounging on the steps and in sunny corners 
 all day, and sleeping at night in the quiet court over- 
 looked by two minarets. Professional menders sit 
 patching rags as though waiting for kodaks to come 
 that way, and a balcony off the cloister overlooks the 
 busy street, exactly as an opera-box commands less 
 spectacular effects. 
 
 There was a sound like the chirp of many birds, 
 and a school-teacher led three hundred small boys 
 into the court. Each youngster put his books, coat, 
 shoes, and turban-cloth in a heap, and knelt by the 
 tank to bathe hands and feet before prayer. The 
 teacher patrolled the lines with a stick, trouncing 
 a laggard here and thrashing a boy there into the 
 line and order of piety. When the unruly and rest- 
 less flock were purified, a leader among them gave a 
 call, and all filed in under the arches and prostrated 
 themselves on the inlaid floor, facing westward to 
 Mecca. One small turban explained to us that they 
 came there every day to ''pray to God," and the 
 pious scamp showed me on the last leaf of his school- 
 book: "In the name of God, the Most Merciful, this 
 is my book. The property of Hassan Khan. Do 
 not steal." 
 
 When we had seen the three gilded bubble domes 
 of the Golden Mosque reflected in the tank of its 
 white court, and the Hindus going through their 
 purification rites at the temple by the bo-tree, the 
 bearer was for carrying us back through the Delhi 
 Gate to the silver-shops and Europe shops and the 
 shops for Kashmir work and Bokhara silks, to 
 
254 WINTER INDIA 
 
 hunt for green slippers with seed-pearl toes, for 
 Peshawar shoes woven of strips of leather on models 
 used by Alexander the Great's shoemaker— to hunt 
 for Yarkand jade and Ladak turquoises, but our 
 interest in such shops was gone. "Drive back," we 
 said; and, repassing the mosque, we threaded again 
 all those brilliant bazaars, were blocked in a narrow 
 lane by a funeral, and came out finally on a common 
 by the fort, where men and boys were flying kites. 
 A crowd was jeering and cheering the fliers, and 
 one bearded parent soundly boxed his son's ears 
 when he bungled in launching his paper shield. 
 "Drive back," and we worked slowly again to the 
 Delhi Gate, where the crowds had even increased. 
 Once more we threaded the brilliant labyrinth and 
 saw the kite-fliers reel in their chargers. A spec- 
 tacular sunset fired the sky, and when for the fifth 
 time we traversed the narrow lanes, they were lanes 
 of twinkling enchantment, every window and alcove 
 carrying its kerosene-lamp and torches flaring by 
 the Vazir Khan. The frosty air was laden with the 
 bazaar's mixed smell of raw sugar, incense, spices, 
 grease, and wood smoke, and only a dinner-company 
 of Kipling 's own could have drawn us away. 
 
 It was almost a surprise the next morning to find 
 the streets, the shops, the crowds, the tiled front 
 of the mosque all there, to find Lahore bazaars solid 
 realities, and not dreams. We saw Shalimar Gar- 
 dens, the triple-terraced home of the nightingale, 
 once an imperial pleasure-ground, arranged like one 
 seen in dreams, but now a rather dusty, dreary place 
 of formal flower-beds, fountains, marble cascades, 
 
LAHORE 255 
 
 and canals, that becomes a palace garden of enchant- 
 ment when illuminated for viceregal functions. More 
 interesting was the drive to the Ravi and across 
 a bridge of boats, where the passage of bullock-carts 
 and trains of donkeys was regulated by the bridge- 
 keeper 's drum-beats. We found Jahangir's tomb 
 deep down in a square marble terrace in another 
 formal garden, where orange-trees hung full of fruit 
 and flower-beds were masses of bloom. This son of 
 Akbar, the reputed Christian, who at least wore a 
 rosary and was so bad a Moslem that he drank to 
 inebriety, spent his summers in the Vale of Kashmir 
 with his clever Persian wife, Nur Jahan,— Nur Ma- 
 hal, the Harem's Pride, told of in "Lalla Rookh,"and 
 who seems a very real personage. He is laid away 
 in an octagonal chamber deep down in a solid square 
 terrace, in such a cenotaph as rivals that of Anar- 
 kali. Instead of white relief carving, Jahangir's 
 sarcophagus is inlaid, quite the most beautiful piece 
 of pietra dura that I had seen. Flowers and ara- 
 besques are inlaid with large pieces of amethyst, 
 lapis, jade, and carnelian, and the ninety-nine 
 names of Allah in fine black marble letters sur- 
 round the sarcophagus. Runjeet Singh despoiled the 
 tomb of its upper pavilions and marble pavement, 
 but the British have repaved and restored the ter- 
 race—and viceregal tea-tables are now spread di- 
 rectly over the body of Jahangir, and all is as gay 
 as when he made it a feast-place before his death. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 
 
 j|T was a damp and dreary, a raw and 
 chilly afternoon when we drove away 
 from Kipling's people and waited for 
 an hour in that drafty, echoing for- 
 tress — the Lahore railway station. 
 The Northern Eailway across the Pan jab, l)eing a 
 government line, is subject to delays and alterations 
 of schedule to suit special needs, and the red car- 
 pets at hand for the arrival of the "h. G." of the 
 Pan jab on the following afternoon promised greater 
 delays had we deferred our start. As all first-class 
 cars are run at a loss on Indian railways, we could 
 not complain at the usual forlorn conveyance; but 
 the rattling window-panes of blue or violet glass, 
 admitting the chill, actinic light, made the shabby 
 car drearier and dingier than usual, and seemed to 
 add degrees of cold to the air. The bleak and stony 
 yellow plain, like the sage-brush and alkali wastes 
 of Nevada, looked snow-covered through these tinted 
 glasses, and the cold, blue, depressing light finally 
 suggested the experiments made with invalids, luna- 
 tics, and plants at the time of the blue-glass craze 
 
 256 
 
 I 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 257 
 
 and cure of so long ago. It was impossible to read 
 in the jolting carriage, and we could only draw rugs 
 and razais ab'out us and watch the drear landscape 
 roll by as the trucks thundered over the dusty road- 
 bed. The groups on station platforms grew more 
 pinched and more uncomfortable-looking, with cot- 
 ton clothes more and more voluminous in cut, and 
 streaming with more and more loose ends of extra 
 drapery, as we ran on through the frosty, hazy glow 
 of a sudden yellow sunset that, glorifying the white 
 peaks of Kashmir, faded quickly to a green and a 
 hyacinthine sky, and then to the blackness of winter 
 night. 
 
 The one weary lamp in the carriage did not give 
 light enough for us to read and lay to heart the 
 several framed ordinances which the government 
 railway holds up to travelers. Evidently there is 
 a "dog question" in British India equal to the 
 ''cow question" in the Hindu and Mohammedan 
 circles. "His Excellency the Governor-General in 
 Council" had first to rule: 
 
 DOGS IN CARRIAGES 
 
 Passengers will not be allowed to take any dog into a pas- 
 senger carriage, except with the permission of the Station Master 
 at the starting station, and also with the consent of their fellow 
 passengers, and then only on payment of a double fare for each 
 dog, subject to the condition that it shall be removed if subse- 
 quently objected to, no refund being given. This rule does not 
 apply to dogs conveyed in reserved compartments, or carriages, 
 or in private special trains. The number of dogs to be taken 
 into a reserved compartment must not exceed three. 
 
 14 
 
25a WINTER INDIA 
 
 And again it was intimated to the public in the 
 formal phrase of a viceregal ball- or dinner-card, 
 by a secretary, who said : 
 
 I am directed to state that His Excellency the Governor- 
 General in Council considers it desirable in the interest of the 
 travelling public to rule that in future no person shall be allowed 
 to take any dog into a passenger carriage, except with the con- 
 sent of the Station Master at starting station and also with the 
 concurrence of the fellow passengers. 
 
 At sunrise the next morning we saw the blue 
 range of the Hindu Kush with a sprinkling of snOw 
 on its sharp crest-lines, and the same dreary, dry, 
 stony plain around us, broken only by a few clay 
 bluffs and the gullied watercourses of the rainy sea- 
 son. The air was thin, sharp, and frosty as we low- 
 ered the rattling blue window-panes for a look at the 
 forlorn adobe village on the banks, and the great 
 fortified bridge across the Indus at Attock— Attock! 
 the ford and crossing-place of every invader and 
 conqueror from the North since Aryan times ; where 
 every one of them camped and fought,— Egyptian, 
 Persian, Greek, Scythian, Afghan, and Mogul, down 
 to Nadir Shah. "When the train had trailed slowly 
 across the high iron girders and passed through an- 
 other great fortress bridge-tower, it turned sharply 
 and ran along the bank, giving us a view of the 
 great picturesque front of Akbar's fort on the oppo- 
 site bluff. Except for that imposing battlemented 
 castle and fortified bridge, the muddy river, the 
 banks, the stony plain, and the blue mountain-range 
 showing so clearly in the thin, dry air, might as well 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 259 
 
 have been the country of the upper Missouri; but 
 this plain between the Indus and the Safed Koh has 
 been a world's battle-ground for more than two thou- 
 sand years, and history is written on top of history 
 like records on a palimpsest. Here at the Indus 
 has always been the virtual frontier of India, the 
 river drawing a natural line from the Himalayas 
 down to the Persian Gulf; but, once advancing 
 here to a valley and there to a range, the frontier 
 has crept westward and northward, and is still ever- 
 moving, changing, and elusive. 
 
 At Khairabad station, facing Attock, the early 
 morning tea-table was ready on the platform, and 
 muffled figures bore trays of steaming cups to the 
 car windows, while benumbed travelers surrounded 
 the tall samovar. The wildest lot of turbaned and 
 disheveled folk, some in sheepskin coats and some 
 wound over and looped up with unmanageable yards 
 and yards of loose cotton clothing and loaded down 
 with strange saddle-bags, bundles, water-jars, and 
 hubble-bubble pipes, were already waiting when the 
 train drew up. When the third-class passengers, 
 who had been packed to standing-room all night, 
 were bundled out and added to this waiting crowd 
 while a fresh train was made up, there was spec- 
 tacle indeed, local color too, and such an uproar as 
 threatened the demolition of the Indian Empire— 
 or at least the sacking of the train and the raz- 
 ing of Khairabad station. The whole traveling pub- 
 lic had changed overnight to the fierce Afghan type, 
 which had been so picturesque when first seen in the 
 bazaars of Lahore; and the vehement giants, tui'- 
 
260 WINTER INDIA 
 
 baned and bearded to exaggeration, ramped up and 
 down the platform with bare feet thrust in loose, 
 clattering Mohammedan shoes, shouldering and hus- 
 tling one another in no gentle way. Despite the 
 clamor and the crowding, as so many desperate 
 tribesmen stormed and carried each third-class car- 
 riage and filled every cubic inch of its space with 
 their own superfluous size and belongings, the train 
 finally drew away, leaving the platform full of left- 
 over passengers— ''huge, black-haired, scowling sons 
 of Ben-i-Israel, " who raged aloud in their wrath, 
 until one felt sure the station-master must barri- 
 cade himself and the great guns of Attoek thunder 
 across the river before the uproar would subside. 
 These tall, hairy, and noisy creatures, with peaked 
 Afghan caps within their striped turban-cloths, were 
 far removed from the soft and supple Hindus we 
 had left in the South, unlike even the bearded Sikhs 
 at Lahore. We had journeyed overnight to another 
 country, had come again to a blue-eyed people, to 
 the pale Aryans of the Northwest, to a race of wea- 
 ther-beaten and ruddy-cheeked mountaineers, to the 
 Pathans of Kipling's tales— tales so true, pictures 
 so clearly painted, that one recognizes these hairy 
 giants as fascinating old acquaintances, characters 
 in fiction come to life. 
 
 Crossing more of the same dreary, yellow plain, 
 and nearing the mountain barrier, the train at last 
 ran by the mud walls of a mud city in a mud plain, 
 —Peshawar, Akbar's "frontier city," the extreme 
 northern outpost of the Indian Empire ; nineteen 
 hundred miles from Cape Comorin and two bun- 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 261 
 
 dred and seventy-eight miles from Lahore— the lat- 
 ter distance covered by fast-mail train in seventeen 
 hours. The storied mud walls of the city were like 
 adobe pueblos, and the same dry and treeless plain, 
 dry, thin atmosphere, and glaring white sunlight of 
 the American Southwest blinded us as we drove from 
 the end of the track at the cantonment station to the 
 drooping roses and poinsettias in the dusty gardens 
 of the dak bangla. 
 
 By previous correspondence with the commis- 
 sioner at Peshawar— and here let me bear testimony 
 to the unfailing courtesy, the endless kindness, the 
 considerate interest which every English official in 
 India accords to the winter wanderers — through the 
 kindness of this unknown northern commissioner 
 we had been fully informed of the preparations 
 necessary for a visit to the Khyber, and by dint 
 of many telegrams everything was in train for our 
 arrival. The khansamah at the bangla served his tiffin 
 on the moment, and soon the babu of the political 
 agent was there with the permits to travel the Khyber 
 Pass as far as Ali Mas j id on the following caravan 
 day, and with an order for the detail of sowars of 
 Khyber Rifles to act as escort. Straightway we 
 judged horses and made bargains with splendidly 
 whiskered old Hassan Khan at his hospital of 
 broken vehicles in the bazaar, and quoted to him 
 the while the commissioner's warning that the only 
 danger in the Khyber Pass would be from the 
 chance of an unbroken pony being put in harness. 
 The turbaned one, with his hand on his heart, as- 
 sured us that we should have the most safe and 
 
262 WINTER INDIA 
 
 stately barouche and pair to convey us to Jamrud, 
 at the entrance of the pass, at sunrise, and that he 
 would speed us on thence toward Afghanistan and 
 the elusive, illusive, ever-moving frontier in light 
 dog-carts of the variety known to the natives as the 
 ''tum-tum" (tandem). All this for sixteen ru- 
 pees, "and what your ladyship may please." 
 
 As "that narrow sword-cut in the hills" was open 
 and guarded only on Tuesdays and Fridays, the 
 two caravan days of each week, there was stir in 
 Peshawar city and cantonment that day. Long 
 caravan trains of camels and donkeys were then 
 filing out and across the dusty plain to pass the 
 night in the fortified serai below Jamrud fort, 
 ready for a sunrise start through the defile to Lundi 
 Khana at the Afghan end, where no white traveler 
 goes, save by very special arrangement with civil 
 and military authorities. 
 
 Peshawar, once an Afghan city in fact, still bears 
 all its Persian and Central Asian characteristics; 
 and this flat-roofed city within its great mud walls 
 is also a metropolis, a little Paris for all Central 
 Asia, whither flock Afghans and turbaned folk from 
 over the border to shop and spend their money, to 
 luxuriate and dissipate in all the ways of Orient 
 and Occident there combined, and to hatch fresh 
 conspiracies against Pax Britannica. One must 
 read his Kipling to enjoy Peshawar, and must see 
 Peshawar and its people fully to enjoy Kipling. 
 All through " The Man Who Would be King," 
 "The Drums of the Fore and Aft," "The Man Who 
 Was," "The Lost Regiment," and "Wee Willie 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 263 
 
 Winkie, ' ' and in the ' ' Ballad of the King 's Jest, ' ' are 
 pictures and glimpses of Peshawar, the Pathans and 
 the hills, that flash upon one's memory at every turn. 
 With Peshawar, too, are associated all the great 
 names of Anglo-Indian history of the past half -cen- 
 tury,— Lawrence, Edwards, Nicholson, and both the 
 Robertses. 
 
 The great cantonment at the end of the track 
 is one of the chief military stations of the empire, 
 and while it rejoices in a crisp, electric air worthy 
 of a sanatorium in midwinter, its climate for the 
 rest of the year gives it an evil name. It is another of 
 the many ''ovens of India," where the thermometer 
 rises to 102° and 110° every summer, and where the 
 gray, beclouded, breathless dog-days during the 
 rains aggravate men to madness. 
 
 After all the other bazaars of India, after the 
 Chandni Chauk of Delhi and the brilliant, theatri- 
 cal, spectacular streets of Lahore, the bazaars of 
 Peshawar were captivating out of all reason, and 
 held us fascinated until dusk, when lamps and 
 lanterns threw strange illumination upon all the 
 picturesque people known \o the Middle East. There 
 was not so much color as at Lahore, perhaps; but 
 the fiercely bearded ones, with their tremendous tur- 
 Uans, long chogas, or caftans, and gay vests, were 
 so many hundreds of Vereshchagin 's models turned 
 loose, and kodak film was reeled away by the yard 
 as long as the spool would turn. It was too strik- 
 ing, too theatrical, and too spectacular to be the 
 every-day life at even the farthest end of the em- 
 pire. Each little open alcove of a shop along the 
 
264 WINTER INDIA 
 
 broad street leading in from the Edwards Gate in 
 the city wall held its tableau, its Vereshchagin 
 group already posed, every man of them six feet 
 tall, fierce and stalwart. These "Pathan devils," 
 "these Kabul-ly men," as our bearer called tliem, 
 were as truculent, turbulent, and untamed a lot as 
 one could wish to see, and our bearer fairly quaked 
 when one of these swashbucklers brushed against 
 him, or a hook-nosed, wolfish red-beard scowled 
 at him and contemptuously discussed him with a 
 brother of Kabul. The Jewish cast of features was 
 unmistakable, and the turbans and garments were 
 identical with those worn by Moses and the prophets 
 —a biblical picture, truly. These hulking giants 
 who strode about like conquerors, these picturesque 
 cutthroats and splendid fighting animals, are sup- 
 posed to be harmless, from having been relieved 
 of their arms and weapons when they entered 
 British territory, but no doubt every one of them 
 had a yard-long, triangular Afghan knife concealed 
 within his baggy garments. All wore peaked caps 
 within the turban-cloth and some heavy, striped 
 blankets thrown theatrically over one shoulder, but 
 the crocheted Afghan of fancy-work fairs was no- 
 where to be seen — another disillusionment of travel. 
 An unkempt old falconer with hooded bird on wrist, 
 and just such a Scythian sort of barbarian next 
 him as sculptors show in the train of Alexander the 
 Great, were a pair that willingly posed for their 
 portraits. 
 
 There was such richness, such conglomeration and 
 embarrassment of picturesqueness on every hand, 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 265 
 
 that one needed the all-compassing eyes of a fly fco 
 see it. Persia's nearness was attested by the grace- 
 ful shapes of water-pots, bottles and bowls, the dam- 
 ascened metals and the blue-glazed pottery; and 
 the Russian advance was there in visible, tangible 
 form in the tall copper samovars that steamed and 
 hissed in the frequent tea-shops— the hand of Russia 
 seen in every such gathering-place, and the seeds of 
 sedition lying in every bowl of tea. 
 
 Disputing passage with a deliberate ox loaded 
 with twice its bulk of fodder-cane, we came through 
 a deep arch in a wall to the circular Bokhara, or silk 
 bazaar, and to a dazzling picture all light and life 
 and color in the blazing, blinding sunlight of that 
 early, cloudless afternoon. Dens of alcove shops 
 surrounded the great open space, where leafless trees 
 cast thin traceries of shadows over the bare earth, 
 and scores of men sat in groups in the sun, twirling 
 reels of green, yellow, rose, and purple silks, toss- 
 ing glistening skeins of every hue as they came 
 fresh from traders' packs or dyers' vats. Bales of 
 woven silks and shimmering lengths of gay tissues 
 were heaped and spread over the floors of the tiny 
 shops; and sitting statuesque, or moving in and out 
 among the whirling spindles, were Afghan and Bo- 
 khara silk merchants and brokers, who brightened 
 the scene with their gold-threaded and -fringed tur- 
 ban-cloths, gold-embroidered and cloth-of-gold vests 
 and waistcoats, and inner garments of gorgeous Bo- 
 khara shadow-silks. From ''silken Samarkand," 
 from Bokhara and Kabul, these men come every win- 
 ter to this silk bazaar, and huge bales of raw silks 
 
266 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and woven stuffs were being unloaded that after- 
 noon from groaning camels that had trod softly 
 down from the Khanates to kneel in the Peshawar 
 oval— to be reloaded with Manchester piece-goods 
 and tread slowly back again before hot weather. 
 
 There were picturesque money-changers, too, in 
 this bazaar — bearded and turbaned old Persians, 
 wrapped in long and richly furred garments, sit- 
 ting somnolent and prosperous in the sunshine, with 
 loose heaps of coins from all the border countries 
 before them. One even wondered if the rupees and 
 annas, the unknown coins with crescents and Per- 
 sian texts, and the yet more insidious rubles and 
 copecks were real,— if they were not stage accessories 
 and part of the tableaux rather than the visible 
 capital and assets of genuine Shylocks. 
 
 Color was rampant in the shoe bazaar, the long 
 line of cobblers' lairs strewn and strung over with 
 peaked slippers and great strips of brightest red, 
 green, and yellow leathers, and hung in the sun- 
 light to make a braver show. In all that leather ba- 
 zaar we could not find a pair of the braided leather 
 sandals or buskins that at southern railway stations 
 are sold as Saharanpur or Kashmir shoes, farther 
 north are called Lahore shoes, and in Lahore are 
 called Peshawar shoes. The Pathan public very 
 generally wore the same conventional Mohamme- 
 dan heelless slippers, with the pointed and curling 
 bows and high stems of antique junks. Some 
 few wore wood or rawhide sandals fastened by 
 heavy thongs, the most primitive and archaic of 
 foot-gear. There was a narrow strip of railed-ofif, 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 267 
 
 sacred ground down the middle of this shoe bazaar, 
 which held some venerated Moslem tombs, and scores 
 of devout ones, ranging themselves before them, 
 saluted the glowing west beyond which lay Mecca. 
 They prostrated themselves on their bits of carpets, 
 and prayed fervently, deaf to the hum of cobblers 
 and idlers around them. 
 
 There were sweetmeat sellers and sugar-cane ped- 
 dlers hawking their wares through all the bazaars; 
 letter-writers plying their craft in the open ; schools 
 of small turbans rocking in studious circles around 
 some pious teacher; and barbers, lawyers, peddlers, 
 touts, and jugglers. And there were beggars, too! 
 Such beggars ! Such tattered and picturesque fig- 
 ures as never before diverted one, — Afghan and Bo- 
 khara beggars, shaggy and ragged beyond all the 
 religious mendicants of India. Coats of a hundred 
 patches hung in a hundred shreds from the frowzy, 
 turbanless ones, and but half protected them from the 
 keen mountain winds that blew through the bazaars 
 at sunset. Many of these were Pathan "saints," 
 who live in caves in the hills, lead revolts, and urge 
 the murder of unbelievers. The more holy of these 
 beggars cast glances of scorn and hatred at us 
 Kafirs or unbelievers; "white pagans," they called 
 us, to the perturbation of our bearer, who seemed 
 to fear that some one of these Islam saints might 
 brain him with his long pipe-stem, but with six an- 
 nas and a yard of sugar-cane the maddest molla of 
 them all was bought over to stand tamely before the 
 kodak. A few of the holy men coaxed annas from 
 the crowds with songs and story-telling, — even an 
 
268 WINTER INDIA 
 
 infidel anna came not amiss, — while others had for 
 sale furs, rugs, and bits of soft jade or heavily 
 veined turquoise. Not this side of Samarkand had I 
 expected to see men with rugs piled on their heads 
 and shoulders, throwing them down at sight of a 
 possible customer, and displaying there on the dusty 
 ground what treasures or trash they possessed. 
 Men with bales of furs and poshtins, or sheepskin 
 coats, for sale, paraded the bazaars or lounged 
 by gates and bridges. One scowling giant had for 
 sale a dead peacock, a sacred Hindu bird, another 
 showed a leopard-skin; and there were blue-eyed, 
 woolly Persian cats on view, whose dispositions had 
 been so crossed somewhere in transit that they would 
 only spit, glare, and claw at any possible purchasers 
 who ventured near. 
 
 The jewelers' dens had their gossiping groups, 
 and the leisurely jewel merchants produced bags, 
 tins, and bottles of seventh-rate pearls and talisman 
 turquoises, cemented on sticks, all quoted at soaring 
 prices. A woman in a gaily-embroidered red and 
 yellow phulkari or Afghan head-sheet, who sat 
 watching the hammering of a bracelet, was a moving 
 exhibit of jewels, that furnished a feast to the eye 
 when combined with her own beauty. But we were 
 plainly no feast to her scornful eyes, and, after a 
 critical inventory of our dusty traveling attire, her 
 glances and shrugs sufficiently translated her re- 
 marks to the merchant of high prices and doubtful 
 gems. 
 
 Even to that far end of the Indian Empire, the 
 tout dogged one's steps with his monotonous plead- 
 
THE MAI) MOLLA. I'KSllAWAi:. 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 271 
 
 ing : * ' Please come my shop ! Please come my shop ! ' ' 
 and our repeated * ' Jaos ! ' ' glanced harmlessly past 
 his ear. To stop the whining pleas of the most per- 
 sistent one we followed him down a side street, up a 
 dark stairway, and on to a flat roof from which 
 we reached inner rooms piled high with rugs and 
 stuffs, where we might sit on floor cushions and toss 
 glittering embroideries and rolls of shadowy-pat- 
 terned Bokhara silks and sheeny stuffs from "silken 
 Samarkand" to our hearts' content. In another 
 shop men were busily ornamenting squares of dark 
 cloth with showy Afghan waxwork. A pan of a 
 white, waxy dough stood on a charcoal brazier beside 
 each worker, who, laying a dab of the hot compound 
 on the Hack of his hand as a palette, drew from it a 
 long, viscous thread which he dropped in continuous 
 arabesques and traceries over a faintly outlined pat- 
 tern. This waxen relief was dusted over with silver, 
 gold, or bronze powder before it cooled, and there 
 resulted gaudy and tawdry curtains and table-covers, 
 that in dusty, mildewed, and bedrabbled condition 
 add to the fustiness and shabbiness of so many Brit- 
 ish-India hotel interiors. 
 
 There was a picturesque salt and corn bazaar in 
 a vast open space, and the fragrance and the cheery 
 music of popping corn drew us directly to the booth 
 w^here, in a huge turban and tremendous trousers, 
 the pop-corn man stirred the snapping kernels with 
 a bunch of twigs in a great, shallow iron pan. The 
 pan rested on the same rude mud oven and was fur- 
 nished with the same layer of black sand as is used 
 by hot-chestnut men in Peking and all North China. 
 
272 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 Peshawar pop-corn was as edible under its Pushtu 
 name as at the Chicago World's Fair, barring the 
 grit of the black sand driven into every snowy ker- 
 nel. Sweetmeat shops and peddlers' stands over- 
 flowed with gujack and kindred candies, thickly pep- 
 pered with the dust of the streets. 
 
 The caravans bring down the white Kabul grapes 
 which, packed in cotton ^n small, round wooden boxes, 
 are sold at remotest railway stations all over India 
 each winter; and such mountainous stores of pis- 
 tachios, almonds, walnuts, raisins, figs, and fruits 
 from fertile Afghan and Persian vales, as made one 
 imagine a great horn of plenty had been tipped 
 through the Khyber Pass and its contents spread over 
 Peshawar plain. For twenty centuries at least the 
 povindahs, or traveling merchants, have brought car- 
 avans down from Kabul, Bokhara, and Samarkand 
 every autumn. They bring horses, wool, woolen 
 stuffs, silks, dyes, gold thread, fruits, and precious 
 stones, fighting and buying their way to British 
 lines, where, leaving their arms, they are free and 
 safe to wander at will to Delhi, Agra, and Calcutta, 
 appearing even at Rangoon and Tutieorin each win- 
 ter. The railway has changed something of their 
 habits now, and all save the horse-dealers leave their 
 animals to graze near Peshawar while they take 
 train to the uttermost parts of the peninsula, and, 
 returning when their wares are sold, lead their 
 camels back to the cool plateaus and valleys of the 
 north for the summer. 
 
 Kafila, or caravans, bringing more and more of 
 Afghan wares, were defiling in through the city 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIKE 273 
 
 gates, and toward sundown the great square of the 
 caravansary was full of groaning camels, and the 
 loads of merchandise grew to mountain heights. 
 A fountain and a sacred spot of prayer is reserved 
 in the center of the serai, and there caravan- 
 men and camel-drivers cleansed and prayed, their 
 faces to the west, oblivious of all the acre of pro- 
 testing beasts and wrangling men, screaming ped- 
 dlers, chanting beggars, and even the shouts of a 
 bear-leader, who danced and wrestled with his 
 shaggy pet to the very edges of the prayer-carpets. 
 The serai's inclosure, the Ghor Kattri, has always 
 been holy ground. On this spot first stood the great 
 vihara of Kanishka's time that was four hundred 
 feet high and a quarter of a mile in circumference, 
 chief fane when all this valley was head center of 
 Buddhism. To it came Fahien and Hiouen Thsang, 
 those Chinese pilgrims of the fifth and seventh cen- 
 turies, who, crossing Tatary and Turkestan, came 
 down through the Khyber Pass to visit the holy 
 lands of the Buddhist faith. In their time, too, a 
 great suburban stupa sheltered the golden begging- 
 bowl of Sakya-Muni, "the holy grail of Eastern 
 legends," which, brought here from Benares, was 
 carried to Persia, and then is said to have been 
 looted by a marauder and taken to Kandahar; and 
 Mohammedans treasure the so-called Buddha's bowl 
 — a great bronze or iron caldron. Peshawar once 
 had its Bodhi-druma (Tree of Knowledge), de- 
 scendant of the Bo-tree at Buddha-Gaya, planted 
 by Kanishka, the Scythian ruler of the Panjab, 
 according to one legend; it had already grown 
 
274 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 to a shelter sufficient for Buddha when he ap- 
 peared to foretell the coming of Kanishka, ac- 
 cording to another version. At any rate, it was a 
 pipul-tree of uncommon size, and held in such es- 
 teem that the conquering Baber, the Bokharan, saw 
 and described it when he came this w^ay in 1505. All 
 this Peshawar plain has yielded rich store of Bud- 
 dhist relics, records, sculptures, and inscriptions, 
 including the finest examples shown in the Lahore 
 and Calcutta museums and in London. 
 
 The holy spot of Peshawar, in these modern times, 
 is the jail, where so many hillside saints from the 
 border have been put for stalking British sentries, 
 sniping stragglers, and inciting the tribesmen to 
 mischief and revolt in the name of the Prophet, 
 that the great barred building is crowded at times 
 with these vagabonds. As the abode of saints, 
 the building has all the sacredness and vogue of a 
 temple, and is a place of popular pilgrimage. Fanatic 
 Mohammedans have even committed petty crimes 
 in bazaar and cantonment for the sole purpose of 
 gaining admission to this saints' abode and rest; 
 and, with such crazy people to deal with, one may 
 well admire the spectacle of England's humane and 
 patient rule on the border. 
 
 From the top of the city wall near the old temple 
 there was a fine view of the city, the hazy, lilac 
 plain, and the snow-striped mountains just showing 
 through the clouds of mingled dust and frost-haze 
 on the Jamrud road. The rugged mountains rose 
 and grew sharper in outline as the sun fell, one 
 higher and whiter peak marking where the Khyber 
 
THE END OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 275 
 
 cleaves its way through to the Afghan plain of 
 Jellalabad, only forty miles distant. But beyond 
 the Safed Koh lies — Russia ! And upon all that 
 northwestern sky we saw projected the great shadow 
 of the double eagle, rather than the Afghan sym- 
 bol of the tree. 
 
 The gold and ruby mists of the plain soon faded to 
 cold violet shadows and purple darkness, and the 
 flat white roofs around us were indefinite when the 
 great demonstration in the sky was over. The crisp 
 autumn air grew momently sharper as we haggled 
 through the gharry door for a last bargain in Bo- 
 khara silk, and drove, that January night, to the 
 dark, cheerless, stone-floored dak bangla which stood 
 a thousand feet above sea-level, north latitude thirty- 
 four degrees, Fahrenheit many less. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 
 
 NE who reads mueli of British and An- 
 glo-Indian print learns that the In- 
 dian Empire is not only bounded on 
 the north by the Himalayas and their 
 continuation, the Hindu Kush, but 
 that running with these lofty boundaries are artifi- 
 cial, imaginary lines marking the administrative, 
 the defensive, the strategic, political, geographic, 
 actual, military, temporary, and prospective fron- 
 tiers. Then, too, says Lord Curzon (London Times, 
 December 20, 1894) : "Our frontier must be, not hy- 
 pothetical, fluctuating, adventitious, but definite, 
 recognizable, scientific," adding yet more to the list 
 of qualitative adjectives commonly applied to the 
 word frontier — never meaning anything, however, 
 but the northwest frontier, in Anglo-Indian speech. 
 One might naturally wish to see the region of such 
 an aggregation of frontiers, where boundaries run 
 like contour-lines on a topographic map— the waver- 
 ing, imaginary lines upon the earth's Asiatic sur- 
 face, for which, and to which, literally, millions of 
 lives have been sacrificed— expressions of an "idea" 
 for which many more lives must be given. 
 
 276 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 277 
 
 One hears, too, the Russian advance daily dis- 
 cussed and harped upon all over India, until it 
 becomes as real a fact as the Aryan migration 
 or the Mogul invasion, and one wishes to see 
 where the next great history-making incident will 
 certainly occur— the theater where the greatest 
 world-drama since Timur's time will be played. 
 One becomes so familiar with this fixed idea of the 
 Russians coming down through the Khyber Pass 
 and snatching the great jewel of the British crown, 
 that he can jest with British friends about all 
 Anglo-India lying awake of nights, frightened by 
 the Russian bogy, and can advise them to rent the 
 Panjab to Russia outright, and so have it over with 
 quickly, and enjoy sound sleep again. But the 
 Briton takes his northwest frontier— his many fron- 
 tiers—seriously, sees the Russian hand in every lit- 
 tle border war, and finds no humor in the charge 
 that every time he cries, ''The Russian! The Rus- 
 sian!" as Afridis, Waziris, and Kafirs revolt, he 
 is playing the part of the boy who too often cried, 
 "The wolf! The wolf !"— albeit this boy claims 
 to have found many incriminating documents and 
 positive proof of the trail of the Muscovite wolf 
 in the abandoned camps and villages of warring 
 tribesmen. 
 
 It was bitterly cold that night in the govern- 
 ment house of rest for travelers; and as the two 
 opposite doors of our grand salon of a room gave 
 directly upon garden and court, we had sweeps of 
 icy air through it whenever a servant entered, and 
 such currents across the tioor from two-inch cracks 
 
278 WINTER INDIA 
 
 below each door that we soon retreated to the high 
 string-beds, and, wrapped in rugs and razais, 
 longed for steam-heated and furnace-cheered 
 America. The small pocket of a fireplace sheltered 
 some hissing green twigs that smoldered and filled 
 the room with smoke which refused to escape by a 
 transom window sixteen feet up in the absurdly 
 high, windward wall — which same north window 
 was ropeless and wedged open to encourage further 
 the icy drafts that encircled us. The khansamah, 
 bearing the courses of the dinner, was swept in with 
 a small gale each time, but we dined well on the 
 usual Indian menu. The khansamah made a final 
 entry on the wings of the wind, bearing proudly the 
 proper British tart of conclusion, "But, missis—" 
 he pleaded in injured tones when I too had said, 
 "No, thanks." I had too often suffered in ar- 
 guments with British pastry to hazard it in far 
 places, but I relented to this courteous old soul and 
 gave the heavy serving-spoon the swing and force 
 of a golfer's club, when pouff! pou-s-sh! went a 
 fountain spray of minute flakes of true puff -paste 
 up into the air and down in showers all over the 
 table. And we gathered them up— every last flimsy 
 flakelet— and with praises consumed the khansa- 
 mah 's masterpiece, the very apotheosis of covered 
 apple-pie, the most supremely perfect tart the Brit- 
 ish flag ever floated over— away off there in the 
 shadow of the Hindu Kush, on the borderland of 
 the heart of the world, close to the old Aryan home 
 of the pie people's first ancestors. 
 
 "Pie, sir," said Henry Ward Beecher, "goes with 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 279 
 
 civilization; where there is no civilization, there is 
 no pie. ' ' Hence Peshawar, etc. ; and one more count 
 may be added to the great total of what England has 
 done for India. 
 
 In what seemed only the middle of that arctic 
 night we heard our servant beating on the cook- 
 house door with such an alarum as might herald the 
 coming of the Russians; and after the misery of 
 a candle-light breakfast we drove away in the frosty 
 dawn, the sun rising behind us in a haze of pink and 
 purple, lilac and burning crimson, as we made 
 straight toward the mountain wall. The carriage- 
 road to Jamrud fort runs for all the ten miles close 
 beside the caravan track, on which were lines of slow- 
 moving camels, enveloped in clouds of glorified 
 golden dust — a fine, loose sort of powder, as light and 
 dry and white as flour or snow, covering the broad 
 caravan track five and six inches deep. Every one 
 abroad was beating his arms and stamping his feet 
 to keep warm, and we soon shrouded our heads in 
 rugs as shelter from the icy wind and choking dust, 
 and to hide from our sight the path of the projected 
 railway which travelers now use to Jamrud. 
 
 At Jamrud fort, towering picturesquely at the 
 edge of the plain, we gave up the spacious carriage 
 and waited for guard-mount and the signal-shot to 
 declare the Khyber open for the day. This last 
 British outpost was apparently the frontier. We 
 must then have been close to Afghanistan. But 
 no. Lord Curzon had written (London Times, Jan- 
 uary 2, 1895), "Without exaggeration it may be 
 said, that where Afghan territory commences, there 
 
280 WINTER INDIA 
 
 British territory ends, and that the true British 
 frontier is not at Jamrud, but at Lundi Khana." 
 Yet the political agent would not let us go even 
 to that edge of India and look over; would only- 
 guarantee our safety to and let us drive as far 
 as Ali Masjid, half-way to Lundi Khana. A merely 
 hypothetical frontier that of Ali Masjid, and Jam- 
 rud nothing but the administrative frontier. 
 
 The native officer on duty at the Jamrud gates 
 took our passes and presented the visitors' book, in 
 which register it was written and underscored: 
 "GeMtlemen visiting Khyber Pass are requested not 
 to give money to the sowars, as it is setting a dan- 
 gerous precedent" — advice which seemed reason- 
 able when my special military escort for the day 
 appeared, climbed up promptly on the back seat of 
 a tum-tum, and laid his Enfield rifle across his 
 knee. We felt the need of arms ourselves when we 
 saw that handsome, evil, reckless-looking young ban- 
 dit playing knight-errant for the day, tidily dressed 
 in brown khaki uniform, his fine turban-cloth fringed 
 with gold, and his lean, Israelitish face lighted with 
 the evil eye of generations of robber ancestors. 
 
 Low ridges before us rose to hills, and they to 
 mountains, and three miles away at Kadam is the 
 real entrance, the beginning of the pass that leads to 
 Afghanistan and the mystic lands of Central Asia, 
 through which a procession of conquerors have come. 
 Out there have gone only the British, bent on puni- 
 tive expeditions and to the questionable triumphs 
 of what Sir Charles Dilke calls, "thrashing the Af- 
 ghans into loving us." 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 281 
 
 No other mountain-pass in the world has had and 
 retains such strategic importance and holds so many 
 historic associations as this Khyber gateway to the 
 Indian plain. In the thirty-three miles of its length 
 it cuts through cliffs of shale and limestone rock, 
 and from an elevation of sixteen hundred and sev- 
 enty feet above the sea at Jamrud it rises to thirty- 
 three hundred and seventy-three feet at Lundi Ko- 
 tal, beyond Lundi Khana, and is never closed by 
 snow in winter. One does not see snow-fields nor 
 glaciers, nor the wild, stupendous scenery that such 
 a pass in such a mountain-range should have. The 
 winter is the season of greatest caravan trade and 
 travel, since the original, woolly, two-humped Bac- 
 trian camel, native of the Pamirs, does not endure 
 hot weather well, and, as in North China, can only 
 travel at night in midsummer, while he performs 
 his longest journeys in winter. 
 
 This mountainous borderland between India and 
 Afghanistan is occupied by the independent tribes, 
 who yield allegiance to neither emperor nor amir, 
 who never have been nor will be brought thoroughly 
 under subjection. Numbering over two hundred 
 and fifty thousand, all Mohammedans, easily in- 
 flamed through religious fanaticism, and ready to re- 
 spond to any jehad, or holy war, these independent 
 border tribes are to be counted with on every occa- 
 sion. The twenty thousand Afridis living in the 
 immediate Peshawar frontier are the most turbu- 
 lent, fanatical, irresponsible tribe of all, ever ripe 
 for revolt, always scheming and conspiring, ready 
 to attack the power that supports them with sub- 
 
282 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sidies,— literally quarreling with their own bread 
 and butter, or, what is more vital, with their own 
 powder and shot. Loot, ambush, and murder, rick- 
 burning and cattle-poisoning are daily or nightly 
 amusements of these fire-worship ers turned fire-eat- 
 ers, who have waylaid, harried, and hung on the 
 rear of every body of troops that ever entered this 
 defile— even turning Alexander the Great away from 
 the Khyber, so that Bucephalus was forced to pick 
 his steps to northward and eastward and bear his 
 master down through the Michni Pass to the Pesha- 
 war plain. They have always lived by pillage and 
 blackmail, taking a subsidy to guard and protect 
 the British transport trains in the last Afghan war, 
 and then plundering the baggage and commissariat 
 trains every night, cutting off and sniping every 
 straggler and deserter with as much zeal as they 
 had shown in robbing Shere All's train. The steal- 
 ing of arms and ammunition goes on all along the 
 Peshawar border, neither Sepoys nor English sol- 
 diers proving any match for these accomplished 
 thieves, descended from generations of freebooters 
 and plunderers, dedicated to the craft by regular 
 ceremonies at birth, and holding skill in that line 
 as their greatest pride and boast. They have stolen 
 the carbines of European guards sleeping on those 
 arms in the guard-house, taking even the sword of 
 the sentry as he rested it against the wall beside 
 him; and they maintain a steady freemasonry of 
 communication with the British troops through spies 
 and confederates in the native regiments and de- 
 serters returned to their tribes. Any saint or 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 283 
 
 akhoond or Mad MoUa can inflame them and start 
 them on a religious crusade against the infidel, and 
 every little hill village has its saint or saint's tomb 
 to make it a place of distinction and pious pil- 
 grimage. It is even told of one clan of Afridis 
 that, lacking such pious attraction in their village, 
 they lured a saint their Avay, killed him, and set up 
 a tomb worthy of neighborly envy. 
 
 "Nothing is finer than their physique, or worse 
 than their morals," wrote Sir H. Edwards long ago; 
 and Sir Kichard Temple has said: "Now these tribes 
 are savages, noble savages perhaps, and not with- 
 out some tincture of virtue and generosity, but still 
 absolutely barbarians, nevertheless. They have no- 
 thing approaching to government or civil institu- 
 tions; they have, for the most part, no education; 
 they have nominally a religion, but Mohammedan- 
 ism as understood by them is no better, or per- 
 haps is actually worse, than the creeds of the wildest 
 races of the earth. In their eyes the one great com- 
 mandment is blood for blood, and fire and sword 
 for all infidels." 
 
 "We are content with discord, we are content 
 with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will 
 never be content with a master," said one of these 
 turbulent turbans to Elphinstone; and the Amir 
 was well rid of the lot when the Gandamak Treaty 
 in 1879 declared these tribes independent, nominally 
 under the political control of the British, who have 
 vainly tried the policy of conciliation and subsidy 
 varied with occasional thrashings. Only personal 
 influence, and rough and ready, (^uick justice can 
 
284 WINTER INDIA 
 
 avail with them. Colonel Warburton held them 
 wonderfully in check for twenty years by a kindly, 
 paternal rule, and their confidence in him justified 
 the saying that his presence on the frontier was 
 worth any ten garrisons. He retired when his age 
 limit was reached, and on the heels of his departure 
 came the revolt of the tribes and the closing of the 
 Khyber. Colonel Warburton offered his services 
 to return to India and try to pacify the tribes again, 
 but they were declined, and the border war con- 
 tinued from July, 1897, to January, 1898, General 
 Lockhart for months employing against these hill 
 guerrillas a greater army than that which defeated 
 Napoleon at Waterloo. 
 
 "The forward party" of Anglo-Indians argues 
 that these border tribes are an inexhaustible recruit- 
 ing-ground of the finest fighting material in the 
 world, and that for the British not to avail them- 
 selves of it would be virtually giving Russia this 
 almost ready-made army. Another faction argues 
 that the tribesmen, once drilled and taught the tac- 
 tics of war, will be more formidable enemies of 
 the British than ever, more ready to revolt, to join 
 Afghans or Russians. Lugubrious prophets declare 
 that when the struggle comes the British must 
 win the first battle in Afghanistan or lose all India 
 —the Mohammedan Nizam of Hyderabad, with his 
 great army, being arbiter of the destinies of India, 
 in any serious disturbances that may arise with 
 Mohammedans on the northwest frontier. One 
 specialist even wrote out and tabulated his fears 
 in a ''confidential book" to his government, in 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 285 
 
 which he figured out every detail of the probable 
 Russian transport problems, their line of march, the 
 points of attack, and their possible resistance. A 
 copy of this confidential and reliable guide to the 
 conquest of India was promptly obtained by the 
 Russian government, translated and sent broadcast 
 through the Russian army as a manual of tactics, 
 a handy sort of military Murray for Muscovite 
 use when the Czar is quite ready for another win- 
 ter visit to India. Russia has now reached the Pa- 
 mirs and the borders of Kashmir; Bokhara is hers, 
 and Persia, virtually; exploring parties of Russian 
 soldiers have twice crossed the Hindu Kush, sur- 
 prised of course to find they were in India, within 
 British lines; and Kipling has depicted the Russian 
 spy in "The Man Who Was," in which the retir- 
 ing Dirkovich says, "Au revoir!" and, pointing to 
 the Khyber, adds, "That way is always open." 
 
 The conquest of India is the dream and the duty 
 of all Russians, and having closely followed every 
 other clause of advice in that remarkable and much- 
 questioned paper known as the will of Peter the 
 Great, they are not once forgetting this one: 
 
 VIII. Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the com- 
 merce of the world, that he who can exclusively control it is the 
 dictator of Europe ; no occasion should therefore be lost to pro- 
 voke war with Persia, to hasten its decay, to advance to the 
 Persian Gulf, and then to endeavor to re-establish the ancient 
 trade of the Levant through Syria. 
 
 While England has been pushing her frontiers 
 northward for the good of the native, and to give the 
 
286 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Pathans good government, schools, hospitals, pure 
 water, and sanitary redemption generally, Russia, 
 the pure philanthropist, is pushing her frontiers 
 southward with the sole object of evangelizing the 
 Khanates and bringing these people out of spiritual 
 darkness. 
 
 Through the efforts of Colonel Warburton, for 
 twenty years the political agent at Peshawar (and 
 a worthy successor of those other splendid examples 
 of the British official, Lawrence, Edwards, and 
 Nicholson, and those rare men of earlier border and 
 Mutiny days), the marauding tribesmen were taken 
 in firm hand when their independence was guaran- 
 teed. The Afridis themselves were made to guard 
 and guarantee the safety of travelers in the Khyber, 
 one of the most remarkable examples of setting 
 a thief to catch a thief that was ever known. From 
 1879 to 1897 the government paid an annual subsidy 
 of eighty thousand rupees to the Afridi and Shin- 
 wari clans on condition that they keep open and 
 guard the caravan track through the pass, live in 
 peace, and do not raid British territory. By tolls 
 levied on each camel and vehicle passing Jamrud, 
 the Indian government raised annually an amount 
 sufficient to pay off part of the subsidy and main- 
 tain ''Colonel "Warburton 's road," as the tribesmen 
 call it. Following easy grades, this road could be as 
 easily traversed by an artillery train as by light 
 tum-tums ; although, to avoid expensive cuttings and 
 tunnels, the projected railway into Afghanistan will 
 follow the track of Alexander the Great along the 
 Kabul River and through the Michni Pass. 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 289 
 
 Colonel Warburton made levies of tribesmen, con- 
 stituted them the Khyber Rifles, to police and guard 
 the pass, and assigned them to six fortified posts 
 between Jamrud and Lundi Kotal. A force of eight 
 hundred infantry and thirty troopers were recruited 
 from the wild robbers of the region and set to keep- 
 ing off the other robbers. The infantry were paid 
 nine rupees a month, the troopers twenty-six rupees, 
 each man providing his own khaki uniform, and 
 the trooper the keep of his own horse. Their com- 
 mander. Colonel Islam Khan, who drilled and 
 brought the corps to such efficiency and roused in 
 these hill guerrillas the military pride that seemed 
 to animate them when once inside the Queen's uni- 
 form, is a descendant of the former ruling Afghan 
 family, and served with the British in the last Af- 
 ghan war. On caravan days his sentries were sta- 
 tioned at every hundred yards along the pass, troop- 
 ers patrolled it, and the Khyber was as safe as 
 Broadway or Piccadilly,— safe until the sunset gun 
 proclaimed the military day ended, and the Khyber 
 sowars, dropping uniforms and rifles, became pred- 
 atory tribesmen again, ready to loot a camel, cut 
 a throat, steal the arms of any soldier, or make away 
 with any stray man, horse, or camel found out after 
 dark. 
 
 Bugle-calls and rifle-shots announced that the 
 pass was open, the gates of the serai below Jamrud 
 swung back, and some six hundred scornful and 
 unhappy-looking camels, with great shags of fur on 
 neck and legs, dragged their deliberate way out, and 
 in single file went swaying along the road to Af- 
 
290 WINTER INDIA 
 
 ghanistan. Each belled leader was led by a man 
 on foot, and other camels were fastened one to an- 
 other by long guide-ropes. Groups of shaggy eara- 
 van-men paused to pray by a wayside shrine at the 
 outset of their journey, and then trudged on, they 
 no better groomed, no more sociable or joyful than 
 their camels. 
 
 Our bearer was in a panic of fright. "Yes, you 
 must drive fast," he said, with chattering teeth and 
 timorous looks over his shoulder. "I tell you true. 
 I am your servant, not your enemy. These Kabul-ly 
 men are all Eussians, enemies of the country, bad 
 and dangerous. They shoot— hang ! They kill— 
 hang! every time. They always rob. Hold fast your 
 money. Let no one see your watch to-day. These 
 Kabul-ly men are not men. They are animals— wild 
 animals of the jungle. They fight, they cut, they 
 shoot!— oh! oh!" 
 
 "But there is the sowar and his gun. We need 
 not be afraid, ' ' I said. 
 
 "Yes," said the trembling Hindu, "that is just 
 the danger. All these Pathans are devils. Sowar 
 one day, robber next day. They take England's 
 money; shoot and rob England's men. They are 
 all Russians, enemies of the country. Just now the 
 sowar is England's soldier. Four-o'clock gun goes 
 hang! and he is wild man again, England's enemy." 
 
 The smooth, hard carriage-road wound farther in 
 among the yellow hills, and the camel-train was 
 soon far behind and out of sight. We were as an 
 advance-guard, the first passengers of the day, and 
 the riflemen sitting on the rocks and perched on 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 291 
 
 hill crests every hundred yards exchanged greeting 
 glances with the sowar that sent more cold chills 
 down the inert Hindu spine. There were round stone 
 towers and square mud towers of defense as thick 
 as sentry-boxes, and the khaki clothes and turbans, 
 toning in with the stones and barren ground, made 
 many of the sentries invisible until we saw a gun- 
 barrel move or a bayonet flash. It was a radiant, 
 perfect, sunny day, the sky one vast pale turquoise, 
 soft and pure and gently blue, and in among the 
 hills the air was still, and only fresh enough to 
 make the swift ride exhilarating. Around Kadam's 
 mud hovels there were innumerable caves in the 
 hills, where hermits had lived in meditation in Bud- 
 dhist days, and where Mohammedan saints of un- 
 washed and doubtful sanctity now spend lives of 
 leisure, enjoying the climate and view, subsisting 
 on villagers' offerings, and giving themselves to 
 much mad exhortation, animadversion of England's 
 rule, and mouthings of Allah il allah! 
 
 There the pass really begins— a narrow ravine 
 which runs between steep heights, Battlemented 
 walls and far fortresses on crests suggested all the 
 frontiers we had come to see, but it was a deserted 
 road. There was no procession of brigands coming 
 down steep places at the back of the stage, as would 
 have become the historic pass. The identical defile 
 where rode Timur and Jenghiz Khan, Baber the 
 Bokharan, and Nadir Shah with the Great Mo- 
 gul's Koh-i-nur in his turban and ten jeweled pea- 
 cock thrones following after him— really, at the be- 
 ginning, this defile lacks the wild, melodi-amatic 
 
292 WINTER INDIA 
 
 scenery appropriate to its history. It was not as 
 striking, in the landscape way, as the Nankow Pass 
 by the Great Wall of China, At every little up- 
 grade my pony balked until the sais got down and 
 led him by out-stretched bridle to the top of the 
 hill. When I demurred at myself dismounting to 
 walk up the next trifling hill, the gentle sais whined : 
 ' ' Gentlemen go Khyber Pass always walk up hills. ' ' 
 The sowar lounged in splendid ease on the back seat 
 of his tum-tum, dawdling his Enfield on his knee, 
 and watching us from on high as we toiled up each 
 gentle gradient after him. 
 
 "How about that sowar? If gentlemen always 
 walk up hills in Khyber Pass, why does n't he get 
 down and walk?" 
 
 ' ' Oh ! Sowar no gentleman, ' ' said the naive one. 
 But at the next hill a disgusted Khyberi, no gentle- 
 man that he was, dismounted and walked too. 
 
 At last Ali Majid's battlemented towers, crown- 
 ing a pyramidal hill at the middle of the pass, came 
 in range, most picturesque of many great fortresses 
 of India, completing the wild landscape which, in 
 turn, it commands. There the pass is narrowest, 
 only fifteen yards from wall to wall, and a steep 
 zigzag path leads up to the deep gateway of the 
 old Afghan stronghold. From that aery there is a 
 bird's-eye view down the narrow defile. The history 
 of this Gibraltar is an unbroken record of attack, 
 siege, defense, and slaughter — last captured, recap- 
 tured, and burned in 1897. Beyond Ali Masjid 
 we might not go, and we could only look up the 
 narrow rock corridor, soon closed to view by a jut- 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 293 
 
 ting point, and imagine the Buddhist stupas and 
 inscriptions we might not see— Samarkand four 
 hundred and fifty miles away in air line, seven hun- 
 dred and fifty by caravan road. 
 
 By noon, a far tinkling told that the camels were 
 coming, and the caravans bound down from the for- 
 tified serai at Lundi Khana, where they had rested 
 the night, reached Ali Masjid's gorge. The shaggy, 
 swaying animals, with their shaggy keepers, made 
 fitting pictures in that wild glen. Traces of vivid 
 Bokhara waistcoats illuminated a few dingy figures, 
 but for real, theatrical effect the troupe needed 
 fresh costuming. Some of the caravan-men stood 
 stock-still, rooted, transfixed, and stared at us ; others 
 feigned indifference; and others vented Pushtu 
 curses. 
 
 Then tum-tums passed us, speeding on from Pesha- 
 war toward Kabul, and a two-horse trap, very 
 nearly a buckboard, that was filled with prosperous 
 Kabul merchants, ranks above common povindahs, 
 all shapeless fur bundles topped with preposterous 
 turbans. Gaily domed ekkas, like idols' cars, and 
 filled with squatting figures, sped by; other ekkas, 
 with curtains discreetly screening the traveling 
 females, and drawn by ponies wearing blue bead 
 necklaces, went on toward Kabul ; and then came the 
 tum-tum of a mission worker from Peshawar, who 
 had essayed the task of reaching the Pathan heart, 
 of subduing the wild Afridi villagers with Christian 
 teaching. Some heroic-looking old men on spirited 
 Kabul horses pranced by ; a mounted Khyberi with 
 pennoned lance made a picture as he cantered up; 
 
 16 
 
294 WINTER INDIA 
 
 and all the while the shaggy men afoot and the 
 strings of camels went noiselessly on, their rocking, 
 wavering, swaying motion, the slow, deliberate, me- 
 thodical lifting and placing of the soft feet, exer- 
 cising a sort of hypnotic charm, 
 
 "Why do these Kabul-ly men have such white 
 faces and blue eyes like Englishmen?" we asked 
 our servant, who quailed when any of them glared 
 curiously at him. 
 
 ''Oh, it is very cold at Kabul, and they eat so 
 much white grapes and fruit. That makes them 
 white men. Kabul-ly grapes are very dear, and 
 poor Hindu cannot buy." 
 
 Then, nearly all the long way back to Jamrud, we 
 were meeting and overtaking strings of camels — 
 camels to right of us and camels to left of us, 
 camels ahead and camels behind, that thrust their 
 unpleasant heads, with their foaming lips and yel- 
 low teeth, altogether too near. Once when the sowar 
 fended away a too-friendly camel with his rifle- 
 barrel, there came such screams, groans, and shrieks 
 from the insulted beast that we felt that all the 
 vaunted dangers of the pass were understated, and 
 that the camels were as dangerous as the Khyberis. 
 The diamond hitch is not known in Afghanistan 
 evidently, for the loads were balanced rather than 
 girded on, and cinching seems never to have been 
 applied to the camel's waist-line. The drivers were 
 continually rearranging loads that had tilted over 
 or worked loose, and bending their triple-jointed 
 legs, gaunt beasts with elongated necks sat down 
 and protested to the echoing caiion walls while 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 295 
 
 their burdens were clumsily fastened again. Kodak 
 film was reeled away regardless of the distance 
 from the cantonment photographer's dark-room, 
 and still the caravans came on, bringing silk, carpets, 
 wool, furs, fruits, and sweetmeats from Kabul ; while 
 up from Peshawar came blocks of rock-salt, chests 
 of Indian tea, and all of Birmingham's wares, to- 
 gether with an unending movement of British piece- 
 goods, into the heart of the great continent. 
 
 As we came out to wide reaches between the de- 
 creasing hills, the road was all our own again, save 
 for the lounging sentries here and there among the 
 rocks. Soon we emerged on the plain, the hills 
 closed behind us, and there was spread the view that 
 has gladdened the heart and thrilled the pulses of 
 every marauding conqueror from the north; but for 
 us the land of romance and mystery lay behind us, 
 among, beyond the frontiers. The real spice, the 
 greatest element of danger, was gone, too, when the 
 sowar swung himself down from the tum-tum and 
 strolled off to his barracks with a scornful smile of 
 good-by— a smile that grimly seemed to promise a 
 less conventional meeting. 
 
 Once beyond Jamrud walls, our Hindu bearer 
 recovered heart and spirits, and chattered and ges- 
 ticulated almost joyfully with the sais all the dusty 
 ride back to Peshawar, as one who had faced certain 
 death and escaped it. 
 
 There was the same scramble by the wild mob 
 on the Khairabad platform when we again sighted the 
 great Attock fort and bridge across the Indus. 
 There was uproar among as many mad Pathans as 
 
296 WINTER INDIA 
 
 ever, and it seemed as though there must always be 
 more Afghans than room for them on the railway. 
 The Bengali station-master, who greeted us as old 
 acquaintances when we returned safely to his the- 
 atrical platform and its wild war drama, stood by 
 our window and talked, and heeded this riot and the 
 mingled roars in Pushtu no more than the ripples 
 of the Indus on the stones below. Six-foot ruffians, 
 with rage and hate distorting their countenances, 
 ramped the platform and flung themselves in heaps 
 before each third-class door, each man with enough 
 extra cloth flapping, bagging, flying loose and trail- 
 ing after him to clothe two other men in European 
 patterns. Each bawled and beat the air like a mad- 
 man, screaming rage and defiance at the earlier oc- 
 cupants of compartments where not another foot 
 nor elbow could be insinuated by the most deter- 
 mined of these hairy giants. And still the Bengali 
 talked gently on, airily admitting that the Afghans 
 were a very bad lot. ''But Abdurrahman can man- 
 age them as no one else can. They all fear him. 
 When he dies we will have the war. ' ' 
 
 ''Tell me about the Kliyber Pass. How did you 
 get permission to go there? What did you go for?" 
 bluntly asked a German cavalry officer when we 
 had returned to table d'hote circles at Lahore. He 
 cross-examined me as to every civil, social, military, 
 and geographic fact that might have come under 
 my observation, "You wanted to see the live Pa- 
 thans because- Herr Kipling has written? and to 
 see where Alexander came through 1 ' ' 
 
 We charged the uhlan with wishing to see where 
 
THROUGH KHYBER PASS WITH THE CARAVANS 297 
 
 the next world contest will be fought, where the 
 Russians are coming through. 
 
 "Umh-umh! Yes! I may want to see where we 
 might want to come through ourselves." 
 
 ''You! The Germans in India?" 
 
 ''Certainly. Why not?" 
 
 "But will you come as the ally of the Sultan or 
 the Czar?" 
 
 "Ally?" he repeated, in apparent amazement. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AMRITSAR 
 
 IHERE was a combination hotel and 
 dak bangla under one roof at Am- 
 ritsar that was as amusing as anything 
 in comic opera. We arrived at the 
 dak bangla late at night, and moved 
 to the hotel in the morning, by merely crossing the 
 hall. Instead of being served in our own cold, white 
 vault of a bedchamber in the bangla, we dined in 
 the lofty, drafty banquet-hall of the hotel quite 
 as comfortably as if in the train-shed of a railway 
 station on a winter night. All the doors of the 
 place were besieged by insistent touts who sang the 
 same song, "Please come my shop. Please buy my 
 shop," thrust greasy cards at us, clung to the car- 
 riage-steps, and outdid their tribesmen elsewhere. 
 
 Amritsar, as the holy city of the Sikhs, has an im- 
 portance and a character distinct from all other 
 places. It is as large a city as Delhi, and for ages 
 has been a great trade-center, lying on the main 
 caravan routes from Central Asia and Kashmir. 
 The streets show a mixture of races, and for color 
 and picturesqueness the bazaars equal those of La- 
 hore. Nearly every man wore a chudda of either 
 
 298 
 
AMRITSAR 299 
 
 vivid red, green, or orange, and if we had remained 
 another day I should have succumbed to the pre- 
 vailing mode, assumed a bright-red shawl, and with 
 it the theatrical pose and stride, the flap and fling 
 of loose ends of drapery. The Sikhs, "the Swiss of 
 Asia," were old friends, whom I had known before 
 I knew the Panjab— the splendid statuesque, red- 
 turbaned policemen of Shanghai and Hong Kong, 
 "the red-top men" of such terror to Chinese male- 
 factors. Originally Hindus, their Luther protested 
 against caste and idolatry and denounced the cor- 
 ruption of the Brahmans; and, just before Colum- 
 bus's voyage to America, he established his dissent- 
 ing sect near Lahore. Akbar showed tolerance and 
 granted them the sacred pool at Amritsar, but his 
 successors persecuted them, tortured their leaders, 
 and so aroused their national and military spirit 
 that after many battles they established their in- 
 dependence in the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 Their last great leader was Runjeet Singh, after 
 whose death in 1839 they embroiled themselves with 
 the English, were defeated at Gujerat in 1849, 
 and the Koh-i-nur went with the Panjab to the 
 victors, and now the pensioned descendants of their 
 ruler live as country gentlemen and champion 
 cricket-players in England, marrying with the 
 English nobility. The Sikhs' loyalty during the 
 Mutiny gave them a prestige still preserved, and 
 these stalwart and interesting people are claimed 
 by the Magyars as long-lost Aryan kinfolk, many 
 common words and the common fashion of beards 
 first suggesting the relationship. While the old 
 
300 WINTER INDIA 
 
 men of the Sikhs bewail that their people are back- 
 sliding and drifting into Hinduism, a stranger sees 
 that they . are as anti-Hindu as anti-Mohammedan ; 
 that they pray to the east, refuse tobacco, in- 
 dulge in spirits, eat pork, and button their coats 
 to the right— if only because their opponents do 
 otherwise. While they venerate the cow, they loathe 
 the saffron color of the Hindu fakir and love the 
 blue the Hindu hates. The Sikh never shaves or 
 trims his hair or beard, parting the latter and twist- 
 ing and tucking it behind his ears and under the tur- 
 ban. He always wears a sword, if only the minia- 
 ture tulwar in his turban, and he terrorizes the 
 timid babu, the limp Bengali, and the cowardly 
 Kashmiri as he does the Chinese, and in general is 
 the first man one meets in India. 
 
 The heart of the Sikh city and the soul of its peo- 
 ple is the Golden Temple in the center of the sacred 
 tank, the Pool of Immortality, and for beauty and 
 impressiveness this Amritsar shrine is second only 
 to the Taj Mahal. Marble terraces and balustrades 
 surround the tank, and a marble causeway leads 
 across the water to a graceful marble temple whose 
 gilded walls, roof, dome, and cupolas, with vivid 
 touches of red curtains, are reflected in the still pool. 
 One gets the first view from a high terrace by the 
 modern Gothic clock-tower, where the Sikh guards 
 halt one until he has removed his shoes. A bearded 
 giant exchanged our shoes for huge felt slippers 
 that were damp and even wet, and led us around the 
 white terrace. The palaces and gardens of Sikh 
 nobles surround the tank, and the path is bordered 
 
AMBITS AR 303 
 
 with venders of fruit, flowers, and turban orna- 
 ments. Processions of brilliantly clad people passed 
 under the towered gate of the causeway and out over 
 the path on the water; and, doubled in reflections, 
 it all seemed too picturesque, too theatrical to be 
 real. Only the north door of the temple is open to 
 Europeans, but the bearded priests sitting in a gold 
 and painted hall before a magnificently bound 
 Granth, or sacred scriptures, over which the atten- 
 dants waved brushes, received us kindly. Pigeons 
 flew in and out the arched openings with their mas- 
 sive silver doors; the musicians pounded and blew; 
 the priests sat chanting before the jeweled Granth, 
 which is the object of adoration to the sect, and after 
 we had made our ofl'erings, threw jasmine wreaths 
 over our shoulders and gave us fragrant oranges. 
 The Sikh visitors worshipfully knelt, offering 
 money, cowries, and flowers before the book, and, 
 garlanded in return, were conducted with us to the 
 upper chamber of the temple to see even richer wall 
 decorations of mirrors and gilded fretwork. The 
 place is so precious that it is swept and dusted only 
 with peacock feathers. The silver doors of the tem- 
 ple stand open day and night, and the chanted ser- 
 vices are continual, and on moonlight nights in sum- 
 mer this fairy floating temple must seem a dream. 
 Only the chill of those wet felt slippers on that cold 
 winter morning could have hurried us away from 
 the enchanting place; but, sneezing and shivering 
 violently, we fled, and although we spent two more 
 days in Amritsar, we were content to view the tem- 
 ple from the terrace. 
 
304 WINTER INDIA 
 
 Gardens, forts, towers, other temples and palaces 
 dwindled in interest by comparison with the bazaars 
 and street crowds of Amritsar, and hours went by 
 rapidly as we followed the narrow streets of this 
 truly Persian and Central Asian city. In the cara- 
 vansary by the city walls we saw such delightfully 
 tattered and patched and lusty beggars from Yar- 
 kand and Bokhara as no fancy could picture. They 
 are last in the train of pilgrims that come down 
 from the north each winter, taking train at Amritsar 
 and excursion steamer at Bombay for the pilgrimage 
 to Mecca. These plump, red-cheeked, Tatar-faced beg- 
 gars beat time on a triangle and sang an appealing 
 verse or two, accompanying it with dramatic and 
 graceful gestures; and they wished us long life, 
 health, and wealth in return for our infidel annas. 
 Other Yarkand men came out from the arches of 
 the quadrangle, some blue-eyed and with faces ab- 
 surdly Teutonic, their originally white skins tinged 
 with sunburn and dirt until, like the Sikhs, they 
 were a dark leather or ginger color. Some were 
 horse-dealers, others had brought wool, silk, jade, 
 turquoises, and agate for sale. All wore long, fur- 
 bordered, wool or wadded coats, with real sleeves 
 and seams in them, instead of the loose ends of cot- 
 ton and pashmina cloth of the people of the Indian 
 plains. One man in an old Russian military coat 
 and top-boots looked the veritable stage secret- 
 service man, and then we remembered that in 
 this caravansary Kim slept and listened. But how 
 we reveled in the streets and bazaars beyond! 
 The quarter of the shoemakers, where gaudy Mo- 
 
AMRITSAR 305 
 
 hammedan slippers dangled in gorgeous strings 
 and bunches, and leather-workers bent over rain- 
 bow tasks! The wool-shops, where Bokhara cam- 
 els' wool and Kashmir and Rampur pashmina cloths 
 overflowed from open sacks and bales! And yarn- 
 shops, hung over with skeins of every color! Dye- 
 shops, where turban lengths hung dripping with 
 every brilliant fluid! Copper and brass and dam- 
 ascened metal shops, and shops for the sale of 
 coarse carpets and dhurries, of skin bottles and 
 earthen bowls,— all were fascinating. The shops, how- 
 ever, were the dens of shawl-shops, where pale, fine- 
 featured Kashmiris sat embroidering shawl borders 
 with silks and gold thread. The little Kashmiri 
 boys, with their great eyes and long lashes, were 
 charming creatures, fine products of an old race and 
 an old civilization, purest Aryans of all these people ; 
 but the bearded Sikhs despise the Kashmiri only a 
 little less than they despise the Bengali. The gen- 
 tle, esthetic Kashmiri is not a fighting man, and 
 there are thousands of pure and mixed Kashmir 
 weavers and embroiderers long resident in Amritsar 
 who still quail before the giant Sikhs. 
 
 We found the jewelers' row, where women who 
 were themselves walking jewel-shops sat bargaining ; 
 and we found the gem-cutters' dens, where jade 
 blocks from Yarkand and farther Turkestan were 
 sawed, cut, and polished. Jewel-boxes, knife-han- 
 dles, knife-blades, ear-rings, bracelets, slabs, and me- 
 dallions for Delhi jewelers to inlay with precious 
 stones, were all being evolved from the rough lumps 
 of green stone by means of the primitive bow-string 
 
306 WINTER INDIA 
 
 drill and emery-wheel driven by the foot. There 
 was a sociable jade merchant of silky, persuasive 
 manners, who lost much time trying to convince 
 me that gray was green and that any soft stone, if 
 it were even grayish-green, was jade, and that brown 
 streaks and white clouds were desirable variations 
 in the monotonous monochrome surface. After this 
 prelude, he produced better pieces of this most fas- 
 cinating and oldest lucky stone in the world. Bul- 
 lock-carts crowded us to the wall and camel-trains 
 brushed contemptuously through the narrow bazaars. 
 One camel, loaded with baskets, scraped a destroy- 
 ing path through the tortuous lane, tearing down 
 flimsy awnings and curtains, sweeping signs and 
 trade samples along and tramping them under his 
 spongy feet, while the shrieks of the despoiled trades- 
 men filled the air. 
 
 All the way touts dogged our steps. ' ' Please come 
 ray shop. Please buy my shop," rang in my ear 
 whenever I stopped to look or to point the camera. 
 They followed us, pleading, if we walked ; they leaped 
 off and on the carriage-step if we drove ; and " Jao ! ' ' 
 had no significance to them save when emphasized 
 by the bearer's stick. One persistent nagger drove 
 us almost to frenzy with his lamentations and up- 
 Braidings whenever we stopped at a shop-front. We 
 bade him " Jao !" and to stay " jao," but he was om- 
 nipresent, and to get rid of him we went to his shop. 
 He had nothing but weather-worn rubbish; and 
 while he ran to borrow stock from a neighbor we 
 made our escape. 
 
 At the large carpet-factory ninety-seven looms 
 
AMRITSAR 309 
 
 were strung with cotton warp, and little Kashmiri 
 boys, sitting elbow to elbow before them, tied in the 
 wool threads, cut them with miniature scythes, and 
 pressed down the stitches with wooden combs. A 
 spectacled old Kashmiri, seated behind each curtain 
 of warp-threads, read off the directions for the pat- 
 tern from pages of Kashmir cipher, all understand- 
 ing and following this ancient, conventional cipher 
 by inherited association more easily than any of the 
 clear, mechanical directions devised and used by the 
 managers of jail carpet-works. Four small boys, 
 with one old man to read the pattern to them, will 
 make a fine, close, velvet-pile carpet, measuring 
 eleven by thirteen feet, in two months and a half,— a 
 carpet worth twenty-five dollars gold at Amritsar. 
 The design is chosen, the materials allotted, and the 
 contract let to the reader, who pays each boy three 
 or four rupees a month. Conventional old Turk- 
 ish and Persian designs are followed. They are first 
 drawn in colors, traced on scaled paper, graded to 
 the number of warp-threads, and the pattern writ- 
 ten in Kashmir cipher. The small boys work me- 
 chanically, tying on two, four, or twenty stitches, 
 as the reader calls to them, paying little heed to 
 what is growing under their fingers, whether scroll, 
 leaf, or stripe. "Two pink, three green, one red," 
 chant the boys in monotones after the reader. The 
 reader watches the pattern grow, and, detecting a 
 false stitch, raps the offender with the stick he 
 holds for the purpose. The carpets are valued both 
 for the fineness of the stitches and the quality of 
 the wool, the ordinary "fine old Persian, or Tabriz, 
 
310 
 
 WINTER INDIA 
 
 rug" of Western auction-rooms costing eleven and 
 twelve rupees a square yard in Amritsar; while a 
 copy of a precious old wine-red Bokhara rug they 
 were then weaving of fine pashmina or shawl wool 
 was worth fifty rupees a square yard. 
 
 Each loom was a genre picture and a color study, 
 with the spectacled Kashmiri in sober turban and 
 jacket on one side, and on the other the row of long- 
 lashed boys in brilliant garments, elbowing and 
 shoving one another and tittering together, quite as 
 all children behave in the presence of school visitors. 
 No finished carpets could be seen or bought, since 
 the looms were working overtime, a year behind their 
 orders. New York buyers order largely each year, 
 and large consignments go to London and Paris. 
 There were shawls for sale, bales and bales of them, 
 and stitched in silk threads at the end of each 
 chudda was the number of warp -threads, by which 
 their fineness and value are determined. They are 
 kept in press between boards, and when one bought 
 the silky fabric it was sewed in Kashmir wax-cloth 
 and sealed in a clumsy tin box. 
 
 So very enchanting did we find these bazaars that 
 we lingered another day and yet another, to feast 
 on their picturesque setting and incidents each 
 warm, Indian-summery afternoon. Then we has- 
 tened to the guard-house terrace overlooking the 
 tank and the Golden Temple, and watched that build- 
 ing of beauty, whose reflection seemed to float upon 
 the splendid sunset sky. 
 
 We hurried back to the bazaars again, to see the 
 narrow, irregular lanes illuminated with every kind 
 
AMRITSAR 311 
 
 of poor, crude, clumsy lamp and lantern, tallow 
 dip, rush-light, saucer of oil, and floating wick, 
 fagot, and torch. Shadows hid the dirt and in- 
 congruities; each unique thing had its right value; 
 and we haggled over blue-embroidered Yarkand 
 felt rugs, over striped Ludhiana lungis or gold-shot 
 cotton turban-cloths, over jade and blue ferozees 
 and the shadowy Bokhara silks, far into the frosty 
 darkness up to the late dinner-hour. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 SIMLA 
 
 IMBITSAR'S railway platform— the 
 same where Kim was put off the train 
 for want of a ticket to Ambala, and by 
 his wits was soon on board again — was 
 most picturesque the noonday we 
 started for Simla. A man in a blue coat with yel- 
 low cuffs and a red shawl thrown over his shoulder 
 was only first figure in the crowd of red, blue, 
 orange, and green-shawled creatures, in turbans of 
 red, pink, orange, lemon, and salmon, in blue and 
 gray Ludhiana lungis with gold-striped ends. An 
 ash-smeared fakir crouched gibbering by the wall 
 near the tank labeled, ** Water for Mohammedans," 
 and a high-caste Brahman protected water sacred to 
 his co-religionists' use. A woman whose jewelry 
 was but half concealed by a thin sari held an um- 
 brella down over her face as she squatted on the 
 concrete, and her owner threw a sheet over the um- 
 brella and fiercely guarded the beehive tent. From 
 this retreat, the woman peered forth, clashed and 
 jangled her jewels to attract our attention, and made 
 eager signs for us to come near that she might inspect 
 us. 
 
 312 
 
SIMLA 313 
 
 All afternoon we rode straight toward a long, blue 
 horizon-line that grew, until at sunset, at Ambala, 
 we had the great wall of the Himalayas plainly be- 
 fore us. We changed trains, and jolted over the 
 thirty-five miles to Kalka in complete darkness. At 
 nine o'clock we stumbled through a dark, deserted 
 village to the so-called hotel, which was a little bet- 
 ter than a stable only in that it had not yet been 
 used for horses. We spread our bedding in chill, 
 whitewashed, stone-floored rooms opening upon a 
 stone porch; and once more in darkness followed a 
 lantern through the streets to the post-office. There 
 we agreed to pay the government of India, or the 
 postmaster-general, seventy-five rupees for a "tonga 
 phaeton," i. e., a two-pony victoria, with sixteen re- 
 lays of ponies, for the fifty-seven-mile drive up to 
 Simla and return. 
 
 Wholly by our own energies we got the establish- 
 ment astir the next morning at half-past six o'clock. 
 The worst coffee in India was brought, with the 
 usual smoky toast and repulsive butter-plate— this 
 at perhaps the only hotel in India ever patronized 
 by the official class, and which the smart, the luxury- 
 loving and disdainful, must endure twice a year if 
 they go to Simla. Western civilization in India, 
 taking the hotel as its index, is at lowest ebb at 
 Kalka. 
 
 Our tonga, or "fitton" in native colloquial, ar- 
 rived at our door before sunrise, drawn by two bul- 
 locks. We mounted and were slowly dragged to the 
 post-office, from which exact point the government 
 had agreed to transport us. The two ponies were 
 
 17 
 
314 WINTER INDIA 
 
 then affixed,— "as per contract," said the babu,— 
 made fast by traces running to a tonga, or steel bar 
 fastened yoke-wise to both girths. Away they went 
 by leaps and bounds, and at a gallop, up hill, around 
 corners, and along a country road through the foot- 
 hills. Every three or four miles, the driver winded 
 his horn, the ponies redoubled their efforts to run 
 away, and we bounded into a tonga station, where 
 the relay ponies stood waiting in harness. The steel 
 bar was loosened and pinned to the girths of the 
 new ponies, the traces and reins made fast, and we 
 shot forth at the fixed gait of eight miles an hour. 
 
 It was a clear, cloudless day, with hoar-frost over 
 the grass of the bare hillsides and on the rice-fields 
 that in curving terraces filled every valley and ra- 
 vine, rippling away in lines that seemed designed 
 for ornament only. There were plantations of trees, 
 but no forests— none of the jungles that one expects 
 at the foot of such a mountain-range. In the dis- 
 tance clumps of intensely green Finns longifolia 
 waved their nine- and ten-inch-long needles as softly 
 as bamboos. We mounted long inclines, whence we 
 had a magnificent view of the hills and plains be- 
 low, or looked up and across to the loops of the road 
 above us. Sometimes we could watch the next relay 
 station as we drove toward it, and with the glasses 
 note the preparations for our arrival. Bullock-trains 
 under guard of sepoys, low mail-tongas bringing 
 convalescents down from the sanatoriums, and a 
 few camel-trains passed by. The bearded Sikhs, the 
 turbaned Pathans, and the handsome Kashmiris of 
 Lahore and Amritsar streets had vanished, and in 
 
SIMLA 317 
 
 their places appeared a nondescript people in sober 
 attire,— sturdy hill-men whose clothes and cheek- 
 bones had the same Chinese suggestion as those 
 of the hill-folk around Darjiling. At ten- thirty we 
 shook off our razais and rugs and limped into the dak 
 bangla at Solon, with fierce mountain appetites 
 added to what naturally succeeded the imitation of 
 a breakfast at Kalka. A courteous old khansamah, 
 with a velvet manner and perfect decorum, ush- 
 ered us to a dining-room where the chill of Hima- 
 layan summits lingered, and we soon had the table 
 brought out to the sunny veranda. Twenty-seven 
 miles of travel, and a lift of a few thousand feet 
 in air, had raised the art of cookery far above its 
 level at Kalka, and we breakfasted with enthusiasm. 
 While two plunging animals refused either to be 
 led or backed up to the ' ' fitton, ' ' the babu informed 
 us that this was the best post-road in India; that 
 it had the best carriages and best ponies; that the 
 government pays one and two hundred rupees for 
 the best Peshawar and Agra horses, and sells them 
 cheap at the end of six or eight months, since only 
 the best stock will do for or can stand the Simla 
 travel. Across the valley we could see twenty horses 
 sunning themselves before the next station, ready 
 for the day's relays, and our early start gave us the 
 choice of the successive stables. From Solon the 
 road led steadily up over bare brown hills, marked 
 by the path of landslides or the green of afforestation 
 efforts, set with candlestick cacti and striped with 
 an occasional patch of snow. All the boulders were 
 painted over with and the pine groves stuck full of 
 
318 WINTER INDIA 
 
 advertisements of a certain *' Green Seal Whisky," 
 the Himalayas as gaudy as a London omnibus or 
 railway station. At last a turn revealed to us the 
 snowy range, far away up against the sky, and then 
 Simla's straggling crescent of houses was seen across 
 a great chasm or valley. In seven hours and a half 
 — just the time taken for the trifling trains to climb 
 to Darjiling — we reached the Simla tonga station, 
 seven thousand and eighty-five feet above the sea. 
 
 It was the place of the "Phantom Rickshaw," but 
 what a material vehicle appeared to us ! No wonder 
 it is spelled with an unnecessary ''c" and a bar- 
 barous *'w," or with any alphabetical lumber that 
 can be dragged in by Anglo-Indians. Nothing could 
 be more ludicrous in a farce or burlesque in a Jap- 
 anese theater than such a vehicle. Four thousand 
 miles by road and centuries of intelligent devel- 
 opment lie between the Tokio jinrikisha and the 
 Simla "jinny rickshaw" — the one an airy seat 
 on flying wheels; the other a solid, clumsy cart, a 
 rattling, rumbling affair of cast-iron and thick 
 planks, drawn by four shuffling coolies, who walk 
 leaning against the long tongue or the back board 
 of the undersized juggernaut. 
 
 A late tiffin awaited us in the ramshackle wooden 
 hotel, which, patched, shabby, and unsightly, was 
 in the hands of workmen getting ready for the open- 
 ing of the season in March. The landlord was volu- 
 ble and kind, for tourists never come to the hill- 
 tops in winter, and he gave us the best of the shabby 
 old rooms— dark, sunless holes, with cheap furniture 
 and fittings so long past their day that they might 
 
SIMLA 319 
 
 well be put in a museum of last-century crudities. 
 Yet here fashion and arrogance abide from March 
 to November, and the gayest social life goes on, 
 despite the frightful thunder- and hail-stcrms— rains 
 that are nearly water-spouts and cloud-bursts, and 
 that continue for three months. 
 
 It was like turning the pages of "Plain Tales from 
 the Hills" even to read the street signs as we lum- 
 bered about that crescent ridge of the summer capi- 
 tal. Jakko, the Mall, the Ladies' Mile, Elysium Hill, 
 and all the rest were there, and we traveled the same 
 road that Mr. Isaacs and the fair English girl rode 
 together. There were the shops of jewelers,— in one 
 of which Kim and the other boy counted the loose 
 stones in trays,— shops of silk, silver, and curio mer- 
 chants, of milliners and pastry-cooks, all boarded 
 fast for the winter, and behind them the ramshackle 
 buildings of the native bazaar dropped along the 
 hillsides in crazy terraces. There were English 
 villas and cottages, and nothing Oriental or truly 
 Indian in the aspect of the place, and we had a 
 stranger's feeling. Our slow-moving coolies were 
 barefooted and barelegged, and when they stepped 
 aside from the beaten track of slush to let bullock- 
 trains pass, they often stood more than ankle deep 
 in snow. As the setting sun played a fire-pageant 
 over the line of snow-peaks, the chill mountain 
 air penetrated our wraps and rugs, but the red- 
 cheeked English girls in cotton shirt-waists strolled 
 slowly home with their tennis rackets, as if it were 
 a day in June. How we wished we might go with 
 them; that they would ask us to follow on and 
 
320 WINTER INDIA 
 
 have a cup of tea and meet Mrs. Hauksbee, the Gads- 
 bys, and all the rest we knew so well ! We wanted, 
 too, to hear more about those long-past seasons when 
 occult science and the new religion were setting 
 Simla wild; when Mme. Blavatsky, the suspected 
 Russian spy, was working her miracles, and great 
 mahatmas and yogis were arriving from nowhere, 
 with nothing in their hands, and letters dropped 
 from the ceiling as commonly as from the post- 
 man's bag. A. P. Sinnett, the editor of the Pioneer, 
 was leader in the occult movement, and by his 
 "Esoteric Buddhism" and ''Karma" theosophy 
 spread to the Occident. We had glimpses of those 
 days in ''Mr. Isaacs," and Mr. Crawford's Ram 
 Lai is to be taken seriously. The whole clumsy fraud 
 had been exposed when Kipling came, and in "The 
 Sending of Dana Da" we have an irreverent 
 account of a specimen case. When all the clap- 
 trap and collusion, the mechanical devices and 
 unblushing frauds had been exposed, laughter shook 
 the Himalayan hills, and the rich natives, who had 
 financed the apostles as furthering a crusade against 
 Christianity and mission work, were left in tears. 
 The London Society for Psychical Research sent 
 their keenest investigator, and there was no mys- 
 tery left— Isis was completely unveiled, and theoso- 
 phy has since been a dead issue in Simla ; and all its 
 miracles were proved to be in line with Dana Da's 
 sending of the kittens. 
 
 In February we walked the terraced promenade 
 by the reservoir alone, and had the sunset view of 
 the snowy range quite to ourselves. Three small 
 
SIMLA 321 
 
 Anglo-Indians lingered by the cathedral door. We 
 asked them the name of the large, white peak that 
 rose above the long, snowy ridge. '*I don't know 
 the name. The snows — just the snows — is what we 
 always call them," said one Wee Willie. 
 
 Even the landlord made a wry face when we said 
 we had come to see Simla as a tribute to Kipling; 
 that we should not have been satisfied to leave India 
 without visiting this scene of so many of his stories. 
 We assured the landlord— manager, rather— that 
 we could not have appreciated nor understood In- 
 dia but for Kipling, nor Kipling but for India; 
 that we now realized our debt to Kipling and the 
 measure of his genius. The manager did not make 
 vigorous protest, like all the other Anglo-Indians, 
 for the wise man quarrels not with his bread and 
 butter, and women who make pleasure-trips to Simla 
 in February are not to be held accountable beyond 
 the regular per diem rates in rupees. 
 
 The nights at Simla were something to benumb 
 an arctic explorer, and it was a relief to rise in dark- 
 ness and leave the tonga station long before the 
 sunrise glow was seen beyond Jakko's heights. As 
 we galloped away and down, the shadow of the 
 Himalayas retreated from the tawny, hazy plain— 
 a plain, as level and vast as the ocean, lying be- 
 neath the frost-haze. We had another sunny break- 
 fast at Solon, and, timing our halts, we found two 
 minutes by the watch sufficient to change ponies at 
 any station. At ten minutes past two o'clock, seven 
 hours after leaving Simla, we were at Kalka post- 
 office, and a train soon carried us on to Ambala, 
 
322 WINTER INDIA 
 
 where a four-hour wait was enlivened by the de- 
 parture of a wedding-party from the cantonment. 
 Ladies in laces and pale pink gowns brightened the 
 dark train-shed and platforms as they threw slip- 
 pers and rice. Silk-hatted men in frock-coats and 
 pearl trousers covered the rails with torpedoes that 
 gave joyful salute as the wheels rolled over them. 
 A gorgeously turbaned person in a gold brocade 
 dressing-gown and silver-toed, green leather slippers, 
 and who ought to have been one of the hill rajas 
 we forever read about, caught the eye completely. 
 Sad to say, he was only the coachman of a polo-play- 
 ing hill raja who had sent the bride and groom to 
 the train in his state landau. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ALWAR 
 
 jHE superior tourist in India usually 
 makes a point of his acquaintance with 
 rulers of native states, generally harps 
 on the fact unduly, and raises bitter- 
 ness in the heart of the plain tourist 
 and common sight-seer, who cannot refer casually 
 to the rajas, diwans, residents, and political agents 
 he knows. "I was the guest of the raja at So-and- 
 So," "I was put up at the maharaja's bangla in 
 Here-and-There, " say such enviable beings. One 
 listens with envy and deep humility if he does 
 not know that a card from one's consul, even a 
 courteously worded note from the tourist himself, 
 will secure one the privilege of stopping at the gov- 
 ernment rest-house or raja's bangla in a native state 
 —at a fixed price for his lodging and carriage. One 
 makes the usual grand tour and sees the great sights 
 of India without leaving British territory, although 
 one third of the area and one fifth the population 
 of India are under native rule. Hyderabad in the 
 Deccan, where the Nizam rules twelve millions of 
 people occupying a territory as large as Italy, Udai- 
 pur (spelled in seventy-two different ways), Jodh- 
 
 323 
 
324 WINTER INDIA 
 
 pur, Baroda, Indore, Alwar, Gwalior, and Kashmir 
 are the native states the tourist finds most worth see- 
 ing. "I am only visiting native states on this trip," 
 said one superior traveler. "I do not care for the 
 beaten track." When we met him on the grand 
 thoroughfare weeks later and asked as to his enjoy- 
 ment of innermost India, he denounced native rulers 
 
 in sweeping terms. ' ' I arrived in the day the 
 
 raja died in Calcutta, so there was nothing doing 
 there, unless I waited a week to see a funeral. I 
 
 presented my letter to the diwan at and he 
 
 said: 'I am very sorry, but His Highness has been 
 so intoxicated for the past fortnight that he has not 
 seen any one. He is drinking a bottle of brandy and 
 one of chartreuse a day, in addition to much cham- 
 pagne and Scotch and soda. I really cannot say 
 when His Highness will be fit to receive visitors 
 
 again.' At it rained cats and dogs, the 
 
 bangla leaked, the bedding was wet, and the food 
 'bad, and I came away without presenting my letter. 
 All India is off the beaten track." 
 
 We stopped at Alwar, in Rajputana, on our way 
 back to Agra to keep our engagement with the Feb- 
 ruary moon in the garden of the Taj. We reached Al- 
 war station, as we had reached so many other places, 
 between one and two o'clock in the morning. There 
 was no carriage, no khansamah, nor any one from 
 the maharaja's bangla to meet us — only sodden 
 darkness and the platform of the small railway sta- 
 tion. A tiny ekka was found, and in some way we, 
 with the luggage and bearer, managed to get in 
 the absurd little cab, and a mite of a pony managed 
 
ALWAR 327 
 
 to pull us to the bangla. A sleepy khansamah made 
 us comfortable for the rest of the night. 
 
 A relay of messengers, and finally a victoria with 
 men in blue palace livery, came from the diwan, or 
 prime minister of the tiny empire, at nine in the 
 morning. We were driven to his house, and went 
 through many anterooms to a cool, dark inner draw- 
 ing-room, where a portly personage in a mixed Ori- 
 ental and European costume of white flannel re- 
 ceived us with great cordiality. His little daughter, 
 in a woolen hood and many calico coats, but with only 
 jingling anklets to keep her little bare brown feet 
 and legs warm, was brought in and duly admired, 
 and then he presented one Soorajbux, the learned 
 librarian of the high school, who was detailed 
 as our cicerone for the day. He took us first to the 
 modern palace, a suburban villa full of European 
 furniture and notions, where the young raja spent 
 his occasional vacations from the Mayo College at 
 Ajmir. Among the incongruities in the raja's study 
 was a framed chromolithograph of Wood's single- 
 apron binder at work in an American wheat-field. 
 There were inclined planes as well as staircases that 
 the ruler might ride to his bedchamber if he wished, 
 and a beautiful durbar hall with carved window- 
 lattices. From the upper windows we looked down 
 upon a sunken garden, once a sacred tank, where 
 fern- and orchid-houses overflowed with beautiful 
 plants; and by avenues of bo- and banian-trees we 
 reached the garden of the lions, tigers, and bears, 
 home aJso of wonderful red, blue, and yellow parrots 
 who uttered long Rajput sentences. 
 
328 WINTER INDIA 
 
 We drove rapidly back to the city and through 
 the bazaars, where women in gaily embroidered phul- 
 karis set with looking-glasses seemed to have walked 
 away in those long-favored decorations of British 
 drawing-rooms. We saw the stables, the five hundred 
 horses, the forty elephants tramping and swinging 
 their trunks in idleness **for the honor and glory of 
 the raja," and then made another dash through city 
 streets, with the populace saluting the palace equi- 
 page. In one court of the palace, an elephant in 
 state trappings and a 15ody-guard of soldiers waited 
 before the temple where the raja's mother was pray- 
 ing. In the next court, the bearded keeper of the 
 library waited for us in highly impatient mood. 
 He had been waiting for hours, by the diwan's 
 command, and, with much communing in his beard, 
 he produced the books which are Alwar's pride— 
 a beautifully illuminated Koran, a gorgeous Gu- 
 listan whose medallions, letters, and borders would 
 excite a Western bibliophile, many Persian books 
 illuminated by the best old Delhi painters,— and 
 showed us one room full of sacred Vedas. 
 
 We were taken on to farther courts and through 
 many marble halls to the banquet-hall, where the 
 long dining-table was of solid silver. The water 
 ran gurgling in silver channels down its length, and 
 jeweled birds in gold and silver cages warbled over 
 this precious garden-bed. There was a beautiful 
 white-marble durbar hall with carved balconies and 
 lattices, and a glittering Shish Mahal adjoining it, 
 all a dazzle of mirrors and colored glass. It further 
 overlooked a great tank or lake surrounded by mar- 
 
ALWAR 329 
 
 ble terraces, balustrades, and pavilions, with a rug- 
 ged mountain fortress crowning the perpendicular 
 rock mass beyond the tank. It was a fairyland sight 
 by day, and when illuminated for viceregal fetes 
 must transcend all Indian fantasies. A picturesque 
 old turban claimed us and led the way to the armory, 
 where room after room was filled with weapons with 
 murderous and agonizing edges and points; their 
 handles jeweled, carved, inlaid, and damascened ; the 
 blades wonderfully tempered, mottled and grained, 
 often chased and inlaid with verses. One sword- 
 blade had a shallow runnel near the hilt, in which a 
 dozen loose pearls ran up and down in the gummy 
 ooze of oil left by the zealous cleaners. Sword-hilts 
 set with pearls, rubies, and diamonds; jade hilts 
 jeweled all over; and hilts of Jeypore enamel were 
 the delight of the gleeful, proud old armorer, who 
 had a dramatic way of drawing a blade, giving it 
 a flourish in air, and presenting it suddenly level 
 with one's eyes for close inspection. We had finally 
 to tear ourselves away from the array of more and 
 more terrible weapons his minions brought from 
 some inexhaustible storehouse— spears, daggers, ele- 
 phant-goads, battle-axes, and chopping-knives of 
 terrible ingenuity. The jewels of Alwar, the emer- 
 ald cup, and the precious cabochon fringes would 
 take pages to themselves, rivaling as they do the 
 collections of temples. 
 
 We were hurried out to the white court overlooked 
 by the zenana windows to see the return of the maha- 
 rani,— such a spectacular scene that it was a pity 
 the central figure in it was so curtained and veiled 
 
330 
 
 WINTER INDIA 
 
 as not to be able to see it herself. Lancers on horse- 
 back, state elephants and color-bearers, first ap- 
 peared in the white archway and, with the troops, 
 ranged themselves around the dazzling court. Sil- 
 ver palanquins with red silk curtains held the royal 
 ladies, and three hundred women attendants muffled 
 in red, yellow, and white draperies chanted as they 
 walked beside them. It was such a brilliant pageant 
 that we could hardly believe it the ordinary week- 
 day proceeding. To prove how much more splendid 
 Alwar rulers could be on gala occasions, they showed 
 us a two-story red and gold elephant carriage in 
 which fifty people ride in state processions, and store- 
 houses full of jeweled elephant trappings. 
 
 Then we saw the chetahs, or hunting leopards, 
 huge spotted yellow cats, blindfolded and wearing 
 funny little leather caps, and tied head, tail, and 
 legs to a cage or skeleton stall. They stood inert 
 as wooden cats, and would neither growl, snap, 
 nor even wink when the keepers tried to rouse them, 
 two men lifting a chetah and setting it down as 
 they might lift and move a four-legged table. In 
 the jail yard and workshops the law breakers were 
 contentedly weaving carpets, dhurries, and cloth, 
 making paper, grinding corn, and otherwise mak- 
 ing themselves useful. The leader, a red-handed 
 murderer, chanted the carpet pattern, and his fel- 
 low-criminals bawled loudly in response, tying "one 
 green, three white, two blue" automatically. There 
 are already hereditary criminals in these modern, 
 comfortable jails, and the jail caste is fast becom- 
 ing a definite order. 
 
ALWAR 333 
 
 Soorajbux took us to his high-school building, 
 showed us his illuminated Persian books, and asked 
 many naive questions about the outer world. "The 
 Japanese— are they at all like the Hindus? Of what 
 religious caste are they? Are they civilized like 
 us?" And we left Soorajbux exclaiming: "What! 
 they are the most refined and artistic people in the 
 world! Their art a revelation to and the despair 
 of all Europe ! They are more esthetic than the Eng- 
 lish ! How very wonderful ! Do the English 
 know it?" 
 
 In the afternoon the courteous old diwan returned 
 our visit, his yellow turban and suite sending the 
 bangla staff into such agitation that we barely 
 made the station and train in time as a fierce thun- 
 der-storm came on. AVe dined and waited a few 
 hours at Bandikui Junction, and then took train for 
 Agra, arriving at half-past three in the morning; 
 for, no matter from which direction the traveler 
 comes, it seems impossible ever to reach Agra at a 
 rational hour. We stopped this time at the hotel 
 where the German professor had enjoyed the grilled 
 mutton-chops, and a notice on the wall of my room 
 requested: "Visitors will please not beat the ser- 
 vants, but report them to the manager, who will 
 punish them." 
 
 We revisited the Taj on a gray, cloudy morning, 
 the moist air heavy with the fragrance of flowers. 
 We sat again on the balcony of the Jasmine Tower 
 at the fort and watched a murky sunlight play upon 
 the distant white bubbles of the Taj, and then took 
 an afternoon train for Gwalior. The whole time- 
 
334 WINTER INDIA 
 
 table of the Indian Midland Railway was put out of 
 joint and our train made an hour late by the lamp 
 dropping through the roof of our compartment. 
 Guards and station-masters at three stopping-places 
 chattered and gave frenzied orders, and while a 
 small lamp was in some way tied into the large 
 socket, nothing could bring a man of sufficiently 
 ignoble caste to wipe the oil and broken glass from 
 the floor. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 GWALIOR 
 
 [FTER any experience with the ordinary- 
 dak bangla and the up-country hotels, 
 the Mussaffirkhana, the maharaja's 
 rest-house at Gwalior, is a dream of 
 luxury. Used only to dirty carpets and 
 dhurries, or ancient reed mattings laid on cement 
 or mud floors, we rubbed our eyes at sight of the 
 shining white stairway, at the clean, soft-piled carpets 
 of the beautiful white villa, and more at the great- 
 windowed bedrooms that were actually furnished. 
 There were real bureaus and real beds — complete 
 beds with springs, mattresses, pillows, sheets, blan- 
 kets, and spreads! We sat down in amaze, and the 
 sense of wonder was exhausted when we found every 
 lock, hinge, knob, and fastening of the doors and 
 windows in working order and the whole place spot- 
 lessly clean. Such sights had not been seen since 
 Colombo. Below-stairs the pretty drawing-room and 
 dining-room were as well kept and modern. The 
 Mussaffirkhana was the greatest surprise in India, 
 the enlightened maharaja a special providence to 
 hardship-worn tourists fortunate enough to be per- 
 mitted to inhabit that abode of bliss, a literal rest- 
 is 335 
 
336 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 house and a temple of cleanliness and order. Natur- 
 ally we dreamed of American hotels and other high 
 products of our civilization, and happily waked to 
 find the Mussaffirkhana not a dream but luxurious 
 reality. After the chota hazri, as daintily perfect as 
 the little breakfast of a Paris hotel, we drove about 
 the well-kept town in a palace carriage, a perfectly 
 appointed victoria. The streets were lined with white 
 houses, whose tracery windows and ornamental bal- 
 conies were worthy an art museum. The street 
 crowds were most brilliant, and more yellow was worn 
 in Gwalior than elsewhere, along with the endless 
 variety of Mahratta turbans, which surpass in num- 
 ber and originality those of any other people. The 
 very imposing coachman snapped his whip and the 
 blooded horses sped away like the wind, straight 
 down the middle of each street, the sais yelping 
 shrill warnings, the crowds parting automatically 
 and saluting the palace livery. We saw the beauti- 
 ful unfinished temple to Sindhia's mother, for which 
 the stone-cutters were chipping out as fine traceries 
 and latticings as any in Delhi or Agra, and then re- 
 turned for the serious British breakfast, at a table 
 fragrant with roses and mignonette. It was radiant, 
 mild, ideal spring weather, and after all our suf- 
 ferings from cold we basked with delight in the open 
 air, faring forth again to the foot of the rock-fortress 
 which rises like Gibraltar from the plain. A splen- 
 did elephant in red-velvet trappings stood waving 
 its trunk as we drove up, and at the word of com- 
 mand sank upon its hind legs in a deep courtesy, 
 stretched out its great body, slowly bent its fore 
 
GWALIOR 339 
 
 legs and sank to the ground, and we climbed up a 
 ladder to the dos-a-dos car or saddle on its back. 
 With earthquake heaves, a rock this way and a lurch 
 that way, it stood erect and lumbered up the steep, 
 flagged path, through six defensive gateways, to the 
 blue-tiled walls of the "painted palace" at the edge 
 of the rock. We penetrated its deserted courts all 
 carved with flat traceries and arabesques and set 
 with enameled tilings and stone latticings, and from 
 the flat roof had an unlimited view over the level 
 yellow plain more than three hundred feet below. 
 
 Again our stately transport knelt, we climbed to 
 the red-velvet jaunting-car on its back, and it paced 
 across the flat, table-topped mesa to the half-ruined 
 Jain temples, where conquering Moguls wreaked 
 their fanatic zeal, chipping and mutilating the 
 myriad tiny figures in the bas-reliefs with w'hich 
 walls and columns were covered, and further effacing 
 them with coats of chunam and whitewash. The 
 wealth of intricate ornament lavished on these 
 temples would be incomprehensible were there not 
 the perfect Jain temples at Mount Abu to show what 
 the shrines of Gwalior rock once were in less degree. 
 While we lingered at that angle of the rock's para- 
 pet to look down upon the city below us, the yellow- 
 turbaned mahout made his elephant do tricks like 
 any poodle. It picked up and threw stones, waved 
 its spotted ears and trunk as commanded, and nosed 
 up the tiniest coins from grass or gravel and gave 
 them to the mahout. It lumbered after us over the 
 grass as tamely as a kitten, its great soft feet shuf- 
 fling with a strange barefoot tread as it followed us 
 
340 WINTER INDIA 
 
 to a pyramidal temple ruin very similar to the Bud- 
 dhist ruins in Java. The same indefatigable Major 
 Keith who rescued and preserved the old carved and 
 tiled palace worked over this temple, too, restoring 
 the gateway and replacing as far as possible every 
 carved fragment. We remounted, and the mahout 
 guided the monster down the road and then close 
 beside the parapet, goaded it until it was as close 
 to the coping as possible, and then bade us look 
 down and see the rock-sculptures that adorn the 
 perpendicular face of a ravine of the rock. With 
 three hundred feet of space below our feet, the 
 breathing of the elephant seeming enough to burst 
 the girths that bound the car to it, and its lurches 
 as it shifted its weight from one foot to the other 
 enough to propel us into the air, we cared nothing 
 for bas-reliefs and images. A tank far below, and 
 the winding white Lashkar road, seemed to sway in 
 air and rise toward us, and we clutched the car- 
 frame in agony and begged only to be taken down 
 to the safe level of the plain again, to horses and 
 wheeled vehicles. We could easily believe that much 
 elephant-riding makes one mad, and that the motion 
 and the heat of the elephant's body affect the spine 
 and shorten the life of a mahout. After the jerk- 
 ing and jolting of its downhill progress we gladly 
 left the gentle giantess in the red-velvet cloak sa- 
 laaming and putting its trunk to its forehead in 
 thanks, in ridiculous parody of the slim little mahout 
 beside it. 
 
 We were allowed to peep into the court of the 
 Jama Mas j id without unshoeing, and went then to 
 
GWALIOK 341 
 
 see the splendid and impressive tomb of Mohammed 
 Ghaus, a Moslem saint of Akbar's time, who rests in 
 an immense domed hall shut in by sandstone lattices 
 of exquisite and intricate design. Next came the tomb 
 of Tansen, a musician, sheltered by a tamarind-tree 
 whose leaves, if chewed prayerfully, will secure one a 
 sweet voice. The dancing-girls come to worship at 
 this tomb, and tree after tree has been stripped of 
 leaves and killed, so that seedling descendants are 
 kept at hand to replace them. 
 
 " Memsahib," said the bearer, excitedly, " there 
 will be fight this day with lion, unicorn, and elephant. 
 Will memsahib see?" Learning that the unicorn 
 was a rhinoceros, we were ready to see the fray 
 which is the national pastime, as in Akbar's day. 
 A British major from Rawal Pindi cantonment, 
 showing India by winter to a visiting niece and 
 nephew, and staying at the Mussaffirkhana, implored 
 us so earnestly not to go that we deferred to his ad- 
 vice — and have regretted it ever since, wondering 
 how much of local color and national character we 
 missed in not seeing Sindhia's subjects at their fa- 
 vorite sport, to which bull-fighting must be child's 
 play. 
 
 The bazaars were brilliant enough when crowded 
 with white-clad Mahratta men in their fantastic tur- 
 bans, and Mahratta women in full, bunchy skirts of 
 every hue, swinging and tilting past, clashing and 
 jangling their anklets ; but when a part of the raja 's 
 body-guard, preceding the maharani on her way to 
 worship, paraded down a street of white houses, 
 the stage pageant was complete. Horsemen in gay 
 
342 WINTER INDIA 
 
 uniform and gorgeous turbans, with fluttering pen- 
 nons; horses in bright saddle-cloths, yellow bridles 
 and trimmings; a state elephant in red velvet and 
 gold trappings, with cloth-of-gold curtains to its 
 gilded howdah; and a troop of women surrounding 
 the gilded palanquin, made up a very spectacular 
 church parade. It was all so splendidly theatrical, 
 so really Oriental, as at Alwar, that we said : ' ' This 
 is the last touch, the perfect climax. Let us go 
 quickly, before the curtain falls, the people put on 
 their every-day clothes, and we are disillusioned. Let 
 Gwalior remain in memory with all the bloom of the 
 first overpowering impression. ' ' We would not wait 
 two days on the chance of meeting Sindhia himself 
 when he should return from a hunting-trip, and 
 we took train for Agra— arriving at midnight, of 
 course. 
 
 We had a quiet Sunday to revisit tombs in ap- 
 propriate observance of the day, and to sit again on 
 the Jasmine Tower and watch the sunset play over 
 the Taj Mahal. There was an unmistakable Sabbath 
 atmosphere to the view, although the dhobiemen 
 were swinging, pounding, and spreading out acres 
 of cloths to dry on the flats below the fort, and twit- 
 tering parrakeets flashed in and out of the creviced 
 wall, and fluttered over the dry moat where Akbar's 
 elephants and unicorns fought for his entertainment. 
 A sudden impulse seized us as the pageant began, 
 and we hurried to the gharry, implored the sais to 
 make all speed, and running through the garden of 
 the Taj, settled ourselves once more in the upper 
 story of the western minaret overhanging the river. 
 
GWALIOR 343 
 
 The great white temple was richly yellow in the last 
 beams of the sun, with blue shadows in every recess. 
 Softly rolling white clouds across the Jumna took 
 on rose-lights and were reflected in the river. The 
 Taj flushed rose-pink, and before the golden burst 
 of the afterglow had faded the February moon rose 
 full, round, blood-red in the east. The vision was 
 complete. Fifteen times had we entered the garden 
 of the Taj, and each time the spell of the Taj was 
 stronger. 
 
 The next day dragged through with odds and ends 
 of sight-seeing until sunset. We dutifully did the 
 jail, the most populous in India, where often a thou- 
 sand prisoners are kept, and carpet-weaving is the 
 chief of many industries. Great efforts have been 
 made, by following the best old designs and using 
 only vegetable dyes, to attain a high standard and 
 keep the Agra carpets first in the foreign market. 
 Thirteen rupees a square yard is the average price, 
 and over five thousand yards are woven a year, the 
 jail earning 90,000 rupees a year by its industries. 
 Agra criminals long furnished the best jail carpets 
 in India, but good conduct reduced the time of some 
 and Jubilee benevolence released others of the best 
 long-sentence weavers, and the Agra carpets declined 
 for a time. That afternoon we stayed by the Jas- 
 mine Tower and watched the white bubbles on the 
 horizon flush rose-red for a brief moment against 
 a misty gray sky. Then white mists rolled up from 
 the river, and rain-clouds gathered and hid the Taj 
 Mahal forever from our view. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 JEYPORE 
 
 |T Agra we were midway in the penin- 
 sula — eight hundred and forty-one 
 miles from Calcutta, and eight hun- 
 dred am forty-eight miles from Bom- 
 bay. It was very cold, and rain was 
 falling in sheets when we started, late at night, to 
 ride the one hundred and forty-nine miles to Jeypore, 
 and during the night it grew colder. Clouds of 
 dust came through the loose, rattling carriage-win- 
 dows, and when we shook off our razais at daylight, 
 near Jeypore, there was a small dust-storm in our 
 compartment. 
 
 The pompous, fat proprietor of the Hotel Kaiser- 
 i-Hind was strutting the platform in a solferino 
 plush coat, waving a telegram and shouting for 
 "Eliza! Eliza!" — meaning the person who had sent 
 the message. His rival, the proprietor of the dak 
 bangla, fawned at our elbow, beseeching us to come 
 to his house instead, and there was wordy war be- 
 tween the two across me, charge and counter-charge. 
 "I will furnish elephant for Amber, no charge!" 
 shouted one. ' ' Oh, memsahib ! memsahib ! ' ' hissed 
 the other, "that elephant no good elephant, not got 
 
 344 
 
JEYPORE 345 
 
 teeth." "Mine is first-class family hotel," roared 
 the solferino villain, "Oh, his is dirty, rotten hotel," 
 wailed the other. "Please come my house, please 
 come my house, I am poor man, ' ' bawled the bangla- 
 keeper, as the big solferino banged the carriage-door 
 on his trophies and climbed the box to guard us from 
 being kidnapped on the way. 
 
 The dining-room of the Kaiser-i-Hind was in the 
 cellar-like ground floor, and an outside staircase led 
 to the cement terrace or roof on which the bedrooms 
 opened — lofty rooms, with many doors and long win- 
 dows to admit air in the hot weather when the hotel 
 is empty, and fireplaces the size of a crumb-tray to 
 warm them on the frosty nights when the place is 
 filled with shivering, sneezing tourists. Two dozen 
 times the solferino one asked me if I wanted a guide 
 for Jeypore, and as many times he received the de- 
 cisive "No." Two babus were breakfasting in the 
 general room, quite like Europeans, and speedily 
 opened conversation. No discouragements could 
 check their volubility, and we watched to see what 
 game was premeditated. "I am not common man," 
 said the larger turban. "I am prince. I am Nawab 
 of Behar. Go! fetch me those letters from the 
 duke, ' ' he said to his companion, who returned with 
 a greasy note, worn like a beggar's certificate. The 
 secretary of the Duke of Connaught had written to 
 "His Highness Mer Abdul-asal Alum Khan, Nawab 
 of Behar," to express condolences on the death of 
 the Nawab 's wife. Then this doubtful Nawab, eat- 
 ing in the public room of an inn with caste) ess un- 
 believers, told us that his family owned the Espla- 
 
346 WINTER INDIA 
 
 nade Hotel in Bombay, and that he spent much time 
 there. He offered to telegraph to his brother-ruler 
 of Indore, or to any native state we might wish to 
 visit. He would even take us around Jeypore and 
 show us the sights, since he had nothing else to do 
 that day. He would take us to the shops — and then 
 all suspicions crystallized without this democratic 
 raja adding: *'I will take you to the best shops. I 
 am not common man after commission. ' ' This latest 
 form of tout, the princely one of the table d'hote, was 
 such an amusing climax to our touting experiences 
 that we could hardly keep serious countenances be- 
 fore the clumsy confidence-man and his accomplice. 
 His tongue ran on and on, in sheer joy in its run- 
 ning. "I want not commissions on what you buy. 
 I want not money in this world— only friends, and 
 weeping when I am dead." We could not tell how 
 much conspiracy there was between this pair and the 
 solferino landlord, who had been so persistent about 
 our taking a guide ; but the solferino one handed the 
 Nawab into a carriage with a great flourish just as 
 our "fitton" drew up. ''You are going to the mu- 
 seum?" asked the Nawab. "So are we"; and he 
 was whirled away without escort or outriders. He 
 stood on the museum steps dumbly staring when our 
 carriage went past him toward the city gates, and 
 when we did return to the museum, two hours later, 
 the Nawab was waiting and showed the strain of 
 that long suspense. The pair followed us from case 
 to case for a while, profuse in praises of what we 
 looked at longest, voluble until we put direct ques- 
 tions to them about the methods and processes of 
 
JEYPORE 347 
 
 manufacture of some of the old art objects. ' ' I can 
 find you shop to make you copy of anything you 
 see here," repeated the bogus Nawab several times 
 plaintively. To end the farce, which had then been 
 played long enough, we confided loudly to each other 
 in prearranged dialogue that we had not an anna left 
 for shopping in Jeypore— only our railway tickets 
 and rupees enough to get to Bombay. The Nawab 
 melted away without adieu and was seen no more. 
 
 This art museum, housed in a beautiful palace in 
 a park, is filled with the choicest examples of old 
 pottery, brass, enamel, gold- and silver-work, carv- 
 ing, weaving, embroidery, jewelry, and everything 
 else on which Indian fancy and genius lavished dec- 
 oration in the past. At the art school in the city 
 replicas of many of the museum objects were for 
 sale, and others could be commanded. The class of 
 young brass-beaters sat in the cellar-like entrance 
 of the school, beating out Saracenic traceries as bor- 
 ders of large brass trays sunk in beds of pitch ; and 
 a dyer and his wife next door walked up and down, 
 stretching between them to dry the rainbow-striped 
 cotton head-sheets which are a specialty of Jeypore. 
 Everywhere in this "rose-red city, half as old as 
 time," the street groups Avere so theatrically pictur- 
 esque that we forgot everything in watching them. 
 The city is new, architecturally, and its two long, 
 straight streets, crossing at right angles by the palace 
 walls, cause all picturesqueness to converge there. 
 The crowds were so brilliant and fantastic that one 
 remembers Jeypore as some pageant in grand opera, 
 the bazaars more spectacular than even those of La- 
 
348 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 hore. At noon, we saw the broad main street crowded 
 from curb to curb with men in white clothes, with 
 gay turbans and shawls,— a crowd that swayed and 
 surged and moved until the long expanse of turbans 
 was like a tulip-bed in the wind. It was the climax 
 of all Indian street scenes, and such a kaleidoscopic 
 play of color as could only be seen there on the day 
 telegraphic bulletins are received from the govern- 
 ment opium auctions, which fix the price of the drug 
 for the month. 
 
 At the great Four Comers there is a monumental 
 fountain, and there elephants continually pace by, 
 camel-trains pass and repass, and pigeons descend 
 in clouds if one tosses a few grains in air. Sheeted 
 women, with jingling anklets and full-swinging 
 skirts, come to the corner of the jewelers' bazaar 
 to buy their glass, brass, lacquer, and more precious 
 bangles and nose-rings. There were wedding pro- 
 cessions passing the fountain all that sunny day, 
 which had been declared the lucky one of the month. 
 Many corteges were preceded by elephants in rich 
 velvet and bullion trappings, their faces, trunks, and 
 ears elaborately painted. Jeweled bridegrooms went 
 by in velvet-lined palkis hung from silver yokes, and 
 from time to time the processions halted, a canvas 
 was spread on the ground for the company to sit 
 on, and nautch-girls — middle-aged colored women 
 in bunchy accordion skirts and full panoply of 
 jewels — gave a deliberate song-and-dance interlude. 
 These mature sirens literally "trod" their slow- 
 footed measures in clumsy, dusty leather shoes that 
 a hod-carrier might wear. Each family circle wel- 
 
JEYPORE 351 
 
 corned us to the company of wedding guests, and we 
 assisted at several such interludes. There was the 
 palace to see— a modern, tawdry, semi-European af- 
 fair of much plaster-work, mirrors, and gilding. 
 The carpets were rolled up in the throne-room of 
 the beautiful Audience Hall, the furniture covered 
 with brown holland, and the state treasurer, cross- 
 legged between two accountants, occupied it for the 
 day while he paid off the palace servants. We were 
 led down the long marble paths of the formal gar- 
 den to see— a billiard-room. But we saw, on the way, 
 the myriad-bay-windowed walls of the zenana, which 
 greatly resembled the street fronts of San Francisco 
 hotels. We saw the palace stables and two aged ele- 
 phants eating grass; and later in the day went to 
 ''the lion and tiger museum" to see two real, live 
 unicorns. ''See," said our bearer, "with how very 
 loose skins these unicorns are," as he led us to the 
 rhinoceroses' cage. 
 
 There were the regular, cut-and-dried tourists' 
 shops tilled with crudely made weapons, rough 
 brasses and potteries, for which gullible folk pay 
 twice the London price ; and one such proprietor met 
 us at the door with his visitors' book and insisted 
 that we should read the praises of himself, his wares, 
 and the Indian tiffin he serves good patrons, written 
 but the day before by some young travelers from 
 New York. He dilated upon the virtues of Amer- 
 icans, and showed us the boxes and boxes of trumpery 
 stuff bought by those tourists ; and it was great com- 
 fort to us, the worthy poor, that we were not as the 
 millionaires are— to be taken in by Brummagem 
 
352 . WINTER INDIA 
 
 goods and cast-iron sword-blades at double the 
 Broadway prices, 
 
 At another shop of archaic weapons that had but 
 yesterday come from the foundry, we bought an 
 elephant-goad for peace and sociability's sake, and 
 sat for an hour to watch the panorama of the main 
 street. The bearded proprietor bubbled away at his 
 hooka and pointed out the Jeypore celebrities as 
 they went by — the prime minister, the chief magis- 
 trate, the political resident,— even the treasurer go- 
 ing jn state, with an artillery escort, to pay visits. 
 A group of Brahmans bringing sacred Ganges water 
 from Benares had military escort, too, and a military 
 band; and there was an air of religious state to all 
 the great ekkas drawn by noble white bullocks, the 
 kincob curtains but half concealing the rainbow- 
 wrapped women within. Noble graybeards pranced 
 by on Arab horses, and five wedding processions, 
 with jeweled nautch-girls in gold-gauze dresses, 
 passed before us, the wise old elephants looking very 
 bored with all this fuss and f olderol over the marriage 
 of small boys. A customer came and bought some 
 big brasses ; a minion ran off and found a dilapidated 
 box for a few annas, and they patched and mended 
 it on the spot. Then the proprietor swept a glance 
 over the crowded thoroughfare and let forth wails 
 like a muezzin on a minaret. A woman, bent under 
 a great bundle of forage, stepped aside, dropped her 
 small haystack on the shelf-like floor of the shop, 
 and the packer's material was bought from her, a 
 simple, direct, and primitive proceeding that de- 
 lighted me. 
 
JEYPORE 353 
 
 Such scorching sunshine and piercing winds were 
 never experienced together as in Jeypore. One 
 needed an umbrella as protection from the sun and 
 fur wraps as protection from the wind at the same 
 time. We tiffined in the icy dining-room and took 
 coffee on the scorching terrace, where merchants of 
 arms gathered daily to display their ancient weapons 
 — cast-iron stuff made to order in England to furnish 
 the ''cozy corners" of Christendom, to hang on the 
 walls, and to prop up the divan draperies of so- 
 called Oriental rooms. 
 
 It was on one of the most brilliantly sunny and 
 piercingly cold days that we drove across the city 
 and out to the flat country beyond, where abandoned 
 gardens, crumbling tombs, lone minarets, and domes 
 lined the road, and alligators basked by neglected 
 tanks where green scum floated. As we drove into 
 a courtyard, a weary old elephant with a painted 
 face sadly in need of retouching saluted us with 
 foot and trunk. It knelt, and we climbed to a 
 rickety charpoy, or string-bed frame, covered with 
 doubtful razais. After the noble beast at Gwalior, 
 with its splendid trappings and comfortable jaunt- 
 ing-car, this ill-pacing, moth-eaten, tourist elephant 
 of the Raja of Jeypore was a disappointment; and 
 after it had lurched and lumbered along a few miles 
 that we might have done more comfortably in the 
 carriage, our disgust was unbounded. We were dis- 
 enchanted before the creature began the steep ascent 
 to the deserted palace of Amber, delighted that 
 the elephant is fast being relegated to the back- 
 ground, a creature for shows and ceremonials only, 
 
354 WINTER INDIA 
 
 the railway and the automobile displacing it as a 
 means of travel, and American overhead machinery 
 crowding it out of timber-yards; and the Delhi 
 durbar of 1903 very probably the last great parade 
 of state elephants. 
 
 All the way out from the city the road had been 
 streaming with people in brilliant clothes and the 
 kaleidoscopic street crowds of Jeypore continued 
 far into the country. Troops of Rajputs in green, 
 white, and yellow clothes, on foot, in bullock-carts, 
 sitting by the roadside, and going in and out of tem- 
 ples, enlivened the way, and, as we mounted the side 
 of the mesa, we could see this brilliant ribbon of road 
 stretching away through the level of the abandoned 
 city of Amber. The lurching elephant gave us 
 momently finer and wider views out over the plain 
 of ruins, and finally lumbered into a court of the 
 fortress palace and knelt for us thankfully to dis- 
 mount. In the little temple to Kali, at the palace 
 entrance, the floor was still red with the blood of 
 the goat just sacrificed, and we had heathendom 
 fresh and hot there at the maharaja's door. Guide- 
 books and sentimental tourists have said so much in 
 praise of Amber that we had keyed our expectations 
 too high. Also, one must land at Bombay and see 
 Amber before seeing Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Delhi, 
 and the rest to value it so highly. The tinsel look- 
 ing-glasses and plaster rooms at Amber were weari- 
 some. We had seen too many before. The pavilions, 
 the baths, and the gardens seemed small and con- 
 tracted, and even the pomegranate-trees grew in pots. 
 Best of all in the palace was the high balcony, where 
 
JEYPORE 355 
 
 we enjoyed a picnic tiffin and a view out over the 
 lake and the plain of ruins and tombs. The elephant 
 took us slowly down hill with the greatest possible 
 discomfort, the mahout goading it until drops of 
 blood stood on its neck, and we rejoiced that there 
 was no more elephant-riding in prospect that season. 
 We were delighted to get back to the fantastic, 
 pink-plaster streets of Jeypore and join in its the- 
 atrical pageantry, throw wheat to the pigeons in air, 
 join arrested wedding processions, and watch the 
 sedate old dancers in brogans tramp their slow 
 measures and sing their nasal songs. The street 
 jug-gler looped the torpid python around his body 
 and held the head before him to be photographed, 
 as if the coiling creature were only a garden-hose 
 with fangs in the nozle. The streets fairly blazed 
 with color in the last red and yellow rays of sunset ; 
 brilliant turbans and head-sheets were moving lan- 
 guidly in every direction around the four-corners' 
 fountain; pigeons whirled in clouds and trotted be- 
 side us by hundreds; flocks of noisy crows flew to 
 settle for the night in trees just outside the city wall ; 
 and when we reluctantly drove away the frost-haze 
 was silvered by moonlight, and Jeypore remains a 
 brilliant picture — too spectacular and color-satisfy- 
 ing to be real, too good to be true, a certain feeling 
 possessing one that the scenery was rolled up that 
 night and the troupe went home or on to the next 
 town. In the cold hotel we slowly congealed, enthu- 
 siasm declined, and we joyfully quoted Lord Cur- 
 zon's opinion: "The rose-red city over which Sir 
 Edwin Arnold has poured the copious cataract of a 
 
 19 
 
356 WINTER INDIA 
 
 truly Telegraphese vocabulary, struck me when I 
 was in India as a pretentious plaster fraud." In 
 memory one reverts to Sir Edwin Arnold's view, 
 sees only the fantastic pink palace fronts, the bril- 
 liant turbans, the wedding processions, and the jew- 
 eled women switching their red and yellow skirts in 
 the sunshine ; and of all places in India, I should like 
 best to be put down for an hour in the streets of 
 Jeypore, when the midwinter sun is shining, the 
 opium-market is lively, and the astrologers have 
 declared it a propitious day for weddings. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MOUNT ABU AND AIIMEDABAD 
 
 ^E were jolted from midnight until the 
 next noon, to cover the two hundred 
 and seventy-four miles of railway be- 
 tween Jeypore and Abu Roads, our 
 bearer standing in his crowded car for 
 all but three hours of that time. At Abu Roads 
 we met again the long-tongued Anglo-Indian "jinny 
 rickshaw." There were six coolies to each cart; 
 two leaned against the cross-beam of the ridicu- 
 lously long tongue as they slowly walked; two 
 more leaned against the back of the vehicle ; and 
 the two reliefs rested as they lounged along the flat 
 country road ; all six dragging their clumsy shoes in 
 the dust and enveloping us in a cloud for the six 
 miles of level carriage-road. Running was not in 
 their thoughts as, with frequent rests, they slowly 
 crossed the plain and, at a snail's pace, crawled up 
 the easy grades of the mountain road. Even ox- 
 teams overtook us. We passed only the wretched 
 hovels of the people, mere pig-sties of bamboo and 
 mud beneath bamboo-trees, each with its banana- 
 patch, and our shouting coolies made all who came 
 to the doors to stare, kneel and salute us. We rested 
 
 357 
 
358 WINTER INDIA 
 
 once by a tragic black pool shaded by two enormous 
 banian-trees, where Scotch whisky and soda was in- 
 sistently offered us by a black keeper of a refresh- 
 ment booth. The temple domes on the mountain-top 
 showed in sky-line; the golden plain shimmered far 
 below US; and in six and a half hours we accom- 
 plished the sixteen miles. We dragged along beside 
 a lake in the late sunset as bulloek-earts filled with 
 rosy English children came from a picnic. There 
 were rice-fields on the mountain top, flooded by 
 primitive Persian water-wheels, wonderfully green 
 and thriving crops, and groups of palms in every 
 vista. Violets bloomed by the dak bangla's door- 
 steps, where a fine old khansamah greeted us and 
 gave us tea with Goanese guava jelly on crisp toast 
 in a warm room. 
 
 Mount Abu is the headquarters of the resident 
 who rules the seventeen Eajput principalities, and 
 from him we secured a permit to visit the Jain tem- 
 ples. The Jains are the last of the Buddhists left 
 in India and their creed is still closely akin to that 
 Gautama devised for his people, although their ob- 
 servance of caste is contrary to the fundamental 
 principle of Buddhism. A Eajput officer in Euro- 
 pean coat, draped dhotee, and a sword as his badge 
 of race and rank, with a red-coated chuprassy 
 from the Residency, escorted us the next morning 
 the two miles to the Dilwarra shrines. The guard 
 at the temple gate hurriedly wound himself into 
 his kamarband, set his turban straight, and, shoul- 
 dering his carbine, paced the flags energetically 
 while we waited for the permits to be examined. 
 
MOUNT ABU AND AHMEDABAD 361 
 
 Another red coat and yellow turban came, and the 
 three guided us around the two Jain temples, which 
 are the most elaborately carved and decorated 
 shrines in India. They were built in the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries, and the marble was brought 
 from quarries twelve miles away and carved to f rost- 
 and lace-like fineness. 
 
 Marble cloisters whose alcove chapels contain 
 seated images of the tirthankars, or Jain saints, sur- 
 round an inner court holding the elaborately con- 
 structed and decorated central shrine and altar. 
 One marvels as much at the perfect preservation 
 as at the minute, lavish ornamentation; and for 
 the preservation the Rajputs have to thank the Eng- 
 lish. In the central domical haUs of both temples 
 the columns, arches, struts, trusses, beams, central 
 panels, and altar-fronts are covered with myriads of 
 tiny figures and bands of conventional ornament in 
 full and low relief, a marble filigree-work surpass- 
 ing anything to be seen elsewhere. Scenes from the 
 lives of the saints frame the niches holding their 
 images; wonderful rosettes and pendentives enrich 
 the ceilings; and saints by the meter band the col- 
 umns and walls until one feels hypnotized by the 
 myriad repetitions. Leaf forms suggest the Greek 
 acanthus, while the Buddhist swastika, elephant, lo- 
 tus, and Hansa goose appear, and a whole grammar 
 of Indian ornament can be traced in those halls, 
 where the white saints sit absorbed in eternal medi- 
 tation. At the first temple fifty-five saints sit in 
 as many cells around the court, and a coolie was 
 dusting the images as indifferently as if they were 
 
362 WINTER INDIA 
 
 but common furniture, flicking at them with a doubt- 
 ful rag, and whacking them again in a way to make 
 one wonder what a European could do to shock re- 
 ligious sentiment and make the Jains hedge a visitor 's 
 entrance with permits and guards. It is expressly 
 enjoined that Europeans shall remove their hats and 
 not step on the platforms of the shrines or within 
 the image-cells. 
 
 The second temple is the older one and simpler in 
 some respects; but the pillared hall of the main 
 shrine is loftier, its serpentine brackets and struts 
 even more lavishly ornamented, its dome and pen- 
 dentives more exquisite. We went back and won- 
 dered again at all the extravagance of carving in 
 the first temple. Certainly these two Jain shrines 
 are the climax of Indian decoration and ornamental 
 construction, miracles and masterpieces of patient 
 art. 
 
 The night on the frosty mountain top aggravated 
 colds dating back to the wet felt slippers at Amrit- 
 sar temple, and it was a delight to get down to 
 Abu Roads and the dry, hot plain again. The sta- 
 tion-master let us go at once to the waiting car 
 that was attached to the train in the middle of the 
 night. The down mail jolted us into Ahmedabad 
 before daylight, where another kind station-master 
 let us remain in the shunted car until breakfast-time. 
 At the end of the station platform an ornamental 
 minaret rose above the trees, first harbinger of the 
 day of architectural feasts. Had Ahmedabad not 
 been one of the exceptionally unique and interesting 
 cities of India, I could not have maintained enthu- 
 
MOUNT ABU AND AHMEDABAD 363 
 
 siasm to explore its mosques while burning with the 
 fever of influenza. The air was soft and warm as 
 late spring in the earliest morning, and the sun had 
 a desert scorch at noon at that end of February. 
 By dreary lanes and ruined gates in broken walls, we 
 reached the beautiful mosques whose carved sand- 
 stone columns and walls recall those of Fatehpur 
 Sikri. Rani Sipri's mosque, the Queen's mosque, 
 the tombs of Mohammed Chisti and Muhafiz Khan 
 each seemed the perfection of beauty in line and 
 carved ornament, the minarets, arches, and walls cov- 
 ered with such a wealth of arabesques and traceries 
 as vied with the white wonders on Mount Abu. At 
 the Queen's mosque a band of Moslems bore in a 
 sheeted figure bound to a charpoy covered with a 
 rich cloth and garlands of marigolds. All the 
 mourners bathed at the tank, united in standing 
 prayer, lifted the charpoy, and bore it off to the 
 graveyard. 
 
 We drove into a dreary, rubbish-strewn common, 
 and, through a breach in an old wall, reached the 
 court behind Sidi Said's desecrated mosque of the 
 palace to look from the outside upon the two famous 
 tracery windows, best known and most beautiful 
 work of that kind in India. Nothing in marble tra- 
 ceries elsewhere approaches them. We drove to 
 Hathi Singh's Jain temple, whose saints in niches 
 and elaborately carved ornament in white marble 
 are in the style of the Mount Abu shrines, and then 
 we went to see the great tanks and green wells sur- 
 rounded by marble galleries, where luxury-loving 
 rulers sought coolness during the great heat. 
 
364 WINTER INDIA 
 
 The streets of Ahmedabad are dazzling and ka- 
 leidoscopic to one beginning his India at Bombay; 
 but Ahmedabad, once "the handsomest town in 
 Hindustan, perhaps in all the world," is a dull 
 second after Jeypore. There were new models in 
 turbans to be seen, and the picturesque pigeon-cotes 
 erected by humane Jains are other novelties peculiar 
 to this one city; for the Jains observe the strictest 
 Buddhist tenets against destroying life, provide 
 refuges and hospitals for animals, strain all the 
 water they use, and step aside to spare the lowliest 
 insect. 
 
 The vegetable, brass, and pottery bazaars, strung 
 down the middle of a wide street, were centers of life 
 and uproar; but the local guide bore us off to the 
 workshop of a carpet-weaver,— poor show after Am- 
 ritsar, Lahore, and Agra's factories,— and to the 
 gate of the chief wood-carver who executes American 
 orders for interior decorations. There was holiday 
 or bankruptcy on for that day, but much search- 
 ing and pounding on mute doors at last produced 
 a lank Moslem with a key, who opened a great room 
 containing a table, a book of designs, and four carved 
 chairs, tagged with price-marks five times those of 
 the Lahore Art School. We searched the brass ba- 
 zaars and all the brass-shops for the pierced screens 
 that a winter-touring M. P. lauds as a local specialty. 
 In clouds of warm dust we drove here and there, 
 hunting the famous kincob-shops, walking through 
 archways to alleys and ill-smelling courts and cul- 
 de-sacs, where small dealers had bundles of creased 
 samples of tawdry, wall-papery brocades. Others 
 

MOUNT ABU AND AHMEDABAD 367 
 
 shook squares of tinsel ly stuffs from upper windows, 
 and shouted, "Fifteen rupees!" for each damaged 
 remnant. The smells of those byways were invita- 
 tion to and promise of any pestilence, and in one 
 damp, fetid corner that we retreated from abruptly 
 even the glib guide seemed to smell a thing or two. 
 "Phew! the drains! the drains! What a very bad 
 municipal ! ' ' and we never wondered that the native 
 states show such a great decrease of population dur- 
 ing the last five years of the century, while the 
 bubonic plague raged. 
 
 At the busy clothes bazaar, tinsel caps and orange 
 jackets for little boys were the bargains of the day 
 that crowds were competing for, and more and more 
 peddlers were opening rainbow packs and preparing 
 for an evening bazaar. We had done our duty by 
 the sights and shows of Ahmedabad ; we had had our 
 fill of local color and smells; and we drove back to 
 rest at the comfortable station. Our guide and the 
 bearer were bewildered, and the latter tearful at 
 our wasting two hours on foot in the bazaar, and 
 losing that much time in the use of the horses taken 
 at so much for all day. ' ' But, memsahib, ' ' he whim- 
 pered, "if you pay six rupees a day for a carriage, 
 you must use all day. You must see all. There are 
 many nice tombs yet. You must see more. You 
 must not stop now. These horses just stand around, 
 while you walk two hours, and now you stop for 
 tea, and no more use. It is too expenseful." 
 
 When the Bombay mail rumbled in, we found our 
 reserved compartment, spread our razais, and lay 
 down, and all at once had a strange, dizzy, floating 
 
368 WINTER INDIA 
 
 sensation, as if hypnotized or drugged. The train 
 was moving, but without jar, jolt, or thumps. The 
 carriage rolled smoothly, as if on springs, and we 
 sat up and stared out and at each other to fathom 
 the mystery. At last, on our seventeenth night, and 
 after many days spent on Indian railway trains, we 
 had met the mythical "bogie-car"! The car-spring 
 was a reality. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE CAVES OF ELLORA AND KARLI 
 
 E touched the Western world at Bom- 
 bay only for a day, and quickly took 
 train again, spreading our razais for 
 an all-night ride of one hundred and 
 seventy-eight miles to Nandgaon. No 
 bogie-car, no sort of spring or buffer, softened 
 the thumps of the hard-cushioned couches, and the 
 occupant of the upper berth, feeling a draft when 
 she had climbed to her swinging shelf, unhooded 
 the lamp and found that the side wall of the car 
 consisted of wire netting only in its upper portion. 
 Her bedding was removed to the floor, and as there 
 was no way to check this generous ventilation, chill 
 drafts swept the compartment as the train ran 
 through damp fields and dark spaces, and the dust 
 of the road-bed covered us an inch deep by morning. 
 The feeble lamp flickered out soon after midnight, 
 and it took vigorous shouting at two dark stations 
 before we could get the station-master and his note- 
 book to investigate, report, and reilluminate with a 
 broken-down lamp that went out as soon as we left 
 his station. As everywhere in India, ther»^ wen 
 steaming tea-kettles on the platforms and cups of tea 
 
 369 
 
370 WINTER INDIA 
 
 at one's window at every halt; and we thawed and 
 packed in the darkness in time to dismount at Nand- 
 gaon at six o'clock. More tea, with some toast and 
 bananas, constituted breakfast, and we got away in 
 two small tongas, each with a pair of tiny, galloping 
 ponies. It was not the tonga of the Simla road, but 
 the original native vehicle which has lent its name to 
 everything on wheels. "The tonga is a low, two- 
 wheeled, dachshund of a cart, with the build of a 
 gun-carriage," is Steevens's happy description of it. 
 The road led across an uninteresting, level, unfenced, 
 dry plain, with detached hills showing on the hori- 
 zon. "We stopped every seven miles to change ponies, 
 and we changed tongas, visited back and forth from 
 one cart to the other, rode backward as the passen- 
 ger is supposed to ride, sat on the front seat with the 
 driver, and did everything to beguile the tedium and 
 discomfort of that all-day ride of fifty-six miles. 
 The sun grew warmer, and it was almost hot at noon, 
 the country more and more uninteresting, with few 
 villages, few travelers, and no incidents to distract 
 us after an indifferent tifSn at a way-station. At 
 three in the afternoon, we reached the foot of the 
 ghat in whose perpendicular face the great cave- 
 temples have been excavated. The rock-cut temples 
 at Mahabalipur had been but preparation for the 
 great series of caves at Ellora, where the face of a 
 steep hillside has been burrowed into, great cham- 
 bers hollowed out, and porticoes, galleries, staircases, 
 and passages cut in the solid rock and covered with 
 splendid bas-relief sculpture on the most elaborate 
 scale. The line of rock-temples extends for a mile 
 
KOCK-CUr TlCill'LE, AT EI.LOKA. 
 
THE CAVES OP ELLORA AND KARLI 373 
 
 and a quarter along the front of the cliff, Buddhists, 
 Jains, and Brahmans having in turn cut their 
 shrines in the everlasting hills, accomplishing this 
 stupendous work in the sixth, eighth, and later cen- 
 turies. For more than two hours we rambled along 
 the face of the cliffs, in and out, up and down the 
 dift'erent stages and galleries of the thirty-four rock- 
 cut shrines ; and, fatigued as we were, hastened with 
 breathless interest from one to another of the many 
 surprises. 
 
 All that we had seen of rock-sculptures and mono- 
 lith temples elsewhere paled before this great dis- 
 play, and all the monuments of patient toil and in- 
 finite labor in the world seemed nothing compared 
 to the Kailas at Ellora. First, the great sunken 
 court, measuring one hundred and fifty-four by two 
 hundred and seventy-six feet, was hewn out of the 
 solid trap-rock of the hillside, leaving the rock mass 
 of the temple wholly detached in a cloistered court 
 like a colossal boulder, save as a rock bridge once 
 connected the upper story of the temple with the 
 upper row of galleried chambers surrounding three 
 sides of the court. One enters from the plain by 
 an ornamental gateway in the cliff front, a rock 
 screen closing the front of the court. Colossal ele- 
 phants and lamp-posts stand on either side of the 
 open mandapam, or pavilion, containing the sacred 
 bull; and beyond rises the monolithic Dravidian 
 temple to Shiva, ninety feet in height, hollowed into 
 vestibule, chamber, and image-cells, all lavishly 
 carved. Time and earthquakes have weathered and 
 broken away bits of the great monument, and Mos- 
 
374 WINTER INDIA 
 
 lem zealots strove to destroy the carved figures, but 
 one hardly notes these defects in presence of this 
 greatest wonder of the Indian world, absolutely 
 unique among architectural monuments. Patches 
 of oeher and shreds of flower garlands remained 
 from the last festival, the only suggestion of human 
 touch or occupancy. One seemed to feel the pres- 
 ence of magic forces there, as if the Kailas had been 
 turned to stone by some enchantment. It dazed one 
 to consider that one mind could have conceived such 
 a stupendous monument as this ex-voto of an 
 eighth-century raja— his material expression of grat- 
 itude at his restoration to health by the neighboring 
 springs. 
 
 The three-story Brahmanical temples were the next 
 most amazing spectacle: gallery over gallery hewn 
 in the cliff front and connected by curious arched 
 passages and tunnels of later date, as in the Do 
 Tal (two-story) and the Tin Tal (three-story) tem- 
 ples. The Das Avatar's main hall is cut one hun- 
 dred and forty-three feet into the rock, forty-six 
 massive pillars connecting the roof and floor. One 
 Buddhist cave with a double gallery in the screen 
 front, and an upper window opening to the plain, 
 has a ribbed roof, and from so closely following the 
 lines of the early ehaitya halls of wooden construc- 
 tion, it is known as the Carpenter's Cave. There is a 
 carved dagoba in the apse of its long hall, where the 
 seated figure of Buddha and attendant figures in 
 air are in the spirit of the best period of Buddhist 
 art. There are storied viharas or monasteries near 
 it, which, like this great ehaitya, follow closely the 
 
THE CAVES OF ELLORA AND KARLI 375 
 
 forms of wooden construction. The Dehwarra, ad- 
 joining the Carpenter's Cave, measures one hun- 
 dred and ten by seventy feet, two rows of massive 
 rock pillars joining the floor and roof. In the Jain 
 caves beyond, cross-legged tirthankars sit in medi- 
 tation in carved cells, archaic prototypes of the fairy 
 marble alcoves on Mount Abu. 
 
 Sated with wonders, we were carried up the steep 
 hill to the Nizam's dak bangla, where brass bed- 
 steads with wire springs and double hair mattresses 
 were as great a surprise as the architectural won- 
 ders that had stunned us. With great considera- 
 tion, we omitted from the khansamah's menu all 
 dishes requiring long preparation, in order that we 
 might dine as soon as possible and go to those mat- 
 tresses the earlier. At the end of two hours of call- 
 ing and waiting on the "Very well, madam," we 
 crossed the dark lawn to the cook-house door to 
 make a final demand for food of some kind. White 
 figures and turbans flitted about in the lighted in- 
 terior, making an admirable picture within the frame 
 of the door, and we stood in darkness, silently appre- 
 ciating it, and wondering if it would be attainable by 
 kodak in daylight. We saw the cook strain the soup 
 into the tureen through the end of the dish-cloth 
 he had used and flung on his arm while we watched, 
 and then we cried aloud. Cook, khansamah, and 
 bearer all leaped aside, soup and dish-rag dropped 
 to the floor, and they retreated to far corners 
 of the cook-house mumbling and wailing: "Oh, 
 memsahib! Please, memsahib!" etc. I had long 
 revolted at the taste and smell of the ordinary 
 
376 WINTER INDIA 
 
 gray soup served everywhere, and reckless flights of 
 the imagination in trying to describe the flavoring 
 were borne out by that scene. A very meek and 
 deprecatory khansamah served that dinner of plain 
 chops and potatoes with the inevitable cauliflower, 
 cringing as he offered any dish, backing away 
 quickly at each sound, and keeping one eye fear- 
 fully turned upon us and the door of escape as he 
 moved about. 
 
 Early the next morning we returned to the tem- 
 ples, climbed the steps, and passed through the rock 
 screen or gateway of the Kail as, fearing lest it 
 be a dream of the night. We sought vainly for some 
 vantage-point in the contracted court where a camera 
 could cover the whole mass of the Kailas. From 
 the galleried chambers surrounding the court we 
 saw the central temple best, and by a pitch-dark 
 stairway we happened into an upper chamber where 
 the finest bas-reliefs at Ellora covered the walls, and 
 the ornamental capitals of the columns were pierced 
 and chiseled out in the free and bold designs of 
 a wood-carver. Even there the hand of Alamgir 
 and his fanatics had fallen, and the tiny figures and 
 the ornaments were defaced. The caves are still 
 places of pilgrimage, and at the great festivals of 
 Shiva crowds troop through the Kailas, and the im- 
 ages are smeared with ocher and hung with garlands. 
 The tread of these thousands of bare feet for cen- 
 turies has given that peculiar, greasy polish to the 
 stone floors that no other treatment bestows. In the 
 rainy season, waterfalls stream over the front of the 
 cliff, the courts and halls are flooded, and the path 
 
THE CAVES OF ELLORA AND KARLI 377 
 
 that runs along the cliff from cave to cave is a moat 
 defending the temples from the plain. 
 
 It was an ideally fresh and fragrant morning when 
 we started down from the grassy plateau to the 
 plain, but it grew hot as the tongas bumped along the 
 tedious way. As we reached a more cultivated stretch 
 of country, sago- and cocoa-palms rustled their 
 dusty fronds in the rising breeze that soon brought 
 with it a rain-cloud and a cold mist that pierced to 
 the marrow. The rain came in blinding sheets, 
 swept through the tongas, and for two hours trickled 
 down on us and our rolls of bedding. We arrived 
 at the station in time to be partially dried over pans 
 of charcoal as we ate a hurried dinner. The train 
 rumbled in toward nine o'clock, and we rode as far 
 as Kalyan, where we waited from four to seven 
 o'clock, when the Poona train picked us up. We had 
 the first new ear we had seen, a shining, highly var- 
 nished contrast to the ancient, unswept, unwashed 
 cars in which we had been jolted over India. Pea- 
 cock-blue glass in the windows gave an unearthly 
 look to the red, scorched landscapes we rode through 
 in ascending the Bhor Ghat. By twenty-one tun- 
 nels and many loops and zigzags we rose two thou- 
 sand feet in seventeen miles, the train halting at sev- 
 eral reversing stations, where the engine switched 
 past to join the other end of the train. We had 
 eagle views out and down to rocky caiions as bare, 
 dry, and roughly sculptured by the elements as any 
 in our arid regions of the Southwest, even the famil- 
 iar cactus of Arizona deserts flourishing in the 
 wastes of rock and sand. 
 
 20 
 
378 WINTER INDIA 
 
 From Lonauli station a very trim dog-cart car- 
 ried us through a model settlement toward the open 
 fields. Our guide to the caves of Karli was Dhoond 
 Dhu, a cheerful little barelegged turban of thirteen, 
 who spoke good English with the chirpy voice of a 
 young robin, and made every point tell by the ap- 
 peal of his deep, dark eyes. He fought valiantly to 
 make a good bargain for us with the chair-bearers 
 at work in a cactus-strewn field, when the cart had 
 stopped at the end of wheel tracks in a plowed 
 ground. They were decrepit chairs with makeshift 
 poles tied to them — carrying-chairs only, as one de- 
 crepit leg and then another fell out if one attempted 
 to sit in them while they rested on the ground. The 
 path led steeply along the side of a hill that became 
 a precipice in places, the chairs creaking and mo- 
 mently threatening collapse. We remembered our bo- 
 gus Nawab at Jeypore when three fraudulent priests 
 assumed to do the honors of the great Buddhist cave 
 at Karli. Blackened columns and a lofty entrance 
 recessed in the rock are an imposing preparation for 
 the great chaitya hall, a chamber one hundred and 
 twenty-four feet long, forty-two feet wide, and 
 forty-six feet high. A row of ornamental columns 
 rises on either side to the ribbed teak roof, and at 
 the far end, in the nave, a massive dagoba, despoiled 
 of its bas-reliefs, images, and ornaments, is claimed 
 as their sacred emblem by the Shivaites who have 
 so long held the place. Dating from the beginning 
 of the Christian era or earlier, this cave shows the 
 first and purest form of Buddhist temples, and is 
 the largest and finest cave-temple of its kind in India. 
 
THE CAVES OF ELLORA AND KARLI 381 
 
 Steps lead to adjoining viharas, three-story caves 
 where the square cells with sculptured walls allowed 
 room only for the stone shelf or string-bed of the 
 anchorite. 
 
 Workmen dawdled with pick and crowbar, clear- 
 ing away rubbish at the entrance, and the dis- 
 comfited priests lounged there, chatting, when we 
 came back from the viharas. Black rain-clouds were 
 rolling up, and we started down the rocky path, 
 leaving Dhoond Dhu to stir up and drive the chair- 
 coolies. Then a great cry arose as priests, workmen, 
 and coolies ran howling : * ' Prissint ! Prissint ! Mem- 
 sahib ! ' ' rubbing their itching palms across their 
 faces and extending them beseechingly. They 
 shoved one another aside, wrangled fiercely, and 
 seemed ready to do violence to the small guide. It 
 was not the place in which to have an argument with 
 even one bad man, and the dozen big beggars could 
 easily have pitched us over the precipice, or shut 
 us up in farther caves, without killing, until we 
 were ready to pay ransom. But one has such con- 
 tempt for the Hindu that fear or the possibility 
 of danger never suggested itself until we were well 
 away and thought what that number of Afghans or 
 Macedonians might have done. To stop the clatter 
 and warn off the bogus priest who had snatched 
 Dhoond Dhu roughly by the shoulder, I lifted my 
 umbrella and took but one step forward, when the 
 pack ran back to the cave entrance, and the chair- 
 coolies threw themselves flat and crawled to their 
 poles, imploring mercy. We had to lean against the 
 rock wall while we laughed at the farcical deuoue- 
 
382 WINTER INDIA 
 
 ment, Dhoond Dhu shaking the last turban fold loose 
 with his child-like spasms of glee. 
 
 On reaching Lonauli early in the afternoon, we 
 had asked the station-master to have a compartment 
 reserved on the midnight train to Bombay. "Cer- 
 tingly, memsahib, certingly, I will wire to Poona." 
 At six o'clock we had no answer — because no wire 
 had been sent. At seven the condition contin- 
 ued, the station-master was still absent, and the 
 assistant would not send a telegram "because there 
 iss no rule for thatt." We sent a telegram and 
 asked the assistant to sell us the tickets then, that 
 we might sleep in the waiting-room until the train 
 came at five minutes after midnight. "No, no," 
 said the babu; "the 12:05 iss one of to-morrow's 
 trains. I cannot sell you ticket now and mix my 
 accounts for two days so terribly. I should lose some 
 money, and I am poor man. " 
 
 It was a hot, close night, and the scorching air 
 came in waves from the bare cliffs of the Bhor Ghat 
 as the train curved and reversed and crept from one 
 twinkling light and group of lights to another down 
 the two thousand feet to the plain. With our ar- 
 rival at Bombay at six in the morning, we had spent 
 our twentieth night on Indian railway trains in 
 three months of travel, in that first winter; and 
 gladly we bade farewell to the red razais. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 BOMBAY 
 
 FTER two months "up-country," Bom- 
 bay seemed a European city, a West- 
 ern metropolis; and that hotel which 
 strikes such dismay and disgust to the 
 heart of the tourist coming from Eu- 
 rope seemed to us a very palace of comfort; that 
 hotel whose corridors are strewn with servants and 
 their rolls of bedding, their pots, pipes, and traps,— 
 servants who gabble and smoke, eat and sleep, 
 dress and undress, each before his employer's door, 
 as unconcernedly as in their own serais; that hotel 
 of hard and hillocky beds, which all one 's winter ac- 
 cumulation of razais cannot soften ; that hotel whose 
 partition walls stop two feet from the ceiling, where 
 every room has an outer balcony and an inner 
 dark bath-room whose primitive plumbing puts the 
 American in fear for his life. By contrast with 
 up-country hotels it was the home of comfort, and 
 at last we understood how people could talk of the 
 "luxury of Indian travel." All things are com- 
 parative, and one 's ideas of splendor depend on what 
 has gone before. Even the Madras and Calcutta 
 hotels would have seemed splendid after a round 
 of inns and banglas. 
 
 21 383 
 
384 WINTER INDIA 
 
 The soft, sea air, the warm days and mild nights 
 were balm to us, after the dry scorch and frostbites 
 up-country. The sight of Gothic architecture was 
 a revelation after having reached the edge of satiety 
 among Hindu, Jain, Mogul, Pathan, and Dravidian 
 masterpieces. Street-cars, European shop-windows 
 and houses were objects of interest; and to drive 
 over sprinkled roads beside the soft-sounding sea, 
 where bands played and fashion walked; to drink 
 tea on club-house porches, — all this was too exciting. 
 
 We were invited to a Parsi wedding on our first 
 day, and drove across the native city, around the 
 curve of the Back Bay, and up the slopes of Mala- 
 bar Hill to the villa of the bride's family. A pro- 
 cession of Parsi ladies, wrapped in saris of delicate 
 silks, and preceded by a band, entered the gates be- 
 fore us and joined the group of Parsi women in gold- 
 bordered saris who made the drawing-room blaze 
 with their jewels. The bride was quiet and sub- 
 dued, the groom self-possessed to the point of flip- 
 pancy when he came in from the assemblage of 
 Parsi men in the garden, all attired in white cere- 
 monial dress and queer black hats. Bands played, 
 and the ceremony by the priest was very long and 
 full of symbolism. The bride, at one point, held 
 a cocoanut and clasped the hand of the groom, while 
 the priest delivered a long exhortation and showered 
 them with rice, fruit, and flowers. The bride was 
 invested with the jeweled necklaces and other gifts 
 of the groom, sprinkled with rose-water, and touched 
 with attar of roses in the strangely mixed Parsi and 
 Hindu ceremony that has come about during the 
 
BOMBAY 385 
 
 long residence of the fire-worshiping Parsis in In- 
 dia. The conventional menu of a London wedding 
 breakfast, with champagne and ices, was served to the 
 company of Anglo-Indian officials, foreign consuls 
 and merchants, a Portuguese bishop, and some Jap- 
 anese naval officers and American visitors. The 
 Parsi ladies and children were served in the large 
 marquees on the lawn, where ceremonial dishes were 
 added to the foreign dainties. Each had a palm- 
 leaf for a plate, and a vegetarian repast Avas par- 
 taken of without knives or forks. Each visitor was 
 garlanded with tuberoses and sprinkled with rose- 
 water when he left, but the gilded pan, or betel-nut 
 part of Hindu ceremony, was omitted. 
 
 A few days later we attended a second Parsi wed- 
 ding, where still more of the old ceremonial was 
 observed. There was the same garden company of 
 men in white ceremonial dress, and a drawing-room 
 full of Parsi ladies covered with jewels and draped 
 in silks of every delicate color. The bride seemed 
 not to like the way in which her veil was pulled and 
 rumpled by clumsy hands, and sweetmeats thrust 
 in her mouth, and with some emphasis unwound her 
 sari herself and wrapped around her the silver- 
 bordered one given by the groom's mother. The 
 bride and groom sat in chairs facing each other, 
 and the priest wound around and bound them to- 
 gether with the symbolical white cord, and then 
 bound them further with the groom's kamarband. 
 A veil was held between them at the next stage, and 
 finally they ate rice from the same dish, the groom 
 feeding the bride with his fingers. There was a 
 
386 WINTER INDIA 
 
 pantomime of her washing the groom's feet with 
 milk, and his purse was given the bride, that she 
 might spend it on a feast for the poor. The ceremony 
 was full of meaning and deep significance to the 
 beautiful, dark-eyed Parsi women and to the serious, 
 priestly looking men, but it would take many pages 
 to convey the full meaning of the customs brought 
 from Persia so many centuries ago. 
 
 There were stock sights to be seen in Bombay, 
 and we took the red Murray book and did them; 
 but it was not exciting after the up-country sights 
 and people. First, to the twin Towers of Silence, 
 with the friezes of living vultures on their cornices, 
 where the Parsis, who do not believe in defiling the 
 earth, expose the bodies of their dead to the elements 
 and the birds of the air. Nothing could be more 
 gruesome and repellent than the rows of huge, mo- 
 tionless birds awaiting their prey. There were chill, 
 sepulchral halls where ceremonies are held by the 
 mourners, and from the parapet of the high garden 
 one has a fine view down over the Back Bay and the 
 city, and across the harbor to the mainland shores. 
 
 In all the many accounts I have read of these 
 Towers of Silence, the narrators always looked down 
 the winding road and saw a procession of white- 
 clad mourners approaching with a body, and grue- 
 somely told how the vultures saw it too, and flapped 
 their wings. We looked and looked in vain, the 
 first travelers to miss that regulation spectacle. 
 AVhen we boasted- our exemption to a resident of 
 Bombay, he said wearily: ''But of course you will 
 go home and say you saw a funeral winding up. 
 
BOMBAY 389 
 
 They all do. Four travelers whom I had taken 
 there have published minute and thrilling accounts 
 of how the procession wound up and up, and how 
 the vultures flapped their wings, although I had seen 
 nothing of the kind. ' ' 
 
 Guide-book in hand, and Sir Edwin Arnold's 
 caves of Elephanta fresh in mind, we rose with the 
 dawn one morning and sped away by steam-launch 
 across the harbor to the cave-temples of Shiva that 
 date before the twelfth century. We landed at 
 a pier of detached concrete blocks, and made our 
 way by leaps to land, where the old sergeant who 
 guards the place described every temple, every bas- 
 relief, every group and image, so minutely that we 
 ought never to forget a detail of those rock-sculp- 
 tures, many of them of such beauty that we echoed 
 the sergeant's anger at the Portuguese for firing 
 cannon into the caves to destroy the idolatrous work. 
 We tiptoed here and there, kept away from the 
 darker corners, looked suspiciously at every rock and 
 bush and tuft of grass, remembering Sir Edwin 
 Arnold's tales of the deadly cobras on Elephanta; 
 but the sergeant insisted that there were no snakes, 
 that he had never seen one. It only remained for 
 him to tell us, as he did, that he never had fever, for 
 our last illusion to vanish. If we were not to be 
 bitten % cobras and filled with fever germs by 
 visiting Elephanta, what more was it than a plea- 
 sure excursion and boating picnic? What glory in 
 daring it ? What credit for anything more than one 
 morning's hire of a steam-launch? We did the mu- 
 seum, the art school, the hospital for animals, the 
 
390 WINTEE INDIA 
 
 markets, and the serais where Mohammedan pilgrims 
 stop on their way to and from Mecca. At the large 
 serai we met the three tuneful Bokhara beggars we 
 had seen in the serai at Amritsar. They were still 
 red-cheeked and cheerful, still wrapped in their 
 north-country wadded clothes on that warm morn- 
 ing, and they showed proudly their Cook coupon 
 ticket for the pilgrim-ship and further journey to 
 Mecca. For the rest, Bombay was a European city ; 
 the hotel life, the teas, the drives, all of the "West 
 only. It was hardly India to us, save as Delhi jew- 
 elers salaamed in recognition and sang to us be- 
 seechingly: ''Please buy my niklass. Please take 
 that griddle." 
 
 We had but a few days to wait for the ship to 
 Ismailia,— hot days, when the thermometer stood at 
 90° for hours; a haze hung over the ocean, and the 
 evening drives to the Breach of Kandy and Malabar 
 Hill were none too refreshing. All Bombay turned 
 out of doors at sunset, to drive, to walk at the edge 
 of the ocean, to linger by the band-stands long af- 
 ter dark. The groups of white-clad Mohammedans 
 gathered together to pray and to listen to the Koran, 
 and the groups of Parsis playing cards by elec- 
 tric light as they sat on the grass by the Queen's 
 statue, were the sharpest pictures in memory after 
 Bombay and the mainland hills had faded on the 
 horizon, and one turned gratefully toward lands 
 where it is not always afternoon. 
 
 "Did you enjoy India?" my friends continued to 
 ask me, with unhappy choice of words; and, to be 
 literal, the answer could only be negative. 
 
BOMBAY 391 
 
 "What impressed you most?" To that it was 
 easy to answer : ' ' What England has done for India ; 
 the incalculable debt all that continent of diverse 
 peoples owes for the just, intelligent, humane rule 
 of the Great White Queen and her son ; for the trea- 
 sure of noble lives poured into the peninsula for a 
 century, for the burdens the white man has borne." 
 If all the people should gather daily, like the mul- 
 titudes praying on the Ganges bank at Benares, 
 salaam toward England, and chant their acknowledg- 
 ments, it would be fitting; but one discovers an 
 ingratitude of dependencies degrees blacker than 
 that of republics. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abu, Mount, 358, 361, 362, Auckland, Lord, 98, 192, 217 
 
 375 Audience-halls, 194, 195, 216, 
 Abu Eoads, 357, 362 328, 351 
 
 Afghanistan, 279, 280, 281, Aurangzeb, 195 
 
 284 Austin de Bordeaux, 194 
 Afghans, 259, 260, 262, 280, 
 
 296 Bahadur Shah, 228 
 
 Afridi, 277, 281, 282, 283, Bandy, 35, 40 
 
 286 Banian-tree, 12, 98 
 
 Agra, 182, 185-201, 210, 333, Bazaars, 166, 181, 244, 247, 
 
 342, 343 248, 250, 261, 263, 304, 305, 
 
 Ahmedabad, 362-367 347, 364 
 
 Akbar, 194, 202, 203, 204, 206, Beecher, Henry Ward, 278 
 
 212, 218, 227, 228, 229, 230, Beggars, 250, 253, 267, 304, 
 
 243, 255, 258, 260, 299, 341 381, 390 
 
 All Masjid, 261, 292, 293 Benares, 150-176 
 
 Allahabad Pioneer, 94 Bengali, 101, 102 
 
 Altamsh, 234 Bhattiprolu, 80, 120 
 
 Alwar, 323-333 Bhor Ghat, 377, 382 
 
 Ambala, 313, 321 Bichauna, 239 
 
 Amber, 344, 353, 354 Blavatsky, Mme., 81, 320 
 
 Amraoti, 99, 141 Bodhi-druma, 116, 273 
 
 Amritsar, 298-311 Bogie-car, 368 
 
 Ananda, 119 Bokhara, 253, 265, 271, 285, 
 Anarkali 243 304 390 
 
 Annanbag" Gardens, 167, 168 Bombay, 369, 383-390 
 
 Arizona, 377 Bo-tree, 116, 118, 119, 120, 
 Arjuna, 75 129, 133-142, 273 
 
 Armor, 80, 329 Brahman, 16, 24, 29, 42, 45, 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 355, 356, 48, 49, 129, 154, 155, 167, 
 
 389 352 
 
 Art industries, 166, 221, 242, Brahm-Gaya, 125, 134 
 
 347, 364 Brasses, 166 
 
 Art schools, 242, 347, 364 Bright, John, 32 
 
 Aryan, 260 Brooks, Phillips, 69 
 
 Ash picking, 8, 9 Bucephalus, 282 
 
 Asoka, 116, 120, 136, 137, 138, Buckingham (\inal. 69. 70 
 
 141 142, 227 Buddha, 74, 80, 90, 100, 116- 
 Attock, 258, 260, 295 120, 163, 168, 227, 358, 374 
 
 395 
 
396 INDEX 
 
 Buddha-Gaya, 126, 129-147, Dancers, 59, 60, 61, 235, 236, 
 
 27? 237, 348, 352, 355 
 
 Buddhism, esoteric, 320 Daniel, Samuel, 22, 23, 29, 34, 
 
 Budgery boats, 69, 75 47, 48 
 
 Burma, 89, 90, 139, 140, 141, Darjiling, 105, 109, 110, 317, 
 
 145, 146, 147 318 
 
 Delhi, 213-226 
 Cable, George "W., 241 Diamond Throne, the, 136 
 
 Calcutta, 86-101 Dilke, Sir Charles, 193, 280 
 
 Camels, 221, 228, 273, 279, Dilwarra temples, 358, 361, 
 
 281, 289, 293, 294, 306 362 
 
 Caravans, 272, 279, 293, 295 Dindigal, 21, 22 
 Carpenter's Cave, 374, 375 Diver, submarine, 85 
 Carpets, 193, 307, 309, 310, Dogs, railway rules for, 257 
 
 330, 343 Dravidian architecture, 15, 24, 
 
 Caste, 103 31, 42, 373 
 
 Caste-marks, 10, 16, 31, 45, Drawing-room, the Viceregal, 
 
 107, 145, 150 97 
 
 Cats, Persian, 268 Durbar, 225, 226, 228 
 
 Caves, 76, 132, 370, 373, 374, 
 
 378, 381, 389 Edward VII, King, 226 
 
 Cawnpore, 181, 182 Edwards, Sir H., 263,^283 
 
 Chandni Chauk, 215, 228, 244, Elephanta, caves of, 389 
 
 263 Elephants, 17, 18, 24, 33, 90, 
 
 Chaturgam Lai, 150, 156, 171, 328, 330, 336, 339, 340, 341, 
 
 172 342, 344, 352, 353, 354, 355 
 
 Cheroots, 22 Ellenborough, Lord, 192 
 
 Chetah, 330 EUora, 370, 373, 374, 375 
 
 Chidambram, 34-63 Elphinstone, General, 283 
 
 Chota Hazri, 11 Enfield rifle, 280 
 
 Christmas, 75, 89 Everest, Mount, 111, 112, 113 
 
 Cingalese texts, 120, 123 
 
 Conjeveram, 64 Fahien, 132, 139, 164, 273 
 
 Connaught, Duke of, 345 Fakirs, 157, 158, 166 
 
 Cormorin, Cape, 260 Falconer, 264 
 
 Coromandel Coast, 70 Fatehpur Sikri, 203-212 
 
 Councils, Buddhist, 120, 138 Fergusson, Sir James, 196, 
 Crawford, Marion, 94, 320 209, 217, 233 
 
 Cremation, 158, 161 Firozabad, 227 
 
 Cross, the Southern, 79 Flaxman, 32 
 
 Cunningham, General, 131, Forward Party, the, 284 
 
 138, 141, 242 Frontier, the Northwest, 276, 
 
 Curzon, Lady, 97 277, 281, 282 
 
 Curzon, Lord, 97, 98, 226, 276, Fuel, 11 
 
 279, 355 Fuller, Loie, 236 
 
 Dak bangla, 11, 18, 35, 36, Gadsbys, the, 241, 320 
 38, 72, 125, 126, 298, 323, Gandamak, treaty of, 283 
 324, 358 Ganesha, 23, 76 
 
INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 Ganges, 86, 105, 153 
 
 Gaya, 124, 125 
 
 Ghoom, 109 
 
 Ghor Kattri, the, 273 
 
 Golden Mosque, 253 
 
 Golden Temple, 300, 303 
 
 Gopis, 74, 76, 97 
 
 Gopura, 15, 24, 31, 41 
 
 Granth, 303 
 
 Grapes, 272, 294 
 
 Greco-Buddhist art, 80, 178, 
 
 242 
 Guides, 22, 23, 177, 204, 205, 
 
 378, 381 
 Gujack, 248, 272 
 Gulistan, 328 
 Gwalior, 335-343 
 
 Hair-cutting, ceremonial, 201 
 Hauksbee, Mrs., 241, 320 
 Himalayas, 107, 112, 113, 278, 
 
 313, 318 
 Hindu Kush, 258, 276, 278 
 Hiouen Thsang, 123, 131, 139, 
 
 273 
 Hobson, 228 
 Hong Kong, 299 
 Horse-dealers, 272, 317 
 Hotels, 65, 86, 87, 93, 94, 177, 
 
 213, 313, 318, 319, 345, 383 
 Humayum, 227, 228 
 Hunter, Sir William, 241 
 Hyderabad, 323 
 
 Indrapat, 227 
 Indus, 258, 259 
 Isaacs, Mr., 319, 320 
 I 'tamadu-daulah, 199 
 
 Jade, 217, 223, 254, 305, 306 
 
 Jahangir, 212, 242, 249, 255 
 
 Jahanira, 195, 229 
 
 Jails, 274, 330, 343 
 
 Jains, 221, 358, 361, 362, 363, 
 
 373, 375 
 Jakko, 319, 321 
 Jama Masjid, 218, 229, 248, 
 
 340 
 Japanese, 146, 225, 333 
 
 Jasmine Tower, 194, 195, 342 
 
 Jats, 192, 193, 195 
 
 Jehad, 281 
 
 Jellalabad, 275 
 
 Jewels, 17, 25, 26, 51, 52, 53, 
 
 54, 64, 71, 222, 223, 224, 
 
 268, 305, 329 
 Jeypore, 344-355 
 Jinrikisha, 318, 357 
 
 Kabul, 264, 265, 272, 290, 293 
 
 Kadam, 280, 291 
 
 Kafila, 272 
 
 Kafirs, 277 
 
 Kailas, the, 373, 374, 376 
 
 Kalka, 313, 317, 321 
 
 Kalyan, 377 
 
 Kandahar, 273 
 
 Kanishka, 120, 273 
 
 Kapilavastu, 117, 119 
 
 Karli, 378, 381 
 
 Kashmir, 298, 300, 305, 309, 
 
 310 
 Kasyapa, 119 
 Khairabad, 259, 295 
 Khan, Colonel Islam, 289 
 Khusru, 229 
 Khyber Pass, 261, 272, 279, 
 
 280, 281, 289-295 
 Khyber Eifles, 289 
 Kim, the Rishti, 242, 247, 
 
 304, 312, 319 
 Kineob, 167, 364 
 Kipling, Eudyard, 94, 239, 
 
 240, 242, 244, 260, 262, 285, 
 
 296, 319, 320, 321 
 Kite-flying, 254 
 Koh-i-nur, 216, 230, 242, 291, 
 
 299 
 Koran, 218 
 Krishna, 74 
 
 Kunchinjinga, 108, 112, 113 
 Kutab niinar, 227, 233, 234 
 
 Ladak, 254 
 Lahore, 239-255, 261 
 Lalla Eookh, 255 
 Lawrenec, Henry, 180, 283 
 Levee, the viceregal, 97 
 
398 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Light of Asia, the, 130, 148 
 Lockhart, General, 284 
 Lonauli, 378, 382 
 Lucknow, 177-182 
 Luggage, 114, 115, 149 
 Lundi Khana, 280, 281 
 Lundi Kotal, 281, 289 
 Lytton, Lord, 226 
 
 Maeaulay, T. B., 241 
 Madras, 65, 66, 80-85 
 Madura, 10-18 
 Maghada, 116, 117 
 Magistrate, 39 
 Magyar, 299 
 Mahabalipur, 73, 370 
 Mahabodhi, 116, 129 
 Maharaja of Benares, 175, 
 
 176 
 Maharaja of Sindhia, 192, 
 
 336 342 
 Mahatma, 167, 172, 228, 320 
 Mahrattas, 215, 336, 341 
 Manaar, Gulf of, 3 
 Manure cakes, 11 
 Massoula-boats, 84 
 Mayo College, 327 
 Mecan Mir, 247 
 Mecca, 116, 181, 209, 267, 390 
 Michni Pass, 282, 286 
 Midway Plaisance, 60 
 Mirza Jahangir, 229 
 Mission work, 16, 30 
 Moguls, 194 
 MoUa, 267, 283 
 Monkey, 167, 218 
 Moses, 264 
 
 Mosque, 181, 195, 196, 363 
 Miiller, Max, 123, 241 
 Mumtaz-i-Mahal, 189, 195, 
 
 199, 212, 229 
 Museums, 80, 99, 178, 241, 
 
 347 
 Mussaffirkhana, 335 
 Mutiny, the, 178, 179, 180, 
 
 182, 215, 217, 225, 228, 299 
 Mutton. 218 
 
 Nadir Shah, 215, 217, 230, 
 
 258, 291 
 Nandgaon, 369, 370 
 Nankow Pass, 292 
 Napoleon, 284 
 Native states, 323, 324 
 Nautch dance, 59, 60, 61, 71, 
 
 236, 348, 352, 355 
 Nawab, the bogus, 345, 346, 
 
 347, 378 
 Nepal, 113 
 Newspapers, 94 
 Nicholson, John, 263, 283 
 Nirvana, 118, 133, 139, 145, 
 
 148 
 Nizam, the, 284, 323, 375 
 Nur Jahan, or Nur Mahal, 
 
 199, 212, 255 
 
 Opium, 348 
 
 Oven, of India, 247, 263 
 
 Pachisi, 206 
 
 Pagan, 90 
 
 Pagodas, the Seven, 67 
 
 Palaces, 12, 96, 175, 194, 195, 
 
 204, 205, 206, 327, 328, 329, 
 
 339, 351, 354 
 Pali, 120, 123 
 Palk Strait, 3 
 
 Parsis, 99, 384, 385, 386, 390 
 Pathans, 260, 264, 290 
 Pattu Thacheadar, 56, 62, 63 
 Peacock Throne, 216, 217, 218, 
 
 228, 230 
 Pegu, 90 
 Persia 285 
 
 Peshawar, 242, 254, 260-275 
 Peter the Great, 285 
 Phalgu Eiver, 129, 148 
 Philistines, 192, 196 
 Phulkari, 268 
 Pie, 278 
 Pigeons, 230 
 Pinus longifolia, 314 
 Piprawah, 99, 117, 120 
 Pipul-tree, 133, 134, 274 
 
INDEX 399 
 
 Poona, 377 Shanghai, 299 
 
 Pop-corn, 271 Shere Ali, 282 
 
 Population, 101 Shish Mahal, 328 
 
 Poultry, 218 Shiva, 15, 41, 163, 166, 373, 
 
 Povindahs, 272 376, 378, 389 
 
 Prince of Wales, 26, 193, 217 Shoes, 266 
 
 Sieves, 179, 180 
 
 Kaces, 96 Sikhs, 242, 244, 249, 298, 299, 
 Eailways, 9, 10, 104, 106, 114, 300 
 
 115, 182, 256, 257, 334, 368, Simla, 95, 241, 312, 318-321 
 
 369, 377, 382 Sinnett, A. P., 94, 320 
 
 Eajput, 117, 327, 354, 358 Snakes, 150, 389 
 
 Eamnuggur, 175 Solon, 317, 321 
 
 Eangoon, 90, 228, 272 Soorajbux, 327, 333 
 
 Eazais, 37 Southey, 74 
 
 Eelics of Buddha, 99, 117, Sowar, 280 
 
 120 Srirangam, 23, 24 
 
 Eesideney, Lueknow, 179, 180 Steele, Mrs. F, A., 149, 182, 
 Ehinoceros, 94, 341, 351 225, 241 
 
 Ehys Davids, Dr., 123 Sujata, 118 
 
 "Eickshaw." See Jinrikisha Swamji, 167, 168, 171, 172 
 
 Eoaches, 3, 76, 90 Sweetmeats, 248, 267, 272 
 Eoberts, Lord, 181, 225, 263 
 
 Eock sculptures, 73, 74, 75, Taj Mahal, 185-194, 210, 227, 
 
 340, 370, 373, 374, 375, 378, 229, 300, 333, 342, 343 
 
 389 Tamils, 7 
 
 Eugs, 268 Tanjore, 30-33 
 
 Eunjeet Singh, 248, 299 Telegraphs, 7, 8, 34 
 
 Eussian advance, the, 248, Telephone, 83 
 
 277, 284, 285 Temple, Sir E., 283 
 
 Teppa Kulam, 12 
 
 Sadi, 229 Theosophists, 64, 81 
 
 Safdar Jang, 233 Thorvaldsen, 75 
 
 Safed Koh, 259, 275 Thugs, 37 
 
 Saints, 206, 267, 274, 283 Tibet, 108, 110, 111 
 
 Samarkand, 26.5, 268, 271 Tiger, 146 
 
 Samovar, 265 Tonga, 313, 370, 377 
 
 Sanchi, toran of, 99, 142 Tottenham Court Eoad, 249 
 
 Sanskrit, 120, 123 Towers of Silence, 386 
 
 Schwartz, 32 Tramp, 33 
 
 Scythian, 264 Trichinopoli, 22, 23 
 
 Secundra, 203 Tughlak, 227, 235 
 
 Selim Chisti, 206, 207 Turbans, 336 
 
 Serai, 273, 390 Turquoise, 112, 223, 254 
 
 Servants, 150 Tuticorin, 4, 7, 8 
 Shah Jahan, 194, 212, 216, 
 
 227, 229, 249 Unicorn, 341, 351 
 
 Shaliniar Gardens, 254 Uruwela, 117, 118 
 
}\\f 
 
 400 INDEX 
 
 Vazir Khan, Mosque of, 250 Waziria, 277 
 
 Vedas, 154, 171, 328 Weddings, 221, 322, 348, 384, 
 
 Vereshchagin, V., 199, 209, 385 
 
 263, 264 Whisky, "Green Seal," 318 
 Viceroy, 95, 96, 98, 218 
 
 Vihara, 273, 374, 381 ^arkand, 254, 304 
 
 Warburton, Colonel, 284, 286, 
 
 289 Zanzamah, the, 242 
 
 Waterloo, 284 Zenana, 206, 212, 329, 330, 
 
 Waxwork, Afghan, 271 351 
 
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