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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. THE GATEWAY OF INDIA . . .
II. IN THE LAND OF THE RAJPUTS .
III. IN THE LAND OF THE RAJPUTS (continued)
IV. IN THE PUNJAB 7~ ' .
V. AMONG THE HIMALAYAS
VI. AMONG THE HIMALAYAS (continued)
VII. THE GREAT PLAINS OF THE GANGES
VIII. THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS
IX. THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS (continued)
X. IN THE MUTINY COUNTRY .
XI. THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS
XII. THE CAPITAL OF INDIA . . .
XIII. ACROSS THE DECCAN ....
XIV. AT THE COURT OF A NATIVE PRINCE .
XV. THE RELIGIOUS MENDICANTS
XVI. IN THE BAZAAR 
XVII. IN THE JUNGLE .....
xviii. in the jungle (continued) . . .
XIX. IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE . . .
XX. IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE (continued) .

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PAGE I
4
II
16
2024303337
42 46 505357

7075
7983

Published September, 1907
Reprinted 1907, 1908, 1910, 1913J and 1915
Reprinted with slight alteration* 191 8 ; re-issufdt 192c

u

i;:vi >§

A DISTINGUISHED MAHARAJAH  9
A SIKH WARRIOR ....... l6
THE TAJ MAHAL ........ 41
BENARES  > ... 48
A NATIVE WOMAN WEARING NOSE ORNAMENT . . 73
A BUSY BAZAAR  80

IV

INDIA CHAPTER I
THE GATEWAY OF INDIA
To the vast majority of European travellers Bombay
is the gateway of India. It is here they get their first
glimpse of the bewildering variety of races, of colours,
of types, of customs, which make up India. After the
journey through the Suez Canal, and the long run
across the Arabian Sea, the traveller is very glad to
spend a day or two at Bombay, gaining first impressions
of this new, strange country. He may be interested in
the fine new buildings of the modern town, or he may
not ; he is certain to be interested in the native quarter.
Here he gets his first glimpse of that great feature of
Indian life, the bazaar — rows and rows of narrow streets
filled with shops and crowds. The shops are small
booths, often built of mud, or archways, or, again, are
mere holes in a wall. Everything is open to full view ;
there are neither windows nor doors. The merchant
or shopkeeper squats beside his goods ; the artisan
does his work in sight of the passers-by. The crowds
are stranger than the shops. Here you may see
IN. I I

Peeps at Many Lands
Hindoos, Parsees, Burmese, Singhalese, Lascars,
Moslems, Arabs, Somalis, Jews of many countries,
Turks, Chinese, Japanese, and a score of other nations.
Amid the throng of many colours move white people
from every land of Europe, and the babel of tongues
is as astonishing as the mingling of costumes.
Here is struck at once the note of colour which
enlivens every street scene in India. The people wear
robes of every shade, and turbans or caps of every hue
— black, white, red, green, yellow, purple, pink, every
colour of the rainbow — and a hundred shades of every
colour meet and mingle as the crowds flow to and fro.
Where there is an open space the snake-charmer
squats beside his cobras, playing on his strange pipe,
and putting his venomous pets through their tricks ;
or a conjurer is causing a mango-plant to spring up
and put forth fruit from apparently a little barren heap
of earth. Busy Indian coolies, naked save for a dirty
turban and a wisp of cotton cloth round the loins,
hurry along with water-skins, and the skins, filled with
water, take roughly the shape of the sheep or goat
which had once filled them with flesh and bones.
Other coolies are driving queer little carts drawn by a
pair of tiny, mild-eyed, hump-backed oxen ; and others,
again, squat beside the way with their chins on their
knees, waiting to be hired.
When it comes to sight-seeing proper, the traveller
will visit the island of Elephanta, six miles from the
city. Here stands a great temple cut in the solid rock,
its roof supported by huge pillars left standing when
the chamber was hollowed out. The temple is adorned
2

The Gateway of India
with colossal figures and carvings of Hindoo gods and
of animals. Its excavation must have been a tremendous
piece of work, and it is considered that it was carried
out some eleven hundred years ago.
Among the crowds of Bombay no people are more
distinctive than the Parsees. The Parsees may always
be known by the strange head-gear and long coats of
the men and by the splendid dresses of the women,
who move about as freely as European women, and are
not shut up like Hindoo women of the richer classes.
The Parsee man wears on his head a long, high,
shiny hat in the form of a cylinder ; it has no brim,
and is one of the oddest head-coverings that may be
seen. In origin he is a Persian, for the Parsees are
descended from a race that fled into India from Persia
when that land was attacked by the Arabs twelve
centuries ago. The Parsee women are dressed very
splendidly, because their race is very rich. The Parsee
is the banker and money-lender of India. No other
native is so clever in trade or amasses wealth so swiftly
as a Parsee.
In his religion the most sacred thing is fire, and to
him the sun, as the emblem of fire, is the greatest
religious symbol. Upon the shore of the bay many
Parsees may be seen at evening at their devotions
before the setting sun. Each seats himself upon the
sand, bows to the sun, taking off his hat and replacing
it, and then, with a small brass jar at his side, begins
to read prayers from a sacred book, chanting them
aloud. The Parsee reverence for fire is seen in the treatment
3 1—2

Peeps at Many Lands
of his dead. The Hindoo makes a funeral pyre and
burns his dead. Not so the Parsee. He considers
that fire is too sacred to use for such a purpose ; nor,
on the other hand, is he willing to defile the earth by
digging a grave. So the Parsee dead are exposed to
be torn to pieces and devoured by vultures. Beside
the sea there stand five broad low towers, the famous
Towers of Silence. In these the bodies of the dead
are exposed. One of these is reserved for the use of a
wealthy family, one for suicides and those who die by
accidental deaths, and three for general use. The
towers and the trees around are loaded with huge
vultures, which, in a couple of hours, reduce a body
to a heap of bones. CHAPTER II
IN THE LAND OF THE RAJPUTS
Rajputana is the land of the Rajputs, a splendid
warrior race of Northern India. In times long gone
by the Rajputs held power over the wide plain watered
by the Upper Ganges, but seven hundred years ago
their Moslem foes drove them westwards into the land
still called Rajputana.
The history of the Rajputs is one of battle. They
are born fighters. They have taken a share in all the
wars which have torn India through all the centuries.
They struggled hard against the British power, but
now they are good friends of ours, and their Princes
rule under British protection. 4

In the Land of the Raj'puts
The history of this fine race is full of stories of
romance and chivalry. Nor is the Rajput of to-day
inferior to his brave and haughty fathers : " The
poorest Rajput retains all his pride of ancestry, often
his sole inheritance ; he scorns to hold the plough, or
use his lance but on horseback." Of all the brave old
stories of Rajput valour and constancy none are more
beloved than the tales which hang around the three
sacks of Chitore. Thrice was that ancient city seized
and plundered by Moslem foes, and never have those
terrible days been forgotten. To this day the most
binding oath on Rajput lips is when he swears, " By
the sin of the sack of Chitore."
Long ago there was a Prince of Chitore named
Bhimsi, whose wife, Princess Padmani, was famed far
and wide as the most beautiful woman in the world,
and as good as she was beautiful. The report of her
beauty drew Allah-u-din, a great Moslem warrior, to
the walls of Chitore at the head of a powerful army.
He demanded to see the face of Padmani, were it only
a reflection of her face in a mirror. Prince Bhimsi
invited him to a feast, and he saw Padmani. When
the feast was over, the Prince escorted Allah-u-din back
to his camp. Then the wily Moslem seized the Prince,
and sent word to the chiefs of Chitore that, if they
wished to see their King again, they must send
Padmani to become the wife of Allah-u-din.
Every one in Chitore was aghast at this treacherous
deed ; but the Moslem was powerful, and Princess
Padmani, with her attendants, set out for the enemy's
camp. Slowly the long train of seven hundred litters
5

Peeps at Many Lands
wound its way from the city, and Padmani was in the
hands of Allah-u-din. The Moslem gave permission
for Bhimsi and Padmani to take a short farewell of each
other, and then was seen a proof of Padmani's wit and
Rajput devotion. From out the seven hundred litters
sprang, not weeping women, but seven hundred
warriors armed to the teeth, while the bearers flung
aside their robes, and showed the glittering swords in
their strong right hands.
Covered by this devoted bodyguard, Bhimsi and
Padmani sprang upon swift horses and reached Chitore
in safety. But none else escaped. The noble Rajputs,
the flower of Chitore, gave their lives to the last man
to save their King and Queen.
Allah-u-din never forgot how he had been foiled.
Years passed, and once more he marched against the
city set on its rock. No one had ever captured it, and
Chitore feared not Allah-u-din until he began to raise
a huge mound of earth. He did this by giving gold
to all who brought a basketful of earth, and at last he
secured a vantage-ground whence he could hurl his
missiles into the city, and the end of the siege was near
at hand.
Then one night King Bhimsi had a terrible vision,
from which he woke in affright. The goddess of
Chitore had appeared to him, saying : " If my altar and
your throne is to be kept, let twelve who wear the
crown die for Chitore."
Now Bhimsi and Padmani had twelve sons. So it
was resolved to make them twelve Kings by setting
each on the throne for three days. Then the saying
6

In the Land of the Rajputs
of the goddess would be fulfilled, and these twelve
must die for Chitore. But when it came to the
youngest of the twelve, to Ajeysi, the father's darling,
Bhimsi said no. The King called his chieftains to
gether. " The child shall not die," he said. " He shall go
free to recover what was lost. I will be the twelfth to
die for Chitore."
" And we will die for Chitore !" cried the warriors.
" In bridal robes of saffron and coronets on our heads,
we will die for Chitore 1"
Then a great plan was made throughout the place :
all, men and women, would die for their beloved city.
In the vaults and caverns which stretch below the rock
a vast funeral pyre was built, and to it came the
Rajput women singing, dressed in their festal robes,
and glittering in all their jewels. The last to enter the
vault of death was Padmani, and when the gate was
closed upon her the men knew their turn had come.
Setting the little Prince in the midst of a picked band,
who had sworn to bear him off in safety, the King led
his sons and chieftains to the battle. The gates were
flung open, and the warriors, clad in bridal robes,
hurled themselves upon the foe: for the bride they
sought was death.
When the last had died for Chitore, Allah-u-din
entered the city. But it was an empty triumph.
Every house, every street, was still and silent, only a
wisp of smoke oozed from the vault. This was the
first sack of Chitore.
The second sack was in the time of Humayun,
7

Peeps at Many Lands
father of Akbar the Great. The ruler of Chitore had
died, leaving a baby son to inherit the crown, and
when a powerful foe came against the city, the child's
mother, Kurnavati, sent messengers to Humayun,
saying : " Tell him that he is bracelet-bound brother
to me, and that I am hard pressed by a cruel foe."
There is an ancient custom in India by which a
woman may choose a bracelet-brother to protect and
assist her. She may choose whom she pleases, and she
sends him a silken bracelet, called a ram-rukki. It is
a mere cord of silk, bound with a tassel, and hung
with seven tiny silken tassels — red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo, violet, the colours of the rainbow.
The man may accept this bracelet or not, as he pleases ;
but once he has bound it round his wrist, he becomes
the bracelet-brother of the sender, and is bound to
her service. In return for the bracelet he sends the
customary gift of a small breast-bodice.
Now Humayun, the Mogul King, was bracelet-
brother to Kurnavati, and when he heard that she was
in distress, he hurried to her assistance. But he came
too late, and the garrison of Chitore saw that their
city must fall. Then they remembered the first sack,
and all resolved to die in the same way. Kurnavati
succeeded in getting her little son away in safety ; then
she led the women to the funeral pyre. The men of
the garrison were few, for many had fallen, but the
gallant handful, clad as before in bridal robes and
crowns, dashed upon the foe, and died to the last man,
ringed about with heaps of slain.
Although the baby King, Udai Singh, was smuggled
8 '

\ DISTINGUISHED MAHVRAJAH. P«i"H««'«

In the Land of the Rajputs
in safety from Chitore, it was not long before he was
in danger again. He was carried off to the palace of
his half-brother, Bikramajit, where he lived under the
care of his foster-mother, Punnia. One night Punnia
heard a terrible uproar, and then the screams of
women. Enemies had broken into the palace of
Bikramajit. But whose life did they seek above all ?
Punnia knew, and she saw that Udai Singh was in
great danger. How could she save him ? There was
only one way, a terrible way ; but the Rajput woman
did not flinch. Two children lay sleeping before her,
Udai Singh and her own child. She caught up the
baby King and thrust sugared opium into his mouth
that he might be lulled into deeper, safer slumber, hid
him in a fruit-basket, and gave the precious burden to
the hands of a faithful servant " Fly to the river-bed
without the city," she said, " and wait for me there."
Then she flung the rich royal robe over her own
sleeping child, and waited for the murderers. In they
burst. " The Prince !" they cried. " Where is the
Prince ?"
With a supreme effort Punnia pointed to the little
figure beneath the splendid robe, and hid her face,
giving the life of her own child to save that of the
little King.
When all was over, and the last funeral rites had
been performed over the body of the child whom the
conspirators supposed to be the young King, Punnia
sought the river-bed. There she found her nursling,
and with him she fled over hill and dale, never resting
till she gained a strong fortress held by a loyal
in. 9 2

Peeps at Many Lands
governor. Into his presence she hastened, and set the
child on his knee. " Guard well the life of the King I"
she cried, this noble Rajput woman.
The third sack of Chitore happened in the days of
Akbar the Great, son of Humayun, who had once
hurried to the aid of the city. The Rajputs and the
Great Mogul came to blows. Akbar led a powerful
army against his foes. This was the last sack, " for the
conqueror was of right royal stuff, and knew how to
treat brave men. So when the final consummation
was once more reached, and thousands of brave men
had gone to death by the sword, and thousands of
brave women met death by fire, he left the city,
levying no ransom, and on the place where his camp
had stood raised a white marble tower, from whose top
a light might shine to cheer the darkness of Chitore.
But a few years afterwards, when in dire distress and
riding for his life through an ambush, the man on
Akbar's right hand and the man on his left, shielding
him from blows, making their swords his shelter, were
two of the defeated Rajput generals."
These are stories of long ago. Here is one of times
nearer our own, when the English were mastering
India. A beautiful Rajput Princess, the Princess
Kishna Komari, was sought in marriage by three
powerful suitors. She could not wed all three, and
her father feared the vengeance of the fierce men who
quarrelled over his daughter's hand. Lest their savage
disputes might end in attack upon his city and palace,
he said that his daughter must die. " She took the
poison offered her, smiling, saying to her weeping
io

In the Land of the Rajputs
mother, ' Why grieve ? A Rajput maiden often enters
tht world but to be sent from it. Rather thank my
father for giving you me till to-day.' "

CHAPTER III
IN THE LAND OF THE RAJPUTS (continued)
The ancient town of Chitore still stands on its ridge,
with its grey lines of ruined walls and towers broken
by two beautiful Towers of Victory, which raise their
slender columns toward the sky. The smaller tower is
very old, having been raised in a.d. 896, and the
larger was built in a.d. 1439 to celebrate a victory of
the Rajputs over their Moslem enemies. The latter is
ornamented with most beautiful carving, rises to the
height of 130 feet, and is divided into nine stories.
Some sixty miles from Chitore lies Oudeypor, or
Udai pur, a Rajput city of great fame, for it is said to
be the most beautiful city in all India. It is also of
deep interest as being one of the few cities where the old
native life goes on almost untouched by the presence
and influence of the white people in the land. Here
strut Rajput nobles in silken robes decked with gems,
and followed by splendidly clothed and armed retainers.
Here the elephant is seen at its proper work of carrying
stately howdahs, carved and gilded and hung about
with curtains of rich brocade, while long flowing
draperies of cloth of gold, embroidered in the most
lovely patterns and in the most striking and brilliant
11 2 — a

Peeps at Many Lands
colours, sweep down the broad flanks of the huge
slow-moving beaft, and almost brush the ground with
long fringed tassels. Here are bevies of women who
resemble a moving garden in their shining silks of
every hue that is soft and delicate, and here are naked
coolies, whose bronze bodies glisten with sweat as they
toil along under their load of water-skins or huge
baskets heaped with earth.
The people in the streets of Udaipur strike the
traveller at once as a finer type than usual. The men
are tall, slender, and of lofty bearing ; their features
are fine, sharp, and regular. As regards the women's
features you cannot judge, for in Udaipur the rule that
no woman's face shall be seen by a stranger is very
strictly observed. Even the poorest woman, however
busily she may be at work, has a hand at liberty to
draw her filmy veil of coloured gauze, red or green or
blue or pink, across her face when anyone glances her
way. As the crowd passes along, two things above all
strike our eyes — the beards of the men, the jewellery
of the women. The beard of the Rajput is very
black ; it is combed and brushed till it shines in the
sun ; it is as large as he can grow it ; then it is parted
in the middle, and drawn round the face so that it
stands out on either side, and the ends are curled. It
is said that a Rajput dandy who cannot get his beard
to properly part in the middle will draw it round his
face to the required shape, and then tie a bandage
tightly round his head to train the hair to the mode
which he and his friends affect. 12

In the Land of the Rajputs
The jewellery of the women is overwhelming, and
this word is meant in its literal sense : the women are
absolutely loaded with ornaments. If they are wealthy,
the ornaments are of gold, decked with precious stones ;
the poorer classes are weighed down with silver. A
Rajput woman often carries on her person the wealth
of her house, and may be regarded as the family
savings bank. One writer, speaking of the ornaments
upon a working woman of the lower classes, says :
" Her smaller toes were decked with rings of silver,
made by an ingenious arrangement of small movable
knobs set close together. She wore a bracelet of the
same design, which was one of the most artistic and
effective triumphs of the jeweller's art that I have ever
seen. Upon her eight fingers she wore twenty-six
rings. She carried on her left lower arm a row of
many bracelets, mainly of silver, but with here and
there a band of lacquer, either green or red or yellow.
Upon her left upper arm she displayed a circlet of links
carved into the shape of musk-melons, each the size of
a nutmeg. From this fell three chains, each five inches
long, and terminated with a tassel of silver. Upon her
right arm she had also many bracelets. Finally, upon
her neck was a chain of silver, of such length that,
after it had been coiled several times round her throat,
sufficient remained to fall in a double loop upon her
bosom, where a heart-shaped silver charm finished both
it and her scheme of display."
Another writer gives a sketch of a Rajput dandy
which forms a good companion picture to the above :
" A long-skirted tunic or frock of white muslin, close-
13

Peeps at Many Lands
fitting white trousers, and a rose-coloured turban with
a broad band of gold lace and tall flashing plume of
dark heron feathers and gold filigree were the salient
points. Other accessories were the sword-belt, crossing
his breast and encircling his waist, of dark green velvet,
richly worked with pure gold, and thickly studded with
emeralds, rubies, and brilliants ; a transparent yellow
shield of rhinoceros hide, with knobs of black-and-gold
enamel ; a sash of stiff gold lace, with a crimson thread
running through the gold ; bracelets of the dainty
workmanship known as Jeypore enamel, thickly
jewelled, which he wore on his wrists and arms ; and
there were strings of dull, uncut stones about his neck.
The skirts of his tunic were pleated with many folds
and stood stiffly out, and when he mounted his horse
a servant on each side held them so that they might not
be crushed.
" The trappings of the horse were scarcely less
elaborate. His neck was covered on one side with
silver plates, and his mane, which hung on the other
side, was braided, and lengthened by black fringes,
relieved by silver ornaments. White yaks' tails hung
from beneath the embroidered saddle-cover on both
sides, and his head, encased in a headstall of white
enamelled leather and silver, topped with tall aigrettes,
was tied down by an embroidered scarf to give his neck
the requisite curve."
The streets through which t-hese gay figures move
are worthy of them. Hardly two houses are alike, but
all are beautiful in " this shining white pearl among
cities." No building is bare. Its front is decorated

In the Land of the Rajputs
with half-columns, carved panels, or frescoes in
brilliant colours, picturing horses, elephants, and tigers
in pursuit of their prey. Balconies and projecting
windows are faced with panels of stonework so deli
cately carved and fretted as to resemble lacework, and
in the most beautiful and graceful patterns. And
everything is white, glittering white, under a clear,
glowing sky, and set beside a great lake as blue as a
great sheet of turquoise.
Along the streets flows a most mingled crowd, clad
in all the hues of the rainbow, and through this brilliant
throng all kinds of beasts of burden thread their way.
The mighty elephant, rolling along with his ponderous
tread, is followed by a tiny ass no bigger than a large
dog. Oxen just as small as the asses, and long-legged
camels with great loads on their humped backs, come
and go, and people on balconies lean over the parapets
and gaze idly on the busy scene.
The most striking thing in Udaipur is the vast
palace of the native Prince. The most beautiful things
are the two lovely water palaces which stand on islands
in the lake.
The former is entered by a fine triple-arched gate
way. " Above this gateway soars the great white
fabric, airy, unreal, and fantastic as a dream, stretching
away in a seemingly endless prospective of latticed
cupolas, domes, turrets, and jutting oriel windows,
rising tier above tier, at a dizzy height from the
ground. A single date-tree spreads its branches above
the walls of the topmost court, at the very apex of the
pile." 15

Peeps at Many Lands
From the foot of the ridge on which stands this
glittering pile of splendid masonry the dark blue lake
stretches away, its surface broken by two islands, each
of which is occupied by a water palace of wonderful
beauty. Here one may roam through miles of courts,
saloons, corridors, pavilions, balconies, terraces, a fairy
land of splendour, in which every room, every gallery
is decorated with the most exquisite art. And all this
has been wrought by the hand of man, not merely the
marvellous palaces, but the very lake itself. This site
was once a desert valley, but immense wealth and
boundless power have filled the great hollow with blue
water, and littered its shores with temples and palaces
and pavilions, presenting a scene which, for charm of
colour and beauty of outline, can nowhere be sur
passed. CHAPTER IV
IN THE PUNJAB
Beyond the wide desert which stretches along the
north-western border of Rajputana lie the plains of the
Punjab, running up to the foot-hills of the Himalayas.
The Punjab (the Land of Five Rivers), where the
Indus and its tributaries roll their waters to the
Arabian Sea, is, above all and beyond all, the battlefield
of India. For it was upon these plains that the onsets
of invaders first fell. Greeks, Persians, Afghans —
swarm after swarm poured through the only vulnerable
point of Northern India, and fought out on the plains
16

A SIKH WARRIOR. P«r/» n

In the Punjab
of the Punjab the struggles which meant for them
victory or disastrous retreat.
The last native rulers of the Punjab were the finest
ones of all — the Sikhs. The Sikhs, a nation of
fanatics and heroes, fought the Moslems for hundreds
of years, and the prize was the rule of the Punjab.
The Sikhs won, and formed a barrier behind which
India was safe from the savage Moslem tribes of the
north-west. The Sikhs are a warrior race pure and simple.
They make splendid soldiers under white officers, and
the fine Sikh regiments are the pride of our native
Indian army. They did not yield up the Punjab to
British rule without a stern struggle. They were
noble foes, and they proved noble friends. They
accepted the British Raj once and for all. Within ten
years after their conquest the Indian Mutiny broke
out. The Sikhs stood firm, and aided the British
with the utmost gallantry and devotion.
The Sikh is a fine, tall, upstanding fellow, with an
immense beard and a huge coil of hair. This follows
on his belief that it is impious either to shave or to cut
the hair. He holds tobacco in abhorrence, and
worships his Bible, which is called the Granth. In
every Sikh temple sits a priest reading in a loud voice
from the Granth, while beside him an attendant priest
fans the holy book with a gilt-handled plume of
feathers. The most famous Sikh temple is at Amritsar, the
holy city of the Sikh faith. Here is the Pool of
Immortality, and in the midst of the lake rises the
in. 17 3

Peeps at Many Lands
Golden Temple, standing on an island. From the
gates of the city a throng of stalwart, bearded Sikh
pilgrims sets always towards the Golden Temple.
You follow in their train, and come suddenly upon a
wide open space. It is bordered by a marble pave
ment, and within the pavement lies the famous Lake
of Immortality. The Golden Temple rises before
you, glittering with blinding radiance in the hot sun
shine, and mirrored in the smooth water which runs to
the foot of its walls.
But you may not yet enter the sacred place and
walk round the lake and see the temple. At the gates
you are stopped, and your boots taken from you, and
silken slippers tied on in their place. If you have
tobacco in your pockets that, too, must be handed
over, and left till you return, for tobacco would defile
the holy place. Then you are led round by a Sikh
policeman, who will show you the temple and the
hallowed ground.
The marble pavement around the sacred lake is
dotted with groups of priests and pilgrims, and behind
the pavement stand palaces of marble, owned by great
Sikh chiefs who come here to worship. Here and
there are flower-sellers weaving long chains of roses
and yellow jasmine to sell to worshippers who wish to
make offerings. A teacher with a little band of
students around him is seated beside the pool, and in a
shady corner is a native craftsman busy fashioning
wooden spoons and combs, and other trifles, which he
sells as souvenirs of the shrine.
The Golden Temple itself is gained by a causeway
18

In the Punjab
across the lake, and the causeway is entered through a
magnificent portal with doors of silver, and four open
doors of chased silver give access to the sanctuary
itself. Here sits the high-priest reading the Granth,
and before the holy book is spread a cloth, upon which
the faithful lay offerings of coins or flowers.
From Amritsar, the holy city, to Lahore, the
capital of the Punjab, is only some thirty miles.
Lahore is a large town of great importance as a
military station, and many troops are quartered in the
grand old fort built by the Mogul Kings. Some
of the palaces which once filled this ancient fortress
still show traces of their former splendour. There are
sheets of striking tilework, with panels of elephants,
horsemen, and warriors worked in yellow upon a blue
ground. There are marble walls inlaid most beauti
fully with flowers formed of precious stones. But
many of the halls have been converted into barracks,
and in spots where once an Emperor smoked his
jewelled " hubble-bubble," surrounded by a glittering
Court, Tommy Atkins, in khaki and putties, with his
helmet on the back of his head, now puffs calmly at a
clay pipe.
Lahore has streets which display some of the finest
wood-carving in India. These streets lie within the
city, the old part of the town, enclosed by brick walls
sixteen feet high, and entered by thirteen gates. In
one street every house has a balcony or jutting window
of old woodwork, carved into the most beautiful or
fantastic designs, according to the fancy of the owner
who built and designed it long ago. The balconies
19 3—2

Peeps at Many Lands
are of all sizes and shapes, and their line is delightfully
irregular. The walls, too, are painted and decorated
lavishly, and domed windows are adorned by gaily-
tinted peacocks worked in wood or stucco. The
splendid woodwork, the shining beauty of paint and
courses of bricks richly glazed in red and blue, the
gay crowd which throngs the way — all these things
combine to form a striking and splendid picture.
At the end of this marvellous street rise the tall
minarets of the Great Mosque, and close by is the fine
tomb where lies Runjit Singh, the greatest of the Sikh
rulers. Under him the Sikhs rose to the height of
power in India ; but a few years after his death, in
1839, the Punjab passed into our hands.
CHAPTER V
AMONG THE HIMALAYAS
India is bounded and guarded on the north by one of
the grandest mountain-chains in the world. This is
the mighty range of the Himalayas, which stretches a
row of lofty peaks from east to west, as if to shut up
India behind a gigantic wall.
There are very few points where this vast range can
be crossed, and then only with the greatest difficulty.
The most famous pass of all lies in the north-west,
the well-known Khyber or Khaibar Pass leading into
Afghanistan. Through this pass invader after invader
in age after age has poured his troops into the fertile
plains of Hindostan. 20

Among the Himalayas
At this point Alexander the Great at the head of a
Greek army crossed the Indus and marched into India.
To this day there are left in the land tokens of that
far-off raid. The Indian hakims, the native doctors,
practise jhe Greek system of medicine, and the influence
of the invaders is seen in old Indian coins which turn
up with Greek inscriptions upon them, in statues which
are found in the soil, as full of Greek feeling as any in
Athens itself.
But it is now a task for British brains and hands to
see to it that no fresh invader swoops through the pass,
and it is very strictly guarded. In itself the pass presents
many difficulties. The way lies through tremendous
ravines, beside which tower precipices of stupendous
height, and the road could easily be blocked and
destroyed at many points. The people who inhabit
this region are also of a very savage and dangerous
character. They are called Afridis, and belong to wild
hill-tribes, who are always ready for a fray, all the more
so if there is a little plunder to be gained by it.
With these fierce and lawless people the British
officers have come to an arrangement : that for two
days a week the Afridis themselves shall furnish soldiers
to guard the pass. For this duty an annual payment
is made, and thus the Khaibar Pass is quite safe on
Tuesdays and Fridays. On other days the traveller
must look out for himself. He must keep a wide eye
open for the Zakka Khels, a notorious Afridi tribe.
When a son is born to a Zakka Khcl woman she
swings him over a hole in a wall, saying, " Be a thief!
be a thief I" And a thief he is to the end of his days.
21

Peeps at Many Lands
Among the Himalayas to the north-east of the
Khyber Pass lies the beautiful vale of Kashmir, or
Cashmere (the Happy Valley). Cashmere is a lofty
plain, yet it is not a plateau, for you go down into it
from every side. It is so high that its climate is nearer
to that of England than any other part of India. The
summer is like a fine English summer, but a little
hotter, and with more settled weather. In winter the
snow lies on the ground for two or three months, but
about the end of February the snow disappears, and
the spring bursts out, and the vale becomes beautiful
with the tender green of growing crops and grass and a
profusion of most lovely flowers. The scenery is very
fine. Around and far off is the great wall of lofty
mountains, which encompass the plain with glittering
slopes of eternal snow. The vale itself is dotted
with hamlets and villages, with fields waving with
corn and rice, with meadows, with orchards of mul
berry- and walnut-trees, with forests of giant plane-
trees. The capital is Srinagar, the City of Sun, whose many
waterways winding through the ancient city make it an
Asiatic Venice. " The houses on the banks are of
many stories, most of them richly ornamented with
carved wood, while the sloping roofs of nearly all are
overgrown with verdure. The dome of one Hindoo
temple was covered with long grass thickly studded
with scarlet poppies and yellow mustard. On all sides
are to be seen the remains of ancient temples and
palaces, testifying to what a magnificent city Srinagar
must have been." 22

Among the Himalayas
Moving east along the Himalayan slopes, the next
point of interest is the small town of Simla. This is
important, not in itself, but as the seat of government
in the summer, when the Viceroy and his staff escape
to its cool heights from the burning plain 7,000 feet
below. " By the time the month of May is advancing
the season for Simla has begun. The Viceroy and his
Government, with some of the official classes, have
arrived, and the world of Anglo- Indian fashion have
assembled. Social gatherings on the greensward under
neath the rocks, overshadowed by the fir, pine, and
cedar, are of daily occurrence. The rich bloom of the
rhododendrons lends gorgeousness to the scene.
" The place is like a gay Swiss city isolated on the
mountain-top, with dark ilex forests around it, blue
hills beyond, and the horizon ever whitened by the
Snowy Range. But in this paradise, tempting the mind
to banish care and forget affairs of State, the most
arduous business is daily conducted. Red -liveried
messengers are running to and fro all the day and half
the night. Tons of letters and dispatches come and
go daily. Here are gathered up the threads of an
Empire. Hence issue the orders affecting perhaps one-
sixth of the human race."
In winter Simla is deserted. The Viceroy and his
staff, the gay world of fashion, all have gone back to
the plains, and in severe weather the little town often
lies deep in snow.
Simla lies near the Siwalik Hills, one of the many
foot-ranges which lead up to the greater heights of the
Himalayas, and the Siwalik Hills are famous, because
*3

Peeps at Many Lands
through them the sacred Ganges bursts out upon the
plains of Hindostan. It is at the city of Hardwar that
the Ganges forces its bright blue stream through a wild
gorge and leaves the mountains for ever ; and Hardwar
is a holy place. The city lies in the gorge beside the
stream. It has one principal street running along the
river ; the others mount the hill-side as steeply as stair
cases. Temples and ghats line the bank, and hither
come vast numbers of pilgrims to the great annual fair
of Hardwar to bathe in the holy river. At that time
the country round resembles a vast encampment, " and
all the races, faces, costumes, customs, and languages
of the East, from Persia to Siam, from Ceylon to
Siberia, are represented."

CHAPTER VI
AMONG THE HIMALAYAS {continued)
But to see the Himalayas in all their majesty we must
still keep our faces to the east, and travel on towards
the great central knot, where Mount Everest and the
Kanchanjanga spring nearly 30,000 feet, about five
and a half miles, towards the sky. Of these two
mountain giants Mount Everest, though the highest
measured mountain in the world, presents the less im
posing appearance. This is because it lies so far in the
interior of the range, and is surrounded by a girdle of
snowy peaks which seem to gather about and protect
their lord. They, however, block the way for a
24

Among the Himalayas
complete view of the enormous height, and thus seem
to dwarf it.
For majestic splendour, Kanchanjanga bears away
the palm. From the vale of the great Ranjit River, a
huge rushing torrent which pours past its base, the
whole immense mountain-slope may be surveyed in a
single prospect, a most sublime and splendid view.
The traveller who climbs the flanks of this great
mountain will pass through belts of vegetation remind
ing him of every zone on the earth's surface. He
begins his climb among the eternal green of tropical
forests, through thickly-matted jungle where large
creepers bind tree to tree, and great bunches of gaudily-
coloured flowers blaze in the scorching heat of the
tropical sun.
From the land of palm and plantain and orchid he
ascends through groves of bamboo, of orange, and of
fig until he gains a height at which the air is sensibly
cooler, and the vegetation of temperate zones begins
to appear. On the border between the two zones
grow splendid tree-ferns, rhododendrons forty feet
high, and groves of magnolia. When the two latter
are in blossom the scene is gorgeous, and the white
flowers of the magnolia seem to sprinkle the forests
with snow.
The trees are now those familiar to English eyes :
the oak, chestnut, willow, cherry, and beneath them
grow the bramble, raspberry, strawberry, and other
well-remembered plants and shrubs. Deep ravines
score the flanks of the hills, and down each ravine
dashes a brimming torrent, tossing its spray over ferns
in. 25 4

p,

'eeps at Many Lands
and wild-flowers, and butterflies with wings of the most
striking and beautiful colours flit to and fro in the
sunlight. On goes the traveller, and now the underwood begins
to thin, and the land becomes more grassy, and the
trees to gather themselves into serried ranks of gigantic
pines, firs, junipers, and larches. Up and up he climbs,
and at last the belt of forest is left behind. He is out
on the upper pastures beneath the open sky ; he has
gained the Alpine region of the Himalayas. Fields
of flowers run upwards — of poppies, of edelweiss, of
gentians — until at length the traveller stands at the fo^t
of the first snow-field, and sees above him the vast
sweeps of snowy glacier, the icy precipices and pinnacles
which forbid his further advance.
We are now in the neighbourhood of the pass
through which our troops marched into Tibet in the
advance to Lhassa. The pass is approached from
Darjiling, famous as a tea-growing centre, and Darjiling
is approached by a mountain-railway. The latter is a
triumph of engineering, so cleverly does it twist and
turn its way among the hills, skirting the edge of
deep precipices, winding round spirals, and affording
splendid views at almost every turn of the way.
At the point where the railway starts for Darjiling
the Himalayas spring up abruptly from the Indian
plains. The first station is some 300 miles from
Calcutta and the sea, yet less than 400 feet from sea-
level. Then in less than 40 miles it climbs some 7,000
feet up to Dariiling.
This town is not only a great centre of the tea
26

Among the Himalayas
industry, but is also one of the show places of the
world, for it commands the grandest known landscape
of snowy mountains in the Himalayas. Kanchan-
janga is the chief figure in the glorious panorama
of snow-clad heights, but Everest can be seen in the
distance, and a whole host of minor peaks, each taller
than Mont Blanc, carry the eye from point to point in
the widespread survey.
At Darjiling may be seen many Tibetans with their
praying-wheels, which they twist as they repeat their
Buddhist prayers, and their praying-flags, long poles of
bamboo from which flutter strips of cotton cloth, on
which prayers are written. The bazaar is frequented by
the people of the country round about, and many
different types of the hill-tribes may be seen there.
" There are Tibetans who have come down over the
passes through Sikkim ; Lepchas, from Sikkim itself,
who look almost like Chinese, the women wearing
heavy ear ornaments, and both men and women parting
the hair in the middle and combing it down on either
side ; Bhutras, the women some of them rather pretty,
with necklaces, carrying a silver charm-case and with
large ear-rings, and the men with pigtails ; Nepali
women, with enormous carved necklaces, head-dresses
of silver, and nose ornaments, which sometimes hang
down over the chin ; and coolies carrying great loads
on their backs, supported by a wicker band across the
forehead." In the valley around Darjiling the slopes of the hills
are covered with tea-bushes, and the cultivation extends
to the foot of the range, where great tea-plantations
27 4— a

Peeps at Many Lands
stretch over the Terai. The Terai is the name given
to a broad strip of land lying along the base of the
Himalayas. Here the tea-plant flourishes, and formerly
a terrible wasting fever made the growing of these
precious leaves a dangerous task. Down the broad
flanks of the great range rush a thousand torrents.
They overflow their banks and soak the whole country
until it is a huge swamp. Then there is a very heavy
rainfall amounting to 120 inches in a year, and this
further saturates the ground. The tropical sun beats
upon the marshy land and raises a thick vapour, which
was thought to be laden with malaria. But fortunately
it has been discovered that this is not the case. The
malarial fever so dangerous to both Europeans and
natives is caused by the bite of a certain kind of
mosquito which finds a favourable breeding- place in
the vapeur. Efforts are now being made to exter
minate these insects, and special precautions taken to
protect the people from the bites, so that to-day the
disease is almost wiped out among Europeans, and the
number of deaths among natives greatly reduced.
At one time it was the custom to fire the jungle to
purify the air, but the practice was afterwards forbidden,
lest harm should be done to the tea-bushes and the
houses of the planters.
The sight of a tea-plantation is curious rather than
pretty. The bushes stand in long, neat rows, and each
is trimmed to keep it low, broad, and flat. Groups of
coolies, both men and women, work busily in the tea-
gardens, not merely in gathering the leaves, but in keep
ing the bushes free from weeds which would hinder
28

Among the Himalayas
their growth. Under the burning sun and in the
moist earth weeds spring up in great profusion, and a
plantation neglected for even a short time becomes
choked with them.
All the tea-bushes are not alike. Some are of a
darker colour than the rest, and the leaves are smaller.
This is the China plant, while the lighter-coloured
bushes with larger leaves are the Assam strain. The
coolies at work among the plants are gaunt, thin,
miserable-looking figures. This is not to be wondered
at when their occupation is considered, exposing them
as it does to attack after attack of the terrible Terai
fever. When the rains are very heavy they often have
to work knee-deep in water and mud beneath a burning
sun, and this reduces their strength to withstand the
poisonous malaria.
When the coolies have filled their baskets with
leaves, they carry them up to the tea-factory. First,
the leaves are weighed, to see how much each coolie
has plucked ; then they are carried to the withering-
house. All the leaves are spread out on shallow canvas
trays, and left all night to wither. Next morning the
leaves are put into the rolling-machine, and after half
an hour's rolling they come out in a huge wet mass of
leaf. This mass is broken up and spread out to dry
on trays, and left for some time to ferment. The
process of fermentation is carefully watched, for upon
this the aroma of the tea will depend, and the process
must be checked at the right moment.
Of all the rooms in the tea-factory the fermenting-
room is the most pleasant to visit. It is filled with the
29

Peeps at Many Lands
most delightful fragrance. Next, the tea is thrown into
a machine, where it is dried by hot air, and after that
it enters a huge sieve, where the first rough division of
the crop is made into large and small leaves. The next
sorting is by hand, when nimble fingers swiftly pick
out the finer sorts of tea. After this final separation
the tea is dried once more, and then taken to the ware
house, where it is packed ready to go into the market.

CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT PLAINS OF THE GANGES
Beyond the Terai the traveller, turning his back upon
the Himalayas, enters a vast plain, hundreds of miles
wide and a thousand mileslong. From Calcutta in the
east to beyond Delhi in the north-west, from the Hima
layas in the north to the Vindhya Hills in the south
spreads this vast sweep of land, the Plain of Hindostan.
Into this plain flow a thousand streams, great and
small, from the mountains which fringe its borders.
Every stream, sooner or later, is gathered into the
broad bosom of the Ganges, which winds its majestic
current through the centre of the immense level. The
Ganges is more than the great river of India : it is one
of the great rivers of the world. To vast numbers of
mankind it is a sacred stream, and to bathe in its holy
waters is a privilege for which pilgrims will travel on
foot from distant lands. But the mighty flood is put
to other uses than that of worship. A network of
30

The Great Plains of the Ganges
canals gathers up the waters of itself and of its many
tributaries, and spreads them abroad upon the fields of
the husbandman, and makes the plain blossom into
fertility. To travel this plain reminds one of being at sea.
On all hands it stretches away absolutely flat, and fades
away into a misty horizon, save that at morning and
evening the great snowy heights of the Himalayas
shine out, and fade away again in the light of the rising
and setting sun.
This great sunny plain swarms with life. It is
covered with the villages of the Indian peasants ; it is
coloured with the bright patches of their crops, with
green fields of paddy (rice), with golden wheat and
barley, with poppies white in flower, with yellow mus
tard, with lentils, potatoes, castor-oil plants, and a score
of other crops. These grow freely where water is.
Where water is not, the land stretches bare and sterile,
sand, stones, and rocks bleaching in the sun.
Here and there a group of trees proclaims a village.
The palm and the feathery bamboo mingle their
foliage ; the huge banyan-tree stretches itself over the
soil and sends down its long shoots, which strike it into
the soil and form supports to the parent branches.
Around the village pastures the herd of buffaloes, often
watched by a small boy, and a clumsy cart, with
wheels formed of two circles of solid wood, and drawn
by two mild-eyed, hump-backed oxen, creaks by as it
journeys towards a neighbouring place.
The life of the villages in this plain is, as a rule,
untouched by modern ideas. They move upon the
31

Peeps at Many Lands
world-old ways which their fathers followed. In many
of them, far from the main river and the railway, a
white face is scarcely ever seen. There are great towns
in the Ganges basin, but these are only specks on the
face of the mighty plain. The Indian ryot knows
nothing of them and goes on in his own way.
Water is his first need, and lucky is the man who
has a good well or whose field is upon the bank of a
river. The water is drawn in many ways. One
peasant employs the simple method of watering by
hand, filling his pots and emptying them upon the
roots of the thirsty plants; but if the crop be rice,
which demands a flood of water, a pair of oxen are set
to the work. They are harnessed to a rope which runs
over a pulley and has a huge water-skin fastened to its
farther end. As the oxen go away from the well they
pull up the skin full of water till it reaches a prepared
channel. Here a man is waiting, who empties the skin
into the channel, and the water runs away to the field.
Now the oxen come back, and the skin sinks to the
water ; then they turn again, and the skin rises. One
man drives the team, the other empties the water, and
so the work goes on from dawn to dark.
These are the people who produce the wealth of
India, these quiet, patient toilers growing their endless
crops of wheat, of rice, of barley, of poppies for opium,
of cotton, and of maize. They cut their ditches for
irrigation, and flood a once-barren stretch of country
with water. Thenceforth they take from it always two,
and often three, crops in a year.

32

The Land of the Mogul Kings
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS
Far in the north-west of the great plain of Hindostan,
the ancient and famous city of Delhi stands on the
broad Jumna, the chief tributary of the Ganges, and
around her lies the land of the Mogul Kings. Delhi
has a great name in the history of India. She saw
the empire of the powerful Mogul Kings ; she saw
some of the most desperate fighting of the Great Indian
Mutiny of 1 857, when the last Mogul was driven from
his throne. But long before the Mutiny the power of
the Moguls had vanished. Their palmy days were in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the strongest
of them all, Akbar, the Great Mogul, began to reign in
1556. He came to the throne two years before Eliza
beth became Queen of England; he died two years after
her, in 1605.
Akbar the Great was only fourteen years old when
he became King, but " from that moment his grip was
on all India." He proved a wonderful ruler and leader
of men. India was a welter of conflicting races, tongues,
and creeds. Under his firm and wise government strife
died away, peace and order took its place, and those
who had been the fiercest enemies lived side by side in
friendship. He was at once law-maker, soldier, ruler,
and philosopher. He was tall, and as strong in body
as in mind, for he was the best polo player in India,
and it is recorded of him that he once rode 800
im. 33 5

Peeps at Many Lands
miles on camel-back, and then, without staying for rest,
at once gave battle to his enemy.
To find the wonderful buildings which the Great
Mogul left behind him, we must leave Delhi and go
down the Jumna to Agra and its neighbourhood.
Agra is still called by the natives Akbarabad, the city
of Akbar, and here stands the mighty fort which the
monarch built, a city in itself. In a land of magnificent
buildings there is nothing grander than the fort at
Agra. Its battlements of red sandstone tower 70 feet
from the ground, the walls run a mile and a half in
circuit, and the immense mass of masonry dwarfs the
modern town. Within the fort is a maze of courts,
pavilions, corridors, and chambers, wrought in dazzling
white marble, and decorated with the most beautiful
carving and exquisite tracery in stone. The chief
features of the vast building are Akbar's palace, with
its golden pinnacles glittering in the sunshine, and the
Moti Masjid, a small mosque of most beautiful pro
portions, so perfect both in design and in the beauty of
its ornaments that it is called the Pearl Mosque, being
the pearl of all mosques.
From Agra a drive of twenty-two miles takes us to
Fattehpore-Sikri, a marvellous town, erected by Akbar
himself, " where every building is a palace, every palace
a dream carved in red sandstone." The name of the
place means " The City of Victory," and was given to
it because Akbar's grandfather defeated the Rajputs at
this place in 1527. Here Akbar built a splendid
mosque, which stands on the west side of a great court
yard. From the south the courtyard is entered by the
34

The Land of the Mogul Kings
Sublime Gate, or Gate of Victory, " the noblest portal
in India." Akbar's palace may still be seen, and the
chief place of interest is the Throne Room, where, in
the centre of a large chamber, rises a huge column of
red sandstone, with a spreading capital surrounded by a
balustrade. Akbar's seat was placed on the top of this
mighty pillar, and from it ran four raised pathways,
leading to the places where his ministers sat, in four
galleries, one at each corner of the room.
The tomb of Akbar is at Sikandra, about six miles
from Agra. It stands in the midst of a garden, which
is entered by four lofty gateways of red sandstone.
From each gateway a broad causeway of stone runs to
the centre of the enclosure, where rises the great build
ing which contains the tomb of the Great Mogul. The
building rises in terrace* something in the form of a
pyramid, the lower stones of red sandstone, the top
story of white marble, the latter decorated with pierced
panels of marble wrought in the most beautiful patterns.
The floor of the building is open to the day, and in
the centre stands the grandly simple tomb, a huge
block of white marble, on which is inscribed a single
word, 'Akbar.' Near at hand is a small pillar in
which the famous diamond the Koh-i-noor was once
set. Splendid as were the buildings of Akbar, yet his
grandson, Shah Jehan, was destined to surpass him ;
for Shah Jehan built the Taj Mahal, the most glorious
tomb that grief ever raised in memory of love, and one
of the wonders of the world. In 1629 Shah Jehan
lost his wife, and he determined to raise to her memory
35 S— *

Peeps at Many Lands
a monument which should keep her name immortal.
He employed 20,000 men for eighteen years, and the
splendid building was completed in 1648, the date
being inscribed upon the great gate. The most famous
artists and workmen of India were gathered to this
task, and the result is a palace of the most wonderful
beauty and magnificence.
The Taj Mahal stands in a great garden about a mile
from Agra, and is surrounded by trees and flowers and
fountains : " the song of birds meets the ear, and the
odour of roses and lemon-flowers sweetens the air."
It is built of the purest white marble, and shines with
such dazzling brilliance that to look full upon it in
strong sunshine is scarcely possible. Seen by moon
light, it is a radiant vision of beauty, and the charm of
its lovely form is felt to the full. The great domes
seem to swim above in the silver light, the stately
minarets shoot up towards the dark blue of the sky,
and the scene is one of unearthly beauty.
Glorious as is this mighty building in the mass, it is
just as full of beauty when examined closely and in
detail. Every part is covered with the most graceful
and exquisite designs, inlaid in marbles of different
colours. Every wall, every arch, every portal, is
ornamented and finished as if the craftsmen had been
engaged upon a small precious casket instead of a
corner of an immense palace tomb. One striking
feature is seen in the arches of the doorways and
windows. Around them run inlaid letters most beau
tifully shaped in black marble. These letters form
verses and chapters of the Koran, the sacred book of
36

The Land of the Mogul Kings
the Moslems, and it is said that the whole of the Koran
is thus inlaid in the Taj.
The heart of the building is the vault where Shah
Jehan and his wife sleep together, for he was laid
beside her. The tombs are formed of the purest white
marble, inlaid most beautifully with designs formed of
agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, jasper, and other precious
stones, and they are surrounded by a pierced marble
screen whose open tracery-work is formed of flowers
carved and wrought into a thousand designs.

CHAPTER IX
THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS (continued)
It was Shah Jehan who returned to Delhi as the seat of
government of the Mogul Kings, and largely rebuilt the
city. But the memories of Delhi reach far, far back
before the time of the Mogul Kings ; they stretch away
into the dim dawn of Indian history, where the threads
of truth and fable are so intermingled that the historian
cannot disentangle them.
The modern Delhi stands in the midst of a plain
covered with ruins — the ruins of many cities built by
many Kings before the present Delhi came into being.
It is a striking sight to drive from the city to the great
Tower of Kutb Minar, eleven miles away to the south.
The road runs through the traces of the Delhis that
have been : heaps of scattered brick, a mound that was
once a gateway, a broken wall that was once the corner
37

Peeps at Many Lands
of a fort, a tumbling tower, and a ruined dome.
Through these tokens of shattered palaces and tombs
of dead and forgotten Kings you pass on till the vast
shaft of the Kutb rises from the plain like a lighthouse
from the sea.
It is an immense tower of five stories, rising
240 feet into the air. At the base it measures about
50 feet through, but the sides taper till it is only
9 feet wide at the top. The three lower stories are
of red sandstone ; the two upper are faced with white
marble, and the whole forms a very striking and
wonderful monument.
This colossal tower preserves the name of Kutb, one
of the " slave " Sultans of Delhi. Seven hundred years
ago Kutb, who had been a slave, rose by his military
talents, first to the position of a General, and then
made himself Emperor of Delhi. He was the first of
ten Moslem rulers who reigned from 1206 to 1290,
and it is believed that the Kutb Minar was raised as a
tower of victory. It is possible to ascend the lofty
shaft by a flight of 378 steps, which winds up the
interior, but " the view from the top is nothing. The
country is an infinite green and brown chess-board of
young corn and fallow, dead flat on every side, ugly
with the complacent plainness of all rich country.
Beyond the sheeny ribbon of the Jumna, north, south,
east, and west, you can see only land, and land, and
land — a million acres with nothing on them to see
except the wealth of India and the secret of the great
ness of India."
But near at hand is a far more ancient monument
38

The Land of the Mogul Kings
than that of the slave King. This is the famous Iron
Pillar, the " arm or weapon of victory." It is a pillar
of pure malleable iron, and its erection is ascribed to
the fourth century before Christ, when it was raised to
commemorate a great Hindu victory. At present it
projects some 23 feet from the earth, and it is about
a foot in diameter at the capital, but a great part of
it is buried.
In Delhi itself stand the great fort and the great
mosque, the Jama Masjid, both built by Shah Jehan.
The fort was at once the stronghold and the palace of
the Mogul Emperors who followed Shah Jehan. It is
surrounded by a towering wall built of gigantic slabs
of sandstone, crested with battlements and moated
below. The usual entrance to the fort is through
the noble Lahore Gate, and the palace stands before
you. You enter the hall of audience, a great hall of red
sandstone open on three sides. There is an alcove in
the centre of the wall at the back, and from the alcove
projects a great slab of marble. From the four corners
of this marble platform spring four richly-inlaid marble
pillars supporting an arched canopy. The marble is
beautiful, but the work upon it is ten times more
beautiful. The wall of the alcove is gorgeous with
tiny pictures of flowers and fruits and birds, wrought
most cunningly in paint and precious stones. In this
alcove was sometimes set the Peacock Throne, whose
glories are still celebrated in story and song, the mar
vellous throne which Shah Jehan had built for himself,
the throne which blazed with gems set by the most
39

Peeps at Many Lands
skilful jewellers of Delhi, men famous throughout India
for their craftsmanship.
Next comes the hall of private audience, where
the King sat among his Court. This, too, is open, a
noble pavilion on columns, where the breezes could
blow if any such were moving in the burning heats of
summer. " The whole is of white marble, asheen in
the sun ; but that is the least part of the wonder.
Walls and ceilings, pillars, and many-pointed arches,
are all inlaid with richest, yet most delicate, colour.
Gold cornices and scrolls and lattices frame traceries of
mauve and pale green and soft azure. What must it
have been, you ask yourself, when the Peacock Throne
blazed with emerald and sapphire, diamond and ruby,
from the now empty pedestal, and the plates of
burnished silver reflected its glory from the roof ?"
Peacock Throne and plates of silver have long been
gone. Nadir Shah carried them off in 1739, when he
entered the city with his victorious troops, put the
inhabitants to the sword, and sacked the place. Many
an attack has been made on the fort, but none, in English
eyes, has so deep an interest as the assault of 1857,
and all English travellers visit the Cashmere Gate.
The Siege of Delhi by our troops is one of the
great incidents of the Indian Mutiny, and the historic
ridge to the north-west is the site of the British
camp. After a patient siege the fort was attacked, the
Cashmere Gate was blown open by a storming-party,
and the British poured in, victorious at last. Upon
the gate is an inscription telling of the deeds of the
noble forlorn hope who led the way and opened a path
40

It i'. ¦¦

V

V;\

THE TAJ MAHAL. Pa.ii- .7.3

The Land of the Mogul Kings
for their comrades to rush in. Other monuments
speak of the heroic telegraph operators who " saved
India " by sending far and wide news of the Mutiny,
and stuck to their posts though it cost their lives ; and
of the gallant party under Lieutenant Willoughby who
blew up the powder-magazine in which they were
posted rather than let its precious contents fall into the
hands of the rebels.
Beyond the fort stands the Jama Masjid, the vast
mosque, said to be the largest in the world. It is a
great building of red sandstone and marble, " upstand
ing from a platform reached on three sides by flights
of steps so tall, so majestically wide, that they are like
a stone mountain." At the head of each flight is a
splendid gateway, and that which faces eastward is
opened for none save the Viceroy, who rules India,
and the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. At the
mosque are preserved some Moslem relics, which the
guardian priest will show for a fee — a slipper of
Mohammed, a hair of the Prophet, his footprints in
stone, and a piece of the green canopy which was once
over his tomb.
Now we will go into the city proper. Here is
indeed a change 1 Mill chimneys pour into the blue
sky their long trails of black smoke. Marble halls
and mighty Kings seem very far off as you traverse a
cotton-spinning quarter where Delhi measures itself
against Manchester. The narrow streets are dirty and
squalid, and filled with a crowd whose dingy robes and
shabby turbans bespeak the modern artisan of indus
trial India. Many strange things has this ancient city
in. 41 6

Peeps at Many Lands
seen, but nothing stranger than this last turn of her
fortunes, when she bends to her clacking loom, and
boasts that with her own cotton she can spin as fine as
any mill in Lancashire.

CHAPTER X
IN THE MUTINY COUNTRY
Now we will leave Delhi and the Jumna, and strike
away to the south-east towards the parent river, the
Ganges. Our journey lies across a rich portion of the
Great Plain, and this portion has a name of its own.
It is called the Doab, or Douab, the Land of Two
Rivers, since it lies between the Jumna and the
Ganges. It is a most fertile stretch of country, well
watered and well tilled, yielding great crops of sugar,
rice, and indigo.
At last we reach Cawnpore, on the Ganges, and now
we are in the very heart of the Mutiny country.
Here took place the most dreadful incident of that
great struggle — the massacre of white women and
children who fell into the hands of Nana Sahib, a rebel
leader. Their bodies -were flung into a well, and
to-day a beautiful monument stands over the place.
The well is enclosed by a fine stone screen, and over
the gateway is carved the words: "These are they
which came out of great tribulation." In the centre of
the enclosure, directly over the well itself, rises the
figure of a beautiful white marble angel, and the well
42

In the Mutiny Country
bears this inscription : " Sacred to the perpetual
memory of a great company of Christian people,
chiefly women and children, who near this spot were
cruelly murdered by the followers of the rebel Nana
Dhundu Pant, of Bithur, and cast, the dying with the
dead, into the well below, on the 15 th day of July,
mdccclvii." Near by is the pretty little cemetery
where the victims were buried when the British troops
seized Cawnpore two short days after the massacre.
The Cawnpore of to-day is a busy industrial town
noted for the manufactures of cotton and leather, and
when the visitor has seen the places connected with the
massacre, the railway will soon carry him to Lucknow,
where the most deeply interesting memento of the
Mutiny is to be found. This is the Residency, the
great house where the tiny British garrison, with
hundreds of women and children in their charge, held
at bay vast numbers of rebels from May to November,
1857. The defence of Lucknow is among the finest stories
of British valour and British endurance. Assault after
assault was made by hordes of well-armed and well-
trained mutineers, for the men who wished to slay the
British had been drilled by them. Ceaseless showers
of shot and shell were poured into the place, and by
the middle of September two-thirds of the gallant
defenders were dead of wounds or disease. Still the
brave remnant held their own, and kept the foe at bay.
Among the earliest losses was the greatest of all. This
was the death of Sir Henry Lawrence, who governed
at Lucknow. By the foresight and prudence of this
43 6—2

Peeps at Many Lands
great and unselfish man means were provided by which
the garrison was enabled to make good its defence ;
but he was killed by a shell, and died on the 4th of
July, 1857. His grave is covered by a marble slab,
on which is carved this fine and simple inscription,
chosen by himself : " Here lies Henry Lawrence, who
tried to do his duty."
Towards the end of September General Havelock
cut his way into Lucknow, but he had not men enough
to carry away the besieged in safety. The rebels closed
round the Residency once more, and the siege went on.
In November Sir Colin Campbell arrived with a
stronger army, and, after most desperate fighting, de
feated the mutineers and relieved the heroic garrison.
As a memento of that stern struggle and noble
defence, the Residency has been preserved to this
day just as it stood at the end of that terrible six
months. The walls still bear the marks of shot and
shell, the shattered gates show where assault after
assault was delivered, the brick gateway of the Baillie
Guard is pointed out as the famous spot where rescued
and rescuers met.
The modern city of Lucknow is one of the largest
in India. Standing on the Gumti, a tributary of the
Ganges, it is a place of great trade, and its large native
quarter is packed with bazaars devoted to commerce.
This part of the city was once famous for the excellence
of its steel weapons and the beauty of its jewellers'
work. But the native Princes and noblemen who
purchased arms and ornaments are no longer to be
found, and these arts have decayed.
44

In the Mutiny Country
Lucknow is the chief town in the province of Oudh,
and when there were Kings of Oudh, Lucknow was
their capital. The palaces of the Kings still stand in
the court suburb, but there is nothing here to compare
with the magnificence of Delhi or Agra. The European
quarter is of great importance. Broad, smooth roads
run through it, shaded by trees and bordered by turf.
On either side of these pleasant roads stand the large,
handsome bungalows of merchants, of officials, and of
the officers in command of the strong force of troops
always stationed in the place. There are beautiful
gardens and parks, and the business streets are lined
with handsome shops and offices.
Returning to the Ganges, and descending the course
of that great stream, the next place of importance is
Allahabad, standing at the point where the mighty
Jumna joins its flood to the parent river. Allahabad
is a town of Akbar's founding, and the Great Mogul
built the fine red stone fort which is the chief object in
the place. The fort looks across the broad waters of
the Jumna, here about three-quarters of a mile wide.
" The appearance of the Jumna, even in the dry season,
strikes one as very imposing, with its enormous span
from shore to shore, shut in by high, shelving, sandy
banks, its then placid waters a clear bright blue. What
must be the effect in the freshes, when its surging
waters rush resistlessly past, and its banks are hidden
by a suddenly formed expanse of water more resembling
sea than river ?"
The spot where the Jumna pours its bright flood
into the muddy stream of the Ganges is a sacred one
45

Peeps at Many Lands
in the eyes of all Hindoos. Great numbers of pilgrims
resort to it, above all at the time of the melas, or
religious fairs, held every year at the full moon in
January and February. They gather upon the sandy
shores and recite their prayers and bathe in the holy
river. But there is one spot on the Ganges still more sacred
to Hindoo worshippers, and that is Benares, the holy
city. It lies below Allahabad, and in the fort of the
latter city the mouth of a small subterranean passage is
pointed out. The priests say, and the natives believe,
that this passage runs to Benares.

CHAPTER XI
THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS
There is one city of India to which pilgrims are for
ever going or returning. Its temples are always
crowded with worshippers; its broad stone ghats run
ning down to the sacred Ganges are packed day after
day with adoring and reverent throngs. This is
Benares, the most sacred city in the world in Hindoo
eyes. Its sacred character arises from the fact that here
stands the temple of Buddha, the great Hindoo teacher,
who was born six centuries before Christ, and whose
followers are to be counted in myriads in India. From
all parts of that great country they come on pilgrimage
46

The Sacred City of the Hindoos
to see the place where their master taught, and to bathe
their bodies in the sacred stream.
It is a wonderful sight to see the row of riverside
palaces, temples, and ghats which here fringe the broad
river. It is still more wonderful to see the vast crowd
of worshippers who throng the wide stone stairs as
they stream up and down to the river to make their
ablutions and to repeat their prayers.
The best time to see this striking sight is at sunrise.
Then the crowds are thickest, for all wish to enter the
water at that instant when the sun springs into the
cloudless Indian sky and pours a flood of golden splen
dour over the wide stream, and lights up the long row
of temples and palaces which face him as he rises.
Viewed from a boat on the river, the scene is one of
wonderful animation and of most brilliant colour. The
broad stone steps come down the bank in stately sweep
and vanish into the stream. They run on down to the
river-bed, and the saying goes among the natives that
the river is here so deep that it would cover the back
of one elephant standing on the top of another. Each
ghat is crowded with Hindoo worshippers, and their
robes of bright and delicate colours make the flight of
stairs look like a huge bed of flowers. But it is a bed
where the flowers are on the move, and mingle with
each other to form new pictures at every moment, ever-
changing combinations of the most delicate pinks, blues,
greens, yellows, of silk and muslin, with snowy turbans
and white robes intermingled with the brighter shades.
At the foot of the great flight many worshippers
are already in the water. The men cast aside their
47

Peeps at Many Lands
robes, and the sunlight strikes upon their brown
bodies and makes them glitter like figures cast in
bronze, and then flashes brighter still as the bronze
glistens with the sacred water flung by the hands or
poured from a brazen ewer ; the women slip a bathing-
robe over their shoulders, and then remove their ordi
nary dress, and not only bathe themselves but their
garments also in the sacred water. Many of the
devotees throw offerings of sandal-wood, betel, sweet
meats, and flowers into the stream, and some of them
have great garlands of flowers round their necks.
These have been worshipping at a temple which gives
such garlands to those who frequent it, and now these
worshippers go into the stream and bend lower and
lower until the garlands are raised by the water from
their necks and float away down the river.
At one place clouds of smoke rise into the air, and
huge fires are burning fiercely. This is the burning
ghat, where the dead bodies of Hindoos are burned,
and their ashes cast into the sacred Ganges. Every
Hindoo wishes for this, but only the rich can have
their bodies carried to Benares; for the poor it is
impossible. Yet, if the poor Hindoo has a faithful
friend who is going on pilgrimage, this may, in some
degree, be accomplished. A frequent sight is that of a
man earnestly pouring into the water a stream of ashes
from a brazen vessel. The ashes are those of a friend
who has died far from the sacred, river, and have perhaps
been brought many hundreds of miles by the pilgrim.
And so our boat might move along the stream past
ghat after ghat and temple -fter temple, the steps packed
48

BfcN.M'.h1-. J'i'J' l>>

The Sacred City of the Hindoos
with those who wish to bathe and those who have
bathed. The latter spread out their clothes to dry in
the sun, and sit near them, reciting prayers or reading
sacred books or in the perfect silence of deep medita
tion, their bodies rigid and unmoving as figures cast in
bronze. For miles this wonderful scene of devotion
stretches along the river, and the bank is crowned with
a broken line of minarets, domes, and towers, which
rise against the deep blue of the sky.
The first thing for a pilgrim to do is to bathe.
After that he must make the round of the city — a walk
of about ten miles — and pay a visit to the temples.
The ten-mile walk is more easily done than the latter
task, so innumerable are the temples of tho sacred
place. Some, of course, are more famous than others,
and every one goes to see the Monkey Temple, where
offerings are made to a concourse of chattering
monkeys ; and the holy Golden Temple, whose dome
is plated with gold, and whose shrine is always
crowded with devotees. Near by is the Well of
Knowledge, where the god Shiva is said to live, and
this well is half filled with flowers thrown in as
offerings to the god.
For twenty-five centuries Benares has been a holy
city. Through this vast stretch of time an unceasing
throng of pilgrims has swept to it across the great
plain in which it lies. They bathe in the Ganges, and
visit the temples. Then they depart for their distant
homes, satisfied that they have set their eyes on the
sacred places of their faith, and in sweep fresh thou
sands to take the place of each departing band.
in. 49 7

Peeps at Many Lands
CHAPTER XII
THE CAPITAL OF INDIA
Below Benares the great river flows quietly on, ever
widening as its tributaries flow in on either bank, and
watering as it goes vast stretches of paddy-fields.
Many pilgrims from the sacred city descend it by boat
as far as Patna, where they branch away to the south
on a new pilgrimage. They walk some ninety miles
to Buddh Gaya, where Gautama sat in deep meditation
beneath the sacred Bo-tree, and became the Buddha.
The place is held in the deepest veneration by the
countless followers of the Buddhist faith, and vast
numbers come to this day to see and worship at the
temple built upon the spot. Behind the temple still
stands a pipal or Bo-tree, and the natives hold that
this is the very tree beneath which the great teacher
sat. As the Ganges approaches the sea through the
plains of Bengal it is joined by the mighty Brahma
putra, which has swept round the eastern end of the
Himalayas, and brought the waters of Tibet down to
the bay. And now the mighty stream begins to break
up. The broad flood becomes diverted to innumerable
channels, and flows through an immense delta to the
sea. This delta is the huge, swampy flat of the
Sunderbunds. The Sunderbunds are very low, very
unhealthy (for the swamps breed malaria), and matted
with tropical jungle. The tide flows in and the rivers
5°

The Capital of India
flow out, making an inextricable confusion of channels,
creeks, canals, waterways, of every shape, size, and
direction. The water seems to flow every way at
once. The traveller is perhaps being rowed up a
channel, and his men are straining at the oars against a
strong current. Suddenly, without change of direction,
the boat is swept forward on a favouring stream.
From some side creek a fresh current has poured in
unnoticed, and now bears the boat on.
In times of flood or high tide the low, muddy banks
can no longer hold the streams, and the whole country
becomes a vast swamp. The damp soil is hidden
beneath masses of canes and reed and low-growing
palms, and when the feathery fronds cover the scene
with a carpet of beautiful green the prospect is very
lovely. Among the brakes of this thick jungle wild
animals swarm in great numbers. Deer and wild-
boars abound, and the broad round marks of a tiger's
pads are often seen in the mud near a drinking-place.
Enormous crocodiles haunt the pools and channels.
From the deck of a river-steamer these huge reptiles
may often be seen sunning themselves on a warm
mud- bank. As the steamer draws near they glide
down the bank and vanish into the water. Between
their footprints a long, deep groove is left in the mud.
This is made by the great tail.
The chief branch of the Ganges is the River Hughli,
upon which stands Calcutta, the capital of India.
Calcutta is not the capital of India because either of its
beauty or position, but because of its immense trade.
It is the natural outlet for the riches of the vast plains
51 7—2

Peeps at Many Lands
of the Ganges. Through it pour the vast stores of
corn, of rice, of jute, bf tobacco, of tea, of a score of
other things produced by those fertile levels.
As regards position, the site of Calcutta is bad, for it
lies on the flat beside the river, with the swamps of
the Sunderbunds on every hand. The heats of summer
are overpowering, and the Viceroy and his officials fly
to Simla, high up among the Himalayas. But in the
cold season the town is very gay and splendid. The
European quarter is laid out on noble lines. The
streets are of great width with park-like gardens, called
compounds, on either side. In these compounds,
filled with flowers and trees, stand large and stately
mansions, princely residences such as befit the rulers of
India. The centre of Calcutta is the Maidan, or Park, a
great open space beside the broad river. On its
western side stands Fort William, the building of
which was commenced by Clive in 1757. The original
Fort William, where stood the famous " Black Hole
of Calcutta," was farther to the north, and the site of
the dungeon is marked in the roadway. A tablet on
a wall near at hand reads : " The stone pavement close
to this marks the position and size of the prison-cell in
Old Fort William known in history as the Black Hole
of Calcutta."
At one end of the Maidan stands the stately Govern
ment House, where the Viceroy of India dwells, and
near it are many fine public buildings. The great
park is bounded by the splendid streets in which are
found the mansions of the European merchants,
52

Across the Deccan
bankers, and officials, and the Maidan is the scene of
the fashionable evening drive.
North of the Maidan lies the native quarter, covering
six square miles, and packed with more than half
a million people. The streets are narrow, and the
buildings are of no great interest. The bazaars are
worthy of the traveller's attention, not because they
differ from bazaars elsewhere, but because of the varied
crowds of a vast variety of tribes and nations which
pour through this great centre of commerce.

CHAPTER XIII
ACROSS THE DECCAN
The southern part of India is shaped like a huge
triangle, and within its coasts lies a vast triangular
plateau, the Deccan. In the fierce heats of summer this
huge tableland lies flat and grey beneath the burning sun,
save where there is water. Then village after village
of tiny huts thatched with palm-leaves cluster along the
banks of river or lake, and the water is lifted by every
kind of ancient device and poured over the thirsty
land. Water is all this rich soil needs. Given enough of
the precious fluid, the soil covers itself thickly with
crops of cotton, tobacco, rice, millet, saffron, and castor-
oil plant. Everywhere the land swarms with oxen, a
sure sign of the people's wealth.
We are now in the territory of Hyderabad, the
53

Peeps at Many Lands
greatest native State in India, ruled over by the Nizam,
the chief native Prince. This capital city lies towards
the south of the State, and is one of the most interest
ing cities in India, not so much for its beauty or its
buildings, but for its life and, above all, for its military
population. Hyderabad is the paradise of irregular
troops, and it is also rich in regulars. Of the latter
there are some thousands of British troops, and 30,000
who serve the Nizam himself; of irregulars, no man
knows the number, for every noble and chief maintains
a private army of his own, just as our barons did in
feudal times.
It follows, then, that the streets of Hyderabad bear
the appearance of a military camp. Every other man
is armed to the teeth, and scarcely two alike in
weapons or uniform. A figure in turban and em
broidered robes, a girdle full of daggers, and a six-foot-
long jezail over his shoulder, is followed by a man in
trim khaki, and the latter by a trooper in burnished
breastplate and helmet of polished steel. A lancer with
long spear swinging from his arm jogs by, and the
next horseman carries a great scimitar ; and so the
medley of figures and weapons passes by — rifles and
matchlocks, bayonets and tulwars, chain-mail and shields
of hide.
But among the swarms of irregulars, the Arab troops
stand out by themselves. The Nizams are Moslem
rulers, and to provide themselves with Moslem troops
have done much recruiting in Arabia. The desert
warriors with their rough, stern, dark features, their
spare, stalwart frames, their robes of snowy white,
54

Across the Deccan
their triple row of daggers across their bodies, look
very different from the gaily -dressed, olive - faced,
handsome soldiery who are native-born. The Arabs
are as stern and rough as they look. More than once
they have got out of hand, and it has been a question
whether the Nizam ruled them or they the Nizam.
To the south-east of Hyderabad the province of
Madras stretches along the shore of the Bay of Bengal.
This province is famous in the history of British India.
It saw the struggles between the English and the
French for the mastery of the land ; it saw the victories
of Clive which raised him to power ; it saw the rise of
English authority. The chief town is Madras, a large
but not a striking city, especially when seen from the
sea. As the traveller approaches by steamer he sees a
lofty lighthouse, a few spires, rows of tall offices and
public buildings, and Fort St. George — nothing more.
His vessel does not enter a bay, but a roadstead ; for
Madras lies upon an open stretch of coast which is at
times swept by hurricanes of terrible fury. Yet, in
spite of this situation, Madras ranks as the third port
of India, and has a great trade. Some protection is
now given to vessels by a couple of breakwaters forming
a harbour. The most interesting place in the city is Fort St.
George, for here the East India Company first gained
its footing in India in 1639. The fort was begun in
the same year, and this was the first step taken in the
path which led to British supremacy in India.
The native part of the city is known as Black Town,
and is a dense mass of poorly-built native houses
55

Peeps at Many Lands
crowded along narrow streets, and thickly packed with
Hindoo inhabitants. The European suburbs lie to the
west of Black Town, and, as at other great centres,
consist of fine mansions standing in spacious com
pounds. To the south of Madras lies a country containing
cities where some of the mightiest temples in India
may be seen. Of these cities Trichinopoli and its
great temple of Srirangam may be taken as an example.
The temple of Srirangam is not merely, like the other
temples of Southern India, of immense size ; it is the
largest temple in India. Its enclosure measures about
half a mile each way. It stands on an island in the
River Cauvery to the north of Trichinopoli, and is a
vast building which must have cost immense labour
and a huge sum of money.
The chief features of this mighty temple are the
Hall of a Thousand Pillars and the Horse Court,
which forms the front of the hall. The Horse Court
consists of eight pillars carved into the figures of
horses, each pillar " representing a stallion standing
on its hind-legs, its head supporting a bracket coming
forward from the pillar, and its fore-feet resting on
a monster attacked by the rider or on the shield of a
foot-soldier who is assisting in the attack. The horses
stand in other respects free from the pillars except at
the tails, which are split, or rather doubled, so that
each horse has two tails, one sculptured on each side of
the pillar The horses, the figures, and the columns
behind are carved from a single block of granite." So
great is this temple that lofty trees flourish in its
56

Across the Deccan
enclosure, and it is said that the priestly families who
inhabit it number more than twenty thousand people.
In this part of India the fondness of the women for
silver jewellery seems to be greater than elsewhere, if
that be possible. Not only are they loaded with the
usual rings, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, but they
pierce the nose in three places to adorn it with trinkets.
In each nostril a sort of brooch is fastened, and the
centre of the nose is pierced to insert a large ring,
which hangs down over the mouth. A large hole is
opened in the lobe of the ear to hold a heavy ring as
big as a bracelet, and in one district a great ear-lobe
is considered a mark of beauty. It is said that women
may be seen, the lobes of whose ears have been stretched
and pulled out in such a manner that the owner can
thrust her hand and wrist through the opening.

CHAPTER XIV
AT THE COURT OF A NATIVE PRINCE
An English traveller in India who enjoys the oppor
tunity of paying a visit to the Court of a native Prince,
often gets a glimpse of a life which has seen very little
change for many hundreds of years. The native
Prince himself may be fond of slipping off to London
or Paris, where nothing marks him off from any other
wealthy visitor save his dark brown skin, but at home
he keeps the state of his forefathers, and the costume
and customs of his Court may be just the same to-day
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Peeps at Many Lands
as they were when Saxon and Norman were fighting at
Senlac.
A state function at such a Court, for instance, as that
of the ruler of Udaipur is a most splendid ceremony,
and an English visitor of consequence will attend it in
the company of the British Resident. The latter is
the agent of the British Government. No native
Prince is allowed to exercise the absolute power his
fathers once held. At every native capital there is a
residency, and here lives the man who is the real
power behind the native throne, the representative of
the British Raj.
The journey to the palace will be made upon
elephants in howdahs carved and gilded and hung with
rich curtains. On the neck of the elephant sits the
driver in a bright dress, holding in his hand a short
spear, ending in a hook and a shining point. When
the riders are seated in the howdah, the driver urges
the elephant forward with voice and spear, and guides
him through the streets. An elephant procession
through the streets of a native city is one of the noblest
sights which can be seen or imagined. Two by two
the huge, stately beasts, with their ponderous swaying
stride, swing along between the rows of houses, whose
gaily adorned flat tops and terraces and balconies are
crowded by spectators in newly-washed robes of every
colour which is bright, and fresh, and gay. Here and
there in the procession float glittering standards of
silk worked in gold and precious stones, and the gay
dress of the drivers, the richly-decorated howdahs, the
splendid draperies which almost conceal the great
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At the Court of a Native Prince
elephants, all shining and flashing in the sun, present
a wonderful picture of beautiful and stately movement.
As the procession draws near the palace the way is
guarded by native troops, and these exhibit another
striking scene. Their ranks do not present the
monotony of Western uniforms. Each band of the
Prince's body-guard wears the dress of that part of his
dominions whence it was drawn, and a bewildering
variety of garbs and arms may be seen. One troop is
dressed like the Saracens who fought in the Crusades.
They wear armour of chain mail and glittering steel
helmets, and carry lances and great curved scimitars
Next, the line is guarded by warriors in massive
turbans, clothed in robes of rich stuffs, and armed
with sword, spear, and shield, and with quaint firelocks
slung over the shoulder. Next stand men in gleaming
breastplates, whose helmets are sharply pointed, and
whose girdles are stuffed with daggers and pistols.
Others bear huge maces or heavy axes, and, in fine,
almost every weapon with which man has ever waged
war may be seen in the lines of stalwart warriors who
keep the way.
At the palace itself the outer halls are filled with the
nobles and chiefs who owe allegiance to the Prince.
They are armed and equipped like their followers
without, but in more splendid fashion. Jewels glitter
and glow on great silken turbans ; robes are stiff with
gold and costly embroidery ; girdles are heavy with
weapons, whose handles are richly chased and set with
diamonds and rubies ; pearls and emeralds and sapphires
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Peeps at Many Lands
Through these the visitors pass on to inner halls,
where they are received by members of the reigning
family and escorted to the hall of audience.
Here, in a noble chamber, the Prince will be seated
in state on a splendid throne. On either side stand
attendants, waving fans made of feathers or of horse
hair. The latter are only used to fan a Prince, and
are the emblems of sovereignty.
The English guests are seated on chairs, and the
nobles and chiefs, who have followed them into the
room, seat themselves on the beautiful carpets spread
over the floor. All except the guests are barefooted,
for the native company have left their gilded slippers
outside the chamber.
The Prince and his guests converse, and very often
presents are given and offered — shawls, silks, brocade,
or jewels. Perhaps nautch-girls will come in and
dance. They wear robes of shining gauze from head
to foot, and they dance with slow, graceful movements,
often singing as they move.
At last the Prince calls for essence of roses with the
leaf of the betel-nut, and this is the signal that the
interview is over. Now the guests will be conducted
over the palace, to see the public rooms and courts ; but
the zenana, the women's apartments, are never shown ;
nor is the visitor supposed even to glance towards the
lattices and trellised windows, behind which the native
ladies are probably having a good look at him. The
evening will close with a grand illumination and
display of fireworks, managed with the utmost skill.
From a terrace, so placed that the dark smooth mirror
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At the Court of a Native Prince
of a lake lies between himself and the illuminations,
the visitor looks upon a fairy scene. The pavilions,
the courts, the balconies, the lines of the palace itself,
will be picked out in points of fire, and the whole is
mirrored in the water. Then the fireworks leap into
the sky — rockets, great globes of many colours, foun
tains spouting golden fire, and pictures of forts outlined
in flame and firing heavy broadsides from mimic
cannon. Finally the visitor climbs the ladder set
against the side of his elephant, while the band blares
out, " God Save the King," and goes home to dream of
the wonderful things he has seen, and to try to dis
entangle the host of pictures which dance before his
eyes when he reflects upon his visit to a native Court.

CHAPTER XV
THE RELIGIOUS MENDICANTS
India is the land of religious mendicants. They swarm
in every part of it ; they are seen moving along the
country roads and in the streets of villages and towns;
they flock around every shrine.
Some are simply wanderers; they have abandoned
all earthly goods, have left their homes, and taken their
place among the poorest. Smearing themselves with
ashes, their only garment a wisp of rag — and this they
wear simply because the police will not let them go
without it — they ramble from holy place to holy place.
" Naked, homeless, he eats only when food is offered
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Peeps at Many Lands
to him, drinks only from the cup of cold water which
is given in the name of the Lord."
Many of these men have been rich and powerful
members of the society in which they moved. Then a
day came when they laid aside their robes of muslin
and silk embroidered with gold ; they left their great
houses filled with troops of servants ; without a word
they slipped away from wife, from children, from
friends, and the place they had filled knew them no
more. They had gone to wander far and wide through
the vast plains, the mighty hills of India — strange, naked,
wild-looking figures, unwashed, unshorn, looking the
veriest outcasts of the earth.
Why is this done ? For this reason. They feel
deeply the vanity of earthly things ; they believe that
the more one can get rid of the needs and the wants of
the body, the nearer he will get to the Divine. So
they cast aside everything which pampers the body and
makes this life sweet, and forsake all things of this world
in favour of prayer and meditation.
It is not uncommon to meet a man who has the air
of a naked, half-crazy savage, and to find that man
capable of arguing in the most able manner on the
highest topics. Mrs. Steel remarks : "They are often
extremely well educated. They will knock a false argu
ment into a cocked hat with easy ability. Some of
them — these naked savages — will astonish you by
quoting Herbert Spencer; for even nowadays they are
recruited from all classes, and they belong by rights to
the most thoughtful of each class." Such men as these
belong, of course, to the highest order of the religious
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The Religious Mendicants
mendicants. The majority of their fellows are of a
much lower order, but one and all they practise poverty
and live only upon alms.
Many of them, of the fakir class, practise all kinds
of self-torture upon themselves. One, perhaps, has
held up his arm above his head for so many years that
it is now immovable, and stands straight up from his
shoulder, thin and shrunken, and as stiff as a piece of
wood. Another has held his fingers close shut in his
palm until the nails have grown through the flesh and
stand out at the back of the hand. A third has lain
for many years on a bed of spikes, until his skin, hard
as horn, renders so uneasy a bed no discomfort. There
are fakirs who have not stood upright once in forty
years. They travel by crawling, and as their cry rings
along the village street, the pious hasten to bring them
a handful of rice or a cup of water. It would be use
less to offer them better fare; they would refuse it.
An account is given of one fakir who sat so long
without moving at the foot of a tree that the roots
grew around him and fettered him to his place.
Many observers have been extremely puzzled by
certain powers which these fakirs possess. Fakirs have
been seen to walk across a row of upturned knife-
blades, each blade sharpened to the keenest edge, yet
no sign of injury could be perceived on the naked foot.
Another will climb a ladder formed of a single pole,
from the sides of which well-sharpened sickles stand
out to form the rungs. The fakir climbs to the top
and descends. He rests his naked hands and feet upon
the keen edges, and no cut, no mark can be seen; or
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Peeps at Many Lands
he walks, still barefoot, over stones raised to white heat
in a furnace. These feats have been performed in the
presence of English gentlemen of high standing in the
official world — men who have taken such precautions
that they were perfectly certain that the feats were
genuine — but they have been utterly unable to explain
how the things were done. And, finally, the fakir has
obtained such mastery of himself that he can be buried
alive, being left for a time in his living grave, and
restored to life again.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE BAZAAR
What is a bazaar in India ? It is, first of all, the
quarter where the shopkeepers are gathered together,
where the tiny shops stand in close-packed rows on
either side of the narrow ways, and whither all who
have money flock to spend it. But it is more than
that. It is the place to which those who have no
money resort just as freely, for here ebbs and flows in
one unending flood the news, the rumours, the gossip
of the town and country.
All day long an Indian bazaar is filled with throngs
of buyers, sellers, newsmongers, idle loungers, mer
chants, sightseers — all the flotsam and jetsam of the
city. It is always a scene of wonderful colour and
movement. The sun strikes into the dusty ways on
turbans of red, green, and orange ; on robes of white,
pink and blue ; on petticoats of rose and saffron; on the
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In the Bazaar
bronze bodies of almost naked coolies who march along
beneath their loads. People of every colour — white,
brown, black, yellow — jostle each other in the crowded
ways, and there is a bewildering variety of tint and
form in the striking and picturesque scene.
The shops are, as a rule, of the simplest nature in
form — an archway, a booth, a hole in a wall. Upon a
low platform the trader spreads his wares, squats beside
them, and waits for customers. Let us stroll along a
row of shops and see what they have for sale. The
first shop has a crowd of customers, for it is a confec
tioner's, and the Hindoo, big or little, old or young,
has a very sweet tooth. The confectioner spreads his
wares on tiers of shelves or on a counter made of dried
mud and rising in steps, and at the back of his shop is
a sugar-boiling furnace, where he is busy on fresh
supplies, pulling candy or making cakes of batter fried
in butter. He sells toffee covered with silver-leaf,
candy flavoured with spices, and many kinds of a sweet
called luddu, made of sugar and curded milk. This
stall is not only a great attraction to the children who
have a pie (about one-third of an English farthing) to
spend, but to the flies also. The latter come in myriads
to settle on the sweet stuff, and though a boy is always
at work with a whisk trying to drive them away, he
can never keep the place clear.
Opposite the confectioner's is the flour-seller, and he,
too, is a very busy man, for from his stall the everyday
wants of the people are supplied. Great numbers of
the Hindoos never touch meat, and the bunniah (the
grain-seller) furnishes the whole of their food. He has
in. 65 9

Peeps at Many Lands
a great number of baskets, and these are piled high with
barley, wheat, lentils, flour, sugar, peas, rice, potatoes,
nuts, dried fruits, and the like. He also sells ghee
(clarified butter) and sour milk. He has a big pair of
scales to weigh out his flour, sugar, peas, or whatever
may be called for, but no bags to pack them in: he
leaves that to the customers. One brings a cloth,
another a basin, another a brass ewer for milk. Many
have nothing, and they carry away their purchases in
their hands, or, if that be impossible, flour is poured
into the corner of a shawl or the fold of a robe. One
man unwraps his turban and knots his purchases into
various corners of it, twists it into shape again, and goes
off with his day's supply on his head. Butter and milk
are carried away in a green leaf dexterously twisted into
the form of a cup.
The next shop is one which finds the grain-seller a
very convenient neighbour, for it is a shop which sells
parched grain — a bhunja's shop. At first glance there
seems nothing in the place, then you notice a large
shallow pan set on a mud platform. Under the pan a
fire burns, and a woman steadily feeds the fire with dry
leaves and husks. A second woman is stirring the
corn in the pan, and as the grain parches and crackles
a delicious smell fills the place, and passers-by sniff it,
and stop and throw down a small copper coin on the
mud platform, which is also the counter. Then they
hold out their hands or a fold of a robe, and receive
the sweet-smelling parched wheat or maize, and go on,
munching as they walk.
Next comes a goldsmith's. Here is no glittering
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In the Bazaar
shop with ornaments and precious vessels in the window,
as in a London street, but an archway or a booth of
mud exactly like his neighbours'. The goldsmith
himself is at work with his blowpipe at a little brazier,
softening and shaping a piece of gold into a bangle for
a customer. He is a busy man, for the country women
bring him their silver to be made up into the ornaments
they love, and he has always a store of ear-rings and
bracelets to sell.
He sells his goods by weight, and weighs them in a
most delicate pair of scales, which he keeps in a sandal
wood box. His weights are the oddest things in the
world — " tiny scraps of glass, a bean perhaps, an
irregular chunk of some metal, a bit of stick, a red
and black seed, an odd morsel of turquoise, and a thin
leaf of mother-o'-pearl." His customers thus have to
take the weight on his word ; and they do not always
care about that, for, as the saying goes, a goldsmith
would cheat his own mother on the scales. So that
hot words often fly to and fro across the mud floor of
his little shop, and passers-by pause to listen to the
fierce dispute.
Beyond the goldsmith's stands the shop of a cloth
merchant, and this is a very fine shop, one of the
grandest in the bazaar. So large is the merchant's
stock that his booth is really big, or he fills three or
four archways with his piles of calico and woollen.
Here you may buy the strong woollen and cotton
cloths of the country, made well and dyed in quiet,
tasteful colours — goods which will wash and wear for
year after year. But, alas ! you may also buy from an
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Peeps at Many Lands
even greater store of the poorest and cheapest goods
which Manchester can turn out — cottons which will be
of the flimsiest as soon as the dressing is washed out of
them, cheap gaudy woollens made of shoddy, and silks
of no greater strength than the paper which enwraps
them. For the craze for cheapness has invaded the
Indian bazaar as elsewhere, and the splendid old silk
muslins, the brocade which would last for a century,
the woollen shawl that was handed down from mother
to daughter, find few or no buyers nowadays.
The druggist (the pansari-ji) contents himself with
one small room, but it is packed from floor to ceiling
with a thousand odds and ends — drugs, medicines,
spices, one can hardly tell what. He wraps his more
precious wares in scraps of paper, and stows them away
in baskets, boxes, pots, and pigeon-holes in the wall.
He prides himself on keeping everything in stock in
his line, and one writer speaks of testing a pansari-ji
by asking for cuttle-fish bone, " and lo ! there it was
— just two or three small broken pieces in a paper
screw." The druggist may be the doctor of his
quarter as well, and a favourite method of cure will be
to write a mysterious talisman on a scrap of paper or
a betel-leaf. This is rolled into a pill and swallowed
by the patient. Opium he sells largely, and at evening
he dispenses the sleep-compelling drug to knot after
knot of customers.
The fruit-dealer's shop makes a beautiful patch of
colour in the bazaar, with its heaps of golden oranges,
of purple plums, of speckled pomegranates, of jack-
fruits and guavas, and many other kinds. But, as a
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In the Bazaar
rule, the fruit-dealers and greengrocers like a stall in a
more open place, where they can pile their big melons
up in a heap, and spread their wares in the lee of a wall,
and throw an awning over to keep the sun off.
Now comes the cookshop, where rows of turbaned
customers are squatted on the floor with bowls before
them, and the busy cook is at work over a fireplace fed
with dried leaves. He fries cakes of rice in oil, he
spits half a dozen scraps of meat on a wooden skewer,
and roasts them over charcoal. Then a big pot
simmers over the fire of leaves, and the smell of a
" double-onioned " stew is wafted across the place to
mingle with a thousand other queer smells of the
bazaar. He sells vegetables done up into all kinds
of shapes, and made hot to the taste with plenty of
curry ; he pickles carrots ; he has sweetmeats and
great stores of pillau, a dish of meat cooked in rice.
He has plenty of customers, for his prices are very
low. Then there is the kobariya, the marine-store dealer
of the bazaar, whose shop is heaped with second-hand
clothes, scrap-iron, and odds and ends. Mrs. Steel
gives a vivid description of the wares of the kobariya :
" Old things, and still older things, upside down,
higgledy-piggledy, hang on the top of each other : a
patent rat-trap shouldering a broken lamp, an officer's
tunic sheltering a pile of tent-pegs, a bazaar pipkin on
top of some priceless old plate, a parrot's cage filled
with French novels, a moth-eaten saddle keeping com
pany with an old sword, and over all, sufficient
scrap-iron to furnish forth a foundry ; and in an old
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Peeps at Many Lands
caldron, incense spoons, little brass gods, prayer
measures, sacred fire-holders, all mixed up with battered
electro -plated forks, hot-water jug lids, and every
conceivable kind of rubbish."

CHAPTER XVII
IN THE JUNGLE
The jungle, the Indian forest, is the home of many
wild creatures, and the sportsman who goes into it in
search of them often has to take his life in his hands.
This is true, above all, if he is pursuing the tiger, the
most ferocious beast that India knows, the king of the
jungle. It is true, there are lions in India, but not
many, and the Indian lion is of no great importance :
the tiger is the beast of beasts.
The tiger is a terrible scourge to the Indian herds
man : a big brute will often take up his quarters near
a village, and levy a regular toll on the village herds,
killing cow after cow, and buffalo after buffalo. He
is often perfectly well known, and the villagers see him
about the roads, or crossing their fields, or gliding
through the jungle without a sound on his soft pads.
If a dozen of them are together they do not fear him :
they march right through his haunts, shouting and
singing, rattling sticks on the bamboo-trunks, and
beating drums, and he gets out of the way and stops
there. This is if he be an ordinary tiger, a cattle-killer ;
but if a man-eater haunts the neighbourhood, then the
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In the Jungle
ryot's soul is filled with fear. He dares scarcely leave
his house : to leave the village is to face a terrible
danger ; he knows not when the monster may steal upon
him. The man-eater goes about his work in dreadful
silence. The ordinary tiger will often make the jungle
ring again with his hoarse, deep roar ; not so the man-
eater. The latter glides without a sound, and under
cover of a patch of bamboos or a clump of reeds, up to
the wood-cutter felling a tree, or up to the peasant in
his rice-field, or up to a woman fetching water from the
well. Silent as death, he bounds upon his victims and
fells them with a single stunning blow of that huge
paw driven by muscles of steel. The great white fangs
are buried for an instant in the throat, then the body
is lifted in the mouth as a dog lifts a rat, and is
carried away to the lair, where he makes his dreadful
meal. Most remarkable stories are told of the ferocity and
daring of man-eating tigers. They have been known
to venture boldly into a village by night and carry off
sleepers who had sought a cool couch out of doors in
the summer heats, and by day they have made fields
and roads quite impossible places to venture into.
Villages and whole tracts of country have at times
been deserted by their inhabitants owing to the ravages
of these ferocious creatures, and when an English
sportsman arrives to tackle the savage beast he is
hailed as a deliverer.
There are two favourite ways of hunting a tiger.
The first depends on the fact that he must drink.
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Peeps at Many Lands
The sportsman, by means of native watchers, discovers
the pool or water-hole where the tiger quenches his
thirst. Then in a field near at hand is built a machan,
a little platform where the hunter may watch and wait
for his prey. He climbs into the machan at sunset,
and waits till the tiger comes to drink at some time
between the dark and the dawn, when a fortunate shot
will put an end to the marauder.
The other way — a far more exciting and picturesque
fashion — is to pursue the tiger upon elephants. The
sportsmen are in open howdahs, and the elephants
crash their way through the long grass, the reeds, the
young bamboos, in search of the tiger. At last the
tiger is driven into the open, and bullet after bullet is
poured into his body by the marksmen. He is rarely
killed at once, and in his agony he will often turn
upon his pursuers with terrible fury. This is the
moment of danger. With the horrible coughing roar
of a charging tiger, he hurls himself with tremendous
bounds upon his foes. His eyes blaze like green
emeralds, his great fangs glitter like ivory. At spring
ing distance he leaves the ground and shoots through
the air like a thunderbolt, full upon the nearest elephant.
Now is the time to try the sportsman's nerve and
steadiness of aim. Unless the tiger be struck down by
the heavy bullet, he will land with teeth and claws
upon the flank of the elephant, striking and tearing
with terrible effect at his foes.
More lives have been lost, however, by sportsmen
following up a wounded tiger on foot. The tiger lies
apparently stiff and still, as if already dead. The hunter
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A NATIVE WO.MAN WEARING NOSE ORNAMENT.

In the Jungle
comes too near, and finds that there is a flicker of life
left. Before he can retreat, the wounded beast puts
forth its last strength to spring upon him and take a
terrible revenge for its injuries.
We said that the tiger is the king of the Indian
jungle. There are some observers who dispute this ;
they award the palm to the elephant. Certainly there
can be no more majestic sight than a herd of wild
elephants in their native jungle. They move slowly
along, staying now and again to crop the young shoots
or to spout water over themselves at a pool or river.
The huge grey bodies, on the round, pillar-like legs; the
great flapping ears; the swinging, curling trunks; the
rolling, lumbering walk, present a scene of great interest,
heightened by the antics of the baby elephants, the
calves, who trot along by their mothers and frisk
around the herd.
The Indian elephant is rarely pursued and shot — it is
far too valuable ; but the capture and taming of these
mighty creatures is very exciting and interesting work.
In Central India, especially in Mysore, their capture is
usually carried out by means of a kheddah, a kind of
pound. Two huge fences are built in the forest in the
shape of a mighty V. The wide end of the V is often
a mile or more across, and into this end a herd of wild
elephants will be driven by great numbers of beaters.
The elephants are urged forward to a large enclosure,
into which the narrow end of the V opens. Once they
are in this, a great gate is dropped behind them, and
they are imprisoned.
Now the work of taming them begins. Tame
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Peeps at Many Lands
elephants take a great share in this, and show much
cleverness in bringing their wild brethren into captivity.
Two or three tame elephants, each with a driver on its
back, will surround a wild one, and hustle and push it
towards a strong tree. Now a man slips down from
the back of a tame elephant, and slips a noose of strong
rope round the leg of the wild one. This is dangerous
work, and the man has to be very quick and skilful.
The rope is now thrown round the tree, and drawn
tight. Other ropes are soon fastened, and the huge
wild creature is made a prisoner.
The task of taming him at once begins. From the
first the men move about the captive and talk to him,
to accustom him to their sight and presence. They
give him plenty of nice things to eat, and from the
first he does not refuse food, except in very rare cases.
Very often within a couple of days the elephant is
taking pieces of sugar-cane and fruit from the hands of
his keepers. Now the friendship grows rapidly. The
men begin to pat and caress the huge captive as they
sing and talk to him, and within a couple of weeks his
bonds are loosened, and he is led away between two
tame companions to complete his education.
There is one elephant that no one tries, or dares to
try, to capture. This is the " rogue," and he is
pursued and shot at once, if possible. A rogue
elephant is a savage, vicious brute who has left the
herd and taken to a solitary life. They are very
dangerous, and many of them will attack either man or
beast that may come in their way. Their great size
and vast strength render them easy conquerors over
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In the Jungle
all they meet, and a rogue elephant is the dread of the
neighbourhood where he roams. To hunt him is a
very dangerous sport. He is very wary, very cunning,
and quite fearless. If fired upon he charges full upon
his foes, and, unless a well-directed bullet brings him
down, the death of the hunter is certain. The rogue
hurls him down and tramples upon him, smashing the
body beneath his huge feet

CHAPTER XVIII
in the jungle (continued)
Through the jungle bound also the swift deer and
the graceful antelopes, who so often have to fly before
the pursuit of their fierce neighbours the tiger and the
panther. The panther, when wounded, is actually
more feared by the hunter than is the tiger. The
panther is much smaller than the tiger, and his grey
skin, dotted with black spots, enables him to hide
himself easily among the tangle of the forest under
growth, for he resembles a patch of shade. His limbs
are long and powerful, and he is the nimblest of all
the jungle dwellers. He can run like a leopard and
climb like a monkey.
He often lies in wait for his prey on a broad, low-
hanging branch ; then, as the deer passes below, he
springs full upon it, and bears it to the ground. He
is very savage, and always full of fight, and his ferocity
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Peeps at Many Lands
is employed with wonderful cunning. Two men have
been known to fire upon a panther and hit it. They
were apparently safe, each in a machan set in a tall tree.
The wounded brute has darted up one tree and clawed
the man there in fearful fashion ; then, quick as light
ning, it has descended, climbed into the second tree,
and attacked its second assailant. No other animal
does this. As a rule, a wounded beast makes a blind
rush ; but the panther seems to reason, to calculate.
The bear is just the opposite. The natives consider
him the most stupid of animals. They say he is so
stupid that he does not know enough to get out of the
way. He will stretch himself in the warm dust of a
jungle path, and lie there until, in the dusk, the passer-by
stumbles over him. Then he is angry. He rises and
strikes out with his long claws, and often deals terrible
wounds, for he strikes at the head. One writer
speaks of seeing a man whose face was torn away —
every feature gone — with a single stroke of a bear's
paw. But it is easy to avoid this. On such a path a
native sings or shouts as he walks along. The bear is
aroused by the noise, and moves away into the jungle.
The wild boar gives great sport over the plains and
among the hills of India. He is hunted on horseback,
just as the fox is hunted in England, save that each
rider has a spear with which to strike at the big,
savage beast. When he turns at bay he is a very
dangerous animal. First he " squats " — that is, he
turns round and sits on his haunches — thrusting out
his snout, armed with great sharp tusks, towards
his pursuers. Then he picks out a horseman, and
76

In the Jungle

charges him furiously. A fine hand with a spear will
now stop him with a thrust in a vital part ; but if the
thrust fails, the boar will often fetch down horse and
rider. Then comes a time of great danger, for the boar
will rip up both horse and man with swift turns
of his keen tusks unless his attention be drawn aside
by other attacks. In the end he falls under many
spear-thrusts. A walk through an open piece of jungle is very
beautiful. The bamboos with their feathery crowns,
the many trees covered with beautiful flowers, the
merry bands of monkeys which skip from branch to
branch, all draw the eye and the attention ; but, at
the same time, it is best to watch where you are going.
All of a sudden your native guide stops you and tells
you to step carefully. You look, and see something
in the path among the sand looking like a dirty little
stick. But do not tread on it. It is the deadliest
snake in India, and its bite means certain death. Or
you think you would like to sit down on a fallen tree
to rest. Well, do not sit on that log which seems to
have a bright patch of fungus growing about the
middle of it. «Throw a stick at the patch first. Ah !
it uncoils, and a venomous reptile slides into the grass
with angry hiss.
Look out, too, for the hooded cobra, who will some
times dispute the way with you, rearing himself on his
lower coils, and erecting his swelling hood, and "mean
ing venom." But the most wonderful snake of all is
the huge python, the boa-constrictor, 20 to 25 feet
77

Peeps at Many Lands
long, and with a body as thick as a man's thigh. This
huge snake destroys its prey by pressure, winding its
coils round the creature's body, and crushing it to
death. Then it swallows the body entire.
Another creature greatly dreaded by the natives
belongs partly to the land and partly to the water.
This is the alligator — a hideous grey brute, with huge
jaws, furnished with long rows of teeth, and a long tail
of immense power. On land the natives trouble little
about this great reptile, for his legs are short and his
powers of pursuit are small ; but in the water or on the
sandy margin it is a very different affair. Be careful
where you bathe or draw water. A single sweep of
that powerful tail will hurl you into the stream, and
the alligator, lurking in the shallows, has seized you
for his prey. Above all, it is necessary to be careful
when walking along the pleasant sandy bank which
often borders a river. Here and there grey logs seem
to be lying on the sand. They may be logs or they
may be alligators sunning themselves. In the latter
case, if the walker be on the land side, well and good ;
but if he incautiously ventures between the alligator and
the river, it is at the peril of his life. With the aid of
his powerful tail, the frightful reptile hurls himself
across the sand for a short distance at wonderful speed,
then his mighty jaws open and close upon his victim,
and the latter is dragged under water in the twinkling
of an eye.
The tiger himself, unmatched in combat with any
other beast of the jungle, sometimes falls a prey to the
alligator. Coming to drink at the river, the king of
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In an Indian Village
the jungle is seized by the waiting reptile. A terrific
struggle follows. Unable to wrench himself from
those mighty jaws, the tiger uses his terrible fangs and
claws on the alligator's back. Here for once they fail
on that coat of horny scales. The tiger does not know
that the alligator is soft beneath, and there could be
ripped up by his claws of steel, and he continues to
spend his strength in vain. Inch by inch he is dragged
into the river, and once under water, he is lost. He
swiftly drowns, and the alligators feast on his body.

CHAPTER XIX
IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE
We have spoken of temples and palaces and the mag
nificence of Kings and nobles, but now we must turn
to the homes of the common people, and see how
they live and work. Anyone who adopted the idea
that India is a land of general riches and splendour
would be making a very great mistake. The vast
mass of the people live, not merely in the simplest
fashion, but also in the poorest fashion, for the land
can scarce produce enough food to satisfy the wants of
its teeming millions. If the rains should fail and a
crop go wrong, there is famine at once over wide dis
tricts, and vast numbers perish.
An Indian village is a collection of small huts, with
walls of mud and roof of thatch. At break of day the
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Peeps at Many Lands
men, the ryots, go out to labour in the fields which
surround the place, putting their bullocks into the light
wooden plough, which scarcely does more than scratch
the soil. In the shallow furrow thus formed they sow
the grain, and then with hoe and mattock they clean
the weeds from a crop which is already springing up.
These few simple tools serve all the purposes of the
husbandman, just as they served his forefathers a thou
sand years ago.
The women of the village go to the well to draw
water, passing on their way the village temple, where
they offer fruits and flowers to the stone image of the
Hindoo god, in whose honour the temple was built.
When they have drawn their water, they return home
to cook food and to work in the small compound which
surrounds each mud hut. Here they grow trees, which
yield the mango, plantain, guava, and other fruits.
As they go back to their homes they cast looks of
deep interest at the door of a house where a figure is
seated. It is a Brahmin sitting in dharna, for this is
an out-of-the-way village where old customs cling
fast. What is dharna ? It is really a form of intimidation.
Some one has a quarrel with the owner of that house,
and he has hired a Brahmin, a member of the priestly
caste, to sit on his enemy's doorstep without food or
drink, until the latter will do justice. The Brahmin,
having undertaken the task, is certain to carry it
through. He will starve until the person at whose
door he sits has given way. The latter always happens.
If the holy man were to starve to death, the sin would
80

A HUSY HA/\ \K rl,,,,./,,- | | /

In an Indian Village
lie upon the head of the owner of the house fir ever,
and his fate in the next world would be dreadful. So,
before long, some arrangement is made, and the dispute
is settled. The house before which the Brahmin is performing
dharna is that of the money-lender, by far the most
powerful man in the village. When a ryot cannot
make both ends meet, and he is in trouble cither about
his rent or his taxes, it is to the money-lender that he
flies for assistance. From that powerful personage he
borrows a few rupees to tide him over the time of need
till his crops shall be ready for sale, and he has to pay
a very heavy rate of interest for the loan.
The money-lender is one of the oldest features of
Indian village life. From the earliest times his trade
has been in great vogue, and the Indian peasant is
to-day as dependent upon him as ever. Broadly
speaking, the ryot is always in debt. He is so careless,
and thinks so little of the future that he always lives
from hand to mouth, and a failure of his crop brings
him within touch of famine at once. Then he resorts
to the money-lender to borrow money to buy food or
pay his rent, and to raise the money he often agrees to
sell his next crop to the money-lender at a price which
the money-lender himself will fix.
The price is very low, and the money is at once
swallowed up to pay rent or the interest on the last
loan, and so the peasant is driven to apply to the
money-lender once more to obtain funds to carry him
on to the next harvest. In this way the ryot falls
completely into the hands of the money-lender, and,
in. 8 1 II

Peeps at Many Lands
in order that the unlucky husbandman may not escape
his clutches, the creditor employs men to watch the
farmer's crops day and night, and the latter has to pay
all these expenses.
Just beyond the money-lender's house is the dwelling
of the baid, the doctor. He is sitting on his veranda,
busily reading a very ancient book on medicine. It is
from the instructions in this book that he treats all his
patients. He has a store of herbs and roots, which he
uses to make pills and potions. He looks with the
greatest contempt on the European doctors and their
medicines, and declares that they do not know how to
treat Hindoo patients.
As a rule, the baid is a very poor hand at curing his
patients. If they get well he takes all the credit ; if
they die he says that the hour of their death had come,
and who can resist fate ? But here and there are to be
found men who have so great a knowledge of herbs
and simples that they can effect wonderful cures. " A
curious cure of asthma is recorded of a European who
derived little benefit from the treatment of his own
countrymen. A baid offered to cure him when his
case had become almost hopeless. The European
laughed. However, getting quite desperate, he sub
mitted to the treatment of the Hindoo doctor, and the
few sweet black pills which the latter administered
wrought a complete cure. The grateful patient
begged the doctor to name his own reward ; but he
would listen to nothing of the kind, nor would he tell
of what ingredients the pills were composed. Indeed,
this the baids will never do." 82

In an Indian Village
CHAPTER XX
IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE (tO)ltinUtd)
Now there comes up to the veranda a quiet-looking
man with a little bundle under his arm, and the baid
lays aside his book. The village barber has come to
shave him. The Hindoo barber is a very important
man. Not only has he under his care the shaven
crowns, the smooth chins, and the close-cropped hair of
his neighbours, but he is the village surgeon also, for
the baid knows nothing of surgery. It is the barber
who bores the ears and noses of the little girls to put
in rings and ornaments.
He squats down beside the doctor and unrolls his
little bundle and spreads out its contents. He has a
razor, a pair of scissors, a small steel instrument for
cutting nails, a leather strop, a little brass cup, a scrap
of looking-glass, and a towel. He uses neither brush
nor soap for shaving, but puts cold water in the cup
and dips his fingers into it With these fingers he
wets and rubs the chin, and then sweeps his razor over
it with light and skilful hand, doing his work like a
master. When he has finished he rolls up his little
bundle and goes on to the next house, for he has a
fixed round of customers, and no Hindoo, whether
rich or poor, ever shaves himself.
Going thus from house to house the barber knows
every one, and is often employed as a match-maker.
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Peeps at Many Lands
In India parents always arrange the marriages of
their children, and the wishes of the latter are not
consulted in the affair. Indeed, marriages are often
settled at so early an age that the children do not
understand what it means. A girl is fetched from her
play and married to a boy not much older than herself.
She goes back to her dolls, and he goes back to school,
and perhaps neither sees the other again for years.
In arranging these affairs there is often much coming
and going of the family barber. He has to find out
how much dowry the parents of the girl will give with
their daughter, or, on the other hand, he is sent to see
what examinations the young man has passed. This
is an important point. The Hindoos think a great
deal of such distinctions, and a young man who has
passed a University examination can get a much richer
wife than he who has not.
At the wedding the barber is a very busy man.
Before the day he goes round to the friends and rela
tives of the family inviting them to come to the
wedding-feast, and begging them not to fail in at
tendance. On the day of the wedding he has to dress
the bridegroom, and when the guests are assembled he
hands round betels to chew or hookahs to smoke.
He helps to serve the wedding- feast, and when it is
over he distributes the fragments among the beggars.
The barber's wife is as important a personage as
himself. She is just as busy among the women as he
is among the men. She enters the zenana, the women's
portion of the house, to dress the ladies and adorn
them. At weddings she dresses the hair of the bride,
trims her nails, and arrays her in the richest robes.
84

In an Indian Village
Both the barber and his wife belong to the barber
caste. In India trades are handed down from father to
son, from mother to daughter. The children of the
barber and his wife are taught from their earliest years
the duties of their business : they, too, will become
barbers in due time.
As the barber goes away the water-carrier comes up.
This is another important personage ; for, in the burn
ing climate of India, fresh, pure water is of the greatest
importance. This water-carrier has not filled his
vessels at the village well, but has been to a spring at
some distance, where the water is very good. He
carries it in two large vessels of brass, and these are
slung from the ends of a pole which he carries across
one of his shoulders, one vessel in front and one
behind. If there are Mohammedans in the village you will also
see the bhistee, the Mohammedan water-carrier. He
bears his load in a skin on his shoulders, or in a pair
of skins which he slings across the back of a bullock.
He sells water only to people of his own faith, for
no Hindoo will use for any purpose water which a
Mohammedan has handled.
The larger houses have flat roofs, and from the roofs
of two standing near each other a couple of boys are
having a battle with fighting kites. Flying kites is a
very favourite amusement in India, and in some villages
old and young, rich and poor, spend much time on
this sport. The kites are square in shape, but of all
sizes, and in the case of fighting kites the string or
thread is passed through a mixture of pounded glass
and starch and then dried. The thread has now a keen,
85

Peeps at Many Lands
cutting edge, and if brought sharply across the string
of another kite will cut it through, and he who succeeds
in setting his opponent's kite adrift is the victor.
At the farther end of our village there is a large
native inn. This is by no means a common thing to
find in such a place ; but, as it happens, a well-travelled
road passes through the country at this point. To see
this inn at its busiest we must go on some evening when
a fair is to be held in the neighbouring town, and a
throng of travellers pause in it for the night.
The inn itself, as we approach it, shows a square of
four flat naked walls. There are neither doors nor
windows to be seen, and the place is entered by a wide
opening, which can be closed by massive gates. Near
the gate are some small shops where one can buy rice,
flour, salt, and ghee to eat, or earthen pots for cooking.
Upon entering, we find ourselves in a big courtyard,
the middle of which is packed with the bullock waggons
and carts, from which the ponies and bullocks have just
been released and turned out to graze. Round the
walls inside is a wide veranda, and behind this
veranda are rooms wherein the wayfarers may sleep.
The scene is one of the greatest uproar and confusion.
Men and women are bustling to and fro, shouting and
calling to each other as they draw water, light fires,
cook food, feed their animals, spread their beds, and
generally make ready for the night.
Every inch of the veranda is taken up, and in front
of each room burns the fire of the party who intend to
occupy it. A wealthy traveller will engage a number
of rooms for himself and his family or servants ; but
86

In an Indian Village
poor men club together, and five or six engage a single
room and stow themselves away in it. The cost to
them will then be about one farthing per head.
The inn is under the charge of a number of inn
keepers, each of whom has a certain part of the inn-
yard under his care and a certain number of rooms to
let. These people crowd about the traveller on his
arrival, each clamouring that his rooms are the best,
and begging for his custom. They are a thievish and
quarrelsome crew, and are looked down upon as a very
low and degraded class. In a native inn the traveller
has to keep a very sharp eye on his belongings. He
takes care to keep his money in a safe place, and he
never accepts tobacco or any eatable from a stranger.
There may be a drug in it which will throw him into a
deep sleep, from which he will awake to find all his
valuables gone.
When supper is dispatched the traveller prepares
for sleep. If poor, he stretches himself on the floor ;
if better off, he hires a wooden frame from the inn
keeper, and spreads upon it his quilts and blankets.
Now the great gates are swung to and locked, and the
inn is securely shut up for the night. This is very
necessary, or some of the animals would be missing in
the morning. There are also men who keep watch all
night, and the merchant with a stock of valuable goods
gives one of these a small sum to take particular care
of his bales and animals.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., F8INTFRS, GUILDfOPD.

E UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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