Life and Travel in India Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of Railroads — Themes and Context

CHAPTER I. PAGE The Island of Bambâ Dèvi.--Sights and Scenes round about Bombay 7

Malabar Hill, and Domestic Life of the English in Bombay 39

The Island of Shastee, commonly called Salsette.--Gharipoore, "the Town of Purification," or the Island and Caves of Elephanta 51

Sampwallas, or Serpent-Charmers.--Jâdoowallahs, or Miracle-Performers.--Nuzer-Bundyânâ, Mesmerizers.--Yogees, Spiritual Jugglers, and Naga-Poojmi, or Serpent-Worship, in India 65

The Parsees, or Fire-Worshippers, of Bombay.--A Visit to a Fire-Priest and Astrologer.--His Astral Predictions.--The Gâthas. --Zoroaster.--His Life and Religion.--History of the Settlement of the Parsees in India 79

Domestic Life of the Fire-Worshippers.--The Zend-Avesta.--Parsee Rites and Ceremonies at Birth, Marriage, Death, and Final Consignment to the Tower of Silence 105

Hindoo Treatment of the Sick.--Pundit's House Defiled.--Its Purification.--Short Sketch of the Different Races and of the Origin of Castes and Creeds among the People of Hindostan 129

A Visit to the House of Baboo Ram Chunder.--His Wife.--Rajpoot Wrestlers.--Nautchnees, or Hindoo Ballet-Girls.--A Hindoo Drama.--Visit to a Nautchnees' School.--Bayahdiers, or Dancing-Girls, attached to the Hindoo Temples.--Profession, Education, Dress, Character, Fate in Old Age and After Death.--Cusbans, or Common Women.--Marked Differences between these three Classes of Public Women 173

From Bombay to Poonah, the Capital of the Maha Rastra, or the great Indian Kings.--Campooly.--The Ascent of the Bhor Ghauts.--Khondala.--Caves of Carlee or Karli.--"Puja Chakra," or the famous Wheel-Worship of the Brahmans.--Poonah.--Kirki.--A Visit to the Peishwa's Palace.--Temple of Parvati.--The Pundit and the Brahmin Priest at Prayer.--Sanscrit and English Colleges at Poonah.--Suttee Monuments at Sangam.--Hindoo Bankers, etc. 208

The beautiful Hindoo Village of Wye.--The Mahabaleshwar Hills.--The Temple of the Gods.--The Couch of Krishna.--The Stone Image of the Cow from whose Mouth the Five Rivers of this Region are said to Spring.--The Holy Tank.--Satarah, the Star City of the Mahratta Empire.--The Fort.--The Palace of Sivaji.--Jejureh, the famous Hill-Temples where the Dancing-Girls of the Country are Recruited.--The Mad Gossain, and the Story of his Ill-Fated Love.--The Dancing-Girl Krayâhnee 228

From Satarah, the Star City of the great Mahratta Kings, to Dowlutabâd, the Abode of Fortune, and Aurungabâd, the Golden City of the Mohgul Emperors.--Tombs of Boorhan Ood Deen and Aurungzebe.--Mausoleum of Rhabea Duranee.--Sketch of the Mohgul Invasion of India.--Manners, Customs, and Religious Ceremonies of the Mohammedans of Hindostan 243

The Temples of Ellora, the Holy Place of the Deccan.--Nashik, the Land of the Râmâyanâ.--Sights and Scenes on the Banks of the Godaveri.--Damaun, the most famous of the Indo-Portuguese Towns 270

The Taptee River.--Surat and its Environs.--The Borahs and Kholees of Guzerat.--Baroda, the Capital of the Guicowars.--Fakeers, or Relic-Carriers, of Baroda.--Cambay. --Mount Aboo.--Jain Temples on Mount Aboo, etc. 286

Calcutta, the City of the Black Venus, Kali.--The River Hoogley.--Cremation Towers.--Chowringee, the Fashionable Suburb of Calcutta.--The Black Hole.--Battles of Plassey and Assaye.--The Brahmo-Somaj.--Temple of Kali.--Feast of Juggurnath.--Benares and the Taj Mahal 303

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE RIVER, Frontispiece

CAVES OF ELEPHANTA, 53

NATIVE SNAKE CHARMERS, 66

BOMBAY. UNIVERSITY AND ESPLANADE, 128

BUDDHIST PRIEST PREACHING AT THE DOOR OF A TEMPLE, 161

TOMB OF RAHBEA DHOORANE, AT AURANGABÂD, 250

ROCK CUT TEMPLES OF ELLORA, 270

NATIVE PASSENGER BOAT ON THE HOOGLY, 302

THE MUNIKURNIKA GHAT, ONE OF THE BURNING GHATS OF BENARES, 322

In the following pages, gathered from voluminous notes of early travel, I have tried to give a faithful account of life in India, as well as of the sights and scenes visited by me, with my husband, before the days of railroad travel.

It is well known that the introduction of the railroad into India has in no sense affected the life of the people, and has only very slightly modified the general appearance of the country. India is still what it was in the Vèdic period, a land of peasant classes; she still invokes, as did the ancient Aryans in the Rig Vèda, the "Khe-tra-pati," or the divinity of the soil, for blessings on the land. The Hindoo to-day lives, as did his forefathers, close to the heart of Nature, deifying the mountains, streams, woods, and lakes, while the sun, moon, stars, fire, water, earth, air, sky, and corn are his highest deities. The most beautiful personification in the Ramâyânâ of womanly grace and virtue is called _Sita_, "a furrow," showing how deep was the national reverence paid to the plough; and to this day at the _Rathsaptimi_, the day on which the new sun is supposed to mount his heavenly chariot, a feast is observed in honor of the sun, and the ryots on this occasion decorate with flowers and paint their ploughs, and worship them as the saviors of the land.

I do not, however, mean to say that India has made no progress whatever in all these years--her imaginative and glorious youth has no doubt been succeeded by the calm reason of mature age--but this transition has been gradual and progressive rather than fitful and sudden.

The transfer of India by the East India Company to the British Crown, and the recent laws for the protection of the ryot--or more properly the _raiyat_, a leaser of land held in perpetuity--against the oppressions of the zemindars, or governmental landlords, with the right of underletting the land, have to an extraordinary degree awakened the inborn desire of the Hindoo to become possessor of the soil and to return to his hereditary occupation of agriculture. To these may be added the security which England has conferred upon India, now that she is no longer disturbed by frequent wars, which desolated the land, and every now and then forced the people to abandon their villages and fly to the jungles and mountains for safety, under the Afghans, Mohguls, Mahrattas, and other predatory chiefs. Among the lasting benefits to India it may be mentioned that sutteeism, infanticide, self-immolation to the idols, Thuggism, and slavery have all been partially, if not quite, abolished by the strong arm of the law. Railroads have been built, the country has been opened, schools established, civil service appointments thrown open to the natives and Europeans alike, good roads made, canals and huge reservoirs for water excavated, ancient water-courses reopened, giving an impetus to private enterprise and industry in every direction. All these happy changes have been the result of the more liberal policy of England toward India since the days of the terrible mutiny of 1857; and it may fairly be hoped that British India has before her as glorious a future as her brilliant youth and maturity have foreshadowed for her.

SUNNYSIDE, Halifax, Nova Scotia, } August 7, 1884. }

LIFE AND TRAVEL IN INDIA

The Island of Bambâ Dèvi.--Sights and Scenes round about Bombay.

In that most delightful of all Indian months, the cool month of November, with the distant booming of a great gun that announced its arrival, the steamer from Aden came to anchor in the harbor of Bombay, bringing me among its many passengers. Here I was in this strange land, a young girl fresh from school, now entering upon a life so different, one which I was to lead through a long term of years.

The sun shone through the mists and haze of the early dawn, and I could see from my cabin window, with a sense of mingled wonder and curiosity, the great stone quays and the long flights of stone steps which led to the beautiful island of Bombay, lying there like a gem in the water, and of which I knew nothing whatever, save that it was once the marriage-dowry of a queen of England.

According to some authorities, it takes its name from two Portuguese words, "Buon Bahia," Good Bay; but in reality it has a still more ancient origin, being called after a very beautiful Hindoo queen, afterward deified as Bambâ Dèvi, who long before the days of Alexander the Great was the presiding genius of the land. She was worshipped as "Mahimâ Dèvi," or the Great Mother, in one of the oldest and largest Hindoo temples which formerly stood in the great plain now called the Esplanade. It was pulled down about a hundred years ago, and rebuilt near the Bhendee Bazaar, and is to this day called by her name and set apart to her peculiar service.

The longer I looked on that bay, and on those ancient islands with their towers and spires, both pagan and Christian, gleaming in the pure morning sunlight, the more I felt that it was one of the loveliest scenes in the world and one of the best worth admiring.

The harbor is not only one of the safest known to navigators from all parts of the world, affording in its hollow rock-bound cup entire shelter from sudden storms to vessels of all burthens, large and small crafts of every imaginable size and color, but it is in itself a bit of landlocked water unrivalled in picturesqueness, furnishing a variety of beautiful views at every point, and, one might almost say, at every passing moment.

Its peculiar interest, however, depends much on the season of the year, the brightness of the lights, the softness of the shadows, and the picturesque character of the numberless native boats, which, with their well-filled lateen sails, skim like white sea-birds on the surface of the waters.

The islands of Salsette, Elephanta, and Versovah, abounding in luxuriant vegetation, rise like huge green temples out of the bay. A great part of its beauty, however, is derived from the singularly shaped hills that are found in its vicinity. Old as the world, they appear to have gone through the hands of some gigantic architect--some so exquisitely rounded, some regularly terraced, and others, again, sharply pointed, not unlike spires. Lifting themselves proudly above the broad glittering sea that bathes their palm-fringed base, they help to make the scenery distinct from that of any other bay in the world. Then, beyond question, there is nothing to equal in grace and beauty the palm forest. The cocoanut, the sago, the betel, the date, the wild plantain, and the palmyra, all cluster in such profusion here and there along the seashore that the whole seems too beautiful to be real, and you half expect to see the island melt away like a dream before you.

While I look on from the cabin window things take clearer shape and form. Far away is the dim outline of the mighty Ghauts, towering amid soft fleecy-white clouds, and extending farther than the eye can reach in the purple distance. The striking views of the adjoining mainland, with ruins innumerable of chapels, convents, and monasteries erected by the Portuguese conquerors, all covered with a rich tangle of tropical foliage; the strange shapes of pagan temples, each in its own peculiar style of architecture, Hindoo, Parsee, Jain, and Mohammedan; the noble remains of the old Mahratta[1] forts and castles, which in former days were the habitations of the famous Rajpoots, with a long line of native and European palaces,--gradually unfold themselves under the golden haze of an Indian atmosphere.

One sees in no other part of the world just such an assemblage as the passengers on an Indian-bound steamer. In the vessel that took me to Bombay the most touching object to my mind was a young married woman, who was looking anxiously out for her husband, a missionary in whose labors she was now about to share for the first time. He was weak, haggard, and spiritless, worn out, no doubt, by his combined efforts to acquire a foreign language, convince an obstinate people, and bear the enervating influence of a hot, muggy climate; all of which was enough to break down the stoutest of frames and the most hopeful of spirits that England has ever produced. A number of officers, civil and military, some in light-brown coats of China silk and wide-brimmed straw hats, others in frogged blue frocks and military caps, were seen pressing through the crowd. A young cadet just out rushed into the open arms of a handsome officer, like himself, but older by twenty or thirty years. The deck was being fast cleared of its eager crowd. Everywhere the passengers were separating amid almost sad adieux, enlivened only by the oft-repeated promises to write to each other regularly--promises which are never fulfilled. On the great continent of Asia all nations meet and hail each other as friends, only to part, perhaps never to meet again, as vessels do at sea. But we were all sincere enough at the moment, which is all that can be expected from travellers scattering over the vast unknown land of India. I remember I was very greatly troubled because I was about to part from a gentle, blue-eyed young friend, a frank, bright, innocent young Scotch girl, who had become very dear to me during the most tedious and sultry part of our voyage from Aden to Bombay.

We were thrown a good deal together, and were almost of the same age. One day, while passing through the Red Sea, we exchanged vows of eternal friendship. There was on board a sprightly young officer, Ensign W----, to whom she was already secretly betrothed. Why secretly she would not confide to me, or perhaps explain even to herself, for every one on the vessel knew it, and of her naturally tender and loving disposition, as well as of her peculiarly lonely position on board, being sent out under the charge of the captain. I only know that I shared her happiness and her anxiety, for she would have to break the news almost immediately to her father, whom she was expecting momentarily on board. She informed me that her father was a widower--that she had come out to India expressly to keep house for him in some remote inland province somewhere in Guzerat.

At last her father appeared on board, a fat, sun-burnt, frowzy-looking man, and inquired from the captain as to which was his daughter, in order to assert his ownership over her. Instead of rushing to greet a father, she shrank back and nervously clutched my arm; and it was not strange. She had not seen him for many years; in the mean time her mother had died, her little brothers and sisters had all died in their infancy; she alone had survived, and had been sent home to Scotland, where she had been educated by an aunt. Here, then, she was alone in the presence of an almost entire stranger, although he was her father; and this is not an isolated case, but the fate of the thousands of European children who are born in India.

No blood-relationship avails anything in such cases. The mysterious sanctities of a young girl's nature, be they more or less profound, interpose themselves as barriers between father and daughter at the best of times and under the happiest of circumstances. Those dim nooks and corners of her budding sentiment can only be reached by a mother, so justly called the mediator in the most ancient language of the heart.

Years after I learned that my young Scotch friend had married Ensign W----, the young officer to whom she had engaged herself on her voyage out to India. But in one short year after her sweet blue eyes were closed for ever on this world. She died in giving birth to a daughter, who sleeps side by side with her young mother in the quiet little European burial-ground at Deesa, a British station on the confines of the great province of Guzerat.

Very little was known about India until Alexander the Great led his conquering army across the Punjaub (or, more properly, "Panch jeeb," or five tongues, from the five rivers that water this portion of Northern India) to the banks of the Hydaspes and the Hyphasis. The armies of Alexander had hitherto visited no country which was so fertile, populous, and abounding in the most valuable productions of nature and art as that portion of India through which they marched. Fortunately for the Greeks, Alexander had with him a few men who were admirably qualified to observe and describe the country. At the mouth of the Indus the army and fleet of Alexander parted company. The troops proceeded by land. Nearchus took charge of the ships, sailed down the Indus, and from its mouth, round the southern coast of Asia, to the mouth of the Euphrates. The results of his observations during the voyage were taken down and preserved. This expedition, undertaken 325 B .C., furnished a vast amount of information in regard to India, its extent and wonderful resources. Rome and most of her prosperous and civilized provinces were also very familiar with the silks, brocades, fine muslins, gems of great value, spices, and many other manufactures and products of the remote East. The Latin name of rice, _Oryza sativa_, is derived from the country, Orissa, whence the Romans first obtained it. During the so-called Dark Ages which followed the subversion of their Western Empire the trade with India was greatly diminished, though it never entirely ceased in parts of Europe, especially as some of the productions of the East had been consecrated to the services of the Roman Catholic ritual, and have ever since continued in request with the Christian churches of Greece and Rome. Even in the remote island of Great Britain, and in the semi-barbaric Saxon period, some of the precious spices and scented woods of India had been carefully treasured by the Venerable Bede and his co-laborers in their bleak northern monastery at Jarrow. In fact, at the very dawn of European civilization, under the good and wise Alfred the Great, English missionaries are said to have found their way to the coast of Malabar.

The great seat of Eastern trade was, down to the eleventh century, the city of Constantine the Great. Amalfi, Venice, and many other enterprising Italian republics acquired about this time great commercial importance, owing to their Eastern trade, which they extended to Egypt and the Persian Gulf.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries some of the more adventurous Italians found their way to various parts of Hindostan. One of these, the famous Marco Paulo, has given to the world much curious information about the regions which lie between the Himalaya Mountains, the Indian Ocean, and the numerous islands bordering on the Celestial Empire and on India proper.

The first European traveller who has given us an account of the country near the island of Bombay was an Italian friar named Odoricus, who passed nearly a month at Tana--or more properly Thanah--where four of his family fell victims to the intolerant spirit of the natives, and suffered martyrdom. His narrative was published in Latin in 1330 A. D. by William de Solanga. The first Englishman who visited the western coast of India was Thomas Stephens, of New College, Oxford. He reached Goa in October, 1579, and in the year 1608 Pryard de Laval mentions him at the time as rector of a college at Salsette.

It was during the early career of the famous Zehir-ed Deen Mohammed, a descendant of the renowned Genghis-khân, and the founder of the so-called Mohgul dynasty, better known by his common name of Bâber, or "the Tiger," that the Portuguese, whose maritime discoveries were beginning to produce an important revolution in the commercial world, succeeded in accomplishing their long-desired object of finding a passage by the Cape of Good Hope to India. In the year 1498, just ten months and two days after leaving the port of Lisbon, Vasco da Gama landed on the coast of Malabar at Calicut, or more properly Kale Khoda, "City of the Black Goddess." Calicut was at that period not only a very ancient seaport, but an extensive territory, which, stretching along the western coast of Southern India, reached from Bombay and the adjacent islands to Cape Comorin. It was, at an early period, so famous for its weaving and dyeing of cotton cloth that its name became identified with the manufactured fabric, whence the name _calico_. The dyeing of cotton cloths seems to have been in practice in India in very remote ages. Pliny as early as the first century mentions in his _Natural History_ that there existed in Egypt a wonderful method of dyeing white cloth. It is now generally admitted that this ingenious art originated in India, and from that country found its way into Egypt. It was not till toward the middle of the seventeenth century that calico-printing was introduced into Europe. A knowledge of the art was acquired by some of the servants in the service of the Dutch East India Company, and carried to Holland, whence it was introduced in London in the year 1676.