Foot-prints of Travel by Maturin Murray Ballou (buy e reader TXT) 📖

a convulsion of nature. There is no regularity in the laying out of the place; it is a confused mass of buildings, narrow paths, crooked roads, and low-built mud cabins. In what is called the silversmith's quarter, amid filthy lanes, full of dirty children, mangy dogs, and moping cats, we find hovels containing finely wrought silver ornaments manufactured on the spot by the natives. So original and elegant are these wares that they have a reputation beyond the borders of India. Trichinopoly has over sixty thousand inhabitants. But however much there may be to interest us, we must not tarry long. Two hundred miles still northward bring us to Tanjore, a large fortified city, where we find a mammoth and gorgeously decorated car of Juggernaut, the Indian idol. It makes its annual excursion from the temple through the town, drawn by hundreds of worshippers, who come from great distances to assist at the ceremony. Pilgrims, delirious with fanaticism, used once to throw themselves under the wheels of the huge car and perish. This self-immolation is now almost entirely suppressed by the government, as is the kindred one of the burning of widows upon their husbands' funeral piles. From 1815 to 1826, published statistics show that fifteen thousand widows perished thus in India!

The great temple of Tanjore is fourteen stories in height, and measures two hundred feet from base to top. These temples all resemble each other in general design, and are characterized by grotesqueness, caricature, and vulgar images, as well as by infinite detail in their finish. Though they are gorgeously decked in colors, and gross in ornamentation, still they are so grand in size and on so costly a scale, as to create amazement rather than disgust. It would seem that a people equal to such efforts must have been capable of something better. In all grosser forms of superstition and idolatry, carnal and material elements seem to be essential to bind and attract the ignorant, and this is undoubtedly the governing policy of a religion, embodying emblems so outrageous to Christian sensibility. This grand pagoda at Tanjore, taken as a whole, is the most remarkable religious monument in India. In passing through the southern section of the country, we see many ruined temples in unpopulated districts, which belong to past ages; many mammoth stone elephants and bulls, crumbling by the wear of centuries. Large flocks of goats tended by herdsmen are seen distributed over the plains, and so level is the country, that the eye can make out these groups for miles away on either side of the railroad. Well-cultivated plantations of sugar-cane, plantains, wheat, rice, and orchards of fruit come into view. The old style of irrigation goes on, by means of buckets worked by hand, the same as was practised in the East four thousand years ago, while the very plough, rude and inefficient, which is used upon their plains to-day is after the antique fashion belonging to the same period. Indeed, except that the railroad runs through Southern India, there appears to have been no progress there for thousands of years. A lethargy of the most hopeless character seems to possess the common people. Their mud cabins are not suitable abodes for human beings, and are distanced in neatness by the ant-hills. Such a degraded condition of humanity can hardly be found elsewhere among semi-civilized races. The women are worn by hardships. The men are cadaverous and listless. Clothing among them is the exception; nudity is the rule. It seems strange, but it is true, that one-quarter of the human race goes naked in this nineteenth century.

A day's journey northward by railroad brings us to Madras, situated upon the Bay of Bengal. The city is spread out over a very large territory, with a number of broad, open fields and squares, designed for drilling of troops, some for ball-players, and some for ordinary parks. There is an abundant and handsome growth of trees all about the city, lining the main streets and testifying to the judicious attention given by the authorities to this species of ornamental shade so necessary in a warm climate. The wide streets are admirably kept, and are all macadamized. This applies, however, to the European portion of the town, with its fine, large public buildings, consisting of literary and scientific institutions as well as various educational and charitable ones. The native portion of Madras is contracted and dirty in the extreme, no attention being given to cleanliness or decency. The extensive English fort--Fort George--is one of the best constructed in the East, forming a most prominent feature of the city, and crowning a moderate rise of ground near the shore. Its attractive though warlike surroundings, white walls, flower plats, and green, sloping banks present a charming picture. Fort George was the original name of the city. A noble lighthouse is situated within the fortifications. Near this spot, along the coast to the northward, are the rock-cut temples of Mahabulihuram rendered familiar by Southey's admirable verses.

Dancing-girls are to be seen here, on the streets. They are attached to some native temple, as no religious ceremony or gala day is considered complete without them; and the same may be said of all large private entertainments, no guests ever dancing in the East. They prefer to hire it done for them. These Indian dancing-girls, with a musical accompaniment, tell a story by their performance, expressing grief, joy, jealousy, and other passions so well portrayed, that one easily interprets the pantomime. They preserve strict propriety in their dances, which are curious to witness, their ankles being covered with silver bells, and their wrists and arms similarly decked.

No more unprotected spot could be found on the surf-beaten shore of the Coromandel coast than this where stands Madras. It is so completely exposed to the northeast monsoons as to be inaccessible for sailing-vessels from October to January, and yet it was the first British capital in India. There is usually such a surf on the shore that nothing but the native boats can weather it; and when high winds prevail, it is too much even for them. We embark by steamship from Madras, and after a voyage of nearly a thousand miles up the coast and Hoogly River, land at Calcutta, which is the political capital of India, though since the Suez Canal has been opened, Bombay rivals it commercially.

Calcutta is a very interesting city, very Indian, notwithstanding that so many Europeans live here, and that it has so long been under English rule, but it is by no means entitled to the designation so often given to it, namely, the "City of Palaces." It is quite modern, having no remains of antiquity about it, and in 1686 was but a mud village. As seen from the Hoogly, when one first arrives, it exhibits a strong array of fine public buildings; but a passage of a few rods, diverging from the main thoroughfare, brings the visitor upon the dirty streets, the mean and narrow houses, and general squalor of the native population.

The Burning Ghat, where cremation is going on at all hours of the day, is the first place the stranger visits. The bodies are brought in and placed upon a square pile of wood, raised to a height of four feet, in the open yard. Under the wood there is plenty of combustible material; the torch is applied, and instantly all is hidden by the flames. In three hours nothing but calcined bones and ashes are left. These are carefully gathered and cast into the river. The Ghat is open to the sky, so that the ventilation is perfect, but the atmosphere is nevertheless impregnated with an unpleasant odor. The Hoogly River being one of the outlets of the much-revered Ganges, is considered to be equally sacred. Close by the Burning Ghat, along the river's front, there is a number of sheds, with only partial shelter from the street, where poor dying Hindoos are brought to breathe their last, believing that if they pass away close to the sacred water, their spirits will be instantly wafted to the regions of bliss. Here they are attended by people who make this their business, and it is believed that they often hasten the demise of the sufferers by convenient means. Human life is held of very little account among these people, whose faith bridges the gulf of death, and who were at one time so prone to suicide by drowning in the Ganges, as to render it necessary on the part of the English to establish watchmen every night along the city shore of the sacred river to prevent it.

At the close of each day, about an hour before sunset, all fashionable Calcutta turns out in state for a drive on the Maiden,--the Hindoostanee name for esplanade,--a broad and finely macadamized roadway, extending along the river's bank by the fort and cricket grounds. It is the Indian Hyde Park, or Bengal Champs Elysees (the famous Parisian boulevard). The variety, elegance, and costliness of the equipages in grand livery are surprising. The whole scene is enlivened by the beautiful dresses of the ladies, the dashing costumes and gold lace of the nabobs, the quaint Oriental dress of their barefooted attendants, and the spirited music of the military band. The superb horses in their gold-mounted harnesses dash over the course at a spirited gait; the twilight hour is brief, the shadows lengthen, when a hundred electric lamps flash upon the scene, rivalling the light of day. Then the occupants of the open vehicles, and the equestrians, gather about the Eden Garden, in rows, six or eight deep, and listen to the popular airs, or chat merrily in the intervals. The Cascine at Florence, the Pincio at Rome, the Chiaja at Naples, the Prado at Madrid--none of these famous drives can compare with the Maiden of Calcutta for gayety, variety, and attractiveness.

Calcutta is said to contain a population of a million. It is sometimes visited by cyclones, and the fierceness of these warrings of the elements may be judged by the fact that at the last occurrence of the sort thirty thousand native houses were totally destroyed in half an hour. The Hoogly River often experiences the effect of tidal waves during the monsoons, which dash up from the sea at a speed of twenty miles an hour, causing much destruction. Ships lying off the city on such occasions often part their cables and are driven on shore, while many of the small craft along the eighty miles of river course are entirely destroyed.

A journey of four hundred miles to the northward, the last half of which is performed by narrow-gauge railway, which climbs zigzag fashion over a very hilly country, will enable us to reach Darjeeling, nearly nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here we are in proximity to and in full view of the Himalayan range of mountains, the loftiest on the globe. The lowest peak is over twenty thousand feet in height; the highest exceeds twenty-eight thousand. Upon the range rest eleven thousand feet of perpetual snow. There can be no animal life in that Arctic region--only the snow and ice rest there in endless sleep. The Himalayas--meaning the "Halls of Snow"--form the northern boundary of India, and shut out the country from the rest of Asia. Thibet, which lies just over the range, whence we view it, is virtually inaccessible by this route, the wild region between being nearly impassable. Bold parties of traders, wrapped in sheepskins, do sometimes force their way over the mountains at an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, but it is a most hazardous thing to do, and the bones of worn-out mules mark the frozen way, telling of suffering and abandonment. The little yak cow, whose bushy tail is manufactured into lace, has been found to be the best and most