CHAPTER XI.
The temple of Balajee—The old Newar capital—The houses and temples of Patn—View from the city gates—Nepaulese festivals—The Newars skilful artisans—The arsenal—The magazine and cannon-foundry.
One afternoon we strolled across some verdant meadows, and along narrow shady avenues, to visit the temple of Balajee. There is nothing in the building itself worthy of notice; but near it is a tank of beautifully clear water, filled with sacred fishes, which crowd near the visitor as he stands on the brink, expecting to be fed with grain, which some old women at the gate sell for their especial benefit. Balajee is one of those sheltered nooks which make the scenery of Nepaul so attractive. Immediately under a wooded knoll the trees dip into the tank, from whence the water leaps in three tiny cascades into the court-yard of the temple, quaint and singular itself, and rendered still more interesting from its connexion with the sacred fonts and groves near which it is so romantically situated.
Hitherto we had seen no Newar town. Katmandu, the capital of Nepaul, was built by the conquering Ghorkas, and is comparatively modern. The old Newar capital is Patn: situated on a green slope, and fortified by a high wall, it looks picturesque when seen from the modern city, from which it is distant about two miles.
Crossing the narrow brick bridge which spans the Bhagmutty, outside the walls of the town, we shortly after entered the massive old gates of the ancient capital. As we trotted past the high rickety houses, along the brick pavement of the narrow streets, still slippery from the morning dew, we encountered troops of girls with garlands in their hair, for this was some festive day. At the corners of the streets were beings of both sexes, as decrepit as the houses under which they crouched, presiding over baskets full of beautiful flowers. The entire population were Newars, except a few fierce mustachioed Ghorkas, who stood sentinels over the temples, or loitered about the guard-house. The long street looked deserted; there was not a single shop in it; and the foot-passengers were few and far between. But the grand square was the chief feature of the place, and was well worthy of a visit. We looked with astonishment and delight at the incongruous mass of buildings, of the most varied and fantastic construction, yet massive and substantial; but whence the designs originated, or in what other part of the known world anything is to be seen approaching to the style of Newar architecture, it would be impossible to conjecture. Houses built of horn are said to exist at Lassa; and from Lassa, I should imagine, came the designs for the temples and houses of Patn. Time has mellowed their bright colours—if they were ever painted at all like those at Katmandu—into a sombre, quiet grey. The Durbar, a huge, massive building, is absolutely covered with black wood-carving. The care displayed in its execution is still apparent through the mass of dust and cobwebs which almost conceal it; for the old Durbar of Patn is deserted. The residence of the monarchs who ruled the happy valley is in strong contrast with the smiling appearance of their former territory. It alone seems to have gone into mourning for its former occupants, while the valley seems to thrive as well under the rule of the Ghorkas as it did under that of the Newars. The Durbar is of great extent, and occupies one side of the square, in the centre of which stand two monoliths, between 30 and 40 feet high: on one of them is the figure of an angel, represented in all respects as angels usually are, with the addition of a magnificent gilt tail; this, together with a pair of large gilt wings, gave it a most gorgeous appearance. My Ghorka guide could give me no information as to what particular divinity this figure was intended to represent. The other pillar was crowned by the figure of a Newar monarch with an unpronounceable name, who was watched over by a cobra, standing upon its tail, and looking over his head with its mouth wide open.
On the opposite side to that on which the Durbar was situated were two temples: one of them, built of grey sandstone, was an imposing structure, altogether different from any building, lay or ecclesiastical, that I had ever seen before. The lower story consisted of massive verandahs or cloisters; the pillars were all of grey sandstone, very simple in form; and the connecting arch was somewhat Saracenic in its appearance. The temple was square, and the corridor which ran round it was elevated considerably above the level of the court: the ascent to it was by two flights of steps, each guarded by a pair of sculptured winged lions. Three stories of light belfry-like temples, three upon each side of the square, surmounted each other in rows; in the centre was a mass of architecture between a dome and a spire, rising to a height of upwards of 100 feet above the level of the court: the whole formed a pyramidal structure ornamented with fantastic devices, and undoubtedly Bhuddist in its character.
The other temple was a two-storied pagoda; its bright colours were faded, and it appeared far inferior to those of more recent construction. There were also ruined pyramidal shrines of no known architecture, and difficult to describe from their complicated nature—antique specimens of the masonry of ages long gone by, and memorials of a religion doubtless impure, although Bhuddist in its character and origin.
No less singular were the residences of the old Newar nobility, a race which no longer exists, and the only remains of which now extant are their ruined habitations, evidently destined to succumb before long to the same all-destroying power which has long since obliterated every trace of their former owners.
How different was the peculiar yet handsome style which distinguished the dwellings of the Newar nobles at Patn from the tawdry glitter which characterises the mansions of the present Ghorka chiefs in the modern capital! Here the carving is more rich, the ornaments more massive, the houses themselves are more lofty and capacious. Sometimes two or three elaborately-carved balconies adorn the sombre but not less imposing exterior; from the projecting eaves wooden tassels, forming a sort of fringe, swing to and fro over the windows.
The roofs are beautifully tiled, each tile having a double curvature, while the corners of the buildings are quaintly turned up, giving a Chinese look to the building. The whole appearance of the houses and temples carries one far from the mud-huts or close cities of the plains of India, into the land of chopsticks and small feet, and the traveller feels much nearer to Pekin than to Calcutta as he wanders along the empty streets under the frowning houses and indescribable temples of the Newar town of Patn.
Everything seemed to have been blighted by time; besides all the old temples, old houses, old gates, and old streets, there were numbers of old people. Everything seemed to sympathise with everything else, and had evidently come to the conclusion that there was nothing worth living for, and the sooner they all took themselves off and quitted the bright valley of Nepaul the better. And indeed it was difficult to realize the existence of anything half so cheerful inside the town as the prospect which met our view as we emerged from its gloomy entrance, and looked upon the luxuriant plain, the glittering capital shining in its midst, whose gaudy pagodas, hung round with bells and adorned with flags, were very different from those just visited; the industrious population were going light-hearted to their work as we rode through smiling fields, and we ceased to wonder at Patn looking deserted, for it was evident that all the cheerfully disposed inhabitants had flitted away, unable to bear its depressing influence, and leaving behind them only the crabbed old people at the corners of the streets, and the tattered beggars, who must make a meagre livelihood out of the falling temples and 24,000 rotten houses of the once handsome capital of Nepaul.
It was a clear frosty morning, and, as we rode down the gentle slope on which the old city stands, the snowy range of the Himalaya burst upon us with inexpressible grandeur. The Gosain-than, a mass of glistening snow, looked contemptuously down upon the Jibjibia, itself covered with snow: though 13,000 feet lower than the Gosain-than, the Jibjibia in turn overtopped the Sheopoorie, which rises abruptly from the valley to a height of 2000 feet. On a peninsula, formed by the junction of the Bhagmutty and Bishmutty, stands the town of Katmandu, surrounded by a high wall in which are four gates: to the east the snow-capped peaks extend as far as the eye can reach; to the west the Dawalogiri, the highest mountain in the world, is in clear weather distinctly visible; in that direction the valley is shut in by lofty hills, the steepest of which is crossed by the Chandanagiri pass.
The exhilarating effect of so glorious a scene seemed not to be lost upon the inhabitants themselves, and we observed among them the same merry and contented appearance as that which is so remarkable amongst the inhabitants of Switzerland and the Tyrol; indeed mountaineers in general either have much fewer troubles than lowlanders, or take them less to heart.
The Nepaulese, in common with most highland tribes, have strong religious feelings, and are bigoted adherents to a faith which they would find it somewhat difficult to define. One use to which they put their religion, and in which they far exceed even the Roman Catholics of the Alps, is, in making it furnish them with an almost unlimited number of holidays and festivals: no opportunity of merrymaking is lost by the light-hearted inhabitants of Nepaul, and in this respect they are at once distinguishable from their more gloomy and saturnine conquerors, the Ghorkas, who, glorying only in the art of war, look with contempt on what they consider the frivolity of the Newars.
There can be no doubt of the warlike character of the Ghorkas, even had not our own experience testified to the fact in a most unpleasant way. Not only are they brave and skilful soldiers, but, for a barbarous nation, they are wonderfully advanced in the art of fabricating the implements of war; they cast their own ordnance, manufacture their own muskets, shot, powder, and cartridge-boxes; in fact, every instrument or weapon used in civilized warfare is manufactured in Nepaul, often clumsily enough, but the mere fact of their being capable of being used, and used with effect, is highly creditable to the ingenuity of the Ghorkas.
The Newars are still more skilful artisans than the Ghorkas, but their talent does not lie in the same direction. The bricks of Nepaul are deservedly famed; whether the virtue lies in the clay of which they are formed, or the skill with which they are made, I do not know—most probably in both. The Newars excel also in bell-making; it is the trade of the land; they are all bell-makers from their youth, and proofs of their skill are exhibited hanging at the corners of pagodas, swinging from the roofs of houses, surmounting Dagobas—in fact, the device upon a Nepaulese banner should be a bell. In jewellery they are no less expert, and are elaborate workmen in all metals. A species of coarse paper is manufactured by them from the bark of a tree, which is first reduced to a pulp and then spread over a sheet and dried.
They are as excellent agriculturists as tradesmen, and the rich soil of the valley is not allowed by the industrious peasants to lie fallow a moment longer than is necessary.
At certain seasons every inhabitant capable of wielding the hoe is at work, and there is much incentive to such industry, for the soil is inexhaustible, and seems as if it could go on for an indefinite period yielding its four crops a year—namely, wheat, rice, Indian corn, and vegetables—supporting thereby a double population. The plough is never used. It struck me that the introduction of buffaloes from the plains would be advantageous in assisting the worthy Newar, whose religious scruples prevent his using the bullock. There is a species of small buffalo, which is a native of the Himalayas, but it is never brought down by the Bhootyas into the plains, nor even to Katmandu.
We went one day to visit the arsenal, which a veteran of the Nepaul army took an especial delight in exhibiting, and naturally looked for expressions of wonder and delight from the barbarians. But the only astonishment we felt was, that such a mass of fire-arms, so excessively old and so excessively dirty, should be thought worthy of being carefully ranged throughout the long dark rooms. In a corner of one of these rooms the light streamed brightly through a window on some old-fashioned firelocks bearing an English maker’s name; they were trophies of the war with the British, and were held worthy of conspicuous places in the Nepaul arsenal. The delighted old Colonel pointed these out to us with a laudable pride; he said the arsenal contained 100,000 stand of arms, and expected us to believe it. Had they been in proper order, the collection would have been of importance numerically considered.
Their artillery was insignificant, but they possessed trophies denied to many more powerful nations in a pair of brass 2-pounders, also taken from the British in the same disastrous campaign. I looked as abashed and mortified as I could, and pleased the Colonel exceedingly thereby. In the same establishment was carried on the process of manufacturing powder of a very coarse grain, and we were shown sundry store-rooms containing grape and canister.
Leaving the arsenal, we mounted our elephants, crossed the parade-ground and the river, and, passing through the massive gateway, reached the magazine, situated in the interior of the city, where we had an opportunity of witnessing the process of hammering iron into balls. The Nepaulese can produce no heat sufficient to cast balls, and are, consequently, obliged to beat them into the required shape, an almost endless operation. By this tedious process the making of each two-pound ball occupies two men a whole day, and costs, including other incidental charges, about a rupee, so that the expenses of a siege would come rather heavy upon the Government. All round the court-yard blacksmiths were forging and hammering, while in the middle of it a number of men were employed beating leather, so as to render it sufficiently pliable to undergo the process of being trodden soft, a curious operation, and fatiguing to the muscles of any other legs than those of the Nepaulese, who keep continually doubling up the leather and treading it out again, and putting their feet to all sorts of uses, in which, if we had properly cultivated the gifts of nature, we should, doubtless, be equally skilled. At present our great object is to make our feet look smaller than they naturally are, and even in that the Chinese excel us, civilized though we be. The result of so much beating and treading was a number of leather cartridge-boxes, which could not have been harder had they been deal; so the means did not justify the end, and perhaps after all we make better use of our feet than the Nepaulese tanners do.
In another part of the establishment was a gang of men engaged in twisting gun-barrels, turning out wonderful productions, considering the rude method employed.
The stocks were more easily fabricated, and the whole musket justified the pride with which it was exhibited; but Jung is no longer satisfied with the productions of the Nepaulese gunmakers. He visited a gun-manufactory at Birmingham, and was most disagreeably surprised by finding how different was the English mode of manufacturing the implements of war from that employed in Nepaul.
In England Jung had seen brass guns cast by the score during his short visit to the foundry. Here they were being cast at the rate of one every two or three months. The metal is not allowed to run into the mould in a continuous stream, but is ladled in, thereby rendering the gun liable to flaws. There were many other improvements which it would have been obvious to a practised eye were needed in the gun-factory of Nepaul; and it was plain enough that everything was rough and clumsy; but Jung had paid especial attention to these subjects while in England, and intends speedily to introduce an improved system. How long it will be ere he will have a steam-foundry established in Katmandu time alone can show.