SIGHTS AND SCENES IN MADRAS.—THE INDIAN FAMINE.
What Frank and Fred saw and did during their visit to Madras is best told in their own words.
"After running the gauntlet of the crowd of natives on the beach, and getting a carriage, we drove to the principal hotel of the city. We found it a series of houses disconnected from each other, and the rooms that they gave us were in the building most distant of all from the dining-room. Peddlers and jugglers followed us to the door, and we had hard work to keep them out of our rooms till we called a servant, and told him to drive them away.
WESTERN ENTRANCE OF FORT GEORGE.
"We rode about Madras,and the first thing we went to see was the fort, which we reached by crossing a bridge at its western entrance. It covers a great deal of ground, and was a strong enough place before the improvements of the last twenty years in artillery. Its full name is Fort St. George,and it is designed to resist attack both by land and sea; on the side facing the sea it has a front of 1500 feet,and on the land side it has a double line of bomb-proof defences built of stone and covered with earth.
"We were surprised at the quantity of things in the fort. There were small guns of all the kinds you ever heard of, and some you never did; there were cannon captured in the various wars with the native princes and kings, cannon from China and other parts of the Far East, swords, pistols, muskets, firelocks, flags, wagons, saddles, spears, and a thousand other things that the auctioneers would say are too numerous to mention. The fort is large enough for a garrison of 1000 men, and in time of war it could hold many more. All the European inhabitants of Madras could be taken inside in case of trouble, but they would be crowded rather closely when their numbers were added to those of the garrison.
GOVERNOR'S RESIDENCE, FORT GEORGE.
"The Governor of the Presidency of Madras lives here, and his house is inside the fort. It is a great building two stories high, and has wide verandas, where there is plenty of air without the necessity of sitting in the sunlight. We saw elephants in the enclosure of the fort, some with soldiers on their backs, and others with great burdens of freight that they were employed in bringing inside. As we crossed the bridge we met an elephant, and a little farther on a camel, while down by the bank of the canal a couple of hump-backed oxen were looking into the water, and possibly admiring themselves. We have seen quite a lot of these oxen and cows to-day, and wherever they were grazing or standing idle under the trees the crows were perched on their backs, and seemed to be on good terms with the beasts. The crows here are as impudent as those of Ceylon, and we are told that we shall find them so all the way through India.
HUMP-BACKED COW.
"We went into the English church, which is a pretty building, but does not contain many objects of interest. The thing that attracted our attention most was a statue of Bishop Heber, who was formerly Bishop of Madras, and died at one of the interior cities of this presidency. He is best known to Americans as the author of the famous missionary hymn beginning,
"'From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand.'
"The story is that one Sunday he was to deliver a missionary sermon, and could not find an appropriate hymn to be sung after he had finished preaching. Half an hour before it was time to go to service he took his pen and wrote the hymn, which he handed to the leader of the choir as he entered the church. It was afterward printed, as we now see it, with the alteration of only three or four words.
"The statue of the bishop represents him standing and looking kindly on a native convert who sits at his feet. An odd thing about the church is the array of punkas, or large swinging fans, over the desks and pews; they are operated by pagan servants, who stand outside during service, and keep their employers cool while the latter are at their devotions.
MADRAS DHOBIES, OR WASHERMEN.
"In one part of our ride we passed the place where the dhobies, or washermen, perform their work. As we saw them, we understood how it is our clothes get so sadly knocked to pieces in this part of the world. They make your shirts up into a sort of club, and then pound with it on a rock till the linen is clean. No boiling and no rubbing; nothing but pounding and rinsing, and sometimes they help things along by folding some gravel in with the linen. We have had lots of handkerchiefs sent home with holes in the centre where they had been torn through by the gravel inside, and many of our socks have been burst open at the toes and ruined before being washed a third time. Half a dozen visits to the dhoby generally make the end of a shirt or other under-garment, and sometimes they will manage to finish it in three or four.
"The necessity for frequent change of linen, and the destructive manner of washing, makes the single item of under-linen a very costly one. Shirts should be made of the strongest material consistent with comfort, and not of the fine linen which most Americans are fond of. If you know anybody who is about starting on a journey around the world by way of India, tell him to get a dozen of the strongest white shirts he can before starting—or, if he does not bring them, he should have them made up in Yokohama or Hong-Kong.
"Madras covers an enormous extent of ground, for the reason that all the houses stand in large yards, or 'compounds,' as they call them here. Everybody has a whole army of servants to run his house, and these servants must be cared for; and they generally manage to have their families lodged somewhere on the premises, though the master is not supposed to know it. We met a gentleman to-day who is a bachelor, and lives with another bachelor, and he said that together they had fifteen servants. Another gentleman, with his wife and two children, said he had twenty-six servants in all, and at times he employed as many as thirty. We would write about this matter in detail, but Doctor Bronson suggests that we had best wait till we have seen more of East Indian life, and had a practical experience of existence in a land of castes and curious customs; so we'll put it off for a while.
A MADRAS BUNGALOW.
"A house where people live in India is called a bungalow, and a warehouse is named a godown. Bungalow is a Hindostanee word, and godown is a corruption of the Malay gadong, which means a warehouse. All through India these words are very generally used by Europeans, to the exclusion of the English names for the same things. Properly speaking, a bungalow is a house only one story high, and, owing to the great exertion required for climbing stairs in these hot countries, you rarely see a building of more than one story except in the cities.
"We visited two or three bungalows in the resident portion of Madras, and had an opportunity of looking through them. They had wide verandas, and the windows were covered with lattices and Venetian blinds to keep out the heat, while the floor was of brick or cement, for the sake of the superior coolness of those articles. Coir matting was laid over the floor to protect the bare feet of the occupants, and there were several punkas in each room to keep the air in circulation.
A PANKHÂ-WALLAH.
"We were quite interested in looking at the punkas, and learning how they work them. There is a certain class of servants, known as pankhâ-wallahs (punka-fellows), who work these fans, and are hired for that purpose at about three dollars a month, they boarding themselves. They stand outside and work the punka by means of a cord passing through a hole in the wall, so that while you are enjoying the strictest privacy, you may have the fan in motion above you. You have a punka over your bed, another over your bath-tub, another at your dressing-bureau, another over your dining-table, and another above your desk. Your body-servant calls out to your punkhâ-wallah, and has him shift from one cord to another as you move about your room, or go from one room to another. You have the punka in motion all day and all night somewhere, and for this purpose you must have two men to relieve each other. When you go to bed a basket of old shoes is placed where you can reach them, and you are fanned to sleep. If you wake perspiring in the night, and find the punka motionless, you may know that the pankhâ-wallah is taking a nap; you throw a shoe in his direction and thus awaken him, and immediately he resumes his duty.
"The side where the man pulls is the one that gets the air most vigorously circulated, for the reason that it is brought forward with a certain force, and goes back by its own weight. The people here call the one where the man pulls the Bombay side of the punka, and the other the Bengal side. We asked why it was, and they told us that when the south-west monsoon blows it comes with its full force from the sea upon the shores of the Bombay presidency; crossing the country and going over the mountains to Bengal, it expends its strength and becomes very weak. Therefore you see how the Bombay and Bengal sides of the punka get their names.
"They say that a good many inventions have been tried for substituting machinery for man power in working the punka, but none of them have succeeded, for the reason that the peculiar pull or impulse that is needed to put the air in motion can only be given by the human arm. Machinery works with regularity and a steady pull, and the real need of the punka is a jerk or extra force while the cord is being drawn, followed by a complete relaxation of the cord to allow the fan to go back and get ready to be drawn forward again.
"We went through the bazaars, but did not find them very interesting. The shops are small, and the best goods are hidden from sight; at all events we were not able to see anything of great value, and we had neither time nor inclination to compel the merchants to display their wares when we had very little thought of buying anything. We did not find the streets particularly clean in the native quarter, and a short stay among them was quite sufficient. There was some very pretty brass-ware in a few of the shops, and they showed us a lot of handsome filigree work in silver, which was said to have been made at Trichinopoly. The latter place is famous for its silver work, and the result is that a good deal of what is made in other places is sold for the genuine article.
NATIVE MERCHANT OF MADRAS.
"There are many natives of Madras engaged in business with Englishmen, and they have a considerable amount of the import and export trade in their hands; and nearly every European house has one or more natives attached to it, somewhat after the manner of the compradores in China and Japan, as they save the manager a great deal of trouble in dealing with the inhabitants of the country. These native merchants are said to be very shrewd in their operations, and anybody who supposes they are verdant would find out his mistake as soon as he began to bargain with them.
"The natives of Madras are said to be of darker complexions and smaller figures than the inhabitants of the country farther north; some of them are almost as dark as negroes, but their features do not resemble those of the African in any way. They are very picturesque in their gay-colored robes and large turbans, and as you see them with their vast head-coverings you wonder how they can endure so much weight on their heads in this hot country. The turban, as it is worn here, contains many yards of muslin, and it is not an easy matter to wrap it so that it will stay in place. It is doubtful if a European could endure a turban which prevents the circulation of air around the brain; undoubtedly the best head-covering for the foreigner is the sola-topee, or sun-hat, which every European wears, and could not be persuaded to get along without; but you never see one of them on the head of a native unless he has adopted the entire European dress.
"We have seen a good many Eurasians, or people descended from European parents on one side and Asiatic on the other. Their position is an unhappy one, as they will not associate with the natives, and, on the other hand, they are not allowed to associate with the Europeans. Despising the one, and despised by the other, they have no recognized social standing, and no one speaks well of them.
"The saddest thing we have seen is a camp of the victims of the famine. Every little while in America we read of famines in India, but none of us know much about them, as the country is far away, and we are not bound to it by any ties of kindred. The people are so poor and so heavily taxed that it takes all they can earn to support them in times of plenty; when the crops fail they have nothing laid by to live upon, and must starve. This year they have had famines in two parts of India, one in the Madras presidency and one in Bengal, that of Madras being the worst. It is said that a million of people have died of starvation in Madras, and half that number in Bengal. Think of a number as great as all the inhabitants of New York city perishing of hunger, and then judge what a calamity it must be!
"A great many persons are inclined to blame the British authorities for the famines in India, and it is undoubtedly the fact that the high taxation has much to do with the poverty of the people. On the other hand, the Government has done a great deal in the way of constructing irrigation works that will keep the land fertile in times of drought, and it has built roads so that provisions may be carried from the places where they are abundant to where they are most needed. The failure of the rains is the cause of the famines; the south-west monsoon (which brings the rain) is looked for with great anxiety all over India, and is considered of so much importance that its arrival is telegraphed to the newspapers of Europe and America. When you read in the telegraphic column that the monsoon has burst in the provinces of Central India, you may know that all fears of famine for the year are over, unless, as sometimes happens, the rains are so great in quantity that they flood the fields, and prevent the farmers from performing their work.
"Notwithstanding the poverty of the people, we are told that the land-tax in India is increased every few years, and in many districts it is absolutely impossible for the people to pay it. Doctor Bronson says that thoughtful persons, who have studied the relations between England and India, say the latter country is fast going to bankruptcy in consequence of the oppressions that are steadily increasing. The taxes have grown so great that they are now more than one-eighth of all that the country produces, and in some parts of India they are one-sixth! Think of what would happen in America if one-sixth of all the wheat, corn, cotton, and other products, and a sixth of all that is manufactured was paid over for taxes. We should be in a state of poverty quite equal to these people in a short time.
"In the camp that we visited we saw some poor wretches who were just able to crawl, and some that had been brought in on stretchers, because they were too weak to stand. There was hardly any flesh on their bones, their cheeks were sunken and hollow, and their eyes seemed to be half forced from their sockets. They lay on the ground—some under the tents, and some in the open air—and many of them were so far gone that they had not strength to feed themselves. They did not appear to complain, and one of the officers in charge of the camp told us that they were exceedingly patient, and rarely caused any trouble. Poor creatures! they were too weak to do so, however much they might have had the inclination.
"These people had been brought to Madras from the famine districts, and we were told that similar camps were scattered along the line of the railway wherever the crops had failed. It had been found easier to feed them in camps than to distribute food to them in their villages, as there was a great deal of loss by theft, and in other ways, in making the distribution. The natives seem to have very little regard for each other, and, if half that has been told us is true, it is an eternal disgrace to this people. Large sums of money were raised in England for the sufferers by the famine, and the British Government made a heavy contribution for the same purpose. With this money rice was bought in Rangoon and shipped to Madras, and from there it was sent by rail to the famine districts. The boatmen at Madras demanded exorbitant prices for landing it, and two or three times they struck for extra pay because they knew that the Government was anxious to get the rice forward as rapidly as it could. They tore open the sacks and stole a large share of what they took on shore, and when they had done so they did not take the trouble to sew the sacks again, but let the rice spill on the ground. The carters who took it to the railway-station continued the theft, and in some instances fully ten or fifteen per cent. of the rice was lost between the ship and the railway-station, and there were cases where the loss was more than thirty per cent.
"Well, that's enough about this unpleasant subject. We'll turn to something else.
A MADRAS PALKEE.
"For the first time in our lives we have seen people riding in palanquins, or palkees, as they call them here. The vehicle is a box about seven feet long and four wide, and it has lattice sides to allow the air to circulate. The bottom is covered with a neat mat, and the passenger who is to ride in it must lie down and place his head on a pillow with which the palkee is provided, while he puts his hat on a shelf above his feet. We have not yet tried a palkee ride, and when we do we'll be able to tell more about it. In a general way it looks like a very uncomfortable thing to ride in, and you can see very little from the windows on account of your position. There is a pole at each end, which is braced by iron rods, so that it can sustain the weight of the box and a person inside. Four men are required to carry it; and at night there are one or more torch-bearers, whose duty it is to light the way and frighten off any wild animals that come near. These fellows are not very brave; and at the first indication of danger they run away, and are followed by the bearers, who drop the box on the ground and leave the inmate to take care of himself.
"The people of Madras have tried hard to make a harbor, so as to avoid the terrible surf that breaks on the coast, but all their efforts have not amounted to much. They began to make a harbor, some years ago, by running a couple of breakwaters out from the shore; but somehow, as fast as they built them, the sea made a protest by 'silting,' or filling up the enclosed space with sand. Next they built an iron pier running out beyond the breakers: it stands on piles, and has a lot of cranes along its sides for hoisting goods out of the large flat-boats, or lighters, that are used here. But the pier cost a great deal of money, and they have been obliged to make so high a toll for using it that it is almost abandoned when the weather is at all suitable for passing through the surf.
"We came back to the steamer by this pier, and paid a toll of about ten cents each for using it. Our boat was at the foot of some long stairs, and it bobbed up and down about three or four feet each time, and very rapidly. We had to watch our chances and jump when it rose. Two of us got in all right, but the third did not jump soon enough by a couple of seconds, and when he struck the bottom of the boat he went sprawling on the brushwood and in the water that splashed up through it; but we escaped without a wetting, and that is more than everybody does.
"The captain of the steamer says, when the sea is so rough that they cannot pass the surf, and the boat dances too much at the foot of the stairs, people are landed by means of the cranes that they use for hoisting goods. The boat goes in under the crane, and a bucket is lowered down and allowed to rest on the boat's bottom; then the passenger gets into the tub, sits down and clings to the handles, and when all is ready the men on the dock hoist away. It is rather trying to a nervous person; but at any rate it is better than being half or wholly drowned in the surf."