Much of the scenery in India is monotonous and uninteresting, but the tropical vegetation is always attractive. We pass palms in all stages of growth, stalwart, untutored banyans, graceful, delicate bamboos, plantains, the scarlet-blossoming cotton tree, the feathery, fir like casuarina, some squares of sugar-cane and covered spaces for the cultivation of the betel-nut, which has a smooth green leaf, not unlike the plantain, and which, mixed with a preparation of lime and spices, is used by the natives for chewing, quite as much as tobacco is with the western nations. The scarlet lips, tongue and gums, which result from using this leaf, are quite as disagreeable to see as the disgusting effects of tobacco chewing.
White paddi birds hover over the marshes, and groups of cattle are grazing in the meadows. At the tanks, which abound everywhere in India, and which are often partially covered with a green scum, the natives are bathing, or washing soiled linen, or carrying water away for cooking purposes! The railway stations remind one of England, they are so neat and tasteful and attractive with their blossoming shrubs and potted plants. Dracænas grow here seven feet high, and these with other foliage plants, and the showy, scarlet poincettia and magenta bougainvillia are oftenest seen at the railway stations. Occasionally we pass near a small village. The mud huts, with their drooping thatched roof, are surrounded by palms and plantains, and stand near a tank of water. The native Indian has no idea of privacy. One sometimes sees a whole population out in the streets cleaning their teeth. No man in India thinks of shaving himself, but instead of our luxurious modern appliances, the barber and his victim go out on the sidewalk, sit opposite each other on their haunches, and the deed is done in the face of the world. The barber is an important member of the community. He often acts as village doctor, and, in some parts of India, helps to arrange marriages. There are very few beggars to be seen in India, except such as are religious mendicants by profession. There is no poor law, but the patriarchal system obliges every wealthy head of a family to provide for his poor relations to the twentieth cousin.
In Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow memories of the Sepoy mutiny of 1857, and all its attendant horrors, fill the air. Cawnpore is pre-eminently a memorial town. Every trace of the buildings where the fiendish massacre occurred has vanished, and now one looks abroad on shaded avenues, beautiful gardens, a quiet cemetery, and broad stretches of green turf. Over the ghastly well stands the colossal white marble figure of an angel leaning against a cross and bearing palm branches.
The architectural beauty of Benares as a city of temples and palaces, and its characteristic features as a sacred, pilgrim city can best be seen by a sail on the river soon after sunrise. The city is built tier above tier on a cliff which stretches along the bank of the river for three miles. From the heights numerous flights of stone steps lead down to the water, and these are thronged by devotees who begin the day by a bath in the Ganges. It is evidently a religious act, for although there are crowds of men of all ages, there is no frivolity and very little conversation. The women keep by themselves, but they have no entirely separate bathing place. As our boat glided along we came to the burning ghât, where we paused and saw the flames already lighted about one body. Another body, wound about in red figured cotton, was lifted from the bier and placed on the funeral pyre. It seemed all the more shocking because life had so recently departed that there was none of the rigidity of death, and the limp form might, from all appearance, have belonged to one in sleep. While we lingered the clang of discordant instruments told of the approach of a funeral procession. The body is carried on a rude bier constructed like a ladder, and borne on the shoulders of men who shuffle and jostle along in no very reverent manner. The bearers carry the corpse into the Ganges and leave it there, that the sacred waters may flow over it before cremation. In the early morning we saw these three phases of a Hindu funeral and, sailing on, still another yet more shocking sight was revealed to us, for we caught a glimpse, just under the surface of the water, of a naked, swollen, floating human body, and above it the vultures were hovering. Leaving our boat, we walked a long distance through the narrow winding streets of the city to one of the largest and most frequented temples, where is the famous “Well of Salvation,” into which worshipers throw flowers until there is the most fearful stench rising from this putrid mass of decaying matter, and yet this loathsome stuff the deluded devotees drink, as they believe it will wash away the blackest crimes. Haste and dissatisfaction seemed the predominant mood of every mind.
Calcutta takes its name from Kali, the goddess of vengeance. Situated on the river Hooghly, ninety miles from the sea, its heat is more oppressive than that of Bombay, and in no respect is the city as attractive. A day at Serampore, an early morning visit to the Kalighat, an excursion to Darjeeling, from which point we had a view of the snowy range of the Himalayas, a morning in the botanical gardens, where we linger under the great banyan tree, which covers a space of ground eight hundred feet in circumference, and whose far-reaching branches are supported by nearly two hundred trunks, some of them a hundred feet in height, drives on the Maidan at sunset, and many visits to mission schools and zenanas, under the auspices of American ladies, fill with delightful experiences our two weeks in this city.
Four days by steamer across the Bay of Bengal and we are beyond the break-water in the harbor of Madras. As soon as our ship drops anchor we are surrounded by masulah boats and catamarans. The former are curious constructions, sewed together to outride safely the furious dashing of the Madras surf, while the latter are fishing boats, formed of three logs scooped out a little into the canoe shape, and manned by a single naked native. Nothing but British pluck and enterprise, or American daring, would have attempted to build a city on a site so utterly unpropitious as Madras. On an inhospitable coast, exposed to the northeast monsoon and to the unsheltered glare of a scorching sun, stands a thriving city of four hundred thousand inhabitants. Although warned against venturing into Southern India after the first of March, we find the heat less intolerable here than in Calcutta. Scotch hospitality makes our week in Madras altogether enjoyable, and then we are off to Bangalore, a hill station and the chief military post of Southern India. After a pause of two days, we proceed to Trichinopoly, where Bishop Heber met death from apoplexy, in his forty-fifth year.
On our railway journey to this place we passed cacti, with pale yellow and magenta blossoms. Strange aquatic birds stood lazily in the marshes. Numerous weavers’ nests hung on the trees along the wayside. These weavers are an industrious and happy community. They work diligently in the construction of their nests, and have harmonious relations with each other, stopping now and then in the midst of their activities, as if by mutual understanding, to indulge in a little concert, and when their burst of melody is over they resume their nest-building. It is said that they light up their homes by attaching a glow worm to a fresh bit of mud, which is plastered on the inside of the nest. The freshness of the early morning is succeeded by dry heat as the sun rises higher and higher with torrid beams. We see the natives quench their thirst with the milk of green cocoanuts, but we dare not indulge in its use. The pampas grass waves and glistens in the sunlight; enormous ant-hills are seen surrounding dead stumps or standing unsupported on level plains; green parrots and gorgeous butterflies chase each other unmindful of the heat, and toward noon we see the famous rock and huge gopuras of Trichinopoly across the rice fields. In spite of the fierce heat which overwhelms us with drowsiness, we take a carriage in the middle of the afternoon for the temples of Seringham. On our way we pass a horse which has dropped dead with sun-stroke. Europeans are something of a novelty here, and we are followed by a crowd of men and boys as soon as we leave our carriage to walk through the pillared hall of the temple. From the flat stone roof we obtain an idea of the extent of this great pagoda, which is seven miles in circumference and includes many bazars and streets of Brahmin’s houses. From the summit of the rock of Trichinopoly, which rises two hundred and fifty feet above the town, we see the sun set, a fiery ball. Northward lies Seringham, with its dark gateways rising out of a sea of green foliage; eastward we look toward Tanjore, where the Danish missionary, Schwartz, lies buried; to the south and west stretches the town of Trichinopoly. The clang of heathenish music is going on in the adjoining temple of Siva. On our descent we come upon one of the temple elephants, with bells hung on each side to announce his approach. He makes a salaam to us and picks up most adroitly with his trunk a tiny bit of silver which we offer him, passing it up to his rider. It is curious to see the great creature come down the stone steps with apparent ease.
At Madura we were in a thoroughly American atmosphere of kindliness and cordiality. Even the American rocking-chair was not wanting to make us feel at home. Here we met the faithful workers in the Madura mission, and studied the fruits of their forty years of labor. Seven hours’ railway ride over a flat, fertile but uninteresting country, with the mercury at 95°, and we reach our last stopping place in India, Tuticorin, from which port we take steamer for Colombo, on the island of Ceylon. As our ship moved away from this southernmost point of the Indian Continent we looked back at the neat little town, once famous for its pearl fisheries, and all our memories since landing at Bombay seemed to gather into one entire and perfect pearl.
Twenty-four hours pass and we are in the harbor of Colombo within the shelter of the substantial breakwater of artificial pressed stone. The heat, although greatly tempered by the sea breeze, is like that of a vapor bath. One of the largest and best conducted hotels we have seen in this part of the world receives us, and we are immensely amused by the costume of the Singalese waiters, who present a most ladylike appearance. They wear long white petticoats and round-about jackets, while the hair is combed back from the forehead, fastened in a knot behind, and ornamented with a yellow tortoise shell comb. This extraordinary style of dressing the hair has existed since the days of Ptolemy, who describes it. It seems a strange incongruity to see a beard and mustache, a comb and a chignon on the same head. One of our party says that while he can affiliate the world over with “a man and a brother,” he declines to have anything to do with a man and a sister. A few hours in Colombo, and we are off to Kandy, a hill station seventy-five miles distant. We are fortunate in having with us Mr. Fergusson, one of the best botanists of this region. Vegetable life flourishes here in rank, riotous luxuriance. We pass palmyra, cocoanut, and talipot palms; cinnamon fields; coffee plantations, and rice growing on artificial terraces like hanging gardens. The red and pink lantennæ that we cultivate in our home gardens grows and blossoms by the wayside with the freedom of the commonest weed. At one of our stopping places we buy mangoes and rose-apples, and green cocoanuts containing a cool, delicious milk. The cocoanut water was most refreshing, but the mangoes were far inferior to our peaches, and the rose-apples were more agreeable to the eye than to the palate.
How exhilarating were the first whiffs of mountain air and the first glimpse of wooded hills and deep valleys after the steaming heat and monotonous flatness of the plains! All through the bright hours of this Saturday afternoon we climbed ever higher and higher through scenery combining Alpine grandeur with tropical luxuriance, until sunset found us at Kandy, the sacred city of the Buddhists. In the center of the town is a picturesque lake, fringed with tall, graceful bamboos, whose feathery branches sway with the slightest breeze, and in repose look like fountains of green spray shooting up into the deep blue sky. Hills rise on either side, on whose slopes are coffee plantations. There are a number of pagoda-shaped temples here, one of which contains that holy relic, the pretended tooth of Buddha. The people of this region are much more vigorous and manly than the Singalese of the coast, and the chignon and comb seem still more absurd when worn by this energetic, war-like race.