As for the ladies, they generally wore stockings and over them long drawers or breeches, fitting tightly to the lower part of the leg and very full above. They had jackets and voluminous scarves called “chuddars.” I believe the breeches were sewn on! One of the sisters wore yellow as a prevailing colour, and had bare arms and feet. The other had a magnificent gold embroidered crimson velvet jacket, a green chuddar, and pink stockings. These ladies were both married, but the husband of one was in a lunatic asylum. There was also present a female cousin, but she, being a widow, was all in white and wore no jewels except one or two armlets.
BREAKFAST IN A ZENANA
Our breakfast was spread on a long table under the colonnade where we had dined the previous night. We had then sat on chairs at a regular dining-table, but this was only raised a few inches from the ground and we sat on the floor, which was covered with a white cloth. The table was thickly covered with piled-up dishes containing principally all kinds of curry and rice cooked in different ways. Water was the main drink, but anyone who liked could ask for coffee. Everyone had plates, and the Englishwomen were provided with spoons and forks, but the Indian ladies ate (very tidily) with their fingers, over which attendants poured water after breakfast. The two sisters (half-sisters really) sat side by side, and laughed and chattered incessantly. Miss White, a lady doctor who was present, interpreted anything they had to say, but they were just merry, talkative children with no real interest in anything beyond their clothes, food, and jewels. Miss White said that they knew, and taught their children, nothing. I should say that they were the most ignorant of all the native ladies whom I have met in India, but certainly not the least happy, and apparently quite contented.
CHAPTER VIII
MADRAS, CALCUTTA, AND BENARES
From Hyderabad we went to Madras to fulfil our promise of paying a visit to Mr. Bourke, who had now become Lord Connemara. We stayed there for over three weeks and became much interested in the Presidency. Being rather remote from the usual routes of visitors it is perhaps less known, and has been called the “Benighted Presidency,” but many of the natives are exceptionally intelligent, and there appears to be more opportunity than in some other parts of India of seeing the Hindu faith in working order and less affected than elsewhere by the influence of the Mohammedan conquerors. Lord Connemara’s Private Secretary, Mr. Rees (afterwards Sir John Rees, so sadly killed by falling from a train) was very kind in securing two Brahmins of different varieties of the Hindu faith to come and talk to me and explain their views—both spoke excellent English. One was a Munshi who belonged to the “Advaita” sect, which holds that everything is part of the Divinity; the other—an ascetic—held a refined form of what is called the “Sankhya” philosophy, which presupposes eternal matter with which the Eternal Mind unites itself. After all, such fine drawn distinctions are quite congenial to the spirit of the early Gnostics, the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and even to Christians of to-day who are ready to start fresh communities from differences on tenets which seem to the ordinary mind without practical bearing on the Two Great Commandments.
BRAHMIN PHILOSOPHERS
To return to my Brahmin friends. Both those here mentioned and others to whom I have spoken claim a faith certainly different from the vast mass of the Indian peoples. They claim to believe in One God, and say that all proceed from Him and that all effort should be directed to reabsorption into Him. Good acts tend to this result by the gradual purification in successive incarnations of “Karma,” which may perhaps be described as the residuum of unconquered passions and unexpiated sins after death. When the Munshi was explaining this theory of upward progress Mr. Rees asked him what happened to devil-worshippers and such like out-caste races. “They go to hell,” was the prompt reply. Observing my look of surprise, Ramiah hastened to add, “Oh, we have plenty of hells, twenty, thirty, forty”—evidently thinking that I was astounded not at the sweeping perdition of his countrymen, but at the probably overcrowded condition of the infernal regions.