From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

I called another day on Tribhovan Das, who is head of the Bunyas here—a large and influential merchant caste. He occupies the house which belonged to his father, Sir Mungal Das, who was member of the Bombay Legislative Council and a great man in his time both in wealth and influence. The house is a large one standing in the native city. We went and sat in state in a big drawing-room, and then made a tour of the other reception rooms and the library, and solemnly inspected and admired the works of art—oscillating models of ships in a storm, pictures with musical boxes concealed behind them, a huge automatic musical organ, wax-flowers and fruits in the library, fountains in the garden, etc.—all quite in the style of the reception rooms of wealthy natives twenty years or so ago. Tribhovan showed me over it all with that mingled air of childlike pride and intense boredom which I have noticed before in Orientals under the same circumstances; then took me out for a drive in his swagger barouche, with white horses and men in sky-blue livery—along the Malabar drive and up to the reservoir on the hill-top, a very charming seaside road, and thronged at that hour on Sunday evening with carriages and the motley aristocracy of the city. The view from the reservoir is famous. The Malabar hill is a promontory jutting southward into the sea, and occupied largely with villa residences. Westward from its summit you look over the open ocean, dotted with white sails; eastward, or south-eastward, across a narrow bay, is seen the long spit of flat land on which modern mercantile Bombay stands, with its handsome public buildings and long line of esplanade already at that hour beginning to twinkle with lamps. Beyond that spit again, and farther eastward, lies another much deeper and larger bay, the harbor proper, with masts of ships just discernible; and beyond that again are the hills of the mainland. At the base of the spit and a little inland lies the native portion of Bombay—largely hidden, from this point of view, by the masses of coco-nut trees which grow along its outskirts and amongst its gardens.

Tribhovan said he would much like to come to England, but that as head of the caste it was quite impossible. He told me that many people think the Bunyas took their dress (the cylindrical stiff hat like an English chimney-pot hat without a brim, and the long coat buttoned close round the neck) from the Parsees; but it was just the opposite—the Parsees when they came to India having adopted the dress of those Hindus amongst whom they first found themselves, namely the Bunyas.

Whilst driving back through the city we came upon a marriage ceremony going on—a garden full of lights, and crowds of people conversing and taking refreshments. Two houses opened on the same garden, and one of these was occupied for the occasion by the bridegroom and his friends, and the other by the bride. This is the orthodox arrangement, enabling the bridegroom to descend into the garden and go through the ceremony of taking his bride; and my host explained that houses thus arranged are often kept and let solely for this purpose—as few people have houses and gardens of their own large enough for the array of guests asked, or suitably built for the ceremony. In the thick of the city the bridegroom will sometimes manage to hire or get the loan of a house in the same street and opposite to that in which his bride dwells, and then the street is turned into a temporary garden with ornamental shrubs and branches, and lanterns are hung (for the ceremony is always in the evening) and chairs placed in rows, and a large part of the processions and festivities are as public as the gossips can desire. All this adds much to the charm of life in this most picturesque city.

The native theatres here are a great institution—crowded mostly by men and boys of the poorer sort—the performance a curious rambling business, beginning about 9 p.m. and lasting say till 2 or 3 in the morning! Murderous and sensational scenes carried out by faded girls and weak ambrosial youths, and protracted in long-drawn agonies of operatic caterwauling, with accompaniment of wondrous chromatic runs on the taus and a bourdon bass on some wind-instrument. Occasionally a few sentences spoken form a great relief. What makes the performance so long is the slowness of the action—worse even than our old-fashioned opera; if the youth is madly in love with the girl he goes on telling her so in the same “rag” for a quarter of an hour. Then she pretends to be indifferent, and spurns him in another “rag” for fifteen minutes more!

Another feature of Bombay now-a-days, and indeed of most of the towns of India, including even quite small villages, is the presence and work of the Salvation Army. I must say I am Philistine enough to admire these people greatly. Here in this city I find “Captain” Smith and young Jackson (who were on board ship with me coming out), working away night and day in the “cause,” and always cheerfully and with a smile on their faces—leading a life of extreme simplicity, penury almost, having no wages, but only bare board and lodging—with no chance even to return home if they get sick of the work, unless it were by the General’s order. “I should have to work my way back on board ship if I wanted to go, but I shall not want to go, I shall be happy here,” said Jackson to me. These two at any rate I feel are animated by a genuine spirit. Whatever one may think of their judgment or their philosophy, I feel that they really care for the lowest and most despised people and are glad to be friends and brothers with them—and after all that is better philosophy than is written in the books. They adopt the dress of the people and wear turbans and no shoes; and most of them merge their home identity and adopt a native name. Of course it is easy to say this is done out of mere religious conceit and bravado; but I am certain that in many cases it springs from something much deeper than that.

One day I joined a party of five of them on their way to the Caves of Elephanta—“Captain” and Mrs. Smith, “Sikandra” (Alexander), and two others. Mrs. Smith is a nice-looking and real good woman of about thirty years of age, and Sikandra is a boy of ability and feeling who has been out here about three years. They were all as nice and natural as could be (weren’t pious at all), and we enjoyed our day no end—a three hours’ sail across the bay in a lateen-sailed boat with two natives—the harbor a splendid sight, with its innumerable shipping, native fish-boats, P. and O. and other liners, two or three ironclads, forts, lighthouses, etc.—and then on beyond all that to the retired side of the bay and the islands; picnic on Elephanta Island under the shade of a great tamarind tree—visit to the caves, etc.; and return across the water at sundown.

Very Indian these islands—the hot smell of the ground covered with dead grass and leaves, the faint aromatic odor of sparse shrubs, with now and then a waft of delicious fragrance from the little white jessamine, the thorns and cactus, palms, and mighty tamarinds dropping their sweet-acid fruit. Then the sultry heat at midday, the sea lying calm and blue below in haze, through which the ridged and rocky mountains of the mainland indistinctly loom, and the far white sails of boats; nearer, a few humped cows and a collection of primitive huts, looking, from above, more like heaps of dead palm-leaves than human habitations.

THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA.

(Some of the rock-pillars being restored, sculptured figures visible in background.)