Several of those present maintained that it was quite a mistake to say the Mahomedans are against the Congress; a certain section of them is, but only a section, and education is every day tending to destroy these differences and race-jealousies. I put the question seriously to them whether they really thought that within 50 or 100 years all these old race-differences, between Mahomedan and Hindu, Hindu and Eurasian, or between all the sections of Hindus, would be lost in a sense of national unity. Their reply was, “Yes, undoubtedly.” Education, they thought, would abolish the ill-feeling that existed, and indeed was doing so rapidly; there would soon be one common language, the English; and one common object, namely the realisation of Western institutions. Whether right or not in their speculations, it is interesting to find that such is the ideal of hundreds of thousands of the bulk-people of India now-a-days. Everywhere indeed one meets with these views. The Britisher in India may and does scoff at these ideals, and probably in a sense he is right. It may be (indeed it seems to me quite likely to be) impossible for a very long time yet to realise anything of the kind. At the same time who would not be touched by the uprising of a whole people towards such a dream of new and united life? And indeed the dream itself—like all other dreams—is a long step, perhaps the most important step, towards its own realisation.
Thus we chatted away till about midnight, when with mutual compliments, and the usual presents of flowers to the parting guest, we separated. These fellows evidently prize a little English society very much; for though they learn our language in the schools and use it in the business of every-day life, it rarely, very rarely, happens that they actually get into any friendly conversation with an Englishman; and I found that I was able to give them useful information—as for instance about methods of getting books out from England—and to answer a variety of other questions, which were really touching in the latent suggestion they contained of the utter absence of any such help under ordinary circumstances. It struck me indeed how much a few unpretending and friendly Englishmen might do to endear our country to this people.
SIDE CAVE, ELEPHANTA.
It is quite a sight at night walking home—however late one may be—to see on the maidans and open spaces bright lamps placed on the dusty turf, and groups of Parsees and others sitting round them on mats—playing cards, and enjoying themselves very composedly. Round the neighborhood of the Bunder quay and the club-houses and hotels the scene is rather more gay and frivolous. How pleasant and cool the night air, and yet not too cool! The darkies sleep out night-long by hundreds in these places and on the pavements under the trees. They take their cloths, wrap them under their feet, bring them over their heads, and tuck them in at the sides; and lie stretched straight out, with or without a mat under them, looking for all the world like laid-out corpses.
* * * * *
Indian Ocean.—On the way to Aden. The harbor of Bombay looked very beautiful as we glided out in the SS. Siam—with its variegated shore and islands and shipping. I went down into my berth to have a sleep, and when I awoke we were out of sight of India or any land. Most lovely weather; impossible to believe that England is shivering under a March sky, with north-east winds and gloom. The sea oily-calm; by day suffused with sunlight up to the farthest horizon—only broken, and that but seldom, by the back-fin of a porpoise, or the glance of flying-fish; by night gleaming faintly with the reflection of the stars and its own phosphorescence. Last night the sea was like a vast mirror, so smooth—every brighter star actually given again in wavering beauty in the world below—the horizon softly veiled so that it was impossible to tell where the two heavens (between which one seemed suspended) might meet. All so tender and calm and magnificent. Canopus and the Southern Cross and the Milky Way forming a great radiance in the south; far ahead to the west Orion lying on his side, and Sirius, and the ruddy Aldebaran setting. Standing in the bows there was nothing between one and this immense world—nothing even to show that the ship was moving, except the rush of water from the bows—which indeed seemed an uncaused and unaccountable phenomenon. The whole thing was like a magic and beautiful poem. The phosphorescent stars (tiny jelly creatures) floating on the surface kept gliding swiftly over those other stars that lay so deep below; sometimes the black ocean-meadows seemed to be sown thick with them like daisies. The foam round the bows lay like a luminous necklace to the ship, and fell continually over in a cascade of brilliant points, while now and then some bigger jelly tossed in the surge threw a glare up even in our faces.
One might stand for hours thus catching the wind of one’s own speed—so soft, so mild, so warm—the delicate aroma of the sea, the faint far suggestion of the transparent air and water, wafting, encircling one round. And indeed all my journey has been like this—so smooth, so unruffled, as if one had not really been moving. I have several times thought, and am inclined to think even now, that perhaps one has not left home at all, but that it has been a fair panorama that has been gliding past one all these months.