They receive their stipulated wages, traveling expenses defrayed by the employer, but added to this is a constant appeal to your sympathies; for instance: "I am just in receipt of news from home. My son is lying (great stress on son) very ill. My mother has no money to employ a doctor. What am I to do if the good lady will not assist me to send some help to her?" It has been proven that these same applicants have no family and have recklessly spent their allowance in riotous living on their journey. We have to provide a winter outfit if it is cold, such as a night blanket of cotton cloth, and some clothing—for during the heated term clothing is unnecessary—and pay for the return trip to their home, without we find travelers going the same route we have just taken, and if the servants have merited a recommendation we give it to them and are thus relieved ourselves. We found one of the tricks of the trade was for the coolie to secure a returning party—we will say, to make ourselves lucid, from Bombay to Calcutta—but to keep the matter secret from us so that we might give them a return ticket, which they could easily sell. In spite of our experience there must be some good and true natives, for her majesty, Queen Victoria, has for her closest body-servant the Indian, chosen for his submission and faithfulness.
Our journey to Benares was at night, because of the freedom from dust and heat. The early dawn found us awake and peeping out of shutters for a sight of the country through which we were passing. The stations are well built, and crowds of natives, men and women, flock there on arrival of trains, offering for sale flowers, sweets, fruits, the cocoanut, lemons and a sort of banana. At your desire the cocoanut, nicely scraped and clean, will be broken so that you may quaff at your leisure what must be to them a delicious cool drink—a little goes a good way with me. It is well to be supplied with plenty of their small coin, for they are so slow in making the necessary change that the car has proceeded on its way before they have accomplished the task.
The experience of one of our party was a lesson to us. A gentleman from California, desiring some nuts or fruit, gave in exchange a pound in gold—all he had at hand. The train started, but all in vain were his protestations; the speed increased, and what was most provoking, was to see at a safe distance the naked boy running, apparently, trying to overtake us, but laughing immoderately at the joke—he will get his reward. This reminds me of a story to the point. On one occasion in my own native land I had an appeal made for help for a poor family. Having often allowed my heart to run away with my head, I determined this time to be forearmed. So I visited the house of distress, found things clean and tidy, but cupboards empty and a man in bed, supposed to be the husband of the woman who had sought my aid. It was with apparent difficulty he spoke to me. I hurried to order from the adjacent market a full supply for several days. After exhausting my strength I felt myself unable to go farther into the city where I could replace an undershirt his loving spouse said had been stolen from the clothes line, and his need of a change was most pressing. On my way home, tired and footsore, I resolved to call on a neighboring friend where gentlemen were more plentiful than with me, and ask for cast-off underwear. On interrogating me, my friend laughed to see my distress, and informed me it was an old trick of the woman. The sick man was a perfectly strong, well man—and rarely was the same man on exhibition. Alack, for me! I had, during the day, met our pastor, Mr. Monroe Gibson, and begged that he might call at his earliest convenience, lest the dying man might go out of the world without a prayer, for his soul's salvation. In the twilight I retraced my steps to tell Mr. Gibson how, in common parlance, "I had been sold." After a sympathetic look, he in his Scotch brogue said: "Well, never mind; you remember the man who put a crown in the contribution box where he intended to put a penny and, on retiring from the church, went to the man who had charge of the alms box and told him that he had made a mistake. The pastor did not offer to refund it, but simply said: 'Brother, you will have your reward in heaven'" (for a good intention, not for the amount given).
Low mud houses, hid among the palms, afforded shelter from the sun during the noonday hours. Men, women and children, the former and latter nude or scantily clad, grouped together along the road; the faces of the women were partially veiled. The scene is rather picturesque, with the chatter of the monkeys and the singing of bright plumaged birds. They lend some animation to the otherwise barren prospects. We learn there are common schools throughout the country for the male population, but women are uneducated except in religious art and duties. Government no longer tolerates the wife sacrificing her body on the pyre of her dead husband; but death is preferable to a life of widowhood, owing to the self-denial forced upon her by his family.
The climate of India is conducive to economy in clothing, as little, if any, is needed. The diet of the native would be starvation in a cooler clime. A mud hut gives the needed shelter, and the offal of the animals, dried in cakes on the sides of their hovels, give them sufficient fuel to boil their rice and other vegetables. The masses have never known anything but oppression; they are apparently kind to man and beast. We never heard any wrangling, nor witnessed any street brawls. A native will step aside, rather than tread upon an ant, which is the pest of the country.
Benares is sixteen hours' ride from Calcutta, a distance of 450 miles. We find there Clark's Hotel patronized by tourists, on the outskirts of the city, a refreshing looking spot and most restful bungalow. We rested under the cool shades of the palm trees until a favorable hour, and then drove to the "Holiest of Holy Cities," situated on the Ganges river, once alike holy to the Buddhist as it is now to the Hindoo. The sacred, the three-fold divine river, runs, according to their religion, through Heaven, Hell and Earth. To die on its banks, and to have one's ashes thrown upon its bosom, is a through ticket to Paradise. Troops of men, women and children, tired and footsore, are met wending their way to the shrines. To bathe in the Ganges is to wash away all sins.
Crowds throng the narrow, dusty streets; the women rather gracefully attired, with a profusion of silver ornaments, ear-rings, nose-rings, bracelets and bangles; the men nude or with a scant loin cloth. The houses are built of clay, sun baked, some of brick, stuccoed, ancient as time in appearance, unfit for habitation, but are grouped among the shops and temples in close proximity. The monkey temple is especially interesting, surrounded by well wooded grounds where the monkeys frisk and frolic all day long and are fed by an admiring crowd, who regard them as sacred animals. These temples are reached by a long flight of stone steps, which I found myself slowly climbing, when, without warning, I was rudely pushed to one side. On looking around, I saw a diminutive grey cow ascending the steps with great dignity, and it was the contact with this animal that had so shocked me. I quickened my gait, and in my attempt to get out of the way. I rushed into the first opening that met my view, which proved to be the entrance to the temple grounds, set apart for these sacred cows. The animal was close beside me and I vaulted like a school boy to a neighboring ledge of rock. I became agile from fear, but the fright occasioned by the cow's triumphant entry was nothing to the brandishing of arms of the natives in charge. I was brushed aside like a fly in the sacred enclosure, where no heretic was allowed to enter. Truly, I felt far from home! Garlands of marigolds, kept fresh at wells of water, are sold to devotees to lay at the feet or to encircle the gods of brass and stone that are seen in every direction. We are not permitted to enter a Hindoo temple, but get a glimpse in passing of their tinselled gaudiness. This seething caldron, where beasts usurp the rights of men, women and children, who are all bowing down to objects of wood and stone, is a sight one may long for—but once in a lifetime is quite satisfactory, and we gladly withdraw.
The early dawn of day finds us driving through the already crowded streets on our way to the "Ghats." Boats lie in readiness to convey us along the sacred shore of the Ganges, for but one bank is consecrated; the opposite shore seems a dreary waste. For miles homes and sacred structures are reared; here and there massive ruins attest the powers of the Ganges' floods on solid masonry. From a distance it is picturesque, but on close inspection has a most dilapidated appearance. The well-built stone steps, or Ghats, are crowded at this early hour with pilgrims and devotees wrapped in their white robes. They wade out into the holy stream, bowing and drinking double hands full of water, so nauseous in appearance, and taking off from themselves garlands of marigolds, throw them on the surface of the water, then wash their mouths, and return on shore for certain ministrations that the priests stood in readiness to perform for them, which seemed to complete the purification. Their caste was manifested by certain marks made with ashes or paint on their foreheads.
From the upper deck of our small steamer we overlook the ceremony of cremation, not unlike that we had seen in Calcutta. The bodies were wrapped in crimson-colored cheese cloth and laid upon a rude bier composed of two poles, laced together with rope; so near the water were these bodies placed that the feet were completely covered. We were told that very sick persons were brought when dying, and the immersion in the holy water would bring about a reaction, and restoration to health would ensue. No mourners were around the body, and those who ministered at the cremation were ostracized socially, being considered unclean for a certain length of time, and are of the lowest caste. The sheik who has charge of the burning has the ashes thoroughly sifted to secure any jewelry that may have been on the body, and as theft is often committed by the men employed to rake up the ashes, great disputes arise in consequence.
The colossal form in stone of the "God Beem" lies prostrate on the ground, and women in peril of childbirth come in throngs on moonlight nights to pray for the safe deliverance of a son; girls are at a discount in the Orient. We saw a man stretched upon a bed of spikes, paying penance for some sin committed, or to find favor by self-abnegation with his god. When we appeared, incredulous as to the actual facts, the man arose to show the pierced flesh and the sharp points of which his bed was composed. The upholding of an arm until the flesh withers, and the limb stiffens, is most revolting. These devotees allow their finger nails to become, so extended that they look like claws, or more like the roots of a tree seen in Ceylon, which lie on top of the ground. We are privileged to visit the palace of the Maha Rajah, which is quite a distance from Benares and on the unconsecrated shore of the Ganges. Numbers of naked coolies run along the shore, pulling with all their strength on the ropes attached to the boat. When we arrive opposite the palace we are transferred to a raft, which is rowed and pushed to the landing. The gloomy structure rises before us, and the approach to it is rather intricate, through courtyards much littered up with debris. As we enter with our guide, we are informed of the Rajah's absence from home, but we are permitted to wander through rooms most inhospitable in appearance. A few pictures adorn the walls and some handsome bric-a-brac is scattered here and there. We are told that the Rajah himself is most hospitable, and much more would have been shown us had he been at home. The great attraction in making this visit is to see the hundreds of elephants and tigers he has in his possession, but "the shades of night were falling fast" and we declined any further delay.