The Hindoos have a great fancy for painting their faces, with a streak down the nose and across the forehead, as well as lines on the cheeks, and bars of a yellow color made from powdered sandal-wood, which looks like gold upon a black ground. The eyes and nails of many are dyed with henna; a part of the foot is also dyed red. A great variety of character is to be found in the bazaars, not forgetting the beggars with daubed faces, and hair filled with ashes; they are not in such favor as the fat Brahmin bulls of the priests, which walk along and eat where they please, until the poor benighted Hindoo raises his hands together to his head, and cries, “Now, good bull, pray go eat at some other shop.” The Chinese population are at full liberty to enjoy their opium, to which they are so much addicted, and it is curious to see the effect produced upon them by the use of the drug. You will find some fifteen at a time lying upon couches, inhaling the fumes, which seem to put them in a happy state, after which they gradually recover. The opium leaves its bad effects in prostration of the system, and the habitual smoker may readily be known from the expression of the face and eyes. The manufacture and sale of the article, which is a monopoly of the East India Company, is its greatest source of revenue.
LXVIII.
Steamer Pekin, for Bombay, Oct. 20, 1851.
From Calcutta I came down to Madras, the capital of the Presidency of the same name, by the steamer Haddington, on her way to Suez. It lies some six hundred miles south of Calcutta, and is a city of considerable trade, notwithstanding its bad roadstead, where the surf is most formidable. We landed in a masoolah boat, of great depth of hold, entirely open, built of elastic wood, the joints stuffed with oakum and sewed together, without a nail in the construction, which enables them to spring and give when they strike bottom. These boats are worked by twelve boatmen, who keep up a singular chant or howl as they pass through the almost irresistible surf.
I found here a means of floating, which surpasses the Ceylon or Sandwich Island boats, being more primitive; they are called catamarans, and the natives manage them in the most skilful manner. Imagine to yourself a small raft eight feet in length, of three logs tied together and pointed at one end, which they go out upon, and which, when they return, is untied, and dried upon the shore. One or two men are seen upon these slight supports in the heaviest surfs, like black imps sitting crouched upon their heels and making good use of their paddles. Sometimes they are thrown off and hidden in the waves, but like magic they catch on again. One of the great objects of attraction for strangers is the civil and military service club, about three miles from town, and prettily situated with all the comforts and luxuries of the east. The hotels of the city are miserable.
There is but little to interest the traveller at Madras, which is on a flat sandy plain, with reddish-colored soil. Black Town, the native part, is poorly built, and the people are a cringing, menial, lazy set, kept under great subjugation and treated as brutes by the existing powers. The climate is better than that of Calcutta, on account of the sea breeze, and the drives along the sea beach, which in the suburbs make the place supportable. The jugglers and mountebanks of this country are celebrated, and perform some remarkable feats. We were infested with them in the street in front of our hotel, performing somersets, springing through hoops, and passing over swords, &c., without the aid of spring boards upon the solid earth. Next come the snake charmers, who bring their snakes in baskets, which are placed upon the ground; they then play a sort of bagpipe, after which they blow at the snakes and play again, when they open the basket and a large cobra-de-capello rises up with a peculiar hood spread back of the head, his long neck arched like a horse’s; he attempts to strike, but the charmers know their distance. We had half a dozen snakes dancing at the same time, around their masters, while another group was waiting to swallow swords and stones. In landing or going out, self-defence compels one to jump into a buggy or palanquin, as these poor people are very persevering, being better paid by Griffins, or foreigners, than by residents.
The Sepoys, or native troops, appear well on parade early in the morning; they are completely dressed in white drill, and the officers in red coats and white pantaloons. The Madras Presidency has some forty-two thousand Sepoys and eight thousand European troops, which serves to keep all the population quiet between the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies.
Our steamer is slow, making only eight knots an hour at the top of her speed. She has just been caught by a typhoon in the China sea, which has swept away decks, yards, and spars, with a loss of five out of her six boats, and will have to go into dock at Bombay. Since leaving the bay of Bengal, and the last of the south-west monsoons, we have had quiet and beautiful weather, running up the Malabar coast of the Arabian sea. I will finish this letter in Bombay.
LXIX.
Bombay, Nov. 7, 1851.