In order, if possible, to break through the impenetrable barrier of the zenana, the Sunday afternoon was set aside for the admission of “females.” All male attendants were removed, close screens erected round the entrance gates, and invitations issued to the leading natives in the city. Several thousands responded. The number nearly doubled on the second Sunday, after which I intimated that MY caste precluded Sabbath-breaking, so that in future, if “ladies” wished to see the Exhibition, they must come on week days with the men.
Although native women are not “visible,” they visit one another in the “zenanas,” and like all belonging to the fair sex, “TALK!” Those who had seen the Exhibition gave an amplified description of its wonders to their friends. Curiosity is a weakness of the sex, let the colour be what it will. In India, as it is elsewhere, women have a will of their own. They very soon persuaded their lords and masters that a thick muslin cloud might be used to hide their charms from the public gaze, without preventing them seeing the “show.” The end was that the sexes mixed in equal numbers. The revolution was complete. The women of India had conquered their liberty, and, as Lord Ripon publicly stated, I may claim to be their liberator. Wherever I visited native gentlemen, I was always asked to sit in the centre of the drawing-room, in order that the invisible ladies of the household might, through “peep holes,” have a look at the man to whom they owed their view of the Barra Bazaar.
In some instances native Princes purchased at a high figure the sole right of the Exhibition for a few hours, so that their wives or mothers might have a quiet, undisturbed ramble through it. So great came the demand for such a favour that in some instances their visits took place in the night, after the closing, and extended until near daylight.
As might be expected amongst people of high refinement—as most undeniably the upper class of Indians are—such small acts of courtesy on my part had a great influence. One and all of our distinguished visitors expressed their grateful thanks personally, and expressed a wish that I should, at the close of my labours in Calcutta, visit them in their respective provinces.
VII.
A TRAMP THROUGH INDIA.
