We then went up to Mátherán, the most easily got at hill-station, or sanitarium, passing through the villages Byculla, Chinchoogly, Parell, Dadur, Sion, Coorla, Bhandoop, Tannah, and Derwa. Tannah is a big village, an unhealthy-looking place, with two crumbling forts in the river. Long, long ago there were five thousand velvet weavers here. They also used to cure large quantities of bacon. In the thirteenth century four friars went to dispute with the Moslem Kadi, and told him Mohammed was in hell with his father the Devil, on which he executed them with such tortures that his own King banished him, and the Portuguese took signal revenge. Our third halt was Kalyan junction. This poor village port was, in A.D. 200, the far-famed Kalliénapolis, which shipped dry goods and precious woods to the outer west. We are also now on classic ground, near the northern extremity of the Shurpáraka, or winnow-shaped region, the Greek Limyrica, where some have placed Ophir of Solomon. The Konkan lowland is like the Arabian desert, tawny, not with sand, but black patched with fire. Here we turn down towards Madras, joining the Calcutta Railway, and pass Budapoor. We catch the Deccan hot winds, and alight at Narel, a little Maharatta village at the eastern base of Mátherán, which will be noted afterwards as the birthplace of the infamous Nana Sahib.
Here we mount ponies. We had to climb up four plateaux, and we arrived at the Alexandra Hotel, Mátherán, a very comfortable bungalow. The wooded lanes, the wild flowers, the pure atmosphere, the light and shadows playing on the big foliage, and the birds rustling and singing in it, were delightful to us. We were standing on a table-land of eight square miles covered with bungalows in lovely woods, seamed with riding-paths—regular leafy screens, whose ends lead to famous points, each one showing a magnificent view. We looked down splendid ravines amongst buttress-shaped mountains, light and shade sharply defined, burnt yellow grass, green trees and black basalt. The fresh vivid verdure of the woods is a repose to the eyes, weary by tawny lowlands and fœtid jungly undergrowth. We enjoy bright green grove, black rock, red-yellow laterite, a luxuriance of fernery, after so much palm and bamboo, aloe and cactus. We have got a patch of virgin forest and plenty of the gigantic anjun, whose pink-and-lilac bloom look like patches of morning sky through the foliage, and you hear everywhere the bark of the Wánúrú monkey, which is something like that of the wolf.
The officers' sanitarium is a horridly smelling, melancholy, deserted almshouse-looking row, painted black, with black mat screens; it looks like a stationary hearse, and would make one sick even if the air were not redolent of small-pox. The rooms looked evidently fresh from some horrid disease, and unclean. We shuddered, and passed away from the tainted atmosphere. Mátherán is not fashionable; it is affected by the commercial classes from Saturday till Monday. It is Margate, whilst Máhábáleshwar and the Neilgherries are Brighton and Biarritz, and are patronized by the "Services." But we did meet with some nice people there—a charming Mrs. Douglas, and Dr. and Mrs. Nevin.
I think I said to leave Mátherán one has to get back to Narel. The railway makes a tour like a V. We came down one side, and we go up the other to Lanauli. On our road down from Mátherán we passed a procession of Brínjaris for about two miles. This wild tribe intermarry only amongst themselves, and have their own laws. They are a strong race; men, women, and children are good looking. They grow their own corn, have their own bullocks, spin their own sacks, and have huge dogs for guard. They dress picturesquely, and are very defiant. The women carry the babies in a basket on their heads. They have been described, as have also the Nats, as being one with the Gypsies, to whom they bear some resemblance; but it is a mistake. My husband made up his mind on this point whilst he was working with the camel-men, and lived with the "Jats" in India, in his early days. He said the Romany are an Indine people from the great valley of the Indus.
We passed another overhanging rock covered with monkeys, some as big as a man, and some of a small species; they do not associate or intermarry. There are two Maharatta forts in this part of the world, on the way to Lanauli, called Rao Machi, the scene of one of our great fights in 1846. The conductor on our brake had been a soldier fighting in it, and gave my husband, who was at that time on Sir Charles Napier's staff in Sind, a spirited account of it.
With the English mistaken notion of clemency, that always scotches its snake, but is too generous or holds it too much in contempt to kill it, and lets it run about to sting ad libitum, instead of being hanged, Bajee Ráo was pensioned with 80,000 rupees a year, and retired to Bithoor on the Ganges, where he rewarded British clemency by adopting a child born in the village of Narel, at the foot of Mátherán, who lived to be the infamous Nana Sahib, the same that afterwards tortured and killed so many of our people.
We visited the Karla Caves, climbing a goat-like path to a gash in the mountain side, with a belt of trees, and sat on the stones facing one of the most wonderful Buddhist temples in India, constructed more than two thousand years ago. It was shaped just like our cathedrals, body and aisle, with a horseshoe roof of teakwood. The nave is separated from the aisles by fifteen columns on each side, whose capitals are two couchant elephants, with a man and woman upon each. A dome surmounted by a coloured ornament at the top takes the place of high altar, the ornament being like the pedestal for the Blessed Sacrament, and the umbrella for canopy or tabernacle; and the space behind the high altar in continuation of the horseshoe shape is separated by four plain columns. The light comes from an open space where a large window should be, artistically shining only on the high altar and dome, like ancient Spanish and Portuguese churches. This is cut out of the solid rock, pillars, capitals, façade, and all: the Kanheri Caves are the same. On either side of the entrance are carved three splendid elephants larger than life, and covered with niches and figures of Buddhist men and women. Four enormous columns front it, with a gigantic slab of stone across the entry, to prevent curious gazings from outside. A huge column with three lions for its capital is a further outpost. A little temple far outside is consecrated by the Brahúis to Devi. We were only allowed to peep into this last. The "Monkery" was most curious. Cells scooped all round opened into the large round centre room. Besides a ground-floor cave, there were three stories. They say the Jesuits pick and choose the best situations, but I am sure the Buddhists did the same thing. This place commands the whole country. The more I travel, see, and learn, the more I perceive that all the ancient religions, show that but one has existed from the Creation, for every faith tells the same tale as ours, with different actors under different names, but all the facts are the same.
To get to Poonah the way is through the Indrauni River valley, through the station of Kurkulla, Tulligaum, Chinchwud, and Kirkee, a large European military station and very pretty. We eventually reached Poonah, the scene of all the Peshwa intrigues against the English, and our great battles with the Maharattas. Their dynasty lasted over seventy years, but Bajee Ráo and his successors might always have been there, if they had not quarrelled with the English. This was in Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone's time, with whom at that time was Grant Duff, the historian. The great names connected with that period and business were Sir Arthur Wellesley (Wellington), General Sir Harry Smith, Lieut.-Colonel Burr, Captains Ford and Staunton, General Pritzler, Sir Thomas Munro, and Colonel Prother. We went to Párbati, the Maharattas' chief palace and stronghold, from which the last Peshwa, Bajee Ráo, who sat on the rocky brow, saw his troops defeated by the English on the plain, fled on horseback down the other side, and was hunted about the country for months, till he gave himself up to Sir John Malcolm.