Due West; Or, Round the World in Ten Months

by Maturin M. Ballou

There is a museum of special local interest where are gathered and well classified specimens of the natural products, industries, native gems, minerals, animals, and birds throughout the Punjab, well worth a few hours of examination and study. Opposite the museum building there was observed, in the centre of an open plot of ground, a large, long cannon mounted, and of Indian manufacture, over a century in age. It was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Paniput and is famous among the populace by the name of "Zamazamah." There are also mosques, mausoleums, and forts to be visited, all attractive, with some curious ruins of old palaces and Hindoo temples, to all of which we paid due attention, but a detailed account of which would hardly interest the general reader. In the better part of the town the streets are broad and lined by two-story houses—a style not very common in India. From the ornamental balconies, and projecting windows framed in lattice-work, the women of the harems looked out upon us, with their faces partially covered, but yet taking care to exhibit a profusion of jewelry, having three or four large loops of gold in each ear, as well as nose-rings, outdoing in glitter their sisters of Penang.

The few women to be met with in the streets had their bare feet thrust into the tiniest of pink kid slippers, far too small for them, their ankles covered with broad gold rings, five or six deep, coming up to the calf. Their bare arms showed the wrists covered with bracelets of gold and silver alternately, nearly to the elbow; and above the elbow was a broad gold band. Some of them were so covered with rings, bracelets, bangles, and necklaces as to amount to itinerant jewelry bazars. The etiquette of these women, some of whom were scarcely out of their teens, appeared to be, in the first place, to cover the face above the chin, except the eyes, and then to expose as much of their bodies as could effectively bear jewelry, including necklaces of either imitation or real stones hanging down over the bosom. Add to the whole a reckless disregard for natural delicacy, and you have a Lahore belle of to-day as she appears on the street. We saw nowhere else in India such freedom and publicity permitted to inmates of the harem. Girls are frequently married here at twelve years, and the number of wives a man may possess, in any part of India, is only limited by his purse.

Elephants of greater size than the famous Jumbo, and also camels, enter into common, every-day use here as do donkeys and horses in European cities; but such horses as one sees at Lahore are generally very fine creatures, of the true Arab breed, with faces almost human in intelligence. These animals are at the same time high-spirited and gentle, with forms that are the very ideal of equine grace and beauty. Round bodies, arching necks, small heads and limbs, large eyes and nostrils, with full mane and tail. Lahore is a place of more than usual interest to the traveler, as exhibiting much of the peculiar and inner life of India. We were particularly attracted by public and, private flower-gardens, fruit orchards, and ornamental trees, disposed in such an excellent manner as to give the general effect of a finely and naturally-wooded country; and yet we were told that before the English took possession and built up the European quarter, Lahore was only a city surrounded by sterile fields, and absolutely without a tree, ornamental or otherwise, within its extended borders. The orchards and gardens referred to are those of European residents. Among the exotics we observed the Australian gum-tree and the Chinese tallow-tree, large and thrifty in both instances. Lahore was also the only place in India where we saw mulberry-tree orchards. Like Delhi, the city presents many evidences of its former splendor, with ruins still architecturally grand and beautiful, though rapidly mouldering to dust.

We heard of excellent educational results growing out of missionary efforts at Lahore, and it is really in this direction that the most good will be accomplished. As regards religious converts, they are few and far between, and of very little account when apparently made; but in cultivating the intelligence of the people, a great and good work is being performed, one which must eventually shake the fabric of heathen mythology to its very centre. An idolatrous people must come from the ranks of ignorance,—from a priest-ridden race. When the Hindoo is capable of thinking and reasoning for himself, he no longer believes in the idol-gods of his fathers. The preaching of this or that special faith is of little avail, and to us seems to be the least of all missionary work. The true object is comprised in the single effort of enlightenment. Education is the great Christianizer for India. People of culture will not bow down before graven images, nor worship bulls and monkeys.

Umritsar, the sacred city of the Sikhs, our next stopping-place, is less than forty miles from Lahore, and is a walled city of nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants, composed mostly of Sikhs, Hindoos, Mohammedans, and Cashmiris. The principal attraction of the city to strangers is the famous Golden Temple, so called because the cupola is covered with a thin layer of the precious metal, having the same effect as that of the dome of the Invalides at Paris, or that of the Boston State House. Five hundred priests are attached to this temple, and are constantly performing ceremonies, which, to an uninitiated person, seem like utter nonsense, and want of purpose. By the side of the temple is a very large tank covering three acres or more of ground, supplied by neighboring springs; and though it is constantly bathed in by thousands of pilgrims, and has no visible outlet, was still clear and sweet, which fact the natives attribute to some miraculous intervention. This lake is called Amrita Saras, or the Fountain of Immortality, hence the name of the city. There are other mosques and public gardens of interest, and the traveler should not forget to visit one or more of the shawl manufactories, where the famous Indian article is woven by hand in a most primitive loom worked by two persons. Another specialty is the manufacture of perforated ivory goods, which are brought to great perfection and are in quick demand for foreign markets.

As we passed through an open square near the Golden Temple a dry goods auction was in progress, for the disposal of under-clothing, which seemed like sending warming-pans to the West Indies, since no native wears such articles. A Jew was the auctioneer, and was evidently selling at very low prices to get rid of the goods, for the poor people purchased and handed them about as curiosities. The scene occurred on the high stone steps leading up to a temple, and among the crowd a little girl of four or five years was thrown down the steps, cutting a severe gash on her forehead. With the usual dullness of ignorance, a crowd gathered about the now insensible child, frightened at the sight of blood, while the mother stood inert, where the child lay upon the ground, her own agonized features and clasped hands forming a picture of despair. No experienced traveler will be without sticking-plaster, and for us to pick up the child, wash out the wound, draw the lips carefully together and secure them, binding up the bruised head in a handkerchief, was the work of only a few moments. We were simply compensated by the reviving smile of the little sufferer; but it was impossible to prevent the grateful mother from lying prone upon the ground and kissing our feet.

From Umritsar to Agra is four hundred and fifty miles. One night and day of uninterrupted travel brought us to its interesting borders, where we found a large and well-conducted hotel—one of the best we had chanced upon in the country. This journey was through the plains of middle India, and afforded some attractive and quite varied scenery, including large sugar plantations in full stalk, thrifty mango groves, tall palm-trees, orange-trees with their golden fruit, and far-reaching, graceful fields of waving grain, mingled with thrifty patches of the castor bean. These objects were interspersed with groups of cattle and goats tended by herdsmen, who often stood leaning on long poles in picturesque attitudes, wrapped about in flowing, sheet-like robes of white cotton, relieved by a scarlet belt and yellow turban. These men and their surroundings formed just such figures as a painter would delight to throw into a picture, with the animals feeding in the background. Now and again a group of minarets, with a central dome, would come into view on the horizon, breaking the deep blue of the sky with their dark shadows; or a ruined temple was seen close at hand, charred and crumbled by the wear of the elements for centuries.

India abounds in these forsaken and half-decayed shrines, once, no doubt, centres of busy life and religious ceremonials. Tall cranes, pelicans, ibises, and other large water-birds rose occasionally from the ponds, and fanned themselves slowly away. On portions of the road the telegraph wires, running parallel with the track, were covered with tiny birds of indigo-blue, decked with long slim tail-feathers. As we passed, they would rise in clouds, circle about for a moment, and again settle upon the wires where they had been roosting. Little clusters of rice-birds, scarcely larger than butterflies, floated like colored vapor over the fields, glistening in the warm sunlight. Wild peacocks were seen feeding near the rails, but not in populous districts. In the early gray of the morning, more than once on the lonely plains, a tall, gaunt wolf was observed coolly watching the passing train, or loping swiftly away. Camels were seen in long strings, with their loads protruding on either side, slowly moving over the country roads; while an occasional elephant, with half a dozen people upon its capacious back, served to vary the ever-changing panorama.

Our course was nearly due south, so that we felt an increased rise in the temperature from hour to hour. As before remarked, it was a surprise to see how many of the poor people availed themselves of the railroad. The third class cars were thronged with them going to Benares, or some other holy place, on religious pilgrimages; which, indeed, appears to be the one absorbing idea of their lives. It was not unusual to see two hundred of these pilgrims, composed of both sexes and of all ages, enter the cars from some small station. Though these people wear the scantiest of clothing, yet they affect strong contrasts in colors, which will give picturesqueness even to rags. The third class cars of an Indian railroad are little better than our cattle cars in America; and these natives were hustled into them and locked up, much after the style of loading live stock in Illinois.