The dead City of Fatehpur Sikri,
BUILT BY AKBAR, AND WHICH FOR 300 YEARS HAS REMAINED DESERTED.
The Pilgrim City of Benares on the Ganges.
Landing in Ceylon, which lies only seven degrees north of the Equator, we were surrounded by the most profuse and luxuriant tropical vegetation; and the vertical rays of the sun kept us indoors, except in the early morning and late evening. A few days later we had passed through Calcutta and found ourselves at Darjeeling, with snow lying all about us, and with the mighty snow-ranges of the Himalayas piled up before us, and yet we had not left India. We were surrounded by 300,000,000 of people belonging to six hundred nationalities, and speaking as many languages, differing not only in nationality and in language, but in religion, in civilisation, and in their manners and customs, and all this multitude of peoples, nations, and languages were comprised in "India."
Nothing brings this great diversity among the people of India more vividly before the mind than a walk through one of the main streets of Calcutta. Here one meets with natives from every part, some arrayed in simple white garments, but others clothed in gorgeous apparel. Their costumes of silk and satin are radiant with a dazzling wealth of colour, every nationality having its distinctive dress, the Bengalese, the Pathan, the Sikh, the Nepaulese, the Tamils, and the Mahrattas, and all walk with that dignified bearing which proclaims them to be members of a princely class. Our wonder increases. How comes it that this multitude of peoples, these descendants of martial races, live together in peace and amity?
The plains of Delhi, which for 2,000 years were the arena of perpetual conflict as nations were made and unmade, proclaim the warlike character of the people, the intensity of their national hatred, and the ferocity of their bloody feuds. They are now held together in peaceful union by legions of British troops—there are but 70,000 British troops in all India—and probably 250,000,000 out of the 300,000,000 people in India have never seen a British soldier.
This great phalanx of nations is held together, is made happy and prosperous, by the just rule which appeals to their imagination and their sense of justice, and which is administered by 900 British civilians, who are for the most part men under 40 years of age. I think this is one of the most remarkable spectacles the world has ever seen. It speaks well for the English public-school system which has trained these men. It speaks also well for honest administration and the influence and power which it exerts, exercising a moral influence greater and more far-reaching than any military rule.
The most interesting study in India is that of the people, among whom there is the greatest difference in physique. We have the lithe, active little coolie of Southern and Central India, the hewer of wood and the drawer of water; the fat, astute, and subtle Bengalee, devoid of moral or physical courage, a born agitator; the stalwart hillmen of the North-West who furnish our Indian army with its best recruits; and the Mahrattas, the descendants of warlike races, who to-day are among the most active traders.