The Governor very kindly went round with us, and we saw a distinctly stronger type of man than those outside; here and there a trifle too much cheek bone and queer eyes, mostly murderers, many with faces one would pick for choice as manly men. Famine times account for some of the murders, and overstocking I should say; it's done everywhere, in trout ponds, deer forests, and sheep runs. India, I expect, is over preserved; a bad season comes, and famine, and one starving fellow chips in with another, and knocks a third party on the head because he has a meal on him, and the first parties' children are crying for food—and by the prophets, we'd each try to do the same under similar circumstances, and the result would be the survival of the fittest. Government now catches the would-be "fittest" and sets him hanging to a piece of rope, or makes him wear beautiful bright chains and weave beautiful carpets, as they do here, in all the colours of Joseph's coat, in silk or cotton; with everything he wants except liberty and the sun on the road outside—and the children and wife. The carpets are exquisitely made in hand-looms. The men sit in a sort of rifle pit and weave on an upright hand-loom, and the patterns on great carpets or the finest of silk rugs grow out of their wicked brains only; there's no pattern in front of them to copy from; they do it by heart. You know a "Lifer" from a "Timer" by the colour of their skull caps; one is white, the other brown—I think the brown is the "Lifer." All is beautifully kept, and the men look at you when ordered to do so, also when they are not ordered and your back is turned. They give their names too when ordered, and crimes, and terms of imprisonment, so gently. Oh! how I'd love to kick the blessed wall all down and let the lot out! then I'd have to sit up all night, I suppose, with a gun, looking after our silver-plated spoons.
The principal individual who caused most trouble in the prison was a "Lifer," I think, a most remarkably long, thin man, actually eel-like. He had escaped three times. The last hole he escaped by he made with a nail, and it had just been bricked up and plastered over. He was not allowed to work, merely stood bolt upright, a head and shoulder higher than his two, armed jailers, who were chained to him. He was motionless as a statue, but I never saw such unrest as there was in his eyes; there was the look of the eye of a bird in the hand, one simple concentrated expression of watchfulness for a chance to escape. He is a bit of a wag, I am told. Once when he escaped he borrowed a carriage and livery and engaged himself to the services of a lady in Bangalore, and actually drove the lady to prison to call on the Governor. But when he gathered the Governor was coming to return the call, he thought it time to go; I don't know how he was captured again, and I wonder very much if he will escape once more. His four companions who stood beside him in the blaze of joyous sun were just going to be released in half an hour from all their joys and troubles. Two of them looked very murderous specimens, two looked good, I don't know why, but one felt curiously shy about looking at them. One or two of the murderers' faces wore a quiet half-smiling expression, barely human, and that seemed to me to spell "killing" quite distinctly and without any evil intent, like the expression on a Greek head I have only once seen, a youthful combatant—a cheery unintrospective look, a tough round neck, raised chin, oblique eyes, and the least smile on lips just parted. One young woman had that kind of face too; the rest were just as good in expression as outsiders. They were employed grinding millets in hand quirns, hard work, I'd think; the top stone they turn round, weighs two stone and they put it round fairly quickly. I'd so much have liked to have drawn this particular woman's face. I think it is the only handsomely shaped face I've seen in India so far, and yet that queer inhuman look ought to have prevented a child closing its eyes near her. She had killed a child for its bangle and dropped it into a well, and in prison nearly killed another for another bangle. She was fourteen and had a look of complete ignorance of good or evil. This good-looking girl they tell me is to go into a nunnery—by my Hostie! I'd like to hear the end of the story.
We came back from the jail and found a tableau arranged on our verandah. It was well done, whether by accident or design. The two principal actors sat in the middle of the verandah with neat bundles arranged round them, and behind them sat their two slaves or henchmen in garments of complimentary tints. The Memsahibs came and were salaamed, and sat in front of the traders. Then the bundles were opened and blossomed into colours and fabrics. Within ten minutes the verandah was covered with silks of every hue, gorgeous colours and the delicate colours of moonlight, so that the matting was completely covered with a veritable riot of colours and textures—a much more wonderful effect than any tricks with baskets or mangoes grown under sheets. I tried to put this down in colour, and here is a pen and ink jotting of the subject.
Sunday.—Walked round the outside of the prison grounds amongst little patches of highly-cultivated market gardens and clumps of palms, and these long pumps like the ancient catapult with bronze men sweating at them pulling down the long arm of the balanced yard to let the bucket down the well, then tipping the water out into gutters of mud to irrigate. They do it pretty much the same way up the Nile. The cottages have low mud walls, and are thatched with dried palm leaves and scraps of corrugated iron, and the naked children, with their coal-black mops of hair, play about in the dust with the hens, and seem to have a good time. They are chubby and jolly, and don't quarrel so much, or speak so harshly as school board children in our Bonnie Lowlands. Here and there are quaint little temples, stone built, under the palms between the patches of cultivated ground. There are prickly pears, and hedges of different thorny creepers with flowers of pink, cinnamon, deep orange, and violet. I pass a group of goats feeding on one of these hedges, black, white, and brown—a pleasant motley of moving colour. The piece of hedge near me has pink flowers, and behind it you see a little lapis-lazuli sky. The black goat's coat is almost blue with reflected sky. Near me a boy stands in the shadow of a tree herding a cow. The leaves throw deep shadows on the rusty red path and a tracery of leaf shadows, on the cow's back and sides—deeper in colour than the velvety black of the hide itself.
