Part 3

A group of natives, attendants on the elephants, are sitting round a fire, baking the large cakes that form the repast of these animals, added to a small dinner of half a _pīpul-tree_, or a hundred-weight of grass! A _mahout_, or driver, is very fond of whispering to his elephant some superstitious tale; which, if the animal does not understand, it is amongst the few things this most wonderful of God’s creatures does not comprehend.

MOSQUE NEAR MOORSHEDABAD.

A beautiful _Masjid_, or Mosque (a Muhammadan place of worship), which is on the bank forms a picturesque object; beyond which is a _ghāt_ and some houses, near Moorshedabad, as also a long range of buildings, belonging to the palace of the Nawāb.

MOORSHEDABAD—THE PALACE.

Moorshedabad became the seat of the Bengal Government A.D. 1704. It was transferred to this place from Dacca, by the Nawāb Jaffier Khan, who was appointed Soubadar of Bengal by Aurungzebe. The City of Moorshedabad continued to be the seat of the British Government until A.D. 1771, when it was transferred to Calcutta. During the reign of Aliverdi Khan, a palace was erected at Moorshedabad, which was ornamented with pillars of black marble, brought from the ruins of Gour; this building is still in existence. The new palace of the Nawāb erected by the government, is a magnificent edifice, and reflects the highest honour on the architect, General Macleod, C.B.: it was commenced in the time of Humaioon Jah, the late _nizām_, who died in 1838, and was succeeded by his son, the present Nawāb. This splendid building, which is in the European style, and of dazzling whiteness, is a beautiful object from the river, of which it commands a fine prospect, rendered peculiarly interesting by the variety and elegance of the native vessels, so numerous at this station.

The _Mor-pankhī_, as the Nawāb’s state-barge is called, is used during certain festivals at Moorshedabad: boats of this description are numerous, and of different forms, some towering very high, displaying all the colours of the peacock, and all are brilliantly painted and highly gilt. A band of native musicians follow the state-barge in another tastefully-decorated boat, and the scene on the river during the festival is highly picturesque.

Here also are seen the snake-boats: they shoot past you with great swiftness when rowed by twenty men, from their amazing length and extreme narrowness.

Through the influence of Mr. Hamilton, surgeon to the Embassy sent by the local government to the Emperor Furrookhseer, in the year 1713, the use of the Mint at Moorshedabad was placed at the disposal of the Government of India.

The great object of dread to the Nawāb Sooraj-oo-Dowlah, in 1757, was the fire of the English vessels of war, of the effects of whose broadsides he had received exaggerated accounts; and, in the excess of his timidity, he conceived it possible that they might proceed up the great branch of the Ganges, and then come down the Kossimbazar river to Moorshedabad; to guard against which, he caused large piles to be sunk across that stream, opposite to Sooty, about twenty miles above the city. A toll is now levied at Jungipūr for keeping open the entrance of the Bhagirathī, as this branch of the Ganges is called.

THE WRECK.

The scene now opens on the right bank of the Ganges. We quitted the Bhagruttī (a branch of the sacred river) at Sooty, and have now entered upon the main stream, at a point where it is of amazing breadth, the view of it only terminating with the horizon: the waves roar, and roll, and foam like those at sea; whilst a _tūfān_ (one of the heavy storms of India) is blowing fiercely, accompanied by thunder, lightning, heavy rain, and utter darkness. The impetuous stream, rushing with the force of a torrent, undermines the banks of the river, and tears up forest trees by their roots. A voyage at this time is particularly dangerous; native vessels are swept along with amazing velocity, and when a _tūfān_ is encountered, like the one now blowing, they are frequently wrecked.

Three _dāndīs_ (native boatmen) have been swept by the violence of the waves from the mast of their sinking vessel; they are striving to regain their hold: the rest of the crew have sunk to rise no more. These men are admirable swimmers; they may possibly be carried along by the current and rescued on some turn of the river, unless from the violence of the storm they are carried out into the middle of the stream, and swept onwards, until, overcome by exhaustion, they sink beneath the waves.

During some periods of the year, a voyage on the Ganges is attended with great risk. The natives quote the Persian saying as a consolation under misfortune, “‘What is the use of taking precautions, since what has been ordained must happen.’ Truly saith the proverb, ‘If the diver were to think of the jaws of the crocodile, he would never gather precious pearls.’”

A TŪFĀN.

The Budjerow is taking in her sails; and the _sahib_, or gentleman on board, is likely to go without his dinner, as his cook-boat, with her torn sails, will most likely be unable to come alongside, and hand it over to the servants.

A voyage up the Ganges may be performed in boats, as various in shape as in size: a Pinnace is a first-class vessel; the next is a Budjerow, which draws very little water, and is divided into two commodious rooms, which may be furnished according to the taste of the traveller: a complete establishment consists of a horse-boat, a washerman’s-boat, and a cook-boat; in this country the cooking is always performed in a separate vessel.

The _dinghī_, or wherry, now making for the land, is generally manned by two rowers and a steersman: these boats are of slight construction, with a circular awning of bamboo-work and matting, under which a person can sit, and though in general well managed, are by no means to be considered safe conveyances.

RAJMAHAL.

The ruins of the palace of Rajmahal are on the bank. During the reign of Akbar, about 1591, Raja Maun Singh fixed upon this city as the capital of Bengal, and changed its name to Raja-Mahul—the Raja erected the palace, and surrounded the town with a rampart of brick and other fortifications. In 1608, the seat of government was removed hence to Dacca, by Islam Khan; but in 1639, the Sultan Shah Shuja brought it back again, and strengthened the fortifications, of which, however, few traces are now to be seen.

Prior to 1638 this town was the residence of the Sultan Shah Shuja, the brother of Aurunzebe; but few vestiges of its ancient magnificence now remain. The ruins of his palace are still standing, but have been much injured by the encroachments of the Ganges. Cows now ruminate quietly beneath the black marble arches that overlook the river, or seek for shelter in its empty halls, which still present images of their former grandeur. The marble floor of the Mosque remains, and a fine old _bāolī_ (a large well). Around Rajmahal is a beautiful _jangal_ of magnificent bamboos, fine clumps interspersed with date-palm trees overshadowing the cottages, around which are a number of small cows and fowls of a remarkably good breed: every thing has an air of comfort, and the walks in all directions are cool and pleasant. The steamers from Calcutta take in their coal a mile below, and therefore do not destroy the beauty of the old ruins with their smoke, and noise, and Birmingham appearance. The Rajmahal hills are distant about five miles inland.

Sooraj-oo-Dowlah, after his flight from Plassey, reached Rajmahal, and took shelter in the buildings of a deserted garden, where he was discovered by a _Fakīr_ named Dana Shah, whose nose and ears he had ordered to be cut off thirteen months before. This man recognized him, made the circumstance known, and the Nawāb was carried a prisoner back to Moorshedabad, where he was murdered by order of Meerun, the son of the new Nawāb Meer Jaffier Khan. His mangled remains were placed on an elephant, exposed throughout the city, and finally interred. Thus perished Sooraj-oo-Dowlah, in the twentieth year of his age, and the fifteenth month of his reign; a prince whose short career was connected in a most important manner with the British interests in India, both for good and evil.

SĪCKRĪ-GALĪ.

A country vessel is being towed by her crew round a rocky point; each man has his own _gūn_, or track-rope, fastened to a short, thick piece of bamboo, which he carries over his shoulder. A Pinnace, or budjerow, tracks, with ten or twelve men, upon one rope only.

The Sīckrī-galī pass, during the Hindū and Muhammadan Governments, was the commanding entrance from Bahar into Bengal, and was fortified with a strong wall; however, in 1742, a Mahratta army of cavalry passed into Bengal through the hills above Colgong. The village of Sīckrī-galī is eighteen miles above Rajmahal at the base of a high rocky eminence, commanding a fine view of two ranges of hills. There is here the tomb of a celebrated Muhammadan Saint, Pīr Pointī, and a cave in limestone rock; and higher up, at a place called Pīr Pointī, now a mass of ruins, is another tomb of the saint.

This pass is close upon the Rajmahal hills, and the only European inhabitant lives in the _Bangla_, commonly called Bungalow, the house at the foot of the hill. Wild beasts sometimes come to this place at night, and the footmarks of the tiger are often to be seen in the garden. Jackals roam howling through the village; bears, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, hogs, deer of all kinds, abound here, and feathered game in the hills. Elephants are absolutely necessary to enable a man to enjoy shooting amidst the high grass and thorny thickets. The place is so much disturbed by the people who go into the hills for wood, that the game retreat farther into the _jangal_. When a gentleman goes out shooting on foot, the _dandīs_ accompany him with long poles, to beat the bushes. In the marshy plains under the hills of this pass good shooting is to be found, but on account of tigers it is dangerous.

THE RAJMAHAL HILLS.

Beyond the heavy rain which is pouring down, the hills of Rajmahal are seen in the distance; they are beautifully wooded, and full of game of every description. No scenes can be more picturesque than those in the interior. The wild climbers hang from the forest trees in luxuriant beauty, especially that magnificent one, the _cachnar_ (bauhinia scandens)—a specimen of its leaves gathered in these hills is in the Museum.

The _dandīs_ from the boats that anchor at Sīckrī-galī go up the hills in gangs to cut wood for firing, and bring it down in great quantities.

The _byā_ birds hang their long nests from the extreme end of the slight branches of the delicate _bābul_-tree pendant over a pool or stream for security. The Museum also contains nests of this little bird suspended on the broad leaf of the fan-palm. The fable declares that the “Old birds put a fire-fly into their nests every night to act as a lamp.” For a further account of these interesting little creatures, see “Wanderings of a Pilgrim,” (vol. I. 220, 221, and vol. II. 74). The marshes at the foot of the hills are full of leeches the low-lands abound with wild fowl, hares, and partridges of a peculiar sort, said to be found only at Rajmahal, and one other station in India.

The hill-men are a most singular race of people; they are about five feet high, very active, remarkable for lightness and suppleness of limb, with the piercing and restless eye, said to be peculiar to savages. They wear their hair drawn tight up in a knot on the very top of their head, the ends fastened in with a wooden comb. They are good-natured, gay-looking people. Their principal food is Indian corn, boiled and mashed. They kill wild hogs with a poisoned arrow, taking the precaution to cut out the flesh around the wound before they eat the animal. Their bows and arrows are rough and wild-looking; the strips of feather on the latter are from the wing of the vulture. They assert that they procure the poison, into which they dip their arrows, from a remote hill-tribe, and are ignorant of its nature: it appears to be a carefully guarded secret. Three of these arrows are in the Museum. At the proper season the hill-men descend into the plains to gather in the crops of uncut rice.

A country boat filled with bales of cotton is floating down the stream; and the crew of a Dacca _oolāk_, which is aground, are striving to shove her into deeper water.

A native, sitting on the bank, is quietly watching the noisy scene, and smoking his _nāriyal_, or cocoa-nut pipe, by the side of his _charpāī_, or bed, which is on the bank. Native vessels are towed by the _dāndīs_, or boatmen, most part of the way, except during the rains. These men work from daylight till sunset in the most laborious way, frequently in the water for hours, up to their middles, towing the vessel or shoving it with their backs over sand banks: their labour does not cease until the boats are _lugāo’d_ (moored) at night; then they cook on shore and eat their daily meal of boiled rice and curry, or flour cakes, called _chappatīs_. Occasionally, when a fair wind blows, they get some rest; for then an immense square sail is hoisted, tacks, sheets, and haul-yards are fast belayed: they all go to sleep except the steersman, and the safety of the boat depends upon the rotten state of the cordage and sails: frequently very strong and sudden squalls come on, and, before a single rope is let go, every thing is blown to ribbons.

THE FOOLISH FAKĪR.

Beneath a group of beautiful palm-trees, a half-witted young _Fakīr_, adorned with peacocks’ feathers, is sitting and talking to the men around him, who regard as prophetic whatever his wandering and unsettled mind induces him to utter, and look upon him as the favourite of heaven—the natives treat persons thus afflicted with the greatest kindness, and supply them with food. A leaf of the fan palm, here represented, may be seen in the Museum. The whole group, as well as the trees, are portraits.

On the sands below and close to the edge of the river, is an Hindū in the last stage of illness. His friends have carried him down to the sacred stream on a _charpāī_, (a rude native bed,) and are in the act of making him drink the Ganges water, ere they half immerse his body in the sacred stream. His wife, on the edge of the bed, is weeping, and her _dopatta_ (or veil), is drawn over her face; the Brahman is offering the prayers usual on this occasion.

The Hindūs are extremely anxious to die in sight of the Ganges, that their sins may be washed away in their last moments. A person in his last agonies is frequently carried on his bed, by his friends or relatives, in the coldest or in the hottest weather, from whatever distance, to the river-side, where he lies, if a poor man, without a covering day and night, until he expires. With the pains of death upon him, he is placed up to the middle in water and drenched with it; leaves of the shrub goddess, the sacred _tulsī_ plant, are also put into his mouth, the marks on the pebble god, the _Salagram_ are shown to him, and his relations call upon him to repeat, and repeat for him, the names of Rām, Hurī, Ganga, &c. In some cases the family priest repeats some prayers, and makes an offering to Voitŭrŭnēē, the river over which, they say, the soul is ferried, after leaving the body. The relations of the dying man spread the sediment of the river on his forehead and breast, and afterwards with the finger write on this sediment the name of some deity. If a person should die in his house, and not by the river-side, it is considered as a great misfortune, as he thereby loses the help of the goddess in his last moments. If a person choose to die at home, his memory becomes infamous.

If these unfortunate people recover, after having been exposed by their relatives to die on the banks of the river, they take refuge in the village of Chagdah on the left bank of the Matabangah, forty-six miles from Calcutta, of which people who ought to be _corpses_, are the sole inhabitants. They are considered to prefer a debased existence to a righteous end, agreeing therein with the highest authorities. Pope’s Homer makes Achilles in the Elysian fields say:—

“Rather I’d choose laboriously to bear A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread, Than reign the scepter’d monarch of the dead.”

Solomon deems it better to be a live dog than a dead lion; and Job, called by Byron “the Respectable,” says, “Why should a living man complain?” to which Byron adds, “For no other reason that I can see, except that a dead man cannot.” In the face of these grave authorities the Hindostanī proverb is of a different opinion, which asserts “it is better to die with honour, than live with infamy.”

The passage in the Psalms, “They shall be a portion for foxes,” appears obscure; but give it the probable rendering, “they shall be a portion for jackals;” and then the anathema becomes plain and striking to an Hindū, in whose country the disgusting sight of jackals, devouring human bodies, may be seen every day. The dying who are left by the side of the Ganges, are sometimes devoured alive by these animals in the night.

_Lugāo’d_, or moored off a sand-bank, is a budjerow, her baggage, and her cook-boat. The crews are cooking and eating their dinners on the sand-bank, and will not recommence their voyage until daybreak, the river being too dangerous to allow of their proceeding further during the hours of darkness. On a clean dry bank in the centre of the Ganges, covered with the finest and most sparkling sand, it is far more agreeable to _lugāo_ your vessel for the night, than on the banks of the river: it is cooler, and you are better defended against thieves; nevertheless a look-out must be kept during the night.

“Shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand,” &c., (Matt. vii. 26.) The fishermen in Bengal build their huts in the dry season on the beds of sand, from which the river has retired. When the rains set in, which they often do very suddenly, accompanied with violent north-west winds, and the waters pour down in torrents from the mountains, a fine illustration is given of our Lord’s parable: “the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell.” In one night multitudes of these huts are frequently swept away, and the place where they stood is, the next morning, undiscoverable. On one of these occasions a Hindū child was carried down the stream, seated on a part of the roof of a hut, and rescued from destruction at Allahabad. The child could not tell whence she had been carried away by the force of the torrent, nor could the little creature remember the names of her parents.

In some parts of Bengal, whole villages are every now and then swept away by the Ganges when it changes its course. This river frequently runs over districts, from which, a few years before, it was several miles distant. “A nation whose land the rivers have spoiled.” (Isa. xvii. 2.)

The rocky islands of Colgong in the distance are singular and beautiful, there are four of them, of unequal size. Rocks on rocks, covered with fine foliage, they rise in the centre of the river which runs like a mill-sluice, and is extremely broad. They say that no one lives upon these rocks; that a _Fakīr_ formerly took up his abode there, but having been eaten by a snake (an _ajgar_), one of enormous size, and an eater of human flesh, the people became alarmed; and no holy or unholy person has since taken up their residence on these rocky islands. Small boats fish under the rocks, and snakes, they say, abound upon them: when a gun is fired the echoes awaken and startle the myriads of birds that inhabit them. The proverb says, “The hypocrites of Bhagulpur, the _Thags_ of Kuhulgaon (Colgong), and the bankrupts of Patna are famous.”

SUNSET—A WILD SCENE.

The Ganges now presents an extraordinary picture, the expanse of water is very great, interspersed with low sand-banks; the sun is going down, and flocks of wild geese are passing to the other side the river. No human habitations are to be seen, nothing but the expanse of the broad river and its distant banks. After the heat of a day in India the coolness of the evening is most refreshing: the traveller quits his boats, and wanders on the banks of the Ganges, enjoying the wild, the strange beauty, and the quietude of the scene around him, until his attention is aroused by the yells of jackals, and the savage cry of pariah dogs, contesting with vultures, who shriek and flap their heavy wings, to scare the animals from their feast on some dead bullock. Beasts of the forest and birds of prey

“Hold o’er the dead their carnival: Gorging and growling o’er carcase and limb, They are too busy to look at him!”

they eye the traveller askance: they are too busy to look at him: but when the shades of evening fall, and the friends have left the dead, it may be the dying Hindū, on the banks of the river, trusting, that Ganga will receive him to eternal beatitude, then, in that solitary, that awful hour, the dying man may be awakened from his trance by the sharp tooth of the jackal, and the fierce beak of the vulture! Such is the power of superstition, that the Hindū might rejoice, even at this fearful moment, to end his days by the side of the sacred river, and escape the infamy of seeking refuge at the village of Chagdah.

“On Ganga’s brink it is fearful to tread By the fest’ring side of the tombless dead, And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air, Beasts of the forest all gathering there; All regarding man as their prey, All rejoicing in his decay.”

“Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles (or rather the vultures) be gathered together.” (Luke xvii. 37.) The vulture is equally ravenous after dead bodies as the jackal; and it is very remarkable how suddenly these birds appear after the death of an animal in the open field, though a single one may not have been seen on the spot a long time before.

The jackal is considered an incarnation of Dūrga, when she carried the child Krishna over the Jumna, in his flight from King Kansa. The worshippers of the female deities adore the jackal as a form of this goddess, and present offerings to him daily. Every worshipper lays the offering on a clean place in his house, and calls the god to come and partake of it. As this is done at the hour when jackals leave their lurking places, one of these animals sometimes comes and eats the food. In temples dedicated to Dūrga and other deities, a stone image of the jackal is placed on a pedestal and daily worshipped. When a Hindū passes a jackal, he must bow to it; and if it passes on the left hand, it is a most lucky circumstance.

Crocodiles are very numerous in this part of the Ganges: they show themselves continually, swimming low in the water, peering over the edge of a sand-bank, or basking in the sun upon it. Near this place is a village full of a caste of people who live on the flesh of the crocodile; the _dāndīs_ say they understand it smells rank and is very hard. In the evening you sometimes hear a shrill peculiar scream, which the men declare is the cry of the crocodile. When fired at, they slink quietly into the water. The long-nosed crocodile is not so formidable as the snub-nosed alligator: it is said the latter will attack men, the former avoids them if possible. Human bones and ornaments are sometimes found in the interior of these animals. To disagree with a superior, under whose command you may be, is, the natives assert, “To live in the river and be at enmity with the crocodile.”

BENARES—RAJ GHĀT.