Part 6
Another creature greatly dreaded by the natives belongs partly to the land and partly to the water. This is the alligator--a hideous grey brute, with huge jaws, furnished with long rows of teeth, and a long tail of immense power. On land the natives trouble little about this great reptile, for his legs are short and his powers of pursuit are small; but in the water or on the sandy margin it is a very different affair. Be careful where you bathe or draw water. A single sweep of that powerful tail will hurl you into the stream, and the alligator, lurking in the shallows, has seized you for his prey. Above all, it is necessary to be careful when walking along the pleasant sandy bank which often borders a river. Here and there grey logs seem to be lying on the sand. They may be logs or they may be alligators sunning themselves. In the latter case, if the walker be on the land side, well and good; but if he incautiously ventures between the alligator and the river, it is at the peril of his life. With the aid of his powerful tail, the frightful reptile hurls himself across the sand for a short distance at wonderful speed, then his mighty jaws open and close upon his victim, and the latter is dragged under water in the twinkling of an eye.
The tiger himself, unmatched in combat with any other beast of the jungle, sometimes falls a prey to the alligator. Coming to drink at the river, the king of the jungle is seized by the waiting reptile. A terrific struggle follows. Unable to wrench himself from those mighty jaws, the tiger uses his terrible fangs and claws on the alligator's back. Here for once they fail on that coat of horny scales. The tiger does not know that the alligator is soft beneath, and there could be ripped up by his claws of steel, and he continues to spend his strength in vain. Inch by inch he is dragged into the river, and once under water, he is lost. He swiftly drowns, and the alligators feast on his body.
*CHAPTER XIX*
*IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE*
We have spoken of temples and palaces and the magnificence of Kings and nobles, but now we must turn to the homes of the common people, and see how they live and work. Anyone who adopted the idea that India is a land of general riches and splendour would be making a very great mistake. The vast mass of the people live, not merely in the simplest fashion, but also in the poorest fashion, for the land can scarce produce enough food to satisfy the wants of its teeming millions. If the rains should fail and a crop go wrong, there is famine at once over wide districts, and vast numbers perish.
An Indian village is a collection of small huts, with walls of mud and roof of thatch. At break of day the men, the ryots, go out to labour in the fields which surround the place, putting their bullocks into the light wooden plough, which scarcely does more than scratch the soil. In the shallow furrow thus formed they sow the grain, and then with hoe and mattock they clean the weeds from a crop which is already springing up. These few simple tools serve all the purposes of the husbandman, just as they served his forefathers a thousand years ago.
The women of the village go to the well to draw water, passing on their way the village temple, where they offer fruits and flowers to the stone image of the Hindoo god, in whose honour the temple was built. When they have drawn their water, they return home to cook food and to work in the small compound which surrounds each mud hut. Here they grow trees, which yield the mango, plantain, guava, and other fruits.
As they go back to their homes they cast looks of deep interest at the door of a house where a figure is seated. It is a Brahmin sitting in dharna, for this is an out-of-the-way village where old customs cling fast.
What is dharna? It is really a form of intimidation. Some one has a quarrel with the owner of that house, and he has hired a Brahmin, a member of the priestly caste, to sit on his enemy's doorstep without food or drink, until the latter will do justice. The Brahmin, having undertaken the task, is certain to carry it through. He will starve until the person at whose door he sits has given way. The latter always happens. If the holy man were to starve to death, the sin would lie upon the head of the owner of the house for ever, and his fate in the next world would be dreadful. So, before long, some arrangement is made, and the dispute is settled.
The house before which the Brahmin is performing dharna is that of the money-lender, by far the most powerful man in the village. When a ryot cannot make both ends meet, and he is in trouble either about his rent or his taxes, it is to the money-lender that he flies for assistance. From that powerful personage he borrows a few rupees to tide him over the time of need till his crops shall be ready for sale, and he has to pay a very heavy rate of interest for the loan.
The money-lender is one of the oldest features of Indian village life. From the earliest times his trade has been in great vogue, and the Indian peasant is to-day as dependent upon him as ever. Broadly speaking, the ryot is always in debt. He is so careless, and thinks so little of the future that he always lives from hand to mouth, and a failure of his crop brings him within touch of famine at once. Then he resorts to the money-lender to borrow money to buy food or pay his rent, and to raise the money he often agrees to sell his next crop to the money-lender at a price which the money-lender himself will fix.
The price is very low, and the money is at once swallowed up to pay rent or the interest on the last loan, and so the peasant is driven to apply to the money-lender once more to obtain funds to carry him on to the next harvest. In this way the ryot falls completely into the hands of the money-lender, and, in order that the unlucky husbandman may not escape his clutches, the creditor employs men to watch the farmer's crops day and night, and the latter has to pay all these expenses.
Just beyond the money-lender's house is the dwelling of the baid, the doctor. He is sitting on his veranda, busily reading a very ancient book on medicine. It is from the instructions in this book that he treats all his patients. He has a store of herbs and roots, which he uses to make pills and potions. He looks with the greatest contempt on the European doctors and their medicines, and declares that they do not know how to treat Hindoo patients.
As a rule, the baid is a very poor hand at curing his patients. If they get well he takes all the credit; if they die he says that the hour of their death had come, and who can resist fate? But here and there are to be found men who have so great a knowledge of herbs and simples that they can effect wonderful cures. "A curious cure of asthma is recorded of a European who derived little benefit from the treatment of his own countrymen. A baid offered to cure him when his case had become almost hopeless. The European laughed. However, getting quite desperate, he submitted to the treatment of the Hindoo doctor, and the few sweet black pills which the latter administered wrought a complete cure. The grateful patient begged the doctor to name his own reward; but he would listen to nothing of the kind, nor would he tell of what ingredients the pills were composed. Indeed, this the baids will never do."
*CHAPTER XX*
*IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE (*_*continued*_*)*
Now there comes up to the veranda a quiet-looking man with a little bundle under his arm, and the baid lays aside his book. The village barber has come to shave him. The Hindoo barber is a very important man. Not only has he under his care the shaven crowns, the smooth chins, and the close-cropped hair of his neighbours, but he is the village surgeon also, for the baid knows nothing of surgery. It is the barber who bores the ears and noses of the little girls to put in rings and ornaments.
He squats down beside the doctor and unrolls his little bundle and spreads out its contents. He has a razor, a pair of scissors, a small steel instrument for cutting nails, a leather strop, a little brass cup, a scrap of looking-glass, and a towel. He uses neither brush nor soap for shaving, but puts cold water in the cup and dips his fingers into it. With these fingers he wets and rubs the chin, and then sweeps his razor over it with light and skilful hand, doing his work like a master. When he has finished he rolls up his little bundle and goes on to the next house, for he has a fixed round of customers, and no Hindoo, whether rich or poor, ever shaves himself.
Going thus from house to house the barber knows every one, and is often employed as a match-maker. In India parents always arrange the marriages of their children, and the wishes of the latter are not consulted in the affair. Indeed, marriages are often settled at so early an age that the children do not understand what it means. A girl is fetched from her play and married to a boy not much older than herself. She goes back to her dolls, and he goes back to school, and perhaps neither sees the other again for years.
In arranging these affairs there is often much coming and going of the family barber. He has to find out how much dowry the parents of the girl will give with their daughter, or, on the other hand, he is sent to see what examinations the young man has passed. This is an important point. The Hindoos think a great deal of such distinctions, and a young man who has passed a University examination can get a much richer wife than he who has not.
At the wedding the barber is a very busy man. Before the day he goes round to the friends and relatives of the family inviting them to come to the wedding-feast, and begging them not to fail in attendance. On the day of the wedding he has to dress the bridegroom, and when the guests are assembled he hands round betels to chew or hookahs to smoke. He helps to serve the wedding-feast, and when it is over he distributes the fragments among the beggars.
The barber's wife is as important a personage as himself. She is just as busy among the women as he is among the men. She enters the zenana, the women's portion of the house, to dress the ladies and adorn them. At weddings she dresses the hair of the bride, trims her nails, and arrays her in the richest robes. Both the barber and his wife belong to the barber caste. In India trades are handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter. The children of the barber and his wife are taught from their earliest years the duties of their business: they, too, will become barbers in due time.
As the barber goes away the water-carrier comes up. This is another important personage; for, in the burning climate of India, fresh, pure water is of the greatest importance. This water-carrier has not filled his vessels at the village well, but has been to a spring at some distance, where the water is very good. He carries it in two large vessels of brass, and these are slung from the ends of a pole which he carries across one of his shoulders, one vessel in front and one behind.
If there are Mohammedans in the village you will also see the bhistee, the Mohammedan water-carrier. He bears his load in a skin on his shoulders, or in a pair of skins which he slings across the back of a bullock. He sells water only to people of his own faith, for no Hindoo will use for any purpose water which a Mohammedan has handled.
The larger houses have flat roofs, and from the roofs of two standing near each other a couple of boys are having a battle with fighting kites. Flying kites is a very favourite amusement in India, and in some villages old and young, rich and poor, spend much time on this sport. The kites are square in shape, but of all sizes, and in the case of fighting kites the string or thread is passed through a mixture of pounded glass and starch and then dried. The thread has now a keen, cutting edge, and if brought sharply across the string of another kite will cut it through, and he who succeeds in setting his opponent's kite adrift is the victor.
At the farther end of our village there is a large native inn. This is by no means a common thing to find in such a place; but, as it happens, a well-travelled road passes through the country at this point. To see this inn at its busiest we must go on some evening when a fair is to be held in the neighbouring town, and a throng of travellers pause in it for the night.
The inn itself, as we approach it, shows a square of four flat naked walls. There are neither doors nor windows to be seen, and the place is entered by a wide opening, which can be closed by massive gates. Near the gate are some small shops where one can buy rice, flour, salt, and ghee to eat, or earthen pots for cooking.
Upon entering, we find ourselves in a big courtyard, the middle of which is packed with the bullock waggons and carts, from which the ponies and bullocks have just been released and turned out to graze. Round the walls inside is a wide veranda, and behind this veranda are rooms wherein the wayfarers may sleep. The scene is one of the greatest uproar and confusion. Men and women are bustling to and fro, shouting and calling to each other as they draw water, light fires, cook food, feed their animals, spread their beds, and generally make ready for the night.
Every inch of the veranda is taken up, and in front of each room burns the fire of the party who intend to occupy it. A wealthy traveller will engage a number of rooms for himself and his family or servants; but poor men club together, and five or six engage a single room and stow themselves away in it. The cost to them will then be about one farthing per head.
The inn is under the charge of a number of inn-keepers, each of whom has a certain part of the inn-yard under his care and a certain number of rooms to let. These people crowd about the traveller on his arrival, each clamouring that his rooms are the best, and begging for his custom. They are a thievish and quarrelsome crew, and are looked down upon as a very low and degraded class. In a native inn the traveller has to keep a very sharp eye on his belongings. He takes care to keep his money in a safe place, and he never accepts tobacco or any eatable from a stranger. There may be a drug in it which will throw him into a deep sleep, from which he will awake to find all his valuables gone.
When supper is dispatched the traveller prepares for sleep. If poor, he stretches himself on the floor; if better off, he hires a wooden frame from the inn-keeper, and spreads upon it his quilts and blankets. Now the great gates are swung to and locked, and the inn is securely shut up for the night. This is very necessary, or some of the animals would be missing in the morning. There are also men who keep watch all night, and the merchant with a stock of valuable goods gives one of these a small sum to take particular care of his bales and animals.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.