Chapter 15
We met at Benares strings of water-carriers, carrying brass vessels on each end of a pole borne over the shoulder. These come here for hundreds of miles on foot, and take back to their customers in the country the sacred water of the blessed river. It is a regular business, and furnishes employment for thousands of men. Upon no account must this water be carried by railway and deprived of its healing powers by being handled by unbelievers. It must be carried by Hindoos of the proper caste on foot, or it has no virtue.
Science invades everything nowadays, and the officials have recently had the water of one of the sacred wells analyzed by a chemist--audacious dog of an infidel--and here he comes with his CO2 and all the virtue of this water of life is gone. It is found unfit for human use, and the well is ordered to be closed. The chemist, in the eyes of the ignorant natives, has sacrificed spiritual for physical health; preferred the welfare of their bodies to that of their souls, as is the custom with these wicked scientists.
We pass booths in which native jewellers sit hard at work fashioning rings, brooches, and other articles of personal adornment. Their dexterity is marvellous; without elaborate appliances of any kind, with only a small blow pipe and a few rude tools, they will take a gold coin from you and before your eyes shape it into any form selected. But it is said they must have a model to copy from; no original design emanates from them. The booths, or little shops, are curious affairs. They are built of mud, with neither window nor door, the floor on which the artisans sit being about four feet above the narrow street level.
I never was more thoroughly impressed with the position of the European of India than to-day when pushing through the crowded, narrow lanes of Benares. Our native guide went before us carrying a whip which he cracked and brandished among the crowd, calling out "Sahib! Sahib!" and the people, casting one glance behind, at once hurried out of our way, making a clear track for our august person supposed to represent the conquering race. The respectful salaams, as we caught the eye of one native after another, their deferential, not to say obsequious, attitude as we passed--all this tells its story. That "all men are born free and equal" will not enter the Hindoo mind for centuries--not till England has brought it up to the standard of self-government, which it is gradually doing, however, by its schools and colleges.
Benares has been famous for centuries for its manufacture of gold and silver embroideries. I remember that Macaulay speaks of them in his essay on Warren Hastings as decorating alike the court of Versailles and the halls of St. James. We went to the native village and saw the work carried on. How such exquisite fabrics come from the antiquated looms situated in mud hovels it is hard to understand, but they do. We saw one man who had no less than thirty-three different tiny spools to work from in a piece not more than a yard wide. All of these he had in turn to introduce in the web, and pass through a greater or lesser number of threads, the one starting in where the other left the woof, before one single thread was complete from end to end of the warp and could be driven into the pattern. The people of Benares also excel as workers in brass.
To-day we had a unique experience indeed, being carried through the principal streets of Benares on State elephants, kindly provided for us by the Rajah of Benares. Mr. H., of New York, whom we have met on his way round the world, and Vandy and I were the riders. We were driven to the palace, and found there two huge animals, gayly caparisoned, awaiting our arrival, surrounded by servants in resplendent liveries. The elephants very kindly got upon their knees, which rendered a short ladder only necessary for us to mount by. The motion is decidedly peculiar, and, until one becomes used to it, I should think very fatiguing; but we enjoyed our elephant ride greatly, and the Rajah has our hearty thanks.
We are in the land of the cheapest labor in the world. It is doubtful if men can be found anywhere else to do a day's work for as little as they are paid in India. Railway laborers and coolies of all kinds receive only four rupees per month, and find themselves; these are worth just now forty cents each, or, say, $1.60 (6s. 6d.) in gold for a month's service. Upon this a man has to exist. Is it any wonder that the masses are constantly upon the verge of starvation? Women earn much less, and of course every member of a family has to work and earn something. The common food is a pulse called gran; the better class indulge in a pea called daahl. Anything beyond a vegetable diet is not dreamed of.
Before leaving Benares I must speak again of the scene at the river, which far excels any representation I have seen of it or any description I have read. Photographs cannot be made to convey a just idea of its picturesque beauty, because the view is enlivened by such masses and combinations of color as Turner alone could do justice to. Indeed, my first thought as I saw the thousands on the ascending banks--one tier of resting-places above another, culminating in the grand temples' towering at the tops--was that I had seen something akin to this in a dazzling picture somewhere. Need I say that it is in the Turner Gallery alone where such color can be seen? He should have painted the "Hindoo Bathers at Benares," and given the world one more gem revealing what he alone, in his generation, fully saw in the mind's eye, "the light which never shone on sea or shore." We have voted this scene at Benares the finest sight we have yet witnessed.
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LUCKNOW, Tuesday, February 11.
We reached Lucknow at night. The moon was not yet shining, but the stars shed their peaceful halo around this spot, to which the eyes of the civilized world were so long directed during the dark days of the mutiny. At the hotel upon arrival a lady's voice was heard singing the universal refrain which nearest touches all English hearts in India and expresses the ever dominant longing, "Home, Sweet, Sweet Home."
There is no trace here of the massacres which have made this region memorable. But is the past to be repeated? Who can assure us that these bronzed figures which surround us by millions may not again in some mad moment catch the fever of revolt? This is the anxious question which I find intruding itself upon me every hour. Truly it is a dangerous game, this, to undertake the permanent subjection of a conquered race; and I do not believe that after General Grant sees India he will regret that the foolish Santo Domingo craze passed away. If America can learn one lesson from England, it is the folly of conquest, where conquest involves the government of an alien race.
Our first visit was to the ruins of the Residency, where for six long months Sir Henry Lawrence and his devoted band were shut up and surrounded by fifty thousand armed rebels. The grounds, which I should say are about thirty acres in extent, were fortunately encompassed by an earthen rampart six feet in height. You need not be told of the heroic resistance of the two regiments of British soldiers and one of natives, nor of the famous rescue. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and month after month, the three hundred women and children, shut in a cellar under ground, watched and prayed for the sound of Have-lock's bugles, but it came not. Hope, wearied out at last, had almost given place to despair. Through the day the attacks of the infuriated mob could be seen and repelled, but who was to answer that when darkness fell the wall was not to be pierced at some weak point of the extended line? One officer in command of a critical point failing--not to do his duty, there was never a fear of that--but failing to judge correctly of what the occasion demanded, and the struggle was over. Death was the last of the fears of these poor women night after night as the days rolled slowly away. One night there was graver silence than usual in the room; all were despondent, and lay resigned to their seemingly impending fate. No rescue came, nor any tidings of relief. In the darkness one piercing scream was heard from the narrow window. A Highland nurse had clambered up to gaze through the bars and strain her ears once more. The cooling breeze of night blew in her face and wafted such music as she could not stay to hear. One spring to the ground, a clapping of hands above the head, and such a shriek as appalled her sisters who clustered round; but all she could say between the sobs was: "The slogan--the slogan!" But few knew what the slogan was. "Didna ye hear--didna ye hear?" cried the demented girl, and then listening one moment, that she might not be deceived, she muttered, "It's the Macgregors gathering, the grandest o' them a'," and fell senseless to the ground. Truly, my lassie, the "grandest o' them a'," for never came such strains before to mortal ears. And so Jessie of Lucknow takes her place in history as one of the finest themes for painter, dramatist, poet or historian henceforth and forever. I have been hesitating whether the next paragraph in my note-book should go down here or be omitted. Probably it would be in better taste if quietly ignored, but then it would be so finely natural if put in. Well, I shall be natural or nothing, and recount that I could not help rejoicing that Jessie was Scotch, and that Scotchmen first broke the rebels' lines and reached the fort, and that the bagpipes led the way. That's all. I feel better now that this is also set down.
Lucknow, so rich in historical associations, is poverty itself in genuine architectural attractions, magnificent as it appears at a distance. It is a modern capital. About a century ago a king of Oude, in a moment of caprice, I suppose, determined to remove his capital from Fyzabad to Lucknow. Palaces on a great scale were hastily erected of common bricks and covered with white plaster. These look very fine at a distance, but closer inspection reveals the sham, and one is provoked because his admiration has been unworthily excited. Several other kings followed and carried on this imposture, each building his palace and tomb in this untruthful way. What could we expect from kings content to lie in such tombs but lives of disgusting dissipation? A simple marble slab were surely better than these pretentious lies: anything so it be genuine. However, retribution came, and the dynasty is extinct, the present king living as a prisoner in Calcutta.
The bazaars of Lucknow are well worth seeing, with their native jewellers, brass-workers, and other artificers, working in spaces not more than six feet square. We begin to see persons and modes which remind us of scriptural expressions--the water-carrier with the goat-skin filled, "the hewers of wood and drawers of water," the latter usually working in gangs of five. An earthen incline is built, leading up to the top of the wall which surrounds the well; the well-rope passes over the shoulders of the drawers, and in marching down the incline they raise the bucket. We came to-day upon a lot of women grinding the coarse daahl. Two work at each mill, sitting opposite one another, pushing around the upper stone by means of upright handles fastened into it.
"And two women shall be grinding at the mill, and one shall be taken and the other left,"
saith the Scriptures of old, but our coming revised and corrected edition, I could not help hoping to-day, as I saw this picture for the first time, will note an error, or at least intimate a doubt of the correct translation of this passage; or, if not, the age may require some commentator "more powerful than the rest" to console us with the hope that while at the first call one was indeed left, there would be a second, yea, and a third, a seventh, and a seventy times seventh call, in one of which even she would participate.
We have been this afternoon among the tombs of heroes--Lawrence and Havelock, Banks and McNeil, Hodson and Arthur--men who fell in the days of the mutiny. Lawrence's tomb is most touching from its simplicity--a short record, no eulogy, only
"Here lies Henry Lawrence, Who tried to do his duty."
"I have tried to do my duty," he said, as he breathed his last, and this is all his tomb has to say of him; but isn't it enough?
One day in our drive we came upon our first elephant and our first camel camp, hundreds of the latter and nearly two hundred of the former being attached to the transportation department of the army. They are said to perform work which could never be done by other animals in this climate. Bullocks are the third class used as carriers; these are taught to trot, and do trot well. I remember one day in Ceylon one of them in a hackery gave us in the mail coach quite a spirited race for a short distance, but it was only to-day that I learned that camels are also so trained and used as mail or despatch bearers where speed is necessary, and the gait of a really good trained camel is said to be quite easy. If development goes forward in this line, our posterity may be using the camel in trotting matches with the horse. He would possess the advantage over that favorite animal which the Chinaman has over the European; he could go longer between drinks, and that counts for much.
The quarters for troops at Lucknow are models; the officers' quarters are surrounded and in some cases almost embowered by vines and flowers; lawn-tennis courts, cricket grounds, ball courts, and a gymnasium are provided for the private soldiers, and are finer than we have seen elsewhere, and serve to make Lucknow, with its beautiful gardens and long shady avenues, the one really pretty rural spot we have seen in India.
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WEDNESDAY, February 12.
We are on our way to Agra by rail, and expect to arrive in time to drive out and see the Taj by moonlight. I have been reading more carefully than before some descriptions of it, and keep wondering whether this gem of the world is to prove a disappointment or not. Most things which have been heralded like the Taj fail to fulfil expectations at first, and how can stone and lime be so formed as to justify such fulsome praises as have been bestowed upon this tomb? One writer, for instance, exclaims, "There is no mystery, no sense of partial failure about the Taj. A thing of perfect beauty and of absolute finish in every detail, it might pass for the work of genii, who knew naught of the weakness and ills with which mankind were afflicted." The exact and prosaic Bernier had to express doubts whether "I may not be somewhat infected with 'Indianisme,' but I must needs say I believe it ought to be reckoned amongst the wonders of the world." Bayard Taylor exhausts eulogy upon the Pearl Mosque, calling it "a sanctuary so pure and stainless, revealing so exalted a spirit of worship, that I felt humbled as a Christian that our noble religion had never inspired its architects to surpass this temple to God and Mohammed;" but when he comes to the Taj itself he is lost in rapture. There is nothing, however, which the critics--those men who have failed in literature and art--will not venture to attack, and I thought it advisable to tone down my expectations by taking a dose of carping criticism. Unfortunately for me, however, when I had got fairly in with a writer who assures me "the design is weak and feeble," the "shadows are much too thin," this misleader left me in a worse condition than ever, for succumbing at last to the sweet overpowering charms of the structure as a whole, and apparently ashamed of himself for ever having dared to say one word against its perfections, he adds--just after he had bravely done the "design" and the "shadows"--"but the Taj is like a lovely woman: abuse her as you please, the moment you come into her presence you submit to her fascinations." Pretty criticism this for one who wishes the faults of this beauty clearly set forth! I put this lover of the Taj aside at once and try another writer, who does indeed give me a page of preventive, well suited to one in my condition, but upon turning over the page he too falls sadly away, for here is his last line:
"The rare genius of the calm building finds its way unchallenged to the heart."
Well, then, gentlemen, if all this be so, what's the use of your petty criticism? If this marvel, before whose spell all men, even you yourselves, must bow, has a "rigidity of outline," an "air of littleness and luxury," a "poverty of relief," and if "the inlaid work has been vulgarly employed," and the patterns are "meagre in the extreme," wasn't it the highest aim that its builder could probably have had in view, to entrance the world and give to it a thing of beauty which is indeed a joy forever? and doesn't the Taj do this so far beyond all other human structures that no one thinks of naming another in comparison? And should not this incontrovertible fact teach you a lesson--just a little bit of modesty? No, gentlemen; it isn't the Taj that must be changed, either in its outline or shadows, to conform to your canons of criticism, but your canons of art that must be changed to embrace the Taj, or rather to set it apart, as a stroke of original genius, and consequently above and beyond the domain of criticism; for criticism, like science, works solidly only upon what is absolutely known, formulating its fixed decrees upon the past. All great geniuses have encountered the critics of their day. How Shakespeare violated the unities! and didn't Napoleon win battles which he should have lost? Let these people then be silent, and know that when a transcendent exhibition of original genius wins success beyond the reach of measurement by their plumb and line and square and compass, the higher law governing the seeming miracle will be duly revealed: and the Taj is just such a miracle, from all I can learn of its power.
The evidences of the intense summer heat are seen everywhere. The railway carriages have false tops, leaving an air space of a foot between the roof and the cover. Awnings cover the windows outside, and there are posted up directions for the use of the cooling apparatus applied to each first-class compartment; the frames for punkas are seen in the railway waiting-rooms, and we notice in the army regulations that during the hot season soldiers are required to stay in-doors between the hours of eleven and three. We are told of revolving fans being used to cool rooms, and that it is very common to fill doors and windows with thick mats of scented grass, which are kept constantly wet; the wind, passing through these, is cooled to about ninety degrees, and large banana leaves furnish a cool bed in extreme cases, from all of which, "Good Lord, deliver us!" We thank our stars every day that we are doing India when the heat, though great at midday, is not unbearable. We are five hundred and fifty miles north of Calcutta, and find the temperature much cooler. The people look stronger, and necessarily wear more clothing, which means that another piece of coarse bagging is wrapped around their shoulders. We are at the best hotel in Agra, and I notice as remarkable, in the printed list of prices, that a man to pull the punka in one's bedroom all night can be obtained for the sum of three annas, or six cents in silver. Washing costs two cents per piece, but while these strike us as cheap, the next item tells us that each guest during the hot season is chargeable with twenty cents per day for ice used at table etc. It is very sparingly used, but yet the little bit of ice you see costs as much as the labor of three men all night. All the employees of the railways in India are required to join the volunteer forces, and to drill under the supervision of regular army officers, appointed by the government for this purpose. An excellent auxiliary force numbering many thousands is thus secured at trifling expense. One significant announcement posted at stations attracted my attention, and gave me an insight into one department in which India is in advance of us. This placard set forth that certain employees having been found under the influence of liquor while on duty, the district court had sentenced them to six months' imprisonment. This betokens a decided step forward, I take it, and one which it would be advisable for us to follow. A captain, pilot, engineer, railway conductor, or any one directly charged with the care of human lives convicted of being drunk while on duty should be held guilty of a criminal offence and punished by the State.
I have been admiring all through India three magnificent vines, now in full bloom. One, the Begonia, resembles our honeysuckle, but the flower is larger and hangs in large clusters; the second, called the Bouganviella, is purple in color and like our morning- glory, and the two are often seen climbing together up tall trees almost to their very tops, covering them with a mass of flowers. The third favorite, Poinsetta, is a leaf of rich magenta color. These three are the special glories of India. Some of our own flowers do tolerably well in this region, and the inherent love of the English for flowers and plants is seen in the numerous pretty plots and gardens.