Chapter 9

The busiest men on these bathing ghats are the Hindoo priests, who reap a harvest from the hundreds of pilgrims who visit the ghats during the day. These priests cannot be escaped by the poorest Hindoo. They levy toll from every one who descends these long flights of stairs. One fellow I watched as he sat under his great umbrella. He had his sacred books spread before him, but he was given no leisure for reading them, as a constant stream of clients passed before him. Some of these were regular daily visitors from Benares, who pay a certain rate every week or every month, according to their financial standing. Others were pilgrims who, in their enthusiasm over the sacred Ganges (which they had traveled hundreds of miles to bathe in), were not careful in regard to their fees. Others were mourning relatives who applied for prayers for the corpse which they had brought to the waterside, and still others demanded hurried prayers for the dying, whose last breath would be drawn by the bank of the sacred river. Incidentally the priests sold charms and amulets guaranteed to bring good fortune. Most of the payments were in copper pice, four of which make one of our cents, but many of these priests had great heaps of this coin in front of them, showing that though India may be suffering from a bad harvest the faker may always feed on the fat of the land.

The spectacle, however, which stamps Benares upon the memory is the burning of the dead at a ghat by the Ganges. This ghat is reserved exclusively for the cremation of Hindoo dead. No Mussulman can use it. It was about eight o'clock in the morning when my boat reached this burning ghat. Already one body had been placed on a funeral pyre of wood. The guide said this body was that of a poor man who had no relatives or friends, as the place where the relatives sit until the cremation is complete was empty. Soon, however, two men came rushing down the stone steps with a corpse strapped to a bamboo stretcher. The body was that of a woman, dressed in red garments, which signified that she was a married woman. Unmarried women are arrayed in yellow and other colors, while men must be content with white. The stretcher-bearers placed their burden with its feet in the Ganges and then went in search of wood which is purchased from a dealer. Soon they had a supply, which they piled up in the form of a bier, and on this they placed the woman's corpse. Then one of the men, who, the guide said, was the dead woman's husband, with tears streaming from his eyes, bore some of the water of the Ganges to the bier, exposed the face of the dead and poured the sacred water upon her mouth and her eyes. Then while his companion piled wood above the body the husband sought the low-caste Hindoos who sell fire for burning the body. He soon returned with several large bundles of coarse straw, one of which was smoking. Seven times the husband passed around the bier with the smoking straw before he applied the flame to the wood. The fire licked greedily at the wood, and soon the flames had reached the body. Then the husband and his friend repaired to a stand near by, from which they watched the cremation.

Meanwhile two other bodies had been rushed down to the water's edge. One was evidently that of a wealthy woman, dressed in yellow silk and borne by two richly garbed attendants. The other was that of an old man, attended by his son. The latter was very speedy in securing wood and in building a funeral pyre. Soon the old man's corpse was stretched on the bier and the son was applying the torch. He was a good-looking young fellow, dressed in the clean, white garments of mourning and freshly shaved for the funeral ceremonies. While he was burning the body of his father another corpse of a man was rushed down to the river's edge and placed upon a bier. This body was fearfully emaciated, and when the two attendants raised it in its white shroud, one arm that hung down limp was not larger than that of a healthy five-year-old boy, while the legs were mere skin and bones. It was an ugly sight to see the Ganges water poured over the face of this corpse, which was set in a ghastly grin with wide-open eyes. The man had evidently died while he was being hurried to the burning ghat, as the Hindoos believe that it is evil for one to die in the house. Hence most of the corpses have staring eyes, as they breathed their last on the way to the river.

No solemnity marks this cremation by the river's edge. The relatives who bring down the body haggle over the price of the wood and try to cheapen the sum demanded by the low-caste man for fire for the burning. The greed of the priest who performs the last rite and who prepares the relatives for the cremation is an unlovely sight. All about the burning ghat where the poor dead are being reduced to ashes hundreds are bathing or washing their clothes. The spectacle that so profoundly impresses a stranger is to them so common as to excite no interest.

LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE, CITIES OF THE MUTINY

Lucknow and Cawnpore are the two cities of India that are most closely associated in the minds of most readers with the great mutiny. The one recalls the most heroic defense in the history of any country; the other recalls the most piteous tragedy in the long record of suffering and death scored against the Sepoys. The British government in both of these cities has raised memorials to the men who gave their lives in defending them and, though the art is inferior in both, the story is so full of genuine courage, loyalty, devotion and self-sacrifice that it will always find eager readers. So the pilgrims to these shrines of the mutiny cannot fail to be touched by the relics of the men and women who showed heroism of the highest order. When one goes through the rooms in the ruined Residency at Lucknow he feels again the thrill with which he first read of the splendid defense made by Sir Henry Lawrence and of the Scotch girl who declared she heard the pipes of the Campbells a day before they actually broke on the ears of the beleaguered garrison. And when one stands in front of the site of the old well at Cawnpore, into which the bleeding bodies of the butchered women and children of the garrison were thrown, the tears come to his eyes over the terrible fate of these poor victims of the cruelty of Nana Sahib. The sight of these Indian cities also makes one appreciate more fully the tremendous odds against which this mere handful of English men and women contended.

Lucknow is the fifth city in size in the Indian Empire. It is reached by a six hours' ride from Benares which is interesting, as the railroad runs through a good farming country, in which many of the original trees have been left. Lucknow at the outbreak of the mutiny was fortunate in the possession of one of the ablest army commanders in the Indian service. Sir Henry Lawrence, when he saw that mutiny was imminent, gathered a large supply of stores and ammunition in the Residency at Lucknow. When the siege began Lawrence found himself in a well-fortified place, with large supplies. About one thousand refugees were in the Residency and the safety of these people was due largely to the massive walls of the building and to the skill and courage with which the defense was handled. In reading the story of this siege of five months, from June to November, it seems incredible that a small garrison could withstand so constant a bombardment of heavy guns and so harassing a fire of small arms; but when you go through the Residency the reason is obvious. Here are the ruins of a building erected by an old Arab chief during the Mohammedan rule in Lucknow. The walls are from three to five feet in thickness, of a kind of flat, red brick like the modern tile. When laid up well in good mortar such walls are as solid as though built of stone. What added to the safety of the building was the great underground apartments, built originally for summer quarters for the old Moslem's harem, but used during the siege as a retreat for the women and children. So well protected were these rooms that only one shell ever penetrated them and this shot did no damage. The building reveals traces of the heavy fire to which it was subjected, but in no case were the walls broken down.

The story of the siege of Lucknow has been told by poets and prose writers for over a half century, but the theme is still full of interest. Tennyson dealt with it in a ballad that is full of fire, each verse ending with the spirited refrain:

And ever upon the topmost roof the banner of England blew.

All that it is necessary to do here is to refresh the reader's memory with the salient events. The besieged were admirably handled by competent officers and they beat off repeated attacks by the mutineers (who outnumbered them more than one hundred to one). Lawrence was fatally wounded on July the second and died two days later. In September General Havelock, after desperate fighting, made his way into Lucknow, but his force was so small that only fifteen hundred men were added to the garrison. It was not until November the seventeenth that the garrison was finally relieved by the union of forces under Havelock and Outram and Sir Colin Campbell. Never in the history of warfare has a garrison had to endure greater hardships than that of Lucknow. Incessant attacks by night and day kept the small force worn out by constant guard duty and, to add to their miseries, intense heat was made more merciless by swarms of flies. When one bears in mind that the Indian summer brings heat of from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty degrees it may be seen how great was the courage of the garrison that could fight bravely and cheerfully under such heavy odds. The memorial tablets at Lucknow, Delhi, Cawnpore and other places bear witness to this heroism of the British soldier during the mutiny, but you do not fully appreciate this splendid courage until you see the country and feel the power of its sun.

Cawnpore, which is only three hours' ride from Lucknow, is another city of India that recalls the saddest tragedy of the mutiny. Here it was that bad judgment of the general in charge led to great suffering and the final butchery of all except a few of the residents. Sir Hugh Wheeler, a veteran officer, wisely doubted the fidelity of the Sepoys and decided to establish a place where he could store supplies and assure a safe asylum for the women and children; but, instead of selecting the magazine, which was on the river and had strong walls, he actually went down two miles in a level plain and threw up earth entrenchments. This he did because he said he feared to excite the suspicion of the Sepoys and thus incite them to revolt. The result was disastrous, for the earth walls that he raised furnished poor protection and the place was raked by the native artillery and small arms from every point of the compass. A worse place to defend could not have been chosen, but the twenty officers and two hundred men held it against a horde of mutinous natives for twenty days of blazing heat. The only water for the little garrison was obtained under severe fire of the enemy from a well sixty feet deep.

Finally, when the supply of provisions was nearly exhausted, General Wheeler agreed to surrender to the Nana Sahib, provided the men were allowed to carry arms and ammunition and boats were furnished for safe conduct down the river. Of course, the Nana accepted these terms, but it seems incredible that a veteran army officer should have trusted the lives of women and children to Sepoys who were as cruel as our own Apaches. The little garrison, with the wounded, the women and the children, was escorted down to the river and placed on barges. But when the order was given to push off, the treacherous Sepoys grounded the boats in the mud and the gunners of Nana Sahib opened fire on the barges. The grape shot set fire to the matting of the barges and many of the wounded were smothered. One boat escaped down the river, but the survivors were captured after several days of hardship, the men murdered and the women and children brought back to Cawnpore. The men in the other boats who survived were shot, but one hundred and twenty-five women and children were returned to Cawnpore as prisoners. They spent seven anxious days and then when Nana Sahib saw he could not hold Cawnpore any longer he ordered the Sepoys to shoot the English women and children. To the credit of these mutineers they refused to obey orders and fired into the ceiling of the wretched rooms where the prisoners were lodged. Then Nana Sahib sent for five butchers and these men, with their long knives, murdered the helpless victims of this monster of cruelty. On the following morning the bodies of dead and dying were cast into the well at Cawnpore. On the site of this well has been raised a costly memorial surmounted by a marble angel of the resurrection. The design is not impressive, but no one can see it without pity for the unfortunates who were delivered into the hands of the most atrocious character of modern times. The Memorial Church at Cawnpore, which cost one hundred thousand dollars, contains a series of tablets to those who fell in the mutiny.

THE TAJ MAHAL, THE WORLD'S LOVELIEST BUILDING

Agra is chiefly noteworthy for the Taj Mahal, which is acknowledged to be the most beautiful building in the world; though the city would be worthy of a visit because of the many splendid mosques and palaces built by the great Mogul emperors and others. In fact, Agra was the capital of the Mohammedan empire in north India until Aurungzeb moved it permanently to Delhi; hence the city is rich in specimens of the best Moslem work in forts, palaces, mosques and tombs.

Agra has about two hundred thousand population. It is on the Jumna river and is almost equally distant from Calcutta and Bombay, eight hundred and forty-two miles from the former and eight hundred and forty-nine miles from the latter. It will impress any traveler by its cleanliness when compared with Calcutta, Benares or Lucknow. The land seems to be more fertile than that around any of these three cities and the standard of living higher. The shops are clean and bright and a specialty is made of gold and silver embroidery and imitation of the old Mohammedan inlay work in marble. Most of the fine Moslem architecture is found inside the ancient fort, which, with its massive wall, is in a good state of preservation.

The Taj Mahal may be seen many times without losing any of its charm. It is reached by a short drive from the city and its beautiful dome and minarets may be seen from many parts of Agra and its suburbs. This tomb, built of white marble, was erected by Shah Jehan, the chief builder among the Mogul Emperors of India, in memory of his favorite wife, Arjmand Banu. She married Shah Jehan in 1615 and died fourteen years after, as she was giving birth to her eighth child. Shah Jehan, who had already built many fine palaces and mosques, determined to perpetuate her memory for all time by erecting the finest tomb in the world. So he planned the Taj, which required twenty-two years and twenty million dollars to build; but so well was the work done that nearly three hundred years have left little trace on its walls or its splendid decorations.

This Mogul despot, who knew many women, spent an imperial fortune in fashioning this noblest memorial to love ever built by the hand of man. Incidentally he probably sacrificed twenty thousand coolies, for he built the Taj by forced labor, the same kind that reared the pyramids and carved the sphinx. All the material was brought from great distances. The white marble came from Jeypore and was hauled in bullock carts or carried by elephants; the jasper came from the Punjab, the jade from China and the precious stones from many parts of Central Asia, from Thibet to Arabia.

The Emperor summoned the best architects and workers in precious stones of his time and asked them for designs. It is evident that many hands united in the plans of the building, but history gives the credit for the main design to a Persian. An Italian architect lent aid in the ornamentation and three inlaid flowers are shown to-day as specimens of his work. The building itself is only a shadow of its former magnificence--for the many alien conquerors of India have despoiled in it in succession, taking away the solid silver gates, the diamonds, rubies, sapphires and other precious stones from the flower decorations, and even the gold and silver from the mosaic work. All the precious stones looted by vandal hands have been restored by imitations, which closely resemble the priceless originals. Restorations have also been made where the marble has been defaced or broken.

The Taj stands in the midst of a great garden, laid out with so much skill that from any part of its many beautiful walks fine views may be had of the dome and the minarets. This garden is planted to many tropical trees and flowering shrubs whose foliage brings out in high relief the beauty of the flawless marble tomb. The main gateway of the garden, built of red sandstone, would be regarded as a splendid work of art were it not for the superior beauty of the tomb itself. The gate is inlaid in white marble with inscriptions from the Koran, and it is surmounted by twenty little marble cupolas.

Once inside the gate the beauty and the majesty of the Taj strike one like a physical blow. Simple as is the design, so perfectly has it been wrought out that the building gives the impression of the last word in delicate and unique ornamentation. The white marble base on which the building rests is three hundred and thirteen feet square and rises eighteen feet from the ground. The tomb itself is one hundred and eighty-six feet square, with a dome that rises two hundred and twenty feet above the base. At each corner of the base is a graceful minaret of white marble one hundred and thirty-seven feet high. Although no color is used on the exterior, the decoration is so rich as to prevent all monotony.

In every detail the Taj satisfies the eye, with the single exception of the work on the minarets. The squares of marble that cover these minarets are laid in dark-colored mortar which brings out strongly each stone. It would have lent more softness to these minarets had the individual stones not been revealed, an effect that could have been secured by using white mortar. When the shades of evening fall these minarets are far more beautiful than by day, as they are softened by the wiping out of the lines about the stones. Under the strong light of the noonday sun the marble that covers the dome shows various shades ranging from light gray to pearly white, but by the soft evening light all these colors are merged and the dome looks like a huge soap bubble resting light as foam on the body of the tomb.

A front photograph of the Taj gives a good idea of its effect. Standing at the portal of the main entrance one gets the superb effect of the marble pathway that borders the two canals in which the building is mirrored. Midway across this pathway is a broad, raised marble platform, with a central fountain, from which the best view of the building may be secured. The path on each side from this platform to the main stairway is bordered by a row of cypress and back of these are great mango trees at least twenty feet high. These should be removed and smaller trees substituted, as they interfere seriously with a perfect view of the tomb.

From this platform the eye rests on the Taj with a sense of perfect satisfaction that is given by no other building I have ever seen. The very simplicity of the design aids in this effect. It seems well nigh impossible that a mere tomb of white marble should convey so vivid an impression of completeness and majesty, yet at the same time that every detail should suggest lightness and delicacy. The little cupolas below the dome as well as the pinnacles of the minarets add to this effect of airy grace.

When one ascends the steps to the main door he begins to perceive the secret of this effect on the senses. Everything is planned for harmony and proportion. The pointed arch, of which all Moslem architects were enamored, is shown in the main doorway and in the principal windows of the front. This doorway rises almost to the full height of the tomb and on each side are recessed windows, with beautifully pointed tops.

All the angles and spandrels of the building are inlaid with precious stones as well as with texts from the Koran. In the center of the building is an octagonal chamber, twenty-four feet on each side, with various rooms around it devoted to the imperial tombs. A dome, fifty-eight feet in diameter, rises to a height of eighty feet, beneath which, inclosed by a trellis-work screen of white marble, are the tombs of the Favorite of the Palace and of the great Emperor. The Emperor, with a touch of the Oriental despot, has made his tomb a little larger than that of the woman whom he honored in this unique fashion. The delicate tracery in marble, so characteristic of Mogul work of the sixteenth century, is seen here at its best, as well as the inlays of the lotus and other flowers in sapphire, turquoise and other stones. The effect is highly decorative and at the same time chaste and subdued. A feature which impresses every visitor is the remarkable trellis work in marble. A solid slab of marble, about six feet by four and about two inches in thickness, is used as a panel. This is cut out into many designs that remind one of fine old lace. These panels abound in every important room of the Taj.

The Taj has suffered little serious damage from the conquerors who successively despoiled it of its wealth of precious stones. The places of these jewels have been supplied with imitations which are almost as effective as the originals. In a few instances the marble has been chipped or broken, but, through the generosity of Lord Curzon, these blemishes have been removed, and the whole structure exists to-day almost as it did three hundred years ago when Akbar's grandson completed it and found it good.

The Taj should be seen by day and again at nightfall. In the full glare of the brilliant Indian sun the dome and the minarets stand out with extraordinary clearness, yet the lightness and buoyancy of the dome is not injured by the fierce light. Seen at sundown the Taj is at its best. All the lines are softened; the minarets and the perfect dome give an appearance of lightness and grace not of this world; they suggest the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces of the poet's vision. As the afterglow fades, the Taj takes on an air of mystery and aloofness; the perfect lines melt into one another and the whole structure is blurred as though it were seen in a dream. Then one bids adieu to the world's perfect building, thankful that he has been given the opportunity to enjoy the greatest marvel of architecture, which leaves on the mind the same impression left by splendid music or the notes of a great singer. Words are poor to describe things like the Taj, which become our cherished possessions and may be recalled to cheer hours of despondency or grief.

DELHI AND ITS ANCIENT MOHAMMEDAN RUINS