LfBRARY UNIVERSITY OF '"RNIA rt SAN >IEGO WESTERN CULTURE IN EASTERN LANDS WESTERN CULTURE IN EASTERN LANDS A COMPARISON OF THE METHODS ADOPTED BY ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN THE MIDDLE EAST BY ARMINIUS VAMBERY, C.V.O. AUTHOR OF 'TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ASIA,' 'HISTORY OF BOKHARA,' ETC LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1906 PREFACE DURING the many years that I have been engaged in studying the political and cultural questions of Inner Asia, it has often been laid to my charge that, in my criticism and appreciation of the two chief factors of our civilising influence in the East, I have not taken up a purely objective standpoint, and that, because of my partiality to the one, I have not been quite fair to the other. In Europe the prevailing idea is that the Russians, who in many respects are themselves still semi- Asiatic, are better fitted to undertake the civilisation of Asia, and will be more likely to bring about the transition from one sphere of action to another, than the English, the accomplished representatives of Western culture, who lack the necessary pliability, and whose stiff, proud bearing is supposed to be detrimental to the work of transformation. To prove the erroneousness of this view, and also to defend myself against the accusation of an unjustifiable partiality, these pages have been written. The comparative survey of the various innovations and reforms introduced by Russia and by England respectively, which I have endeavoured to give, will convince the reader that, in forming my conclusions, I have not been guided by personal motives, but that they are the outcome of a close investigation of what has actually been done by our two Culture-bearers. v vi PREFACE No one will deny that the more effective and the nobler are the means at our disposal, the more perfect and the better finished will be the work to be accom- plished. In order to teach, educate, and train the mind of others, we ourselves must first have been taught, educated, and trained ; and if, looking at it from this point of view, I give the preference to England, which unquestionably occupies the higher cultural position of the two Powers, I can scarcely be accused of partiality. As my studies have been almost entirely confined to Moslem Asia, I could not help referring also to the future of Islam. For more than fifty years I have been deeply interested in the destiny of the Moslem nations of Asia ; and their history, both past and present, as well as some individual phases of mental conflict in which I myself have had a share, may shed many bright gleams of light to serve as guiding-stars in the darkness which surrounds the future. The picture which I have ventured to place before the public concerning the future of Islam is founded not on vain speculations, but on conclusions drawn from concrete facts. A. VAMBERY. BUDAPEST UNIVERSITY. CONTENTS PART I THE CIVILISING INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA CHAI'TER 1-AGE I. WESTERN INFLUENCE IN THE EAST - I II. RUSSIAN SUCCESSES OVER URAL-ALTAICS 7 III. RUSSIA'S CONQUESTS ON THE LOWER VOLGA - - 14 IV. FORCED CONVERSION OF TARTARS - 21 V. RUSSIFICATION AND EMIGRATION - 27 VI. CULTURAL EFFORTS IN THE KIRGHIS STEPPE - - 35 VII. CULTURAL EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN - 47 VIII. DEFECTS OF RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION - 58 IX. MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION - - 67 X. SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES - 80 XI. UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES - 89 XII. THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA 98 XIII. RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE - 117 PART II THE CIVILISING INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND I. THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE - 131 II. THE CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER - 148 III. FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS - - 158 IV. INCREASE OF WELL-BEING - - 1 68 V. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA - 179 VI. RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM - ' 93 VII. CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS - - 2O2 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTBR FACE VIII. NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE - - 212 IX. THE EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM - 225 X. STABILITY OF BRITISH RULE - - 240 XI. A COMPARATIVE SYNOPSIS - - - - 249 PART III THE FUTURE OF ISLAM I. OLD AND NEW ISLAM - - 263 II. THE STRUGGLE OF REFORMS - 281 III. DESPOTISM OF MOSLEM RULERS 296 IV. ISLAM CAPABLE OF REFORM - - 308 V. THE AWAKENING OF LIBERTY- - 320 VI. WESTERN CULTURE ACKNOWLEDGED - - 342 VII. THE POLITICAL FUTURE OF ISLAM - 355 VIII. CRESCENT AND CROSS- - 371 IX. EUROPEAN POWERS IN MOSLEM ASIA - - -387 INDEX- - ... PART I THE CIVILISING INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA THERE are, perhaps, no subjects of human knowledge and research in which such progress has been made during the past century as in those of the geography and ethnography of Asia. When we read, for instance, Ritter's intensely interesting and able description of Eastern lands, or study the history of some particular portion of the East brought within our reach by the un- ceasing labour of modern Orientalists, we realise how poor and imperfect was our knowledge of the old world during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1 848, for instance, on the subject of Central Asia we only possessed the joint labour of Dubeux and Valmont,* whereas we now have elaborate and exhaustive narra- tives and descriptions upon all possible subjects con- nected with those countries. In the regions where some decades ago the traveller's life was in constant danger, and where the struggle with the elements and with the natives made his progress necessarily slow and tedious, we now find a well-organised railway system, and in the place of the grunting camel the fiery steam-horse ploughs its way through endless vistas of sandy steppes. When, comfortably seated in our well- upholstered railway-carriage, we gaze upon the Hyr- kanian Steppe, upon the terrible deserts of Karakum * 'Tartarie, Beloutchistan, Boutan et Nepal,' par M. Dubeux et par M. V. Valmont. Paris, 1848. I 2 WESTERN INFLUENCE IN THE EAST and Kisilkum, we can scarcely realise the terrors, the sufferings, and the privations, to which travellers formerly were exposed. Truly, Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. And great changes similar to those which have taken place in Central Asia may also be noticed in greater or less degree in other parts and regions of the Eastern world : Siberia, West and North China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Japan, were in the first half of the nineteenth century scarcely known to us, and where the early martyrs of geographical re- search, such as Schlagintweit, Hayward, Wyburd, Conolly, Margary, and others, fell victims to barbarism, we now find that the supreme power of the Western world is gradually making itself felt. The walls of seclusion are ruthlessly pulled down, and the resist- ance caused by the favoured superstitions, prejudices, and the ignorance of the sleepy and apathetic man in the East, is slowly being overcome. If the English poet Matthew Arnold was right when he sang, ' The East bowed down before the blast In patient, deep disdain ; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again,'* our present-day Europe, in its restless, bustling ac- tivity will take good care not to let the East relapse again into its former indolence. We forcibly tear its eyes open ; we push, jolt, toss, and shake it, and we compel it to exchange its world-worn, hereditary ideas and customs for our modern views of life ; nay, we have even succeeded to some extent in convincing our Eastern neighbours that our civilisation, our faith, our customs, our philosophy, are the only means whereby the well-being, the progress, and the happi- ness, of the human race can be secured. For well-nigh 300 years we have been carrying on * Obermann, ' Once More.' ANCIENT ROME AND THE EAST 3 this struggle with the Eastern world, and persist in our unsolicited interference, following in the wake of ancient Rome, which began the work with marked perseverance, but naturally never met with much suc- cess because of the inadequate means at its disposal. When we read the words of patriotic enthusiasm and inspiration with which Virgil addresses Caesar, ex- claiming : ' et te, maxima Caesar, Qui nunc extremis Asiae jam victor in oris Imbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum';* or when, in the ' Carmen Saeculare ' of Horace, young Roman citizens and maidens are made to sing : 1 Jam mari terraque manus potentes Medus Albanasque timet secures Jam Scythse responsa petunt, superbi Nuper, et Indi ' ;t or when in many other classical Roman poems we meet with passages of a similar nature, we naturally begin to think that the Roman legions not only conquered the Asiatic world, but also exercised a civilising and beneficial influence over the whole East. This, how- ever, was not the case. We may admire the splendour, the might, and the glory of ancient Rome, we may allow that the glitter of its arms struck terror and alarm into the furthest corners of Asia ; but in spite of all that, it would be difficult to admit that the civilising influence of Rome was ever more than an external varnish, a transitory glamour. Compared with the real earnest work done in our days by Western Powers, the efforts of Rome are as the flickering of an oil-lamp in comparison with the radiance of the sun in its full glory. It may be said without exaggeration that never in the world's history has any one continent exercised * Quoted from ' Relations Politiques et Commerciales de 1'Empire Remain avec 1'Asie Orientale,' par M. Reinaud, p. 141. f The same, p. 117. I 2 4 WESTERN INFLUENCE IN THE EAST such influence over another as has the Europe of our days over Asia : never were two such diametrically opposed elements engaged in so deadly a strife as is now to be seen in all parts of the Old World. This being so, it appears to me most important that we should realise what is the extent and the purpose of our civilising influence over Asia. We have to consider not only its historical growth and the means employed in its development, but also the results so far obtained, and t]ie ultimate ends to be accomplished. And we are the more anxious to do so as our investigations into the remotest nooks and corners of the Old World have become fairly familiar ground to us all. We are in constant communication with those nations, we are familiar with their thoughts and their aspirations, we know what they think of our civilisation and the value they attach to the innovations which we are proposing to introduce into their lives. Our inquiries will in the first place make us acquainted with the means and the resources employed by the promoters of civilisation in the East. The advantages and disad- vantages of our interference in the destiny of Eastern nations will stand out in bold relief, and the purely objective and unprejudiced estimate of the changes already effected may perchance have a beneficial in- fluence upon future political relations all over the world. In the first place, then, we must ask ourselves the question : Have we a right thus to interfere in the concerns of the ancient world ; and in the second place, What do the Asiatics think of it ? If we start with the assumption that every man has a right to his own opinion and to the views which best correspond with his ideas of morality and material com- fort, our pretended crusade in the name of civilisation must look like an unwarrantable interference. But the correctness of this assumption has so far been con- tradicted by historical events, for no community can OUR RIGHT OF INTERFERENCE 5 remain in absolute isolation. Even China, the proto- type of a seclusion extending over thousands of years, has before now migrated far into neighbouring lands. If Rome and Greece had remained within the narrow precincts of their native lands humanity would not have reached the present height of culture, and if Western nations had checked their passion for migra- tion the aspect of things in Asia would now be even worse than it actually is. Of course the Asiatics them- selves do not view the matter in this light. Many of them look upon our enforced reforms as hostile attacks upon their liberty, and as means to bring their people under our yoke. But the better-informed amongst them, who know what the East now is and what it used to be, will hardly share this view. Humanity in Asia has never known culture and liberty in the sense in which we understand it, and has therefore never known true happiness, which is unavoidably dependent upon these two chief factors of mental and physical well-being. During the much-extolled golden era of the history of Asia, tyranny and despotism were the ruling elements, justice a vain chimera, everything depended on the arbitrary will of the Sovereign, and a prolonged period of rest and peace was quite the exception. Asiatics, from motives of vanity or inborn laziness, may con- done these abnormal conditions, but still it remains our duty to recognise the true state of affairs, and to take pity upon our oppressed fellow-men. Without our help Asia will never rise above its low level, and even granted that the politics of European Powers are not purely unselfish, we must nevertheless, keeping the ultimate object in view, approve of the interference of Europe in the affairs of the East, and give the under- taking our hearty support. Viewed in this light, we may be thankful that the Christian West for 300 years has been unceasing in its interference in Asiatic affairs. Although the 6 WESTERN INFLUENCE IN THE EAST Italians, Dutch and Portuguese were the first in the field, we recognise in our days only two competitive Powers Russia and England. The historical develop- ment and national and political interests of both these nations are closely bound up with Asia. When I say Asia, I mean Moslem Asia, the Asia which has engaged my attention for years, both in a theoretical and in a practical manner. Non-Moslem Asia will only be occasionally mentioned in these pages. Asia is necessary to the very existence of Russia and England as Great Powers, and they are therefore compelled to exercise, if not an exclusive, yet a very grave influence upon the fate of the East. In their ethnical nature ; their relative standard of culture ; their object in view, and in their ultimate goal of desire, these two civilising influences are, nevertheless, funda- mentally different. The one is actuated by purely political motives, while the other is chiefly guided by the economical and commercial results of its actions. Both nations would gladly consider themselves the appointed arbiters of the fate of the East, but, with due allowance for the different motives which incite them, we have to reckon with the actual facts, and we can only look upon Russia and England as those Powers upon which the future of the Asiatic world chiefly depends. CHAPTER II RUSSIAN SUCCESSES OVER URAL-ALTAICS FROM the earliest times Russia has been in touch with the various races of the Ural-Altaic race. This is primarily to be attributed to its geographical position ; the intercourse, however, could not at any time have been of a friendly nature, because of the absolute uncongeniality which from the very first characterised these neighbouring elements in matters of religion, politics, and society. We may not think highly of Russian civilisation in the Middle Ages, but we must admit that the Russian State institution, founded on Christian principles, even in those early stages of its existence, gave evidence of certain future possibilities possibilities which we look for in vain in the ethnical element of Asiatic constitutions. With the adoption of Christianity, although in the form of the Byzantine Church, the Slavs of Eastern Europe unconsciously developed certain characteristics which were peculiar to Western lands even before the time of the Renais- sance, not as a consequence of, but rather in spite of, Christianity; and so the Russian world, without desiring to do so nay, rather although manifesting an absolute dislike to anything that came from Western lands at a very early date had to act the part of pioneer of the Christian world, and to take its stand as the antagonist of Islam. So long as it merely concerned the resistance of an overbearing, warlike, rapacious nomadic force which overran all the land 7 8 RUSSIA AND THE URAL-ALTAICS from the frontiers of China up to the borders of the Danube, the opposition of these two worlds could not be so prominent. Russia, as a matter of fact, had to yield before the crushing superiority of the Ugrian, Turkish, and Mongol hordes ; it had no means of defence against the social and political influences of these primitive Asiatic powers. This is evident from the many words in the Russian language which are clearly of Eastern derivation.* After the fall of the Golden Horde, which, like the rest of these semi-nomadic States of modern times, without cohesion and without sound foundation, could not be expected to last long, the Grand-Dukes of Moscow took up a bolder position. Family feuds and fratricide in the house of the Princes of Serai em- boldened the Tsars of Moscow, as protectors of the deposed Princes of the Golden Horde, to cast longing eyes upon the southern districts. And so it happened, through the protection extended by the Grand-Duke Vasili to Prince Kasim, a brother of the ruler of Kazan (1448), that the khanate of Kasimoffcame under the dominion of the Tsars, and afterwards had to supply the auxiliary troops against Kazan. In pro- * Such derived words are, for instance : Kasna, treasure-house, from the Arab ' khazna ' ; khalat, dressing-gown, from the Arab ' khalat,' robe, robe of honour ; hetman, from the Turkish ' ataman,' chief ; yassak, tribute, from the Turkish ' yassak,' law, arrangement ; ochak, from the Turkish ' odjak,' hearth ; kazan, kettle Turkish ' kazan'; kushak, girdle Turkish 'kushak'; bondjuk, banner Turkish ' bondjuk,' knob; yessau, captain of artillery Turkish ' yasaul,' lieutenant. Karamsin is, therefore, not quite right when he says that the Russians have taken over nothing from their nomadic neighbours. This is contradicted by the fact that, inasmuch as the French words introduced into the German language point to the influence of an earlier developed nation, in the same way are the Tartar-Russian foreign words, relating to governmental and social matters, a proof of the cultural influence of the Golden Horde in the development of the Russian language. CAUSES OF THE RUSSIAN VICTORY 9 portion as the corruption of the Court of the Golden Horde increased, the power of the Tsars in Moscow grew. With the help of the discontented and fugitive Tartar deserters, they gradually succeeded in breaking the vital power of the Tartars, the name then given to the mixed Ural-Altaic tribes of the Lower Volga. It was a fierce and prolonged struggle, ending in the conquest and subjugation of the remnants of the Golden Horde, weakened by internal strife ; and if we would seek for the reason of the ultimate success of the Russian arms, we must mention first the superiority of the arms of Western manufacture used by the Russians, and secondly the greater endurance and persistence of the Russians, and the fixed political purpose they had in view. These traits of character are essentially European, and we find them only very occasionally among Orientals. The Northern nations are specially noted for them, and modern history teaches us that even in other engagements of any national body it is invariably the Northern faction which triumphs over the Southern. Apart from these advantages on the Russian side, we must also remember the political and social conditions which facilitated the advance of the Grand-Dukes of Moscow against the mixed tribes of Southern Russia. The internal government of the Golden Horde bore a striking resemblance to that of the khanate of Khiva and Khokand in the first half of the past century ; but the State machinery of the Golden Horde was so corrupt that it lacked even the strength and cohesion of the Turkish khanates, which at a very early date attained to a certain amount of power and of authority by reason of the religious glamour which surrounds Islam. When I call to mind the licentiousness, the cruelty, the anarchy, of which I have been an eye- witness among the Turkomans of Gorghen and Etrek and in the South of Khiva, and when I think what was io RUSSIA AND THE URAL-ALTAICS the condition of the State as I observed it at the Court of the Khan of Khiva, I can well imagine what life must have been at Serai, and what was the con- dition of the government of the Golden Horde. Ibn Batutah and other Arabian travellers have described the capital as stretching over several miles of ground, and resplendent with most beautiful buildings ; but this must be taken cum grano sails and with the necessary allowance for Oriental exaggeration ; for modern excavations have not brought to light any of these marvellous monuments. It is true that the pictures given of Russian morality in those days are far from pleasing, and Karamsin's description of the Russians makes one's hair stand on end.* Yet the refining influence of Western Europe had left its mark on the Russians. They were roused from their lethargy as early as the fifteenth century ; law and order prevailed among them ; new inventions and scientific pursuits had had a refining influence on the spirit of society and State, and Russia had felt this influence. Although semi-Asiatic, wild and crude in many features of its internal and external life, Russian society and the Russian State always compares advan- tageously with its nomadic conquerors and oppressors, and this is chiefly due to its Christian characteristics. The framework of State polity, a combination of the Varangians and the German, was firmly established ; * Temni's reign (Vasili the Blind, 1425-1462) is noted not only for internal disturbances, but also for the great cruelties characterizing the roughness and brutal customs of those days. Two Princes were blinded, two others killed by poison. It was not only the populace which, in its wild fury, without judgment drowned and burned its victims ; the Russians even martyred their prisoners of war in this same lawless manner, and legal punishment evinced the same barbarous cruelty (' History of the Russian Empire,' German transla- tion, vol. v., p. 286). II the European spirit might for a time be weakened, but could not be destroyed ; and these advantages were so strong that the best-organised Asiatic power could have had no chance of success against them how much less, then, a wild nomadic horde ! Another point in favour of the Russians in their struggle with the barbaric Ural-Altaic tribes, apart from the nomadic character of their enemies, which, as Karamsin* tells us, was opposed to all settled conditions of life, was the absence of all religious zeal, which made them lax in their religious observances and adherence to Islam, a fact which may even be noticed in the Turkish nomad of the present day. Too far away from the Asiatic centres of Mohammed's doctrine, they were excluded from close companionship with the Moslem world, which at that time enjoyed a considerable amount of power, nor had they any chance of religious intercourse with their other co-religionists, scattered over the three continents. An energetic, prolonged resistance against the slowly - advancing Christian forces was therefore almost out of the question. There was no united army to oppose them, the nomadic forces being chiefly composed of heathen contingents Ugrians, such as Chuvashes, Votyaks, Cheremises, and Mordvines, and whilst the Khans of the Crimea, Kazan, and Astrakhan stood in such evil repute that they could find no support from any other quarter, the Grand-Dukes of Moscow, in their enthu- siastic devotion to orthodox Christianity, and protected by th^ir firmly-established State institutions, could easily overcome their weakened foes, whose only * If the Mongols had done for us what they did for China and India, or what the Turks did for Greece if they had left their steppes and their nomadic life, and had settled in our cities they might now still exist as a State. Fortunately for us, the raw climate of Russia put any such idea out of their mind (Karamsin, vol. v., p. 297). 12 RUSSIA AND THE URAL-ALTAICS object was to gain booty, and who never seriously thought of establishing a State. The Russians proceeded on their southward course aided by the awakening culture of the West, but in their progress they gained much valuable knowledge from watching the military arts and tactics of the nomads. The Kossacks, a band of cavalry whose name and character at once betrays them as children of the steppes, formed the vanguard a la Turques ; behind them followed the semi-regular army. And so it was Asia that led the way, and Europe that followed after. If the Osmanli had hoisted their victorious banner a hundred years sooner on the cupola of the Aya Sophia in Constantinople, and had made their power felt in Western lands that is, in the Christian world the victory of the Cross over Islam in Russia could never have been accomplished. We know that Mohammed II., and perhaps even more Selim II., had cast greedy eyes upon the Volga district and the Crimea; but when the Russians began their campaign there was no Moslem force strong enough to oppose them, and therefore the Russian annexation of the Volga district proceeded slowly but surely. When in 1552 Kazan had fallen, the power of the Osmanli under Soliman was in the zenith of its glory, but the nomadic Turks on the Lower Volga were so degraded that prompt and energetic support from their side could not be expected. Notwithstanding this fact, Ivan the Terrible dreaded the possibility of a Turkish attack, as is proved by the obsequiousness with which the head of the Orthodox Church greeted Mohammed's representative on earth. In 1570 he sent one of his nobles, NowosilzofF, as Ambassador to Selim II., with the following message : ' My Sovereign is not an enemy of the Mussulman faith. His vassal the Tsar Sain Bulat rules in Kasimoff, the Tsarevich Kaibullah in Yuryeff, Ibak in Suroshik, and the Nogai Princes THE TSAR AND THE SULTAN 13 in Romanoff; they all praise the name of Mohammed freely and openly in their mosques, for with us every foreigner exercises his own religion;without reserve.'* A remarkable statement on the part of a Prince who had already begun to exterminate Islam by fire and sword throughout his dominions. * Karamsin, vol. vii., p. 143. CHAPTER III RUSSIA'S CONQUESTS ON THE LOWER VOLGA THE victory of the Double Cross over the Ural-Altaic tribes inaugurates a new era in this hitherto uninter- rupted stream of ethnical existence. The desolations wrought by Genghis and Timur were first put a check to by the martial exploits of Ivan the Terrible, and against the wall thus raised by him the angry waves of nomadism dashed in vain, and the flood which threatened devastation was stopped in its course. The taming process was far from easy. Ivan the Terrible, after the conquest of Kazan, had to use forcible means to introduce his Russification plans. The Tartars were forbidden to build mosques, and the Christians were not permitted to dwell among the Mohammedans. Next to Ivan himself, St. Guri exer- cised the greatest influence over the newly-conquered khanates. Even the new Governor, Prince Shuiski, submitted to him, and the natural result of his stringent regulations was that in the year 1556 some thousands of Mohammedans were converted to Christianity. Of more particular interest to us are the methods and manners, the ways and means, by which Russia sub- dued all these turbulent elements, and at the same time furthered Russian interests in those regions. The ethnical picture of those days must have been very different to what it is now ; when we look at the racial conditions as they are now in the regions of Kazan, Samara, Ufa, Orenburg, and Stavropol, and 14 SUBMISSION OF UGRIANS 15 we note how Russia more particularly in the middle course of the Volga, which was peopled with the numerous groups of Ural-Altaic elements, such as Tartars, Bashkirs, Cheremises, Chuvashes, and Votyaks has extended its dominions from the Ural as far as Kuma, that is, as far as the region of the steppes north of the Caspian Sea, we realise that this distribution could not possibly have been so originally. A little knowledge of the spirit which animated the political and social life of the Moslem nomadic nations must convince us that no Christians, and above all no Russians, who even then were much dreaded, would be likely to take up their peaceable abode in the settlements and under the sceptre of the Princes ot Kazan and Astrakhan. The same was the case in Bokhara and Khiva, where before the Russian conquest of Turkestan, with the exception of a few Armenians, no Christian community has ever been able to exist. Again, when Kazan fell into the hands of the Russians, only Russian prisoners were found within its walls, who came out to welcome Ivan at the city gates.* Similar relations prevailed in the country of the Bash- kirs, who after the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan sent an exclusively Bashkir deputation to Ivan the Terrible offering their subjugation, but Russia did not enforce colonisation upon them until the eighteenth century.f We gather from this that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Russia was but feebly repre- sented on the Lower Volga and in the adjacent southern districts. The Slav element spread very slowly, and * Karamsin, vol. vii., p. 338. f This colonisation, however, was no easy matter; for in 1786 the Russian Government, in consideration of their dislike to settle down, had formed these Bashkirs into irregular troops, which were used to guard the frontiers. A portion of this militia took part in the Russian occupation of Paris in 1812, and, as they shot with bow and arrow, the people jokingly called them 'les amours du Nord ' (Pauli, Narody, Rossi, small edition, vol. ii., p. 306). 16 RUSSIAN CONQUESTS ON THE VOLGA it could only gain a foothold in proportion as the civilis- ing methods of the Government took effect, for with the restriction of the nomadic spirit the extension of the Turco-Tartar element could easily be hindered.* This group of the Ural-Altaic race never took pleasure in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture ; they passion- ately clung to their nomadic life in the steppes, and when forced to abandon this development, the mere existence seemed impossible to them. Wherever the power of the Turco-Tartaric element was broken and its scene of action narrowed the Slavs gained an entrance. They tilled the ground, they made settled dwellings, and where formerly the traveller might journey for several days without coming upon a town or a village the Slavs introduced all those conveniences of civilisation which, radiating from Russia as their centre, extended far away to the South. Russia's polity, it should be remembered, spread from West to East, and thus checked the influx of tribes from the Upper Yenissei and the Ob, and from the Tartar-Mongol steppe regions. The numerical strength of the population of those times must be estimated by a different standard to ours, for where we speak now of thousands, it could scarcely be a question of hundreds then; and although Oriental writers and their Christian colleagues mention hundreds of thousands of people, this exaggerated statement must be attributed to Oriental imagination, or to the then prevailing fanatic dread of the wild and foreign warriors. It has now been satisfactorily ascertained that in the army of Genghis only a limited number of Mongols were enlisted, and that the main body consisted of Turks and Ugrians, who had joined the conqueror on his victorious * Rittich, 'Material! dlya etnografiy Rossiy, Kazanskaya Guber- niya,' vol. i., p. 93. THE MARCH SOUTH 17 march.* From this point of view it is easy to see how the national Slav element, with its strong domestic pro- clivities, succeeded at last in breaking the backbone of nomadic existence. And as regards the further means which led to the final decomposition of nomadic society if we may be allowed to call it by that name the answer to this problem must be found in the manner in which Russia, in the strength of its superior culture, exerted its influence over the nomads. In Ivan's time fortified places were made whence the newly-conquered districts were governed and kept in check. These places became afterwards centres of colonisation. Thus, Arska was founded to check the Cheremises and Tartars ; Laishova, to check the Nogays and Tartars (1557) ; Cheboksar, to check the Nogays and Tartars (1555), also Telyush (1555), Kozmodemyansk (i 563), Tzivilsk (1583), and many others. The first inhabitants of these fortified places were the Stryelzi (archers), who afterwards amalgamated with the peaceful inhabitants. Through these settlements the restlessness of the nomadic element was kept firmly within bounds.t The Grand-Dukes of Moscow could never have dreamed of a voluntary colonisation of the Turco-Tartars ; such a thing even in modern times would seem almost impossible witness the Russian attempts at colonisation in the Kirghis Steppe. But there was another way by which the desired metamorphosis might be effected, and that was conversion to Christianity; for it was believed that if the conquered tribes could be made to adopt the faith of their victors, a gradual merging of the two conflicting elements would be accomplished. In Asia, where religion has always played a more important * Compare Professor W. W. GrigoriefTs treatise, 'The Relations of the Nomads with Civilised States' (Russian Review, vol. vii., pp. 321-350). t Rittich, vol. i., p. 99. 2 i8 RUSSIAN CONQUESTS ON THE VOLGA part than nationality, conversion has generally proved successful. Proselytising is the chief strength of the Ottoman Empire, for only through the absorption of the Greek and Armenian elements of Asia Minor has it been possible to instil in the army and in the State that spirit of perseverance which has enabled them to press on towards Europe, and to maintain their independence longer than any of their Turkish pre- decessors on the road to conquest. The Russians never were in any way inferior to the Osmanli in their religious zeal and proselytising, for it is a well- known fact that the Double Cross has been the most efficacious weapon in the establishment of the gigantic Russian Empire in Asia. Ikonnikoff, in his study of the history of Russia in its relation to civilisation, says that the campaign against Kazan bore an eminently orthodox religious character. Ivan the Terrible said : * I will not see the destruction of the Christian con- verts who are loyal to me, and to my last breath I will fight for the Orthodox faith. Trusting in God, in Mary the Mother of God, and in the miracle-working saints, we will go on.' It was the many different religions he had to deal with which made the work so difficult, and to this day the mighty Russian Empire labours under the same difficulty. Wherever the Russians have come into contact with the Finnish- Ugrian tribes, which were for the greater part heathens or else Shamans, the work of conversion was comparatively easy, for the Orthodox Church, if at first only in appearance and in outward form, has gradually occupied all the ground. The conversion of the Chuvashes, a Turkish-Ugrian tribe,* dates from the year 1743 ; that of the Mordvines, or, as the Russians call them, Mordvas, although begun in the time of Ivan the Terrible, was not completed until the reign of the Empress Elizabeth ; but even to this day * Rittich, vol. i., p. 93. 19 the Chuvashes retain many of their heathen customs. So also the Votyaks a tribe which emigrated from Siberia, and is known to the Russians as the 4 white-eyed Finns ' were easily induced to embrace Christianity after the conquest of Kazan ; but of course they retained many of their heathen manners and customs, as did also the Cheremises, a strong mix- ture of Ugrian-Turco elements, and who, after much warfare* under Ivan the Terrible,! have in modern times embraced Christianity.! Fortunately for the Russians, these isolated tribes of the Finn-Ugrians, and particularly the ' Forest-Cheremises,' although formerly of a warlike disposition, wild and inaccessible, have become at an early date reconciled to settled dwellings. They were at most only semi-nomads, and therefore more open to Russian influence than the essentially nomadic Turco-Tartar elements. According to Rittich, the Cheremises of Kosmode- myansk have become quite Russified, and can, as far as their habits are concerned, scarcely be distinguished from the Russians themselves. A settled or partially settled population is far easier influenced by foreign culture than wandering tribes, for, as the proverb says : 1 A rolling stone gathers no moss.' External influences have not much hold upon them ; new views of life, new manners and customs, do not appeal to them * See my 'Tiirkenvolk,' Leipzig, 1888, pp. 444-495. t In the insurrection against Ivan, Votyaks and Cheremises played a conspicuous part ; 800 Russians fell in the first battle, and afterwards another 500 under the command of the Wojwod Boris Saltykoff (Karamsin, vol. vii., p. 354). J Pauli (vol. i. } p. 168) says : ' Almost all Cheremises belong to the Orthodox Church, although true Christian principles are only found among a very limited number. The greater part of the Cheremises either profess Islamism or else they are idolaters, fetish- worshippers, or Shamans.' Rittich, A. Ph., ' Materiali Dlya Etnographiy Rossiy. Kazanska Guberniya XIV. Taga.' Kazan, 1870, vol. ii., p. 130. 2 2 20 RUSSIAN CONQUESTS ON THE VOLGA they do not know what to make of them. Baptism, the first and principal condition for a closer com- munion with the Russians, made but slow progress. The Archbishop Misail, sent by the Patriarch Nikom to convert the Mordvines and who wanted to use force, was murdered by them.* The Votyaks and other Ugrian tribes in the principality of Kazan also offered fierce resistance at first, but not with the same persistence as the Moslem Tartars. Of course in many instances the Orthodox Church had to close one eye ; it had to be satisfied with an external profession of Christianity, for many of these Ugrian converts have to this day remained faithful to their heathen feasts, customs, and superstitions. But this is only a question of time. In proportion as the Russian language becomes more generally taught in the schools, these reminiscences of antiquity will gradually disappear and the Russification of the Ugrians will make rapid progress. _* Pauli, vol. i., p. 122. CHAPTER IV FORCED CONVERSION OF TARTARS WHAT has been said about the Finnish-Ugrian ele- ments does not apply to the Turco-Tartars of European Russia, for in the case of these latter the civilising efforts of the Russians met with two great difficulties, closely connected and in a manner completing one another. I refer to the ethnical and the religious relations of the Turco-Tartars, which have hindered the assimilation, are hindering it still, and, as far as one can see, are likely to hinder it for a good while to come yet. The Turks, the natio militans of the Middle East, are only noticeable in the civilising movement where they appear upon the scene in company with Aryan or Semitic elements, as, for instance, the Osmanli, who, after amalgamating with these elements, have created for themselves under the protection of Islam a special form of culture in their political, social, and intellectual life. History teaches, moreover, that the Turco-Tartars, those born warriors of the desert, have never found any delight in a settled life and peaceful occupation, and that in every instance coercion has been the means to bind them to the soil. Where the Turk ceases to rule sword in hand he soon loses his nationality altogether, or else it dies a lingering, miserable death. After the Double Cross had commenced its victorious campaign, the numerical strength of the Turks residing north of the Caspian and Black Seas, which up to that time had been 21 22 FORCED CONVERSION OF TARTARS fairly large, diminishes perceptibly ; and although the Nogays, Bashkirs, Crimean Tartars, and Kirghises are occasionally and sporadically heard of, their political existence soon became extinct ; so likewise the Osmanli in the last Russo-Turkish War have gradually retreated from the Balkan peninsula, and are still migrating in the direction of Anatolia. There are a few isolated instances of Turkish warriors who, favoured by fortune, have succeeded in founding new States in various parts of the old world as, for instance, the Ghaznevides and Timurides in India, the Sefevides and Kadjars in Persia, and the Osmanides in Turkey ; but everywhere their dominion depended upon the success of their arms, and where this glamour failed their power was gone. The Turks, then, who came under the Russian sceptre, true to their national character, have hardly given the Russian conqueror a fair chance of civilising them, and except for a few towns-people engaged in trade before the advent of the Russians as, for instance, the Tartars in Kazan, Astrakhan, Tomsk, and Tobolsk, the occasional Russian attempts at civilising the Turks have remained fruitless. There are certain natural and ethical conditions, the result of long custom, which are very difficult to break. The predilection for a roaming life in their boundless desert-home is born and bred in the Turkish blood, and a Turko- man once very aptly remarked to me that ' it would be easier to pin every grain of sand to the soil than to make a Turkoman into a man of settled habits.' By means of the fortified places built in the con- quered khanate of Kazan, the Ugrians were first compelled to settle in fixed dwelling-places ; and as the Russians freely mixed with the baptised Tartars, Chuvashes, Cheremises, Mordvines, and Votyaks, the present population of the principality of Kazan MOSLEM ZEAL OF THE TURKS 23 forms a mixture of various well-known races.* The Turks, as already mentioned, furnished the smallest contingent, which, apart from their innate love for a nomadic life, is chiefly due to the influence of Islam, which has hampered all Russia's attempts at civilisa- tion. The doctrine of Mohammed, peculiarly suited to the general ideas, domestic and intellectual pursuits of the Asiatic, has always stood apart from other religions ; fully persuaded of its own superiority and saving efficacy, it stands firm as a rock where the contest with other beliefs is unavoidable. We have already remarked that the Turk in his nomadic condi- tion is at best but a feeble follower of Islam, but notwithstanding this lack of strength and enthusiasm Christianity has not been able to shake the Moslem faith of the Turks who have fallen under the Tsar's dominion. It is the Russian swprd, and not the Double Cross, which has gained the victory over Islam. From the learned and excellent work of Wel- yaminoff-Zernofft about the Tsars and Tsareviches of the House of Kasimoff, we learn that of the Tartar Princes who enjoyed the favour of Tsar Vasili the Blind, and who had the rule over various princi- palities, very few fell away from Islam, although they maintained their vassalage from the middle of the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Among the baptised Moslem-Tartar Princes mentioned in history we find the name of Khudai-kul, who on December 21, 1505, received the sacrament of Baptism, and with it the name of Peter,\ and a month later * Rittich, vol. i., p. 103. t Welyaminoff-Zernoff, W. W., ' Izslyedowaniye o Kasimowskikh Czarakh i czarewichakh.' St. Petersburg, 1863-1866, three volumes. The first volume has been published in German translation under the title of ' Untersuchung iiber die Kasimofschen Zaren und Zarewitsche, von W. W. Welyaminoff-Zernoff. 3 Translated from the Russian by Dr. Julius Theodor Zenker. Leipzig : Leopold Voss, 1867. J The same, vol. i., p. 181. 24 FORCED CONVERSION OF TARTARS married Eudoxia, sister of the Grand-Duke Vasil Ivanovich. He was a son of Shah Ali, by the Rus- sians called Shigali ; his second son, Melik Tahir, re- mained true to Islam all his life, while two other sons adopted Christianity, and received the names of Vasili and Fedor. The latter two Princes, however, did not adopt Christianity from choice, but under the Russian jurisdiction Christianity was offered as an alternative to death in cases where Tartars had been convicted of some breach of confidence. When Shah Ali was exiled on account of secret and treacherous dealings with Kazan, his wives, children, and relatives submitted to Baptism in order to escape torture and martyrdom. In note 98, vol. i., of the above-mentioned work ' The History of the Tsars and Tsareviches ' we read the following details : 'In this same year (17043 i.e., 1535) in the month of June (26 and 27) seventy-three of Shah Shigali's (Shah Ali) Tartars were cast into prison, and afterwards con- demned to death and executed. Amongst these were seven children, who were strangled by day, and at night their bodies were thrown into the water. Eight prisoners were kept in confinement, but had neither food nor water given to them, and were finally also put to death.' In another account we read : ' The Grand-Duke Ivan Vasilevich, in a fit of anger with the Tartars at Novgorod, threw more than eighty of them into prison ; they all died five days later with their belief unchanged. In the same manner died seventy persons in Pekoff, and only one amongst them acknow- ledged the One Holy and Orthodox Church, and he received the name of Michael, whereas his former name was Hasan. 1 In Novgorod forty-three women and thirty-six children, in Pekoff fifty women and children, were on that occasion forced to enter the Orthodox Church.* * Welyaminoff, vol. i., p. 283. BAPTISED PRINCES OF KASIMOFF 25 Concerning other Princes of the House of Kasimoff, we know that Seid Burhan, son of Arslan Shah, joined the Christian Church between 1653 and 1655, and took the name of Vasili. Together with him a relation of his, Prince Altun-Ay, a son of Kochiim Khan, and his family, accepted Christianity. During the reign of Seid Burhan, who died in 1680, the conversion of Moslems of the House of Kasimoff appears to have made rapid progress. ' The Russian propaganda ' thus writes Welyaminoff * ' had in all probability started before that time. The Orthodox element pre- ponderated over all other beliefs under Arslan and Seid Burhan, and the change to Christianity, if only in outward form, was accomplished quietly and gradually. Under the reign of Vasili the struggle between the Orthodox Church and other religions began to spread. On the part of the Russian Government measures were taken for the conversion of the Tartars, more particularly of the heathen Mordvines. These people, obedient to the voice of the Government and the clergy, embraced Christianity by whole villages at once, sometimes of their own free will, sometimes after long and serious fighting.' The author of the ' History of the House of Kasimoff' remarks that these first steps towards the merging of the Tartar element into the Russian were made possible because the Princes set a good example and embraced Christianity. Thus, for instance, after the taking of Kazan, the conversion of Yadigyar Khan led to a large body of Moslems accepting Christianity. Russian historians would have us believe that these conversions were voluntary acts, but this is contradicted by the noteworthy fact that the number of Tartars who forsook Islam, and whose descendants to this day are called ' Kreshcheni Tartars ' (baptised Tartars), now, after a lapse of * Welyaminoff, vol. iii., p. 425. 26 FORCED CONVERSION OF TARTARS nearly 500 years, only amounts to about 30,000.* The Tartars baptised in the time of Ivan the Terrible were distinguished by the Russians as ' Stari-Kreshcheni ' (old-baptised), in contradistinction to the ' Novo- Kreshcheni ' (new-baptised). The fact that through- out the first centuries of their amalgamation, in spite of the continuance of so many of their old-world cus- toms, Christianity preponderated, is to be attributed, as Rittich rightly remarks, to the existing difficulties of intercourse with the rest of the Islamic world ; for the Orthodox Church always has had, and still has, but a loose hold on them. As regards the newly-baptised, it is fair to suppose that on the whole they incline more towards Islam than towards Christianity. The Russian Church has made much of these Tartar con- verts, and holds them up as encouraging examples for the further conversion of the Volga Turks. We owe much of our knowledge on this subject to the Russian Orientalist Nikolai Ivanovich Ilminski.t His dis- quisitions deserve special attention as revealing the chief motives of the Russian efforts at civilisation. * Rittich (vol. ii., p. 7) speaks of only 27,901 souls. + About the life and the works of this distinguished Russian scholar two excellent books have been written : (i) ' Na Pamyat Nikalaye Iwanowiche Ilminskom o dwadzatipyatiletiyu Bratstwa Swatitelya Guriya. Bratchika N. Znamanskago. Kazan, 1892' (In remembrance of N. I. Ilminski, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Brotherhood of St. Guria, by M. Znamenski, a member of the Brotherhood). (2) ' Nikolai Iwanowich Ilminski. Izbraniya Myeste iz pedagoghicheskikh sotchineniy, nyekotoriya swyedyeniya o yego dyeyatelnosti i o poslyednikh dnyakh yego zhizni. Kazan, 1892 (selected passages from his pedagogic works, and instances about his work and the latter days of his life). THE classification into old and newly baptised, dates, correctly speaking, from the year 1740, when, for the benefit of the Moslem Tartars, a special mission was organised in connection with the Convent of Swiyask.* In places where the newly-baptised lived in close vicinity to the Russians, Christianity became fairly well established, but where they lived at greater distances from the Russian bases they soon turned back to Islam. Many of them continued their Moslem practices in secret, attended the mosques, and held clandestine meetings with the Mollas. Moreover, they often had both Christian and Mohammedan names, as was the case with the pseudo-Mohammedans near Trebisond and Salonica. Under these circumstances one could hardly expect a close bond of union to exist between the converts and the Russians. As a rule the Christian Tartars lived quite apart from the Russians ; inter- marriage was almost unknown, while marriages between the Russians and baptised Cheremises, Votyaks, and Mordvines did not belong to the exceptions.! For a long time the Government placidly accepted these conditions; nay, more, by the Ukas of 1773, proclaim- ing religious tolerance, the propagation of Islam was practically encouraged. In 1778 the Government estab- lished at Ufa a kind of Russian Sheikh-ul-Islamate, and not only did the number of mosques rapidly * ' Na Pamyat,' iii., p. 327. f Rittich, vol. ii., p. 7. 27 28 RUSSIFICATION AND EMIGRATION increase after that, but Islamism spread unchecked among the Kirghises and Bashkirs, who until then had been Shamans. The Russian ethnographer Rittich remarks on this point that the reign of Catherine II. has done more for the furtherance of Islam than the khanate of Kazan during the whole time of its inde- pendence. The real object of the Government in thus favouring Islam was to induce the nomads to take up more settled habits, in the belief that the religion of Islam, being more in keeping with the Asiatic mind, would lend itself better as a first step towards civilisa- tion. This tolerance naturally turned out to the dis- advantage of the Orthodox Church ; a reaction was bound to follow, nor was it long in coming. The first really serious attempts at a systematic conversion and Russification of the Tartars in Kazan and neighbouring districts date from the year 1854, when it was decided to establish at the Academy of Kazan a mission in four divisions, viz. : (i) Anti- Moslemic, (2) anti-Raskolnik, (3) anti-Buddhistic, and (4) anti-Heathen, the latter being directed against the Chuvashes and Cheremises, who had remained faithful to their old heathen beliefs.* At the head of the anti-Moslemic division was the learned Orientalist N. I. Ilminski, already referred to, assisted by Professor Sablukoff. Ilminski, who was the moving spirit of this division, insisted that, in the Tartar dialect of the Kazan Tartars, Russian transcription, although not fully meet- ing all the requirements, should be used in preference to the Arabic writing, which was both foreign and incapable of conveying the full sound of the Turkish tongue.f All superfluous Arabic-Persian expressions and words were to be eliminated and replaced by old Turkish ones, so that the language should become * ' Na Pamyat,' p. 95. f In the Russian language the sound of o and it does not exist which in Turkish plays an important part. MEASURES OF CONVERSION 29 simpler and bear a more decided Turkish national character, and eventually assist the work of Russifica- tion. Apart from these linguistic reforms, Ilminski took care that his pupils the future missionaries and teachers of the natives were also made familiar with the doctrines of Islam, and for this purpose he delivered lectures on Mukhtassar-ul-Wukaye, Fikh, Feraiz, and others, also on other subjects discussed at the Moslem Universities. In short, he instituted a kind of polemic course of training, whereby the missionaries schooled in the religious knowledge of the Moslems would be qualified to enter into discussions with the Mollas, and to refute the tenets of the Koran and the Sunnah. Apart from the very problematic value of this project for in the art of religious argument Christian clergy, and the Russian clergy in particular, are but poor bunglers compared with the Mollas the plan of the learned Russian Orientalist found but little favour with the Orthodox Church. When, in 1857, Canon Ivan, afterwards Bishop of Smolensk, took over the management of the institution, Ilminski received a severe reproof. The new Rector, who was both fanatic and ignorant, argued that the future missionaries need have no knowledge whatever of Islam ; the learned Orientalist, he said, was far too sanguine ; he had entered far too deeply into the mysteries of Moslem theology, and appeared singularly attracted by the doctrines of Mohammed. It is characteristic of the spirit of the seminary that, of the sixty students whose names were entered in 1858, only fifteen interested themselves in the course of the anti-Islamic lectures. And yet Ilminski was perfectly right in the methods he had adopted. It is only when possessing a minute knowledge of the Koran and the Sunnah that the missionary has a chance of being heard by the Moham- medans. He can certainly never do any good by 30 RUSSIFICATION AND EMIGRATION ignoring their tenets or by using rigorous measures such as the Russian clergy employed. It remains a fact that the Russian philologists Ilminski, Chestakoff, and Zolotnitzky, in their endeavours to improve the popular speech, have contributed more to the Russifi- cation of the motley mixture of nationalities in the principality of Kazan than all the violent measures which the Synod has put into practice. The former, at any rate, accomplished this, that amongst the baptised Tartars of the present day there is much less falling back than there used to be, and that the Moslem Tartars learn to speak and to write the Russian language far more easily than before. To the majority of the Kazan Moslems the Russian tongue is quite familiar; the women perhaps make an exception. The elementary and higher schools are attended by the Moslem children, although always under compulsion ; for the parents are still afraid for their children to have intercourse with the Christians, lest they should acquire habits which are contrary to the doctrines of Mohammed. Young Tartars are taught the elements of geography, history, physics, and arithmetic, but their belief is not interfered with. The first instruction is given in the Mekteb, or Mohammedan school, supported by private dona- tions. A school of this kind is found in connection with every mosque, even in the smallest communities. Although the system inaugurated by the Synod for the conversion of the Moslem Tartars has proved a failure, the efforts of the Educational Department, under Count D. A. Tolstoi, who in 1866 and 1867 visited the Volga district and Odessa* for this purpose, have not been without success. He has carried the Ilminski system into effect, and in so far as this was possible in the face of the fanaticism of the Volga Tartars and Crimean Tartars, incited by the Turks and Central Asiatics, Tolstoi has raised the education of * ' Na Pamyat,' p. 217. TARTARS OF KAZAN AND CRIMEA 31 the Tsar's Moslem subjects in South Russia on to a higher level. Notwithstanding the secret and deeply- rooted hatred of all that is Christian, and particu- larly of the Russian Government, the Moslem Tartars of South Russia, especially the towns-people, are in point of modern culture far in advance of their co-religionists in Central Asia and in the eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire. The Volga Tartars and Crimean Tartars distinguished themselves by their industry, economy, and sobriety ; they are keen trades- men, mostly in a small way, and throughout the vast Russian Empire they have the reputation of being reliable and fair in all their dealings. Perhaps it may be attributed to their submissive nature and their inclination towards culture that the number of Kazan Tartars, instead of decreasing, has considerably in- creased, as may be seen from the following table : 1858 (according to Lapteff) ... 444,509 1868 (according to Rittich) ... 482,809 1897 (last census)* 625,847 This numerical increase is the more striking because in other parts of the Russian Empire for instance, among the Crimean Tartars, in the Caucasus, and also in Siberia the number of Moslem Tartars has remark- ably decreased.! This phenomenon, however, may be partly explained by the geographical position of these Moslem groups that is to say, the nearer they live to the frontiers of the independent Ottoman Empire, the easier it is for them to emigrate, and consequently the more Moslem subjects are being lost to the Russian * ' Raspredyelenie Nasseleniya Imperii po glawnim wyeroizpowye- daniam ' (Division of the people of the Empire, according to the Principal Confessions of Faith). Whether the Meshcheryaks, Tepters, and Babils are included is not certain. t According to Mohammed Fatih, in his work ' Kirima Siahat ' (Journey to the Crimea), Orenburg, 1904, about 300,000 Tartars have emigrated to Turkey. 32 RUSSIFICATION AND EMIGRATION Empire.* Two hundred years ago the number of Moslem Tartars in the Crimea and Tauria must in any case have been considerably greater than it is now. The Turkish element pervaded very nearly the whole region from the Pruth to the Volga, extending southward as far as the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and northward in sporadic groups as far as the borders of the Slav district. Only in this way can we account for the great political influence of the Khans of the Crimea in their intercourse with Russia, Poland, and Turkey, and this also explains the existence there of a standing army, many thousands strong, with which they were able to invade the neighbouring lands and penetrate far into the interior of Poland and Hungary.! Now only a small remnant of this once strong national element is left, partly in the Crimea, and partly to the north-west of the Caspian Sea. The same methods which in the principality of Kazan crippled the nomadic element and established the Slav colonies in this instance supplanted the Turkish elements and drove them back into the steppes. Nogays and Turkomans form the scanty remnant of a force which at one time filled all South Russia with terror, and the number of genuine Crimean Tartars, a mixture of Turks, Greeks, and Cimrians, has per- ceptibly decreased. PauliJ in his ethnographical work speaks of 276,000; according to Telfer, they num- * In a review of the correspondence of the Khans of the Crimea with Russia, as given in ' MateViaux pour servir a 1'histoire du Khanat de Crimde, par Weliaminof-Zernof, St. Petersbourg, 1864,' we marvel as we read of the enormously large troops at the disposal of Bag- chesarai, and which from time to time made incursions into Russian Poland and Hungary. Even allowing for a great deal of Oriental exaggeration, the nomadic populace which furnished these troops must have been of remarkable numerical strength. f Pauli, vol. i., p. 277. | The same, vol. i., p. 272. 'The Crimea and Trans- Caucasia,' vol. ii., p. 214. CRIMEAN TARTARS 33 bered 127,682 in the year 1874 ; Semenoff in his geographical-statistic dictionary of the Russian Empire (vol. v.,part i., 1875) estimates them at 100,000; according to the official figures for 1864 there were 164,900, and according to the census of 1884 142,000.* The Russian census for 1897 gives the Moslem population in the whole province of Tauria as 190,514 souls. In some Russian descriptions of the Crimea, Pauli's amongst them,f the view is expressed that the Crimean Tartars, as soon as they shall be made thoroughly familiar with all the conditions of a settled life, will resemble the Russians so nearly that amalgamation with them will follow as a matter ol course. But this is decidedly a mistaken view; for when Russia in 1764 incorporated the Crimea into the Tsar's dominions, Sumarokoff states that about 300,000 Tartars emigrated to Turkey.t After the Crimean War emigration received a fresh impetus, and for the Taurian peninsula alone amounted to 192,360 persons, so that in the course of the nine- teenth century the number of South Russian emigrants (Crimean Tartars and Nogays) must be estimated at 500,000 souls at least ; and emigration goes on even now, as we shall have occasion to notice again in the course of this work. Apart from the decrease in numbers caused by emigration, the compulsory colonisation and the aggravated conditions of nomadic existence must be taken into account as important factors for the decline of the Turkish element in the south and south-east of European Russia. At present the number of Tartars and Bashkirs collectively amounts to two and a half millions, and when we remember the important part these tribes played in * ' Zamyetki ob etnicheskom sostavye tyurskich piemen i narod- nosteiy i swyedeniya ob ich chislenosti by N. A. Aristow.' St. Peters- burg, 1897, p. 129. t Pauli, vol. i., p. 302 J Aristoff, 'Zamyetki,' p. 129. 3 34 the Middle Ages, and also in modern times, in the large territory between the Ural and the Pruth, before the intrusion of the Slavs, the conviction is forced upon us that the Ural-Altaic race has lost at least two- thirds of its former numerical strength, and is in some places destined to destruction. We see, then, that the slavonising of Eastern Europe, commenced by Ivan the Terrible with so much skill and energy, has steadily continued ever since, and that the Ural-Altaic race has been the largest contributor to the extra- ordinary increase of Russian Slavdom. CHAPTER VI OUR sketch of the influence of Russia upon the Turkish element in the European portion of the Tsar's dominions may suitably be completed by tracing the corresponding phenomena in the Asiatic territory of the Turco-Tartars, and our attention is directed in the first place towards the operations of Russia in the Kirghis Steppes. Here the Russian interference is of comparatively recent date. It is only in modern times that they have taken the matter energetically in hand, for with the exception of the nominal submission of the Kirghis chieftain Albukhair Khan, in 1734, the actual interference of Russia in the administration of the steppes dates from the year 1845, when General Obrucheff constructed the line of small forts by means of which he could keep a check on all that was going on, and, except for a few occasional outbreaks, succeeded in bringing the hitherto independent nomads under the Russian yoke. But all this was, necessarily slow work, and the final subjugation and incorporation of the Kirghis Steppe into the Tsar's dominions was only made possible when, with the taking of Tash- kend, in 1865, the steppe region, inhabited by the Kirghises, was closed in on all sides as by an iron fence. The methods employed by the Russians for the civilisation of the Kirghis Steppe were from the first quite different to the means used in the previous century for the subjugation of the Turco - Tartars 35 32 36 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES and the Ugrians. Then compulsory baptism and the propagation of the Orthodox Church was held to be the only salutary course to pursue, but in modern times those in authority began to think that in a less rigorous, more roundabout manner the desired results might be obtained equally well, and they commenced to educate the people and to build schools. As early as 1859, General-Lieutenant Glukhoff* had suggested that schools should be built in which the nomad chil- dren could receive tuition in the elementary subjects in the Kirghis tongue. At that time the Kirghises had already their own schools, the so-called Mektebs, which were always close to the mosques, and under the supervision of the Mollas. As a matter of course, only Moslem subjects were taught there. The schools were generally managed by Tartar Mollas from Kazan, or sometimes from Bokhara or Tashkend, and they became hotbeds of fanaticism and hatred against the Russian Giaours, for only thus could the doctrine of Islam be upheld among the wild nomads, who always had a leaning towards Shamanism. The Tartars from Kazan and Orenburg had for a long while been trading in the steppes, but apart from their commercial pur- suits they had been busy as missionaries for Islam. They did duty as reciters and expounders of the Koran Law, and thus formed a serious opposition and hindrance to the Russian plans. The schools for the children of Russian soldiers and colonists, erected * For the particulars here given concerning the Russian schools in the steppes and in Russian Turkestan, I am chiefly indebted to a work of the learned Russian Orientalist, N. P. Ostroumoff, which appeared at Tashkend in 1899 under the title of ' K'istoriy narodnago obrazovaniya v'turkestanskom kray. Konstantin Petrowich von Kaufmann, ustroyitel turkestanskayo kraya. Litchniya vospomenaniya ' (History of the Education of the People in Turkestan. Konstantin Petrovitch Kaufmann, the Builder of Turkestan. A personal reminis- cence, 1877-1881). This treatise will in future be referred to in this work under the title of ' Ostroumoff.' AN APPEAL TO THE KIRGHISES 37 in Rehimsko, Kazalinsk, Karmakchi, Kamish-Kurgan and Perowski, had found no favour with the Kirghises, for the parents were afraid that their children would turn against Islam and become Christians. One case only is recorded of voluntary entrance into one of these schools, namely, of a Kirghis youth of twenty years of age, Kul-Mohammed Utaganoff by name, who attended the school in 1862. In order to overcome these prejudices the Governor- General of Orenburg and Samara, and General-Adju- tant Katenin, decided to build a Kirghis seminary, in which twenty-five young Kirghises could be accom- modated and brought up on strictly ritualistic Moslem principles. They were to be dressed in a special uniform, with the exception of the Kirghis Tobetei (small round cap). A four years' course of training was fixed upon, after which the young men could enter the military school at Orenburg. This plan, however, was not carried out until 1863. All included, only fourteen Kirghises consented to let their children be educated at the seminary ; ten of these belonged to the Bis i.e., the upper classes and four to the lower class. The seminary was opened by General Wereff- kin (read WeryofFkin) with the following address : 4 Bis, Gray-beards, and Distinguished Kirghises ! ' By command of the Government I herewith open this first school for Kirghis pupils. I consider myself fortunate to have this duty to perform, for I am firmly convinced that this school will be of great benefit to your children. It is to be regretted that so far the inten- tion of the Government has not met with the sympathy it deserves from you, for up to now only fourteen pupils have applied for the twenty-five free places To some extent I can understand your hesitation ; I know that many of you have been born and brought up in the districts of Khiva and Khokand. There 38 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES you were accustomed to see that the authorities only looked after their own interests, and cared nothing about your welfare. But your former experiences and observations do not apply here. I pray you not to forget that you have the good fortune to be the subjects of the Russian Emperor, whose chief care and joy it is to do good to all his children without distinction, no matter whether they be Christians or Mohammedans, Russians or Kirghises. We, His Majesty's servants, therefore consider ourselves bound to promote your future welfare to the best of our ability, and to diffuse among you such useful know- ledge as is indispensable to a happy life. For this purpose the Government has thought well to open schools for the education of your children at State expense ; no money will be asked from you nor any other sacrifice ; all that you are asked to give is your confidence and co-operation. The children who enter this school will at the end of the course return to you free and unbiassed. This I promise you faithfully ; do not, therefore, believe those who tell you differently. In the school the children will only learn such things as they are likely to need in their after-life ; they will be made wiser, better, and more useful men ; they will be a comfort and a joy to you. I believe also that the children themselves, after their education here is finished, will always look back with pleasure upon their school-days ; I and my fellow-workers will do all we can to let this be so. I beg of you, when- ever you feel inclined, to come and visit the school, so that you may judge for yourselves what your children do, how they are instructed, how they are treated ; and you will then be fully convinced that in estab- lishing these schools the Government has only your interest at heart. Any remarks, requests, or sugges- tions which you may have to offer regarding the instruction or the maintenance of the pupils will STEPPE SCHOOLS 39 receive my fullest attention. My house is open to everyone ; I shall be pleased to see any of you, and I can only ask you not to hesitate to let me know your wishes. In conclusion, I desire to thank all who have given us their confidence ; they shall never regret it.'* This address merits our respect as coming from a man who, like General Wereffkin, had won for him- self much glory in the campaign against Khiva in 1873, but it also proves how strong was the mistrust of the inhabitants of the steppes with regard to the educa- tional movement. As a matter of fact, the results have not been worth all the trouble and expense bestowed upon it by the Government. Wherever steppe schools have been erected in close proximity to khanates, they meet with very little encouragement ; but, on the other hand, in the neighbourhood of strictly Russian communities they find more general favour. In the school of Kazalinsk,f for instance, only ten Kirghis pupils attended, while in Orenburg the number was considerably larger. On the whole, I think that the Government has been too sanguine about the success of their colonising and civilising methods among the nomads. The experience of the French with the Kabyles of Algiers is not exactly a stimulating example. General Kaufmann, the most zealous of civilisers, who stood at the head of the Russian administration in Turkestan, took every conceivable trouble to educate the Kirghises by means of Russian schools. He had more confidence in this tribe than in the Sarts, who, * Ostroumoff, p. 249. t The same, p. 258. Ostroumoff attributes this circumstance to the fanaticism of the Kirghis teacher Gul Mohammed Baidjanoff, who was soon after dismissed and replaced by another Kirghis Molla, Mumin Baidasoff. We have some difficulty, however, in accepting this view, as the time seems far distant yet that the Kirghis Moslem will feel any drawing towards Russian education. 40 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES although more susceptible to culture, were so abso- lutely under the influence of Islam that he regarded a closer intercourse with Russian civilisation almost im- possible. This view, however, was not quite correct, for although the nomad of Central Asia has been for more than 500 years under the influence of Islam, his knowledge of it is at best but superficial, and he still clings to the remnants of Shamanism. However, even the veneer of Islamism has so great a fascination for the Oriental pur sang that Christian culture has not much chance of breaking through the barrier. It is not so much the Mollas, the secular clergy educated in the Medresses (colleges), and who are more or less familiar with the tenets of Islam, but rather the Ishans (head-friars), dervishes and Kalenters, who exercise the greatest influence over the simple nomad. Their out- ward appearance, their familiar, grotesquely tattered garments, their wailing and howling, and their pre- tended magic power, have a wonderful charm for these simple children of the desert, and vividly remind them of the Bakhshi (troubadour, magician, physician, etc.), a relic of Shamanism, strictly prohibited by Islam. Moreover, it is but natural that any attempts at civili- sation, and particularly by foreigners, should be re- sented by the Kirghises, who have always been used to a wandering life. Where Islam has so far been un- successful, Christian culture has not much chance. In the schools of Tashkend, Chimkend and Aulia-Ata, Perowski and Kazalinsk, existing since 1878, only sixty- three natives have studied, while these schools have been attended during that time by 2,193 Russian children,* and this in a district where the number of Christians, including the soldiers, is estimated 3142,819, and that of the Mohammedans at 1,413,114 souls.f In the face of these undeniable signs of a strenuous resistance against enforced conversion, it must seem * Ostroumoff, p. 109. f Russian Census for 1897. A KIRGHIS ADDRESS 41 somewhat strange that Russia always looks upon the Kirghis state as virgin soil, eminently suitable for experimenting upon. General Kaufmann* wanted the ' History of Russia ' to be translated into the Kirghis and Sart tongues, in the hope thereby to promote a certain intimacy with, and affection for, Russia. Again, the loyalty of the Kirghises, expressed in language in which one cannot fail to recognise official pressure, is far too much paraded by the Russians. I quote from Ostroumoff,t who says that when General Kaufmann, in 1878, was preparing for the expedition to the Djam, which virtually meant an expedition against India, the Kirghises of the Syr Darya district presented him with a new tent (Akoy), and the following address : ' To His Excellency the Chief Commander of Tur- kestan, Governor-General Kaufmann. ' Upon our plans God has created high mountains from whence run down brooks and streams of purest water. These waters we lead into our meadows and steppes in order to obtain from them bread for our sustenance and abundant fodder for our beasts. The Emperor has raised thee to be above us all ; he has made thee a Yarim Padishah [vice-Emperor] over us, and we are sure that our fields and our farms, under thy gracious, benevolent, and merciful administration, will yield abundantly and turn out to our advantage. We have heard that the Emperor has commanded thee to go on a long journey, and on the way thou wilt have to traverse wide steppes and high mountains. Graciously accept therefore from us, your subjects, this tent to be a protection on thy journey through our steppes. It is our own handiwork, made from the wood grown on our steppes and the wool of our cattle. This white tent will shield thee against the heat of the scorching sun, against rain and wind, even as the * Ostroumoff, p. 104. f The same, p. 60. 42 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES power and the law of the White Tsar shields us against the fire of our enemies, against the shedding of tears, against highway robbery and the quarrelling and brawling so common amongst us.' Underneath were forty-six seal-stamps and forty- seven signatures. It is very doubtful whether this manifestation of the Kirghises was founded on real sympathy. I believe they merely wanted to show that Turkestan, in case of war with England, would not revolt, and not cause Russia any trouble. In this sense we must also look upon the voluntary offerings of the steppe dwellers for the Red Cross viz., to support Russia in the war against the Turks. The Kirghises in the Perowski district are said to have contributed Rs. 10,000, those of Kazalinsk Rs. 10,000, and those of Aulia-Ata Rs. 10,418. The Kirghises of Semiryeche were sup- posed to have sent, moreover, 2,000 horses to oppose the Khalifa, the sacred head of Islam, who, under the title of Sultani-Rum, is universally respected through- out Central Asia. Candidly speaking, the Russians in their efforts to civilise the Kirghises had no need of such subterfuges and deceits. From the very first the Government at St. Petersburg has tried to improve the condition of the nomads, and to open the hitherto closed gates of the Old World to trade. The history of the negotia- tions carried on in the first half of the eighteenth century with the Khans of the three hordes, as related by Lewchine,* who founds his facts on the data furnished by Rytchkoff in his history of Orenburg, are a brilliant proof of the efforts, the friendly inten- tions, and also of the disillusionment, of the Russian * 'Description des Hordes et des Steppes des Kirghiz-Kazaks ou Kirghiz-Kaissak, par Alexis de Lewchine. Traduite du Russe par Ferry de Pigny.' Paris, 1840, pp. 165-300. OPPOSITION TO RUSSIA 43 administrative power. From the first the authorities at St. Petersburg were fully aware that these wild, plunder-loving nomads could only be reached by the introduction of small settlements, and the fortresses already alluded to were the beginning of their colonisation system. The Government also realised that treaties made with the nomads, and addresses of devotion presented by them, could not be relied on. The Russian plans were frustrated, in the first place, through the geographical difficulties of the territory an advance into the boundless steppes was not so easy as the advance from the khanate of Kazan to the South had been ; in the second place, the 'numerical strength of the Kirghises* and their warlike tempera- ment were a hindrance to their forcible repression and subjugation ; and, finally, the Kirghises were encouraged and stimulated not only by the adjacent khanates, who naturally looked upon them as a wall of protection, but also by Constantinople,! in their hostile attitude towards Russia, known as the arch- enemy of Islam. Russia's sphere of power could therefore expand but slowly, and it was only after years of fighting and many vicissitudes that the Russians succeeded in obtaining a firm foothold in these regions, and were able to take the work of civilisation properly in hand. In the place of the Khans and ' White-bones ' (Ak-s5ngek, as the native * According to Aristoff (p. 116), the number of Kirghises not only under Russian dominion, but also under Khiva, Bokhara, and Chinese rule, are estimated at 3,236,394 souls. t Very characteristic are the letters of Shah Murad, the ruler of Bokhara, published by Lewchine (p. 380), in which the Kirghis Khans are all individually exhorted to make war against the Russians because the Sultan of Turkey, the representative of God on earth (' Zil illahi fil arzi '), has ordained it. The Emir of Bokhara accuses the Kirghises of negligence in the observance of the doctrine of the Prophet, and is of opinion that the Universities of Bokhara, attended by students from far and near, are not appreciated by the Kirghises. 44 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES nobility is called), we now find Russian jurisdiction fairly well established in the steppes, and notwith- standing the great deficiency of the Russian officials, a decided step forward is made on the road to civilisation.* The terrible practices of the Barantas (marauding expeditions) indulged in by some of the tribes against each other, and through which large tracts of land were devastated, are never heard of now ; peace and security prevail more and more, and under the cover of the railway from Orenburg to Tashkend, now opened to traffic, and by means of the pro- jected line in conjunction with the Siberian Railway via Petropaulovsk, a brighter future is in store for the once dangerous district between the Ural and the Yaxartes. In order to attain as near as possible to the fulfil- ment of their purpose, the Russians will have to take a lesson from the Kuramas in the so-called Kura- minsk district. These Kuramas (according to the etymology of the word, ' mixed race ') consist correctly of real and semi nomads, who in consequence of their long intercourse with the settled population i.e., living within the sphere of Moslem culture have themselves adopted settled habits. In order to effect nomad colonisation, therefore, Islamism, and not Christianity, as is often supposed, should be resorted to. In this sense the Edict of Tolerance issued by Catherine II. acted in the right direction, for under its auspices Islam flourished, and in Oren- burg, as well as in the steppes, mosques and Moslem schools were established. To the nomad mind the words Turk and Moslem have the same meaning, just as Russian and Christian are synonymous; and it is * The regulation Act concerning the administration of the Kirghis Steppe consists of 10 chapters and 319 articles ; it dates from the time of Catherine II., and has necessarily in course of time undergone many alterations (see Lewchine, p. 467). A FEW CIVILISED KIRGHISES 45 only because the doctrine of Mohammed is more in accordance with their views of life that this seems to be the best and most suitable instrument for bringing about the colonisation of these tribes. The results so far obtained by the Russian schools are too small and too insignificant to be of any weight. The Kirghis educated at one of these establishments will in after-life soon forget the impressions of his youth in the constant intercourse with his relations and tribesmen, and he will continue a faithful son of Mohammed. An occasional exception may occur among those who have been alienated from their tribe and have spent the whole of their life among the Russians. As such I would mention the Kirghis Altinsarin Ibrahim, a pupil of Ilminski's, who in 1859 made the acquaintance of the Orientalist W. W. Grigorieff, and served for a long time as Government interpreter at Orenburg : later on he visited St. Petersburg, where he was pleasantly received, and presented to the Imperial Family ; Yakob Petrovich Yakovleff, a Rus- sified and baptised Kirghis, who worked in conjunc- tion with Altinsarin and received employment in the Educational Department ; also the explorer Captain Welikhanoff, who in 1859, disguised as a Khokander merchant, traversed East Turkey, and afterwards described it ; W. W. Nalivkin, the deserving author of various philological, historical, and ethnographical works about Central Asia, who, as he told me himself, was of Kirghis birth, and left his wandering life in the steppes to enter the military service ; Katanoff, who possesses a thorough knowledge of the East Turkish dialect and of most of the Ural-Altaic tongues, and has enriched this field of research with many valuable contributions. No doubt there are many others besides these, of whom I have no knowledge, but the fact remains that the number of Russified or baptised Kirghises is 46 THE KIRGHIS STEPPES insignificantly small, hardly worth mentioning, in com- parison with the number of nomads who, since the Russian occupation, have voluntarily adopted a settled life, and of whom further mention will be made in this work when we sum up the results of Russian civilisation. It must seem strange that, of the so-called Djighites* i.e., the Kirghises who have served, and still serve, the Russians as guides, attendants, and escorts, and who are familiar with the language, customs, and habits of the conqueror, only very few have become Russified. The nomad may be a weak disciple of the Prophet's doctrine, but he can scarcely ever be induced to apostasy. * Djighit or Yighit, meaning youth or hero, is the name given to nomads who used to serve as escorts to the traveller in the steppes from one halting-place to another. CHAPTER VII CULTURAL EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN EVEN as the triumphal march of the Russians from the Kirghis Steppe into the interior of Turkestan i.e., into the three khanates may be considered the natural outcome of a long premeditated scheme, so also the foreign influences which forced an entrance from the North were bound at last to stir up the Central Asiatic world, hitherto closed to all influences emanating from Western lands. Two distinct systems of civilisa- tion, absolutely foreign to one another, here came into collision. If the orthodox Christianity of Russia con- tains much of Oriental fanaticism and Asiatic credulity, the Islamism of Turkestan exhibits the most grotesque forms of Mohammedan zeal ever fostered by the doc- trine of the Arabian Prophet ; neither in Bagdad during the golden era of the Khalifate, nor in the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, have they ever assumed such eccentric proportions. Greater contrasts can hardly be conceived than the two which here, in Turkestan, were opposed to one another. The night between June 14 and 15, 1865, in which General Chernayeff captured the city of Tashkend with 1,501 men and 12 old cannon* against a hundred times superior hostile force, marks the commencement of * Franz von Schwarz, in his book 'Turkestan, die Wege der indo- germanischen Volker,' written after a sojourn of fifteen years in Turkestan (Freiburg in Breisgau, 1900, p. 147), gives the number of the Khokandian troops at 15,000, that of the inhabitants at 90,000. 47 48 EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN that interesting phenomenon, the collision between two independent civilisations, which is now reaching its culminating-point, and upon the various phases of which we will here endeavour to throw some light. All that Russia and Turkestan knew of one another in past ages was confined to a mutual aversion, fear, and hatred. Turkestan merchants were allowed to trade in Russia, and from the earliest times they visited the annual fairs of Mesku (Moscow) and Mekeria (Nishni- Novgorod), but the Russians knew the khanates only as the dreaded regions of eternal slavery, and even the Tsar's Ambassadors fulfilled their missions at the risk of their lives. I was told in Samarkand, only two years before the capture of Tashkend, that ' so many saints are resting in the soil of this city, so hallowed is every inch of ground by the dust of the blessed, that the infidel who dares to force an entrance here must perish on the spot.' In Tashkend similar fond hopes were entertained, and when that which seemed impossible did take place, and the city was taken, it is not surprising to hear that the natives, utterly over- come, expected no less a fate than to be slaughtered by the Russians, or at the least forcibly converted to Christianity. According to the native idea, the Rus- sians were incarnate fiends with one eye in the centre of their foreheads and many other infernal attributes,* and they were therefore agreeably undeceived when none of their terrible forebodings were realised, but when they found, on the contrary, that the Russians were friendly disposed, and that General Chernayeff, on the first day after he took possession, visited the public baths, attended by only two Cossacks, and a few days later called upon Hakim Khodja, the Kazi- Kelan (Chief Judgej.t * ' The Sartes Ethnographical Materials ' (in Russian), second en- larged edition, with portraits of Sartes, p. 141. t The same, p. 142. CENTRAL ASIAN COWARDICE 49 When we consider a little more closely the momen- tous results of the foolhardy, almost miraculous exploit of Chernayeff, we can understand the profound aston- ishment which filled the Turkestanis, and made their blood run cold, so to speak. We also realise that the safety of the small company of Russian heroes amid the overwhelming numbers of natives rested upon the fame of the White Tsar's power, which had gradually spread throughout the oases, and made energetic opposition on the part of the Turkestan people practically impossible. Far be it from us to question the bravery, the death-defying courage, of the gallant little band of Russians ; but, on the other hand, we must not forget the unparalleled cowardice of the Central Asiatics, and especially of the Sarts and Tadjiks, degraded and disheartened as they were by centuries of tyranny. Central Asiatics, with the exception of the Turkomans and the Kirghises, do not bear comparison with the warlike Rajputs, Sikhs and Mahrattas, nor with the Arabs and Osmanli. The Central Asiatic simply submits to the first regular army that attacks him, and when, contrary to his expectation for, according to Asiatic notions, the fate of the vanquished is, to be slaughtered the conqueror shows himself merciful and generous, the natives are necessarily filled with wonder and amazement. When, in 1873, General Kaufmann took Khiva and asked the Khan to come over to him to negotiate, the Khan felt quite certain that he and his companions would be murdered. And in Tashkend the people expected the same fate ; but when they saw that the Christian conqueror laid no hands on the inhabitants or their possessions, that he respected the national customs, and, instead of attacking the institutions of Islam, confirmed them and extended his protection to the Mollas and the Reis, and established the Kurbashi and Aksakals in their former position and rights, it 4 50 EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN was only natural that a feeling of security and of quiet submission to the unfathomable ordinances of fate (Kismet) should begin to prevail amongst them. A Turkish proverb says: 'The hand thou canst not cut off; kiss it reverently, and lay it on thine head.' And the Tashkenders acted upon this wise counsel. The day after their surrender they sent a deputation to do homage to Chernayeff. They assisted in housing and nursing the soldiers, and in outward appearance, at any rate, bore themselves as if nothing extraordinary had happened. And, indeed, the Tashkenders in fact, all the Turkestanis had no reason to assume any other attitude with regard to the Russians than that of quiet submission, obedience, and acquiescence ; for the yoke of their new infidel masters was quite bear- able, much easier, and more to their own advantage, than the regime of the native Khans, Emirs, and their Sipahis (officials) had been. The strict laws of a despotic Government are always easier to conform to than the uncertain rule of a vacillating Sovereign who is still imbued with the patriarchal spirit ; for while the former insures at least public peace and security, the latter, where everything depends upon the arbitrary mood of the tyrant, renders the most peaceful and industrious citizen uncertain of his life from one day to another. However licentious and corrupt the Russian Pristav or Nachalnik may be, his rule has never been so absolutely bad as that of the native authorities in Persia and in the knanates. I have seen how innocent, defenceless people, whose wealth excited the avarice of native Princes or superior officers, were robbed without ceremony, thrown into prison, and murdered. The only escape these poor victims could hope for was by means of a general revolu- tion or through the intercession of influential priests or scholars ; but how frequently have not the Kazi- Kelans in Turkestan, and the thickly-turbaned Much- TAXATION AND COMMUNICATION 51 tehids in Persia, under this cloak of mediation, played into the hands of the avaricious authorities ? Under the Russian regime in Central Asia, these cruel, irregular practices of the native Government were put a stop to ; but instead of at once rejecting the existing native laws, reforms in the police super- vision, in general jurisdiction, and in the collecting of taxes and similar matters, were introduced, and eventually replaced by Russian institutions. I have been assured by Mohammedans from Turkestan, whom I have met of recent years in Constantinople, that the taxation of the Russian Government is less oppressive than was that of the native Princes. The Zekiat and Tanab tax is one, in the collection of which even the Russian officials are not free from bribery, and the Kazi-Kelan in his administration of justice can pervert the Sheriat (religious law) to the advantage of himself or his favourites ; but behind all this stands the Russian law, ready to be appealed to. Of special advantage to the Central Asiatic of the present day is the freedom, the security, and the facilities of trade and traffic which he now enjoys. The long-distance journeys which in former times had to be made by caravan, in constant warfare with the elements and the natives, and which took several weeks to accomplish, can now be done by rail in as many days, without fear of being killed by robbers or of dying of thirst or in sand or snow storms. The facilities of travel now at their disposal are naturally made use of less in the interest of trade with the outside world than in the interest of pilgrimages to the holy cities of Arabia. The number of Central Asiatic Hadjis has considerably increased since the opening of the Transcaspian railway.* In * I learn from a Turkish quarter that in the last few years the number of Turkish pilgrims to Mecca has varied from 10,000 to 15,000, while formerly, on account of the many risks and the great 42 52 EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN the commercial intercourse between Turkestan and the outer world Russian merchants still take a prominent part ; for whether he be Sart or Tadjik, the Mohammedan of Turkestan never feels drawn to visit the Christian world. The increased productive- ness of the soil, or, rather, the increased value of some special products, cotton in particular, has benefited the Russians greatly, and they will continue to profit by it for many more years to come ; for the sleepy, fatalistic Oriental, with his predilection for his religious fanaticism, and happiest in a dreamy laisser alter, cannot possibly be changed as by a deusex machina into an energetic Westerner. Least of all could this change come about through Russian intervention ; for the Russian himself is in many of his characteristics, thoughts, and actions, still under the ban of Asiaticism, and is therefore not wholly qualified to be the pro- pagator of the European spirit of civilisation. Although gladly acknowledging the many advantages for which Central Asia is indebted to Russian influence, and although readily admitting that, speaking generally, a decided improvement has been effected in the once utterly miserable condition of the population, we can- not conceal from ourselves the fact that it is the fault of the semi-Asiatic nature of the Russians that the three expense involved, their numbers never exceeded a few hundreds. It is probably owing to the greatly increased intercourse with the holy cities of Arabia that the Russian Government has thought fit to appoint Ish Mohammed in Russian called Ishayeff to the Russian Consulate in Djedda, a post which was formerly occupied by Shahi- merdan Ibrahimoff, Councillor of State. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Neva considered it necessary, in order to prevent anti-Russian propaganda on the part of the Porte, to entrust the guardianship of the true believers to a native Mussulman. This, however, was quite an unnecessary precaution, for the lazy Turkish officials have never troubled themselves to harm their arch-enemy in this roundabout way. The action, however, has proved Russia's tolerance, in that it gave a diplomatic office to a native Mussulman. PUBLIC ROADS NEGLECTED 53 khanates of Turkestan, after forty years of Russian administration, are very far from having reached that degree of intellectual and material development which might have been attained, considering the adaptability of the subjugated peoples and the means at the disposal of the Russian Crown. In the first place, the fundamental principle under- lying all the actions of the Russian Government hitherto has been self-aggrandisement, without at least such a measure of zeal for the well-being and progress of the natives as has been displayed by other European Powers in Asia. None of the Powers have been actuated by purely unselfish motives, but in many respects they have better understood their duty to humanity as regards freedom and culture the boast of Western lands than Russia has done. The Russian railways have been built for strategic-military pur- poses, and with a view to future conquests ; but as for the highways, they are still almost in the same condition as they were in my time, and traffic is carried on by means of the unwieldy arabas over rough roads in winter through thick mud, and in summer through foot-deep dust.* The bridge system has not fared much better. Von Schwarzf tells us that up to the present the Russians have only built four bridges, which more than once, at high-water, have been carried away by the floods. Again, where England, for instance, has spent millions in India on the canal system and the irrigation of the soil and in * Von Schwarz (p. 168) says : ' In Tashkend the streets of the Sart towns are considerably better than those of any other Central Asiatic cities ; but even here the conditions are such that once in the principal street eleven women were drowned through an unfortunate accident. While driving through a deep puddle the carriage broke down, and they were unable to extricate themselves out of the clammy slime. If such is the condition in the capital, what must it be in other towns ?' t The same, p. 418. 54 EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN this respect stands out as a praiseworthy example* Russia has left this matter, of such vital importance for the agriculture of Central Asia, in the hands of the Aryk-Aksakals (canal graybeards), without troubling to introduce the latest hydraulic inventions ; nay, more than this, where Russian authority has tried to inter- fere it has done more harm than good, t The awkward- ness, carelessness, and extravagance of the Russians in their attempts at canal-digging is best illustrated by the exploitation of the irrigation of the Famine Steppe, called by the natives Bet-pak dala i.e., barren plain. Without doing the necessary levelling, they intended to dig a canal from the Syr Darya below Jizzak. The undertaking has so far swallowed up 20,000,000 roubles, and the wilderness still hungers and thirsts ! When we take into account the great importance of irrigation for the agriculture of Turkestan, the suitability of the soft sandy soil for canal-digging, the negligence of the Russian Government cannot be too severely censured, and they are put to shame by the native Princes, who, notwithstanding their insa- tiable greed, have devoted care and money to the maintenance of their canals. So far the Russian Government has only exerted itself in this matter where it affected its own immediate interests, as, for instance, for the cultivation of the cotton trade, which is supported and encouraged to such an extent that in many parts of Turkestan there is no room to grow sufficient corn for the maintenance of the people, and the Government comforts itself with the thought that, after the connection with the Siberian Railway shall * Henri Moser, who makes no secret of his Russian sympathy, says in his book entitled ' L' Irrigation en Asie Centrale' (Paris, 1894, p. 276) : 'Ce que fait dans 1'Inde le rival de la Russia sur le domain de 1'irrigation, est digne d'admiration.' f Von Schwarz, p. 342. EXISTING ABUSES AND ERRORS 55 be completed, grain can be imported from other dis- tricts. So also it lies to the charge of the Russian Govern- ment, that, in a land where it has met with blind obedience and silent submission during the forty years of its administration, nothing has been done to banish the prejudices and superstitions of the natives, and to correct the many existing abuses and errors by useful innovations. The number of people who, in the art of building and furnishing their houses, have copied the Russian example may, even in Tashkend and Samar- kand, be counted on one's fingers. Alcohol and pros- titution, on the other hand, which in my time were unknown things in Central Asia, have now assumed terrible dimensions there. Half a century ago brandy was never heard of in Turkestan, and wine was only found among the Jews, who made it for ritualistic purposes. To-day brandy distilleries abound. Ac- cording to an official report,* the import of spirits in one year is 308,924 firkins, the export 75,327 firkins. That the Mohammedans assist in the consumption has been confirmed by several travellers, who state that the Kirghises are particularly partial to the Rus- sian national beverage.f But more surprising even than the spread of alcohol is the increased prevalence of prostitution. In olden times this vice was punished by death, but now, under protection of the Russian Government, it has free course. Friedrich Duckmeyer * ' Sputnik Turkestanza. Karmanni Kalendar i spravochnaya Knizhka turkestanskago General Gubernatorstwa na 1900 god' (The Travelling Companions of the Turkestani. Pocket Calendar and Directory of the Turkestan General Provinces for the Year 1900) p. 29. t The progress of brandy-distilling may be seen by comparing former returns with the present. According to Dr. Max von Pros- kowetz (p. 361 of his work 'From Newastrand to Samarkand,' Vienna and Olmuz, 1889), SSS'S gallons (one gallon = two pottles) have been produced in the year 1885-86. 56 EXPERIMENTS IN TURKESTAN writes :* ' In the place of Koknar (opium) we find beer and brandy, and immoral intercourse is greatly encouraged by the numerous modern Bordelles. At festive times not a few followers of Mohammed get drunk on brandy and beer (wine is not so much in favour) ; they go reeling and shouting through the streets, visit bad houses, misbehave themselves in every way, and generally finish up the festival with a day or two in the police-station.' The Russified Kirghis Nalivkin sayst that the public houses are patronised not only by the Russians, but also by the Sarts, and preferably in the sacred month of Ramazan. With the advent of the Russians prostitution has entered, and has spread rapidly, even in the family circle. What must the Reis (Chief of Police) think of this innovation in a land where formerly the faintest suspicion of illegal sexual intercourse was punished in the most cruel manner ? It is also significant that many travellers, even those who are friendly dis- posed to Russia, blame the negligence of the Russian authorities in various questions connected with educa- tion and morality. F. H. Skrine,+ whose object it is to picture res russicce in rosy colours, writes : ' Russia has carried its policy of laisser faire to the extreme where it concerns the education of the natives, which is simply left in the hands of a class of people who are professedly the bitterest enemies of the infidel rulers. . . . Splendid buildings, the theme of Oriental poets, have been allowed to fall into hopeless ruin, and so on.' The same Englishman further complains that Russia exer- * See supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung, 1901, No. 250. f ' Ocherk bita zhenchini osyedlago tuzemnago naseleniya Fer- gani' (Sketches of Female Life among the Settled Population of Fergana), by W. Nalivkin and Mrs. M. Nalivkina. Kazan, 1886, pp. 236, 237. J ' The Heart of Asia : a History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the Earliest Times,' by Francis Henry Skrine and Edward Denison Ross. London, 1899, p. 411. RUSSIAN NEGLIGENCE 57 cises no civilising influence whatever over the subju- gated khanates of Bokhara and Khiva; that barbarism, tyranny, and slavery are allowed free scope, in order that these lands may be the easier incorporated. Henry Norman,* the English member of Parliament, expresses himself in similar language where he describes the horrors of the prisons of Bokhara, notwithstanding his Russophile proclivities, which culminate in the following passage : ' The twentieth century must count Russia as one of the greatest factors in the reformatory movement of human society.' f However friendly disposed one may be towards the Russians, it is impossible to ignore the evil effect of the indifference of which the Russian Government has been guilty in its capacity of civiliser of Turkestan, a land where their word ought to be sufficient to veto many a barbaric law of the feudal rulers. * 'All the Russias : Travels and Studies in Contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.' London, 1902, pp. 314.315- f The same, p. 457. IN all fairness, however, we must remember that even the best intentions of the Russian Government must often fail through the unreliability, corruption, and arrogance of its organs. In the hierarchy of the Tsar, among the representatives of the starving multitudes of Asia, decked out in the glittering garments of European culture, there are but few who are actuated by a real desire to promote the good of the natives, or who possess a spark of love or enthusiasm for the work of reformation they are undertaking. Many of them have no conception of the task which awaits them. Distinctions and promotion, cards, and drink- ing bouts, are the high ideals which rise up before their mind's eyes and enthral them. To some extent this may be attributed to the fact that the administra- tion of Turkestan is in the hands of the military. Formerly an appointment in Turkestan was looked upon as a kind of exile ; even a Prince of the Imperial House has had to atone for the follies of his youth by a sojourn in Tashkend. Formerly this was the abode of doubtful characters, and the name of Tashkenetz (Tashkender) was given to charlatans of the worst kind. Passing in review the officers or officials words which mean the same thing, owing to the mili- tary administration of the land who have become prominent in the history of Turkestan, there are but few who can be said to have distinguished them- 58 GOVERNOR-GENERAL KAUFMANN 59 selves by that refinement, perseverance, and charitable purpose, which are the necessary attributes of the true civiliser. Among the leading personalities who have taken an active part in the Government during the forty years of Russian occupation, the Governors- General Kaufmann, Rosenbach, and Wrewski, and the Generals Abramoff and Ivanoff, deserve special mention. Their humane treatment of the natives, and their endeavours to ameliorate the intellectual and material condition of the populace, are worthy of high comment. General Kaufrnann especially distinguished himself in this respect during the fifteen years of his administration (1867-1882), and he fully deserves the title of Ustroitel Kraya (Founder of the Country) bestowed upon him by the Russians. Although not sharing in every respect the senti- ments of his biographer and admirer, the eminent Orientalist Professor N. Ostroumoff,* we are bound to admit that this accomplished German officer in many ways more Russian than the Russians themselves fulfilled his mission with much tact, ability, and philanthropy. The very fact that he made a con- fidential friend of Professor Ostroumoff, at one time Preceptor at the University of Kazan, testifies to the lively interest entertained by the Governor-General for the education movement. No matter how busy he was, he always admitted Ostroumoff at once to his presence, and gave the fullest attention to his reports. His leading principle often acted upon was that 1 we desire for Central Asia European civilisation, not Russian orthodoxy.' t Hence he was no promoter of the mission movement, but, on the contrary, made himself particularly agreeable to the Moslem clergy and scholars. On the occasion of a reception of Khodjas in Tashkend, he asked them whether they were acquainted with their new fatherland, and pro- * See note on p. 18. t Ostroumoff, ' K'Istorij,' etc., p. 44. 60 DEFECTS OF RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION mised to send them teachers to instruct them in the history and geography of Russia. At another time he received and entertained at breakfast the Hadjis returning from Mecca, and conversed with them upon political questions, always, of course, exalting Russia's power and greatness, and disparaging England's claims.* His affability has become proverbial. In his addresses at public examinations or on other special occasions, he always made reference to the great love and care of the White Tsar for his Moslem subjects, and often took the latter under his protection against the Russians. Very striking is the case of a Sart prostitute who was baptised by the Russian priest Wisotzki against the wish of the General, for, said Kaufmann, ' Russification must be carried out by means of the schools.'t His kindly feeling for the natives of Turkestan has been shared by other high-placed officers, but with the majority of Russian officials these sentiments have found no response. According to a widely-prevailing notion in Western lands, the assimilation of Russians and Asiatics is made easier by the fact that the Russians, in consequence of their low standard of re- finement, do not approach the natives in an arrogant, offensive manner, and that an intimate intercourse between ruler and subject can therefore more readily be established. Modern accounts of non-Russian eye- * His hostile feelings against the English are evident from many parts of the biography previously mentioned. On the occasion of a reception of an Afghan mission from Shir Ali Khan in 1878, he said that he was sorry that the Tsar had not sent him to Afghanistan, for he would surely have destroyed the English. He told them that he might have gone with a very small detachment of soldiers ; but, as he was no Yermak, his eventual defeat would have done harm to the Russian prestige. General Kaufmann is of opinion that the Druzei Albiona i.e., the friends of Albion at the Court of St. Petersburg had blackened his reputation and frustrated his plans, etc. f The same, p. 107. ILL-TREATMENT OF NATIVES 61 witnesses, who have lived for years in Turkestan, emphatically contradict this view. The German astronomer F. von Schwarz, who has spent fifteen years in Turkestan, and has traversed the country in all directions, expresses himself in the following terms :* 'The natives fare worst at the hands of the common Russians, the servants, soldiers, and Cossacks. Small tyrants are always the most tyrannical, and to their untutored minds it would seem that the Sarts, Tadjiks, and Kirghises are created for the express purpose of being bullied by them. A native who is not quick enough to get out of the way of a Russian immediately feels the whip round his ears, and from this treatment not even the Arabakeshes (drivers) are exempt. With their heavily-loaded Arabas (carts) they have to evade not only vehicles and horsemen, but also Russian pedestrians, if they wish to avoid making the acquaintance of the riding-whip or the walking-stick.' The contempt with which the Russians regard the natives is best illustrated by the two following cases, which have been related to me as authentic by a distinguished Turkestan General who is in a position to know. When General Grodyekoff, soon after his appointment as Governor-General of the Syr Darya district, inspected the State prison at Tashkend, he found there a number of Sarts who had been acquitted many years before, but up till then had not been set at liberty, merely because the Captain of the town had been too lazy to drive to the prison to order the release of a few Sart prisoners, and afterwards had forgotten all about them. It does not belong to the exceptions in fact, has become almost a rule to keep native prisoners for years under arrest, until the examining judge thinks fit to hear them. The follow- ing case, which took place in the Tashkend prison, is * Von Schwarz, pp. 488, 489. 62 DEFECTS OF RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION of a still graver nature. Every year the criminals condemned to deportation and forced labour are transported in large batches from Tashkend to Siberia. Once a transport consisting of thirty-two men was to leave the Tashkend prison. When the names of the prisoners were called, it was found that two men were missing. In order not to be censured for neglect in the supervision of the criminals, the keeper of the prison sent a soldier to the bazaar to fetch two labourers, who, in the happy anticipation of a good day's work, at once accompanied him with their spades and hoes. On their arrival at the prison yard, these labourers were enrolled and transported to Siberia to work in the mines in the place of the missing robber and murderer. When afterwards the matter became known in higher quarters the injustice could not be repaired, because the names of the two ill-used labourers were unknown.' * A worthy counterpart to this picture of ' humane ' Russia is furnished by the clever author Friedrich Duckmeyer,t who for many years was Professor at the college at Tashkend. In his description of the festivities at the time of the Coronation in May, 1896, we read as follows : ' The ecclesiastical procession approached the square, which was surrounded by trees, and in the middle of which the tribune was erected for the chief representatives of the Government. The people hovered all round. I stood under a tree by a canal (Aryk). The voices of the choristers were heard in the distance ; wreaths and banners became * Von Schwarz, p. 489. t See Friedrich Duckmeyer's article in the supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung> No. 257, 1901. This is Appendix III. of his beautifully-written article entitled ' Unprejudiced Remarks on Russo- Turkestan.' It is to be regretted that this eminent writer, who is also a poet of no small merit, has not described the work of the Russians in Central Asia a little more at length. ILL-TREATMENT OF NATIVES 63 visible. Suddenly the Russians made a rush upon the Asiatics, pulled the white turbans from off the heads of venerable old men, threw these head- coverings into the canal, and pushed their victims in after them. Covered with dirt and shame, the Moham- medans left the city of the Christians, accompanied by the kicks and blows of their tormentors. I witnessed the attack, and could not contain myself. I rushed forward crying, " Are you Christians ? Do you not see the Cross over you ?" But they only thought of their own cross, and took me for a mad- man. One, who was better educated than the rest, called out, " Look at the Don Quixote !" and true enough my parade sword was of soft iron, a mere toy weapon. The populace, however, was awed by my coat as well as by my sword, just as the Arabas had been by the caps of the French soldiers under the valiant Prince Gregory, whose acquaintance my brave cousin, M. Tartarin of Tarascon, made in Algiers. The Turkestan Government paper, describing the celebrations of the Coronation Day, says in the copy of May 1 8, 1896: "Our city is unusually festive with garlands, flags, and inscriptions. The church bells ring incessantly. Animated crowds of Russians and natives may be seen everywhere. There is merry excitement on all sides. The solemnity and the great significance of this celebration of the accession of the Tsar brings out very strongly the union which exists between the Tsar and his people." ' * The Government itself has set the example of slighting the natives by the mean and miserly manner in which Princes and other high dignitaries, who have come under the Russian protectorate, are re- munerated. We read that the children of Khudayar Khan, the last ruler of Khokand, receive a pension of * Friedrich Duckmeyer in the supplement to the Allgemeine Zettung, No. 263, 1901. 64 DEFECTS OF RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION only 30 francs per month. There are others who re- ceive even less than this, and the Afghans who, after the war between Abdurrahman and his vassals, took refuge with the Russians complained bitterly about the hard-heartedness of the Urus. In pre-Russian times the Turkestanis were fre- quently exposed to outbreaks of tyrannical caprice and roughness from their own native Sovereigns, but those spasmodic violent measures were then the exception in the Asiatic world, and the cruelties perpetrated were often in keeping with the patriarchal spirit of society ; moreover, the better classes never looked down upon their inferiors with such profound pride and scorn as the Russians are in the habit of doing upon their own countrymen of a lower station than themselves, and where it concerns the subjugated Asiatics their contempt is naturally more marked and cruel still. One must have some conception of the utter contempt and scorn with which the Russian, whether he be officer, cleric, or merchant, regards the miserable plebs, to form an idea of the manner in which the different gradations of the fourteen classes of Rus- sian society associate with one another, and to realise how the conquered non-Christian nations (Inorodzi) are treated by the Russians. Insults, jeers, and buffet- ings meet the Sart and the Kirghis wherever he goes, and when the poor victims bring their complaints before the magistrate, they are not infrequently sent about their business with such words as : ' And thinkest thou that we shall punish a faithful Christian for the sake of a vile dog ?' In the very highest official circles such inhuman treatment may belong more to the exceptions, but with the great mass of the inferior authorities they are quite common occurrences, for there is nothing more terrible than to be under the dominion of those who once were slaves, brought up in servitude, and who RUSSIAN ARROGANCE 65 have afterwards risen to power. In the Asiatic world, as far as I have learned to know it, pride and arrogance are quite unknown among the governing classes. The Turkish officer in the Osman army isfrere compagnon with the common soldier ; he eats, smokes, and plays in company with him, nor do the Khans and Mirzas in Persia use any restraint in the social intercourse with the Kasib (artisan) and the Dihkan (farmer). In Central Asia I have found exactly the same state of things. One may therefore imagine how deeply hurt and degraded the Asiatic must feel under the treat- ment of the Russians. Professor Ostroumoff is quite right in saying in his obituary notice of General Kauf- mann :* ' The Russians commit an error when they expect to find only submissiveness among the Sarts. The Sart is not like the Russian Muzhik. Apparently he bears patiently the stroke of the whip, he is silent, but his sense of honour is deeply offended, much more than it ever was under the strokes of his Moslem master. The Russians also make a mistake in not paying due respect to the Mollas ; for these men are very proud, and consider themselves far superior than the lower Orthodox clergy. Upon this subject F. Duck- meyerf writes : ' Against the few isolated cases in which the educated Mohammedans have been guilty of contempt of Russian " Intelligence," we find a whole- sale scorn of all Asiatics on the part of the Russians. The smallest, most insignificant Russian official con- siders himself far above the Emir of Bokhara or the Khan of Khiva, although such Russians, in point of education, may be no better than the native cart-driver. Even the well-informed, non-official Russian " Intelli- gence " shows the same lack of appreciation with re- gard to the most deserving of Oriental scholars, " they simply ignore all Asiatic claims," and the gentlemen * ' K'Istorij/ etc., p. 206. t Supplement, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 257, 1901. 5 66 DEFECTS OF RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION of Kazan which in Europe already counts as Asia speak with the ^ epest scorn of "Asia in Turkestan." Are these the s-'^iS of brotherly affection, of congeni- ality and a closer relationship between Russians and Asiatics ?' Thus, it may easily be proved that the Russian ad- ministration in Asia does not distinguish itself either by kind treatment of the natives or by a keen sense of justice, and, moreover, that it lacks the smoothing influence of patriarchical social forms. Strictly speak- ing, therefore, the Russian administration is neither European nor Asiatic ; whence, then, comes the notion that Russians, as semi- Asiatics, are the appointed civilisers of Asia, and are eminently qualified to propagate Western culture in the East ? CHAPTER IX MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IF the Russian administration in Central Asia would substitute justice, honesty, and freedom from bribery qualities which the natives appreciate in the un- believers for the pride, arrogance, and haughtiness which in the eyes of the Asiatics are hateful, and are looked upon as the necessary attributes of unbelief, perhaps much of the harm so far done by the foreign rule might yet be put right. But, unfortunately, the Russian official world is in many respects more Asiatic in its administration than the native Government was. The greatest evil in Turkestan, and from which the natives suffer most acutely, is bribery. The deficiency in the income of the comparatively ill-paid Russian officials has to be made good by the native inhabitants that is, by the Mohammedans. The tax is exacted quite freely and openly in fact, it is looked upon as a perfectly legitimate claim, and whoever does not pay gets no justice. This abominable custom, which even the Russophile Frenchman M. de Cholet* censures, bears a pronounced Oriental character,! with this difference, however, that where the Osmanli calls the gift which he brings to the Russian official Kapyalti * See ' Excursion en Turkestan et sur la Frontiere Russo-Afghane.' Paris, 1889, p. 103. t A Turkish proverb says : ' If thou appearest empty-handed before thy superior, thou wilt be told that he is asleep ; but if thou appearest with thine hands full, thou wilt be welcomed with a " Grace be unto thee." ' 67 52 68 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION (under the door), because it is surreptitiously pushed behind the door, the Central Asiatic puts his Silau (love-gift) personally into the hands of the Pristaff or Nachalnik, and when the gift is not considered large enough he has to increase it. Here in Europe we are sometimes under the impression that, in the intercourse with Asiatics, a little irregularity bribery, for in- stance need not be looked upon as exactly immoral.* But this argument does not hold good, for although bribery is a very common evil in Asia, the words of the Koran, 'Laanet ullah al'ar rashi w'alal murtashi' (The curse of God rests upon the briber and the bribed), are very often quoted in warning. The dis- honesty of the authorities in the interior of the Russian Empire has become a byword, but the evil is even worse in the distant provinces, because of the absence of proper control, and because in the estimation of the Russians the natives are created for the sole purpose of being fleeced and robbed by them. A Hadji in Constantinople once told me that his passport had cost him as much as the half of his journey from Khodjend to the shores of the Bosporus, and that a complaint to the authorities would only have involved him in greater costs than formerly. Under these conditions it is not surprising that the native plaintiff prefers to abide by the judgment of the Kazi rather than go to the Russian authorities, and that in many other respects the Turkestani has no confidence whatever in the dealings of the Russian Court of Justice, and the less he has to do with the latter, the better pleased he is. This feeling is shared by the Europeans who are settled in Turkestan or who are officially there. Mr. F. von Schwarzf tells the story of a policeman to whom he complained that his tea-urn had been stolen. The policeman cut him * See Curzon, ' Russia in Central Asia,' p. 392. t 'Turkestan,' p. 521. CORRUPTION OF RUSSIAN OFFICERS 69 short by saying : 'Well, you are a queer fellow! In my district this night sixty-eight tea-kettles, a dozen horses, a noble lady, and many other things, have been stolen, and you make a fuss because one solitary tea- urn has disappeared.' The corruption of the Russian officials, which cannot be too severely censured, will naturally not be noticed so much by passing tourists, but it is all the more realised by those Europeans who have been appointed by Russia to some office in Turkestan, and who see with their own eyes the rotten condition of things there. Indeed, the picture they disclose makes one shudder; it is disgusting in every detail. A rich merchant of the name of Ivanoff held for a long time several high-placed Turkestan officials at his mercy. The postmaster had for many years lived in his house without paying rent, and even General Chernayeff was amongst his debtors. Colonel Yanoff, the leader in the first Pamir Expedition, had in the exercise of his office incurred a debt of 40,000 marks (2,000) ;* Major Gerasimoff, the former Commander of Kuldja, spent every year on champagne alone twice the amount of his pay. Others, again, fall victims to gambling at cards in short, the extravagance and the licentiousness of the Russian officials in Turkestan defies all description; and this side of the Russian character is certainly not calculated to set a good example to the natives, especially as, in most cases, the natives have to pay for it. We are justified, then, in asking : Are these the qualities which are likely to attract the Asiatics towards their Russians masters, and is it by such means as these that civilisation will be more readily accepted than through the medium of other European Powers ? Not only in Central Asia, but also in Manchuria, lately occupied by the Russians, experience contradicts the popular notion that the * ' Turkestan,' p. 494. 70 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION Russians are best fitted to deal with the Asiatics. The traveller B. L. Putnam Weale says* that the relations between the Russians and the Chinese are at present much more strained than they used to be. The Chinese gladly takes the Russian wage in return for his labour he has even learned a kind of pidgin- Russian ; but nevertheless he hates and abominates his new master ; he thinks himself intellectually his superior, and will never see in him a type of a higher culture. Without being absolutely biassed and pre- judiced, no one could admit that the prevailing notion about Russia's superior civilising power is correct, and the results so far obtained by the Russian Reform Party do certainly not confirm it. Everyone will gladly concede that in many quarters of the ancient world, where anarchy, robbery, and starvation formerly reigned, the Russian regime has created a certain amount of order ; it has made peaceful intercourse possible, and given Europe access to many formerly inaccessible regions. But it would be difficult to see in these and many other advantages of civilisa- tion, which chiefly benefit the Russian Government, a ground for believing that the intellectual elevation and enlightenment of the Asiatic can and will be brought about under the guardianship of Russia. It is only by the refining influence of culture, and the indefatigable and continued efforts in the matter of education, that any good results can be expected, and in this respect the Russian Government has been most deficient. While geographical researches for politico-strategical purposes have found ample sup- port, such subjects as, for instance, the ethnography and philology of Central Asia have been almost entirely neglected. Very few Russian officials are acquainted with the native tongue, and those who know it will * ' Manchu and Muscovite : Being Letters from Manchuria, written during the Autumn of 1903,' by B. L. Putman Weale. London, 1904. EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS 71 not use it, for fear of losing the respect of the natives, who might explain the foreigner's use of the native tongue as a sign that he wants to ingratiate himself with them or court their favour.* The national monu- ments of art are neglected, and as for the vaunted educational movement, far more attention is given to the instruction of the Russians residing in Turkestan than to that of the natives. Turkestan possesses the following educational estab- lishments, which are under the supervision of one Chief Inspector, assisted by a secretary and two subordinates. The native schools are classed into three divisions, and entrusted to the care of three State Councillors. In order to give a general idea of the condition of education in Turkestan, we transcribe the list of existing schools, with the number of teachers and pupils, as it appeared under Table IV. of the official calendar for the year 1904 (see table on p. 72). The local division is as follows : In Tashkend : One college for boys, one college for girls, one technical school (under protection of the Emir of Bokhara), one teachers' seminary, one municipal school in four classes, one artisans' school, one parish school for boys, one parish school for girls, one school for natives, one Russo-Jewish school, and one Russo- Tartaric school, besides a few private schools. In the Syr Darya district : In Aulia-Ata, Djulek, Kaza- linsk, Karmakchi, Kaufmansko, and in other smaller places, there are everywhere parish schools and schools for natives ; in Petro-Alexandrowsk one municipal school and one parish school ; in Perowsk and in Turkestan there are one municipal school in three classes, one parish school, and one school for natives. In Samarkand : One boys' college, one girls' college, * Thus, Von Schwarz says that General Kolpakovski, although a native Kirghis, always avoided to speak his mother-tongue with the natives. 72 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION Names of the Educational Establishments. Number of Schools. Number of Teachers. Number of Pupils. Boys' colleges ... 5 86 1,269 Technical schools i 17 363 Girls' colleges ... 5 149 i,599 Teachers' seminaries i 12 68 Artisans' schools... i 6 123 Municipal schools 19 122 2,407 Parish schools founded on the Ustaffofi828 10 24 671 Parish schools for boys and girls 95 193 4,747 Schools founded on the Instruc- tion of the year 1875 ... 19 36 826 Railway schools consisting of one class for men 8 15 280 Railway schools consisting of two classes for men ... 6 13 492 Russian schools for natives 80 1 86 2,427 Private schools, Standard II. . i 7 44 Private schools, Standard III. . 2 6 102 Government schools for women I I 24 Tashkend naval schools I 7 125 Parish schools for girls ... 25 "3 1,838 Railway schools for women 4 17 343 Total 284 1,010 17,748 one parish school, two schools for natives, and one Russo - Jewish school. Further, in Jizzak, Kette Kurgan, Ura tepe, and Khodjend, one parish school, one municipal school, and one school for natives. In the Ferghana district : In Mergolan one boys and girls' college, one municipal school in four classes, one school for natives, and one parish school. Further, in Endijan, Khokand, Namengan, Osh, and Old- Mergolan, one parish school and one municipal school, besides schools for natives. In the Semiryeche district: In Wyerny one boys and girls' college, several national schools, and one Russo- Dungan school. Further, in Lepsinsk, Narinsk, Pish- pek, Przhevalsk, Sergiopol, and Tokmak, schools for Russians and Kirghises. In the Transcaspian district: In Askhabad one boys RUSSIAN AND NATIVE STUDENTS 73 and girls' college, one municipal school in three classes, one girls' school in two classes, and one infants' school in the Turkoman division of Kosh. Besides these there are parish schools in all the larger garrison towns, such as Kizil-Arvat, Kakhka, Merv, Sarakhs, etc. With regard to the subjects taught in the colleges, the European system is followed. The same applies also to the technical schools. In the girls' schools most stress is laid on modern languages, music, gym- nastics, and dancing ; while in the schools for natives a knowledge of the Russian language is a first require- ment, because these schools have to produce the future interpreters and translators. Generally speaking, the more advanced establishments are attended almost exclusively by Russians, only occasionally by natives, for when we realise that, of the 5,260,000 natives, only 2,427 attend the so-called national schools, this does not speak well for the popularity of the schools estab- lished by the Government. Of course the Russians cannot be blamed for any neglect in this matter. The ministry for the public instruction of the people has spared no expense, and during the last ten years (from 1893 to 1903) education in Turkestan has cost 3,432,200 roubles, not including local contributions. Whether the results so far obtained justify the ex- penditure, whether the schools have the civilising influence upon the natives which this Government undertaking was intended to have, can as yet not be estimated with certainty. Personally I have serious doubts about it, for, curiously enough, in the list of the teaching staffs now before me I find very few names of teachers of the Mohammedan faith that is, of natives trained to be teachers, and as such the most suitable mediums for imparting the knowledge of Western lands. Other European culture-bearers in Asia have made the same mistake, in that they, either 74 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION intentionally or unintentionally, have overlooked the fact that teachers of a different faith and a different nationality can never exercise so great an influence over the native scholars as their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists would. Reshid Pasha, the distinguished patriotic Turkish statesman, was, as far I know, more than any other reformer impressed by this truth. At the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, when he commenced his work of reformation in Turkey, he sent two Softas* to be educated in France, in order that they might afterwards become teachers in the newly-established schools at Stamboul. These two were soon followed by other Turkish students, de- sirous to be instructed in European knowledge, and thirty years sufficed to supply the higher and middle schools of Turkey with native teachers. What was found to be a necessity in the Turkish capital, where a constant lively intercourse with Western lands is kept up, is surely far more urgently needed in Central Asia, where fanaticism and hatred against all that is foreign is so tenaciously persevered in. From among the native Mollas some should be selected to be educated and qualified as teachers. And this would be no easy task, for only modernised Mollas who remain faithful Mohammedans, and strenuously adhere to all the outward observances of their religion and their national customs, can be expected to have any influence over the Moslem youth, and to succeed in gradually lessening among their pupils the hatred and * Softa, or more correctly Sukhta, meaning ' consumed ' t'.e., one consumed by the passion for learning is in Turkey the name given to scholars in theology who distinguish themselves by their fanaticism. The Softas here referred to, Shinassi Efendi and Emin Efendi, were personally known to me. They returned home as free-thinkers, but the former made his name chiefly by preparing the way for the simplification of the Osman dialect, and by his assistance in the nationalisation of the Ottomans. NATIVE AVERSION 75 aversion of all Western knowlege, and thus hastening the accomplishment of the difficult work of mental transformation. When I remember the deep scorn with which the thickly-turbaned Khodjas of Central Asia used to express themselves to me about Western civilisation, how they ridiculed and despised every- thing that came from Europe, and how they placed their Moslem learning far above our European know- ledge, I can well understand their obstinate dislike and dread of the Russian schools. Schools in the East, we must remember, are chiefly, almost ex- clusively, used as the vehicles of religious knowledge. All that is taught is in connection with religion, and to attend the Russian schools is therefore naturally looked upon as conversion to Christianity in fact, as apostasy. And this view has much truth in it, for many of the modernised, cultured Mohammedans be- come sceptics or agnostics, and for this reason the Sart and Tadjik parents refuse to send their children to the Russian schools. The few who have so far done it have been prevailed upon by the authorities or enticed by material advantages, and even then they have been ashamed of the step they had taken, and kept it secret from their fellow-believers. Thus, we are told* that in 1895 the rich and distinguished Muhyi-ed-din Khodja, the Kadi of the Tashkend quarter called Sibzar, wanted to send his youngest boy to the college, but for fear of being stigma- tised as a renegade he resorted to a subterfuge. Every morning the Kadi's son rode to the door of the college dressed as a Mussulman. At the college he divested himself in an inner room of his turban, and changed his clothes for the dress of a Russian student, * See 'Candid Observations on Russo-Turkestan,' by Friedrich Duckmeyer, in the supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 257, 1901 ; also N. P. Ostroumoff's 'Sarti, Ethnographical Materials,' etc., p. 104. 76 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION for students wear a special uniform at these colleges ; when the lessons were over he returned home transformed again into a Mussulman.* The universal dislike of the natives for the Russian schools is further confirmed by Ostroumoff,t the Russian Inspector of Schools, and considering the deep gulf which separates the two religions, the Orthodox Church of Russia and the Islam belief of Central Asia, the dislike is quite explainable. All that has been done so far to advance the educa- tional movement among the natives must be attributed either to the pressure of the authorities or to the allure- ments of material gain. At first the heads of Sart society encouraged the masses by their example. In the native schools opened in 1884 in Tashkend, close to the Russian quarter, at first only thirty-nine pupils were entered, although the rich and influential mer- chant Seid Azim Bey had led the way some time previous by allowing his two sons, Seid Kerim and Seid Gani, to receive instruction in the Russian language. So also the Sart Abulkasim Khan, who died in 1892, spent 30,000 roubles on the building of a Russian school in the Bishagach quarter of Tash- kend, and, deploring the decline of Moslem learning, he says : ' As man cannot live without nourishment, so the human intellect must die for lack of know- ledge.' J Arif Khodja, the son-in-law of Azim Bey already referred to, also persistently favoured Russian education, and sent his children to the Russian school. But, after all, these are but isolated cases, and, generally * A similar case happened at Constantinople, when at the end of the fifties of the last century the girls' schools were opened. As attendance was obligatory, one pious father dressed his daughter in boy's clothes, and preferred to send her to the boys' school in order not to conform to the godless custom of sending a girl into public life. f 'K'Istorij narodnago obrazovania,' p. 215. J Ostroumoff, ' Sarti,' etc., p. 127. EDUCATIONAL COMEDIES 77 speaking, we find that the nomads, known to be feeble followers of Islam, are more easily persuaded to attend the Russian schools than the settled population. In the year 1896, in the Syr Darya district, where the Kirghis population predominates, 506 scholars were entered, and in the municipal school of Kizil-Arvat in the Transcaspian district, 62 Turkomans are educated, as against a total number of 184 pupils.* Duckmeyerf writes that in the technical schools and the national seminaries for teachers the Mohammedan attendance is more numerous. The students of the seminary once acted Pushkin's drama ' Boris GodunofT in their school, and one of the actors was a Kirghis. The Tashkend Government paper of January 8, 1898, naturally proud of the event, gave a leading article upon it. In the same year a modern Russian drama was played in Tashkend by Mohammedan actors and actresses at the house of an officer of Kirghis origin. At already stated, the Kirghises have shown them- selves less averse to the Russian innovations than the strictly conservative Turkestanis, but these few drops in the mighty ocean do not justify any feeling of pride on the part of Russia in the results thus far obtained. They are but the isolated sparks forcibly produced in the pitch-dark night in which the mass of the people of Turkestan is still enveloped. I believe I am not far wrong in saying that private philanthropy has had more effect upon the natives than all the official schemes of civilisation put together. Russian lady doctors and accoucheuses, practising among the Sart women, J and doctors dispensing medicines gratis, do * Skrine, ' The Heart of Asia,' p. 335. t Supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 257, 1901. J Under the title of ' The Women in East and West,' C. Duck- meyer, of Kienitz, has furnished an interesting article in the Allgemeine Zeitung of April 18, 1904, in illustration of the fate of women in Turkestan. 78 MORALS AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION more to dispel superstition and fanaticism than all the Ukas enforcing compulsory education. But in order to work really successfully, the Russians must make themselves more familiar with the language, religion, customs, history, and characteristics, of the natives, and have a more intimate intercourse with them than has been the case hitherto. Praise is due to the upper class of officials for now and then exerting itself to enlighten the masses, both the Russians and the natives, but, after all, their best endeavours are a delusion and a bad copy of Western ways. Under this category in the education scheme come the public lectures for natives in imita- tion of the English Sunday-schools. These lectures are attended by the highest Russian dignitaries and Generals. The most learned and distinguished Asiatics, Kadis and Mollas, have previously been informed by the police that they are expected to attend the lecture punctually and in full force, accom- panied by their diligent (?) children ; consequently they are all ' voluntarily ' present. The European professor discourses upon the origin of the world, of course in the Russian language, which only a few of the natives understand, and that imperfectly. He exhibits a globe, which at a slight touch of the learned hand turns in the desired direction. Then follow some experiments in physical science, perhaps with an electrical insulating stool; the 'interested' Asiatics shake their turbaned heads, and mutter some- thing unintelligible in their gray beards. In conclu- sion the General-in-Chief gives an address which begins with the origin of the world, and ends with a eulogy on the White Tsar. All cry ' Hurrah !' and return to their houses well satisfied.* We repeat, the intention of the Russians is worthy of praise, but the carrying out of it is a fallacy, a cultural comedy. No * See supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 257, 1901. EDUCATIONAL COMEDIES 79 one is deceived by it, and it will convince no one that the Russians are the fit organs for educating the Asiatics. Considering the hard and unceasing struggle which Western civilisation has to carry on in other parts of the Islam world, these educational comedies must appear ridiculous and childish in the extreme. Only he who has drunk deep from the fountain stream of culture and enlightenment can expect to perform great things as the mediator of a new civilisation. CHAPTER X SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES A SOBER and unprejudiced judgment, therefore, must lead us to the conclusion that the forty years of Russian government in Central Asia have so far only touched the surface of social life. True, they have left a slight impression on the external forms, but they have not penetrated into the inner parts. All that can be seen of reform or modernisation in the life of the Turkestani is of a superficial and com- pulsory nature ; it emanates from fear of the conqueror, and its chief object is to please the foreign lords, and to make them more friendly disposed. The intrinsic Asiaticism of Moslem Turkestan society has so far not been seriously encroached upon ; on the contrary, the pressure from without and the threatening danger of foreign intrusion have strengthened the ancient struc- ture of Asiatic conviction and increased its power of resistance. Russian critics are naturally anxious to prove the reverse, for it is a temptation to throw dust in the eyes of European inquirers, and in addition to the above-mentioned problematic effects of their civilising endeavours they eagerly point out individual cases of Turkestanis who, through a closer and more constant intercourse with Russians or through travels in the interior of the Russian Empire, have become convinced of the advantages of Christian acquire- ments, and who, without deserting their old belief, 80 SATTAR KHAN'S TRAVELS 81 have become proficient in Russian civilisation. Be- sides Muhiyeddin Khodja and Azim Bey and their families, various other show-pieces are paraded to prove the success of the Russian education move- ment. Such are i. The Russian official Sattar Khan,* the son of Abdul Gaffar, who in 1891 published his autobio- graphy in the columns of the Turkestan Gazeti^ a newspaper issued in Tashkend at Government expense. He describes with enthusiasm the impres- sions of his journey to St. Petersburg, and the wonders of the modern world with which he became acquainted in various Russian towns. He relates how everybody, from the Tsar down to the humblest Russian peasant, treated him with kindness, and how he was admired and made much of at the Oriental Congress held at St. Petersburg in 1876. He expresses his boundless surprise at the affability of the Christ- ians, the peaceful social intercourse of people of different nationalities and faiths, and he marvels at the great knowledge which the Europeans possess of the history and languages of the East ; and finally he exclaims : ' We Turkestanis have lived in absolute ignorance of Europe until the advent of the Russians, but now, thanks to Russia's intervention, we can * See ' Sarti,' etc., first edition, Tashkend, 1890, p. 98. Sattar is unknown to me as a Mohammedan personal name. Can it possibly be a corruption of ' Sadr,' meaning highest distinction or chief seat ? f Turkestan Wilayetini Gazeli. This Turkestan journal is a weekly paper, founded in 1870 as supplement to the Turkenstanskiya wyedomosti, appearing four times a week, twice in the Sart and twice in the Kirghis dialect. In 1887 the former paper, edited by Ostroumoff, became an independent newspaper a kind of official native organ with a circulation of 725 copies. These were subscribed to by order of the authorities rather than from real personal interest. It is note- worthy that this paper was boycotted by many Sarts, because in one of its columns appeared a short criticism against the Mohammedan Universities. This is a sign, although a weak one, of the awakening self-consciousness in Central Asia. 6 82 SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES approach Europe and take part in the great work of educating all humanity.' The description given by this enthusiast (formerly Mufti of Chimkend and him- self the son of a Mufti)* of the first impressions made upon the natives by the violent assault of Chernayeff upon Tashkend is very interesting. He describes how the success of the Russian arms was looked upon as Allah's punishment for the sins of the inhabitants. Sattar Khan, as may be expected, was soon converted to better views. His submissiveness to the Russians became a source of material well-being to him, and, delighted with the treatment of the foreign rulers, he says to his countrymen : ' Thus fares he who stays at home, who does not see for himself how his nearest neighbour lives. We Turkestanis have for centuries lived in seclusion ; we have thought that no one was so good, so wise, and so mighty, as we. This view has led to self-conceit, and self-conceit has caused us to retrogade. Indeed, we are like minors. I remember how some Turkestanis and Bokharians, who had been sent as envoys to Russia, upon their return tried to persuade us that Russia was worse managed than Bokhara and Turkestan. Dear fellow-countrymen, I trust that now none of you will any longer doubt the power and the orderly management of the Russian Empire, and especially instructive it is for us to realise that Russia has acquired this power and this orderly administration through its intercourse with the cul- tured nations of Europe.' t 2. Mirza Bukharin, a merchant of Samarkand, who describes his experiences of a journey in Russia, $ and who, like his predecessor, in spite of the strict pro- * ' Mufti ' must not be taken in the European sense of the word ; it simply means a Molla entitled to grant a Fetwa t.e., to pronounce judgment in accordance with the Sheriat (religious law). , + 'Sard,' etc., p. 109. J See Turkestan Vilayetini Gazett, 1888, Nos. 4-7. MIRZA BUKHARIN'S STATEMENTS 83 hibition of Islam, appears in a photograph decorated with two Russian medals. Mirza Bukharin states that he was a silk-merchant, and when travelling in Russia visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, and saw all the monuments of art, the treasures and collections of antiquities in short, all that there was to be seen. He expresses his wonder at all these things. He is amazed at the care bestowed by the Russians upon the ancient monuments of Central Asia. Being presented to the Tsar and Tsaritza, he weeps tears of joy over the great happiness which has befallen him. To anyone acquainted with the condition of Central Asia at that time, when the name of the Christian Sovereign was never mentioned except with a curse, this statement must seem somewhat strange ; and, in fact, the Mirza himself, upon his return home, feels that perhaps this account of the splendour, the magnificence, and the goodness of the Russians may not be so readily accepted by his countrymen. Like all Orientals, he is in ecstasies about the knowledge which Russian scholars possess of the literature and history of his native land. Amongst others, he mentions Radloff and Georgiewski, and the narra- tive of his experiences during the year 1887 are in- tended to encourage all Turkestanis to visit glorious Russia. Allusion is made, moreover, not only to merchants and officials, but also to Turkestani, or rather Sart, poets who have tuned their muse to the service of the foreign master, and in decidedly watery poetry have sung Russia's greatness and glory. In an elegy on the death of Alexander III. we read : ' Come near, O ye people of Tashkend, and weep ! The sovereign of the world is dead ; put on mourning for him. He was your protector, and you devoted your life to him. Even as the Russian people, do ye also shed tears ; Weep night and day, and pray ever for him. 62 84 SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES ' In constant anxiety over you, he never took rest ; Careful for your welfare, he had no peace in his lifetime ; Careful for you, his heart has known neither joy nor pleasure. He has had no other thought beyond the welfare of his subjects ; Pray, therefore, incessantly for the peace of the monarch's soul. ' All princes have summoned their artificers, and ordered wreaths to be made Wreaths in silver and in gold, and inscribed with their princely names. Their example has been followed by the Emir of Bokhara ; Also the King of Persia has sent a wreath. On those beautiful wreaths are the names of the Shah and the Emir ; And Turkestan has sent a wreath by itself.'* The second elegy is from the pen of the poet Nihani, and reads as follows : ' Who in this world has not to drink the goblet of death ? Be he Tsar, ruler, or beggar, Whether he sits upon a throne or rests on a straw mat, Be he good, or bad, or a saint, We are all subject to death. ' Have ye not seen that even Alexander the Third, Whose rule resembled that of the moon in the sky, Whose government was like unto the deeds of Alexander the Great, That in him also, who by day and by night cared for his subjects, God's ordinance was fulfilled, and that he also drank the goblet of death ? ' O world ! the life of the Emperor has ceased prematurely ; All princes, the Khaliph included, mourn for him. His subjects have shed rivers of tears ; At his death the moon became darkened, And the whole world was wrapped in gloom.' t As third elegy, we give a chronogram of the Tash- kend poet Kiani : * OstroumofT, ' Sarti,' etc., p. ix. f The same, p. xiii. NATIVE POETS ON RUSSIA 85 1 The death of his Majesty the Emperor Has wrapped all the world in deep mourning, For all his subjects Have lived in peace and joy under him. In his graciousness he has made no difference between Moslem and Russian, And when he left this earthly existence The heart of his people was rilled with deep sadness. All the great princes of the world Are perplexed at the death of the Emperor. And when we look for his equal, What is Alexander, Darius, or Djemshid? What is Behram, the conqueror of the seven worlds ? What is the Emperor of Rum, or the ruler of China ? What is Khosru, Perviz, or Hormuz ? What is the righteous and just Nushirvan ? All these in their turn have appeared in the world ; Some have departed earlier, some later. ' Know ye whither they have gone ? Listen, ye offspring of Adam : They all have emptied the goblet of death ; All have ended their existence in annihilation. So also has the Prince of Peace, Alexander Alexandrovitch, Finally left this earthly existence, And has passed into the realms of eternity.' * It would lead us too far if we were to add to the above the autobiography and poetic effusions of the Khokand poet Zakir-Jan, who under the pseudonym of Firkat (i.e., Separation) eulogises in metre, balls, concerts, and school examinations, at which he has been present. This good man treats us to particulars of his own youthful days how, from being trained as a merchant, he advanced to be a writer, then a poet, and lastly a Russian statesman. He describes how Russian institutions, manners, and customs excite his admiration, and how happy they make him ; and in * Ostroumoff, ' Sarti,' etc., p. xv. In the original the words : ' Sali fowti shahi aazam' i.e., Death of the great King in the year 1317 of Hegira (1884). 86 SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES conclusion he advises his countrymen to live in closer communion with the Russians, for, says he : ' Allah has so ordained it that we shall live together with the Russians.' It is significant how persistently official Russia encourages these sham professions of loyalty. The world has to be convinced that the Central Asiatics, who even in the Middle Ages were reputed throughout the Islam world as the confirmed repre- sentatives of the most extravagant fanaticism,* now, under protection of the Christian conqueror, are supremely happy, and quite easily nay, even enthu- siastically exchange their Moslem views for those of modern civilisation. In order to convince the reader of this fact, the learned Professor N. P. Ostroumoff t quotes a treatise, entitled 'Closer Union between Sarts and Russians, and Russian Influence on the Sarts,' in which it is stated that the gradual approach of the natives is conspicuous in their acceptance of many Russian manners and customs ; that the Reis and the Kurbashi (religious police) do no longer frighten them; that the natives frequent the Russian quarters of Tashkend without any fear ; that they are present at church parades and military parades ; that they attend balls, concerts, and other places of recreation ; and in many other points seem to be totally changed. The natives are expected to look upon the Russian conquest of their land as a stroke of good fortune for themselves. During the festivities held at Tashkend, in 1886, in honour * Mevlana Djelaleddin Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi Order, and the most prominent representative of Sufism, says in his ',Mesnevi': ' Bohkara mirevi, divanei, Laiki zendjiri zindankhanei ' (Thou goest to Bokhara ? thou art a fool ! Thou deservest to be put in chains). f ' Sarti,' p. 102. 87 of the Russian soldiers who fell in the storming of the city, the Mohammedans, especially the Sart women, pressed round to see the sights ; represen- tatives from Bokhara were also present, and the then Governor -General, General -Lieutenant Rosenbach, addressed the natives in the following words : ' Twenty-one years ago this land was still in the greatest confusion. The Russians who have fallen here, and those who have remained alive, have given peace to Turkestan ; therefore their memory should be dear to you.' To this the late Kadi of Tashkend, Muhyieddin Khodja, replied : ' O Mussulmans of Tashkend ! for us, also, this is a memorable day. It is the day on which we came under the protection of the White Tsar, the mighty ruler of the world. When this city was taken, our religion and our legal institu- tions, according to the law of the Sheriat (religious law), were restored to us. Peace and security now reign everywhere, and we have our own town administration. Hence we can now lead free and quiet lives, and commerce, industry, and agriculture have considerably developed. On the occasion of this festive commemoration we would pray your Excellency to convey to His Imperial Majesty the expression of our dutiful obedience. We pray for the continued welfare of the Tsar, the guardian of the hundred million subjects of the great Russian Empire.' The Ambassadors of Bokhara present on this occasion, Rahmetullah Bi and Mohammed Nassir (Master of the Horse), also offered their congratulations in the name of the Emir, which Rosenbach acknowledged in the following words : ' It gives me great pleasure to see you the representatives of Bokhara present here among us. You have witnessed how the bond of unity between Russians and Asiatics has been con- firmed. You see how every man in Turkestan can follow his own religious practices and support himself 88 SEMI-CIVILISED NATIVES by his own labour, without being interfered with. What you have seen here, go and tell to your countrymen.' Even if only as the official expression of loyalty and devotion, such language as that used by Muhyieddin Khodja and others cannot otherwise than surprise anyone who has known Central Asia as it was in times past. No one will for a moment suppose that these utterances are the genuine expressions of willing sub- missiveness, and they can only be explained by the fact that these interpreters of the Russian sympathies of the natives, and glorifiers of the Tsar's greatness and power, belong to a tribe which from the first has distinguished itself by its peaceable nature, and has always preferably devoted itself to the pursuits of trade, industry, and agriculture. CHAPTER XI UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES IT was a fortunate coincidence for the Russians that, when they entered the khanates of Central Asia, the first people they came into contact with were the Sarts instead of the Osbegs or the Tadjiks, who, being less amenable and pliable, would have considerably aggravated the work of pacification. The Sarts, of mixed Iranian and Turco-Tartar origin,* have been known from the earliest times as a commercial people, and amongst the Uigurs the words ' Sart ' and ' mer- chant' had the same meaning. Now, it is not sur- prising that this portion of the native population, whose occupation had always been of a peaceful nature, and who had suffered much from the chicanery and robbery of the native authorities, appreciated the safety and comparative order secured to them with the advent of the Russians, and that they liked the new regime although under Christian supremacy. The Sart ele- ment soon settled down under the Russian adminis- tration, and as in times past they had distinguished themselves in Moslem culture above their neighbours of Turkish nationality, so the}'' now accepted without much difficulty the innovations introduced by Russo- Christian culture. The Sart has always had the reputation of being industrious, persevering, sober, enterprising and economical, and in consequence of these qualities was far more open to Western culture * See my ' Tiirkenvolk,' p. 370. 89 90 UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES than the other Central Asiatics. Professor Ostroumoff, who has the most intimate knowledge of these people, very correctly says :* ' The Sarts are a nation of the future, for their intelligence and capability in all matters of culture is beyond all doubt. We that is, the Russians may rest assured that under Russian influence the rough traits of their national character will gradually be smoothed down, and be turned to their advantage, for the Russian conquest has opened a new period in the life of the Sarts. We see even now that the better informed amongst them do not hesitate to recognise the superiority of Russian culture above their own. Upon us, the conquerors of the Sarts, rests the great historical duty of drawing them into closer union with ourselves, after having sub- jugated them by force of arms. And to this end abundant means are at our disposal ; for the Sarts do not shut themselves up against the better side of Russian social influences and the best side of uni- versal culture i.e., enlightenment. As for the seeming contradictions in the character of the Sart, it is in- cumbent upon us to bear in mind that the Sart of to-day must be compared with our ancestors of the time of Ivan the Terrible, and that the remark of our historian Solowieff might very aptly be applied to them : " We must not forget the very different condi- tions of our bringing up, and the bringing up of our forefathers. We must remember that we have now strict rules to guide our life and actions, but we must not expect to see in the subjugated people the same marked stages of transition which we have gone through. The people of past ages have not known those delicate gradations of sentiment ; they have un- blushingly passed from one conviction to a totally opposite one, and these sharp contrasts we still see in * ' Sarti,' etc., p. 83. people who by their nature are nearer to the standard of culture occupied by their ancestors." ' In another passage where Professor Ostroumoff is speaking of the usefulness of the newspaper he pub- lished for the Sarts, he points out that the education and enlightenment of these people is imperatively necessary, because the natives still look upon Euro- pean culture as irreconcilable to their old Moslem views of life. In this respect the Sarts are like the Russians of the seventeenth century who opposed the endeavours of Peter the Great, condemned everything that emanated from the West, and said : ' Intellectual power does not consist in higher education and in philosophy, but in the resignation to faith. Artificial arguments defile the simple-minded, and such wisdom dishonours the wisdom of God. The Cross of Christ is sneered at. Latin wisdom leads straight to hell. Rhetoric, dialectics, and other heathen i.e., Western deceits and subterfuges, are inventions of the devil, and they rebel against the Slav tongue, the mightiest, most productive, and most divinely favoured language in the world.' The language in which Russian anti-progressionists have denounced the spirit of the innovations of Peter the Great strongly reminds me of the remarks of a somewhat similar nature which I have often heard repeated in various parts of the Islam world whenever the question of the attempted reforms and innovations was touched upon. Most likely in their innermost minds the Sarts are not impervious to sentiments of the same nature, and men such as Sattar Khan, the Kadi Muhyieddin, Abulkasim Khan, and others, who have dared to break with their old-world prejudices, are worthy of our admiration, and testify to the eminent cultural fitness of the Sart nation. Abulkasim Khodja, in a petition presented to Rosenbach, the Governor-General, volunteers to remark how disas- 92 UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES trous the rule of the native Princes had been ; how under their administration anarchy, robbery, and tyranny prevailed ; and how now under the Russian regime, in contrast with the past, peace and content- ment reign everywhere.* This voluntary accusation of his own native Princes before the Christian ruler is an eloquent proof of the amenableness of the Sarts, and of the facility with which even their Mollas enter into transactions with Christians. In India the Mollas have not yet quite reached this point, and even in Turkey and in Persia, amongst the most zealous advo- cates of the reform movement, I have rarely met anyone who would sing the praises of European enlightenment at the expense of his own national culture. As already said, the excessive tyranny and arbitra- riness of the native Princes have brought the Sart, who has never had any real national patriotic feeling, into such a condition that he never neglects to praise the Russian regime whenever opportunity offers, and in the face of such promising material to work upon it is somewhat difficult to share in the exultation of the Russian world with regard to the cultural results so far obtained in Central Asia. Both Professor Ostroumofff and M. Lyikoshin,J when referring to this subject, markedly point out that the Sarts have not only discarded their former fanaticism, but that they also neglect many important religious obser- vances. The prescribed prayers five times in a day, the pious ablutions, the fast during the month of Ramazan, and other commandments, are very seldom observed, and the Ishans and Dervishes do no longer * 'Sarti,' etc., p. 127. t In several places of the frequently mentioned paper ' Sarti.' J In an article appearing in the great Turkestan Calendar for 1904 under the title of ' Resultati sblizheniya russkikh s tuzemtzami ' (Results of Russian intercourse with the natives). INNOVATIONS AMONG THE SARTS 93 enjoy the same respect and influence which they formerly could boast of. In the daily life of the Sarts, also, many innovations may be noticed. In the formerly blank outside walls of houses windows have been introduced, and in the interior of the dwellings of the well-to-do, furniture, utensils, and knick-knacks of Western manufacture have found their way. Dress also is undergoing a change, and gradually assuming a Western stamp. The women of the upper classes have not only discarded the veil in the privacy of their own homes, but they go about in the street unveiled and openly visit with Russian families. If we are to believe our Russian informants, an entirely new social life is beginning to assert itself in Tashkend, Samar- kand, and Mergolan, and, in consequence of the net- work of Russian schools which now envelops all Turkestan, the Russian language is spreading rapidly. The standard of wealth has also considerably changed, for where formerly a merchant possessing from 10,000 to 15,000 roubles was counted a rich man, now there are many who have millions to dispose of; and con- sidering the constant increase of trade this is nothing remarkable. All this sounds very encouraging, and the initial mistake of the Russians lies in the fact that the much- vaunted cultural progress in Central Asia is, strictly speaking, confined to a very limited number of rich merchants and natives of high rank in State service, whereas the mass of the population remains almost untouched by the foreign influence, and the natives pursue their lives, as before, under the guidance of their Mollas. Nothing in the world will shake the apathy and indolence of the settled Turkestani. Of chief importance to him is the rare enjoyment of peace, and this finds expression in the usual mode of greeting : ' Aman mi ?' (Is it peace ?) The Russian Kafir (infidel) has given him permanent peace and lightened 94 the taxes and duties. Judged from this standpoint, therefore, the Central Asiatic is well satisfied with the Russian administration. It is natural that under these conditions the numerical strength of the population in Russo-Turkestan has considerably increased during the last forty years. According to the report of Colonel Kostenko (vol. i., p. 326), the total number of the population of Russo-Turkestan in the year 1880 amounted to 2,807,974 ; this figure includes the in- habitants of the districts of Semiryeche, Syr-Darya, Fergana, Zerefshan, and Amu-Darya. As against this, we find in an account of General Wrewski, the fourth Governor-General of Turkestan, that the census of 1880 returns 2,269,520 souls, and rose in 1895 to 3,120,385, an increase, therefore, of 37 per cent. ; while in the latest census of 1897 the population of Turkestan, including the Transcaspian district, is estimated at 5,260,000.* Thus we get : In the district of Transcaspia, on I Werst ... o'8 soul. Samarkand ... 10*5 souls. Syr-Darya ... 3-3 Fergana ... in , Semiryeche ... 3*0 Turkestan therefore is, all considered, not thickly populated, and in this respect resembles South America; while, compared with other localities of the East, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Egypt are three times, and China ten times, more thickly populated. In con- * According to these returns, the inhabitants of Turkestan count now nearly twice as many as before, which is almost incredible. If I am not mistaken, the return furnished by Kostenko only refers to the male sex, or else it shows that the statistics of that time are not thoroughly reliable. That the town-dwellers have increased, and that the number of Dwor (houses ?) is considerably greater, is beyond all doubt ; but in this case the plus has been recruited from the former nomadic population, and the increase in the settled population should be deducted from the census of the nomads. INCREASE OF RUSSIANS IN TURKESTAN 95 sidering the increase of the Turkish population, what strikes one in the first place is the preponderance of the Russo-Christian element, which according to the latest census, in the five districts (Catholics and Protestants inclusive), is estimated at 219,658 souls, the greatest contingent of which is contributed by the seat of the principality (the city of Tashkend) ; for of its 156,506 inhabitants, 40,000 are Christians. This increase of the Christian population in Russo-Turke- stan is the more striking when we consider that in 1880, according to Kostenko, the Christian element in the districts of Semiryeche, Syr-Darya, Fergana, and in the circles of Zerefshan and Amu-Darya collectively, was estimated at 59,283 souls. According to the latest accounts, the number of Russian settle- ments in Turkestan amounts to about 152, with over 100,000 inhabitants, the greater portion of which belong to the district of Syr-Darya. After the opening of the Orenburg-Tashkend line the emigration of Russians into Turkestan will assume considerably larger dimensions. In the second place it should be noticed that the area of cultivated land is visibly enlarged, for in 1893 the arable land was estimated at 2,079,370 desyatins, on which 48,000,000 pud of grain and 2,000,000 pud of American cotton were grown. From an objective point of view, we cannot fail to see that Russia's success in Central Asia has so far chiefly been confined to material existence that is, much has been done to secure the possession of the Turkestan territory to make use of in case of future political developments. But much more could be done to make a profitable use of the vast treasures hidden in this land ; for what I said thirty-six years ago namely, that Turkestan, for fertility, was as a precious stone set in sand* is now confirmed by many travellers who have traversed and investigated the * See my 'Sketches of Central Asia,' p. 181. 96 UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES country in all directions. The three khanates will in the future be a rich source of wealth for the Russian Treasury, and if the official administration of the empire were not so absolutely rotten and hampered by all the faults and defects of an absolute system of government, the annual deficit of several millions would by this time have been materially lessened. According to the statistics of the Revenue and Expenditure Account, now before me, the costs of the administration of Turkestan from 1869 to 1903 have been each year twice as much as the returns ; so that during the last ten years alone from 1893 to 1903 the deficit has reached the sum of 143,962,665 roubles and 55 kopecks. As against this, M. Stetkevich, in a pamphlet published in St. Petersburg, expresses the opinion that the expenses incurred for the maintenance of the army in Turkestan should be deducted from the deficit, as the soldiers must in any case be paid ; and in this manner, instead of a deficit, the State would be able to show a balance. This calculation, however, has found much opposition ; for Russians look upon Turkestan as an acquisition the great expense of which can only be equalised by the political and economical advantages it yields. As is generally known, it is because of this deficit that the Russian Government has desisted so far from incorporating the khanates of Bokhara and Khiva, as such a step would necessarily involve a considerable increase of expense. Moreover, for the present there seems no urgent necessity for Russia to take such a step ; its supremacy in Central Asia is firmly rooted, and as long as there is no fear of an outside attack it is secure against any revolt of the natives.* The Russians might therefore * Thus far there have only been two attempts at insurrection or revolt in Central Asia, both of which have been greatly exaggerated by the Russians. The one took place on May 18, 1898, in Ming- Tobe, not far from Endidjan, where the half-dead fanatic Mehemed UNEXPLOITED OPPORTUNITIES 97 cheerfully pay a little more attention to the internal reformation of Turkestan, if only Russian society were prepared to undertake the task, and if such an under- taking could be made to fit in with the colonial and territorial politics hitherto entertained by the Russian Empire. Unfortunately, however, the intentions of Russia seem to lie in quite another direction, as I will show further on. All Ishan incited the Kipchaks of Khokand, renowned throughout Central Asia for their warlike spirit, to make an insurrection against the Russians, on which occasion twenty-two soldiers were killed and sixteen wounded. The pious Ishan, with many of his companions, had to pay for his adventure on the gallows, and forty-five participators were punished with exile to the Siberian lead-mines. Since then the Kipchaks have kept quiet. Before this, in 1892, there was a revolt in Tashkend on account of the hygienic measures taken at the time of the cholera epidemic, but this was nipped in the bud. Centuries of tyranny have taken all the courage out of the Turkestanis, and one regiment of soldiers can keep thousands in check. CHAPTER XII THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA IN order to give as perfect a picture as is possible of the influence of Russian civilisation upon Asia, I must not omit to trace its effects upon Siberia, where the followers of Mohammed's doctrine are decidedly in the minority, for ever since the first advent of the Russians Islam has been losing ground there. With ancient Novgorod as starting-point, Russia has been in touch with the western frontiers of Siberia from very early times, but the annexation did not take place until the end of the sixteenth century. The close proximity of the two countries, however, does not entitle us, as is often done in our days, to look upon Siberia as a Russian colony. Colloquial expressions in the Russian language confute such an idea. For instance, where the natives of foreign territories are called Tuzemtzi i.e., natives the original inhabitants of Siberia are generally known as Inorodzi i.e., foreigners or strangers which indicates that the Russians looked upon the land as belonging to them, and upon the people of the soil as foreigners. When Yermak, towards the end of the sixteenth century, had con- quered Siberia, and in 1582 sent his Ambassador, Ivan Kolzo, with gifts to the Court of Ivan the Terrible, there were great rejoicings in Moscow. The words 'God has added a new empire to Russia' re-echoed joyfully through the palace and on the ' red square.' As after the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, in the 98 THE ISLAM OF SIBERIA 99 happy days of Ivan's youth, so now the bells pealed merrily and thanksgivings were offered. Rumour greatly exaggerated the glories of the exploit ; people talked of the hosts of warriors slain by the Cossacks, of the many people they had subjugated, and of the immeasurable wealth they had found. It would seem as if Siberia had dropped down from heaven for the express benefit of the Russians ; they forgot that it had long since been known and subject to us* ' Of course Siberia was known to the Russians, but the assertion that it was subject to Russia is questionable. Islam, as moral conqueror, had forestalled Russia ; for, as we know, Tobolsk, at that time the Ultima Thule of Islam, was morally controlled from the shores of the Zeref- shan. Just as Bokhara, in its missionary zeal, has for many years sent teachers from the local Medresses (colleges) to the Kirghises in the steppes north of the Jaxartes, for the propagation and confirmation of Islam, so it has also sent its emissaries in a north- easterly direction ever since the time that Kotchiim Khan, the son of Murteza of the Sheibani branch of the Djinghizides,t had succeeded in founding an empire on the Isker. Thus, supported on the one hand by Bokhara and Khiva, and on the other by Kazan, Islamism might easily have become as firmly rooted in Siberia as it was in the khanates of Central Asia, if it had not been that with the fall of Kazan and Astrakhan the spirit of orthodox Slavism burst the bonds which had thus far enthralled it, and eagerly went in search of fresh conquests. Yermak and his * Karamsin, ' History of the Russian Empire,' German translation, vol. ix., p. 27. f Abulghazi calls that part of Siberia which Kochiim ruled over ' Turan,' for he says : ' Tarikhi ming taki iich yilda Kochiim khanning kolindin Turani Urus aldi' (In the year 1003 the Russians took Turan out of the hands of Kochiim Khan). Edition Desmaisons, vol. i., p. 177. 72 ioo THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA hosts thus entered Siberia just at the right moment ; a few decades later it would not have been so easy to overpower the growing strength of Islam. If Ivan the Terrible, with the advantages which he had gathered from Western methods of administration, and with the help of Western arms, was able to break the strength of the Golden Horde, it was a com- paratively easy matter for Yermak to overcome with his fire-arms the wild bands of Tartars and Ugrians coming against him with bows and arrows. It is a historical fact that Yermak commenced his adventurous campaign provided with three cannon, powder, and shot. Powder and shot have also in other parts of Asia, namely, on the eastern frontiers of Persia, changed the course of the world's history; for if Sheibani Khan,* the ruler of the Ozbegs, had not been checked by the fire - arms of Shah Ismail, primitive though they were, who can say but that his victorious course might not, like that of Timur, have extended much further westward ? The simple children of the steppes have always looked with horror upon the fatal invention of gunpowder. Even Koroglu, the national hero of West Asia, curses the inventor of gunpowder when he exclaims : ' May poisonous snakes nestle in his brain !' According to his notions, the black grit has destroyed the spirit of true chivalry. It was, then, the superiority of their arms which gave the victory to Yermak's valiant hosts, and made the Rus- sians masters in Siberia. Their dominion was limited at first to the inhospitable northern portions of Siberia, and consisted chiefly of stretches of land where, with the exception of a few small settlements and fortresses, the inhabitants led a nomadic existence. The popula- tion belonged partially to the Ugrian tribe, such as * The battle between the Ozbeg Prince Sheibani Mehemed Khan and the Persian King Shah Ismail took place in the neighbourhood of Herat in the year 916 (1510). TURKISH ELEMENT IN SIBERIA 101 the Ostyaks, Voguls and Syrya"ns, and partially to the Turco-Tartars : Yakuts in the high north ; and the so-called South Siberian Turks : Altaiers, Teleuts, Kizilitzes, Kachinzes, Uryankhais, Barabas and West Siberian Tartars, besides a fair proportion of the Ugro- Turkish mixed nations, who in actual numbers, how- ever, formed only small groups, and who were always either at war with one another or else made common cause with whatever power was in the ascendancy.* Encouraged by their first successes, the small vic- torious army of Russians advanced rapidly, and this was the easier as the Turkish element, the mainstay of Kochiim's forces, was only feebly represented in Siberia. His chief army was composed of Ugrians, or more correctly speaking of Voguls and Ostyaks, who had never distinguished themselves by martial exploits, and who now at once became tributary to the Russians. As Karamsin rightly remarks,t they looked upon the foreign conquerors as charmed, superhuman beings. If this had not been the case, * The numerical strength of the Siberian Turks of modern times, according to the 'Annotations about the Ethnical Condition of the Turkish Tribes and Families of Siberia, with an Account of their Relative Numbers' (in Russian), is as follows : Yakuts Altaiers and Teleuts Kumandins ... Lebedins Black Tartars Shors Chulim Tartars Descendants of Kuznetz Kizilitzes Kachinzes Sagaians Karagas Uryankhais Barabas West Siberian Tartars f Vol. ix., p. 28. 389,055 102 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA if Kochiim had been able to draw the Kirghises of Western Siberia, then still powerful, within his circle of jurisdiction, the Russians under Yermak would have come off badly at their hands ; but with the Ugrian auxiliary troops no good could be done ; they were unreliable, and at once surrendered to the Russians. And as for the Turkish elements scattered along the Isker, they were of equally doubtful value to Kochiim ; they had for the greater part adopted Shamanism, and their conversion to Islam was as yet scarcely begun. The work of proselytising was, as previously stated, exclusively in the hands of the emigrants from the khanates of Zerefshan, Mollas and merchants, whose descendants may be found to this day in the district of Tobolsk, Tiimen, and Kara, and also in the localities of Yalutrowsk, Semipalatinsk, and Petropavlowsk. According to Yadrinzeff, they number at present about 8,727 souls.* They were older inhabitants of these districts than the Russians, trade and the pro- pagation of their religion being the primary causes of their settling there. For in the days of Kochiim Khan they did for Siberia what the people of Kazan did for the Kirghis Steppe, and the Mollas of Bokhara for Afghanistan and India. They had a hard battle to fight with Shamanism, for as late as 1639 the majority of the Siberian Tartars confessed this faith. These messengers from Bokhara and Khiva were also instru- mental in promoting the Islamisation of a portion of the Siberian Kirghises. At the time of their greatest prosperity their numbers, according to Georgi, amounted to 20,000 ; and if their missionary labours had received as much support from Bokhara as Chris- tianity had from Russia, the Russian chances of success would have been very much smaller. Slighted and * 'Sibirskie Inorodzi ikh bit i sowremennoe polozhenie" (The Siberian Foreign Elements, their Existence and Temporary Situation), by N. M. Yadrinzeff. St. Petersburg, 1891, p. 34. CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY 103 neglected as they were, the Moslems of Siberia were unable to resist the urgency of the Russian missionaries. Thus, we are told by Yadrinzeff that the baptising of the Turco-Tartars or Turaliner Tartars was partially effected by the Archbishop Philotheus, between 1718 and 1720;* consequently before this that is, soon after the victory of Yermak the conversion of the Tartars to the Orthodox faith must have been undertaken by the Government in good earnest. We read further that Ivan the Terrible commanded the Archbishop of Vologda to send ten priests with their families to Siberia, in order to carry on the public worship of the Christian religion there ;t they were escorted by 500 archers. Here, as everywhere, Cross and Sword worked together as faithful allies in spreading the culture of the Christian West, and thus began that period in the history of Northern Asia which is now drawing to a close. Islam then was not the only religio militans ; orthodox Christianity also gladly re- sorted to force of arms. It cannot be denied that Russia when entering Siberia had a most difficult problem to face. It had to take up the contest with three different religions, each of which suited the intellect, the views of life, and the ethnical needs of its followers, and which had penetrated into the flesh and blood of this, for the greater part, nomad population. Of these three re- ligions, Shamanism had the least power of resistance, and could only maintain itself where Islamism and Buddhism had not thought it worth their while to proselytise. Such was the case among the Ugrians in the Far North heathen in the true sense of the word who worshipped the All-Father (Numi-Tarem) with as much enthusiasm as the Moslems prayed to Allah ; yet this natural belief had far too weak a basis to resist the allurements and the overpowering in- * ' Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 25. f Karamsin, vol. ix., p. 27. io 4 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA fluence of the Russian missionaries. In a report of the missionary labours of the first Russian clergy in Siberia,* it is stated that during the lifetime of the Archbishop Kiprian Starorusenikoff, in the year 1620, his diocese could boast of 30 churches, 22 convents, 300 priests, and 50 Order brothers and nuns. The same report gives an account of the labours of seven- teen Russian prelates in Siberia, the Church being strongly supported by the Government, and in a Ukas of December 6, 1714, we read: 'Wherever idols, idol temples, or idolatrous places of education are found, thou shalt burn them in accordance with this our Imperial command, and all Voguls, Ostyaks, Tartars, and all others who are of foreign nationality, thou shalt convert to the Christian faith with the help of God and by thine own zeal. At the same time I command thee to make this our ordinance known to them word for word ; those of the Voguls, Ostyaks, Tartars, and people of any other nationality who come to be baptised, shall receive from our Imperial bounty linen for a baptismal robe, and exemption from the Yasak (fur-tax).f The premium for the adoption of the religion of Christ, consisting of a few yards of linen, cannot be called extravagant, and the results have been correspondingly poor ; for although at present the Voguls and Ostyaks as a people profess Christianity, the spirit of the Gospel has taken a slow and very loose hold upon these children of the high North, and in proportion as they became converted they have * See the article in the Journal of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1854, Nos. 2, 3, entitled ' Materiali dlya istoriy christians- kago prowjeshcheniya Sibiri, so wryemeni pokoreniya yeya w 1 1581 do natchala XIX. Stolyeta' (Materials for the History of the Christian Enlightenment of Siberia, from the Time of the Conquest to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century), by N. Abramoff, p. 10. t See ' Earlier Reports concerning the Heathenism of the Voguls and Ostyaks,' by Bernard Munka"csi. Third Report, published at Keleti Szemle, fourth year, 1903, No. 2, p. 172. ENFORCED CONVERSION 105 also gradually become extinct. The water of Baptism brought the new converts neither intellectual nor material advantages, as we learn from a complaint addressed by an old baptised Chukchi to the missionary Argentoff: 'I was young; the Russians flattered me, and I was baptised. I now look back upon the past with ancestral eyes. What has Baptism done for us ? The population is impoverished, the flocks have diminished, the reindeers are extirpated, and the people vanish away. There are hardly any old men now, and most of the people die an unnatural death. No, no ; I want to die in a more homely, more human manner.'* Like the pious Spanish padres, who with their Bibles, strongly bound in wooden boards and provided with iron clasps, boxed the ears of the American heathen, crying, ' You black cattle ! do you refuse to acknowledge the holiness of this Book ?' so, or perhaps even worse, did the popes of the Greek Church set to work to convert the Voguls and the Ostyaks. The man who refused to be bap- tised underwent the severest punishments, and yet the end in view could not be attained, for every- thing was confined to outward appearances all was superficial. The idols were replaced by ikons (holy pictures), to impress upon the people that the gaily- coloured pictures of Christian saints possessed greater miraculous power than the idols which had been handed down to them, or which they had made for themselves. But for the intellectual development of the people nothing was done. ' For two hundred years,' thus writes Munkacsi,t 'not a single attempt worth mentioning has been made to improve the in- tellectual condition of the people. In all the land of the Voguls there is to this day not one school to be found ; and if one of the natives does as an exception go in for higher education, he becomes entirely Russified, * ' Sibirskie Inorodzi/ p. 225. f Op. tit., p. 189. 106 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA and has henceforth no further dealings with his com- patriots. ... In all that vast land, inhabited by the Voguls, I found on my journey of investigation (1888-89) not a single tradesman not even a black- smith, although the South Voguls are horse-dealers. If an epidemic breaks out, whole villages die out, for there is no doctor, no surgeon anywhere within reach,' etc. And so it is with the Ostyaks, says Yadrinzeff,* notwithstanding the fact that within the circle of Berezoff 14,337, an d in the circle of Surgut 5,923 Ostyaks, have received Baptism. The greatest blame devolves, of course, upon the Russian clergy, known to be the most illiterate of all the priests in the Christian Church, who in these remote regions, instead of looking after the souls of the people, have inaugurated a regular system of robbery. Professor Alquistf tells us that the Voguls of Pelym lodged a complaint against their priest because he oppressed them by exacting exorbitant fees for the performance of his official duties. His motto was : ' He who can- not pay cannot receive the Church's blessing, or else must be heavily fined.' Moreover, the Orthodox right reverend gentleman was so addicted to drink that for months together he was unable to conduct any service of public worship. Not only foreigners, but also Russian travellers and investigators, give a most dismal picture of the con- dition of the Ugrians who have been converted to Christianity. Yadrinzefft is of opinion that Russian missionaries do not trouble themselves about the human beings ; all they care for is to proselytise. They say to the heathen natives : Be Russified, and we will look after you. ' Be baptised, and we will show you mercy.' The great poverty and helpless- * 'Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 225. t ' Unter Vogulen und Ostyaken,' p. 13. J 'Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 155. TENACITY OF HEATHENS 107 ness of these people of the Far North have helped to make the Orthodox Church victorious, as we see from the account of the missionary work of Philotheus Leshtchinski in 1712-1714, during which time, accord- ing to Yadrinzeff, about 54,000 Ugrians embraced Christianity.* But, says the same learned writer, this conversion has not greatly benefited either the natives or the Russians. Writing about Siberia, he says : 1 The conversion of the heathen, with their super- stitions and fantastic notions and representations, is apparently an easy task. The Shamanists are easily brought to the font, hence the large number of converts among the Ostyaks and Voguls, etc. ; but we must not forget that these converts have virtually become double-faced heathen. The mythological representations and superstitions do not suddenly disappear from their minds ; they leave traces behind. We see this even among the uneducated masses in Europe. As a matter of fact, the Ostyaks, converted more than 150 years ago, still cling secretly to their heathenism. When the pope visits the diocese, the idols are removed and the ikons are put up ; but no sooner has the pope left than the ikons are thrust aside and the idols restored to the place of honour. Indeed, the Christianising of the native Ugrian element in Siberia does not reflect much glory upon the civilising powers of the Russians, as we will pre- sently show. Shamanism was evidently no special obstacle to Russification in localities where Islamism and Buddhism were not its rivals. Thus, we find that the Yakuts in the Far North have, as a whole, accepted Orthodoxy, and among the Altaiers also the Altaic mission has already had some success. Some patriots from amongst the ranks of the Yakuts stand out, show- ing a decided predisposition for culture. In the college at Yakutsk there is a transition course for higher * ' Yadrinzeff Sibir kak Kolonia,' p. 115. io8 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA instruction, and a learned Yakut, Nikolayeff by name, has gained some celebrity by his literary labours.'* The second religion which has caused the Russians in Siberia considerable trouble is Buddhism, which gradually advanced from the Mongolian Steppe, and, according to accounts dating back as far as the year 1741, has spread without interruption, notwithstanding the presence of the Russians, we might almost say at the expense of Christianity. The Biiryats, who formerly professed Shamanism, have under the very eyes of Russia become followers of the doctrine of Buddha. Until the year 1741 there existed among them but n convents and 150 Lamas; while 100 years later that is, in 1845 tne number of Buddhists is estimated at about 85,060, and in 1848 at 125,000. In the same proportion grew also the number of convents and Lamas, of which latter there were in 1848 about 4,546. This is the more surprising as the Biiryats, averaging about 200,000! souls, are represented to be a peaceable race at least, the settled portion of the community, which, although standing under the imme- diate influence of Russia, has nevertheless thus far resisted all attempts at conversion. Yadrinzeff | says with reference to this that the efforts of the Russian Government to restrain the spread of Buddhism have been quite useless, which fact he attributes mainly to the strongly developed national instinct of the people. The Khambo Lama on the Baikal complied only in appearance with the edict of the Tsar, and the conse- quent oppression only engendered a higher degree of fanaticism. The missionaries, moreover, by using forcible means to convert the Buryats, have further embittered them. Nor did the English Mission, of * ' Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 223. f ' Pauli Narodi Rossiy/ vol. ii., p. 493, estimates the total number 190,000 souls. J 'Sibirskie Inorodzi,' pp. 214, 215. CIVILISED BURYATS 109 which Cochrane gives an account, fare much better. The English, supported by Nicolas I., went to work more systematically; nevertheless, from 1821 to 1829 they were not able to administer Baptism to one single Buryat, although they translated the Bible and had made themselves fairly familiar with the language and the customs of the natives. The Buryats accepted their tracts, but never read them. They served the missionaries because these paid and fed them well, but in secret they laughed at the simplicity and credulity of the Christian foreigners. This dislike to Christianity strikes one the more as the Buryats are noted for their desire to learn and their eminent fitness for acquiring knowledge. Many of them attend the Russian normal and middle schools, and some have even acquitted them- selves with success at the Universities. Among the noteworthy scholars, we may mention the celebrated Orientalist Dardji Banzaroff * and the Lamas Gom- boyeff, KhangalofT, Dorozheyeff, etc., who, without being converted to Christianity, enter with heart and soul into the modern education movement, and who as members of the Geographical Society of Siberia make many sacrifices in the cause of science, and have distinguished themselves as explorers. Amongst these latter we would make special mention of Tzybikoff, who of late years visited and described Lhasa. How long the Buryats will be able to resist the attempts made to convert them, how long they will evade this first step towards Russification, is difficult to say. Their national instinct and the propaganda of Bud- dhism, so zealously fostered by the Thibetans, whose land and language are held sacred by the Bilryats, will not easily lose their power over them. Mean- * Quite recently the Buryat Dorjieff, the son of this savant, has become famous as the adviser of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, and the recent English campaign to Thibet must be taken as the result of the intrigues of this mam while the Biiryats' thirst for knowledge is rendering good service to the Russians, to ethnography and philology in general; nevertheless, Buddhism for many more years to come is likely to hold its own against all the ecclesiastical and national endeavours of Russia. The third antagonist of Russian civilisation in Siberia is Islam, the doctrine of Mohammed, which, although its territorial conquests there are limited, has so far succeeded in holding its ground with stubborn perseverance against all outside attacks, and notwith- standing that the ruling religion (Christianity) steadily continues to make proselytes. Abramoff* tells us that the Metropolitan Sylvester Glovatski, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, laboured with unfaltering zeal in Tobolsk, and converted many Tartars, as well as Raskolniks, to the Orthodox Church, although at that time the Mohammedan tolerance period under Catherine II. was at its height, and he, the Metropolitan, had received strict injunctions from St. Petersburg to desist from any forcible conversion of the natives. Tobolsk was then the centre of the Church missions, and in the nine- teenth century it even boasted a Bible Society for the conversion of Tartars and Kirghises. The Government, meanwhile having recognised its error in allowing the Turco-Tartar elements to come into touch with civilisation through the instrumentality of Islam, supported the missionary movement by building churches on the estuaries of the Ishim and Tari Rivers ; but in spite of this, Orthodoxy spread very slowly, and between the years 1860 and 1868 only about 331 Tartars f were baptised. So persistently did the Moslem Tartars oppose the Church's attempts at Russification, that even those Tartars who in the * 'Material! dlya istoriy Christiyanskago prowyeshcheniya Sibiri,' P- 55- f ' Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 25. ENFORCED BAPTISM A FAILURE in eighteenth century received Baptism, and who lived among a Russian population as, for instance, in the village of Yamakowo in the circle of Tumen have always continued to speak the Tartar tongue, and have not amalgamated with the Russians. Nevertheless, as might be expected, their change of religion has not benefited the Mussulmans. Through the loss of the schools formerly connected with the mosques there has been a falling away in matters of religion, for education has always been closely connected with religion. The material prosperity of the people has also suffered by the change. However, it was not only among the settled portion of the Turkish popula- tion, but also among the nomads, that enforced Baptism has proved a failure, for with the adoption of Chris- tianity they had to give up their nomadic existence and begin an entirely new mode of life. As is always the case, intercourse with a more advanced state of society aggravates the condition of the people in a lower stage of development ; so it was here the number of settled Tobol Tartars, Tara Tartars and Barabinzes has decreased* perceptibly of late years, while the number of Altaiers, Teleuts, Kara Tartars and Kirghises, less easily affected by Russian influ- ences, has increased, f The primary cause of this * According to Yadrinzeff (' Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 211), the number of Mohammedans in the districts of Tobolsk and Tomsk amounted in the year 1890 to 47,326, which, together with the 78,800 Siberian Kirghises, makes a total of 126,126. As against this, the latest census returns of 1897 give for Tobolsk 64,152, and for Tomsk 40,833, a total of 104,985 Mohammedans. This decrease of numbers is the more striking when we remember that the returns given by Yadrinzeff are in all probability incorrect, as the Mohammedans of Tobolsk and Tomsk together would be more than 40,833. + According to Aristoff, 'Zamyetki ob etnicheskom Sostawye turskikh piemen i narodnostei ' (p. 68), there were in 1763, 476 Altaiers of the male sex ; in 1804, 1204 ; in the sixties of the nineteenth century, according to Radloff, 14,000 to 15,000 of both sexes ; and according to Yadrinzeff, in the year 1880, 17,014 souls of both sexes. ii2 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA phenomenon, however, lies in the fact that the intel- lectual standard of the Russian agriculturists and workmen in Siberia was far too low to impress the native mind with the advantages of civilisation. In many instances they were far better off when left to themselves. As regards the Russification of the settled Turkish tribes, we maintain that the peaceful social intercourse with the Russians had a far better influence than forcible conversion to the Russian Church. Yadrinzeff* is quite right when he says that in places where there were no missionaries, but where Russian colonisation was extensive, the natives adopted Christianity more quickly and of their own accord. This is proved by the number of Tartars in the district of Kuznetz and Biisk, in the principality of Tobolsk ; whereas in the Moslem schools in the Moslem quarters, where religious instruction is always of chief importance in spite of the terrible pressure exercised by the Orthodox Church, all attempts at Russification and the introduction of modern culture have proved fruitless. Wherever the Russian Govern- ment has wished to assert its authority, it has always resorted in the first instance to the forcible conversion of the subjugated foreign nations. The reason for this is obvious. The native Russian population lacks that higher culture which has made other Governments successful in their work of colonisation, and in Siberia Russia has found the application of violent measures more efficacious and less troublesome as, for instance, among the Volga Tartars in the Caucasus and in Turkestan. The fact that the methods hitherto followed and the means hitherto employed were not expressive of the humane spirit of the cultured West is acknow- ledged even by the Russian scholar Yadrinzeff, who concludes his treatise on the ' Influence of Culture upon * ' Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 223. YADRINZEFFS VIEWS 113 the Natives of Siberia ' with these words :* ' The true aim of education should always be to cultivate in the individuals a feeling of love towards their tribe, but never to draw them away from the national body ; for the ultimate end of that method must inevitably be extinction and decay. Thus far, only very few of the natives have kept intact the bond of unity with their fellow-tribesmen, and so exercised a civilising influence over them. Amongst those few, we would mention Banzaroff, Piroshkoff, Boldanoff, and Dorozheyeff amongst the Biiryats ; Nikolayeff amongst the Yakuts ; Velikhanoff, Yakowleff, and Altinsarin amongst the Kirghises. These, however, are all isolated instances. The masses have remained ignorant of the higher European culture, although such personalities as those mentioned might have been of the greatest service to their compatriots. In stirring up the desire for know- ledge, in rousing the intellect, in teaching them to realise the close connection existing between the present and the future therein lies the safeguard of national preservation. Such knowledge is to us the very source of life and of salvation, strong enough to rouse even the legendary Samoyedes, expiring in misery and starvation. The spirit of the Siberian native is oppressed ; a deep melancholy weighs him down ; a gloomy despondency oppresses him ; he has no faith in improvement and no hope for the future ; and it is only by rousing in him this faith and this confidence that the education of the natives can ever be accom- plished. When the native realises that there is no coercion and no danger in education, he learns to appreciate it. We see how natives occasionally send their children to the middle schools for instance, to the cadet school at Omsk there are instances, also, of Biiryats sending their children to the college. ' Up to the present, examples of higher education * Sibirskie Inorodzi,' p. 241. 8 ii4 THE RUSSIFICAT1ON OF SIBERIA among the natives are scarce ; but we trust that the local Universities of Siberia will attract the attention of leading men. Natives such as Dardji BanzarofF, Velikhanoff, and Katanoff, have already rendered excellent service to Russian science. Without neg- lecting their own language, they have proved them- selves able Orientalists, and have contributed largely to the study of ethnography through their intimate knowledge of their countrymen. But a much larger contingent of learned Orientalists could be produced by the Oriental faculty of Siberia. Natives might be educated to act as translators and interpreters, and a beneficial influence over our Oriental neighbours might be exercised through their intervention.' It is superfluous to enter into further criticism on the civilising methods employed by the Russians in Siberia. Rightly or wrongly, reasonably or unreason- ably, Russia has attained its object in Siberia. It has not only subjugated this vast portion of Asia, stretching from the Ural to the Pacific, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Oxus and Tien-Shan, a territory covering over 6,000,000 of English square miles ; but Siberia proper has been inundated by the floods of ethnical Slavism, so that the poor remnant of the original inhabitants is as a solitary island, powerless and forlorn, in the midst of the roaring ocean. Of the present population, amounting to 7,000,000, 6,000,000 have become Slavonised, and only 1,000,000 of the original inhabitants have retained their old national characteristics. In this ancient Officina Gentium for Turks, Ugrians, Finns, and Mongols have all originally come from South Siberia peace and quietness now prevail, and the all-powerful decree of the White Tsar on the Neva is the shibboleth which controls the ethnical, ethical, religious, and political life. Hence- forth internal strife and racial feuds no longer evolve new tribes and linguistic amalgamations. Now there PEACE IN SIBERIA 115 is no forced emigration, no overcrowding, no total extirpation of entire tribes, such as there used to be in olden times when the natives had to fight the elements, or quarrelled and wrangled among them- selves about pasture-lands or hunting-grounds. The magic beat of the drum of Shamanism is almost silent ; the Ezan of the muezzin is only heard in faint and timid accents ; for the ikons of the true Church have gained the supremacy as the only certain means whereby the happiness of the present and the here- after can be insured. Just as some 9,000* Voguls and 20,000 Ostyaks in their high Northern home have become transformed by the holy water of Baptism, and by the compulsory acquirement of the Russian language and are gradually becoming Russified, so the time is drawing near when the Biiryats, Kalmuks, and the later Kirghises will have to submit to the total trans- formation of their cultural existence. With the latter i.e., the Buddhists and Mohammedans the evolution will not be such an easy matter; for both these are supported by national bodies of their own persuasion. Lhasa as well as Mecca radiates its light in an almost unbroken line far into the high Northern districts ; but in the end the Double Cross will triumph. Russia's influence is practically only now beginning to assert itself in that benighted corner of the Old World, and to shed the light of Western culture in its own peculiar way ; not always perhaps in the garb which would appeal to us as the most suitable. The start which Russia has made of late years in these neglected and fallow-lying portions of Asia is most * Dr. Munkacsi, the most recent Hungarian traveller in Siberia, says that in the district of Perm there were, in 1889, 1,934 Voguls; in the district of Tobolsk, in 1868, 4,444 Voguls. Besides these there are in the Northern Sowa about 2,529 souls, making a total of 8,907 Voguls. But these figures are not absolutely reliable, either, as at the time this census was taken no correct ethnical classification did exist. 82 ii6 THE RUSSIFICATION OF SIBERIA promising. By means of the great Siberian Railway the entrance of civilisation will be greatly facilitated. Viewed from the standpoint of political experience, the new acquisitions in the South and South-east of Siberia may be of problematic value to the Russian Empire, for a too extensive frontier State is a heavy strain on political resources; but from the stand- point of civilisation Russia might do much for Siberia, and every philanthropist must on this score wish the mission a hearty success. Whatever may be our estimate of the standard of Russia's civilising methods, one thing is certain and remains infallibly true, namely, that Russian culture is always, and in every respect, to be preferred to the primitive culture of the Asiatic. CHAPTER XIII RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN the above rough sketch of the influence of Russian culture upon the various portions of Moslem Asia which have been made subject to the Tsar's dominion, we have attempted to throw some light upon the civilising methods used by Russia, upon the object they have in view and the means employed. This sketch enables us not only to understand the character and the modus operandi of the work, but it also helps us to appreciate at their right value the results so far obtained. Judging dispassionately and without pre- judice, as it is seemly to do in matters of such moment, we must frankly acknowledge that the Russians have done much good work in Asia, that with their advent order, peace, and security have taken the place of anarchy and lawlessness, and that, notwithstanding the strongly Oriental colouring of their political, social and ecclesiastical institutions as representatives of the Western world, they have everywhere made a change for the better, and inaugurated an era more worthy of humanity. Whether the Russian Government had this result in view, whether its actions and dealings, instead of being animated by a desire to improve humanity, were not rather the outcome of greed for territory and power, is a question which we need not discuss here. We contemplate an accomplished fact, and the various phases in the process of evolution must compel all unprejudiced persons to recognise its 117 ii8 RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE merits. From the moment that the Grand-Dukedom of Moscow threw off the heavy fetters by which the Golden Horde held it enchained, the neighbouring Asiatic world has felt the vibrations of the spirit of the West, which has touched the sluggish body of old Mother Asia at short intervals, and which culminates either in evolution or in death. Russia, Poland, and Hungary, whose children sacrificed their lives to defend the soil of Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, and who with their blood stemmed the fury and fanaticism of the barbaric hosts, are, correctly speaking, the first benefactors and promoters oi modern civilisation. Our modern world is eternally indebted to them, for we must not forget what would have been the fate of Europe if the descendants of Batu Khan and the Janissaries of Turkey, at the time of their power, had broken through the wall of Slav and Hungarian arms and made a rush upon the very heart of defenceless Europe. What the Hungarians did for the South-east the Russians have done for the North-east of Europe. Rough and wild was the hand of Ivan the Terrible, but he was the right man for the work. After the taking of Kazan and Astrakhan, the influx of the Ural-Altaic warrior bands from Central Asia and Siberia was stayed, and gradually swerved back towards their native steppes. With this feat Russia inscribed its first success in sanguinary letters upon the annals of the world's history. After-events, resulting from the advantages then obtained, show us how the field of action of the early nomads was trans- formed slowly but surely into a cultivated district with towns and villages. It shows us how trade and traffic gradually gained ground there, and how South Russia, where in past ages Khazars, Pecheneghes, Madjars, Kumanians, Cossacks, and Turkomans, wrestled and fought, now steps forth out of the surrounding wilder- ness and desolation bearing the torch of Western SALUTARY EFFECTS 119 culture. Metamorphoses of this kind we meet wherever Russia's power has been felt, wherever its sceptre has brought peace and order, the first conditions of civili- sation. Thus, the Caucasus, where national frag- ments of various origins and creeds for hundreds of years lived in bloody strife, has now in modern times at last become pacified. I can remember the time when Sheikh Shamil, the sacred chief of the Lesghians, from his stronghold Gunib, personally directed the fight for freedom and religion against the Russians, which campaign for certain political reasons has been much exalted in the Western world. Well do I remember how the Abkhases, Addighi, Chechenses, and other Cherkesses, came from Sok- hum Kala and Anapa upon the deceitful waves of the Black Sea, and landed in Constantinople in the town- quarter of Topkhane, their small ships laden with the children destined for the slave-market, young boys and girls to be sold to supply the harems of Efendis and Pashas.* Of these problematic Circassian heroes of liberty, who in their time were much celebrated in Europe, no trace is now to be found, for Russia has established order. The Batum-Baku railway traverses a portion of these former robber dens, and although the Karapapaks, Terekmes, and other semi-nomadic Turks of Transcaucasia, do not yet altogether submit to Russian rule, the time of the freebooters has long since passed away, and the pacification of the whole Caucasian territory will be shortly an accomplished fact. And what shall I say of the condition of Central Asia as reorganised by the Russians I, who have seen this den of Asiatic barbarism and ferocity in all its original ugliness, and who therefore am able to judge of the changes which have been brought about ? * See my ' Sittenbilder aus dem Morgenlande.' Berlin, 1876, pp. 25, 26. 120 RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE When in the guise of a mendicant friar, seated in my tent on the shores of the Gorghen or the Etrek, and gazing eastward towards the steppe region, the names of such places as Kizil Arvat, Goktepe, Ashkabad, and Merv, were mentioned in my hearing, a feeling oi dread and horror would seize hold of me because of the terrible stories I had been told about these places ; and gazing in the distant blue which envelops the mountains, my imagination saw the fettered slaves and other miserable creatures wandering round. To- day in most of these places peace and safety are estab- lished. Before me lies the Zakaspiskoe Obozryenie (Transcaspian paper), a daily newspaper published at Ashkabad, in which European and American merchants advertise articles of fashion and the latest productions of modern art and industry. In the boys and girls' college at Ashkabad classical literature and European sciences are taught ; there are clubs, theatres, concert- halls, etc. ; in short, in this city, now numbering 21,400 souls, there is nothing to remind them that forty years ago they still lived here the old Asiatic life as in the days of Genghis Khan, and that this ' habitation of love'* (lucus a non lucendo] was formerly known as the seat of the bitterest animosity and fanaticism. Of the tremendous changes in Turkestan itself that is, in the cities of Tashkend, Samarkand, Endidjan, Mergolan, Khokand, and Namengan much more could be said. In those places where I went round with timorous steps, singing hymns and dispensing bless- ings in the streets, the Western tourist may now be seen taking snapshots with his Kodak, and the fanatical native who formerly would get into a furious rage at the mere mention of the word ' Kafir ' (unbeliever) * The meaning of the word Ashk-abad is Abode of Love ; but Ashk (Love) must here be taken in the Sufistic sense of the word i.e., Love towards God and Love of Faith. In all probability a Turkoman saint had his abode here in past ages. CENTRAL ASIA BEFORE AND NOW 121 now makes respectful obeisance to the Christian foreigner, and is proud when he can pronounce a Russian word. I could fill pages were I to describe the sharp con- trast between Central Asia as I used to know it and Central Asia as it is now. But the little I have said will, I think, be sufficient to convince the reader that I do not ignore or depreciate the new order of things inaugurated by the Russians in Central Asia and else- where, but, on the contrary, that I am most anxious not to withhold the praise which is undoubtedly due to their labours. Nothing would be more censurable and despicable than to allow ourselves to be influenced by personal dislike or political considerations in our judgment of the dealings and transactions of a State whose institutions and tendencies displease us. This would be an abuse of sound reason and justice. No, the impartial investigator must be guilty of no such mistake in his comparative study of the cultural missions of individual European States. Our opinion of the political questions of the day must not influence our judgment as to the quality of the methods and results of the culture movement. We most heartily acknowledge that in Moslem localities Russia has done good work, and deserves recognition for the progress made by the people there. But we must not lose sight of the fact that it is Russia in particular which, as far as its own culture is concerned, has not by a long way reached that stage of perfection which would enable it to take its stand as the representative of the true, genuine spirit of modern advancement. Russian culture is only half European, and still half Asiatic, and although modern Russia has produced a few great personalities, yet, taken as a whole, its education is only half finished, and not matured enough to make it the successful civiliser of other entirely or semi-barbaric societies. This lack of readiness and the absence of a pronounced tendency 122 RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE becomes all the more noticeable when another foreign, more advanced culture begins the struggle in the Asiatic world with a society which, guided by its ancient theories, despises all innovations. Thus far the idea has prevailed that this incomplete- ness of the culture of the Russians, which we object to, is the best qualification for their successful operations in the East, and that, not being so diametrically opposed to the Asiatics, they are the better able to act as their teachers. The error of this view has been clearly proved by the history of the last 300 years ; for when we look into the condition of those nations, which since the first victory of Ivan the Terrible have been under Russian tutelage, we see that the Russian pro- tection, instead of benefiting them, has rather done them harm, because it deprived them of the hope and the possibility of making progress in the field of their own national development, and did not help them forward in acquiring the new foreign accomplish- ments. Under Russian sway a transformation, a change for the better, could at the best only be possible by forcing the Asiatics entirely to give up their national individuality, by their being swallowed up in the mass of the ruling element in short, by Russifi- cation ; and as the Russian State and Russian society always and everywhere have contemplated this kind of sovereignty and absorption, therefore their methods of civilisation have always tended to swell the ranks of Russia's forces, and made the individual nations suspicious of the intentions of their foreign masters, and put them on their guard against them. Hitherto the transition of one world of culture into another has always had to be paid for by national extinction. Can we wonder that some tribes refused to pay this high price and to submit to this fate ? Can we wonder that they have resisted all attempts at Russification and have preferred to fall into a slow decline ? No ORIENTAL CONSERVATISM 123 nation, not even an Asiatic one, where religion takes the place of nationality, willingly gives itself the death- stroke by giving up its national individuality. Keeping this fact in view, we can understand why the Moslem Turks of the Lower Volga, in the Crimea and in the Caucasus, will never cheerfully estrange themselves from the cultural and social views entertained at the time of their subjugation to the Russians, and that in all probability this will also be the case in Central Asia. We meet with a few isolated cases in South Russia of Moslems who, perfectly European in their manner of thinking, enter into critical comparisons of the Eastern and Western Worlds, and we are not a little surprised to find that Tartars, Lezghians, and others, sit in judgment on our philosophers, historians, and poets. But these few exceptions should not mis- lead us. If the sons of distinguished Moslems, on their passage through the school of the cadet corps, have been converted to the Russian Church, and if Tartars, Bashkirs, and Kalmuks, after leaving the Russian colleges and Universities, enter into disqui- sitions upon the history of culture in general, this does not in any way affect the masses of the Tsar's Mohammedan subjects. Of the true light of Western culture, of our principles of freedom and equality, only a faint glimmering, a tiny spark, has reached the masses ; they are as much as ever filled with hatred and suspicion against Christianity, which to them is the personification of oppression, and Western culture, which should ennoble, benefit, and liberate humanity, is looked upon by Asia as the chief cause of all its misery and decay. Anyone judging of Russia's influence with prejudice and without sufficient knowledge of the true state of things may comfort himself with the thought that the half-culture of Russia is preferable to the many evils of Asiatic society, and is at any rate a step forward i2 4 RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE on the way to improvement, for they say, The better is often an enemy of the good.' Yes, but when we consider how long, how tortuous, and how toilsome, is the road by which the Asiatic is made to travel before he reaches the so-called Russian 'cross-road,' which will lead him to the true source of modern culture, we cannot be especially enthusiastic about this mode of transformation. The Russian State does not civilise, it merely conquers, absorbs, sacrifices everything 'to its national Moloch, and thinks only of enlarging its territorial dominions. When this Slav Moloch shall have demolished and consumed the foreign ethnical elements, it may come to pass that Russia also will make progress in the way of modern freedom and culture. It may grow yet to be a true represen- tative of the Western world, and come forward in Asia as the reformer and saviour of oppressed humanity. But that time is far distant yet, and until it comes the accumulation of crude force in the hand of an auto- cratic-despotic Government is bound to curb the free development of the Russian State and endanger the peace and progress of Europe. The influence of Russian culture on Moslem Asia therefore can, for the reasons stated above, only benefit Russian State interests and promote Russian commerce and industry; but for the Mohammedans themselves this influence is of doubtful value, because the price they have to pay for it is the loss of their nationality. The present relation between governor and governed is likely to remain unchanged far into the remote future. In the southern frontier districts of the Tsar's dominions the Moslem population has a decided majority over the Slavs, and even in localities where Islamism forms the minority, Armenians and other Christians, but never Russians, have the predominance. According to the census of 1897, out of a total popula- tion of 128,924,289, about 13,889,421 belong to the MOHAMMEDANS AND CHRISTIANS 125 Mohammedan faith, and the relative proportion of Christians and Moslems in the principalities of the southern frontier is as follows : Mohammedans. Christians. In the district of Kars 145,781 as against 49,295* Eriwan ... 352,351 17,848 Tersk 484,462 318,776 Dagestan ... 540,960 17,313 Elisabetpol ... 552,632 10,016 Uralsk ... 478,695 109,533 Total 2,556,881 422,781 In Central Asia proper, in the districts of Fergana, Syr -Darya, Semiryeche, Samarkand, and Trans- caspia 196,311 Christians live amongst 6,251,836 Mo- hammedans that is, 372 per cent, of the ruling classes, as against 95^63 per cent, of the subjugated classes. Besides the Orthodox Christians mentioned, there are in Central Asia the following denominations : Sectarians ... ... ... ... 3,838! Catholics ... ... ... ... 10,798 Protestants ... ... ... ... 3,880 Other Christians ... ... ... 4,831 Jews ... ... ... ... ... 10,613 Total ... ... ... ... 33,960 altogether 230,271 non-Mohammedans, which, con- sidering the comparatively short time of the Russian occupation in Central Asia, points to the presence of a considerable number of foreigners, but which taken as a whole will scarcely form a factor strong enough to decompose or transform the original population in * The Christians here mentioned are not only Slavs, but also include Armenians and other Christian bodies, so that the minority of the orthodox Slavs, as against the professors of Islam, becomes all the more striking. t The statistic returns here given have been taken from the ' Turkestanski Kalendar' for 1904. 126 RESULT OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE the conquered districts. Admitting, therefore, that the emigration of Russians has assumed far greater pro- portions in Turkestan than in other districts for instance, in the Caucasus and that this emigration is likely to increase still more, this does not alter our former statement regarding the continuance of the present relationship that is to say, that Turkestan and the Moslem population will probably for many, many years to come be looked upon as the partes adnexse of the Tsar's dominions, and that the time is very far off when they will be swallowed up in the ocean of ethnical Slavism. The absorption into the Russian element will not be quite so effective here as in Siberia, where, as already stated, six-sevenths of the total population is amal- gamated in the national element. Nor can the Russians expect the same success as they had when dealing with the Turco-Tartars in the South-west namely, in Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea for, in the first place, the Turkish element is far too numerous and compact in Turkestan to be absorbed into the minority of the ruling classes. In the second place, Russia stands there against a solid mass of fanatical Moslems, who, surrounded on all sides by their fellow-believers, will resist all attempts of the Orthodox Church far more tenaciously than ever was the case with the Mohammedans in Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea. In the third place, Turkestan is separated from the Mother Country by the steppe girdle, and Russian colonisation cannot so easily be carried on there as on the Lower Volga, where the territorial and climatic conditions are much more favourable. At the best the Russian possessions in Turkestan can only form an advanced southern boundary-line of the Tsar's dominions, an acquisition which will round off the region of the Ural-Altaic tribes which have come under Slav rule. From there farther southwards we trace the spread of the Aryan race, whose destiny HOPES OF PEACE 127 and cultural formation has fallen into the hands of another Power. In the interest of peace and civilisa- tion, it is to be hoped that the two Culture-bearers, who now have approached one another so closely, will continue in peace and harmony their work for the good of all humanity. PART II THE CIVILISING INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE IN the first part of this work we have attempted to describe the progress of Slavism from North to South, and its civilising influence upon the Moslem portions of Asia. We now come to consider the work of the second Culture-bearer of the West namely, England in its relation to India. England started in the opposite direction that is, it began operations in South Asia and worked its way northward. Not only, however, in the geographical direction taken by the conquering hosts, but also in their individuality, in the means used and the ends in view, the two Powers were totally different. The Grand-Dukes of Moscow, after they had shaken off the yoke of the Golden Horde, set to work to avenge the wrongs sustained and to conquer the hostile land. It was, in fact, a campaign of Oriental Christianity against Islam and the warlike element of the Ural-Altaic tribes. At bottom it was a political undertaking in every sense of the word ; while England's interference in the East emanated from a company of merchants with private means, who of their own accord, at their own risk, and without a thought of making territorial conquests, set out on the deceitful waves of the ocean to explore the Far East. This company consisted originally of 125 members with a capital of .70,000, which sum afterwards was increased to 131 92 132 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE 400,000,* and in the charter granted by Queen Elizabeth on December 31, 1600, to the merchants concerned in the undertaking, it was stated 'that they, at their own adventures, costs, and charges, as well for the honour of this our realm of England . . . might adventure and set forth one or more voyages, with convenient number of ships and pinnaces by way of traffic and merchandise to the East Indies,' etc.f After Vasco de Gama had effected the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, and in May, 1498, had landed at Calcutta, the wonderful news of the rich treasures of the East Indies spread rapidly ; and although the Portuguese remained for nearly 100 years sole possessors of the Indian coast lands, yet the thirst for riches and adventure began to incite other seafaring nations also. Holland, the greatest naval Power of the seventeenth century, was the first to break the Portuguese monopoly, and in the first half of the seventeenth century the Dutch East India Company was established in India, Ceylon, Sumatra, and in the Persian Gulf.} England, beginning to breathe more freely after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in the year 1588, was not likely to remain far behind the other seafaring nations of the West. A few English adventurers started operations in India as the trading company already referred to. Owing to the keen competition with their European rivals, who had first appeared upon the scene, the English could make but slow progress ; for although at first it was merely a question of securing a few factories, and the acquisition of land was never thought of, yet the * ' The Indian Empire : its Peoples, History, and Products/ by Sir William Wilson Hunter. Third new and revised edition, London, 1893, p. 428. t ' The Government of India ; being a Digest of the Statute Law relating thereto, with Historical Introduction and Illustrative Docu- ments,' by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, K.C.S.I. Oxford, 1898, p. 466. J ' The Indian Empire,' p. 425. THE FIRST FACTORIES 133 example of the Portuguese and the Dutch, who under cover of commercial purposes had managed to obtain a good deal of landed property, roused in the English a desire for conquest, and they were consequently looked upon with suspicion by their rivals. Not until after the contract between the English and the Dutch was made in 1619 did the former begin to take up a more independent position ; and although this contract was annulled by the Dutch in 1620, the English had by that time secured a firm foothold at several places on the mainland of India. Thus, the factory at Surat, established in 1612, was followed by factories at Mocha in 1618, at Jask in 1619, at Arme- gaon in 1625, at Masulipatam in 1632, at Balasor and on the Hooghli in 1640, while in 1661 the Portuguese ceded Bombay to the English, and Calcutta was founded in 1686. It does not lie within our province to recount the historical progress of the English conquests in India, all of which has been so often and so ably told else- where.* Our object is rather to throw light upon the causes which have made the English successful, and * Some of the best-known authorities on this subject are the following works : 1. ' The History of the British Empire in India,' by Edward Thornton. London, 1841, 6 vols. 2. ' The History of the British Empire of India, from the Appoint- ment of Lord Hardinge to the Political Extinction of the East Indian Company, 1844-1862' (forming a sequel to Thornton's 'History of India'), by Lionel James Potter. London, 1866, 2 vols. 3. 'The History of India : the Hindu Mahometan Periods/ by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone. Sixth edition, with notes and addi- tions by E. B. Cowell, London, 1874. 4. ' The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India,' by Sir Alfred Lyall. London, 1894. 5. ' The Indian Empire : its Peoples, History, and Products,' by Sir W. W. Hunter. London, 1893. 6. 'The Expansion of England ' (two courses of lectures), by J. R_ Seeley. London, 1884. This applies only partially to India. 134 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE which have led to the foundation of the Indian Empire, now rightly looked uporr as one of the wonders of the world, compared with which the exploits of Rome and Alexander the Great are as child's play. The first question which arises is : Why should England, and not Portugal, Holland, or France, all of whom were first on the spot, have been so successful in its operations ? And in reply we would remark that the Portuguese, whose national characteristics date from the time of the Moorish conquest, came to India, not as merchants, but rather as robber-knights and crusaders, and looked upon all heathen people as enemies of Portugal and of Christ. Their conduct in India was marked by a fanaticism and cruelty which put even the actions of a Pizarro and Cortes in America in the shade. Moreover, the trade of India was a monopoly of the Portuguese Crown, whose officials from personal motives of greed ill-treated and op- pressed the natives in every possible way. The Christ- ian Catholic missionaries did not hesitate to use the most cruel measures in the service of their Church, for these pious men had more regard for the treasures than for the souls of the poor Hindus. It is there- fore easy to see that Portugal carried the seeds ot decline and destruction in its own bosom, and was bound ere long to disappear from the scene. As early as the middle of the seventeenth century Portugal had ceased to be of any account in India, and its consequent political existence was, as Sir W. W. Hunter* rightly declares, a miserable chronicle of pride, poverty, and high-sounding titles. The record of Portuguese power in India is confined to the contents of the epic the ' Lusiade,' the death-roll of the Inquisition, the conversion of a few low half-caste relatives, and three small pieces of land on the coast of Bombay.f As regards the Dutch, they acted with more caution, * 'The Indian Empire/ p. 423. f The same, p. 440. CONTEST WITH THE FRENCH 135 perseverance, and ability. In the seventeenth century their naval power was the greatest in the world, and their authority in the Asiatic seas, and in many parts of India and South Persia, was accordingly great. If they had not found such a formidable rival in England, their prestige would not have been so easily over- ruled. The fall of the Dutch in India was hastened by the puerile spirit of their politics, and Sir W. W. Hunter is about right when he says :* ' The Dutch, like the Phoenicians, have not hesitated to commit the most cruel deeds in order to oust their neighbours, only that, unlike the Phoenicians, they never troubled themselves to introduce their civilisation among the peoples with whom they came in contact.' In the French the English met more formidable rivals. Ever since 1604 French commercial companies had existed in India. The French had trade interests in several parts of the mainland and neighbouring islands, but there was a lack of adequate support from the central Government. In the beginning Colbert had realised the importance of the factories, but later on those early decrees and privileges were abolished, and the Assemblee Nationale of 1790 finally made the continuance of French authority in India an utter impossibility. Their most capable men who were sent over thither fell victims to a dissolute people and a vicious Court whose Ministers and mistresses had little interest in, and less knowledge of, colonial politics. The licentiousness of the French colonial government proved of great advantage to the English. Prominent Frenchmen, dangerous rivals of the English at the Courts of native Sovereigns who were hostile to the British, often occupied influential positions there ; and they, as well as former Governors, such as Dumas and Dupleix, who had distinguished themselves not only as able soldiers, but also as eminent states- * ' The Indian Empire,' p. 426. 136 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE men, might have caused the English much trouble. But now when the English power had become fairly well established that is, towards the end of the eighteenth century the armies of the Indian Princes who were antagonistic to the English were commanded by French adventurers ; the soldiers of the Maratha power had been drilled by the French ; Tippu Sultan of Mysore, a dangerous opponent, kept up a secret correspondence with the Directorate in Paris, and as 'Citoyen Tipu' entered the republican clubs in Paris. Napoleon I., indeed, had planned nothing short of the conquest of India in order therewith to give the death-blow to his arch- enemy England. Fortunately for the English, the interest of the French in the affairs of India had waned considerably towards the end of the eighteenth century in fact, there never had been any real national enthusiasm for the undertaking. After the power of Lally (who on account of this misfortune was exe- cuted in Paris) had been broken at Wandewash, several regiments were promptly withdrawn from the Indian possessions, and these were never replaced. When, after the breaking out of the French Revolu- tion, the Republic declared war with England, all the high-flown plans of the Corsican General were shattered, and resolved themselves into a mere chimera. In spite of all these dangers and adversities, the English managed to gain ground, partly through the fortunate coincidence of certain political events in Europe and Asia, which, if properly manipulated, were bound to insure the success of the English, and partly in virtue of those qualities which govern the national spirit of the English, and which, proceeding from their historical development, are upheld and promoted by the ethical and social conditions which characterise the British more than any other nation of the West. FIRM POLICY OF CONQUEST 137 Knowing something of the extraordinary difficulties which Clive and Hastings had to deal with, and esti- mating them at their true value, we cannot fail to see that the tenacious perseverance and stubborn strength of the English character formed the chief factor which eventually brought about the realisation of that marvel- lous scheme the establishment of the Indian Empire. In this respect I cannot agree with Professor Seeley,* who maintains that the acquisition of India was a blind speculation, and that, of all the exploits ever achieved by the English, nothing has been more unintentional and accidental than the conquest of India. I grant that in the beginning the East India Com- pany had only trade interests in view, that the mer- chants therein concerned gave little or no thought to the acquisition of territory, and that the various wars with the native Princes were, as it were, forced upon them. But who could for a moment maintain that Clive and Hastings, the real founders of English power in India, were likely to look on with cold indifference at the state of anarchy which, after the death of Aurengzib, prevailed in the Empire of the Moguls, and which with the fall of that dynasty led to many political reversions and changes ? Who can doubt that the position and the influence which the French had gained in several places had an encouraging and stimulating effect upon the English ? nor can we suppose that the short-sightedness and dulness of the most prominent amongst the native pretenders to the throne of India failed to rouse the patriotic heroism of the British commanders. Personal ambition and thirst for wealth formed another mighty stimulant. India had always been famous both in Europe and * ' The Expansion of England,' by J. R. Seeley, Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. London, 1884, p. 179. 138 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE Asia as the land of wealth and treasures untold, and when the fame of it induced even Mahmud of Ghazni, the Moguls, the lame ruler of Samarkand, and Nadir Shah, to make expeditions to the South, we cannot be surprised that some of the best servants of the English trading company were attracted by the glamour of the gold-devil, and systematically set to work to make conquests. History relates that Mir Jafar, who in 1757 was appointed by Clive as Viceroy of Murshidabad, had to pay 6,000,000 rupees to make good the losses of the company, besides personal indemnities to Clive and other officers and function- aries. The demands of the English amounted to 2,697,750, but only 1,238,575 was paid that is, about half.* It is no use trying to attribute the success of the English in India to chance or blind fate. Every success, however small, must have convinced the English more and more that the exceptional circum- stances in which they were placed could with patience and perseverance lead to great results, and that, apart from the primary object of the East India Company, not only very favourable commercial conditions, but also valuable territorial possessions, and finally a new empire, might be gained. Without entering into any extravagant speculations, we must not fail to consider the political and ethnical causes which so greatly assisted the work of the European invaders. It was in India that the representatives of the spirit of Western culture, rejuvenated through the Renaissance, first came into contact with the spirit of the East, which as yet was untouched by Western influences. On the plains of India the first contest took place between modern Europe and ancient Asia ; for in the wars of the Slavs * W. W. Hunter, p. 451. Mills's ' History of British India/ vol. Hi., PP- 367. 368. EUROPE AND INDIA 139 with Turks, Moguls, and Ugrians, our world was represented by semi-European Russia, and this was, after all, more correctly speaking, rather a struggle between the Double Cross and the Crescent. Nor did the contrast between the two worlds find full ex- pression in our wars with the Osmanlis, because the latter were saturated with Aryan elements, and could therefore not be looked upon as pure and unadul- terated Asiatics. India has always been the seat of pure Asiatic thought; its religion, its poetry, its manners and customs, and even its arts, had spread east and west long before the appearance of Mohammed, and all the faults and failings we find now in the social and political conditions of West and Central Asia have originated with the peoples and rulers of Hindustan.* When therefore we read, in the extravagant language of Oriental chronicles, of the power, the wealth, the order, the justice, and the greatness, of the Mogul Empire, we must not gauge these things by our modern European standard. A lifelong intimacy with the internal conditions of the Moslems has led me to the conclusion that even at the time of Akbar's glory (1556-1605), or in the reigns of Jehanghir (1605-1627), and Shah-Jehan (1627-1658), * Hindustan, the land of the Indians, is now divided into the follow- ing Provinces, States, and Agencies : (i) Ajmere Merwara ; (2) Anda- mans and Nicobars ; (3) Assam; (4) Beluchistan ; (5) Bengal; (6) Berar ; (7) Bombay, with Sindh and Aden ; (8) Burma ; (9) Central Provinces; (10) Coorg ; (11) Madras; (12) North-West Provinces, consisting of certain parts of the Punjab and some districts formerly not belonging to India; (13) Punjab ; (14) United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, not immediately under English administration ; ( 1 5) a part of Beluchistan; (16) Baroda ; (17) Bengal States; (18) Bombay States; (19) Central Indian Agency ; (20) Central Provincial States ; (21) Hyderabad; (22) Kashmir; (23) Madras States; (24) Mysore States ; (25) Punjab States ; (26) Rajput Agencies ; (27) United Provincial States (see Statistical Abstract relating to British India from 1891-92 to 1900-01, official publication, 1902). i 4 o BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE this boasted peace, order, security, and justice, were not by any means adequate to protect the subjects of the Indian Peninsula against the tyranny and whimsi- calities of their rulers. At all times Asia has been the seat of cruel despotism and tyranny, the tree of liberty could never flourish in its soil, and political organisation, in our sense of the word, has never been known there. In this opinion we are supported not only by the historians of Christian Europe, but also by our Moslem informants. The grievous condition of the North- West of India during the latter years of Humayun's reign, the incessant risings and revolts of single vassals against the Central Government, the devastations wrought by continuous warfare all this has been exhaustively described by the Turkish traveller Sidi Ali Reis.* In the same manner the forty-nine years' reign of Akbar the Glorious, un- doubtedly the greatest of all the Mogul Princes, was one incessant whirl of strife and insurrection ; and the various reforms which he introduced in the govern- ment, in the army, and in the legislation of his realm, in spite of all the existing confusion, necessarily bore a severely Asiatic stamp. Tax-collectors could rob the peasants and merchants without being interfered with, and in spite of the Mir-i-Adl (chief magistrate) and the Kadis and Kutwals (police-officers), it was not until the English began their rule in India that life and property were securely protected. Nor had the country fared much better under Jehanghir's rule, when social scandals, palace intrigues, and endless wars, undermined the constitution. The ruin of the Mogul Empire could not be far distant, and Jehanghir's * See chaps, vi., vii., viii., of my book entitled ' The Travels and Adventures of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali Reis in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Persia, during the Years 1553-1556.' Translated from the Turkish, with notes. London, 1899. TYRANNY OF NATIVE PRINCES 141 son, who rejoiced in the proud name of Aurengzib* that is, Glory of the Throne notwithstanding all his skill, was unable to stay the downfall of the empire. His reign, so highly extolled by Orientals, is depicted in rather less glowing colours by Francois Bernier, his Court physician. He describes the absolute precariousness of private property, the iniquitous practices of the tax-collectors, the fickleness of the Government, the absence of legislation, the tyranny and greed of the Princes, which often became so excessive and oppressive that peasants and artisans were reduced to a state of starvation. In consequence of this miserable system, most of the Indian towns, built of earth, dirt, and the foulest materials, were found in ruins and almost deserted everything, in fact, bearing the unmistakable signs of approaching destruction.! The few remaining stately buildings mosques, palaces, and mausoleums, remnants of the reigns of some of the more prominent Princes, and which we now admire as unique monuments of art testify rather to the love of splendour of the Princes than to the well-being of the people. The political condition of Hindustan at the time when the English appeared upon the scene that is, after the fall of the Mogul Empire, and after they had gained the victory over their European rivals left no room for doubt as to the ultimate result of the interference of a foreign Power full of energy and perseverance, with a definite object in view and abundantly provided with the necessary means. Discord, anarchy, racial and religious hatred between * The English write Aurangzib, but we keep to the Persian pro- nunciation of the word, for Aureng means in Persian ' throne,' and Zib means 'splendour.' t 'The Rise and Expansion of British Dominion in India,' by Sir Alfred Lyall. London, 1894, pp. 44, 45. H2 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE the various authorities, all conspired to help the foreign conqueror in the accomplishment of his task, the more so as India had never at any time been a united empire, and the various constituents of the Indian Peninsula in their various ethnical, linguistic, religious, and social conditions separated them from one another as by a deep cleft. It would be easier to imagine one combined European nation with one universal language than an Indian nation with one Indian language ; for in Europe the differences between the individual branches of the Romanic, Germanic, and Slavic tongues are not nearly so great as those between the seventy different tongues and dialects now spoken by the 294,361,056 inhabitants of India.* The first place in this linguistic con- glomerate must be assigned to the so-called Hindi language, which, according to its origin, is closely related to the Sanscrit, and which is spoken in various dialects by about 80,000,000 people. Bengali is the language spoken by 40,000,000, Punjabi by 80,000,000, Gujerati by 11,000,000, Marathi by 19,000,000 people, while 50,000,000 Hindus use the Tamil dialects (Tamil, Telegu, Kanari, and Malay-Alam), and about 6,000,000 speak the Kolari tongue. These various languages may be classified into Aryan and non-Aryan, accord- ing to their principal characteristics ; and apart from the dialectic differences of each separate division, it is interesting to note that a Dravida of South India can no more understand a Punjabi or Bengali than a Neapolitan can understand a Swede or a Russian, although the two latter are Aryan, while of the former the one belongs to the Aryan, the other to the Ural-Altaic race. As regards the * The following I have taken from the book entitled ' India : its Administration and Progress,' by Sir John Strachey. Third edition, London, 1903. RELIGIONS OF INDIA 143 religious differences, the census of 1901 returns as follows : Hindus ... ... ... ... 207,146,000 Animistics* ... ... ... 8,711,000 Sikhs ... ... ... ... 2,195,000 Dschainas ... ... ... 1,334,000 Parsis ... ... ... ... 94,000 Buddhists ... ... ... 9,923,000 Jews ... ... ... ... 18,000 Christians ... ... ... 2,923,000 Mohammedans ... ... ... 62,458,000 294,802,000 Anyone realising the importance attached to religion in Asia will easily understand how impossible it is to bridge over the gulf which separates the professors of these various beliefs in India. Religion absorbs the intellect of the Asiatic ; it is stronger than his feeling of nationality, for the latter is almost everywhere of secondary importance. In India, the centre of Asiatic thought, religious differences have always been the most effective weapons in the hand of the foreign conquerors, because faith in these regions is enveloped in a fanaticism wilder in its ecstasies and its excesses than is found in any other part of the Old or of the New World. It is only on the strength of this eccen- tricity and exaggeration that Hinduism, as professed by the mass of the Indian people, has been able to maintain itself as a religion without any properly defined ordinances and regulations. Sir Alfred Lyall says with reference to thisf : ' Hinduism is a religious jumble, a confused mass of superstition, spiritualism, demon-worship, demigods, deified saints, tutelar gods, * The word ' Animism,' occurring in the census of 1901, is used to denote all those believing in the existence of souls and spirits on whom man is dependent, whom he fears, who are made into divinities, and become objects of devotion (see Sir John Strachey, p. 285). f Sir Alfred Lyall, ' Asiatic Studies,' p. 2 ; quoted from Sir John Strachey's ' India,' etc., p. 286. 144 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE local deities and universal deities with their innumer- able chapels and temples, with the clatter of un- harmonious ritual, and the worship of deities who at one time abhor the death of a fly, at another revel in human sacrifices.' A faith, in short, the conception of which is quite different to our meaning of the word just as the word ' Hindu,' from the national point of view, expresses not so much an ethnos, or geographical conception, but is merely the name given to an accidental conglomeration of sects, families, hereditary professions, and castes. The second place in point of religion is assigned to Islam, which here has adopted quite different forms to what it has in Western Asia. After 800 years of hard fighting, it has only secured a partial victory, without exercising upon the manners, customs, and thoughts, of the motley population an impression as deep and transforming as is the case in Central Asia, Persia, and Arabia. If Islam had not from its very first appearance in India been a religio militans, and if from the time of Mahmud of Ghazni until the fall of the Moguls its banners had not been borne by Turks and Afghans, known to be eager and capable warriors, it could not possibly have attained even this partial success. At the present moment Islamism reigns chiefly in the North and North-west of India. Of nearly 62,500,000 Moslems, two-thirds belong to these districts i.e., about 40,000,000 while the remain- ing 22,000,000 Mohammedans are scattered among the 232,000,000 inhabitants over the rest of India.* The fact that the Prophet's doctrine has not spread more freely over the whole peninsula, and that its victory has been so partial, I attribute most emphatically to Western interference ; for even as the conquests of Sultan Soliman, and his plans for annexation were frus- trated by the better-armed Portuguese, so the power of * Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., p. 302. POWER OF ISLAM 145 the Moguls, and with it the power of Islam, was broken by the persistence and the well-organised military tactics of French and English invaders. It may be argued from a political point of view that the English interference for a time saved the Mogul Empire from total destruction, although its subsequent existence was a mere phantom of its former glory. This argument, however, is of no value as far as the power of Islam is concerned. True, we see that even now although the land is under Christian dominion Islam makes more proselytes among the Hindus than the faith of the ruling Power, and from this we may conclude how much greater and more intimate the influence of Moslemism might have been if the warlike element of the Indian Mohammedans had been able to carry on their Jehad (religious war) against the hated Putperest (idolaters*), unmolested by Western interference and encouraged by the awakening feeling of pan-Islamism. There is no doubt about it that Islamism in India, in spite of its 800 years' existence, was materially hindered in its progress, and can therefore only boast of partial success ; and nothing is more characteristic of this half-success and this unfinishedness than the mongrel form of Islam now professed by the majority of its Hindu adherents. As regards the aristocracy or ruling class of the Indian Mohammedans, estimated by Sir George Campbell at 5,000,000, and consisting of the mixed descendants of Osbegs, Arab and Afghan adventurers and knight-errants and of Indian natives, their religious zeal is firmly rooted I might say, more firmly even than that of the Persians, Turks, and Arabs of the same * Islamism recognises Christians and Jews as Ehli Kitab, i.e., possessing a holy writ, and judges them a little more leniently ; but the heathen are treated with great severity, and designated as Putperest (idol-worshippers) and Medjusi (magi). IO 146 BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE class for the basis of their belief is caste pride, and shows itself in the power they exercise over the Hindus. Their fanaticism, derived from Bokhara and Samarkand, the principal seats of Central Asiatic dogmatism, is fully preserved amongst them. Even at the time when I travelled in Central Asia, I found in the Universities of Bokhara amongst the Indian scholars the most fanatical theologians, and the Madresses of Bokhara and Samarkand have always been in the estimation of the Hindus a purer source of Moslem learning than even the celebrated Azhar University in Cairo, and have consequently also been better attended. All this, however, does not apply to the mass of Moslem Indians i.e., to the lower classes, who profess the doctrine of the Arabian Prophet. In consequence of their close companionship with peoples of different faiths, a certain familiarity with the manners and customs of these other tribes is notice- able in them, and, as Sir John Strachey* maintains, the greater portion of the Mohammedans of India hardly deserve that name. Sir Denzil Ibbetson, who has a thorough knowledge of the country, says that the Moslem Rajput, Guyar, or Yat, as regards his social, tribal, and political condition, is in no way dis- tinguishable from his Hindu brother. His social customs have remained unaltered, his tribal limitations undiminished, his marriage laws and rights of suc- cession have not changed, t and the only practical difference between them is that the Moslem shaves his head and grows his beard, that he worships in a mosque, and that in the marriage rites the Moslem * ' India,' etc., p. 303. f Among the many customs which strike the student of the life of the Moslems of India, we would mention the great pomp and luxury of funerals, a usage quite unknown in Western Islamism, where funerals are conducted with great speed and simplicity. Any other practice would there be looked upon as sinful. HINDUS AND MOSLEMS 147 ceremonial is used in addition to the Hindu. The Indian deities receive like worship from them, and the Mohammedan mother whose child suffers from small- pox would not think of neglecting to bring a sacrifice to the god of this disease, in order to save her child.* Hindus and Moslems live on good terms together ; in fact, Islamism among the lower classes of India cannot be accused of preserving that severe exclusive- ness and negation of other faiths which characterises it in the West of Asia. The Anatolians, Kandiots, Bosniaks, and Herzegovinians although descendants of Christian Greeks and Slavs, as may still be detected in their speech are known to be the wildest and most fanatical opponents of their Christian fellow- tribesmen. Trivial prejudices and superstitions may have clung to them from pre-Islamic times ; but not one single feature which might be injurious to Islam can be found amongst them, and generally speaking they are more fanatical than even the most thorough- going Arabs, Persians, and Turks. * ' Report on the Census of 1881 in the Punjab,' p. 143. Sir John Strachey's ' India,' etc., as quoted on p. 303. IO 2 CHAPTER II THE CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER WHEN we consider the incessant wars, the battles and invasions to which India has been exposed at all times ; when we take into account the ethnical and religious peculiarities of the plunder-loving foreign adventurers who invaded the land from the north, it is not very wonderful that the natives of India showed so little surprise when the foreign invaders from the Christian West appeared upon the scene. The conquerors from the north had always come to kill and to destroy ; they went on their way robbing, murdering, and plundering. But the Westerners, afterwards called Frenghi, made their first appearance as peaceable merchants, trafficking from place to place and ex- changing the natural products of the East for the manufactured articles of their native land. There was, therefore, in the beginning no ground whatever for the natives to take up a particularly hostile attitude towards the foreign traders, nor did any such feeling exist at first. It was the cruel and unwarrantable Catholic propaganda of the Portuguese, who came not only to conquer souls, but also land, which roused the indignation of the sleepy Hindus, and more par- ticularly of the representatives of the Mogul power, then fast approaching its final destruction. The Dutch, French, and English, who succeeded the Portuguese and Spaniards, at first merely contemplated the establishment of factories, but very soon they also 148 FROM TRADE TO CONQUEST 149 began to take advantage of the lawless condition of the country, and secured land for themselves. When the English had ousted their French rivals that is, after the Battles of Plassey (1757) and of Wandewash (1760) and henceforth had only Oriental foes to deal with, their real influence in India began to assert itself for good. Up to that time their exertions had been confined exclusively to the capture of certain stations on the coast-line for instance, in Bengal, Orissa, the Carnatic, Mysore, and Bombay ; but force of circumstances led the peaceable trading company to alter their tactics considerably, and to exchange the wand of Mercury for the sword of conquest. The charter of 1683 had granted the company authority to negotiate with the heathen natives on matters of peace and war, and to take such military measures as they might deem advisable.* This change of rule acted at first advantageously for India, for in the fierce battle which, after the fall of the Mogul Empire, ensued between the Hindus, now fully roused to action, and their Moslem oppressors, the interference of the English acted as a protection to the sorely-tried Hindustanis. Seldom have the turbulent waves of religious fanaticism caused such cruel devastation as in these wars between Hindus and Mohammedans in the course of the eighteenth century, and the internal strife was yet aggravated by the plundering expeditions of the Persians under Nadir Shah (1739), and of the Afghans under Ahmed Shah (1747). Our pen refuses to describe in detail the scenes of slaughter, torture and devastation of those days, but they who have read about them in the historical works at our disposal must recognise with justifiable pride * See ' The Government of India ; being a Digest of the Statute Law relating thereto, with Historical Introduction and Illustrative Documents,' by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, K. C.S.I. Oxford, 1898, p. 21. ISO CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER the beneficial intervention of the British standard- bearers of modern culture in the East. Although Burke, John Stuart Mill, Lord Macaulay, and others, find much to censure in the stirring careers of a Clive and a Hastings, this fault-finding can only be attributed to prejudice and an insufficient knowledge of local affairs. False accusation of their countrymen, says Sir John Strachey,* has always been a failing of the English, and if the above - mentioned stars of English historical literature had more fully realised the true state of affairs and been better acquainted with the nature of the savage robber-hordes and the heartless tyrants who oppressed Asia, they would doubtless have judged differently. With silken gloves and a strategy based on humane treatment, the British at the head of affairs in India would scarcely have succeeded in bringing order into the internally rotten and absolutely disorganised condition of the land, and in building up that marvellous structure of British sovereignty in India as we see it before us now. We willingly admit that the treachery, faithlessness and petty intrigues of their Asiatic opponents sometimes drove the leaders of English politics to adopt measures altogether contrary to our ideas of justice and morality ; yet, speaking generally, no blemish adheres to the banner of Western culture as displayed in India. If during the growth of British power in India certain irregular and illegal transactions did occur in various places, these faults have been fully atoned for by the con- duct of noble and philanthropic men such as Edwards, Lawrence, Mayo, and others. The lofty aim of the un- dertaking, it should be remembered, was to insure a better future to millions of unfortunate human beings, and this aim covers many shortcomings. We will show in the following pages what England has done for India, and in order to do this it will be sufficient * Op. (if., p. 276. GROWTH OF ACQUISITIONS 151 to refer very shortly to the historical events which ultimately led to the conquest. When Clive (afterwards Lord Clive) was appointed in 1758 by the Directors of the East India Company Governor of the company's settlements, the territory protected by the English was limited to the posses- sions above mentioned. In 1792 further acquisitions were made in the South ; in 1804 Mysore, Hyderabad and Oudh also came under the English protectorate. In 1834, with the exception of the Punjab and the Lower Indus territory, the whole of India was in the possession or under the protectorate of the company. In 1842 Ceylon and parts of Assam and Burmah, and in 1857 the Punjab and Sindh, were added, and now, since Lord Curzon has formed the new frontier province, the whole of the Indian Peninsula from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, an area of 1,766,797 English square miles, with a population of 294,361,056 people, has come under English sovereignty.* All these acquisitions have gradually, in the course of a century and a half, grown into the present Indian Empire, after much warfare, great exertions, and many disappointments, caused on the one hand by conflict with the natives and with their European rivals, on the other hand by the directors of the trading com- pany at home, who understood little or nothing about the state of affairs in the far-away country over the sea. Their intentions were animated by purely mer- cantile motives, and necessarily often came into colli- sion with the ambitious and energetic men to whom the management of the company had been entrusted. Of a premeditated conquest of India in the real sense of the word there could be no question. When the Russians invaded the adjacent Moslem countries, they came with an army entirely composed of Russian * 'Statistical Abstract relating to British India from 1891-92 to 1900-01,' No. 36, London, 1902, p. i and the latest statistical returns. 152 CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER soldiers, and conquered and incorporated all the neighbouring districts into the Tsar's dominions ; but the English were to a large extent assisted by foreign soldiers, induced to join in the campaign by high pay or mercantile interests. Englishmen, however, always retained the control of affairs, and always were the leaders. To-day the defence of India is entrusted to 150,000 native soldiers and 76,243 English, and this has been more or less the proportion of the military forces on all former occasions that is to say, about one-fifth English and four-fifths native soldiers. Thus unwittingly, but none the less effectually, the natives themselves have largely contributed to put down the anarchy, the internal disturbances, and also the des- potism of their native Princes, inaugurating that condi- tion of peace and prosperity in which they now rejoice under ' Pax Britannica.' The fact that such a com- paratively small number of English soldiers were em- ployed in founding England's power in India is nothing miraculous. In the first place, there are many instances both in the past and in the present in which European valour, a strict sense of duty, and patriotism, have triumphed in the campaigns against Asiatics in spite of vastly inferior numbers. At the capture of Tashkend under Chernajeff, 1,501 Russians opposed 15,000 Khokandian troops and 90,000 hostile natives, and although the English at various times have had large armies at their command, as, for instance, in the great Maratha War of 1818, when Lord Hastings' army numbered over 100,000 men,* yet it was the English leadership, perseverance, and deter- mination which gained the day. It was this determina- tion, this singleness of purpose, and not numerical strength, which enabled Great Britain to bring its Asiatic conquests to such a successful issue. At the beginning of her Indian career Great Britain num- * Seeley, ' The Expansion of England,' p. 199. CAUSES OF SUCCESS 153 bered only 12,000,000* inhabitants, and her military resources were at the time considerably diminished by the campaign against Napoleon. When quoting instances of exceptional courage and contempt of death, could there be a more striking example than that of Clive at the Battle of Plassey, who with 1,000 English- men, 2,000 Sepoys, and 8 cannon, achieved a complete victory over the Viceroy of Bengal, who opposed him with an army of 50,000 men and 50 cannon ? English history is full of instances of personal courage and sacrifice, but these brilliant acts were often favoured by circumstances. Secondly, a good deal must be laid to the account of racial and religious antagonism, which has always played such an important part among the native Hindus ; and if, favoured by these conditions, a handful of Central Asiatic adventurers under Baber succeeded in founding the great Mogul Empire, being probably no better armed than the Hindus who fought against them, how then can we be surprised that the English, so vastly superior to their Tartar predeces- sors, using the existing hatred between Vishnu wor- shippers and Moslems to their own advantage, were a match for both these adversaries ?f Thirdly, it should not be forgotten that our Euro- pean conquerors, and especially the English, in their battles on Hindustani soil, first came into contact with the least warlike elements of the population that is, with the inhabitants of South India, who are known to this day as cowardly people, enervated and weakened by the climate. Bengal is said to be the * Seeley, ' The Expansion of England,' p. 199. t ' The men by whom this rich tract Bengal was peopled, ener- vated by a soft climate and accustomed to peaceful employments, bore the same relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe' (Macaula/s Essay on Lord Clive, quoted from Strachey's ' India,' etc.). 154 CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER only land in the world where the greater portion of the population does not look upon cowardice as dis- honouring. The leadership of the native troops cer- tainly was in the hands of Mohammedans, but we must remember that in Bengal even the Mohammedans lack the energy, the religious zeal, and the personal courage, which otherwise characterise the followers of the Prophet's doctrine in India. The military and civil officials of the sinking Mogul power in Bengal do not appear in a much better light, and in order to describe the armies which were sent out to oppose the English it will be sufficient to quote the remark of Sir Alfred Lyall, who says :* ' At the first we triumphed over troops not much better than a band of mercen- aries, without loyalty and without unity.' How dif- ferent, how much harder, would England's work have been if the first entrance had been made, not from the coast in the South, but overland from the North ! The English would then have had to encounter such savage and warlike elements as Beluchis, Afghans, Raj- puts, and others. And what we have said about the geographical and ethnical condition applies to religion also. Mohammedans, indeed, commanded the forces which first opposed England in India, but the majority of the fighters were Vishnu worshippers, and they were far behind the Moslems in point of valour ; for in their creed war was not a Divine commandment, and they therefore had less power of resistance than the Moslem Hindus, who were encouraged by the injunc- tion of the Koran : ' Great reward awaits him who fights in the cause of God.' In the fourth place, it was not so much force of arms, military skill, and courage, but rather the firm rule, the justice, the forbearance of the British Government with regard to the subjugated Hindus, which facilitated * ' The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India,' P- 133- CAUSES OF SUCCESS 155 the work of conquest and laid the foundation of the British Empire in India. We will refer to this again later on, but would only point out here that these advantages of the English administration from the very first impressed the natives, who had never known such qualities in any of their native rulers. The con- querors of the far Western land appeared to them in quite another light than the Asiatic despots who hitherto had harassed, tortured, and plundered the Rayat (people). Whether the former were Christians, and the latter Mohammedans or Vishnu worship- pers, made little difference to the placid, peace-loving farmers and labourers ; all were equally unknown to them, and their affections naturally went out to the masters whose rule brought peace and blessing and order, and these gifts were first bestowed upon the inhabitants of India by the British Raj (Government).* From whatever standpoint we view the history of the English in India, one thing will always strike us most forcibly namely, that with the British occupa- tion our Western civilisation obtained its first great triumph over old Asiatic culture. All European endeavours to make an impression upon the ancient world up to that time are too small and too insignificant * In addition to my own private opinion as to the causes of the success of the English in India, I would mention the opinion of Sir W. W. Hunter on this subject. He had a thorough knowledge of Indian affairs, and attributed the signal success of his compatriots to the following causes : (i) A wonderful perseverance and moderation in their dealings with the conquered territory, so long as efficacious means for the following up of the conquest were lacking ; (2) unbounded persistence in carrying out the scheme once undertaken, and a firm resolve not to be discouraged by temporary failures ; (3) the mutual confidence of the officials of the East India Company in time of need ; (4) the steady support of the people of England, and the prevailing feeling at home that everything must be done to make good any mis- adventure, and that the work done by the English in India must on no account be sacrificed to the diplomatic demands of Europe ' (Sir W. W. Huntei's ' Indian Empire,' p. 441). 156 CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH POWER to be compared with the moral weight of the English triumph. Not in the victorious campaigns against Turks, Arabs, and Persians, but by the battles fought by Clive and Hastings on the plains of Hindustan, the self- conceit and the self-confidence of the genuine Asiatic received its first shaking. The dominating strength and the mighty influence of modern culture here first asserted themselves in the actions of the conqueror the reformer, and the legislator. Two diametrically opposed conceptions of life here came into collision. A mutual understanding was hardly possible ; it was the question as to which of the two should gain the final victory. Two greater contrasts than existed between Englishmen and Indians can scarcely be imagined. The Englishman stands out as the prototype of modern Europeanism restless, energetic, eminently practical in thought and act, steadfast of purpose, always looking ahead, and, above all, with an indomitable love for freedom and independence ; while the Hindu is the personification of Asiaticism slow and sluggish in thought and act, languishing in the bonds of fanaticism, thinking no further than the morrow; belonging to a people who have never known political liberty, who have never had energy to assert their independence, who have been satisfied with the protection and guardianship of their superiors, and who only occa- sionally have been roused to action, but for the rest have been content in their lazy doctrine of laisser faire and laisser alter. The struggle in which these two contrasting elements were engaged is of eminent interest to the student of the history of culture, and the ensuing results may well claim our careful consideration. What England has thus far done for India is instructive as a sample of the struggle which is yet to take place between East and West. The transformations and the changes which have taken place in India in the AN INSTRUCTIVE SAMPLE 157 course of the last century will make us realise more fully what were the mistakes made in Turkey and Persia and wherever the light of European culture has penetrated, impeding the progress of the reforms in those parts. We shall then become con- vinced that there is yet hope of a better future for our brethren in Asia. Keeping this in mind, it may be found instructive to give our attention to the work done by the English in India, and to trace the various phases, the advantages and disadvantages of the reforms accomplished by them. CHAPTER III FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS BEFORE we proceed to speak of the influence of English culture in India, we would draw attention to certain political and administrative measures insti- tuted immediately after the new dominion had been founded and its limitations defined, inaugurating a normal European administration in place of the Asiatic mismanagement and anarchy which had hitherto existed. Some of the native officials who had been retained in the conquered and annexed territory had been infected by the mismanagement of the company's servants, and in order to counteract this evil Clive decided, in 1766, upon a thorough reorganisation of the whole administration. Thus, by doing away with the existing corrupt system he hoped to raise the standard of morality and thoroughly to cleanse the Augean stables of Asiatic government. In these endeavours Warren Hastings showed even more zeal and skill, and we are justified in saying that, if Clive was the territorial founder of British India, Hastings must be looked upon as the founder of its administration.* He organised the State service ; he introduced the system for collecting the revenues ; he established courts of justice, and for this purpose the Mohammedan codes of law such as the Hidayet, Sirajia, and Sherifye and also Hindu works referring to legislation such as the code of Manu, the Mitak- * Hunter, ' The Indian Empire,' p. 456. 158 HASTINGS AND LORD CORNWALLIS 159 shara, and the Dayabhaga were partly translated and partly excerpted,* and English and native judges were appointed. Warren Hastings therefore, at any rate, laid the foundation of a regularly organised administration, notwithstanding the constant opposi- tion of his rivals and ill-wishers both in India and in London. In the course of the prolonged war with the Marathas and Sikhs, the work of reformation could only make slow progress in proportion as the British power became consolidated, and according to the abilities and the enthusiasm displayed by the several Governors. In this respect the English government in India was singularly fortunate ; for amongst the Governors who in the three different periods t of administration stood at the head of affairs, many able men have distinguished themselves men who fulfilled the duties of their office with great political wisdom, patriotic zeal, administrative skill, and in a true humane spirit, and consequently have largely con- tributed to the marvellous constitution as we see it before us now. If Hastings laid the foundation of the civil adminis- tration, Lord Cornwallis (1786 and 1805) may be said to have built the superstructure. It was he who put the penal jurisdiction into the hands of Englishmen ; for previously the administration of justice had been based upon a mixture of English and Mohammedan law, causing endless confusion and satisfying no one. Until 1 859 legislation had been in a very bad condition and favoured corruption and bribery, until at last the better remuneration of judges, a sounder education of the natives, and the greater proficiency of the English, * ' The Government of India,' by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, p. 402. t These various periods include: (i) The time of the Governors of Bengal from 1750 to 1774 ; (2) the time of the Governors-General of India under the company, from 1774 to 1858; (3) the time of the Vice- Regency under the Crown, from 1858 to the present time. 160 FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS brought about a favourable reaction. The Landed Property Act was revised ; the Zemindars,* originally the tenant-farmers, who were at the same time the revenue-collectors, gradually merged into the position of middlemen, subordinate to the English administra- tion, and thus assisted in the organisation of the land settlement tax. Particular care was bestowed upon the revenue tax of special importance to the natives of India, where the amount of the tax is the chief criterion of the government, and where much more is expected in return for the money paid down than here in Europe. Envy and malice have often described the English in this period of their adminis- tration as the unconscionable vampires and blood- suckers of India ; but the injustice of this suspicion is shown by the circumstance that the collection of taxes under the Moguls from 1593 to 1761 consisted annually of 60,000,000 rupees; while in 1869 to 1879, under the English administration, with a much larger population, the total annual tax amounted to 35^ millions, and during the subsequent twelve years to 41^ millions, t The reforms and improvements made in the various departments of public life helped the Hindus to appre- ciate from the very commencement of the British administration the many blessings they now enjoyed, and which they had never received under the rulers of their own tribe and religion. They were therefore at once impressed by the advantages of the foreign legislation. There can be little doubt that the real vitality and growth of these reforms in India date from the time when the British Crown took the management of affairs into its own hands, and brought the interests of India into closer union with those of * Zemindar is a Persian word meaning 'land-owner,' from Zemin (earth, soil) and Dar (owner or possessor). t W. W. Hunter, ' The Indian Empire,' p. 547. BARBAROUS CUSTOMS ABOLISHED 161 the Mother State. Long before this, however, many praiseworthy efforts had been made in the same direc- tion. Thus, for instance, the Parliamentary investiga- tion of 1813 abolished the trade monopoly of the company, compelling the latter to concentrate its energies upon the better government of the people, with the result that in 1833 natives were admitted to State offices without regard to racial or religious differences.* Protectionism was put a stop to, and the English representatives in India were bound to be elected without preference from amongst the young English candidates. Various measures for the abo- lition of barbarous customs and rites belong also to an earlier date, and under this category we must men- tion the cruel custom of the Sati (Sutti) that is, the burning of widows a barbarity erroneously said to be one of the statutes of the Veda, and which year after year demanded hundreds of victims. In the year 1817, in Bengal alone, 700 widows are said to have been burned, and the small white columns still extant at the Indian pilgrim-stations are remnants of these Sati. In 1829 the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, abolished this murderous custom. The trade of the cut-throats, known as the Thag,f who were bound by a religious vow to practices of stran- gulation, was very soon suppressed under the English administration, and they are now almost extinct except for gangs of Dacoits, who still practise this trade in certain parts of India, more particularly in the terri- tories governed over by native Princes. One of the most inhuman customs suppressed by the English at * W. W. Hunter, ' The Indian Empire,' p. 493. f According to Sir John Strachey, op. '/., p. 309, this custom is not so much intended to avoid crime as to protect an ancient duty to ancestors. The word ' Thag ' means ' traitor ; or ' swindler,' and ' Phansi- gar' (from 'Phansi') is a 'sling' or 'lasso' (see ' Hobson-Jobson,' a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases and of kindred terms, by Colonel Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burn ell, p. 696). II i62 FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS a very early date was the murder of infant girls, by which practice the increase of the population neces- sarily suffered considerably, but which to the natives seemed quite a natural proceeding. This custom pre- vailed throughout India, regardless of religious differ- ences, more particularly, however, among the Rajputs, the noblest race of Indians. In the tribe of the Chauhan fifty years ago, among the 30,000 inhabitants not a single girl was to be found. As late as the year 1869, an investigation which took place in a Rajput district in Oudh revealed the fact that in seven villages 104 boys and i girl were found, and in twenty-three villages 284 boys and 23 girls.* Thanks to the English intervention, this terrible state of things is now con- siderably improved. Little wicker baskets with the dead bodies of children no longer are seen drifting down the Ganges, and where formerly girls were scarce there are now thousands. The extermination of this barbarous custom, sanctified by centuries of practice, was certainly no easy matter, especially in India, the centre of Asiatic superstition and conser- vative ways of thinking. It required more than ordin- ary patience and perseverance to extirpate these and similar abuses, as must be clear to all who have had any experience of the social conditions of Asiatic life. I think I cannot be far wrong in stating that the con- test with the deeply-rooted prejudices and supersti- tions of old Asiatic society could not have been entrusted to better hands than those of the stern, strong-principled, discreet, icy British. Whenever the Anglo-Indian Government put forward some pro- posal for the alleviation of customs and the mitigation of ancient social and administrative indiscretions, there has always been a great storm of opposition, never sufficiently strong, however, to shake the reso- lution of the stanch British rulers. To prove my point * Sir John Strachey, op. '/., p. 397. SUPERSTITIONS ABANDONED 163 I might refer to the terrible dispute created by the introduction of the law relating to the marrying again of young widows. As is generally known, girls often become widows at the age of ten or twelve. They are forbidden ever to marry again, and are condemned to life-long misery. The more rational Hindus have re- cognised the beneficial and humane intentions of the English in passing this law, and would gladly express their appreciation of it ; but shame and the fear of their countrymen still labouring in the bonds of prejudice restrains them, and the realisation of this reform scheme has thereby been considerably hindered. In course of time, however, the native obstinacy will have to yield before the larger principle, as has already been the case with regard to the strong wall of parti- tion existing between the castes,* and also with regard to their horror of sea-voyages. To-day there are hundreds and thousands of Hindus who, disregarding the severe laws of caste separation, freely associate with Europeans, eat and drink with them, without troubling themselves about the possible consequences of such a step, such as excommunication and other severe social punishments. As regards the crossing of the ' black water' (sea), journeys to Europe are now quite as much the fashion with the Hindus as with many other Asiatics who have intercourse with Western nations ; nay, more, for many years past Indians of Brahmin and Mohammedan faith have matriculated and obtained academical degrees at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and on their return home are held in high esteem and occupy im- * With regard to the castes, we seem to forget in Western lands that we also, in spite of our enlightenment, have among us society circles with very pronounced separatist tendencies. The wall of parti- tion may not be so high and so strong as in India, but in many lands hereditary nobility keeps itself strictly apart from all other classes, and would, if allowed, uphold the caste system the same as in India. II 2 164 FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS portant positions. A hundred years ago a journey to Europe would have been looked upon as apostasy, and would have seemed as impossible to them as if a pious Roman Catholic were now to pride himself that he had received his intellectual training in the Azhar College at Cairo. As proof of the weakened condition of the caste system we quote the opinion of a Frenchman, who, in his book about India, says : ' Aujourd'hui les soudras, comme les brahmanes, sont admis dans les colleges sanscrits et etudient avec eux les Vedas. Un profes- seur qui refuserait d'enseigner les livres sacres a un soudra serait simplement remercie. II y a une cin- quantaine d'annees, lorsque les Anglais s'aviserent pour la premiere fois de pendre un brahmane, on craignait une serieuse emeute : aujourd'hui le cas est relativement frequent, et personne ne s'en preoccupe.'* Our surprise and astonishment at the reforms in- augurated by the English, and the extraordinary results obtained by them, is yet increased when we realise the tremendous difficulties which even the native Princes of Turkey and Persia experienced when they wished to introduce the smallest and most insignificant innovations. The change in the cut or the colour of a garment, the adaptation of a new head-covering, or the introduction of some modern branch of learning, has always throughout the Islamic world roused in- dignation and opposition. Sultan Mahmud had to drown the anti-reform passion of the Turks in the blood of the Janissaries, and even Christian Russia could only do the work of regeneration by marching over the heaped-up corpses of the Streltzi who had rejected the reforms. In Persia Nasreddin Shah did not dare to take the slightest step in this direction. The reforms of Mehemmed AH in Egypt led to the wholesale murder of the Mameluks. Always * Boell, ' I/Inde et le Probleme Indien.' Paris, 1901, p. 208. SUBMISSION OF THE NATIVES 165 and everywhere amongst Moslems, Brahmins, and Buddhists, innovations have been abominated and abhorred, and yet, notwithstanding this fact, a handful of Englishmen have succeeded, without very violent disturbances, in accomplishing quite extraordinary transformations in the political, social, and ethnical conditions of the East. Occasional riots and rebellions, such as that of the Madras Sepoys of Vellore in the year 1806, and the great Mutiny of the Sepoys in 1857, were instigated rather by political than by social and ethical motives. The scare of the greased cartridges would scarcely have led to a revolution if the British successes and the annexation politics of Lor'd Dal- housie had not convinced certain restless, dissatisfied, and ambitious chiefs, such as Dundhu Panth, generally called Nana Sahib, of the hopelessness of ever re- establishing their power. Nana Sahib's object was to restore the power of the Peshwas,* and it is owing to the heedlessness and the extreme self-confidence of the British that fanaticism became such a formidable weapon in his hands. If the administrative measures and reforms of the English had really appeared to the natives so objectionable, so oppressive, and so pre- judicial to the well-being of the various districts con- cerned, as hostile opinions would have us to believe, there was ample opportunity for them to shake off the foreign yoke and to annihilate the small body of the conquerors' forces. The fact that cases of mutiny were so few and so local, and that Mohammedans as well as Hindus in time of need assisted the English in quelling * Peshwa, or, more correctly, Pishwa, a Persian word meaning ' headman,' was the title belonging to the first Ministers of the Ma"ra"thas ; these Ministers afterwards usurped the place of their masters, and the name Peshwa was given to the dynasty which took the place of the Maltha Kings, from Balaju, 1718, to Baji-Rao II., 1795, during which time seven Peshwas ruled in various parts of India, and were often involved in war with England. Nana Sahib was an adopted son of the last Peshwa. 1 66 FIRST STAGE OF REFORMS the revolts, speaks for the recognition which England's endeavours received from the more discreet and peace- loving portion of the population. The Hindu, pas- sionate, fanatical, and superstitious in the extreme, had to realise at last that the new order of things inaugurated by the foreigners, although heterogeneous, unfamiliar, and unpleasing to him, nevertheless con- tained the germ of the long-wished-for peace and happiness, and that the dark night of anarchy, tyranny, and endless warfare, was to be followed by a brighter morning. And who can deny that England's supremacy, even during the period of its development, was always actuated by the honest endeavour to promote the well-being of the natives, and to insure a better future for the land which had fallen under its dominion ? Even during the administration of the East India Company, amidst the confusion and the turmoil of incessant warfare, changes and reforms were taking place which foreshadowed the present improved con- dition of things. Two Governors-General deserve special mention in this respect. Lord William Caven- dish Bentinck, who from 1828 to 1835 stood at the head of affairs, has distinguished himself less by his territorial conquests than by his administrative measures and reforms. It was he who suppressed the previously-mentioned barbarous customs of the Sati and Thag, who by a proper control of the finances eased the taxation, and who admitted educated natives to the service of the State. He fully deserves the in- scription which Macaulay wrote for his statue at Calcutta, and which is as follows : ' He abolished cruel rites ; he effaced humiliating distinctions ; he gave liberty to the expression of public opinion ; his con- stant study was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed to his charge.'* * W. W. Hunter, 'The Indian Empire,' p. 475. LORD DALHOUSIE'S SUCCESS 167 The same may be said of Lord Dalhousie, Governor- General from 1848 to 1856. Apart from his suc- cessful and skilfully executed political schemes of conquest, he has contributed much to the material and moral progress of the districts entrusted to his care. He founded the Department of Public Works, and did the preparatory work for the institution. of the network of canals, roads, and railways, which now intersects India in all directions. He opened the Ganges Canal ; he established the steamboat connec- tion between India and England by the Red Sea ; he introduced a moderate postal tax and the telegraph ; and it is no small praise when W. W. Hunter says,* in speaking of him : ' His system of administration, carried out in the conquered Punjab by the two Lawrences and their assistants, is probably the most successful piece of difficult work ever accomplished by Englishmen.' At that time the Hindus could express their thoughts more freely than many Christ- ian European nations could until quite recently, and more freely than the Russians can do even now under the control of tyrannical censure. * W. W. Hunter, ' The Indian Empire,' p. 482. CHAPTER IV INCREASE OF WELL-BEING IF we designate the first half of the nineteenth century as the period in which the transformation of the political, administrative, and social conditions in India was inaugurated, the second half of the same century may be called the period in which, with energy, skill, and extraordinary exertion, this great work was brought near to its completion. When the administration of the country passed from the hands of the East India Company into those of the State, the interest shown in the great possession in the East assumed a more pronounced British national character, and at the same time the Government on the banks of the Thames was forced to recognise India as an integral part of the realm. It was bound to guarantee the consolidation of the possession, and to use every means in its power to promote the moral and material welfare of the Indian subjects as the best means of securing their adherence and loyalty. It is characteristic of the Englishman, when he under- takes a thing, to allow of no half- measures, no hesitation ; politically a free agent, he goes straight for his object, he shrinks from no sacrifice, no trouble. The result of the work which we now contemplate, the civilisation of a country and a nation so thoroughly Oriental as India, must therefore be looked upon as the natural outcome of the character of the civiliser. We remarked before that the Russian Government, 1 68 ENGLISH OFFICIALS 169 even in its most earnest civilising efforts in Turkestan, was hampered by the unreliableness and unscrupu- lousness of its officials ; the very reverse may be said of the English organs at work in India. Besides the strong innate sense of duty and the firmness and fairness which generally characterise English officials, there has been displayed in India at all times by State servants of higher and lower degree by a real affection and enthusiasm for their work. There have always been men who have felt a genuine national pride in the civilisation of India, and who have fulfilled their mission faithfully and with true patriotic zeal. This was particularly the case before the introduction of the accelerated means of communication with the Mother Country. A prolonged, unbroken sojourn in India often transformed Englishmen into semi-Asiatics, and a greater degree of intimacy between the foreigners and the natives facilitated the mutual intercourse and smoothed down many sharp contrasts in the social conditions. The kindly treatment, the humaneness, which distinguished many of the officials has very often left so deep an impression upon the Hindu mind that the names of certain Englishmen, even after generations, are still held in honour by the natives. Among such, those of Clive, Malcolm, Elphinstone, Henry Lawrence, John Jacob, Robert Sandeman, John Nicholson, Herbert Edwardes, Lord Mayo, Lord Dufferin, and many others, are to this day devoutly remembered by the Hindus. Considering my many years' experience and my intimate knowledge of life in the East, I often ask myself the question : How is it that the natives have shown themselves so complacent towards the English, and have submitted to reforms such as even modern Oriental reformers have hardly dared to introduce among their own countrymen ? It is my firm belief that the introduction of impartial jurisdiction ; the i;o INCREASE OF WELL-BEING security of life and property, and the perfect fairness of the legislation, have from the first attracted the Hindu;* for the native governments, not excepting those of the most enlightened of their Princes, lacking these essential qualities, always lay as a heavy curse upon the people, and were consequently hated. When the farmer and the artisan are not interfered with ; when they know that their property is safe ; that they will not be robbed or deceived by tax-collectors, and when they can rely upon the fairness of their judge's verdict, they soon become valuable servants of the State and the Government. In India especially, the people troubled themselves very little about the faith and the nationality of their foreign masters, since from time immemorial they had been accustomed to foreign rule ; for in the eyes of the Southern Indians, Pathans, Rajputs, and Beluchis are in language and outward appearance as much foreigners as Englishmen are. What the people most longed for was a staid government and national peace, in order that they might lead quiet lives under the protection of the law. In this respect the English government has fully satisfied the anticipations of the natives, for, as the several countries of the Indian Peninsula had never before been united under one and the same sceptre, there never was such a measure of peace as now exists under English administration. As regards the general condition of the lower classes, one has but to look at Persia, Turkey, and Morocco to realise how much better off, for instance, the Indian Mohammedans are as compared with their * In Article 91 of the ' Digest of Statutory Enactments relating to the Government of India,' it says : ' No native of British India, or any natural born subject of Her Majesty resident therein, is, by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, or colour, or any of them, disabled from holding any place, office, or employment, under Her Majesty in India' ('The Government of India,' by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, p. 237). CONDITION OF THE PEASANTS 171 fellow-believers under native rule. The same may be said of the Vishnu worshippers. Judging from out- ward appearances, the poorly-clad or half-naked Indian field-labourer certainly presents an uncompromising picture of misery and poverty. But appearances are deceitful in this case; for this poorly-clad peasant often spends his savings on finery, which he either stores away, or with which on grand occasions he decks his wife, while he himself in his tattered garments reminds one of the Hungarian gipsy, who adorns his torn jacket with large silver buttons and drives an excellent pair of horses. Apart from isolated instances where inborn frivolity leads to dissipation, there need be no question anywhere in India of pressing poverty such as we see in certain countries of Europe. On the contrary, the general condition is improving day by day. The learned Indian Seid Hussein Bilgrami states that the peasant is now better off than he used to be, and in the Indian newspaper The Hindu Patriot we read that the field-labourer, who used to earn one anna* per day, now earns two. In a country where three-fifths of the population live by agriculture, and considering that this industry depends to a large extent upon the weather, fluctuations in the general prosperity are unavoidable. But how much more is this the case in a country where long habit or the tyranny of custom compels the people to extravagance ; where the State functionary, with a yearly income of 150 rupees, spends 1,560 rupees upon the marriage festivities of one of his children, and where the poor peasant squanders at least 200 rupees on his wedding- day. Under such conditions it is as impossible to estimate the prosperity of India as of Europe ; but considering the change for the better which has taken place in the government of India, prosperity must * The anna is an Indian coin worth about a penny. Sixteen annas make one rupee. i;2 INCREASE OF WELL-BEING necessarily be on the increase, and in many parts of the country it has considerably increased. What India now produces every year in rice, corn, indigo, and pulse, would have appeared incredible at the beginning of last century. The steady increase of these articles is quite astounding, and the enormous extent of the recent Indo-European wheat trade, for instance, proves this most strongly. In evidence of the increase of some of the chief articles of trade, we quote the official returns for the decade, 1891-92 and 1900-01 :* 1891-92. 1900-01. Rice (cwt.) ... ... 314,804,161 413,506,700 Wheat (tons) ... ... 5j986,53i 6,765,717 Tea (tons) ... ... 123,867,902 197,460,664 Cotton (bales) ... ... 1,497,000 2,127,205 Jute (bales) ... ... 2,971,794 6,400,000 The remarkable increase of agricultural produce in its various departments has in the first place raised the price of land, its value having become as much as six times as great since the beginning of the British administration ; in the second place the export trade has increased, which in most cases benefits the farmer and insures to him a degree of prosperity which he never knew before, and which the farmer in Turkey and Persia does not enjoy to this day. That the Hindu owes this improvement in his condition to the British administration is evident, for at the time when his own tribesmen and co-religionists held rule things were in a deplorable condition. Sir Denzil Ibbetson,f one of the best authorities on Hindustan, says with regard to this in his report of the Punjab, laid before the Council of the Governor- General : ' When we took over the province, the once- * See 'Statistical Abstract relating to British India from 1891-92 to 1900-01,' No. 36, London, 1902, p. 118. t Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., p. 386. THE CANAL SYSTEM 173 celebrated Royal Canal was long since dried up, and four-fifths of the entire surface was covered with thick wood, which served as a lurking-place for thieves, vagabonds, and beasts of prey. The inhabi- tants had either gone further out or were exterminated, and of the 221 villages of one district only (Pergana), no less than 178 were destroyed or depopulated.' England has spared neither trouble nor cost to raise the standard of agriculture. Before all things, the laws relating to land tenure had to be reorganised correctly speaking, they never existed before and under the tyrannical sway of the native Princes they were quite illusionary. The irrigation by canals next claimed attention ; for upon this agriculture in India, as everywhere in hot countries, is chiefly dependent. The number and the condition of the canals have always in Asia been an index of right administration, and the name of Nushirwan* is held in esteem to this day ; for in Persia there are still in existence canals which date from the time of his reign. The excellent organisation of the present canal system in India has long since been duly recognised by friends and foes, and a passing mention of facts will therefore suffice here. In the districts of India directly under British rule, of the 137,319,732 acres of arable land, about 29,215,545 acres are dependent upon the irrigation canals, most of which have been con- structed by the Government;! while 43,000 miles of canals are under the immediate supervision or control of the Government, t In spite of the bombastic accounts of the canals constructed by early native Princes, very little is left of these ancient irrigation works in India. In most cases the work had to be * In several parts of Persia I have seen canals (Kanat) which are supposed to have been constructed by Nushirwan (Chosroes I.), f W. W. Hunter, p. 641. J Sir John Strachey, p. 222. 174 INCREASE OF WELL-BEING done entirely afresh, and loans had to be raised for this purpose, as only a small proportion of the costs could be defrayed by the revenues derived from the canals. The undertaking was almost exclusively financed by English capital, and the canal system, besides being a boon to the districts concerned, also became a source of profit to the Government ; for, as Sir John Strachey tells us, the costs of a canal are often much below the value of one season's harvest. Up to the year 1880 the capital spent by the State upon the canal system amounted to 20,500,000.* Although acknowledging that native Princes of the past deserve credit for their temporary efforts at irriga- tion as, for instance, the Mogul Prince Sultan Akbar we must not forget that those irrigation works were constructed almost entirely by forced labour, and not as under the British administration, without the compulsory co-operation of the farmers. I have seen in Khiva how the whole population of a district was forced to work day and night to cleanse a canal, and it has given me a poor impression of the fatherly care of Oriental Princes. The Indian farmer of to-day, with comparatively little exertion, can draw from the soil almost any kind of produce necessary for the sustenance of his family, and famines only occur where the delay of the regular rains causes unusual droughts, or where locusts, floods, or other physical catastrophes, upset all human calculations and provisions. At all times India has been subject to these terrible plagues, and, as far as human knowledge goes, many hundred thousands of people have fallen victims to them under the native rulers. In the famine of 1769-70 a third of the population of Bengal perished. Against these terrible odds the English have fought with every means at their disposal, and the timely assistance by which, during such occasional scourges, millions of * ' India in 1880,' by Sir Richard Temple, p. 263. SYSTEM OF TAXATION 175 lives have been saved has swallowed up immense sums of money.* The famine of 1874-1879, apart from private charities, chiefly derived from England, cost the Anglo-Indian Government i 6,000,000. t Formerly, apart from these elemental disturbances, war and the unbridled tyranny of Princes robbed the farmer of the fruits of his labour. Now the former danger (war), under the protection of Pax Britannica, is done away with ; and tyranny is also out of the question, because the system of taxation in India is more advanced than in any of the independent Moslem States, more advanced, even, than in many European lands. It is supposed that the Hindu pays is. pd. per head per year in taxes, and that, including the land tax, the contribution is perhaps twice this amount i.e., 4 rupees 8 annas; this is according to Paul Boell.t The English at home pay six times that amount per head. The French author already quoted is of opinion that, on account of the great difference in the proportionate wealth of England and India, the Englishman pays 6 per cent., and the Hindu 16 per cent., of his income to the State ; but he seems to have forgotten that, in spite of this, in England the taxes contribute five-sixths, and in India only one-fourth, to the public expenditure, and that therefore the Hindu contributes really very little to the great cost of the civilisation of his land in comparison with the advantages which he derives therefrom. That the State expenditure in India during the second half of the past century has more than doubled itself must be attributed to the fact that since 1840 six large provinces (covering an area of 500,000 square miles, and with 60,000,000 inhabitants) have been incorporated * Sir W. W. Hunter estimates the victims of the famine of 1876- 1878 at seven millions (' The Indian Empire,' p. 646). f ' India in 1880,' by Sir Richard Temple. London, 1881, p. 332. t ' L'Inde et le Probleme Indien.' Paris, 1901, p. 177. 176 INCREASE OF WELL-BEING into the Indian Empire. We can only marvel that, notwithstanding the greatly increased expenses for reforms and improvements, the taxes have not been made heavier than they are. Criticism hostile to England always seems to take pleasure in pointing out the disproportion between the taxes in India and the low figure of the average yearly income of the Hindu (27 rupees per head*); but it is forgotten that the annual income of the Turkestanis is on an average much lower still, and that the assessment of the Russian taxation is considerably higher. In Russo- Turkestan the settled inhabitant pays on Kharadj and Tanab, and the nomad on tent and cattle tax, pro- portionately more than the Hindu, without enjoying in return the same privileges which the advanced culture of the English offers. Moreover, it should be noted that, of the 72, 272,000 annual State revenue of India, f only 20,816,000 are contributed by the taxes, while 54,456,000 are de- rived from other sources and from public institutions and works which benefit the tax-payer. Amongst the latter we will only mention the improved means of communication through the construction of the rail- ways ; in this respect India does not come behind even the most advanced countries of Europe. The great railway net which now spreads over the whole * The former member of Parliament, Dadabhai Naoroji, reckons 20 rupees per head per annum. As against this, the estimate in England is 825 francs, in France 575 francs, in Russia 225 francs, and in Turkey 100 francs (Paul Boell, 'L'Inde,' etc., pp. 178, 179). t This does not include the so-called land revenue, which amounts at present to 17,000,000 per annum, but in the Mogol period it was a great deal more. Edward Thomas, in his ' Revenue Resources of the Mogol Empire,' mentions for the year 1664-65 26,743,000 ; Bernier speaks of 22,593,000 ; and Catrou, according to Manucci, gives 38,719,000. And this at a time when there was none of the order, peace, and justice, which now prevail in the land. The above data have been taken from Sir John Strachey's work, p. 129. RAILWAY AND TELEGRAPH 177 of India was commenced under Lord Dalhousie, and the first line was opened in 1853. The construction of railways advanced rapidly everywhere. In 1885 scarcely 12,279 miles had been opened, and in 1900 24,707 miles were open to traffic. The several lines have been built either at State expense or guaranteed by the State ; in some cases subventioned, and in others built by the natives themselves. Thus far the costs of construction have been ^52,596,779. In 1900 174,824,483 persons travelled by these various lines, and the revenues amounted to 315,967,137 rupees.* In Russian Turkestan there are, properly speaking, only strategical railway-lines ; but in India the economical, social, commercial, and industrial interests of the land are benefited to an extraordinary extent, and give a new direction to the ethical and moral disposition of the people. The same applies to telegraphic and postal communication, for in communities where formerly slowness was preferred to rapidity, and rest to activity, the postages in the year 1900 amounted to 521,664,746, and the telegraphic despatches to 6,237,301. There, where formerly the popular pilgrimages used to take days, and often weeks, as many hours are now found sufficient, and the Asiatic is, as it were, com- pelled to recognise the value of time. The great works of a material nature which England has accomplished in India have of necessity made a deep impression upon the minds and the spirit of the Hindu, and have largely contributed to facilitate that moral transformation which it was England's intention to bring about. The Asiatic mind was necessarily most deeply im- pressed by the humane institutions organised by the State and private philanthropists, and which have contributed so largely to the public welfare. To this category belong the hospitals and free dispensaries. * 'The Statesman's Year-Book,' 1902, p. 166. 12 i;8 INCREASE OF WELL-BEING Of the former there are now about 2,000, and about 100,000,000 patients receive medical treatment every year. The decade ending with 1902 was marked by an enormous increase in Indian medical institutions, and in the number of patients treated by them. There were 3,000 hospitals and dispensaries in 1901, against 1,800 in 1891 ; their indoor patients rose from 300,000 to 355,000, and outdoor patients from 13! millions to 20^ millions. These figures do not include private institutions established by non- professional persons or corporate bodies, intended primarily for relief of the poor. Of particular benefit are the female hospitals instituted by Lady Dufferin, where lady doctors, natives among them, attend to the needs of the suffering female sex. Formerly, when there were only male doctors, it was impossible to care for them properly, because of the great separation of the sexes. The unhappy fate of the women of India has always been a matter of deep concern to the women of England. Many of them have devoted themselves for years to the welfare of their sisters in India, and amongst these Mary Carpenter has par- ticularly distinguished herself. Her gravestone bears the following inscription : ' Taking to heart the grievous lot of Oriental women, in the last decade of her life, she four times went to India, and awakened an active interest in their education and training for serious purposes.'* * ' India in 1880,' by Sir Richard Temple, p. 159. CHAPTER V PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA WHAT the English have done so far for the elevation and the material well-being of India is attributed by those who bear them envy and malice to purely selfish motives ; they say everything is done to get the most profit out of the country and its inhabitants, and to en- rich the commerce and industry of the Mother Country. Envy truly is blind the most glaring facts are often unable to open its eyes ; and when in the course of specific investigation the fatal veil is partially lifted, this is done for the sole purpose of showing the situation more clearly, and in order that the actual material work accomplished may find full recognition. I must honestly confess that I appreciate England's endeavours in the matter of instruction, education, and mental elevation of the national conglomerate of India far more highly, and that I admire it much more than all its creations of a material nature. In the latter case England deals with inanimate objects which can be moulded, fashioned, and transformed at will; but in the former case it has to do battle with the ingrained spirit of Asiaticism, accustomed for centuries to walk in the old trodden paths of conservatism : for these Asiatics, because their culture is of older date, value it much more highly than ours. As pupils they consider themselves better in- formed than their teachers, and they are suspicious of the new doctrine because it emanates from the con- 179 12 2 i8o PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA queror, the foreign ruler. If the many years of close intercourse which I have had with Turks, Arabs, and Persians had not made me intimately acquainted with their strong dislike of and opposition to modern European culture, and if I did not know that the Indian is ten times more Oriental than any of the other Eastern nations, my surprise would probably not have been so great. But when I now behold the complete transformation of India, and recognise in the Pandits, Nabobs, Moulvis, Babus, not only men of European culture, but men who in the European sense of the word are eminent scholars, my astonishment cannot be called extravagant or unjustified. The cultural transformation of India had necessarily to keep pace with the conquest of territory, for, in order to consolidate the newly-gained possession by the introduction of political, administrative, and social reforms, it was imperatively necessary to exercise at the same time an influence upon the intellect of the new subjects. It was Warren Hastings, the re- nowned, genial soldier, who in 1782 founded the College of Calcutta, and maintained it for many years at his own expense. His object was to educate the Mohammedan population of Bengal, in order that they, together with the Hindus, might qualify themselves for the State service, more especially for jurisdiction.* In 1791 the College of Benares was founded primarily for the study of the law, the literature, and the re- ligion of the Hindus in order to render skilful assistance in legal matters to the European judges. Elementary schools for the education of the lower classes were as yet out of the question, because the authorities did not agree upon the leading principles of such institutions. Two opposite opinions arose in respect to this. The one party, represented by Lord * Sir John Strachey, p. 241. FOREIGN OR NATIVE LANGUAGE 181 Macaulay, advocated the introduction of higher educa- tion and the use of the English language, upon the principle that Oriental literature and knowledge was based upon trivial, childish, and out-of-date doctrines ; while the other party started from the sound principle that knowledge and culture could only be transmitted with advantage if founded on a national basis, and that therefore the mother-tongue and the national literature were the correct means for inculcating the desired knowledge. It was the same struggle over again which Russia had to face in its attempts at civilisation on the Volga ; in the Kirghis Steppes ; and in Turkestan, in which Professor Ilminski gained the victory. The great difference, however, between the two cases was that, while the Russians easily succeeded in making a tabula rasa among the Tartars, Kirghises, and Sarts, as they found there very slight, hardly noticeable traces of an older national culture, the English had to reckon with the rich Sanscrit literature and certain branches of knowledge of a juridical and philosophical nature. It is to be re- gretted that Macaulay, who to a certain extent was prejudiced, carried the victory over the views of Hastings, Wellesley, Sir William Jones, and Elphin- stone, with the result that under Lord William Ben- tinck the resolution was passed that 'The Government shall undertake to spread the knowledge of European literature and science among the inhabitants of India, and that every means shall be employed to promote English education.'* * The manner in which the great essayist has come to the conclu- sion that Oriental learning has produced nothing to be compared with the intellectual products of the modern world for this is what he says in the scheme submitted for the Governor-General's approval in 1835 can only be explained by the fact that he had not devoted sufficient attention to the heroes of Oriental learning, and that the term ' know- ledge ' only applies to the exact sciences. i82 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA Under these disadvantages higher education, with very few exceptions, labours to this day, and under such conditions it is clear that at the first there could be no question of educating the lower classes. The primary schools were neglected, and the education of the people was left to the Mohammedan and Brahmin clergy, and under such conditions the establishment of Universities was begun. In 1823 the College of Agra was founded ; in 1824 the Sanscrit College at Calcutta, and in 1835 the medical schools were insti- tuted by Lord W. Bentinck. It was not until the administration of Sir C. Wood (afterwards Lord Halifax) that public instruction began to be seriously thought of. Amidst all the confusion of the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 three Universities were founded namely, at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay and the resolution was passed to form a special department of public instruction, under the management of a Director with a staff of inspectors. Quite a network of schools soon covered the land, graduating from the native village school up to the highest Universities. Many of them received financial support on condition that there should be a regular supervision, and liberal donations encouraged study, and made it possible for indigent natives to enter the University.* The members of the School Commission appointed by Lord Ripon in 1884 acquitted themselves most creditably of their task ; their endeavour was to complete the work com- menced by Lord Halifax in 1854, and by degrees they established the principle that in the higher schools the English language, and in the lower schools the native tongue of each respective district, should be used as the vehicle of instruction. Since that time the number of educational establishments in India, and also the number of pupils, have considerably in- creased. * Sir John Strachey, p. 244. NUMBER OF PUPILS 183 In 1857-58 there were 2,000 schools, with 200,000 scholars. In 1877-78 66,202 1,877,942 In 1890-91 138,350 3,698,361 In 1901-02 148,380 2,756,135 With a population of 230,000,000 under the im- mediate rule of the Government, this school attendance appears like a drop of water in the ocean ; but when one considers the innate conservatism, the supersti- tion, and the prejudices, with which the Government had to battle and still has to battle, it is impossible to deny that the English deserve great credit. The Government efforts would certainly have been crowned with still greater success if the largely preponderating majority of the people, or three-fifths of the whole population, had not been given over to agricultural pursuits. This class of people do not, as a rule, take easily to schooling ; and famine, pestilence, and cholera, the three great plagues of India, have greatly contributed to impede the progress of the work. The movement for the education of women, so sadly neglected in the Islam world and throughout Asia, deserves special mention. Of the total population of India, amounting to 294,360,000, 149,951,000 are males, and 144,409,000 females. Of the former 134,752,000, and of the latter 142,976,000, are ignorant and illiterate, and only 1,433,000 amongst them can read and write. In this respect, however, considerable progress has been made of late years, for in 1891-92 the number of girl scholars was estimated at 339,031, and in 1901-02 it had risen to 429,490.* The greatest in- crease is in South India, where the seclusion of the women is not so strict ; thus, for instance, in Madras the number of girl scholars has risen since 1871 from 10,000 to 128,000. Nay, more, there are cases on record of Indian ladies obtaining literary and academical distinctions ; several of them have suc- * Sir John Strachey, p. 249. 1 84 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA cessfully matriculated, and some have obtained the doctor's degree, which in India must certainly be reckoned among the most astonishing achievements. The money spent by the feudal States and the English Government in 1901-02 on public education in India amounts, according to official returns,* to ^"2,673,278. Considering that Russia sub titulo ' Budget of Education,' estimating the inhabitants of Turkestan at 5,260,000, spends annually about 350,000 i.e., 3,432,200 roubles the sum of 2,673,278 may appear very small ; but the following points must not be lost sight of. First, the Russian Education Budget in Turkestan covers chiefly schools in which the children of natives take a very small or no part at all, but which serve to educate the children of Russian officials and soldiers, colleges, municipal schools and Church schools, all educational establishments. Secondly, Russia has to defray the cost of the steppe schools and the boarding schools connected therewith, to which the moneyless nomads can contribute but little. Thirdly, in Turkestan the schools for natives are attended by only 2,427 pupils, while in India, according to the latest returns, 4,520,093 natives were entered. Fourthly, the English in India have to meet the strong opposition of the Moslem and Brahmin clergy, the former counting no sacrifice too great to protect their mosque schools against the intrusion of their Christian masters, and the introduction of European education ; while the latter, in the interests of their caste system, have always been careful to keep the masses in dark- ness and ignorance. This to a certain extent is also the case in Central Asia, but only among the popula- tion which stands under the influence of the Ishans and Mollas, and does not apply to the nomads. They, from a cultural point of view, were virgin soil to the Russians. * 'Statistical Abstract,' p. 101, PRIMARY EDUCATION NEGLECTED 185 In consequence of all this, the primary schools in India can grow but slowly, nor do they flourish to the same extent in all parts of the country. In Bengal, where the English influence is of the longest standing, there were in 1871-72 only 2,451 primary schools, with 64,779 scholars. In 1874-1875 there were already 16,042 schools, with 360,322 scholars ; in the year 1883 there were 63,897 schools, with 1,181,623 scholars ; in 1890-91 60,342 schools, with 1,215,629 scholars;* and in 1901-02, 98,388 schools, with 3,271,379 scholars.! From this we see that the education of the lower classes makes slow though steady progress ; and this is not so much the fault of the narrow-mindedness of the English, but rather of their misconceived ideas. They had hoped that the light of education would be distributed of itself from the higher to the lower stages of society. For some time the notion also prevailed in Western lands that, as the rising sun first illumines the mountain-tops, and afterwards sheds its rays into the valley below, so also in society the light of educa- tion travels from the higher down to the lower classes. In our days, of course, people are thoroughly cured of this fallacious notion. It has been convincingly proved that education should be founded upon the broadest possible basis, and in no case be dependent upon the heads of society. It was owing to this erroneous view that the promoters of education in India paid far less attention to the primary schools than to the middle- class and higher schools. In the middle-class schools, which include the secondary schools and colleges, English is spoken, and the education there given quali- fies the student for the Universities, provided he can pass the entrance examination. During the decade * ' Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the Year 1901-02 and the Nine Preceding Years.' Thirty-eighth number, London, 1903, p. 318. t W. W. Hunter, ' The Indian Errpire,' p. 566. 186 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA 1891-92 to 1901-02 the number of secondary schools increased from 4,872 to 5,507. Colleges, the training- places for the Intelligence Department and the official world, are more like the Scottish and German Universities than the English. They stand under the supervision of a Principal, several Professors, and a Moulvi or Pandit, which latter two give religious instruction. The colleges and special schools are establishments in which those who want can take degrees in medicine, law, or art, or can be trained for teachers, engineers, mechanics, technologists, etc. The number of students frequenting these schools rose during the decade just mentioned from 16,753 to 29,471.* The Universities, which are devoted more to examination than to education, are five in number at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay (incorporated since 1857), Lahore, and Allahabad. The entrance examination stipulates for a knowledge of Eng- lish, one classical or one national language, history, geography, mathematics, and physics. The average age of the candidates must be from sixteen to eighteen. Between the years 1872 and 1892 about 7,159 students have graduated, some obtaining the B.A. and some the M.A. degree, t and between 1897 and 1902 6,605 can- didates have passed the B.A. degree, and 605 the M.A. degree. J We must not omit to mention the schools of the Roman Catholic and Protestant missions, which principally occupy themselves with elementary educa- tion. In 1890 the combined number of pupils attending these schools exceeded 300,000. The number of natives who annually attain academical titles and honours increases from year to year. Thus, at the Calcutta University, in the course of ten years, 55,610 candi- dates have applied, 55*6 per cent, of whom were suc- * ' Statement exhibiting,' etc., p. 310. t The same, p. 315. J W. W. Hunter, p. 564. HINDU AND MOHAMMEDAN STUDENTS 187 cessful, and at the University of Bombay, amongst 32,120 candidates, 32*4 per cent, were admitted.* Of course, it is not so much the thirst for knowledge as the desire to make a living which brings so many appli- cants to the Universities. Yet anyone acquainted with Asiatic conditions cannot help being surprised at the change which has taken place in Indian society, where the spirit of antagonism, both in matters of nationality and of religion, is much more strongly developed than in any other part of Asia. In the public institu- tions of Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the United Pro- vinces, the Punjab, the Frontier Provinces, the Central Provinces, Burma, Assam, and Berar, the number of Hindu students attending the schools far exceeds that of the Mohammedans, for the public establishments of the various provinces return 2,779,455 Hindus, as against 731,837 Mohammedans. This can, in a manner, be explained by the fact that the Mohammedans are far more suspicious of the influence of foreign culture than the Hindus, whose religion has no definite dog- mas and regulations, and who therefore cannot receive regular religious instruction ; while to the Moham- medan all knowledge is centred in religion, t and he declines to be taught by those of another faith. We would not infer thereby that school learning is more developed among the Hindus than among the Moham- medans ; on the contrary, the number of illiterates is * Sir John Strachey, p. 256. t By 'knowledge' was always understood religious knowledge. But modern Mohammedan scholars maintain that history, mathe- matics, chemistry, medicine, etc., were also included in this rubric. Speaking from personal experience, this is not the teaching of the Medresses of Persia and Central Asia, which are still imbued with the spirit of antiquity. Beyond rhetoric, jurisdiction, and grammar, there is no trace of any worldly erudition in any of the colleges of these two countries. Possibly it may have been different in past ages ; other- wise it would be difficult to account for the brilliant results in the exact sciences, which we still admire, in the old Mohammedan school. i88 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA far greater among the Hindus than among the Moham- medans, for the smallest Mohammedan community has always a school connected with the mosque where special stress is laid upon the reading of the Koran and the elementary doctrines of Islam, but as regards general knowledge very little is taught. Among the Moslems of India, as I pointed out before, the same severely orthodox-fanatical spirit prevails as in Central Asia, and they, in contrast to the Moslems of West Asia, will have nothing whatever to do with the prin- ciple of the Bidaat (innovation), and consequently have opposed the civilising influences of the English far more strongly than the Hindus have done. The Russians also have had very unpleasant experiences in this respect, for, in spite of their strictly absolute form of government, they have not yet dared to intro- duce European branches of learning in the richly- endowed Medresses of Central Asia. It would be difficult to imagine a Talebe (college student) in Turkestan pursuing his theological and Moslemic studies, and being induced to take up any subject introduced by the hated Kafirs. ' Necessity knows no law,' says the proverb. The Moslem element in India, deprived of its political in- fluence and its many centuries of sovereignty, has at last been compelled to give in, and in these latter days to accept modern views of life. The fact that the number of Hindus, who through the modern school education have attained to eminent positions in the service of the State, increases year by year, and that the Moslems are gradually being pushed into the background, has decided the latter to forsake their policy of contempt and defiance, and during the decade between 1891-92 and 1901-02 the number of Mohammedans who have applied for tuition in modern sciences has decidedly increased, chiefly at the instigation of their own patriotic co-religionists, men NATIVE PROMOTERS OF EDUCATION 189 who have realised the danger and the evil of a too rigid conservatism and a constant defiance, and have encouraged their countrymen to accept the new con- ditions. Amongst these promoters of European know- ledge we would mention in the first place Newab Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur, C.I.E., who in 1863 founded the Mohammedan Literary Society of Calcutta, and through this society endeavoured to bring his co- religionists more into harmony with the English inno- vations and to convince them of the necessity of acquiring European learning.* This society, whose founder died in 1893, still exists. There the political, religious, and social questions of the day are freely discussed, and the measures of the Government openly praised or disapproved. The Medresse of Calcutta, founded by Warren Hastings, served as basis for the society. Until then instruction had only been given there in the subjects usually taught in Moslem estab- lishments, but now, at the instigation of Newab Abdul Latif Khan, the English language and European sub- jects of learning have been introduced. Not only in Calcutta, however, but also in other parts of Moslem India, the Newab exerted himself in founding colleges amongst others, those of Dacca, Chittagong, and Raj- shahi and in collecting donations by means of which two-thirds of the school fees of the Mohammedan scholars could be covered, t All the endeavours of the patriotic Moulvi show that his object was to im- prove the social condition of his fellow-believers, to * I have corresponded for many years with this learned Indian Mohammedan. At first we corresponded in Persian, but afterwards he made use of the English language, and without exaggeration I can say that he had the most perfect knowledge of the writings of Milton and Shakespeare. f ' A Full Report of the Proceedings of the Meeting in Honour of the Memory of the Newab Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur, C.I.E., held at the Town Hall, Calcutta, on Friday, 'August n, 1903.' Calcutta, 1893, p. 50. 190 reconcile them to the English supremacy, and to insure their willing assistance in the government of the land. Before all things he wanted to induce his compatriots to learn the English language, and in a memorandum dated December 26, 1861, he expresses himself in the following manner on this subject : ' If any language in India could lead to the advancement in life of the learner, it is the English. At the same time, the political benefits, both to themselves and to the Government, which have resulted from the Mohammedans learning English, are many and apparent. The Mohammedan who has been edu- cated in English can understand the good motives of the Government. He knows the power, intelli- gence, perseverance, and resources, of the British nation. His attachment to the Government rests on a firm basis. He cannot be misled, and no one will attempt to mislead him. He knows that the safety of life and property depends upon the stability of the British rule, and will naturally resent any attempts by his ignorant and misguided countrymen against that stability. He will do his utmost to persuade all within his influence of the benefits of the British rule ; and where his representations of those benefits fail, his representation of the power of government might deter them from evil designs against it.'* These sentiments, expressed four years after the Sepoy Rebellion, clearly point out the relation between English and natives, and are a proof of the Moulvis appreciation of the English methods of civilisation. Of a similar nature was the work done by Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, a distinguished Mohammedan of North India, who on account of the objection of the Mohamme- dans to the Christian schools, advocated the founding of * 'A Minute of the Hooghli Mudrussah,' written at the request of the Hon. Sir J. P. Grant, K.C.B., Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, by Moulvi Abdul Luteef Khan Bahadur. Calcutta, 1877, P- 3- UNIVERSITY OF ALIGARH 191 a Mohammedan college, in which the English language and modern sciences should be taught by Moslem Professors, in order to enable the Mohammedans to enter the official world. Thus, notwithstanding the opposition and the suspicion of the fanatics, the Mohammedan University of Aligarh was founded. Supported by the English Government and by the Nizam of Hyderabad, this purely Mohammedan institution, where, besides the Mohammedan subjects, modern sciences are also studied, materially con- tributes to the education of the faithful. These latter are, in Sir Seid Ahmed's opinion, the more necessary as the future of the Moslems in India is quite hopeless unless they make themselves familiar with European culture. He saw clearly that even after a hundred years of English occupation there was but little sympathy between the Moslems and the English, and that only by enlightenment and culture could friendly relations be cultivated.* With a yearly expenditure of 6,000, in 1902, about 500 scholars attended the college, and this result is the more important when we consider that it is in North India, the home of the warlike and irreconcilable Moslem element, where this assimilation with modern culture is taking place. When Lord Lytton, in 1877, laid the foundation-stone of a new college in Aligarh, Sir Seid Ahmed said, in his address to the Viceroy : ' At my time of life it is a comfort to me to feel that the undertaking which has been for many years, and is now, the sole object of my life has roused on the one hand the energies of my own countrymen, on the other has won the sympathy of our British fellow - subjects and the support of our rulers ; so when the few years I may still be spared are over, and when I shall be no longer amongst you, the college will still prosper and succeed in educating my countrymen to have the same affeo * Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., p. 263. i 9 2 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN INDIA tion for their country, the same feelings of loyalty for the British rule, the same appreciation of its blessings, the same sincerity of friendship with our British fellow-subjects, as have been the ruling feelings of my life.'* Besides the Mohammedan University of Aligarh, the Moslem Educational Conference owes its existence to the noble efforts of Sir Seid Ahmed. This associa- tion was organised for the purpose of enabling the Mohammedans to meet every year to discuss social reforms, to foster a friendly feeling between the Moslems of India, to spread knowledge, and to show the English Government that the enlightenment of the Mohammedans and the establishment of British rule in India can go hand-in-hand, t In the course of this work we shall have further occasion tp quote the expressions of appreciation of various like-minded Mohammedans, but for the present the references here given will suffice to convince the impartial reader that the cultural influence of England in India has at last stirred the inherent conservatism and fanaticism of Islam, and that the spirit of reform shows itself in India more strongly than in any of the politically independent Moslem States. * Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., p. 266. f Compare the article in the Asiatic Quarterly Review for April, 1901, entitled ' The Nineteenth Century and the Mussulmans of India,' by Sir Khuda Bukhsh. CHAPTER VI RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THE value of work is generally judged by its results, and therefore, after explaining the nature of education in India, we will now proceed to consider the results thus far obtained. We must particularly notice the momentous changes which manifest themselves in the thoughts and actions of the Hindus of both religions, and which we may take as the natural consequence of their education. English critics, on the whole, con- sider the results of the education movement in India unsatisfactory, and Sir John Strachey maintains that, as regards the college system of education hitherto adopted, a feeling of disillusionment and disappoint- ment prevails, and that the report of the Commission of Investigation appointed by Lord Curzon is, on the whole, not encouraging.* If the members of this Com- mission were dealing with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or with public schools such as Eton and Harrow, they might be justified in their feeling of disappointment. But Hindus are not yet Englishmen ; between the two lies the deep gulf of a different con- ception of life many centuries old, which is only just beginning to be bridged over by thin and delicate threads of modern culture. This being so, and the free intercourse between English and Hindus being thereby naturally impeded, it is not fair to say that it is the fault of the school * Op. tit., p. 259. 93 13 194 RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM system that Indian students do not more readily take to scholarly pursuits, but mainly learn for the sake of making a living ; that their knowledge is at best but superficial, and that none of the natives educated at any of the Indian colleges thus far have distinguished themselves in any special branch of learning. No, even at the risk of appearing plus catholique que le pape, and more English than the English themselves, I cannot allow this reproach to pass, for the simple reason that, to my mind, one must not compare these schools with Oxford and Cambridge, but rather with such institutions as the Rushdie and the Idadie schools of Turkey, the College of Galata-serai, and the Dar- ul-funum (University) of Teheran schools which are all under the supervision of their own co-religionists and countrymen, and where, although for many years instruction has been given in modern branches of learning, thus far no brilliant specimens of scholarly Turks and Persians have been produced. With us in Europe also, in accordance with the ruling spirit of the age, a far greater number of men study in order to make a living than for the love of the study itself, and it is, therefore, not surprising that this is the case in India, where a State appointment always appeals far more strongly to the character and aspirations of the natives than the less brilliant, though perhaps more lucrative, position which commerce and industry offer. I have known few Orientals who have not preferred the security and the respectability of a State appoint- ment to the probable wealth to be acquired in commercial pursuits. As time goes on the existing system of education may possibly show greater and more important results, but for the present we must be satisfied with the indirect influence exercised by the schools, and the results obtained by the unceasing efforts of the English in developing the native mind. Wonderful results, indeed, have already been PAPERS PUBLISHED 195 achieved in the process of intellectual evolution, and in regard to this we would first draw attention to the literary movement which has taken place in India during the last few decades, and which shows the influence of the ruling foreign element. According to the statistical returns of 1878, the number of books published in English and in various Indian dialects amounted to 4,913, of which no less than 2,495 were original works, while the remainder were treatises of a religious, poetical, dramatic, scientific, philosophic, or moral nature. In 1883 the number of publications rose to 6,189, and in 1890 to 7*885, 5,507 of these being original works, 1,622 repro- ductions, and 756 translations.* In the face of these facts, why should one speak of literary sterility ? Far be it from me to designate these original productions as first-class intellectual achievements ; but on the other hand I would not speak disparagingly of them, for it is certain that Western Asia, which is politically independent, cannot show anything like such good results. And this applies also to the publication of daily newspapers and periodicals. In 1892 there were published in India 576 newspapers and 330 monthly and weekly periodicals ; in 1900 the number of the former had risen to 675, and of the latter to 465.! When we consider that some of these papers as, for instance, the Bengal Gazette have as many as 20,000 subscribers, one can form some idea of the influence these papers must have upon the public. Sometimes the position taken up by the press may not be altogether convenient to the English Government ; for in Indian journalism the so-called ' Revolver Press' (press conducted by rowdies) is not quite unknown, and as early as 1835 Lord Macaulay advised that a stop should be put to the outcries of Indian journalists. * W. W. Hunter, 'The Indian Empire,' pp. 571-573- f 'Statistical Abstract,' p. 117. 132 196 RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM The British feeling of liberty, however, resisted such censure, and it was only under Lord Elgin that measures were taken to repress those licentious writings which encouraged rebellion and incited the people against the Government. Nevertheless, we find to this day in the Indian press expressions and comments, concerning the actions of the Government, for which in Germany their authors would be con- demned to at least three years' imprisonment, and in Russia to a ten years' exile to Siberia. A people which, as far back as human knowledge goes, has languished in the bonds of the most cruel tyranny, whose every expression against the Government at once met with the severest punishment, might easily abuse the privilege of liberty of speech and writing so suddenly granted. When we read the data of Hindustani literature carefully collected by the French scholar Garcin de Tassy,* we may well be surprised at the great number of newspapers, reviews, and independent works, published in India in the seventies of last century. We are also struck by the licentious and often rebellious spirit which pervades these writings. We come upon such publications as the journal Khairkhah Alem (Friend of the World), pub- lished at Delhi, in which Christianity is attacked ; or, again, the paper Nur-ul-Enwar\ (The Light of Lights), which frankly and openly attacks the English and scoffs at every attempted reform, especially at the reformatory measures of Seid Ahmed Khan. Another Frenchman, the learned B. St. Hilaire, in the Journal des Savants\ expresses the opinion that the most con- * In a special appendix, entitled ' La Langue et la Litte'rature Hindustanie,' of the Revue Annuelle, edited by Garcin de Tassy, this learned French Orientalist has for many years discussed the literary movement in Hindustan. f The above review of 1873, p. 34. J See the June, July, and August numbers, 1875, of the above review. INFLUENCE OF THE PRESS 197 elusive proof of the progress of modern civilisation in India is the constant appearance of new publications, and the favourable reception which they find among the natives. If this success of the English is recognised by the French, what, then, must be the impression of the impartial observer, whose object it is to compare the relative merits of the press of India with that of Turkey and Persia ? In the former country the press is fettered by the most severe censure, and in Persia, so far, no newspaper worthy of the name has seen the light. In India the written word generally carries more weight and is more highly esteemed than with us in Europe, and far from attaching too much importance to the daily press, I cannot help pointing out that in Asia generally, and especially in India, the press exercises a far profounder influence than in Europe, and if properly managed might do much good work. In refer- ence to this, I would mention the Indian journalist Dr. Sambhu Muckerji,* founder of the periodical Reis and Rayyet (Prince and Peasant), who could serve as a pattern to many of our journalists for intelligence, knowledge, and nobleness of character. When I look at the portrait of this genuine Oriental in his national costume, and read his correspondence t with the leading personalities of the Anglo-Indian Govern- ment, my astonishment is unbounded. This Brahmin Hindu quotes our authorities on history, philosophy, theology, politics, and natural science, as if he had received his education at one of our best Universities, and had for years moved in the society of our most * See ' An Indian Journalist ; being the Life, Letters, and Correspond- ence of Dr. Sambhu C. Muckerji, late Editor of Reis and RayyetJ by F. H. Skrine. Calcutta, 1895. t Dr. Muckerji corresponded with prominent Englishmen residing in India, such as Sir Auckland Colvin, Colonel Osborn, Lord Dufferin, Sir Donald M. Wallace, Sir Lepel Griffin, and others ; also with many celebrated Hindus, such as Sir Salar Jung, Sir T. Madhava, Rao, Babu K. M. Ganguli, Nawab Abdul Latif, etc. 198 prominent intellects. My relations with India have also led me into correspondence with this man. In one of his letters he discusses the future prospects of India, and, speaking of the relationship between Hindus and Mohammedans, he says: 'My ideal is to form a nation by a harmonious social fusion of the two component parts of the population under the British Crown, which has given us such a strong and equitable government as we would never hope to form ourselves ; which has advanced us to a new life and is daily improving us ; and which I devoutly pray will keep us in hand until the time comes, under God's providence, when we are in a position to help ourselves.'* Of course, all Indian journalists do not speak in this strain, and some, more especially in Mohammedan papers such as the Moslem Chronicle indulge in very strong expressions against the English regime, and eulogise the depraved and cruel mismanagement on the banks of the Bosporus. Press opinions of this kind, although not actually dangerous to English prestige, nevertheless mislead public opinion ; they hamper the work of reform, and a stricter supervision of such literary activity might be profitable both to the Sovereign and to his subjects. Besides the sudden flight taken by journalism in India, several scientific publications claim our un- divided attention, and we may confidently say that nowhere throughout the Islamic world is such lively energy displayed as in India, under the protection and encouragement of the English Government. Foremost in this respect are always the controversies upon religious questions, and the animated polemics between the followers of the Christian and the Mohammedan faiths and between Christianity and Brahminism. Next comes Belles-lettres, under which * ' An Indian Journalist,' p. 308. NATIVE SCIENTISTS 199 head many works upon history and other subjects of universal interest may be classed some in English, and some in the native tongue and which are fully discussed and criticised in the daily press.* What most strikes people acquainted with the literary activity in the western portions of the Islamic world is the unconstrained language of Indian authors. They are not afraid to extol their own religion above that of their rulers, and under the very eyes of the Christian missionaries continue to propagate the doctrine of Mohammed. There are also many works published in the English language which are of universal scientific interest. To this latter category belongs 'The Spirit of Islam,' by Seid Amir Ali, a work written upon strictly scientific principles, and in which it is maintained that the doctrine of Mohammed, like every other religion, is full of salutary counsel and instruction, and that the disregard and the neglect of these doctrines has caused the downfall of the Moslem world. Of a similar tendency are Seid Amir Ali's ' History of the Saracens,' Moulvi Abdur Rezzak's ' History of the Barmekides,' and the valuable essay of Professor Shibli of Aligarh, almost every page of which testifies to the influence of European culture.! Among the non-Moslemic scholarly works, mention should be made of Dosabhai Frangi Karaka's 'History of the Parsis,' an exhaustive account of the history, ethnography, and religion of this remarkable people. Further scientific works by Indian natives are Rajendra Lala Mitra's ' Indo-Aryans,' a valuable con- tribution to the archaeology, art, and ancient customs * Very instructive in regard to this matter is the list of books published by Garcin de Tassy in his Revue Annuelle of 1877, pp. 24-34, which gives us an insight into the literary activity of the Hindus. f Compare Sir Khuda Bukhsh's article, ' The Nineteenth Century and the Mussulmans of India,' in the Asiatic Quarterly Review for April, 1901, pp. 285-293. 200 RESULTS OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM of India ; Jogendra Nath Bhattacharys' ' Hindu Castes and Sects,' which book compares favourably with Risley's, Wilson's, and Sherring's works on the same subject ; and a large number of other publications, which enrich our knowledge of the country and the inhabitants of India, and for which we are indebted to the cultural influence of England. Not uninteresting are the literary productions of Hindus who have travelled in Europe, and who criticise our life in the West, our institutions, and our international relations. The oldest work on this subject is ' Travels in Europe and Asia,' by Mirza Abu Talib Khan,* written in Persian, and published in Calcutta (1812) by his son Husein Ali. The author has a sound judgment on European affairs, and is not afraid to speak out his mind. A much more modern spirit breathes in the pages of Bhagvat Sinh Jee'sf book of travels. He is the ruler of Gondal, and a remarkable specimen of the influence of English culture in India. This Prince visited the Medical School of Edinburgh, took his doctor's degree there, and now rules at home upon strictly European principles. I have before me the annual report of his administration, which contains interesting data of the continuous progress of civilisa- tion in his small dominion. Still more pregnant of this apprehension of modern culture is an essay published by Sir Salar Jung, the first Minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad, in the October number (1887) of the Nineteenth Century which contains highly interesting statements on the part of a refined Oriental statesman. The personality of Sir Salar Jung as regards his education, patriotism, and political insight, can only be compared with that of Reshid * Abu Talib Khan commenced his journey in 1799, and returned in 1803. t 'Journal of a Visit to England in 1883,' by Bhagvat Sinh Jee, Thakor Sahib of Gondal. Bombay, 1886. NATIVE VISITORS OF EUROPE 201 Pasha, the first reformer of Turkey. In the history of modern Persia we seek in vain for his equal. Emiri Kebir* truly has his patriotism and honesty, but lacks his culture. To this short list we would only add Lala Baijnath's 'Travelling Sketches/ 1 containing interesting and critical remarks upon England and Europe in general, to which we shall have occasion to refer again. There is no lack, either, of distinctly anti-English and anti-European publications as, for instance, the anonymous work called ' Looking-Glass/t in which England and everything English is censured with bitter hatred. * Emiri Kebir (the great Emir), also called Emiri Nizam the Reformer, was the only man of modern times who could have helped the unfortunate country. Nasr-ed-din Shah was foolish enough to have him executed at the instigation of the harem. f The title of the book is, 'England and India; being Impressions of Persons and Things English and Indian, and Brief Notes of Visits to France, Switzerland, Italy, and Ceylon,' by Lalla Baijnath, B.A., of the N.W.P. Judicial Service. Bombay, 1893. } The title of this book is, ' Looking-Glass for my Poli- Comedy Actors in Europe ; being a Personal History of an Indian's Tour from Moscow to Birmingham, (i) Journey homewards from London to Ceylon. (2) Journey outwards from Bombay to Europe.' Bombay, 1891. The title-page bears no name, but the letters are signed Dr. K. R. Viccarji. CHAPTER VII CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS THE cultural endeavours of England in India, more especially as regards the care bestowed upon the school system, undoubtedly bear the character of a two-edged sword ; the enforced culture is considered sometimes even by the promoters of freedom and enlightenment as somewhat premature, injurious, and even dangerous. But, I ask, could England, the representative of true Europeanism, the interpreter of liberal ideas, of order and of law, the apostle of enlightenment and philan- thropy, have acted, or have dared to act, differently ? And our answer must be an emphatic No. This opinion is shared by all who know something of the ignominious, miserable condition of humanity in the East, both in the past and in the present. Not only we Europeans, but most Asiatics also who have thoroughly investigated the conditions of modern Europe, who have become acquainted with the spirit which animates our society, and have appreciated the tendency of our moral and material existence all these are of opinion that an amelioration in the unfortunate state of the Ancient World is only possible by means of education, by a gradual transformation of the anti- quated principles of Asiatic views of life, and by over- ruling the pervading prejudices and ignorances. To some the experiment may appear too bold a venture, but England, in order to uphold its national character and its role of culture-bearer in Asia, has been compelled to 202 MORAL SENSE RAISED 203 undertake it ; and if the undaunted policy hitherto adopted is persisted in, England need have no fear as to the final result. As the case now stands i.e., con- sidering the small percentage of children who attend the schools as compared with the enormous mass of the populace we realise that only a small and feeble attempt has thus far been made. And yet even this small beginning is encouraging and promising. We distinguish as yet only a few stars in the pitch-dark night, but these stars shine and throw a comforting glow over the path of the future development of things. It may be true that the optimistic views advanced by the Anglo-Indian School Commission in their report of 1883 have been illusory, and that the results thus far obtained are far below our expectations. But the views of life persisted in for centuries cannot be changed with a turn of the hand, and the Hindu, whether of Moslem or Hindu faith, can certainly not be changed, as by a deus ex machina, into a regular European. It is something to be able to say, of the genera- tion brought up under the English system, that if not in an intellectual, at any rate in a moral sense it favourably distinguishes itself from its predecessors. It is this moral side of the character of the neo-Hindu which promises so much. It is not a feature often seen amongst West Asiatics brought up in European civilisation. It seldom shows itself among the Turks, Arabs, and Persians, and it is the absence of moral principle which has shipwrecked all attempts at civilisation in the western Islamic world. Strictly conservative Orientals, and also fanatically inclined Europeans, think that with the entrance of our culture the primitive virtues of the Asiatics have been destroyed, and that the uncivilised Oriental was more faithful, more honest and reliable, than the Asiatic educated on European principles. This is a gross error. It may be true of the half-educated, but not of 204 CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS the Asiatic, in whose case the intellectual evolution is founded on the solid basis of a thorough, systematic education. It cannot be denied that partial education is often the fate of Orientals brought up in our large cities ; but these half-educated persons, who after their return to Oriental society constitute themselves the bitterest enemies of Europe, can never be of any account as an influence in the evolution of culture ; everywhere they will be superseded by the earnest- minded students of our modern civilisation. This point is best demonstrated by the fact that the Anglo-Indian Government has of late years entrusted the adminis- tration of the great Hindustani possessions for the greater part to natives, and that, apart from the very highest offices, which are but few in number, the 3,700 State offices, with the exception of about 100 to which Europeans are appointed, are filled by native Hindus.* It is first of all in matters of jurisdiction that the natives distinguish themselves for fairness, impar- tiality, and intimate knowledge of affairs ; and this applies more particularly to the courts of appeal and the civil courts of justice, which almost everywhere are in the hands of native judges. So great is the integrity of these neophytes of modern culture that an Englishman, in case of a dispute with natives, places implicit confidence in the decision of the Asiatic judge. The confidence thus shown by the conqueror in the justice of the subjugated natives is without parallel, and the same may be said of the liberality with which the services of these native judges are rewarded. The salary of a judge in the court of justice at Bengal is 3,200 per annum ; that of a lower judge varies from 480 to 800 ; while that of the lowest class of native judge varies from 160 to 320. Comparing these emoluments with those of the judges in Algiers, we find that the first President of the Court of Appeal has * Sir John Strachey, ' India/ etc., p. 83. NATIVE OFFICIALS 205 a yearly allowance of 720, the others at most 400, and the justices of the peace only 108 to 160 and a furnished house. Of the natives of Algiers none are fit to occupy the judge's office, and the Arab officer of the law receives a salary of 60 per annum. The natives of India are also strongly represented in all civil offices, as tax collectors, overseers, and such-like, which offices used to be reserved for those connected with the so-called 'Covenanted Civil Service.'* Native Hindus frequently occupy positions as solicitors in municipal administration, in educa- tional establishments, and in subordinate places in the provincial administration, as well as in the Depart- ment of Public Works, in which the students of the technical schools can generally find employment. The fact that England can allow the natives of India to take such an active part in the government is chiefly due to the care bestowed upon the schools, and even England's bitterest enemy cannot accuse the Government of narrow-mindedness when one con- siders that in the Legislative Council of the Viceroy, native Hindus and Mohammedans take part, and that their votes often have a preponderating influence upon the administration and upon the foreign and home politics of the country. England has sometimes been blamed because thus far no native has ever been appointed as Governor of the provinces or as Com- mander of the army. But this criticism is, in existing circumstances, unreasonable, for it would be unjust to expect the Hindu to possess the same ability, the same strength of character, and the same energy, as an Englishman, and if on no other ground than that of the difference in their nationality, religion, and caste, * According to the duties imposed upon this class of officials, they were not allowed to enter into any mercantile undertaking or to take presents. They had to pay board and lodging for themselves and their families, besides many other obligations. 206 CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS one could scarcely imagine a warlike Sikh or Pathan taking his orders from an effeminate Bengali. England surely does enough when the native, after the ability and merit have been fully proved, is admitted to all kinds of State offices. As we said before, the greater number of official positions in India are given to Hindus ; but the highest administration and super- vision must remain in the hands of the English them- selves, to insure the peace and prosperity of the country. Do the French in Algiers and the Russians in Turkestan act differently ? Would not the Alge- rians and the Turkestanis consider themselves for- tunate indeed if they had in the management of the country even a small proportion of the part that the Hindus enjoy under the English administration in India? In our consideration of the civilising influences of the English upon the natives of India, what strikes us most forcibly is the spirit of freedom and nationality which, by their energy and unflagging patriotism, they seem to have inculcated upon the Oriental mind ; a spirit very seldom found among genuine Asiatics, but which in India is coming to its full right under the energising influence of the foreign master. In the first place we see industrious undertakings increasing day by day, and with them the number of workmen employed therein, and this is seen in a land where three-fifths of the population are agriculturists, and altogether dependent upon physical influences, and where the progress of industry cannot be too highly commended. The objection might be raised that the old native arts and industries have been doomed to destruction by the foreign importations, but it must not be forgotten that under the native governments of Turkey and Persia a similar falling- off is noticeable, for the thousand-handed European factories have everywhere crippled the native indus- NATIONAL PRIDE OF NATIVES 207 tries. Hindus, who formerly lived in the strictest seclusion, now go in search of work all over the world,* and in the decade 1891-92 to 1901-02, 174,494 Hindus emigrated ; and the number of Hindus abroad is estimated at the present time at 625,000, not including those Indians who, as merchants, have settled in Europe, Egypt, America, and Australia. The restless activity of the English, their patriotic zeal and strong sense of nationality, has entered into the spirit of the Hindus, and this Western character- istic has even left its traces upon the inhabitants of West Asia. The present-day Hindu boldly takes up the cudgels in defence of his ancient culture, and, in proportion as his self-esteem grows when he reads how our learned Sanscrit scholars glorify his ancient literature, he now becomes easily provoked to anger whenever anyone attacks his religion and his history, or dares to doubt the superiority of his ancient culture. As Lala Baijnath says in defence of his religion, 4 As properly understood, as originally propounded, Hinduism is not at all hostile to progress among its followers, nor does it retard their national evolution/f so also the Mohammedans avail themselves of every opportunity to show the superiority of the doctrine of their Prophet, and they do it with greater zeal and ability than their fellow-believers under the govern- ments of politically independent Moslem Sovereigns. When Renan accused Islam of neglecting the cultiva- tion of worldly sciences, and said that the excellence of Moslem intelligence had been greatly exaggerated, it was not the Mollas and Khodjas of Turkey, not the * The places specially frequented by the Hindus are Mauritius, Natal, Demerara. Trinidad, Surinam, Fiji, Jamaica, East Africa, Ceylon, and the Straits Settlements. See on this subject the ' State- ment exhibiting,' etc., under the head ' Emigration and Migration,' pp. 320-324. f See p. 184 of the above-quoted work. 208 CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS Akhonds and Muchtehids of Persia, nor the Ulemas of Turkestan, but the Moulvis of India, who attacked the French scholar and took up the defence of Islam. Since England will not denationalise the Indian peoples entrusted to its sovereignty, as Russia does, whose object it is to amalgamate all the foreign ele- ments under its sway into the national body, the attempts at nationality of the Hindus and Moham- medans in India are to a certain extent encouraged by the British Government ; for the glorious monuments of Indian architecture are as far as is possible pro- tected and preserved,* and thanks to the care of the English many of the valuable literary works of ancient Hindu Mohammedan authors have been saved from oblivion by republication.t And this resuscitation is not limited to secular writings ; many theological works are also included. All this eloquently testifies to the fact that the Christian conquerors are tolerant in questions of religion, and this must have a beneficial influence upon the Asiatic mind. Tolerance and philanthropic institutions cannot fail to make a good impression upon the innate con- servative spirit of Orientalism. All the changes which in the course of the last few decades have taken place in India, in political as well as in social concerns, must surprise anyone who has any previous knowledge of the conditions of Asiatic society. In India, where * A brilliant example of this trust is given in the ' Report of the Archaeological Survey of Western India,' by E. Thomas, and in the valuable studies of James Fergusson about Indian architecture. f Some of these publications are : Soyuti's ' Exegetic Studies of the Koran'; Tusi's 'History of Shiite Scholars'; Ibn Hadjar's 'Bio- graphy of the Companions of Mohammed' ; Wakidi's ' History of the Conquest of Syria by Mohammed ' ; Tabakati Nasiri's ' History of the Medieval Dynasties of Persia and Central Asia'; Tarikhi Firuz Shahi's ' History of the Sovereign of Bengal of this Name, 1351-1388'; Tarikhi Baihaki's ' History of Sultan Mesud, the Son of Mahmud Ghaznevi,' and many others. INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS 209 formerly the most cruel despotism reigned, where no one ever dared to raise his voice against the Sovereign, where every kind of insult, cruelty, and oppression, was meekly endured in this same India, under the title of Indian National Congress, a kind of Par- liament is formed in which Hindus and Mohammedans discuss the interests of India and its administration, in a manner which for boldness of expression does not come far behind the language of Parliamentary oppo- sition at Westminster, and freely criticises the laws, ordinances, and regulations of the Anglo -Indian Government. This Parliament, first opened in 1885, is supported by prominent Hindus, such as W. C. Bon- nerjee, K. T. Telang, Bedreddin Tayabchi, Firuzshah, Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji, the venerable Pandit Ad- judhia Nath, and many others, who have freely ex- pressed their opinions there, and, as is said in the newspaper reports, 'in pure classical English,' with arguments and proofs which would do honour to the best Parliamentary speaker at home.* To give the reader some idea of the tendency and the aspirations of the Congress, we give here by way of example the principal items for discussion during one of the sessions. The members of the Congress in Allahabad desired i. The enlargement of the Provincial and Imperial Council : half of the members to be elected from the upper classes, the educated, the merchants and land- owners ; the other half to be appointed by the State. 2. The introduction of competitive examinations for State officials in India and in England ; the maximum age of candidates to be twenty-three. 3. The separa- tion of legal and administrative offices. 4. The appointment of a commission to inquire into police matters. 5. Permission for natives to join the volun- * Compare ' The Indian National Congress.' Session at Allahabad, December, 1888. Impression of Two English Visitors. London, 1889. 14 210 CHANGE OF NATIVE MORALS teer corps. 6. Revision of the liquor laws i.e., limita- tion. 7. Exemption from the income-tax for the poorer classes. 8. An increased expenditure for educational purposes, more especially for the technical schools. 9. Appointment of a Royal or Parliamentary Commission to inquire into the government of India, both England and India giving evidence. What would the Russian or the French Govern- ment say if Sarts or Kabyls were to put forward demands such as these ? Nay, more, what would be said on the shores of the Spree if the Liberals were to bring such requests before their Government ? The Anglo-Indian Administration has so far put no diffi- culty in the wa}^ of the annual meetings of the Congress ; on the contrary, it has rather encouraged them, although amongst the members of the Congress there are some who owe title and rank to the English Government, and ought therefore not to appear in company with the ' malcontents.' Truly, this liberal movement, this Parliamentary procedure* and respect for the existing laws of the land, from a society which hitherto has languished in the bonds of the most cruel slavery, and to which until lately the words ' liberty ' and ' self-government ' were unknown, must be a marvel in the eyes of all unprejudiced beholders. When I recollect the state of servility, weakness, and patient endurance of so many Asiatic countries, I cannot adequately express my surprise when I see how the * What deserves special attention is the neutrality and moderation observed both in the written and verbal descriptions and polemic of the different parties, which are so often neglected by the politicians of the cultured West. I have before me many writings referring to the Congress, from which I would specially select the two following : (i) ' Open Letters to Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, K.C.S.I.,' by the son of an old follower of his, Lajpat Rai of Hissar. Reprinted from the Tribune. (2) 'Sir M.E. Grant-DufFs Views about India, by Dadabhai Naoroji.' Reprinted from the Contemporary Review^ August and November, 1887. ENLIGHTENED ASIATICS 211 spirit of liberty has taken hold of the Asiatic mind, and what changes the cultural influence of England has wrought in India. One must read the intelligent, cultivated speeches of these Moulvis, Rajahs, Seids, Pandits, and Sheikhs one must realise the intimate knowledge these genuine Asiatics have of the details of the history of the various European States, how they freely quote the pithy sayings of classical antiquity and of modern days, and how they embellish their language on the principle of our modern philo- sophers and thinkers, to understand and to justify my surprise. The Congress movement may displease certain Englishmen or be inconvenient to them,* but the fact that culture and liberal ideas in so short a time have been able to take such hold of the Asiatic mind deserves to be acknowledged as the greatest triumph of British influence. * In certain circles the separatist, revolutionary tendencies of the Congress are attributed to a desire for a kind of ' Home Rule, 1 of which, however, there is not sufficient evidence, and I believe that Lord Dufferin is right when he says : ' Indeed, so obviously impos- sible would be the application of such a system [Home Rule] in the circumstances of the case, that I do not believe it has been seriously advocated by any native statesman of the slightest weight or impor- tance.' Preface of Dadabhai Naoroji to the pamphlet ' Audi Alteram Partem ; being two letters on certain aspects of the Indian National Congress.' Simla and London, 1888. 14 2 CHAPTER VIII NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE ANYONE reading the conclusion of the preceding chapter, with its enthusiasm at the effects of English culture in India, might possibly think that in my simplicity I accept everything I hear in good faith, and that in the educated Hindu of to-day I see nothing more or less than a regular European gentle- man ; that I picture to myself the wide region between the Soliman Range and Cape Comorin, and from Beluchistan as far as Siam, as a district totally and absolutely transformed in manners and customs and ways of thinking. Against such a reproach I am bound to protect myself. After many years of intimate acquaintance with the reform movement in the Moslem world of West Asia ; after watching the painfully slow and laborious progress of Western innovations and improvements, it would hardly be possible for me to conclude from the actions and expressions of a Bengali Babu, or of accomplished English-speaking Moulvis, that the radical transformation of the entire confused conglomerate of Hindustani peoples was thereby practically achieved. No, indeed, the realisation of this possibility is far ahead yet. I am fully aware that all that has so far been done in India is limited to the heads of society, that the light of culture as yet only illumines those who have been educated at the colleges and Universities, but that the great mass of the people 212 CHANCES OF TRANSFORMATION 213 are still wrapt in the thick veil of ' Asiaticism.' It could not possibly be otherwise, considering the short time that the light has shone, the immense difference be- tween the old and the new world notions, and the strong conservative character of the Oriental in general. What has been accomplished is, as a matter of fact, no more than preparatory work, a clearing of the ground, and a modest attempt here and there as preliminary to the great work of civilisation. In some parts where the ground was ready the seed has been sown, but whether it will grow and yield fruit depends entirely upon the adaptability of the human material to civilisation, and upon the skill and patience of the civiliser. As regards the former, the results thus far obtained are a certain guarantee that the Hindu, whether he be Vishnu worshipper or Mohammedan, does not resist, and is not incapable of a cultural transformation ; and as regards the second, the re- nowned perseverance and patience of the British insure future success. Many are the symptoms which justify us in drawing these conclusions. What Europe has not been able to accomplish in Western Asia after centuries of exhortation and coercion, the English have accomplished in a few decades in a land where greater difficulties were in the way, and where more stones and weeds in the form of old prejudices and suspicions against the foreign conqueror hindered the task of preparing the soil. It is of the highest importance to realise that the present-day Hindus I mean the leaders of society are not only convinced of the advantages of Western culture, but also of the good intentions and the abso- lute fairness of their British masters and teachers ; and in spite of the unpleasant consequences which neces- sarily follow the transition stage, there is comparative quiet in the land, and the experiments of civilisation do not rouse anywhere in India such violent resistance 2i 4 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE as in other lands of Islam. Numerous proofs of this fact may be found in the expressions of natives in refer- ence to the actions of England in India. A few of these, emanating from liberal-minded men belonging to the opposition, we will quote in illustration. The former member of Parliament Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, in his reply to the remarks of Sir M. E. Grant-Duff, says : 4 If there is one thing more than another for which the Indian people are peculiarly and deeply grateful to the British nation, and which is one of the chief reasons of their attachment and loyalty to the British rule, it is the blessing of education which Britain has bestowed on India. Britain has every reason to be proud of, and to be satisfied with, the results, for it is the educated classes who realise and appreciate most the beneficence and good intention of the British nation ; and, by the increasing influence which they are undoubtedly exercising over the people, they are the powerful chain by which India is becoming more and more firmly linked with Britain. This education has produced its natural effects in promoting civilisa- tion and independence of character a result of which a true Briton should not be ashamed, and should regard as his peculiar glory.'* Another Hindu, Lajpat Rai, also a member of the oppositon and ardent de- fender of the Indo-national aspirations, says amongst other things : ' The natives of India are no longer, with very few exceptions, ignorant or uneducated. The rays of education are penetrating and shedding their wholesome light inside most Indian homes ; hundreds of thousands of Indians are as well educated as any average English gentleman, and we see scores of our countrymen every year crossing the " black waters " to witness with their own eyes the proceedings of the great British Parliament, and * Sir M. E. Grant-Duffs ' Views about India,' pp. 3, 4. EUROPEAN CRITICISM 215 personally familiarise themselves with the political institutions of the British nation.'* The Hindu judge Lala Baijnath, who in his proud patriotism prominently brings forward the services which old Indian culture has rendered to Europe, and for which Europe owes India a debt of gratitude, says : ' It is, however, on the side of India that the advantage has been greater, and she cannot feel too grateful to Providence for Great Britain being her ruler. Without peace and educa- tion two of the greatest blessings which Britain has conferred upon her she could not have hoped to keep pace with other nations in the race for progress ; and her gratitude to her present rulers for awakening in it high and noble aspirations regarding its evolu- tion cannot be too deep.'t Many other testimonies of a similar nature might easily be given, but we confine ourselves to a few. John Stuart Mill, who is not particularly enthusiastic about the English methods of administration in India, says : ' The British government in India is not only one of the purest in intention, but one of the most beneficent in act, ever known among mankind.'! Among the non-English authorities whose opinion is of weight we would mention in the first place Prince Bismarck, who in his usual peculiarly striking manner expressed his views about the doings of England in India. He says that if England were to lose all its intellectual heroes of the past, what it has done for India would be enough to render its name immortal, The Austrian diplomatist Baron Hiibner, in his ' Travels in India,' says that the native Indians have such unbounded faith in the justice of the English that they give preference to the English judge above their own native judge. No less flattering is the * ' Open Letters,' etc., p. 5. t * England and India,' op. cit., p. 229. \ Sir John Strachey's ' India,' p. 502. 216 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE opinion of the French author Paul Boell, when he says: 'Je crois que, tout bien considere, 1'Angleterre traite ses sujets d'autres races plus humainement, avec plus de justice et de moderation, que nous ne le faisons nous memes. L'Algerie et 1'Indo-Chine, pour ne citer que nos colonies les plus avancees, seraient assurement fondees a envier le regime politique de 1'Inde.'* This is confirmed by Sir John Strachey when he relates how the inhabitants of certain villages, who were to be transferred from the control of the English to that of one of the best-ruled Indian Feudal States, were quite inconsolable about the change, f Of course, side by side with this glorification of the British regime in India, there are among the natives many also who raise their voices in dissatisfaction and condemnation ; and this should not surprise us when we recollect that the Government by its liberal gift of public education has raised an intellectual power which at any moment may rise in opposition against its benefactor. We have already noted that the number of Hindus, graduated at the various col- leges and Universities, increases year by year, and that it is impossible to find official appointments for the mall. The number of mahiventi aed malcontent^ therefore, has proportionately increased also. For some time these politicians from amongst the Hindu scholars have made speeches at the congresses and conferences, and of late years some Mohammedans have joined their ranks. The manner in which these hungry Exaltados express themselves about adminis- trative measures, and the way in which they criticise the police, the taxation, the schools, etc., and introduce in their speeches, always founded upon strictly con- stitutional principles, the latent longing for self- * Paul Boell, ' L'Inde et le Probl&me Indien,' p. 303. t The same, p. 504. 217 government, is highly characteristic.* In all these utterances the strictest loyalty is outwardly observed. Prominent English politicians are presented with addresses of devotion and gratitude, and personal attacks are scrupulously avoided. It is chiefly political questions which are thus discussed, for even the bitterest opponent of English rule would find it hard to censure or to ignore the blessings of the humane institutions established under English sovereignty ; and even in questions where they touch somewhat roughly upon sore points, they find it difficult to pronounce an unqualified adverse judgment, and to designate the English influence as fans et origo mali. t We will specify one of these complaints. It is a well-known fact that the Indian people are very abstemious as regards spirituous drinks, and in- dulgence in strong drink is chiefly confined to the lowest class of people, but even amongst them the condition is such that in England it would be con- sidered a millennium of sobriety.* The desire for drink, in the strict sense of the word, is practically unknown in India, for while in England there is one public-house to every 242 people, in India there is one * Similar speeches are made not only in the congresses, but also in the provincial conferences. I have before me a writing entitled ' The Report of the Proceedings of the Bengal Provincial Conference held in Calcutta on the 25th, 26th and 27th October, 1888,' which gives a graphic picture of the nature of these assemblies. t It is very strange, and much to be regretted, that there are Englishmen who incite the natives of India to opposition, and who even sometimes take the lead in the movement. The laurels won by Mr. Digby and his confreres are not enviable. Instead of serving liberal or humane ends, these proceedings check the progress of reform, the more so as the natives imagine that the English are their fellow-sufferers, and that their extravagant demands are just and reasonable. % Sir John Strachey's ' India,' p. 168. 218 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE public-house to every 2,400 people.* This proportion is not unknown to the investigators of our cultural influence in Asia and Africa. We know that with the advent of the Europeans, alcohol and gambling have spread rapidly, and it appears, from a report addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, that the sale of spirituous liquor, with a population of 167,405 souls, has risen in one year from 5,131 to 25,904 bottles, t This, however, does not prove that among the con- sumers there may not be more Europeans than Asiatics. When, moreover, the English are accused of mercenary motives, and of winking at the increase of drunkenness for financial reasons ; when it is argued that the Excise has risen since 1870 from 1,250,000 to ;3937ooo> it is generally forgotten that this increase in the duty is caused by the improved management of affairs, and by the suppression of the distilling and selling of spirituous liquor without a license, while the existing distilleries have been taxed at an ab- normally high rate. The increase of the Excise duty is therefore no criterion of the increase in the con- sumption among the natives. Nor is it just, on the ground of the above figures, to draw comparisons between India as it is now and India as it was under the government of its native Princes. To begin with, we have no reliable data to go by with reference to these matters in early times, and, besides, in India, as everywhere in the East, although the number of con- sumers may be smaller, the quantity consumed is much greater than under corresponding circumstances in Western lands. In the modern society of the Moslemic East, I have found that all consumers of spirituous * Among the Turks, Arabs, Persians, and especially among the Central Asiatics, the proportion is even better, only that with the latter the use of opium and other opiates, such as cocaine, hashish, bang, etc., has become popular. t ' Report of the Proceedings,' etc., p. 73. COMPLAINTS OF THE NATIVES 219 drink are drunkards i.e., that they go on drinking until they are quite intoxicated also that delirium tremens potatorum was far more common amongst the Moslem Princes and grandees than with us in Europe.* The masses have always distinguished themselves by great temperance, and the same may also be said of Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia. If the Anglo-Indian government had done no more than attempt to stop the spread of drunkenness among the lower classes of society an attempt which has never been made by the Russians in Turkestan we should look upon this as a creditable and disinterested work, and one for which the government should be praised rather than blamed. There is also a good deal of mischief done for which the English administration is not directly responsible, but which is the unavoid- able result of the transition stage of one culture into another. And this applies chiefly to the confused ideas of house-keeping of the modernised Hindus. They want to imitate European luxury, and in so doing go too far and involve themselves in debt. Many neophytes also are found fault with because they praise everything that comes from Europe, and despise the advantages their own culture offers, f As regards other vexed questions, these concern chiefly such points as the taxation, the share taken by the natives in the administration of the land, certain police regulations, and the laws and restrictions re- lating to private life. Liberal concessions necessarily create a growing desire for more freedom. No wonder, therefore, that the present-day Hindu considers the number of natives appointed to official posts in India * The Koran prohibition regarding the Muskirat i.e., spirituous drinks is circumvented by bringing these under the rubric of Iladj (medicine) ; otherwise it would be incredible that pious Sovereigns, without giving offence, could freely indulge in the habit of drinking. f Compare ' England and India,' by Lalla Baijnath, pp. 232, 233. 220 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE too small, that he requires a wider sphere of action and more license, forgetting that no conqueror has ever made greater concessions to a subjugated nation than England has done in India, and that for the highest offices of State it is not only a question of confidence, but also of ability. In relation to this, we must not forget the existing animosity between the different nationalities and religions, and that peace and order can only be maintained where the highest offices are filled by Englishman, whose neutrality puts a stop to all mutual rivalry. In order to increase their influence in the councils of the Viceroy and of the pro- vincial Governors, the Hindus desire a larger number of members to be elected, and at various congresses the wish has also been expressed to abolish the mili- tary restrictions, and to facilitate the entrance into the army. In short, the spokesmen of the Hindus behave very much like the Opposition party in the English Parliament, but with less chance of success ; for India has not by a long way reached that stage of culture when a representative body can adequately plead the cause of various nationalities, all requiring different treatment, and the foreign ruler is not yet in a position to neglect certain precautions which have been found imperatively necessary for the success of the in- augurated reforms and for the preservation of the peace and prosperity of the country. Culture in general is making progress in India, but when among nearly 300,000,000 people only about 2,000,000 have made themselves acquainted with the medium to acquire this culture (the English language),* and so * In accordance with Sir John Strachey's data (' India,' etc., p. 256), there are 386,000 Hindustanis capable of speaking English. Lord Dufferin, on the other side, in his speech delivered in Calcutta before leaving India, remarked that the number of English-speaking Hindustanis amounts to 2,000,000. The best and most reliable information regarding this matter is furnished by the official report of ENGLISH HAUGHTINESS 221 long as the percentage of those who attend the schools as compared with the mass of the populace remains so insignificantly small at it is now, no very great success can be expected to attend the efforts of the native congresses and conferences. When, in my ardent desire to investigate the mutual relationship between English and Hindus, I inquired among the latter what their views were on this subject, two points particularly offensive and wounding to the native pride were generally advanced, and the settling of these seemed eminently desirable to them. In the first place they complained of the strictly official tone, the ice-cold treatment, and the exclusive position, of the English officials. This galls them. Whether he be Hindu or Mohammedan, the better-class native has always been accustomed to the patriarchal methods of Oriental officials, and as a Babu, Pandit, and Moulvi (of a Zemindar or Talukdar I will not even speak), consider themselves far superior to the European officials, it naturally vexes them to be treated by the latter de haut en has. If the Hindu is somewhat boastful of his racial and caste privileges, the English- man is a great deal worse when, in opposition to these pardonable Oriental weaknesses, he parades his British national pride and higher Western culture. The polished Englishman may experience some difficulty in associating on familiar terms with the Asiatic, who in colour, dress, customs, and general views of life, belongs to quite another world of culture. But the ruler must stoop to his subject if he would raise him to his own standpoint and teach him better things.* I 93 (P 3 I2 )> in which the total number of the English-learning students during the last decennium is said to have risen from 388,650 to 440,686 ; and considering this increase, we may well assume that the number of English-speaking Hindustanis is more than 2,000,000. * Concerning this question a most remarkable paper has been pub- lished by Mr. C. W. Whish in the July number of 1903 of the Imperial 222 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE Much has yet to be altered both in England and in India in order to effect that mutual approach, and in this respect Queen Victoria set an example which cannot be sufficiently taken to heart. In her palace at Osborne there was a reception-room fitted out entirely in Indian style ; she had an Indian Munshi (secretary) always in attendance, from whom the noble lady in her advanced age learned Hindustani, and the Rajahs and Indian nobles who attended her public recep- tions were the objects of quite exceptional distinction. So long as the chasm which until now separates the Sahib and Memsahib* from the native is not bridged over, so long there can be no question of a fundamental reform. If there be anything which might serve the English as an excuse for the lack of intimacy in their intercourse with the natives, it is the rigorous law of the caste system in India, which absolutely prevents unrestrained intercourse and familiarity. The member of one caste associates only with his fellow-members ; all the rest of the world are strangers to him and first among them, of course, are the foreigners from the West, from whom he is separated by language, customs, and religion, and with regard to whom he entertains, in addition, a certain amount of suspicious reserve, a common feature in the intercourse of rulers and subjects. This reserve I have noticed everywhere in Asia, for the power and the interference of the and Asiatic Quarterly Review, entitled ' The Indian Problem of Social Intercourse.' The author, many years ago active as Civil Officer, is of the opinion that all preconceived notions about the foibles of the natives ought to be given up. It would be desirable to arrange festivities where Englishmen and natives could meet in friendly inter- course, and that in England, too, meetings should be arranged for those natives who visit the country, in order to facilitate the intercourse between the two elements. * 'Sahib' is an Arabic word, and means 'master,' and ' Memsahib' is an abbreviation of ' Madam Sahib.' CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES 223 West fosters a feeling of fear rather than of affection and confidence. The second thorn in the eyes of the Hindu are the Christian missions, in which they fear the danger of falling away from the old faith, and of denationalisation. In India the Government is accused of secretly favouring the missionaries Hindus have often told me so ; but this is not the case, for official England makes no difference between the various sects and religions, and if the missionary stations receive Government support, they do so merely as establishments of public instruction, by which the general public is benefited. As regards the usefulness of the missionaries, opinions differ even in England. Some hold that their activity may be instrumental to convert Mohammedans and Hindus to the Christian faith, although the results so far obtained are not very encouraging. In the year 1830 there were nine Protestant missionary societies in Ceylon, India, and Burma, with the result of 27,000 converts, and in 1870 there were no less than thirty- five societies at work, and the number of converts was 318,363, a figure which is hardly worth mentioning as representing Christian supremacy over a gigantic region of nearly 292,000,000 heathen.* Others, again, are of opinion that the conversion of Mohammedans and Hindus is a hopeless task, not justifying the tremendous costs connected with the work. It has been calculated what is the price in pounds sterling of every hair on the head of every Hindu convert, and it is further stated that the formality of baptism is looked upon by the natives as a lucrative business. According to Sir John Strachey,f the Christian natives of India are only Christians in name, and are not respected either by the Europeans or by their own compatriots. European culture has exercised a considerable influence * ' The Indian Empire,' by Sir W. W. Hunter, p. 317. t Op. tit., p. 312. 224 NATIVE CRITICS OF BRITISH RULE over the Hindu without making him a Christian. With the Mohammedans the task is still more difficult. It is chiefly the people of the lowest castes the so- called pariahs who come to be baptised. But as everywhere, so here also the truth lies midway. Missionaries are valuable as representatives of our culture in the East, so long as they serve humanity, maintain schools and hospitals, and give unquestion- able evidence of the philanthropic intentions, the tolerance, and the impartiality, of the Christian West over those of another faith. In this respect the missionaries are creditable apostles of humanity, and fully deserve our admiration and recognition. But it is different as regards their attempts to convert Mohammedans and Hindus to Christianity. The Christian religion may in the beginning have borne many traces of Asiaticism ; but in its further develop- ment it has decidedly adapted itself to Western views, and as an amalgamation of Aryan and Semitic ideas, as Seeley expresses it,* it has become a European religion par excellence. As such it is a development foreign to the Asiatic mind ; a faith which does not coincide with his tastes and conceptions of life, and an anonymous author in the Contemporary Revieiv is about right when he concludes his instructive article, entitled 4 Islam and Christianity in India,' with the remark : ' Mohammedan proselytism succeeds in India because it leaves its converts Asiatics still ; Christian prosely- tism fails in India because it strives to make of its converts English middle-class men. That is the truth in a nutshell, whether we choose to accept it or not.' * ' The Expansion of England,' p. 278. CHAPTER IX THE EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM FEEBLE and dull are the sparks with which, in the foregoing pages, I have endeavoured to illumine the cultural activity of the English in India ; but I believe that, unpretentious as my efforts are, they will suffice, not only to give a general idea of the work done by England in India, but also give us an insight into the future development of things. The question arises, 1 Will the English be able to carry on the work success- fully, and what shape and form will the inaugurated reforms and innovations take in the future ?' It is generally admitted that, in any process of evolution, the first start stamps its further development, and that this influence may be traced throughout the whole process unto the final result. This view is fully justified as regards the cultural transformation of a society, provided that, in our inquiries about the various phases of the work, we are properly in- structed as to the mental capacity, general fitness, and natural proclivities, of the social body which has to be reformed. In India, as I have shown, we are brought face to face with two problems in sharp contrast to one another, on account of their religious, historical, climatic, and ethnical peculiarities problems in which no common standard of procedure can be adopted, in which an amalgamation or identification of the hetero- geneous factors can never be anticipated. Just as the confused mass of people in India cannot be compressed 225 15 226 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM within the framework of one common nationality, so it is impossible to bring their ethical disposition and their cultural existence under one and the same law. On the ground of their religion we may divide the people of India into two classes Hindus and Moham- medans but even then we have to reckon with the divergences proceeding from the differences of climate and soil, and we have to take all these various shades into account. That the English in the cultural methods hitherto adopted have not paid enough attention to these shades of difference, and, indeed, were unable to do so, is excusable ; although from the very first it was clear enough that the same treatment, applied to various conditions, led to quite dissimilar results. The Hindu, whose faith is as it were an accidental conglomeration of sects, genealogies, hereditary pro- fessions, and castes, as Sir Alfred Lyall * expresses it, does not impede the influence of foreign culture in the same way as Islam does. There is no doubt about it that the Hindus have shown themselves much more accessible to the English innovations than their Mussulman compatriots. In spite of the darkest superstition, in spite of the omnipotence of the Brahmins and the most obdurate conservatism, the Hindus have at an early date drawn near to the English, attended English schools, and accepted English posts ; while the Mohammedan remained insolent and sulky, and in secret shook his fist at the oppressor, and would have nothing of the infidels of the Far West. We have pointed outf how great is the percentage of Hindu scholars in the colleges of India as compared with the Mohammedans ; consequently the number of Hindu officials in English service is and always has been proportionately larger than that of the Moham- * 'Asiatic Studies,' p. 2. Quoted from Sir John Strachey, p. 286. t See p. 187. MOSLEM AND HINDU STUDENTS 227 medans.* It cannot be maintained that the Hindu is more intelligent, more gifted, than the followers of the doctrine of Mohammed ; but the Hindu is less hampered by his religion. The Mohammedan often spends his whole youth in religious study, and while the young Hindu occupies himself with learning English and modern European sciences, his Moslem companion sits at the feet of the Moulvis in the Medresses, and devotes all his intellectual powers to the Arabic tongue, Koran exegesis, and theological subtleties. Hinduism, which has no settled dogmas and ordinances, has a less disturbing influence in public life than Islam ; for the severe separatist usages, which in food and in social intercourse with those of another faith should act as a check upon the every-day life of the Hindu, are not very strictly observed by the better-class people, from which the neophytes of modern culture are mostly recruited. The barrier between Hindus and English was therefore sooner broken down, and assimilation has become easier; for experience teaches that the Hindus have not been held back by the fear of losing caste or of violating old customs, but have been in lively intercourse with Western lands for many years. They have crossed the ' black waters ' and visited Europe, and even allowed the religious influences of the West to touch them, as exemplified in the religious reform of Brahmo-Somajf and Prar- * Sir John Strachey says, with regard to this, on p. 261 of his often- quoted book : ' As a rule, the share of the Hindus in public employ- ments much exceeds that of the Mohammedans.' From an account of the school attendance of Mohammedans, it appears that during the forty-five years since the foundation of the Universities, among the 32,613 graduates, there were about 1,700 Mohammedans, a little more than 5 per cent. ; at the University of Madras they only constituted about i per cent. (The Times of India, March 26, 1904). t The chief idea of this sect is that Brahmanism, as well as Christianity, has in course of time lost its primitive purity, and that an amalgamation of the most useful doctrines of these two religions might be profitable to mankind. 152 228 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM thama Somaj. True, we cannot yet speak of a solid, deeply-penetrating civilising transformation of the Hindu, the contempt which rests on the Bengali Babu will not disappear so quickly ; but on the path of progress the palm of superiority decidedly is his. With the Mohammedan of India, so many and such weighty matters have to be taken into consideration in passing from one culture into another, that with the best will in the world and this will is generally wanting he always has to fight against heavy odds, his religion, his antiquated views of life, and his historical past. For centuries the Mohammedan has occupied a commanding position in the land. On account of his religion a religio militans in the strictest sense of the word he imagines himself possessed of a certain amount of authority over the infidels; and to fight, and if possible to subjugate, the unbelievers became, according to the statutes of the Koran, a duty, and a pleasant duty. After carrying the victorious banners of Islam deep into the interior of the land, and establishing its power over the followers of Vishnu, it must necessarily have been hard, not only to see him- self robbed of his authority, but also to see how the laws and ordinances to which he owed his former power and prerogative were being shaken and over- ruled. Herein lies the chief cause of his long, per- sistent holding aloof from the English conqueror, and his stubborn opposition to every innovation and change in his intellectual life and daily habits. 1 Kulli muminin ihwa ' (All true believers are brothers), says the Koran ; and there is no practical difference in the way of regarding these innovations and reforms between the Newab, Mir and Moulvi of India, and the Mirza and Efendi, or the Molla and Akhond, of the Western Islamic world. If amongst the latter i.e., amongst the Moslems of the West the same set purpose and energetic measures had prevailed as in THE FUTURE OF MOHAMMEDANS 229 India, many things would now be quite different in Persia and Turkey ; but as England could not and dared not slacken in its cultural efforts in India, the Moslem element under English dominion had to bend under the yoke, and was obliged to submit to such reforms as now distinguish it favourably from the rest of its fellow-believers in the West. The Moham- medans of India I mean the heads of society are now more cultured, more enlightened, more patriotically inclined, and at the same time stancher adherents of Islam, than their Turkish, Persian, and Arab co- religionists and equals in rank. This they owe ex- clusively to the influence of the English. The question now is, How long and in what direction will this pro- gressive movement continue ? in other words, Will the advantages derived from modern views of life and the acquirement of modern sciences make the Moham- medans of India so strong that under the shield of their historical prestige they will attain once again a political superiority, and thus become dangerous to the English ? This question is worth considering, although it has so far attracted but little attention. For the present, of course, the transformation of the Mohammedans of India is carried on by compulsion ; for the poverty of the once powerful and now power- less class has forced them to submit. Possibly nay, probably the desire for reform will increase with them, and their progress in the near future may be more noticeable than it is at present. Yet I doubt whether this will come about entirely of their own free will ; it will take long to convince the Mohammedans of the superiority of our Western culture. The spirit of Islam, as described by the learned Seid Emir Ali in his 'The Spirit of Islam,' does not oppose general reforms, scientific investigations, or the introduction of certain innovations ; but even if it makes the most liberal concessions, Islam is, and always will be, an 230 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM Asiatic product, which never can become altogether European. The Mohammedans of India, judging from the specimens we now see, will always contrast favourably with half-Europeanised Turks, Arabs, and Persians ; for English education does not confine itsell to outward polish, but enters deeply into the soul. The Mohammedans of India will penetrate more deeply into the details of our world of culture than their fellow- believers of the West, who speak French, and in adopting the European mode of dress think them- selves the ne plus ultra of modern culture. As belonging to an aristocratic class, they may in time excel their Hindu countrymen in earnestness of study, without as the Japanese, for instance, have done altogether conforming to the Western model and relinquishing all the proud reminiscences of the glory of Islam. We see this in the constant secret agitation against the intentions of such reformers as Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, Newab Abdul Latif Khan, and others, and also in the tendency of the thus far harmless Pan-Islamic Society. Not long ago the question whether Moslem India should be looked upon as a Dar-ul-Islam (Home of Peace) or as a Dar-ul-Harb (Home of War), and whether it was not a duty to keep at enmity with England, was a subject of lively discussion, and is even now not quite settled.* * This question has led to many lively controversies both in and out of India, and, as is usual with matters of such elasticity, everyone decided in accordance with his personal sympathies or antipathies. Of special interest to us is a discussion of this subject in the meet- ing of the Mohammedan Literary Society of November 23, 1870. Moulvi Karamat Ali, a learned preacher of the Hanefite sect, gave an address in which he stated, on the basis of the ' Fatawa Alemghiri,' 1 that, according to the founder of the Hanefite sect, a Dar-ul-Islam only becomes a Dar-ul-Harb (i) when the laws of Islam become void under 1 The Mohammedan code of law (' Fatawa Alemghiri ') consists of six quarto volumes, and was compiled during the reign of Aurangzib by the learned Sheikh Nizam. THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION 231 Moreover, the constant coquetting with the Khalif at Constantinople as the spiritual head of the entire Islamic world should not be overlooked ; and if it were not for the fact, of which the cultured Hindus are fully aware, that the Osmanli State structure creaks in all its joints ; that it is hopelessly mismanaged, and that Turkey, therefore, is not much to be depended on, the brotherly relationship and the pan-Islamic community of interest would long since loudly and emphatically have been declared. In short, the cultural transformation of the Moslem element of India is one of the hardest problems which England has ever undertaken to solve. Yet England is bound to go on with the work once started and already in full swing. It is to be expected, from the steady perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon race, that it will gradually soften and mould the rough material and make it yield to its will. The greater the number of Moslems who by modern school education rise to eminence in the State, the greater and the more intense will become the desire, if only from a utilitarian point of view, for modern learning and academical distinctions. Sir John Strachey* said of a genuine Asiatic and pious Moslem like Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, that 'he was in every respect a thoroughly enlightened man, fully alive to the value of European knowledge and to the fact that unless the Mohammedans could accept the foreign dominion ; (2) when the Dar-ul-Harb is not near to any Moslem town ; (3) when neither Moslems nor Zimmi (non-Moslems) enjoy religious liberty. As, in the Moslem parts of India which have come under British dominion, none of these three conditions apply, India may not be looked upon by the Moslems as a hostile country, and the Djihad (religious war) should not be permitted. Compare lecture by Moulvi Karamat AH of Jounpore, on 'A Question of Mohammedan Law involving the Duty of Mohammedans in British India towards the Ruling Power.' Calcutta, 1871. * Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., p. 263. 232 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM results of Western civilisation there was no hope for them in the future. He felt that after a century of British rule there was still little sympathy between the Mohammedans and ourselves, and that nothing but the better education of his countrymen could bring the two into more friendly relations.' In view of this expression of opinion, it is surely justifi- able to believe that this conviction will in time penetrate to the other classes of society also, and in the end produce the desired effect. Of course this cannot be accomplished all at once, but will require time and peace. Time and peace are the vital conditions by which England's sovereignty in India stands. These two important factors, unless appearances are very deceptive, seem more secure now than even ten years ago, when many external and internal dangers, like dark clouds, blackened the sky of England's superiority in India. Which of these two dangers is the greater has often been made matter for discussion ; but when one looks at the position, with due regard to the causal nexus between the internal and external enemies, the internal condition of a con- quered land will be of far greater weight than any danger which may threaten from outside. In order to offer active resistance to the external enemy, internal peace must be secured, and this peace appears to us not to be at present endangered in India. The cul- tural success thus far attained has opened the eyes of all possible native adversaries, and convinced them that the presence of the English in India is absolutely necessary to the well-being and the prosperity of the national elements of the land. We do not speak in this strain under the influence of English opinions on this subject, but rather under that of the views entertained by non-English people and by natives who stand at the head of affairs and are able to judge of the internal conditions of their land. In 233 his anxiety for the welfare of his co-religionists, the patriotic and enlightened Sir Seid Ahmed addresses his fellow-countrymen in the following words : ' Sup- pose all the English were to leave India, who would be the ruler of India? Is it possible that under those circumstances Mohammedans and Hindus should sit on the same throne and remain equal in power ? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. You must remember that although the number of Mohammedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education, yet they must not be thought insignificant or weak. Probably they would be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they were not ? Then our Mussulman brothers the Pathans would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys. Like a swarm of locusts would they come, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier on the north to the extreme end of Bengal. This thing who after the departure of the English would be the conquerors would rest on the will of God. But until one nation has conquered the other, and made it obedient, peace could not reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proof so absolute that no one can deny it. ... Be not unjust to the British Govern- ment, to whom God has given the rule of India. And look honestly, and see what is necessary for it to do to maintain its Empire and its hold on the country. . . . Be not unjust to that nation which is ruling over you. And think also on this how upright is her rule. Of such benevolence as the English Government shows to the foreign nations under her there is no example in the history of the world.'* The French author Paul Boell expresses himself in a similar manner when * Sir John Strachey, ' India,' etc., pp. 500, 501. 234 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM he says : ' La question qui se pose n'est pas de savoir si I'Angleterre a le droit de conserver 1'Inde, mais bien plutot si elle a le droit de le quitter. Abandonner 1'lnde serait la livrer, en effet, a la plus effroyable anarchic. Ou done est le pouvoir indigene qui reuni- rait sous un sceptre unique hindous et musulmans, rajputs et marathes, sikhs et bengalis, parsis et chre- tiens? L'Angleterre a realise ce miracle.'* This declaration almost sounds as if the Frenchman had made a previous accord with Mohammedan scholars. We would add to this a remark of the same tendency of Sir Salar Jung, who, in the essay previously referred to, saysf : ' The enlightened classes in India recognise that the rule of England has secured us against incessant strife, involving a perpetual exhaustion of the resources of our communities, and also that by a just administration of equal laws a very sufficient measure of individual liberty is now our birthright. We have lost, as some think, our national liberties, which, after all, were merely the liberties enjoyed by despots to compel their subjects to make war on one another : this so-called " liberty " is denied to us ; but more than 240,000,000$ of us have now the right to live our own lives or what lives we please, and to be subject only to the control of a known, a written law/ etc. We should be indulging in false illusions were we to surmise that this Mohammedan valuation of the English rule in India is shared by the general public, and that no revolutionary sparks smoulder under the ashes. The fanatical, faithful Mohammedan of Hin- * ' L'Inde et le Probleme Indien.' Paris, 1901, p. 289. t See p. 197. J In the year 1888, when Sir Salar Jung wrote the essay here referred to, Burma, the Frontier Provinces, and Beluchistan had not yet been incorporated in the Indian Empire hence the present differ- ence in the total number of inhabitants. THE ANJUMAN ILMI 235 dustan, who in point of zeal does not even come behind his Central Asiatic brethren, does not so easily content himself with the rule of the unbelievers. We have just read that, in a sitting of the Anjuman Ilmi (Scientific Society) on January 3 of this year, the follow- ing motion was passed : i. The learned Mohammedans of India shall endeavour to oppose all innovations contrary to the Shariat (religious law). 2. The character of these innovations shall be communicated to the Mohammedans in a private writing. 3. The number of students attending the Universities for the purpose of learning modern sciences shall never exceed five per year. 4. The students attending the Govern- ment schools shall receive private instruction in the principles of religion and the characteristics of Islam. 5. The spread of maxims from the Koran by means of base tracts shall be strictly prohibited. 6. Preachers shall instruct the faithful in the commandments and prohibitions of the Moslemic faith in the Hindustani tongue. 7. Only Moslems acquainted with the Arab and English languages shall be allowed to instruct other Mohammedans. 8. Colleges can only be insti- tuted by the directors of the society. 9. The 200,000 rupees given by the rich merchants of Bombay for charitable purposes shall be used as a contribution to the building of the Hedjazline. 10. In order to im- prove the conditions of the Moslems of India, the library of the society shall be put in order, n. To encourage the study of sciences, arts and industries among the Mussulman population of India, the neces- sary means will be taken.* These various items contain much that points rather to a separatist tendency than to a closer agreement with the programme as proposed by the Government. * These points have been discussed in the Indian paper Al Bayan (Enlightenment), and I have taken this notice from the Turkish paper Turk of March 4, 1904, published at Cairo. 236 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM There may be other and stronger manifestations of the same nature of which we are ignorant, for, as has been already remarked, Islam is not easily mollified ; but taken as a whole the number of Indian Moslems who are in favour of the reform movement is on the increase, and, as ignorance and lack of culture are amongst the most dangerous enemies of England in India, the progress of enlightenment must swell the ranks of natives who are friendly disposed to England. When critics hostile to the English, speaking of the signs of loyalty among the Mohammedan population of India, express the opinion that England's power can only last as long as the hostility between Hindus and Mohammedans continues, and that an understanding between these two chief elements of the country would necessarily involve the downfall of British superiority in India, we would draw attention to one fact which is often overlooked. Difference of religion is of far greater importance and exercises a far more searching influence in the East, than difference of nationality does in Europe. With us in Europe the peculiarities proceeding from differences of nationality may in course of time become less distinct, or even entirely disappear, but in Asia the separation caused by reli- gious difference can never be bridged over, for in the East religion is life, history, character, patriotism in fact, everything. W T hen two circles of society entirely opposed to one another; who for centuries have lived in close vicinity yet in the most absolute separation ; with both of whom religion is the basis of all their actions and the vital point upon which everything turns, but who have no aspirations and not one single interest in common can anyone expect them to become reconciled and to work together towards one common end ? Even with us in Europe, where the age of faith has long since been supplanted by HINDUS AND MOHAMMEDANS 237 the age of intellect, such an amalgamation would be scarcely possible ; how much less, then, in Asia, and above all in India ! We do not deny that attempts are being made by certain political Exaltados to bring about a reconciliation between these heterogeneous elements. In the furthering of this object the Congresses show great energy, as do also such men as the Indian journalist Dr. Sambhu C. Mukerji, of whose loyalty there can be no doubt. In a letter dated December 10, 1889, he writes to me as follows : ' Perhaps I am an exceptional person who has always loved the Moham- medans as brethren, and has earnestly tried to interpret between Hindus and Mohammedans, and effect a union of heart between two peoples whose social and political interests in India are identical.'* Also Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, on the occasion of an address delivered at Gurdaspur on January 27, 1884, said: 'We [i.e., Hindus and Mohammedans] should try to become one heart and one soul, and to act in unison : if united, we can support each other ; if not, the effect of one against the other would tend to the destruction and downfall of both. . . . Hindu and Mohammedan brethren, do you people any other country than Hindustan ? Do you not inhabit the same land ? Are you not burned and buried on the same soil ? Do you not tread the same ground and live upon the same soil ? Remember that the words Hindu and Mohammedan are only meant for religious distinction ; otherwise all persons, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, even the Christians who reside in this country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation.' f After- wards the learned Sir Seid Ahmed Khan revoked the views expressed by him on this subject, and manifested * ' An Indian Journalist,' etc., p. 307. t 'Open Letters to Sir Seid Ahmed Khan, K.C.S.I.,' by the son of an old follower of his (Lajpat Rai of Hissar). Reprinted from the Tribune, p. 25. 238 EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM a strong opposition to the Congresses. But the Congress continues in its intentions all the same, although there seems little chance of ever carrying them out. When we see the hot conflict which rages year after year between Moslems and Hindus about the vexed question of the cow-killing,* and notice how deeply the followers of Mohammed despise the idol- worshippers and Ehli-Shirk, f we realise that a recon- ciliation or an understanding between Moslems and Hindus is an absolute impossibility. England therefore need not entertain any fear of possible danger arising from a union of these two religions, any more than the threatened revolutionary union between Turks and Christians has ever caused the Osman rulers one moment's uneasiness. All the endeavours of the so-called National Congresses, as regards the establishment of an Indian nationality, are chimeras, and have no more chance of being realised than an attempt to create now, at once, one united European nationality. The masses of national con- glomeration lying in different layers next or on the top of one another are not, and never were, one com- pact national body, or capable of uniting in common action and with combined efforts to attain any object, set before them. Again, in India of all places, the pro- motion of one universal interest is out of the question ; the land has always been a prey to greedy adventurers, has never been energetic enough to make a stand against them, and is not likely to be capable of doing * In Brahmanism the cow is a sacred animal, and whenever the Mohammedans kill a cow on the occasion of the Kurban Feast, this is a cause of animosity between the two religions. t Under idol -worshippers (Putperest or Medjusi) the Moham- medans include all religions which do not follow the four sacred books Koran, Torah, Gospels, and Psalms. Christians, therefore, do not come under the category of idol-worshippers, but they are desig- nated as Ehli-Shirk *'. 33 Emigration of Tartars from, 33 Interference in Asiatic Turko- Tartary, 35 et seq. opposed by the Kirghises, 43 pushes into Turkestan, 47 Reforms by, in Central Asia, 50 Self-aggrandisement of, 53 Purpose of railways, 53 Neglect of irrigation in Tur- kestan, 54 Evil effects of government in Central Asia, 54, 57, 61, 63 not a civilising influence, 55, 57 hostile to England, 60 Contemptuous treatment of Asiatics, 64 a failure in Central Asia, 66 Corruption of authorities, 68, 70 Chinese hatred of, 70 Asiatic hatred of, 75 Samarkhand merchants' ac- count of, 82 Sham loyalty to, 80-88 The Sarts amenable to, 89 et seq. Emigration into Turkestan, 95 Supremacy of, in Central Asia, 90 Turkestan a source of wealth to, 96 Annexation of Siberia by, 99 et seq. conquers Northern Siberia, IOO Population in North Siberia, 101 Sroselytises in Siberia, 102 ifficulties in Siberia, 103, 108, no, 112 enforces Christianity in Siberia, 105, 107, no Neglect by, of Vogols, Ugrians, and Ostyaks, 105- 106 Annexation of Siberia by, 114 Complete conquest of Siberia by, 114 Influence of, in Asia, 117 etseq. stayed the Tartar hordes, 118 INDEX 407 Russia continued Benefits conferred by, on Moslem Asia, 121 Lack of education, 121 not a civilising power, 124 Population in south frontier districts, 124 Limitations of, in Turkestan, 126 deliberately invaded Moslem countries, 151 Difficulties of, in Turkestan, 169 the rival of England, 240 Enemy of Mohammedans, 242 Blow to prestige of, 243 Enemies of, in India, 244 Contrast between Russia and England, 249 et seq. more Asiatic than European, 250 Greed of territory, 251, 252 hated in Asia, 253 Meanness of, 255 Faithlessness of, 256 not qualified to civilise, 257 dangerous to British in- terests, 258 Islam under protectorate of, 272 Tartar institutions in, 278 Efforts for liberty in Mo- hammedan Russia, 329, 330 Growing influence of, in Persia, 341 Tyranny of the Tsar, 358 in Central Asia, 369 in Anatolia, 375 Islamism cannot develop under, 378 Eastern frontiers of, 388 moving eastwards, 3bg Rushdie schools, the, 271 Ruznamie-Terbiet, the, 294 Rytchkoff, 42 Saadeddin, 349 Saadullah Pasha, 331 Sablukoff, Professor, 28 St. Hilaire, Barthelemy, 196 Salaries in India, 204 in Algiers, 205 Samarkand, 120 Schools and colleges in, 71 Sandeman, Sir Robert, 169 Sandjak, the, 328 Saracens, history of the, 199 Sarts, the, 39, 56, 61, 75, 76, 77, 89 Sarts, the continued Russian treatment of, 64 Russian opinion of, 90 amenable to Russia, 92 Neglect of religious observ- ances by, 92 Innovations among, 93 Sassanides, the, 293 Sati (Sutti), the abolition of; 161 Sattar Khan, 81-91 Schlagintweit, 2 Schliisselberg, 242 Schools in Turkestan, 71-72 Asiatic dislike of Russian, 76 The medical, 182 The Indian, 182 in Persia, 294 Schwarz, F. von, 47, 53, 61, 68 Seeley, Professor, 137, 224 Sefevides, the, 22 Sefides, the, 367 Seid Ahmed Khan, 190, 191, 196, 199, 231, 233, 237 Seid Ali, the Emir, 229, 283 Seid Azim Bey, 76 Seid Burhan, 25 Seid Hussein Bilgrami, 171 Selamlik, the, 273 Selim II., 12 Selim the Sultan, 302 SemenofF, 33 Semiryeche, schools in, 72 Sepoy Rebellion, the, 254, 264 Serai, the Princes of, 8, 10 Servia, 343 Servians, the, 291 Shah Ali, 24 Shah, Jehan, 139 Shah of Persia, tyranny of the, 305 Shamans, the, 18, 28, 316 Shamanism, 19, 36, 40, 102, 103, 107, 115, 249 Shark Rusi, the 279 Shehinshahs, the, 368 Sheikh Sharnil, 119 Sheref, the, 294 Sheriff of Mecca, 391 Sherifye, the, 158 ' Shewket,' 298 Shibli, Professor, 199 Shinasi Efendi, 322 Shintoism, 317 Shuiski, Prince, 14 Shurai Uminet, the, 328 Siasi, the Indian writer, 329 Siberia, 126 408 INDEX Siberia continued annexed by Russia, 99, 100, 114 converted to Islamism, 102 Conversions to Christianity, 103 et seq. Neglected Christians in, 106 Extreme poverty in, 107 English mission to the Biir- yats, 109 Geographical Society of, 109 Census of Moslems in, HI Ignorance in, 113 Higher education in, 1 14 Population of, 114 Size of, 114 Peace among inhabitants of, "5 The railway in, 1 16 Sidi AH Reis, Admiral, 140 Sikh war, the, 159 Silau, the, 68 Sirajia, the, 158 Sketches, travelling, 201 Skobeleff, General, 241 Skrine, F. H., 56, 77 Slaves, 119 Slavism, the progress, 131 Slavs, the, 15-16 of Eastern Europe, 7 Influence of the, 16, 17 Softa (Sukhta), 74 Soliman, the Sultan, 12, 302 Solowieff, the historian, 90 Sophia, the condition of, 343 Spain invaded, 313 ' Stari Kreshcheni,' 26 Starorusenikoff, Archbishop, 104 State treasury,' the, 297 Steamers, establishment of, 167 Steppe, the Famine, 54 The Hyrkanian, i The Kirghis, 17 K., the Tartars of, 35 Russian schools in the K., 36 Strachey, Sir John, 142, 144, 147, 150, 161, 162, 174, 193, 216, 220, 223, 227, 231 Strelzi, the, 164 Stryelzi, the, 17 Students, Hindu and Mohamme- dan, 187 Sultans, arbitrar}' power of the, 297 Sultan Soliman, 144 Sunbul Hanim, 289 Swiyask, the convent of, 27 Syr Darya, schools in, 71 Syrians, the, 291 Syrym Batir, 379 Tabut, the, 251 Tadjiks, the, 75 Taj, the, 276 Talib, Mirza Abu, 200 Tamil, 142 Tartars, the, 9, 15, 272, 277, 278, 329 The baptised, 22 The Crimean, 22 Islamism among the, 23 Christianity forced upon the, 23, 28 et seq. Return to Islamism of, 27 Russification of the, 28 et seq. Hatred of Russia by the, 31 Emigration of the, 32, 33 The language of the, 274 Progress among the, 361 Tashkend, 120, 152 The taking of, 35, 47-48 Streets in, 53 The prison of, 61-62 Coronation festivities in, 62 Difficulties in, 74 Russian schools in, 76 ChernayefPs assault upon, 82 Forced loyalty to Russia in, 86 Revolt against Russia in, 97 Tashkenetz (Tashkender), 58 Tassy, Garcin de, 196, 199 Taxation, contrast between India and England, 175 Taxes, the collection of, in India, 160 Tayabchi Bedreddin, 209 Teftazani, 348 Teheran, 294, 299, 300 Telang, K.T., 209 Telegraph system in India, 177 Telfer, 32 Temni (Vasili the Blind), 10 Terdjuman, the, 272, 277, 330 Terekmes, the, 119 Thag, the, 161 Thebau, King of Burmah, 255 Thibetans, the, 109 Tholozan, Dr., 301 Thomas, E-, 208 Timur-the mighty, 14, 350 Timurides, the, 22 Tippu Sultan, 136 Tobolsk, 99 A missionary centre, 1 10 Tolstoi, Count D. A., 30 INDEX 409 Torgut, 329 Tsars of Moscow, the, 8 Tunis, 286 'Turan,' 99 Turco-Tartars, the, 16, 21 Conversion of the, 18-24, 103 et seq. Turk, the, 275, 328, 343-45 345. 348 Turkenstanskiya wyedomosti, the, 81 Turkestan, 42, 47 et seq., 126 Cotton-growing in, 52 neglected under Russia, 53 Irngation in, 54 Failure of Russian Govern- ment in, 58 Cruelty of the Russians in, 61, 65 et seq. Miserly treatment of, by Russia, 63 Bribery in, 67 Russian venality in, 69 Schools in, 71, 72 Education system in, 73 Ignorance in, 77 Russian lady doctors in, 77 Russian lectures in, 78 Native poets on Russia, 83-6 Spread of the Russian lan- guage in, 93 Indolence of the natives, 93 Increase of the Russian popu- lation in, 94 Russian census in, 94 Fertility of, 95 Changes in, 120 Incomes in, 176 Railways in, 177 Education in, 184, 188 Number of Russians in, 254 Eastern, 389 Turkestan Gazeti, the, 81 Turkestanis, the, 64, 242 Turkey, 274, 298 The reform movement in, 287- 89, 292 Despotism in, 304 Decline of, 314 Literary refo'rms in, 322 Suppression of liberalism in, 322 A Parliament established in, 324 Suppression of the Parlia- ment, 325 Poverty in, 327 Liberalism quenched in, 327 National spirit crushed, 331 Turkey continued Hatred of Europe by, 344 The future of, 347, 364-65 No help given to coreligion- ists, 350 The press in, 357 The collapse of, 362 et seq. Attempt to be friendly with Persia, 368 Turkish language, the, 272-3 Turkmanchai, the treaty of, 368 Turkomans, the, 9, 118, 379 Turks, the, 12, 16, 23, 119 impervious to Russian civil- isation, 22 Number of, in Siberia, 101 Progress of the, 271, 274, 277, 279 'The Young,' 321, 327, 331 et seq. ' The Old,' 323 hated by the Arabs, 348 more cultured than the Per- sians, 349 The Volga, 361 Turquie libre, la, 328 ' Tuzemtzi,' the, 98 | TzybikofF, the traveller, 109 Ufa, 27 Ugrians, the, u, 16, 20, 22, 100, 103 Ulemas, the, 278 Universities in India, 182 Ural-Altaics, the, 7, u, 15, 34 Vajid Ali, 255 Valmont, I Varna, 343 Vasili the Blind, 10 Vasil Ibn Ata, 309 Velikhanoff, 113 Victoria, the Queen, 222 ' Vizier,' 304 Voguls, the, 101, 104, 105, 106, 115 of Pelyni, 106 Volga, Russification of the, 14 et seq. Vologda, the Archbishop of, 103 I Votyaks, the, II, 15, 19 | Wandewash, 136, 139 i Wakti-Seadet, the, 305 I War, the Crimean, 264 ! Weale, B. L. Ptitman, 70 i- Welikhanoff, Captain. 45 ; Wellesley, Lord, 181 \Welyaminoff, Zernoff, 23, 32 | Wereff kin, General, 39 4io INDEX Whish, C. W., 221 Widows, remarriage of Indian, 163 Witch, 273 Women, education of, in India, 183 Moslem, 272, 313 Turkish, 273 Wrewski, 59 Wyburd, 2 Yadrinzeff, N. M., 102, 106, iir, 112 et seq. Yakovleff, Y. P., 45, 113 Yamakowo, the village of, ITI Yanoff, General, 69 Yellow Peril, the, 395 Yermak, General, 98, 100 Yildiz, the, 328 Yussuf Izzeddin, 300 Zakaspiskoe Obozryenie, the, 120 Zakir-Jan, the Khokand poet, 85 Zamakhshari, 349 Zemindars, the, 160 Zend Dynasty, the, 367 Zia Pasha, 321 Zionism in Turkey, 380 Zolotnitzky, 30 THE END BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 23749 A 000 677 795 7 ^ ;