E
 
 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 IN KASHMIR
 
 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 IN KASHMIR 
 
 BY THE REV, 
 
 G. E. TYNDALE-BISGOE, M.A. 
 
 HEADMASTER OF SRINAGAR BOYS* HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 WITH FOREWORD BY 
 
 LT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL 
 K.C.V.O., K.C.B. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
 
 SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.4 
 
 1920
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 by Turntull&* Shears, Edinburgh
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 MR TYNDALE - BISCOE has succeeded in the 
 delicate operation of strengthening the moral 
 backbone of large numbers of boys in Kashmir, 
 and in these pages he recounts in a fascinating 
 way how this has been brought about. The 
 book shows how, through Scout methods in 
 capable hands, an effete race may be made 
 manly, healthy, and Christian. 
 
 If this can be done in a far land with a 
 foreign people, it gives boundless view of what 
 might be possible and ought to be effected by 
 the same means in our own great slum centres 
 in England. 
 
 We are too prone to forget that charity 
 has its greatest opportunity at home. Its 
 greatest need is the men and women to carry 
 
 V 
 
 1644070 '
 
 vi FOREWORD 
 
 it into effect, and the success achieved by 
 the cheery author of this book should be a 
 lever to move many to follow his great 
 example. 
 
 ROBERT BADEN-POWELL
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD ..... v 
 
 A WORD TO THE READER i 
 
 I. A PROPHECY WHICH CAME TRUE . . 3 
 
 II. THEN AND Now . . . .10 
 
 III. THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING . . 22 
 
 IV. THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE . . -35 
 V. A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES . . 45 
 
 VI. DOING OUR BIT . . . .58 
 
 VII. THE CHARACTER SHEET . .69 
 
 VIII. YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT . . 77 
 
 vii
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SPEARING FISH IN THE DAL LAKE . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 SCHOOL FLEET ON THE WAY THROUGH SRINAGAR 
 EMBARKATION CONTEST . . . .14 
 
 ONE OF THE SCHOOL BOATS AND THE CREW . 14 
 
 A "SPLASH-DASH" FROM THE SCHOOL INTO THE 
 
 RIVER . . . . . .21 
 
 SCENES IN THE DAILY SCHOOL LIFE . . 36 
 
 ONE OF THE BRAHMAN LIES REPRODUCED ON 
 
 PAPER ...... 43 
 
 THE C.M.S. SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, SRINAGAR . 43 
 
 HELTER-SKELTER INTO THE PLAYGROUND . 51 
 
 THE WULAR LAKE, KASHMIR . 78
 
 A WORD TO THE READER 
 
 IF you will look at the top left-hand corner on a 
 map of India you will discover a country tucked 
 away among the mountains, the abode of the 
 everlasting snows. That country is Kashmir. It 
 happens to be where three great countries meet 
 Russia, China, and British India. 
 
 Kashmir is one of the most beautiful countries of 
 the world ; truly a land flowing with milk and honey. 
 Pastures stretch for miles along the edge of the great 
 pine forests which cover the mountain spurs, and 
 here thousands of sheep and cattle graze. From 
 these meadows, carpeted with flowers of every hue, 
 the bees take the honey and hide it in the trunks of 
 ancient trees. 
 
 One would imagine that such a country as this 
 would breed a fine race of men, like the Afghans and 
 Pathans on the border, but it is not so. True, the 
 Kashmiris are strong and well built, but they have 
 no pluck and no self-respect. The reason for this is 
 not far to seek. In ancient days they were a fine 
 race like the people around them, but their country 
 being what it is an earthly paradise every 
 marauder wanted it. So it has been conquered and 
 reconquered by the Moguls, Afghans, and Sikhs, 
 A l
 
 2 A WORD TO THE READER 
 
 who have used the inhabitants as they desired and 
 crushed all the spirit out of them. 
 
 Compared with the people of other parts of India, 
 the Kashmiri is of fair complexion. Some have blue 
 eyes and auburn hair. About ninety per cent, of the 
 people are Mohammedans, converted to that faith by 
 the sword. Except for a few Buddhists, the rest are 
 Brahmans, the highest caste of Hindus. Until quite 
 lately, only the Brahmans cared for education and 
 attended schools. 
 
 Now, the Kashmiris are our fellow subjects ; it is 
 up to us to help them all we can to regain their 
 ancient powers, to become self-respecting men once 
 more, and to add to this that which alone can make 
 them fit to meet their spiritual enemies the power 
 of Christ Jesus. If to know Christ is anything to us, 
 it is our joy to pass on that knowledge. 
 
 C. E. TYNDALE-BISCOE
 
 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 IN KASHMIR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A PROPHECY WHICH CAME TRUE 
 
 IT was in the autumn of the year 1891 that His 
 Excellency Lord Lansdowne came to Kashmir, 
 and during a short stay found time to visit the 
 mission school and speak to the boys. He spoke 
 warmly of the work that the Rev. J. H. Knowles had 
 accomplished in establishing the school amidst so 
 many difficulties (one of them being that several of 
 the boys had suffered imprisonment for attending), 
 and to show his practical interest in this school he 
 presented two medals, one of silver and one of bronze. 
 These have ever since been the cause of friendly 
 rivalry among the boys, which increases in keenness 
 year by year. 
 
 The room in which Lord Lansdowne was speaking 
 overhangs the Jhelum ; as he looked out of the 
 windows and his eyes fell upon the beautiful stretch 
 of the river, he saw into the future, and expressed 
 the hope that the State and the mission schools might 
 
 3
 
 4 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 ere long be competing in friendly contest for the 
 headship of the Jhelum, as Oxford and Cambridge 
 Universities strive yearly for the headship of the 
 Thames. 
 
 Such thoughts were natural to a sporting English 
 gentleman who had been trained from his youth in 
 an atmosphere of manliness and fair play, but to the 
 boys before him his words meant nothing, for that life 
 of manliness and sports was as yet unknown to them. 
 Was he not talking to holy Brahmans, the sons of 
 holy Brahmans, who would nt ver demean themselves 
 and insult their godlike caste by doing boatman's 
 work ? Yet His Excellency was a prophet, and no 
 false one, though his words waited for fulfilment for 
 eighteen full years. 
 
 In order that you may in some way realize why 
 the prophecy was so long in coming to pass, I must 
 spin you a yarn, as it will show you the character of 
 the Kashmir Brahman as he was twenty-nine years 
 ago, and why it has been so hard a job to change the 
 leopard's spots. 
 
 In the spring of 1891, about four months before 
 Lord Lansdowne's visit, I was requested by the 
 European community to take over charge of the boat 
 club, and build them some rowing boats. As I had 
 never built even a punt, I naturally declined the 
 honour ; but as they would not take " No " for an 
 answer, and were so certain that I could build boats, 
 I plucked up courage and undertook the job. A 
 Frenchman most kindly came to my aid, and gave 
 me the lines for the boats and found me carpenters,
 
 A PROPHECY WHICH CAME TRUE 5 
 
 so that in a few weeks we had the required boats 
 floating right side up on the Jhelum. 
 
 At the same time I built a boat for myself, and I 
 remember that the paint for it cost more than the 
 cedar wood of which it was built. 
 
 This boat was destined to play an important part 
 in the training of the Kashmir boys, and especially of 
 the Brahmans. I lost no time in sculling it down to 
 the school in order to commence operations at once, 
 as I, like Lord Lansdowne, had pictured in my mind's 
 eye a racing eight-oared boat, swinging up and down 
 the Jhelum before an admiring crowd. But I little 
 knew of the battle that was awaiting me. 
 
 What a blessed thing it is that one does not know 
 the future ! Well, as I neared the school, the windows 
 were crowded with straining necks and turbaned 
 heads, all grinning and chattering, trying to force 
 their way to the front, wondering what new folly this 
 young sahib had taken to now. The sculls were put 
 away, and so were the turbaned heads from the 
 windows. School commenced, and soon all the 
 students were greedily devouring the words before 
 them (not necessarily the meaning) as they com- 
 mitted sentence after sentence to memory, swaying 
 backwards and forwards as they squatted on the 
 ground, droning over and over again the same few 
 words, drawing in their breath through their lips, 
 making a sucking, slobbering sort of noise. When 
 the English period came, they were allowed to talk 
 on the subject of boats, and I know that I learnt a 
 great deal more about the Kashmir Brahman in that
 
 6 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 hour than they ever learnt about boats. But my 
 learning in this line had only begun. These were 
 some of the important things that I learnt during 
 that hour : 
 
 A Brahman must not touch an English oar, 
 because on it is a button of leather. Although I 
 informed them that there was no need for them to 
 touch the leather button, moreover, that I should 
 be angry with them if they did grasp the oar on that 
 spot, they persisted in saying that nothing would in- 
 duce them to touch an English oar or any other oar. 
 
 No Brahman must ever use a paddle or oar, or 
 in any way propel a boat, as that would lower their 
 caste to that of the despised boatmen. 
 
 This probably was the root of the whole business, 
 namely, that the act of pulling an oar might produce 
 muscle on the arms and, as muscle was only worn 
 by coolies, my worthies might be mistaken for such 
 low-caste beings. No Brahman had so vulgar an 
 appendage as muscle on the arm. 
 
 Of course I informed them that, if they rowed 
 properly, they would not get muscle on their arms, 
 but on their backs and legs, and therefore their arms 
 might still remain high-caste arms. 
 
 However, all argument failed, so what words could 
 not effect something else should, could, and did. 
 
 Seeing the attitude that all the boys had taken up 
 with regard to rowing, I determined to commence 
 with the teachers, who would have more sense. I 
 expected that they, being Brahmans, would be able 
 to accomplish what I, as an Englishman, a man of
 
 no caste, was unable to do. So at the half-hour's 
 " break " I asked two of the teachers to come with 
 me in the boat, receive the first lesson in rowing, and 
 so set an example to the boys. What was my 
 astonishment when they also said that they could not 
 possibly do so, using the same excuses as the boys 
 had done. Well, here was a problem to be solved ! 
 
 As a matter of fact, the solution worked itself 
 out somehow, for in a few seconds, in fact before 
 any one could object, the teachers, who a moment 
 before had been standing at the top of the hall stairs, 
 found themselves down at the bottom, and in a 
 shorter time than it takes to write we were all on the 
 river ghat together, looking at the bran new dinghy 
 which was moored under the wall. 
 
 There was again a certain hesitation on the part 
 of the teachers to move their bodies from the wall 
 into the boat below, and so, for fear the spirit of argu- 
 ment might once again get possession of them, 
 something happened which altered their position, 
 and before they had time to think they found them- 
 selves sprawling at the bottom of the boat ; I was in, 
 too, and had cast off, and we three were quickly floating 
 down stream towards the four-spanned bridge under 
 which the water was rushing in swirls and eddies. 
 
 Now, in a boat one man must be captain and the 
 captain must be obeyed; so I ordered my crew to 
 grasp the oars, which they did with trepidation. I 
 placed the oars in the rowlocks for them, made them 
 sit on the seats, and ordered them to pull. As we 
 were fast nearing the bridge broadside on, in order to
 
 8 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 save a catastrophe I had to take an oar till we were 
 on the safe side of the bridge. But there were four 
 more bridges below us. Those Brahman teachers 
 had material backbones, if they were minus the moral 
 article, and I had knuckles, so what with their back- 
 bones and my knuckles (I had placed myself behind 
 them) and the fact that they were out of sight of the 
 school windows, those teachers pulled their oars 
 somehow. How we ever got back to the school ghat 
 I do not remember, but we accomplished it. And 
 we had done the up-stream journey by the prowess 
 of two Brahman teachers, who had rowed in a boat 
 with oars which had leather on them, and had made 
 a beginning in making that low-caste stuff commonly 
 called muscle ! 
 
 That is history, and what Lord Lansdowne said 
 was prophecy. What has been the result ? 
 
 You will now be able to understand to a certain 
 degree how the boys took the Viceroy's words con- 
 cerning the grand sport of rowing and an inter- 
 school boat race, words which were spoken about 
 four months after this first introduction of the school 
 to oars and their use. I need not waste your time 
 with recounting what followed after that first trip in 
 the boat, but suffice it to say that these two teachers 
 were not the only ones who learnt to fly to the boat, 
 and discover that they had backbones in two senses 
 of the word. 
 
 If Lord Lansdowne could visit Kashmir again, 
 he would see at the end of every summer the great 
 race for the headship of the river, our ten mission
 
 A PROPHECY WHICH CAME TRUE 9 
 
 school boats finishing their race near the very spot 
 where he had stood. But he would see something 
 more. For the non-Christian schools of Srinagar 
 copied us and, as long ago as September, 1909, felt 
 themselves able to accept our challenge. The com- 
 peting teams on that occasion, in addition to our own, 
 represented the State, the Hindu, and the Islamia 
 schools. That historic race, the first of many others, 
 was rowed over a course of two miles, and our crew 
 won by thirty lengths. 
 
 Then we were only at the beginning of things, 
 since our eye was upon the goal, namely, that the 
 work of the Kashmir boatmen might be considered 
 an honourable employment, and that we might see 
 crews of Brahman boys actually paddling with 
 Kashmir paddles, not only using their prowess in 
 racing, but taking out their families for change of 
 air on the lakes, and in times of flood becoming 
 life-saving boatmen. 
 
 I knew it would be a long fight, but had no idea 
 that it would be such a hard one.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THEN AND NOW 
 
 TO my mind a school is an institution 
 where citizens are made. When a new boy 
 arrives we look at him, not in the light of 
 a unit in the school as to what he is going to do 
 for its honour in examinations or on the playing 
 fields but one's eye travels farther ; when that boy 
 leaves the school eight or ten years hence, what sort 
 of character will be stamped on that face ? And 
 in a day school, as distinct from a boarding institu- 
 tion, the life of the school must include the life in 
 and towards the city in which the boy lives, which 
 is the greater life of the school. The boy must be 
 taught not only to think imperially, but to act 
 imperially. 
 
 This being the case, you can understand possibly 
 somewhat of my feelings when, twenty-nine years ago, 
 I found myself for the first time in Srinagar a huge 
 rabbit-warren sort of place of 125,000 inhabitants. 
 All streets crooked, all streets narrow, all streets 
 filthy. The stench of the city had reached me long 
 before I entered it. 
 
 One would have thought that the streets had been 
 
 made with the idea of preventing any one from using 
 10
 
 THEN AND NOW 11 
 
 them ; for instead of cobbles, stones and rocks of all 
 shapes and sizes had been thrown down indiscrimin- 
 ately, so that pedestrians had to pick their way from 
 rock to rock, avoiding, if possible, the lakes of putrid 
 filth that lay between. Not a single house in this 
 city possessed sanitary arrangements. Had not dogs 
 been created to feed on garbage? If one did not 
 carry an umbrella, one stood a very good chance of 
 a shower bath of slops down the neck from the 
 upper windows ; for street and drain were the same. 
 
 That which interested me most were the inhabitants 
 of the streets, humans of various types and animals 
 of various breeds. All were equally dirty, and all 
 wished to keep the best of the filthy street for 
 themselves. I learnt in a few minutes the position 
 of women and children and the meek of the earth in 
 Srinagar ; for all who were weak had to give way to 
 the strong, and all who were poor " kow-towed " to 
 the rich. 
 
 The male sex pushed all women and children out 
 of the path, but made way for cows and the pariah 
 dogs, as the former have horns and the latter possess 
 teeth. All this, and much more, showed me the lie 
 of the land, and the need of a change, even in the 
 unchangeable East. Now, if one desires to change 
 or construct anything, it is usually wise to commence 
 at the bottom. What better beginning could one 
 desire than a school of young boys, and what better 
 training ground could boys have than a city like 
 Srinagar ? When the two are introduced the one 
 to the other, perfection is reached with regard to
 
 12 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 beginnings. So we encourage the boys to go out 
 into the streets to practise what they have learnt 
 in the school. 
 
 But the human material had first to be moulded 
 into shape. I shall never, never forget my first sight 
 of the boys in the school hall twenty-nine years 
 ago. Some 200 dirty, evil-smelling human beings, 
 squatting on the hall floor with mouths open, a 
 vacant expression on their faces, and with fingers 
 either messing with their faces, noses, or ears, or else 
 holding firepots under their foul garments shaped 
 like long night-gowns, the fumes from the charcoal 
 and the heat of their bodies thickening the atmo- 
 sphere of this low-ceilinged room. You can perhaps 
 imagine the f roust \ As often as not the only clean 
 part about the Brahman boys was the daub of red 
 paint plastered from the forehead down the bridge 
 of the nose, put on fresh every morning by the priest 
 to show that they were worshippers of the god Siva. 
 These creatures I was to call boys ! " Jelly fish " 
 was the only appropriate term to apply to them. 
 
 And I was to teach and preach Christianity daily 
 to these. Qui bono ? 
 
 What good could these be to their country ? No ! 
 One's sense of smell cried loudly : " Scrub them ! " 
 One's common sense told one that it is as useless to 
 preach to idiots as it is to preach temperance to those 
 who are dead drunk. Help the idiot to become sane 
 and the drunkard to regain his senses, and they will 
 be in fit state to listen to reason. They must be 
 awakened first.
 
 THEN AND NOW 13 
 
 Now, when I am depressed and have a fit of the 
 blues, all I have to do is to look back twenty-nine 
 years, and see once more those "jelly fish" who have 
 since become self-respecting citizens, some of them 
 leading the present generation of boys in those very 
 sports which they once believed would defile their 
 high caste. I think you will agree with me that 
 talk would never have changed them, any more than 
 the Galilee fishermen would have caught a multitude 
 of fishes if they had not cast their nets as bidden, 
 but only talked about it. 
 
 Christianity is a life that has to be lived. Christ 
 Jesus was a perfect man as well as God, and to be 
 a Christian one has to strive after perfect manliness 
 strength of body, strength of intellect, strength 
 of soul and to show that strength by practical 
 sympathy for the weak. It is only those who 
 are true men who can appreciate the Ideal Man. 
 Some one has to create a desire for the ideal, 
 and this cannot be done by talk, but by putting 
 before the boys our great example, Christ Jesus, 
 and asking them to join us in trying to follow that 
 life, the life of service. 
 
 But how can a slacker and weakling desire such a 
 life ? They must be awakened first. I will ask you 
 to look at the two pictures we can always turn up 
 now. 
 
 Those rows of jelly fish squatting on the floor 
 with heads on one side, jaws hanging loose, hands 
 hanging listlessly down, saying they are of too high 
 caste to row that is one picture.
 
 14 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 To-day you stand on the shore of the lake at the 
 weekly regatta, and see the fleet at the starting post, 
 the crews alert with all possible keenness for the word 
 "Go," knowing that when the whistle blows a few 
 seconds later, all the boats will have to disappear 
 and turn turtle before they will be permitted to 
 reach terra firma again. (This upsetting of the 
 boats is most useful in teaching the boys coolness 
 and resource in boating accidents.) 
 
 Again, look at those rows of high-caste boys 
 who would not touch a man of another caste or 
 religion who, though filthy themselves, would never 
 allow my hand to touch them for fear of defilement, 
 and would squirm if by chance I patted them on the 
 back. 
 
 Now see these high-caste Brahmans collecting at 
 the boat-building yard (belonging to an old mission 
 schoolboy who takes care of the school boats gratis) 
 with the object of embarking in the boats which 
 are going to take out the sick from the mission 
 hospital or from the city. 
 
 In the former case they paddle for more than a 
 mile through the lake and then walk 200 yards to 
 the hospital, where the nurses help them to take the 
 right patients. Those who are unable to walk soon 
 find themselves riding on Brahmans from the hospital 
 to the boats. Mohammedans on the backs of 
 Brahmans ! No wonder some of the Brahmans of 
 the old school open their eyes at the sight and mutter 
 mutterings. 
 
 For a long time the women patients held out
 
 Embarkation Contest 
 The first boat afloat wins the prize 
 
 One of the School Boats and the Crew
 
 THEN AND NOW 15 
 
 against the boys' charms, but the boys have con- 
 quered at last, so that you will sometimes see women 
 patients trusting their lives in the school boats. 
 
 The boys are always pleased when they have a 
 full boat (the more the merrier) as they take their 
 human cargo off to the open lake, singing as they 
 paddle. The boys tell me that the women patients 
 are not quite as easy to manage as the men, since 
 they want to take over command, settle the course 
 of the boat, and wish for longer trips than the boys 
 approve of. 
 
 I have never met a boat crew returning with 
 patients without the sound of vocal strains which 
 they call singing ; so one knows that it is a mutual 
 pleasure. The landing stage is reached, and the 
 patients are returned to the hospital as they were 
 brought, and then the crews paddle back to the boat- 
 building yard. Thence they make their way to their 
 various homes in this great city of 125,000 people, 
 having spent from three to five hours over their sick 
 citizens. 
 
 How far the parents of the boys approve of this 
 spending of the afternoons I do not know ; they 
 objected very much at first, but finding that the new 
 order daily grows stronger they have had to put up 
 with it, and are now beginning to see that there is 
 some method in our madness. 
 
 Look again at the youth of Srinagar in 1890 as 
 they stand in the hall before leaving for the classes, 
 every one wearing a long, dirty night-gown of a 
 garment, so covered with ink-spots and grease-marks
 
 16 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 (for it is used as towel, napkin, and handkerchief) 
 that they look like so many bundles of rags waiting 
 to be torn up into shreds at a paper-making factory. 
 
 Now this garment has almost entirely disappeared 
 from the schools, and the more rational " patloon " 
 (native trousers) and coat have taken its place. 
 What attracts the attention is not a dirty night- 
 gown but a small aluminium medal worn on the 
 breast of the boys, on which is stamped the school 
 crest and motto: 1 "IN ALL THINGS BE MEN." 
 As some people do not quite approve of the motto 
 for the mission school, let me explain what it means 
 to the staff and the boys, whatever other sinister 
 meaning it may appear to have to others. 
 
 I will first say what it does not mean by the 
 following incident. A certain lady, visiting the 
 schools many years ago, asked one of the little boys 
 what was the meaning of his school motto, and he 
 answered : " In all things we must not be women." 
 This lady, knowing only too well the superior attitude 
 taken by men towards women in this country, 
 naturally did not think we had chosen a very gallant 
 motto. As a matter of fact, we mean by men true 
 men, i.e. those who combine kindness with strength. 
 For we have all met the half-man specimen, the kind 
 fools and the strong brutes. The perfect man is 
 after the pattern of the Man Christ Jesus. 
 
 The paddles stand for hard work and strength. 
 
 The heart-shaped blade for kindness. 
 
 The paddles are crossed to signify self-sacrifice, and 
 
 1 See title page.
 
 THEN AND NOW 17 
 
 remind us of the one great Sacrifice for all on that 
 Cross of shame which is now an emblem of salvation, 
 sacredness, and service. 
 
 This school badge means service. The boys under- 
 stand that, if they wear this badge (they may wear 
 black and red rosettes instead if they wish), they 
 must be ready to render service to any one who calls 
 upon them in difficulty and danger, as the people in 
 England look to the police to help them. And I am 
 glad to say that of late several boys have not been 
 called upon in vain. This idea has quite taken on 
 and adds much to their self-respect, since it is a badge 
 of honour which must be lived up to. This service 
 includes animals as well as humans. 
 
 Here is an opportunity for service. It has been 
 pouring with rain for four days, and the melted snow 
 comes tumbling down the ravines in the mountain 
 sides, filling up the streams and rivers with debris. 
 The rushing water has now reached the main river, 
 and the news is telegraphed from Islamabad, forty- 
 five miles up-stream, that a great flood will be upon 
 Srinagar in a few hours. 
 
 This news naturally puts every one in motion ; 
 boats are hastily summoned, goods and chattels 
 are removed from the houses to the boats, and all 
 carriages and animals sent off in haste to the hills. 
 The " bunds " along the river are patrolled by the 
 officers, with gangs of coolies doing their utmost 
 to strengthen the banks against the ever-increasing 
 stream of flood water. 
 
 At last the climax is reached ; man can do nothing 
 B
 
 18 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 more, for the water has conquered, the many trickles 
 have become streams, and the streams have swelled 
 into sluices, the " bund " in all directions is crumbling 
 and bulging and giving way until with a great roar 
 the river comes on tumbling over itself, wave upon 
 wave, over gardens and meadows, filling up the lower 
 storeys of the houses, until we are surrounded on all 
 sides by a sea ten feet deep. Those who have been 
 wise are on the hills or in boats. Those who have 
 been unwise are up trees or on the roofs of the houses, 
 calling loudly for help to the passing boats. 
 
 Among those who are unwise and calling for help is 
 a party of sweepers, the lowest caste of the community. 
 There stand several families, men, women, children, 
 dogs, and hens, hustled together on the roofs of 
 their mud dwellings, which are gradually crumbling 
 away piece by piece into the flood. There are 
 numbers of boats passing, but none will go to their 
 help. Why? Because they are only sweepers, 
 outcastes. 
 
 The women may tear their hair and weep, and the 
 men cry aloud, but it does not bring boats. For- 
 tunately for them one of the mission school boats, 
 looking for jobs, happens to come their way and at 
 once goes to their rescue. They can only take a few 
 at a time, so they make several journeys, and thus 
 rescue the whole lot of sweepers. As they take these 
 low-caste people along, they meet many boats the 
 inmates of which curse them for defiling their caste, but 
 our fellows enjoy their curses and give them cheers 
 instead. A boat in any flood is of value, but a
 
 THEN AND NOW 19 
 
 boat with a crew above caste in a Kashmir flood is 
 priceless. 
 
 It is chiefly in their service to animals that our lads 
 come to grief, for the pony and donkey drivers resent 
 interference with their property. The boys ask 
 them to take the loads off their lame beasts of 
 burden, and often follow up their unheeded requests 
 by pitching the loads off themselves. This generally 
 brings on a fight and, the men being stronger than 
 the boys, the righteous perish and the wicked flourish 
 as in days of old. But sometimes the noble art of 
 self-defence brings the owner of that knowledge 
 out on top. I know of one boy who got over the 
 difficulty of engaging in battle (he was little of 
 stature) by offering to carry a part of a lame 
 donkey's load, and he and the donkey shared the 
 load together. 
 
 Two boys came to their head master the other 
 day in tears, sad to say, with torn garments and 
 smarting skins on account of espousing a donkey's 
 cause in the face of superior strength and num- 
 bers, and asked the master what they ought to 
 do in such cases, " for," said they, " we are taught to 
 succour animals in trouble, and when we do we are 
 made to suffer for it." Action came first, and words 
 second, for the head master, a Brahman and an 
 exceptionally smart fellow, at once called for his 
 strongest boys and started off in pursuit of the 
 donkey drivers. But the raid was unsuccessful in so 
 far as punishment was concerned, since the donkey 
 men thought it wiser to trust to their legs than their
 
 20 
 
 sticks ; they ran to cover, and left the donkeys and 
 their loads to the boys. 
 
 The answer to the boys' question was twofold : 
 
 1. That they should get on with their boxing, so 
 that right might always conquer. 
 
 2. That all those who wish to put wrong right in 
 this world must be ready to receive hard knocks 
 and, if they are not ready to pay the price that every 
 reformer has to pay, then they must leave the job to 
 braver men. 
 
 Here we are in a great city with abuses of all sorts, 
 shapes, and sizes around us. And here is the mission 
 school of nearly 1 500 boys and seventy-five teachers. 
 What grand opportunities of service ! 
 
 The jelly fish type has gone, not to live again, and 
 young citizens are gradually coming into being, led 
 by teachers who were once jelly fish, but have since 
 grown backbones and muscle which are being used 
 not in sports for sport's sake, but for the benefit of 
 the city. 
 
 I look back twenty-nine years, and I see again 
 those inane faces staring at me as I scull up to the 
 school, and I hear the words of my European friends 
 in those days as they said : " You had better 
 leave this job alone, you will never do anything 
 with this lot. Go back to England where there is so 
 much work waiting to be done, and worth doing." 
 Practically every European held the same view. 
 
 I now recall words spoken by a European last 
 month. He said : " Do you think it wise to train 
 up the Kashmir boys as you do, for these fellows
 
 A ' ' Splash-dash " from the School into the River
 
 THEN AND NOW 21 
 
 are a plucky lot ; will they not use this power against 
 us?" 
 
 We were standing on the lake side, watching the 
 boys at their weekly regatta, swimming and boat 
 races being keenly contested, and we had seen 107 
 swim across the lake, a distance of about three miles, 
 only a few days before. 
 
 " Won't they use their power against us ? " That 
 is the question. 
 
 My experience of life is that brave men respect 
 brave men, to whatever country they may belong. 
 It is of cowards that we must beware, for they work 
 in the dark as dung beetles and all sorts of creepy, 
 crawling, slithery, slimy creatures do, whose words 
 are softer than butter, but all the time having war 
 and bombs in their hearts. No, friends, let us deal 
 with men men who can look you in the eye and 
 respect you because they respect themselves. If 
 these Kashmir boys become true men, strong as 
 well as kind, what have we to fear, if we too are 
 men ? We will grasp their hands as brothers. 
 
 At present my fellows look at Christ Jesus as the 
 most perfect Man, Who went about doing good, and 
 they wish to walk after Him, and one's hope is that, 
 walking after Him, they will find Him and, finding 
 Him, will trust Him with their all as their Saviour 
 and King, and go forth to fight for right, not only 
 with the school shield on their breast, but under the 
 banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Viceroy's 
 prophecy came true, so I prophesy that Kashmir will 
 one day be won for Christ.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 
 
 WE are at cricket. I see a Kashmir 
 sportsman walk round the wickets 
 during an over, make some passes, and 
 place something on the pitch in front of the block. 
 To the uninitiated this means nothing, but to 
 the batsman it means that the wicket has been 
 bewitched, and the player, who is a Brahman 
 boy, will be unable to keep the ball off his stumps. 
 He stands before the bowler utterly unnerved, 
 and becomes an easy prey to his adversary ; he is 
 bowled clean, and all those who planned the sorcery 
 are jubilant. 
 
 We are at the inter-school athletic tournament. 
 It is the hurdle race, run in heats ; there are 
 four competitors and four flights of hurdles. The 
 umpire is just about to start the boys. I know 
 that the umpire is not a sportsman, so I ask him 
 if he has warned the boys about fouling, namely, 
 that each boy must keep to his own flight of hurdles, 
 and that if a boy fouls by taking another's hurdle, 
 he will be disqualified. I stand by to hear the 
 warning given. They start. The boy on the ex- 
 treme right deliberately runs across No. 2, nearly 
 
 tripping him up, takes his hurdle, and before he 
 22
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 23 
 
 has finished has fouled another boy by taking his 
 hurdle also. 
 
 There is another heat, and then comes the final. 
 As I come to the starting point, I see the fouler 
 ready to run in the finals. So I go to the starter and 
 ask him why this boy is allowed to run in the final, 
 reminding him of his deliberate fouling. " He did 
 not foul any one," says this gentleman. I then ask 
 him if that boy kept to his own line of hurdles or 
 no. Did he run straight or crooked ? Did he foul 
 two boys or did he not ? He answers that the boy 
 did foul. Then I ask : " Why have you not dis- 
 qualified him ? " " Oh, it doesn't matter," says he. 
 " But," I rejoin, " what order did you give to the 
 boys before they started ? Were they to run straight 
 or crooked ? " " Straight," he answers. " Well, did 
 this boy run straight ? " " No, he ran crooked." 
 " Then I ask you, what did you say would happen 
 to the boy who ran crooked and fouled ? " He 
 answers : " He should be disqualified." " Then have 
 you disqualified him?" I ask. 
 
 By this time a crowd had come up and were 
 trying to help the starter in his trouble. However, 
 I fixed him with my eye, with the result that he 
 told the boy to go away. I then turned round to 
 speak to some one, when I heard : " Are you 
 ready ? " I turned to see the start, and there I see 
 my friend the fouler in his place again, ready to start. 
 I go to the starter once more and ask him why the 
 fouler is there. " I thought you said that you had 
 disqualified him." " No, I have not," said he. So I
 
 24 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 go through the same list of questions with him as 
 at the first, he giving me the same answers and with 
 the same result, the boy being told to go away. 
 Again my eyes are attracted in another direction, 
 when I am called to attention by the words : " Are 
 you ready?" And then again for the third time I 
 see my fouler friend with his toe on the line. The 
 starter thought he had me this time, but he was 
 mistaken. That boy did not run again in that 
 hurdle race, and the starter, I believe, does not 
 love me. 
 
 If difficulties stand in the path of builders of body, 
 still more are there in the way of the builders of 
 mind, and from quarters unexpected by those who 
 know not the East as it is. 
 
 Examinations play a great part in the school life 
 of boys in the West, but to a still greater degree do 
 they influence the lives of the modern eastern 
 scholar. The preparation for them is metaphorically 
 his meat and drink, for so much depends on his 
 passing them government service, a wealthy wife, 
 honour, the coveted letters B.A., and similar delights. 
 As the time of an examination draws near, the 
 students read for the greater part of the night, and 
 use all manner of means for keeping themselves 
 awake, even to tying their back tuft of hair to a 
 nail in the wall. Examinations do not sound a very 
 interesting subject, but in this country they can be 
 most interesting, for examination passing has been 
 worked up to a fine art, as the following incidents 
 will show.
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 25 
 
 It is now many years ago that Kashmir was 
 honoured by being made one of the centres of 
 the Punjab University examinations, and I began 
 almost at once to learn wisdom. 
 
 One of the boys, whom we happened to be 
 sending up for one of these public examinations, 
 had some time previously been reading in another 
 school, and had for some reason, of which I am 
 not aware, fallen foul of his teacher. This master 
 wished to get the better of his former pupil by 
 preventing him from passing and, to do so, arranged 
 with the authorities to be made one of the assistant 
 supervisors, when he would handle this boy's papers 
 to his own advantage and the boy's disadvantage. 
 Fortunately, I heard of this subtle plan a few days 
 before the examination, and was able to send in 
 another assistant supervisor who checkmated the 
 man of arts. 
 
 At another examination one of my staff was 
 sitting for his F.A. (First Arts examination), and his 
 seat happened to be close to the supervisor's table, 
 which proved to be his undoing; for a certain 
 assistant supervisor, who was anxious that the 
 would-be F.A. man should not pass, arranged to spin 
 long yarns on interesting subjects with the super- 
 visor, which made it impossible for my colleague 
 to concentrate his attention. He complained several 
 times, but without result. In this case the assistant 
 supervisor was successful. 
 
 At this same examination was a young gentleman, 
 the son of an important personage, who, although
 
 26 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 blessed with plenty of this world's goods, craved 
 literary honours also. He, not having prepared 
 himself by studying, provided a covered boat, roomy 
 and comfortable, in which his tutor could sit and 
 answer his questions correctly for him just outside 
 the examination hall. The water-carrier, who came 
 in and out of the hall to refresh the wearied and 
 thirsty examinees, proved a ready means for taking 
 the examination papers out and bringing back 
 suitable answers. I would point out that it was 
 winter time, when it would be difficult to work 
 up a decent thirst. 
 
 I, in common with all mortals who have been to 
 school and college examination halls, am quite aware 
 that it is not always the deserving who pass. My 
 memory carries me back to a school prize-day, the 
 hall filled with parents and relatives of boys, who 
 were watching with keenness and applauding the 
 fortunate winners of prizes as they stepped on to the 
 dais and received their rewards of virtue. 
 
 The boy who had come out top gave a knowing 
 wink as he came back with his prize amid much 
 applause. Many who were not "in the know" 
 wondered, knowing that he was not a lover of book- 
 learning ; but his class-mates knew how it was done, 
 for he was proud of his wisdom, and had showed 
 them daily before he entered the examination hall 
 how well prepared he was. He had notes of his 
 subject written most neatly in every part of his watch, 
 and on suitable cards fastened with elastic to his shirt 
 at the shoulder, which could be pulled down his
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 27 
 
 sleeve, and would fly up at will when necessary ; even 
 his shirt cuffs were brought into use, which of course 
 was risky. 
 
 Well, this boy won his prize by his own wisdom 
 (of a kind) and was proud of it, not proud of his 
 prize. He had succeeded in getting the better of 
 supervisors of the examination. He looked upon it 
 as sport, and he had won the game, and he thought 
 that those who would not play this game were fools. 
 There are always a certain number of boys in a 
 school who look upon cribbing as this prize-winner 
 did, but most of the boys in an English public 
 school despise cribbing, and class it with all other 
 forms of dishonesty. 
 
 It is not always the deserving who pass ; when the 
 undeserving succeed, it is by their own effort and 
 trickery, and by getting the better of their pastors and 
 masters. But in this country I was to learn that it 
 is the pastors and masters who are past masters in 
 the art of getting their own boys through a public 
 examination when their knowledge of the subjects 
 is deficient. 
 
 Some years ago I was requested by the university 
 to superintend their public examinations here. I 
 accepted, as I wished to discover how far it was 
 possible to run an examination in this country in 
 such a manner that the righteous might be rewarded 
 and the wicked punished, even in this life. 
 
 The appointment was evidently not popular in cer- 
 tain quarters, for I was refused the hall in which the 
 examination had been previously held, and was ad-
 
 28 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 vised to hire the European hotel, which my adviser 
 great man that he was knew to be out of the ques- 
 tion. I was denied the needful quantity of furniture 
 from the department which had supplied it hitherto ; 
 so that up to within three days of the event I had no 
 idea what I should do, as it was winter and the 
 examination could not be held out-of-doors. How- 
 ever, help came from an unexpected quarter, so that 
 the day before the examination everything was ready 
 for the seating of seventy candidates. 
 
 I had my own guards outside the hall to keep out 
 all intruders (including water-carriers), as well as 
 sufficient trusty men inside to circumvent young 
 gentlemen wishing to get the better of their pastors 
 and masters, and again two or three special men 
 to supervise the assistant supervisors who had been 
 sent to help (?) me. The presence of the latter I was 
 obliged to have in the hall, but would have gladly 
 dispensed with it. 
 
 Fifteen minutes before the hour appointed the 
 doors were opened, and soon the hall was filled with 
 wide-mouthed, jabbering, mannerless examinees, who 
 no doubt thought that they were going to have it all 
 their own way. 
 
 Just before the distribution of the papers I called 
 out " Silence ! " That had no effect. I then re- 
 minded the crowd that the time of their examination 
 had commenced, and that no papers would be distri- 
 buted until they were all silent. This remark also 
 had no effect. So I sat down to read. Then 
 gradually it began to dawn upon some of them that
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 29 
 
 I had the whip-hand, and they tried to persuade their 
 friends to be quiet; and finally, after much valuable 
 time had been wasted, there was dead silence, and 
 the papers were given out. After reading through 
 the question paper, many began to call out for various 
 things, such as ink and paper, rapping on the desk, or 
 stamping on the floor, and enjoying the noise they 
 were making. They were then informed that their 
 wants would receive no attention until they ceased 
 stamping and rapping, and added the word " please." 
 This remark seemed to amuse them immensely, and 
 they continued the noise. Then when they realized 
 that more valuable time was slipping away, and that 
 no ink or paper was coming, they again came to the 
 conclusion that obedience to orders was advisable. 
 By the end of the week's examination all the ex- 
 aminees had learnt to obey at the word, to add 
 " please " to their vocabulary, not to spit on the floor 
 or make horrid noises in their throat, and various 
 other little matters which add pleasantness to life. 
 
 The test was not so satisfactory from the examinees' 
 point of view, for thirty-six out of the seventy were 
 ploughed, and I was not popular in the city for some 
 time to come. 
 
 One boy especially did not love me; I did not 
 approve of his way of acquiring knowledge, for I 
 always hold that knowledge should be inside and 
 not outside, where it may wear off. This particular 
 youth had covered his hands on both sides even to 
 the finger tips with history notes written in green 
 ink. He wore gloves like a gentleman, but I do
 
 30 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 not think that he behaved as a good Brahman, for 
 he tried hard to suck all the green ink off both 
 hands as he was walking from his desk to my table, 
 which made a mess of his mouth. I should have 
 thought green ink as defiling as the smack of a 
 leather football in the mouth, but I do not pretend to 
 be a professor in these matters. 
 
 One of the reasons given out by the city fathers 
 for the failure of so many of their sons was this 
 that I had taken the papers to my house, and de- 
 stroyed parts of the papers of those boys whom I 
 wished to see ploughed. I thought this suggestion 
 quite a good one even for Srinagar. 
 
 I will not trouble you with more than one instance 
 of the joys of superintendence, of which I know not a 
 few. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of an examination, 
 one of the assistant supervisors came to me, asking 
 permission to leave the hall as he had an appointment 
 at the hospital. 1 pointed out to him that it was but 
 7.30 a.m., and that the hospital did not open until 
 10 a.m. However, he had his answer ready; the 
 doctor would see him privately. I had been expect- 
 ing this man and another to ask leave to quit the 
 hall, and had prepared cycles and riders to follow 
 them, as I wished to know which of the examinees 
 they were so much interested in, and who were their 
 confederates outside. I had been told that the suit 
 of clothes this man was then wearing, and the cycle 
 on which he rode, were both presents from grateful 
 parents for his success in superintending former ex-
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 31 
 
 animations. So he was a man worth knowing. Well, 
 I allowed the poor, sick man to go to the doctor, but 
 I did not allow him to enter the hall again, much to 
 his chagrin. I also discovered who his confederates 
 were. 
 
 About ten minutes after the first man had gone, 
 the second assistant supervisor who had been sent 
 to help me in running the examination honestly 
 was also ill, for he had a pain in his " little Mary," 
 which he pressed lovingly. I expressed my grief, 
 and allowed him to go home as he so desired it. 
 He was not aware that I had a cyclist also waiting 
 for him. This man's " sickness " happened to be a 
 gentleman in a house boat, who was greatly interested 
 in a rich man's son in the examination hall. It is 
 quite touching to discover what tender hearts some 
 assistant supervisors have for rich men's sons, and I 
 know quite a good few of such tender-hearted gentle- 
 men in Srinagar. 
 
 When the results of the examination were out, one 
 of the failed boys asked me to help him to recover 
 from his priest a sum of money that he had given 
 him. The priest had promised him success in the 
 examination, if he paid him a certain sum of rupees 
 and if he walked round the Fort hill forty times at 
 night. There was not a sufficient number of nights 
 to carry out the order completely, so the boy spent 
 the valuable night hours before and during the ex- 
 amination week, stumbling over the rocks at night 
 round the Fort situated on a hill outside the city. 
 
 Another boy came to ask my help in regaining
 
 32 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 his property from a boy who had cheated him. 
 This boy gave out to his friends that he had made 
 friends with the devil (probably a fact), and that 
 as a proof of his friendship the devil had shown him 
 all the questions in the coming examination. His 
 friends were of course very keen to share his know- 
 ledge, but he was very careful, and would only sell 
 the questions one by one. In this way he had made 
 a good business out of his Satanic friendship. When 
 the examination was over, this boy was very much 
 wanted, but he had left Srinagar for change of air 
 with his assets. 
 
 Before any public examination, numbers of students 
 go to the shrine of the goddess of music about ten 
 miles from the city. So the priests in charge of this 
 sacred place are very thankful to the Punjab Uni- 
 versity for having made Srinagar a centre for their 
 examinations, and for encouraging the people in the 
 pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 Before I came to this country I thought examina- 
 tions most uninteresting, but here I find them full of 
 interest and humour. 
 
 Hands in the printing works have a good oppor- 
 tunity of making money, as the relatives of examinees 
 will pay large sums for an examination paper a few 
 hours ahead of the examination. And the printers 
 have more than one way of smuggling out the papers, 
 one way being to sit on the type ! When they 
 resort to this expedient, some wear trousers, others 
 do not. 
 
 But the superintendent has great opportunities for
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF CHEATING 33 
 
 rewarding the straight and punishing the crooked 
 although the latter cannot be done in this country 
 without making enemies. Is it worth it? I think 
 so, for after all Rome was not built in a day. 
 
 It is worth a good deal to have a testimonial 
 such as this translation of a vernacular letter, dated 
 Srinagar, Kashmir, i April, 1908, from certain Hindu 
 and Mohammedan inhabitants, to the " Members of 
 the Mission Society " : 
 " PROTECTOR OF THE POOR, 
 
 "We, the inhabitants Hindus and Mohammedans 
 of Kashmir respectfully beg to state that there is 
 at the present moment a mission high school in 
 Kashmir. Our boys attend the said school. But as 
 
 long as there was Mr. , there was everything in 
 
 perfect order, and our boys gained much learning 
 and ability under him. But since the arrival of 
 Mr. Biscoe, he has done nothing to improve the teach- 
 ing of the boys, but has devoted himself soul and heart 
 to all sorts of athletic entertainments and, above all, 
 is attracting the boys towards his Christian religion, 
 and notwithstanding the repeated warnings from the 
 Maharajah Sahib, he has always given a deaf ear to 
 all such. And it so happened once that he forced 
 some Moslem boys to dine with him, quite against 
 their wishes or religion, and made a compromise 
 with the parents of the boys by bribing them, and 
 now he is stretching forth his hands on Hindu boys, 
 and the result is this, that 300 boys have been kept 
 back from attending the school, and when asked to 
 give them the discharge certificates, he did not give 
 c
 
 34 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 these and made a great fuss, and now all the students 
 are wandering here and there. All these events are 
 indeed earning a very bad reputation for the school 
 and the Society, and a complaint has been made to 
 the Maharajah, and a full and stern explanation has 
 been asked, and we hope a copy of the same com- 
 plaint has been forwarded to you. Now we want 
 this, that if Mr. Biscoe is allowed to remain in 
 Kashmir as a principal of the school, not a single 
 boy will attend it, and the Society will have to close 
 
 it for good, but if a man like Mr. , and an M.A., 
 
 is put in his place, the school will flourish a good 
 deal, and we all will do our utmost to help it in 
 every way. Therefore, please, Sir, transfer Mr. Biscoe, 
 for he is exceedingly a bad man, illiterate, deceitful, 
 ill-mannered, uncultured, cunning, and man too 
 much fond of cricket."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 
 
 IT was about eighteen years ago I cannot re- 
 member the exact date, for so many struggles 
 have taken place since that time that Kashmir 
 was visited by a very severe epidemic of cholera, which 
 carried off its thousands of citizens, as it always does 
 in unsanitary and filthy cities. Then upon this we 
 were expecting a visitation of plague, as it had crept 
 up India from Bombay very close to us, and was 
 actually claiming its victims from Jummu, which is 
 the second capital of Kashmir. So we thought that 
 the time had arrived for the school to aid the doctors 
 and municipality by waking up the city to its danger. 
 Talking had long proved to be utterly useless. We 
 in India are great talkers, and especially so in 
 Kashmir. Action, and that prompt action, was the 
 need of the hour, so volunteers for manual labour 
 were called for. To our appeal over three hundred 
 teachers and boys responded at once. 
 
 Our line of attack was as follows : 
 
 Firstly, to ascertain the numbers of householders 
 who were willing to receive a visit from volunteer 
 "engineers," who would drain their front or back 
 
 35
 
 36 
 
 yards, and fill with river sand their private lakes of 
 liquid filth. This canvassing revealed to us that 
 seventy householders were ready for this "spring 
 cleaning." 
 
 Our next duty was to approach the municipal 
 officer, to inform him of the wishes of the seventy 
 householders, and ask his help. This officer promised 
 us his blessing, and with it he offered us the use of all 
 the implements needed for the task, which included 
 spades, shovels, and picks, with baskets and cargo 
 boats for conveying the sand from the sand banks in 
 the river to the death traps in the city. Having 
 secured all the help we needed at the moment, we 
 knocked off all school games for the more strenuous 
 work of spade work. 
 
 We had arranged to start on Monday afternoon, 
 teachers and boys wishing to commence operations 
 as soon as possible. But when I arrived at the 
 school that morning and was addressing the boys on 
 the subject, I saw at once that something had gone 
 wrong. Brightness on the faces of the boys had 
 disappeared, the enthusiasm of the staff had given 
 place to the hang-dog expression to use a very ex- 
 pressive Indian word, they were utterly "gabrowed." 
 So I could not forbear asking them if they all 
 thought they were about to be hanged, which remark 
 usually cheers them up. I did not realize that I 
 had really hit the mark, for they explained to me 
 that all those householders who had expressed their 
 willingness for a visit from our engineer corps had 
 changed their minds absolutely, and further, that the
 
 0- U 
 
 a, 
 
 5
 
 THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 37 
 
 Brahman priests had heard of our intentions and 
 had strictly forbidden any Brahman, whether teacher 
 or boy, from undertaking this most unholy and de- 
 grading work, and threatening instant excommuni- 
 cation should they disobey. 
 
 The whole school looked at me for an answer, if 
 any, to this Pontifical Bull. I must confess that it 
 all came upon me as a thunderclap, as I had not 
 prepared for this non possumus. 
 
 To show you how strong the Brahman priests are 
 in their conservatism, one summer recently the 
 municipality wished to clean up a most filthy alley 
 and pave it with bricks. The priests, to prevent 
 any such new-fangled innovation, lay down in this 
 filthy fairway so that the reformers would have to 
 remove their bodies, or pave the alley over them. 
 The priests, of course, won the day, as no member 
 of the municipality would dare touch the sacred 
 Brahman bodies ; so this alley remains to this day, 
 as it always has been, a " Nehushtan." 
 
 It is this lot who try (and generally succeed) to 
 block all reforms for the good of the city. It is 
 these people who spend many days in the year on 
 pilgrimages to the gods and goddesses who are 
 supposed to live in the springs and caves in the 
 mountains. Would that pilgrimages to those glorious 
 snowy heights, and the entrancing beauty of the 
 forests and streams, made them appreciate cleanliness 
 and purity ! But it is not so, for their eyes are still 
 blinded and their hearts darkened. 
 
 What is the use of moralizing? We will get
 
 38 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 back to hard facts, the struggle of years ago the 
 Pontifical Bull. I made answer to that Bull by 
 telling my teachers to go and interview those holy 
 men, and inform them that we were attacking filth 
 and not religion, and therefore there was no need 
 for their interference ; but we would be glad of their 
 co-operation in the matter of teaching the citizens 
 how to save themselves from deadly visitations. 
 
 I am sorry to say that my words did not drive 
 away the gloom, for they knew their priests better 
 than I did. They went to their classes with sad 
 countenances. I did not then fully realize how serious 
 the matter was for them, and how tight a grip the 
 priests had over their people, and I imagined that the 
 morning gloom would blow off as the morning mist. 
 
 School was over at 3.30, when the boat containing 
 all the digging tools was at the school steps. With 
 the help of two boatmen I brought up several spades 
 and picks opposite the school entrance, so that the 
 boys could choose their weapon when they came out 
 of school. No one dared come forward. I stood 
 there for some time looking at them, with my coat 
 off and a spade across my shoulder. The boys in 
 the meantime were crowding at the door and 
 windows, and I wondered how long this comic opera 
 would continue. At last one plucky fellow stepped 
 out and shouldered a pick, and then a second brave. 
 We three stood in a row waiting for others to join 
 us, but we were doomed to disappointment. For, all 
 of a sudden, the boys raised a great shout, and came 
 out at the rush, many of them covering their heads
 
 THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 39 
 
 with their blankets (it was early spring), so that I 
 should not be able to recognize them, and fled out 
 of the school compound, passing us as if we had 
 been lepers. 
 
 I was justly proud of the two who stood by my 
 side Brahmans, both of them. We proceeded to 
 the boat which was to take us to our battlefield, 
 which happened to be the compound belonging to 
 the C.E.Z.M.S. dispensary. This the neighbours had 
 used as a dumping ground. 
 
 As we passed under one of the seven cumbersome 
 wooden bridges which span the river Jhelum (the 
 Hydaspes of the Greeks), the crowd who had 
 assembled on it to watch us hooted, whistled, and 
 yelled at us as a Kashmir crowd know how. We 
 three stood up and returned them three cheers, and 
 before long we were out of range of their noise. 
 We sped down stream in silence, doing a good deal 
 of thinking, as we expected a warm reception when 
 \ve landed ; but contrary to our expectation we 
 were unmolested, and walked through the streets 
 with our tools to the dumping ground, which we 
 intended to drain, clean, and turn into a garden. 
 
 As our march had been so peaceful we expected 
 trouble at the dispensary compound, but we were 
 wrong once more, for as we opened the door cautiously 
 we found the place full of teachers and boys who 
 had come by by-ways and alleys, away from the 
 public gaze ; they had come to help and not hinder. 
 It is true that fear was written on their grinning 
 countenances ; nevertheless they had come deter-
 
 40 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 mined to face the music, which soon began in 
 earnest. We commenced at once to dig holes in 
 which to bury the filth, sweepers being procured to 
 put it into the holes so that the Brahmans should 
 not defile themselves by shovelling it up. 
 
 The whole neighbourhood was on the buzz, the 
 houses around were soon like a theatre pit, galleries, 
 and all the rest of it a fitting frame for the sanitary 
 comic opera which was being enacted, in this land 
 of comic operas. All seats were taken, in windows, 
 on walls and roofs, and every other place of vantage. 
 The crowd in the dirty street outside the compound 
 wall was packed tight with towns-folk who could 
 not see anything; so they amused themselves by 
 yelling and calling upon the volunteers to come 
 away. But as these orders were unheeded, they 
 threatened all the dire punishments that they could 
 think of, some of which they really carried into 
 effect later on. 
 
 Well, the boys stuck to their job until dark, and 
 then melted to their homes in the same manner as 
 they had come from the school. 
 
 The work continued day by day, nevertheless, 
 until we had carried out our programme and made 
 that desert place blossom as the rose, literally and 
 not metaphorically, for we drained it, brought in turf, 
 and planted flowers and rose trees. For some reason 
 or other the neighbours ceased to defile the dispensary, 
 which had been freely giving medical aid to their 
 suffering mothers, wives, and children. 
 
 You can be quite certain that the opera did not
 
 THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 41 
 
 cease with the first act, for meetings both public and 
 private were held in the city to condemn this unholy 
 work, and efforts were made to bring trouble upon 
 the school staff and to damage the schools, as you 
 will see later on. 
 
 But there was one brave man in the city (there 
 may have been more, but they kept out of our way 
 in those days), the tehsildar, or chief magistrate of 
 the city, and a Brahman to boot, an old greybeard, 
 whose only son attended our school. This man 
 came in all this hubbub to encourage me. He said : 
 " In order to show the city that I am on your 
 side, and that the tehsildar is not ashamed to use 
 a spade, will you please give orders that my son 
 shall always carry a spade across his shoulder when 
 he rides home from school." So every day the 
 towns-folk saw the strange sight of the tehsildar's 
 son mounted on his smart little pony, sitting on a 
 red and gold embroidered saddle-cloth, with a spade 
 across his shoulder. Not content with this, the 
 tehsildar borrowed tools from us, and he and his 
 servants drained his own compound. Thus the 
 holy city learned that their chief magistrate, who by 
 caste was a Brahman, was not ashamed to dig. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the telegraph office was 
 busy sending messages to the native press and to 
 influential people, and among them Mrs. Annie 
 Besant, of theosophical fame. Letters, no doubt 
 of a very garbled nature, soon reached her, so that 
 she felt it her duty to save the Brahmans of Srinagar. 
 
 Ere long she appeared on the scene and, with the
 
 42 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 aid of certain native officials who should have known 
 better, set to work to wreck the mission schools. 
 They commenced by opening a rival school close to 
 our high school, on the opposite side of the river. 
 The next incident was a mutiny in our school, 
 engineered by one of Mrs. Besant's disciples, which 
 might have been a complete success had very prompt 
 measures not been taken. As it was, three of the 
 staff with three hundred boys left the school for the 
 rival institution over the way, and became the nucleus 
 of Mrs. Annie Besant's Hindu school. 
 
 The leader of this immortalized three hundred 
 came to me about a week after the transfer, asking 
 pardon and promising to bring back the same 
 number of boys that he had taken away. I promised 
 my forgiveness on the condition that he brought 
 back the identical three hundred. This he said he 
 could not do, so we parted. I knew we should get 
 on without his help, and history proved that I was 
 right ; for in a few months our numbers rose from 
 500 to 800, our original total, and then went up 
 to 1500. 
 
 Very many comic operas were staged in those 
 days, which space forbids my mentioning, but there 
 are two side shows in connexion with the original 
 piece which are worth recording. 
 
 Many of the native papers had done us the honour 
 of telling their readers what they thought of us, and 
 gave accounts of what had not, as well as of what 
 had, happened chiefly the former. For many of 
 the Indian papers greedily swallow the lies made
 
 One of the Brahman Lies Reproduced on P.iper
 
 THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 43 
 
 red hot in Srinagar. One of the yarns that appeared 
 is worth quoting : 
 
 " Mr. Biscoe, principal of the Church mission 
 school in Srinagar, makes his Brahman boys 
 drag dead dogs through the city." 
 
 This " spicy " bit of news took our fancy, and 
 we thought it a pity that one of these yarns at least 
 should not be founded upon something tangible, so 
 we decided to help the editor of the paper in this 
 matter. 
 
 We possessed an obedient dog, a spaniel, who was 
 in the habit of "dying" for his friends when required 
 to do so. The rest of the cast was quite easy a 
 party of boys, a rope, and a photographer. The 
 obedient spaniel died, and remained dead while we 
 tied a rope to his hind leg, and placed the boys in 
 position on the rope for the photographer to snap. 
 
 So henceforward if ever we find a citizen disbeliev- 
 ing Srinagar yarns, especially those spun against 
 the schools, we can produce this photograph to show 
 that one at least of their stories is true. Papers may 
 err, but cameras never (?). 
 
 About a year and a half after these days of 
 digging, and "dragging dead dogs," I happened to be 
 in a suburb of Srinagar where we had worked on a 
 drain for some days, when an old white-bearded 
 Brahman of noble birth (so the neighbours described 
 him) fell upon my neck and wept. I fancied myself 
 for the moment to be in Canaan in the days of the 
 patriarchs. The cause of this tearful embrace was
 
 44 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 twofold, contrition for the past, and desire for my 
 aid in the present and future ; two tears out of every 
 three went to the second cause, I think. 
 
 After wishing my old friend peace, I asked him 
 why he had been lost to my sight for so long. He 
 answered, still holding on to me : " When you and 
 your boys were digging here for the good of the city, 
 and men laughed at and cursed you, you thought 
 that all the city was against you, but you were mis- 
 taken. I with others was watching you sympathetic- 
 ally, and praying for you, but we said nothing, for 
 we were afraid. But to show you that I lie not, 
 come and see what I have done to help you, how I 
 have metalled the road that you and your boys 
 drained. I have paid for it all myself, and now I 
 need your help, for the neighbours are angry with 
 me for having metalled this road for the public 
 good, and are trying to get me into trouble with the 
 authorities, saying that I intend to claim this road 
 for my own. They lie, Sahib ! Will you help me? " 
 
 I visited his road, which was a very good piece of 
 work, and of special benefit to the women and old 
 folk who used it daily on their way to and from the 
 canal. He left me comforted, but wiping his tear- 
 stained face with the end of the sheet he carried 
 over his shoulders. A pocket-handkerchief in his 
 case would have been useless.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 
 
 OWING to the peculiar circumstances of this 
 country and the character of its people, we 
 feel obliged to depart from the ordinary 
 rules, regulations, and customs which are found in 
 most schools and to adopt what seems to us best in 
 this school in particular. 
 
 To commence with the assembling of the school 
 we have no bell, but we have a flag-staff; so up goes 
 the school flag. Our school being situated on the 
 river bank, and being a three-storied building, the 
 flag can be seen from a great distance, both up and 
 down stream. Our flag is an honourable one, for it 
 has emblazoned on it the school crest and motto, 
 which proclaims to the city our sentiments and meets 
 the requirements of punctuality. Punctuality is not 
 one of the virtues of the East, which considers it 
 derogatory to high breeding. For hath it not the 
 taste of haste about it ? which is of course unseemly. 
 Hence our determination that the boys of our school 
 shall not follow the East in this particular respect. 
 So we start our school day by being punctual, or at 
 any rate we teach the boys that it hurts in several 
 ways and various parts if they are not. I need not say 
 
 45
 
 46 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 that we did not teach this virtue in a day or without 
 pain. 
 
 Roll call is a great opportunity for reading faces, 
 spotting those who are ill in body or mind, dis- 
 covering the reason, and then applying the remedy ; 
 also for ascertaining who are absent, and why. We 
 possess a smart man with a thermometer, a most 
 useful instrument, for most of the absentees are sick ! 
 This instrument is the very fiend to some absentees, 
 though a godsend to others. Many of our students 
 hate the man who invented this instrument almost 
 as much as I did Mr. Euclid in my youth. Then 
 it is as well to be the possessor of a sharp ear for 
 voices, for some of the boys use theirs in an act of 
 social service for their absentee pals. 
 
 We have a very useful board hanging on the school 
 wall, on which is inscribed daily the really sick boys, 
 their disease, the number of days of sickness, the 
 doctor who treats them and, lastly, the name of the 
 master who has visited them together with his report. 
 From this board we learn much. In fact, we feel the 
 pulse of the city. Sickness comes from various causes. 
 
 If it is sickness of body, the school doctor visits 
 the sick boy in his own house, or he persuades the 
 parents to send him to hospital. We have an up-to- 
 date ambulance, presented to the school by English 
 schoolboys. 
 
 It may be sickness caused by bad drainage, or 
 want of drainage, which is more probable. If so, 
 the matter is now represented to the municipality. 
 Formerly we had to do the needful ourselves.
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 47 
 
 Possibly the cause may be poverty, or the sickness 
 of the mother, which means lack of proper food. If 
 this is so, the matter is reported to the secretary of 
 the poor fund. 
 
 Or it may be sickness of mind, caused by evil 
 persons in the city, of which class there are not a few. 
 If this is the case, these scoundrels are sought out, 
 brought to the school, and taught in a very practical 
 manner that it hurts to molest or assault small boys. 
 
 Whatever the sickness is, we make it our business 
 to search it out, and go to the root of the matter and 
 stick to it until the wrong is righted, for we keep a 
 dispensary of medicines that have to be swallowed by 
 other methods than by opening the mouth. Through 
 our practice of house visitation we learn much else 
 besides the condition of the boys, and this knowledge 
 is made use of for the betterment of the families con- 
 cerned and of the city in general. It often means 
 introducing the lady doctors to the houses, taking 
 the members of the household to hospital, or calling 
 upon the teachers or boys to render social service, 
 which they perform in a hundred and one different 
 ways. 
 
 After the opening of school, which comprises roll 
 call, prayers, and the singing of a psalm or hymn of 
 praise, and possibly a talk of two minutes or so on 
 some relevant subject, the boys all double out of the 
 hall to the tune of the band to their classrooms, 
 where they line up before the form master for inspec- 
 tion as to their cleanliness in body and clothes. 
 
 This in the early days, now almost prehistoric, was
 
 48 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 a truly Herculean task. One absolutely did not 
 know where to commence with the cleansing. So we 
 used to pick out the super-dirty ones, take them to 
 the river ghat, and pitch them into the arms of father 
 Jhelum, clothes and all. As in those days the boys 
 were respectable gentlemen they knew not the low- 
 born art of swimming a rope was fastened round the 
 bundle so that it might live to be clean later on. 
 This method was, I grant you, a trifle drastic for 
 more reasons than one, but it had the desired effect : 
 dirt became less fashionable. 
 
 The first stage in the education of cleanliness 
 having proved satisfactory, we were able to proceed 
 with the higher standard, which took the shape of 
 teaching the use of the bath, carbolic soap, and the 
 scrubbing brush. The scholars who were considered 
 eligible for this higher course of study were deposited 
 in a bath in the classroom (for we believe in object 
 lessons) and scrubbed with the aforementioned brush 
 and soap. 
 
 This course did not continue as long as the former 
 one, as the pupils proved themselves apt learners. 
 This was satisfactory, for it enabled us to proceed to 
 the third standard, which is now a part of the school 
 curriculum. It is more simple and very effective, and 
 at the same time remunerative, not to the boy or the 
 teachers, but to the school coffers. It is simply this : 
 if the manager of the school detects a dirty boy after 
 a teacher has passed him as clean, the teacher in 
 question has to pay one rupee into the school coffers, 
 in order to smarten up his eyesight in this matter.
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 49 
 
 The net result of this hounding out of dirt is com- 
 fort for those who dislike dirt, self-respect to the boys, 
 and honour to the school. Clean clothes is a greater 
 difficulty, for that matter is to a great extent in the 
 hands of the parents, as they have to pay the washer- 
 men's bill, which seems to many an unnecessary 
 expense. So we have appointed Friday as washing 
 or dhobi day. We have instituted this custom in 
 order that those boys whose parents are not dhobi- 
 phile or, in plain English, lovers of washermen, may 
 save their parents' pockets by washing their own 
 clothes. Now a washerman's is considered a very 
 low-down job, hence many boys are able to bring 
 pressure on their parents, to avoid being chaffed by 
 their fellow students. So, through this general dis- 
 like of the washing trade, we produce cleaner clothes 
 on the persons of the students. 
 
 Roll call over, the thermometer having started on 
 its hunt for the sick (?), and dirty boys having been 
 dealt with, class work commences as in all well- 
 ordered schools. The first period of thirty minutes 
 is devoted to Scripture teaching. All the boys know 
 that if they come to the mission school they study 
 the Holy Bible. When boys express their wish to 
 attend the mission school (in this country the boys 
 generally choose for themselves to what school they 
 will go), I always tell them what to expect larger 
 fees and fines than any other school in this country, 
 compulsory games, which are unknown in the other 
 schools, free use of the cane and other punishments, 
 and that our Scriptures form part of the school 
 D
 
 50 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 studies. I have never found them object, but on the 
 contrary they read the Scriptures keenly ; many are 
 the boys in whose hearts have been implanted a 
 desire for righteousness and an admiration for the life 
 of Jesus Christ. The life of Christ is unfolded to the 
 boys with the aid of maps. We work by map so that 
 towns and villages in that wonderful little country 
 may be associated with kind deeds, with the hope 
 that the boys may put into practice in their own 
 country something, at least, of that life of service 
 which was lived in Palestine, and still further that 
 they may wish to follow in His steps and become His 
 devoted followers and disciples. 
 
 Anyway, they learn that Christianity is a practical 
 religion, that it has very much to do with everyday 
 life and everything in life, and that it is quite a 
 different business from their religion, to which they 
 have been accustomed all their lives. They can see 
 plainly the difference between Christianity, as taught 
 in their school for practice outside in the city, and 
 their own religion, which has produced the present 
 conditions prevailing all around them. And again, 
 they observe how many evil customs are changing 
 under the practical teachings of the few on Christian 
 lines. That life, lived in Palestine two thousand 
 years ago, is bearing fruit in Kashmir to-day. 
 
 After the Scripture period come the classes 
 for English, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, mathematics, 
 history, and geography. Although cramming is not 
 permitted and learning by heart discouraged, as these 
 habits lead to deplorable results, we still hold our
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 51 
 
 own with other schools in examinations. In 1917 
 our percentage of passes in the matriculation for the 
 Punjab University examination was seventy-nine per 
 cent, and the year before was higher than any of the 
 schools in the State. 
 
 In the middle of the daily school course the gong 
 booms forth for work to cease. Then the bugle sounds, 
 which brings the boys out of school helter-skelter into 
 the playground in twenty-five seconds; if they are 
 longer about it than twenty-five seconds they have to 
 go back and do the lightning descent over again, 
 until their speed satisfies the man with the watch. 
 Eight poles from the upper stories to the ground 
 supplement the two staircases, and speed up the 
 descent one hundred per cent. We do this in double 
 quick time every day, in order to show our contempt 
 for the supposed dignity of slow progression, and that 
 time has its value. In other words, we just hustle 
 the East. 
 
 The whole school is now formed up into one large 
 squad, and goes through bodily exercises to the 
 joyful noise of the band. After ten minutes of this 
 drill the band ceases, and all the boys double 
 off to their special apparatus, such as parallel and 
 horizontal bars, horse, clubbing, boxing, skipping, 
 high and broad and pole jump, rings, and trapeze. 
 Then, when all is ready, the band strikes up and puts 
 everything in motion at once, and you imagine your- 
 self at Mr. Barnum's show. And once more you see 
 a school in being. 
 
 This half-hour is, to my mind, the teachers'
 
 52 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 opportunity for learning the true character of the boys. 
 I am always sorry when other matters demand 
 one's presence elsewhere. The boys are then just 
 themselves, or if they are not one can detect it at 
 once. One can see their virtues and vices, their 
 strong and weak points, their likes and dislikes. 
 Over some one grieves, whilst over others one re- 
 joices. It is a perfect kaleidoscope of sensations. 
 
 Here a boy swaggers on the bars because he sees 
 that he is being watched there a boy is putting 
 his whole soul into the business in hand. There is 
 the instructor who allows a boy to shirk the trick on 
 the horizontal bar because he funks it, for is not that 
 particular boy the son of a friend of his, or some big 
 man's son ? Another teacher is wisely encouraging 
 a timid boy to try the trick again. Now a boy is 
 slacking with his clubs, there a small boy is taking 
 really nasty whacks on his nose in good temper and 
 playing up to his adversary. There, again, is the 
 son of a banya (tradesman) funking from the gloves 
 of an underfed boy who, notwithstanding, possesses 
 grit that would do credit to that athletic fellow from 
 the hills who is at this moment pounding a Punjabi. 
 How one longs for one hundred eyes instead of a 
 pair, in order to learn more in that all too short half- 
 hour. Ah ! there goes the gong ; the revel ceases, 
 and again the boys form up into their large squad, 
 this time to pray for the King, the Viceroy, and the 
 Maharajah. 
 
 Prayer ended, they stand to attention and salute 
 the King-Emperor as the Union Jack isjioisted, and
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 53 
 
 the band strikes up the National Anthem and after- 
 wards the Maharajah's Anthem. It is while we are 
 at attention, and in absolute silence, that we all re- 
 member that we all belong to the same great empire, 
 and we thank God. 
 
 The band strikes up again, when all the boys 
 double off single file to form a maze. We watch 
 each boy as he passes, and learn more ; for every 
 boy runs and holds himself differently ; some are 
 painfully conscious, whilst others are as equally un- 
 conscious as they double past. Now comes " easy " 
 for ten minutes, when both teachers and boys can 
 take refreshments, if they wish it, before joining 
 their classes. Some betake themselves to the illus- 
 trated papers which are fastened to the veranda walls 
 in wire cages, where they can learn by pictures what 
 is happening in the world outside. At the end of 
 term there is an examination in modern history. 
 Boys are not promoted unless they pass this examina- 
 tion. In order to encourage the teachers to take the 
 same interest in the buzz of the world, a master's 
 salary drops if his class fails to obtain the necessary 
 percentage of marks in this examination. Nor does 
 that salary alter until the class satisfies the examiner. 
 
 The Burmese gong again booms forth to call the 
 boys from refreshment to labour, and all of them 
 troop back to their classrooms for the second half of 
 the school day. 
 
 I have alluded to the use to which we put illustrated 
 papers. We believe in teaching through "eye-gate," 
 and we make full use of picture postcards. Besides
 
 54 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 having books of them arranged as to countries and 
 subjects for ordinary teaching, we have one set 
 entirely for the British Empire, in order that teachers 
 may have pictures of the towns of which they are 
 speaking to pass round the class in our own patent 
 hand frame. We have also assigned to most of the 
 classrooms a country, and have made a dado of pic- 
 ture postcards composed of scenes of that particular 
 country. The pictures are fixed in a long, glazed 
 frame, so that they may be safe from dust, dirt, and 
 marauders. Our hope is that, as boys remain in a 
 class for a year, that particular country will soak into 
 their brains as the maps on my classroom wall forty 
 odd years ago soaked into my dull head. The small 
 boys' classroom has naturally been provided with 
 pictures of India; on the north wall, North India; 
 on the south, South India ; on the east, East India ; 
 on the west, West India ; and round the central 
 pillars, Central India. 
 
 Then in the kindergarten room, as we consider the 
 boys too young to comprehend a country, we start 
 them on animals grouped according to continents. 
 Birds and butterflies have also their special places 
 and, if we can find pictures of fish, they shall swim 
 near the floor. The kindergarten room is already a 
 regular Noah's Ark. 
 
 We have a classroom somewhat below ground 
 level, devoted to submarines and any thing of a 
 creepy-crawly nature. This room is where Sanskrit 
 is taught, and those who patronize it are chiefly 
 the sons of^Brahman priests who still wear the old-
 
 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 55 
 
 fashioned dirty nightgown sort of garment and 
 wooden clogs, and find it hard to give up the conceit 
 and untruthfulness of their forefathers. So we place 
 the Hun submarines down with them let us hope 
 with good results ! Then, lastly, we have a class- 
 room on the roof, called the Pigeon Loft, overlooking 
 the city and the valley to the everlasting hills a 
 glorious view. In this exalted classroom we place 
 pictures of air-ships and aeroplanes. 
 
 We have also started a geographical room and a 
 historical room, i.e. we collect all maps, charts, and 
 pictures we can lay hands on for the walls of those 
 rooms, so that, when a class is being taught those 
 particular subjects, the teacher and boys are in their 
 element, and the instructor has helpful material at 
 the top of his pointer. Six large wall maps show 
 all our Lord's journeys up and down Palestine. 
 Short notes are found against each town or village 
 as to what our Lord did in them, thereby associating 
 towns and villages with kind deeds, as in ordinary 
 maps towns are noted for their manufactures, battles, 
 etc. The mileage is noted from place to place, the 
 mountains crossed, and the weary climbing up and 
 down hill, which these boys know so well in this 
 country. Further, they mark the great depressions 
 of the Jordan valley, hundreds of feet below sea- 
 level, with its tropical heat, and can sympathize with 
 Him as they remember the oppressive heat here in 
 the stuffy bazaars crowded with smelly people on a 
 piping hot day. They can understand the attitude 
 of the disciples entering Jericho after that hot march
 
 56 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 to the fords of Jordan, irritated by the persistent 
 yelling of the blind beggar, and then shoving him 
 away. We think we have found a way of making 
 the life of our Lord a reality, and the Scriptures live 
 again. 
 
 You must remember that, excepting a dozen Chris- 
 tians, most of the boys are Hindus and Moham- 
 medans ; hence we must make our Scripture lessons 
 interesting and practical, or else leave the subject 
 alone. 
 
 We have lately commenced making raised maps 
 on glass, so that all rivers, lakes, and sea look like 
 water and cannot be mistaken for dry land. I men- 
 tion this because the boys, having no idea of what 
 the sea is, cannot, of course, imagine its vastness. 
 They thought that only the blue edging, as painted 
 on maps, was the sea, and that the lighter colour 
 must be land, and often they would write the names 
 of towns on the sea. So now we hope that these 
 maps will help them to grasp the fact that seas and 
 rivers are two very different sizes of waters. Perhaps 
 this instance will show you how difficult it is for the 
 youth of this country to grasp anything which they 
 have not seen, and to make them understand that 
 which they and their forefathers have never known. 
 
 At different times I have sent thirteen teachers to 
 see the sea and the greater world, in order to speed 
 up things a bit. Hence once again (other people are 
 also sometimes dense) the reason why we believe so 
 strongly in teaching Christianity by deeds rather than 
 by books and words, and why we lay so much stress
 
 A PEEP BEHIN 7 D THE SCENES 57 
 
 on social service not being confined to teaching in 
 class, but consisting in the practice of the sort of 
 things which our Lord did Himself when He walked 
 the bazaars and lived among men. 
 
 Every boy passes through the doctor's hands, so 
 that we may know the insides of our boys as well as 
 their outsides. We are also anxious that the boys 
 should know something of their insides as well ; so 
 on the walls of the dispensary hang large coloured 
 charts of the human body. To these pictures the 
 attention of the boy is directed, so that he can see at 
 once the exact spot where the trouble is, and learns 
 further how to avoid that particular pain in future. 
 This arrangement we consider rather more satis- 
 factory than that of a boy showing his tongue, and 
 in return being given a prescription to take to the 
 dispensary. By our method sick boys become wiser 
 than healthy ones, and their very troubles become 
 blessings. 
 
 We have for many years run regattas and sports 
 without rewards, and the result has been decidedly 
 satisfactory, for the boys not only are not "on the 
 make," but feel insulted when offered a tip for, as 
 they tell you, " they have done the deed," whatever 
 it may be, " for the honour of the school." Any one 
 knowing the Kashmiri and his love for filthy lucre 
 will appreciate this spirit. 
 
 I do not mean to say that this super-sporting spirit 
 is yet very deep, but my belief is that, if we can 
 teach the boys to love honour above rewards, we 
 shall some day find an unselfish people.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DOING OUR BIT 
 
 WE closed the year 1917 with an interesting 
 and useful piece of social service, in 
 which we simply had to follow and not 
 to lead quite a new experience, and a very pleasant 
 one. Profiteers had been growing rich by cornering 
 rice, which is the staple food of the people, and 
 by charging their fellow-countrymen whatever they 
 pleased. The butchers and bakers also thought 
 that they should not lag behind ; nor did they. 
 But they counted without their host ; for we happen 
 to have a Governor (a Kashmiri by the way) 
 fearless and of strong character, who at once 
 grasped the situation, and acted promptly by fixing 
 what he considered were fair prices for food stuffs. 
 Then came the difficulty of seeing that his orders 
 were carried out, for in some parts of the East it is 
 one thing to make a law, and quite another to see 
 that it is obeyed. So he struck out a new line by 
 invoking the aid of humble but honestly interested 
 citizens to act as a vigilance corps. This was com- 
 posed of some twenty head-men from a carpet factory 
 and fifty C.M.S. teachers. These seventy "Vigilants" 
 willingly gave their work and spare time and their 
 
 58
 
 DOING OUR BIT 59 
 
 best services to help the weak against the strong, 
 and to enforce obedience to State orders by syste- 
 matically patrolling the entire city, and reporting to 
 the Governor cases of rice hoarding, extortionate and 
 unauthorized prices, and other malpractices. Many 
 of the thwarted dealers closed their doors, and these 
 had to be opened. Then it is a local custom for 
 shopmen to have two sets of weights the just weights 
 being commendably placed on the shop front for all 
 to see, and the false weights behind the counter for 
 use. This and other such one-sided trade matters 
 received due attention, and public approval ; and this 
 averting of famine prices and practical social service 
 by willing Mohammedan and Hindu helpers still 
 continues. 
 
 The Governor opened shops of his own, in which 
 our men sold rice to the poor until the rice dealers 
 came to reason. Our " V.C.s" had quite a busy time 
 and many amusing experiences, for the poor blessed 
 them while the dealers contrariwise dealt out curses. 
 On one occasion a certain baker was overheard to 
 say : " There go the fiends of hell, let loose upon 
 our city by Padre Biscoe." Poor Srinagar ! 
 
 Some of our men were sent up and down the river 
 for many miles searching for boats of rice and fuel, 
 which were hiding in quiet places while waiting for a 
 rise of prices in the city. Others went into the 
 villages to discover those who were hoarding rice, 
 and also those who were smuggling it out of the 
 country, as the law forbids the export of rice. They 
 returned with interesting information which proved
 
 60 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 useful to the authorities. They also made them- 
 selves useful by selling the rice which the Governor 
 collected, preserving order among the crowds of 
 impatient townsfolk waiting to purchase grain, and 
 seeing that the women and the poor folk were not 
 " done down " by the strong and the rich. 
 
 It was a work requiring much tact and persever- 
 ance, and sometimes the use of muscles, for often 
 women and weak persons were pushed into the river 
 during the struggle for food, and a few were drowned. 
 
 The food profiteers on their part did not remain 
 idle, for they had no intention of passively losing 
 their chance of loot. They pulled the strings so 
 successfully that our strong Governor was removed 
 to another sphere, out of harm's way as far as the 
 food profiteers were concerned, and we, his aiders 
 and abettors, found ourselves not particularly popular 
 in certain high circles. However, the wind changed 
 again, and we found ourselves called upon to render 
 the same assistance as we gladly rendered the 
 winter before. 
 
 The situation was even worse than it had been 
 in the previous year, notwithstanding the bumper 
 harvest, the profiteers having increased in number 
 and boldness. As the situation demanded prompt- 
 ness, we closed the schools so that all the staff might 
 be able to throw themselves into the work. For we 
 considered that feeding a city was more important 
 than teaching boys. 
 
 Incidentally, this occupation gave us plenty of 
 opportunities for social service, beyond the actual
 
 DOING OUR BIT 61 
 
 work of selling rice from 1 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. at thirty 
 distributing places. We were able to show that we 
 were no respecters of persons. When we saw a rich 
 man come in gay clothing, we did not allow him 
 to put the poor man or widow aside in order to be 
 served first, or permit the strong to steal from the 
 weak, which is often the case, as the following 
 instance will show. 
 
 A certain poor widow had just been supplied with 
 her dole of rice, when down came a rich man, who 
 had been a judge in this city for twenty years or 
 more and, although he had rich lands of his own, 
 he seized this little lot of rice which the poor widow 
 was taking home. I know this judge very well, as 
 he has interested me as a dispenser of justice (?) for 
 many years. The ways of men in this land are a 
 wonderful commentary on all the books of our Bible, 
 and especially the Psalms, proving over and over 
 again that it is indeed a book of truth. 
 
 Our men had some amusing experiences also, for 
 several people who wished to be served first, or to 
 receive more than their share, thought that our men 
 were out for bribes like the rest of their brethren. 
 One of our men accepted the coin put into his hand, 
 and then, holding it out to the crowd to show what 
 a fortunate man he was, threw good money straight 
 into the river. The crowd just opened their mouths ! 
 In this and many odd ways our men were able to 
 show that the ways of men, even in Kashmir, are 
 not always the same. We were very thankful to the 
 State for giving us this opportunity of service.
 
 62 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 Reference has already been made, in passing, to the 
 alertness of our boys in preventing cruelty to animals 
 a besetting sin of the people of this land. Several 
 times have I seen citizens throw boiling water on the 
 pariah dogs which act as street scavengers. When 
 these animals drop with disease and starvation they 
 become food for the survivors. No one is permitted 
 to put them out of their misery, as it is considered 
 kinder to allow them to die a " natural death ! " 
 
 Next to the dog-scavenger is the cow. Often 
 have I seen these poor, starved creatures fighting 
 with the dogs for the filth in the streets, and now, 
 as a more modern drainage system is being extended, 
 the dogs and useless cows find it harder to live 
 in the winter. The extraordinary thing is that 
 although the cow is considered by the Hindus to be 
 a holy animal, and any one who kills one is put 
 into prison for life, yet the Hindus will watch 
 cows starving. As they pass them they will often 
 touch them with a garment and then put the garment 
 to their lips, so that the holiness of the cow may 
 in some way benefit them ; but they will see a cow 
 drop down from exhaustion, the carrion birds peck- 
 ing at it while life still remains, the poor beast trying 
 to shake th.j birds off they will see its terrible death, 
 yet will not move a finger to save or protect it. 
 
 This is an attitude it is impossible to understand, 
 but I am determined that the boys who come under 
 the Christian influence in the schools shall under- 
 stand it, shall perceive the shame to their religion, 
 shall realize the hollowness of their cow holiness,
 
 DOING OUR BIT 63 
 
 and shall see the insult to Almighty God, Who has 
 committed to the care of men cows as well as other 
 animals. Since those days the boys have been 
 learning, and are continually putting their new-found 
 faith into practice. 
 
 And next to the cow, in the matter of ill-treat- 
 ment, comes the horse. One or two of our boys 
 found a horse with a broken leg lying in the bed of a 
 river. It had been one of a pair bringing a landau 
 into the city. Its partner was restive and broke its 
 leg with a kick. The driver unharnessed the poor 
 animal, dragged it off the road and down into the 
 river, to be out of sight and out of mind, hoping that 
 it would soon die, and be hidden from view for ever 
 in the stomachs of the pariah dogs and birds of prey. 
 
 Our boys did not think that this way of looking at 
 things was quite satisfactory, so they went off to the 
 city and brought food for it, and then came to me 
 for advice. It was then 9 p.m. I am unable to 
 write what happened next, but on the fo 1 lowing 
 day when the judges arrived and the court sat and 
 gave its decision on this case, it became lawful to 
 put the poor beast out of its misery, and it was 
 shot accordingly. The cruel scoundrel, who was 
 fined by the court ten rupees, was very angry with 
 the boy who informed against him, and threatened 
 to burn his house down. Since then scores of men 
 have been convicted, so that from 300 to 350 rupees 
 are paid into the court as fines every month. 
 
 On another occasion one of our boys found a 
 donkey with a sore back and lame, so he made the
 
 64 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 man remove the load from the donkey on to his (the 
 driver's) back. It is very seldom now that one sees 
 an ill-used pack animal in the city, and we receive 
 only about half a dozen starved and wounded animals 
 annually, owing to the passing of a law directed 
 against their ill-treatment. To our boys belong the 
 honour of being the first to put this law into action. 
 
 With regard to kind actions on the part of our 
 boys towards human beings, it is a little difficult to 
 select examples, since most of those on behalf of 
 women consist in carrying their loads, cutting up 
 firewood, and such-like. During the year 1918 two 
 stand out in my mind, since they justify the teaching 
 of the noble art of self-defence. 
 
 A woman had been enticed into a house, and 
 was about to be assaulted by a Mohammedan pir 
 (saint), when one of our boys happened to hear her 
 screams and, although himself a Mohammedan, feared 
 not the "saint" but called men to the rescue and 
 saved her. 
 
 Then, on another occasion our boys fell in with a 
 party of hooligans who were beating a woman, and 
 ran to her help. A free fight ensued in which our 
 boys came out victorious, but with loss to themselves 
 in the matter of property. 
 
 A matter which is worrying my men just now is 
 the shameful custom of early marriage. It has been 
 brought to our notice lately that several little girls 
 have died in childbirth. If the wrong had not been 
 sanctioned by marriage, these murderers (for what 
 else are they ?) would presumably be in prison, with
 
 DOING OUR BIT 65 
 
 deserved sentences of several years. A short time 
 ago we heard of a girl, aged 12 years, being married 
 to a man of 26. So my men went to him, expressed 
 their opinions plainly and forcibly, and extracted 
 a promise that he would leave the girl with her 
 mother until she was old enough to bear a child 
 without danger. Now we hear that the scoundrel 
 has broken his promise, and taken the girl to his 
 house ; he has public opinion on his side and we 
 are considered to be meddlers. 
 
 In order to stop early marriage we charge double 
 fees to any boy who marries before the age of 18. 
 Last week I was begging a certain leader of the city 
 to do what he could to alter this shameful state of 
 things. He told me that he was doing so, that he 
 had held a meeting of the leading Hindus in the city, 
 and that they had promised to try to prevent girls 
 being married before the age of 13 ; in fact, he said, 
 their leader was just going to marry his daughter of 
 13, which he considered was a good example to the 
 city! 
 
 The blind, like the poor, are always with us, 
 smallpox being one of the great causes of total 
 blindness, as few people escape. A few years 
 ago I took a census of the boys in the schools, 
 and I discovered that out of the thousand boys 
 only one per cent had escaped this fell disease, 
 and that those few had all been vaccinated. 
 Although blind men are usually very clever at 
 finding their way about without help, some never- 
 theless get into difficulties and lose themselves, 
 

 
 66 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 or fall into drains, etc. ; hence the boys find oppor- 
 tunities of service in this line. 
 
 Our staff add nursing to their other duties when 
 epidemics visit us. Look at this scene. We are 
 in an upstair room in a house in the city, full of 
 relatives who have come to mourn and groan by 
 way of sympathy, and to see the last of their friend. 
 He is one of my teachers, in the last stage of 
 cholera ; his fellow-teachers, with their coats off, 
 are massaging his arms and legs to relieve him of 
 the terrible pain of cramps which is upon him ; the 
 teachers have arranged themselves in watches of 
 two hours' duty, all through the night. 
 
 I had just given him a teaspoonful of brandy, when 
 the man who was holding his head said to me in 
 a whisper: " Please, Sahib, leave the room." Think- 
 ing that it was on account of Hindu women present, 
 I did so. Early next morning the man came to tell 
 me that the teacher was dead. I asked the time of 
 his death. He answered : " Directly you put the 
 brandy in his mouth he passed away, but I did not 
 tell any one of the relatives for fear that they would 
 say that you had killed him ; also on account of the 
 women, for women hear bad news better in the 
 morning than at night. We massaged his limbs so 
 that those in the room might not know that he was 
 dead till the sun rose." 
 
 There were these teachers massaging a cholera 
 corpse all night ! They knew well the risk they ran 
 of infection, but they stuck to it in order to save me, 
 and lessen the shock for the female relatives.
 
 DOING OUR BIT 67 
 
 The following list of kind deeds was brought to 
 my notice during the year 1918 : 
 
 Lives saved from drowning . . 19 
 
 Help given to women . . .92 
 
 children . .60 
 
 old men . . 23 
 
 blind folk . 17 
 
 neighbours . . 60 
 
 animals . 15 
 
 Work, done by parties of boys, included help given 
 at eleven fires ; the school band gave six entertain- 
 ments at hospitals, besides playing through the city 
 on joyful occasions ; boys in squads lent their 
 muscles thirty-two times ; others lent their brains in 
 teaching in a night school for several months ; crews 
 of boys took out patients from the hospitals and 
 city, making fifty-six trips and carrying over three 
 hundred sick folk. 
 
 And, of course, boys make use of their boating 
 knowledge by recovering boats that get loose and 
 wander down stream. The ordinary citizen sits and 
 watches the boat float away out of sight, and amuses 
 himself by wondering where it will fetch up. Our 
 boys also go to the help of boatmen towing up their 
 barges against the heavy stream under the arches 
 of the bridges. I wonder if the boatmen ever ask 
 themselves why the mission school boys bother 
 themselves about them and their boats, for no one 
 does anything in this country without a view to
 
 68 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 the main chance. Are these boys paid for it? If 
 not, what fools they must be ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 "To Padre Biscoe Sahib Bahadur (the treasure of 
 kindness), Protector of the Poor, may you be in 
 peace : 
 
 "With hundred respects, I beg to state at 1.15 a.m. 
 there broke out a great fire near my house, on 
 account of which all my neighbours were in great 
 consternation. In the meantime Pandit Samsar 
 Chandji, who is a master on your staff, climbed over 
 the wall, and with great sympathy and bravery 
 supplied water, with other helpers, and put down 
 the fire. 
 
 " I pray for the British Government from the core 
 of my heart, who have sent Padre Sahib who infuses 
 such noble, practical education, has created thoughts 
 of helping and of kindness in masters and boys ; for 
 this I thank Padre Sahib from the bottom of my 
 heart." 
 
 My readers may draw the conclusion from the 
 above letter that every one loves me from the core 
 of their hearts ; so in order that they may understand 
 that there are just a few who object, I quote the 
 following letter, written when I was on a visit 
 to India: 
 
 "We know that devil Biscue. . . . Warn him 
 that if he puts foot into our sacred Kashmir he 
 would be driven out bare foot in his shirt, and would 
 be drawn with wild horses." 
 
 N.B. Perhaps the writer meant asses !
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHARACTER SHEET 
 
 THAT Kashmir boys should notice cruelty, 
 that they should wish to see things altered, 
 and that they should be willing to suffer in 
 order that they may save suffering facts like these 
 show that a new spirit is abroad. 
 
 Where did these ideas and their practical enforce- 
 ment come from ? From Hinduism and Moham- 
 medanism? If so, why have they waited all these 
 years till Christ's life has been preached to them? 
 No, you who read this know that it is through the 
 power of Christ's example when on earth, and by the 
 power of His death and resurrection that the true 
 light has come into this world. And, if the East is to 
 know of this light, it must come again thiough the 
 East as it originally came from the East. We 
 Westerners can only show the way, and start the 
 nobler spirits of the nation in leading the van. 
 Each nation must have its own knight errants. 
 Hence our school is not a factory for turning out 
 passed or failed examinees, as are so many schools in 
 India ; nor is it a temple of learning in the ordinary 
 sense, though we have the same curriculum as the 
 ordinary high school, and have no reason to hang 
 
 69
 
 our heads because of any failure to carry off aca- 
 demical honours ; but it is a workshop for building 
 men, notwithstanding our failures, which are very 
 many. 
 
 The character sheet (see last page) will show 
 you at once our somewhat comprehensive scheme 
 of training. 
 
 I will not describe it ; I will only remind you that 
 this report is filled up three times a year for each 
 boy. That it entails a great amount of time and 
 labour goes without saying, but my staff and I do 
 not grudge this in the least, as every year shows 
 more and more its usefulness in enabling us to 
 know each boy, and therefore to help him ; it also 
 makes the teachers character readers, which is all 
 important. 
 
 To give you an idea how faithfully our teachers 
 watch their charges and do their work of " foster 
 father," which is by no means a sinecure, I will pass 
 on to you the conversation which took place between 
 me and one of my staff who was bringing before me 
 the members of his own class one by one in order to 
 pass them through their character sheet for the term 
 just ended. 
 
 Case i. A tall and very serious looking youth has 
 just been before me, and on his departure I ask why 
 he has been given such high marks for " citizenship," 
 as he did not give one the impression of being very 
 energetic. The master answers that his looks belie 
 him ; he has a very kind disposition, for he is in the 
 habit of going off by himself and hiring a boat on
 
 THE CHARACTER SHEET 71 
 
 the quiet and taking sick neighbours out on the lake 
 for fresh air and change. 
 
 Case 2. An athletic, strong fellow, a member of 
 the school cricket team, with hard and insolent look- 
 ing eyes. I say to the master that I do not like the 
 look of those eyes. I see that they are not so un- 
 pleasant as they used to be, but why is it that 
 this look dies so hard ? I am told that is not alto- 
 gether this boy's fault. " It is this way, Sahib, 
 (waxing vehement) his father, brothers, and cousins 
 are all in the Forest Department, and they have plenty 
 of opportunities of looting the villagers and they do not 
 neglect their opportunities. He is much better than 
 they, but it is hard for him not to follow their lead." 
 
 Case 3. A boy with a hunted-hare look now 
 stands in front of me. What is the cause of this ? I 
 ask. Answer : he has not a happy home, for he 
 has lost both his parents, and his step-mother with 
 whom he lives has not a very agreeable temper ; 
 hence the result. 
 
 Case 4. A boy with very cheeky, deceitful eyes. 
 On asking the reason, I am told to look at f lie trade 
 of his father, and that will explain. I look, and note 
 that his father is a money lender. 
 
 Case 5. " You have given this boy very high marks 
 for citizenship." " Yes, for he deserves every one of 
 them. He is a rich man's son, and is always doing 
 kind actions towards his neighbours, helping the sick 
 folk and the old women." This boy the other day 
 was brought before me for some fault, and when I 
 had finished the jubation, he stammered out some-
 
 72 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 thing which fairly amazed me, for I had never had 
 such a request made before. It was that I should 
 give him a beating, so that the evil might depart 
 from him ! He was in dead earnest. I am afraid 
 my heart was hard, and I refused his request, telling 
 him to go and do his best to undo the evil he had done. 
 
 Then by the sheet I see what my staff of seventy 
 men are doing or not doing, as the case may be. 
 It is by this method that I am able to keep in 
 touch with the hundreds of boys, who thus become 
 individuals and not units. The sheet has taught 
 me more about the boys, their families, and their 
 environment in the city, than I could possibly have 
 learnt in any other way. 
 
 I will pass on to you just three curious incidents 
 that came out through the character sheet one year. 
 
 A little Mohammedan boy is brought to me, and 
 I see that the character sheet and his appearance 
 agree. He is in a weak physical condition, and an 
 inquiry elicits the following story. His father has 
 been hard up of late owing to the money he has 
 spent in long journeyings, and therefore his family 
 have been more or less starving. What was the 
 reason of this travelling ? His elder brother, a boy 
 of above 12 years, was kidnapped by a woman while 
 he was playing in the bazaar, and she sold him to 
 some men going to the Punjab. When the father 
 found out where his son had gone, he set out to 
 search for him in the towns of the Punjab, and after 
 weary travelling found him in Sindh, married to a 
 rajah's daughter.
 
 THE CHARACTER SHEET 73 
 
 You would have thought that the father would 
 have returned a rich man to live in peace and plenty 
 for ever afterwards. But we are in the East, where 
 many things are upside down. As the rajah did 
 not do his duty, we set to work at once to do part 
 of it by feeding the boy out of the schoolboys' 
 poor fund. 
 
 A bright Brahman boy stands before me, strong 
 in body and lithe of limb. I see that he has got 
 very high marks for esprit de corps, and ask the 
 tutor why. He answers : " This boy is a splendid 
 chap ; he always disobeys his father, and therefore 
 I have given him high marks." On my raising my 
 eye-brows, the tutor continues : " This boy has a 
 fool of a father, who forbids his son to join in any 
 of the school games ; but the boy always disobeys 
 him, turns up regularly, plays keenly, takes part in 
 the weekly regatta, and so gains marks for his 
 school." (The six schools are always engaged in 
 continual contest as to work, games, making money 
 for the poor, etc.) 
 
 A poor frightened-looking little boy faces me. 
 I see at once that it is a case of home treatment 
 (generally a step-mother). 
 
 " Whose son is this little fellow ? " I ask. 
 
 "The son of ," says the tutor. 
 
 " But how in the name of fortune did that man send 
 his son to us ? " 
 
 " Because he said that it was the safest place to 
 which he could send his son." 
 
 I must confess I felt honoured. The father of
 
 74 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 this boy is the soundest scoundrel unhung. Oh, 
 what a hunt he gave us ! And what a successful 
 hunt it was ! To make a long story short, this 
 man, an ex-police officer, selected one of his quarries, 
 an old schoolboy, and, after annexing most of 
 his money, had him run into the criminal gaol for 
 debt. There I found the young fellow in a pitiable 
 condition, for, although a Brahman, he had not been 
 allowed to wash all the time he was in gaol, and the 
 gaoler had taken care that he should not over-feed. 
 We took the matter up, and the judge apologized for 
 a miscarriage of justice, and had the boy removed to 
 the civil gaol. While the scoundrel's quarry was out 
 of the way under lock and key, he sent round men 
 of his own kidney to molest the unprotected women 
 in the prisoner's home. This of course brought our 
 scouts into play, those being selected who were 
 handy with their knuckles, and they protected the 
 women, day and night. 
 
 When the boy had served his term, the same rascal 
 was at him again, and would, no doubt, have placed 
 him again in durance vile had we not managed to 
 help him to escape. He carried on his business from 
 Simla, the school scouts aiding him. 
 
 These character forms are an unending source of 
 interest, leading both directly and indirectly to 
 practical work. It is this knowledge of things as 
 they really are in this city of 125,000 inhabitants 
 which gives us the opportunity of social service, for it 
 takes us right behind the scenes, into the homes, 
 behind the purdah, into the temples, and into the
 
 THE CHARACTER SHEET 75 
 
 dark as well as the bright corners of the city and 
 Srinagar society. 
 
 If the reader will look at the top of the character 
 sheet he will note that we chronicle, under the words 
 " Probable Loot," what a parent is worth in the 
 market of honour and dishonour. I am afraid it 
 shocked a certain rich balm (English-speaking clerk) 
 to read such words. He said he wondered how a man 
 who considered himself an educationist could give 
 away the fathers of his boys in that unseemly manner, 
 as it would teach the boys to despise their parents. 
 I, on my part, certainly was surprised at a rich 
 babu imagining that a boy of this country would be 
 ignorant of this universal method of acquiring wealth. 
 
 This matter of "loot," or dishonest gain, is one of 
 the chief temptations for which we try to prepare 
 our boys. For in this country dishonesty is the best 
 policy, and it beats me to think how any boy is 
 going to stand up against it unless he possesses the 
 strength that cometh from God alone. 
 
 Let me give one instance of more than probable loot. 
 
 Here is the father of one of my students. His 
 pay is twenty rupees per month as a clerk in a 
 certain office. His office is thirty-three miles from 
 Srinagar, so he is obliged to keep two establishments 
 going, his own and that of his family in Srinagar. 
 His own living would cost nearly the whole twenty 
 rupees, since he, being a Brahman, has to keep his 
 own Brahman cook, who has to be paid and fed. 
 Then his family in Srinagar could not possibly live 
 on less than the twenty rupees, for every member
 
 76 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 must be fed and clothed, and the school fees and 
 books of the schoolboys paid for. But, beyond all 
 this, he keeps two clerks to help him to do his work, 
 and he pays each of them Rs 7-8. These two clerks 
 in their turn cannot live on that pay, for they have 
 their families to support. And so the ball rolls on ! 
 
 Now, any boy who is not an absolute idiot 
 must know that his father cannot possibly be living 
 on his pay, and furthermore, he jolly well knows 
 that he does not, and thinks what a 'cute dad he 
 possesses ! We reckon that men in State employ 
 make from double to four times their pay, according 
 to their opportunities and acuteness. This will show 
 you that there is no mean fight before these boys, if 
 they intend to walk in the way not trodden by their 
 forefathers. There is, of course, a difference between 
 offices and offices, and departments and departments, 
 in proportion to the character of the man at the head. 
 
 This is a subject that is of vital importance to us 
 who are preparing boys for the battle of life. We 
 have to know much about the state of the loot 
 market, and not to talk about it too much, otherwise 
 we shall get ourselves disliked in certain high places. 
 
 Anyway, whether we like it or not, we have not to 
 take things as they are, and make the best of them, 
 but to peg away in the firm belief that, with the help 
 of God, our C.M.S. school will one day smash this 
 loot market, and other similar evils that defile the fair 
 land of Kashmir, and make up an army of honest 
 citizens, ready and prepared for the day of battle.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 
 
 A Put-up Job 
 
 AMONG the events at one of our school 
 regattas was an incident which aroused a 
 considerable amount of interest. A party 
 of cleanly-dressed Kashmiris, presumably come from 
 the city to see the regatta, was upset; to which 
 there hangs a tale worthy to relate. A certain 
 Brahman master was put in charge of this last item 
 on the programme. He had received orders to see 
 that this boat-load started from the bank round the 
 corner up to time, and was generally responsible. 
 This crew of ladies and gentlemen put off, and 
 came down the course jabbering and chatting about 
 rupees and rice, according to universal custom. 
 To the horror of all who were not in the know of the 
 thing, the boat was capsized in twelve feet of water. 
 Amid the shouting and spluttering and splashing, 
 and supposed-to-be drowning, was the Brahman 
 master in charge, being held up by some of the 
 actors, until saved by the reserve boat. On his 
 return to the shore he was asked what made him 
 enter the boat that was to be upset, knowing that 
 he could not swim. His answer was: "Because 
 
 77
 
 78 
 
 the Sahib had put this event under my charge, and 
 I could not have carried out his orders satisfactorily 
 without being present myself at the upset." Are 
 not the leopard's spots changing ? 
 
 A Pretty Severe Test 
 
 On one occasion we started in rain and heavy 
 wind to go by boat to Bandipore, seven miles distant 
 We soon had our jiggermast smashed in half and 
 our mainsail blown away, but we still held on our 
 course with our twelve oars. When within about 
 two miles of our destination, we stuck on the 
 shallows and, not knowing the navigation of those 
 parts, had half an hour's uninteresting punting in 
 soaking rain as we tried to find the channel. How- 
 ever, we kept up our spirits with the thought of hot 
 tea and cakes in Bandipore, and as soon as we got 
 ashore made tracks for the shops. But alas ! the 
 holy Brahmans of Bandipore swore by all the gods 
 they knew (and they know a good many) that there 
 was no Hindu food in the place. It was useless to 
 ask them how they lived, etc., for some reason, best 
 known to themselves, they would not supply any. 
 
 There were plenty of Mohammedan shops, but the 
 boys, being chiefly Hindus, could not on account of 
 their insane laws touch any food from there. So 
 they made their way back to the boats, cold, soaked 
 to their skins, tired, and hungry. They had had no 
 food for several hours, but were in no way out of 
 spirits, and still jolly. I said to them: "What is 
 the good of your being hungry when there is plenty
 
 The Wular Lake, Kashmir
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 79 
 
 of food around you. You cannot think that God 
 made such a foolish law ? " They answered : " Our 
 law-giver evidently was not a traveller, but had his 
 meals regularly, and therefore made no provision for 
 hungry travellers." 
 
 We were soon in the boat and ready to start back 
 on our seven-mile row through a stiff breeze, which 
 anon worked up into a gale. The boatmen on the 
 shore implored us not to go, saying that we should 
 most certainly all be drowned; and this they 
 thoroughly believed next morning, when one of our 
 broken oars was washed ashore. News was sent up 
 to Srinagar that we had all perished, much to the 
 consternation of the boys' parents. 
 
 Only one boy showed signs of fear. He said : " I 
 don't mind being drowned myself, but I have a little 
 brother at home whom I love very much, and he 
 would grieve so much for me." It was quite dark 
 before we reached our camp, and we were met by a 
 crew of boatmen who had put off from the village to 
 search for us and pick up the pieces. A grand time 
 we had of it. 
 
 How to Understand a Man 
 
 I do not think that a chief's duty is over when he 
 has paid his men their salaries. Our work is not 
 done for so many rupees, as is the case with a coolie, 
 but is the work of a friend for a friend ; still more is 
 it a labour of love, a work of constant service for 
 their fellow-countrymen. Some years ago it was no 
 uncommon sight to see one of the staff standing
 
 8o CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 before me with hands clasped in the attitude of 
 prayer, with his head on one side, and possibly the 
 toes of one foot scratching the other bare leg, asking 
 for a favour. The sight was a sickening one. A so- 
 called man, standing like a slave before a slave-driver ! 
 Those days are gone. 
 
 The slave chains were not struck off with one blow ; 
 it was a matter of years. Various methods were tried 
 constant intercourse out of school ; going trips 
 together on the mountains or on the lakes, where we 
 shared fatigue, and more than once passed nights 
 without sleep, hungry because our food coolie had 
 bolted for fear of ghosts and hobgoblins on the 
 mountains ; many 'upsets in river and lakes ; and 
 once and again in danger in fires in the city, and in 
 squalls on the lakes when sailing. For it has been a 
 tradition with us a very foolish one, no doubt not 
 to take in a reef, but to trust to the shifting ballast of 
 a dozen or so of the crew on the windward gunwale. 
 These are the times when we get to understand one 
 another's peculiarities. 
 
 Breaking down Serfdom 
 
 Formerly at meetings of the staff the masters all 
 sat round and listened to their chief, and everything 
 that he said was " very good, quite right, could not 
 be better." I was an amir, and my subjects faithful 
 slaves. But gradually things have changed, and 
 now, if you were to attend one of our Sunday after- 
 noon meetings, when we sit in the garden and talk 
 over matters to help us in our moral and spiritual life,
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 81 
 
 you would see at once our position. Or come to our 
 week-day meeting, at which we discuss the week's 
 work and the social problems of this large city, and 
 you will see that we are a parliament and not an 
 absolute monarchy. Every one is encouraged to 
 speak out his mind fearlessly, and I am able to state 
 that, so far, not one of my own lot have ever presumed 
 on this freedom. 
 
 It is the custom in this country, when men of 
 different standing go out together, that they never 
 walk side by side, but one just a pace or so behind 
 the other. It is a most amusing sight to see a lot of 
 clerks leave office together. The head babu stalks 
 on in front, then comes the second clerk a few inches 
 behind him, and then the third, and so on, each one 
 wishing to get up to the front, but not daring to do 
 so. That is how my staff used to try to treat me. I 
 should by rights walk in front with my lower chest 
 well to the fore, head erect, and at a respectable pace 
 (two miles an hour), throwing my words behind me 
 to my faithful followers tailing off in the rear. But 
 now they understand my peculiarities and walk by 
 my side, in front, or anywhere. 
 
 A Reason for Fidgeting 
 
 We have to work from the top and from the bottom 
 at the same time, making the masters into comrades 
 and developing in the boys an esprit de corps. 
 Cleanliness is the A B C of self-respect, as self-respect 
 is of respect for others ; and here we do really " touch 
 bottom." 
 F
 
 82 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 As creepy, crawly, tickly creatures are brought by 
 the boys from their houses to school, and as the 
 Brahman thinks it wicked to take life, these interest- 
 ing and lively little creatures have happy preserves on 
 which to sport. Here is an incident I witnessed. A 
 boy stood the tickling for some time, but at last his 
 patience gave out; so he took the tickly one very 
 carefully off his body, so as not to damage it. But 
 what was he to do with it? If he put it on the floor, 
 it would probably hop back to his own holy person. 
 What he did was to put it in a place where it would 
 be happy and contented, and that was a spot on a 
 fellow-student's back, close to his neck, where the 
 cover was plentiful. 
 
 Taffy's Kiss 
 
 That which makes one specially keen against this 
 uncleanliness is that the Brahmans will call them- 
 selves " holy " ; they cannot eat this, or touch that, 
 for fear of defilement. So that when my clean, 
 gentlemanly spaniel comes to school, and wishes to 
 show himself friendly, the Brahmans one and all 
 (except those who have learnt sense), draw their dirty 
 persons and filthy clothes away from his clean coat 
 for fear of pollution ; and if by any chance this well- 
 bred dog should touch them, a holy horror o'erspreads 
 their faces. One day Taffy kissed a holy Brahman 
 on the mouth. This was too awful. The boy was 
 doomed to fast several days and, I believe, pay rupees 
 to his family priest (who was probably many degrees
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 83 
 
 dirtier than the wounded boy) before he could be 
 pronounced clean. 
 
 Those Changing Eyes 
 
 Insolence and conceit, as well as " holiness " and 
 dirty habits, are characteristic of the untrained 
 Brahman youth. He cannot help them ; they are 
 hereditary, and he drinks them in daily, as he learns 
 more and more of his superiority over mortals who 
 are not the darlings of the gods. Only those who 
 have seen that look in the eye can understand. It 
 is a mixture of insolence, cunning, contempt, deceit, 
 and conceit ; if any one trait is stronger than the 
 other I should say it is insolence. 
 
 Well ! this look has to go out of the eye. And 
 it is wonderful how quickly it does go : how and 
 why, I don't quite know, but I think it is when 
 they begin to learn to like and trust those whom 
 they have been taught to despise. As these hateful 
 barriers of caste prejudice are broken down, truth 
 and light come into their souls and show themselves 
 in the eyes. 
 
 It is one of the most interesting parts of our work 
 to watch the eyes changing, for it means so much ; 
 it means growth and strength. Our men go to work 
 at the eye with keenness, for they themselves had 
 this disease once and know its cure. 
 
 When that characteristic look has gone, then you 
 can begin to talk about manners ; but until then the 
 most useless thing in the world is talk.
 
 84 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 The Weeping Parent 
 
 We can deal fairly effectively with the Kashmiri 
 when we catch him young enough, while his 
 character is still unformed and plastic. But the 
 Brahman parent who has no* 'been through the mill 
 is a pretty hopeless case. The world holds no more 
 precious piece of hypocrisy and conceit. Take 
 this as an example of what he is capable of. 
 
 One fine day a man comes up to my house weeping, 
 and says : " My son is dead ! " I tell him that I'm 
 sorry to hear it, and ask him the cause of death. 
 
 Weeping Parent : " He is not dead, but ready to 
 die." 
 
 C. E. T.-B. : " Why, then, did you say he is dead 
 when he is not ? " 
 
 Weeping Parent : " Because he is so nearly dead, 
 your master Bulla Kol having beaten him so hard 
 with this stick." 
 
 (A huge thick stick, possibly with blood on it, is 
 here produced.) 
 
 C. E. T.-B. : " Where is your son ? " 
 
 Weeping Parent : " Here, sahib." 
 
 Enter one or two men carrying in a limp body, 
 which is placed at the sahib's feet. 
 
 The pulse is felt and the patient examined, and 
 after much trouble the clothes are removed in order 
 to disclose the terrible wounds. The sore place 
 happens to be on the fleshy part of the arm at the 
 back, which, at the very first inspection, shows that 
 the wale has been rubbed, scratched, and irritated 
 in such a way as to appear severe.
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 85 
 
 I then draw the man on, saying : " What a terrible 
 wound ! Do you mean to say that one of my masters 
 inflicted such a wound ? " The weeping father, think- 
 ing that he has gained his point, grows bolder and 
 says : " Yes, sahib, your master did this, and you must 
 punish him very severely ; and if not, then I shall 
 put the matter into the law courts." 
 
 I ask him if he himself has ever had a thrashing in 
 his life, to which he replies in the negative. 
 
 " All the more pity, then. Get out of my sight at 
 once, you scoundrel, or else you will now receive 
 your long-deserved beating. Away with you and 
 your ' dead ' son ! And if your son returns to school 
 and misbehaves himself, I will see that he is properly 
 beaten before me." 
 
 The weeping father puts his tail between his 
 legs and retires. And although he threatened to 
 withdraw his son from the school at once, and 
 prevent every one else from sending their sons to 
 such a school, the dead son turns up at school alive 
 and happy ; and, if I have laid it on sufficiently 
 thick, the father also comes to beg pardon. 
 
 I write this at some length, as this is a common 
 trick of the Kashmiri papa to punish an enemy. 
 If you do not go hammer and tongs at this sort 
 of game, you will probably land yourself and your 
 masters in the law courts, as I did on one occasion ; 
 but it has not happened again. 
 
 Kashmiri Psychology 
 
 Incidents like that which I have just related make
 
 86 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 one think. Only, thinking does not help one to 
 understand a Brahman. For that a Brahman's brains 
 would be needed, a Brahman's traditions, and the 
 queer angle from which this most oriental of Orientals 
 views everything in heaven and earth. This "angle" 
 is both obtuse and acute. It is an affliction that 
 develops at quite an early age. 
 
 Why is it that when one speaks kindly to a boy 
 and asks him to come to the mission school, he rarely 
 comes, but if one tells him all about the dreadful 
 things that will happen to him if he does come, such 
 as having to learn about what he considers a false 
 religion, having to play games nolens volens, punish- 
 ments meted out handsomely and unsparingly, etc., 
 he will probably come ? 
 
 The query is answered by the following incident. I 
 was speaking to a class about God's great love to us, 
 and the reasons why we should return His love ; 
 and to drive the lesson home, and make it clear, 
 I said : " Suppose in your school there were two 
 masters of exactly opposite characters ; the one 
 hated the boys and was always hard on them, the 
 other loved the boys and was always kind to them. 
 Which of the two would you more readily obey ? " 
 
 " The former," they all answered at once. 
 
 "Why?" I asked. " Because he would punish us 
 if we did not." 
 
 I have found this to be perfectly true in other 
 cases, though, of course, there are exceptions. If 
 you wish a boy to stay at your school, do not 
 be too kind to him, or visit him when he is ill or in
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 87 
 
 trouble (though of course you do so, notwithstand- 
 ing, knowing that right will prevail in the end), but 
 be hard on him ; and if you have occasion to punish 
 him, then punish him severely, and he will love and 
 follow you like a spaniel. 
 
 A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree, 
 
 The more you beat them, the better they be, 
 
 But truer still of the Kashmiri. 
 
 During our days of trouble, when friends were 
 needed, this was most noticeable. The boys to 
 whom we had been kind because of poverty or 
 oppression, or for any other reason, were the very 
 ones to leave us and jeer at us. Explain it how you 
 will. I put it down to cowardice, which has become 
 part of their nature, ingrained in them from their 
 former years of oppression. 
 
 Conundrums 
 
 The questions we are asked are at times most amus- 
 ing. Listen to the thought of Srinagar, transmitted 
 to us by the boys. 
 
 The Chinese being the greatest people of the 
 world, why do not they drive you sahibs out of 
 India? This is a very common question. 
 
 The Sultan having defeated the Sahib log (English) 
 in the Graeco-Turkish war (for Greece, England, and 
 all the European countries are one in their estima- 
 tion), how do you expect to defeat the Afridis and 
 other Mohammedans on the frontier? 
 
 How can Englishmen be in Ceylon, since Ceylon 
 is the home of the gods ?
 
 88 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 Did you meet Babu Banerjee when you were 
 in London, for he had gone there to finish his 
 education ? 
 
 Such are some of the wonderful conundrums that 
 one has to solve ; but with the help of the illustrated 
 papers, backed up by geography and history, one is 
 able to set the inquisitive minds on a straighter 
 course. By the aid of the magic lantern, also, many 
 an unintelligible problem and many a knotty ques- 
 tion is easily explained, and the boys learn in the 
 twinkling of an eye that which would take one many 
 minutes to explain to one's own satisfaction while 
 probably only further mystifying the questioner. 
 Without a picture you have next to nothing from 
 which to start. 
 
 "Funny" Sahibs 
 
 A former student of mine said to me : " You sahibs 
 are funny people." "Why?" said I. "Because I 
 have just seen on the notice board at the club the 
 following : ' Found, a pearl brooch ; the owner can 
 
 have it by applying to .'" I asked what was 
 
 funny in that ! " Why," said he, " we people would 
 never do that, for if we find anything, we always 
 believe that a god has put it there for us, and if we 
 refused his gift it would make the god angry." 
 
 Before thieves start on a robbery, they always 
 promise their god a percentage of the spoils, so that 
 they may secure his help in their undertakings.
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 89 
 
 "I Was Worshipping " 
 
 If we could attain to the Kashmiri point of view, 
 we Westerns would be more charitable. Oblique- 
 ness of vision accounts for much that, in our eyes, is 
 moral obliquity. How else is their strange apathy 
 towards people in distress to be accounted for? 
 Let me give you an instance of this which fairly 
 puzzled me. A certain young Brahman, a B.A. of 
 the Punjab University, came to me as a witness at 
 a life-saving case. He said that he was at the side 
 of the canal doing his puja, i.e. worshipping his 
 gods. A child fell into the canal a few yards away 
 from where he was, when one of our teachers jumped 
 in and saved the child. I asked him, if he saw the 
 child drowning, why he did not go in himself and save 
 it. He answered : " I was worshipping." 
 
 A Shy at "Dastur" 
 
 It is this sort of thing which we are up against 
 continually. This is why we are so keen on social 
 service. And considering the dead weight of custom 
 that we have to fight, the progress made by our 
 pupils is surprising. Why, many of them have 
 learnt that because women are weak they should 
 receive their protection and help, and we hear of 
 kindly acts done by boys for their neighbours who 
 are poor, and not for any pecuniary reward. 
 
 To those who live in Christian lands this will not 
 seem to be anything out of the common, but such 
 behaviour is extraordinary in this country. I trust 
 that before long dastur, or custom, will have reached
 
 90 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 to this standard, if dastur must ever remain with us. 
 I should like it to "go to Jericho," but if it did I 
 expect all Kashmir would feel bound to follow it there. 
 Education also had better "go to Jericho" if it 
 cannot teach boys to live above dastur, to do a thing 
 because it is right, and not because it is the custom. 
 Dastur has often tried to tie itself on to our boat, 
 and more than that, tried to get in, but we have cut 
 it off times out of number, and have ducked it, and 
 held its head under water. But the beast won't die, 
 any more than a locust ; it is always appearing 
 " Here I am again." So we preach at it, we use it 
 for a continual sermon, we put it up as a sort of 
 Guy Fawkes or Aunt Sally, and throw volleys of 
 abuse at it. Yes, dastur is a vile thing. It is some- 
 thing worth going for, and that is about the only 
 good thing about it. But I hate dastur ! 
 
 The River in Spate 
 
 Naturally, much of the social service to which we 
 train our Srinagar lads has to do with the river on 
 which the town stands. My readers would under- 
 stand why I say " naturally," if they knew the Jhelum 
 when it is in spate as well as in its normal flow. 
 One flood I shall never forget. It literally burst 
 upon us ; for the city was dry at 1 1 a.m., and by 
 12.30 the houses were falling like ninepins in ten 
 feet of water ! It was hardly a time of peace and 
 quiet, for all around the air was full of shrieks and 
 yells as the poor inhabitants watched their houses 
 coming down like packs of cards, sending the water
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 91 
 
 and dust spouting up like a mine exploding. Over 
 2000 houses fell in the city, so there was no excuse 
 for idleness. I will not bore you, but let me give 
 you just an instance. 
 
 One of the junior teachers, a slightly built fellow, 
 but a credit to his athletic training in the school, 
 was attracted by the cries of many women, huddled 
 together on a piece of dry ground which was fast 
 growing less and less on account of the increasing 
 waters. Close by were several boatmen in their boats, 
 who were keeping an irritating distance[and bargaining 
 with those terrified women for an impossible salvage. 
 The young master was naturally enraged at their 
 brutality. Off went his coat, and the next second 
 he was in the flood ; before the astonished crowd 
 could gasp he was in the boat, and out went the 
 boatmen, but not before he had seized the paddle, 
 with which he soon brought the boat to shore and 
 rescued at his leisure the crowd of women ; while the 
 boatmen, robbed of their prize, vented their rage in 
 their usual way, a la best Billingsgate, recounting 
 the terrible things they would do to the young 
 athlete when they got hold of him. 
 
 The Stumbling Block 
 
 The Brahmans have tried to make capital of this 
 or that form of social service in which our boys 
 engage and, although they know it is really for their 
 own good, they pretend that it is a trick of the 
 missionaries to out-caste their sons, and so to convert 
 them to Christianity. We could have had several
 
 92 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 converts of this kind, had these been our ideas of 
 Christianity ; but no, conversion is something more 
 difficult than this it is nothing less than a complete 
 change of hearts,not of customs or beliefs. The "holy" 
 Brahman must learn that he is utterly filthy in God's 
 sight like other men, that he has not one clean spot 
 in him, and that he can only be cleansed by the 
 blood of Christ. This is their stumbling-block, as it 
 is of all men. 
 
 Outsiders do not often realize what it means for 
 a Brahman to become a Christian. He will most 
 certainly be an outcast from home, friends, and 
 society, and must be ready to face possible death. 
 When our young fellows tell us that they wish to 
 become Christians, we always have to ask if they are 
 willing to die for their faith. Some ask to be sent 
 out of the country, but we do not believe in their 
 running away. 
 
 A Mohammedan's Story 
 
 One of the Mohammedan boys, aged eighteen, a 
 good all-round student and athlete, openly confessed 
 his belief in Jesus as his Saviour. His father was 
 naturally very much upset, and did all he could to 
 dissuade him, first by promises of money, and a 
 house, etc., and then, [when this failed, the mullahs 
 and fanatical Mohammedans obliged the father to 
 employ threats. For many weeks the lad had a very 
 severe time of persecution, which he bore bravely and 
 cheerfully, for he possesses a very genial disposition. 
 I visited his father, who is a really decent fellow, and
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 93 
 
 told him that I was a father of boys and therefore 
 could sympathize with him ; that I should be very 
 much upset if one of my sons gave up Christianity, 
 but that I should be angry, not with my boy, but with 
 the man who was the cause of my son's change of 
 faith, if it were a matter of proselytizing. I pointed 
 out that, if this change of religion on the part of his 
 son were caused by me or by any other man's words, 
 then he need not distress himself, for it would all 
 come to naught; but that, if God Almighty had 
 spoken to the boy's soul, then what could he or any 
 one else do to prevent it ? He quite accepted this 
 view and was comforted, and gave his son leave to 
 return to school. 
 
 But this happy state of things did not last, 
 for the mullahs started again on the war-path, and 
 the boy was beaten and driven from his home. 
 This made the way clear for us to intervene. The 
 doctors at the mission hospital very kindly made 
 room for him, and we thought that perhaps he might 
 now be left in peace. But this was not to be. We 
 received news that a party of fanatics were lying in 
 wait for him, to capture him on his road to or from 
 school ; so we put on an escort of school braves to 
 guard him. 
 
 All went well until one day when the guards were 
 ambushed outside the school, and a scuffle ensued as 
 the guards held on to the lad's arms and the enemy 
 to his legs. I do not know how the tug-of-war might 
 have ended, had not Mr. Lucey, my colleague, appeared 
 on the spot, when the battle went in our favour and
 
 94 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 the prize was landed safely in the school. The 
 Mohammedans were by no means beaten, for a great 
 mob surrounded the school compound and guarded 
 most carefully every outlet. The school was closely 
 invested for three hours. 
 
 Eventually Mr. Lucey was able to effect an escape 
 by boat with the boy, his father, and the escort. 
 The enemy then pursued in a boat, and tried to 
 make a capture on the water, but there they were 
 out-matched at once, as our men have not learnt 
 aquatics for nothing. The enemy, finding that a 
 water attack was useless, returned to dry land, and 
 tried once more to attempt a rescue at the end of the 
 water journey ; but this also failed, and the boy was 
 lodged once more in a friendly house. As we heard 
 that the Mohammedans were determined to catch 
 him, our only road out of the difficulty lay in sending 
 him out of the country. He went to the Baring High 
 School for Christian boys at Batala, where my brother 
 was principal. There the boy was very happy. 
 
 The father behaved splendidly all the way through, 
 and, if it had not been for the fanatics, would have 
 treated his son well, as the latter was well over age 
 and therefore able to choose for himself. 
 
 The Mohammedans have since turned their atten- 
 tion to their own schools, and have tried to persuade 
 our Mohammedan teachers to leave us along with 
 the Mohammedan boys, but so far without any 
 success.
 
 YARNS ABOUT THIS AND THAT 95 
 
 L'Envoi 
 
 The world of to-day isn't wholly as gay 
 As the Eden where Adam was placed ; 
 
 The thistles are rife in our corner of life 
 And half of the garden's a waste. 
 
 But it isn't discussing or staring or fussing 
 Will coax us a crop from the clay ; 
 
 It's draining, manuring, persisting, enduring, 
 It's patiently PEGGING AWAY. 
 
 Christ has Himself commanded us to go to all 
 nations, to lead them to Him ; it is not easy, for the 
 simple reason that it is like towing ^/-stream. God 
 has committed to England a great empire, of which 
 India is a part, and He has committed it unto us for 
 a great purpose not in order that we may simply 
 grow rich, or for our own aggrandizement, but that 
 we may give to India what we possess, namely, the 
 Truth. God in His love has allowed us to know 
 and accept Christ as our Saviour, and the least we 
 can do is to pass on this knowledge to others. 
 For it is not merely a belief, it is a life a noble, 
 unselfish life to be lived here, stretching into an 
 eternal life beyond. 
 
 Therefore, if we are not destitute of human love, 
 and if we have tasted anything of the power and 
 riches of Christ, the least we can do is to pass on to 
 others the knowledge of this eternal blessing. 
 
 Help us, then, give us a hand on the tow-line, to 
 make these Kashmiri fellows under our charge true, 
 manly, Christian gentlemen, as we tow up-stream to 
 Him Who loved us and gave Himself for us.
 
 
 
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