THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 

 
 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 Orienfalta, Frx^ 
 V East J2th Sf, 
 w York, 10003

 
 A 
 
 WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 THE RT. HON. W. E. BAXTER, M.P. 
 
 JWap anto Illustrations. 
 
 CASSELL, FETTER, GALPIN & Co. 
 
 LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK. 
 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
 
 DS 
 
 O tttj? *j$ife I MY COURAGEOUS COMPANION 
 
 DURING MANY JOURNEYS IN EUROPE, ASIA, 
 AFRICA, AND AMERICA : THESE LEAVES FROM 
 MY INDIAN JOURNAL 
 
 ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 1521074
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I. THE VOYAGE OIT i 
 
 II. BOMBAY: THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY . 14 
 
 III. DELHI AND LAII >RE ..... 27 
 
 IV. AGRA AND THE TAJ MAHAL ... 43 
 
 V. LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE . . 56 
 
 VI. ALLAHABAD AND BENARKS ... 65 
 
 VII. AT CALCUTTA So 
 
 VIII. THE TEA PLANTATIONS, DARJEELING . 90 
 IX. CALCUTTA : ITS BUILDINGS, TRADE, AND 
 
 LIFE 1 06 
 
 X. SOUTHERN INDIA: MADRAS; COONOOR . 117 
 
 XI. CONJEVERAM: DEPARTURE FROM MADRAS 130 
 
 XII. AT POONA 139 
 
 XIII. RETURN TO BOMBAY ..... 158 
 
 XIV. DEPARTURE FROM BOMBAY . . .163 
 
 XV. ON THE INDIAN OCEAN . . . 174 
 
 XVI. THE SUEZ CANAL; HOME. 18;
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 From Sketches by ROSA ELIZABETH BAXTER. 
 
 Kinchinjunga Range, from Tiger 
 Darjeeling . 
 
 iger Hill, above \ 
 
 > Frontispiece. 
 
 View from Cumballa Hill, Bombay . . To face page 14 
 
 Street in Jeypoor 22 
 
 Residency Garden at Lucknow 58 
 
 Massacre Ghaut at Cawnpore . . 63 
 
 Plain in Southern India . ,, 129 
 
 Sketch Map of India, to show Author's) 
 
 ^ At end of I'olumt. 
 Route.
 
 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OUT. 
 
 AGAIN we are on the move, and this time for 
 a more extended tour even than that which 
 we so much enjoyed through Egypt and Syria. 
 
 We have taken eight first-class and two 
 second-class return tickets in the P. and O. 
 steamers to India. 
 
 On the 2nd November, 1881, our old 
 friend the Wave took us across the Channel ; 
 the Belgians politely passed our baggage at 
 the frontiers without examination ; and we re- 
 mained all night at the Grand Hotel, in Brussels, 
 situated between the two railway stations, thus 
 avoiding the usual climb to the top of the hill. 
 
 Next day we went on to Coblentz, pass- 
 ing by in the morning hundreds of fields, from
 
 2 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 which the peasants were busy removing beet- 
 root to the sugar factories. At Herbesthal the 
 German custom-house officers, " dressed in a 
 little brief authority," made themselves so un- 
 pleasant in rummaging our valises that I con- 
 sidered it my duty to write in the evening to 
 the proper quarter complaining of their conduct. 
 At Cologne we had an hour to look at the 
 cathedral, the towers of which are now com- 
 pleted. The Hotel Belle Vue, at Coblentz, 
 commands a fine view of Ehrenbrcitstein and 
 the drawbridge across the Rhine, the latter 
 crowded with passengers and vehicles, and 
 opened every few minutes to allow steamers 
 and barges to pass. We spent the next night 
 at the clean, bustling, thriving, and picturesque 
 town of Wurtzburg, having crossed the " blue 
 Franconian mountains," and on the following 
 day passed over an uninteresting plain to 
 Munich, remaining all Sunday in the H6tel of 
 the Four Seasons. 
 
 On Monday morning we were provided with 
 a handsome saloon carriage, in which we travelled 
 all the way to Venice, tn some parts of the
 
 THROUGH THE TYROL. 3 
 
 Bavarian plain the peasants were making hay, 
 which I certainly had not seen before in Novem- 
 ber. The weather hitherto had been very cold, 
 but fortunately we had a lovely day to cross 
 the Brenner Pass, and I never saw the glorious 
 scenery of the Tyrol, the noble entrance to the 
 Inn valley, its startling peaks, gorges, and pre- 
 cipices, to such advantage. Then there was a 
 bright moon to lighten the valley of the Adige, 
 and enable us to walk as if by day to the Grand 
 Hotel at Trent, where we spent the night. 
 
 On the following day we had four hours at 
 Verona, to get luncheon and see the place, and 
 it was very late before we reached the City of 
 the Waters, as a locomotive had broken down 
 at Peschiera, detaining the train from Milan. 
 How bright and beautiful is Venice, and what 
 a contrast between its stirring appearance now 
 and the dead city under Austrian domination 
 which I knew in 1844! 
 
 At 10 a.m. on nth November we went on 
 board the P. and O. steamer J\Iongolia, Captain 
 Thompson, 2,833 tons, lying in the Guidecca ; 
 and the first person that addressed me on the
 
 4 A WINTER IN Iff or A. 
 
 deck was Sir A. H. Layard, who has a house 
 in Venice, and who was seeing off another old 
 friend of mine, Sir W. Gregory, formerly Mem- 
 ber for Galway, and more recently Governor of 
 Ceylon. We had likewise on board Mr. Rowsell, 
 once head of the Contract Department at the 
 Admiralty, and now one of the Commissioners 
 of the State Lands in Egypt, with his family ; 
 and I soon found out among the passengers 
 several gentlemen connected with Eastern com- 
 merce whose reputation and firms I knew. The 
 Mongolia was very high in the water, and as 
 we " slowed " down the Lido passage into the 
 Adriatic, I thought I had never seen anything 
 so beautiful of their kind as the varied views of 
 Venice from the sea. By nightfall we were 
 off Ancona, burning blue lights on the port bow ; 
 and so calm was the sometimes stormy gulf 
 that by I a.m. on Sunday we were standing in 
 and out at Brindisi, waiting for the pilot, who 
 was in bed. The ship is manned chiefly by 
 natives of the East, who go under the general 
 designation of Lascars, most of whom come 
 from the islands and headlands to the north of
 
 ON THE ADRIATIC. 5 
 
 Bombay, and we have a considerable number 
 of passengers on board for Australia. The Rev. 
 Mr. Mitchell, of Sydney, conducted divine ser- 
 vice in the saloon after we had finished the 
 dirty operation of coaling. I never saw a more 
 squalid, filthy, rickety-looking place than the 
 ancient Brundusium ; but it has a good harbour, 
 and probably at some future time it will be 
 more inviting to the traveller. 
 
 At 2 o'clock on Monday morning the train 
 came in, wearied railway passengers rushed into 
 the cabins, and very soon heavy rolling warned 
 me that we were once more on the Adriatic. 
 When I went on deck in the morning, Otranto, 
 on the Italian coast, was in full view, and oppo- 
 site, crowned with snow, appeared the lofty 
 mountains of Albania. Passing Cape Matapan, 
 distinctly visible though thirty miles off, we 
 had run 289 miles at noon, and until we got 
 under the lee of Crete the good ship plunged 
 so much that many of the passengers were sick 
 for four or five hours. 
 
 Wednesday was a lovely day, and when I 
 reached the deck at sunrise on Thursday, in
 
 6 A WINTER iff INDIA. 
 
 the lurid light on the eastern horizon there 
 could be plainly seen a dim object familiar to 
 me the Pharos of Alexandria. The usual din 
 and scramble took place when the steamer 
 stopped in the inner harbour ; but we did not 
 require to land in boats, as the P. and O. Com- 
 pany have now got a wharf, and the railway 
 carriages come down to the steamer's side. For 
 an additional payment of i each, we shared 
 with others a large saloon carriage, and regret- 
 fully saying good-bye to the Mongolia, were 
 soon passing between Lake Mareotis and the 
 Mahmudieh Canal, among fields of cotton, 
 maize, rice, and reeds ; camcl, buffaloes, and 
 naked Arabs reminding us of former times. 
 
 This is Thursday, i/th November, 1881, and 
 on the same day of the week and month in 1869 
 was opened the Suez Canal a monument of 
 French enterprise and sagacity which England's 
 short-sighted statesmen had so long and so 
 foolishly opposed. 
 
 The rascals charged us four shillings each 
 for a very so-so lunch at Kafr Zayad, and we 
 were not sorry when the hot and dusty journey
 
 To SUEZ BY RAIL. 7 
 
 terminated at Suez at 9 p.m., and we were 
 ushered into the saloon of the steamship Surat, 
 Captain Breeze, 3,142 tons, where all that the 
 P. and O. Company could provide for weary 
 and hungry passengers was a supper of very 
 bad and tough cold meat. 
 
 The luncheons of that generous corporation 
 are cold ; and although the order, and especially 
 the cleanliness, on board are all that can be 
 desired, a company that charge so high and 
 enjoy so large a subsidy from Government 
 should supply better fare and provide faster 
 steamers. There is nothing to prevent the 
 service between London and Bombay being 
 shortened by at least three days. 
 
 The Snrat, although she performed admi- 
 rably while we were on board, has been rather 
 an unfortunate ship, and has met with a good 
 many mishaps. In 1875 we saw her disabled 
 and being towed in the Suez Canal, and this 
 voyage her engines stopped five times in the 
 Bay of Biscay, so alarming the passengers that 
 they applied to the captain of the port and 
 Lord Napier of Magdala at Gibraltar for an
 
 8 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 independent examination of the machinery, 
 greatly to the indignation of the chief engineer 
 and of the captain. We consequently found 
 by no means a happy family on board, and we 
 heard much of their experiences and grievances 
 during the passage. 
 
 Next day we were going thirteen knots with 
 a fresh northerly breeze between the magni- 
 ficent serrated peaks which hide Sinai from view, 
 and the almost equally striking mountains on 
 the African coast. We met six steamers going 
 up to Suez. The ship is full, there being 130 
 first-class passengers, whose easy-chairs cover 
 the quarter-deck. 
 
 Passing Shadwan Island, where the P. and O. 
 steamship Carnatic was lost, we leave the Gulf 
 of Suez, and, seeing the entrance to the Gulf 
 of Akaba on the left, pass into the Red Sea, 
 or, as it should be called, the Sea of Sea-weed, 
 the Hebrew word for the two being the same. 
 A wreck standing well out of the water re- 
 minds us of the dangers of its navigation. The 
 mountains on both sides are much grander than 
 I imagined, and, as we proceed, those on the
 
 THE RED 'SEA. 9 
 
 African shore present a most remarkable appear- 
 ance, as if cut into gigantic steps. We have 
 volunteer music on deck every evening at 8.30 
 piano-playing, songs and glees. 
 
 Saturday, iQth, was quite calm. We are 
 out of sight of land, but pass the solitary light 
 on the shoal where H.M.S. D&dalus was lost. 
 I am surprised at the number of people on 
 board going, like ourselves, merely to travel 
 in India, and not on official duty or commercial 
 business. The thermometer has stood steadily 
 at 80. Now the temperature rises. At 8 o'clock 
 on Sunday morning it was 86 in the shade 
 on the companion, and few people had been 
 able to sleep from the heat. At 10.30 a.m. 
 all hands were mustered in their Sunday dress 
 on the quarter-deck, and at 10.45 a young 
 chaplain going out to Delhi conducted divine 
 service. 
 
 The colour of the Red Sea is a lapis- 
 lazuli blue. Our run was 294 miles, and at 
 3 p.m. the thermometer in the shade registered 
 95, and very little walking was done on deck. 
 Small sails were put out from each cabin
 
 io A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 window, to make a draught, and the punkahs 
 in the saloon were kept hard at work. Not 
 a rock, or a steamer, or a light-house was to 
 be seen. 
 
 On Monday the Sitrat had a very unusual 
 experience : namely, a strong head-wind, a tem- 
 pestuous sea, and 96 of heat in the shade. 
 Most people were motionless, and looked very 
 miserable. The ports had all to be closed, and 
 ladies slept on the saloon table and all about 
 the place. We were shipping such heavy seas 
 that the captain had to slacken speed during 
 the night. In the evening we passed the Island 
 of Jebeltur, and here the navigation is not a 
 little ticklish. 
 
 There are two other Members of Parlia- 
 ment on board, going to see India my friend 
 Mr. Hamilton, of South Lanarkshire, and Mr. 
 Johnson, who represents Exeter. \Ye have a 
 considerable number of British officers return- 
 ing from furlough, men of large experience and 
 cultivation ; and I am happy to find that most 
 of them are by no means Jingoes, and that 
 some who approved of the Afghan expedition
 
 THE HARBOUR OF ADEN. \ \ 
 
 are now convinced that it was a terrible mis- 
 take. A friend tells me that he went home 
 recently with twenty-eight officers of the Cabul 
 force, twenty-five of whom informed him that 
 they approved of the evacuation of Candahar. 
 
 We are now in full sight of the Arabian 
 coast, with Mocha in the distance, a strong wind 
 dead ahead. The Straits of Babel Mandeb, or 
 " The Gate of Tears " so called from the number 
 of wrecks that have taken place on that desolate 
 shore are 14 miles wide, and the Island of 
 Perim, on which flies the British flag, lying right 
 in the channel commands the entrance to the 
 Red Sea. It is only two miles distant from a 
 very striking promontory on the Arabian coast, 
 and we ran through that narrow passage, meeting 
 the steamship City of Agra under full sail going 
 north, and two other steamers also taking 
 advantage of the wind just outside on the In- 
 dian Ocean. 
 
 By 1 1 p.m. we were at anchor in the wonder- 
 ful harbour of Aden, but the noise made by 
 coaling, and by the naked Soumali boys diving 
 
 for coins, prevented much sleep. When I came 
 B 2
 
 12 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 on deck I found it crowded with natives selling 
 ostrich feathers, baskets, and other articles. We 
 were anchored between a French man of war, 
 and the P. and O. steamer Assam, from Bombay. 
 The Italian gunboat Chioggia passed up harbour 
 under our stern, and by-and-bye the great 
 P. and O. steamer Nepaul arrived from Calcutta. 
 
 Aden surprised me ; it is as fine as Gibraltar, 
 and has a splendid anchorage. The wild barren 
 rocks and peaks dotted over with white houses 
 present a singular appearance, and it is a much 
 more imposing place than I had imagined. We 
 lay there till nearly 10 o'clock on Wednesday 
 morning, and might have gone ashore, but a 
 placard announcing that the ship was to sail at 
 5 a.m. prevented us. The cantonments, which 
 are five miles from the harbour, can be seen very 
 distinctly from the sea after leaving. 
 
 Lofty mountains in Arabia were visible all 
 Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. 
 I learned to-day that in the Red Sea on Sunday 
 the thermometer in the stoke-hole was 154. 
 We have several excellent artists on board, and 
 people who fall asleep in ungraceful attitudes,
 
 A BALL ON DECK. 13 
 
 especially when they are not prepossessing, find 
 themselves immortalised in sketch-books. 
 
 On Monday night the quarter-deck was 
 decorated with flags, and we had a ball, which 
 was kept up for several hours. At 2.30 a.m. on 
 Tuesday I happened to look out of my port- 
 hole, and there, in all its glory, just above the 
 horizon, was the Southern Cross : and certainly 
 my feeling on seeing it for the first time was by 
 no means one of disappointment. 
 
 Between 6 and 7 o'clock I went to the bow, 
 and saw the land peaks in the Ghauts on each 
 side of Bombay. The colour of the water is 
 changed to a light dirty brown ; a row of fishing- 
 boats stationed right in the way of the naviga- 
 tion why, I don't know, nor it appears does 
 anyone else are on the starboard ; and right 
 ahead, one by one begin to appear the spires 
 and factory chimneys of the city.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BOMBAY THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. 
 
 BEFORE nine we had taken the pilot on board, 
 and then thefM&trat wound her way up one of 
 the finest harbours in the world, the capacious- 
 ness and grand scenery of which took me quite 
 by surprise ; and as soon as she dropped anchor 
 a steam-launch came alongside with a letter 
 from the Viceroy in camp, welcoming me in the 
 kindest and most cordial terms to the shores of 
 India ; and another from the Governor of Bom- 
 bay, to take our party ashore if we desired it. 
 We landed, however, in boats provided by busi- 
 ness correspondents. The noise, scramble, and 
 heat were what the Americans would call "a 
 caution." 
 
 Stepping ashore at the celebrated quay called 
 Apollo Bunder, the evening resort of the beauty 
 and fashion of Bombay, we drove at once to the 
 Cumballa family hotel on Cumballa Hill, a quiet 
 villa which has the advantage of a northern
 
 BOMBAY FROM MALABAR HILL. 15 
 
 aspect and breeze. This Orient is quite different 
 from that which I had seen before ; nearly all 
 the trees are new to me, and excepting the 
 poinsettias and bougainvilleas, I do not recognise 
 the flowers. The houses are bungalows, and 
 the manners and customs of the strangely- 
 attired, or rather non-attired, natives strongly 
 impress on us that our time is six hours earlier 
 than that of Greenwich. 
 
 I was not prepared for the magnificence of 
 the view of the city and its surroundings from 
 Malabar Hill the sea of palms, the noble public 
 buildings, the bays and creeks, the peaked and 
 dome-shaped Ghauts ; it has a resemblance to 
 the Bay of Naples, but there is more variety, 
 and the mountains are further off. At night 
 there were marriage festivities in the neighbour- 
 hood, music and fireworks, preventing some of 
 the party sleeping until the small hours. 
 
 On the top of Malabar Hill, and within sight 
 of our windows, are the Towers of Silence : a 
 walled cemetery where dead Parsees are devoured 
 by vultures ; and you see those hideous creatures 
 gorged and sleepy on every tree.
 
 1 6 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 We had a most delightful excursion in the 
 afternoon in a steam-launch, one hour from the 
 harbour to the celebrated caves of Elephanta ; 
 and the beauty of the sunset on the bay, peaks 
 and islands, port and shipping, can never be for- 
 gotten. Then in the evening some of us were 
 entertained to dinner in the Yacht Club. It is 
 a fine airy erection on the Apollo Bunder, 
 now called the Wellington pier, so well venti- 
 lated that punkahs are not required ; and 
 everything was served just as it would be in the 
 "Carlton" or "Reform." 
 
 The stranger is struck with the great number 
 of policemen stationed along all the streets and 
 roads, who touch their hats to every sahib who 
 passes ; and the crowds of servants in every 
 house and counting-house, moving noiselessly 
 about like shadows, impress a European. 
 
 It is a very pretty drive to the Government 
 House at the furthest point of Malabar Hill, 
 past innumerable bungalows of merchants and 
 officials Scotch names greatly predominating 
 the strange trees and flowers reminding one 
 forcibly how far he is from home.
 
 CREMATION IN INDIA. 17 
 
 We dined in one of these sumptuous villas, 
 and the appetit was the fitful glare from Hindoo 
 bodies being cremated on the other side of the 
 bay. Notwithstanding the howling of the 
 jackals, we had music and song before returning 
 home in the moonlight. 
 
 I experienced considerable difficulty next 
 day in arranging both about travelling servants 
 and money ; and it is no joke walking along the 
 streets of the Fort under a burning sun, even 
 although your head is protected by a pith 
 helmet ; but then we are rewarded by the 
 glorious view of mountains, bay, and shipping 
 from the restaurant on the quay : I never saw 
 anything of the kind more lovely. 
 
 The municipality of Bombay is partly elec- 
 tive and partly nominative ; the majority are 
 natives, and they manage economically and well. 
 I observed how carefully kept, repaired, and 
 watered are all the thoroughfares. 
 
 It is impossible to convey in a few sentences 
 of description anything like a vivid idea of this 
 strange Bombay. The mixture of splendid 
 public buildings and hovels, sumptuous bunga-
 
 i8 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 lows cheek-by-jowl with wigwams, carriages and 
 ox-carts, men with bare feet sitting in broughams 
 attended by liveried servants, shops full of 
 nearly naked people, women flitting about in 
 garments of dazzling brightness, with jewels in 
 their noses, bracelets on their ankles, and rings 
 on their toes ; tramways, cotton bales, bheesties 
 pressing water out of their pigskins to lay the 
 dust ; people of every nation, kindred, and 
 tongue. More than 700,000 souls crowded in 
 narrow lanes form a tout ensemble which to be 
 realised must be seen. 
 
 The traveller in India has to provide himself 
 with quilts and pillows, for use both in the rail- 
 way carriages and in the dak bungalows or 
 houses provided for the accommodation of 
 travellers. With this addition to our baggage 
 we mingled with a motley crew in Grant Road 
 Station, waiting for the mail train which had 
 started from the harbour half an hour before, 
 on Saturday evening, December 3rd, at 5.30. 
 
 It soon became dark, but in the bright 
 moonlight we could see pretty well around. 
 The line crosses from the Island of Bombay to
 
 THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. 19 
 
 the mainland by a very long viaduct, and there 
 are a great many other bridges over various 
 arms of the sea. Before turning in for the night, 
 we came in view of a fine range of peaked 
 mountains ; and were soon reminded, in our 
 endeavours to draw our quilts more closely 
 around us, that it is now no longer excessively 
 hot, but on the contrary rather cold. 
 
 The first thing I saw when day dawned was 
 a troop of huge monkeys making faces at the 
 train, running up trees, and turning somersaults 
 for our edification. 
 
 At Ahmedabad we had a good breakfast, 
 and changed into the carriages of the narrow- 
 gauge Rajpootana State Railway. This inter- 
 position of a line of different width between 
 the other great railroads in India appears to 
 me to be a blunder, and one which must even- 
 tually be remedied, no matter what may be 
 the cost. 
 
 During the forenoon we passed through 
 fields of maize, rice, cotton, and castor-oil, 
 separated by cactus hedges, and saw many large 
 herds of cattle and buffaloes. The peasants
 
 20 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 were very busy ploughing and irrigating ; most 
 of them were nearly or quite naked, and in- 
 habited miserable-looking huts. There were 
 raised look-out posts, sometimes on a frame- 
 work, sometimes on a tree, here and there, with 
 watchers to prevent the deer, boars, monkeys, 
 and other wild animals damaging the crops. 
 The station houses and the dwellings of the 
 better class have all white domes like mosques. 
 During this day and the following morning I 
 saw more wild creatures, four-footed and winged, 
 than I ever saw during the same period in all 
 my life deer and monkeys of various sizes and 
 kinds, cockatoos innumerable, blue jays, flamin- 
 goes, storks of the most graceful appearance, 
 partridges, jungle-fowl, doves, and water-birds in 
 endless variety nowhere in India is there finer 
 shooting than in Rajpootana, as well in the 
 jungles as in the desert, of both of which we had 
 samples during our journey. Towards evening 
 we passed between two very striking ranges, 
 that of Mount Aboo on the left being 5,000 feet 
 high ; and we had a glorious sunset illuminating 
 their jagged peaks.
 
 A NIGHT IN THE TRAIN. 21 
 
 Did not we bless the promoters of the narrow- 
 gauge line during the hours of darkness ? A 
 night on the Rajpootana State Railway ! What 
 a reminiscence ! To roughly-made carriages 
 was added a bad locomotive-driver, and the 
 jerking, pitching, and rolling overtask my feeble 
 powers of description. The water-cistern in our 
 saloon carriage was broken, my clothes were 
 hurled on the sloppy floor, holding on for dear 
 life was impossible, because there was nothing to 
 hold by. I got up to put the quilt over me, and 
 was banged head foremost against my vis-a-vis. 
 Natives yelled at our ears the names of every 
 station, and it was not till day dawned beyond 
 Ajmere that we got a little broken rest. This 
 was our first experience of luxurious railway 
 travelling in India ; many times I tried, Chris- 
 tian-like, to laugh, but it seemed much more 
 natural and easy to do the other thing. 
 
 At Phalera junction in the early morning I 
 got out for a cup of tea, and was amazed to be 
 addressed on the platform by Mr. Primrose, 
 private secretary to the Viceroy, formerly my 
 private secretary at the Treasury, who had
 
 22 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 joined the train during the night. Truly thank- 
 ful we were after forty-two hours' shaking on that 
 dreadful line to take refuge in the dak bungalow 
 at Jeypoor. Colonel Bannerman, the Political 
 Resident at the Maharajah's capital, had arranged 
 it for our reception, and sent carriages to meet 
 us at the station. 
 
 It is a square bungalow in the centre of a 
 compound. There are reed huts for the servants 
 on one side, and on the other tents, in case 
 of an overflow of guests, reminding us of our 
 life in Palestine. 
 
 Attended by a gorgeous man in red, we 
 called on the Resident in his beautiful villa in 
 the neighbourhood, and then drove through the 
 extraordinary town of Jeypoor a mixture of 
 Orientalism and European innovation hard to 
 describe. There are broad streets ; houses, 
 higher than usual, all painted pink ; a vast 
 palace, half a mile long and eight stories high ; 
 a well laid-out and beautifully-kept public gar- 
 den, in which the dons of the city wdre taking 
 their evening ride ; runners to warn the crowds 
 in the streets of the approach of the sahibs ;
 
 THE TOWN OF JEYPOOR. 23 
 
 monkeys scrambling over the house-tops ; bhees- 
 ties making the water squirt in every direction 
 altogether it was like a scene in the Arabian 
 Nights. 
 
 We had a quiet dinner in the bungalow ; 
 there was an eclipse of the moon in that 
 glorious star-lit sky, and we said good-night 
 amidst a howling of the jackals far more deafen- 
 ing than any we had experienced in Egypt. 
 
 The stranger is struck at this time of year 
 by the withered and burnt-up appearance of the 
 whole country. Vast tracts on the plains are 
 covered with the graceful pampas-grass, which 
 is collected for purposes of thatching. 
 
 A large party had assembled at the Resi- 
 dency to dinner, consisting chiefly of officers 
 from Bombay, who had come up to enjoy the 
 sport of pig-sticking ; and we had much con- 
 versation on many interesting points connected 
 with Indian affairs. 
 
 The air next morning was quite frosty, and 
 I felt even an ulster insufficient to keep out the 
 cold, as we set off in carriages at a hand-gallop 
 to visit Amber, the old capital of the state : a
 
 24 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 most extraordinary place, situated in a hollow, 
 the lofty hills surrounding it being fortified 
 somewhat in the fashion of Verona. After a 
 drive of four miles, we found elephants waiting 
 us, and had our first experience of riding in a 
 howdah. I thought the motion more un- 
 pleasant, but not so difficult for a tyro, than 
 that of being on the back of a camel. 
 
 From various points on the roof of the 
 Maharajah's palace we obtained very remark- 
 able and extensive views of the surrounding 
 country. 
 
 The Rajpoots of old were freebooters and 
 thieves, like the Scottish chiefs, and their towns 
 had to be built for purposes of defence. 
 
 During our absence one of our servants saw 
 the execution of a dacoit, who was brought out 
 of the town in an ox-cart, and strung up close 
 to the gate of the bungalow. The carriages 
 and elephants have all been placed at our dis- 
 posal by the Maharajah. 
 
 Several successive rulers of Jeypoor have 
 been enlightened, reforming men. The beautiful 
 Mayo hospital, the water-supply to the town,
 
 THE RAJPOOTANA MISSION. 25 
 
 and the irrigation works in the vicinity are some 
 of the monuments of good government in this 
 little state. There are about 100,000 inhabit- 
 ants in the capital, which is commanded by the 
 Tiger Fort, on the top of a lofty hill. 
 
 While I was sitting in the verandah of the 
 bungalow, in the afternoon, I was surprised and 
 pleased to receive a visit from the Rev. John 
 Traill, a Brechin man, who has been nine years 
 connected with the United Presbyterian Mission 
 in Rajpootana, and who, I afterwards learnt, is 
 not only respected by the whole European com- 
 munity, but is such a favourite among the 
 natives that all classes delight to receive and 
 listen to him. 
 
 Shortly after 8 o'clock on Thursday morning 
 we were off again on the State railway ; and 
 although the travelling was certainly much 
 smoother than between Ahmedabad and Ajmere, 
 it was by no means what it ought to be, and 
 I cannot find anyone hereabouts who has now 
 a good word to say for the metre gauge. It is 
 what the Americans call an air line, or nearly 
 straight, as far as Bandikui, passing partly over
 
 a6 A WINTER iff INDIA, 
 
 great grassy wastes, inhabited by deer and 
 parroquets and peacocks, and partly through 
 fields of grain and cotton, the former of which 
 the peasants were busy irrigating from nume- 
 rous wells. 
 
 The only town of any importance on this 
 route is Alvvur, with 50,000 inhabitants, the 
 capital of another Rajpoot state.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DELHI AND LAHORE. 
 
 AND now I write in Delhi, the ancient capital 
 of the Great Mogul, historically celebrated in 
 many ways, and the scene of events in the 
 Mutiny of 1857 which shook the British domi- 
 nion in Hindostan to its very base, and horrified 
 and excited the whole civilised world. Sixty- 
 six officers and 1,100 men fell in that terrible 
 final assault, which once more vindicated our 
 supremacy over a population of 300 millions, 
 and enables Queen Victoria now to grant 
 patents of accession to no fewer than 153 native 
 princes. 
 
 We have plucked a leaf from that banyan- 
 tree inside the fort where twenty-seven Euro- 
 peans were massacred in cold blood ; and we 
 have wondered and admired in the lovely private 
 audience-hall a garden of roses on one hand, 
 and on the other the river Jumna, with the 
 
 great railway-bridge. It is a pavilion of white 
 C 2
 
 28 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 marble, which once contained the famous Pea- 
 cock Throne, where the puppet emperor resided 
 during the siege, and where the Prince of Wales 
 received in durbar the magnates of India. The 
 ladies' apartments are now the officers' mess- 
 room, and the audience-chamber of Shah Jehan 
 has been converted into the canteen of the 
 British force ! 
 
 Since the Mutiny, all the buildings near the 
 fort which itself is one-and-a-quarter miles in 
 circumference have been demolished, and the 
 space has been laid out in walks and trees. 
 We entered it by the Lahore Gate, where there 
 is a row of native shops, for the benefit of the 
 soldiers " Ram Sing, tailor," &c. and left it 
 by the Delhi Gate, where the walls are seventy 
 feet high, and covered with parroquets, and near 
 which are the comfortable-looking quarters of 
 the married European troops. The officers 
 have elegant and commodious-looking quarters 
 in the centre of the ground, which is tastefully 
 laid out, and strikes one as a most desirable 
 abode. 
 
 Close to the charming Hall of Audience,
 
 THE MOSQUES OF DELHI. 29 
 
 with its rich inlaid-work and transparent marble 
 tracery, is the little mosque of Moti-Musjid, or 
 the Pearl Mosque, a perfect gem of white marble 
 with black lines, which bring into relief the 
 exquisite work on the walls. How plain and 
 grand it all is ; how different from the orna- 
 ments of Roman Catholic cathedrals! This was 
 built by no worshippers of images, but believers 
 in the doctrine that there is one God. 
 
 On the city side of the open space which 
 detaches the fort stands the Jama Masjid, the 
 largest mosque in India, with two lofty minarets; 
 one of which we ascended, and had a most mag- 
 nificent view of Delhi and its neighbourhood. 
 In and around that building in 1857 assembled 
 40,000 men to pray for success to the rebel 
 armies, and there on Friday, gth December, 
 1 88 1, we saw two or three thousand Mussulman 
 worshippers bowing in the direction of Mecca : 
 net south-east, as we had seen them do be- 
 fore, but north-west, within sound of the British 
 bugles and in the presence of a few wandering 
 travellers, chiefly Scotch, come out to view this 
 wondrous land.
 
 30 A WINTER AV INDIA. 
 
 A very handsome museum and literary insti- 
 tute has been erected at one end of the Queen's 
 Gardens, and the railway terminus close by 
 is one of the most conspicuous buildings in 
 the city. 
 
 Our drive on Friday evening was of a very 
 interesting and almost exciting character. The 
 British Commissioner, Major Young, was good 
 enough to accompany us ; and explain in most 
 graphic language, on the ground, the principal 
 events of the siege and storming of Delhi by a 
 handful of British and Sikh troops in 1857. 
 
 We first visited the Cashmere Gate ; this 
 and the ramparts on each side are left unre- 
 paired, exactly in the same state as they were 
 when Nicholson's forlorn hope saved the British 
 Empire in Hindostan ; then we ascended the 
 famous " ridge " from which there is a view of 
 the city, a good deal like that of Damascus from 
 the mountain : to a certain extent commanding 
 it, but separated from it by narrow gullies, which 
 the mutineers made use of to annoy the British 
 force. On the highest point has been erected a 
 monumental pillar to the memory of the brave
 
 THE STORMING OF DELHI. 31 
 
 men who performed one of the most remarkable 
 exploits in history. The inscription on its base 
 tells a tale of valour which has never been 
 excelled. 
 
 The whole besieging force amounted to 9,866, 
 the casualties were 3,854; the ist Bengal Fusi- 
 liers had 427 men before the city, of whom 319 
 were hors de combat. 
 
 " Delhi must be taken," wrote Sir John Law- 
 rence, from the Punjaub. " The thing is impos- 
 sible, we have not force to do it," was the 
 commander's reply. What must have been the 
 feelings of one of the most humane and tender- 
 hearted of men, in the full knowledge of the 
 terrible sacrifice of valuable life involved in his 
 rejoinder, when that rejoinder was "Delhi must 
 be taken." He knew better than any man then 
 living the attitude of the Sikhs, the magnitude 
 of the crisis, and the absolute necessity of the 
 fall of the ancient capital ; and that reiterated 
 order saved India to England, although it did 
 not prevent the man who issued it being hooted 
 by a London crowd, because he did not approve 
 of the recent war in Afghanistan.
 
 32 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 The population of Delhi was, and is yet, 
 disarmed, because by no means well-affected to 
 our rule ; and consequently game abounds in all 
 directions round the city. One would never 
 imagine, looking down from the " ridge/' that 
 a great mosque, a red fort, two station towers, 
 and a few low minarets rising among gardens, 
 represented a city of 160,000 inhabitants. 
 
 The debateable land between the Cashmere 
 Gate and the Memorial Tower is now covered 
 with villas and wide avenues, and the Nicholson 
 Gardens, overlooking the Jumna, occupy a con- 
 siderable portion of it. 
 
 It was bitterly cold when at 8 o'clock on 
 Saturday morning we drove out of the Ajmere 
 Gate over a dusty plain covered with tombs, 
 reminding one of the Roman Campagna and the 
 Appian way. The modern Delhi is compara- 
 tively new ; centuries ago there were cities on 
 that flat. 
 
 Our destination was the Khotub Minar, the 
 highest pillar in the world, 238 feet above the 
 ruined Hindoo temples and Mahometan mosques 
 at its base, and 860 years old. It is a wonderful
 
 INDIAN HOTELS. 33 
 
 and very imposing structure, of red sandstone 
 outside, and inside of white granite. The ascent 
 is laborious, and did not repay me, for one sees 
 nothing but a dreary, tomb-covered, dusty plain. 
 Here, as in many other places, we were mobbed 
 by beggars ; there is, indeed, dire poverty in 
 this land ; the squalor, emaciation and dirt are 
 sometimes appalling. 
 
 We spent rather a dismal Sunday, two of our 
 party being ill : principally in consequence of the 
 miserable accommodation and cooking at the 
 Northbrook Hotel. I was attracted by the 
 name, and outside it looked well enough ; but 
 altogether it answered to the scriptural descrip- 
 tion of a whited sepulchre. 
 
 The hotels in India are hardly worthy of 
 the name ; few British travellers visit it, and 
 they nearly all stay with the officials ; ours is 
 the first family party that ever went up country, 
 and we of course have to pay in many little 
 discomforts the usual penalty of pioneers of 
 progress. 
 
 I write now in Clark's Hotel, at Lahore a 
 little whitewashed bungalow some distance out-
 
 34 " A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 side the city, with one lofty stable-like public 
 room in the centre, and half a dozen square 
 vaults as bedrooms opening out of it, three at 
 each side ; but here the landlady is an English- 
 woman, the victuals are tolerable, and sanitary 
 arrangements are well attended to. 
 
 We left Delhi at mid-day on Monday, I2th 
 December, and were detained half an hour at 
 Ghazeeabad Junction waiting for the Calcutta 
 train. There is much sandy and sterile land in 
 this neighbourhood, and we saw some large 
 herds of deer, but as you approach Meerut city 
 and cantonment the country improves. The 
 stations are prettily adorned with convolvulus 
 and other flowers, and all the short time we have 
 been in India we have been struck everywhere 
 with the good roads. Our friends at home have 
 little idea how far behind they are in this 
 respect, some of our leading lines of communi- 
 cation being simply disgraceful. 
 
 After a good dinner in the refreshment-room 
 at Suharunpore, we made all snug for the night, 
 and did not get up until within sight of the 
 minarets of the famous mosque at Amritsir.
 
 THE LAWRENCE GARDENS, LAHORE. 35 
 
 Passing close to the camp of Meean Meer, 
 with its numerous tents and elephants, we 
 reached the imposing fortress-looking station of 
 Lahore at 8.30, and found waiting us two 
 carriages sent by Lady Egerton, wife of the 
 Governor, he himself being absent in camp. One 
 of them was a lofty drag seated for ten and 
 drawn by four camels, a postilion dressed in 
 the bright scarlet of the paramount power 
 riding on each. 
 
 In this singular vehicle, which sometimes 
 attained the rate of ten miles an hour, we drove 
 round the city after breakfast, through the 
 Lawrence Gardens ; there, joined to each other, 
 are the Lawrence and Montgomery Halls ; 
 there is also a collection of wild animals ; and 
 in various directions past the college are seen 
 courts of law, and other public buildings. 
 
 The British residents all live outside the 
 city, in separate bungalows of more or less pre- 
 tensions, and have their names written in large 
 letters on the entrance-pillars. The European 
 shopkeepers do the same. On the side of a 
 wide avenue, beneath a spreading tree, you see
 
 36 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 an immense board announcing " Mrs. Reid, 
 dressmaker." 
 
 We ascended one of the four minarets of 
 the principal mosque, and obtained a really 
 magnificent view of the city and its surround- 
 ings the sandy wastes on either side of the 
 river Ravee, the low, mean-looking houses within 
 the walls, and the innumerable villa gardens with- 
 out ; and in the evening we were present at an 
 amateur concert in the bungalow of Mr. Justice 
 Elsmie, which was crowded with the beauty and 
 fashion of Lahore. There are no fewer than 
 250 members of an English society here. We 
 drove to it in our camel-carriage, drawn this 
 time by only two camels, and had to pay forfeit 
 for our barbaric splendour, as the creatures' 
 heads were too high for the covered entrance- 
 porch, and we had to get out in the dust. 
 
 Lahore has a population of nearly 100,000, 
 and the extensive railway works employ 2,000 
 people. The Bishop (French), formerly a Church 
 missionary, called upon us an earnest, liberal- 
 minded man, highly respected in northern India. 
 
 Here let me say that nothing so much im-
 
 DlSSNSIOXS IN THE CHURCH. 37 
 
 pedes the progress of Christianity in that 
 country as the proceedings of certain High 
 Church dignitaries, who so thoroughly mis- 
 take the doctrines of our most holy faith, and 
 misrepresent the teachings of their Divine 
 Master, as to treat clergymen of other denomi- 
 nations as beyond the pale, and very much on 
 a level with the heathen. Hindoo inquirers 
 ask if it is not true that a certain bishop says 
 that the difference between Presbyterians and 
 Episcopalians is fundamental ; and that another 
 bishop withdrew the licenses of twenty-three 
 clergymen because they would not conform to 
 his ritualistic practices. Everyone I meet de- 
 plores the mischief done by bigots of this kind. 
 
 The schools of the American Presbyterian 
 Mission are said to be the most successful edu- 
 cational enterprise in the province. It cannot 
 be for a moment doubted that, although the 
 converts of the missionaries in Hindostan are 
 few and far between, their teaching is shaking 
 to its very centre the whole fabric of heathen 
 mythology. The upper and educated classes 
 have no belief in the gods of their fathers. I
 
 38 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 find in a hymn-book, composed by Ldla Behari 
 Lai for the use of an association of Hindoo 
 reformers, the following, which might be sung 
 in any Christian church : 
 
 " Thou art my Maker ; 
 Thou art the Creator of the World, 
 Thine's all the universe : 
 
 Blessed be Thy name. 
 
 " The sun and moon while turning 
 Speak forth Thy praise ; 
 Thou weighest the earth in balances : 
 Blessed be Thy name. 
 
 " The wind as it blows 
 Opens the door to Thy glory, 
 And wafts abroad Thy divinity : 
 
 Blessed be Thy name. 
 
 " From the smallest tree, 
 From the ant to man, 
 All is created by Thee : 
 
 Blessed be Thy name. 
 
 " All the rivers and seas 
 Are full of Thy righteousness ; 
 Thou art limitless, eternal ; 
 
 Blessed be Thy name. 
 
 " Thy name is great 
 Who hath wrought all these works ; 
 I offer all my praise to Thee : 
 
 Blessed be Thy name."
 
 LAHORE PRISONS. 39 
 
 Lahore for many centuries has been the 
 resort of learned men, and the native believers 
 in one God have now their full complement 
 there. 
 
 One of our visits was to the tomb of Run- 
 jeet Singh of white marble with black lines 
 a conspicuous object on the wall below the 
 Fort. Four wives and seven concubines were 
 burnt at his burial. Another was to the Go- 
 vernment prison, where 2,400 men are confined, 
 500 more being in another building some dis- 
 tance off, and a third containing 250 women. 
 All the arrangements, as far as eating, houses, 
 and cleanliness are concerned appear to be 
 admirable, but one fresh from Europe does not 
 like to hear the clanking of so many chains. 
 They make the most beautiful carpets, and I 
 ordered one, to be ready in six months, at a 
 price which would rather surprise a British 
 shopkeeper. A third visit was to the famous 
 Shalamar Gardens, laid out in 1637 by the 
 Emperor Shah Jehan. They consist of a great 
 plantation of mango-trees, with many fountains 
 and beds of roses, and are really very pretty
 
 40 A WINTER iff INDIA. 
 
 and shady. I asked the custodian if he could 
 show us the fruit of the mango. He said that 
 these trees had borne none for two years ; and 
 when I inquired the reason, I received the truly 
 Eastern answer " God knows ! " 
 
 Next morning we were very busy, and took 
 full advantage of our camel-carriage. The day 
 before Christmas an exhibition of all the manu- 
 factures and artistic productions of the Punjaub, 
 for which a special building has been erected, 
 was to be opened, and Mr. Kipling, Director 
 of the School of Art, who had charge of it, 
 kindly allowed us to have a private view. There 
 were a great many beautiful things, and some 
 of them marvellously cheap. We next visited 
 the Museum, chiefly remarkable for a valuable 
 collection of Graeco-Bactrian Buddhist sculp- 
 tures, from the Peshawur district. After that we 
 went to the College, in which two institutes are 
 combined under one roof, and Dr. Leitner, the 
 enthusiastic Principal, showed us over the build- 
 ing. There are ninety-seven students in the 
 English department, each of whom receives two 
 rupees a month from the Government, and 192
 
 THE LAHORE COLLEGE. 41 
 
 in the Oriental classes, which are supported 
 entirely by voluntary subscriptions. Dr. Leit- 
 ner, who told us that he himself was supposed 
 to speak twenty-five languages, has raised 
 among the rich natives three lacs of rupees for 
 this institution ; and we had the great satis- 
 faction of seeing and hearing students from all 
 parts of Central Asia, in clean, airy class-rooms, 
 being taught mathematics, chemistry, medicine, 
 law in fact, all the branches of an ordinary 
 University education. They were of all ages, 
 and most of them holy men priests of their 
 respective faiths. Think for a moment of the 
 immense influence which such an institution as 
 this must have in all the vast regions north as 
 well as south of the Himalayas ! 
 
 We devoted the afternoon to the inspection 
 of the native town of Lahore a strange admix- 
 ture of fantastically carved and painted houses 
 with rnud hovels. In the rough, narrow, unpaved 
 and almost impassable streets, are open bazaars, 
 where both wares and vendors are covered 
 with flies. In spite of a great deal of filth and 
 
 squalor, singularly enough, there is an almost 
 D
 
 42 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 entire absence of bad smells. The \Vazir and 
 Golden Mosques are curious edifices, in the 
 centre of the city. 
 
 These Punjaubees are a far finer and more 
 stalwart race than the Hindoos, and some of 
 the regiments in our service look very well 
 indeed.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AGRA AND THE TAJ MAHAL. 
 
 WE left by the evening train on I5th De- 
 cember, and soon after I awoke next morning 
 I descried a range of dark mountains on the 
 left. Presently, as the sun got a little above 
 the horizon, it shone upon what I first thought 
 was a cloud ; for a moment it did not occur to 
 me that the sky was cloudless. I took up 
 Stanford's admirable travelling map of India, 
 and saw at once that the object was the sum- 
 mit of Kedarnath, or an adjoining peak, 22,900 
 feet high, and about 130 miles off. 
 
 My first sight of the Himalayas was not 
 disappointing ; and for two or three hours after- 
 wards, every time I looked out of the window, 
 there was that great white solemn mountain 
 piercing the sky. There were a number of birds 
 flying all about us that morning kingfishers, 
 kites, cranes, storks, ducks, the beautiful blue 
 
 Indian jay, and many others unknown to me. 
 D 2
 
 44 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 We spent twenty-four hours in the Empress 
 Hotel, Meerut a building in which twenty-one 
 people, being all its occupants, were murdered 
 in 1857. Here the Mutiny commenced, and I 
 wanted to see it on that account ; and also 
 because it is one of the most important can- 
 tonments and military stations in India. Some 
 of the bungalows are very large, especially 
 those occupied by the King's Dragoon Guards ; 
 and the Mall is the broadest and best-made 
 avenue in our Eastern possessions, or perhaps 
 anywhere else. 
 
 Returning to Ghazabad, we proceeded on the 
 East Indian Railway over a poorly-cultivated 
 plain, where many herds of cattle, buffaloes, 
 sheep, and goats, and occasionally deer, derived 
 a very precarious subsistence from the burnt-up 
 pasture ; mango-orchards and cotton-fields occa- 
 sionally relieved the landscape. It was nearly 
 9 o'clock when, tired, dusty, and thirsty, we 
 found ourselves drinking champagne in Laurie 
 and Staten's hotel a large bungalow in the 
 European quarter, which covers a great space 
 of ground outside Agra Fort.
 
 THE TAJ MAHAL. 45 
 
 Next day was Sunday, and we mixed with a 
 most picturesque-looking congregation of civi- 
 lians and soldiers in the English church, where 
 the Rev. Father O'Neill, a well-known High 
 Church enthusiast and celibate, preached an 
 impassioned sermon from the words, " The Lord 
 is at hand." 
 
 After tiffin I had my first view of what 
 most travellers believe to be the finest building 
 in the world the Taj Mahal a mausoleum of 
 pure white marble, built by Shah Jehan for his 
 beautiful queen Moomtaza-Zumanee the Light 
 of the World and in erecting which 20,000 men 
 were employed for twenty-two years, at a cost of 
 between two and three millions sterling. It is as 
 white as when first built, and richly decorated 
 with mosaics inlaid with jasper, agate, cornelian, 
 and other precious stones, all the work of Italian 
 artists some 250 years ago. The building itself 
 stands on a marble terrace 400 feet square, with 
 a minaret 100 feet high at each corner. Be- 
 tween it and the magnificent entrance-gate built 
 of red sandstone and marble, is one of the most 
 beautiful gardens that I have seen in the East.
 
 46 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 At one end of the platform is a mosque in the 
 same style and of the same materials as the 
 gateway, and at the other end a building archi- 
 tecturally to match, but not consecrated as a 
 place of worship. 
 
 I had expected great things, but found that 
 I had formed no conception of the reality. 
 Anything so fairy-like, so spotless, so grace- 
 fully gigantic, so totally unlike other creations of 
 man, I did not imagine had existence on earth. 
 I have now seen it from various points of view 
 from the gateway, from under the shade of 
 the forest-trees in the garden, from a distance, 
 from the top of one of the minarets, from the 
 lofty platform overlooking the Jumna ; and each 
 time that I shut my eyes and opened them 
 again it seemed like a heavenly vision, a some- 
 thing utterly superhuman dropped down by the 
 celestials to astonish man. I now understand 
 what a friend once said to me : " When you see 
 the Taj at Agra, you will say it is worth while 
 going to India for that sight alone." Photo- 
 graphy, painting, and even sculpture fail to 
 give one an adequate idea of this amazing tomb,
 
 AGRA FORT. 47 
 
 and all the descriptions of it that I have ever 
 read convey but the faintest notion of its per- 
 fect beauty. 
 
 Agra Fort is a lofty and imposing edifice 
 of red sandstone, visible from a distance in all 
 directions, and dominating both banks of the 
 Jumna for miles around. Besides the British 
 barracks, it contains the Palace of Akbar, \vith 
 public and private reception-halls of white 
 marble, resembling those at Delhi, and the 
 Pearl Mosque, of the same material. How 
 simple and grand it is only lotus flowers 
 carved on the walls, and a fe\v tastefully- 
 coloured mosaics: no tawdry images or orna- 
 ments disfigure the place. Ho\v suitable for 
 the worship of Jehovah ! 
 
 The largest mosque in Agra the Jumma 
 Musjid is so close as almost to form a part 
 of the railway-station, the whistles of the loco- 
 motives and the cry of the muezzins strangely 
 mixing, and filling one's mind with thoughts of 
 how this great Eastern problem is likely to 
 be solved. 
 
 The streets of the native city are tolerably
 
 48 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 wide and well paved. The bazaars are stocked 
 with vast quantities of goods, and many elabo- 
 rately-carved houses afford evidence of com- 
 mercial prosperity. The traveller in the country 
 cannot fail to be struck with the spacious and 
 well-made roads intersecting the English quarter 
 in the neighbourhood of every large town, and 
 the obsequious respect shown to the sahibs 
 driving in their carriages by the natives in 
 bullock-carts or on foot. 
 
 The winter smell of India is not pleasant ; 
 the people, feeling the cold acutely, and being 
 as a rule very poor, without the means of pro- 
 curing proper fuel, burn all sorts of refuse, and 
 everywhere the dull, sickening odour meets you, 
 stealing into large bungalows and even per- 
 meating the cooking. The number of huge 
 kites, brown and white, and of carrion crows, 
 seems surprising ; but then they are the sca- 
 vengers of this land ; no one thinks of molesting 
 them, and well do they do their duty. 
 
 We have enjoyed many drives in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Agra, and remark here, as else- 
 where, the quantity and infinite variety of the
 
 TOMBS NEAR AGRA. 49 
 
 birds. Every two or three yards we come upon 
 minas in twos and threes, with dusky-red plu- 
 mage, a little larger than a blackbird ; then 
 there are green bee-eaters, the same as in Egypt ; 
 hoopoes, blue jays of dazzling colours, and other 
 flying creatures, large and small, the Hindu 
 names of which would not be edifying. 
 
 The prettiest place near Agra is Sikandra 
 the tomb of Akbar, from which was taken the 
 Koh-i-noor. It is situated in a large enclosure, 
 laid out precisely like an English nobleman's 
 park, the trees and flowering-shrubs in which 
 are very beautiful, the stately tamarinds being 
 especially conspicuous, on account of their 
 height and spreading foliage. Then there is 
 a lovely tomb in a garden on the other side of 
 the Jumna,, which you reach by a very rickety 
 bridge of boats ; it is that of Itmad-ud-daulah ; 
 a perfect gem of white marble inlaid with pre- 
 cious stones, the workmanship of which, and 
 particularly the marble screens, fills one with 
 astonishment. 
 
 The principal excursion is to Fattehpur- 
 Sikri, which Akbar founded 250 years ago, and
 
 50 A WINTER AV IKDIA. 
 
 intended to make his capital ; but he was forced 
 to abandon it because of the badness of the water. 
 It is twenty-three miles distant, but there is an 
 excellent road ; and it took us only three hours 
 to drive to it. We met great numbers of carts, 
 drawn by oxen, taking cotton and hewn stones 
 and agricultural produce into the city, and 
 passed through several miserable-looking vil- 
 lages of mud-hovels, closely resembling those in 
 Upper Egypt. 
 
 The palace, and the mosque called Bhund- 
 Darwaza, occupy a lofty eminence on a great 
 plain. The gateway of the latter is probably 
 the finest in India, and rises 130 feet above the 
 plateau ; the quadrangle is 433 by 336 feet, and 
 inside of it there is a fairy-like vision, in the 
 shape of a holy man's tomb, of the finest pierced 
 work in white marble that I ever saw. It is 
 just like lace ; and you can scarcely realise the 
 fact that these delicately-traced screens of large 
 size are really carved out of one block of so 
 hard a material. 
 
 When Akbar constructed this great edifice 
 he was aspiring to be the chief imam of a re-
 
 THE BHUND-DARWAZA. 51 
 
 formed religion, and attempted in its quad- 
 rangle to expound his faith ; but his courage 
 failed ; and all he could do was with stammer- 
 ing lips to repeat a stanza which one of his 
 favourites had composed, which to my mind 
 seems a good and orthodox sermon, and which 
 may be translated thus : 
 
 " The Lord to me the kingdom gave, 
 He made me good and wise and brave, 
 He guided me in faith and truth, 
 He rilled my heart with right and ruth ; 
 No wit of man can sum His state, 
 Allahu Akbar ! God is great ! " 
 
 We wandered for an hour among the silent 
 ruins of his palace, saw an English class being 
 taught in a room once belonging to the zenana, 
 and were amused at being told that one tower, 
 the divisions of which appeared to us very 
 extraordinary, had been constructed so as to 
 enable the emperor's ladies to play to the best 
 advantage the game of blind-man's-buff. The 
 buildings here, and in many other places we 
 have visited, are being repaired and restored by 
 the Government at great expense. It cannot
 
 52 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 be said that there is any neglect of the ancient 
 monuments of India. 
 
 The principal grain on the fields at this 
 time of year is pulse. There is a variety of 
 other cereals used by the people, such as 
 moong, urd, &c., and every second or third shop 
 in the bazaars and villages is for the sale of 
 provisions. 
 
 One day we were entertained to a per- 
 formance by two female jugglers, and certainly 
 some of the tricks are very remarkable; but 
 that of the mango-tree appeared to us easily 
 explicable. On two other occasions we drove 
 through the bazaars of the city, which are ex- 
 tremely interesting, the costumes of buyers and 
 sellers, the ladies in the balconies, and the 
 monkeys on the roofs constituting a scene 
 thoroughly Oriental. Then a couple of harpers 
 used to come into the bungalow of an evening, 
 and nothing could be funnier than their singing, 
 in Hindu accents, " We won't go home till 
 morning, till daylight does appear." 
 
 Mr. Lawrence, Deputy-Collector of the dis- 
 trict, was kind enough to call and show me over
 
 NATIVE FUNERALS. 53 
 
 the various offices under his control ; and also 
 beneath the same roof I had the advantage of 
 hearing trials, both of civil and criminal cases. 
 
 To-day I have seen two corpses being car- 
 ried on men's shoulders to be cremated, care- 
 fully covered, but without coffin or funeral pall. 
 Those of the richer natives are attended by 
 many mourners, making a loud wailing noise, 
 the bones and ashes being conveyed to the 
 Ganges, as being holier than the Jumna, which 
 is close at hand. 
 
 I have been four times to the Taj, and my 
 original impression has not altered at all. The 
 red sandstone of the adjacent buildings takes 
 away from its effect, more especially at a dis- 
 tance ; but the proportions, the colour, the 
 workmanship and the design of the structure 
 are perfectly lovely ; you can scarcely realise, 
 so admirable are the lines, that the dome is 
 247 feet above the garden. 
 
 My wife spent the forenoon of our last day 
 in Agra in accompanying Miss Johnston, a lady 
 from Forfarshire connected with the Medical 
 Mission, on her visits to several of the zenanas of
 
 54 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 the poorer women of the city. Miss Johnston 
 carried her medicine-chest with her, and admi- 
 nistered to those who stood in need of her aid. 
 These poor people have no means of getting 
 medical advice, as no man, unless connected 
 with the family, is allowed to visit them ; and 
 the best that can be done is for their hus- 
 bands to tell their symptoms to a doctor. 
 Some of the houses were very poor and ex- 
 tremely wretched, totally destitute of furniture, 
 and the lives of their inmates appeared to my 
 wife to be one of utter misery. The women 
 received the medicines with the greatest grati- 
 tude. Surely this is the most potent lever that 
 a missionary can use ! 
 
 Mr. Thomson, Professor of English Literature 
 in the University an Arbroath man called upon 
 me in the morning ; Dr. Valentine, the respected 
 medical missionary, whom I have now seen 
 twice, hails from Brechin ; Mr. Weir, the banker 
 from whom I got my money, told me that his 
 father was a clergyman in Arbroath ; and, to 
 cap the Forfarshire connexion, when I asked 
 the station-master to reserve a carriage for us
 
 SCOTCHMEN IN INDIA. 55 
 
 for Lucknow, he told me that he would do so 
 with great pleasure, and more especially as his 
 name, although he was an Eurasian, was William 
 Baxter, and his father came from Scotland !
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LUCKNoW AND CAWNPORF.. 
 
 AT 6.22 p.m., on 24th December, we left 
 Agra ; and, amidst the most frightful noise 
 shunting in various directions, and bumping of 
 too severe a description to be consistent with 
 a Christian state of mind at Cawnpore Junc- 
 tion, about 3 o'clock in the morning, I heard 
 the exclamation, " A merry Christmas to you ! " 
 Between 6 and 7 we were whirled off in gharries 
 the rough covered cabs of the country 
 from the station to Hill's " tumble-down-dick " 
 Hotel in Lucknow ; and I don't know why, 
 but my first remark on entering it was, " We 
 are now 7,000 miles from London." 
 
 No rain has fallen here since the first week 
 in September, and the dust lies thick, not only 
 on all the roads, and roofs, and walls, but on 
 the topmost leaves of every tree. Most of the 
 trees of India are evergreen, or nearly so ; 
 those which do not absolutely answer to this
 
 POVERTY IN INDIA. 57 
 
 description only shedding their leaves for a week 
 or two in February. Rain is very much wanted 
 .-now, and I hear fears already expressed re- 
 garding the state of the crops. 
 
 People at home can scarcely realise what 
 vast districts in India are every now and then 
 on the brink of famine. Oude is one of the 
 finest provinces in the country ; yet a gentle- 
 man in high position told me that of its 
 11,000,000 inhabitants 4,000,000 were insuffi- 
 ciently fed, and double that number just able 
 to get enough to sustain them, rendering any- 
 thing like payment for education totally out 
 of the question. 
 
 I went on Sunday morning to the American 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, where one of the 
 missionaries delivered a very striking and ori- 
 ginal discourse appropriate to the season. Some 
 of our party went to a church which shall be 
 nameless, where the clergyman delivered no dis- 
 course at all, but simply told a large congrega- 
 tion of high-bred British ladies and gentlemen 
 not to get drunk at Christmas-time ! 
 
 Lucknow, the City of Roses, is quite a modern 
 E
 
 5 8 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 place only 100 years old but has a popula- 
 tion of nearly 300,000. It may be styled, like 
 Washington, the city of magnificent distance?, 
 so widely spread are the European dwellings all 
 around it. Its two chief characteristics are the 
 number of gaudy, gingerbread-looking, painted 
 stucco palaces and temples, the tawdry tinsel 
 of which makes one feel quite angry (more par- 
 ticularly after seeing Agra), and the remarkable 
 beauty of its public gardens and parks. I 
 don't know any city so highly favoured in this 
 respect. The Wingfield Park is unsurpassed for 
 the variety of its forest trees ; and nothing can 
 exceed the loveliness of the flowers, the flower- 
 ing shrubs, the walks and beds in the Resi- 
 dency, which has been left in ruins, just as it 
 was when the mutineers marched out of it, 
 after the rescue and retreat of that band of 
 heroes whose exploits astonished the world. 
 I have examined the ground with the greatest 
 care ; have stood uncovered at Sir Henry Law- 
 rence's grave ; have been twice in early morning 
 to the neighbouring gate of the city where 
 General Neil was shot ; and to me it is simply
 
 THE SIEGE OF Luc KNOW. 59 
 
 inconceivable how the original 600 could have 
 held out for a day against 60,000 assailants 
 with upwards of 300 pieces of cannon. I have 
 climbed to the top of one of the lofty minarets 
 of the mosque adjoining the Imambarra Palace; 
 I have ascended to the top of the Martiniere 
 College, on an eminence overlooking the city ; 
 and how Sir Henry Havelock, and then Sir 
 Colin Campbell, managed, with a handful of 
 men, first to relieve the Residency, and then to 
 take the city by storm, passes my comprehen- 
 sion. No more striking instances exist in 
 history of what British soldiers can do when 
 led by competent men. 
 
 The tale of the siege of Lucknow appeared 
 to me a marvellous one at the time ; now that I 
 have trod the ground, it seems something like a 
 miracle, and one cannot help remarking what a 
 fine, determined-looking body of men inhabit this 
 capital of Oude. Its fantastic domes and 
 minarets look far better in photographs than in 
 the reality ; just think of these yellow and pink 
 coloured arches of plaster and paint after the 
 
 glorious Taj ! " J Tis distance lends enchantment 
 E 2
 
 60 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 to the view." I get away from them as fast as 
 possible, to wander among the poinsettia, 
 bougainvilleas, hibiscus and oleander of the 
 gardens ; and the banians, peepuls, and tama- 
 rinds of the Park. 
 
 The bazaars are extremely amusing. I find it 
 impossible to describe them, but can only refer to 
 an illustrated copy of "The Arabian Nights." 
 
 A very interesting drive is to the Alumbagh, 
 the scene of so much fighting in those terrible- 
 times. On our way we passed the camp of the 
 commissariat elephants a novel spectacle to a 
 European. 
 
 On the forenoon of the 27 th December, there 
 was a gathering of the school-children of the 
 American Mission in the Wingfield Park, for the 
 distribution of Christmas prizes. It was ad- 
 dressed by the Rev. Mr. Johnson, from Shah- 
 jehanpore, and the Rev. Mr. Parker from 
 Moradabad, both of whom spoke with the 
 utmost fluency in Hindostani, and seemed to 
 rivet the attention of the audience ; and I was 
 unexpectedly called upon to make a speech in 
 the centre of India, just a month after I had
 
 THE INDIAN POLICE. 61 
 
 landed on its shores. Then we lunched with 
 Colonel Worsley, with whom I examined some 
 of the expensive new barracks in process of erec- 
 tion ; and we heard the band of the yth Native 
 Infantry play admirably in the Wingfield Park 
 in the evening. 
 
 The extraordinary sounds one hears at night 
 outside these bungalows in the neighbourhood 
 of Indian towns are surprising. There are dogs 
 and wild beasts of various descriptions, 'but 
 louder than all, the yelling of the men who are 
 hired to keep them off the compounds, and also 
 to protect the houses against thieves. They 
 mostly belong to predatory bands themselves, 
 and in this manner levy a sort of black-mail on 
 the inhabitants. " There is no stillness in 
 Indian life," said an officer's wife to me to-day. 
 Her husband a few hours before had remarked, 
 while we were plodding through the dust under 
 a fiery, burning sun, " This is our cold 
 weather ! " 
 
 At daylight on Wednesday morning, 28th 
 December, we were galloping in gharries full 
 speed to the railway station why they should
 
 63 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 go at this furious pace, quien sabel The Oude 
 and Rohilcund Railway Company provided us 
 with the most spacious and well-constructed 
 carriage that 1 have seen in India, in which we 
 travelled over a fertile and well-wooded plain 
 back to Cawnpore. These Indian plains are 
 endless, unbroken ; there is no undulation, or 
 hillock, or mound of any kind to relieve their 
 vast monotony. 
 
 The train slackens its speed a great viaduct 
 is before us, and we get our first sight of the 
 sacred Ganges. At this season it is not a 
 very imposing river, but the wide expanse of 
 sand shows what a mighty stream it must be 
 after the rains. 
 
 Sergeant Lee, a very remarkable man, now 
 keeps the clean little railway hotel a bungalow 
 near the station. He went out to India in 
 1844, has marched from Peshawur to Calcutta, 
 2,200 miles in four months, was in nearly all the 
 great battles in Scinde ; marched to the relief of 
 Lucknow and Cawnpore, with Sir Henry 
 Havelock and Lord Clyde ; although three 
 times wounded has enjoyed perfect health,
 
 SIEGE OF CAWNPORE. 63 
 
 without ever being home, or even up to the 
 hills ; is very well to do, and very thankful to 
 God for his position and success in life. 
 
 I write at the close of a memorable day, 
 when, under his guidance, and listening to his 
 vivid and naturally eloquent descriptions, we 
 have visited the scenes of the awful catastrophe 
 the three wells : first, that into which were 
 thrown the bodies of those who died in Wheeler's 
 entrenchment, and for which no cemetery could 
 be found among the living ; the second, from 
 which the besieged could alone draw water, 
 always at the peril of their lives, as it was com- 
 manded by the enemy's guns; the third, into 
 which were heaped the mutilated bodies of Nana 
 Sahib's victims, which now stands in the midst 
 of a most beautiful garden, and over which has 
 been erected a memorial screen, and a statue by 
 Baron Marochetti. We sat on the steps of the 
 ghaut where the too-confiding ones embarked, 
 and were fired upon ; inspected the monuments 
 in the handsome Memorial Church ; and for four 
 hours listened to descriptions of horrors almost 
 too terrible for relation.
 
 64 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 It may be that the tale of the massacre, and 
 what happened afterwards, may never be told. 
 Things could be written about Sepoy barbarities 
 in the next generation which could scarcely, 
 having regard to the feelings of sorrowing fami- 
 lies, be committed to paper while any of the 
 victims are alive ; and it may turn out that 
 blowing from the guns was one of the mildest 
 forms of retribution practised by the British 
 troops. 
 
 The Mahommedans in Cawnpore are wealthy 
 and influential ; they raised large sums of money 
 for the Turks during the Russian war, and 
 nearly all are Jingoes, although notoriously dis- 
 affected to British rule.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ALLAHABAD AND BENARES. 
 
 WE left at mid-day for Allahabad, passing 
 through the most fertile and best cultivated dis- 
 trict we have seen in India luxuriant crops, or 
 their remains, of Indian corn, wheat, millet, 
 pulse, and castor-oil, alternating with mango or- 
 chards and clumps of stately forest trees ; lovely 
 birds, conspicuous among which were the blue jay, 
 the Sarus crane, and a kind of shrike with an 
 orange breast, appearing in almost every field 
 and grove. The day, as many of our days at 
 this time were, was perfect, just like the finest 
 in an English June ; but several things reminded 
 us that we were not at home for example, 
 jackals looking at us from the edge of the maize 
 plantations. 
 
 At 5 o'clock wide roads, barracks, and other 
 marks of a capital showed us that we were 
 approaching Allahabad, "the City of God," 
 which the railways have made a place of great
 
 66 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 importance. It is situated at the junction of the 
 Ganges and the Jumna, and has a native popu- 
 lation of upwards of a hundred thousand in 
 addition to the Europeans, who muster strongly 
 there, and whose bungalows, far apart, are sepa- 
 rated from the crowded bazaars and streets of the 
 city by the railway line. There are in the British 
 quarter of Allahabad no fewer than ninety- 
 seven miles of fine avenues, shaded by trees 
 and well watered ; and one morning I measured 
 the breadth of a fair sample of them Thorn- 
 hill Road and found it to be fifty-five paces. 
 
 Chief Justice Sir Robert Stuart and his lady 
 were in the railway-station waiting for us, and 
 I do not recollect in any part of the world 
 having been treated with more overflowing 
 hospitality. Some of us lived in his bungalow, 
 and he insisted upon the whole party dining there 
 every day, where we met many of the leading 
 residents, and altogether had what the Ameri- 
 cans call "a right good time of it;" military men, 
 civilians, and journalists contributing to add to 
 our stock of knowledge of Indian affairs. 
 
 The day after our arrival Mr. Douglas
 
 LIFE AT ALLAHABAD. 67 
 
 Straight, who sat in the House of Commons 
 with me for four years, and who is now one of 
 the Justices of the North-west Province, drove 
 us to the picturesquely-situated fort at the con- 
 fluence of the rivers, where thousands of devotees 
 were washing in the sacred waters. We had a 
 fine view from the ramparts, but the sun was 
 very hot ; and we were glad to escape from it to 
 inspect one of those casemates where everything 
 is kept in readiness, in the event of any attack 
 being made upon one of the most important 
 positions in India. 
 
 In the evening Mr. Straight and other friends 
 provided myself and my daughters with horses, 
 and we rode among the fashionables in Alfred 
 Park. Near that tastefully laid out pleasure- 
 ground is the Mayo Hall, from the top of 
 whose tower I had a fine view of the city and 
 neighbourhood, and in which one evening there 
 was a ball that I attended. The Muir College, 
 in process of building, named after a former 
 respected and popular governor of the province, 
 is also near the Park. 
 
 I visited likewise the Christian village
 
 68 A WINTER /.v INDIA. 
 
 founded by Sir William and Lady Muir, between 
 the European quarter and the Ganges ; and was 
 shown over the church, school, and clean native 
 houses by the pastor, Rev. Mr. Mohen, who 
 speaks English very well, and was glad to see a 
 party of strangers. 
 
 The variety of costumes, vehicles, and wares, 
 the cries, the curious groups of creatures clothed 
 and unclothed, the scenes which one beholds every 
 moment in the streets and bazaars of Allaha- 
 bad, are so totally different from everything an 
 untravelled Briton ever saw, or could imagine, 
 that description would certainly be in vain. 
 
 I get up every morning and walk in the Chief 
 Justice's garden, examining the fruits and flowers 
 what a magnificent display of roses ! and 
 rejoicing in the thought that an unclouded sun 
 appears every day, and that no rains or storms 
 can interfere with our plans of travel. There are 
 no bells in Indian houses, nor do native servants 
 wear shoes or stockings ; when anything is 
 wanted, the master or mistress calls " Qui hai ! " 
 and instantly from some obscure corner an un- 
 noticed menial noiselessly appears.
 
 INDIAN RAILWAYS. 69 
 
 I went on Sunday morning with Lady Stuart 
 to service in the English Church, which was 
 extremely well conducted ; but the sermon not 
 by the minister himself consisted of a dozen 
 sentences, although it was New Year's day ; and 
 surely something might have been said, of a solemn 
 and impressive nature, suited to the occasion. 
 
 Shortly after 8 o'clock on the following morn- 
 ing we were again in our railway-carriage, and 
 crossing the great bridge over the Jumna passed 
 for a long distance through a rich and well- 
 wooded country, where there were many fields 
 of flax in addition to the usual crops. One is 
 struck by the immense distances over which 
 these railways are carried in absolutely straight 
 lines, a curve being quite a novelty. To-day 
 we have made the fastest run which we have 
 yet had in this country viz., from Sirsia to 
 Mirzapore : 32 miles in an hour. The gauge of 
 most of the Indian railways is midway between 
 that of the North Western and the Great 
 Western, or almost, if not exactly, the same as 
 that originally laid down between Dundee and 
 Arbroath.
 
 70 A WIXTER IN INDIA. 
 
 There are a good many miles of a poor, 
 sandy country ; and, what is a novelty in these 
 unbroken plains, a few hills before arriving at 
 Mogul-Serai, which is the junction for Benares, 
 situated six miles off the main line. 
 
 We were all disappointed with the first view 
 of this place, the holy city of the Hindoos, 
 whose 200,000 inhabitants are crammed into a 
 very small space on a bluff on the left bank of 
 the Ganges, and whose beauties have been a 
 good deal exaggerated both by pen and pencil. 
 Clark's Hotel, fully three miles from the railway 
 station, is said to be the best in India ; and 
 certainly its landlady a native, and not even 
 of high caste, although married to an English- 
 man does everything in her power, and suc- 
 cessfully, to make it so. 
 
 The Maharajah of Benares sent two open 
 carriages to the railway-station for us, and 
 placed them at our disposal during our resi- 
 dence. He is now simply a great nobleman, 
 or zemindar, having an income of thirteen lacs 
 of rupees ; and as he was at his country house, 
 some distance from the city, a gentleman of
 
 BENARES, THE HOLY CITY. 71 
 
 eminence, and much in his confidence, Mr. 
 Shivpershad, called upon us, and offered his 
 services. He was brought up in the Education 
 Department, and has lately had the honour of 
 being elected a member of the Supreme Council 
 of India ; speaks English not only fluently but 
 elegantly ; ridicules the idea of any danger to 
 this great country from Russia ; strongly depre- 
 cates the policy which culminated in the Afghan 
 War, and maintains that the principal thing 
 that India and its people ardently desire is 
 peace. He took us first to visit the College, 
 where there are 1,000 students; then to the 
 Town Hall, the gift of a munificent native ; and 
 afterwards through the chief and very crowded 
 street of the city to a temple inhabited by a 
 vast number of monkeys. 
 
 A great deal of money is spent in Benares, 
 as rich people come from all parts of the Hindoo 
 world, a few years before they expect their end, 
 in order to die in the holy city. The fluctua- 
 tions of commerce and the introduction of rail- 
 ways have led in India, as in other countries, 
 to many ups and downs in the fortunes of cities.
 
 72 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 Since Allahabad has become a great junction, 
 Mirzapore, its once flourishing rival, has dwindled 
 away ; but the sacred Benares will always hold 
 its own as long as the Hindoo religion lasts. 
 
 There are very few converts to Christianity 
 in this part of Hindostan. "Very, very slowly," 
 said a missionary of the London Society to me 
 the other day, " does the work go on ; " but 
 then he showed me a High School, where he 
 and one of his European colleagues, assisted by 
 twenty-four natives, teach 500 boys, imparting 
 religious as well as secular instruction ; and he 
 told me that not only is the number of pilgrims 
 steadily falling off, but that their contributions 
 for purposes of their faith have likewise so much 
 declined that the Punga, or principal priest of 
 one of the temples, was lately obliged to mort- 
 gage the whole of its property in order to pay 
 expenses. 
 
 Some of our friends, it appears to me, attach 
 far too much importance to making open and 
 avowed converts to Christianity. They forget 
 how many people there may be women, for 
 example in this land who, if they changed
 
 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 
 
 their nominal religion would lose their caste, 
 and their husbands too. May they not be ex- 
 cused for being Christians in secret, and thus 
 not becoming chargeable to the funds of some 
 society, which they certainly otherwise would 
 do ? The converts, no doubt, are few ; but the 
 sapping and mining process is going on all the 
 time. The civilians who oppose the mission- 
 aries, but who, in fact, know very little about 
 them, admit this to be the case. There is 
 among the masses a cessation of hostility to 
 Christian instruction completely in some parts 
 of the country, and more or less so in all ; and 
 although the attitude of the higher class of 
 natives who have abandoned belief in Hindooism 
 is not hopeful, as far as Christianity is con- 
 cerned, the lower classes have not become 
 Deists, like their betters ; and the known want 
 of faith of the latter is beginning to be felt 
 as an important factor in the feeling of the 
 Indian peasantry towards the religion of their 
 governors. 
 
 There are said to be 5,000 temples and 350 
 mosques at Benares. One of the former is
 
 74 A WINTER IN I.VDIA. 
 
 tenanted solely by monkeys, which also swarm 
 in the city generally, and their depredations are 
 a serious source of loss to the inhabitants ; so 
 much so, that the municipality recently offered 
 a reward for catching them, and taking them 
 away to the jungle ; but in vain. The creatures 
 confine themselves almost entirely to the roofs 
 of the houses, decline to be made prisoners, and, 
 as no Hindoo would kill or injure them, are 
 masters of the situation. Heaven forbid that 
 I should ever again enter the Golden Temple 
 and the various other sacred shrines in the 
 centre of crowded Benares ; the filth and odours 
 from wretched specimens of humanity, fakirs 
 and beggars, sacred bulls and monkeys, being 
 simply indescribable ! Even the beautiful gold 
 brocade-work in the bazaars would hardly tempt 
 me to enter those pestiferous narrow lanes. 
 
 Nothing can be more disappointing than the 
 land side of this holy city. Sccrolc itself, which 
 is the name of the European quarter, is much 
 less inviting and pleasantly laid out than any 
 of the other similar settlements which I have 
 seen in the neighbourhood of Indian cities ; but
 
 ON THE GANGES. 75 
 
 Benares from the river in early morning is 
 another thing altogether a scene, a sight, a 
 kind of dream never to be forgotten. 
 
 We drove in the Maharajah's carriages, at- 
 tended by his intelligent Secretary, to a temple 
 at a point just above the town ; and there em- 
 barked in his highness's state barge, manned by 
 a crew of twelve in scarlet liveries, an official 
 with a gigantic silver stick receiving us at the 
 gangway. Amidships the vessel was covered 
 with a gorgeous canopy, and from the prow 
 projected two rampant wooden horses. Thus 
 luxuriously did we drop down the sacred river 
 for the whole length of the city, and nothing 
 could exceed the picturesque effect produced by 
 the rays of the just-risen sun upon its towers 
 and domes and temples and palaces. The 
 ghats, or long flights of stone steps from the 
 houses and streets to the stream, were crowded 
 with devotees of both sexes and all ages, in 
 every stage of nudity, yet modest withal, who 
 were bathing in its holy waters, and filling from 
 it their brightly-burnished brazen vessels. The 
 
 priests were tinkling their cymbals of brass, and 
 F 2
 
 76 A WINTER IN 
 
 raising their voices aloud in praise of their 
 gods ; garments of the brightest hue glistened 
 in the sun ; fakirs held aloft their hands in 
 adoration ; and barges landed piles of wood, to 
 burn the corpses laid on the banks ; while goats, 
 cows, donkeys, monkeys, vultures, parroquets 
 and crows mingled freely with the devout 
 multitude. 
 
 The architecture of some of the houses be- 
 longing to native princes strikes one every now 
 and then as singularly chaste and effective ; 
 but adjacent mud hovels spoil the coup {Cecil. 
 Many of the ghats are tumbling down, and the 
 holy river is inexpressibly dirty. Just below 
 the rough, rickety bridge of boats is the com- 
 manding site of the old fort, where also stood 
 the city of Kasi, founded 1600 u.c. They are 
 about to begin a great railway-bridge over the 
 Ganges at this spot. 
 
 In the afternoon we witnessed another per- 
 formance of jugglers, whose most remarkable 
 trick was instigating a mongoose to kill a snake, 
 whose head was reduced to pulp, but which, 
 under the influence of their incantations, was
 
 SAKNATH, THE ABODE OF BUDDHA, 77 
 
 restored to perfect health in a few minutes. 
 Then they had scarcely gone when the verandah 
 of the bungalow was covered with fruits and 
 vegetables and native dishes presented to us 
 by the Maharajah ; and in the evening we had 
 a delightful drive through mango-orchards, fields 
 of barley in ear, springing wheat, beans, and 
 vegetables of various kinds to the ruins of 
 Sarnath, where Buddha himself once lived, and 
 where he founded a religion even now professed 
 by a great majority of the population of Asia. 
 
 There is a large business carried on in 
 Benares in brass-work. Mrs. Clark, of the hotel, 
 employs sixty people ; and as scarcely any 
 travellers require accommodation in India ex- 
 cept in the cold season, the trade in brass is 
 larger and more lucrative than that of keeping 
 an inn. 
 
 On Thursday we enjoyed a remarkable and 
 truly Oriental excursion to the Maharajah's 
 castle of Ramnuggur, situated on a lofty bank 
 several miles above and on the opposite side 
 of the river from Benares, and commanding a 
 strikingly-beautiful view of the city and its
 
 78 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 surroundings. First, we drove through gardens 
 and fields of corn, then were carried in tangans 
 a sort of bath-chair, borne on poles by four 
 coolies to a sand-bank out in the stream, 
 where the Racehorse barge was waiting to take 
 us across to the picturesque stronghold, the 
 battlements of which were manned by natives 
 in all kinds of costumes and colours ; while on 
 the banks were carriages and caparisoned ele- 
 phants, and troops of servants waiting to do 
 our bidding the great man is said to have no 
 fewer than 3,000 retainers. He himself was at 
 a distant country seat, but we were received by 
 his nephew and heir, who showed us over the 
 castle, introduced us to his little boy, who was 
 learning English, let us see a performance by 
 Nautch girls, and came, after we had lunched 
 with friends in a pavilion in the beautiful gar- 
 dens, to exhibit his horsemanship and his skill 
 as a marksman by hitting a rupee thrown into 
 the air with a rifle-ball a feat which our enter- 
 tainer, Mr. Ross, himself one of the best shots 
 in India, and a member of a family celebrated 
 for their prowess in this respect, said he could
 
 A VISIT TO RAMNUCGUR. 79 
 
 not perform. Then there were snake-charmers 
 and actors from the Deccan, who played on the 
 platform of the immense tank adjoining the 
 garden. 
 
 We dropped down the river to the city at 
 sunset in the barge, and in the evening attended 
 a concert in aid of an asylum for widows, got 
 up by Mr. Lambert, of the London Missionary 
 Society, and patronised by all the officials. The 
 jackals had a horrible chorus that night, and 
 we were awakened at dawn by the trumpeting 
 of elephants.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT CALCUTTA. 
 
 ON the 6th of January, at mid-day, we joined 
 the mail-train at Mogul-Serai Junction, and 
 travelled over a vast, apparently interminable 
 plain, well wooded and cultivated, fertile and 
 irrigated ; crossed the Sone at 4 o'clock on a 
 great viaduct ; halted fifteen minutes at the im- 
 portant military cantonment of Dinapoor; passed 
 the city of Patna ; at Mokameh had the best 
 railway dinner we had tasted in India ; at dusk 
 found ourselves between strangely-shaped and 
 isolated hills, and had hardly time to rub our 
 eyes and tie up our wraps in the morning when, 
 punctual to the moment, at 5 '40 the train drew 
 up in Howrah Station, on the other side of 
 the Hooghly from Calcutta. The Government 
 Mouse drag, with four horses and two postillions, 
 and various servants of the Viceroy, were wait- 
 ing for us, and we were very soon comfortably 
 installed in much more spacious apartments 
 than we had occupied for some time.
 
 BARRACKPORE. 81 
 
 I had a busy day, calling on merchants, mis- 
 sionaries, and other friends, and making various 
 arrangements for our journey. 
 
 On Sunday morning I attended divine ser- 
 vice at Union Chapel, in the Dhurumtollah, one 
 of the most important streets in Calcutta; and 
 immediately afterwards proceeded up the river 
 in the Viceroy's steam-launch Gemini, to lunch 
 with Lord and Lady Ripon at Barrackpore, 
 where they generally spend Saturday and Sun- 
 day, in a villa situated in one of the most 
 beautiful parks in all India. Opposite to it are 
 the famous Baptist Mission premises of Seram- 
 pore, identified with the names of Carey and 
 Marshman, and where, being then Danish terri- 
 territory, the early preachers of Christianity 
 took refuge, when expelled by the Directors of 
 the Company from British soil. 
 
 It was a beautiful sail, the scenery on both 
 banks being very varied, and the foliage 
 strikingly green even in winter. There were 
 peepul, and tamarind, and palm-trees, pictur- 
 esque-looking temples, great jute factories, with 
 pretty villas attached ; boats of every sort and
 
 8 2 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 description, many of them like Venetian gon- 
 dolas, passed up and down the stream ; and 
 brilliant flowers from overhanging gardens 
 added colour to the landscape. The ever- 
 greenness of Indian trees is one of the most 
 striking features of the country; and I recol- 
 lected when walking up the avenue of poinsettias 
 and bamboos, which leads from the river-bank 
 to the Viceregal country seat, that I had not 
 seen rain, and hardly clouds, since we were in 
 Munich, more than two months ago. 
 
 I was very glad to have a long conversation 
 with the Marquis of Ripon : with whom I had 
 been associated in the House of Commons in 
 early life, and whose praises as a man and as a 
 ruler I had heard with no surprise from persons 
 of all political opinions and religious creeds 
 wherever we had been during our Indian tour. 
 I had expected, in consequence of the great 
 change of policy since the Afghan war, to have 
 found a good deal of difference of opinion with 
 regard to Lord Ripon, but on the contrary there 
 seemed to be none ; everyone I met extolled his 
 government, except an agent of some tea plan-
 
 THE JUTE FACTORY AT SAMNUGGUR. 83 
 
 tations, who knew as little about Indian politics 
 as he did about the inhabitants of Jupiter. 
 
 Calcutta is a wonderful place, containing 
 about 800,000 inhabitants, and the shipping of 
 the Hooghly vast steamers and sailing vessels 
 from all parts of the world gives one an ex- 
 alted idea of its commercial importance. The 
 Maidan, an immense open space larger than 
 Hyde Park, immediately joins the river, and 
 you have the unique sight of fashionable 
 equipages dashing past within stone's-throw of 
 Oceanic steamers. 
 
 We were a party of thirty at dinner at 
 Government House on Monday evening, and I 
 was happy to see Lord Ripon, after his recent 
 severe illness, looking better than he has ever 
 done in his life. 
 
 On Wednesday I had a very interesting 
 excursion to the jute factory of Samnuggur, 
 twenty-three miles up the river, where there are 
 4,000 workpeople and 415 looms. Mr. Smith, 
 the manager, took us up in his steam-launch, 
 and we were accompanied by Lord Lawrence, 
 at present staying at Government House. We
 
 84 A WINTER /.v INDIA. 
 
 were extremely amused by the grinning counte- 
 nances of the little boys employed : I never saw 
 anything as good in a pantomime. The Hin- 
 doos learn to work very quickly ; they will 
 pick up as much in a week or ten days as a 
 European will in six months, but are not very 
 easily managed ; and some of the factories on 
 the river have never been able to get a sufficient 
 number of hands, although the pay is excellent 
 two to three rupees a week ; which in this 
 country, especially when several members of the 
 same family are employed, means affluence. 
 Mr. Smith hospitably entertained us in his 
 pretty bungalow on the river bank, and we sat 
 in the verandah afterwards, watching the stream 
 and the great jungle of bamboos opposite. 
 
 There was a children's fancy ball at Govern- 
 ment House in the evening, and a picturesque 
 sight it was : two hundred seniors appearing in 
 costume, in addition to the young people and 
 those living in the mansion. 
 
 Next morning I attended a meeting of the 
 Legislative Council, in that famous chamber 
 where so many resolutions for good and bad
 
 THE STREETS OF CALCUTTA. 85 
 
 have been passed. Portraits of the various 
 Viceroys hang on the walls, the evil countenance 
 of Warren Hastings being the most con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 Even in the dead of winter the heat of the 
 business portion of Calcutta oppresses me. I 
 feel wearied driving in a gharry ; and the 
 crowds in the streets, on the stairs, and in the 
 offices themselves, seem as if they would run you 
 over. The jackals are as noisy in the early part 
 of the night round Government House as we 
 have heard them anywhere else. They live in 
 the clumps of palms in the garden, and like the 
 innumerable kites are never destroyed, as they 
 are nature's best scavengers. The streets of 
 Calcutta are wider than those of most Indian 
 cities, tramways are used extensively, very 
 handsome new public offices are in course of 
 construction in Dalhousie Square, and the 
 stranger will be struck with the bustle and 
 activity everywhere visible. 
 
 I spent Friday morning with Major Baring, 
 conversing principally on the financial condition 
 of the country ; and then inspected the very fine
 
 86 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 building occupied by the Bank of Bengal, where 
 300 clerks arc employed. 
 
 It appears to me that India is likely now 
 to take a step in advance ; education, railways, 
 newspapers and other influences are lifting it up 
 as it were, breaking down old prejudices, letting 
 in the light, and removing some of those causes 
 which have hitherto had such a depressing effect 
 on the population. The principal desideratum 
 is a policy of peace, which will enable the 
 Government to provide out of surplus revenue 
 first for the relief of the miserable masses from 
 such taxes as that on salt, which bears so 
 heavily on the poor ; and then for the develop- 
 ment of vast districts of the country, as yet 
 neglected, by means of railroads and otherwise, 
 so as to increase production, and avert famines. 
 Such beneficial measures are out of the ques- 
 tion if millions are to be thrown away on 
 absolutely unnecessary and unjust frontier wars 
 wars which make enemies of proud neigh- 
 bouring races, and which cost India infinitely 
 more than the mere actual expenditure shown in 
 the military accounts. It will be impossible
 
 THE FUTURE OF INDIA. 87 
 
 largely to extend education, to open up commu- 
 nications, to provide the requisite irrigation, or 
 to do many other things absolutely necessary 
 for the future well-being of the people, unless 
 there is an end to this system of picking quarrels 
 for which they have got to pay. The natives 
 with whom I have conversed, Hindoo and 
 Mahometan as well, feel strongly on this 
 point. 
 
 The recent endeavours of the Government 
 to stimulate private enterprise, especially in the 
 construction of railroads, instead of making 
 them itself, are theoretically, and from a politico- 
 economic point of view, quite right ; but I 
 doubt very much whether it will be possible, 
 for a considerable time to come, to get much 
 done in this way, unless the State is prepared 
 to grant a guarantee, say, for a limited period 
 of years ; and I should be surprised were the 
 able and judicious men now at the head of 
 affairs here to insist too strongly on Govern- 
 ment refusing all aid. 
 
 With respect to taxation in general, we at 
 home must never fonjet that crreat considera-
 
 83 A WINTER iff INDIA. 
 
 tion should be paid to the prevailing sentiment 
 among educated natives, although it may appear 
 to us founded on erroneous principles. On this 
 point let me quote a few words from the Indian 
 Spectator, a well-conducted newspaper published 
 in Bombay : " One important fact seems often 
 to be forgotten by our rulers : that the views, 
 opinions, and systems of free civilised countries 
 of Europe, however good from the point of 
 European politics and European economy, are 
 not exactly or even approximately the views, 
 opinions, and systems which ought to be circu- 
 lated or enforced in a semi-civilised Asiatic 
 country. It is needless at this time of the day 
 to remind the authorities how vastly different 
 are the political, social, and even economic con- 
 ditions of this country from others. It has been 
 more than once stated in these columns how 
 dangerous it is to govern India on European 
 principles." These cautions must be kept in 
 mind in dealing with such matters as the tariff", 
 the opium revenue, and the income-tax. 
 
 As far as I can learn, the question of the 
 employment of natives in official life is making
 
 NATIVE OFFICIALS. 89 
 
 fair and satisfactory progress. I find no dis- 
 position whatever to discourage it on the part 
 of those in power. One difficulty standing in 
 the way of its more rapid extension is, that 
 most of the better-educated classes amongst 
 them are zemindars, or rich landed proprietors, 
 whose interests are considered by the masses 
 of the cultivators to be antagonistic to their 
 own ; so much so indeed that the latter are 
 accustomed to look in preference to Europeans 
 for justice. 
 
 G
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE TEA-PLANTATIONS, DARJEELING. 
 
 THERE is an excellent custom at Government 
 House, in Calcutta, of presenting each person 
 living in the house with a printed list of the 
 guests to be present at the dinner parties, so 
 that you know whom you are to meet ; and I 
 thought that this might be very well imitated 
 at some of the London entertainments. 
 
 We left for an excursion in the Himalayas 
 on Saturday, /th January, and were driven to 
 the Sealdah Railway Station in the Viceregal 
 chariot with the postillions. The scenery for many 
 miles was more Oriental, as far as foliage was 
 concerned, than any we had yet seen in India : 
 dense jungle of bamboo alternating with gardens 
 of palms, bananas, and mangoes, with occa- 
 sional patches of wheat and tobacco ; then came 
 wide plains, with immense numbers of cattle and 
 buffaloes feeding on almost invisible stubble ; 
 rows of fine tamarind-trees ; picturesque houses
 
 THE TOY RAILWAY. 91 
 
 of bamboo and mats, like representations of 
 scenes in Borneo. At dark we reached the 
 Ganges, crossing it in a steamer and dining 
 on board. 
 
 I made myself comfortable for the night 
 soon after entering the narrow-gauge railway 
 on the other side, fell asleep shortly after 
 9 o'clock, and was astonished when a man 
 shouted in my ear at 6 a.m., " next station 
 Siliguri." Here we breakfasted, and took our 
 seats in perhaps the most extraordinary and 
 toy-like tram railroad which exists on the face 
 of the earth. An American said of it the other 
 day to a friend of mine : " I guess I have seen 
 a good many queer things in the shape of rail- 
 roads in my country, but this is the cheekiest 
 little concern that ever I came across." The 
 rails are two feet apart ; the carriages are like 
 low tram-cars ; and so steep is the gradient 
 often i in 17 that little boys, seated on the 
 engine, jump off at places where the sun has 
 not melted the dew, to put sand on the rails, 
 the tiny engine meantime puffing and blowing 
 
 until the wheels can get a grip. At one place 
 G 2
 
 92 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 there is an actual loop, the train passing over 
 a bridge which it had passed under a few 
 minutes before. 
 
 I am one of those unfortunate people who 
 become easily giddy looking down from great 
 heights, and my friends had prepared me for a 
 terrible experience on this line ; but except at 
 four or five unprotected curves close to Darjeel- 
 ing, it was not nearly so bad as I had expected 
 it would be. In many of the most dangerous 
 places there is a substantial parapet, and trees 
 and shrubs cover the sides of the steep hills, so 
 that you are not sensible of the sheer precipice. 
 The views from time to time over mountains, 
 hills, and valleys strike one with wonder ; and 
 we had not left Siliguri Station more than ten 
 minutes when the white peak of Kinchinjunga 
 appeared over the lofty neighbouring mountains 
 like an aerial sentinel. Passing between tea- 
 gardens, with their white, myrtle-like flowers, 
 and by many cotton-trees, the striking red 
 blossom of which yields a coarse material which 
 the natives use, we soon reached real jungle, 
 and now remarked the wonderful change which
 
 THE HIMALAYA LINE. 93 
 
 has come over the features of the people we 
 seemed all at once to have got among Kalmucks. 
 It would amuse a London-and-North- Western 
 man to see the miserable hut which serves as 
 the first station-house on the Darjeeling-Hima- 
 laya line. At this point it begins rapidly to 
 ascend through a forest of exceeding beauty, 
 many of the trees being very lofty, some of 
 them having a canopy of flowers, and others" 
 covered with creepers of strange and weird-like 
 shapes. There is a cart-track alongside the 
 train-line, and every now and then you come 
 upon stations to permit of conveyances passing 
 each other, like those on the Suez Canal. There 
 are a good many villages and shanties for the 
 workmen who are employed in great numbers 
 in repairing and altering the line. Occasion- 
 ally you steam through a crowded bazaar, 
 and the curves well merit the American's 
 description. 
 
 Khersiong, surrounded on all hands by tea- 
 gardens, is a bustling place ; and we found the 
 bazaars crowded by men, women and children 
 of all the multifarious races which inhabit this
 
 94 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 part of Central Asia. The main street is only 
 a few feet wide ; but the steam-car puffs along 
 the centre of it ; and it would be difficult for a 
 person who has never been out of Europe to 
 imagine the scene at the market-place when 
 we started after breakfast. 
 
 Nepaul, Thibet, Sikkim and Bhotan were 
 all within sight from points on these lofty eleva- 
 tions ; and hundreds of the races which dwell 
 there are to be found employed on the railway, 
 or on those great plantations of tea which are 
 accomplishing almost a revolution in this remote 
 portion of British territory. 
 
 Our engine had to stop several times, in 
 consequence of bad coal, and it was nearly 
 6 o'clock in the evening when we arrived at 
 Meadow Bank, one of Mr. Doyle's hotel-bun- 
 galows, which he had opened expressly for our 
 large party, it having been shut for the cold 
 months, as that was not the season in Darjeeling. 
 Unfortunately the weather had become cloudy 
 at mid-day, and we arrived in a kind of mist, 
 auguring ill for a sight of the snowy ranges 
 on the morrow.
 
 JKLLAIIBAHAR. 95 
 
 We were up, however, betimes. At 6 a.m. 
 the authorities pronounced the expedition to 
 the hill from which the view is best seen 
 undesirable ; but at 7 o'clock there was a lift 
 in the rolling clouds, the ponies were at the 
 door, and I resolved to ride at least as far as the 
 cantonment of Jellahbahar ; the Commandant 
 of which, Colonel Roberts, had kindly come 
 down the evening before and offered to accom- 
 pany us in the morning. About half-way up 
 the acclivity which leads to his station I turned 
 round on my saddle, and there, far up in the 
 heavens, dense masses of clouds below them, 
 were the Himalayan peaks, which I had so 
 often longed to see. There was a time of com- 
 parative darkness again when we stopped at 
 the Colonel's bungalow ; but he, who had been 
 asked to take care of us by Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Kinloch, Younger, of Logic, and who showed 
 us every attention during our stay at Darjeeling, 
 was cheery and willing to do anything we 
 wanted, and did not discourage my determina- 
 tion to go on at all hazards. So we descended 
 to the tram-line at the first station, and then
 
 96 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 put our horses to face the steep path which 
 conducts to the top of Senchal, 8,163 f ee * high, 
 on which appeared conspicuously many lofty 
 chimneys of deserted barracks, looking like 
 ancient monuments. The barracks were con- 
 demned by the Public Works or, as they call 
 it in India, the Public Waste Department, 
 because the chimneys were unsafe, and they 
 alone remain to tell the tale. 
 
 This is the highest point which travellers 
 usually reach; but the Colonel shook his head 
 when I asked if you really saw from it Mount 
 Everest, the loftiest mountain in the world. 
 " Tiger Hill," he said, " is the place," pointing 
 to a wooded eminence 350 feet higher. " Then 
 up we go," I replied, and in a very short time 
 we were at the cairn on its summit, in the 
 presence of a prospect which I confess fairly 
 took away my breath. 
 
 Nothing that I had ever seen made me 
 feel such a sense of awe. The clouds had passed 
 away from that amazing Kinchinjunga group, 
 and there stood revealed, apparently quite near, 
 but really forty-five miles off, the stupendous
 
 THE KINCHIKJUNGA GROUP. 97 
 
 mountain, 28, 1 56 feet high. On its right, looking 
 towards us, first Kabru, 24,015, and then the 
 sloping peak of Junnu, 25,311. On the other 
 side of the towering giant rose Pandim, 22,017, 
 Narsing, 19,146, and the loveliest of all, a sugar- 
 loaf of dazzling unbroken whiteness, 22,581, for 
 which the surveyors have not yet found a name 
 but which appears on the maps as " D. 2." We 
 stood there for an hour- rapt in admiration. 
 Never before had I seen such a sublime prospect, 
 and never can I hope to see such an one again. 
 There are many views of the Alps, especially of 
 the Bernese Oberland, which are more beautiful, 
 perhaps more varied, but in point of immensity 
 they are not for a moment to be compared to 
 this. We were standing on the top of a hill 
 twice the height of Ben Nevis, and facing a 
 mountain seven times higher than the highest in 
 Scotland. There was something almost un- 
 earthly about it ; I felt a kind of creeping cold- 
 ness, and could hardly persuade myself that 
 these towers and pinnacles were part of the 
 earth on which we dwell. Then far away in the 
 east were more vast mountains, capped by
 
 98 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 Donkia, 23,187, the highest peak in Bhotan ; and 
 in the other direction the clouds kindly favoured 
 us by lifting two or three times, and giving us 
 glimpses of the summit of Mount Everest, 130 
 miles off. It was a day in my life never to be 
 forgotten ; the furthest point in our journey, 
 the accomplishment of a desire long secretly 
 cherished. I had seen the highest of the Hima- 
 layas in all their grandeur, and I knew that there 
 was no prospect in the universe so magnificent 
 as that of Kinchinjunga's snowy range from 
 the point on which I stood. 
 
 There was hoar-frost every morning during 
 our stay at Darjeeling, and although the sun 
 was powerful at mid-day, we required all our 
 warm clothing and wraps. The scenery on the 
 mountain sides a good deal resembles that at 
 Mentone and Monte Generoso, but on a far more 
 stupendous scale that is, the declivities are four 
 or five times higher, while the lofty trees un- 
 known to Europe, and graceful bamboos, con- 
 stantly remind you that you are in Asia. At 
 almost every turn you find houses and branches 
 of trees covered with little flags of white and
 
 BUDDHIST PRAYERS. 99 
 
 red paper and calico ; these are Buddhist 
 prayers, and the inscription on one and all of 
 them is the same four words of doubtful inter- 
 pretation being repeated over and over again. 
 I thought how striking an illustration this was 
 of the words, " Use not vain repetitions as the 
 heathen do/' 
 
 We visited a celebrated Buddhist temple, and 
 saw the circular praying-machines at work ; it 
 was but a better kind of hut after all, con- 
 siderably adorned, and not so dirty as the 
 Hindoo temples. Then we walked round the 
 summit of the hill on which most of the bunga- 
 lows stand under great banks of foliage 
 magnificent tree-ferns in hundreds and were 
 struck with the number of tall stately trees 
 which had creepers almost to the top ; the great 
 Pothos parasite, several specimens of which we 
 saw, never fails to kill its victim in the end. 
 Rounding the western extremity of the hill, we 
 obtained the best view of the settlement from 
 what is called Edgar's Folly ; why, I really 
 don't know, because there is no point from which 
 you could command so well the whole of Dar-
 
 ioo A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 jeeling. There are no roads for driving in this 
 hill station ; you must ride on a pony, or be 
 carried on a dandy a kind of couch on poles. 
 The people here complain very much of the 
 Chinese resident ministers at the various Courts 
 in Central Asia using their influence, and suc- 
 cessfully, to keep the trade of all these countries 
 in the hands of their own nation, and to pre- 
 vent any extension of commerce with British 
 India. Every one seems to have an interest of 
 some kind or another in those tea plantations 
 which are rapidly covering the hill-sides of that 
 portion of Sikkim belonging to us. The follow- 
 ing is a true story, and makes one's mouth 
 water. A certain doctor, about to retire from the 
 service, was tempted in an unguarded moment 
 to offer .2,000 for a plantation, when times were 
 at their very worst. Hardly had the auctioneer 
 knocked it down to him when he became terri- 
 fied at his own audacity ; and greatly was he 
 relieved when a general officer standing by 
 offered to go halves with him. That estate now 
 pays 10,000 a year clear profit, and the worthy 
 pair are living at home in luxury.
 
 POPULATION OF DARJEELING. ior 
 
 I have been reading Sir Joseph Hooker's 
 " Himalayan Journals," where he gives a most 
 vivid description of Darjeeling and its neighbour- 
 hood, and in which, long before the days of the 
 railroad, or the discovery of Mount Everest, he 
 prophesied the great future which everyone now 
 sees is certainly before it. This interesting 
 book is now out of print, and a new edition 
 urgently required. 
 
 All the carrying work in the place is done by 
 coolies, and one is distressed to see very small 
 children literally groaning under heavy loads 
 of stones. You remark the great variety of 
 races inhabiting the place : Lepchas, the ab- 
 origines of Sikkim, who believe in spirits good 
 and bad, but celebrate no religious rites ; Lim- 
 boos, who are Buddhists ; Moormis, grave, 
 powerful men, originally from Thibet. The gold 
 and silver ornaments worn by nearly all of them 
 cannot fail to strike the stranger. 
 
 One morning five of us on ponies rode 
 down to the Ging tea plantation, 2,500 feet 
 below Darjeeling, to visit Mr. Durnford who 
 manages it, and who is a friend of my friend,
 
 io2 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 Lady Crossley. The tea-plant is rather a pretty 
 evergreen, resembling the myrtle or sweet bay 
 more than any other shrub we have at home. It 
 is not allowed to grow more than a foot and a 
 half high. It was pruning season, and we could 
 distinctly smell the tea aroma as we passed the 
 gangs of Nepaulese workmen plying their knives. 
 During December, January, and February they 
 weed the ground and prune the plants. The 
 leaves are picked in the nine remaining months : 
 those on the very top, more like little stems than 
 leaves, constituting the Pekoe, those immediately 
 below them the Souchong-pekoe, and those 
 nearer the centre of the bush the Souchong of 
 commerce. They are all heated, rolled first by 
 machinery and secondly by hand and then dried 
 together, and afterwards passed through wires 
 which separate the three qualities just mentioned. 
 Then all imperfections are picked out by women, 
 after which, the tea is packed in 80 Ib. boxes 
 made of toon wood, from Independent Sikkim, 
 and carried up to Darjeeling by coolies, to be 
 transmitted by railroad. The wages paid are 
 good : 5r. 8a. for men, 4r. 8a. for women, and jr.
 
 THE TEA PLANTATIONS. 103 
 
 for children per week. They are housed but 
 not fed by the proprietors, who, however, 
 generally give them plots of land on which to 
 raise Indian corn, on which and on rice they 
 subsist. The plants require no irrigation, as 
 sufficient rain falls during the rainy season to 
 nourish them. Their only enemy is the red 
 spider, which has lately attacked them just as 
 the phylloxera has done the vines in France. 
 The new gardens are all adopting a hybrid be- 
 tween the Assam and the China plant, the 
 former giving strength, the latter flavour. Mr. 
 Durnford gave us at luncheon the only good 
 curry I have tasted in India. 
 
 There were peals of thunder in the moun- 
 tains as we rode up the hill, and at last once 
 more in the evening we heard the sound of rain. 
 "The clear shining after rain." I believed 
 in that, consequently rose very early in the 
 morning, and arrived at the point of view just 
 as the first rays of the sun gilded the peak of 
 Kinchinjunga. One after another, in proportion 
 to their height, the other summits were lighted 
 up till, by-and-bye, the whole mighty range of
 
 104 d WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 the eastern Himalayas for 200 miles stood re- 
 vealed in unclouded splendour. The prospect 
 is engraved in my mind for ever. 
 
 A great treat was awaiting us this morn- 
 ing. Mr. Prestage, the managing-director of the 
 tram-line, had arranged that we should be 
 "trollied" down the mountains instead of going 
 in the train ; so at Ghoom station, which is 
 higher than Darjeeling, and from which to the 
 plain there is a continuous descent, we found 
 two little tram-cars fastened together, and Mr. 
 Walker, one of the officials a Scotchman, of 
 course who managed the brakes, and took us 
 down in the most skilful manner, at the rate of 
 fifteen miles an hour, stopping an hour for 
 breakfast at the charming little Clarendon 
 Hotel at Khersiong, from which we had our 
 last look of the gigantic Kinchinjunga. The 
 motion of the trollies was the most delightful 
 I ever experienced in travelling, and without 
 the locomotive you see the scenery far better. 
 Its grandeur and variety struck us more than 
 when going up. 
 
 At Siliguri station I saw a considerable
 
 DOWN THE MOUNTAIN IN " TROLLIES" 105 
 
 quantity of very superior jute, which had been 
 brought on ox-carts for forty miles. We 
 found here waiting us an excellent dinner, and 
 three large sleeping-carriages for our night 
 journey on the Northern Bengal Railway. The 
 East Indian Company refused to give us any 
 facilities whatever, but the managers of all the 
 other railroads were exceedingly polite, and their 
 liberality will certainly be an encouragement to 
 travellers. 
 
 IL
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CVLCUTTA, ITS BUILDINGS, TRADE, AND LIFE. 
 
 THE comparative cleanliness of the masses in 
 India strikes me very forcibly. They are far 
 superior in this respect to the inhabitants of 
 Southern Europe, and their villages contrast 
 most advantageously with those in Egypt and 
 Syria. You find them performing their ablu- 
 tions, with remarkable delicacy and propriety 
 too, at every pond and brook ; and, excepting at 
 Benares, we have seen or smelt very little to 
 offend. 
 
 The station-master at Siliguri told me 
 that the fame of our large party the only 
 family one which ever travelled for pleasure in 
 India had for weeks preceded us, and that a 
 native magistrate who had heard of, but had not 
 believed in our numbers, had ridden eight miles 
 to verify the report with his own eyes. 
 
 The great difficulty which all employers of 
 European labour on railways, tea plantations, 
 in mills, and elsewhere, have to contend against
 
 LUXURIES. 107 
 
 is the frequency with which even their most 
 skilled and best servants get drunk. Perhaps 
 they do it to drown care, or from weakness, or 
 disappointment ; but the fact remains, and it is 
 a serious drawback to national progress. I find 
 myself often thinking that, after all, India is a 
 kind of banishment. No doubt salaries and 
 wages are high ; it may be, in a good many 
 instances, too high. Certainly, people there can 
 drive their carriages and enjoy many luxuries 
 which could not be afforded at home ; and we 
 have met not a few cheerful souls who declare 
 that life here is much preferable to life in 
 England ; but the general impression is the 
 other way. Many little things make it stronger 
 in my mind every week, and I feel less inclined 
 than ever to think that Europeans of all classes 
 employed in India, either in the public or 
 private service, ought to be grudged their little 
 luxuries. 
 
 Just after day-dawn we reached the Ganges, 
 two-and-a-half miles broad, very shallow at 
 the present season, and crossed it in the tidy, 
 America'i-looV'tT T st?vn T, \ 7 a"-i*>'.r:. V/'i ;t ;<
 
 io8 A WINTER AV INDIA. 
 
 multitude of birds we saw that forenoon 
 vultures, kites, herons, cranes, kingfishers, minas, 
 pheasants, pigeons, bee-eaters, and countless 
 others, the names of which I do not know, of 
 varied and beautiful plumage, frequenting land 
 and water. On many fields red capsicums were 
 spread out to dry in the sun. In this part of 
 Bengal you do not find that abject poverty 
 which is so noticeable in other provinces of 
 India. The houses of the poor are better, and 
 they themselves seem better fed and clothed. 
 
 Between 12 and I we were in the Sealdah 
 station, and this time went to the Great Eastern 
 Hotel, a noisy, roughish place, but the best in 
 Calcutta, where we remained for three days, 
 preparatory to taking possession of 12, Elysium 
 Row, which a fellow-passenger from England, 
 Mr. Mackinnon, of the great shipping firm of 
 Mackinnon, Mackenzie and Co., had with re- 
 markable kindness placed at our disposal, for 
 the celebration of a certain romantic marriage. 
 
 What a remarkable place this Calcutta is ! 
 The crowds, blocks, ox-carts, running coolies, 
 dust and heat, in the busiest portion of it, over-
 
 INDIAN COMMERCE. 109 
 
 power me. I observe in the weekly shipping 
 list in the Indian Daily Nezvs for 22nd Jan., 
 that there are no fewer than twenty-two large 
 ocean-going steamers and seventy-eight sailing- 
 ships from foreign ports lying in the river. 
 Few people know that 30,000,000 sterling worth 
 of goods are annually exported from Great 
 Britain to India ; that of the annual 75,000,000 
 worth of cotton goods exported 21,000,000 
 worth go to India, and that its foreign trade 
 now amounts to very nearly 125,000,000. 
 
 We spent Saturday afternoon with Mr. 
 Heriot, son of the late respected Sheriff of 
 Forfarshire, who manages Howrah Jute Mills, 
 on the other side of the river; and were glad to 
 hear from him, and from Mr. Thorn, of the 
 Barnagore Works, where 5,000 people are em- 
 ployed, that there is no Sunday-work in any of 
 these mills ; and that, taking relays and other 
 things into consideration, the people do not 
 labour more than ten-and-a-half hours a day. 
 
 I was glad to hear the Rev. Mr. Gillan, of 
 the Established Church of Scotland, preach in 
 Union Chapel on Sunday morning.
 
 no A WI<\TER /.v INDIA. 
 
 On Monday morning I went with Mr. Payne, 
 of the London Missionary Society, to see the 
 idol-worship at Kalighat the landing-place of 
 Kali, from which Calcutta derives its name. It 
 is now a suburb, situated on a branch of the 
 Hooghly more sacred than the river itself, con- 
 tains the holiest shrine in Bengal, and is as 
 dirty as it is holy. There I found hundreds of 
 poor bleating kids, with their legs cruelly tied 
 together, which they first immerse in the sacred 
 stream and then sacrifice before a hideous image 
 of Kali, which was exposed for my inspection 
 at the request of Mr. Payne, who is much be- 
 loved, notwithstanding his constant preaching 
 of Christianity, by these poor people, and has 
 so much influence with them that he induced a 
 priest for one rupee to give me his upper 
 garment, on which are written all the names 
 of the Hindoo divinities. There also I beheld 
 abominations, which cannot be recorded, con- 
 firmatory of the worst accounts given of ini- 
 quitous idolatry. 
 
 My next visit was to a very different place, 
 not far off from the first, where 70x3 young men
 
 ClIR 1ST1AN SCH OOLS. Ill 
 
 are receiving a general and Christian education 
 of a very high order from the missionaries of 
 the London Society. I examined one class, 
 who in a few months were to matriculate for 
 the University, and found them read and answer 
 well. It is impossible that the teaching in 
 these institutions should not produce a signal 
 and widespread effect by-and-bye. 
 
 Since the foregoing sentence was written, I 
 have had an opportunity of visiting the educa- 
 tional institutions connected with the Established 
 Church and the Free Church of Scotland, and 
 also an exceedingly well-conducted Christian 
 girls' school in a very poor locality, over which 
 Mrs. Macdonald presides. Mr. Hastic, the 
 Principal of the General Assembly's scholastic 
 establishment, was kind enough to conduct me 
 through it ; and I was glad to see the various 
 classes of perhaps the most flourishing seminary 
 of the kind in all India. There are 700 boys 
 at the school and 500 students in the college, 
 which, with 200 scholars outside and 600 girls 
 in a separate building, make no fewer than 
 2,000 young people enjoying the advantage of
 
 ii2 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 an excellent education in Calcutta in connec- 
 tion with this church alone. Twenty-one youths 
 out of the above number took the degree of 
 B.A. at the last examination. The Free Church 
 Mission had gone back a little ; but no one 
 doubts that under its new head, Mr. Robertson, 
 it will soon add to its present number of 760. 
 The Rev. Mr. Gillan, Presbyterian chaplain, 
 and the Rev. Mr. Milne, Free Church clergy- 
 man, were good enough to accompany me, and 
 I was interested to see the house where Dr. Duff 
 so long lived and laboured. 
 
 I have now driven a great deal through 
 Calcutta and its vicinity which, by the way, 
 is no joke, for the drivers, both of hackney 
 carriages and of private vehicles, seem the worst 
 in the world, and several accidents have taken 
 place during our residence, two of them to 
 friends of my own and am much impressed 
 with the magnitude of the place : the distances 
 remind one of London. On the east of the 
 Maidan are those spacious and often splendid 
 bungalows from which it derives its name of 
 the City of Palaces ; but even close to them
 
 SOCIETY AT CALCUTTA. 113 
 
 are little villages of native huts one might 
 almost call them wigwams ; and although there 
 are a considerable number of fine buildings, 
 colleges, hospitals, Mahometan seminaries, and 
 lofty residences of rich Baboos scattered through- 
 out the native portion of the city, the streets 
 present a mean appearance, and must impress 
 a stranger fresh from Europe very unfavourably. 
 One evening we attended in Government 
 House an investiture, first of the Star of India, 
 and afterwards of the Indian Empire ; at the 
 close of which Lady Ripon had a reception. 
 More than a thousand people were present, and 
 the majority of the native dignitaries were 
 gorgeously attired, some of them displaying 
 an almost fabulous amount of jewellery. All 
 classes in Hindostan are exceedingly extrava- 
 gant, especially in the matter of ornament. 
 Poor people will ruin themselves for life on 
 the occasion of a marriage by borrowing, for 
 the purpose of display. Many folks have their 
 whole fortune invested in precious stones. The 
 custom of Europeans is reckoned of little account 
 in large towns, in comparison with that of rich
 
 ii4 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 natives, by jewellers and vendors of articles of 
 luxury. One rajah spent lately, in Calcutta, 
 in two months, 360,000. 
 
 It has been represented to me by men on 
 whose judgment I rely, that British officers 
 in India are required to do far too much clerk 
 and office work; much time being occupied, in 
 drawing up comparatively useless returns, which 
 might be more profitably employed in purely 
 military duties. Several of them likewise com- 
 plain to me of the extravagance of the Govern- 
 ment in building so many new barracks of 
 expensive kiln-dried bricks, with roofs of teak, 
 and other useless decorations ; whilst in their 
 opinion the old buildings, of the same material as 
 the bungalows, confessedly immensely cheaper, 
 are in many respects also better. They knew 
 that many of the latter had been condemned by 
 the Sanitary Department ; but there are some 
 facts and circumstances connected with this 
 question which may necessitate a further inquiry. 
 
 An amusing anecdote in relation to this con- 
 troversy was told to me. A distinguished 
 Englishman travelling in the north-west thought
 
 THE BARRACKS AT CALCUTTA. 115 
 
 he ought not to be contented with the testimony 
 of officers, so he got up very early one morning 
 and addressed a private soldier. " That is a 
 very fine new barrack you inhabit." " Don't 
 like it at all," was the reply. " But why ? " he 
 rejoined ; " it has two stories, is exceedingly 
 well-built and arranged, and gets all the air that 
 is going in this hot climate." " Can't bear it 
 notwithstanding," said the private. '' That is 
 curious/' remarked the inquisitive stranger ; 
 " please tell me your reason." The man flatly 
 refused for a long time ; but at last, yielding to 
 entreaty, roared out, " If you must know, I hate 
 it because, when I gets drunk I can't get up 
 the d - stairs." 
 
 There is a somewhat delicate point which I 
 do not like altogether to pass over, because 
 excellent officers think it of some importance. 
 Once a year the troops are called out to cheer 
 for the Empress of India ; and the native 
 soldiers complain that whilst their European 
 comrades are paid for doing so they are not. 
 Surely this is an invidious distinction. Might 
 not the payment be done away with ? Or,
 
 1 1 6 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 better still, the whole ceremony dispensed with 
 altogether ? 
 
 On Friday the Rev. Mr. Johnson, of the 
 London Missionary Society, asked a large 
 number of native Christians to meet me at an 
 evening party, when several speeches were made, 
 and I addressed the audience, consisting of 
 about one hundred, belonging to all sections 
 of Protestants, and constituting really a Holy 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 We must keep in mind that at the great 
 educational institutions which I have been visit- 
 ing there are few or no idlers. Only those who 
 are anxious to learn attend ; and their principal 
 ambition is to get a good English education. 
 This makes the task of the teachers compara- 
 tively easy.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 INDIA MADRAS COONOOR. 
 
 THE weather is now getting decidedly warm 
 warmer than usual, people tell me. On 
 Saturday I did little but arrange for our de- 
 parture, and go down in a steam-launch to the 
 Botanical Gardens, where we drank the water 
 from unripe cocoa-nuts under the shade of the 
 celebrated banyan-tree. A last drive on the 
 Maidan, and our party separated for a fort- 
 night. I was one of those who slept on board 
 the P. and O. steamer Brindisi at Garden Reach, 
 which at daybreak dropped down the river, 
 bound for Madras. Slept, indeed the mosqui- 
 toes took good care to prevent that ! They 
 attacked us with a ferocity unheard of. 
 
 Although the banks of the Hooghly below 
 Calcutta are flat, it is, nevertheless, a pretty 
 sail. Vessels of all sizes and shapes, factories 
 and plantations, give one constantly something 
 to look at. At a point called, in vulgar par-
 
 n8 A WINTER AV INDIA. 
 
 lance, the James and Mary, two large rivers 
 flow into it, and the place reminded me much 
 of various reaches on the Mississippi. Our 
 pilot is a big man ; gets about .2,000 per 
 annum ; and we were all greatly disappointed 
 when, at mid-day, a little below Diamond 
 Harbour, at Kalkee, he anchored for the night ! 
 And such a night ! I tried the music-room, 
 the saloon, the deck all in vain. Myriads of 
 mosquitoes followed, flew at, fastened on me in 
 that damp, washing-house-like atmosphere, made 
 my face and hands hideous, and rendered sleep 
 a mockery. 
 
 At 2.30 a.m. Captain Lee (I wish all com- 
 manders of mail-steamers were as courteous and 
 jolly, as well as omnipresent and attentive to 
 their duties) and I met on deck in the fog ; and 
 it was a kind of cold comfort to find him as 
 miserable as I was. At 8 a.m. the mist was 
 still dense ; and although only fifty-three miles 
 from Calcutta, we had a close shave in getting 
 off at all. Another half-hour's darkness would 
 have detained us on that horrible bar for twenty- 
 four hours more ; but just as we sat down to
 
 DOWN THE HOOGHLY. IK) 
 
 breakfast the sun faintly appeared, the anchor 
 was taken up, we pushed into a bank of fog, 
 and emerged on the other side in a clear atmo- 
 sphere, and proceeded at full speed down the 
 great river, passing the outer light-ship at 3.30. 
 
 There is good pig-sticking on the right and 
 tiger-shooting on the left bank of this Ganges 
 mouth. 
 
 The Brindisi is a fine ship, only thirteen 
 months old, not very fast what P. and O. 
 vessel is ? their Indian contract is a premium 
 to slowness but comfortable ; 3,500 tons bur- 
 den ; fitted with electric bells ; steam steering 
 gear, &c. ; and, as " like master like man," all 
 are civil and obliging on board. How delicious 
 is this Indian Ocean ! The air is heavenly ! 
 At noon on the last day of January we had 
 run 270 miles in twenty-four hours, and were 
 422 miles from Madras. 
 
 I have been reading on the hurricane-deck all 
 the forenoon Mr. Bose's book, " The Hindoos as 
 they are," and am much interested in his testi- 
 mony to the great change going on. Here are 
 a few sentences, corroborative, I humbly think,
 
 T2o A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 of the impressions recorded from time to time 
 in these notes : 
 
 "The Hindoo schoolboy maybe said from the day 
 he entered a public school to enter on the first stage of 
 his intellectual disintegration. The books that are put 
 into his hands gradually open his eyes and expand his 
 intellect ; he learns to discern what is right and what is 
 wrong ; he reasons within himself and finds that what 
 he had learnt at home was not true, and is led by degrees 
 to renounce his old ideas." 
 
 " The progress of education has opened a new era in 
 the social institutions of the country, and an enlightened 
 proletariat is nowadays more esteemed than an empty- 
 titled Dullaputty." 
 
 " Morally, socially and intellectually the enlightened 
 Bengalees are assuredly the Athenians of Hindostan. 
 Their growing intelligence and refined taste the out- 
 come of English education have imbued them with a 
 healthier ideal of moral excellence than any other section 
 of the Indian population." 
 
 " As English schools and colleges are multiplying in 
 every nook and corner of the empire, more liberal ideas 
 and principles are being Imbibed by the Hindoo youths, 
 which bid fair in process of time to exercise a regenera- 
 ting influence on the habits of the people. Idolatry, 
 and its necessary concomitant, priestcraft, is fast losing 
 its hold on their minds." 
 
 "The gigantic strides that English education has 
 made in India within a short time have been the wonder 
 of the age, the foundation-rock of her ultimate emancipa- 
 tion, socially, morally and intellectually." 
 
 " Some fifty or sixty years back, when English educa-
 
 EFFECTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION. 121 
 
 tion could scarcely be said to have commenced the work 
 of reformation, or rather disintegration . . . ." 
 
 " It is worthy of remark that though the distinction 
 of caste still exerts its influence on all the important 
 concerns of our social and domestic life, it is never- 
 theless fast losing its prestige in the estimation of the 
 enlightened Hindoos." 
 
 "When Hindoo society is being profoundly convulsed 
 by heterodox opinions . . . ." 
 
 The other side of the picture is, that the 
 native intellect, quick in early years, stops de- 
 veloping very soon ; and few attempt anything 
 more after acquiring sufficient English and 
 general information to ensure them employment. 
 The medical schools, they tell me, are becoming 
 a rapidly-increasing educational power. 
 
 The ist of February has come, and with it 
 great heat. At noon we were in latitude 14^ 48', 
 longitude 82 19' ; and, having run 272 miles, 
 were only 150 miles from Madras, and conse- 
 quently had to slacken speed, as we could not 
 go in before daylight. There is a decided 
 swell, but no air, far less wind. We have a 
 number of coolies in the forecastle, returning 
 from Demerara. Some of them have been 
 
 twenty years there. 
 
 I
 
 >-'2 A IV INTER IN INDIA. 
 
 I rose at 5.30 on Thursday morning, and 
 saw the revolving light at Madras harbour. 
 By-and-bye the mist rolled away, the sun rose, 
 and a long line of white houses, a shattered 
 breakwater, and many ships at anchor showed 
 us that our voyage was terminated. Then what 
 a row the naked crews of the shore-boats made : 
 greater, I think, than I had ever witnessed, even 
 in the Levant. Catamarans, constructed merely 
 of three logs tied together, were paddled round 
 the ship when the anchor went down, and in a 
 few moments the deck was crowded by porters 
 and boatmen scrambling for custom. An A.D.C. 
 from Government House delivered us from these 
 Philistines ; and after a drive of eight miles in 
 the delicious morning air, we were welcomed 
 at Guindy Park House by my distinguished 
 friend Mr. Grant Duff, whose cultivated intel- 
 lect, large official experience, love of work, and 
 knowledge of India cannot fail to be of essential 
 service to the inhabitants of the Presidency. 
 
 Madras is not a town, but a population of 
 400,000, scattered over twenty-seven miles. Its 
 palatial buildings, wide avenues, and open spaces
 
 GUINDY PARK, MADRAS. 123 
 
 surprise me. It has quite the air of a capital ; 
 and trees as well as costumes remind us that we 
 are a good deal nearer the equator. 
 
 Guindy Park is five miles in circumference ; 
 and we look over its spreading trees to rounded 
 and peaked hills in the distance a refreshing 
 prospect after the dull monotony of North 
 India's plains. There are cobras within the 
 compound ; and only last week they killed, 
 close to the house, a Russell viper the most 
 poisonous of all snakes. The beauty and variety 
 of the gardens here are celebrated. The bread- 
 fruit, cocoa-nut, palms, jack-fruit, and many 
 other striking forest trees, plants, and flowers 
 interest me much. The park is full of deer, 
 and also of jackals. 
 
 We drove about until we could no longer see 
 on the evening of our arrival ; and there was 
 a large dinner-party, attended, amongst others, 
 by the Maharajah of Travancore ; and a number 
 of Hindoo and Mahommedan gentlemen came 
 afterwards, when the lawn and terrace were 
 illuminated a very pretty sight. 
 
 Next morning early Mr. Grant Duff and I 
 I 2
 
 i2j A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 drove to St. Thomas' Mount, the artillery can- 
 tonment ; and after breakfast I went into Madras, 
 called on Messrs. Arbuthnot and Co., and from 
 the top of their offices had a very commanding 
 view of the native quarter, called Blacktown, 
 the fort, port, and shipping. Before sundown 
 we had a long drive through paddy-fields and 
 dense masses of palms, paid a visit to the 
 Botanical Gardens where there is much that is 
 curious and interesting to Government House, 
 near the sea, and to the stables at Guindy. 
 Nearly all the carriage-horses in India Waters, 
 as they are called come from Australia. It 
 is now very hot ; and although occasionally the 
 sea-breeze comes up, I begin to wish for a 
 cooler atmosphere. 
 
 On Saturday evening we drove to the artil- 
 lery parade-ground, at the foot of St. Thomas's 
 Mount, where a large company of Europeans 
 and natives had assembled to witness athletic 
 sports, and a very lively and picturesque sight 
 it was. The horse artillery driving through 
 gates and over hurdles reflected the greatest 
 credit on the batteries. Then we had a dinner-
 
 THE MADRAS RAILWAY. 125 
 
 party of forty-four, a ball, and another illumi- 
 nation in the evening : our last in Madras. I 
 would rather live in Guindy Park than in any 
 other house which I have seen in India. 
 
 On Sunday I was really afraid to go to 
 church, so powerful were the sun's rays. We 
 left at 6 p.m. in the mail-train for the hills. The 
 station at Madras is a very imposing one of red 
 brick, with a lofty tower, perhaps the most con- 
 spicuous object in the place. Nothing could 
 exceed the kindness we experienced at the 
 hands of the officials in reserving carriages for us, 
 keeping them waiting where we stopped, and 
 showing an example to their brethren of the 
 East Indian. We all slept well, as there was 
 less motion than on any line by which we have 
 travelled in the country. They have adopted 
 an excellent plan of selling dinner and breakfast 
 tickets when you pay your fare ; they thus 
 know and can wire how many are to be pro- 
 vided for, and have likewise a protection against 
 dishonest " butlers/' as they call them at the 
 refreshment rooms. 
 
 We dined at Arconum, and when I awoke
 
 126 A WINTER /.v INDIA. 
 
 we were passing through a very rich country 
 with luxuriant crops, although the cultivation 
 seemed of an exceedingly primitive description. 
 Many women were working in the fields. By- 
 and-bye ranges of peaked hills came in sight, 
 and we stopped for breakfast at Poothanoor, 
 where a branch to the hills joins the Beypoor 
 main line. The viands were poor, and the 
 waiting was simply scandalous. Most of us 
 had to help ourselves. 
 
 Just before Coimbatoor station there is a 
 view of remarkable beauty a lake or " tank " 
 in the foreground, palms beyond, and behind 
 rugged, jagged peaks of infinite variety. Strange 
 and picturesque indeed was the whole scene 
 the gay colours of the peasants' scanty gar- 
 ments, the thick aloe hedges everything so 
 different from Northern India. There are 
 quantities of the prickly pear here, many plan- 
 tations of the graceful castor-oil plant, rice, grain, 
 beans, tobacco, and cotton, with rows of fine 
 forest trees. Then the line descends through a 
 waste-land region into a kind of basin, and 
 terminates at Matipolliam, where we were
 
 A DRIVE AV " TONGAS? 127 
 
 transferred into three " tongas " a kind of 
 rough, low, two-wheeled dog-cart, drawn by two 
 ponies, which are attached, not by traces, but by 
 a short high pole with a bar across their backs. 
 In these we reached Coonoor, upwards of twenty 
 miles in 3! hours ; the ponies were changed four 
 times and trotted all the way, although the rise 
 is more than 6,000 feet. The road was crowded 
 with carts, oxen, and coolies, and many a sharp 
 curve and turn made us quake, as in most places 
 there is no parapet. The vegetation is exceed- 
 ingly varied in colour, luxuriant and beautiful, 
 and every now and then we had extensive views 
 over the great plain below, studded with isolated 
 hills like islands. 
 
 Four or five miles from our destination we 
 saw coffee plantations for the first time, and 
 before 2 o'clock were in Gray's Hotel : a pretty 
 bungalow like a cottage in Devonshire em- 
 bowered in roses and heliotrope, on a hill 600 
 feet above Coonoor (itself 6, 100 above the sea), 
 and commanding a wide prospect of mountains 
 wild as those of Scotland. The first thing that 
 strikes me in reaching this very beautiful and
 
 128 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 homelike place is the extent to which the euca- 
 lyptus appears on every slope. They have been 
 planted principally for fuel, but also for shade. 
 Mr. Jamieson, who takes charge of the gardens 
 and plantations at Ootakamund, and who has 
 been most attentive to us, tells me that trees 
 which he put in only four years ago arc already 
 sixty feet high. He says that Australian and 
 Tasmanian trees flourish in these hills, but not 
 the deciduous trees or pines of Britain. 
 
 We spent Tuesday morning very pleasantly 
 on Mr. Allan's coffee plantation of Glenmore, 
 where he employs 200 men, all Canarese, from 
 Mysore. They go home for about two months 
 in the slack season, and get 6r. 8a. per week 
 an excellent wage. The coffee-plant is kept at 
 a height of 3| feet, has leaves a little like a 
 Portugal laurel, and a very thick stem, resem- 
 bling that of a tree several years old. The berries 
 are red when ripe, and called cherries. The 
 bean is separated from the husk by simple 
 machinery, driven by a water-wheel. The leaf 
 disease, which has caused such havoc in the 
 Ceylon plantations, has only threatened to
 
 F
 
 THE SOUTH INDIAN PLAIN. 129 
 
 appear here ; as yet no serious damage has 
 been done. 
 
 In the afternoon we drove to see the great 
 view over the South Indian plain from the 
 summit of the mighty slopes of the Neilgherries. 
 There are three principal points Lamb's Rock, 
 Lady Canning's Seat, and Dolphin's Nose. 
 The narrow and rough road, in driving along 
 which we experienced much difficulty when 
 we met ox-carts, passes sometimes through thick 
 tropical vegetation, where creepers of many kinds 
 abound, the crimson flower of the rhododendron 
 tree not shrub being at this season conspicuous. 
 Sometimes the road winds round unfenced pro- 
 montories with yawning gulfs below, and again 
 looks down on tea-gardens planted wherever 
 the ground is not actually precipitous. The views 
 of the hills and plain far below are very grand. 
 
 A company of Todas, the aboriginal and fast 
 dying out pastoral inhabitants of the range, were 
 sent to see us at sundown. They are a very pecu- 
 liar people, practise infanticide and polyandry, 
 and live in low huts into which they have to crawl. 
 They refuse to do any work but tend cattle.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONJEVERAM DEPARTURE FROM MADRAS. 
 
 ON Wednesday morning we left for Ootaka- 
 mund, passing the race-course and the spacious 
 Wellington Barracks; and after leaving the 
 plantations of Coonoor emerging into a bleak, 
 red, treeless country very much resembling 
 Algeria. The road is well made. We changed 
 horses often, trotted all the way up, and came 
 down at a rattling pace, drawn sometimes by 
 mere ponies. I never was charged so high a bill 
 in any part of the world as that of the Madras 
 Carrying Company. 
 
 At Charing Cross, Colonel lago, head of the 
 Woods Department, met us and took us first 
 to Government House, not a successful build- 
 ing, where I was anxious to see the room in 
 which my lamented friend Mr. Adam died, and 
 I afterwards reverently visited his grave in 
 the new churchyard : a pretty spot, overlooking 
 the lake.
 
 Cn INCHON A PLANTATIONS 131 
 
 The Botanical Gardens arc full of interesting 
 trees, shrubs and flowers. One of the loveliest 
 of the last is of that detestable medicine called 
 jalap. The Chinese rice-paper tree is remarkable. 
 I took away with me a portion of the stem from 
 which paper is made. On a hill above Coonoor 
 there is a wood looking at a distance exactly 
 like a plantation of Scotch firs seventy years 
 old : it is eucalyptus aged eleven. The Chin- 
 chona plantations of Government on the Neil- 
 gherries, one of which adjoins the garden at 
 Ootakamund, are very important and pros- 
 perous ; they cover 800 acres, cost last year in 
 labour .96,000, and their gross produce was 
 .300,000. The value of the bark after the 
 wound has been medicated by wet moss, is 
 twice as great as before the knife has been 
 first applied. We lunched at the Cedars, the 
 beautiful residence of Mr. Barlow, Collector of 
 the district, the drawing-room window of which 
 commands a fine view of the Kunclah range ; 
 this is more picturesque than the huge rounded 
 Doddabctt, 8,622 feet above the sea, which rises 
 behind Government House. There are many
 
 132 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 tigers in these mountains, and Mr. Barlow had 
 in his hall a magnificent head of a Sambur 
 stag, which he shot six weeks ago, close by. 
 
 "Ooty," as it is familiarly called, is 7,300 
 feet above the sea. I distinctly perceived the 
 rarefaction of the air. We returned by a very 
 pretty drive past the Lawrence Asylum for Boys, 
 which joins the main road at the top of the hill, 
 where you look down both on Ootakamund 
 and Coonoor. 
 
 Mr. Jamieson kindly sent down to the 
 Government gardens at the foot of the hills for 
 mangosteen for our dessert. I thought the fruit 
 delicious, like a very delicate French confection. 
 
 Next morning we descended the ghaut at 
 a tremendous pace ; and at a sudden turn the 
 vehicle which conveyed me collided with a 
 tonga on its way to Coonoor. The crash was 
 alarming, but no damage resulted. Mati- 
 polliam is a veritable Gehenna for heat ; but 
 at the station house there were washing-rooms, 
 kept scrupulously clean ; and we enjoyed an 
 excellent luncheon at the adjacent dak bungalow. 
 We did not penetrate farther south in India than
 
 OUR RECEPTION AT CONJEVERAM. 133 
 
 Poothanoor junction about 700 miles from the 
 equator. 
 
 We dined at Salem, and had a miserable 
 hour at Arconum, between 4 and 5 o'clock in 
 the morning, stowing away our effects in the 
 left luggage-room as the station-master refused 
 to allow them to remain in our reserved carriage 
 and in endeavouring to get washed. 
 
 At 5.15 a.m. we left, in the Southern India 
 narrow-gauge railway, for Conjeveram, seven- 
 teen miles off, and, when we arrived there, 
 fancied that some celebration was going on, 
 as the station was crowded with servants in 
 red liveries, policemen, native magistrates, &c., 
 and two or three hundred spectators lined its 
 approaches. My surprise was great when, on 
 stepping out, wreaths of yellow and pink chrysan- 
 themums were thrown round our necks, strange 
 bird-like devices, chiefly of the same material, 
 and limes were placed in our hands, and all 
 bowed low to do us honour. Few Europeans 
 visit Conjeveram ; hence the gaping and ad- 
 miring crowd ! Tea was ready for us at the 
 station; and then we set out to visit the temples,
 
 134 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 in covered carts drawn by oxen, which trotted 
 along merrily. 
 
 Conjevcram is a clean, well-kept place, with 
 wide streets and a thriving population. One 
 who has travelled in eastern Europe and western 
 Asia remarks how few deformed people there 
 are in India in comparison. The sight of a 
 cripple and a woman afflicted with elephan- 
 tiasis during our drive reminded me of this. 
 At one turn of the road we came on a huge 
 car, exactly like that of Juggernaut, and like it, 
 also, happily laid up in ordinary. We likewise 
 visited an immense tank, one of the most sacred 
 in India, containing a mixture of holy waters. 
 
 We first drove to Vishnu's temple, in Little 
 Kanchi, and were received by a crowd of priests 
 and spectators, fireworks and music, and en- 
 tertained with a nautch-girl dance, after which 
 we inspected the wealth of jewels, and had 
 all the hideous idols brought out to view. 
 The hall of pillars, in the centre of the en- 
 closure, is very remarkable for carved horses 
 and hippogriffs ; and the whole scene was 
 one of the most strange and striking which
 
 TEMPLES AT CONJEI'ERAU. 135 
 
 we witnessed in India. The other famous 
 temple that dedicated to Seva the Destroyer- 
 has a gopura, or great tower, 181 feet high the 
 highest in Southern India and there we were 
 received in a similar manner ; but its buildings 
 did not strike us as so curious as those of the 
 first ; and thirty years ago it was robbed of its 
 principal jewels. Its frightful idols are carried 
 in procession on high days. They give one a 
 sad idea of heathenism its brutalising and 
 degrading nature. " Jehovah dwells not in 
 temples made with hands." May the millions 
 of Hindostan soon realise the blessings of a 
 purer, holier and manlier religion ! 
 
 Formerly these temples were managed by 
 the British Government ; and by gifts to them 
 officials foolishly thought to propitiate the 
 Hindoo people. The Mutiny and other events 
 roughly opened our eyes to the inefficacy of 
 such a cowardly policy ; and now this idol- 
 worship has no connection with the State. Com- 
 plaint has recently been made that the new 
 law in this respect has been infringed in the 
 case of a well-known temple in the Punjaub ;
 
 136 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 but I have reason to believe that what took 
 place there has been disapproved at head- 
 quarters, and that no such breach of the order 
 will be permitted in future. It may also be 
 well for the central Government to keep an eye 
 on those in authority who refuse to employ 
 natives if they happen to profess Christianity. 
 
 Our visits to the temples over, we were 
 driven to the Tahsildar's bungalow, to which 
 servants, with all the materials requisite for a 
 sumptuous breakfast and luncheon, had been 
 sent all the way from Madras by the thoughtful 
 care of Mr. Grant Duff and his genial staff, who 
 had, I need scarcely add, likewise given orders 
 to the officials to receive us at the station and 
 pay us every attention. This is the only place 
 we have been in in India without seeing a 
 European or even a Eurasian. The gentle- 
 man who took charge of us was the Deputy 
 Tahsildar of Chingleput district Mr. Damo- 
 dera Maodilly and most kind and attentive 
 he was. 
 
 Returning to Arconum, we dined, and joined 
 the evening mail-train from Madras to Bombay.
 
 MADRAS TO BOMBAY, 137 
 
 When I awoke, we were at the old ruined fort 
 of Gooty. In every field there was a man in 
 a structure elevated on poles, watching the crops 
 and protecting them against the depredations 
 of wild beasts. We passed much waste-land 
 the country was quite flat, with low and gene- 
 rally isolated hills at a distance, and, nearer to 
 the line, singular rocky mounds, rising to a 
 considerable height at the town of Adoni 
 then we crossed the now nearly dry channel of 
 the river Toongabudra, which joins the Beema 
 some distance below, and the two together form 
 the Kistna. The cactus makes an excellent 
 railway-fence in Southern India. 
 
 At Raichoor the Madras Railway ends and 
 the Great Indian Peninsular begins. We arrived 
 there at 11.30; and, having had nothing since 
 the previous evening but a cup of weak tea, were 
 naturally hungry. What was our astonishment 
 when told there was no breakfast ready at a 
 place where we were to stop forty minutes, 
 except a piece of cold beef covered with wire 
 and flies ! Some one used an unparliamentary 
 expression, and, hey, presto ! appeared one of 
 J
 
 138 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 the best breakfasts we had had set before us 
 in India choice tea, excellent curry, tender 
 mutton chops and fresh eggs. Where it came 
 from must remain a mystery for ever.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AT POONA. 
 
 WE are now in the Nizam's territory, and 
 a branch line goes off at Wadi to his capital 
 of Hyderabad. Rising to a higher level, the 
 line passes over a poorly-cultivated and sparsely- 
 peopled district, with extensive tracts of waste- 
 land. It was very hot all day : even the 
 Venetians failed to keep out the sun's rays ; and 
 we felt the lightest of clothing too heavy, and 
 motion impossible. Dining at Sholapore, we 
 reached Poona at 4.40 a.m., and found carriages 
 and servants waiting to take us to join the other 
 members of our party in the Napier Hotel. 
 
 We heard an admirable sermon from the 
 Rev. Mr. Small, of the Free Church of Scotland, 
 on Sunday evening ; and on Monday forenoon 
 paid two visits of great interest to me. 
 
 There are six Government schools for females 
 in Poona, over which Mrs. Mitchell and her very 
 
 energetic assistant, Miss Rosa Morris, preside. 
 J2
 
 140 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 They commenced only ten years ago ; but 
 already have sent forth a great number of 
 teachers ; and now none are admitted into the 
 higher classes, or those for schoolmistresses 
 only, who have not passed the third standard 
 in the vernacular. On entering that college 
 they get a salary varying from two to eight 
 rupees per month, dependent on length of 
 attendance and progress. 
 
 We spent a long time in the principal of these 
 schools ; and were greatly gratified by all we 
 saw and heard. Little girls arc brought in, on 
 whom the young teachers first try their hand ; 
 then the latter are sent out to give instruction 
 in other institutions, still under the eye of their 
 European superiors ; and lastly they are avail- 
 able for situations anywhere. I was delighted 
 with Miss Morris's " Marathi Songs for Child- 
 ren," one of them set to music to the old 
 familiar tune of " Duncan Gray." It was 
 remarkable to see the transformation worked 
 by this able and enthusiastic young lady on 
 the silent, motionless Hindoo youngsters: they 
 were all life and joy when following her lead.
 
 SCHOOLS IN POONA. 141 
 
 Many of the women some of them mere chil- 
 dren are widows; and the popular feeling is 
 much opposed to their being taught and 
 teaching. 
 
 Our second visit was to the old palace of the 
 Peishwas' commander-in-chief now turned to a 
 much better purpose a school in which 300 
 young men and boys are taught under the super- 
 intendence of Mr. Beaumont, of the Free Church 
 of Scotland. Two hundred learn English, and 
 the good attendance and anxiety to learn were 
 very evident. From the roof of the building 1 
 had an excellent view of Poona, with its neat 
 and clean native town of 80,000 inhabitants, the 
 cantonment, public buildings, and officers' bun- 
 galows, situated in a basin surrounded by hills. 
 
 This morning the Royal Commission on 
 Education, the names of its members, and the 
 instructions to them of the Governor-General in 
 Council, appear in the newspapers, and to my 
 mind the expressed views and orders of the 
 Government appear eminently satisfactory. The 
 extension of primary education to the masses is 
 set forth as the main desideratum of the present
 
 142 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 day. Hitherto we have been doing rather too 
 much to instruct, at the expense of the State, 
 classes well able to pay for their own education, 
 and not overloyal, or likely in certain contin- 
 gencies and in certain respects not to make a 
 very good use of it.* I anticipate much good 
 from this enquiry and new departure. Govern- 
 ment has likewise, I see with pleasure, taken 
 up seriously the recommendations of the Famine 
 Commission, of which my friend Mr. James 
 Caird, C. B., was a leading member, which 
 some feared might be allowed to fall into neg- 
 lect. A new department is to be formed, 
 which will put the rulers of India in possession 
 of all the necessary facts regarding the food 
 supplies, and likewise give an impetus to agri- 
 cultural improvement, and so render famines 
 less likely and disastrous. I hope that those 
 charged with this important duty will give a 
 
 * " Too much money is spent by the Government in giving 
 to the richer classes a superior education for which they ought 
 to pay themselves, while too little is spent on elementary 
 instruction for the masses of the poor." "The Finances and 
 Public Works of India," by Sir J. Strachey and Major-General 
 R. Strachey. London, Kegan Paul, French & Co.
 
 GOVERNMENT EDUCATION. 143 
 
 favourable consideration to Mr.W.Wedderburn's 
 scheme for the formation of Agricultural Banks, 
 which seems already to have commended itself 
 to the Government of Bombay. He has pub- 
 lished a most interesting and readable pamphlet 
 on the subject, in which he narrates what has 
 been done in Germany ; points out that " the 
 fundamental error of what has hitherto been 
 done in India consists in the attempt to accom- 
 plish through State agency what can only be 
 successfully carried out by private enterprise ; " 
 and in a most business-like manner propounds, 
 explains, and defends his own plan ; which cer- 
 tainly commends itself to my judgment as one 
 which, if adopted and extensively acted upon, 
 cannot fail to be an enormous boon to India. 
 We arc all constantly being reminded in 
 various ways of the poverty of the people, and 
 the primary necessity of improving their lot. 
 I am no defender of the Government interest 
 in opium ; and no one I imagine would, if such 
 a mode of raising revenue were proposed as a 
 new measure, care to defend it ; but it is very 
 questionable if China would be morally bene-
 
 144 A IV INTER iff INDIA. 
 
 fited by a change of system which might 
 greatly extend the cultivation of the poppy ; 
 and I say without hesitation that the poor ryots 
 of India have a prior claim on us for a reduc- 
 tion, and let it be hoped eventually the abolition, 
 of the salt-tax, which presses on the very poorest 
 of the population, and has been, I believe fairly, 
 estimated as equal to a fortnight's labour per 
 annum of every head of a family who earns his 
 bread by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 We drove on Monday evening to the enor- 
 mous pile of buildings erected at most unjusti- 
 fiable cost as a Government residence at Gunesh 
 Khind, then through the Kirkee cantonment of 
 artillery and sappers and miners, across the 
 bridge where the river has been dammed up so 
 as to form a pretty lake, and home by the public 
 gardens. The Southern Cross shines gloriously 
 here in early morning at present. When we 
 arrived from the south at 4.30 a.m., its stars 
 were like lamps to our path. 
 
 There is an extensive view of Poona and its 
 surroundings from the Temple of Parbuttee, or 
 Goddess of Love, situated on a lofty rock close
 
 BRITISH POWER itr INDIA. 145 
 
 to the town ; and the prettiest place within a 
 short drive is Sungum, where the rivers Moota 
 and Moola meet close to the Bombay railroad 
 line. 
 
 Many questions are likely to be asked of 
 those who have travelled in India regarding the 
 probable stability of British power. It must be 
 kept in mind that there is no such thing as 
 patriotism or national feeling among the hete- 
 rogeneous races which form the population of 
 Hindostan, and that the millions of ryots and 
 labourers neither love nor hate us, but simply 
 view our reign with indifference, in fact think 
 and care little about us. There are Mahomme- 
 dan fanatics, who do cherish deep-seated dislike 
 to us, both on religious and political grounds ; 
 and certain Brahmins may sympathise more or 
 less with them; and the events of the Mutiny 
 showed how badly-informed the official class was 
 at the time as to the state of public feeling ; and 
 how foolish men in authority were in refusing to 
 listen to the representations and warnings of the 
 missionaries. But there are two considerations 
 which render a fresh outbreak unlikely. In the
 
 146 A WISTER iff INDIA. 
 
 first place, thousands of the upper classes among 
 the natives are fast making money under our 
 regime of law and order ; and, secondly, such 
 military arrangements have been made since 
 1857 as render a successful insurrection almost 
 impossible. All the forts are in European hands, 
 and all the artillery, with the exception of a 
 few small batteries in the north-west frontier, is 
 in the same position. Everyone, however, 
 admits that there is a danger from the armies 
 kept up by native princes, which are absolutely 
 useless and very expensive, and may give 
 trouble. Careful but vigorous steps should be 
 taken to reduce their number, which stands 
 at present on paper at 381,000 men, most of 
 whom, however, are a mere rabble, although 
 Scindia has adopted the German system, and 
 could at any time call out a large, well-discip- 
 plined force. It would be difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to induce rajahs to dismiss men who 
 had once " eaten their bread ; " but might not 
 the paramount power insist on enlistment being 
 reduced and eventually stopped ? 
 
 I fain hope and believe that a very marked
 
 SIGNS OF IMPROVED FEELING. 147 
 
 improvement has taken place in the treatment 
 of the natives by Europeans. There are no 
 doubt many stories afloat, some of them 
 perhaps more or less true, and some much ex- 
 aggerated, of the unjust decisions of judges, the 
 violent behaviour of officers, and the supercilious 
 conduct of men in authority ; but I find testi- 
 mony wonderfully unanimous in favour of the 
 present rather than the past ; and those on 
 whose judgment most reliance can be placed 
 all say, Deliver us from the old school the " Qui 
 hais" of the last generation and send us out 
 gentlemen from England fresh to their duties, 
 who will not be so tyrannical and capricious 
 as those who in so many instances have 
 reflected no credit on the British name. No 
 one can be long in India and visit its courts 
 of law without observing how closely, almost 
 ridiculously, the various customs, disputes, and 
 lawsuits about land in that country resemble 
 those in Ireland. The great difficulty with 
 the natives seems to be their disregard of 
 truth, and their habit of exaggeration ; all their 
 statements must be put in writing or they
 
 148 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 would be denied on the first convenient oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 Perhaps the most important question of the 
 hour is how to place the tenure of land on a 
 more satisfactory footing. Nor can we afford 
 to overlook the natural desire expressed by 
 the educated classes for an extension of the 
 representative principle. The great council of 
 Calcutta has been almost in abeyance, and is 
 now not much of a reality. It may be possi- 
 ble, by-and-bye, to strengthen it by delegates 
 from successfully-managed municipalities, or in 
 some other manner to meet an ever-increasing 
 demand. As a fair example of the feelings 
 and opinions of the natives, I cannot do better 
 than insert here a copy of an address pre- 
 sented to me at a meeting of the Sarvajanik 
 Sabha attended by 800 or 1,000 people in 
 Poona, on the evening before I left. 
 
 " HON. SIR, It gives us great satisfaction to have 
 the privilege of welcoming you on behalf of the native 
 public of this place. You have always been honourably 
 distinguished by your adhesion to liberal principles, and 
 you have been one of that small band of Englishmen 
 who have always evinced an interest in Indian matters.
 
 NATIVE ADDRESS. 149 
 
 Since the days of the Mutiny and the assumption of 
 direct sovereignty over India by Her Majesty the Queen- 
 Empress the affairs of India have assumed their natural 
 place in the thoughts of Englishmen, and, however much 
 the leaders of both parties in Parliament profess to regard 
 Indian questions as out of the pale of party politics, 
 during the last four or five years especially Indian griev- 
 ances and wrongs have furnished a considerable number 
 of topics on which the Parliament and the public of 
 England have felt themselves called upon to interest 
 themselves as intimately as if they were purely English 
 questions. Under these circumstances it becomes the 
 duty of those who have India's welfare at heart to supply 
 from time to time, as occasion arises, correct information 
 of the views and wants of the people of this country, 
 and to seek to influence the English public through its 
 recognised leaders in the English Parliament and the 
 English Press. In this connection it is felt by us all to 
 be a most fortunate circumstance that hon. Members 
 of Parliament avail themselves of the small leisure at 
 their disposal to visit this distant country, and make 
 themselves practically acquainted with its material and 
 moral condition. Official sources of information are 
 always at your disposal, and we, under existing condi- 
 tions, can hope but little to supplement it with accurate 
 statistics and other detailed information. At the same 
 time you cannot but be fully aware that official authori- 
 ties, however honest and painstaking, are seldom able to 
 grasp all sides of the questions that come before them, 
 and certain it is that they do not possess the same facili- 
 ties to know where the official machine presses hard upon 
 the people as intelligent representatives of the people 
 themselves may be expected to do. The absence of any 
 representative institutions, even of a consultative character,
 
 150 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 to control and modify the action of executive officers, 
 enhances the difficulty caused by the differences of race, 
 religion and manners between the rulers and the ruled. 
 It is, however, a hopeful circumstance that notwithstand- 
 ing these difficulties India has made a fair progress in 
 good government during the twenty-five years that have 
 passed since the Mutiny troubles. The force of Indian 
 public opinion is, however, so small that it needs to be 
 strengthened by the active sympathy and co-operation 
 of India's friends in Parliament. It is with this view 
 that we have troubled you with this call upon your valu- 
 able time, and we cannot but express our heartfelt thanks 
 for your accepting our invitation with such cordial readi- 
 ness. Allow us, in the short time that is at your disposal, 
 to briefly note for your attention a few points on which 
 we feel that in the interests of England and India the 
 administrative machinery set up in this country fails to 
 give satisfaction to the people, and requires to be care- 
 fully looked after, with a view to adapt it to the wants 
 of the present day. We freely acknowledge all the bene- 
 fits which British rule has secured to this country in 
 maintaining undisturbed tranquility and guaranteeing its 
 safety against foreign invasions, in encouraging education, 
 in developing a system of useful public works, and the 
 other benefits incident to a high state of civilisation. 
 While in all these respects there has been great progress 
 during the last twenty-five years, the form of the adminis- 
 tration and its direct action upon the people have remained 
 for the most part unchanged. It is true that Legislative 
 Councils for the more advanced provinces were consti- 
 tuted in 1861 ; but their constitution is so one-sided, 
 and their power so limited, that in the hands of strong 
 rulers they have almost ceased to possess any influence 
 for good, and are too often made the instruments of
 
 NATIVE ADDRESS. 151 
 
 registering official wishes without being able to represent 
 outside opinion effectively. The attention of Indian 
 reformers has of late been directed to this question, and 
 various schemes have been suggested with a view to 
 improve the constitution of these councils. The absence 
 of any local organisations which could be trusted with 
 the power of electing representatives has been always felt 
 to be a very serious want ; but the extension of the de- 
 centralisation policy by the present Government of India 
 will, we trust, supply this want by the creation of self- 
 governing municipalities and district local boards. Mr. 
 William Digby has recently published a pamphlet, in 
 which he insists, with good reason, upon the urgent 
 necessity of this reform, as lying at the root of all other 
 reforms in Indian administration. We are fully aware 
 that constitutional habits and traditions take a long time 
 to grow and cannot be created to order. At the same 
 time we assure you that the establishment of some corre- 
 lation between the views of the Indian public and the 
 British rulers is a necessity which Parliament will have 
 to direct its attention to if the present process is not to 
 be retarded. The people of India will be satisfied at 
 present with the establishment of a consultative assembly, 
 consisting of officials and non-officials, the latter repre- 
 senting the large towns and districts, with a right to 
 be consulted in matters of new legislation and taxation, 
 and of interpellating executive officers with a view to 
 elicit information upon administrative details. 
 
 (> 2. Next in importance to the reform noted above is 
 the liberalising of local administrations in the large towns 
 and more advanced districts. The Government of India 
 has already in the series of resolutions expressed itself 
 strongly in favour of extending local self-government. 
 The official authorities, however, viewing the matter from
 
 152 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 their own stand-point, will, it is feared, not co-operate 
 with the same singleness of purpose which earnest con- 
 viction alone secures. English opinion has alone the 
 power to remove these obstacles, and we trust that those 
 who have the ear of the English public in and out of 
 Parliament will strengthen the hands of the Government 
 of India to secure the success of their contemplated 
 reforms. 
 
 "3. It is not without reason that we have drawn your 
 attention to the necessity which exists of English public 
 opinion coming to our assistance. In the settlement of 
 the much-disputed land question the authorities in India, 
 as well as the Secretary of State, as far back as 1862, 
 definitively pronounced themselves in favour of extending 
 the permanent settlement in all the more settled districts 
 of the country. Owing to local opposition, however, that 
 despatch, though not formally overruled, has remained a 
 dead letter to this day. The example of bad native rulers, 
 who enhanced the assessments arbitrarily at times, has 
 been turned into an argument to support the policy of 
 periodical re-settlements, and a great deal too much is 
 made of the concession of this modified system of confer- 
 ring interest in land upon the peasantry. The fact, 
 however, is that the best native rulers respected and 
 recognised indefeasible property in land, subject to a 
 fixed charge, and, what in England is called freehold, 
 was the common tenure of this country, with the name of 
 mirasi, as typical of the highest property that a man can 
 possess. Whatever may be the theory, the Government 
 assessment absorbs not a portion of the rent proper, but 
 the whole of the rent and a portion of the profits of culti- 
 vation. As a consequence of this state of things the 
 country is reduced to a dead level of poverty. Two 
 Commissions appointed by Government (the Deccan
 
 NATIVE ADDRESS. 153 
 
 Riots Commission of 1875, and the Famine Commission 
 of 1878-79) have set forth the evils of the present system, 
 and the independent members in those two Commissions 
 have to a great extent endorsed the views we have long 
 entertained on the subject. A modified permanent settle- 
 ment, which will secure its due share to Government in 
 the land revenue, is as important to the future growth of 
 this country as the settlement of the Irish land question 
 is in Ireland. 
 
 "4. Another question in which the people of India 
 have always evinced the greatest interest, and have re- 
 peatedly memorialised Parliament for the redress of their 
 grievances, is the question of the admission of the natives 
 on equal terms with Englishmen in the ranks of the 
 covenanted services. The Covenanted Civil Service was 
 thrown open to public competition in 1853, but it was not 
 till 1864 that the first native candidate passed the tests. 
 Soon after, the limit of age was reduced from 23 to 21, 
 but it did not materially interfere with the chances of 
 native candidates finding admission into the service. 
 And in ten years, from 1867 to 1877, about twelve more 
 candidates passed the test. In 1878 the limit of age was 
 still further lowered to 19, from which time no Indian 
 candidate has found it possible to appear at the examina- 
 tion. This limit of 19 was, we understand, disapproved 
 by a large majority of the authorities consulted, and is 
 found very inconvenient even in the case of English can- 
 didates. Indian opinion, while insisting upon the test of 
 examinations and the advantage of residence in England, 
 only asked that the examinations should be held in India 
 and in England subject to the same tests. This prayer was 
 refused, and in its place the late Viceroy has sought to 
 satisfy native claims by the creation of a subordinate 
 native service, distinctly marked as separate from the 
 K
 
 154 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 governing body by differences in pay, prospects and pro- 
 motion, and not chosen by competition, but by nomination 
 from considerations of family connections. This we 
 regard to be a distinctly retrograde step, and native pub- 
 lie opinion will not be satisfied till a return is made to the 
 old liberal rules. Next to the Covenanted Civil Service, 
 the largest opening to native ambition is furnished by the 
 rules of the medical service. We trust there is no foun- 
 dation for the report that English authorities contemplate 
 the abolition of these examinations, and substituting in 
 their stead a system of direct nomination from the 
 medical schools in England. The admission of natives 
 into the ranks of the military service has long been felt 
 to be a desideratum, especially in the case of the scions 
 of the noble families for whom this career would furnish a 
 healthy occupation. The late Army Commission has 
 recommended the partial adoption of this reform in the 
 case of Bengal and Punjab, and we trust that India's 
 friends in Parliament will press this subject upon the 
 attention of the authorities till this invidious distinction 
 between class and class is removed. 
 
 " 5. The threatened abolition of the cotton duties, and 
 the necessity which will soon be forced upon the Indian 
 authorities of surrendering some portion of their opium 
 revenue in deference to the anti-opium agitation, renders 
 the position of Indian finance so unstable, that notwith- 
 standing the anticipated surplus of this year it will be 
 impossible to make both the ends meet without effecting 
 retrenchments in all departments. The highest military 
 authorities who were represented in the Army Commis- 
 sion suggested a reduction of one and a half million 
 sterling in the army expenditure. An equal sum might 
 be saved by the larger substitution of native for Euro- 
 pean agency in the police, public works, medical,
 
 NATIVE ADDRESS. 155 
 
 educational, post office. and account branches, in which 
 there are at present no vested interests to conserve. In 
 this connection the reduction of the home charges by a 
 more equitable distribution of the Indian army expen- 
 diture in England, and the purchase of the stores in 
 the local markets, will also commend themselves to you 
 as requiring immediate attention. If in addition to these 
 reductions England guarantees the interest of Indian 
 public debt, as it is bound to do in its own interest, the 
 total reductions will amount to about five millions 
 sterling, which will be a great relief, and might enable 
 India to bear with equanimity the partial loss of the 
 opium revenue, and the total loss of the cotton duties. 
 We need hardly urge upon your attention that there is 
 little or no room for additional taxation in this country, 
 where the people are so poor that the chief necessary of 
 life has to be taxed a thousand-fold to the great incon- 
 venience of all classes, and that an income-tax on the 
 English scale is expected to yield only one million sterling. 
 The existing license tax has been condemned for its invi- 
 dious incidence, and also for the poverty of its return, 
 while the other heads of revenue are already fixed at their 
 highest pitch. The reduction of expenditure is thus not 
 a question of choice, but of necessity for the success of 
 Indian finance. 
 
 "6. In the same connection we are glad to note that 
 the question of the disestablishment of the Anglo-Indian 
 Church has already engaged your attention. The services 
 of army chaplains must be secured under any circum- 
 stances, but the same necessity cannot be pleaded for the 
 diversion of public funds for the support of the foul- 
 bishoprics and a large number of chaplains who minister 
 to the spiritual wants of the wealthy amongst the Euro- 
 pean civil population. Having due regard to the pro- 
 K 2
 
 156 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 mises contained in the great Royal Proclamation of 1858, 
 the natives of this country must demand that this abuse 
 of State funds shall be put a stop to forthwith, and we 
 trust that when the time comes, you will support our 
 prayer for the abolition of this anomaly before Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 "7. In submitting the foregoing observations on this 
 occasion we are fully conscious that the questions indi- 
 cated therein have complex bearings, and the point of 
 view from which we look at them must be modified by 
 other considerations which commend themselves to the 
 Indian authorities. It seems, therefore, to us to be very 
 necessary that all the bearings of the questions should be 
 sifted by an independent commission of inquiry. In the 
 last session of Parliament Mr. Fowler and Sir David 
 Wedderburn made a motion to this effect, and we have 
 good reasons to think that but for the Irish distractions 
 the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for India 
 would have accepted a limited enquiry. We trust that 
 \shen the arrears of home business are cleared, you and 
 the other friends of India will re-open this question. 
 Periodical enquiries into the working of the Indian 
 Government have produced good results in the past, 
 and the time appears to us to have come when such 
 an enquiry might be expected to lead to similar results 
 in the future. 
 
 " 8. We hope to be excused for the length over which 
 these observations have extended. The Liberal party at 
 present in power, and of which you are so distinguished a 
 member, pledged their word at the late elections to ac- 
 complish certain reforms in accordance with the expressed 
 wishes of the people of this country. They have given us 
 peace on the frontiers ; they have set a noble precedent 
 in defraying a portion, though a small one, of the cost of
 
 NATIVE ADDRESS. 157 
 
 the Afghan war from the English revenues ; they have 
 sent his Excellency the Marquis of Ripon to rule over us, 
 and deputed Major Baring to manage our finances. 
 These Indian authorities have earned a title to the confi- 
 dence of the country by stimulating private enterprise, 
 encouraging the consumption of articles of indigenous 
 manufactures, setting free the Indian vernacular press, 
 and laying down a scheme for the extension of local 
 self-government. These generous concessions have laid 
 the people under great obligations to the leaders of the 
 Liberal party, and we request that you will convey 
 this expression of our gratitude to the Right Hon. Mr. 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. the Marquis of Hartington, 
 and the Right Hon. Mr. Bright, and Mr. Fawcett, for their 
 noble endeavours to promote the best interests of this 
 country."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RETURN TO BOMBAY. 
 
 I HAD occasion, on the I5th, to send a tele- 
 gram to Scotland, and received an answer, vid 
 Bombay, in seven hours ! The Post Office and 
 Telegraphic services in India are most admirably 
 conducted. In 1 880-81 no fewer than 159,000,000 
 of letters, newspapers and parcels passed through 
 the Post Office, and nearly 15,000,000 of post- 
 cards were used. In the course of the same 
 year nearly ^8,000,000 worth of insured pro- 
 perty was sent through the Post Office, of which 
 only ^"1,040 was lost. 
 
 The most conspicuous building in Poona is 
 the synagogue, its lofty red tower being seen 
 from every point of view. The principal street 
 in the native town is wider and has much 
 handsomer and cleaner houses than is the case 
 in most Indian towns : it resembles one in an 
 American western city. Sugar-cane is exten- 
 sively grown in the vicinity, there being an
 
 THE BHORE GHAUT. 159 
 
 ample supply of water to irrigate the fields; and 
 it pays better than other crops. 
 
 At 12.30 on 1 6th February we left by train 
 for Bombay. At this time of year the country 
 on the route is more dreary and burnt-up than 
 any we had seen in India. The bare conical 
 hills have a Scotch-like appearance. 
 
 In a little over two hours we arrived at the 
 beginning of the descent of the famous Bhore 
 Ghaut, one of the most remarkable engineering 
 feats in the world, and were detained a long 
 time by a landslip, which had blocked the line 
 shortly before, near Kundala. In a very few 
 miles the railway descends more than 1,800 feet. 
 At one point there is a reversing station, the 
 engine changing its position. There are many 
 tunnels ; and the views of the plain far down 
 below of overhanging peaks, deep gorges and 
 precipices are very fine. The fact of there 
 being more deciduous trees than usual on these 
 slopes detracts from the beauty of the scenery 
 in the winter. At Callianee Junction, where the 
 Calcutta line branches off, there are some very 
 fantastically-shaped hills ; and here are the
 
 160 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 prettiest station garden and flowers which we 
 had seen in India. 
 
 Bombay strikes one, on returning to it, as, 
 after all, in point of public buildings and streets, 
 much the handsomest town in the country. 
 About Elphinstone Circle and the Esplanade 
 it will in these respects bear comparison with 
 some European capitals ; and the drive round 
 Cumballa and Malabar hills, among the de- 
 lightful bungalows, which overlook the Indian 
 Ocean on the north, and get the benefit of its 
 refreshing breezes, is one of the most beautiful 
 of its kind anywhere to be seen. 
 
 On Sunday I went out to Parek, to lunch 
 with Sir James Fergusson, the able Governor 
 of the Presidency, who, on account of severe 
 domestic affliction, had not been able to ask 
 us to stay with him, as proposed ; and in the 
 evening we attended divine service at the Free 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
 At Agra we had met, in the hotel, Dr. Part- 
 ridge, Brigade-Surgeon, who has a beautiful 
 villa Bella Vista on Cumballa Hill, and who 
 is actively engaged in missionary work during
 
 LAST DAYS IN BOMBAY. 161 
 
 his spare hours. Like a good Samaritan and 
 Christian as well, he had compassion on us in the 
 dirty, dilapidated, mosquito-infected Adclphi 
 Hotel, and insisted on our removing to his house 
 on Monday, where we spent, fanned by the 
 delightful northern breeze, our last days in 
 India. 
 
 He took us in the afternoon to visit a Parsee 
 house, in which reside seven sons and three 
 daughters, all married, having, one of the ladies 
 said, " dozens upon dozens " of children, and 
 rejoicing in wonderful barrel-organs. Then there 
 were dinner and luncheon parties, a ball given 
 by the bachelors of Bombay in a fine native 
 house at Malabar Point, horse-races at Byculla, 
 and a variety of other engagements and amuse- 
 ments for old and young. I counted eighteen 
 cotton factories from the balcony of the spacious 
 Byculla Club. 
 
 The day before leaving I paid a visit to the 
 Free Church Mission Establishment, where Dr 
 Wilson so long laboured, and where 500 scholars 
 arc now being taught; lunched with the Governor 
 in the Secretariat, went off to see the Jwniia
 
 1 62 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 transport, and then drove round Malabar and 
 Cumballa Hills. Some parts of the former, 
 with its villas and flowers, remind me of 
 Mustapha at Algiers. The latter has the purer, 
 fresher air, and will surely become the favourite 
 suburb of Bombay. Warden Road, leading 
 along the sea to Breach Candy, is the paradise 
 of nurserymen and maids in the evening.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. 
 
 How charming was our last night in India ! 
 The moon shone through the palm-trees upon 
 the spacious balcony of Bella Vista ; and we 
 felt a sort of melancholy steal over us as we 
 thought of the kind friends from whom we were 
 to part a dear daughter whom we might not 
 see again for years, and a country to which we 
 were about to say good-bye for ever. The sea- 
 breeze sighed among the branches, and the 
 waves of the Indian Ocean, breaking gently on 
 the rocks, were our lullaby. 
 
 As the clock struck five on Thursday after- 
 noon, 23rd February, the Venctids anchor was 
 raised ; and before we sat down to dinner I had 
 my last look of India. The north-east monsoon 
 was blowing, and for thirty-six hours the ship 
 rolled a good deal ; but by Saturday morning 
 the wind died away, and at noon that day we 
 had run 309 miles quite a feat for a P. and O.
 
 164 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 I have read " Twenty-one Days in India ; 
 
 or, the Tour of Sir Ali Baba, K.C.B.," by the 
 
 late lamented Mr. Mackay. It is very clever, 
 
 and many truths are told in its witty, satirjcal 
 
 sketches. Here is what he says of ritualistic 
 
 clergymen : " In a heathen country their paltry 
 
 fetishism and incomprehensible technicalities are 
 
 peculiarly offensive and injurious to the interests 
 
 of civilisation and Christianity." About the 
 
 Rajahs he remarks : " They have built their 
 
 houses of cards on the thin crust of British Rule 
 
 that now covers the crater, and they are ever 
 
 ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack 
 
 to quench the explosive forces rumbling below." 
 
 Of the poor ryot he writes: "Famine is the 
 
 horizon of the Indian villager ; insufficient food 
 
 is the foreground." Then follows a beautiful 
 
 description of the fertile soil and glorious climate, 
 
 and he concludes: "Amid this easeful and 
 
 luscious splendour the villager labours and 
 
 starves." 
 
 I have spent some time in looking over back 
 numbers of "The Quarterly Journal of the 
 Poona Sabha." The following extracts faith-
 
 NATIVE OPINION. 165 
 
 fully represent the sentiments of every educated 
 native whom I met regarding the past and 
 present administrations : 
 
 " The four years of Lord Lytton's administration of 
 India have proved disastrous beyond all precedent to the 
 true interests of the millions committed to his fostering 
 care. The besetting sin of his administration has been 
 that it was eminently untruthful, repressive and reac- 
 tionary at home, unjustly aggressive abroad, and disas- 
 trous to the safety of our finance and material prosperity." 
 
 '' We cannot but congratulate both India and England 
 on the overthrow of an administration which has been 
 without a parallel in the annals of British India for its 
 disastrous failure in war, in finance, in legislation and 
 administration." 
 
 "We can only hope that with the retirement of Sir R. 
 Temple, and the enforced resignation of Lord Lytton and 
 Sir John Strachcy, the retrograde and blustering policy 
 which overshadowed all the departments of administra- 
 tion, and repressed the growth of our national aspirations, 
 may be said to have had its fitting close, and that a 
 more genuinely liberal, just, and sympathetic rule will 
 dawn upon the country, and undo the disastrous work 
 of a false and short-lived Imperialism." 
 
 " Under these circumstances, we are gratefully thank- 
 ful that our rulers feel disposed to review their Indian 
 policy, and to reorganise their system of Indian govern- 
 ment. The old policy of blustering, and of assuming 
 imperial airs, and of devising plans to humiliate and 
 weaken the natives of India, and of excluding them from 
 all consideration as if they were 'dumb driven cattle,'
 
 1 66 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 has now been wisely abandoned. The time has come 
 when the shackles of India should be relaxed, and when 
 the natives should be taken into confidence, when their 
 proposals for conserving and improving their commercial 
 and political condition should be carefully considered, 
 when their aristocracy, which necessarily and naturally 
 leads them, should be respected, and when the police 
 arrangements and the municipal and local Government 
 of India should be placed on a better footing. India has 
 now learnt to look about herself, to examine, to improve, 
 and to aspire. With the accession of the Liberals into 
 power, and the deputation of Lord Ripon and Major 
 Baring to control the destinies of this country, the dawn 
 of a better order of things has filled the land with hope- 
 fulness, and dispersed the gloom of war and humiliation." 
 
 Those interested in the extension of the 
 principle of representation should read the two 
 extracts subjoined : 
 
 " Your petitioners submit that the time has come when 
 the views of the independent native and European public 
 should find a recognised place ; and the only way in 
 which this end can be secured is to admit a few represen- 
 tative members elected by the leading cities and populous 
 centres throughout the country. The representative 
 principle has now found place in the municipalities of the 
 three Presidency towns, and has worked satisfactorily. 
 This principle might be safely extended to the other large 
 centres of population, and the municipalities so elected 
 might be safely trusted to send representative men to the 
 several legislatures. These members might not find a 
 place in the executive Government for the present, but if
 
 NATIVE OPINION. 167 
 
 the right of interpellating the executive officers upon all 
 questions of public importance were allowed to them, the 
 check against arbitrary rule will be effective, and the criti- 
 cism based upon such information in the press and in 
 public petitions will cease to be non-effective as at present 
 thus establishing greater harmony than has obtained 
 hitherto by allowing Government to justify its measures to 
 the people. The present advanced state of public intelli- 
 gence in this country justifies the extension of this right, 
 as, without the adequate check it will provide, all further 
 progress will be greatly retarded." 
 
 "The real struggle will have to be fought out in India, 
 and it is in the enlargement of the Indian Legislative 
 Councils that all our hope for a better future is centred. 
 Mr. Digby proposes to have a council consisting of the 
 ex-officio executive councillors, supplemented by the addi- 
 tion of the ex-officio collectors, and a due proportion of 
 nominated and elected European and native members. 
 We do not approve of the suggestion regarding the ex- 
 officio collectors. The District Local Fund Committees, 
 enlarged and liberalised under the new decentralisation 
 schemes, will be in a position to send their representatives 
 to the council. This will supply the Conservative ele- 
 ment, and the Liberal element will be effectively supplied 
 by the representatives of the large city municipalities. 
 These two elements, with a due admixture of the ex-officio 
 and nominated members, will be for a long time to come 
 a sufficient representation of all interests." 
 
 I had the happiness to be in at the death 
 of the Vernacular Press Act. The following 
 quotations express accurately the views not
 
 168 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 only of natives but of many Englishmen who 
 spoke to me on the subject : 
 
 " But in what light can their conduct be viewed if they 
 wilfully increase the difficulty of knowing what the people 
 think and feel about their intentions and doings a thou- 
 sand-fold ; if instead of trying to make themselves 
 acquainted with what passes in the innermost recesses of 
 the minds of the subjects, they designedly throw a veil 
 over them, as if a knowledge of the disease is not the 
 first condition of its cure, and as if the task of the physi- 
 cian will be smoothed by ignoring its symptoms. Can 
 good government be ensured to the people without the 
 rulers being acquainted with their modes of thinking and 
 feeling, with what they consider as their grievances, with 
 the impressions they receive from the acts of Government 
 officials, with their habits and opinions and sentiments 
 and prejudices ? Can this desirable information be had 
 independently of the native press ? Certainly not, if we 
 are to believe Lord William Bentinck, one of the most 
 successful and really philanthropic rulers of India, who is 
 reported to have said ' Th it he had derived more infor- 
 mation from the Indian press than from all the councils, 
 all the boards, and all the secretaries by whom he was 
 surrounded.' Can a fettered press venture to supply 
 freely to Government any information regarding its offi- 
 cials and the people which it needs for successfully 
 conducting the administration of the country ? Who 
 can, with the sword of Damocles hanging over his 
 head, freely denounce the conduct and doings of govern- 
 ment officials, when the latter are so prone to resent 
 any sort of criticism of their acts as an insult offered 
 to the majesty of Great Britain, and to confound it with
 
 NATIVE OPINION. 169 
 
 an attempt at sapping the foundation of the British 
 Empire in India?" 
 
 " The Act for the better control of oriental publica- 
 tions was passed by the late Government three years ago, 
 under an apprehension of political necessity which subse- 
 quent events have not, by the admission of all parties, 
 justified. The official papers since published have shown 
 that there was not that concensus of opinions even in the 
 most responsible advisers of Government which alone 
 could have warranted the wide departure from the 
 acknowledged policy of the Government in this connec- 
 tion, sanctioned as it was by nearly fifty years' experience 
 of the great benefits which had resulted from the unre- 
 stricted liberty of the press in this country. The only 
 precedent for such action was that afforded by a measure 
 adopted by Lord Canning under the excitement of the 
 troubles caused by the Mutiny of 1857 ; but Lord 
 Canning's measure was free from any invidious distinc- 
 tion between vernacular and English publications, and it 
 was only temporary in its application. The present mea- 
 sure was apparently passed in great hurry, in view of 
 apprehended troubles in Russia. That justification has 
 long since ceased, and the measure had been practically 
 inoperative, except in a few isolated cases where the 
 action of local governments has had to be controlled and 
 set aside by the interference of His Excellency the Vice- 
 roy in Council. This Sabha has from the first protested 
 against the enactment of such a measure and its reten- 
 tion on the statute book, on the grounds that it cast an 
 undeserved suspicion upon the loyalty of the vernacular 
 newspapers, that it prevented the free discussion of official 
 measures which, under the circumstances of an alien rule 
 like that which obtains in British India, is so necessary in 
 the interests both of the governed and the governing 
 L
 
 1 70 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 classes, that it checked from the sense of ignoble fear the 
 growth of a healthy public opinion, and that it invested 
 petty local authorities with a power of vexatious inter- 
 ference which cannot fail to demoralise them." 
 
 The excuse for passing this measure was 
 that many of these newspapers evinced a bad 
 spirit, and attacked the Government in improper 
 words. If this test were applied to not a few 
 of the English periodicals published in India 
 it would go hard with them. 
 
 Until I visited the country I had no idea 
 that there existed in our Empire journals so 
 replete with vulgar vituperation as the Jingo 
 newspapers of Hindostan. I read in one of 
 them a leader on Lord Hartington, putting into 
 his mouth words which he never used, and im- 
 puting to him opinions which I know he does 
 not hold, and then showering upon him names 
 worthy only of Billingsgate. Several men of 
 influence expressed themselves to me thoroughly 
 ashamed of a portion of their press ; and re- 
 marked that if the vernacular papers were 
 violent, they had had a very evil example 
 set them by the organs of the officials who
 
 A A TIVE OPINION i 7 i 
 
 were the authors of the Act now happily 
 repealed. 
 
 A writer in one of the numbers of the 
 Poona SabJia Journal discusses the policy of 
 retaining the armies of the native states ; 
 and I give his arguments '^against disband- 
 ment, although not agreeing with him, and 
 taking care to remark that no one advocates 
 forcible measures in bringing about a change 
 of system. 
 
 " i. The native armies in all the larger states dis- 
 tinctly rest on treaty obligations which are binding upon 
 the paramount power, which has repeatedly admitted the 
 force of these obligations. Such obligations cannot be 
 dissolved without the free and mutual consent of both 
 parties. 
 
 " 2. This appanage is the last privilege left to the 
 royal houses. Measures of forcible disbandment cannot 
 but cause dissatisfaction among the native states. 
 
 " 3. The armies are not a source of danger to the 
 British Government. Their strength and numbers are 
 overrated. Badly armed, badly officered, badly disci- 
 plined, and wholly disunited, they have no power for 
 mischief. 
 
 " 4. They are, at the same time, very useful auxiliaries, 
 especially as against Asiatic powers on the frontiers of 
 our provinces, in respect of whom the use of the regular 
 British army involves a needless waste of money and 
 strength. 
 
 L 2
 
 172 A WINTER AV INDIA. 
 
 " 5. They have rendered important services in the 
 early wars, as also in the Mutiny struggle, and have 
 proved valuable auxiliaries in the present Afghan war. 
 
 "6. Their loyalty and insignificance renders jealous 
 watchfulness unnecessary, and if more confidence were 
 placed in them, they would render a considerable reduc- 
 tion of the British garrison possible. 
 
 " 7. They are beyond all comparison a cheap agency, 
 and good material to rely upon as a recruiting-ground for 
 the British Indian forces. 
 
 " 8. The whole population being disarmed and de- 
 martialised, the native armies are the only available 
 militia and reserve force to fall back upon. 
 
 "9. The native British Indian force is par excellence 
 a mercenary body. The sepoys require to be counter- 
 balanced by these native armies, which are for the most 
 part national and not mercenary, and which, at all 
 events, will never make common cause with the sepoys. 
 
 " 10. In the present state of India, when the whole of 
 Central Asia may be expected with Russian help and 
 propulsion any day to come down upon us, it is not 
 safe to trust to the single support of the regular British 
 Indian forces alone. There should be many small 
 centres and foci of dependent authority, scattered over 
 the country, with their opportunities of education in 
 military habits, and in the higher art of leading and 
 controlling men. 
 
 "11. In many native states society rests on a feudal 
 or military basis. This state of things cannot be dis- 
 turbed without affecting the integrity of the states. The 
 Sirdars and militaiy classes, for whom British India 
 offers no field, are usefully provided for in these native 
 armies. 
 
 U j2. The purposes sought to be accomplished by
 
 NATIVE OPINION. 173 
 
 forcible disbandment can be equally well achieved by a 
 policy of greater trust and confidence. If the armies of 
 native states are badly armed and officered and dis- 
 ciplined, these defects may be removed by the help of 
 British officers lent to these states to effect these reforms, 
 and improve the race of native officers."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON THE INDIAN OCEAN. 
 
 THIS voyaging on the Indian Ocean is the 
 perfection of travelling. The sea is so calm, 
 the sun so bright, the air so balmy. 
 
 When I rose on Wednesday morning we 
 were in sight of the rock of Aden, and at 
 10 o'clock we anchored in the harbour. There 
 was a delightfully refreshing southern breeze 
 blowing, and we landed to explore the place, 
 driving in light covered carriages to the town 
 on the opposite side of the peninsula from the 
 landing-place, to the celebrated tanks, which 
 hold millions of gallons of water, through two 
 tunnels to the cantonment of the English troops 
 and the lines facing Arabia, and to the pier, 
 where native craft land provisions and fuel. 
 What a grim, arid, sepulchral-looking place it 
 is ! The little one-barrel water-carts drawn by 
 camels, the profusely-ornamented women, the 
 number of vehicles of all kinds on the roads,
 
 ADEN. 1 7 5 
 
 the total absence of trees indeed, of all vegeta- 
 tion except in the small irrigated garden at the 
 tanks and the sharp outlines of the peaks 
 strike you. Then the harbour is always full 
 of vessels steamers coming and going con- 
 tinually : a Russian man-of-war entered when 
 we were at anchor, saluted, and her salute was 
 returned from a battery on the shore. 
 
 Brigadier-General Blair, V.C., was our fellow- 
 passenger from Bombay, on his way to assume 
 the governorship of Aden for five years a 
 brave soldier and most agreeable companion, 
 to whom we wish health and happiness during 
 his residence on that shadeless rock. 
 
 As 4 p.m. struck we weighed anchor, and 
 had rather a rough time of it in the night, the 
 scuttles being closed. When I got on deck at 
 7 a.m. all the square sails were set, and we were 
 running past the Island of Gebel Zukur, with 
 the wrecks of the Duke of Lancaster and 
 Penguin on the port bow. Gradually the wind 
 increased, until at noon our good ship began 
 to take in seas ; and not until we had passed 
 the Twelve Apostles did the turmoil end.
 
 176 A WlXTER Iff ftfDIA. 
 
 The Venetia is a very substantial and ex- 
 cellent sea-boat, built and engined by Denny 
 of Dumbarton, 2,726 tons, and commanded by 
 Captain Daniell, who spared no effort to make 
 everyone happy and comfortable on board. 
 
 Travellers in India and in the steamers to 
 and fro will be struck with the frequent dis- 
 cussions which they hear about the taxation 
 of that country. There can be no doubt that 
 the wealthier classes there do not bear their 
 fair share. In fact, the rich natives get off 
 nearly scot-free, and millionaires not in trade 
 need pay no more than the ryot whose salt 
 is so heavily burdened.* Even the landed pro- 
 prietor is charged a mere trifle in comparison 
 with what his forefathers paid under the settle- 
 ments of Akbar; and the poorer classes will 
 
 * " The exemption of the richer classes from taxation is a 
 political mistake, which, as time goes on, and knowledge and 
 intelligence increase, must become more and more mischiev- 
 ous : " " India," by Sir J. and General Strachey. 
 
 " It is notorious that the mercantile wealth of the country, 
 which is considerable, and daily increasing, pays very little, in 
 proportion to its means, for the protection and advantages which 
 it enjoys under British rule:" Mr. Bazett Colvin on "Indian 
 Taxation.
 
 TAXATION OF INDIA. 177 
 
 always have a grievance as long as no income- 
 tax, or similar mode of reaching the large 
 number of wealthy natives, is imposed. 
 
 Well-paid civil servants and baboos unite 
 against any such proposal, their newspapers 
 enlarging on the difficulty of getting it to work 
 fairly, especially in a country like India, where 
 deceit is a science. Yet I have met British 
 officials who believe that with a little courage 
 and determination on the part of the authorities 
 it might be imposed with safety, would remove 
 a great injustice, and prove a national benefit. 
 But while rich people pay a mere trifle towards 
 the expenses of government, the small holders 
 and labourers do contribute a considerable por- 
 tion of their hard earnings in the shape of a 
 salt tax ; and instead of reiterating impressions 
 of my own regarding their impoverished con- 
 dition, let me quote two passages from " British 
 India and its Rulers," just published by Judge 
 Cunningham, of the High Court of Calcutta : 
 
 " On the whole it may be said that the great mass of 
 the occupants of the soil of India must be, from the small - 
 ness of their holdings, and the numbers who have to be
 
 178 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 supported on them, at the best of times hard pressed for 
 the means of subsistence ; that, in the case of a very large 
 number in Bengal and upper India, the hardships of 
 their position are enhanced by the presence of a class of 
 more or less exacting landlords, whose eagerness "for an 
 increased rental is favoured by the increased necessity of 
 a growing population to find room on the soil ; that habits 
 of improvidence, and traditional customs of occasional 
 extravagance, not unfrequently destroy any chance there 
 might be of a rise to greater comfort and security ; that 
 the almost universal practice of dependence on money- 
 lenders has of late years entailed more serious conse- 
 quences, owing partly to the larger and more assured 
 interest in the soil which the landowner enjoys under the 
 British revenue settlement, and the better credit he thus 
 obtains ; and partly to the speedier, more exact, and more 
 effectual procedure of the civil courts ; that some of the 
 conditions of modern life may have tended to enhance the 
 difficulties of particular classes ; that though there can be 
 no doubt that a large amount of wealth is being brought 
 into the country, the increase of population, which is likely 
 to be accelerated, will, in years to come, make a large 
 demand on the resources so created ; and that, as no con- 
 siderable outlets, other than in agricultural employment, 
 at present exist, the pressure on the soil and the penury 
 of the less thrifty and capable agriculturists, is likely, in 
 the absence of some new form of relief, to become still 
 severer than at present." 
 
 " The grave political and social dangers to which an 
 impoverished, degraded, and rack-rented peasantry gives 
 rise, are assuming every year a more menacing aspect, 
 and the controversy has a tendency, as the pressure of 
 the population on the soil increases, to become continually 
 more embittered. Official evidence of the weightiest
 
 TAXATION OF INDIA. 179 
 
 character, and tendered from the most various quarters, 
 makes it impossible to doubt that the condition of the 
 tenantry in several parts of India is a peril to society, and 
 a disgrace to any civilised administration." 
 
 The following from the same book, in regard 
 to local self-government, is especially interesting 
 at a time when that subject is much discussed 
 at home : 
 
 " It was resolved accordingly to entrust to the local 
 governments certain important departments of the ad- 
 ministration, to hand over to them certain specified funds 
 for the purpose of meeting the expenditure thus involved 
 and to hold them responsible for obtaining, either by 
 economies, rearrangement, or, if necessary, local taxation, 
 the means for defraying any outlay beyond that covered 
 by the allotment. Cost of jails, registration, police, edu- 
 cation, medical services, printing, roads, and some other 
 items, were thus handed over to the several provincial 
 administrations, a corresponding allotment of revenue 
 being made to each. 
 
 " The gross sum made over for these services was 
 about four-and-a-half millions ; this has subsequently been 
 increased by the further development of the system to five- 
 and-a-half millions, and the Government is gradually 
 extending it, as opportunities offer, in various parts of the 
 Empire. 
 
 " Bengal is now responsible for all civil expenditure, 
 except that on opium, and for all loss on its productive 
 public works. It has the benefit of all branches of income 
 except land revenue, opium, and salt. The success of the
 
 i So A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 scheme in this province has been so marked that Bengal 
 has already been able to make a material contribution to 
 the Imperial revenue from the large margin of profit which 
 accrued to her under the arrangement. Similar measures 
 will hereafter be carried out elsewhere. 
 
 "All authorities concur in attesting the excellent 
 results of these measures as regards economy and activity 
 in the local administrations. The continuous growth in local 
 expenditure has been successfully arrested ; every branch 
 of the provincial administrations has received a wholesome 
 stimulus towards care in the use of public funds ; the local 
 goverments have been relieved from a minute financial 
 control which was a constant source of irritation, and the 
 Government of India from duties of supervision which 
 threatened to overwhelm it. The next few years will, 
 it may be hoped, witness the development of a scheme 
 whose substantial success is already beyond dispute." 
 
 I add a couple more passages in regard to 
 the all-important land question : 
 
 " In the majority of instances the landlords are now 
 purely rent-receivers, doing nothing for the land, and 
 spending none of the rental on the improvement of the 
 soil. On the other hand, by the invasion of the occupants' 
 rights, and the reduction of large classes to the level of 
 poverty-stricken and rack-rented tenants-at-will, the land- 
 owners have presented a formidable obstacle to the 
 gradual improvements which cultivators with secure tenure 
 and an interest in the soil would have been certain to 
 effect. A tenantry in the condition of the Bchar ryot, 
 holding on a precarious tenure under great proprietors 
 and " contractors," whose one interest it is to force up the
 
 TAXATION OF INDIA. 181 
 
 rents, is the best guarantee for improvident, wasteful 
 tillage and an exhausted soil." 
 
 " In Bengal, and especially Behar, the landlord sys- 
 tem has had the longest and completes! trial, and the 
 result of unrestricted competition for the land has been 
 most clearly illustrated. We have now, after a century's 
 experience, to deal with a question which, difficult at the 
 outset, has become, with each year's fresh accretion or 
 interests, prejudices, and customs, less easy of solution, 
 and which is now so entangled in conflicting claims that 
 its adjustment can scarcely be effected without bitter 
 heart-burnings, class animosities, accusations of bad faith, 
 and all the other inevitable ill-results of a too long post- 
 poned reform. Reform, however, is admitted, even by 
 those who are most alive to its difficulties, to be indis- 
 pensable. Its successful accomplishment would be the 
 crowning feat of Indian statesmanship." 
 
 Everyone who cares to know about India 
 should read Mr. Cunningham's book, although 
 in the judgment of men who have spent a life- 
 time in the country, it is written in too couleur 
 de rose a style, and although nothing is said 
 of the "gulf gradually widening" (some ob- 
 servers of long experience assure me,) between 
 the educated natives and their rulers, nothing 
 of the demand for an extension of representa- 
 tion, nothing of the complaints recorded by 
 me in preceding pages. The information given
 
 182 A WINTER /.v INDIA. 
 
 is, however, accurate and well put together, 
 and everyone must regard it as a valuable con- 
 tribution to our knowledge of India. The 
 annual average foreign trade of that country, the 
 author tells us, has increased from i8'6 millions 
 in 1834-39 to 122,000,000 in 1879-80, and the 
 yearly export of tea now amounts to 34,000,000 
 pounds of the value of 3,000,000 sterling. 
 
 According to the most recent official accounts 
 to which I have had access viz., those of 1879, 
 there are 1,363 tea gardens in our Indian 
 dominions, having an out-turn of 44,771,632 Ibs., 
 and a capital invested in them of 88,794,298, 
 and paying an average interest of 9^47 per cent. 
 
 We had a calm, cool Friday, another breeze 
 succeeded, and by 3.0 a.m. on Sunday we were 
 abreast the Daedalus light ; we passed the 
 remarkable and dangerous coral rocks called 
 " The Brothers " at noon, had a rough night, and 
 found that next morning we were in a different 
 climate everyone was shivering, and preferring 
 the sunny side of the ship as she ran along that 
 dreadfully desolate coast
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SUEZ CANAL HOME. 
 
 AT 10.30 on Monday morning, 6th March, 
 our anchor was dropped in the roadstead of 
 Suez, among numerous steamers of various 
 nations, including H.M.S. Cleopatra, and the 
 Khedive, and Teheran of the P. & O. Line. Then 
 followed the usual absurd ceremonies of the 
 quarantine system a health-despatch received 
 on a forked stick, a list of passengers thrown 
 into a tin box, and the mails put in tarred sacks, 
 Bombay and Aden being infected ports, and pas- 
 sengers from the Venetia not being allowed to 
 land in order to proceed to Alexandria by rail. 
 
 I have mentioned previously that the British 
 Government in India no longer manage idol 
 temples, but we adopted the endowments which 
 existed before our rule, and now pay very large 
 sums to the Hindoo and Mahommedan places 
 of worship, in the shape of annual cash pay-
 
 184 A WIXTER /.v INDIA. 
 
 ments ; and, besides, lands and villages are 
 assigned for their support to an extent the 
 value of which it is not easy accurately to dis- 
 cover. In the Bombay Presidency alone, and 
 excluding five districts not in the returns, 2,725 
 district religious establishments, and 11,039 vil- 
 lage temples, are paid no less than 214,947^ ; 
 and the total sum contributed, taking cash pay- 
 ments and assignments together, is computed 
 to be five lacs of rupees. In Madras the return 
 of November, 1872, shows that land revenue 
 alienations equal to 2,332,570^. in the case of 
 Hindoos, and 263,194^ in the case of Mahom- 
 medans, are applied for religious purposes, while 
 525,407^ were disbursed from treasuries for the 
 same uses. 
 
 Sooner or later the Government must face 
 the question how this system can be put an end 
 to, and these payments be made to cease, leaving 
 the temples and mosques ultimately, as a writer 
 in one of the journals puts it, " to depend 
 entirely on the votive offerings of the people/' 
 Of course this is a difficult and delicate question, 
 not to be settled off-hand, in a day or a year,
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN INDIA. 185 
 
 but its discussion and eventual decision cannot 
 be avoided, and the ostrich-like policy of refusing 
 to look at it at all, will in the long run be found 
 to be inadmissible. In order, however, to deal 
 with it without fear, we ourselves must be with- 
 out reproach, and my enquiries in India strongly 
 confirm my previous impression that our ecclesi- 
 astical system and establishment of chaplains 
 there cannot be defended. 
 
 As it may be necessary for me elsewhere to 
 treat this subject at some length, and in detail, 
 I only observe here that a large number of our 
 so-called chaplains do not preach to soldiers, or 
 even civil servants, but to planters and merchants 
 who ought to pay for their own clergymen ; that 
 influential deputations of Hindoos, Mahommed- 
 ans, and Christians waited upon me in Calcutta, 
 Madras, and Poona, and in many other places 
 gentlemen privately urged me to bring parlia- 
 mentary pressure to bear against the system of 
 paying bishops and priests of the Established 
 Church of England, and clergymen of the 
 churches of Scotland and Rome, out of revenue 
 
 principally derived from persons who are not 
 M
 
 186 A WINTER AV IX 
 
 Christians ; that chaplains, considering them- 
 selves a superior class on account of their official 
 position, are often found at variance with the 
 more experienced and hard-working mission- 
 aries; that many earnest Christians in India told 
 me that it would be better even for the soldiers 
 if the State did not interfere at all ; that the 
 ritualistic practices now so prevalent among the 
 class are doing serious damage to the progress 
 of Christianity ; and that the devices fallen upon 
 to get men, who really do no military duty, 
 placed on the ecclesiastical and State-paid staff, 
 are discreditable to the congregations who thus 
 save their money, injurious to Christianity, and 
 contrary to the spirit of the Queen's Procla- 
 mation. 
 
 No further step can be taken about heathen 
 temples until Government sets its house in order 
 in this respect ; and I earnestly hope that they 
 will not be content with paltry reductions and 
 more stringent new rules, but boldly recognising 
 the justice of the complaints, as boldly apply the 
 axe to the root of the tree. No one ever ex- 
 pressed to me an opinion that there is any
 
 MONEY FOR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES. 187 
 
 objection on principle to chaplains for soldiers 
 being paid out of revenue, although several 
 persons well acquainted with the subject did say 
 that they believed that the spiritual wants of the 
 military would be better supplied if there were 
 no State clergymen at all. A leaf should be 
 taken out of the Ceylon book. In that island 
 a time has been fixed when all such payments 
 by Government shall cease, and the congrega- 
 tions connected with the richest of the Christian 
 churches, on its termination, be given an oppor- 
 tunity of doing what has been already done by 
 the poorer sects viz., supporting their own 
 clergymen. 
 
 We arc now waiting our turn to get into 
 the Suez Canal. Here are the most recent sta- 
 tistics in regard to that remarkable work, in 
 favour of which I voted in the House of Com- 
 mons many years ago, when we were in a small 
 minority, because opposed by the engineering 
 talent and supposed statesmanship of Great 
 Britain. It was opened in 1869. In iS/o there 
 passed through it 496 vessels, with a gross ton- 
 nage of 486,000, which paid 5,159,357 francs in
 
 r 88 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 toll. In 1881 these figures had risen to 2,727 
 ships, 5,794,401 tons, and 51,274,352 francs ; and 
 during last year the number of vessels that 
 passed through exceeded 3,000. Of the 2,727 
 vessels in 1881, 2,251 were British; in 1870, 
 64 per cent of the tonnage belonged to Great 
 Britain; in 1881 that per-centage had risen to 
 83, and it is still rising. From its opening up 
 to the end of May 1882, 18,634 steamers have 
 passed through the Canal ; of this number 
 14,159 were British, and the French come next 
 with 1,048 only. The receipts during the years 
 i8;o to 1 88 1 inclusive amounted to very nearly 
 thirteen millions sterling, the average toll per ship 
 being about 750, and the net profits are now 
 reported to amount to 14 or 15 per cent, per 
 annum. Shades of Robert Stephenson and 
 Lord Palmerston ! 
 
 By some inexplicable arrangement we were 
 detained at Suez all day, and not allowed to 
 enter the canal until next morning, although a 
 Dutch steamer which arrived two hours after us 
 went in before sunset ; and when morning came 
 a dense and very cold fog prevented us weighing
 
 IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 189 
 
 anchor until 8.30, and then at 10.30 we were 
 stopped for five hours in a siding until eight 
 steamers all British passed on towards Suez. 
 We spent the night at anchor in the Bitter 
 Lakes, and a short distance from Ismailia, at the 
 entrance of Lake Timsah, found the merchant- 
 steamer Lisgard aground, and blocking up the 
 channel ; so we had to lie there for twenty-one 
 hours, until she had been lightened of sufficient 
 cargo to enable her to float. That operation 
 might have been performed much quicker, but 
 the quarantine regulations did not permit of 
 assistance from the shore. Everyone believes 
 that this farcical system has been adopted at the 
 instance of the owners of steam-launches, as all 
 steamers in quarantine are obliged to have a 
 steam-launch before them, for which the charge 
 is twenty-five francs an hour a direct premium 
 on delay the presence of a pilot on board the 
 supposed infected ship being inadmissible. Of 
 course a continuance or renewal of this prepos- 
 terous restriction on trade, and enormous loss to 
 shipowners and inconvenience to passengers, 
 cannot be tolerated much longer. The whole
 
 190 A WINTER IN Iff DM. 
 
 proceedings of the so-called sanitary commission 
 require being looked into. 
 
 The mirage was very remarkable between 
 Ismailia and Port Said, the mounds in the 
 desert appearing like islands in the sea. 
 
 We were booked for the Kliedive to Malta, 
 but found she had sailed the night before, and 
 as soon as the Vcnetia dropped anchor we were 
 transferred to the Telieran, from Calcutta. All 
 Friday and Saturday it blew from the north- 
 west, and as it had evidently been blowing 
 heavier a day or two before there was a con- 
 siderable sea on, and we had rather a poor 
 time of it ; but Sunday dawned fair and fine, 
 with a calm sea, and we reached Malta, which 
 I had not seen for thirty-three years, early on 
 Monday morning. The great increase of popu- 
 lation, especially around Valetta, and even in 
 the formerly deserted region of St. Paul's Bay 
 struck me, and I observed with regret as 
 many priests and their consequential beggars as 
 before. 
 
 Our quickest way home was by the French 
 steamer which carries the British mails to Syra-
 
 THE INDIAN BUDGET. 191 
 
 cuse, thence by rail to Messina one of the 
 most beautiful routes in Europe the mountain, 
 rock, sea-cliff, and valley scenery varying in 
 loveliness every few minutes, and majestic, 
 solemn Etna presiding over all ; and so on to 
 Naples by steamer again. 
 
 There I read a synopsis of the Indian Budget, 
 and was overjoyed to find it in every particular 
 in accordance with the. opinions which I had 
 formed. It reflects the highest credit on the 
 statesmanship of Lord Ripon and Major Baring ; 
 especially are they deserving of praise for reduc- 
 ing the salt-tax, notwithstanding the opposition 
 of the monied classes native and European - 
 who think too much of themselves and too little 
 of the poor."* 
 
 I have since had an opportunity of perusing 
 the East India financial statement as presented 
 to Parliament in a blue book, and recommend 
 
 * "When the time comes for i educing taxation we should 
 begin with the taxes on salt and clothing, which add to the cost 
 of the necessaries of life." " Further reductions in the salt 
 duties are, on all grounds, desirable, both for the benefit of the 
 people and of the finances." "Indian Finance," by Sir J. and 
 Maj. Gen. Strr.chey.
 
 1 92 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 all who are interested in the social well-being 
 of our great dependency to study it with care. 
 Anything more admirable has seldom been 
 laid before the House of Commons. The fol- 
 lowing from paragraph 34 will give great 
 satisfaction to all who conversed with me on 
 the subject : 
 
 " It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government, and 
 of the Government of India, that a constantly increasing 
 share of the work of the country shall be performed by 
 natives of India. Not only will this gradual change add 
 to the ties which already bind educated natives and the 
 chief native families to the British Government, but the 
 work will be performed more economically than hitherto. 
 The number of native gentlemen holding offices of trust 
 and position has increased during the last three years, 
 and will continue to do so under the combined influence 
 of the annual admissions to the Covenanted Civil Service 
 in both England and India, and the rules of 1879, regard- 
 ing appointments to the Uncovenanted Sen-ice." 
 
 Paragraph 58 bears out what is stated in 
 the foregoing pages, regarding the poverty of 
 the people in certain districts : 
 
 "A careful examination of the economic condition of 
 the people in the various provinces of India leads to the 
 conclusion that in the North-Western Provinces and
 
 THE INDIAN BUDGET. 193 
 
 Oudh there are but slight signs of any improvement in the 
 mass of the people during the last decade. The number 
 of people with incomes of not less than Rs. 500 a year, 
 derived from trade, and assessed to the License Tax in 
 iSSo-8i, was 1,550 less than the number assessed to the 
 Income Tax in 1870-71 and 1871-72. This would seem to 
 indicate a diminution of the trade-wealth of these Pro- 
 vinces. On the whole, it may be said that nowhere in 
 India is a reduction of taxation more required than in the 
 North-Western Provinces and Oudh." 
 
 I give an extract from paragraph 65, which 
 shows that the Government are fully alive 
 to one of the great questions of the day : 
 
 " Boards and committees for the administration of 
 certain local funds already exist in most parts of India. 
 We now wish to widen the sphere of action hitherto 
 assigned to these bodies. The Provincial Governments 
 have, therefore, been invited to hand over to them such 
 items of revenue and expenditure as may appear most 
 suited to give them a real interest in the administration 
 of the resources at their command, and, on the other 
 hand, to take over as a provincial charge some items of 
 expenditure, such as police, over which local bodies can- 
 not exercise any real control. I will not, however, at 
 present discuss this question at length. The Local Govern- 
 ments have been consulted upon the subject, and until 
 their answers are received it will be impossible to decide 
 upon the particular measures which it may eventually be 
 deemed desirable to adopt. I will only say, that whilst 
 we recognise that the development of local self-govern-
 
 194 A WINTER IN INDIA. 
 
 inent must be gradual, and not of a nature to outstrip the 
 wants of the country and the standard of political educa- 
 tion at which the people have arrived, at the same time 
 we are desirous of making a real step in advance in the 
 proposed direction." 
 
 Paragraph 173 should be studied by those who, 
 in their anxiety to benefit the Chinese, do not 
 sufficiently take into consideration what would 
 be the effect of any sudden change in the opium 
 duties at the present time on the poorer classes 
 in India : 
 
 "From the language which is occasionally used on 
 this subject in England, I am led to infer that many influ- 
 ential persons, animated by a laudable zeal to benefit the 
 population of China, are perhaps somewhat forgetful of 
 the duty we owe to the population of India. It has been 
 calculated that the average income per head of population 
 in India is not more than Rs. 27 a year ; and although I am 
 not prepared to pledge myself to the accuracy of a calcula- 
 tion of this sort, it is sufficiently accurate to justify the con- 
 clusion that the tax-paying community is exceedingly poor. 
 To derive any very large increase of revenue from so poor a 
 population as this is obviously impossible, and if it were 
 possible would be unjustifiable. Apart from the practical 
 issues involved, there are, indeed, two aspects of the ques- 
 tion from the point of view of public morality. If, on the 
 one hand, it be urged that it is immoral to obtain a revenue 
 from the use of opium amongst a section of the Chinese
 
 THE INDIAN BUDGET. 195 
 
 community, on the other hand it may replied that to tax 
 the poorest classes in India in order to benefit China 
 would be a cruel injustice ; and it is to be remembered 
 that no large increase of revenue in India is possible, un- 
 less by means of a tax which will affect those classes. To 
 tax India in order to provide a cure, which would almost 
 certainly be ineffectual, to the vices of the Chinese, would 
 be wholly unjustifiable." 
 
 At Paris I received the following letter 
 from one of the ablest, most zealous., and most 
 experienced of India's civil servants : 
 
 " I must write a line to say how sorry I was not to see 
 you again before you left India. The native press and 
 public are unanimous in expressing gratitude to you for 
 the patient and sympathetic hearing you have given them. 
 All they ask for is independent and impartial enquiry, and 
 they are confident that they will then prove the correct- 
 ness of their statements and the moderation of their 
 demands. It is a striking feature of the controversy be- 
 tween the Indian official and non-official world, that when 
 unprejudiced and qualified judges, like yourself and Mr. 
 Caird, come to this country, the official organs are so very 
 angry with them for the opinions they form. The fact is, 
 that a large proportion of officials, even during a long ser- 
 vice, remain quite isolated and profoundly ignorant of the 
 facts and feelings around them ; and an intelligent out- 
 side observer, who mixes freely with the natives, will learn 
 more in a few weeks of the true state of the country than 
 is known to them."
 
 196 A WINTER iff INDIA. 
 
 It will be a great satisfaction to me if any- 
 thing in the preceding pages should induce 
 other family parties to follow our example, and 
 give themselves a delightful holiday by spend- 
 ing "A Winter in India." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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