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                    THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE
                        OF THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

                                -------

                        EIGHT LECTURES ON INDIA.

                                -------

                       PREPARED FOR THE COMMITTEE

                                   BY

                            H. J. MACKINDER,

    Lately Director of the London School of Economics and Political
           Science: Author of “Britain and the British Seas.”

                                -------

                      With Lantern Illustrations.

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                           ONE SHILLING NET.

            WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, LONDON WALL.

                                  ---

                                 1910.

480 Slides, 60 for each Lecture, have been prepared in connection with
this book, and are sold on behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Newton &
Co., 3, Fleet Street, London, E.C., from whom the books of lectures can
also be obtained. The complete set of 480 Slides, in eight padded boxes,
may be had for £50, or the Slides to accompany the several Lectures will
be sold for Six Guineas each Lecture. Single Slides will not be sold.
The series consists for the most part of views taken by Mr. A. Hugh
Fisher, the artist who went to India for the purpose on behalf of the
Committee. Some of them are photographs coloured by hand from sketches
in colour prepared by Mr. Fisher, and some are colour photographs by the
Sanger Shepherd process reproducing Mr. Fisher’s own sketches. There are
also many maps in colour prepared by the Diagram Company.

                The slides of this series are copyright.

                  ------------------------------------

                      ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL.

                   THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE.

         APPOINTED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES.

                      ----------------------------

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MEATH, K.P., Chairman.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH, G.C.M.G.

SIR JOHN STRUTHERS, K.C.B., LL.D., Secretary to the Scotch Education
    Department.

SIR PHILIP HUTCHINS, K.C.S.I., late Member of the Council of the
    Secretary of State for India.

SIR CHARLES LUCAS, K.C.M.G., C.B., of the Colonial Office.

SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, Director of the National Gallery.

H. F. HEATH, Ph.D., Director of Special Inquiries and Reports, Board of
    Education.

H. J. MACKINDER, M.P., late Director of the London School of Economics
    and Political Science.

W. H. MERCER, C.M.G., Crown Agent for the Colonies.

R. D. ROBERTS, D.Sc., Secretary of the Gilchrist Educational Trust.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL E. SADLER, LL.D., Professor of Education in the
    University of Manchester.

                                  THE
                      VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE
                        OF THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

                                -------

The component parts of the British Empire are so remote and so different
from one another, that it is evident the Empire can only be held
together by sympathy and understanding, based on widely diffused
knowledge of its geography, history, resources, climates, and races. It
is obvious that if this knowledge is to be effective it must be imparted
to the coming generation. In other words it must be taught in the
Schools of the Empire.

In the Autumn of 1902, a Committee was appointed by the Secretary of
State for the Colonies to consider on what system such teaching might
best be developed. The Committee came to the conclusion that children in
any part of the Empire would never understand what the other parts were
like unless by some adequate means of visual instruction; and, further,
that as far as possible the teaching should be on the same lines in all
parts of the Empire. It was decided to make a beginning by an experiment
on a small scale, and for this purpose to invite the three Eastern
Colonies of Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong to bear the
expense of a small book of Lantern Lectures on the United Kingdom for
use in the Schools in those Colonies. Other parts of the Empire were
afterwards invited to have editions which would be suited to their own
special requirements prepared at their own expense, and up to the
present date editions have been issued for the Eastern Colonies, for the
West Indies, for West Africa, for Mauritius, and for India. Editions are
now in preparation for Canada and for South Africa.

The Committee, however, have always had in mind the preparation of
illustrated lectures on the Colonies and India as well as on the United
Kingdom. Their experience convinced them that if this part of the work
were to be done as well as it could be done, it was advisable to have
the illustrations prepared on a uniform system by a highly skilled
artist or artists specially commissioned for the purpose. They were so
fortunate as to interest in their work Her Majesty the Queen (then Her
Royal Highness the Princess of Wales), and through her powerful and
gracious support, and that of Lady Dudley and a Committee of ladies who
were good enough to collect a sum of nearly £4,000 for the purpose, they
have been able to make a beginning of a work which will take some years
to complete. The Committee desire to record their warm gratitude to Her
Majesty, to Lady Dudley, and to the Committee of ladies for making this
part of the undertaking possible.

The lectures contained in the present little volume are the first
instalment of the work undertaken in connection with the Queen’s Fund.
The Committee’s artist, Mr. A. Hugh Fisher, has travelled through India
collecting material for the illustrative lantern slides. His sketches
and photographs have been reproduced partly by the ordinary process in
black and white, and partly by the Sanger Shepherd method in colour
photography. Some of the slides have been coloured by hand after Mr.
Fisher’s instructions. A series of maps has also been included, in order
that the lessons of the lectures may be driven home.

The text of the lectures has been prepared at the request of the
Committee by Mr. H. J. Mackinder, who has based his work on information
placed at his disposal from many sources. The Committee believe that he
has succeeded in presenting in their relative importance and proportion
all the chief facts essential to the popular understanding of His
Majesty’s Indian Dominions. It is, of course, obvious that no account
confined within the narrow limits of the present lectures, of so wide
and varied an Empire as that of India, can give a completely accurate
picture of all the many important facts and questions that are referred
to; but in order to reduce to a minimum the chance of giving misleading
impressions, Mr. Mackinder has had the advantage of suggestions from
several eminent authorities on the subject, and in this connection the
Committee desire especially to thank Sir Walter Lawrence, Sir William
Lee-Warner, Sir Theodore Morison, Sir Thomas Holdich, Sir William
Bisset, Sir Philip Hutchins, Mr. G. W. Forrest, C.I.E., and others.

                                                                  MEATH,
                                                  Chairman of the Visual
                                                   Instruction Committee

 LONDON,

    August, 1910.

      Publications of the Visual Instruction Committee, issued on
        behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Waterlow & Sons Ltd.

=A.= Seven Lectures on the United Kingdom,

                        By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.
                      In the following Editions:—

    =1. Eastern Colonies Edition, Sept., 1905.=

        In use in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong.

    =2. Mauritius Edition, June, 1906.=

        In use in Mauritius.

    =3. West African Edition, Sept., 1906.=

        In use in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Southern Nigeria.

    =4. West India Edition, Sept., 1906.=

        In use in Trinidad, British Guiana, and Jamaica.

    =5. Indian Edition, March, 1907.=

        In use in the following Provinces:—Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the
            United Provinces, the Punjab, Burma, Eastern Bengal and
            Assam, the Central Provinces, the North West Frontier
            Province, and British Baluchistan.

    =6. Indian Edition for use in the United Kingdom, Jan., 1909.= Price
        One Shilling net.

        =Canadian and South African Editions are being prepared by
    direction of the Governments of the Dominion of Canada and of South
    Africa.=

=B.=—Eight Lectures on India. August, 1910.

                        By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.

                        Price One Shilling net.

                               CONTENTS.

                                  ---

                                                        PAGE.

           LECTURE  I.  —Madras—the Hindu Religion          1

           LECTURE II.  —Burma—the Buddhist Religion       19

           LECTURE III. —Bengal—the Monsoons               35

           LECTURE IV.  —The United Provinces—the          51
                          Mutiny

           LECTURE V.   —Bombay—the Marathas               66

           LECTURE VI.  —Rajputana—the Feudatory           82
                          States

           LECTURE VII. —Delhi-the Muhammadan Religion     95

           LECTURE      —The Northwest Frontier—the       114
           VIII.          Sikhs

      NOTE.—It is considered undesirable to overload this book
      with footnotes, and, therefore, this general acknowledgment
      is made of the indebtedness of the writer to various
      standard authors of whose works use has been made and
      quotations from which have in some cases been given.

                               LECTURE I.

                                  ---

                               =MADRAS.=

                                  ---

                          THE HINDU RELIGION.

India is an empire within an empire. There are four hundred million
people in the British Empire, and of these three hundred million are in
India. Though it is known by a single short name, India must not be
compared with countries such as France and Germany. As regards both area
and population it is the equal of half Europe, that half which includes
all the countries except Russia. It is a land of many languages, some of
them spoken by as many people as speak German or French. It is a land of
several religions, differing more deeply than the sects of Europe It is,
in short, a world in itself, of ancient civilisation, yet as the result
of a wonderful modern history there is to-day peace from end to end of
it, for though the systems of government are very different in different
parts, yet everywhere the rulers, whether British officials or native
princes, acknowledge the sovereignty or the suzerainty of His Imperial
Majesty King George the Fifth.

[Sidenote: 1.
Map of Journey, London to Colombo.] India lies one quarter way round the
globe, or ninety degrees eastward from Britain. It is placed wholly in
warmer latitudes than Europe, for the northernmost point of India is
almost precisely in the latitude of the southernmost point of Europe. It
occupies the same latitudes as the great western wing of Africa. If
lifted bodily northward and placed upon the map of Europe, it would
extend from Gibraltar, past Spain, France, and Britain to a point beyond
the Shetland Isles.

The British Empire in India was won, organised, and defended in the days
before steam. Access to it was possible only by sailing ship round the
Cape of Good Hope, by an ocean path, that is to say, more than ten
thousand miles long. The voyage took several months. To-day the British
official, and soldier, and merchant go from London to Bombay, and the
Indian student comes from Bombay to London in a fortnight. As we see on
the map, the route is by rail to Dover, across the Straits of Dover, and
by rail again through France to Marseilles. There the traveller joins
the steamer which has carried a cargo, probably of cottons and
machinery, through the Bay of Biscay. From Marseilles the track is
through the two Straits of Bonifacio and Messina to the entry of the
Suez Canal at Port Said. Here the mails are put on board, which have
come through the Italian peninsula to Brindisi, and thence by rapid
steamer. Thus it is only from Port Said through the Canal and the Red
Sea to Aden that the vessel carries her complete burden—mails and
passengers, and cargo. The redistribution commences at Aden. Our steamer
happens to be bound, not for Bombay, but for Colombo and Australia, and
the Indian mails and passengers are transferred at Aden to a local
steamer, which crosses to Bombay.

From London to Colombo and Bombay is the naval high street of the
British Empire. At Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden, where the waterways
narrow and enemies might obstruct, are British garrisons and naval
stations. Even the Suez Canal is partly owned by the British Government.
A generation ago shares in that great undertaking were purchased by the
United Kingdom for four million pounds sterling. To-day the British
shares in the Canal are valued at more than thirty millions sterling,
and each year a profit of more than a million pounds is paid into the
British Exchequer. There is a garrison of British troops also in Egypt.

Colombo is one of the chief centres of communication in the world. Some
day, when the Dominions beyond the seas have grown to be as rich and as
populous as Britain herself, the way through the Mediterranean, to-day
all important, will be reckoned as one of several equal threads of
imperial power. Other great streams of traffic, India-bound, will then
converge upon Colombo from the Cape in the southwest, from Australia in
the southeast, and by way of Singapore from Canada in the east.

[Sidenote: 2.
Map of the Indian Seas.] Colombo is, however, not in the technical sense
Indian. It is the chief city of the beautiful island of Ceylon, which is
about as large as Ireland. The Governor of Ceylon writes his despatches
home not to the Secretary of State for India but to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, for Ceylon is a Crown Colony, not a Province of
the Indian Empire. We will, therefore, leave Ceylon to be studied at
some other opportunity, and will take the steamer which in a night
crosses the Gulf of Manar to Tuticorin, on the Indian coast opposite.

As we lie in our bunks that night, while the ship ploughs the water in
the dark, let us realize to what point on the vast surface of the globe
we have travelled. A hundred miles away to east of us are the mountains
of Ceylon, rising some eight thousand feet above the level of the ocean.
A hundred miles to west is Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of
India, lying eight degrees north of the Equator. Let us not be deceived
by the apparent smallness of space on the maps which we use—those eight
degrees are nearly equivalent to the length of Great Britain.

From Cape Comorin two coasts diverge, the one known as the Malabar Coast
northwestward for a thousand miles, the other known as the Coromandel
Coast northward and then northeastward for a like distance. The surf of
the Arabian Sea beats on the Malabar Coast, that of the Bay of Bengal on
the Coromandel Coast. Both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal open
broadly southward to the Indian Ocean, for the great Indian Peninsula
narrows between them to a sharp point at Cape Comorin.

[Sidenote: 3.
Map of Southern India.] The interior of the Indian Peninsula is for the
most part a low plateau, known as the Deccan, whose western margin forms
a steep brink overlooking the Malabar Coast. From the top of this brink,
called the Western Ghats, the surface of the plateau falls gently
eastward to a second lower brink, which bears the name of Eastern Ghats.
Between the Eastern Ghats, however, and the Coromandel Coast there is a
broad belt of low-lying plain, the Carnatic. Thus India presents a lofty
front to the ship approaching from the west, but a featureless plain
along the Bay of Bengal, where the trees of the coastline appear to rise
out of a water-horizon when seen from a short distance seaward.

[Sidenote: 4.
Approaching Tuticorin.] We wake at the dawn of the equatorial day which
comes almost suddenly at six in the morning. There is bustle on board,
for the launch is alongside which is to carry us ashore. The ship is
riding in a yellow, turbid sea, and the land is distant some miles to
the west, a low dark line along the horizon. At one point are white
buildings, which gleam in the increasing light. We cross the broad
shoal, and gradually the detail of the coast separates into a rich
vegetation of trees, and a city whose most prominent object is a cotton
factory with tall chimneys—strange reminder at the very threshold of our
journey that we are entering a land which is in process of economic
change. The United Kingdom underwent such a change a century ago, when
spinning and weaving were removed from the cottage to the steam-driven
factory.

[Sidenote: 5.
Nearer approach to Tuticorin.] India is a land of cotton. The very name
calico is derived from Calicut, a town on the Malabar Coast, which was a
centre of trade when Europeans first came over the ocean. Lancashire now
sends cotton fabrics to India, and the Lancashire power-looms compete
seriously with the finer work of the hand looms of India. But India
manufactures great quantities of her own coarser cottons, and such a
mill as this at Tuticorin is doing more than Lancashire to change the
occupations of the Indian people. The beautiful silks, however, worn by
the better-to-do women of India are still manufactured by hand loom.

[Sidenote: 6.
Landing at Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 7.
The Bazaar, Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 8.
Spinning Mill at Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 9.
Ducks at Tuticorin.] We land. Dark gesticulating figures surround us,
scantily clad in white cotton. The morning sun casts long shadows, but
there is a throng of people, for the work of India is done in the cool
of the morning. The express train to Madras is waiting, but we have a
short time for that first stroll, which leaves so deep an impression on
the traveller setting foot in a new land. Tuticorin is a remote
provincial city, a Dover or a Calais, on the passage from Ceylon. Here
is a picture of its little bazaar with dark people in flowing white
robes; there is a country cart in the street—ox-drawn. Next we have a
nearer view of the spinning mill with a half-naked workman in the
foreground. Under the shade of these leafy trees is a flock of ducks for
sale. At every turn we see something characteristic, and must ask
questions.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] We leave Tuticorin and travel for a
hundred miles across the plain. It is a barren-looking country and dry,
though at certain seasons there is plentiful rain, and crops enough are
produced to maintain a fairly dense population. Far down on the western
horizon, as we journey northward, are the mountains of the Malabar
Coast, for in this extremity of India the Western and Eastern Ghats have
come together and there is no plateau between them. The mountains rise
from the western sea and from the eastern plain into a ridge along the
west coast whose summits are about as high as the summits of Ceylon,
that is to say some 8,000 feet. A group of small hills, isolated on the
plain, marks the position of Madura, a hundred miles from Tuticorin.
Madura is the seat of one of the finest temples in the land.

[Sidenote: 10.
Plan of a South Indian Temple.] A Hindu temple in Southern India usually
consists of a square building rising through several stories which grow
gradually smaller. It is thus pyramidal in form, and is adorned with
tiers of thronged sculpture. Within is a cell containing the image. The
temple itself is surrounded by square and walled enclosures, one without
the other; the great gateways through the successive walls are the chief
glories of southern architecture. Though often larger than the central
shrine, they are not unlike it in general appearance, but rectangular in
plan, not square. They rise story above story to a summit ridge and are
rich with thousands of sculptured figures. These great gateways are
known as gopuras. In the courtyards enclosed between the successive
walls are the homes of the priests, and usually a large water tank and a
hall of a thousand columns. Some of these temples are very wealthy
foundations.

[Sidenote: 11.
The Tank of the Golden Lilies, The Temple, Madura.] [Sidenote: 12.
The Temple, Madura.] [Sidenote: 13.
A Gopura at Madura.] Here we have the tank of the Golden Lilies in the
Temple of Madura, surrounded by a colonnade, with gopuras rising from
beyond; and here another view in the same temple, and here a gopura
photographed from near.

Hinduism is in its essence a spiritual religion. Western thought
instinctively takes for granted the reality of outward things. Eastern
thought instinctively takes for granted the reality of the “soul” or
inward life. In the cosmology of the West there are two worlds, the
natural and the supernatural; in the East the soul is the only real
existence. The world-soul, or soul of Universal Nature, is God, and this
Divine Soul is the supreme and fundamental reality; by comparison with
it all outward things are shadows. Eternity is a vital aspect of
reality. The present existence of the soul is not more certain than its
pre-existence and its future existence. The present life is always brief
and fleeting, but the past began and the future will end in eternity.
Issuing from the Universal Soul and passing through æons of what may be
called prenatal existence, the soul at last becomes individualised and
enters on a career of conscious activity. Far from being dependent on
the body, the soul takes to itself the outward form which it needs and
deserves, and the body dies when it is deprived of the vitalising
presence that animated it. The destiny of the soul is determined by its
origin. It issued from the Universal Soul, and into the Universal Soul,
its source, it must eventually be re-absorbed, though it may pass
through innumerable lives on its way to the goal of spiritual maturity.
“As it nears the goal the chains of individuality relax their hold upon
it; and at last, with the final extinction of egoism, with the final
triumph of selflessness, with the expansion of consciousness till it has
become all-embracing—the sense of separateness entirely ceases, and the
soul finds its true self, or, in other words, becomes fully and clearly
conscious of its oneness with the living whole.” Such, in a few words,
is the inner faith of the East.

The religious books of India are written in Sanskrit, the tongue of
Aryan conquerors who came into India across the northwestern mountains
nearly two thousand years before Christ. The Aryans brought with them
the worship of the powers of nature, the “devas,” or bright ones. From
the Rig-Veda, or collection of hymns to various gods, which were
composed for the worship of the Aryans during the earliest centuries of
their dwelling in India, we learn something about these deities. Some
were simply forces of nature, such as Father Heaven, Mother Earth, the
Dawn Goddess, the Sun God, and the Wind God. With other deities new
trains of ideas became connected that tended to obscure their original
character. The Fire God, for instance, personified the fire of sacrifice
and domestic use, the atmospheric fire of lightning, and sometimes even
the sun. Thus he became the priest, mediating between man and the gods.
Similarly Varuna, who at first apparently typified the open sky, whose
eye is the sun, subsequently grew into a mighty guardian of the laws of
nature and morality. This earliest age of Hinduism, the age to which the
Rig-Veda belongs, is known as the Vedic Age, and the gods of this age
were worshipped with sacrifice. In the Vedic period Aryan society
probably divided itself into the soldier-yeoman and the priest. The
soldier and yeoman, desirous of winning the goodwill and active
assistance of the gods of the sky and earth, would hire the priest, who
thus came to be regarded as the master of the rites which cajole or
constrain the invisible powers. As the Aryans extended their sway over
India, the influence of the Brahmans or priests increased, and in their
hands religion underwent a profound change. Personal worship gave way to
ecclesiastical ritualism. The idea of sacrifice as a means of compelling
the gods grew to an enormous degree, and the welfare of the world was
imagined to depend upon ritual, the key to which was in the hands of the
Brahmans.

There was, however, another side to this religious development. Even in
the Vedic Age, while the popular mind was imagining a deity in every
startling natural phenomenon, there were thinkers who discovered behind
all the “devas,” or gods, the one Supreme Power, the Creator, Ruler, and
Preserver of all things, the Divine Soul of which we spoke just now.
This Supreme Power, who became known as Brahma, is not only the real
self of the whole Universe, but also, as we have seen, the real self of
each individual soul. The one Supreme Power could, however, only be
discovered after a severe moral and intellectual discipline, and those
who had not yet discovered it were allowed to worship lower gods. In one
of the Hindu Scriptures the Supreme Lord is represented as saying: “Even
those who worship idols worship me.” No one can have any conception of
Hinduism unless he realises that throughout it there runs a wide
distinction between the popular faith and the philosophical faith which
underlies it. This distinction continues to this day. Countless gods are
still worshipped in India, but the few still hold and always have held
that all gods to whom worship is offered are but names or masks of the
Supreme Lord of the Universe.

The two principal gods of Modern Hinduism are Vishnu, the Preserver, and
Siva, the Destroyer and Recreator; but they are worshipped under many
different attributes. These two gods came into prominence after the
Vedic Age, and their cults have passed through many phases; but a large
number of Hindus still belong to sects which are called by their names.
The sect to which a Hindu belongs is indicated by a coloured mark,
erroneously described as a caste mark, made on the forehead. Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva are sometimes regarded as three persons of a Trinity.

Animals are still sacrificed in certain parts of India, and in honour of
certain gods, but the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and the
teaching of various religious reformers, of whom Buddha is best known,
has tended in the direction of humanity to all creatures; and the great
majority of Hindus are unwilling to take life, and abstain from animal
food. The cow is to all Hindus an object of veneration.

An elaborate mythology is connected with the Hindu religion, and the
incidents of this mythology form the basis of Hindu sacred art,
especially of the rich sculpture of the temples. Siva rides Nandi the
Bull, and Vishnu rides Garuda the Eagle. Vishnu in some of his avatars,
or incarnations, takes the form of a fish or of a man-lion, or for vast
numbers of his followers he becomes Rama, the hero of the epic poem the
Ramayana, or he is Krishna—another hero-God. Siva has a wife Kali, who
is terrible, though at other times she is Parvati, the goddess of
beauty; and Siva has sons, of whom one is Ganesh, with a fat human body
and an elephant’s head.

[Sidenote: 14.
A Marriage Procession, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 15.
A Group of Brahmans.] Religion goes deep into the life of the Indian. It
governs all his social relations. Here is a street at Trichinopoly, a
hundred miles north of Madura. There happens to be the spire of a
Christian church in the background. In the foreground is a temple
elephant, heading a marriage procession. In white paint on the
elephant’s head is the sect mark of the contracting parties. The Hindu
community is divided not only in sects but also into castes, which are
sternly separated, so that a man may not marry into another caste, or
even eat with those of a lower caste. The tradition is that originally
there were four castes; first the Brahmans, or priestly stock; then the
Kshattriyas, or soldiers, the royal stock; third, the Vaishiyas, or
merchants; and fourth, the Sudras, or artisans, labourers and
agriculturists. But all these castes became sub-divided, and there are
now more castes than callings.

[Sidenote: 16.
Processional Car, Trichinopoly.] A curious characteristic of Hinduism is
the mixture of the squalid and crude with the grandeur of an
architecture which in some respects is unsurpassed in the world. Not
merely are the maimed and the beggars importunate in the temple
passages, as in the church entries of Roman Catholic countries, but in
every vacant corner of the outer courts of the temples are established
little tradesmen. The properties of religious ceremony are often
decrepit and tawdry. Here, for instance, we have a wooden processional
car, rough roofed, awaiting the annual ceremony amid the live-stock of
the yard. These warm-natured Southern people have the child’s power of
making believe, and can worship the doll even when battered out of all
recognition. They easily let loose the imagination and give devotion to
the spirit embodied in a shapeless stone as sincerely as to that in the
most finished allegorical sculpture.

[Sidenote: 17.
Arch of Welcome to Prince of Wales, Trichinopoly.] It is this sense of
the spiritual and the allegorical in all things that makes the Indian so
ready for loyal devotion to the person of the ruler. Here at
Trichinopoly we have a triumphal gateway erected in honour of the visit
to India of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which still bears the
words “Glorious Welcome to our Future Emperor.” The Prince and Princess
are now the Emperor and Empress. With us the gateway would have been
demolished when it had served its immediate purpose. Here it remains, as
does the memory of the visit. Ceremony rises in India to the rank of an
historical event.

[Sidenote: 18.
The Main Bazaar Street, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 19.
The Tank and the Rock, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 20.
The Same—another view.] [Sidenote: 21.
The Rock temple, Trichinopoly.] In the distance through the archway is
the Rock of Trichinopoly which we approach nearer by the main bazaar of
the town, and then, nearer still, we come to the tank which lies beneath
the Rock. Amid the water is a pagoda or shrine. In the foot of the Rock
itself there is excavated a temple. Such rock temples are frequent in
India, perhaps because rock is less costly to carve where it lies
undisturbed than it is to quarry and to remove and to build and to
carve.

[Sidenote: 22.
Trichinopoly, looking east from the top of the Rock.] [Sidenote: 23.
Trichinopoly, looking south from the top of the Rock.] [Sidenote: 24.
The Bull Nandi, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 25.
The Fort, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 26.
The Temple, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 27.
Police drilling on the Maidan, Tanjore.]

Here we have views from the summit of the Trichinopoly Rock, looking
eastward over the city, and then southward over the roof of the great
temple to the tank and the Christian Church. Bishop Heber died at
Trichinopoly. In each aspect we see the unbroken plain which surrounds
the City. Do you notice the Bull Nandi as an ornament along the edge of
the roof of the temple? Here we have him again carved from a great block
of granite at Tanjore, a place not far from Trichinopoly. Other scenes
at Tanjore follow. One shows us the wall of the Fort with the moat
outside, and the gopura of the Great Temple. Another is a vista within
the temple walls, and gives some idea of the great spaces which the
larger temples occupy. Then suddenly we become conscious of one of the
sharp contrasts which characterise the India of to-day. These are Police
drilling on the Maidan, or public place of Tanjore, and away on the
horizon are the semaphores of the railway.

In the plain of the Carnatic, which surrounds Madura, Trichinopoly, and
Tanjore, we are not merely in the midst of the Hindu religion and caste
system, but we are also near scenes rendered memorable by the struggle
for India, a hundred and fifty years ago, between the French and the
English. Two trading companies, the one seated in London and the other
in Paris, obtained leave from the local princes to establish trading
posts on the Coromandel Coast. They presently fortified these posts and
became ambitious rivals.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] At this time there was a disputed
succession in the Carnatic State, and the English supported one aspirant
for the throne of the Nawab, the French another. The Nawab of the
English party was besieged in the Fort of Trichinopoly by the French and
their Nawab. To effect a diversion, a young Captain, Robert Clive, in
the British company’s service, seized the Fort of Arcot, a hundred miles
to the north, and by a prolonged heroic resistance to the siege which
gathered round him, succeeded in relieving the pressure on Trichinopoly.
That Captain Clive became Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey, the founder of
the British Empire in India. He went out as a writer or clerk in the
service of the East India Company, and rose to be Governor of Bengal.

It must be remembered, however, that in the time of Clive, no less than
to-day, the number of the British in India was surprisingly small. As we
saw just now, the Police, a great force, are not British but Indian, and
the Indian army, though with British officers, is twice as numerous as
the British garrison. The British have organised the peace and unity of
India, rather than conquered it in the ordinary sense.

The life of the white man in India is governed by the seasons. Here in
the south the temperature is at all times high, though the heat is never
so great as in the hot season of northern India. On the other hand there
is no cool season comparable with that of the north. In most parts of
India, however, there are five cool months, October, November, December,
January, and February. March, April, and May are the hot season. The
remaining four months constitute the rainy season, when the temperature
is moderated by the presence of cloud, but the moisture is trying to the
European constitution.

[Sidenote: 28.
The Nilgiris, near Ootacamund.] In all parts of India the white
population seeks periodical relief by a visit to the hills. Here in the
south the favourite hill station is Ootacamund, in the Nilgiri Hills. It
is scattered over a wide space, with the bungalows in separate compounds
or enclosures.

[Sidenote: 29.
Ootacamund, The Bazaar.] [Sidenote: 30.
Ootacamund, General View.] [Sidenote: 31.
Ootacamund.] [Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] “Ooty,” as it is familiarly
called, stands some seven thousand feet above the sea in the midst of a
country of rolling downs rising yet another thousand feet. This lofty
district forms the southern point of the Deccan plateau where the
Eastern and Western Ghats draw together. A deep passage, twenty miles
broad, known as the gap of Coimbatore or of Palghat, lies through the
Ghats, immediately south of the Nilgiri Hills, from the eastern plain to
the Malabar Coast. Other hills, equally high, lie southward of the gap
and extend to Cape Comorin. We saw these last hills to our left hand as
we travelled northward from Tuticorin to Madura.

[Sidenote: 32.
On the Railway to Ootacamund.] [Sidenote: 33.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 34.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 35.
The Same.] The railway from the east coast goes through the Gap of
Coimbatore to the Malabar cities of Cochin and Calicut, and from this
railway a mountain line has been constructed up into the Nilgiri
heights. We have here a succession of striking views on this mountain
line. It is a rack and pinion railway, up which the train is worked on
the central rail.

[Sidenote: 36.
The Drug in the Nilgiri Hills.] There are magnificent landscapes at the
edge of the Nilgiris, where the mountains descend abruptly to the
plains. This view was taken from a point called Lady Canning’s seat. It
shows the Drug, from the top of which prisoners of war used to be
thrown, in the days of the tyranny of Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan, the
Mohammedan sovereigns of Mysore, of whom we shall hear more presently.

[Sidenote: 37.
Tea Plantation, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 38.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 39.
Hill Tribe, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 40.
Toda People, near Ootacamund.] The vegetation of the heights is
naturally different from that of the lowlands, and the cultivation of
the Nilgiris is chiefly tea and cinchona, from the latter of which crops
quinine is prepared. Amid the great forests of the slopes large game is
numerous, such as sambur, or Indian elk, and tiger. Here also tribes of
savage peoples have survived through all the centuries of history
practically untouched by the civilization of the plains. One of these
tribes, the smallest but the most interesting, are the Todas, who number
less than a thousand, but have their own strange, unwritten language.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] [Sidenote: 41.
Madras from the Sea.] [Sidenote: 42.
The High Court, Madras.] [Sidenote: 43.
St. Mary’s Church, Madras.] [Sidenote: 44.
The Law College, Madras.] [Sidenote: 45.
Y.M.C.A. Building, Madras.] Northward of the group of temple cities, and
eastward of the Nilgiris and of the plateau country of Mysore, on the
low coastal plain is the great city of Madras, four hundred miles from
our landing place at Tuticorin. Like the other seaports of modern India,
Madras has grown from the smallest beginning within the European period.
Its nucleus was Fort St. George, built to shelter the office and
warehouse of the East India Company, in the time when Charles I. was
king of England. To-day Madras has half a million people, and
magnificent buildings in the European style. We have here a view looking
northeastward over a corner of Fort St. George, and across the public
grounds, to the High Court of Justice, whose lofty tower serves the
purpose of a lighthouse for ships approaching the port. To the right of
the High Court in the distance are the buildings round the harbour. Next
we have St. Mary’s Church, standing within Fort St. George, the oldest
British church in India, though the present structure was erected to
replace an earlier church. And here we have the Law College, which
stands beside the High Court, and close to it the building of the Young
Men’s Christian Association. There are many Christians in southern India
among the natives, indeed more than in any other part of the Indian
Empire, although even here they are but a small minority. One Christian
community on the Malabar coast is of the Nestorian sect, who came to
India many centuries before the sea route was opened round the Cape.

[Sidenote: 46.
Madras Bank.] [Sidenote: 47.
The People’s Park, Madras.] [Sidenote: 48.
Banyan Tree.] [Sidenote: 49.
The Same.] Madras has a Corporation much after the European plan, and is
a clean, well drained city with many public amenities. Here, for
instance, is the electric tramway in front of the Madras Bank. Here we
have a view in the People’s Park, with a group of sambur within an
enclosure. One of the most remarkable and typical of ornamental trees in
India is the banyan, with drooping branches, whose suckers take root
when reach the ground, giving the effect of a grove, though in fact but
a single tree.

[Sidenote: 50.
Banyan Avenue.] Here is a banyan tree seen from without and from within,
and here a banyan avenue at Madras.

[Sidenote: 51.
Grain Sellers, Madras.] [Sidenote: 52.
Men ploughing, Madras.] [Sidenote: 53.
Covered Bullock Cart, Madras.] Before leaving Madras, let us look at
three scenes of native life. Here are grain sellers, and here, outside
the city, are men ploughing. Here we see the typical covered bullock
cart.

[Sidenote: 54.
Map of India, distinguishing Madras, Mysore, Cochin, and Travancore.]
[Sidenote: 55.
Coffee Planters, Coorg.] Lastly, let us consider the map, and learn what
part of India is ruled from Madras and Ootacamund. We have in the first
place, coloured red, the territory of the Presidency of Madras, which is
ruled directly by the Governor and his Council. In purple are shown the
important native state of Mysore, separated from both coasts by British
territory, and the two little native states of Travancore and Cochin
along the Malabar Coast southward to Cape Comorin. Mysore is directly
under the general supervision of the Government of India, but Travancore
and Cochin are under that of the Government of Madras. Beside Mysore is
the diminutive territory of Coorg, no larger than the County of Essex,
in England. But Coorg has a certain importance for the growth of coffee.
Here we have a group of native coffee planters.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] Then we look again at the map in which the
lowlands were shown green and the uplands brown. We see the plain from
Tuticorin to Madras city. We see the southern end of the Deccan plateau,
with the state of Mysore upon it, and the Nilgiri hills at its
extremity. We have the lowland passage of Coimbatore, to which we
referred in describing Ootacamund, and south of this afresh the hills
extending to Cape Comorin. The native states of Cochin and Travancore
are on the westward descent from these southernmost hills. Note again
how the railways take advantage of the lowland passages, especially the
line from Madras leading westward to the Malabar Coast.

The Cauvery flowing eastward over the plateau is the most considerable
river of Southern India. As it descends the Eastern Ghats it makes great
falls, and these have been harnessed, as the phrase is, and made to
supply power which is carried electrically for nearly a hundred miles to
the Kolar goldfield, within the Mysore boundary. The engineer who
superintended the construction of this work was a French Canadian
officer of the Royal Engineers—interesting evidence of the increasing
solidarity of the British Empire.

Bangalore is the chief military station of southern India. It is
connected by rail with Madras, but is situated on the plateau within
Mysore. From Bangalore the line runs on to Seringapatam on the Cauvery,
and to Mysore city beyond. These were the seats of the Muhammadan
Sultans, Hyder Ali and Tippu, father and son, who, a generation later
than the time when Clive fought at Arcot, held Madras in terror from
their highland fastness. The threat to the British position in India was
a real one. Hyder Ali leagued himself with the French, with whom we were
then at war, but he was defeated under the great Governor-General,
Warren Hastings. Tippu, Hyder’s son, was also an ally of the French. He
lived into the time of Napoleon, and made his chief attack on British
power when the French were in Egypt, but he was defeated and killed.
Colonel Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, first rose to notice
in this campaign. He was appointed to command “the troops above the
Ghats.” After the death of Tippu, the civil administration of Mysore was
also assigned to Wellesley, and splendid work he did as civil
administrator.

[Sidenote: 56.
Southern India, showing rainfall of S.W. Monsoon.] [Sidenote: 57.
Pykara Falls, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 58.
Gairsoppa Falls.] A third map shows you the rainfall which is brought by
the west winds of the summer time to the Malabar Coast. These winds
strike the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri hills and drench them with
superabundant moisture, so that they are thickly forested. At this
season magnificent waterfalls leap down the westward ravines and feed
torrents which rush in short valleys to the ocean. One of the grandest
falls in the world is at Gairsoppa, in the northwestern corner of the
state of Mysore.

[Sidenote: 59.
Southern India, showing rainfall of N.E. Monsoon.] [Sidenote: 60.
Southern India, showing density of Population.] A fourth map indicates
the rainfall on the east coast brought by the Northeast Monsoon of the
winter season. Finally, a fifth map shows that the population is densest
down on the lowlands precisely in those regions, on the east coast and
on the west, which are best supplied with moisture. Throughout India the
supply of water for agricultural purposes is the key to the prosperity
of the country, for everywhere there is heat enough for luxuriant
vegetation. It is only drought which is in places the cause of
sterility. With all its vast population there are none the less great
spaces in India very sparsely peopled. Once more let us remember that
India is rather a continent than merely a country.

                              LECTURE II.

                                  ---

                                =BURMA.=

                                  ---

                         THE BUDDHIST RELIGION.

[Sidenote: 1.
Map of India, distinguishing Burma.] In the last lecture we visited
Madras, the southernmost and oldest province of the Indian Empire. In
this lecture we will cross the Bay of Bengal from Madras to Burma, the
easternmost and newest of the provinces, if we except a recent
sub-division of an older unit. Politically, Burma is a part of India,
for it is ruled by the Viceroy, and commercially it is coming every day
into closer relation with the remainder of India. In most other
respects, however, Burma is rather the first land of the Far East than
the last of India, the Middle East. In race and language probably, in
religion and social customs certainly, it is nearer to China than to
India. Geographically, however, though placed in the Indo-Chinese
peninsula beyond the Bay of Bengal, Burma is in relation with the Indian
world, for it has a great navigable river which drains into the Indian
Ocean, and not into the Pacific as do the rivers of Siam and Annam, the
remaining countries of the southeastward promontory of Asia.

[Sidenote: 2.
The Shore, Madras.] [Sidenote: 3.
In Madras Harbour.] We embark from Madras on the steamer which is to
carry us to Rangoon. Formerly it was necessary to go out to the vessel
through the surf in specially constructed boats, for all the Coromandel
Coast is shoal, and there is not a single natural harbour. Often the
surf is very rough. Now, however, a harbour has been made at Madras. Two
piers have been built out into the sea at right angles to the shore.
They may be seen in the distance in this view. At their extremities they
bend inward towards one another, so as to enclose a quadrangular space
within which the steamers lie. None the less there are times when the
mighty waves sweep through the open mouth, rendering the harbour unsafe,
so that the shipping must stand out to sea. There have been many
terrible disasters in the cyclones which from time to time strike the
east coast of India. When the Madras harbour was half completed the
works were overwhelmed by a storm and the undertaking had to be
recommenced.

[Sidenote: 4.
Coolies on Steamer.] Our vessel carries nearly two thousand coolies,
natives of Madras, going to Burma to work in the rice mills or on the
wharves, for Burma is a thinly peopled land. It has great natural
resources, which are being rapidly developed by British capital. The
coolies take passage as deck passengers for a few rupees, and each on
landing at Rangoon has to undergo a searching medical examination,
because the Plague is often carried from Madras to Burma. The disease
manifests itself first by swollen glands, especially under the arms. The
contagion, caused by a minute organism, is conveyed by rats. This
terrible sickness is one of the worst scourges of modern India. It first
broke out in Bombay in August, 1896. Since that date there have been
three years in each of which a million deaths were due to it. As time
goes on the mortality will probably decrease, for the first onslaught of
a new disease is generally deadly. We must beware, however, of
exaggerating its significance. There are three hundred million people in
the Indian Empire, and the death rate by plague, even at its maximum, is
therefore not very high. It is, indeed, low as compared with the death
rate by malarial fever.

[Sidenote: 5.
Chinese Junk in the Rangoon River.] After a probably rough passage, we
approach the low-lying shore of the great delta of the Irawaddy river,
and enter that branch of it which is known as the Rangoon river. A stray
Chinese junk reminds us of the fact that we are entering Indo-China, and
of the trade relations of Burma with Singapore and the regions of the
Far East. Burmese rice is sent to China, the Malay States, India, East
Africa, and Europe. Rangoon depends for her commerce mainly on the rice
harvest. In recent years, famines in India have been mitigated by rice
exported from Rangoon.

[Sidenote: 6.
Map of Burma.] As we steam up the river for some miles inland, let us
consider, with the help of a map, the main features of the geography of
the land which we are about to visit. In this map is shown nearly the
whole of the great southeastward peninsula of Asia. The areas which are
coloured green are lowland, those which are yellow are upland, and the
brown signifies highland and mountain. A ridge of highland, broken only
at two or three points, runs southward through the centre of the map,
separating Burma and the river basins of the Indian Ocean from Siam and
the river basins of the Pacific Ocean. This great divide of the drainage
is continued beyond the southern edge of the map through the Malay
Peninsula for some distance. It ends near Singapore in the southernmost
point of Asia, only one degree north of the Equator.

In Burma, parallel with the dividing range, are three other ridges,
striking southward side by side. These separate three valleys, through
which flow severally the Salween, Sittang, and Irawaddy rivers. The
valley of the Salween, as the yellow and brown colours upon the map
indicate, is less deeply trenched between its bounding ranges than are
the other two valleys. As we should therefore expect, the Salween river
has a steeply descending course broken by rapids, and is of small value
for navigation. At its mouth is the port of Moulmein. The valley of the
Sittang, which is a short river, prolongs the upper valley of the
Irawaddy, which latter river makes a great westward bend at Mandalay,
and passes by a transverse passage right through one of the parallel
mountain ridges. Beyond this passage it bends southward again, accepting
the direction of its tributary, the Chindwin river. The great port of
Rangoon is placed on a tidal channel at the eastern edge of the Irawaddy
delta. The railway from Rangoon to Mandalay runs through the Sittang
valley and does not follow the Irawaddy. There is navigation, however,
by the Irawaddy past Pagan and Mandalay northward to Bhamo, which is
close to the Chinese frontier. The coastal plain of Burma is known as
Arakan where it runs northward from the Irawaddy delta, and as
Tenasserim where it runs southward from that delta along a coast beset
with an archipelago of beautiful islands. The delta itself bears the
name of Pegu, or Lower Burma; while the region round Mandalay is Upper
Burma.

[Sidenote: 7.
Plan of Rangoon.] We are in the Rangoon river. A tall, pointed pagoda
appears on a hill to the right, and presently, as the channel bends to
the west, we approach the busy commercial front of Rangoon city,
surmounted by the golden spire of the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

[Sidenote: 8.
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, from across the Royal Lakes.] [Sidenote: 9.
The Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon.] [Sidenote: 10.
Images of the Sitting Buddha.] [Sidenote: 11.
Earning Merit at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda.] Rangoon, apart from its chief
Pagoda, is a modern city. Fifty years ago it was a village. To-day it
has a quarter of a million people. A wharf-fronted road, the Strand,
follows the shore of the main river for several miles. Up the Pegu
tributary to the east for several other miles are many rice mills with
tall chimneys throwing out black smoke. The harbour is busy with
shipping. There are great timber yards, and there are oil mills, for the
products of Burma are, first and foremost, rice, and then timber,
especially great logs of teak—harder than oak, and then petroleum. Back
from the Strand is a well kept town, with broad streets at right angles,
though as yet there are few really impressive buildings to compare with
the public buildings of Madras. There is a beautiful group of lakes, the
Royal Lakes, set in wooded public grounds, and across these is the
finest view of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, like a great hand-bell placed on a
low hill. This pagoda is said to be the most frequented in the Buddhist
world, for it has as relics eight hairs of Gautama, the founder of the
Buddhist religion. It began some two thousand years ago as a small
village fane. In successive ages the original structure has been encased
afresh and afresh, until as the result of work done in the days of Queen
Elizabeth, the great pagoda was completed which is now the glory of
Rangoon. It rises to a height of nearly 400 feet, and is solid, there
being no chamber within. The brickwork of which it is built makes a
series of steps or ledges, so that it would be possible to climb for
some distance up the spire. The whole is plated with gold-leaf, and the
gilding is constantly renewed by pious devotees, who thus earn merit.
The word “Shwe” in the name of this pagoda signifies golden. On the
summit is a “hti,” or umbrella, of exquisite workmanship and material.
It is said to have cost sixty thousand pounds. In the vane are 5,000
gems—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. The base of the pagoda is
surrounded first by shrines of varying sizes, and then by a flagged
courtyard, which again is fringed with canopies and halls opening
towards the pagoda, with many carved screens and arches, and innumerable
shrines and altars, and images of Gautama. Flights of steps roofed over
with teak descend from the courtyard, and one of the lower entries is
guarded by great grotesque figures, partly lion and partly griffin, made
of plastered bricks. We see one of them in this view. Then we have two
very interesting pictures: the one represents three images of the
Sitting Buddha from one of the shrines on the flagged courtyard at the
foot of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and the other shows a pilgrim “earning
merit” by putting gold leaf on to the pagoda itself.

[Sidenote: 12.
The Sule Pagoda, Rangoon.] There is another considerable pagoda in the
city, the Sule Pagoda. We have it here, with a corner of a building
adjacent of European architecture, the Municipal Offices. Observe the
watering of the streets by hand labour.

[Sidenote: 13.
A Typical Burman.] [Sidenote: 14.
Burmese Gambling, Rangoon.] The Burmese are a short, sturdy people,
merry and happy, and akin rather to the Japanese in temperament than to
the people of the Indian Peninsula. The features of their faces are
obviously Mongolian. They have the oblique eyes of the Chinaman. Here is
a typical Burman with a rose coloured wrap round his head. The Burmese
women, whose praises have been sung through the world, are dainty and,
according to a more or less Chinese standard, not infrequently
beautiful. They love to clothe themselves in silks of brilliant and
delicate hue. Excessive industry is certainly not a failing of the race,
yet there are no poor. We have here a group of Burmese gamblers at
Rangoon. The theatres play all night and the spectators go home by
daylight. The “pwe,” or show, consists invariably of three parts—a
prince, a princess, and a clown; it may be compared with our traditional
harlequinade. Both Indians and Chinese are migrating to Burma in great
numbers, but agricultural work is still chiefly in native hands.

[Sidenote: 15.
Elephants lifting Teak.] [Sidenote: 16.
Elephants Pushing Teak.] [Sidenote: 17.
Tusker Elephant.] [Sidenote: 18.
Tusker Elephant lifting Teak.] [Sidenote: 19.
The Same.] One of the most curious and typical sights of Rangoon is that
of elephants manipulating the great logs of teak wood in the timber
yards. The logs are cut in the forests of the north of Burma, and are
floated for hundreds of miles down the Irawaddy in large rafts, until
they are stranded at a creek near Rangoon, called Pazundaung. Elephants
are then employed for the purpose of moving and piling up the logs. The
male elephant is very powerful and has strong tusks, on which he carries
the logs, preventing them from falling with his trunk, but the female
elephants are not so strong, and do not as a rule lift the logs off the
ground, but merely drag them, or push them with the head. We have here
two cow elephants, the one forty years old and the other seventy. We
have them here again, one of them at the command of her rider pushing
the logs forward with her head. In the next scene is a male elephant
with tusks. He is fifty years old, and we realise his power in the next
two views, where we see him poising on his tusks a great tree trunk.
These huge animals are fed entirely on a grass which grows along the
banks of the Irawaddy not far from Rangoon. Machinery is now taking the
place of elephants in the timber yards, and Rangoon is, therefore,
likely to lose one of its most interesting sights.

[Sidenote: 20.
A Rice Mill, Rangoon.] [Sidenote: 21.
The Same.] While we are on the river front let us glance also at a rice
mill, where a process equivalent to thrashing is carried out, the grain
being separated from the husk. The black smoke is from the paddy husks
used to supply the motive power of the mill. Paddy, or unthrashed rice,
is mostly brought to Rangoon by water, though more than a million and a
half tons now come annually by rail. After the milling process is
complete, the rice is packed into bags for shipment all over the world.

[Sidenote: 22.
A Burmese Railway Train.] We will take train and run by the Burmese
Sittang Railway over the broad levels of the delta, passing through
fields from which the paddy has recently been cut. Only the ears are
lopped off, and the straw is burnt as it stands. The Burmans are mostly
yeomen, each owning his cattle and doing his own work in the field.
Beyond Pegu we follow the Sittang River, with hill ranges low on the
eastern and western horizons, until we come to Mandalay, once capital of
the independent kingdom of Upper Burma. This kingdom was annexed to
India in 1885 at the conclusion of the third Burmese war. Mandalay is
the last of three capitals a few miles apart, which at different times
in the past century have been the seat of the Burmese kings. Amarapura,
a few miles to the south, was the earliest, and Ava, a few miles to the
west, was the capital from 1822 to 1837.

[Sidenote: 23.
The 450 Pagodas from Mandalay Hill.] At Mandalay we are again on the
banks of the Irawaddy. There is a hill in the northern suburbs several
hundred feet in height, from which we may look over the city. The houses
are so buried in foliage that, seen from the height, the place appears
almost like a wood of green trees. The square Dufferin Fort, with walled
and moated boundary, and sides more than a mile in length, is
distinguishable in the centre, but for the rest there is none of the
ordinary panorama of a European city. One striking feature, however,
lies at our feet, a little to one side. It is a square group of 450
white pagodas, with a more considerable gilded pagoda in the centre.
Beside each of these pagodas there stands a large stone, and on these
stones are inscribed quotations from the sacred books of the Buddhists.
In the distance to the southeast are the hills inhabited by the Shan
tribes.

[Sidenote: 24.
The Moat, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 25.
King Thebaw’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 26.
The Aindaw Temple, Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 27.
Maker of Temple Htis, Mandalay.] The Dufferin Fort was built around the
Palace of King Thebaw, the last of the Burmese dynasty. It is enclosed
by a square of red walls pierced by three gates on each side, each gate
bearing a pointed pagoda-like super-structure. Without there is a broad
moat, a hundred yards wide, with lotus plants, floating in it like water
lilies. This moat is crossed by five wooden bridges. Inside the walls is
the King’s Palace, of which we have here the spire, surmounted by a
“hti” finial. This spire is called by the Burmese the “Centre of the
Universe,” since it is in the centre of Mandalay, which they claim as in
the centre of the world. A “hti” we may observe again at the summit of
the great Aindaw Temple in the south of Mandalay, and here we have one
before it has left the home of its maker.

[Sidenote: 28.
The Queen’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 29.
The Verandah of King Thebaw’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 30.
Entrance to the Arakan temple, Mandalay.] We return to the Fort, and to
the palaces within it. This is the Queen’s Palace, a very beautiful
building of gilded teak, exquisitely carved, and here is the verandah
where King Thebaw in 1885 surrendered to the British generals. He was
taken away to India, and there he still lives under surveillance on the
Malabar Coast. Here we have the entrance to the Arakan Temple, specially
venerated by Buddhists, for it contains a great image of Gautama, over
twelve feet high, made of brass. Pilgrims gain merit by placing gold
leaf upon this figure. This is the building which Kipling spoke of as
the Moulmein Pagoda; it is not, however, a pagoda, which is a solid
spire, but a temple.

[Sidenote: 31.
Sappers and Miners, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 32.
Crossing the Moat, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 33.
A Garrison Family.] Burma has been gradually annexed to India as the
result of three successive wars. The first ended in 1826, and then the
low-lying coastal strips known by the names of Tenasserim and Arakan
were taken, and also the great valley of the Brahmaputra, known as
Assam. In 1852 the country of Pegu, or Lower Burma, comprising the delta
of the Irawaddy, was annexed, but Upper Burma round Mandalay remained
independent. The last king of Mandalay was Thebaw, a notorious tyrant,
guilty of the most horrible atrocities. Being anxious to maintain his
independence, he intrigued with the French in the lands of Tonkin and
Annam to the east of Burma, and as a result brought upon himself the
conquest of his country in the time when Lord Dufferin was Viceroy of
India. It took fully ten years to reduce Burma to order, for the land
was infested with dacoits or robbers, as it is still in some of the
remoter districts. Every village in those days was defended by a
palisade. Here we have two views of a party of troops in Fort Dufferin,
with the King’s Palace in the background, and then a family scene in the
married quarters of the garrison. The Burman does not make a good
soldier, for he has very little sense of discipline. Even the police of
the province are for the most part Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Punjabi
Musulmans.

[Sidenote: 34.
The Bazaar, Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 35.
The Flower and Seed Market, Mandalay Bazaar.] The Bazaar or market of
Mandalay, as in every other Indian city, is the centre of public life.
Externally it is of little interest, having been constructed since the
conquest, but internally it is an epitome of the varied peoples who have
thronged of late into the growing centres of Burmese trade. Here is a
scene in the fruit market; but it is the silk market which delights the
Burmese lady, who will be seen there accompanied by her maid, making
purchases and enjoying the touch of more than she buys, as in similar
places in Europe. The most striking contrast which is presented by Burma
to one accustomed to Indian life is the freedom of the women, who move
about unveiled. In Burma, under the Buddhist religion, we have neither
seclusion of women nor the distinctions of caste. The city of Mandalay
has a population of about 190,000, so that it is now smaller than the
upstart Rangoon.

[Sidenote: 36.
Ferryshaw Siding, near Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 37.
Mora.] [Sidenote: 38.
Katha.] Let us make a voyage up the Irawaddy to the border of the
Chinese Empire. This is a river scene a short way above Mandalay, with a
group of white pagodas conspicuous on the bank, and here is a village
scene. There follows a view at Katha, a large straggling village on the
Irawaddy, remarkable for its many pagodas, most of them ruined. The
majority of the Burmese pagodas are thus dilapidated for the reason that
there is considered to be no merit in merely restoring an existing
Buddhist shrine. The wealthy devotee prefers therefore to erect a new
pagoda. The Shwe Dagon is an exception, for it contains sacred relics.

[Sidenote: 39.
Raft on the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 40.
On the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 41.
In the defile between Katha and Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 42.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 43.
Burmese Children.] [Sidenote: 44.
Cart with solid Wheels.] [Sidenote: 45.
Lacquer Workers.] Here we have a raft of bamboos and teak logs floating
down the river, and then a typical river craft with a great oar for a
rudder. Our steamer must progress with care, measuring the depths with
bamboo poles at either bow. None the less, navigation extends for more
than nine hundred miles from the sea. From Mandalay to Katha the bank of
the river is in most places low and sandy, but between Katha and Bhamo
there are striking defiles, where the ground rises with wooded fronts
from the water’s edge. There is population along the banks the whole
way, as is evidenced by the pagodas amid the vegetation. Here are three
little Burmese villagers, and then a rustic cart with solid wheels, and
here a picture showing the process of the famous lacquer work of Burma.
A “shell” is first made of very thin and finely plaited bamboo, and this
is covered with a pigment which, when dry, is softened on a primitive
lathe. Then red lacquer is put on by hand, and the bowl is dried in the
sun. When dry it is buried for some days in order that it may harden.
Finally it is engraved, and often inlaid with gold.

[Sidenote: 46.
Bhamo from the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 47.
China Street, Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 48.
Kachin Women, Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 49.
Houses at Bhamo.] We approach Bhamo, at the head of the Irawaddy
navigation, lying low along the bank of the river, twenty miles from the
Chinese frontier. There are naturally many Chinese at Bhamo. This is
China Street. Here, on the other hand, is a group of Kachin women,
heavy-faced, in picturesque costume. The Kachins are the hill tribes of
the northern frontier of Burma, as the Shans are of the eastern frontier
and the Chins of the western. Until quite recently the Kachins often
raided the caravans passing from Bhamo to China. They are now becoming
civilised under British rule. The Burmese people proper, of ancient
civilisation, are a relatively small population confined to the valley
and the delta. Here we see a row of houses at Bhamo, raised high upon
piles. The change which has come over Burma since the British occupation
may be appreciated from the fact that twenty years ago it was no
uncommon sight on the voyage up from Katha to Bhamo to see along the
river banks, and on rafts floating down the river, the dead bodies of
Kachins who had been tortured to death under the terrible rule of the
kings of Mandalay.

[Sidenote: 50.
The Gokteik Gorge and Bridge.] [Sidenote: 51.
Native House, Hsipaw.] [Sidenote: 52.
The Bazaar, Hsipaw.] From Mandalay a railway runs eastward into the Shan
country. At one point this line crosses a gorge by a steel bridge,
nearly half a mile long and over 800 feet above the water of the stream.
The bridge is so light in design that its great size and real solidity
are difficult to grasp. Beyond this bridge we come to the chief place of
the Shans, Hsipaw. Here are a couple of scenes in Hsipaw, the one of a
Shan house, the other of a Shan market.

[Sidenote: 53.
Pagan.] [Sidenote: 54.
The Ananda Temple, Pagan.] [Sidenote: 55.
The Ananda Temple, nearer view of the west side.] [Sidenote: 56.
Buddha Image at Pagan.] To realise the antiquity and the splendour of
early Burmese civilisation, we must descend the Irawaddy below Mandalay
to a place called Pagan. There, for some ten miles beside the river, and
for three miles back from its bank, are the ruins of a great capital
which flourished about the time of the Norman Conquest of England. From
the centre of the ruined city it is impossible to point in any direction
in which a pagoda or a temple is not visible. We have here a general
view of the remains, and then the Ananda Temple, seen in the midst of a
bank of vegetation, from which at various points rise other smaller red
and white ruins. The Ananda Temple was built more than eight hundred
years ago by the Thatons, the original inhabitants of the country, who
were overcome by the invading Burmans. Some thirty thousand of these
Thatons were brought to Pagan as slaves, and set to build the pagodas
and temples, just as during the captivity in Egypt the Israelites were
employed in building the pyramids. Here is the Ananda Temple close at
hand, white and glittering in the sunshine, as though built of sugar. If
we enter the great portal—there are three other portals similar, for the
plan of the building is that of a cross—we find facing us a huge image
of the Buddha, over ten yards in height.

Buddhism was developed from Hinduism. It originated as a revolt from the
excessive ritualism of the Brahmans. We have seen that Hinduism became
an all-embracing system of religious ritual and social organisation, but
that alongside, as it were, of this process there was evolved a
philosophical system based upon two theories: the belief in a Universal
Soul as the centre of reality, and the belief in the ultimate identity
of the Individual and the Universal Soul. In the sixth century before
Christ India was seething and fermenting with spiritual thought. A great
teacher was called for, and such a one was given to the world in
Gautama, the Buddha, that is to say, the Enlightened or Awakened One.

Gautama was born on the frontiers of Nepal at the foot of the great
Himalaya range about the year 557 before Christ. He was the only son of
a chief or king. At the age of eighteen he was married to the daughter
of the chief of a neighbouring clan, and a son was born to him. But the
yearnings of a reformer were stirring within Gautama, and he could not
rest. So one night in secret he left his wife and infant and went out
into the world a wanderer in search of “that inward illumination on
‘great matters,’ which was the cherished dream of every thinker in that
memorable era.” He followed to no purpose the paths of metaphysical
speculation, of mental discipline, and of ascetic rigour, and at last on
one eventful night, as he sat under the Bodhi Tree at Gaya, in Behar,
“he reaped the fruit of his long spiritual effort, the truth of things
being of a sudden so clearly revealed to him that from henceforth he
never swerved for a moment from devotion to his creed and to the mission
that it imposed upon him.”

The truth which Buddha discovered and preached to humanity was that the
salvation of man lay not in sacrifices and ceremonial, nor in penances,
but in spiritual effort and a holy life, in charity, forgiveness, and
love. The sages of Hinduism had taught as a doctrine for the few that
the Universal Soul is the only reality, and is therefore the real self
of every man. Buddha gave to the world a system by which the truth of
this doctrine could be realised in the life of an ordinary man.

The four-fold truth on which Buddha’s whole scheme hinges may be
expressed as follows:—Life on earth is full of suffering; suffering is
generated by desire; the extinction of desire involves the extinction of
suffering; the extinction of desire, and therefore of suffering, is the
outcome of a righteous life. But how is desire with the suffering which
it generates to be extinguished? The answer of Buddhism is that the
eightfold path which leads to the extinction of suffering is by “Right
Belief, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right
Means of Livelihood, Right Remembrance and Self-discipline, Right
Concentration of Thought.” In Buddha’s system, as he himself gave it to
the world, doctrines and beliefs are of secondary importance. Fully
alive to the truth that “what we do, besides being the outward and
visible sign of our inward and spiritual state, reacts naturally and
necessarily on what we are, and so moulds our character and controls our
destiny,” he formulated for his followers a simple system of moral
rules, obedience to which would set them on the path which leads to
salvation. On this path there are successive stages, and each of these
stages is marked by the breaking of some of the fetters which bind man
to earth and to self, and when all the fetters are at last broken then
the Holy One, as he is now called, has reached his goal. In other words,
he has attained to that state which Buddhists call Nirvana, a state of
“perfect knowledge, perfect love, perfect peace, and therefore of
perfect bliss.”

The Buddhist system emphasises the importance of education and
discipline. All over Burma there are schools conducted by Buddhist
monastic orders at which instruction is gratuitously given to boys in
the vernacular of the country, and one rarely finds a native of Burma
who cannot read and write his own language. It is also part of the
religious discipline of every Burman boy that he should become a novice
in a monastic order and live for a time the life of a monk. The aim of
this training is to teach obedience and self-control, and thus in these
days of change, when strange and disintegrating influences are at work
in the East, the Burman retains, to a certain extent at all events, his
simplicity and his kindly faith. To appreciate the influence of Buddhism
in Burma let us remember that a Buddhist priest is supported entirely by
gifts in kind, and never touches a coin.

For some centuries Buddhism made great progress in India, the land of
its birth; but in the end Hinduism re-asserted itself, and to-day there
are very few Buddhists in India proper, though in Burma nearly all the
people are of that faith. This is the chief cause of the difference in
almost every respect between Burma and India. In the Ananda Temple, as
we have seen, there are four images of Buddha, for it is the tradition
of the religion that before Gautama there were in former ages of the
world three other teachers who reached enlightenment and were therefore
called Buddha.

[Sidenote: 57.
The Wilderness of Bricks, Pagan.] [Sidenote: 58.
Gadawpalin Temple, Pagan.] [Sidenote: 59.
Vultures on a ruined Temple at Pagan.] [Sidenote: 60.
Cactus at Pagan.] [Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 6.] Here, still at Pagan, is
the so-called Wilderness of Bricks, with the Ananda Temple in the
distance to the right. Then we have the entry to one of the other
temples, and then yet another Pagan ruin with vultures on the summit.
Finally we have a scene of tall cactus growth, also at Pagan, for this
city stands in what is known as the Dry Belt of Burma. The map shows us
that two ranges of mountains extend northward, respectively to east and
west of the Irawaddy valley. The winds of summer and autumn blow from
the southwest, from the sea, bringing moisture which falls in heavy
rains on the west sides of the mountains and over the delta. At Rangoon
there is an annual rainfall of over one hundred inches, or more than
three times the rainfall of London. To the east of the western range,
however, as we leave the delta on our journey up the river, there is a
low-lying district near Pagan, which is screened from the sea winds by
the continuous mountain ridge, and here the rainfall is small, as little
as twenty inches in the year, but the climate is hot and evaporation is
rapid. In this district, therefore, cactus is the typical vegetation,
but elsewhere in Burma are rich crops or the most luxuriant forests of
leafy trees. These forests supply the teak wood, which is floated down
the river. They are full of game, and the haunt of poisonous snakes.
Wild peacocks come from the woods to feed on the rice when it is ripe,
and tigers are not unknown in the villages. Only a few years ago a tiger
was shot on one of the ledges of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in the midst of
Rangoon.

Notwithstanding the age of some of its temples and pagodas, Burma is in
the main a new country, in which Nature is still masterful. It is the
largest of the provinces under the Government of India, but all told it
contains but ten million people—Burmese, Chinese, Hindus, and the Hill
Tribes.

                              LECTURE III.

                                  ---

                               =BENGAL.=

                                  ---

                             THE MONSOONS.

[Sidenote: 1.
Map of Bengal.] From Burma we take steamer again and cross the sea to
Bengal, the Metropolitan Province of India. The heart of Bengal is one
of the largest deltas in the world, a great plain of moist silt brought
down by the rivers Ganges and Brahmaputra from the Himalaya mountains.
But along the borders of the Province, and especially to the west, much
hill country is included.

The map shows to the north the high tableland of Tibet, edged by the
Himalaya range, whose southern slopes descend steeply, but with many
foot hills, to the level, low-lying plains of the two great river
valleys. Eastward of Bengal there is a ridge, rising to heights of more
than six thousand feet, densely forested, which separates the Irawaddy
valley of Burma from the plains of India. This ridge throws out a spur
westward, which near its end rises a little into the Garo hills. The
deeply trenched narrow valley of the Brahmaputra, known as the Assam
Valley, lies between the Garo hills and the Himalayas. Away in the west
of Bengal is another hill spur, bearing the name of Rajmahal, which
forms the northeastern point of the plateau of Southern India. The
Ganges flows through the plain bounded southward by this plateau and
northward by the Himalayas. A broad lowland gateway is left between the
Garo and the Rajmahal hills, and through this, on either hand, the
Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers turn southward and converge gradually
until they join to form the vast Megna estuary. The country which lies
west of the Megna is the Ganges delta, traversed by many minor channels
which branch from the right bank of the river before it enters the
Megna. East of the Megna is another deltaic land whose silt is derived
in the main from the Garo hills. It is said that the highest rainfall in
the world occurs in these hills, when the monsoon sweeps northward from
the Bay of Bengal and blows against their southern face. The rainfall on
a single day in the rainy season is often as great as the whole annual
rainfall of London. Little wonder that there is abundance of silt for
the formation of the fertile plains below.

The approach to the coast, as may be concluded from this geographical
description, presents little of interest. As you enter the Hooghly
river, the westernmost of the deltaic channels, you see broad grey mud
banks, with here and there a palm tree. From time to time, as the ship
passes some more solid ground, there are villages of thatched huts
surrounded by banana plantations with tall broad green leaves.

[Sidenote: 2.
Approaching Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 3.
Coolie Emigrant Ship on the Hooghly.] [Sidenote: 4.
The Hooghly at Calcutta, showing the High Court.] [Sidenote: 5.
The Same.] Calcutta, the chief port and capital of India, is placed no
less than eighty miles up the Hooghly, on the eastern bank. As we
approach it we pass mills and factories with tall chimneys throwing out
black smoke. A steamer crosses us, outward bound, carrying, as we are
told, coolies going to work in South Africa; for the basin of the
Ganges, unlike Burma, is one of the most densely peopled lands in the
world, and sends forth annually some thousand emigrants. At last we find
ourselves amid a throng of shipping, and our steamer ties up to a buoy
in the turbid river, with the great city of Calcutta on the eastern
bank, and the large industrial town of Howrah on the western bank, and
not a hill in sight round all the horizon, only the great dome of the
Post Office rising white in the sunshine.

[Sidenote: 6.
Plan of Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 7.
Palm Avenue, Calcutta Botanical Gardens.] Let us examine the plan of
this mighty city with more than a million inhabitants, second in the
Empire in population, and one of the twelve largest towns in the world.
The Hooghly flows southward. On its eastern bank stands Fort William, a
fortress which with its outworks occupies a space of nearly a thousand
acres. Around, to the north, the east, and the south of the fort, is a
wide green plain, the Maidan, separating the fort from the city. From
north to south the Maidan extends for some two miles, and it is about a
mile broad from east to west. In its southern end is the racecourse,
where are held at Christmas time the races, the principal social event
of Calcutta life. To the east of the Maidan is the European quarter,
with its hotels, and clubs, and private houses. To the north, in a
garden, is Government House, the residence of the Viceroy of India.
Beside Government House, and also facing the Maidan, are the High Court
of Justice and the Town Hall. Behind Government House is Dalhousie
Square, occupied by a green, in the centre of which is a large tank.
Facing this square is the Bengal Government Secretariat, between which
and the river are the Post Office and the Customs House. Away to the
north is the great native city. One bridge only connects Calcutta with
the industrial town of Howrah, where are jute mills and great
engineering works. In Howrah also is the terminus of the East Indian
Railway. A hundred years ago Howrah was but a small village; to-day it
contains some 160,000 people. Finally to the south of Howrah on the west
bank of the river are the celebrated Botanical Gardens, containing many
great palms, and most notable of all a banyan tree whose circumference
measures nearly a thousand feet. North of Calcutta, and on the east bank
of the Hooghly, is Barrackpur, with the country house of the Viceroy of
India. There is a military cantonment at Barrackpur, and also a garrison
in Fort William.

[Sidenote: 8.
The Howrah Bridge, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 9.
Scene from the Howrah Bridge.] Nothing impresses the stranger in
Calcutta more than the density of life in this populous city, the focus
of a great and fertile province. At no spot is it more evident than on
the Howrah Bridge, where from morning to night a close throng crosses
and re-crosses. From the approach to the bridge we look down on a crowd
bathing in the muddy but sacred water. Cheek by jowl with the busy
commercial traffic of the bridge, we have here the religion of the East.
Purified by the bath, and clothed again, the bather sits in the crowd
while for a few pies, or say a farthing, his sect mark is painted afresh
on his forehead.

[Sidenote: 10.
Calcutta from Howrah across the Hooghly.] The buildings of Calcutta are
worthy of the capital rank of the city, but they are of European design,
for Calcutta is a modern city. Fort William was so named from King
William III., in whose reign, little more than two centuries ago, Job
Charnock, a factor or commercial representative of the East India
Company, bought the little village Kalikata, probably so named from a
local shrine of the goddess Kali. There he built, on the site of the
present Customs House, the first Fort William. Within ten years the
population had grown to some ten thousand, and it has never ceased
growing to this day, although at one time, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, there was an episode in the history of the place
which for a time somewhat checked its advance. Suraj-ud-Daulah, the
Nawab of Bengal, quarrelled with the English at Fort William, and
finally attacked them. Most of them escaped down the river, but a
hundred and forty-six were taken prisoners when Fort William fell, and
were confined for a night in a small cell measuring 22 feet by 14 feet,
and some 18 feet high. It was at the end of the hot season, and only
twenty-three of the prisoners came out alive the next morning. This
tragedy is known in history as the Black Hole of Calcutta. Soon
afterwards Colonel Clive, the same Clive who as a Captain defended Arcot
in the south of India, arrived with reinforcements and recaptured
Calcutta. Fort William was rebuilt on a larger scale, and in a position
a little south of the original site.

Suraj-ud-Daulah quarrelled with the East India Company again, and Clive
led an army against him into the north of Bengal, and defeated him and
his French allies in the famous battle of Plassey. The British force
amounted to only three thousand men, of whom but two hundred were
English, whereas the Nawab had an army of nearly forty thousand. In 1765
the whole of Bengal was annexed by the East India Company, and from 1772
was ruled from Calcutta. Suraj-ud-Daulah’s capital had been at a place
called Murshidabad, a hundred miles to the north of Calcutta.

[Sidenote: 11.
Black Hole Monument, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 12.
The Marble Pavement, Black Hole, Calcutta.] Here, at the corner of
Dalhousie Square, is the Black Hole Monument, erected by Lord Curzon
when Viceroy of India, in the year 1902, upon the site of the original
monument which was set up by one of the twenty-three survivors; and here
is a marble pavement marking the exact position of the Black Hole.

[Sidenote: 13.
Bengal Government Office, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 14.
The High Court, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 15.
Eastern Gateway, Government House, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 16.
Government House, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 17.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 18.
Imperial Museum, Calcutta.] We have next the great red brick building in
Dalhousie Square known as the Bengal Secretariat. Not far away are the
public offices of the Government of India, but most of the staff are
removed to Simla in the hills during the hot and rainy seasons. Here,
facing the Maidan, is the frontage of the Supreme Court of Justice, with
a fine tower nearly two hundred feet high, which we saw just now from
the Hooghly. Next is the eastern gateway to the grounds of Government
House, and here is Government House itself, with the Union Jack flying
above it, and Indian sentries on guard. It was built a little more than
a hundred years ago, and contains the throne of Tippu Sultan, the tyrant
of Mysore, of whom we heard in the first lecture. Opposite Government
House, on the Maidan, is the Jubilee Statue of Victoria, the
Queen-Empress of India, which was unveiled in the year 1902. Here we
have a more distant view of Government House, as seen from the Maidan,
with a statue of one of the Viceroys in the foreground. Next, in
Chowringhee road, is the Imperial Museum, a fine building with a
valuable Gallery of Antiquities.

[Sidenote: 19.
Musulmans at Prayer in the Maidan.] [Sidenote: 20.
Ochterlony Monument, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 21.
Calcutta from the Ochterlony Monument.] [Sidenote: 22.
Race Course, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 23.
St. Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta.] [Sidenote: 24.
Tiretta Bazaar Street, Calcutta.] Let us walk round the Maidan, and note
the curiously mingled life upon it. Here, for instance, are Musulmans at
prayer, an impressive sight that may be witnessed every evening. Here we
are at the foot of the Ochterlony monument, a column erected in honour
of Sir David Ochterlony, a successful general in the wars with Nepal.
From the top of it we have a fine view over the city. Notice Government
House and the High Court. At the other end of the Maidan is the
racecourse and polo ground, to which we have already referred, and here
amid the trees in the southeastern corner, beside the tank, is the spire
of the English Cathedral. Here, in contrast, is a view in the native
city. The streets are with a few exceptions very narrow, as in most
southern cities where the sunshine is dreaded and where shade is
essential to comfort.

[Sidenote: 25.
Jute Mills, Howrah.] [Sidenote: 26.
A Workshop in Iron Foundry at Howrah.] [Sidenote: 27.
The same, Plate Girders.] [Sidenote: 28.
Workpeople bathing at Howrah.] Now we cross to Howrah, to the great jute
mills, where the jute fibre grown up country is spun and woven in
competition with the jute manufacture of Dundee. In these mills you will
find that the machinery bears the names of Dundee and Leeds makers, for
the industry is relatively new in India, and has not yet reached the
stage of manufacturing its own machinery. Next we pass into the
engineering works of Messrs. Burn and Co., where some five thousand
natives and some sixty Europeans are employed in the steel industry.
Here are plate girders made in these works for railway bridge building,
and here in this same industrial town of Howrah are people bathing after
work in the jute mills.

Let us recount the essence of what we have seen—the Hooghly channel from
the ocean, bearing inward the European ships; the Shrine of the Goddess
Kali; the Fort which protected the factory of the East India Company;
the Monument of the Black Hole; Government House and the Secretariat,
whence the vast empire is ruled; the Cathedral and the Racecourse of the
white rulers; the Courts of Justice, which, more than any military
power, betoken the essence of British rule in India; the Native City
with its narrow ways and crowded life drawn from the surrounding
agricultural plain; the Howrah Bridge with the steel and jute mills
beyond, which imply a vast incoming change in the economic life of this
eastern land; and the Botanic Gardens with their wealth of vegetation
typifying the ultimate resources of India—the tropical sunshine and the
torrential rains.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 1.] Now let us run northward by the East
Bengal Railway for some three hundred miles to Darjeeling, the hill
station of Calcutta, as Ootacamund is the hill station of Madras. We
traverse the dead level of the plain with its thickly set villages and
tropical vegetation. There are some seven hundred and fifty thousand
villages in India, and these village communities are the real India, for
only about ten per cent. of the total population is contained in the
cities. Yet Bengal in its present limits, which exclude Eastern Bengal,
has a population of more than fifty millions, on an area slightly
smaller than that of the United Kingdom. Now the total population of the
United Kingdom is only some forty-four millions, and of these forty-four
millions fully one-third inhabit some forty large cities. Britain is
therefore mainly industrial, whereas India is mainly agricultural,
nine-tenths of all the people in India being supported by occupations
connected with agriculture. From such statistics some idea may be gained
of the density of the agricultural population of Bengal, a Province with
one great city only, as greatness of cities is measured in our British
Islands.

The rule of these village-dotted plains is the main daily business of
the Indian Government. A great Province like Bengal is divided into
Districts, each of them about as large as the English county of
Lincolnshire or a little larger. On the average each of them contains
from half a million to a million and a half of population. There are
some 250 of such Districts in British India, that is to say in that
greater part of India which is administered directly by British
officials. In each District there is a chief executive officer, styled
the Collector or Deputy Commissioner. He is the head of the District
administration, and he is also the principal Magistrate in the District.
Under the Collector there is a staff of Executive Officers, British and
Indian, of whom the chief are the Assistant Collector, the Deputy
Collector, the Superintendent of Police, the Engineer, and the Civil
Surgeon. The Collector is so called because in the days of the old East
India Company his main function was to collect revenue. In his other
capacity of Magistrate, he is the head of the Magisterial Courts of the
District. The laws which he and his assistants administer are made by
the Viceroy in Council, and in a subordinate way by the
Lieutenant-Governors and their Councils in the various Provinces. The
Collector does not decide civil suits. These, as well as all serious
criminal cases, come before Civil Judges of different grades, who are
independent of the Collector.

Therefore we find in India that essential division of the Legislature,
Judicature, and Executive which is the chief security of freedom in all
British communities. Subject to the law and to the instructions of the
superior Provincial Officers, the District Collector is, however,
supreme, except in the Civil Courts of his District. He it is who alone
for the vast majority of the Indian population represents the Raj or
Rule of the King-Emperor. Between the Collectors and the
Lieutenant-Governors are intermediate controlling officers known as
Commissioners, who superintend Divisions or groups of several Districts.

The Higher Civil Service of India, recruited by competitive examination
in England, consists of some twelve hundred officials—the Commissioners,
the Collectors of the Districts, and some of the Assistant Collectors.
The seniors of the Civil Service man the Provincial and Supreme
Governments of India. Only the Governor-General and the Governors of
Madras and Bombay are selected from outside the Indian Civil Service and
sent out from Britain.

The Collector is constantly touring his District, in order that he may
know it from personal investigation. A good Collector may become very
popular, and may do much to make his District prosperous. It is a great
position which may thus be held by young Englishmen of, say, thirty
years of age. They are rulers of a million people at an age when their
brothers of the professional classes at home are struggling to establish
themselves as young barristers or doctors or clergymen.

It must not be thought, however, that the Government of India, either in
its Legislative, Judicial, or Executive capacities, is wholly British,
and alien from the subject population. The Legislative Councils of the
Governor-General and also of the Lieutenant-Governors in the Provinces
contain elected Indian representatives, both Hindu and Musulman. The
provincial Councils have, in fact, non-official majorities. Only in the
Council of the Governor-General is there an official majority. Many of
the Judges even of the High Courts are Indian, either Hindu or Musulman.
In the Executive some of the Collectors of Districts are Indian, and
also the great majority of the assistant officials, who in the aggregate
are an immense number.

[Sidenote: 29.
Darjeeling Railway, Chinbatti Loop.] [Sidenote: 30.
Darjeeling Railway, Loop No. 4.] [Sidenote: 31.
Darjeeling.] As we think over these things we are continuing our journey
northward. We must change from train to steamer as we cross the Ganges.
The passage of the river occupies about twenty minutes from one
low-lying bank to the other. Then, as we traverse the endless rice
fields with their clumps of graceful bamboo, the hills become visible
across the northern horizon. We run into a belt of jungle, and change to
the mountain railway, which carries us up the steep hill front with many
a turn and twist. There is tall forest on the lower slopes, of teak and
other great trees, hung thickly with creepers. Presently the wood
becomes smaller, and we enter the tea plantations with their trim rows
of green bushes. Far below us, at the foot of the steep forest, spreads
to the southern horizon the vast cultivated plain. Trees of the fir
tribe now take the place of leafy trees, and we rise to the ridge top on
which is placed Darjeeling, a settlement of detached villas in compounds
or enclosures, hanging on the steep hill slopes. Darjeeling is about
seven thousand feet above sea level, on a ridge overlooking northward
the gorge of the Rungeet River.

[Sidenote: 32.
Kinchinjunga, from Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 33.
The Himalaya.] [Sidenote: 34.
Mount Everest.] In the early morning, if we are fortunate in the weather
and rise before the sun, we may see from Darjeeling, over the valley to
north of the hill ridge on which we stand, and over successive ridge
tops beyond, the mighty snow range of the Himalayas, fifty miles away,
with the peak of Kinchinjunga, more than five miles high, dominating the
landscape. Behind it, a little to the west, and visible from Tiger Hill
near Darjeeling, though not from Darjeeling itself, is Mount Everest,
the highest mountain in the world, five and half miles high. The
glittering wall of white mountains, visible across the vast chasm and
bare granite summits in the foreground, seems to hang in the sky as
though belonging to another world. The broad distance, and the sudden
leap to supreme height, give to this scene a mysterious and almost
visionary grandeur. It is, however, only occasionally that the
culminating peaks can be seen, for they are often veiled in cloud.

[Sidenote: 35.
Tibetan Woman.] [Sidenote: 36.
Nepali Ladies.] The people of Sikkim in the hills beyond Darjeeling are
Highlanders of Mongolian stock and not Indian. They are of Buddhist
religion like the Burmans, and not Hindu or Musulman like the
inhabitants of India. They are small, sturdy folk, with oblique cut
eyes, and a Chinese expression, and they have the easy-going humorous
character of the Burmans, though not the delicacy and civilization of
those inhabitants of the sunny lowland. They and the kindred and
neighbour Tibetans rarely wash, and the women anoint their faces with a
mixture of pigs’ blood, which gives them a dark and mottled appearance.
Here we have in colour a portrait of a Tibetan woman, and then a group
of Nepali ladies, with various head ornaments.

[Sidenote: 37.
Political Map of India, distinguishing Bengal, Eastern Bengal and Assam,
Nepal, and Bhutan.] It is an interesting fact that these hill people
should belong to the race which spreads over the vast Chinese Empire.
That race here advances to the last hill brinks which overlook the
Indian lowland. The political map of this portion of India illustrates a
parallel fact. While the plains are administered directly by British
officials, the mountain slopes descending to them are ruled by native
princes whose territories form a strip along the northern boundary of
India. North of Assam and Bengal we have in succession from east to
west, in the belt of hill country, the lands of Bhutan, Sikkim, and
Nepal. From Nepal are recruited the Gurkha Regiments of the Indian army,
the Gurkhas being a race of these same hill men, of small stature and
sturdy agility, of Hindu religion, but of more or less Mongolian stock,
and therefore intermediate between the Tibetans and the Hindus.

[Sidenote: 38.
The Bazaar, Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 39.
The same—Nepali Vegetable Sellers.] [Sidenote: 40.
Man carrying Fodder, Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 41.
Sikkim Peasants.] [Sidenote: 42.
Native Loom, Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 43.
Village in Sikkim.] [Sidenote: 44.
The same.] Here we have a typical market scene in Darjeeling. Notice the
women doing coolie work. Next are vegetable sellers in the Darjeeling
Bazaar, and here is a man carrying fodder. The man with his back turned
is a Lepcha of Sikkim. Then we have a group of Sikkim peasants drinking
the native beer, made from marwa, a kind of millet. They draw it up
through straws from cups made of bamboo. Next we see a native working a
hand loom, and then a village in Sikkim. Here in the same village we see
a woman carrying baggage.

[Sidenote: 45.
Lama Monastery, near Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 46.
The same—Devil Dancers.] [Sidenote: 47.
The same—interior.] [Sidenote: 48.
The Amban Dance, Darjeeling.] [Sidenote: 49.
The same—another view.] Near Darjeeling there is a small Buddhist
monastery, a two-storey building of which we have here a view. Notice
the semi-circle of tall poles, with linen flags, on which prayers are
inscribed. By the entrance are a number of prayer-wheels fastened to the
wall. Outside the monastery are men wearing the costumes of devil
dancers, such as are used in Buddhist religious ceremonies of these
parts. There are long trumpets placed against the door post. Let us
glance for a moment within this monastery, and see the hideous wooden
masks, and the silk dresses of the priestly dancers. Two scenes follow,
from Darjeeling itself, of an elaborate dance by Tibetan peasants called
the Amban dance. The lions and dragons are each made of two men, whose
bodies are hung with white yak hair and tails. They have grotesque
heads, with enormous eyes and gaping mouths, from which hang large
scarlet tongues. So we obtain some idea of the stage of barbarism in
which the hill tribes remain.

[Sidenote: 50.
North Bengal Mounted Rifles, Lebong.] [Sidenote: 51.
The same—Sword Pegging.] [Sidenote: 52.
Coolies at Darjeeling.] In contrast with these scenes are now two slides
illustrating the volunteer service of the white tea planters. Of these
the second shows tent-pegging on the Lebong parade ground, above the
Rungeet river. This form of tent-pegging is with a sword, and not with
the more usual lance. Here is a scene showing Darjeeling coolies
returned from work in the tea gardens.

[Sidenote: 53.
The Rungeet Gorge.] [Sidenote: 54.
The same.] [Sidenote: 55.
The Rungeet Bridge, Sikkim.] [Sidenote: 56.
A Himalayan Glacier.] [Sidenote: 57.
Glacier-fed Torrent in the Himalaya.] [Sidenote: 58.
Cane Bridge in the Himalaya.] Finally we have two views in the gorge of
the Rungeet river, between Darjeeling and Sikkim, with precipitous
sides, and then a glimpse of the Rungeet bridge. The Rungeet drains from
the hills of Darjeeling, and from the snow mountains beyond, into a
tributary of the Ganges. Several hundred such torrents burst in long
succession through deep portals in the Himalayan foot hills and feed the
great rivers of the plain, the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. They are
perennial rivers, for they originate in the melting of the glaciers, and
the Himalayan glaciers cover a vast area, being fed by the monsoon
snows. Nearly all the agricultural wealth of Northern India owes its
origin to the summer monsoon.

[Sidenote: 59.
Map of the Himalayan River System.] To understand the fundamental
conditions governing the Indian climate let us examine the two
concluding maps of this lecture. On the first of them all the country
with an elevation of more than fifteen hundred feet is coloured with a
dark brown, and that with a lower elevation is coloured a light brown. A
great angle of the Indian lowland is seen to project northward into the
Asiatic upland. For fifteen hundred miles the Himalaya limits the
lowland with a gracefully curving mountain edge, and from this edge
there flow the series of tributaries which gather to the rivers Indus,
Ganges, and Brahmaputra. Beyond, to the south, are seen in dark brown
the higher portions of the Deccan plateau.

[Sidenote: 60.
Map of South-West Monsoon.] Now compare with this the succeeding map,
which shows the winds of the summer time and the average rainfall. The
winds sweep in from the southwest, but as they cross Bengal they bend so
as to blow from the south and then from the southeast. The dark arrow
with the broken shaft striking northwestward through the heart of India
represents the usual track of the storms which prevail in the Central
Provinces during the summer season, producing the havoc along the Madras
coast and northward, of which we spoke in the second lecture. The
maximum rainfall, it will be seen, occurs in three regions—first on the
west face of the Western Ghats, and on the west face of the mountains of
Ceylon; secondly in the east of the Indian Peninsula near the track of
the storm centres; and thirdly along the south face of the Garo hills
and of the Himalayas north of Bengal, and on the west face of the
various mountain ranges of Burma. In other words, in the first and third
cases the rain is due to the winds striking the mountain ranges, and is
great only on the windward faces of those ranges. In the second case the
rainfall is mainly the result of the storms. On the other hand, there is
drought at this season under the lee of the mountains of Ceylon and of
the Western Ghats, and again in a comparatively small belt, near Pagan,
along the Irawaddy river, between the western and the eastern ridges of
Burma. Tibet, which is under the lee of the Himalayas, and northwestern
India, which is out of the track of the southwest winds, are wide
deserts. This map explains the exceptional fertility and density of
population of the Province of Bengal.

[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 1.] India is so vast a country, and so varied,
that no traveller can hope to visit all parts of it. On our journey from
Calcutta to Darjeeling, we have left the province of Assam away to the
east of us. Assam is a through road nowhither, for high and difficult
mountains close the eastern end of its great valley. Moreover, though it
has vast natural resources, Assam is a country which throughout history
has lain for the most part outside Indian civilisation, and, even
to-day, has but a sparse population and a relatively small commercial
development. Let us, then, just remember in passing that this remote
province of India has a geography which, though simple, is built on a
very grand scale.

The San-po river rises high on the plateau of Tibet northward of
Lucknow. For more than 700 miles it flows eastward over the plateau in
rear of the Himalayan peaks; then it turns sharply southward and
descends steeply through a deep gorge little known, for it is tenanted
by hostile tribes. Where it emerges from the mountains the river has a
level not a thousand feet above the sea, and here, turning westward, it
forms the Brahmaputra—that is to say, the Son of Brahma, the Creator.
The Brahmaputra flows for 450 miles westward through the valley of
Assam, deeply trenched between the snowy wall of the Himalayas on the
one hand and the forested mountains of the Burmese border and the Khasia
and Garo hills on the other hand. The river “rolls down the valley in a
vast sheet of water,” depositing banks of silt at the smallest
obstruction, “so that islands form and re-form in constant succession.
Broad channels break away and rejoin the main river after wide
divergences, which are subjected to no control. The swamps on either
hand are flooded in the rainy season, till the lower reaches of the
valley are one vast shining sea, from which the hills slope up on either
side.” The traffic on the river is maintained chiefly by exports of tea
and timber, with imports of rice for the labourers on the tea estates.
Some day, when great sums of money are available for capital
expenditure, the Brahmaputra will be controlled, and Assam will become
the seat of teeming production and a dense population. The Indian Empire
contains some 300 million people; but, as we learn, it also contains
some of the chief virgin resources of the world.

                              LECTURE IV.

                                  ---

                        =THE UNITED PROVINCES.=

                                  ---

                              THE MUTINY.

[Sidenote: 1.
Map of India, distinguishing the United Provinces.] Northwestward from
Bengal, over the great plain of the Ganges, we enter the next region of
India. The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh have an area almost equal
to that of Great Britain, and a population as dense. When we go from
Bengal to the United Provinces, it is as though we were crossing from
one to another of the great continental States of Europe, say from
Germany into France.

[Sidenote: 2.
Map of the United Provinces.] The Himalayan mountains lie to the north;
the hills of Central India to the south. The plain between them, raised
only a little above the sea, is two hundred miles across, measured from
the foot hills of the Himalayas to the first rise of the Central Indian
hills. Two great rivers, the Ganges and the Jumna, emerge from Himalayan
valleys, and traverse the plain southward, and presently southeastward,
leaving between them a tongue of land, known in Hindustani as the Doab,
or two waters. Mesopotamia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris in
the Nearer East, signifies the same in the Greek language. The Jumna
joins the Ganges near the southern limit of the plain, and in the angle
of the confluence is the large city of Allahabad, the capital and seat
of the Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces. Other great
tributaries flow to the Ganges from more eastern parts of the Himalayas,
and bending southeastward join the main river one after another.

Five considerable cities focus the great population of the United
Provinces—Allahabad, already mentioned, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, and
Benares. A hundred miles above Allahabad, on the right or south bank of
the Ganges, is the city of Cawnpore, and on the opposite or northern
bank extends the old Kingdom of Oudh, with Lucknow for its capital,
situated some forty miles northeast of Cawnpore. Agra, which gives its
name to all that part of the United Provinces which did not formerly
belong to Oudh, is situated on the right or south bank of the Jumna, a
hundred and fifty miles west of Lucknow. Eighty miles below Allahabad,
on the north bank of the Ganges, is Benares, the most sacred city of the
Hindus. All these distances between the cities of Agra, Cawnpore,
Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares, lie over the dead level of the plain,
dusty, and like a desert in the dry season, but green and fertile after
the rains. Scattered over the plain are innumerable villages, in which
dwell nineteen out of twenty of the inhabitants of the joint Provinces.
Lucknow is the largest of the cities, yet it has only a quarter of a
million inhabitants.

The United Provinces are the heart of India, the typical Indian land,
safe from invasion from the north by reason of the Himalayan barrier and
the desert plateau of Tibet; relatively inaccessible from the ocean, and
not conquered by Britain until long after Bengal had become a Province
of the East India Company; relatively safe also from northwestern
invasion. Its people remain dominantly Hindu in their religion and
customs, whereas the great province of the Punjab further northwestward
has a majority of Musulmans. Southward is the plateau of Central India,
comparatively thinly peopled.

The language of the United Provinces, and of considerable districts to
west, south, and east of them, is Hindi, the most direct derivative of
the ancient Sanskrit tongue, whose use was contemporary with that of
Latin and Greek. All three of these ancient tongues, as well as Old
Persian, belong to the family of the Indo-European languages. Sanskrit
was brought into India by a conquering people from the northwest. Hindi
is now spoken by a hundred million people in all the northern centre of
India. It is the language not only of the United Provinces but also of
the western part of Bengal which is known as Behar, of that part of the
Punjab which surrounds Delhi, and of a wide district in Central India
ruled by the great Maratha chiefs, Sindhia and Holkar. Other tongues of
similar origin are spoken in the regions around—Bengali in Bengal,
Marathi and Gujrati in the lands which lie east and north of Bombay, and
Punjabi in the Punjab. We must think of these various Indian languages
as differing from one another much as French and Spanish and Italian
differ, which are all derived from a common Latin source. The Hindi
language was picked up by the Musulman conquerors of India, and by
adding to it words of their own Persian speech they formed Urdu, the
language of the camp. This is the language of educated Musulmans all
over India to this day. Under the name of Hindustani it has become a
sort of _lingua franca_ throughout India, and is used by Europeans when
talking to their servants.

Away to the south, beyond the limit of the Sanskrit tongues, in the
province of Madras and neighbouring areas, are talked languages wholly
alien from Sanskrit, and differing from Hindi, Bengali, Marathi,
Gujrati, and Punjabi, much as the Turkish and Hungarian languages differ
from the group of allied Indo-European tongues spoken in Western Europe.
These southern Indian tongues are known as Dravidian. The most important
of them are Telugu, spoken by twenty millions, and Tamil, spoken by some
fifteen millions. The Hindu religion, however, is held by the great
majority both of the Dravidian south and of the Indo-European north and
centre.

If there be one part of India which we may think of as the shrine of
shrines in a land where religion rules all life, it is to be found in a
triangle of cities just contained within the map before us. There on the
Ganges we see Benares and Patna, and some fifty miles south of Patna the
smaller town of Gaya. Benares from prehistoric times has been the focus
of Hinduism. Patna was the capital of the chief Gangetic kingdom more
than two thousand years ago, when the Greek ambassador Megasthenes,
first of the Westerns, travelled thus far into the East. Gaya was the
spot where Buddha, seeking to reform Hinduism some six hundred years
before Christ, obtained enlightenment, and then migrated to teach at
Benares, or rather at Sarnath, now in ruin, some three or four miles
north of the present Benares. The peoples of all the vast Indian and
Chinese world, from Karachi to Pekin and Tokyo, look to this little
group of cities as the centre of holiness, whether they be followers of
Brahma or of Buddha.

[Sidenote: 3.
Buddhist Tope at Sarnath.] [Sidenote: 4.
Sculptures at Sarnath.] [Sidenote: 5.
Lion-capital at Sarnath.] Old Benares, whose ruins are now known as
Sarnath, was a few miles north of the existing city. We have here one of
the Buddhist topes of Sarnath, which was the spot to which Buddha
removed after he had received enlightenment at Gaya. Here he and his
disciples began to teach. We have another view at Sarnath, showing some
of the ancient sculptures, and a gigantic lion-capital recently
excavated. Its size can be appreciated by noticing the man behind.

[Sidenote: 6.
Plan of Benares.] [Sidenote: 7.
View across the Ganges to the Southern Shore.] [Sidenote: 8.
Panchganga Ghat, Benares.] [Sidenote: 9.
The Same—another view.] [Sidenote: 10.
Palace of the Raja of Bhinga, Benares.] [Sidenote: 11.
The Same—another view.] Benares extends for four miles along the
northern bank of the Ganges. This bank is here higher than the southern,
and descends to the river edge with a steep brink. Down this brink are
many flights of steps, known as “ghats,” which we may translate by the
word “approaches.” We have already heard the word “ghat” applied to the
steep mountain-high brinks of the southern plateau of India, where the
upper ground breaks away to the shore of the Arabian Sea on the one
hand, and to the low-lying plain of the Carnatic on the other. The city
of Benares is situated on the plateau top above the ghats, and for four
miles the river front is crowned with palaces and temples, built of a
yellow sandstone. The opposite, the southern, shore lies low and without
buildings. Here is a view looking southward across the river from the
brink edge; it shows the low and non-sacred southern shore. Here are two
views of the brink itself, faced and crowned with buildings of yellow
sandstone. There follow two views of the palace of the Raja of Bhinga,
and in both we see the ghat steps descending to the water’s edge.

[Sidenote: 12.
Dasashwamedh Ghat, Benares.] [Sidenote: 13.
Manikarnika Ghat, Benares.] The population of Benares numbers some two
hundred thousand, of whom the great majority are of the Hindu faith, and
no fewer than thirty thousand are Brahmans, the priestly caste. It is
said that more than a million pilgrims visit the city every year. In the
early morning they descend the ghats to bathe in the river and to drink
the sacred water. Here we have the scene at one of these ghats, with the
conical towers of a temple, and the great sun umbrellas. Another scene
of a similar character follows at another ghat, the most sacred in
Benares.

[Sidenote: 14.
Burning Ghat, Benares.] [Sidenote: 15.
Another Burning Ghat, Benares.] Some of the ghats are used for the
burning of dead bodies. Wrapped in a white shroud, the corpse is dipped
into the river, then laid on a pile of faggots, and other faggots are
built around, and a light is set to the pile. The ashes are thrown into
the river. These rites are performed by the nearest relatives. We have
here the body of a woman of the poorer classes nearly consumed, and the
few relatives looking on. Here preparations are in progress for another
cremation. The corpse may be seen, with its feet in the water, resting
aslant at the foot of the ghat. The bodies of the higher castes are
burnt at the Raja Ghat on costly fires of sandal-wood. At night, from
the water, the city, with its thousands of lights and the tall flames at
the Burning Ghats, is deeply impressive.

[Sidenote: 16.
The Observatory, Benares.] [Sidenote: 17.
The Samrat Yantra in the Observatory.] [Sidenote: 18.
Eclipse Festival, Benares.] Perhaps the most interesting of all the
buildings at Benares is the Observatory, a lofty structure placed on the
river brink and commanding a wide view. Within are instruments of stone
on a great scale for the observation of the movements of the heavenly
bodies. This is the Samrat Yantra, used for observing the declination
and right ascension of the stars. Astronomy plays no inconsiderable part
in the rites of Benares. The pilgrimages are thronged at the time of
eclipse of the sun, and there are certain ghats of special resort during
the occurrence of eclipses.

[Sidenote: 19.
Roof of Golden Temple, Benares.] [Sidenote: 20 Vishnagi Temple,
Benares.] [Sidenote: 21.
Aurangzeb’s Mosque, Benares.] [Sidenote: 22.
The Same—another view.] Set a little back from the river front in a
small square is the chief temple of the Hindus. Europeans are not
permitted to go within, but only to peep through a hole in the wall, and
also from an upper balcony of a neighbouring house to look down upon the
gilded roof. Beside this temple there is another, half of which is in
ruin, and the remainder has been converted to the purpose of a Musulman
mosque. The old part is of yellow-grey sandstone, tawny with age, but
the mosque has been white-washed and shines brightly in the sunlight. We
have here a view of this temple-mosque, and then there follow two views,
showing the tall minarets of Aurangzeb’s Mosque, built on the site of
another Hindu temple which he destroyed. For two centuries until the
advent of British power the rulers of this Hindu land were of the
Musulman faith, conquerors from the northwest. The Musulmans destroyed
many of the ancient Hindu temples of Benares, so that most of the
buildings of the city are comparatively modern.

[Sidenote: 23.
A Fakir, Benares.] [Sidenote: 24.
Snake Charmers, Benares.] As in a Christian country, such a resort of
pilgrims brings together men from far distant and different lands, and
we have at Benares an epitome of all Hindu India. In the narrow
deep-shaded streets, and the sordid and tawdry purlieus of the temples
may be seen many a typical scene of Eastern life. Here, for instance,
close to Aurangzeb’s Mosque, is a Fakir or religious enthusiast, to whom
the alms of the faithful are due. He rests on this bed of spikes day and
night. Such Fakirs get much alms, which they are supposed by the envious
to bury underground. We have another characteristic scene here, two
snake charmers on one of the ghats, with a fine assortment of
reptiles—cobra, python, and other snakes, as well as scorpions. There is
always a ready crowd for them, as for jugglers of curious skill.

[Sidenote: 25.
Bullock Cart, Benares.] [Sidenote: 26.
A Camel, Benares.] [Sidenote: 27.
A Bridegroom, Benares.] The traffic in the streets is of the most
various kind. Here is an ox waggon, with cumbrous wooden wheels, laden
with rough stone for road making, and here a tall camel bringing in
tobacco from some outlying village. This is a bridegroom of the highest,
the Brahman caste, mounted on a white horse, and clothed in a golden
dress shot with pink. He is probably on his way to pay a ceremonial
call.

[Sidenote: 28.
Prince of Wales Hospital, Benares.] [Sidenote: 29.
Queen’s College, Benares.] [Sidenote: 30.
Central Hindu College, Benares.] Further inland, near the railway
station, is grouped the European quarter, with a Christian church, the
post office, the regimental barracks of the cantonment, missionary
colleges, villas of officials, and a few fine public buildings of recent
date. Here for instance, with a bullock cart passing it, and another
vehicle behind with a sun-hood, is the Prince of Wales Hospital. Here is
Queen’s College, where a modern education is given to some five hundred
students, and here finally is the Central Hindu College, opened in 1899,
“for the education of Hindu youth in their ancestral faith and in true
loyalty and patriotism.” This college contains about two hundred and
fifty students.

[Sidenote: 31.
Army Factory, Cawnpore—Native Cutters at work.] We now leave Benares,
noticing the great railway bridge over the Ganges, and travel by rail
over the grey monotony of the plains, varied by patches of cultivation,
herds of long-eared goats, long-legged pigs, large black vultures, and
here and there a string of camels. So we come to Cawnpore, the
Manchester of India. Cawnpore is the chief inland manufacturing city of
India, a great contrast in all its ways with Benares. Western capital,
Western ideas, and Western organisation are at work on a large scale.
There are mills and factories for the spinning and weaving of wool,
mostly Indian wool, but some Australian brought by way of Calcutta. One
of these mills seen by our artist had on hand at the time of his visit
an order for eleven thousand coats, and had just finished thirty-three
thousand for the police of the great native state of Hyderabad. This is
the mill in question. The cutters are shearing coats from a great piece
of khaki, on which the patterns to be cut have been chalked. Both the
spinning of the yarn and the weaving of khaki cloth have been
accomplished by native labour and British machinery at Cawnpore. Khaki
signifies the colour of khak, or dust.

[Sidenote: 32.
The Same—the Raw Hide Shed.] [Sidenote: 33.
The Same—unloading Bark.] [Sidenote: 34.
The Same—the Boot Shop.] [Sidenote: 35.
Well in Messrs. Cooper Allen’s Model Village, Cawnpore.] [Sidenote: 36.
Native Potters.] [Sidenote: 37.
The Same.] Here is a leather factory for making Government boots and
army equipment. This view shows the raw hides, mostly buffalo, gathered
by rail from all parts of India. The hides on the weighing machine have
been dried. This is bark being unloaded from the train for use in the
tannery. Then we see the boot shop itself, thronged with workmen. These
workmen are mostly Musulmans. As will be seen, the boots are hand-sewn.
One large firm, employing daily some three thousand five hundred hands,
has built a model village, of which we have here the well, the central
feature of every Indian village, whether of the new and garden type, or
of the old and traditional. What a contrast must all this be to the
inhabitants of the country districts, where village tradesmen still
follow their traditional crafts! Here, for example, are two views in a
pottery near Benares. The potters turn the wheel with their feet. Most
Hindu workmen use their feet a good deal, and of course the typical
squatting attitude makes it easier for them to do so.

Consider the revolution in all the social life of India, which is
involved in the steady displacement of these village-made wares by the
cheaper machine-made products of Cawnpore and other factory centres.
There is a change beginning throughout the length and breadth of this
vast land, not wholly unlike that which took place in Britain under the
name of the Industrial Revolution a century and a half ago. As higher
and more skilled industries are introduced, it seems likely ultimately
to result in a migration of workers from the villages to the cities, in
the growth of the size of the cities, and in the greater monotony of
life in the rustic villages. No doubt there will be some inevitable
suffering, especially on the part of those workers who cannot adapt
themselves to the new conditions. In the main, however, the factory
operatives have thus far been peasant proprietors who forsake their
villages only for a time.

[Sidenote: 38.
The Rumi Gate, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 39.
The Same—from within.] [Sidenote: 40.
The Imambara, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 41.
The Same—the Great Hall.] Lucknow is a city of modern temples and
palaces, many of them stucco buildings of debased architecture, which
appear beautiful only by moonlight and when artificially illuminated. We
have here the Rumi Gateway, and here the same gateway from within. Then
we have the Imambara, built under Asaf-ud-daulah, who also built the
Residency, as a relief work in a great famine in 1784. The most striking
feature is the successful construction of an enormous roof of coarse
concrete without ribs, beams, pillars, or visible support of any kind,
except that from the four surrounding walls. Here is the great hall,
beneath this roof. It is about a hundred and sixty feet long, fifty feet
wide, and some fifty feet high. On the floor is the tomb of
Asaf-ud-daulah, a slab of plain masonry surrounded by silver, and
covered with a canopy. The tomb is not in line with the sides of the
hall, but is a little askew in order that it be oriented in accordance
with the direction of Mecca. Near by can be seen a huge tazia, which is
carried through the streets on the Musulman anniversary of the Moharam.

[Sidenote: 42.
In the Chauk Bazaar, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 43.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 44.
A Musulman Woman in a Burka.] [Sidenote: 45.
The Jama Masjid, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 46.
The Husainabad Imambara, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 47.
Karbala of Diana-ud-daula, Lucknow.] [Sidenote: 48.
The Kasmain, Lucknow.] Next we have two views in the Bazaar of Lucknow,
which forms one of the six wards of the city. In the bazaar are to be
found jewellers and silversmiths, together with brassworkers and
woodcarvers. Then we come to a very characteristic Indian scene, a
Musulman woman wearing a burka, that is to say, a veil with eye-slits.
All Musulman women of a higher class are veiled when they leave the
privacy of their houses, in accordance with the general feeling of
Islam, alike in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Here we see the Jama Masjid, a
three-domed mosque, with decorations painted in blue and purple upon its
walls. Within it is a curious ledge used by the Shiahs, one of the two
great sects of the Musulmans, for resting their foreheads at prayer
time. From the platform of this mosque, we have a view of one of the
largest Muhammadan buildings of the city, the Husainabad Imambara, built
in 1837, by Muhammad Ali Shah, as a burial place for himself and his
mother. It is almost entirely of painted stucco. Beyond its tallest
minaret can be seen in the distance the red brick Clock-Tower of the
city. Here we see the Karbala or burying place of Diana-ud-daula, of red
sandstone, with a gilded cupola, and close by is the Kasmain, whose
architecture is copied from that of a sacred place in Bagdad.

[Sidenote: 49.