page
LETTERS HOME
FROM
INDIA AND IRAK
1925
BAS



OUTLINE
ROUTE
EUROPE
PARIS
MARSEILLES
BLACK SEA
TURKEY
MEDITERRANEAN E
SE
SYRIA:
..Alexandria.
__Port Said
Baalbek
DAMASCUS Pald
Tibucios
Jerusalem
-PALES
NORTH AFRICA
- FRED SEA



Governing India and Irak Today
al
LETTERS HOME FROM INDIA AND | Madras and other places. He was world has ever seen." One impres- is
IRAK, By Paul D. Cnavath, 158 | evidently an alert traveler, keenly sion that, he says, stands out very fai
pp. New York: Privately printed.
interested in all the many phases of clearly is that “the Viceroy of India tha
CCOMPANIED by Harrison Wil- life in India, and he proves to be an has the hardest governing job in the info
liams, Mr. Cravath made last exceptionally good reporter of what world." The thing that interested It w
Winter the three months' trip | he saw. Moreover, he had unusual him more than anything else in In- ican
to India and through Irak about opportunities to see sides of life and dia was the people. He thinks that ploye
which he writes in these "Letters striking events of which the usual | the dividing up into four mandated | metr
Home." He has had the letters tourist would get never a glimpse, regions of that part of pre-war sour
printed, not for publication but for and of all these he writes with Turkey where the Arab population will
the use of his friends, especially of graphic description. After leaving predominates was a great mistake cessfs
those among them who contemplate India and again at the end of their and that if Irak, Palestine, Trans- of me
a similar trip. He journeyed to In- | trip through Irak he makes com- Jordania and Syria had been con- save
dia via the Suez Canal, entering at ments and draws conclusions con- solidated under a single government pezet.
Bombay and spending seven or more cerning affairs in the two countries. it might have become a strong, self for 1
weeks, in the course of which he He considers British rule in India supporting political unit, somethy.g well
visited Delhi, Lahore, the Khyber "the most remarkable triumph of that no one of the mandatey can as a
| Pass, Darjeeling, Benares, Calcutta, moral force and authority that the ever be.
ficie


LETTERS HOME
from
INDIA and IRAK
1925


Library
of the
University of Wisconsin
,


<Paul D. Gravatha
LETTERS HOME
FROM
INDIA AND IRAK
1925
For Mr. Welling


Printed in the United States of America by
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK


G69
.285
581530
WARNING TO THE READER
eegh 300 Heatory
The following letters have been printed, not
for publication, but for friends, some of whom
contemplate visiting India. They are simply a
casual and uncensored daily record of the ex-
periences and impressions of two visitors to
India who, being neither archæologists, psycholo-
gists, students of religion nor sportsmen, were
primarily in search of diversion and recreation.
Nothing is more remote from our minds than
an expression of views about India and her prob-
lems. Whenever we found ourselves disposed to
form views or reach conclusions, we were checked
by the memory of a remark made to us early in
our visit by one of the most successful and accom-
plished of British civil servants, that the one
thing he had learned after thirty-five years' resi-
dence in India was that he had acquired no real
understanding of India and her people.
Remembering the difficulty we experienced in
making selections from the mass of books on
India that had been recommended to us, I have
15545
[v]


WARNING TO THE READER
ventured to give at the end of this volume a list
of the books that we found most helpful.
Thanks to the unusual opportunities afforded
us through the generous cooperation of Lord
Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India,
and the unbounded hospitality of the Viceroy
and Lady Reading, our visit was interesting
from beginning to end and often exciting. It
was not marred by a single dull hour. We won-
der that so few Americans visit India except as
an incident to a hectic journey around the world.
PAUL D. CRAVATH
New
York, April 1, 1925
[vi]


OUR ITINERARY
DECEMBER 19. SAILED FROM MARSEILLES ON THE P. & 0. S. S.
Narkunda.
DECEMBER 24. AT PORT SAID TWO HOURS. STARTED JOURNEY
THROUGH SUEZ CANAL. REACHED ISMAILIA AT
NIGHTFALL.
DECEMBER 27. SPENT THE MORNING AT ADEN.
JANUARY 2. REACHED BOMBAY EARLY IN THE MORNING.
JANUARY 3. LEFT BOMBAY BY TRAIN IN THE EVENING FOR
BIRANER.
JANUARY 4. PASSED ABU ROAD STATION BUT DID NOT HAVE
TIME TO STOP TO VISIT THE JAIN TEMPLES AT
MOUNT ABU.
JANUARY 5. REACHED BIKANER IN THE MORNING.
JANUARY 6. BIKANER.
JANUARY 7. BIKANER. LEFT IN THE EVENING BY TRAIN FOR
JAIPUR.
JANUARY 8. JAIPUR.
JANUARY 9. JAIPUR. VISIT TO AMBER BY MOTOR. LEFT IN THE
EVENING BY TRAIN FOR CHITOGARH. VISITED
AJMER TWO HOURS BY MOONLIGHT.
JANUARY 10. REACHED CHITOGARH FOR BREAKFAST. VISITED
THE RUINS OF CHITOR BY TONGA. LEFT CHITOGARH
FOR UDAIPUR IN THE AFTERNOON.
JANUARY 11. REACHED UDAIPUR FOR BREAKFAST.
JANUARY 12. LEFT BY EVENING TRAIN FOR AGRA.
JANUARY 13. AGRA.
JANUARY 14. AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI.
JANUARY 15. MOTORED FROM AGRA TO DELHI.
JANUARY 16. DELHI.
[ vii ]


OUR ITINERARY
JANUARY 17. DELHI.
JANUARY 18. DELHI.
JANUARY 19. DELHI.
JANUARY 20. DELHI.
JANUARY 21. DELHI, LEFT IN THE EVENING FOR PESHAWAB.
JANUARY 22. REACHED PESHAWAR IN THE EVENING.
JANUARY 23. WENT TO THE AFGHAN FRONTIER BY MOTOR OVER
THE KHYBER PASS IN THE MORNING.
JANUARY 24. LEFT PESHAWAR BY MOTOR AFTER LUNCH, STOP-
PING AT ATTOCK. REACHED RAWALPINDI IN TIME
FOR DINNER. LEFT BY TRAIN LATE AT NIGHT FOB
LAHORE.
JANUARY 25. REACHED LAHORE ABOUT LUNCH TIME. MOTORED
TO AMRITSAR AND THERE TOOK TRAIN FOR BENARES.
JANUARY 26. ON TRAIN EN ROUTE FOR BENARES.
JANUARY 27. REACHED BENARES IN THE MORNING.
JANUARY 28. LEFT BENARES IN THE AFTERNOON FOR CALCUTTA.
JANUARY 29. REACHED CALCUTTA IN THE MORNING. LEFT BY
TRAIN FOR DARJEELING IN THE EVENING.
JANUARY 30. REACHED TERMINUS OF THE RAILROAD IN THE MORN-
ING, CONTINUED JOURNEY BY MOTOR TO DARJEEL-
ING, ARRIVING IN TIME FOR LATE LUNCH.
JANUARY 31. DARJEELING.
FEBRUARY 1. LEFT DARJEELING BY MOTOR FOR TERMINUS OF
RAILROAD AND FROM THERE CONTINUED JOURNEY BY
RAIL.
FEBRUARY 2. REACHED CALCUTTA IN THE MORNING.
FEBRUARY 3. CALCUTTA. LEFT BY RAIL IN THE EVENING FOR PUBI.
FEBRU ABY 4. REACHED PURI IN THE MORNING. MOTORED IN
MIDDLE OF THE DAY TO BHUBANESWAR. TOOK TRAIN
IN THE EVENING FOR MADRAS.
FEBRUARY 5. ON TRAIN EN BOUTE TO MADRAS.
FEBRUARY 6. REACHED MADRAS IN THE MORNING.
FEBRUARY 7. MOTORED TO THE SEVEN PAGODAS. P. D. C. LEFT
FOR TRICHINOPOLY AND TANJORE IN THE EVENING.
[ viii ]


OUR ITINERARY
FEBRUARY 8. P. D. C. VISITED TRICHINOPOLY IN THE MORNING
AND TANJORE IN THE AFTERNOON, H. W. HAVING
REMAINED AT MADRAS.
FEBRUARY 9. DAY AT MADRAS. LEFT IN THE EVENING FOR
POONA.
FEBRUARY 10. ON TRAIN EN BOUTE TO POONA.
FEBRUARY 11. REACHED POONA IN THE MORNING.
FEBRUARY 12. LEFT POONA IN THE MORNING BY MOTOR FOB KARLI
CAVES. REACHED RAILROAD JUNCTION EAST OF
BOMBAY IN TIME FOR LUNCH AND TO CATCH TRAIN
FOR GWALIOR.
FEBRUARY 13. REACHED GWALIOR AT MIDDAY.
FEBRUARY 14. GWALIOR.
FEBRUARY 15. GWALIOR.
FEBRUARY 16. GWALIOR. LEFT AT NIGHT BY TRAIN FOR BOMBAY.
FEBRUARY 17. ON TRAIN EN ROUTE FOR BOMBAY.
FEBRUARY 18. REACHED BOMBAY IN THE MORNING.
FEBRUARY 19. BOMBAY.
FEBRUARY 20. SAILED FROM BOMBAY ON THE S. S. Vasna ror
BASRA AT THE MOUTH OF THE TIGRIS.
FEBRUARY 21. ON THE Vasna.
FEBRUARY 22. STOPPED FOR THREE HOURS AT KARACHI.
FEBRUARY 26. REACHED BASRA EARLY IN THE MORNING. FLEW
IN THREE HOURS TO BAGHDAD, ARRIVING AT TEA
TIME.
FEBRUARY 27. BAGHDAD.
FEBRUARY 28. BAGHDAD.
MARCH 1. LEFT BAGHDAD BY MOTOR AT ONE O'CLOCK ON
JOURNEY ACROSS SYRIAN DESERT TO DAMASCUS.
REACHED QUESBESSA (HITT) BY SUNDOWN.
MARCH 2. LEFT QUESBESSA AT SIX IN THE MORNING.
REACHED TADMOR (PALMYRA) AT FIVE IN THE
AFTERNOON, AFTER A JOURNEY OF THREE HUNDRED
MILES ACROSS THE SYRIAN DESERT.
MARCH 3. LEFT PALMYRA AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING, REACH-,-
ING DAMASCUS IN TIME FOR LUNCH.
[ix ]


OUR ITINERARY
MARCH
MARCH
MARCH
MARCH
4. LEFT BY MOTOR FOR BA’ALBEK EARLY IN THE MORN-
ING. RETURNED TO DAMASCUS IN THE AFTERNOON.
5. LEFT DAMASCUS BY MOTOR
LEFT DAMASCUS BY MOTOR EARLY IN THE MORNING.
REACHED TIBERIAS AT THREE IN THE AFTERNOON.
6. MOTORED FROM TIBERIAS TO JERUSALEM VIA NAZA-
RETH, ARRIVING AT JERUSALEM AT TWO IN THE
AFTERNOON.
7. JERUSALEM. MOTOR TRIP TO DEAD SEA AND
JERICHO.
8. JERUSALEM.
9. MOTORED IN MORNING TO LUDD TO CATCH TRAIN
FOR ALEXANDRIA.
10. REACHED ALEXANDRIA EARLY IN MORNING IN TIME
TO CATCH THE Mauretania FOR NAPLES.
12. REACHED NAPLES IN THE MORNING.
1.
CH
MARCH
MARCH
MARCH
[x]
.


INDIA





INDIA
On Board the s.8. “Narkunda," January 1, 1925
terranean,
T TARRISON WILLIAMS and I sailed from The Medi-
IT Marseilles December 19, 1924, on the P. & 0.
steamship Narkunda, eighteen thousand tons bur-
den. The voyage was an uneventful Mediterra-
nean voyage until we reached Port Said. We
passed very near Stromboli, which was emitting a
dense cloud of smoke, and reached the Straits of
Messina about three o'clock in the afternoon.
Luckily we had perfect weather and a clear sky
for the journey through the Straits. After the
Narkunda had safely negotiated Scylla and Charyb-
dis, we had a good view of Mt. Ætna. The setting
sun cast a red glow on the pillar of smoke that
emerged from the crater that for half an hour
made it look like a great pillar of fire. The moun.
tain sides of Sicily and Calabria, terraced with
miniature vineyards and fields from the water's
edge almost to their summits, and dotted here and
there with picturesque villages, were very beautiful
in the afternoon light.
[3]


INDIA
Port Said. We reached Port Said early in the morning of
the fifth day. Our first visit was to the famous
department store of Simon Artz, where we
equipped ourselves with solar topees (helmets)—
brown ones for travel, white ones for dress occa-
sions. Then pursued by an army of beggars,
peddlers, touts and ragged children, we walked
leisurely through some of the principal streets in
an attempt to see the sights. They proved to be
few and uninteresting. At the end of the jetty,
which marks one side of the entrance to the Suez
Canal, stands a colossal statue of de Lesseps gazing
seaward and holding out his hand as if to welcome
the incoming ships. The city is drab and dull and
wholly lacking in character and distinction. It is
even reasonably clean for an oriental city and no
longer deserves its former reputation of being the
most wicked city in the world. Its population,
which seemed all to be in the streets, is a hetero-
geneous assortment of denatured humanity of every
nationality and shade of color, with a correspond-
ing variety of costumes—Egyptians, Soudanese,
Arabs, Maltese, Armenians, Abyssinians, Jews,
East Indians, white men of every nationality, and
mixed breeds of every conceivable cross. A more
importunate and offensive lot of beggars and touts
than the crowd that followed us I have never seen.
The population lives off the passengers from the
[ 4 ]


INDIA
passing ships, which all stop at Port Said for a few
hours before entering and leaving the canal. To
our surprise, French rather than English is the
European language most generally spoken in Port
Said. The Canal seems to be managed by French
officials, although a majority of the shares of
the Canal Company are owned by the British
Government.
We met the Batonnier of the Cairo Bar, who had
just been appointed Attorney General of the
Egyptian Government. He spoke fluent French,
but little or no English. He said that this was
generally true of the older Egyptians of education,
but that the younger generation spoke English.
The passage through the Canal takes about fif- The Suez
teen hours. There is no striking scenery on either
side-only desert, occasionally flanked by bare
mountains in the distance, one of which is Mt.
Sinai. We saw a few herds of camels and goats
and an occasional band of Bedouins, but practically
the only human habitations are those appurte-
nant to the Canal and the railroad that runs par-
allel to it for its entire length. At Ismailia, which
we passed just after nightfall, the railroad
branches off to Cairo, which is about sixty miles
distant; and at El Kantara there is a ferry for the
passengers traveling by rail between Egypt and
Palestine. At El Kantara we saw relics of the
Canal,
[5]


INDIA
great camp which the British Army maintained
there during the latter part of the war and where,
it was said, there had been as many as two hundred
thousand troops at one time. It was from this base
that General Allenby made his advance upon Jeru-
salem, and here started the military pipe line that
carried the water of the Nile ahead of the Army for
two hundred miles into the desert.
The passage through the Canal was a real experi-
ence. It gave one a feeling of importance to realize
that the Nile was only a few miles distant on the
west and that on the east was Arabia with its
Meccas and Medinas; that it was not far away that
Moses received the tablets of the Ten Command-
ments amid the thunders of Sinai and that we were
sailing over the place (the exact location of which
seems to be in doubt) where Moses and the Israel-
ites crossed the Red Sea through its divided waters
and Pharaoh's pursuing army was engulfed.
The three days' voyage through the Red Sea was
uneventful. Fortunately, the weather was unusu-
ally cool, the thermometer never rising above
eighty. We were told that not infrequently it was
so hot, even in winter, that passengers preferred to
spend the night on deck rather than to try to sleep
in the suffocating heat of the staterooms. Through-
out our voyage there was a fresh breeze. We were
perfectly comfortable in our staterooms at night,
The Red
Sea.
[6]


INDIA
although during the day we were glad to wear our
lightest summer attire. Most of the time we were
out of sight of land, but occasionally bare, rugged
mountains loomed in the distance, sometimes to
the west on the African coast and less frequently to
the east in Arabia.
On the morning of the eighth day from Marseilles Aden.
we anchored off Aden, which is on the Arabian Sea
just east of the entrance to the Red Sea. This was
our first British port. The guide book says that it
was "captured” from the Arabs at the beginning
of Queen Victoria's reign. So far as I can make
out, the British, realizing that the mountainous
peninsula on which Aden is situated could be made
an impregnable fortress in a safe harbor at a
strategic location, simply seized it. I am glad they
did. It is now the most western outpost of the
British Empire in the Far East. Its administra-
tion is under the Government of Bombay. The
Governor, Lt. Gen. Thomas Scott,* who met the
ship, asked us to join his party. He is a charming
man, a typical British officer of the best type,-
tall, erect, modest but self-reliant,-gentle, with a
suggestion of reserve power that he might use ruth-
lessly if occasion required. He has been in the
Indian Army thirty-five years and is soon to retire.
Bombery
* At Bombay we learned that on the very day of our visit to
Aden General Scott had been knighted.
[7]
had been proviny


INDIA
He and his associates seem to regard Aden as a
most desirable post. In spite of its climate which,
although hot, is dry with an almost complete ab-
sence of rain at all seasons of the year, it offers
many advantages-good fishing, sailing and shoot-
ing, and visits from thousands of travelers between.
India and England. General Scott said there was
no place in the world where he was sure to see so
many of his friends in the course of a year as at
Aden.
After regaling us with soft drinks at Government
House, General Scott gave us the choice between
staying for lunch and seeing the town. As we chose
the latter alternative, he sent us around town in a
motor car. We soon found that Aden deserved its
reputation of being the driest place in the world.
We did not see a blade of grass or a single bush or
weed, except in the places where water had been
provided, and there were very few of them. Yet the
British residents have a golf course and a polo
field, both, of course, without grass. The canton-.
ment (pronounced Cantoonment), that is, the
British and official part of Aden, is exceptionally
neat and orderly as all such places run by the
British Army are. The Governor's House crowns
a small hill and is most cunningly devised to attract
every breeze and repel every ray of the sun. On
the day of our visit, which was said to be excep-
[8]


INDIA
Indian
tionally cool, the thermometer stood at about eighty
in the shade. So far as I can make out, the win-
dows and doors of Government House, if there are
any, are never closed.
The native portion of Aden is in a depression
shut in by hills and mountains that is called the
“Crater.” Compared with its summer climate, Hell
must be cool. The scenes in the native bazaars and
markets are colorful and picturesque, and what a
babble of talk! The native population consists
chiefly of Arabs of every shade of color from white
to dark chocolate, with a sprinkling of Indians and
ebony-black Africans.
The journey from Aden to Bombay across the The
Indian Ocean takes five days. The weather has Ocean.
been delightfuly cool. One day a rough sea kept
most of the ladies and not a few of the men from
the dining saloon. Neither Harrison Williams nor
I succumbed. We are enjoying the two weeks'
voyage thoroughly. The Narkunda, which is one
of the best of the P. & O. steamers, is very steady
and seaworthy. She is much less pretentious than
most of the transatlantic steamers. There are no
cabines de luxe and few with private baths. The
food is plain and uninteresting and offers no temp-
tation to overeating. Our table mates are Mr. and
Mrs. Walter Jennings, their daughter, Constance,
and their son, Oliver, Mrs. Thomas, her daugh-
[9]


INDIA
eompany.
ter, Miss Campbell, from Baltimore, and Lt. Col.
Wynter. We are a cheerful table of good sailors.
The ship's The ship's company is most interesting and
varied—very different from the typical crowd on
a transatlantic liner. There are few Americans and
few tourists of any sort. Most of the passengers
are British men and women in some way connected
with official or commercial life in India-army
officers, civil servants, merchants, tea planters from
Burmah and Ceylon, and British officials and mem-
bers of Parliament on missions of one kind or
another. There are a few Europeanized Indian
princes, who speak English and French, and, I pre-
sume, their native tongue, with equal fluency; sev-
eral dignified Parsee merchants, who dress, talk,
act and look (except for their light yellow com-
plexions), very much like Europeans; several
Parsee ladies who wear their characteristic dress
slightly europeanized; a Mohammedan professor
of astronomy from the Mohammedan University at
Aligarth near Delhi; a young Brahmin of Kashmiri
ancestry, who is the Finance Minister of the Inde-
pendent State of Jaipur; several other Hindus of
humbler rank and caste; and the usual mass of
humanity that defies classification. All of the
Indians, except the Parsee ladies, wear European
clothes. The passengers of whom we see the most
are Sir Warden Chilcott, M.P., an intimate friend
[10]


INDIA
He says he and his compatriots have been success-
ful merchants, governors and soldiers in India for
more than a century without expending precious
energy in attempting to understand the native
character, which, in his opinion, is not worth under-
standing anyway. He says the British have suc-
ceeded in governing India by following the rule,
“Be just and firm always, kind if possible but
rough if need be, and never show the white feather."
Both Sir John Hewett, who is of the old school
of Civil Servants, and the Merchant Prince deplore
the recent attempts to introduce western liberal
and democratic ideas into the Government of India.
They insist that the way to govern the Indians is
to govern them for their own good and not ask them
how it should be done; and that the British rulers
are better qualified to determine what manner and
methods of government India needs than the In-
dians themselves. These conservative views receive
a chorus of approval from the Parsee merchants
(who owe to the protection of the British Govern-
ment the opportunity of becoming the most pros-
perous mercantile community in the world), from
the Maharajas and Rajas (whose vested rights have
been protected by British law), from the Merchant
Princes (whose interests have always been near the
heart of the British Rulers of India), from the
Mohammedan Professor (who realizes that it is
[12]


INDIA
The
amuse-
ments on
shipboard.
only British rule that protects the Mohammedan
minority against trouble with the overwhelming
Hindu majority), and from most of the other lis-
teners who, in one way or another, are connected
with the vested interests in India or are protected
by British rule. I presume that some of the silent
Bengalis on board secretly dissent and that still
more dissent would be found in the second cabin.
I confess that thus far our sympathies are with Sir
John Hewett and the standpatters. When we reach
India we shall try to hear something of the other
side from the apostles of Swaraj (self-government).
The demeanor of the British passengers is most
interesting. Both old and young are as gay and ments on
playful as children. The first day the passengers
organized a “Sports Committee” with Sir John
Hewett as Chairman, under whose direction there
have been tournaments and contests of every con-
ceivable kind-fancy dress parties, at which prizes
were offered for the most striking costumes, com-
petitions in the decoration of dinner tables, races,
tugs of war, wrestling, deck tennis, cricket matches,
etc. In these events both the British and Indians
take part indiscriminately. There has been much
spontaneous gaiety and merriment and none of the
passengers, except a few Americans who did not sit
at our table, have put on airs or shown any sign of
self-consciousness. There has been no drunkenness
[13]


INDIA
and no rowdyism except possibly on the part of one
passenger, who is neither British, American, nor
Indian. All the young people, and many who are
not young, took part in the fancy dress ball. Some
of the improvised costumes were very funny. There
was a refreshing absence of ostentation and ex-
travagant display except in a few cases of worthy
legs and shoulders.
We are already beginning to have a better under-
standing of why the British are so happy and
successful in ruling the depressed races of the
world.
We have just received radios from Sir Leslie
Wilson, the Governor of Bombay, asking us to stay
at Government House. This we have decided to
do, although we do not propose to keep up the prac-
tice of imitating Kipling's "Cossack in Evening
Dress” by permitting ourselves to be quartered on
the country, which is very easy for visitors in India
who start with an orthodox official introduction.
Bombay.
Government House, Bombay, January 3, 1925
The good ship Narkunda tied up to the dock at
Bombay on the morning of January second, the
thirteenth day from Marseilles. Viewed from the
ship, Bombay and its docks look like an English
city with a slightly oriental flavor. Indeed, if it
had not been for the colorful crowd of beturbaned
[14]


INDIA
ernment
Indians, jabbering like a flock of birds, that greeted
the arrival of the ship, there would have been little
to remind us that we were landing on "India's
coral strand.”
The eight passengers who were to stay with the Gov.
Governor of Bombay were met by aides-de-camp, House.
who took charge of us and whisked us in Rolls
Royces four miles away to Government House,
where a typical English breakfast awaited us.
After breakfast the Military Secretary asked the
guests one by one to talk with their excellencies,
the Governor and Lady Wilson. They were very
charming, unaffected and cordial.
Government House is a delightful place on a
peninsula jutting out into the bay beyond Malabar
Hill, which is the residential district for the well-
to-do British and the rich Parsee merchants. The
grounds must comprise two or three hundred acres
and are beautifully planted with tropical trees and
shrubs. The road of approach from the main high-
way is at least half a mile long. The central build-
ing contains the main reception rooms, the ball
room, the dining room and other public rooms.
The sleeping quarters, including those of the Gov-
ernor and his family, are in several detached bunga-
lows, some of which are quite elaborate. Our
quarters consisted of two large bedrooms, two big
bathrooms with hot and cold water and two sepa-
[ 15 ]


INDIA
rate porches all in a bungalow of our own which
commands a beautiful view of the sea. There must
be accommodations for forty or fifty guests. We
are struck by the complete absence of any pro-
vision for rain or cold weather. The main entrance
to the central pavilion is entirely unprotected by
doors and the paths to the various bungalows are
uncovered. The explanation is that it is never cold
at Bombay and Government House is not occupied
during the rainy season and the hot weather when
the Governor and his household move to the hills.
Their Excellencies, the Governor and Lady
Wilson (each of whom is familiarly referred to
as “H.E.”), maintain a degree of state approach-
ing that of a royal court. They are attended by
a flock of aides-de-camp headed by a Military Secre-
tary. They have a bodyguard of about one hundred
magnificently uniformed Sikhs of exceptionally fine
physique, several of whom are always on guard at
the entrance to the grounds and at the main en-
trance of the central pavilion. It was some time
before we could pass a Sikh sentry without feeling
that we should return his salute by tipping our
hats. There must be several hundred servants and
gardeners. The Governor's establishment com-
prises about twelve hundred people, including the
Sikh bodyguard and the women and children. The
household is most skillfully managed by the very
[ 16 ]


INDIA
charming and able Military Secretary, Major Vaux.
The formality at Government House is confined
to dinner and lunch and public functions. At other
times we are free to do about as we choose. A
motor car and an aide-de-camp are at our disposal
and no effort is spared to give us a good time and
an opportunity to see the sights of Bombay. We
have been offered every form of exercise from golf
and tennis to hunting and polo. At dinner and
lunch there is great formality. The guests all
assemble in a semi-circle in the drawing room
before Their Excellencies enter. In the dining
room there is a flock of gaily dressed native bare-
footed servants, headed by a barefooted butler of
great stature and dignity, who wears a turban a
foot high. His black beard, which under the dic-
tates of his religion is never cut, is held against
his face by a black net. In the dining room there
must be a servant for every guest. Never have
I seen more attentive and thoughtful servants.
We are told that they are less efficient than they
appear to be and require a great deal of guidance
and attention and are apt to lose their heads in an
emergency. After dinner or luncheon the Military
Secretary asks the guests to come up one by one or
in groups to talk with Their Excellencies, just as
in the case of royal hosts.
Bombay, or at least the part that the casual
[17]


INDIA
The
sights of
Bombay.
visitor sees, is very much like a big English city,
perhaps a little uglier as the result of the effort to.
give Georgian and Gothic buildings an oriental
aspect. The main business streets are crowded
with motor cars, many of them occupied by Indians.
Of course, the large majority of the crowds in the
streets are Indians, as are all of the policemen. As
our visit is so short and our time so fully occupied
by participation in the events arranged at Govern-
ment House, we are seeing little of the few sights
of Bombay. We visited the walled park where dead
Hindus are burned and the “Towers of Silence"
where dead Parsees are exposed to be devoured by
vultures, a process that is usually completed in a
couple of hours. We went for tea at the Bombay
Yacht Club, where all British Bombay gathers in
the afternoon to listen to the orchestra and gossip;
and to the races, where a small crowd of English
and a few Indian Princes and Parsees were gath-
ered in the Club stand. The only native ladies in
the Club stand were from the Parsee community
wearing their picturesque costumes. There were
enormous crowds of Indians in the bleachers with a
sprinkling of British soldiers. I never saw a race
track crowd more animated and more intent on the
result of the races than these heterogeneous crowds
of natives. Betting on the races is said to be uni-
versal among them. The betting is entirely by the
[ 18 ]


INDIA
Parsees.
totalization system, which is practically the same
as the Paris Mutuel. Many of the horses are owned
by Indian Rajas and Parsee merchants.
Bombay is the principal port on the west coast
of India and is sustained by an enormous com-
merce, which is largely in the hands of the British
and the Parsees, although there are a good many
important Hindu and Moslem merchants. It is the
center of a very considerable cotton spinning indus-
try, which is almost entirely owned by the Parsees.
There are scores of modern cotton mills in Bombay
and the neighboring cities.
The Parsees of Bombay constitute one of the The
most interesting communities in the world. In the
eighth century, after the Mohammedans had con-
quered Persia and forced the Persians at the point
of the sword to give up the religion of Zoroaster
for that of Mohammed, some of the Zoroastrians
fled to the western coast of India where they were
protected by the Hindu rulers. They took with
them the sacred fire which Zoroaster is supposed to
have brought from heaven and have ever since kept
it burning in their temples. They survived the per-
secution of the Mohammedans who dominated
northern India for several centuries until the
inauguration of British rule. They constitute to-
day a distinct community of about one hundred
thousand members, most of whom live in Bombay
[ 19 ]


INDIA
and neighboring cities. For more than one thou-
sand years they have maintained their separate
identity even more completely than have the Jewish
communities in Europe. They still practice their
own religion. They insist they are not fire wor-
shipers, as is commonly supposed. God, according
to the Parsee faith, is the emblem of glory, reful-
gence and light and in this view a Parsee while
engaged in prayer is directed to stand before the
fire and to direct his face towards the sun as the
most proper symbols of the Almighty. In order
not to pollute the sacred elements of earth, fire,
water and air, the Parsees neither burn nor bury
the corpses of their dead, but expose them to be
devoured by vultures. The Parsees have adopted
western conceptions of education, but have in the
main adhered to their own social customs. Their
women, while wearing a distinctive dress, seem to
have complete social freedom. The Parsees follow
commercial pursuits rather than banking. Much
of the business of Bombay and western India is in
their hands. Tata, the founder of the Tata Iron
Works, and the most prominent captain of in-
dustry in India, is a Parsee. The Parsees are
probably the wealthiest community in the world.
They are very benevolent and liberal in the expen-
diture of their wealth. The successful ones occupy
fine houses side by side with the British residents
[ 20 ]


INDIA
ness of
ment.
in the Malabar District of Bombay. In spite of
their prosperity and their aloofness, the Parsees of
India seem to be reasonably popular with both In-
dians and British.
At Bombay we begin to realize as never before The vase-
what an enormous country India is. We find that India.
it is nine hundred miles to Delhi; fourteen hundred
miles to Calcutta; and eight hundred miles to
Madras. The distances are so great and the trains
so slow that in order to economize time the visitor
must plan his tour with great care.
While we were being amused by our friends at our equip
Government House, Colonel Wynter (our English
traveling companion and mentor) with the aid of
the Governor's Military Secretary, was engaging
our servants and accumulating our traveling
equipment. Our staff consists of three bearers
(the Indian name for servant), one called Sammy,
who is a Hindu, and two Mohammedans. One of
the latter is an excellent cook. We also engaged,
through Thomas Cook & Sons, a professional
courier bearing the euphonious name of “Cow-
meadow," who will look after the routine of our
journey. Our traveling equipment consists of two
enormous chamois skin blankets that had been
given to us by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Warburg, and a
complete outfit of bedding for ourselves and Giles,
Harrison Williams' English servant. Our native
[ 21 ]


INDIA
servants are barefooted and seem to have no bag.
gage and no traveling paraphernalia except the
scanty raiment they wear.
At Bombay we parted with the Walter Jennings
party, as they decided to hasten across India to
Calcutta in order to accept the invitation of Lord
Lytton, the Governor of Bengal, and Lady Lytton
to stay at Government House during the visit of the
Viceroy and Lady Reading and attend the annual
ball and race meeting given in their honor.
The jour-
ney to
Bikaner.
Bikaner, January 7, 1925
We had intended to begin our journey by visiting
the Buddhist cave temple at Karli (near Poona)
and the Jain temples at Mt. Abu. We also had
designs on the cave temples at Ellora and Ajanta.
We abandoned these projected visits and suppressed
our antiquarian yearnings to accept the invitation
of the Maharaja of Bikaner to visit him at the capi-
tal of his state, during the festivities incident to
the visit of Prince and Princess Arthur of Con-
naught. We traveled north thirty-six hours on a
very slow train, chiefly on a narrow gauge road.
Harrison Williams and I had a little car to our-
selves—a four-wheeler with two compartments and
a bathroom and a very small room for our Indian
servants. Our beds were made with our own bed-
ding on very hard benches. The little four-wheeled
[ 22 ]


INDIA
car bobbed around so gaily that many times during
the night we thought we were off the rails. We had
never spent more uncomfortable nights on a rail-
road train. The second night it was very cold and
we almost froze to death, our stock of bedding
having proved inadequate. Our lives were saved
by our chamois skin blankets which were primarily
intended to protect us against fleas and other insect
enemies. The latter part of the trip was dusty, oh,
how dusty! We were fortunate in being able to
take our meals with Sir Warden Chilcott and the
Frys in the State car of the Maharaja Jamsahib of
Jamnagar, whose guests they were. We are having
our first experience of real India, and in spite of
the discomforts, it is very interesting.
The first day of our journey was across the fertile
plains north of Bombay, the principal centers of
which are Ahmedabad and Baroda. We passed by
Mt. Abu, but did not have time to stop to see the
Jain temples. The second day of our journey was
on the Bikaner desert, where we saw little agricul-
ture but extensive herds of camels, cattle, goats and
sheep. There were occasional small patches of
cultivation where water for irrigation was obtain-
able from wells.
On this journey we had our first glimpse of Indian ag-
Indian agriculture. The crops are principally
wheat, rye, barley and pulse. There is some at-
riculture.
[ 23 ]


INDIA
tempt at cultivation without irrigation, but most
of the fields are irrigated by means of water drawn
in buckets from shallow wells by bullocks and
distributed over the fields by hand. The plows are
the same kind of primitive wooden plows that were
used by Father Abraham. No labor-saving ma-
chinery is used. On the contrary, the effort seems
to be to make work for as many men as possible.
It must take ten or a dozen Indians to do the same
amount of work on a farm that would be done by
one man in the United States or Europe. On the
whole the land seems to be well cultivated. The
farmers are segregated in villages. Their houses
are mainly of sun-dried bricks or mud. Except in
the desert, where there is little vegetation, the culti-
vated areas are dotted with large trees that from a
distance look very much like English oaks. When
the country is green during the rainy season its
general aspect must be not unlike that of an agri-
cultural district in Europe. During the dry winter
season the landscape looks brown and parched, save
for the trees and the tracts that are kept green by
irrigation.
We reached Bikaner just at sundown and were
met at the station by one of the government offi-
cials who took us in motor cars through the city to
the Maharaja's palace. There we were given sump-
tuous quarters in the guest house adjoining the
The Ma-
haraja's
palace.
[ 24 ]


INDIA
and city of
palace with connecting bathrooms, good plumbing,
and all the comforts of an occidental home. The
palace itself is a beautiful building of brown stone
built around a tessellated court. The Maharaja
and his architect apparently attempted to follow
Indian architectural traditions and have succeeded
in creating one of the few modern buildings we saw
in which Indian architecture has been successfully
adapted to the needs of present-day life.
The Maharaja of Bikaner is the head of one of The state
the several important Rajput states which have Bikaner.
played so important a part in the history of India.
He belongs to what is called the Rathor clan of
Rajputs. His ancestors, having been driven from
the Punjab by the Mohammedan invaders, took
refuge in the desert about four centuries ago and
there, where they felt safe from the envy of the
invaders, built the city which has since remained
the capital of the independent state of Bikaner. It
is an interesting little city with a population of
about fifty thousand. There is practically no Eu-
ropean population except the half-dozen British
officials employed in the service of the Maharaja
and their families. The city is encircled by a
crenelated wall of heavy masonry and is built
around a picturesque old fort which crowns a hill
and is protected by high walls and battlements.
Inside the walls of the fort is an enormous old
crenera
picturesque ich walls an
[ 25 ]


INDIA
palace which was begun over three hundred years
ago and has been added to by successive Haharajas.
The whole mass is very picturesque and contains
many beautiful rooms. Even in the modern parts
the traditions of Indian architecture have been
faithfully observed. Tiling and carved plaster are
very effectively used. At first we wondered why
the Maharaja deserted this beautiful palace with its
wealth of tradition and romance for a less beautiful
modern palace. It was explained, and we soon
realized, that an old Indian palace could not well be
adapted to the requirements of modern life. The
result is that most of the important independent
princes of India, while retaining their old palaces
as historic monuments, like the Maharaja of
Bikaner, live in palaces that are comparatively
modern.
The Maharaja of Bikaner is building a complete
government center outside the walled city. There
he has already built his own palace with connecting
guest houses, a club house, a building for the gov-
ernment offices, a military headquarters, a court
house, a school building and two or three Hindu
temples. This government plant gives the impres-
sion of being on rather a big scale for a state of
only about seven hundred thousand inhabitants,
the greater part of whose territory is a desert. The
Maharaja, however, expects to greatly increase the
[ 261


INDIA
the Camel
Corps.
population of his dominions upon the completion of
an extensive irrigation scheme which will bring the
water of the Sutlej River (a branch of the Indus)
to several hundred thousand acres of fertile land in
the northern part of the state. He expects his
country to grow up to the scale of the capital.
We found that the Maharaja and his house party, The re-
headed by Prince and Princess Arthur of Con.
naught, had just returned from a shooting expedi-
tion and that we were in time for the festivities
and functions which had been organized for the
closing day of the royal visit. In the morning the
party attended a review of the Bikaner Camel
Corps of about six hundred mounted camels flanked
by infantry and cavalry. This camel corps did ex-
cellent service in Egypt and Palestine during the
war. The highly trained camels exhibited a degree
of agility and grace of which I had supposed camels
were incapable. Our party was then driven in car-
riages through the streets of the city amid crowds
of villagers who sang songs and waved flags.
In the evening there was a state dinner in the The state
great dining hall of the old palace in the Fort.
There were eighty guests, of whom not more than
a dozen were ladies. They were all Europeans, as
Indian ladies of position never appear in public.
I sat between an interesting old gentleman who
was introduced as the “premier noble” of Bikaner,
dinner.
[ 27 ]


INDIA
and the Finance Minister, an intelligent Parsee
from Bombay. Both spoke English fluently. The
dinner was excellent and elaborate. We were given
about the same things to eat and drink as we would
have had in Europe, except for one course desig-
nated on the menu as "Plats de Bikaner” when we
were offered our choice of eighteen different mix-
tures of vegetables, meat and fish served in small
dishes, arranged on a large tray, followed by bowls
of curry and sour milk. I allowed the Finance
Minister to help me to a number of these strange
dishes until Prince Arthur, who apparently had
been watching us from across the table, laughingly
warned me that I would die if I ate everything that
had been given me. I ate and survived. Harrison
Williams was more cautious. The dinner ended
with an excellent speech by the Maharaja in per-
fect English, in the course of which he proposed
the health of the King Emperor and Prince and
Princess Arthur of Connaught. Prince Arthur
responded very gracefully.
After dinner we adjourned to one of the large
courts of the palace where we witnessed a fire
dance by a score of men from a religious sect who
train themselves to dance in the fire. A big pile
of cordwood had been burned to a mass of embers
which must have been about two feet deep and ten
The enter-
tainment
after
dinner.
[ 28 ]


INDIA
feet wide. The dancers in bare feet danced on the
embers, kicking them around until the diameter of
the pile was increased to about thirty feet. They
amused themselves by holding embers in their teeth
and under their arms, and doing other gruesome
stunts. We were assured that they went through
the ordeal unscathed and unburnt. It was a weird
affair. We then adjourned to another court where
a band of about fifty Nautch girls performed native
dances and sang songs, some of which had been
especially composed in honor of the Royal Visitors.
Their voices were raucous and pitched high and
their singing had no charm for us occidentals. The
dancing was rhythmic but not especially graceful.
The dancers were most completely clothed in color-
ful costumes from their chins to their bare feet.
The fort and palace had been illuminated for the
occasion by thousands of oil and electric lamps and
looked like fairyland.
We were taken through the old palace by the
Maharaj Kumar (the heir apparent) who told us
much of its history and showed us the state jewels
which had been brought out in show cases for the
purpose. They are of great magnificence and bar-
baric splendor,-emeralds, pearls, rubies and dia-
monds galore. They must be worth several million
dollars.
[ 29 ]


INDIA
Jaipur.
Jaipur, January 9, 1925
We stayed at Bikaner three days, living very
much as one would live on a big house party in
England. We left with real regret and many prom-
ises to return for another visit. We journeyed for
a day and night in our little four-wheeled car to
Jaipur, the capital of another independent Rajput
State. As the Maharaja is a young boy the govern-
ment is run by a regency. We were received and
entertained by our friend Mr. Atal, the Brahman
Finance Minister whom we had met on the Nar-
kunda. He had doffed his European clothes for a
long single-breasted gray frock coat buttoned to the
neck and a beautiful and lofty turban. He talked,
acted and seemed to think very much like an
Englishman. We lunched at his house, which was
surrounded by a pleasant garden. He had told us
on the steamer that he and his wife, although both
Brahmins, had adopted western habits and that his
wife had dropped Purdah and went into society.
We, however, did not see her, and he did not men-
tion her; nor did we, as we had been warned that
we must never speak of the wives of our Indian
hosts unless they spoke of them first, which they
rarely did.
We visited several palaces, including a modern
one in the suburbs built and furnished in execrable
western taste, in which the young Maharaja lives.
[ 30 ]


INDIA
fort on the hill is remarkably well preserved and
much more interesting and beautiful than the new
palace at Jaipur.
Chitor.
Agra, January 14, 1925
From Jaipur, we journeyed to the independent
Rajput state of Mewar, making a short visit on the
way to Ajmer, which is the city from which the
British supervise the government of the Rajput
states. We began our visit to Mewar by spending
half a day amid the ruins of Chitor, which for sev-
eral centuries was the capital of the Mewar State.
It was captured and sacked by Akbar the Great
about the middle of the sixteenth century, where-
upon the Maharana abandoned it and founded the
new city of Udaipur in the mountains about seventy
miles away. From the impressive ruins that re-
main, one can see what a wonderful city Chitor
must have been in its prime. It occupied a plateau
about three miles and a half long and half a mile
wide, which rises about five hundred feet above the
surrounding plain. It was encircled by massive
walls and battlements which still exist. Within
the walls were many palaces, numerous Hindu tem-
ples of great magnificence, public monuments and
extensive pleasure gardens. Two important monu-
ments remain almost intact, one a Tower of Victory
built in the Hindu style in the thirteenth century,
[ 32 ]


INDIA
puts of
and the other an elaborate Hindu temple. Chitor
gives a better idea than any other place in India of
the enormous power and magnificence of the Rajput
rulers at the height of their power.
The Rajputs of the House of Mewar must have The Raj-'
been great rulers. They are probably the oldest Mewar.
ruling dynasty in the world. They are said to trace
their ancestry, in an unbroken line of rulers, back
to the second century of the Christian era. Their
history as told in Tod's Annals of Rajasthan rivals
in romance and heroism that of any nation ancient
or modern. It is the boast of the House of Mewar
that it never sullied the purity of its blood by
giving its daughters in marriage to the Moham-
medan conquerors.
We journeyed from Chitor to Udaipur by rail, Udaipur.
arriving just after the departure of Prince and
Princess Arthur of Connaught. We were met at
the station by one Meta Fateh Lall, a member of
the Maharana's Council of State and his Secretary.
He was profuse in his apologies for not being able
to put us up in the Maharana's guest house, which
was filled with the guests whom the British Resi-
dent had assembled to greet the royal visitors. He
took us to a little hotel where we were given com-
fortable rooms and a good dinner. After dinner
we visited the lake by moonlight. The next day we
saw the sights, part of the time under the guidance
[ 33 ]


INDIA
of our friend, Meta Fateh Lall, the rest of the time
in charge of a guide furnished by the Maharana.
We visited the enormous palace by the lake,
which was partly old and partly new; three pal-
aces on islands in the lake; the bazaars in the city;
the gardens, the most interesting of which was the
so-called slaves' garden, in which, in the good old
days, the Maharanas used to play with the slave
girls; and a royal pavilion in the woods where we
saw several hundred wild boars fed.
Meta Fateh Lall told us a pathetic story, of
which we later heard much from British sources,
of the Maharana's differences with the British Resi-
dent which had resulted in his humiliation and the
transfer of much of his authority to his son, who
is a cripple.
We had an interesting audience with the Maha-
rana himself. As he speaks no English, our friend
acted as interpreter. The Maharana is seventy-
five years old. He is an old-fashioned mediæval
Rajput despot. His gray beard was parted in the
center and trained to project on either side of
his face in true Rajput fashion. We complimented
him upon his beautiful city and the good taste his
ancestors had shown in choosing its site and upon
the apparent happiness and contentment of his
people. He seemed pleased with our compliments
and assured us that he was a kind and gentle ruler
The Ma-
harana.
[ 34 ]


INDIA
barana's
and that the happiness of his people was very near
his heart.
The new portions of the palace are ugly and are The Ma-
furnished with western furniture in the very worst palaces."
of taste. The older portions of the palace are beau-
tiful but seem to be very little used. We visited
the Maharana's Courts of Justice, which occupy
three sides of an open court connected with the
palace. The suitors and their lawyers were gath-
ered in the courtyard and as their cases were called
for trial they were taken before one of three judges.
Everybody, including the judges, sat upon the
ground. The proceedings seemed to be very in-
formal. The Maharana himself is the fountain of
justice. The courts are conducted in his name and
he is the court of final appeal.
The whole establishment about the palace is
mediæval. In going through the great court to the
entrance of the wing of the palace where the
Maharana lives, one has to almost elbow one's way
by the elephants, cattle, sheep and cows that wan-
der about. Here and there we saw crowds of
retainers in gay garments, many of them wearing
at their sides the Rajput sword. One group squat-
ting on the ground under a balcony were engaged
in keeping the royal accounts. So far as we could
see, life in the Maharana's palace and in the city
[ 35 ]


INDIA
of Udaipur has not appreciably changed in three
centuries.
We had tea in the house of our friend, Meta
Fateh Lall, which is in the most congested part of
the city and approached by the narrowest of
streets. He is very proud of the rooms in the upper
story, which were built according to his concep-
tion of western style. One room was for his
English books and another for his books in San-
scrit, Persian and Urdu.
Words fail me in describing the beauty of
Udaipur in the late afternoon and in the moon-
light. It is certainly the most beautiful place we
saw in India and one of the most beautiful places
in the world.
From Udaipur we journeyed to Agra, which was
the capital of the Mogul Empire during the early
years of Akbar's reign. Here, and at the deserted
city of Fatehpur-Sikri, twenty miles away, and at
Delhi are the most important monuments of the
Mogul Empire, including mosques, palaces and
tombs. Many of the buildings are of great beauty.
The crowning glory of them all is the Taj Mahal,
erected early in the seventeenth century by the
Mogul Emperor, Shah Jahan, as a tomb for his
favorite queen.
We spent many hours gazing at the Taj Mahal
in all lights. We were fortunate in seeing it in
[ 36 ]
Agra.
The Taj
Mahal.
--
---- --


INDIA
India's
debt to
Lord
Curzon,
At Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri we were constantly
reminded, as we had been at Amber, Chitor, Jaipur
and many other places, of the great debt that India
owes to Lord Curzon for having organized and
established the movement for the restoration and
preservation of buildings of historic importance.
Up to the time of Lord Curzon's incumbency as
Viceroy there had been among both British and
Indians a singular lack of interest in the buildings
in various parts of India that had ceased to be of
practical importance but were of historic interest.
Lord Curzon established a department for the
preservation of national monuments and made lib-
eral appropriations from the public funds for its
support. His example has been followed by subse-
quent governments. It is almost a daily occurrence
that our guide in pointing out some object of in-
terest explains that we owe its preservation or
restoration to Lord Curzon.
Delhi.
Delhi, January 21, 1925
We motored about one hundred and twenty-five
miles from Agra to Delhi, through a very fertile
agricultural country. At Delhi, we are the guests
of the Viceroy and Lady Reading at the Viceregal
Lodge. Our visit happens to coincide with the visit
of the royal party, with the result that we are able
to participate in the interesting functions and fes-
[ 38 ]


INDIA
tivities arranged in their honor. The principal
ones are:
Elaborate military maneuvres;
A spectacular artillery display;
A review of twenty-five thousand troops of the
Indian Army, partly British and partly native, by
the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, Lord
Rawlinson, which was the most thrilling and
spectacular;
The opening of the Legislative Assembly which
was conducted with great pomp and ceremony, the
Viceroy wearing a most magnificent royal costume
of light blue with a long train carried by two
Indian pages, and the Commander-in-Chief, wear-
ing an equally gorgeous costume of red and gold
with a train almost as long as that of the Viceroy;
A garden party in the grounds of the Viceregal
Lodge which was attended by several hundred peo-
ple, both British and Indian, including many
gorgeously attired Indian princes;
A dance at the ballroom of the Viceregal Lodge;
Several dinner parties at the Viceregal Lodge;
Luncheon with Lord Rawlinson, the Commander-
in-Chief; and
Dinner at the house of Sir Basil Blackett, the
Finance Member of the Council.
The party at the Viceregal Lodge included my
wartime friend Sir Robert Horne, formerly Chan-
[ 39 ]


INDIA
The Vice-
The Vice-
regal
establish-
ment.
cellor of the Exchequer, Sir Warden Chilcott and
Sir Francis Oppenheimer.
The Viceregal establishment occupies temporary
buildings on the outskirts of Delhi, pending the
completion of new Delhi. The central pavilion,
which contains the ballroom, dining room and main
reception rooms, and the living quarters of the
Viceroy and his family, is a fine building of almost
palatial proportions. It is surrounded by bunga-
lows and tents for guests. The royal party occu-
pies the principal bugalow, which is called the
Prince's Pavilion, as it was erected for the visit
of the Prince of Wales. The other guests occupy
tents which are the most palatial houses of canvas
I have ever seen. Each of us had a tent with a
large sitting room with a fireplace, a bedroom and
a bath with hot and cold running water and all the
conveniences of modern plumbing.
Life at the Viceregal Lodge is conducted with
great pomp and ceremony. Before dinner the men
guests assemble in the room of the Military Secre-
tary and then join the ladies in the principal draw-
ing room where the guests form themselves in a
semi-circle. In due time, Prince and Princess
Arthur enter the room, walk around the circle and
receive a bow from each man and a curtsy from
each lady. A few minutes later the doors are
opened and Their Excellencies the Viceroy and
Life at the
Viceregal
Lodge.
[ 40 ]


INDIA
cil are manifestly well educated and intelligent, but
they do not give one the impression of strength and
courage. Their position is very difficult because,
although they are supposed to represent the people
of India in the Government, by accepting office they
automatically lost their influence with the Indian
politicians who constitute the majority of the Leg-
islative Assembly. This Home Rule majority have
thus far pursued the policy of practically boycot-
ting the Government and obstructing it in every
way in their power. Recently they have showed
signs of modifying or abandoning this policy and
exercising their prerogatives under the new con-
stitution.
During our visit in Delhi we saw very little of Delhi
what may be termed Indian society. We met,
besides the Indian members of the Government,
several members of the Legislative Council and sev-
eral Maharajas and Rajas. We did not meet a
single Indian lady of social position, nor did we set
eyes on any, except two or three Parsee ladies at
the garden party. The Begam of Bhopal made a
visit to the Viceregal Lodge while we were there,
but she maintained strict purdah and no man was
allowed to set eyes on her. She drove up to the
Viceregal Lodge in a limousine car with all the cur-
tains down and, after the chauffeur had withdrawn,
walked from the motor to the Viceregal Lodge
society.
[ 43 ]


INDIA
Indian
polo.
The Delhi
Club.
through a canvas passage that had been erected
with great care so that it would be absolutely proof
against prying eyes.
While we were at Delhi a polo tournament was
in progress. Indeed, at every British center we
visited there seemed to be a polo tournament. The
polo championship of India is held by the Indian
team of Jodhpur, which has the advantage of the
liberal financial support of the Maharaja of that
State. The army officers as a rule are poor and
have no rich financial backers. The result is that
the Maharajas are able to buy most of the best
ponies for the Indian teams.
We did not frequent the Delhi Club because,
some time prior to our visit, the Viceroy had
required all the members of his staff to resign
from the Club when the Board of Governors de-
cided that they would not permit Indians, however
distinguished, to enter the Club House, even as
guests, much less as members. Just as we were
leaving a modus vivendi had been worked out under
which a limited number of distinguished Indians
would be permitted to join the Club as honorary
members and Indian guests could be introduced
under certain conditions. It was rumored that the
Viceroy would soon lift the ban and permit the
members of his staff to rejoin the Club. .
At Delhi we did not have much time for the
[ 44 ]


INDIA
of Delhi.
sights. Delhi and its immediate neighborhood teem The sights
with interesting buildings and ruins. It has been
an important city from time immemorial. The
present city is the seventh that has been built, the
earlier ones having been destroyed or deserted.
Practically all the important monuments that sur-
vive are of the Mohammedan period, and, as else-
where in Northern India, the most important ones
are of the Mogul period. There are, however, sev-
eral buildings of the Pathan period. At Delhi, as
elsewhere in Northern India, there are compara-
tively few buildings of the periods preceding the
Mohammedan invasion. This is because of the thor-
oughness with which the Mohammedan invaders
destroyed everything in their path.
The fort at Delhi rivals in interest the forts at
Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri. The native bazaars are
the most important and pretentious in India. We
visited the shops of several jewelers whose stocks
would rival those of European capitals. The
Maharajas and Rajas and rich merchants of India
seem to have a passion for jewelry. We received
the impression that they are the principal cus-
tomers of the Delhi jewelers. In one little shop
we sat before a Mewari merchant who, in the twin-
kling of an eye, displayed on a cushion at our feet
precious stones that must have been worth a
million dollars or more.
[ 45]


INDIA
New
Delhi.
We spent a morning visiting New Delhi, which
is being built on a flat plain to the south of the
present city. It is laid out on an enormous scale.
There must be several hundred miles of streets
flanked by forests of lamp posts and rows of
recently planted trees a few feet high. The only
important buildings that have actually been begun
are the Viceregal Lodge, an enormous building to
house the Secretariat, and another for the Legisla-
tive Assembly and Chamber of Princes. The build-
ing materials used are brown sandstone and a
lovely sandstone of a greenish gray hue. There is
much difference of opinion regarding the architec-
ture of the buildings. They are all built by English
architects. Their architectural style is more west-
ern than oriental. We liked the new Viceregal
Lodge of which Sir Edwin Lutyens is the architect.
The other two buildings we liked less. The latter
are universally criticized for one fundamental fault
which is that the brown stone, instead of being
limited to the first story as in the case of the new
Viceregal Lodge, is carried about halfway to the
roof when it stops without rhyme or reason, to be
succeeded by the lighter colored sandstone. For
many decades New Delhi is bound to be a raw and
spotted city as Washington was within the memory
of many of us. This is inevitable in the case of a
new city. New Delhi is a great conception and a
[ 46 ]


INDIA
Williams' English servant) and our Indian bearers,
one of whom is a good cook. We have named our
car the “Home Oar" as it is to be our home for
more than a month.
Peshawar.
Benares, January 27, 1925
We ended our visit at Delhi by a delightful
dinner without ceremony with the Viceroy's Mili.
tary Secretary, Colonel Worgan. He lives in his
own bungalow near the Viceregal Lodge. The
party included his two charming nieces from Eng.
land. We went directy from his bungalow to our
car. It was not without emotion and regret that
we left the happy life of the Viceregal court to re-
sume the rigors of travel on Indian railroads.
From Delhi we journeyed through the Punjab to
Peshawar, the capital of the Northwest Frontier
Province. There we stayed at Government House
with Mr. Bolton, the Commissioner, and Mrs. Bol-
ton, who are most charming people. Mr. Bolton
is one of the most accomplished and successful of
the British civil servants and Mrs. Bolton enjoys
the advantage of being both good looking and Irish.
Their house party included Mrs. Metcalfe, the
wife of the Counsellor of the British Legation in
Kabul (pronounced Kawble by the British in
India), the capital of Afghanistan, who brought us
the latest news from beyond the Hindu-Kush Moun-
[ 48 ]


INDIA
tains. The only British in Kabul are the Minister
and his staff and their families, yet Mrs. Metcalfe
did not seem a bit dissatisfied with her lot. I am
lost in admiration for the cheerfulness with which
the British soldiers, civil servants and diplomats
and their wives accept life wherever the hazard of
official duty may land them.
Peshawar, although the jumping-off place of the
Northwest Frontier of India, is one of the most
attractive cities we visited. The British section is
well laid out and well cared for. The trees on the
avenues are big and fine and the houses substantial.
The British residents are thoroughly organized for
the kind of life they like to live with their clubs,
their polo fields, their race track, their schools and
their churches.
Our primary purpose in visiting Peshawar was
to go over the Khyber Pass. We made the journey Ba
in one of Mr. Bolton's motor cars, accompanied by
his Military Secretary. The first part of our jour-
ney was through the hills and mountains in the
neutral zone which is neither British nor Afghan
and is inhabited by various tribes of Pathans and
Afridis-weird people who love to fight and who
look the part. They all carry rifles. Many of the
houses in the villages are surmounted by rude
towers for more effective defense in case of attack.
The British Government has arranged with these
The
Khyber
[ 49 ]


INDIA
tribes to patrol and protect the Khyber Pass, which
is the main caravan route between India and Cen-
tral Asia. There are several British posts on the
Pass, the last one being Landi Kotal, where there is
a considerable garrison. We went beyond this point
to the Afghan frontier and into Afghanistan for a
few yards until we were called back by the Afghan
sentries.
The mountains on either side of the Pass are
wild and bold. The road is very skillfully con-
structed and is kept in perfect order. Caravans
are only allowed to pass two days a week when
special precautions for their safety are taken. We
met two caravans going in opposite directions in
each of which there must have been at least a thou-
sand camels whose freight carrying capacity equals
that of a train of thirty railway cars. The caravans
bring the wares of Central Asia into India and
carry back the products of India, chiefly tea, we
were told.
The Pathans and Afridis of Peshawar and the
surrounding country are fine upstanding specimens
of humanity. Physically they are the best people
we have seen in India. They are practically all
Mohammedans. They are great fighters. Hardly a
week passes when the Commissioner does not have
to deal with disorder in some part of his province.
The British do not concern themselves very much
The
people of
Peshawar,
[ 50)


INDIA
for Cashmere. We had planned to visit Cashmere,
at least to the extent of visiting its capital,
Srinagar, which is about two hundred miles dis-
tant. We were persuaded to abandon the visit
because of the cold and snow and the doubtful con-
dition of the roads. All agree that Cashmere is
one of the most delightful regions in the world.
Because of its rigorous winter climate and tbe
abundance of snow, it should be visited in the
spring or fall. It is a popular summer resort for
the British in India. It is visited by relatively
few travelers because during the season when life
there is agreeable, the long trip to and from Europe
via India would be hot and uncomfortable. In spite
of these discomforts Harrison Williams and I are
determined to spend a spring in Cashmere.
Our next visit was to Lahore, the capital of the
Punjab. After a hurried visit we motored about
thirty miles to Amritsar, the religious capital of the
Sikhs, a religious sect founded in the fifteenth
century by a Hindu reformer named Guru Nanak
which now has about three million adherents. The
Sikhs have been called the Puritans of India. Their
religion, which is an outgrowth of Hinduism, re-
jects the caste system and the worship of idols and
enjoins the simple life. The Sikh Bible, called the
Granth, has become the subject of almost idolatrous
veneration. It is a remarkable fact that in four
Amritsar.
[52]


INDIA
British
Amritsar.
centuries the regimen of sobriety and self-denial en-
joined by the Sikh religion has resulted in the
development of a race of Indians in the center of
the Punjab who are conspicuous for their fine
physique and courage. The Sikhs finally became
an organized nation as well as a religious sect.
For a long time they resisted British rule but for
two generations they have been among the most
loyal supporters of the Government and have sup-
plied the finest soldiers for the Indian Army.
When we appeared on the terrace above the arti- Anti-
ficial lake which surrounds the Golden Temple of feeling in
Amritsar we found ourselves surrounded by a
crowd who were evidently none too friendly. A
native policeman came to our rescue, but he could
not speak English. Soon an amiable looking Indian
of middle age and portly figure spoke to us in
English. We told him that we were Americans who
had come to see the Golden Temple. He assured the
crowd that we were American and not English,
whereupon they became amiable and friendly. The
anti-British feeling in Amritsar is very strong be-
cause of the attack upon the populace made by
British troops under General Dyer five years ago,
when over three hundred of the citizens were killed
and twelve hundred wounded. This anti-British
feeling has recently been aggravated by the im-
[ 53 ]


INDIA
The
Golden
Temple.
prisonment of many agitators belonging to a reform
Sikh sect called the Akalis.
Our friend proved to be a substantial citizen, by
trade an auctioneer and sufficiently well off, he told
us, to pay an income tax of three hundred rupees a
year. He volunteered to guide us through the
Golden Temple. We had to take off our shoes and
stockings and were not even allowed to wear
sandals. For more than an hour we walked bare-
footed amid the crowds of worshipers. We must
have walked a mile and a half.* I hope we did not
pick up any hookworms. The big temple, except
for the first story, which is of white marble, is of
gilded copper. It is about the size of Dr. Park-
hurst's church on Madison Square. It arises from
the waters of an artificial lake about six hundred
feet square, which is surrounded by a paved walk
twenty-five or thirty feet wide, flanked by guest
houses for pilgrims, palaces of Maharajas and other
Sikh dignitaries, and minor temples and shrines.
The Golden Temple itself is approached by a wide
marble viaduct.
In the temple there are continuous religious
services. Under the dome a service is conducted by
a priest who squats on the floor and either reads
from the Granth or, when not reading, fans it with
: * My feet still ache when I think of the Golden Temple of
Amritsar.
[ 54 ]


INDIA
a big fan of peacock feathers. He is flanked on
either side by musicians who play strange instru-
ments and chant the words of the Granth. In front
of the priest and the musicians there is an enormous
cloth on which the worshipers throw their contri-
butions of money. At the time of our visit there
was an accumulation of a bushel or more of coins.
Upstairs in one of the chapels we found another
priest engaged in reading the Granth out loud. It
is read from beginning to end every twenty-four
hours by a succession of priests each of whom reads
for four hours.
In the Golden Temple and among the Sikhs we
received an impression of sincerity and earnestness
that is wanting in Hindu temples. The temple is
clean and well cared for. The Sikh priests have fine
full-bearded faces and the worshipers seem sin-
cerely devout.
We were sorry that our program did not permit
us to remain longer in Amritsar. As it was, we
made friends rapidly. We had to give to one man
the address of the best medical school in America;
to another the address of the best law school (I
gave him his choice between Harvard and
Columbia), and to a third the best university at
which to pursue "higher studies in art and
philosophy.”
After leaving Amritsar we journeyed to Benares. Benares.
[55]


INDIA
We had to omit Lucknow and Cawnpore with their
interesting associations with the Mutiny. British
visitors to India go to Lucknow as to a shrine, and
well they may, because British history furnishes no
finer example of heroism and devotion than the
Indian Mutiny.
Through the intervention of the Viceroy we were
to be the guests of the Maharaja of Benares, whose
capital is at Ramnagar, a few miles up the Ganges.
His jurisdiction does not extend to the City of
Benares, which is in British India. As his guest
house in Benares had been turned over to the
Maharaja of Alwar with his household of two hun-
dred people which overflowed into numerous tents,
there was no room for us. We were accordingly
quartered at the Maharaja's expense in the Hotel de
Paris, which is the poorest of the several poor
hotels of Benares. One of the Maharaja's aides-de-
camp, who spoke English fluently, had charge of
us and a state motor car was placed at our disposal.
Benares is an interesting but disgusting place.
It is on the banks of the sacred Ganges and is the
most sacred of the many sacred cities of the Hindus.
Its peculiar sanctity is derived from the fabled
“ten horse sacrifice” of Brahma. It is a city of
about two hundred thousand inhabitants with an
important commerce, but it is chiefly supported by
[ 56 ]


INDIA
Ghats.
the Hindu pilgrims who come annually by the hun-
dreds of thousands.
The life at Benares is on the Ghats, a series of The
steps and narrow terraces which extend along the
banks of the Ganges from the river edge to a back-
ground of temples, palaces and guest houses which
mark the beginning of the city. Our first view of
the Ghats was in the early morning from a row-
boat by means of which we traveled up and down
the river within a few yards of the bank. We saw
thousands of pilgrims, men, women and children,
bathing in the filthy water of the sacred river con-
taminated by sewage and refuse of every sort. The
bathers not only bathe in this water, but drink it
and wash their faces and eyes with it. The average
bathing costume is very scanty. In the case of men
it usually consists only of a loin cloth and, in the
case of women, of a diaphanous garment of the
kimono type. On the burning Ghats several
corpses, covered by winding sheets, were being
burned on piles of cordwood in the most matter-of-
fact way. When the funeral pyre had been com-
pleted by the attendants some member of the
deceased's family applied the torch. When the
corpses are consumed the ashes are thrown into the
Ganges. Not infrequently, in the case of cheap
funerals when the friends of the deceased cannot
afford plenty of wood, unburned portions of the
[ 57 )


INDIA
corpse are thrown into the river and are seen float-
ing around with the other rubbish.
On the Ghats, back of the bathers, were thou-
sands of people engaged in drying themselves or
washing their clothes or saying their prayers or
having their hair cut or their faces shaved, or other-
wise concerning themselves in their toilettes, in the
most matter-of-fact fashion. Here and there one
saw the naked body of a holy man covered with
ashes and looking most unholy. The garments of
the crowd were of every conceivable color. The
bands of pilgrims in their robes of sulphur yellow
were the most conspicuous. Vendors of all sorts of
food for man and beast and Indian nick-nacks
elbowed their way through the crowd. Mingléd
with the crowds were sleek sacred bulls and cows,
whose demeanor gave unmistakable signs of the
complacent arrogance of conscious sanctity. They
are well fed by the pilgrims with food bought from
the itinerant vendors. There was a striking absence
of self-consciousness in the crowd. Everybody
attended to his own business with the utmost un-
concern. No one seemed to be disturbed by the
curious gaze of passing tourists. I am sure there
is no scene outside of India at all comparable to
this scene on the banks of the Ganges.
Back of the Ghats, higher up on the banks of the
river, is an unbroken line of temples, palaces and
The city.
[ 58 ]


INDIA
lodging houses and other buildings for the service
of pilgrims to which I have already alluded. Back
of them is a maze of filthy narrow streets flanked by
houses and little shops, innumerable temples and
shrines. Here one can find shrines, large and small,
for every god in the Hindu calendar. Ganesh, the
elephant-headed god, seems to have more than his
share of votaries, and the gods of smallpox and
cholera are duly honored. Siva, who is the im-
personation of the reproductive power of nature,
seems to be the most popular of all the Hindu gods
that are worshiped in Benares.
In spite of the fact that Benares has been the
most sacred city of India from time immemorial, it
possesses no buildings of great antiquity, and few
of architectural merit. It has been repeatedly de-
stroyed by the Moslems. In the twelfth century the
Emperor Ala-ud-din is said to have destroyed a
thousand Hindu temples and built mosques on their
sites. Benares seems to have taken its present form
during the drab and unromantic period of the
Mahratta supremacy in the latter half of the
eighteenth century. It has been under British rule
for about one hundred and fifty years.
In the crowds that fill the streets the sacred bulls, The
cows and calves are never absent. Unclean bulls and
Christians, like ourselves, were not allowed to
enter the Golden Temple but as we stood in the
sacred
COWS.
[ 59 ]


INDIA
The Ma-
haraja of
Benares.
narrow street before its open doors trying to get a
glimpse of the holy precincts within, we saw the
sacred kine walking in and out with the crowd of
worshipers with the utmost serenity. They seemed
conscious that they were there by right and were
quite as important a part of the show as the human
beings whom they jostled.
Inasmuch as we were the guests of the Maharaja
of Benares, good manners required us to thank him
for his hospitality. Our guide accordingly made
an appointment for us to visit him at his capital at
Ramnagar, about ten miles from Benares. His
palace, most of which is modern, is picturesquely
situated on the banks of the Ganges and commands
a magnificent view of Benares and its Ghats. Most
of the rooms we saw were decorated and furnished
in western style in the excessively bad taste which
seems almost universal in the modern palaces of
Hindu potentates. We were received by the Maha-
raj Kumar, a portly young man, who was soon
joined by the Maharaja, a courtly old gentleman of
seventy-five, who spoke very poor English. After
exchanging banalities we were shown parts of the
palace, including the armory which contained a
veritable menagerie of weapons, many of them hun-
dreds of years old. There were fine examples of
Damascus steel and highly ornate inlaid work of
[60]


INDIA
as seen at
silver and gold. Every important Indian palace
contains an armory.
We leave Benares with mixed feelings. We have Hinduism
seen a great deal of filth, degradation and human Benares.
superstition in its most debased form, which gives
us a very unfavorable opinion of modern Hinduism
as practiced by the multitude. On the other hand,
we could not but be impressed with the strong
hold of the Hindu religion on its devotees of every
rank and the extent to which religion enters into
the daily life of the Hindu.
I cannot refrain from adding by way of contrast Macaulay
to the description of Benares which I have en- Benares.
deavored to give in my best affidavit style, the fol-
lowing extract from Macaulay's Essay on Warren
Hastings:
on
"His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth,
population, dignity and sanctity, was among the foremost
of Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million of
human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty
alleys, rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, and
carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hundreds.
The traveller could scarcely make his way through the
press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The broad
and stately flights of steps which descended from these
swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the Ganges
were wom every day by the footsteps of an innumerable
multitude of worshippers. The schools and temples drew
crowds of pious Hindoos from every province where the
Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds of devotees came
hither every month to die, for it was believed that a pecul-
iarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from
[61]


INDIA
below them is wonderfully vigorous and true to
nature.
jeeling.
Caloutta, February 3, 1925
From Benares we journeyed to Darjeeling, Dar;
stopping at Calcutta a day en route. Darjeeling is
about seven thousand feet above the level of the sea
in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is the summer
residence of the Governor of Bengal. We
traveled by rail over level cultivated plains until
we came to the first range of mountains, which rise
abruptly from the plain. There are no premonitory
foothills. From this point the journey of fifty
miles to Darjeeling is made either by a mountain
railroad or by motor. We chose to travel by motor.
The mountains between the plain and Darjeeling
are very steep and are intersected by narrow val-
leys. They are covered to their summits by beauti-
ful forests broken here and there by terraced clear-
ings which contain tea plantations.
Darjeeling is picturesquely located on the side
of a mountain. The streets are so steep and the
differences in level between various parts of the
city so great that travel by motor or horse-drawn
vehicles is impossible except on one or two roads.
Travel inside the city is chiefly on horses or donkeys
or by two-wheeled vehicles drawn by coolies. On
the mountain sides are many villas, bungalows and
[ 63 ]


INDIA
alayas.
own which is one of the largest buildings in
Darjeeling.
Our primary purpose in visiting Darjeeling was The Hima,
to see the Himalayas. The valleys and tree-covered
mountains about Darjeeling were beautiful enough
to have justified the visit, but, of course, we wanted
a view of the highest snow-covered peaks. For a
time we feared that we would never see them, so
impenetrable was the fog and mist that surrounded
us the first day. It was just as bad the second
morning until suddenly the clouds lifted and we
saw towering above us the great range of white
mountains crowned by Kinchinjanga, over twenty-
eight thousand feet high-almost as high as Mt.
Everest. Although these mountains were forty
miles away, they seemed to rise straight from the
valley at our feet. They looked incomparably
bigger and higher than any mountains we had ever
seen, as indeed they are. They are not only about
ten thousand feet higher above the sea than the
highest mountains of Switzerland, but to the ob-
server their height is increased by the fact that the
bottom of the valley at his feet is only one or two
thousand feet above the level of the sea.
We had a good view of Kinchinjanga and its Kinchin-
neighbors for about an hour until they again disap- and Mt.
peared behind the clouds, not to reappear again
during our visit. The chances of the clouds lifting
Everest.
[ 65 ]


INDIA
to give us a view of any of the snow-clad mountains
was so remote that we did not make the early morn-
ing journey to Tiger Hill for a view of Mt. Everest
one hundred and twenty miles away. At best Mt.
Everest as seen from Tiger Hill is only a small
white peak arising above the Kinchinjanga Range,
so that all we missed was the consolation of being
able to say that we had seen the highest mountain
in the world. The view of the Himalayas was so
impressive and overpowering that we felt amply
rewarded for a most uncomfortable journey and
two days of indescribable cold and discomfort in
one of the worst hotels in which human beings ever
suffered.
Calcutta.
Madras, February 7, 1925
From Darjeeling we returned to Calcutta. We
did not stop at Government House as the Governor,
Lord Lytton, was to be away until the last day of
our visit. We, however, lunched with him. and
Lady Lytton on that day. Until the removal of the
capital to Delhi a few years ago the Government
House at Calcutta was the Viceregal Palace. It
is the most pretentious of the Government Houses
in India. It was built at about the same time as
our White House and resembles it, although it is
larger and more pretentious. The Lyttons are
charming people as one would expect considering
[ 66 )


INDIA
The jute
mill.
tions. They employ over one hundred and fifty
thousand men in one capacity or another. The
fact that there are several similar concerns in
Calcutta, Bombay and Madras will give some idea
of the magnitude of British trade in India.
Early one morning while Harrison Williams was
still sleeping, I visited one of Andrew Yule & Co.'s
jute mills in the suburbs of Calcutta. It is a highly
organized and admirably run institution. With the
exception of a half a dozen foremen, all of the em-
ployees are natives. The native boys and girls are
as bright and efficient as the boys and girls of any
country, but when they grow up their efficiency, in
comparison with that of European adults, declines.
The head of the jute department of Andrew Yule
& Co. told me that it took five times as many opera-
tives to run a jute mill in India as would be re-
quired for the operation of a mill of the same
capacity in London.
Indian operatives are only able to work five or
six hours a day and when they work they cannot
accomplish as much as the European workman.
This relative low efficiency of Indian workmen
prevails in every walk of life. I should think that
in agriculture the relative efficiency of the Indian
laborer is even lower than in the factories. It takes
several times as many servants to run a household
in India as in Europe. It takes about ten men to
Indian
labor.
[68]


INDIA
carry our luggage from the hotel to the station
even when we are traveling light. In a gentleman's
stable one groom is required for each horse. This
relative inefficiency of labor in India is due not only
to the lower physical and mental capacity of the
Indian individual resulting from a tropical climate
and low standards of living, but to the ineradicable
insistence upon distributing a given amount of
work among the greatest possible number of work-
men. We were told that the Indians make excel-
lent clerks in banks and counting rooms and de-
velop very great facility in dealing with figures.
This is especially true of the Bengalis and Madrasis.
As a rule, however, they are deficient in real
capacity and executive ability.
As much of the commerce of Bombay is in the The
hands of the Parsees, so in Calcutta the Mewaris mer
from the Rajput States predominate among the
native merchants. They dominate many important
departments of commerce. Their ambition seems
to be to return to their homes in Rajputana when
they have made their fortunes. In Bikaner, away
off in the desert, we saw scorces of relatively fine
houses said to belong to Mewari merchants who
did business in Calcutta.
I spent a most interesting and inspiring after- Belur.
noon with Miss Josephine MacLeod at Belur on the
banks of the Ganges a few miles below Calcutta,
Mewari
chants.
[69]


INDIA
left Calcutta on the Home Car. We divided the
succeeding day between Puri with its super-sacred
Temple of Jagannath, and Bhubaneswar, the City
of a Thousand Temples. Puri is a sacred city of
great antiquity. It was probably the Dantpura
where Buddha's sacred tooth was preserved until it
was transferred to Ceylon. Its present importance
is due to the Temple of Jagannath erected in the
twelfth century. Puri is famous in the Christian
world as the city where the Car of Jagannath
carrying the image of the god makes its annual
devastating journey from the Garden House situ-
ated at one end of the wide main street to the
great temple at the other end. We did not see the
Jagannath Car because the one last used had been
broken up into sacred relics.
The Temple of Jagannath is an enormous struc- The
ture with no pretentions to architectural beauty. Jagan-
It is the typical Hindu temple of southern India.
The idol of Jagannath, which is enshrined in the
temple and which is dragged on the great car in the
annual procession, is simply an amorphous rudely
carved log. We were not allowed to enter the
temple, but had a good view of the busy scene in
the interior court from the roof of a neighboring
house.
At Puri we found Hinduism in its lowest and Hinduism
most degraded form. Ill-shapen and disgusting
Temple of
nath.
at Puri,
[71]


INDIA
idols abound on every hand. There are the usual
shrines to Ganesh, the elephant god; Hanuman, the
monkey god; the smallpox god, the cholera god,
and all their foul brood. In the motley crowd in
front of the temple were loathsome holy men, whose
naked bodies were besmirched with the ashes of
cow dung, beggars and fakirs of every variety and
afflicted by every form of disease, vendors of all
sorts of food and trinkets, footsore and ragged
pilgrims, fat and dissolute-looking Brahman priests
frequently unclad except for their loin cloths, and
the usual admixture of sacred cows and bulls.
Filth of infinite variety added to the squalor of the
scene. At Puri, as at Benares, the once pure and
limpid stream of Hinduism seems to have become
the filth of the sewer.
We did not take time to visit the famous Black
Pagoda at Kanarak on the seashore twenty miles
north of Puri. It was probably built in the ninth
century and is famous for the elaborateness and
licentious character of its splendid carvings in
marble and stone.
From Puri we motored to Bhubaneswar, the
“City of a Thousand Temples." It flourished in
the early centuries of the Christian era. At the
height of its glory as many as seven thousand
temples and shrines are said to have encircled the
sacred lake. Of these only about five hundred now
The Black
Pagoda.
Bhubanes-
war.
[72]


INDIA
survive in varying stages of decay. They exhibit
every phase of Hindu religious art “from the rough
conceptions of the sixth century and the exquisite
designs and ungrudging artistic toil of the twelfth,
to the hurried dishonest stucco imitations of the
present day.” The Great Temple, which was built
in the seventh century, is considered by Ferguson
to be “perhaps the finest example of a purely Hindu
temple in India.” Within sight of the Great
Temple are scores of other temples, large and small.
The Great Temple, and many of the others, are
carved with infinite elaboration. Many of the
carvings are vigorous and full of action. There are
processions of elephants and lions, even lions
mounted on elephants, warriors and pilgrims, gods
and mortals, priests and dancing girls, all pictured
as enacting their parts in the sacred drama of
Hindu mythology. The best of these carvings were
executed during the centuries which were the Dark
Ages of Europe by artists who did not know the
influence of Greece and Rome. While the infinite
elaboration of the temples and shrines at Bhubanes-
war inspire wonder and admiration for the patience
and devotion of the hundreds of thousands of
Hindu workmen who through several centuries
must have spent their lives in creating the sacred
city, none of the temples impressed us as being
really beautiful, judged by our standards of beauty.
[73]


INDIA
The
ubiquitous
Southern
India.
As at so many other places in India the trees at
monkey. Bhubaneswar swarmed with chattering monkeys.
In India monkeys are as abundant as robins are at
home.
Two nights and a day of further travel on the
Home Car landed us at Madras, the metropolis of
Southern India. As we journeyed south the scene
rapidly changed. Palm trees and other tropical
vegetation became abundant, rice fields took the
place of the grain fields of the north; the villages
changed their character, the people became dis-
tinctly darker in color, many of them being almost
coal black. The rank and file of the crowds at the
stations were distinctly neater in their attire and
better looking than the effeminate and shiftless
Bengalis. The Madrasis have the reputation of
being on the whole the most efficient population in
India. Their blood is chiefly that of the original
Dravidians slightly tinctured here and there by an
infusion of Aryan and Mohammedan blood. Their
country is fertile and their general standard of
living, while low enough, is higher than in most
portions of the north.
Madras is a big sprawling city. The native dis-
trict lacks character and is not especially interest-
ing. The European quarter has some fine modern
streets shaded by magnificent avenues of trees and
many fine houses with extensive grounds. The most
Madras.
[74]


INDIA
interesting place in Madras is Old Fort St. George,
which was founded by the British in the year 1639
and for a long time was the principal center of
British rule in India. Among the old buildings in
the Fort is St. Mary's Church, built at the end of
the seventeenth century, which is full of historical
associations. One piece of the church plate was
presented by Governor Yale, afterwards the
founder of Yale College. The church contains
many interesting monuments to British dignitaries
who played an important part in the early history
of India. Among other sights we were shown the
pool in which Bishop Heber was drowned, or as our
guide said where "he took a bath and died."
When, in order to make way for the Purdah st.
Party, all the guests at Government House were Mount.
sent away, I was taken by one of the aides-de-camp
to St. Thomas Mount, a high hill about eight miles
out of Madras. It was on this mount that St.
Thomas is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.
At the place of his martyrdom there is a convent
and church built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth
century. A charming French nun showed us the
relics of St. Thomas, including a picture of the
Virgin Mary said to have been painted by St. Luke
and brought to Madras by St. Thomas.
While at Madras we devoted one morning to a The Seven
visit to Mamallapuram, the City of the Seven
Thomas
Pagodas,
[75]


· INDIA
The
Madras
Govern-
ment.
Pagodas, one of the most remarkable places in
India. Here, on the seashore, on a tongue of land
separated from the mainland by a tidal river, are a
series of most interesting Hindu monolithic temples
known as "Raths,” and colossal carvings in relief
on the perpendicular sides of rocky hills, the most
famous being the one that records the so-called
"Penance of Arjan.” Many of the carvings are
exceedingly vivid and lifelike. The monolithic
temples, carved out of the solid rock in situ, are
astounding monuments of industry and patient
labor. We were sorry that we could not have spent
several days instead of several hours amid the de-
lights of the Seven Pagodas.
At Madras, while Harrison Williams played
tennis with beautiful ladies, I attended a session of
the Legislature. Except for the British members
of the Governor's Council, the membership is
almost entirely Indian. Most of the members wore
their native costume. The presiding officer was an
Indian who is almost black. The proceedings
seemed to be conducted with dignity and decorum.
The acoustics from the Visitors' Gallery are so bad
that I could not follow the speeches.
The Governor of Madras, unlike the Viceroy and
the Governor of most of the important provinces, is
in the fortunate position of having a government
majority in the Legislature. This is due to the
[76]


INDIA
Madras
sharp cleavage in the Madras Presidency between
the Brahman Party and the Non-Brahman Party,
the latter of which is made up of members of the
lower castes who have rebelled against the tradi-
tional Brahman supremacy and, of course, consti
tute the great majority of the population. The
support of the Government by the Non-Brahman
Party apparently is not because of any love of
British rule on their part but because it suits the
political purposes of the leaders to support the
Government.
At Madras I spent an hour listening to an argu- The
ment before the Court of Appeal, consisting of a Bar.
British Chief Justice and two Indian Judges. The
crowd of a hundred or more members of the Bar
who were present to listen to an unusually inter-
esting argument did not contain a single white face.
The barristers wore their native costumes and most
of them had their caste marks painted on their
brows. The case before the court involved an intri-
cate question of Hindu religious law and custom
and was skillfully argued by Indian counsel on both
sides in perfect English. All agree that the
Indians, especially the Hindus of Madras and
Bengal, take to the law as ducks take to the water
· and are often exceptionally astute and skillful.
They have practically displaced the British barris-
ters. The native judges have the reputation of
[ 777


INDIA
Govern-
ment
House.
being clever rather than profound and impartial.
It was evident at Madras, as it was at Calcutta and
at all other cities where I made inquiries, that the
Indian Bar is greatly overcrowded. Most of the
political agitators of India, are briefless lawyers.
C. R. Das, the great Swaraj leader, is an exception,
as he gave up a large and lucrative practice at the
Bar to devote himself to politics.
At Madras we had the good fortune to be guests
at Government House, a fine mansion built about a
hundred years ago in extensive grounds near the
center of the city. The Government also maintains
a country house in a park of several hundred acres
just outside of the city, where the Governor retires
for week ends. Lord Goschen, the Governor, has
had experience at home, not only in politics, but in
the city, where he was a conspicuous figure. He
and Lady Goschen are charming people of simple
tastes. There is less formality in their household
than at the Viceregal Lodge and at the other Gov-
ernment Houses we visited, excepting Government
House at Peshawar. The other guests during our
visit were General Ponsonby, the Commander-in-
Chief of the Army of Southern India; his aide-de-
camp, Major Horne, a fine Scot; Miss Tennant, a
niece of Mrs. Asquith; and Mrs. Balfour, Her
Excellency's charming daughter, whose husband, a
nephew of Lord (Arthur) Balfour, is acting as
[78]


INDIA
Military Secretary to his father-in-law while on
leave from his post in the Soudan. He is a fine
type of British Civil Servant-an educated gentle-
man to his finger tips as you would expect a Bal-
four educated at Oxford to be, and used to the best
social life that England affords. Yet, when his
year's leave is up, he and his wife will leave their
two young children in England and cheerfully re-
turn to his post as District Governor at Kassala, a
provincial capital in the Soudan, where there are
probably not a dozen white people and the nearest
railroad station is several hundred miles away.
He may hope eventually to become a governor of a
more important province, or perhaps even of the
whole Soudan, and to retire at fifty-five with a pen-
sion of a thousand pounds a year. By that time
relatives may have been thoughtful enough to die
and leave him or his wife some money. It is such
men, the flower of England in point of birth, educa-
tion and character, that have made the “Govern-
ment of India” what it has been for the last century
-an almost ideal organization for the government
of depressed races. Such men, alas, are not now
entering the Indian Civil Service and the Indian
Army in sufficient numbers because of the unpopu-
larity of the Indian Service due to the failure to
increase the pay of Indian Civil Servants and offi-
cers to keep pace with the increased cost of living
[79]


INDIA
The
Military
Secretary
and the
aides-de-
camp.
and to the fear that the Government of India may
be gradually turned over to the Indians. But
enough of this question, which is the question of
the hour in India, both for the Indians and for the
British.
The Military Secretary has the usual staff of half
Secretary a dozen aides-de-camp, all charming fellows who vie
with one another in smoothing the path of the
Governor and Lady Goschen and in keeping the
guests at Government House interested and amused.
Harrison Williams and I both agree that we could
not conceive of a more charming and efficient body
of men than the military secretaries and aides-de-
camp whom we met at the Viceregal Lodge and the
various Government Houses that we visited.
We spent one afternoon at the races. The club
enclosure, paddock and race track at Madras are
the most charming we found in India, although on
a more modest scale than those at Calcutta and
Bombay. As at the other race tracks we had vis-
ited, plenty of native men were in evidence, but
there were practically no native ladies, there being
no Parsees at Madras. Lady Goschen presented to
a winner owner a large silver cup offered by a
Maharaja. Engraved on the cup was a picture of
the Maharaja surrounded by seven tigers with an
inscription to the effect that the Maharaja had shot
The
Madras
races.
[80]


INDIA
Purdah
these tigers at one place within a period of seventy
minutes.
One afternoon Her Excellency gave a "Purdah” The
party for several hundred Indian ladies of rank and party.
social position who, under the rules of the Hindu
religion and the customs of their country, are not
allowed to be seen by men other than their hus-
bands and who spend most of their lives shut up in
their houses. The preparations for the party had
been in progress for several days. Sightproof can-
vas passages from the carriage entrance to Govern-
ment House and from the House to the ballroom,
which is fifty feet distant, were erected. All the
men of the establishment, including the Governor,
the members of his staff, his guests, the servants
and even the policemen, were sent away. The
arrangements having been inspected and approved
by Hindu experts, the Purdah ladies began to
arrive in curtained motor cars and carriages. The
first arrivals refused to leave their vehicle until
two Indian policemen who had incautiously ap-
peared on the scene at the last moment, had been
sent away. After the event some of the ladies gave
us the gossip of the party. They reported much
jewelry and fine raiment, considerable bashfulness
and curiosity on the part of the cloistered guests,
but little charm or pulchritude according to Euro-
pean standards of feminine beauty.
[81]


INDIA
Hindu houses the Purdah habit still remains. The
Gaekwar of Baroda arranged for his daughter to
marry the eldest son of the Maharaja of Gwalior.
The latter insisted that the wife of the heir to the
throne of Gwalior should go into Purdah. The
lady, who had been educated in England and
France, flatly refused to surrender her liberty and
finally married a less important suitor of the house
of Cooch Behar, whose widow she now is.
Gwalior, February 13, 1925
We had originally planned to extend our journey Trichi-
nopoly.
south of Madras at least as far as Madura, and if
time permitted, to Ceylon. We abandoned this
part of our journey to accept an invitation from
the Maharaja of Gwalior to be his guests during a
three days' visit of the Viceroy, two of which were
to be devoted to tiger hunting. My traveler's
conscience would not permit me to turn north
without going to see examples of the Dravidian
Hindu temples of the extreme southern part of
India. Harrison Williams amiably denounced me
as being “Hell on temples,” and refused to go
with me. I lived up to my part by leaving him
among the beautiful ladies and fleshpots of Madras
to spend two nights on the train during the only hot
weather we experienced in order to divide a day
between the temples of Trichinopoly and Tanjore.
[83]


INDIA
While less spectacular than the more famous tem-
ples of Madura, they are more ancient and are
sounder examples of Dravidian architecture. The
big temple to Krishna at Trichinopoly (familiarly
referred to as “Trichi”) is enormous, populous and
interesting. It is full of life and movement. As
many as ten thousand people must live inside its
outer enclosure. The Brahmins live in one street,
the dancing girls in another, and the mixed castes
in the street just inside of the outer wall. The
whole place, while less filthy than Puri, gives one
an impression of sordidness, sensuality and degen-
eracy. I visited two other important temples, to
one of which I had to climb up six hundred steps.
Fortunately, it was early in the morning before
the sun was high in the heavens.
I spent the heat of midday traveling to Tanjore,
where the principal temple is considered by many
authorities to be the most beautiful in southern
India and the most perfect example of Dravidian
architecture of the best period. Unlike most Hindu
temples, the building was not the work of several
architects and several periods. It was built in its
entirety by a single Chola King about the end of
the twelfth century. It is therefore consistently
designed and in its entirety is of the best Dravidian
period. The central structure, with its sixteen-
storied tower, over two hundred feet high, and the
Tanjore.
[ 841


INDIA
girls.
smaller temple adjoining it, built a century or two
later, are more nearly beautiful than any Hindu
temples I saw. Some of the carved figures are
worthy of the Italian Renaissance. There is, how-
ever, in all parts of the temple so much elaborate
decoration and such contemptuous disregard of the
beauty of unornamented space that the Moham-
medan architects knew so well, that the general
effect suffers. The eye is dazzled and confused by
the infinitely complex mass of decoration. Try
hard as we may, we cannot admire Hindu archi-
tecture.
At all Hindu temples dancing by girls known as Nautch
nautch girls forms an important part of the cere-
mony. These dancing girls are not allowed to
marry, and as they receive only a small honorarium
from the temple authorities, they are allowed to
supplement their income in the easiest way. It is
said, however, that as a rule they are not promiscu-
ously immoral and are faithful to the particular
men with whom they ally themselves by contract
for designated periods. It is fair to add that while
we must have passed by houses occupied by hun-
dreds of nautch girls, there was never a suggestion
of public immorality. Indeed, that is true of all
India. I do not remember of our having encoun-
tered a single instance of public solicitation by
women. I know of no European country of which
[85]


INDIA
Poona.
as much could be said. At Tanjore I was given an
opportunity to see a rehearsal of some temple danc-
ing accompanied by Indian music. The musicians
and dancers were manifestly earnest and serious,
but the results were not edifying to the western eye
and ear. The principal dancing girl was light in
color and rather good looking. Her dancing con-
sisted very largely of undulations and gestures, all
of which, I was assured, had ritualistic significance
in the worship of the god Siva.
I refrain from giving a list of the Hindu temples,
Buddhist caves and paintings and other “sights”
that would be dear to the artist and archæologist
that we missed in order to reach Gwalior in time
for the Viceroy's tiger hunt, which involved a
journey north of about twelve hundred miles almost
back to Delhi. Harrison Williams, less ardent in
the pursuit of temples and ruins than I, has no
regrets. I confess to having some. We both agree
that nothing we could have done or seen would have
compensated for the loss of the visit to Gwalior
and the tiger hunt. We broke our long journey to
Gwalior on the Home Car by a night and a day at
Poona, which we reached after two nights and a
day of travel through an uninteresting country.
After the novelty wears off, almost all India as seen
from a railway car window is uninteresting and
traveling by rail would be hopelessly dull were it
[ 86 )


INDIA
not for the constantly changing crowds of Indians
and their infinite variety of costumes and the col-
orful scenes at all the stations. Poona is chiefly
famous for having been the capital of the Mahrattas
up to the time of their final overthrow by the
British. Since then it has been an important center
of the British Government, one of the most im-
portant military cantonments in India, the head-
quarters of the Commander-in-Chief for Southern
India and, for a part of the year, the summer capital
of the Bombay Province.
At Poona we stayed with Mrs. G. Hunter Fell,
whom we knew on Long Island as Sophie Mott.
She has a charming and able husband, a Major in
the Indian Army, who is now the Military Secre-
tary of the General commanding the military forces
in the Poona District. They have a girl ten months
old whom her father has never seen-an experience
not uncommon in the families of army officers and
civil servants in India. Our visit with the Fells
gave us a glimpse of cantonment life from the inter-
mediate ranks which we had not had before and
which interested us very much. I assume that their
living expenses are probably little more than the
Major's salary and that their household is typical.
They live in a nice bungalow, owned by a Parsee
landlord, with ample verandas, one big room that
serves as a living room and dining room, several
[87]


INDIA
effective action in emergencies are not among their
qualities. With the aid of Giles we get on very
well. Without his intervention the situation would,
I am sure, have been very different. Giles clearly
enjoys his part. The sight of him twirling his cane
and wearing an expression of conscious power and
authority when leading the ten or a dozen semi-
naked men who are required to carry our luggage
from the hotel to the railway station would make
even a Hindu god laugh. It never occurs to the
porters to use trucks for the baggage entrusted to
them. Every labor-saving device is sternly rejected
in this country. The aim is to give the maximum
number of people the minimum amount of work.
It is not our impression that as a rule the Indians
are lazy. They are simply mentally and physically
weak as the result of a warm climate and insuffi-
cient food, and slaves to tradition and custom.
At Poona, as at other British centers in India, i
life among the soldiers and civil servants is care-
Poona.
fully organized to be as much as possible like life
in England. There are the usual polo fields, a race
track, tennis courts, clubs of various kinds, includ-
ing a jockey club, a club on the lake, and a gym-
khana club. From the best clubs Indians are
excluded. There is, of course, much dining, lunch-
ing, dancing, bridge and gossip. Girls are very
popular, as there are four or five times as many
Life at
[89]


INDIA
men as women. On the whole, British families in
India have a pretty good time during the seasons
when they can all be together. From most stations
the women have to leave their husbands for half
the year and go to Hill Stations, where the women
outnumber the men. Poona is one of the few Brit-
ish centers that offers the advantage of being pos-
sible for women all the year around. Almost all
British children are brought up and educated in
England, and are never seen by their parents
except when they are home on leave. All officers
and civil servants have moderate incomes—rarely
much more than their pay. Everyone knows what
everyone else's income is. There is accordingly a
refreshing absence of swank and display.
Growing At Poona, as elsewhere, we heard discouraging
larity of accounts of the growing unpopularity of the Indian
Army and the Indian Civil Service resulting in a
tendency on the part of the men in the service to
return home on retired pay as soon as the rules per-
mit, and reluctance on the part of the best young
men at Oxford and Cambridge to enter upon careers
that would take them to India. Most of the officers
and civil servants we met spoke with longing
regret of the good old days when the purchasing
power of the rupee was double or treble what it is
now and there was no talk of home rule for India
and of sharing the offices with the Indians.
unpopu-
the Indian
service.
[90]


INDIA
The
Maharaja.
thousand strong, a well-organized judicial system
and an educational system headed by a college.
The State operates several hundred miles of state
railroads and has built a network of excellent
roads.
The Maharaja is an absolute ruler, subject to the
watchful but gentle supervision of the British Resi-
dent, Mr. Trump, who lives in a handsome residency
in the outskirts of the city. He seems to run his
state very well. He is industrious and intelligent
and has surrounded himself with excellent aides,
all of whom, except the General Manager of the
State Railroads, áre Indians. Unlike most Mahara-
jas he keeps the state income separate from his
private income, which is said to be very large.
During our three days stay at the palace we met
all of the Maharaja's cabinet. Most of them spoke
English fluently and without any accent. They all
talked and acted like gentlemen. We soon got used
to their color. The Maharaja himself is very simple
and puts on no royal airs except on state occasions.
We saw and heard nothing of his two wives, but
his two children, one a boy of eight and the other a
girl of ten, were constantly about. They gave every
sign of having been well brought up.
While the Maharaja himself is a devout Hindu,
Command. his cabinet contains several Mohammedans. In-
deed, one member of his cabinet, Sir Edwin John,
The
Brahman
er-in-
Chief.
[ 94 )


INDIA
the Minister of State Industries, is of Armenian
birth, and presumably a Christian. We asked why
the Commander-in-Chief of the Army never joined
us at dinner or lunch. It was explained that he,
being a Brahmin, could not eat at the same table
with the Maharaja, who is low caste, unless his food
were cooked by a Brahman cook and served by a
Brahman servant. Accordingly, in order to save
the Maharaja trouble and embarrassment, he stayed
away. It may be added in passing that if an ortho-
dox Brahmin dines with the Viceroy or the Gov-
ernor of a Province, his food must be separately
cooked and served by Brahmins. Our Brahman
chauffeurs politely refused the food we offered
them. At most railroad stations there are separate
drinking fountains for Mohammedans and Hindus.
At half past eight of the morning following our Arrival
arrival, the Viceroy's train of nine white cars drew Viceroy.
up on the railroad siding at one end of the palace.
The Viceroy's party, which included no ladies, was
met with great pomp and ceremony on an immense
red carpet by the Maharaja in person, surrounded
by his bodyguard and cabinet, while the fort
sounded a salute of twenty-one guns. We all break-
fasted together quite informally, as one would
breakfast in an English country house. All of the
Indians wore European clothes, the Maharaja him-
of the
[ 95]


INDIA
ger hunting The tiger
all religions. At night there were fireworks for the
populace, while a numerous party were entertained:
at dinner by the Maharaja in his palace. The
dinner, except for the curry course, was practically
the same as would have been served at a state
banquet in Europe.
The next two days were devoted to tiger hunting
de luxe which had been organized in honor of the hunt.
Viceroy who has become a keen sportsman and an
excellent shot. At the beginning of the visit each
guest had been provided with a pamphlet printed
in Hindustani and English, in which were set forth
the arrangements for the tiger hunts. From this
it appeared that the night before the hunt bullocks
would be tied to trees at six different localities
within comfortable motoring distance from Gwalior
in order to attract the tigers of those particular
localities. The Postmaster General of the State
had been instructed to establish, connection by
wireless with each locality in order that the
Maharaja might have the latest reports on the
morning of the hunt. The Commander-in-Chief of
the Army had been instructed to have in readiness
at each of the several localities a suitable number
of elephants, horses and beaters and other attend-
ants and also to supply a military patrol for the
roads leading to the various localities and to sus-
pend for that day traffic on those roads. Thus pro-
[ 99 ]


INDIA
beaters, of whom several hundred were ranged in
a semicircle on the other side of the ravine, began
their concentric advance for the purpose of driving
the tiger toward the Viceroy. They had barely
begun their advance when a good sized tigress
strolled out from under a ledge of rock not more
than a hundred yards below the place where the
Viceroy was sitting. The Viceroy fired; the
Maharaja fired; the Viceroy fired a second shot.
The tigress although wounded disappeared in a
bunch of jungle at the bottom of the valley. Ele-
phants were brought up the valley and their riders
endeavored to encourage them to advance into the
jungle where the tigress was hidden, which the wise
beasts declined to do, showing their displeasure
and fear by snorting and backing away. Then the
Indians who were near the Viceroy began throwing
stones into the jungle that concealed the wounded
tigress. We could hear clearly her groans and
heavy breathing. She finally galloped out into the
open and was soon laid low by four or five addi-
tional shots.
The party then returned to the elephants and Lunch
horses, and after riding a couple of miles reached hunt.
a sequestered spot where a magnificent tent had
been erected under a spreading banyan tree.
Under the tent was a table on which an elaborate
lunch had been spread. The whole party partook
after the
[ 101)


INDIA
The
second
tiger.
of this lunch, eating and drinking with great liber-
ality. At each plate was a menu printed in French
in gilt letters. By the time we had finished lunch
the tigress arrived on the back of an elephant.
She was laid on the ground in a dramatic attitude
with a stone for a pillow. Three elephants were
ranged in a row behind her, whereupon the party,
with the Viceroy in the center, holding guns in
their hands and with suitable expressions on their
faces, were photographed in numerous attitudes.
We then motored back to the palace where we
arrived in time for tea. Harrison Williams agrees
that this is a fair and uncolored account of our
first tiger hunt.
The second tiger hunt the next day was, with
unimportant variations, a repetition of the first
day's hunt. Four tigers had been located in a
ravine. The Viceroy shot the first one through the
heart almost immediately upon his arrival at a
stone house which had been erected as a shelter for
tiger hunting parties. The beaters then began their
noisy advance on the other side of the ravine,
shouting and blowing horns. I was to have had a
shot at the second tiger, but alas, the cowardly
brute did not come out into the open and I had no
opportunity of demonstrating my lack of skill in
the handling of a rifle. At two o'clock we all rode
back to our sumptuous lunch which this time had
[ 102]


INDIA
ace of
been laid under a big banyan tree around which a
large stone and cement platform had been built for
the comfort of the Maharaja's guests.
The Maharaja offered us a tiger hunt of our own.
We also received an invitation to hunt with the
Maharaja of Kotah, but we felt that having trav.
eled fifteen hundred miles and devoted six precious
days to the show at Gwalior, a fair distribution of
our time would not permit us to indulge in further
adventures in the jungle.
Before the end of our visit we had begun to feel the pal-
very much at home as members of the Maharaja's Gwalior.
household. He lives in an enormous modern palace
of white marble built around a court which must
be five or six hundred feet square. There were said
to be other smaller courts that we did not see.
The architecture is distinctly western. As in the
case of all modern Indian palaces we visited, the
furniture is not in the best of taste. The Maharaja
is very proud of a set of cut glass furniture which
came from Belgium. At large dinners the table is
decorated with a miniature silver track on which
travels a miniature train of cars that delivers sweet-
meats and liqueurs to the guests with great effi-
ciency. The main Durbar Hall or drawing room
would be a fine room anywhere. I am sure there is
no room nearly as large in a private house in New
York. In spite of the shortcomings in its furniture
[103]


INDIA
Departure
Departure
Viceroy.
and decorations, the palace is very comfortable and
luxurious and guests are made to feel very much
at home. The palace gardens are extensive and
rather attractive, although they suffer from a lack
of water. They contain many fine trees and shrubs
but little good turf.
After dinner on the third day the Viceroy and
his party with less formality than when they ar-
rived departed in the Viceregal train. The band
played, the Maharaja gave three cheers for the
Viceroy, and as the train moved out the Viceroy
leaned from the platform of his car and gave three
cheers for the Maharaja. Everybody looked happy
and joined in the shouting. After the departure
of the Viceroy, Harrison Williams and I returned
to the palace for a few hours' conversation with our
host. The Maharaja had taken a great fancy to
Harrison Williams. I am sure if we had stayed a
day longer he would have made him Finance Min-
ister or the Comptroller of the Royal Household.
Finally in the small hours of the morning we were
escorted to our humble quarters in the Home Car.
If all the Maharajas, Rajas and other Indian
dignitaries whom we have urged to visit us in New
York decide to come, we will be swamped. To save
us embarrassment in our country of race prejudice,
our Indian visitors will either have to distinguish
themselves by wearing their native costume or
Aryan
features.
[ 104]


INDIA
wear a label reading something like this: “This man
is not a negro but an Aryan brother of noble lineage
who has been tanned by the Indian sun." There
would be more truth than fiction in this label. We
have seen many Indians with regular features who,
after they had been bleached white, would look
quite in place in a New York drawing room. As it
is, many of them, especially from the North, are
quite fair. Some with the finest features are almost
black. We often amuse ourselves by picking out
of the crowds of dark faces those that remind us
of our friends at home. We see many men wearing
little but loin cloths who, with their faces bleached
and wearing European attire, would not look out
of place on our Stock Exchange or in a courtroom
in New York.
We had several other invitations to visit Mahara. Visits we
jas. If we had been so disposed we could have make.
devoted the rest of the year to such visits. We
were especially sorry not to have been able to visit
the Maharaja Jamsahib of Jamnagar whom we had
met at Bikaner and liked very much. In his Oxford
days he had been a famous cricketer and formed a
life-long friendship with our friend C. B. Fry who
was the greatest cricketer of his day.
This may be an appropriate place for some ob- Maha-
servations regarding Maharajas and Rajas. From Rajas.
time immemorial India has been divided into many
could not
rajas and
[ 105]


INDIA
kingdoms and principalities. There have been
periods of considerable duration when a strong
ruling house drew or forced large parts of India
under its rule. This was true of the Emperor
Asoka who ruled a large part of India in the third
century before Christ. It was true under the
Gupta kings during the early centuries of the
Christian era. Akbar and his descendants of the
Mogul dynasty held a large part of India under
their sway. Even during these periods there were
still numerous rulers who were entirely indepen-
dent or who only partially accepted the suzerainty
of their overlord. But during the greater part of
the Christian era India was divided among hun-
dreds of independent rulers. The history of India
is a vast and bewildering maze of constantly chang-
ing dynasties and kingdoms. It remained for the
British to consolidate all India into one empire.
Even under British rule a substantial part of India
has remained under independent rulers whom the
British Government has recognized and protected.
There are now about seven hundred of such rulers
and about seventy millions of the population of
India are under their jurisdiction.
Many of the independent States have insignifi-
cant populations and the power of many of the
native rulers is little more than nominal. There
are, however, numerous States of considerable ex-
[ 106]


INDIA
tent and population ruled by independent rulers
whose power is subject to no restraint except that
of the British Government of India exercised
through a local Resident. The tendency of recent
years has been to exercise that restraint with great
caution and to interfere in the government of the
native States only in cases of grave misgovernment.
Some of the independent rulers are Mohammedans
and others are Hindus. It sometimes happens, as
in the case of Cashmere, that a Mohammedan
country is ruled by a Hindu ruler and the reverse
occasionally happens. The Maharaja is frequently
both the ruler and the landlord of his people.
In such a case, his income consists of taxes paid
by subjects and rentals paid by his tenants. Some
Maharajas are landlords of large estates out-
side of the boundaries of their own states. For
instance, the Maharaja of Kapurthala, who has but
three hundred thousand inhabitants in his own
state, is said to have half a million tenants in other
states from whom he receives an enormous income.
It will thus be seen that the opportunities for graft
and oppression on the part of Indian independent
rulers are very great. The British Government
tries to see to it that the independent rulers spend
a proper proportion of their income in running
their states and for the benefit of their subjects,
[ 107 )


INDIA
were met at the station by one of our charming
friends of the Governor's staff of aides-de-camp.
As Government House was not crowded we were
lodged in the Prince's Pavilion with its enormous
sitting rooms, bedrooms, verandas and baths; and
such beds! and how we did sleep after having spent
twenty-two nights out of forty on the Home Car!
In many respects Government House at Bombay,
although not the most magnificent, is the most
delightful official residence in India. Their Excel-
lencies, the Governor and Lady Wilson, are most
kind and cordial and we count all the staff of aides-
de-camp as brothers. During our three days' stay
there have been no parties and life has been less
formal than on the occasion of our first visit. One
evening while Harrison Williams talked finance
with the Governor, I went with Her Excellency and
others to the Opera and heard “La Bohème” sung
earnestly but crudely by a traveling Italian Com-
pany accompanied by an orchestra made up largely
of local talent.
We have spent so much of our time at Govern- A Swaraj
ment Houses and in Government circles that we
have not found it easy to establish contacts with
the proletariat. We have not met Gandhi or any
of the other leaders of the advanced political party.
At Bombay I had an interesting talk with a most
interesting Indian lady, who is one of Gandhi's
leader.
[111]


INDIA
important supporters. I found her very clever and
earnest but not convincing. She gives the British
no credit for what they have done in India, saying
that what they did was for their own selfish pur-
poses and not for the benefit of the Indians. She
insists that India must have, and soon will have,
complete self-government without interference from
the British. She says that the Indians will let the
British stay and will treat them justly. She thinks
that the rule of the Mohammedan conquerers was
preferable to the rule of the British, because they
did not patronize their Hindu subjects but associ-
ated with them on terms of equality and married
their daughters. I asked her if she did not think
that with the withdrawal of British rule India
would disintegrate and go to the devil politically.
She thought not. At any event, it is their privilege
to go to the devil if they want to and the British
have no right to stop them. Like Gandhi, she re-
gards western civilization with its railroads, facto-
ries, and international commerce, as a curse to
India. She longs for the day when the railroads
and factories will be scrapped and the Indian peo-
ple will live their own simple lives unhampered by
western civilization. It is very hard for an occi-
dental to carry on a discussion with a person who
holds such views.
[112]


INDIA
from
perfect op of rats India and
On Board the 8. 8. “Vasna,” February 25, 1925
We left India and our friends at Government Departure
House at Bombay with real regret. We have India.
made many friends. We have never been received
with greater kindness and hospitality than
has been shown us in both Indian and British
official circles. Our visit has not been marred by a
single untoward incident or dull hour. We have
had perfect weather, and except at Darjeeling, have
not seen a drop of rain or hardly a cloud in the sky.
We have seen more of India and of Indian life in
certain of its aspects than we could fairly have
hoped to see in our short visit of two months. We
have learned and seen enough to enable us to realize
how little we have really seen of Indian life and
how incomprehensible to the western mind the
Indians are.
Our minds are seething with impressions, often Our im-
confused and conflicting. During this voyage of of India.
six days from Bombay to Basra at the mouth of the
Tigris, I am recording some of my impressions in
the hope of clarifying them.
One impression stands out very clearly and that Lord
is that the Viceroy of India has the hardest govern-
ing job in the world. He has almost unlimited
power over three hundred and twenty million peo-
ple who do not and cannot understand him, and
whom he can never fully understand. He is work-
pression
Reading.
[113]


INDIA
ing under new laws laws that are not only untried
but are already recognized to be radically defective.
He can get very little help from his associates in
the Government so far as sharing responsibility is
concerned. He never knows when, where and how
trouble may break out. He is acting for a govern-
ment in England which knows little or nothing of
India and her problems, whom he never sees and
with whom he can communicate only by letter or
cable.* A more difficult combination of handicaps
would be hard to imagine. It is our impression
that Lord Reading has been remarkably successful
under conditions of unusual difficulty. His dealing
with Gandhi was masterly. If he had arrested
Gandhi at the height of his power, as I imagine
most of his British advisers urged, he would
have become a martyr and anything might have
happened. Instead of doing that the Viceroy led
Gandhi to spend his force and demonstrate the
futility of his policies. Gandhi's ultimate arrest
and imprisonment at a time when he had to admit
* It must be a great relief to Lord Reading that he is to have
the opportunity of returning to England on leave and of dis-
cussing the problems of India face to face with Lord Birkenhead,
the Secretary of State for India, and the other members of the
British Government. This is the first time in the history of
India that a Viceroy has returned to England before the expira-
tion of his term, for it was not until a recent amendment of the
law that the Viceroy was permitted to leave India during his
term of office.
[114]


INDIA
places we
the doctrine that there is a peculiarly deadly quality
in the Indian sun.
Our trip was not as complete as we might have the
wished. We omitted many places that we should missed.
have liked to have visited. Apart from our regret
in not being able to visit Cashmere, we were espe-
cially sorry to have missed Mt. Abu, with its Jain
temples; Ellora and Ajanta with their many cave
temples; Lucknow with its memories of the Mutiny;
Madura in the extreme south with its impressive
Dravidian temples; Hyderabad, the capital of the
most important independent State and the neigh-
boring ruins of Golconda; the old Portuguese city
of Goa which is gradually disappearing in the
jungle; the Malabar coast with its wealth of tropi.
cal vegetation; and Ceylon, which all agree is one
of the most beautiful regions in the world. We
both aspire to a spring month in Cashmere and a
trip which will enable us to visit Ceylon, Burma,
Siam and Indochine.
The strongest impression we carried away from The
India is of the majestic power and authority of of British
British rule. There has been nothing like it since
the Roman Empire. Indeed, the history of Rome
furnishes no parallel. It is the most remarkable
triumph of moral force and authority that the
world has even seen. The way in which this author-
ity has been built up during the past two centuries
rule.
[117]


INDIA
is characteristically British. Nothing was done
logically. The Empire of India was not con-
structed under a comprehensive and preconceived
plan. The long periods of apparently hopeless
muddling usually ended in advancing the British
cause in ways that could not have been foreseen.
The British in India had a genius for seizing and
making the most of opportunities. The greatest
marvel of all is that the conquest of India, which
was born in greed for commercial aggrandizement
and in its early years marked by much injustice
and oppression, was finally converted through the
sheer force of British public opinion into the most
benevolent, just and enlightened rule that has ever
been imposed by one nation upon another. I speak
of the British rule having been imposed on India
because imposed it was. It was originally imposed
for the aggrandizement of British commerce, but I
believe that for at least half a century the respon-
sible men of the British Government in India from
the Viceroy down through the ranks have regarded
themselves as trustees, not only for the great vested
British interests in India, but for the Indian people.
According to their lights they have done their best
faithfully to perform that trust.
The atti. The British in India have been remarkably suc-
people of cessful in inspiring the Indian people with respect
towards for their justice and dignity and with fear and
[ 118)
tude of the
India
British
rule.


INDIA
awe of their power, but they have not won the
affection of their subjects. They cannot shake
off their attitude of patronizing superiority and
racial aloofness. It is at once their strength and
their weakness that they do not descend to the level
of their Indian subjects. I once asked an English-
man who had lived all his life in the Orient why
the British were so successful in maintaining the
respect of their oriental subjects. He answered:
“Because they let the native women alone.” I
asked an educated Indian woman why the British
are so little beloved in India and she answered:
“Because they consider themselves too superior to
marry our daughters." These, of course, are only
half truths, but they vividly suggest the causes of
the success of the rule of the British in India and
their failure to win the gratitude and affection of
their subjects. I presume that in these modern
days no people can be expected to love a govern-
ment however benevolent and efficient whose au-
thority has been imposed upon them against their
will.
The more we saw of the British in India the more The
we admired them. Just think of the marvel of the British
three hundred and twenty millions of the people
of India being ruled by this little band of English-
men! The whole British population of India is
only about one hundred and twenty thousand.
marvel of
British
rule.
[119]


INDIA
Political
unrest.
There are but sixty thousand British soldiers in
all India. Native troops constitute much more
than half of the Indian Army. There are less than
four thousand British in the civil, educational, en-
gineering, judicial and police services of India out
of a total of over a million and a half, and the
proportion of British is being constantly reduced.
Order is maintained and law enforced in many a
remote district of vast population and extent by a
handful of British civil servants and soldiers. A
single word from a quiet British Resident is usually
enough to curb the most ambitious independent
ruler.
We saw much less evidence of political unrest in
India than we expected, but then we had little
opportunity to look beneath the surface indications.
I believe, however, that the political unrest is much
less serious than the American newspapers would
have us believe. As I have said, Gandhi as an influ-
ence in politics seems to be a spent force. His
dangerous alliance with the organized Mohamme-
dan forces seems to have ended. Political coopera-
tion between Hindus and Mohammedans is as diffi-
cult as ever. While there is undoubtedly a growing
feeling of national unity and race consciousness in
India, the great mass of the Indian people are too
ignorant and too backward to be capable of sus-
tained political action. I doubt if the influence of
[ 120]


INDIA
lessly unfitted for self-government. Even the best
of them lack stability and real capacity for sus-
tained political action. The Indian people have
always been ruled by somebody. No country in the
world has more completely lacked self-government
and none has had less political cohesion and less
national spirit. The Indians have always been
easy to conquer and usually easy to rule. With
how little struggle they fell under the dominion of
the successive Mohammedan invaders and accepted
their rule century after century! The absence of
a strong ruler in India has inevitably resulted in
confusion and anarchy. I have no sympathy with
the view that the Indians are entitled to rule them-
selves regardless of consequences and to go to the
devil, if that is their preference. I cannot but feel
that it is part of the mission of the strong nations
of the world to rule the backward and undeveloped
nations until they can be trusted to rule them-
selves. It will be many generations before the
British will have so fulfilled their destiny in India
that the Indians should be trusted to rule them-
selves.
There could be no better illustration of the in- Failure
ability of the Indians to govern themselves than Indians
their misuse of the opportunity for partial self-
government accorded them under the Montagu-
Chelmsford reform. They have withheld their co-
of the
under new
constitu-
tion.
[ 123)


INDIA
operation; they have refused the modicum of
political responsibility offered them; they have pre-
ferred to obstruct and embarrass the Government.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Mon-
tagu-Chelmsford reform went too far. It is one
of the many political mistakes that were made dur-
ing the emotional period immediately following the
war. It will be hard for the British Government
to disentangle itself from the embarrassments into
which it was thrown by the promises of progressive
self-government in India that were put in the
mouth of the King at the time of the inauguration
of the new constitution. The author of the “Lost
Dominion” may be right in his view that the logical
result of the grant of partial self-government and
the promise of the progressive elimination of
British rule is the early grant of complete self-
government to the Indians. But in dealing with
India the British have never been logical, and they
will not be dominated by logic in the future. I
believe that in their strange illogical way and in
spite of their embarrassments, they will continue
their rule in India for generations without losing
sight of the legitimate aspirations of the politically
conscious sections of the Indian people to achieve
ultimate self-government.
We often put to ourselves the question, what in
India is of the greatest interest to travelers?
The
people of
India.
[ 124 ]


INDIA
Our likes
and
dislikes.
caste and low caste are as far apart as the poles.
The Mewaris and the Bengalis differ as widely as
do the Scotch and the Irish. In spite of the diffi-
culty in attempting generalizations, we could not
escape some very pronounced impressions.
As a class we liked the Mohammedans better
than the Hindus. The finest physical specimens
we encountered were the Pathans of the Northwest
Province. One could not fail to be attracted by
their vigor, their good looks, their independence
and their courage. We liked the Rajputs and the
Mewari merchants. The least attractive class we
met were the natives of Bengal and Central India.
The most pitiful class in India are the Eurasians
or Anglo-Indians as they are now officially desig-
nated. They are looked down upon by both Indians
and British. They have no social status what-
ever. They are worse off than the mulattos of our
own country who are admitted to social equality
at least by the negroes. They are said not to
inherit the good qualities of either race. We could
not help despising the Brahman priests as we saw
them in the temples and in the holy cities, and yet,
we were told that among the educated Brahmins
are some of the finest men in India. It was simply
not our good fortune to meet them. By and large
I would not call the Indians an attractive or lovable
people. They are certainly not gay. Nor as a class
[126]


INDIA
whose habits and spiritual and mental conceptions
are wholly different from ours. They are rarely
beautiful or interesting architecturally. The In-
dian bazaars are less picturesque and less colorful
than the bazaars of Northern Africa and the Near
East. It is hard to generalize about the architec-
ture of India. Northern India is not wanting in
beautiful monuments of the Mohammedan period.
The Taj Mahal in the right light has an ethereal and
evanescent beauty equaled by no other building in
the world. A view of it by moonlight would repay
a visit to India. There is, however, no other Mo-
hammedan building of outstanding and overpower-
ing beauty. India possesses several palaces of
great beauty, some built by the Moguls and some
by Hindus. The palaces at Amber, Fatehpur-Sikri,
Udaipur, Gwalior, Jaipur and Bikaner would in-
terest the most exacting tourist. The Hindu and
Jain temples, especially the great Dravidian tem-
ples of the south, are intensely interesting as mani-
festations of a religion and civilization that differ
widely from ours, but to the western eye they are
not beautiful. They provoke wonder but they never
inspire a tremor of admiration or emotion.
To the serious student of archæology India must
be full of interest. It must be fascinating to trace
the growth of the expression of the human mind
and soul in stone and plaster among a people whose
Indian
archæol-
ogy.
[ 128]


INDIA
conceptions of life and art and religion are as far
away from ours as the east is from the west, and
the development of whose art and civilization has
been little influenced by the example of the western
world. In the field of architecture and sculpture it
is possible for the student to study examples that
represent almost unbroken development from the
reign of Asoka in the third century before Christ to
the present day. There is much less of a gap be.
tween the present and the past in India than in
Europe. One often hears the boast that there was
a highly developed civilization in India before the
Greeks had become great and before Rome was even
a name, and that when Europe was sunk in the
semibarbarism of the Middle Ages, India was in
the heydey of her glory. The other side of the pic-
ture is that while Europe advanced and grew great
and strong on the ruins of Greece and Rome, India
remained stationary and in spite of the recent
superficial changes wrought by British rule, life in
India in its fundamentals has changed surprisingly
little in two thousand years.
I presume that to the student of philosophy and Indian
religion and the mysteries of the human soul, India
offers a boundless field of infinite attraction. We
were of too practical a turn of mind and too casual
in our contacts to think of entering this field. But
practical and inaccessible to spiritual influences as
religion.
[ 129]


INDIA
we were, we could not wholly escape the spell of
the majestic continuity of the Hindu spiritual tra-
dition that for more than four thousand years has
survived all external influences, has absorbed Bud-
dhism and withstood Christianity and Moham-
medanism, and still exercises over the daily lives
of two hundred and fifty million people a domina-
tion more complete than that of any other religion
in the world. It is interesting that unlike the other
great religions that survive in the modern world,
Hinduism did not receive its impetus from an
inspired prophet or founder like Moses, Christ,
Mohammed or Gautama, but sprang, or rather
grew, from the soul of the people whose lives it
was ultimately to dominate. I confess that I am
too steeped in western materialism to be able to
appreciate, or even discover, the much vaunted spir-
ituality of modern India. I got a hint of it in the
garden of the Math at Belur on the banks of the
Ganges. Perhaps some time I may be able suffi-
ciently to divest myself of my present preoccupa-
tions to be able to look into the temple of spiritual
detachment which I am sure must exist in India
but whose doors are closed to us. At all events I
mean to try. If that determination persists, my
visit to India may turn out to be the most profit-
able, as it has been the most interesting, of my
experiences as a traveler.
[ 130 ]


IRAK
The
voyage to
Basra.
and Euphrates to Baghdad and from there more
than five hundred miles by motor across the Syrian
Desert to Damascus. From there the ports of
Beirut, Jaffa and Alexandria are accessible by rail.
We at first planned to travel from Damascus by
rail via Aleppo through Turkey to Constantinople.
We gave up that part of our plan when we learned
that the one train a week between Aleppo and Con-
stantinople is very slow and uncertain. By, the
overland route, with good connections between
Alexandria and Trieste, the journey from Bombay
to London can be accomplished in a slightly shorter
time than by the usual route by sea to Marseilles
and from there by rail and channel steamer.
The six days' voyage from Bombay to Basra on
the Vasna, a little ship of about three thousand
tons, gave us comfort without luxury. The food,
to say the least, was uninteresting; a critical trav-
eler might call it bad. The second day we stopped
a few hours at Karachi, which, next to Bombay, is
the most important port on the west coast of India.
It is a big sprawling place of about two hun-
dred thousand inhabitants—a modern city, which
reminded us very much of the western boom towns
in our own country. Its enthusiastic citizens ap-
parently have made plans for a city of a million
inhabitants. We anchored off shore at Bushire, the
most important port of Persia, and at Muhamrah,
[ 132]


IRAK
a port at the mouth of the Tigris a few miles below
Basra, but we could not go ashore at either place.
We were met on the dock at Basra by the officer By air to
in command of the British Flying Service of that
district, who had arranged to transport us in mili-
tary aeroplanes to Baghdad. We had been able
to arrange for this diversion through the kind inter-
vention of my wartime friend, Air Marshal Sir
Sefton Brancker, the Chief of the Division of Com-
mercial Aviation of the British Air Ministry. We
had met Sir Sefton several times in India. He had
made the journey from London to Karachi in his
aeroplane piloted by the great pilot, Cobham, and
was planning to return the same way. It was his
ambition to make the round trip between England
and India in the same machine without change of
engine. *
Basra is not an interesting city. It achieved Basra.
great importance during the latter part of the war
when it was the base of the British military opera-
tions in Mesopotamia and Persia. It is an impor-
tant port, not only for Mesopotamia, but for Persia.
It is the center of the most productive date produc-
ing area in the world. Someone told me that he
had seen as many as thirteen steamers laden with
dates in the port of Basra at one time. A few miles
* Sir Sefton Brancker successfully accomplished the homeward
journey and reached London the very day I sailed for home.
[133]


IRAK
of the buildings that had been partially torn down
in the process. Modern buildings in the worst of
taste are gradually being built on either side of
these streets.
To the traveler the chief interest of Baghdad is Thee of
its people. Being the center of caravan routes
Baghdad.
extending eastward into Persia and beyond and on
the north into Turkey and Turkestan, and to the
west and south into Syria and Arabia, its popula-
tion is perhaps the most cosmopolitan and varied
of any Asiatic city. Its bazaars swarm with Syri.
ans, Turks from all parts of Turkey, Armenians,
Arabians, Persians, Turkomans, Africans, Kurds,
Jews, Afghans and Indians, to say nothing of the
natives of the country who are of composite race.
Because of its isolation, the population of Baghdad
has been little affected by western civilization.
Prior to the war the easiest way to reach Baghdad
from Europe was by ocean steamer to Bombay, by
coasting steamer from Bombay to Basra, and from
there by river steamer-a journey that took the
better part of a month. It took from a month to
six weeks to travel by an ordinary caravan from
Baghdad to Beirut, the nearest seaport on the Medi-
terranean. Baghdad will soon be connected by rail
to neighboring countries and opened to the conta-
gion of western civilization. Already there is the
railroad to Basra built by the British Army during
[137]


IRAK
Baghdad
types.
the war. There is another to the Persian border
on which occasional trains run. In a few years the
railroad projected by the Germans will doubtless
reach Baghdad from the north. There is already a
motor service across the Syrian Desert by which
the impatient traveler can reach the Port of Beirut
in less than thirty hours by traveling day and night.
The old Baghdad is rapidly passing. It behooves
those who want to see it in its pristine glory not
to put off their visit much longer.
A traveler interested in the study of oriental
human nature could spend many profitable hours
in the coffee houses of Baghdad. I have never been
in a city in the East or West where so large a part
of the population seems to frequent the cafés and
restaurants so much of the time. Our visit was
much too short to enable us to form sharp impres-
sions regarding the various types. On the whole,
the average human being in Baghdad is distinctly
superior in physique, dignity and general demeanor
to the average human being of India. Of course the
people of Baghdad are much lighter in color than
the Indians. Most of them are almost white. The
people that impressed us the most were the Kurds
who unload the cargoes of the river steamers—tall
strapping fellows with regular features and fine
eyes that are fierce one minute and laughing the
next, wonderful legs and arms and such chests as I
[ 138 )


IRAK
Shias.
have never seen on human beings. They have that
graceful swinging walk one rarely sees except
among Mohammedans who are kept erect by the
proud arrogance of the fanatic and by walking upon
their flat feet unhampered by shoes or sandals. The
strength of these Kurds is unbelievable. With
ease they carry enormous bales of merchandise on
their backs. We were told that six hundred pounds
is a regular load and that for a stunt an able-bodied
Kurd can carry a grand piano or a load of twelve
hundred pounds. It is no wonder that the Kurdish
revolt is worrying the Turks.
We spent an interesting hour in the Kardemain, The
one of the four sacred cities of the Mohammedans
of the Shiah sect. Mohammedans are broadly
divided into two sects, the Shias and the Sunnis.
Most of the Turks and Arabs belong to the Sunni
sect, while most of the inhabitants of Irak belong
to the Shiah sect. I will not attempt to explain the
theological differences that divide the two sects, but
the relations that exist between them are very much
like the relations between the Catholics and the
Protestants in many parts of Europe. The Shias
are very fanatical and the sacred cities of Irak are
hotbeds of disaffection and rebellion. One of King
Feisal's many difficulties is that he is a Sunni try-
ing to rule a nation of Shias. It is as though a
[ 139 )


IRAK
Miss
Gertrude
Bell.
Catholic were suddenly made King of Ulster, or a
Protestant made King of the Irish Free State.
We were privileged to spend an afternoon
with Miss Gertrude Bell, who has lived in Syria
and Mesopotamia for many years, speaks Arabic
fluently and has a wide acquaintance among the
natives. She was a co-worker with Colonel Law-
rence during the war and now holds the position
of Oriental Secretary upon the staff of the British
Resident. She is deeply interested in archæology,
especially in the excavations at Kish and Ur, where
buildings are being revealed that antedate even
those of Egypt. She looks upon the Babylon of
Nebuchadnezzar as a vulgar modern upstart. She
was starting next day for Ur, where she is to be
the arbitrator to divide the results of the latest
excavations between the Government of Irak and
the British Museum and the University of Pennsyl-
vania who are doing the work.
Miss Bell acted as our interpreter in our inter-
view with King Feisal which had been arranged by
the British Resident. He lives in a very humble
palace on the banks of the Tigris surrounded by a
badly kept garden. The Prime Minister, who com-
manded an army corps in the Turkish Army during
the war, was present during the interview. Neither
he nor the King spoke English. The King was
dressed very simply in English outing clothes. He
King
Feisal.
[ 1407


IRAK
was rather darker in color than the average inhabi-
tant of Irak, as one would expect in the case of the
son of Hussein of Arabia, King of the Hedjaz. He
wears a full beard and has an expressive face domi-
nated by a winning smile and a pair of sad eyes.
He distinctly reminds one of the face of Christ as
conceived by the Italian artists of the fourteenth
century. King Feisal spoke in terms of affection of
Colonel House and General Tasker H. Bliss whom
he had known at the Peace Conference in Paris.
Our conversation was chiefly about petroleum.
It happened that negotiations with an interna-
tional group for a concession to work the oil
fields of Mosul were nearing their close. He was
very much disturbed lest he had been overreached
and was making a bad bargain. He complained
that he had not been able to secure an independent
oil expert to advise him, having been told that such
a thing as an independent oil expert did not exist
in the British Empire. He said that he thought of
oil all day and dreamed of oil all night, and had
reached such a state of nerves that he wished oil
had never existed. We tried to reassure him, but
I am afraid that before we got through he sus-
pected us of being secret emissaries of the oil mag-
nates. Like a true oriental, he seems to be the
prey of suspicion and never to be certain whom
he can trust. He gave us the impression of being
[141]


IRAK
The
British
Resident.
an honest and high-minded man who is trying very
hard to do his duty under circumstances of great
difficulty. He will have a new set of troubles when
he faces his first legislative assembly which is soon
to be elected by universal manhood suffrage.
We were very happy with Sir Henry and Lady
Dobbs at the Residency. They live in a modest but
comfortable palace on the bank of the Tigris built
since the war. Their life is wholly lacking in
pomp and formality. Sir Henry impressed us as
a very wise man with a profound knowledge of
the Oriental character. He had spent his life in
the Indian Civil Service, having closed a brilliant
career by successfully negotiating the treaty be-
tween the Indian Government and Afghanistan
that is now in force.
The task of the British Resident at Baghdad is
not an easy one. The British are in Irak under a
mandate from the League of Nations. The coun-
try is supposed to be ruled by King Feisal and his
cabinet, with the advice and assistance of the
British Resident and a small staff of civil and
military officers. These British officials act only
through the native officials of whom they are the
advisers. Sir Henry Dobbs is endeavoring with a
degree of fidelity and conscientiousness that is
almost pathetic faithfully to live up to his rôle of
an adviser, and at times a very difficult and dis-
Politics
in Irak.
[142]


IR AK
Palmyra.
They usually asked us for cigarettes, which we gave
them until our scanty supply was exhausted.
Late in the afternoon, after the hardest day's
motor travel we either of us had ever experienced,
we reached the little Arab village of Tadmor which
has grown up around the ruins of Palmyra. We
were fortunate in being able to view the ruins in
the afternoon light. Palmyra was the capital of
Zenobia the queen of mixed Greek and Arab blood
whose kingdom extended from the Jordan to
Persia. She must have been very much of a Roman
in her tastes, for Palmyra is just such a city as
the Romans would have built. The only reason
that so much of it is still standing is that the Arabs
built no city in the neighborhood where they could
conveniently utilize the marbles of Palmyra. It
must have been a wonderfully beautiful city with
its temples, theaters and colonnaded streets. The
natives hold it in little reverence. They have built
their hovels against its walls and even within the
sacred precincts of the Temple of the Sun. As the
ruins of Palmyra are on the desert at the foot of
barren mountains, it was hard to understand how
such a country could ever have supported a great
and prosperous city. The explanation came the
they had intended to attack our convoy and capture him and
hold him for a princely ransom, probably releasing me to con-
duct the negotiations in New York for his release.
[ 148 1


IRAK
next day when we passed the remains of the aque-
duct by which water was carried from Palestine to
the Palmyra of Zenobia.
After an excellent dinner cooked by a Syrian
cook who had been trained by a French chef, we
spent a most uncomfortable night in one of the
dirtiest human habitations that has ever been pol.
luted by the ingenuity of man and beast. It
adjoined, indeed must have been an extension of,
the stables of the Sheik of the village. As we
resumed our journey early the next morning, the
view of the pillared ruins of Palmyra under the
morning sun soon dispelled the memory of the
discomforts of the night.
After six hours of travel across more desert Damas-
and over barren mountains, we finally came to
Syrian villages and a good road and we soon
reached the orchards and gardens by which Damas-
cus is embowered. The almond trees were in bloom
and all of the trees were in bud. Streams of limpid
water gurgled in the irrigating canals by the road-
side. Verdant grass grew upon their banks. We
could easily understand how the worn travelers
from the desert caravans feel they are in paradise
when they enter the valley of Damascus.
Now that we have reached the regular haunts Bu'albek.
of tourists, this record of our wanderings should
be brought to a close. We spent a day in Damas-
cus.
[ 149)


IR AK
formed and anæmic of the ill-gotten political off-
spring of the Peace Conference. They comprise the
portions of prewar Turkey in which the Arab popu-
lation predominates. Under the bargain that the
Allies made with the Arab leaders when they were
persuaded to fight against Germany and Turkey on
the side of the Allies, all this territory was to be
detached from the Turkish Empire and turned over
to the Arabs to be governed by their own rulers
under mandates. Instead of setting up one govern-
ment over the entire territory, the special commit-
ments and ambitions of Great Britain and France
made it necessary to divide the territory among
four different governments. The French insisted
upon being given the mandate over Syria with its
three million inhabitants, where they claimed tradi-
tional rights and responsibilities. The British had
to take the mandate over Palestine with its seven
hundred thousand people because of their promise
to make it available as a national home for the
Jews. The British wanted and took the mandate
over Mesopotamia (Irak) with its three million peo-
ple. There was still left the little region west of
Palestine which was separated from Irak by a
desert and could not be incorporated under the
Palestine Mandate because it had not been pledged
as a part of the national home for the Jews. It
therefore was erected into a separate state with a
[ 151)


BIBLIOGRAPHY
MURRAY'S HANDBOOK OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON, new edi-
tion, published in 1924. One volume. Ponderous and
badly arranged, but reliable and an invaluable aid to the
traveler.
Cook's HANDBOOK OF INFORMATION FOR INDIA, BURMA AND
CEYLON. One volume. A short but useful compendium
of information.
THE OXFORD HISTORY OF INDIA, by Vincent A. Smith. One
volume. The standard short history of India.
THE OXFORD STUDENT'S HISTORY OF INDIA, by Vincent A.
Smith. One volume. A condensation of the Oxford
History.
A SHORT HISTORY OF INDIA FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
PRESENT Days, by E. B. Havell. One volume. Excellent.
INDIA THROUGH THE AGES, by Flora Annie Steel. One vol-
ume. A popular and picturesque history of Hindustan
cleverly arranged by periods.
ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJASTHAN, by Lt. Col. James
Tod. Three volumes. The classic history of the Raj-
puts.
Tod's ANNALS OF RAJASTHAN, abridged and edited by C. H.
Payne. One volume. A condensation of Col. Tod's larger
work. Every visitor to India should read one of these
works.
VEDIC INDIA, by Ragozin. An excellent volume in the Story
of the Nations series.
BUDDHIST INDIA, by Reis Davids. Another volume in the
Story of the Nations series.
MEDIÆVAL INDIA, by Lane Poole. Another volume in the
Story of the Nations series.
THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, by Sir Herbert Risley. One volume.
A standard work on Indian anthropology.
[ 155 )