i 
 
MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
A TIGER HUNT UNDEE THE GREAT MOGULS 
 (From an Indo-Persian painting of the sixteenth century) 
 
MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 Its Rajahs - Its Brahmans - Its Fakirs 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT CHAUVELOT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 
 SIXTY PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ELEANOR STIMSON BROOKS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1921 
 

 Copyright, 1921, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 SEP 22 1921 
 
 0)CI.A622897 
 
TO 
 
 THE PRINCESS AMEDEE DE BROGUE 
 
 WHO 
 
 HAS SEVERAL TIMES TRODDEN 
 
 THE SACRED SOIL OF THE BRAHMANS 
 
 I OFFER, VERY RESPECTFULLY, 
 
 THIS "mysterious INDIA" 
 
 IN GRATITUDE 
 
 FOR THE KINDLY FRIENDSHIP 
 
 WITH WHICH SHE HONORS ME 
 
CONTENTS 
 PART I 
 
 PTER PAGE 
 
 Preface xiii 
 
 I The Parsees and the Towers of Silencb 3 
 
 II In the Bowels of Ellora 11 
 
 III Amber the Dead and Rose-Colored Jeypore 19 
 
 IV Hindu Wives and Widows 30 
 
 PART II 
 
 V There are Rajahs and Rajahs 
 
 VI An Asiatic M.^cenas 
 
 VII An Indian Durbar 
 
 VIII Betrothal Under the Law of Manu 
 
 IX The Sikh Sehrabandi .... 
 
 X The Wedding at Kapurthala . 
 
 47 
 55 
 62 
 
 74 
 85 
 91 
 
 PART III 
 
 XI Towards the Afghan Frontier .... 103 
 
 XII On the Rock of Gwalior 115 
 
 XIII Two Mongolian Capitals 122 
 
 XIV Holy Muttra 139 
 
 XV India Once Revolted Here 147 
 
 XVI Brahmans on the Banks of the Ganges . 156 
 
 XVII Benares and Its Fakirs 167 
 
 XVIII Dawn on the Himalaya 179 
 
 vii 
 
via 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XIX 
 
 XX 
 
 XXI 
 
 XXII 
 
 XXIII 
 
 XXIV 
 
 PART IV 
 
 Hyderabad and Golconda . 
 To THE Memory of Dupleix . 
 The Temples of Coromandel . 
 The Horrifying Coast of Malabar 
 Madura the Mysterious 
 Dead Hindu Cities 
 
 FACE 
 
 206 
 218 
 226 
 240 
 252 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Tiger Hunt Under the Great Moguls . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Bombay — The Cotton Market from Where Hundreds 
 of Thousands of Bales of This Valuable Vegetable Fiber 
 
 Are Shipped to Europe i6 
 
 A Parade of Sikh Infantry i6 
 
 Sikh Cavalry 17 
 
 An Informal Reception at the Court of Jeypore; the 
 Grandson of the Maharajah and the Author in the 
 
 Center 17 
 
 A Bayadere Dance 32 
 
 Snake and Scorpion Charmers 32 
 
 Threshing Out Earth-Nuts 33 
 
 Grinding Earth-Nuts to Extract Oil 33 
 
 H. H. Jagatjit Singh, Maharajah of Kapurthala (Punjab) 48 
 H. H. Princess Brindahmati of Jubbal, Who by Her 
 
 Marriage Became Crown Princess of Kapurthala . 49 
 
 The Gateway to the Palace of Kapurthala .... 64 
 
 A Brahmanic Religious Wedding 64 
 
 Jeypore — The Palace of the Winds 65 
 
 Benares — The Bath of the Widows 65 
 
 The "Announcer" of a Wedding 96 
 
 The Author on His Hunting Elephant 96 
 
 Elephants in the Flesh and Elephants of Stone ... 97 
 
 The Great Temple of Angkor-Vat 97 
 
 ix 
 
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Amritsar — The Temple of Gold and the Lake of Im- 
 mortality 112 
 
 Amritsar — A Street Scene ii2 
 
 The Rock and the Plain of Gwalior 113 
 
 The Terraces at Futtehpore Sikri, Near Agra . . . 113 
 
 Agra — The Mausoleum of the Taj -Mahal . . . . 128 
 
 Agra — The Sultana's Piscina . 129 
 
 Madras — ^An Insurgent Hindu Being Taken to Prison 129 
 
 Delhi — ^The Diwanikhas of the Great Moguls . . . 144 
 Delhi — The First Imperial Enclosure and the Gate of 
 
 Lahore 144 
 
 Muttra — Bathing on the Banks of the Djumna . . . 145 
 
 Muttra — The Market-Place 145 
 
 Ruins of the Lucknow Mutiny 160 
 
 The Palace at Lucknow 160 
 
 Benares — ^A Low-Caste Cremation 161 
 
 A Morning at Benares 161 
 
 A Palace on the Banks of the Ganges 1 76 
 
 Brahmanic Funerals on the Banks of the Ganges; to the 
 
 Left, a Corpse in Its Shroud 176 
 
 Benares — The Pilgrim's Ablutions 177 
 
 Benares — ^A High-Caste Cremation 177 
 
 Banga-Baba, the Ascetic, in His Watch-Tower, Turning 
 
 His Back to the Ganges 184 
 
 A Fanatic of the Sect of Siva, Proceeding on a Pilgrim- 
 age by Rolling . 184 
 
 Darjeeling (Himalaya) — ^A Thibetan Bonze and His 
 
 Family 185 
 
 Cawnpore — Memorial of the Massacre in 1857 . . . 185 
 
 A Street in Hyderabad 196 
 
 Ruins at Golconda 196 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 H. H. Prince Aga-Khan, Religious and Political Head 
 
 of the Mussulmans of India 197 
 
 The Monkeys of Muttra 204 
 
 A Sacred Elephant at the Threshold of a Temple . , 204 
 
 Tanjore — The Great Pagoda of the Black Bull . . 205 
 
 Tanjore — The Temple of Sobramanye 205 
 
 Madura — The Palace of the Ancient Rajah Who Was 
 
 Dispossessed 216 
 
 The Sacred Rock of Trichinopoly 216 
 
 Mongolian and Aryan Types 217 
 
 A Sanyaski Fakir on a Journey (in the Center) . . 217 
 
 The Pagoda of Jambukcswar, near Trichinopoly . . 240 
 The Environs of Madura — The Pagoda and Pond of 
 
 Teppa-Kulam 240 
 
 The Car of the Juggernaut 241 
 
 Srirangan — Entrance to the Temple 241 
 
 Teppa-Kulam — The Temple and Statuettes of Kali the 
 
 Slayer 256 
 
 Madura — The Great Pagoda 256 
 
 Boroboedoer (Java) — The Great Temple Dedicated to 
 
 Buddha 257 
 
 Giant Heads of Buddha of the City of Angor-Thom . 257 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Flaubert could not be consoled for having to 
 die without seeing Benares. The genial author of 
 Salammbo, the immortal thinker of The Tempta- 
 tion of Saint Anthony, never in the flesh witnessed 
 those long lines of pilgrims, performing their 
 morning ablutions on the banks of the Ganges, in 
 the glory of the radiant East. 
 
 It must be confessed that in the days when 
 Madame Bovary gave herself up to her romantic 
 dreams, in the days when that learned and sonorous 
 idiot, Homais, made the bottles in his apothecary's 
 laboratory tremble under the rush of his passion- 
 ate Voltairian aphorisms, in those days a journey 
 to India constituted neither more nor less than a 
 veritable expedition by land and sea. First of all, 
 one had to hoist oneself painfully into the stage 
 from Rouen to Paris, then from the stage for Paris 
 into the stage for Lyons, passing through Lieusaint, 
 of sinister and melodramatic memory. By one 
 transfer after another, one arrived, on a fine morn- 
 ing, at Marseilles, bruised, exhausted, shattered 
 by the successive shakings of the diligences and the 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 uncomfortable hospitality of the inns. After that 
 one had to embark from Marseilles for Gibraltar 
 and set sail for the Cape of Good Hope, for Bour- 
 bon Island, Port Louis and the Isle de France, and 
 finally for Point de Galle, at that time the capital 
 of Ceylon — in all, three long months of navigation 
 in the Mediterranean, around Africa and across the 
 Indian Ocean. Certainly enough to discourage 
 Madame Bovary, if she was subject to seasickness I 
 
 Today the "Cote d'Azur" express deposits you 
 in one night on the quays of La Joliette whence, the 
 next morning, a long steamer carries you off, to the 
 strains of music, toward Egypt, once penetrated by 
 "the Great Frenchman." In five days you reach 
 Port Said; five more take you from Suez to 
 Djibouti or to Aden ; and a final five suffice for you 
 to gain the harbor of Bombay. From this point 
 India today lies open to the super-tourist as does 
 Java, Indo-China or New Zealand. The double 
 screws and the engines of our steamships have 
 made short work of distance and of oceans. It has 
 become as easy to go to India as to visit the Tyrol 
 or Andalusia. For this you may take the word of 
 the author, who has twice found it so by personal 
 experience. 
 
 Among all the exotic countries which exercise 
 a magnetic attraction upon our imagination, India 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 is perhaps the one which most powerfully stirs the 
 curiosity of the reader, the artist, the fireside 
 traveler. It is all very well to talk of Egypt, 
 China, Palestine, Japan. But India, what a magic 
 word I And how many times I have heard charm^ 
 ing women murmur to me in a faraway, almost 
 ecstatic voice, with that little shiver which is the 
 forerunner of mysterious things: "Ah! how I envy 
 you. . . . To go to India, that would be my 
 dream!" 
 
 And thereupon, in the blue or black, gray or 
 green eyes of my interlocutor, as in the eyes of the 
 Claire Lenoir of Villiers de ITsle-Adam, I would 
 see rows of imaginary pagodas rise and take shape, 
 under the silent caress of the great twisted palm- 
 trees. I would seem to see in these feminine, in 
 these creative eyes the tinkling defile of the ele- 
 phants, decked with their scarlet trappings and 
 their silver howdahs, the procession of white- 
 bearded priests, the torch-bearers, the musicians, 
 the dancing girls, their lids blackened with kohl, 
 preceding the horde of fakirs with their gestures 
 as of men possessed or mad. Yes, in the half-closed 
 eyes of this woman of Paris I would distinguish it 
 all clearly, this apparition of India the marvelous, 
 the inviolate, unrolling in the moonlight the linked 
 chain of its turbulent, sacred procession, under the 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 hard, cruel stare of its grimacing idols with their 
 many hands and feet, their terrifying smiles of love, 
 grief or death! 
 
 The truth is, there smolders, unavowed, in all 
 of us, the latent fire of mystery. The enigmatic, 
 everything that lies outside our everyday experi- 
 ence, has for us an invincible attraction, a marked 
 flavor — shall I say an irritating flavor? — like that 
 of those peppery, burning curries which India also 
 reveals to us. Our childhood, our early youth is 
 nourished on tales — alas! so often fantastic — of 
 Jacolliot, Jules Verne and their kind. Our imagi- 
 nation as young people, then as grown people, is 
 delighted and charmed by the accurate, poetical 
 and true descriptions of Louis Rousselet, Chevril- 
 lon, Pierre Loti, Jules Bois and Brieux. The word 
 "rajah" brings to our ears the tinkling of gold and 
 gems, a remnant of the vanished omnipotence of 
 the Grand Moguls, the faraway echo of the 
 trumpets of Golconda the Magnificent, town of 
 dreams and city of diamonds. Does someone men- 
 tion fakirs in our presence? Immediately we call 
 up, with the help of our imagination, a panorama 
 of pictured thoughts. On the threshold of an old, 
 ruined temple, invaded by the jungle, stands a man 
 with burning eyes, turbaned, half naked, fright- 
 fully emaciated. His gaze seems lost in the Be- 
 
 n 
 
PREFACE xvii 
 
 yond. He is externalizing himself, murmuring 
 confused, indistinct, broken words. . . . And sud- 
 denly the miraculous power of his obstinate will 
 makes the grain sprout, bursting the double sheath 
 of its seed-leaf with the running sap and the sun- 
 ward urge of its leaves, which grow and turn green 
 in an instant. Let us confess it; the contrast of 
 this power and this poverty in the fakir delights our 
 spirit with its appetite for paradox. In the same 
 way we are charmed by the juxtaposition, the con- 
 tact, in spite of the abyss of the castes, of the 
 dazzling prince and the abject pariah. Extremes 
 meet in India, the still recent memory of the Dur- 
 bar, for example, as oppressive as it was grandiose, 
 and the frightful vision of famines past and to 
 come. 
 
 But we must be on our guard against these 
 frights of fireside fancy, we must beware of this 
 general tendency, so natural to our Latin tempera- 
 ment, to enlarge and exaggerate everything, to see 
 everything poetically through the prism of our 
 exuberant optimism! ... By manufacturing for 
 ourselves too far in advance an artificial and 
 fictitious India, we risk losing our dearest illusions, 
 one by one, before the reality of facts. Without 
 doubt, India is beautiful, grand, moving. Yet I 
 dare to affirm that far more than anything else it is 
 
XVI 11 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 interesting. "Interesting" is, indeed, the word, that 
 seems to me most suited to this immense reservoir 
 of thinking humanity. The adjective "beautiful" 
 suits her only partially, in certain regions scattered 
 over the map, and of w^hich the North, the Hima- 
 laya especially, is the chief crov^n. In other parts 
 there is nothing but melancholy plains, arid deserts, 
 brackish and dried-up pools. The jungle itself, so 
 rich and luxuriant in the northern parts of the Em- 
 pire, is often nothing but tall and sunbaked under- 
 brush, of which the tropical vegetation consists 
 principally of aloes and cacti. 
 
 One of the most fascinating of our fashionable 
 women, who had just returned from India, spoke 
 to me only the other day of her disenchantment and 
 her annoyances. 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur," she exclaimed, "what a disillu- 
 sion I have just experienced ! I who was expecting 
 to go from fairyland to fairyland! Not a single 
 tiger did I see in the jungle, and very few ele- 
 phants in the towns ; nowadays the rajahs go about 
 in aeroplanes and automobiles! As for the baya- 
 deres, I could make nothing out of their dances; 
 they bored me to death. And then what a lack 
 of comfort everywhere, what detestable food ! In 
 the South, no hotels; one is obliged to sleep in the 
 railway stations. If one only could sleep! But it 
 
PREFACE xlx 
 
 is impossible: the heat, the noise, the mosquitoes! 
 . . . Ah! How my husband and I regretted the 
 Nile boats and the great Egyptian palaces!" 
 
 Do not smile; this arraignment, however super- 
 ficial it may appear to you, is not absolutely with- 
 out foundation. A journey in India, even in our 
 day of luxury and progress, is still a laborious mat- 
 ter, fatiguing and sometimes even disagreeable. 
 But how enthralling for those who are willing to 
 look for other things than tigers, elephants, dan- 
 cing girls and the gipsy orchestras at afternoon tea. 
 
 India! 
 
 It is an open book, in which each — just as with 
 the "Imitation" — may chance upon what fits his 
 own case. To the philosopher it opens an un- 
 limited field of new horizons, thoughts, concepts, 
 from which he can glean a thousand lessons in 
 ethics or in pure metaphysics. To the ethnogr 
 rapher, to the writer, India appears as a cradle of 
 humanity from which almost all the European and 
 Asiatic races have sprung, from which we ourselves 
 come, and whose history, religion and customs 
 stretch back age beyond age. The scientist, the 
 physician will gather evidence there about the 
 supreme ills of our poor flesh; the theosophist and 
 the spiritualist will study there from the life the 
 most extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism and 
 
XX PREFACE 
 
 mediumistic possession; the artist will be en- 
 raptured by the strength or the delicacy of the high 
 and low reliefs, the architectural designs, the 
 exquisiteness of the traceries, the detail of the old 
 miniatures. . . . And all, after having admired 
 this India of the North, which has sprung from the 
 Koran, Moslem with the exception of Jeypore, 
 Gwalior and Benares, — all will wish to delve more 
 deeply still into Brahmanism, by visiting that 
 prodigious, that often terrifying Tamil India of 
 the South: the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. 
 
 May this work — brought together from notes 
 taken in the course of two recent trips and having 
 the further advantage that it is suitable to be placed 
 in any hands — help to lift a corner of the curtain 
 that still hides from our profane eyes the secret of 
 the rajahs, the Brahmans and the fakirs] 
 
 But is not this to lay one's hand on the veil of 
 Tanit? 
 
 R. C. 
 
 H 
 
PART I 
 
MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PARSEES AND THE TOWERS OF SILENCE 
 
 The disciples of Zarathustra — The Armenians of India — ^A 
 chapter on hats — In the Parsee quarter — Two funeral pro- 
 cessions — A trip to the Towers of Silence — The vultures' 
 quarry. 
 
 n^ii 
 
 \^^i 
 
 
 C«'*^|^^ 
 
 rvvv^ 
 
 
 m 
 
 r\ 
 
 
 tS^K 
 
 
 
 C ' 1 ' ^2 
 
 
 ircno <xxy\ 
 
 HE chief curiosity of Bombay, that 
 which first catches one's eye as one 
 steps ofif the steamer, is the sight of 
 these grave worthies, with their 
 skins of the color of brown bread, 
 wearing spectacles, wearing strange 
 head-dresses, half-European, half-Asiatic, who 
 seem a sort of necessary link between the East and 
 the West. 
 
 These Parsees — numbering today, in Bombay 
 alone, upwards of fifty thousand — constitute, it 
 must be recognized a veritable elite. Marvelous- 
 
 3 
 
4 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ly gifted as regards practical affairs, born business 
 men, they have taken charge for twelve hundred 
 years, that is to say since their immigration from 
 Persia, not only of all the great commercial enter- 
 prises, but also of all the enviable posts, of all the 
 most sought after situations in the Administration. 
 They are the Armenians of India. I may add that 
 they profess for France, its generous ideas and its 
 glories, the most touching filial respect. Most of 
 them — especially the rich — learn French, speak it 
 and teach it with real love. Not merely does the 
 Parsee chancellor of our consulate, M. Jamsetjee 
 Sorabjee Settna, although he has never set foot in 
 France, speak with the correctness of word and 
 phrase of a graduate of the Sorbonne, but the gov- 
 ernment of the Republic, touched by so much good 
 will and such perseverance, has granted to this 
 zealous servitor the favor of the commission of an 
 officer of the Academy. And you should see with 
 what pride that worthy man wears, over his white 
 jacket, both the violet ribbon . . . and the silver 
 palms I 
 
 The bigotry of the castes — to which I shall have 
 occasion to return in the course of these essays on 
 India — the bigotry of the castes does not exist 
 among the disciples of Zarathustra, the sun-wor- 
 shipers, except in a quite embryonic state. 
 
TOWERS OF SILENCE $ 
 
 Actually they are divided into two classes: the 
 Irani, the civilized Parsees, and the Schencha'i, the 
 barbarous Parsees. The former may be recog- 
 nized by their striking head-dresses, either the 
 topy, 2i melon-shaped construction of gray felt with 
 rolled borders, or the pagri, a bishop's miter of 
 blue foulard with small white dots, stiffened with 
 a sort of gum or varnish. Add to the strangeness 
 of these head-dresses the habit of wearing gold eye- 
 glasses or spectacles, which give them an odd 
 suggestion of Japanese doctors. ... As for the 
 Schencha'i, they are generally poor devils in rags, 
 whose heads are covered with a turban that has 
 nothing original about it. 
 
 "A difference in headgear, that's alll" I was 
 smilingly assured by a rich Parsee of the upper 
 class, who was thoroughly grounded in all matters 
 European and Asiatic and a profound philosopher 
 in his leisure hours. "Our religious equality is in 
 no way affected by it." 
 
 "Even in the interior of your temples?" I sug- 
 gested; "even on the threshold of death?" 
 
 "Even in the interior of our temples 1 Even on 
 the threshold of death!" he repeated with inde- 
 scribable firmness. 
 
 And immediately after, as if to make himself 
 clear, "I cannot let you enter any of the seven 
 
6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 sanctuaries of our religion in Bombay. That is 
 forbidden mc, on pain of the severest penalties, 
 and besides, my conscience, as a professing Parsee, 
 would not allow me to do so. I regret it, for then 
 you would be able to judge of the unity of our 
 brothers in prayer. But if you would like to see 
 how we die, rich or poor, noble or workman, come 
 to my house early tomorrow morning. I will ar- 
 range it so that you can be present at two funerals 
 after our rite, which we shall accompany to the 
 wickets of the Towers of Silence on Malabar 
 Hill. There you can verify our equality in death 1 
 On one condition, however. . . ." 
 
 "Which is?" 
 
 "Give me your word of honor to suppress my 
 name if ever the fancy seizes you to write about 
 these things. . . ." 
 
 "You have it." 
 
 And I shall keep my promise. 
 
 This is what I repeat to myself as I make my 
 way to the house of my obliging cicerone who 
 lives in Parsia, the quarter of Bombay where dwell 
 his co-religionists, in great white or yellow houses, 
 four or five stories high. Together we now mount 
 a crowded street dominated by the pagri, the na- 
 tional miter of varnished foulard. What a lot of 
 
TOWERS OF SILENCE 7 
 
 gold spectacles! Are far-sightedness and near- 
 sightedness the fashion here? 
 
 But look, at the entrance of a prosperous house, 
 and a little further on, near the door of a miserable, 
 broken-down dwelling, there, on one side and an- 
 other, is quite a large gathering of people, grave, 
 bearded men, all clad in white, silent, seated on 
 old wooden benches that encumber the road. 
 
 "These are the relations and friends of the two 
 dead men," my guide whispers in my ear. "They 
 alone will presently accompany the body. The 
 parents and wives will remain in the home of the 
 dead, drowned in tears, sobs and prayers. As for 
 the white robes that seem to attract your attention, 
 it is the customary mourning worn by our men. 
 The women wear black, as you do in Europe." 
 
 Slowly the first procession sets out — a white lit- 
 ter, hermetically sealed, carried on the shoulders 
 of eight white-gloved bearers, while those who are 
 to walk fall in line behind it, their hands clasped 
 on their foreheads, with the most edifying signs 
 of compassion. Inwardly I am amazed at the 
 singular mixture of idealism and superstition in 
 the members of this sect, who have a horoscope 
 cast at their birth, who abstain from smoking, for 
 fear of profaning the fire, and who, in order to 
 purify themselves, drink the urine of a bull mixed 
 
8 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 with water that has been drawn by moonlight. 
 Now we are climbing up the slope of Malabar 
 Hill, the adorable little rise of palms that crowns 
 the peninsula of Bombay, strewn with palaces and 
 gay villas among clumps of acacias and cocoanut, 
 banana and mimosa trees. Further on, emerging 
 from the dense tropical foliage, there are five mas- 
 sive, gray towers, five smooth, round turrets, each 
 one pierced by a single opening, a black, grilled 
 gate, beneath which, by stooping, two men can 
 enter from the front. 
 
 The Towers of Silence, the horrible and mag- 
 nificent cemetery of the Parsees! . . . Why must 
 this sunny, dreamy corner, this flowery paradise, 
 this perfumed air, this riot of colors conceal the 
 fearful spectacle of this quarry-to-be and the place 
 of decay? 
 
 The bearers of the white litter have entered a 
 shady lane which leads to one of the five towers. 
 Above their heads wheel birds of prey, great and 
 small, eagles, kites and buzzards, which in a few 
 minutes will seize with their gray beaks the leav- 
 ings of the vultures' feast. 
 
 The vultures I I can distinguish them now on 
 their funereal perch. At the sound of steps they 
 stretch out their skinny necks; bending greedily 
 towards the approaching prey, they gobble joy- 
 
TOWERS OF SILENCE 9 
 
 ously on the top of the tower and swing their eager, 
 gluttonous heads heavily from left to right. 
 
 But a hand is placed on my shoulder. 
 
 "We must stop here. You can go no further. 
 Look; from this little knoll you can see the black 
 wicket open and the vultures fling themselves into 
 the interior to accomplish the work of destruction 
 prescribed by the Zend-Avesta." 
 
 Ah, what a sinister vision I That clicking lock, 
 that half-open wicket, those bearers bending down 
 and slipping in, carrying a long, white object. . . . 
 A few minutes. . . . Then a second click. The 
 funereal men have accomplished their task, they 
 are returning among the living. And now there 
 is a furious commotion which I cannot see but 
 which I hear: a battle of hooked beaks, a concert 
 of harsh, discordant cries. 
 
 "Come," says the guide, "in twenty minutes it 
 will all be over. Besides, what is the use of re- 
 maining? You could not understand. Our re- 
 ligion, you see, forbids us to destroy our dead by 
 Water, Earth or Fire — that is, to soil the three 
 elements by the impure contact of our corpses. 
 So we leave it to the vultures, to the sun, to the 
 
10 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 waters of heaven to destroy our 'vestments of fiesh 
 and bone' and return them to the earth." 
 
 "So you, who are speaking to me at this moment, 
 in such choice language, with so clear an intelli- 
 gence, you, an Irani of the upper class, almost or 
 better than a European, you will be torn, slashed 
 shred from shred by these hideous creatures?" 
 
 "I as well as the others. ... As well as this 
 second one whose procession is approaching. . . . 
 As well as those that will come here tomorrow and 
 the day after. Thus teaches Zarathustra. And be- 
 sides, do you not think that, as between the worms 
 of the tomb and the vultures of the open air, it is 
 all one in the end?" 
 
 And beneath the sapphire sky of India, under 
 these vivid, luxuriant palms, surrounded by these 
 rare flowers and these penetrating perfumes, it 
 seems to me that this gold-bespectacled Parsee has 
 just paraphrased, without knowing it, the great 
 thought of Schopenhauer, summing up the vicious 
 circle of the human race: 
 
 "Death is the Reservoir of Life; Life is the 
 Reservoir of Death." 
 
^^^^!^ 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THE BOWELS OF ELLORA 
 
 Across desert India — The discomfort of Indian inns — "Give 
 the chick back to its mother!" — An improvised guide — In 
 the heart of the mysterious caverns — Monolith buildings 
 vi^ith neither joint nor cement — ^The caves of the bats. 
 
 LLORA, the place of the Hindu 
 catacombs! A sense of grandeur 
 and terror grips you from the mo- 
 ment you enter these somber cav- 
 erns, from the mouths of which 
 escape whififs of dank air, the sep- 
 ulchers of gods and goddesses, infinitely colder 
 and more austere than, for example, the cheerful 
 Egyptian vaults of Sakkarah. 
 
 It is no easy matter to reach them, and far from 
 comfortable to make even a short stay in their 
 neighborhood. You must first cross immense, 
 desert plains, dried-up, scorched, cracked, almost 
 in the center of India, where the vegetation con- 
 sists principally of aloes, cacti, paw-paws, man- 
 goes, tamarinds, acacias and banana trees — a stony, 
 
 II 
 
12 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 yellowed landscape that savors of autumn. Fare- 
 well, great palms of Bombay 1 Here and there 
 are crumbling ruins, the names of towns that sound 
 like the click of a sword: Aurengabad, Daulata- 
 bad, famous cities over which the Grand Moguls 
 once extended their sway. Today, they are nothing 
 but heaps of ruins crowned with underbrush. A 
 few poor wretches inhabit these solitudes, sharing 
 them with the beasts of the jungle. 
 
 I have spoken of all the discomfort of such an 
 expedition and I return to it with the charitable 
 hope of helping others to avoid the little annoy- 
 ances that befell me. From Daulatabad, the rail- 
 way station at which one alights, to Ellora there 
 is no other means of transportation than a miser- 
 able wagon, drawn by wretched horses over an 
 execrable road. Gomel It is written I I shall 
 make half the trip on foot. This gives me the ap- 
 petite of an ogre when, having passed Rozas, the 
 Mohammedan settlement, I at last, with what de- 
 light, catch sight of the little wayside inn, pom- 
 pously decorated with the name "Traveler's Bun- 
 galow." Horrors! I am to sleep in a room that is 
 not a room ; no tooth-mug, only a chipped cup ; the 
 only linen a single rumpled towel that has un- 
 doubtedly already served other unfortunates like 
 myself. Really, my desire to visit these grottoes 
 
IN THE BOWELS OF ELLORA 13 
 
 must be desperate indeed for me to sit down in that 
 limping rocking-chair which is enough to make me 
 seasick, a feeling I have never known before. And 
 this dinner I No bread, nothing but rice, a box 
 of old, rancid sardines imported from Portugal 
 put up in cocoanut oil from Goa; tea that smells 
 like the straw of a stable . . . and other infamies 
 of the same stamp. The coolie, a sort of Handy 
 Andy, is lost in excuses, bobbing his head after the 
 Indian fashion. My grimaces have made an im- 
 pression on him ; he will go and prepare something. 
 It is seven o'clock in the evening. I am drop- 
 ping of fatigue and hunger. In twenty minutes, 
 at the latest, I must swallow my rice and sardines 
 while I try to think of something else — The Dis- 
 course on Method, for example, or Plato's Ban- 
 quet (what irony, that banquet!), in short, of some 
 very serious, grave or philosophical subject, in 
 order to forget my plight. I have often used this 
 method: believe me, it is the best device for intro- 
 ducing stoically into one's stomach the nondescript 
 food of certain exotic countries. Handy Andy re- 
 turns, triumphantly bearing in his hands a live 
 chick which would have grown into a fowl if Fate 
 had not predestined him to serve as my principal 
 dish. I utter a cry of anguish, both for the little 
 beast which looks at me with its round, imploring 
 
MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 eyes, and for my stomach, which refuses to accept 
 a bird that may still be agitated by its last agonies. 
 I know their method of preparing chickens: they 
 boil them alive, then pluck them and clean them 
 and bring them to you with no other seasoning 
 than a handful of salt. 
 
 ''Djao! Djaof Take it awayl" 
 
 And he goes ofif, his head hanging, his rejected 
 offering in his hand. 
 
 In India I have killed many mosquitoes perhaps, 
 and even, to be frank, plenty of other parasites — 
 more indiscreet. At least I have restored a chick 
 to its mother. 
 
 My real feast is the grottoes. 
 
 Innumerable, diverse, shadowy as the dark 
 Erebus of Minos, ^Eacus and Rhadamanthus. All 
 the cults of the peninsula, except that of Islam, 
 are represented here: Brahmans, Buddhists and 
 Jains may pray here in peace, hidden in the depths 
 of the earth. Grimacing, sneering and gesticulat- 
 ing, according to their design, here are Siva, Vish- 
 nu, Kali, Sombramanye, Ganesa, Durga, Hanu- 
 man and Karrtikaye ; here, also, the enigmatic and 
 ironical smile of those ecstatic Gautamas, those 
 twenty or more Jain prophets who seem to be hold- 
 ing council. But heavens! how primitive are all 
 
IN THE BOWELS OF ELLORA 15 
 
 the arrangements for visiting — excuse me! explor- 
 ing — these grottoes! I can easily see why the 
 stranger, attracted by the profusion of other things 
 to be seen in India, deliberately disdains this pil- 
 grimage of art and mystery. No accredited guides 
 or obsequious conductors to serve as your Ariadne 
 in this labyrinth. What in the world am I to do 
 with my boy, whose understanding does not equal 
 that of the lowest Brahman? . . . Fortunately, 
 here comes a native who is going to rescue us from 
 our predicament. He salutes me gravely and cere- 
 moniously, squats down and draws out of his loin- 
 cloth two living partridges with their legs tied 
 together. What does all this mean? My good 
 native servant, Subbaraya, rubs his hands, laugh- 
 ing silently. Cock-fighting is one of his favorite 
 amusements. Yes, but this is not what interests 
 me: it's a misdeal! A brief conversation takes 
 place between the two good fellows. A miracle! 
 The juggler whisks away his two partridges 
 and transforms himself instantly into the guide and 
 interpreter of Ellora. He knows these ruins by 
 heart, being a native of Rozas, the neighboring 
 hamlet. Let us be off then ! 
 
 A few hundred meters and we are at the foot of 
 a circular plateau which rises above the limitless 
 plain like a cliff. In the interior of this natural 
 
i6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 circle the hand of man has, in the course of cen- 
 turies, dug out a series of excavations to shelter 
 the gods. There are thirty-four of them, certain 
 of which are inter-communicating. I shall con- 
 tent myself with visiting the principal ones, about 
 fifteen in all. Without a guide one might be lost 
 or even killed. Into these caverns we grope our 
 way by the light of a dim lantern. First of all we 
 come to that pure marvel called Kailas, a temple 
 entirely carved out of the wall of massive granite. 
 It is an excavation by itself, on the plateau ; not a 
 single joint, not a bit of masonry in the sculptured 
 portals or the towers. Here dwells Kali, the Im- 
 modest. Next come Tin-Tal and Do-Tali, two 
 Buddhist caverns with less ornamentation. In 
 each of them is enthroned an enormous Buddha, 
 with mustaches and piously vermilioned by the 
 few faithful who, at the same time, also daubed 
 over the nine genii of Fortune. As I come out of 
 these twin chapels, piercing cries rise from the 
 plain that stretches at my feet. It is some peasants, 
 perched on their platforms, watching the harvest; 
 the poor devils are splitting their throats shouting, 
 while they wave sticks and pitchforks to protect 
 their meager crops from the voracity of the rats, 
 the birds and the buffaloes. A land of famine, 
 
BOMBAY — THE COTTON MARKET FROM WHERE HUNDREDS OF THOU- 
 SANDS OF BALES OF THIS VALUABLE VEGETABLE FIBER ARE 
 SHIPPED TO EUROPE 
 
 A PARADE OF SIKH INFANTRY 
 
^ 
 
 
 -f\\ 
 
 J ,^1 
 
 ^ 
 
 t. .^ 
 
 
 ■1 
 
 *" 
 
 
 SIKH CAVALRY 
 
 AN INFORMAL RECEPTION AT THE COURT OF JEYPORE; THE 
 GRANDSON OF THE MAHARAJAH AND THE AUTHOR IN THE 
 CENTER 
 
IN THE BOWELS OF ELLORA 17 
 
 alas ! in which beasts and men dispute bitterly for 
 the means of existence. 
 
 Further on is the grotto of Vichwakarma, an- 
 other Buddhist sanctuary endowed with a semi- 
 circular vault and pillars at the side like a church. 
 In the choir, if I may so call it, a pointed niche con- 
 tains a great Sakya-Muni, dreamy and benevolent 
 (but why this rage always to decorate his lips with 
 mustaches !) . Everywhere is the odor of the tomb ; 
 at moments I stifle in this rarefied air, polluted 
 by the excrement of the vampire bats. And I turn 
 only an inattentive ear to the echo which I hear 
 resounding under this nave of the catacombs, re- 
 bounding from wall to wall. Let us go on, by all 
 means; I feel ill at ease. My two companions 
 climb like goats over rubbish where I risk break- 
 ing my neck a hundred times. Still other excava- 
 tions belong to the Buddhist group, in which the 
 sobriety of decoration attests the desired austerity. 
 Then chapels . . . endless chapels! And always 
 under these vaults the horrid grinding of the 
 vampire bats! 
 
 At last we are in the Brahman zone, the most 
 important of all, which alone includes seventeen 
 caves, all of the eleventh century: Das-Avatar, 
 Rameshber, Nilakantha, marvelously sculptured 
 temples, commemorating the loves of Siva and 
 
i8 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 Parvati; Durmar-Lena, which resembles the 
 grotto of Elephanta, near Bombay, and like it pos- 
 sesses admirable stone lions at the entrance, black 
 linghams, white yonis and all the disconcerting, 
 cynical, triumphant attributes of the Destroyer. 
 
 There are other Jain caverns, adorably sculp- 
 tured, filigreed. It all amazes, delights, ravishes 
 and terrifies one, but it does not touch one. What 
 is lacking among all these marvels, these prodi- 
 gies, these immense halls, these vertiginous stair- 
 ways, these unexpected terraces, these openwork 
 balconies, these headless bell-towers, is the pres- 
 ence and the piety of the people, which gives 
 everything its life. 
 
 Underground cathedrals, fathomless, terrifying, 
 which Divinity, itself, is weary of inhabiting. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AMBER THE DEAD AND ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 
 
 In Rajputana — Disaster — A "Sleeping-city-in-the-wood" — 
 Rose-colored Jeypore — A royal tea — Stonecutters and 
 fakirs — The miracle of the serpent — ^The State tigers. 
 
 INCE yesterday I have been in Raj- 
 putana, now fertile and cultivated, 
 now arid and parched, like the 
 country, for example, bordering on 
 the bleak desert of Thur. I am 
 making my way toward Jeypore, 
 where with some delightful friends I hope to be 
 received by the Maharajah of the independent 
 State of the same name. A slight mishap awaits 
 me; the prince is seriously ill and to his great 
 regret cannot receive us. Nevertheless, we shall 
 be his guests, graciously entertained by his brother 
 and his nephews. A herald clad in scarlet and 
 silver braid so informs us in almost impeccable 
 English. We shall be taken on elephant-back to 
 Amber, the ancient capital, today a dead and 
 
 mysterious city; they are to organize, in our 
 
 19 
 
20 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 honor, a polo game (we must not forget that this 
 game is of Indian origin) ; the princes will offer 
 us refreshments at the palace of the king's uncle; 
 in short, they will try to palliate the absence of 
 His Highness, who shows himself sincerely grieved 
 by the incident. All this is delivered to us with 
 many smiles, salutations and bobbings of the head 
 « — in this country one of the greatest marks of 
 politeness — in a soft, melodious, whispering voice. 
 
 Let us make the best of our misfortune; as a 
 matter of fact, there is so much to see in this Jey- 
 pore and this Amber that perhaps we shall have 
 no cause to regret the complete freedom of our 
 movements. 
 
 In the distance rise the outskirts of the Rose- 
 colored City — so-called because, by royal decree, 
 all its buildings, arcades, colonnades, balconies 
 and shutters must be rose-colored, barely relieved, 
 here and there, by timid white arabesques. This 
 morning, on the Amber road, we are no longer 
 passing the long lines of buffaloes and drome- 
 daries, their pack-saddles laden with merchandise, 
 which have just been threading the streets of Jey- 
 pore. We are evidently in the outskirts. Along 
 the dusty road, bordered by aloes, we now meet 
 peasants leading poor carts fastened to zebus with 
 horns painted vermilion, which are drawing rice, 
 
 I 
 
ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 21 
 
 fruits and vegetables to town. At a turn of the 
 road, some elephants file past, ranged in a circle 
 about their mahouts. Our royal vehicles, no 
 doubt 1 In fact, one of the king's stewards hastens 
 up to us, to explain to us the proper fashion of 
 making the perilous ascent of the pachyderms. 
 The monstrous beasts have knelt down docilely, 
 at the prick of the steel on the point of their ears; 
 a little portable ladder slips from their back to 
 the ground and by means of this we reach the seat 
 of the howdah. Almost directly in front of us a 
 well-paved road, slightly winding, bordered by a 
 parapet, cuts at right angles, about five hundred 
 meters away, the first wall of Amber. 
 
 As our elephants enter the gates of the palace, 
 our watches mark ten o'clock. The sun in all its 
 splendor illuminates, transfigures the ruins which 
 surround us and throws a glitter over the little 
 lake of Tal-Koutora. Still preceded by the stew- 
 ard, we set out to walk through the halls of the 
 ancient dwelling where the fancy of the Rajput 
 kings brought together, as regards decoration, 
 every sort of refinement the human mind could 
 conceive. We are dazzled by the phantasmagory 
 of mosaics, porcelain, glass and gold. Here is 
 the Dewankhana, or Hall of Mirrors, where the 
 monarch used to give audiences. Under the 
 
22 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 double row of columns which support a massive 
 entablature and along the walls covered with 
 stucco, runs a profusion of interlaced lines, de- 
 signs, birds and flowers, the details of which recall, 
 in their infinite complication, the style of the 
 palaces of Jahangir and Ranjit-Singh, at Lahore, 
 — an architecture distinctly Mohammedan in its 
 origin, in which the kings of Amber were never- 
 theless careful to show their profound faith in 
 Brahmanism. This impression rises from the 
 frescoes, for the most part rather coarse, which 
 represent allegorically this or that religious myth. 
 Now it is the good Ganesa, the elephant-god, with 
 his many arms, his trunk falling down in a spiral 
 over his abdomen; now Karttikeya, the peacock- 
 god, who presides over war; or Hanuman, the 
 monkey-god, the friend of man, a hero celebrated 
 in more than one epic page of the Rdmdyana. Next 
 we penetrate into the ancient harem, today acces- 
 sible to profane Europeans. The facets of the 
 vaultings, made of ancient mirrors, now dim and 
 tarnished, still reflect imperfectly the alcoves, the 
 raised seats, the fishpond, where, after the bath 
 and the massage, the ranees used to rest. All these 
 apartments, carefully shut in with screens of white 
 marble open-work, overhang like a terrace the nar- 
 row gorge in which lay the Capital. How many 
 
ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 23 
 
 dramas of love and jealousy have these walls of 
 lace-work sheltered ? How many stifled sobs, over- 
 whelming despairs, cries of pain perhaps? 
 
 Today Amber still guards the anguish of these 
 mysteries. The dead city, swallowed up in ver- 
 dure, smothered under stifling vines, seems like a 
 city of destruction glimpsed in an opium dream. 
 Ruined temples, crumbling porticoes, tumble- 
 down stairways, over-grown gardens, dried up 
 ponds. Far off the interminable wall, running 
 the length of the valley, barring the pass with its 
 lofty pinnacles. Beyond, mountains, and again 
 mountains. . . . 
 
 And the desert, the yellow, arid desert, which 
 seems as if it could never end. 
 
 Why have the present sovereigns quitted this 
 poetic and majestic residence to build an infinity 
 of palaces on the flat bottom of the plain, without 
 any extensive view, in the midst of a great, almost 
 modern city (it dates from our Renaissance) with 
 rectilinear streets which give it a sort of vague 
 suggestion of New York or Alaska? 
 
 This is the question which I quite naturally ask 
 the princes who offer us refreshments next day, 
 after a closely disputed polo match. They tell me 
 this decision resulted from a caprice of Jay Singh. 
 
24 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 This rajah astronomer, who lived in the sixteenth 
 century, had studied in European books the norms 
 of cosmography, the theorems of the heavenly tri- 
 angulation, and the chief hypotheses concerning 
 the moving stars. A thinker as well as a statesman, 
 he had known how to maintain an era of prosperity 
 in his kingdom, while at the same time refreshing 
 his mind with analytical mathematics and the most 
 delicate and arduous cosmological researches. 
 From this to having an observatory built in his 
 capital was only a step. He himself oversaw it, 
 to make sure that the foundations wer® exactly 
 square and level; then he had gigantic sextants, 
 theodolites and compasses set up in the plain, for 
 which he himself drew up the designs, watching 
 over the building of the finely cut foundations, rec- 
 tifying the drawings, and laying the first stone of 
 a pavilion designed to shelter his calculations and 
 his classified diagrams. The rest, palace, gardens, 
 rose-colored city followed this costly and charac- 
 teristically Hindu caprice. The story is told me 
 by a nephew of the maharajah, a slender young 
 man with a fine, black mustache and large jet- 
 black eyes, the winner in the polo match which I 
 have just watched. I promise him that I will not 
 fail to visit the observatory of his illustrious ances- 
 tor, although in mathematics I remain myself at 
 
ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 25 
 
 the square of the hypotenuse of my bachelor's 
 degree. 
 
 They offer us an Indian collation: rice cakes, 
 cakes of pounded almonds, sinister looking pre- 
 serves, disturbing sweets which we touch only with 
 the tips of our teeth. Suppose it were mandrake 
 jelly, or preserved tiger's mustaches! BrrI Such 
 things have been! Not for the benefit of inoffen- 
 ' sive French travelers, but for that of the detested 
 English functionaries. Our hosts, it is true, have 
 good faces — were it not for those ferociously 
 turned-up Rajput beards of theirs. 
 
 A charming attention is now reserved for us. 
 By royal command, all the jewelers and goldsmiths 
 of the city have been requisitioned. There they 
 arc before us, spreading out their baskets, letting 
 the pearls of Ceylon trickle through our fingers, 
 the rubies of Burmah, the diamonds of Punnah, 
 translucent enamels over gold foundations, brace- 
 lets, rings, necklaces. They are not trying to force 
 our hands, as I thought at first; it is only a gracious 
 thought on the part of our hosts, and a platonic 
 compliance on the part of the jewelers. Our 
 Parisian women are enraptured, but do not allow 
 themselves to be tempted. As I have since been 
 able to convince myself, many of these trinkets 
 have been made in response to princely and other 
 
26 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 orders; the prices asked are usually higher, by at 
 least a third, than those of our rue de la Paix. 
 Discreetly, with many smiles, bows and prostra- 
 tions, the merchants collect their jewel caskets and 
 make off with padded, feline steps, to give place 
 to fakirs, jugglers and conjurors. 
 
 Before our eyes, somewhat blase, but deferen- 
 tial none the less, mangoes sprout and grow, eggs 
 and fishes appear and vanish, mongooses and cob- 
 ras fight and kill each other, till the moment when, 
 irritated by our involuntary apathy, the fakir 
 juggles himself away. An inexplicable and truly 
 curious trick. That worthy curls himself up in a 
 low basket, shaped like a flattened jar. Over him 
 a companion shuts down the lid, also of wicker- 
 work, invokes his "monkey's skull" (the ring of 
 all the Robert Houdins of India) and pierces the 
 basket in all directions with his sword. Better 
 yet, he lifts up the cover, jumps with both feet 
 into the basket, stamps all over it, picks it up in 
 his arms, turns it upside down and shows it to us. 
 Nothing! It is empty! More passes by the assis- 
 tant, and the basket is filled again. In spite of my 
 skepticism, I am forced to bow before the reality 
 of facts. It is impossible, moreover, to explain 
 this experience except, perhaps, by the aid of some 
 suggestion they have forced upon us. If that is the 
 
ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 27 
 
 case, we have been "fakirized," if I may call it 
 so. What a humiliation for a wide-awake, well- 
 regulated citizen! 
 
 Another trick, even more stupefying. From a 
 goatskin bottle the juggler — this one is certainly 
 clever — draws a living adder and turns it over to 
 a mongoose, who makes but one mouthful of it. 
 The reptile, bitten and torn everywhere, pierced 
 all over by the sharp teeth of his adversary, is no 
 longer anything but a bloody rag. This remnant, 
 chewed and almost in shreds, twists lamentably 
 about on the ground. The fakir thereupon seizes 
 it between his first finger and thumb and extends 
 it on its back. Then he murmurs some strange 
 words and with his thumbnail gently strokes sev- 
 eral times the white scales of the belly. This 
 caress, repeated several times, is, properly speak- 
 ing, nothing but the lightest touch, it is not even 
 a massage. . . . And behold, little by little, the 
 creature comes to life again, contracts and distends 
 itself, twists about and finally, with a violent blow 
 of its tail, restores itself to its original and normal 
 axis. It is the return of life, complete and whole: 
 crawling, dartings of a fierce tongue, everything 
 has come back as if by enchantment; the flat and 
 flabby body has swelled up again as if some new 
 sap had suddenly revivified it. It is impossible to 
 
28 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 suspect a substitution: it is certainly the same 
 adder; I recognize it by its still bleeding wounds. 
 Let who will explain it. ... / have seen this/ 
 
 How enigmatical these people are ! On certain 
 sides quite childish, at times profound thinkers and 
 philosophers, and whether submissive or in revolt, 
 always grave, they positively disconcert me. Is 
 this amazing juggler actually of the same race as 
 these lazy strollers whom I meet now, hand in 
 hand, in the Mohollo Kamnigar or goldsmith's 
 quarter? How prosaic are these grain merchants, 
 crouching on their doorsills, these youths who, as 
 they walk, are drying in the sun long pieces of 
 damp cloth, these children playing about among 
 the pigeons pecking in the square of Manak- 
 Chowk. Nevertheless, from such as these, from 
 these Aryans, have come the Yogis, the contem- 
 platives, the thaumaturgists who confound our 
 most subtle metaphysicians. . . . 
 
 On the sidewalks, cluttered with pigeons, 
 women pass, their nostrils pierced with a silver 
 ring, their arms and ankles loaded with tinkling 
 bracelets; their veils and saris giving, amid the 
 huckstering of the merchants and the idle chatter, 
 a note of grace and rhythm. From afar come dull, 
 hoarse growls from th6 nine cages of the public 
 menagerie of Cherouka-Pindjera, where, at his 
 
ROSE-COLORED JEYPORE 29 
 
 own expense, His Highness supports the State 
 tigers. 
 
 Curious, indeed, this people, who neglect to re- 
 lieve the misery and sickness of human beings in 
 order to provide food for their natural enemies, 
 the wild beasts! 
 
^is;^^ 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 
 
 The sad fate of the women — The humanity of the English — 
 The work of Lady Dufferin, ex-Vicereine of India — The 
 law of Manu and its cruel articles — Plebeians and patri- 
 cians — Dramas of the women's quarters. 
 
 GENERAL study of India, that 
 fairylike, marvelous land of tu- 
 multuous, fanatical, suffering hu- 
 manity, is a sufficiently bold task. 
 There are so many contrasts in it 
 to the ordinary conceptions of our 
 European minds! 
 
 Are we interested in the situation of the Hindu 
 women? Then we fall into the midst of a paradox. 
 No betrothed girl, no wife, no widow in the 
 universe leads a life so painful, so rigorous, so 
 closely shut in. I have traveled all over Europe 
 and the Northern countries, I have seen the dis- 
 tress of the women among the nomad peoples of 
 the extreme North, I have also had an opportunity 
 
 to observe the physical imprisonment and moral 
 
 30 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 31 
 
 disenchantment of the Orientals in the land of the 
 Crescent, their effacement in the Celestial Empire, 
 their puerility in the Land of the Rising Sun; 
 later, in Oceanica or during long months of ex- 
 ploration, I have sailed around islands and archi- 
 pelagoes and seen to what a state of inferiority the 
 Papua women of New Guinea and the Maori 
 women of New Zealand had fallen, those Maoris 
 who yet rival our own Tahitian women in charm. 
 Well I I must confess that not in the polar regions, 
 not in the harems of Algeria, Tunis, Turkey, 
 Egypt or Arabia, not in the Far East, not in Aus- 
 tralia, nor in Polynesia, not even among the Red- 
 skins of America have I witnessed a downfall of 
 the feminine sex so irremediable, so heart-rending 
 as in the women's quarters among the Brahmans. 
 
 It must not be imagined that I am exaggerating. 
 I should not like to seem to be deliberately making 
 these brief observations of mine dramatic. The 
 condition of the Hindu woman is certainly unfor- 
 tunate and deplorable in every way; but we must 
 recognize that it tends to improve from day to day 
 and to become more supportable, since the liberal 
 Administration of the United Kingdom has let fall 
 upon the land the manna of its indisputable 
 benefits. 
 
 In this connection — since we are speaking of an 
 
32 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 allied and friendly nation — let us first render full 
 and prompt justice to the tales, the lies and the 
 slanders which have become the monopoly of a 
 certain section of the press and literature, a sec- 
 tion mediocre enough in any case. When I first 
 set out for India, in 1908, I left, I must confess, 
 with an unbelievable prejudice against our neigh- 
 bors across the channel. To be frank, I was pre- 
 pared to find everything wrong and to criticize 
 and denounce, in the great Parisian newspapers, 
 reviews and magazines ^ of which I was the corre- 
 spondent, the abuses and malpractices of the occu- 
 pying race. In my innermost heart there was a 
 secret wound to my patriotism, the bitterness of a 
 Frenchman against the ravishers of our Indian 
 empire of Dupleix, a feeling not unlike what I 
 had experienced a short time before on pressing 
 the Canadian soil of our heroic Montcalm. 
 
 A first minute and honest inquiry, to the fruits 
 of which have since been added other observations 
 gathered during the course of my second visit, con- 
 verted me to a diametrically opposed opinion ; to 
 tell the truth, I have returned thoroughly con- 
 vinced of the pacific and humanitarian role of the 
 English. These are not vain words, dictated by 
 
 *Ecko de Paris, Revue Hebdomadaire, Illustration, Monde Illustri, 
 Femina, etc. 
 
A BAYADERE DANCE 
 
 SNAKE AND SCORPION CHARMERS 
 
THRESHING OUT EARTH-NUTS 
 
 GRINDING EARTH-NUTS TO EXTRACT OH. 
 
 I 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 33 
 
 gratitude or politeness towards the British hosts 
 who received me so cordially. I am expressing 
 purely and simply nothing but my own thoughts. 
 Ever since the English have presided over the des- 
 tinies of the Empire, there have been no more of 
 those abominable human sacrifices in the pagodas, 
 no more of those suttees^ hideous sacrifices of 
 widows, no more of those mad orgies of murder, 
 torture and debauchery! Less sickness, fewer epi- 
 demics, fewer famines, fewer internal wars! It 
 is the pax Britannica (which may be compared to 
 our own beneficent influence in Morocco), the 
 great peace which permits commerce to develop 
 and humanity to live better and suffer less. 
 
 Shall I relate some anecdotes on this subject? 
 ... I remember the charming and chivalrous act 
 of an English ofl[icer in garrison at Landi- 
 Kotal, on the outposts of Afghanistan. Preceded 
 by Lieutenant W.T.F. — of the 57th regiment, 
 Wilde's Rifles, I had entered one of the little 
 streets of the Afghan quarter. A Moslem woman, 
 whose veil was raised to her forehead and allowed 
 her gracious face to be seen, had just come out of 
 an adjoining shop. The officer noticed it and cried 
 out sharply, '^Yoki! Yokir The woman, whose 
 attention had been aroused by this cry, instantly 
 lowered her veil and passed us by without our 
 
34 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 being able to see her features, so that neither her 
 modesty nor her orthodoxy was in the least dis- 
 turbed. I could multiply such occurrences to in- 
 finity. It will suffice, for example, to recall the 
 respect which the Anglo-Saxons insist shall be 
 shown in the temples and pagodas, where the 
 foreigner finds himself bound, under severe penal- 
 ties, to maintain "the same decent and respectful 
 attitude which he would maintain in the interior 
 of his own churches" (sic). Moreover, in certain 
 sanctuaries, large notices forbid smoking and loud 
 talking. The same tact is responsible for the de- 
 crees which forbid hunting in several parts of the 
 country, which are nevertheless full of game, such 
 as Muttra, the sacred land of the beasts, where 
 Krishna lived his poetic and amorous idyll, in the 
 midst of the human beings of the villages and the 
 beasts of the jungle. 
 
 In the matter of education and social uplift, I 
 must also mention the admirable initiative of the 
 English women and their American sisters who, 
 after having studied medicine in Europe, have 
 not hesitated to enroll themselves under the banner 
 of Lady Dufierin, the wife of the former viceroy 
 of India, in order to carry the aid of medicine and 
 surgery to the most distant corners of the immense 
 Empire. It is well known that the law and the 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 35 
 
 modesty of the Brahmans forbid the Hindu wo- 
 man to receive the help of a male physician. 
 England has shown here also, that if she was ca- 
 pable of enriching herself from the land of her 
 Asiatic vassals, she also understood the duties laid 
 on her by her role as a great civilized nation. Let 
 us salute her daughters with the same respect that 
 we give to our own French women of the Red 
 Cross. 
 
 But to return to the condition of the native wo- 
 man. Her fate has been determined, from the 
 remotest antiquity, by the theocratic code of the 
 Brahmans, a sort of religious, civil and moral 
 catechism called the Law of Manu. Without 
 transcribing the whole of Book V of this social 
 monument (although the reading of it would not 
 fail to be curious, piquant and at times excessively 
 amusing) let us be content with plucking blossoms, 
 here and there, from its flower-beds, in order the 
 better to appreciate all its exotic perfume. 
 
 To begin with, this first handful: 
 
 "The name of a woman," says the Law of Manu, 
 "should be easy to pronounce, sweet, clear and 
 agreeable; it should end in long vowels and re- 
 semble words of benediction." 
 
 Is not this indeed deliciously poetic, excluding 
 
36 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 as it does all unfamiliar and inharmonious appel- 
 lations? 
 
 Let us pass on to the law of obedience: 
 
 '^A little girl, a young woman, a woman of 
 advanced years should never, even in her own 
 home, obey her own wishes. A woman must never 
 rule herself: in her childhood she obeys her father; 
 in her youth her husband; when her husband dies, 
 she obeys her sons/' 
 
 (See and compare with this, article 213 of our 
 Civil Code: "The husband owes protection to his 
 wife, the wife obedience to her husband.") 
 
 The Law of Manu goes further than our Code. 
 It regulates the conduct of the wife in her home ; 
 and its solicitude, I was about to say its meddling, 
 extends to the most intimate details of the hearth, 
 the business of the household and even of the 
 kitchen : 
 
 "The woman must always be good-tempered and 
 must skilfully conduct the affairs of her home. She 
 must take great care of the household utensils and 
 of the preparation of the food, and know how to 
 watch over the well-being of her husband, while 
 spending as little as possible/* 
 
 Finally, here is a law which I, for my part, can- 
 not help considering Draconian, in spite of my 
 belonging to the strong and ugly sex : 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 37 
 
 "If the conduct of the husband is blameworthy, 
 if he gives himself over to other loves and even if 
 he is 'without good qualities, the wife must remain 
 virtuous and constantly revere him as a god." 
 
 But, we ask, if the woman does not heed this, if 
 the wife transgresses the sacred prescriptions of the 
 Law of Manu, what will become of her? 
 
 I tremble to write it: 
 
 "The woman unfaithful to her husband is given 
 over to ignominy during the whole of Her earthly 
 life. After death, she is born again in the belly 
 of a jackal, or else she is afflicted with elephantiasis 
 or tuberculosis." 
 
 Which is enough to render thoughtful and virtu- 
 ous even some of the heroines of Bourget and 
 Prevost! 
 
 But let us speak a little of marriage. They 
 marry very young in India, almost before they are 
 weaned. This is not a jest. Children are be- 
 trothed at the breast, and what our young candi- 
 dates for the degree of matrimony call by the 
 pretty medieval name of "courting" takes place 
 here between the rattle and the hoop. These mar- 
 riages of children who know each other not at all 
 — ^^or very little — are extremely frequent. The real, 
 effective marriage naturally does not take place 
 until between the ages of twelve and fifteen. But 
 
38 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 in the meantime there is no possibility of breaking 
 the engagement between the fictitious husband and 
 wife. So true is this that — terrible as it is to say 
 it — if one of the infant couple dies (that is to say, 
 the husband) the other is compelled to remain 
 single for the rest of life: it is henceforth forbid- 
 den to her to think of marriage. This pitiless de- 
 cree naturally applies only to the woman, always 
 so unjustly treated by the Brahmans. 
 
 The Law of Manu says expressly: 
 
 ^^ After having lost her husband, the widow must 
 shave her hair and voluntarily let her body grow 
 thin, by nourishing herself only on flowers and 
 pure fruit; she must never think of marrying 
 again, nor even pronounce the name of another 
 
 man." 
 
 More yet! The widows of the rite of Siva are 
 allowed to have only one meal a day and never eat 
 fish. Let us note in passing that the rite accord- 
 ing to Vishnu allows some mitigations of this 
 regime of torture. All these reasons and many 
 others explain why, to his astonishment, the Euro- 
 pean traveler meets so few women in India. 
 Some, principally those of the North, never leave 
 their harems or zenanas, from which they watch 
 the coming and going in the streets from the ter- 
 races of their houses, through the open-work 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 39 
 
 screens of pink pottery or white marble. Others 
 go out veiled or in palanquins borne on the arms of 
 fierce eunuchs with fiery eyes. It is only in the 
 country of the Sikhs, in the Punjab, at Amritsar, 
 for example, that one sees long lines of young and 
 adorable women moving, with uncovered faces, 
 about the Golden Temple or on the porphyry and 
 onyx steps of the Lake of Immortality. But these 
 are not followers of the formidable Brahmanistic 
 faith, they are the poetic disciples of the Book- 
 god, the pantheistic and relatively modern religion 
 of the Granths, founded by the guru Nanak who, 
 in the sixteenth century of our era, was the reform- 
 ing Luther of Brahmanism. In southern India, 
 on the coast of Coromandel, and in the country of 
 Malabar, I also had the pleasure and consolation 
 of seeing, at Madras, at Tanjore, at Sri-Ragham, at 
 Trichinopoly, at Madura, the women of the people 
 belonging to the kindlier rite of Vishnu, moving 
 freely about without veils, in the market and pub- 
 lic squares, the body gracefully curved, the head 
 held high and surmounted by a jar, the gestures 
 as graceful as those of Tanagra figurines. 
 
 I have spoken of the women of the people who 
 follow the rites of Siva and Vishnu, the two great 
 gods of India — for Brahma, the principal creator. 
 
40 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 is so high that only the priests are allowed to adore 
 him ; I shall speak later of the bayadere ; it remains 
 for me to say a few words of the sovereign, of her 
 who, in the Hindustani tongue, is called ranee or 
 maharanee (queen or great queen). 
 
 In the first place, the ranee must be of an old 
 and illustrious caste. It is not rare, in India, to 
 see a prince, the possessor of an income of thirty 
 or forty millions, marry the daughter of a poor, 
 ruined Brahman. If the caste is ancient and of 
 celebrated origin, it is he who is flattered and en- 
 nobled by this marriage, which makes him almost 
 the ally and relative of the gods. I am speaking 
 here, of course, of the first wife, she who is re- 
 garded as legitimate by the people and the sup- 
 porters of the crown, and who will be the mother 
 of the Crown Prince. Let us not, therefore, call 
 her the "favorite," as is done in Turkey or in 
 Persia, an epithet applied, on the contrary, to all 
 the wives and concubines which later throng the 
 polygamous harem of the Indian monarch. Such, 
 for example, is the case with the Nizam of Hyde- 
 rabad, whose zenana numbers several hundred 
 women. 
 
 The ranee does not reign. She must content 
 herself with being the effaced wife of the rajah, 
 and the mother and teacher of the princes. Never- 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 41 
 
 thelcss, this rule suffers a few rare exceptions in 
 Central India, at Bhopal, for example, where for 
 centuries the scepter has fallen on the distaff side 
 to the hands of a Begum, a sort of queen of the 
 Low Countries, who administers her State without 
 the help of her prince consort. A curious offshoot 
 of feminism in a soil usually so hostile to it! 
 
 The ranee, who is not at the same time an eman- 
 cipated Begum, thus passes her days mournfully 
 behind the closed blinds of the women's quarters, 
 surrounded by her followers, her dancers and her 
 musicians. She leaves as little as possible — far 
 less often than her disenchanted Ottoman sisters 
 — the golden cage which has been assigned to her 
 as a dwelling. And if she is obliged to go out, it 
 is always heavily veiled, in a closely screened lan- 
 dau, sheltered from the indiscreet glances of the 
 crowd and above all from those of impure stran- 
 gers. A few liberal rajahs, like the Maharajahs 
 of Kapurthala, of Gwalior, of Cooch-Behar, the 
 Nawab of Burdwan, the Gaekwar of Baroda, have 
 somewhat tempered this rigid regime; they allow 
 their ranees to move freely about, with uncovered 
 faces, within the enclosure of the palace and the 
 royal gardens; at times they even go so far as to 
 present them to their European guests, to have 
 them sit at their table and to take them with them 
 
42 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 to Europe, to London and Paris. But these inno- 
 vations are not taken in good part by the people 
 and the priests. A prince is also blamed by his 
 subjects, with more show of reason, when he mar- 
 ries a foreigner, even after the first marriage of the 
 legitimate ranee. Whatever she may do, the new 
 foreign wife or concubine, even if she has become 
 a convert to Brahmanism, can never wash away 
 the original stain: that of having once eaten oxen 
 and cows, sacred animals I An indelible blot that 
 will, forever after, involve her in a moral quaran- 
 tine, full of secret repugnance and invincible 
 suspicion. 
 
 It is impossible to form any idea of the thou- 
 sands and thousands of intrigues which are born 
 and come to a head every day in the interior of the 
 zenana. There dramatic alliances, perfidious be- 
 trayals, somber tragedies take place in an atmos- 
 phere of perfume and flowers. The wives who 
 have been abandoned for some stranger from the 
 North or the East form a close league against the 
 newcomer, against the intruder, against the pre- 
 ferred one. Former enemies are reconciled and 
 unite in the common vengeance which does not 
 stop at the prospect of horrible reprisals. If the 
 plot is discovered, the favorite of the day easily ob- 
 tains from her master the death of the guilty person 
 
HINDU WIVES AND WIDOWS 43 
 
 or persons, by the cord, the dagger or the brew of 
 hemp, three instruments of murder that never 
 spare. But if the plot succeeds . . . then woe to 
 the stranger! She must remain on her guard day 
 and night, and never accept a drink, a gift, a 
 sweetmeat, not even a flower from her rivals. 
 Quick and subtle poison lies in wait for her every 
 instant. Princesses have been known to be sud- 
 denly stung by a scorpion or a tarantula, bitten by 
 a cobra or a coral snake or, more often, to struggle 
 in the convulsions of a frightful agony, their intes- 
 tines perforated here and there by the muslachcs 
 of a tiger, treacherously introduced into packets of 
 drugs. I could give names and dates; but I owe 
 discretion to the magnificent hosts who received 
 me so warmly. Therefore, I shall not betray the 
 word I gave to those who themselves made me such 
 terrible confidences. 
 
 To sum up, in whatever sphere, the fate of the 
 Hindu woman, plebeian or patrician, is worthy of 
 exciting our deepest compassion. And if the danc- 
 ing girl, as we shall see later on, escapes this unfor- 
 tunate law, it is, alas! only at the expense of her 
 morals. 
 
PART II 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THERE ARE RAJAHS AND RAJAHS 
 
 A rival of the "Nabob" — As In the days of the fairies — ^An 
 Indian fire-eater — Innovating rajahs — The story of a dis- 
 grace — ^Tlie Mohour — ^A judgment of God. 
 
 OR as many as sixteen years, Paris 
 has possessed no longer its Nabob — 
 his sun set with my illustrious and 
 regretted father-in-law, Alphonsc 
 Daudet — but its Rajah, or, more 
 exactly, its Maharajah. 
 Which of us has not met in the fashionable 
 world, in the saddling-room at Auteuil, at a first 
 night in the Theatre Frangais, on varnishing-day 
 at our Salons (where the late Chartran depicted 
 him in 1906), a certain bronze-complexioned 
 prince, with a black pointed beard, smiling with 
 all his dazzling white teeth, who, almost every 
 year, from May to October, leaves his kingdom in 
 India to come and bathe in our atmosphere of art 
 and elegance, as in a life-giving bath of light and 
 gaiety? 
 
 47 
 
48 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 His Highness Jagatjit Singh, Maharajah of 
 Kapurthala, one of the ruling princes of the Pun- 
 jab, is virtually one of us at all the receptions, all 
 the gymkhanas, all the Persian balls. One finds 
 him now at Dampierre, with the Luynes, now at 
 Chaumont, with the Broglies. And there the Ma- 
 harajah forgets that he has the power of life and 
 death over his subjects, in his Sikh kingdom of 
 Kapurthala, as well as in his two provinces in 
 Oudh: Baondi and Bharaich. Who can boast of 
 being more French in taste and tendencies than 
 this Asiatic potentate, who speaks our language so 
 purely, from whom the treasures of our art and 
 literature hold no more secrets, who numbers his 
 best friends in the French book of heraldry, who 
 has had his sons brought up at the College des 
 Cleres, in Normandy, near Rouen, and even car- 
 ries his love of our ways so far as to have his cooks 
 and his chauffeurs taught at Paris? 
 
 But one link was lacking from this chain. And 
 back again in his capital the Maharajah dreamed 
 once more, dreamed always and in spite of every- 
 thing of Paris, of France. . . . He dreamed of it 
 with melancholy, in one of his many Indian or 
 Moorish palaces of Kapurthala, on the terrace of 
 his enchanting villa, Buona-Vista, or again in that 
 curious Renaissance chateau of Mussoorie which 
 
H. H. PRINCESS BRINDAHMATI OF JUBBAL, WHO BY HER MARRIAGE 
 BECAME CROWN-PRINCESS OF KAPURTHALA 
 
THERE ARE RAJAHS AND RAJAHS 49 
 
 he had built, like an eagle's nest, in the Himalaya, 
 at an altitude of 2,300 meters. Suddenly, as hap- 
 pens in fairy tales, the magician extends his wand: 
 "I wish," he saySj^"the mirage of Paris!" 
 
 A few lakhs of rupees tinkle. . . . And an im- 
 mense, colossal palace, of a style exclusively 
 French, surrounded everywhere by French gar- 
 dens, lawns, vases, statues and gushing fountains, 
 rose from the ancient and astonished soil of the 
 Sikhs. It was at this time, being invited with the 
 most gracious insistence to be present at "the hang- 
 ing of the crane" in this French palace, that I first 
 went to India. 
 
 Speaking of this prince, an amusing anecdote 
 occurs to me which shows all the caustic wit of 
 which, on occasion, he is capable. 
 
 Some years ago, during the early days of his life 
 in Paris, the Maharajah went one evening to the 
 Trone fair, accompanied by some friends who had 
 a taste for outlandish and unusual enjoyments. In 
 a booth, an imitation Indian was devouring impar- 
 tially fire, glass and serpents. 
 
 "Who would like to talk Indian with the fire- 
 eater?" shouted his Barnum, in a sonorous voice, 
 through a megaphone. 
 
 "I," answered the Maharajah. 
 
 Smilingly, he approached the platform and in 
 
50 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 his sweetest voice, revealing his dazzling Asiatic 
 teeth, the prince asked several questions in Hindu- 
 stani of the eater of fire, glass and serpents, who of 
 course remained tongue-tied. It was in vain that 
 His Highness next tried all the dialects in use in 
 the peninsula: Sikh, Urdu, Sanscrit, Nepalese, 
 Bengali, Tamil, Malabar. . . . The mountebank, 
 bearded with wax and ocher, did not answer, and 
 with good cause. 
 
 The manager, very much annoyed at this little 
 scene, then intervened, saying to the royal ques- 
 tioner: "Look here, excuse me, but when will you 
 stop splitting our heads with all this gibberish of 
 yours? It's no use! Come, we can easily see you 
 are no Indian." 
 
 The prince protested, very much amused. 
 
 "Well, if you are an Indian," went on the dis- 
 player of savages, "go ahead and eat a little glass 
 and fire ; they all eat them out there." 
 
 "That's right!" cried the people, interested in 
 what was happening; "let him eat some fire!" 
 
 Then, still smiling, the Maharajah said simply, 
 tapping the hollow of his stomach : "Impossible, I 
 am on a diet!" 
 
 And he went off. 
 
 Rara avis, you will say. . . . 
 
 No indeed! Other potentates of India have fol- 
 
THERE ARE RAJAHS AND RAJAHS 51 
 
 lowed this example, among them the Maharajah 
 of Gwalior, the Aga-Khan, the Gaekwar of 
 Baroda, the Jam of Nawanagar, the cricket cham- 
 pion, the Nawab of Burdwan, arbiter elegantia- 
 rum: Europe — London or Paris — has conquered 
 them. They no longer fear openly to display their 
 modern tendencies. The Maharajah of Gwalior, 
 for example, has actually renounced polygamy; it 
 is said that at the death of his mother (the dowager 
 queen), his only wife, the present Maharanee, 
 with whom he is very much in love, will give up 
 the veil and show her face uncovered, as the Ma- 
 haranee of Cooch-Behar and her daughters al- 
 ready do at Calcutta. As for the Gaekwar of Ba- 
 roda, he has revolutionized his country and even 
 the imperial English government by his subversive 
 and extreme social projects. Imagine it! He has 
 carried the paradox so far as to found schools for 
 girls! 
 
 But by the side of these enlightened minds, with 
 liberal ideas, how many reactionaries there are, 
 how many backward men who are not yet free 
 from the oppressive guardianship of the Brah- 
 mans, who are forbidden by their orthodox faith 
 to come in contact with the impure feringhis, 
 eaters of cows! ... Of what use would it be to 
 give their names? It is better to let them fall into 
 
52 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 oblivion, those whose fanaticism separates them 
 forever from our civilization and our Occidental 
 way of thinking. 
 
 What strange court customs surround these 
 jewel-laden princes! Powerful in their immense 
 wealth and in their omnipotence in the heart of 
 their own kingdoms — at least in everything that 
 does not concern the army and the finances of the 
 country — the Indian monarchs surround them- 
 selves with a veritable horde of ministers and 
 courtiers. The official etiquette is excessively 
 rigorous and the strict observance of these rules 
 sometimes gives rise to the severest consequences. 
 One incident will show this. At the court of a 
 prince of my acquaintance, I was present, one day, 
 at the annual feudal presentation of the Mohour, 
 synonymous with the oath of fealty of our Middle 
 Ages. The ceremony consists in summoning each 
 vassal, who defiles, in hierarchical order, before 
 the king clothed in his full military costume. 
 Each one bows down as he pronounces an official 
 phrase, then he touches the sovereign's hand with 
 a silver rupee, which he afterwards drops into a 
 silver plate. This lasts for three long hours and 
 at the end of ten minutes becomes exasperatingly 
 monotonous. One of the chamberlains, a sort of 
 
THERE ARE RAJAHS AND RAJAHS 53 
 
 Under-Secretary of State, I imagine, who had been 
 a favorite until this day, was passing before the 
 throne. Unfortunately, as he went by, I do not 
 know how it happened, but his foot caught in the 
 fold of a rug; he stumbled and the piece of tribute 
 fell before it had touched the king's hand. Then I 
 saw the latter throw a hard, implacable look at 
 the courtier, who reddened, stammered an excuse, 
 and withdrew, quite out of countenance. It ap- 
 peared that by not letting the symbolic rupee touch 
 his sovereign, the vassal had proved as plain as 
 day his flagrant bad faith toward his lord and 
 master. Tradition demands, in the case of such a 
 "Judgment of God," that he be immediately 
 stripped of his functions and fall into disgrace. 
 
 Very autocratic in regard to their immediate 
 circle of favorites and courtiers — I am speaking, 
 naturally, of the reactionaries — these sovereigns 
 have the power of life and death over their wives 
 and children, and even over all the servants in the 
 palace and the women's quarters. In certain Cen- 
 tral States the English, who are always very re- 
 spectful of the vested power of their proteges 
 within their own domains, have recognized that 
 princes of the reigning dynasties have the right of 
 life and death over all their subjects. And the 
 
54 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 good pleasure of the king can have the chamber- 
 lain or the minister whom he merely suspects 
 crushed under the foot of the executioner-elephant. 
 
 Suspicion. . . . 
 
 The hidden disease that devours them I 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN ASIATIC MAECENAS 
 
 En route for the Punjab — "Kartarpour, Kartarpour!" — The 
 arrival at the court of H. H. Jagatjit Singh, Maharajah of 
 Kapurthala — ^A royal interview — Palace and gardens a la 
 franqaise — In imitation of the great Choiseul. 
 
 AM thinking of all these things in 
 the express which carries me for 
 the first time toward Kapurthala, 
 to my friend the Maharajah, a very 
 modern prince, who gives us in 
 France the example of the complet- 
 est assimilation of European ideas, but who, once 
 he has returned, guards no less completely — and 
 jealously — the customs, habits and traditions of his 
 people and his country. 
 
 Ah I how rapidly they fly past the windows of 
 the compartments, the stations that I must dash 
 through in two days if I am to be present over 
 there at the festival of the inauguration of the 
 French palace, and at the Durbar, the anniversary 
 of His Highness. Here is Baroda, the capital of 
 
 55 
 
56 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the Gaekwar of the same name. Here is Ahmeda- 
 bad, the ancient city of the sultans of Guzerat, of 
 which Sir Thomas Roe said in 1616 that it was "a 
 city as large as London." . . . Here is Mount 
 Abou, with its lacework temples, at the entrance 
 of the wild desert of Rajputana. . . . Here is 
 Ajmeere, here is Jeypore the Marvelous, here is 
 Delhi, which for centuries was the capital of Asia. 
 All these names, shouted in Hindustani by the 
 railway guards, call up hours of splendor and con- 
 quest. What does it matter if today nothing is left 
 but the dust and ashes of far-off history? These 
 are among the things that endure and are never 
 forgotten. 
 
 The interminable, arid and monotonous Rajput 
 desert has disappeared. And with it those bands 
 of monkeys that clung so amusingly to the tele- 
 graph poles, those slow caravans of dromedaries 
 bearing southward the precious essences of the 
 North. The soil now shows itself productive; it 
 is the Punjab, the country of the Sikhs, yielding 
 rich harvests of sugar-cane, cereals and cotton. 
 We should like to open our eyes and keep them 
 constantly open, to rivet them in some way on the 
 fertile and sometimes flowering plains, but night 
 has come, and with it the great daily care of in- 
 
AN ASIATIC MMCENAS 57 
 
 stalling the bedding on the uncomfortable and 
 dusty bench. 
 
 "Kartarpourl Kartarpour!" That is the name 
 which, the next morning, announces the end of the 
 long and fatiguing journey. On the station plat- 
 form — a real little country station — one of His 
 Highness's stewards, all covered with silver braid, 
 his sword at his side, installs us, my companions 
 and me, in a vast limousine, which rolls off with 
 irreproachable smoothness, while our baggage is 
 confided to graceful little trotting mules. 
 
 A few miles ... a tornado of dust behind us. 
 . . . Then tufts of eucalyptus, aloes, cacti, orange- 
 trees, to which cling the vines of the bougainvil- 
 liers. . . . Next a very wide, straight avenue; we 
 pass through the ceremonial gates of the park, 
 made of wrought iron with excellent taste in the 
 style of Lorraine. . . . The auto makes a skilful 
 curve before the perron of an immense palace, in 
 the modern French style, adorned with bas-reliefs, 
 groups and statues — a second edition of our Grand 
 Palais des Champs-Elysees, surrounded by French 
 gardens in an almost identical setting. 
 
 The guard, assembled under arms, reminds us 
 of where we are. The lancers who throng the 
 perron — giants over six feet tall, with beards and 
 
58 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 upstanding mustaches — salute us with their 
 lances. And toward us advances, with his hand 
 outstretched, a smile on his lips, the Dewan, the 
 prime minister. Colonel Massey, ex-Regent of the 
 States of Kapurthala, the friend of the Maharajah, 
 to whom, as well as to several Indian officers of the 
 General Staff, he taught English and French. 
 
 "Yes," says the sovereign, who receives me in a 
 great Louis XVI salon, furnished by Arbusson 
 and decorated with mythological panels, "I 
 wanted to realize here one of the dreams of my 
 life, to leave behind me a work that would endure. 
 You know how devoted I am to French art in all 
 its forms. To me, French art stands for delicacy, 
 elegance and above all for harmony. There is 
 nothing disproportioned in it. Everything hangs 
 together. Look at a portrait by Nattier, a bust by 
 Houdon, or a fagade by Mansart. That will ex- 
 plain to you why, in 1900, when I was anxious to 
 build in my capital a palace in European style, I 
 did not hesitate to give the preference to your art 
 and your artists. The plans for my palace were, 
 in fact, drawn up by two of your countrymen, 
 MM. Alexandre Marcel and Paul Boyer." 
 
 "Just when did Your Highness give orders to 
 begin the foundations?" 
 
 "In 1902. The work was carried forward with 
 
AN ASIATIC MAECENAS 59 
 
 all speed between 1903 and 1908, under the watch- 
 ful direction of one of the best architects of Bom- 
 bay, Mr. H. J. A. Bowden. As you have been 
 able to judge for yourself, MM. Alexandre Mar- 
 cel and Paul Boyer have placed on the exterior 
 of the buildings a real stamp of grandeur and 
 majesty. As for the interior arrangement of the 
 rooms, everything pure and gracious offered by 
 your art is synthesized in a skilful gradation of 
 every epoch, from the dining-room and the Dur- 
 bar, my reception-room, to the salons in the styles 
 of Louis XIII, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, up to 
 the Empire cabinet. But what can I say of the 
 details! And the sculptures, the bas-reliefs, car- 
 ried out so personally by Desbois and Tessierl 
 All these things are the work of your artists. All 
 the credit belongs to them. I have done nothing 
 but open the door of the storehouse." 
 
 The Maharajah becomes animated. He speaks 
 in a fresh, cordial voice, behind which no reserva- 
 tion of false modesty is concealed. But what this 
 Maecenas does not mention is the price it has cost 
 him to "open the storehouse" — six millions; nor 
 does he speak of the minute collector's solicitude 
 with which he has himself presided over the buy- 
 ing and arrangement of the furniture, the rugs, the 
 paintings, the china and the ornaments, which, one 
 
6o MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 and all, are placed in a setting suitable to their 
 style. 
 
 A question rises to my lips: "And the French 
 gardens which I noticed just now? Your High- 
 ness does not speak of them." 
 
 "Ah! yes! the French gardens! I have been 
 especially anxious to have them. They are rather 
 shocking over here, where we do nothing but step 
 from the impenetrable jungle into the winding 
 paths of an English garden. Frankly, how could 
 I have done otherwise? And besides, for a lover 
 of Versailles — and I am devoted to it — what could 
 be more suggestive than these straight avenues, 
 symmetrical, cut at right angles? Then, too, what 
 could be more poetic than these thickets, full of 
 shadow and mystery, where one might read a poem 
 by Henri de Regnier, or an archaic pastiche of 
 Francois de Nion? In the same classical spirit 
 — and in order not to run counter to the geometri- 
 cal idea of Le Notre — I have had them place be- 
 fore the principal fagade the basin of a fountain, 
 adorned with allegorical statues which recall the 
 myths dear to the heart of the Roy-Soleil. In this 
 way, I shall have, even in India, the illusion both 
 of Versailles and Paris. A French park, and the 
 'cousin' of your Grand Palais des Champs- 
 Elysees. What better could I ask?" 
 
AN ASIATIC MAECENAS 6i 
 
 And a§ I make my way back to my flowery bun- 
 galow, where the jays are whistling, the nightin- 
 gales singing and the emerald paroquets chatter- 
 ing, the memory comes to me of that other Ms- 
 cenas, a great French seigneur of the eighteenth 
 century who, having fallen in love with Chinese 
 art, also had his way. 
 
 His name was Etienne-Frangois, Duke de 
 Choiseul, the disgraced minister of Louis XV. 
 
 And in his love for the Celestial Empire he had 
 built, near Amboise, the pagoda of Chanteloup. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 AN INDIAN DURBAR 
 
 What is meant by a Durbar — A princely anniversary horoscope 
 — ^The "repurchase" of power — The review of the Sepoys 
 — ^A typically Indian menu — The dance of the bayaderes — 
 Why the bayadere is so much revered. 
 
 N Indian Durbar is much more than 
 a fete, it is much more, even, than 
 a gala celebration. To tell the 
 truth, the Hindustani word remains 
 untranslatable, as untranslatable as 
 the esotericism of the Brahmans 
 and the Buddhist bonzes often is. 
 
 The Durbar partakes at once of the nature of a 
 military function, a religious function, and a social 
 function. The people are admitted only to the two 
 first and for them it is an occasion for great rejoic- 
 ing: dances, dramatic spectacles and above all 
 feasts, all "at the expense of the princess," when 
 the ruler is a Begum, as at Bhopal, or "at the ex- 
 pense of the prince" when the dispenser of this 
 
 bounty is a Mussulman Nabob, like the Nizam of 
 
 62 
 
AN INDIAN DURBAR 63 
 
 Hyderabad, or a Hindu Maharajah, like H. H. 
 Jagatjit Singh, at Kapurthala. When these fes- 
 tivities overflow national boundaries, w^hen they 
 pass beyond the frontiers of the independent States, 
 w^hen they become imperial — that is to say Eng- 
 lish — the expenditure reaches an exorbitant figure 
 and becomes the occasion for ruinous prodigalities. 
 Witness the grand Durbar at Delhi, in 1903, which 
 cost the Anglo-Indian government the sum of 200,- 
 000 pounds sterling and in connection with which 
 the viceroy, Lord Curzon, who saw to many things 
 himself, spent out of his own purse the pretty 
 little sum of 15,000 pounds. As we can see, the 
 India of today has not fallen behind yesterday; it 
 still remains the land, uniquely perhaps, of splen- 
 dor, lavish and dazzling splendor. Was not this 
 shown, for that matter, in a magical way at the 
 time of the coronation of H. M. George V? 
 
 People cry up the hospitality of the Scotch, 
 which has become proverbial. I have never put 
 it to the test; but I tasted several years ago, long 
 before the war, the charm of the Hungarian hos- 
 pitality of a great magnate of the Crown of Saint 
 Stephen, my dear and regretted Count Eugene 
 Zichy, a true friend of France, and a great noble 
 as well, in the full meaning of the term, since he 
 was the chamberlain of the late ex-Emperor Fran- 
 
64 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 cis Joseph (which did not prevent me from being 
 also received at the court of H. M. King Peter at 
 Belgrade). Well! I am obliged to confess that 
 the hospitality of a rajah far surpasses even that of 
 the noblest and most fortunate of Magyars. But 
 it is not my intention to relate here, one by one, the 
 receptions, attentions, and surprises which the 
 master of an Indian household can shower on his 
 guests. Therefore I shall pass over in silence the 
 dinners, balls, and soirees, the excursions on horse- 
 back, by auto, by coach, by yacht, the hunts on 
 elephant-back,^ the visits to palaces, temples, treas- 
 uries, the crematory, etc., which belong to the 
 province of a private journal. 
 
 But the official Durbar! That marvel of the 
 eyes! That dazzling exhibition of jewels! That 
 extraordinary gathering of princes, courtiers, 
 priests, and soldiers! That is what seems to me 
 interesting to relate here, while I strive to banish 
 all hyperbole from a style that involuntarily — 
 perhaps contagiously? — becomes filled with pomp. 
 
 The religious festival. . . . 
 
 It is symbolic and unforgettable. 
 
 It is in a white patio of the old palace, under a 
 dais of dark blue and white — the Kapurthalian 
 
 * See in my romance "Parvati," the description of a tiger-hunt, with 
 the Maharajah of Jeypore. 
 
THE GATEWAY TO THE PALACE OF KAPURIUALA 
 
 A BRAH MANIC RELIGIOU.S VVEUUING 
 
AN INDIAN DURBAR 65 
 
 colors. The priests are seated, after the Oriental 
 fashion, on a thick Persian rug. There are about 
 twenty of them, including the High Priest and 
 the astrologer, who will soon read aloud the San- 
 skrit horoscope of His Highness. Grave and im- 
 movable, they keep their eyes fastened upon the 
 altar, which is composed of a mosaic in tiny dots 
 of white, red and blue, of the same design as the 
 pavement of the patio, and figuring in its squares 
 of equal size flowers, triangles, rosettes, ovals and 
 the sacred lotus. ... A stir among the crowd of 
 privileged persons admitted below the dais — the 
 women may not witness the ceremony except from 
 high, half-open windows — a stir which increases 
 and announces the approaching arrival of the 
 sovereign. . . . Then a herald, followed by mace- 
 bearers and guards announces: "His Highness, the 
 Maharajah!" 
 
 He is seated now, the prince, the Prince Charm- 
 ing, whom all our high society is eager for. He is 
 seated facing the High Priest, on a sofa of blue 
 velvet, with golden braid. Three of his sons sur- 
 round him: at his right the Princes Mahijit and 
 Amarjit, already as serious as men; at the left, the 
 young Prince Karamjit, with an eager, spiritual 
 face — three students of the College of Normandy, 
 at Cleres. The Crown Prince Paranjit is now in 
 
66 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 England, where he is finishing his studies before 
 his marriage, which will take place in two years. 
 But the ceremony is beginning. While a serv- 
 ant, armed with a white horse-hair fly-chaser, 
 busily waves this new sort of fan, the priests bring 
 up by turns, for the Maharajah to touch, bread, 
 rice, sweetmeats, roses, as a sign of submission. 
 Chanting begins ; it is the priest's young assistants 
 who are celebrating in Sanskrit the praises of their 
 prince in an at first monotonous, minor strain, 
 which grows faster until it soon turns into a vol- 
 uble recitation of litanies. They distribute grains 
 of rice among us so that, according to the ancient 
 custom, we may throw them upon our amiable and 
 hospitable host. The hail of rice falls abundantly 
 upon the shoulders of His Highness, the symbol of 
 our gratitude and respect! . . . Follows a long 
 discourse by the High Priest and the performance 
 of several rites, in which rice, flowers and salt play 
 an important role, as well as a woolen cord of 
 mingled strands of red, yellow and white, the signs 
 of honesty, faithfulness and courage, which in the 
 olden days the warriors never failed to fasten as 
 scarfs across their breasts. Now the astrologer is 
 drawing the horoscope of the sovereign, reading a 
 long rigmarole, of which I can grasp only the 
 beautiful characters written in red and black ink 
 
AN INDIAN DURBAR 67 
 
 on an interminable parchment adorned with 
 cabalistic figures and signs. 
 
 Oh, the curious, the piquant allegorical custom 
 which follows this tiresome listening! The Maha- 
 rajah rises, followed by his suite, and seats himself 
 in one of the scales of a wooden balance, which 
 stands in one of the corners of the patio. On the 
 other are black, white, green, yellow, red and gray 
 sacks — containing respectively gold, silver, rice, 
 grain, perfumes and fruit — which equal the 
 monarch in weight. The symbolic weighing is 
 carefully gone through seven times — seven, always 
 seven, the fatal number which appears every- 
 where! — then the scale is emptied and the sacks are 
 given to the poor. The king has ransomed himself 
 in the eyes of his subjects. They bring up a horse, 
 then a cow, both covered with scarlet saddle- 
 cloths, decorated with green and gold. They are 
 the presents of His Highness to the poorest among 
 the priests. The privileged Brahman, whose turn 
 it is now to bestow princely alms, leaves the group 
 of his fellow priests, half prostrates himself before 
 his benefactor, and goes out, leading the animals 
 himself. The ceremonies, prayers, and chants are 
 ended. AH the ministers, chamberlains, courtiers, 
 aides-de-camp and stewards of his civil household 
 rush confusedly towards the Maharajah and bow 
 
68 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 low before him, while they offer him a piece of 
 money, which the sovereign merely touches. It is 
 the Mohour again, the symbol of submission and 
 feudal tribute. 
 
 The native music, rendered by flutes, clarinets, 
 shrill fifes and tom-toms, bursts into a particularly 
 pleasing harmony, adorned with a succession of 
 fifths and reversed ninths, which would enchant 
 Stravinsky, and cause the shades of Bazin, Gevaert 
 and Fetis to tremble with indignation. Outside 
 the cannon thunders. And also we hear faintly the 
 blasts of the military trumpets. The crowd of 
 guests files slowly out. As I am crossing the 
 threshold, a priest presents me with a sacred cake, 
 rolled up in a dry leaf, while another Brahman 
 dips his thumb into a sort of yellow pomade, with 
 a basis of saffron, and places it at the top of my 
 nose, between the eyes, according to the rite of 
 Siva. Then I notice that all my companions wear 
 the same sign. During the whole day we must 
 preserve this tattooing, which brings us from the 
 Hindus many sympathetic smiles. 
 
 The military festival. . . . 
 
 A resplendent procession of uniforms in the dust 
 of the military parade grounds, under a blazing 
 sun, in the midst of the immense gathering of 
 
AN INDIAN DURBAR 69 
 
 people who have come from all the little towns in 
 the neighborhood of the capital. 
 
 A great uproar rises from the crowd, anxiously 
 bending forward to admire the fine carriage of the 
 infantrymen, the martial spirit of the cavalry and 
 the sang-froid of the cannoneers, grouped about 
 their guns, which are fastened to zebus. The ap- 
 pearance of this Sikh army in its dark uniforms is 
 really superb, this army whose loyalty served the 
 English cause so faithfully in 1857, at the time of 
 the Sepoy rebellion, in 1873 at the time of the ex- 
 pedition into Afghanistan, and finally from 1914- 
 191 8 on the European, Asiatic and African fields 
 of battle during the World War. 
 
 It files past, brave, well-disciplined, its music 
 at its head, a music of bugles, Scotch bagpipes and 
 tambourines, before its chief, the Maharajah, 
 dressed very simply, without any decorations, in 
 a black dolman with a velvet collar, mounted on a 
 light bay Burmese horse, surrounded by his aides- 
 de-camp and the officers of his General Staff. The 
 artillery divides into three portions its regulation 
 salute of twenty-one cannon shots. The crackling 
 of rifles splits the air: it is the infantrymen who are 
 discharging their guns with joyous ''hurrahs!" in 
 honor of His Highness. 
 
70 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 The social festival. . . . 
 
 It follows the feudal ceremony in the Palace of 
 Justice where, in the throne-room, the civil and 
 military functionaries solemnly renew their protes- 
 tations of fealty and devotion while, in the Great 
 Square, the royal elephants, caparisoned with rich 
 howdahs covered with saddle-cloths, embroidered 
 with gold and precious stones, majestically sway 
 their trunks and their tusks encircled by three 
 golden rings. 
 
 I hasten to add that it is an Oriental social fete. 
 A delicate attention of the Maharajah has ordered 
 all his court, all his guests — except, of course, his 
 European guests, in their somber and banal black 
 — to wear the national costume for great occasions : 
 a turban set with rubies, emeralds and pearls, 
 tunics and dalmatics of satin, velvet and iridescent 
 brocades, incomparably embroidered. There is an 
 Indian dinner: burning curries, ragouts of young 
 partridges, bustards, and kids, ices of curdled milk, 
 sprinkled over with pistachio nuts, betel leaves and 
 small black seeds, of a spicy, somewhat camphor- 
 ous flavor, the whole seasoned with popular music 
 of the most fascinating effect. 
 
 And then the dancing girls. The Maharajah 
 has had them brought expressly from Agra. Their 
 orchestra of viols and tom-toms accompanies them 
 
AN INDIAN DURBAR 71 
 
 faintly. They dance, they sing. Their guttural 
 voices cry out the lament and the suffering of love, 
 and the contortions of their hands reveal the sharp 
 pain of self-abandonment. For, if one may say 
 so, they never move. It is a mute and half-immo- 
 bile choreography, but how gripping and how 
 expressive, when a sudden flame lights up the 
 enigmatic shadows of their dark eyes! 
 
 And I think of the strange destiny of these 
 Asiatic ballerinas, with their eyelids smeared with 
 kohl, who come before me, their heads covered 
 with pearls and their bare feet with rings, so dif- 
 ferent from the dancing girls celebrated by our 
 poets, from those who delighted us in Lakme, The 
 King of Lahore, The Grand Mogul. With them 
 all was convention. These, on the contrary, spring 
 both by birth and their artistic profession from the 
 hieratical dancer, and by their habits and their 
 private lives from the professional prostitute. 
 They are both religious and symbolic. They in- 
 carnate in song and dance the fabulous personages 
 of the old myths of the primitive theogony. They 
 are adored and petted by the people and the Brah- 
 mans and also by the rajahs because they are por- 
 trayers, in speech and action, of the great national 
 epics, the ancient dramas of the Sanskrit and Aryan 
 mythology. Superior by far to the indolent and 
 
72 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 lascivious odalisque of the Levant, they are equally 
 superior to the Nipponese Geishas, with their 
 laughing eyes and little mincing gestures. 
 
 That bayadere there! Just watch her; she 
 knows how to be by turns amorous, unhappy, ironi- 
 cal and terrible. Her chanting voice, accompanied 
 by the faint tambourines and the diverse vinas, 
 dear to the soufis — "dying viols" that gentle 
 dreamer Mallarme would have called them — a 
 psalmody now high, now low, full of mysterious, 
 disturbing and far-away melodies. Singling out 
 one of the spectators, she undulates before him, 
 fascinates him, and envelops him with her veiled 
 song, with her almost motionless posturing. Pres- 
 ently, without any transition, she upbraids him, she 
 curses him and then implores him, adjures him, 
 with the desperate wringing of her hands and 
 wrists, with the sobs of a stifled voice. It is beauti- 
 ful and it is human, because she vibrates, laughs 
 and weeps. Those powerful thinkers, the Hindus, 
 have realized that this sort of woman, the national 
 and religious aede, ought to be protected, free, 
 emancipated and venerated. 
 
 Now I understand why the great potentates 
 themselves bow down before this power, why they 
 pay in gold — as much as three or four thousand 
 
'AN INDIAN DURBAR 73 
 
 francs for an evening — for the stirring pantomime 
 of these courtesan dancers. . . . 
 
 It is because they seem to be what they are in 
 reality, the superhuman invokers of love and 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BETROTHAL UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 
 
 Two years later — Nostalgia for India — I find in the heart of 
 the Punjab the "upper crust" of the Faubourg — The ex- 
 position of gifts — ^An invisible bride — In which the Law 
 of Manu shows itself less and less . . . gallant ! 
 
 iTJ 
 
 WO years have gone by. 
 
 And now, once more India, which 
 I have already surveyed once, from 
 North to South and East to West, 
 calls me. . . . Irresistibly! 
 
 How can I escape from this fas- 
 cination? Rereading my notes, one idle evening, 
 I have felt my soul filled with vague longings. Oh ! 
 to see again that country, those landscapes, those 
 colors, that harmonious light which magnifies and 
 defies the dullest gray! And then my book to be 
 completed; so many gaps to be filled in, so many 
 investigations to be continued, so many documents 
 to be examined, verified, fathomed. 
 
 Come, the die is cast, Kapurthala shall see me 
 
 74 
 
UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 75 
 
 again; once more I shall taste the exquisite hos- 
 pitality of its Parisian rajah. 
 
 A rajah who is indeed Parisian, for who can 
 boast of being more so than this Amphitrion whom 
 no nuance of our language or thought escapes, 
 who has carried his love of France so far as for 
 six years to confide his future daughter-in-law and 
 Crown Princess to the care of such French friends 
 as the Princess Amedee de Broglie, the Countess 
 Rostaing de Pracomtal, the Dowager Princess de 
 la Tour d'Auvergne, the Countess Gaston de Mon- 
 tesquiou-Fezensac, the Countess du Bourg de 
 Bozas and many others of the great ones of our 
 aristocracy, women with a full sense of their duty 
 as well as elegant and envied women of the world? 
 
 It is not astonishing, therefore, that a sovereign 
 so modern and so much in love with our taste and 
 our art should wish all his French friends to be 
 present at the celebration of the marriage of his 
 eldest son, the Tikka-Sahib, Paranjit Singh, who 
 has just returned from London, and the very young 
 and charming Princess Brindahmati of Jubbal, 
 whose ancestors, of an illustrious Rajput caste, lost 
 in the darkness of ages, go back, they say, to the 
 sun as their progenitor. 
 
 Indeed, they have all come, these French 
 friends, breaking their usual home-keeping habits, 
 
^6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 leaving Paris, Egypt, the Cote d'Azur, to cross 
 oceans and the tropics. Let us give their names 
 without exception, for they are examples of quick 
 decision and the love of adventure: Prince An- 
 toine of Orleans and Braganza, Prince and Prin- 
 cess Amedee de Broglie, Prince Albert de Brog- 
 lie, the Marquis and Marquise de Pothuau, Gen- 
 eral Baron de Sancy, Comtesse de Pracomtal, 
 Marquis Pierre de Jaucourt, Baron Alexandre de 
 Neufville, Comtes Charles and Jean de Polignac, 
 Mme. Vlasto, Vicomte de Jumilhac, M. Andre 
 de Fouquieres, Comte and Comtesse de la Met- 
 trie, Vicomte Jean de Brecey, Comtesse and Mile, 
 de Failly, M. Rene des Cheises, Comte Alphonse 
 de Fleurieu, Vicomte de Geofifre de Chabrignac, 
 M. Georges Brocheton, Vicomte Gontran de Bar- 
 bentane, Comte de Charnieres, M. and Mme. 
 Alexandre Marcel, Comte de Buyer-Chaillot, M. 
 Andres Lataillade, Vicomte de la Motte, M. 
 Zafiri, M. Saures. On the English side, I remem- 
 ber the names of Generals Drummond and Powell, 
 Lady Sassoon, Colonel and Miss Shackleton, the 
 Governor of the Punjab, the Hon. W. Sykes, etc. 
 . . . Finally, on the Hindu and Mussulman side, 
 let us name H. H. the Maharajah of Jammu and 
 Kashmir, who has come with an escort of officers, 
 chamberlains, a hundred servants, followed by his 
 
UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 77 
 
 favorite elephants, his horses, his camels, and his 
 coaches; H. H. the Maharajah of Jhalawar, with 
 his fabulous jewels — diamonds, emeralds, rubies — 
 accompanied by his uncle, Bal-Bahr Singh; Their 
 Highnesses the Rajahs of Poonch, Djagraon, Nar- 
 pur, with glittering aigrettes and their motley 
 suites of officials and retainers; H. H.. the Aga- 
 Khan, the first Nabob of India, the highest Mus- 
 sulman personage of Asia, the direct descendant 
 of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet — a Parisian 
 also, at this time thirty-three years of age, any- 
 thing but a fanatic, who adores France and the 
 French; other princes whose names and places of 
 origin I do not know but who are there among us 
 and offer, beside our persons, villainously dressed 
 in European style, the regrettable contrast of silk 
 with wool. 
 
 A great Hindu marriage is no ordinary event. 
 It is an occasion for dazzling fetes, unprecedented 
 festivities, wild prodigalities and Rabelaisian 
 feasts. It is the correct thing to ruin, or almost 
 ruin, oneself. The "Paraitre" of my intelligent 
 and penetrating cousin, Maurice Donnay, finds 
 here its completest and most exact application. 
 One must spend, one must even squander; tomor- 
 row will do for serious business and domestic 
 economy! This does not extend to the guests 
 
78 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 themselves who only watch what is going on and 
 merely add their friendly or sumptuous contribu- 
 tions to the mad luxury that obtains among the 
 wedding gifts. 
 
 They do not consist, these wedding gifts, as they 
 do with us, of modest cases of jewels, silver, lace, 
 furs, pianos, automobiles, etc. . . . The Hindu 
 wedding boasts of more royal presents. Would 
 you care to know, for example, what was the wed- 
 ding gift of His Highness the Maharajah of Kash- 
 mir to the young couple of Kapurthala? An ele- 
 phant, six horses, fifteen thousand rupees. The 
 other princes, less rich than he, contented them- 
 selves with offering the betrothed: one, three 
 camels, two horses, a dozen falcons; another, some 
 Bokhara rugs, a collar of pearls, draperies em- 
 broidered with gold; others made their appear- 
 ance preceded by a herald bearing sacks of pre- 
 cious stones in their matrix, or rough-hewn nug- 
 gets of gold. The exhibition of the gifts takes 
 place, as in France, a few days before the marriage 
 ceremony, but in the morning, from ten o'clock 
 till noon, in a special room, guarded by two armed 
 attendants. The groom, who alone is visible be- 
 fore the day of the marriage — the young girl being 
 strictly secluded in the zenana of the ranees — does 
 the honors generally of the inspection of the gifts, 
 
UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 79 
 
 many of which are reserved for him personally: 
 arms, jewels, saddles, tennis rackets, polo sticks, 
 etc. 
 
 There is something melancholy and saddening 
 in the persistent and mysterious absence of the 
 bride, who ought to be the queen, feted, petted, 
 complimented, of all these festivities. But the 
 Hindu wedding custom permits no relaxation of 
 this stringent system. Even if, like the Princess 
 Brinda of Jubbal, the bride were strongly imbued 
 with European civilization, this preventive seques- 
 tration would none the less take place. It is, in a 
 sense, a preparatory novenna which she accom- 
 plishes now. Surrounded by the dowager queen, 
 that is to say by the maharanee, the other ranees 
 and their intimates, she trains herself and accus- 
 toms herself in advance to the double role of sove- 
 reign and wife which must soon be hers. The 
 priests visit her and instruct her thoroughly in her 
 duties — there is no question of her rights, which 
 do not exist — and in certain obligations which the 
 Law of Manu imposes on her. 
 
 This Law of Manu, of which I have already 
 spoken but to which I must return, enacts, in re- 
 gard to marriage, certain engaging, curious and 
 yet poetic rules which, however, when taken to- 
 gether, reveal to us in what a condition of depend- 
 
8o MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ence, of absolute servitude, even if mingled with 
 respect, the Hindu wife has to be held. Finally, 
 there are certain deliciously naive counsels it gives, 
 this Law of Manu, to those who are possessed by 
 the legitimate desire to contract upright marriages. 
 I cannot resist the amusement of quoting a few of 
 them: 
 
 "Let him who wishes to marry not espouse a 
 girl having red hair, or one limb too many (?), 
 or who is often ill, or who is insupportable by 
 virtue of her loquacity. But let him take a well- 
 formed woman, who has the graceful gait of a 
 swan or a young elephant (!) and whose hair is 
 fine, her teeth small, her limbs of a pleasurable 
 softness." 
 
 The legislator seems to have, perhaps from ex- 
 perience, an opinion of conjugal fidelity that is 
 rather bitter and tarnished with skepticism: 
 
 "Even when shut in their apartments, under 
 the guard of faithful and devoted men, women 
 are by no means in surety; those only are so who 
 guard themselves from their own will. Because 
 of their passion for men, the inconstancy of their 
 temper, and the lack of affection which is natural 
 to them, it is in vain, here below, to guard them 
 with vigilance; they will always be exposed to 
 infidelity to their husbands." 
 
UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 8i 
 
 "It is true that Manu has apportioned to women 
 the love of pleasure and dress, concupiscence, 
 anger, evil ways, the desire to do ill and per- 
 versity." 
 
 In what gallant terms these things are said! In 
 the same way, the "Law for Men", according to 
 Hervieu, is not embarrassed, in India, by all the 
 hypocritical prolegomena of our Occidental di- 
 vorces and separations. Has a woman ceased to 
 please her husband? The latter does not need 
 to have recourse to an extra-judicial examination 
 or the proceedings of an attorney. A thorough 
 repudiation, made before the Brahman, takes the 
 place of the official proceedings of non-reconcilia- 
 tion, constituting ipso facto the divorce. As for 
 the pretext for invoking it, on the part of the hus- 
 band, the very eclectic Law of Manu furnishes 
 him with a veritable assortment: he has only to 
 choose among them according to his good pleas- 
 ure, merely taking account of the circumstances 
 of time and place. 
 
 "A sterile woman," declares the Law of Manu, 
 "may be replaced at the end of eight years; one 
 whose children are all dead, in the tenth year; 
 one who has brought into the world only daugh- 
 ters (a stigma of inferiority) in the eleventh year; 
 one who speaks sharply, at once. 
 
82 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ^'During one whole year, let a husband endure 
 the aversion of his wife. But after one year, if 
 she continues to hate him, let him take what prop- 
 erty belongs to her, leaving her sufficient to sub- 
 sist and clothe herself, and let him cease to live 
 with her." 
 
 All these arrangements, all these paragraphs — 
 of which I quote only the principal, the most sa- 
 lient ones — constitute the written law of marriage, 
 the law applied to the letter, without restriction; 
 no tempering of mildness or gentleness has en- 
 croached upon this assemblage of pitiless and 
 meddling rules. The woman, on the day of her 
 marriage, must walk, not beside her husband, but 
 behind him, like a slave. It would be unseemly 
 for her to be larger than her husband or for her 
 head to be taller than his, the symbol of a future 
 emancipation that would not be tolerated. Thus 
 the ''fashion" is for small brides, with smoothly 
 combed hair held apart with fillets and naked feet 
 — perish our Louis XIV heels! — such that the 
 smallest husband will not be thrown into the shade. 
 In Southern India — the coasts of Coromandel and 
 Malabar — the wife is obliged, as a sign of submis- 
 sion, to place her foot over the real or imaginary 
 print of each of her husband's footsteps; it would 
 
UNDER THE LAW OF MANU 83 
 
 be an excuse for the rupture of the marriage if 
 this rule were not observed. 
 
 Such are the auspices under which the woman 
 falls into the power of her husband. I have not 
 deliberately blackened a picture already somber; 
 but it is incontestable — and I believe uncontested 
 — that of all married women, even the ''disen- 
 chanted" Mohammedans, the Hindu is the most 
 wretched and degraded. One of my friends, a 
 Brahman of an ancient caste, who speaks and 
 understands our language like a Loti or an Ana- 
 tole France, has tried to explain to me, with the 
 aid of an ingenious paradox, the reasons for this 
 discreditable treatment of beings who are, in gen- 
 eral, beautiful, gentle and virtuous. In his opin- 
 ion, the Hindu wife is shut up and kept under 
 this iron discipline through a spirit of respect on 
 the part of the men, and notably of those who 
 drew up the law concerning their way of life. 
 The law-giver had considered — and with him all 
 the Brahmans, the masters, the later initiates of 
 the esoteric doctrine — that woman, because of the 
 beauty and grandeur of her function, should be in 
 some manner isolated, shut up, cloistered in a 
 tower of ivory. Her mission, to procreate and 
 raise up future generations, placed her above all 
 contact and all profane contamination. Let us 
 
84 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 admit the sophistry. It is in order to be highly 
 esteemed, then, too sacrosanct, that the unfortunate 
 woman today submits to be no longer human and 
 to lead in the obscure emptiness of the zenana the 
 stupidest and most degrading of existences. 
 
 Many maharajahs, refined, converted and mod- 
 ernized by our European customs, by their jour- 
 neys to London or Paris as well as by their early 
 instruction and their reading, have had the courage 
 to affirm themselves reformers. Unfortunately, 
 the movement as a whole has been only on the 
 surface; the evolution will be slow. There are 
 still so many of these princes who are barbarous, 
 backward, retrograde, orthodox Hindus and se- 
 cretly haters of everything foreign! Therefore 
 one must admire without reserve those who, in 
 spite of the obstruction of their priests or their 
 ministers, strive to raise the condition of women 
 in their States. That there exist, as in Baroda, 
 schools for girls, or that they give their Crown 
 Princess, as in Kapurthala, six years of instruc- 
 tion in Europe — the impulse remains beautiful 
 and appears significant. One must not wish things 
 to go too quickly in India. The ages have created 
 feminine servitude; it cannot be abolished in a 
 couple of years. 
 
 Evolution is not revolution. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SIKH SEHRABANDI 
 
 Like father, like son — The Sehra, or taking of the masculine 
 veil — An orgy of silk, velvet and gems — The Maharajah 
 of Kashmir encircles with his hands the forehead of the 
 groom — ^Again the Mohour! 
 
 ET us take as an example of what I 
 have just written the marriage of 
 the Crown Prince (in Hindustani, 
 Tikka-Sahib) of the Sikh State of 
 Kapurthala, in the Punjab. I have 
 already said that this prince — ^who 
 is infinitely gracious and sympathetic — had, with 
 his three brothers Mahijit, Amarjit and Karamjit, 
 been brought up in France and England. I will 
 add that he knows our language and speaks it flu- 
 ently, that the college of Normandy, at Cleres, and 
 the Lycee Janson at Sailly, have taught him to 
 know and love the great names of our literary his- 
 tory, while his eye grew familiar with their busts, 
 ranged along the fagade of this latter institution 
 of learning. It may be said of him that he is al- 
 
 85 
 
86 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 most a European, and very much attached by his 
 tastes, his natural inclinations, and his earliest edu- 
 cation to this modern life, the advantages and 
 charms of which have been revealed to him by 
 his father. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of this undeniably Occi- 
 dental education, H. H. Paranjit Singh was 
 obliged to marry in the Hindu fashion the fiancee 
 he had chosen freely, by whose side he had played 
 and grown up in Europe, who was his childhood's 
 friend in London and Paris. The same rites and 
 the same ceremonial, the same sequestration of the 
 bride during the days preceding her wedding, the 
 same observance of the horoscopes and the same 
 childishly symbolical, coarse and at times repul- 
 sive practices. But let us not anticipate; before 
 giving as detailed an account as possible of the 
 Hindu ceremony, let me say a word of the curious 
 betrothal custom, in which the groom alone takes 
 part, which bears the name of the Sehrabandi. 
 
 The Sehrabandi consists, properly speaking, of 
 a taking of the veil on the part of the groom. It 
 is an actual taking of the veil which, among the 
 higher castes, is transformed into the placing on 
 the groom's head of a golden fillet, from which 
 hang many strings of pearls. This temporary con- 
 jugal head-dress is called the Sehrah. The honor 
 
THE SIKH SEHRABANDI 87 
 
 of placing it on the head of the future husband 
 belongs to the noblest among the guests. At Ka- 
 purthala, it was the Maharajah of Kashmir who, 
 with his own hands, encircled the forehead of the 
 Tikka and showed him in this way the high esteem 
 and consideration in which he held him. 
 
 The people are out, massed in dense crowds 
 about the palace where the priests, the ministers 
 of the court and the guests await the arrival of 
 the procession. On the square rises the noble and 
 proud esquestrian statue of the Maharajah Rand- 
 hir Singh Bahadur, the grandfather of the present 
 sovereign, which is surrounded by the thirty-two 
 royal elephants, covered with their vivid saddle- 
 cloths, decorated with gold braid, silver bells and 
 precious stones. It has been no easy matter to 
 range in line these colossal animals in the midst 
 of the dense crowds, but the Mahouts (elephant 
 drivers) are no novices, and they excel in directing 
 the formidable pachyderms, without troubling 
 either about the small boys, who dart under their 
 feet, or the horses, most of which rear up in terror. 
 Opposite the statue, an interminable cordon of 
 troops spreads out its dark blue line, flanked on 
 right and left by the Sikh lancers and the cavalry 
 of the guard. The cannon thunder in the distance. 
 Then His Highness' band strikes up the Kapur- 
 
88 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 thalian national air, a sort of religious hymn, very- 
 simple, very short and rather melancholy. 
 
 And now there is the procession of uniforms, 
 of marvelous costumes studded with diamonds and 
 — let us not forget them also — elegant Parisian 
 toilets. All this heterogeneous fashion of Europe 
 and Asia is swallowed up under the portal, in the 
 train of the maharajahs and princes. Each one 
 takes his place among the seats reserved in the 
 galleries or below the dais in the immense throne- 
 room. The ceremony opens with a long address 
 by the priests ; then there are addresses of welcome 
 pronounced by the Dewan (the prime minister) 
 and by an important municipal delegation pre- 
 sided over by the Sahib Devindar Dass, the mayor 
 of the capital. The first of the bayaderes, a star 
 from Calcutta, who has been brought at a great 
 price, and whose head is weighted down with 
 pearls and rubies, then advances, her palms up, 
 her head slightly bent, in an almost hieratic atti- 
 tude. She recites, sings, dances and gives in panto- 
 mime a compliment suitable to the occasion; her 
 voice, slightly nasal and monotonous, predicts an 
 era of joy, of long life and prosperity for the young 
 couple (observe that the bride is still absent). A 
 small, unobtrusive orchestra of subdued viols and 
 tom-toms beats time to her slow and undulating 
 
THE SIKH SEHRABANDI 89 
 
 dancing and follows her, step by step, but always 
 at a respectful distance. 
 
 The dancing girl has finished her chant in its 
 minor key — a chant which, to tell the truth, re- 
 sembles a funeral dirge more than a song of hap- 
 piness — and she slowly makes her way out, by one 
 of the lower exits of the room, still accompanied 
 by her musicians, and very conscious of the "favor" 
 she has been willing to do the assembly in holding 
 them under the charm of her art. 
 
 Then the Maharajah of Kashmir arises from his 
 throne, takes the Sehrah from a little box offered 
 him by an attendant and fastens it about the fore- 
 head of the young prince who, with a smile of 
 assent, lends himself, with the best grace in the 
 world, to this strange and most symbolic perform- 
 ance. Is he not quite familiar with the meaning 
 of this allegory? He knows that this veil of pearls 
 — which falls over his face, obscures his sight, and 
 sometimes strikes the nose, the chin, the lips — is 
 the sign of his betrothal with the fiancee whom 
 no one sees and represents the interdiction which 
 henceforth lies upon him to cast his eyes on any 
 other woman than her whom he has chosen. I 
 like the symbol. . . . 
 
 But look now, servants in the livery of the mon- 
 arch bring to the feet of the Tikka several sacks 
 
90 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 which give out a silvery sound. It is the Mohour, 
 the feudal homage of the municipalities of which 
 I have already spoken. At this signal, a crowd 
 of courtiers and notables rise and then come back, 
 their hands loaded with presents, ornaments, 
 jewels, garments, stuffs, arms, trappings, etc., 
 which they place, with a reverence, in the hands 
 of two royal ushers. These offerings constitute, 
 on the part of the donors, a gage of vassalage and 
 fealty to their future sovereign. As we see, the 
 Sehrabandi of a prince is not only the presentation 
 of the groom to the nation, it is also an official 
 recognition of his eventual succession to the throne. 
 
 Their Highnesses rise. The music again strikes 
 up the national hymn. The betrothal ceremony 
 is ended. 
 
 Motor cars, coaches, gala vehicles carry us 
 across the city, decked with Kapurthalian flags and 
 the Franco-British standards, to the pretty little 
 tents of our European encampment. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WEDDING AT KAPURTHALA 
 
 Festivals and banquets — I win the elephant race — The French 
 toast of our host — A madigral to the ladies of the French 
 aristocracy — A broken glass a good omen — The Brahmanic 
 ceremony and the Sikh rites — A procession from the Thou- 
 sand and One Nights. 
 
 S was suitable for a reigning prince, 
 the Maharajah had been deter- 
 mined to have everything well done, 
 not so much from the desire to daz- 
 zle his guests as from the purely 
 friendly anxiety to assure them as 
 much comfort as possible in their "camping out." 
 To this end, he had long in advance divided up 
 and parceled out a large section of his park into 
 even blocks, cut by central avenues and adjoining 
 streets. Vast tents, about a hundred of them, had 
 been specially set up as apartments, carpeted and 
 decorated, with brick chimneys and electric lights, 
 each consisting of three rooms and a bath. Each 
 one of these tents, moreover, waited on by three 
 
 91 
 
92 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 servants and an orderly, bore a number and the 
 printed name of its single occupant. A curious 
 and picturesque spectacle, indeed, that of these 
 three encampments (Hindu, Mussulman, Euro- 
 pean), offering to the eye, from the high terraces 
 of the French Palace, the suggestion of a new 
 town risen from the earth like the cities of Alaska 
 and stretching, all white, from the sunrise to the 
 sunset. 
 
 From daybreak on, during these four days of 
 enjoyment and in spite of the sharp cold which 
 benumbed the fingers and covered the grass with 
 white frost, cavaliers and amazons — Comte and 
 Comtesse de la Mettrie, Vicomte Jean de Brecey, 
 Comte Charles de Polignac, Vicomte de Geofifre 
 de Chabrignac — had their mounts pawing the 
 ground before their tents and set off gaily, intrep- 
 idly, "a la frangaise" to explore the surroundings 
 of the capital, plain or jungle, shady lanes or bare 
 paths, or to breathe the regenerating air of the 
 morning. Others gave themselves up to photog- 
 raphy, to sports which make the soul freer and the 
 body more joyful, tennis, pigeon-shooting, bad- 
 minton, etc. Each day, I should say each hour, 
 brought a new distraction, a fresh attraction, an 
 unexpected surprise. 
 
 Shall I speak of the interest which from the 
 
THE WEDDING AT KAPURTHALA 93 
 
 very first day I felt in the Hindu gymkhana? 
 Feats of fakirs, fantastic performances by acrobats 
 who walked on a tight-rope, carrying two donkeys 
 tied together over their shoulders; fights between 
 rams, which dashed their horned foreheads and 
 their resounding skulls together like catapults, 
 fights between cocks and quails, which ruffled up 
 their crests and feathers, while they picked out 
 with ferocious eye the spot in which they should 
 strike the adversary a mortal blow; leaps of ath- 
 letes to the back of one or several elephants; comic 
 pantomimes or fantastic mock battles. And the 
 military garden-party, on the last day! The ex- 
 ercises by turbaned gymnasts of divers colors, 
 whose twistings and intercrossings made me think 
 of the linear designs executed by the sokols of 
 Prague, the charge of the lancers, the camel races, 
 the elephant races — in which I had the honor, or 
 the good luck, to be more exact, to come out first, 
 distancing by the length of an elephant my friend 
 Albert de Broglie, second, and Andre de Fou- 
 quieres, third. 
 
 I should seem thankless if I passed over in si- 
 lence the automobile excursions, the hunts with 
 falcon and greyhound, the princely display of 
 fireworks (which lasted three-quarters of an hour 
 and included several set pieces), the illuminations, 
 
94 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the dances of the bayaderes, a European ball fol- 
 lowed by a cotillion led by our countryman Fou- 
 quieres and Mile. Arlette de Failly; finally the 
 delicious and Gargantuan banquet of three hun- 
 dred covers, served in the hall of the Durbar, in 
 the course of which the Maharajah, after an im- 
 pressive speech in English, pronounced in our 
 language, and without the least accent, the delicate 
 toast which follows: 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not wish to miss 
 the opportunity of telling you of the great pleas- 
 ure it gives me today to receive my good friends 
 from France, who have taken the trouble to come 
 so far, especially in order to be present at the mar- 
 riage of my son. I have endeavored to assure them 
 a hospitality as comfortable as possible, and I hope 
 they may carry away from their sojourn in my 
 States a pleasant and lasting memory. 
 
 "You all know what a profound friendship I 
 feel for your beautiful country, for its glories, its 
 artists, its scholars, for everything that constitutes 
 the patrimony and the genius of your race. Varied 
 and somewhat complex sentiments, but which give 
 a fairly exact idea of the pleasure I feel each time 
 I return to Paris and have the agreeable opportu- 
 nity of meeting you there again. 
 
 "I am particularly sensible of the coming among 
 
THE WEDDING AT KAPURTHALA 95 
 
 us of His Royal and Imperial Highness, Prince 
 Antoine of Orleans and Braganza, whose two 
 brothers, the Princes Pierre and Louis, have al- 
 ready been my guests, a few years ago. Equally, 
 I salute the presence at Kapurthala of Prince and 
 Princess Amedee de Broglie, who also visited me 
 twelve years ago, and who have this time given 
 me the pleasure of bringing with them their son, 
 Prince Albert. I am infinitely touched by the 
 friendship which Princess Amedee de Broglie 
 never ceases to show me, and also by the kindly 
 interest she bears for my daughter-in-law, to whom 
 she has been to this day the wise counselor and 
 truest friend. I can promise that the young bride 
 will never forget all the attention with which she 
 has been showered in France, and especially by 
 the Princess de Broglie, at the Chateau de Chau- 
 mont as well as in Paris. 
 
 "There is another friend of the Crown Princess 
 whom I am anxious to thank quite particularly 
 this evening; that is the Countess Rostaing de 
 Pracomtal, who has been for my daughter-in-law 
 a second mother as well as an admirable instructor. 
 Better than anyone else, this great lady of your 
 aristocracy has been able to inculcate in the young 
 bride the precious elements of this modern Euro- 
 
96 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 pean education, of which I wished the wife of my 
 son to enjoy the experience. 
 
 "The benefits of this innovation belong to the 
 future. So far as concerns myself, I have no reason 
 for lack of confidence in this new method — with- 
 out doubt, more of the world, more refined than 
 ours — and I foresee, for our Indian daughters, a 
 pure and definite alliance of the grace of the Occi- 
 dent with the modesty of the Orient!" 
 
 Is it necessary to add that this charming little 
 discourse, spoken all in one breath, as it were, and 
 without the least hesitation, aroused from the 
 thirty or more French guests a veritable tumult 
 of applause? Thereupon Prince Amedee de 
 Broglie, whom death has since taken from my 
 deferential sympathy, arose and, in a few well- 
 chosen words, expressed to the monarch the senti- 
 ments of lively gratitude and respectful friendship 
 of all his compatriots. Then Andre de Fouquieres, 
 in a warm and charming impromptu, constituted 
 himself the bearer of the good wishes, to the young 
 couple, of all the youth of France. "It is," he said 
 in closing, "the custom to see an omen of happiness 
 in the breaking of a glass on the wedding-day. 
 Under these circumstances, I do not hesitate to 
 break mine in honor of the bride and groom!" 
 And the crystal, thrown violently against the floor, 
 
THE "announcer" OF A WEDDING 
 
 THE AUTHOR ON HIS HUNTING ELEPHANT 
 

 L^fll^HB 
 
 
 MM 
 
 
 MP 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^#^'. 
 
 1 
 
 |ig^ 
 
 Mi 
 
 1 
 
 ■to 
 
 
 ELEPHANTS IN THE FLESH AND ELEPHANTS OF STONE 
 
 THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ANGKOR-VAT 
 
THE WEDDING AT KAPURTHALA 97 
 
 shattered into fragments, amid the applause of the 
 assembled company. 
 
 Today is the Great Day! 
 
 At seven in the morning, the European, Mus- 
 sulman and Hindu encampments are awakened 
 by the sound of deafening trumpets. The crowd 
 crushes about the approaches to the palace and 
 the steps of the temples in order to catch a momen- 
 tary glimpse, as it passes, of the glittering proces- 
 sion of Asiatic kings and noble European guests. 
 The women themselves seem to have departed, 
 for once, from their native reserve: one sees them 
 sitting, only half veiled — some of them have even 
 dared to lift entirely their scarves of white or yel- 
 low muslin — on the terraces of the low houses that 
 have been carefully chalked in honor of the occa- 
 sion. The tradesmen have decorated their shops, 
 small boys are chasing one another and throwing 
 flowers under the eyes of the light-hearted police- 
 men who are smiling at them with a half-grave, 
 half-paternal air. 
 
 We have already taken our places in the court 
 of the old palace, Jalaokhana, in the shade of an 
 awning which faces the nuptial canopy of green 
 velvet with golden fringes, beneath which the 
 Brahmans will soon unite the young couple. Just 
 opposite to us an awning striped with dark blue 
 
98 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 and white (Kapurthalian colors) shelters the 
 ministers, chamberlains, courtiers, officers and 
 notables. Finally, before the altars of the priests, 
 rises a second canopy, hung with marvelous stuffs, 
 below which are placed thrones of gold and silver. 
 It is here that the Maharajah and the princes are 
 to sit, clad in their dalmatics embroidered in gold 
 and encrusted with precious stones. 
 
 A flourish of trumpets bursts forth. . . . The 
 cannon thunder. . . . Here come the official per- 
 sonages, one by one, in automobiles, in their 
 coaches or on the howdahs or umbabaris of their 
 elephants with the tinkling bells. . . . There is a 
 pause. . . . Then, while the orchestra of the 
 guard, brilliantly directed by Mr. Marshall, 
 breaks into Mendelssohn's Wedding March, 
 then into the March of Glory, composed for the 
 occasion by your servant (a musician in his spare 
 hours), a curtain rises at the back of the patio, 
 where are concealed, behind grass screens, all the 
 princesses of the zenana. 
 
 And now the bride appears, her face uncovered. 
 
 She advances slowly, a little grave, but radiant 
 with beauty, grace and elegance. A long sari of 
 old rose, almost salmon, silk drapes her body, as 
 slim and supple as a vine of the jungle. A veil of 
 the same color, slightly lowered on her forehead. 
 
THE WEDDING AT KAPURTHALA 99 
 
 leaves a glimpse of the dark hair, parted and held 
 with a fillet, after the Indian fashion. A heavy 
 collar of splendid pearls, as large as nuts, encircles 
 her neck, of a dull w^hite in which can be clearly- 
 seen the ascendancy of the Aryan race. She reaches 
 the nuptial dais and seats herself by the side of the 
 Crown Prince, who is also in a superb costume 
 of old rose silk, his head adorned with a white and 
 gold turban, from which the Sehrah hangs down 
 and in the center of which sparkles a flaming 
 aigrette. 
 
 The Brahmanic ceremony begins, long, silent, 
 slightly monotonous, curious, nevertheless, in its 
 symbolic and evocative rites: the interlacing of 
 flowers and grains of rice that form arabesques; 
 the reading of horoscopes; recitations of Sanskrit 
 prayers; the deciphering of ancient scrolls by hol- 
 low-voiced priests. The bridal couple are seated 
 on rich, soft cushions; near them crouches their 
 best man, the youngest of the four brothers. Prince 
 Karamjit Singh, who plays the silent role of boy 
 of honor, inseparable from the bride and groom. 
 
 Next follows the Sikh marriage, under another 
 awning. Two priests, with venerable snow-white 
 beards, read in muffled voices liturgical anthems 
 drawn from the sacred book, the Granth. Others 
 distribute allegorical flowers and rice, while seven 
 
loo MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 virgins, dressed in yellow, chant the responses in 
 unison, accompanying themselves on a little port- 
 able harmonium, of which they themselves man- 
 age the bellows. Then the bride and groom rise, 
 break the sacred cake, exchange the morsels and 
 come and place themselves under the royal canopy, 
 by the side of their parents and the crowned heads 
 of the company. 
 
 The wedding ceremony is ended. The guests 
 file past, quite as they do with us, in the narrow 
 sacristies of our churches — and offer the young 
 couple their congratulations and wishes for their 
 happiness. Far of¥ the artillery thunders, the 
 troops present arms, the people deliriously acclaim 
 their future sovereigns, the elephants wave their 
 trunks and tinkle their little silver bells. . . . 
 
 There it is, the shining vision of the Orient of 
 the past, of the days when the great Mogul em- 
 perors, Akbar, Shah-Jahan, Aurengzed, dazzled 
 with their magnificence a conquered and prostrate 
 India! 
 
PART in 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER 
 
 The attraction of the risk — ^Amritsar, its golden temple and its 
 Lake of Immortality — Poor Lahore! — Peshawar and its 
 interminable caravans — A raid on an unsubmissive coun- 
 try — Who goes ? You cannot pass — ^A moment of anguish. 
 
 HAVE said good-by to Kapur- 
 thala, to its Parisian artist-prince, 
 its polished, gracious court, its bril- 
 liance and its splendors, and set 
 out for northern India, which is so 
 harsh, arid and aggressive. 
 My taste for adventure draws me irresistibly 
 toward these wild and at times inaccessible regions 
 of Pamir and Indo-Kooch, where the Pathans, the 
 Afridis and the Afghans reign as masters, sowing 
 death, ruin and terror about them. Louis Rous- 
 selet, who lived for five years in India, from 1863- 
 1868, has written in his India of the Rajahs: "The 
 next day I was at Peshawar, and thence I was able 
 to look out over that terrible Afghan frontier 
 
 which no one can approach without rushing to a 
 
 103 
 
104 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 certain death. I should have greatly liked to pro- 
 long my excursion as far as the famous Khaibar 
 Pass where, in 1843, ^^ English army of 10,000 
 men was completely wiped out by the Afghans. 
 But I was told it would be impossible, as a few 
 days before an English officer had been murdered 
 not far from there." It must be admitted that 
 things have greatly improved since 1868 and that 
 it is practicable, today, to go as far as that famous 
 Khyber Pass, misspelled by Rousselet, without 
 running the danger of certain death. Three times 
 a week the caravans, coming from Kabjul to 
 Lahore, file from sunrise to sunset through this 
 pass, which is guarded by armed battalions of 
 Sepoys spread out along the road and a few bat- 
 teries of artillery installed on the heights. So 
 far as my knowledge goes, travelers and tourists 
 jvho have not lingered in the pass after sunset have 
 never run any risk. The Afridi bandits seem to 
 have tacitly admitted this truce which has been 
 imposed on them by force of arms and no longer 
 trouble in these days the innumerable caravans 
 that wind along over the historic and strategic road 
 from India into Central Asia. 
 
 What is more difficult and dangerous is to reach 
 this impenetrable and almost inviolate Afghan 
 
TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER 105 
 
 frontier. But I shall have occasion to speak of 
 this later in some detail. 
 
 On leaving Kapurthala, my first halt is Amritsar 
 — an obligatory halt, an intensely interesting visit. 
 Amritsar is not only one of the great cities of the 
 Punjab, it is also, it is above all, the religious cap- 
 ital, the place of pilgrimage of the Sikhs. This 
 sacred metropolis contains a marvel which the 
 most blase eyes cannot contemplate without a pro- 
 found artistic emotion; I am speaking of the 
 Temple of Gold and the Lake of Immortality. 
 Imagine a great quadrangular basin, four acres 
 or so in size, in the center of which rises, on an 
 islet joined to the mainland by a marble jetty, a 
 square building of delicate workmanship, the 
 foundation of which is of marble and all the rest — 
 the first floor and the roof — of pure and unalloyed 
 gold. This roof alone is a gem of the goldsmith's 
 work, with its dome and its four little Moorish 
 towers. All along the fairy-like jetty are strung 
 lanterns, half of marble, half of gold, which are 
 illuminated at nightfall. There are no other 
 guardians to protect these riches from theft or 
 spoliation than a few old, turbaned fellows who 
 are without arms. One would say that a sort of 
 sacred terror protects this temple against any pro- 
 fane or sacrilegious violation. This is because in 
 
io6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the interior of the edifice lies the much venerated 
 and dreaded Adi-Granth, the Koran of the Sikh 
 guru, Nanak, who received the divine inspiration 
 in the sixteenth century of our era. Priests vv^ith 
 gray and white beards are seated about the Book, 
 which is veiled by muslin worked with gold; 
 young officiating priests drone through their noses 
 anthems in the minor key, and crowding pilgrims 
 pass and repass and prostrate themselves before 
 this Hindu Decalogue on which they fling grains 
 of rice and loose petals. 
 
 Strange and poetic, this abstract, philosophical, 
 symbolical religion which in so striking a manner 
 resembles that of Islam. 
 
 From Amritsar I have gone on to Lahore. What 
 a disillusion, this Lahore! ... Is it because the 
 euphony of the name, its association with Mas- 
 senet's opera, and the romance of departed splen- 
 dor which still clings to it make the imaginative 
 Frenchman delude himself far in advance with 
 chimeras, so that the reality at once appears to 
 him very flat, very banal and quite insignificant? 
 But this Lahore of tin and plaster produced in me 
 as in all who visit it the same impression of dis- 
 appointment and regret. This Rattan-Chands 
 Temple, this Wazir Khan's Mosque, these tombs 
 of Ranjit Singh's and Jehangir, this Golden 
 
TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER 107 
 
 Mosque give the effect of a vulgarized reproduc- 
 tion, a sort of chromo of the magnificent examples 
 of architecture and sculpture I have already seen. 
 With the exception of the fountains of Shalimar, 
 closely recalling those of Versailles and Saint- 
 Cloud, which are surrounded by gardens and rec- 
 tilinear perspectives that one would swear had 
 been laid out by Le Notre — Lahore quite frankly 
 does not deserve the honor of a visit, certainly not 
 of a prolonged stay. I am broken-hearted to have 
 to destroy an illusion which has been dear to many 
 of my readers. 
 
 Through my car windows, I can see one desolate 
 landscape follow another, in this cold, repellent, 
 desert-like India. Here the ground is full of 
 crevasses. There are no more of those beautiful 
 valleys of the Punjab, no more of those clumps 
 of trees beneath the shade of which the shepherd 
 used to lead his flocks at noon. How strongly we 
 feel the keen North wind, that harsh wind which 
 comes from the high plateaus of Asia! . . . In the 
 distance, the first spurs of the massive mountains 
 of Pamir and of Indo-Kooch rise up in sharp 
 silhouettes. 
 
 The next day I awake in a city that is no longer 
 Indian — Peshawar — and which, because of its 
 proximity to Afghanistan, wears an almost Persian 
 
io8 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 air. Everything here is Mussulman. The inhabi- 
 tants, as one sees them in the streets, have their 
 beards reddened with henna; they have shaven 
 skulls, noses like eagle beaks, shifty, blinking eyes. 
 Their turbans, flattened like pancakes, give them 
 the surly air of mountain brigands, in the style of 
 Edmond About. There are very few women, but 
 on the other hand a great many children, some of 
 them perched on buffaloes or donkeys, others be- 
 tween the camels' humps, those grave and peaceful 
 camels which encumber the streets while they 
 ruminate philosophically on the emptiness of all 
 earthly destinies. 
 
 The principal attraction of Peshawar, I will 
 even say the only attraction of this frontier town 
 of 90,000 inhabitants, in which are mingled all the 
 northern races of the peninsula, Afghans, Pathans, 
 Afridis, Baluchis, Kashmirians and Persians, is the 
 excursion to the famous Khyber Pass, that strategic 
 defile through which the Russians might formerly 
 have invaded India. Today, because of the 
 Anglo-Russian political alliance, this eventuality 
 is fortunately no longer to be feared. I say "for- 
 tunately" since because of it I was able to go as 
 far as the advance posts of the Indo-Afghan hinter- 
 land, and therefore, it was thanks to the Triple 
 
TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER 109 
 
 Entente that I was able to set foot, somewhat illic- 
 itly, on forbidden territory. 
 
 In the early morning I am awakened by the 
 Lieutenant-Colonel from Kergariou (with whom 
 I have had the pleasure of traversing this region 
 on the way from Kapurthala) . He is as stiff with 
 cold as I am, after a night passed in shivering in 
 his uncomfortable and icy room. The govern- 
 ment of Peshawar has very graciously given us all 
 the necessary permits, and even authorized us to 
 attach ourselves to a mission sent by the General 
 Staff to carry instructions to the distant outposts 
 of Landi-Kotal. An open automobile carries us 
 rapidly across the town and its suburbs, then along 
 the white, dusty road. Our companions are ami- 
 able English officers, distinctly gentlemen ; I notice 
 that they all carry revolvers in their belts, and 
 that the chauffeur and the two Sepoys who escort 
 us, squatting on the running boards, are armed 
 with rifles and have their belts full of cartridges. 
 Hum! Hum! This has quite an air of war, or in 
 any case of an armed expedition into a rebellious 
 and inhospitable country, infested with Afridi 
 bandits, robbers, cutthroats, torturers, who are 
 only held in check by the fear of the guns of the 
 forts. Moreover, our expedition — the governor 
 has urged this on us — must take place only between 
 
no MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 sunrise and sunset; otherwise the adventure is at 
 our own risk and peril. 
 
 The narrow gorge which we have now entered 
 is austere and grandiose as a landscape of Dante. 
 There is no verdure, no grassy slope, no bush or 
 shrub, nothing but stone and sand. Above our 
 heads the caravan route unrolls in a long network. 
 It is an interminable procession of camels, buf- 
 faloes and mules which, by the thousand, trans- 
 port from Peshawar to Kabjul, or vice versa, the 
 goods that are exchanged between these two great 
 Asiatic markets. One might think it was a Bibli- 
 cal exodus, a flight of the Hebrews after one of 
 those plagues of which the Scripture speaks. A 
 unique spectacle, such as I have seen nowhere, 
 even in China and Mongolia! This narrow rib- 
 bon of beasts of burden, stretching over several 
 miles of roadway, absolutely disconcerts the imag- 
 ination; it remains with me even more as a geo- 
 graphical than as a pictorial vision. 
 
 The gorge continues; in spite of myself it re- 
 minds me of the Pass of the Axe where Flaubert 
 imprisoned his mercenaries alive. We, too (if 
 these bands of robbers were organized, centralized 
 and commanded by a daring emir), we should 
 never be able to escape alive from this pass. The 
 sting of possible danger thrills our amour-propre 
 
TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER iii 
 
 deliciously. But suddenly the ravine broadens 
 out, we leave behind Ali-Mosjid, a little mosque 
 w^hich seems to bar the way. The last Sepoy out- 
 posts salute us. Beyond is th,e beginning of the 
 forbidden territory, the Indo-Afghan hinterland 
 of which I have spoken. Henceforth we have no 
 one to depend upon but ourselves, our little escort 
 and a few miles away the batteries of heavy artil- 
 lery of the English post of Landi-Kotal. What 
 a terrible desert now opens before our eyes! A 
 flat uniformity, yellow and sandy, sprinkled here 
 and there with granite boulders. On the road — 
 can one call this a road! — we no longer pass a 
 single living thing, man or beast. In the distance, 
 a massive mountain range cuts against the indigo 
 of the sky; then white patches that grow clearer; 
 then a collection of tumuli which are nothing else 
 than the first Afghan houses of beaten earth, at the 
 frontier post where India definitely ceases. 
 
 In the afternoon, after the excellent lunch which 
 is offered us by the British officers in their com- 
 fortable block-house, we visit the little village, its 
 markets, its mosques and its tombs. Very strange, 
 these tombs, earthen mounds, hillocks surmounted 
 by staves from which banners float, and they make 
 one realize that Central Asia is only a league 
 away. An examination of the shops reveals 
 
112 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 nothing European; one finds there only goods for 
 barter, articles of immediate utility, no knick- 
 knacks, no vanities. The tourist — let us rather say 
 the traveler — so rarely, so exceptionally ventures 
 into these regions! Before us, as we look down 
 from the citadel, the great valley that leads to 
 Kabul extends indefinitely, flanked by the chains 
 of Pamir and the Indo-Kooch, the foothills of 
 which sink away at our very feet. A few hundred 
 meters from us is the frontier of Afghanistan. We 
 see it w4th our eyes quite clearly, not marked as 
 in Europe or by a painted or emblazoned post, but 
 simply indicated by a cabin of refuge, a sort of 
 sentry-box of flat bricks, commanding the strategic 
 route. All the caravans which we have just en- 
 countered, those innumerable strings of camels, 
 buffaloes, and mules, that tattered Biblical exodus, 
 all have had to defile under the pitiless eye of the 
 khan and his soldiers. The papers are minutely 
 verified and stamped; no fraud is possible as re- 
 gards the identity of the caravaners, who must all 
 prove their nationality as Afghans. The Euro- 
 pean, no matter how profound his knowledge of 
 their language and customs, would never pass the 
 scrutinizing glances of these customs men di primo 
 c art ell 0. 
 
 I question the officers ; I am seized with a some- 
 
THE ROCK AND THE PLAIN OF GVVALIOR 
 
 THE TERRACES AT FUTTEHPORE SIKRI, NEAR AGRA 
 
TOWARDS THE AFGHAN FRONTIER 113 
 
 what childish curiosity to approach these sentries. 
 Can I do it without risk? Major S — smiles, shakes 
 his head and politely advises me not to do any- 
 thing. It does not do to trifle with these rude 
 mountaineers who do not understand pleasantries. 
 They might misinterpret my intention, imagining 
 that I wished to violate their territory; a pistol 
 shot is a matter of a moment. Very well, I shall 
 be wise. And besides, I may well consider myself 
 as highly privileged to have been able to approach 
 so closely the forbidden region. There are not 
 many others who can boast of that. 
 
 Our mission is at an end ; our English guides 
 and we ourselves quickly make our farewells to 
 the little garrison of Landi-Kotal. We must hurry, 
 for the sun has begun to sink towards the horizon; 
 it would not be good to have a breakdown in the 
 midst of the hinterland, or even at the beginning 
 of the Khyber Pass. Let us be ofif, then! Our 
 automobile starts, flies down the slopes, fords the 
 torrents at the risk of stalling the motor. . . . 
 What does it matter? We must be out of this at 
 all costs before night falls. We cross on our return 
 journey the interminable ribbon of caravans en- 
 countered on the way out. Then we reach the be- 
 ginning of the defile. At a sharp turning, great 
 fragments of rock roll over our road and come 
 
114 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 near to upsetting us and pulverizing us. I raise 
 my head and perceive in an open space above us, 
 on a ridge, turbaned and grimacing faces, trying 
 to conceal themselves. At a gesture of the officer 
 w^ho commands us, one of the Sepoys makes a 
 movement as if to put his rifle to his shoulder. 
 The heads have disappeared. It has all happened 
 so quickly that I wonder if, for an instant, I have 
 not been the subject of an hallucination. 
 . God be praised! As the first stars shine out, 
 we have passed the dangerous zone. Henceforth 
 we are in Indian territory, once more the guests, 
 friends and proteges of noble England. 
 
 Just the same, I cannot think of this little day's 
 frolic without telling myself that I almost lived 
 there a page of adventurous romance. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON THE ROCK OF GWALIOR 
 
 An islet lost ... on land — A critical ascent — Gods and genii 
 in high relief — The hundredth tiger — "Refreshments" with 
 wild animals — A Nimrod and a philanthropist — Deserted 
 streets — What the secretary, His Highness's chamberlain, 
 qualifies as a "very big word." 
 
 O you know Sark, the pearl of the 
 Channel Islands? It rises abruptly 
 above the Channel, long and nar- 
 row like the spine of a wild beast 
 ready to spring; not a beach, not a 
 harbor; one lands there ''a la 
 brusque," as the sailors say. 
 
 I thought of the basalt islet, this morning, as I 
 made the ascent of the Rock of Gwalior. It rises 
 out of the endless plain like an island lost in the 
 sea; like Sark, it has the same wild aspect, the 
 same jagged setting where the exiled Hugo con- 
 ceived his desperate struggle between Gilliatt and 
 the octopus. 
 At the foot of the fastness — whither an armored 
 
 "5 
 
ii6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 "side-car," emblazoned with His Highness's arms, 
 came to deposit me — an elephant awaits me, ac- 
 coutred with bells and decked with a scarlet sad- 
 dle-cloth bordered with green. We are off! . . . 
 We are climbing the difficult slope to the rock it- 
 self. This road is so hard, so painful to the pachy- 
 derm's feet, the upward slope is so steep, that they 
 have had to hollow out a sort of series of steps in 
 its inclined plane. Every plunge of the animal 
 makes me pitch in an alarming fashion; I am 
 seized with an appalling fear as we hug this preci- 
 pice over which I feel myself in danger every in- 
 stant of being thrown. And then, if the girth 
 were to burst? . . . Come, let us not think of all 
 these things, let us stiffen ourselves, let us cling 
 tight. Sursum corda! What a fairyland, that 
 expanse of white houses, those palaces, those tem- 
 ples and those parks, those ponds and, further off, 
 that yellow desert, broken by little copses and high 
 grasses — the preserve where the king hunts the 
 tiger — all this seen from aloft, from an altitude 
 that almost gives one vertigo. . . . And what an 
 incomparable situation from the strategic point of 
 view! They tell me that the Mahratta sovereigns 
 knew how to take advantage of it and surrounded 
 it with an enclosure of strong ramparts that close- 
 ly hugged the sides of the island — lost on land! 
 
ON THE ROCK OF GWALIOR 117 
 
 I can understand, therefore, the difficulties of the 
 English in conquering this stronghold which in 
 olden times was considered impregnable. Many 
 are the things to be seen from this platform: the 
 ancient zenana, decorated in the Mussulman fash- 
 ion with arabesques and with little lozenges in 
 blue porcelain of a most graceful effect; the prison 
 of the captives, barely lighted with a tiny window, 
 which was peopled by the mere royal caprice. 
 Further away is the Bhao, a heavy, thickset tem- 
 ple, the general conception of which somewhat 
 recalls the Khmer monuments and about which 
 run allegorical bas-reliefs. Then a well, a 
 cemetery. . . . 
 
 But the veritable marvel is the descent on the 
 other side of the rock. It is a sloping descent, the 
 length of the monolithic block, where the Jainist 
 devotion of this people has hollowed and sculp- 
 tured gigantic high-reliefs which one sees as one 
 passes by, under the hanging bindweeds. An orgy 
 of sculpture! There are large figures and small, 
 middle-sized, fat, thin, upright, seated, recumbent, 
 kneeling and especially crouching — of these gods 
 and prophets with their great almond-shaped eyes, 
 whose mouths keep ever at the line of the lips a 
 scoffing, evil expression. And the goddesses! I 
 see here and there a swarm, a profusion, a super- 
 
ii8 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 abundance, all slim and large-hipped, with the 
 great toe lifted up, guarding in their attitude and 
 their gestures a little of that gloomy passivity 
 which made them, even in the Brahmanic 
 Olympus, inferiors and not equals. Then, those 
 colossal nudes: the Tirthankaras, Adinath and 
 Parvasnath, two of the twenty-four precursors and 
 founders of the Jain schism. And others of the 
 chiefs, mutilated but still menacing and fierce. . . . 
 This descent, on the back of an elephant, 
 through this thicket of divinities, demoniac, ter- 
 rible, sneering — it is India, all India, concrete and 
 synthesized ! 
 
 At the foot of the fortress, Lashkar, the coquet- 
 tish little modern town with its shining, immac- 
 ulate terraces, lives like an indolent, pampered 
 parasite at the expense of the prince, who is one of 
 the most hospitable alive. 
 
 ''He is also a mighty hunter before the Lord," 
 remarked one of his chamberlains who accom- 
 panied me and took me to visit the palace. "You 
 know. Monsieur, that His Highness has just ex- 
 ceeded his hundredth tiger! I might add that he 
 is a devoted naturalist. You see these glass cases?" 
 
ON THE ROCK OF GfVALIOR 119 
 
 Indeed, I make my homage to the taste and the 
 spirit of classification which have presided over 
 the installation of this museum. Everything is 
 labeled in the European fashion; there are speci- 
 mens, in these collections, which our museums 
 would have good reason to envy. The Mahara- 
 jah's predilection for animals has caused him to 
 divide off, along the edge of the harem, two great 
 spaces planted with shrubs and trees, surrounded 
 by high walls and reserved, one for lions, the other 
 for tigers. The magnificent animals move there 
 at their ease, leaping and snorting at liberty in a 
 surrounding space of ten or twelve acres. A kiosk 
 has been set on top of the wall at each corner, to 
 enable the guests of His Highness to take tea 
 while watching the animals feed — a truly Nero- 
 nian spectacle! Swarms of eagles, vultures and 
 crows soar and flutter above the arenas, watching 
 the gazelle or the live hare which the great cats 
 are already fascinating with their phosphorescent 
 eyes. On the ridge of the walls the peacocks 
 smooth with their beaks their sumptuous, unreal 
 feathers, indifferent to the approaching carnage. 
 There is the very note of Asia. 
 
 And all about, the parks. . . . Parks combed by 
 an army of expert gardeners, parks irrigated by 
 canals, so vast that, in order to cross them, even 
 
I20 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 to take care of them, the king has built a little 
 railway through them, which also connects the 
 palace and the station. Everywhere an unbridled 
 luxury of domesticity. Everywhere, too, I hasten 
 to add, a generous royal care to embellish the cap- 
 ital and succor the poor. He is a philanthropist, 
 this prince; I can see it in the way in which he has 
 organized the municipal and sanitary services of 
 his city. I think I am dreaming as I observe the 
 cleanliness of this great street of Sarafa which 
 leads to the square of the same name. There are 
 several striking new buildings there, in a gay, 
 Oriental style, resembling those of Bombay: the 
 bazaar, the European theater, the printing-house, 
 the Victoria Memorial covered market, the treas- 
 ury, the post office. Still, it all rings out of tune 
 in this distinctly Asiatic scene, in this dust where 
 the dogs frolic helter-skelter as they once did in 
 Constantinople, on this road where the native 
 ikkas and other uncouth vehicles roll by. 
 
 There is little life in the streets. I am struck 
 by this and I cannot resist asking an explanation 
 from His Highness's special secretary who re- 
 ceives us in the prince's absence; the latter is un- 
 able to return until tomorrow, in time for the 
 "purdah-party" arranged by the Maharanee. We 
 are in the great Hall of Welcome in the old palace 
 
ON THE ROCK OF GWALIOR 121 
 
 (that of the guests is called the "Meeting"). The 
 courtier approaches me and, lowering his voice, 
 visibly embarrassed by my question, murmurs: 
 
 "Yes, it is true. You must have been surprised 
 at the lack of movement in our town. . . . Gwalior 
 is rather dead just now. ... It is because — how 
 shall I put it? — ^we have been having lately some 
 little difficulties with health. . . ." 
 
 "An epidemic, no doubt?" 
 
 "Ohl good heavens, that is a very big 
 word. . . ." 
 
 "Still. . . ." 
 
 "There has been a panic among our towns- 
 people; they have gone out to the suburbs, to the 
 country. As a result we have scarcely more than 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants. Ah! it is not 
 as it was in 1902. Then we had twenty thousand 
 deaths. This time there are only a few thousand 
 
 cases." 
 
 "The plague, is it?" 
 
 "Yes, but don't be uneasy — we have the am- 
 pullas. You know, this new serum? . . ." 
 Charming! 
 There is nothing to do but go and have our tea. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 
 
 An Englishman who knows how to see — A few words on the 
 castes — Shah Jahan, the Great Mogul — A "dream of 
 marble" — Muntaz-i-Mahal, the Chosen of the Palace — 
 The most beautiful mausoleum in the universe — A human 
 game of checkers — Sympathetic Islam. 
 
 ILL you believe it? I have left 
 Gwalior under an excellent impres- 
 sion, in spite of the little sword of 
 Damocles of the plague and the 
 serum ampullas. My greatest de- 
 sire is to return and even to have a 
 long stay there. Just now, the Punjab Mail is 
 carrying me with all the speed of a great, privi- 
 leged express train toward the North, or, more 
 exactly, toward Agra and Delhi, the two ancient 
 Mongol capitals with their walls of marble, en- 
 crusted with precious stones. 
 
 In the train I have made the acquaintance of 
 an Englishman, a certain friendly Mr. James 
 Mayor who has a wonderful knowledge of India 
 
 122 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 123 
 
 and gives me many savory details of its inhabi- 
 tants. Thus I learn from him that a good Hindu 
 should not die in a bed but on the ground, even on 
 the soil, upon which he ought to breathe out his 
 last breath; the rich, once they are dead and 
 stretched out on the ground, have drops of the 
 water of Hurdwar sprinkled in their mouths. As 
 for the famous suttees, the funeral pyres of widows, 
 they are no longer seen. Eight years ago, near 
 Calcutta, a widow claimed the honor of being 
 burned alive with the corj)se of her husband. Be- 
 fore mounting the funeral pile, in order to harden 
 herself, she imitated Mucius Scevola and burned 
 off her right hand in the light of a lamp. The 
 Court of Bengal condemned those who took part 
 and their accomplices to seven years in prison. 
 Since then, no similar instances have reached the 
 knowledge of the authorities. 
 
 And the Tchemmas? Mr. Mayor tells me a 
 very curious anecdote about those pariahs who re- 
 pair boots, or serve as ditch-diggers, or empty the 
 dirty water in hotels, under the name of Bhisties 
 or Metters. One day two European sportsmen 
 had been drowned in a pond while shooting ducks. 
 A Sepoy passed, saw them and summoned two 
 natives to go and fish them out again. The latter, 
 who belonged to the modest but honorable caste 
 
124 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 of the Vaisyas, refused with indignation, alleging 
 that a task so unclean could be undertaken only by 
 Tchemmas. They were obliged to go two miles 
 away to get villagers of a still more humble caste 
 than that of the Vaisyas. But they were not the 
 desired Tchemmas, and it was only at the point 
 of the rifle that these villagers undertook the task. 
 
 I could spend hours listening to this English- 
 man, who knows how to observe at the same time 
 that he is attending to his business. Did you ever 
 chance to run across certain people with the po- 
 tentialities of talent, even of genius, in art, science, 
 pure thought? Aptitudes in germination stifled 
 by the prosaic cares of the material life, which 
 thus deprive humanity of much intellectual 
 wealth? They pass and only graze their true 
 destiny. 
 
 This Mr. Mayor, whom I shall probably never 
 see again, is one of these, perhaps. Otherwise he 
 would have a whole book to write on India (and 
 the English). . . . Never mind. This superficial 
 conversation on the train with an affable stranger, 
 who disappears at a junction station without giv- 
 ing me his card or his address in India or else- 
 where, suddenly illumines for me, as with a flash 
 of light, the edges of the abyss which separates 
 the European from the Hindu : that of the castes. 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 125 
 
 An impassable gulf which would suffice to pre- 
 vent all intercourse between two natives, unknown 
 to one another, and whom the accident of a journey 
 had brought together on the opposite benches of 
 the same second or third class compartment! For 
 example, no contact would be possible between 
 a Brahman and a Vaisya. At the mere sight of 
 the sacred band of the Brahmans, worn like a scarf 
 by no matter what ragamuffin, the latter would 
 immediately and instinctively take himself of¥ with 
 a sort of religious terror. Ah! these implacable 
 castes, the origin of which is lost in the mist of 
 ages; they form, indeed, the most impassable bar- 
 rier against the spread of Occidental civilization. 
 
 The sacred books of antiquity all agree in stat- 
 ing that this never-to-be-altered classification ema- 
 nated from Brahma himself, who drew the Brah- 
 mans from his head (or, according to another 
 version, from his mouth), the Kchatryas from his 
 arms, the Vaisyas from his stomach, and the 
 Soudras from his feet. And how many other de- 
 grees there are all along the length of this ladder! 
 . . . That coolie who is carrying a load on his 
 head would never carry it on his shoulders; he 
 who sells oil cannot sell grain; a cook would never 
 condescend to pluck his chicken; the butler of an 
 orthodox household would never touch a jar of 
 
126 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 water. Why? The explanation (I should say 
 the explanations) of these phenomena would re- 
 quire volumes, without counting the commen- 
 taries. Short of undertaking a detailed mono- 
 graph on these social distinctions — which would 
 be beyond the scope of this book that I have dedi- 
 cated especially to the mysteries of India — would 
 it not be better to admit frankly and simply that 
 there are persons born to be shoemakers, tailors, 
 or barbers, and others to be potters, goldsmiths or 
 fishermen, finally others to carry the parasol of 
 the nawab or to goad the rajah's elephant? — im- 
 posed vocations to which they must all submit, 
 willy-nilly, but in which they believe, which they 
 practise and from which they never escape under 
 pain of losing caste and falling into the impure 
 mob of the pariahs, the Poulias and other outcasts. 
 Nor must it be imagined that this punishment is 
 reserved for the lower classes. No less than the 
 inferior Soudras, the superior Vaisyas and Kcha- 
 tryas, even the Brahmans can be subject to this 
 supreme catastrophe. 
 
 This explains so many dreary or despairing 
 marriages between young people of the same rank 
 who, under pain of .losing caste, are forbidden by 
 the terrible Law of Manu to form an alliance with 
 any other caste. The degradation attached to any 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 127 
 
 such infraction — that is to say, the loss of caste, 
 would be equally incurred in other cases, such as 
 touching a pariah, the forgetfulness of certain re- 
 ligious practices, the use of forbidden foods. 
 Against this force of inertia, endured with so much 
 passivity or fanaticism, all the Catholic and 
 Protestant evangelical attempts have beaten fruit- 
 lessly, without any hope of success. Buddhism 
 itself, the great leveler of social conditions, has 
 been unavailing and almost powerless before the 
 omnipotence of the Brahmans and the blind obsti- 
 nacy of their followers — I was about to say their 
 victims. 
 
 The superior caste of the Brahmans is itself 
 infinitely subdivided. The day on which it ceases 
 to exist will mark the end of all the others, which 
 exist only as its satellites. Although I shall have 
 occasion to speak in several chapters of this book 
 about the officiating or priestly Brahmans, it seems 
 worth while to slip in a few brief observations 
 concerning the society of the Brahmans, from 
 which these excessively influential priests are 
 recruited. 
 
 In the first place, the following exterior and 
 distinctive signs, reveal them to the veneration of 
 the faithful: the symbolic mark on the forehead, 
 the shaven head with the little tuft at the top (like 
 
128 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the Mussulman), the uncovered throat, allowing 
 the crossed cord of hemp or wool to be seen.. Those 
 among them who do not take the vows of their 
 religion are allowed to wear a long robe and a 
 turban; their wives also wear the large veil and 
 a narrow, sleeveless garment which covers the 
 upper part of their bodies. The most learned 
 among them are astronomers or astrologers. 
 Others, the Pandidapapans, are the secretaries of 
 princes or the cashiers of banks; still others, the 
 Tatiodipapans, consecrated to Siva, live on ofifer- 
 ings in exchange for prayers; finally others, the 
 real ecclesiastics, are in charge of the services in 
 the Vishnu pagodas. Among these last, who are 
 called Papan-Vaishenavans, we may distinguish 
 the Vanasprastras, who must be at least forty years 
 of age, and the Sanyashis or hermits, who can 
 count twenty-two full years of solitude and con- 
 templation. 
 
 The second superior caste, that of the Kchatryas, 
 seems to have been, from all time, dedicated to the 
 profession of arms. That is to say, it includes in 
 its ranks potentates and warriors, from the noblest 
 and most virile blood in India, whether the for- 
 tune of their birth has made them Hindu mahara- 
 jahs, or their conversion to the Mohammedan 
 faith has made them nawabs. Look at their 
 
AGRA — THE SULTANAS' PISCINA 
 
 MADRAS — AN INSURGENT HINDU BEING TAKEN TO PRISON 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 129 
 
 women; they are all, irrespective of their religious 
 faith (since we are speaking here of social classes), 
 dressed in the richest and most varicolored gar- 
 ments, living in sumptuous surroundings, in an 
 unheard-of luxury as regards dress, servants, 
 houses, camels and elephants. To this caste, to 
 speak geographically and ethnographically, be- 
 long the Mahrattas, the Rajputs, the Sikhs and 
 also the Nairs of Malabar, who still practise the 
 communization of women. 
 
 Let us pass to the Vaisyas, the third category in 
 the religious order. This is also a rich caste which 
 is composed of agriculturists, cattle breeders, gar- 
 deners, wholesale merchants, in general well clad 
 and with good incomes, who are curiously divided 
 into tribes of the right and the left hand and who, 
 with the exception of the tribe of the Banians, are 
 permitted to use meat. And finally, let us say a 
 word about the Soudras, the fourth and last of 
 the superior castes. These include the following 
 trades: artisans, workmen, servants, constrained 
 under pain of utter disgrace to follow the paternal 
 profession. Whoever is born a blacksmith cannot 
 die a laundryman, and so forth. Especially note- 
 worthy is the case of the potters or Cossevers, all 
 of them votaries of Siva Tandava. They are not 
 included in the classifications of the right-hand 
 
130 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 and the left-hand tribes, a privilege that has fallen 
 to them from the consideration in which the In- 
 dians hold the manufacture, repairing, preserva- 
 tion and purity of vases and jars, and also the role 
 of bandaging and caring for wounds which has 
 devolved upon them. Certain of these potters who 
 are charged with the manufacture of sacred uten- 
 sils have become rajahs. Nevertheless, there is 
 nothing in the professional apparatus of these men 
 which sharply differentiates it from other work: 
 a simple horizontal wheel, turning on a pivot 
 which enables them to shape the clay. The potters' 
 wives all wear a large waist-cloth of dotted linen, 
 which leaves one breast and a portion of the ab- 
 domen uncovered. The incredible lightness of 
 the vases manufactured by their husbands allows 
 them to carry as many as seven or eight on their 
 heads. 
 
 Succeeding the Soudras come the inferior, 
 humbler and — let us admit it — somewhat despised 
 castes, the mixed products of illegitimate mar- 
 riages between different ranks of society, and bene- 
 fitting in a fashion from a tacit and legal amnesty. 
 After these, in a vile and obscure medley, come the 
 Parayans or pariahs of the North and the Poulias 
 of the South, who are synonymous with shame and 
 infamy. However much it may affront our pride 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 131 
 
 as Europeans, we, in the eyes of Hindus of good 
 caste, are included among those who are disin- 
 herited by birth. I will add, by way of some con- 
 solation, that the same is true of Mussulmen, like 
 ourselves impure eaters of cows. The pariahs, 
 to give them their generic name, practise the low- 
 est and most despised of trades. They skin animals 
 that have died of sickness, tan the skin and feed on 
 their flesh. All pure castes are forbidden to use 
 anything that has even been touched by them, such 
 as wells from which they have drawn water. A 
 pariah who merely dared to sit down on the mar- 
 gin of an ordinary well would inevitably be stoned. 
 Born under the stigma of an indelible opprobrium, 
 these unfortunates camp outside of the common 
 walls; in the fields they are given the most arid 
 spots and the ones that are the furthest removed 
 from any inhabited center. It is therefore not 
 astonishing that they have become what such a 
 law of proscription would naturally make them, 
 coarse, fierce creatures, dirty and shameless. The 
 same is true of the Poulias of the Malabar coast, 
 slaves of the quasi-Kchatrya Nairs, who live in 
 an even more wretched state of abject misery, rele- 
 gated to the unwholesome rice-plantations, lodged 
 pell-mell in insanitary huts, fallen so low that they 
 have not the right to look a Hindu of an inferior 
 
132 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 caste in the face, so that some of them, wandering 
 in the mountains or perched on trees, are reduced, 
 when they are hungry, to howling dismally and 
 striking their stomachs. 
 
 Whatever may be said by our theosophists of 
 London and Paris, who are in love with esoteric 
 Brahmanism and Vedantism, such religious and 
 social excesses condemn a great people, meant for 
 a noble and glorious destiny, to eternal servitude. 
 
 Agra I The marble glory of Agra! 
 
 A white frame, of a polar whiteness that fatigues 
 the retina, through which move in a confused mass 
 palanquins, carts, dervishes with beards reddened 
 with henna or dyed a paradoxical vermilion, mad- 
 men with uneasy eyes, groaning cripples, stage- 
 players and mountebanks with up-curled Turkish 
 slippers — like those of the Greek evzones at the 
 Tournoyante Fustanelle — fakirs holding on a leash 
 a couple of fighting rams with gilded horns. Few 
 or no women. How typical this all is of northern 
 India I 
 
 I visit the Fort at once. People have said to me : 
 "You will be astonished!" I am more than that; 
 I am overwhelmed, yes, positively overwhelmed 
 with admiration and emotion. Imagine a dream 
 mosque of purest white marble, with exquisitely 
 proportioned, symmetrical bell-towers, with vast 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 133 
 
 paved courtyards, with aerial colonnades that sup- 
 port an open-work roof, and you will perhaps have 
 some idea of what my eyes are contemplating at 
 this moment. There in this Diwan-i-Am, Shah 
 Jahan, the Great Mogul, dispensed justice on his 
 black throne; here in this Naginah Musjid, re- 
 served for the ladies of the court, this same Shah 
 Jahan was held as a prisoner of state by his own 
 son, Aurengzed ; further on, in that little octagonal 
 pavilion which has no name and which looks out 
 over the clayey waters of the Djumna, Shah Jahan 
 — still he, always he — died with his nearly sight- 
 less eyes fastened upon the Taj-Mahal, which he 
 had built for the glory of his well-loved wife, 
 Arjmand Banu, surnamed Muntaz-i-Mahal, the 
 Chosen One of the Palace. 
 
 The next day, in memory of the sublime lover, 
 I make a pilgrimage to this royal mausoleum 
 which Sir Edwin Arnold has called "the marvel 
 of Agra, the crown of the world, the tomb with- 
 out a peer." Others have called it "the Dream of 
 Marble." ... It is a large building of white 
 marble, veined with pearl gray and flanked by 
 four minarets, rising from a platform and ap- 
 proached by a straight avenue bordered with low 
 cypresses and made beautiful with fountain-basins, 
 in the French style. In fact, we can recognize here 
 
134 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the signature of one of Le Notre's pupils, one of 
 our countrymen named Austin de Bordeaux, 
 whom Shah Jahan engaged in 1630 as architect in 
 chief. At his order and at great expense they 
 brought the white marble from Rajputana, the 
 yellow marble from the coasts of Nerbuddah, the 
 black marble from Chaorkoh, crystal from China, 
 jasper from the Punjab, cornelian from Bagdad, 
 turquoise from Thibet, agate from Yunnan, lapis- 
 lazuli and sapphires from Ceylon, coral from 
 Arabia, diamonds from Punnah (Bundelkund) — 
 many of these precious stones were torn from their 
 settings at the taking of Agra by the British troops 
 — onyx from Persia and finally amethysts from the 
 Urals. More than 20,000 workmen toiled unin- 
 terruptedly for seventeen years at this tomb of 
 unearthly beauty, the apotheosis of the love of the 
 most munificent of husbands. That was four cen- 
 turies ago. . . . And today, tomorrow, forever 
 human eyes will fill with tears at the sight of the 
 two tombs, side by side, in which these perfect 
 lovers sleep their last sleep. 
 
 Still other mausoleums add to the glory of Agra, 
 without, however, having cost those who built 
 them what the Taj cost — 33 millions! For ex- 
 ample, there is that of Prince Etmad-Dowlah, on 
 the hither side of the Djumna, a large monument 
 
TJVO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 135 
 
 with four towers of white marble, also like lace- 
 work, which are adorned with rich incrustations 
 and delicate sculptures; and there is that of Akbar 
 the Mogul at Sikandra, of an extraordinary maj- 
 esty of line and proportion. A few miles further 
 on, by automobile, I reach the Mussulman Pom- 
 peii : Futtehpore Sikri. I give it the name Mus- 
 sulman Pompeii intentionally, because its found- 
 ing by Akbar was the result of a desire expressed 
 by his favorite. She complained at Agra of head- 
 aches and indispositions; so the Emperor, in order 
 to please her, presently decided to move with his 
 court and take up his residence at Futtehpore 
 Sikri. A whole forest of stone rises up there, in- 
 tact, deserted, abandoned, for this caprice of the 
 sultana lasted only ten years. Everything has re- 
 mained, in order, immutably calm and beautiful. 
 One might call it a city asleep. . . . 
 
 How many women, even those whom the Roy- 
 Soleil loved, have been the object of a worship so 
 gallant? Perhaps only Scheherezade, whom Dr. 
 J. C. Mardrus has resuscitated for us in his incom- 
 parable translation of the Thousand and One 
 Nights, 
 
 This Mongolian epopee of the Bahadur-Shahs, 
 of the Jahangirs, I am evoking at this moment at 
 Delhi — at Delhi which today has become the capi- 
 
136 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 tal of the Empire, the victorious rival of Calcutta. 
 
 Through the gate of Lahore, following the cren- 
 elated walls — this northern India is certainly 
 made up of citadels — I enter the Fort. The same 
 magnificence as at Agra, the same abundance of 
 decorated, filigreed, carefully carved buildings. 
 Here, too, Austin de Bordeaux left his stamp, par- 
 ticularly on that flagged pavement on the Square 
 of the Emperor, which represents flowers and ani- 
 mals on a black background. Elsewhere there are 
 the baths of the courtesans ; further off is the Moti- 
 Musjid, or pearl of the mosques, ideally white. 
 Finally, the Diwan-i-Khas draws my delighted 
 glance. Was it not there that Akbar, seated on 
 the "Throne of the Peacocks" (at present in the 
 possession of the Shah of Persia), pronounced that 
 famous sentence which his successors had inlaid 
 along the cornices: ''// there is a heaven upon 
 earth, it is here. It is here. Here alone/' 
 
 Another royal fantasy. In one of these courts, 
 the name of which I have forgotten, a great square 
 of black and white flagstones served as a checker- 
 board for the same emperor. Black-skinned or 
 white-skinned slaves, real knights, the Indian 
 equivalent for bishops, towers, a sultana and a 
 vassal prince served as living chessmen for the 
 august player who, from an elevated seat, directed 
 
TWO MONGOLIAN CAPITALS 137 
 
 the game with his ivory scepter against his partner 
 Dewan, seated on the other side. The whole as- 
 tonished court watched this unusual contest and 
 applauded the fortunate moves of the Grand 
 Mogul. 
 
 There are so many, many things to see in this 
 Delhi, justly called the Rome of Asia, that if the 
 traveler wishes to see the rest of India he is 
 obliged to limit somewhat the scope of his investi- 
 gations. To tell the truth, at the time of my first 
 visit I had not sufficiently seen Delhi and its envi- 
 rons ; I had to complete my visit during the course 
 of my second trip to India. So I pushed on to the 
 ruins of Katub-Minar, where rises a tower of pink 
 granite two hundred and forty-one feet high and 
 with three hundred and seventy-nine steps, built 
 in the twelfth century of our era to commemorate 
 Mussulman victories. Very stirring, also, is that 
 tomb of the poet Emir-Khusram, whose glory ap- 
 proaches that of Firdousil And so many others, 
 which I can still see with my mind's eye. ... A 
 tedious enumeration! These things have to be 
 seen. Description can give only an imperfect idea 
 of them, because it lacks that sun, th^t color, that 
 atmosphere which are its triumphant aureole. 
 This is the case, for example, with the Djumna- 
 Musjid, the most beautiful mosque in the world 
 
138 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 (just as the Taj of Agra is incontestably the great- 
 est mausoleum in the universe). It was built in 
 1644 by Shah Jahan; five thousand workmen took 
 part in the construction of its three monumental 
 stairways of forty steps each, its court, in which 
 10,000 of the faithful can gather about the foun- 
 tain of ablutions, its gateways, its domes, and its 
 minarets, from which the muezzin calls out his 
 summons at the hours of prayer. A revel of 
 marble, a debauch of porphyry and onyx I And 
 all this to shelter a few precious relics — old Ko- 
 rans of the twelfth century, slippers of the 
 Prophet, filled with jasmine, carrying the imprint 
 of his feet, one hair from his mustache. . . . This 
 veneration does not make me smile. I am too 
 infinitely respectful of religions and faiths of 
 which the sincerity and piety are above question. 
 The Mohammedan confession in India is so 
 decked with splendor that one forgets its puerili- 
 ties and extravagances and can feel for it only a 
 charmed sympathy. 
 
 Is this change of attitude due to the enthusiasm 
 of art that seizes you irresistibly in these two fairy- 
 like capitals, or to the intrinsic virtue of Islam? 
 
 Montaigne would have said: "How can I 
 know?" 
 
 And Rabelais: "Perhaps!" 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOLY MUTTRA 
 
 In the heart of an eclogue — Life and adventures of an Aiyan 
 Melibee — The eighth avatar of Vishnu — ^A gay god — 
 The paradise of beasts — The meeting with a five-footed 
 cow — Are these reptiles? — The vegetarian invocation to 
 Krishna. 
 
 ETWEEN Agra and Delhi, on one 
 of the banks of the Djumna, far 
 from the profane glance of the im- 
 pure meleks (as they call such 
 sacrilegious "eaters of cattle" as 
 ourselves) rise the terraces of the 
 pretty and picturesque little city of Muttra. By 
 some miracle it has escaped the attention of the 
 organizers of "Tours in India." The Cook par- 
 ties never or rarely include it in their itinerary. 
 No hotel, no restaurant, no bar, not even postal 
 cards! A unique state of things v^^hich enchants 
 me. For all this, we must not be egoists and — 
 since a high official in Delhi advised me secretly 
 to make a pilgrimage to this holy city dedicated 
 
 139 
 
140 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 to the memory of Krishna the Seducer — let us 
 share with our readers the benefit of this good 
 fortune. So much the better if those of them who 
 are going to travel in India some day are enabled 
 to enjoy, as I did, one of the most delicious im- 
 pressions of freshness in this country, so grand but 
 usually so somber and tormented. 
 
 Nothing, in spite of all, is easier than to get to 
 Muttra, a station which, I repeat, is on the line 
 that connects the two ancient Mongol capitals. It 
 is a good thing to provide ourselves in advance 
 with a comfortable and substantial lunch, unless 
 we wish to brave the cruel station kitchen. In a 
 quarter of an hour, a vehicle of sorts will go down 
 the slope which leads to the Djumna and deposit 
 you in the very center of the city. This city, if 
 I may be pardoned for the comparison, is the 
 Paray-le-Monial of India, Benares remaining al- 
 ways and in spite of everything the Lourdes. 
 There are the same crowds of pilgrims, the same 
 sellers of votive offerings and medals, the same 
 veneration and the same conviction. Only the 
 miracles are lacking. But on the other hand, what 
 marvelous, what original things to be observed and 
 how utterly delightful to discover them! 
 
 ... It was a great many hundred years ago. 
 Vishnu, the preserving principle of the Trimourti, 
 
HOLY MUTTRA 141 
 
 decided to descend once more from the heaven of 
 the Gopis to the earth. It was his eighth avatar. 
 Thus says the Paramdtman: 
 
 "He made himself the prince's shepherd, did Krishna, 
 To reveal the divine nature to the tyrant king, 
 Kamga. . . ." 
 
 It was indeed a bucolic transformation, poetic 
 and gallant, even the very least bit licentious — ^very 
 "eighteenth century" and Watteauesque — and 
 which, I imagine, must have been a great rest to 
 Vishnu, exhausted and worn out by his seven pre- 
 ceding avatars. 
 
 You may judge for yourself: i, the fish Matsya, 
 to save mankind from the deluge; 2, the tortoise 
 Kurma, to serve as a solid base for Mount Merou ; 
 3, the wild boar, Varaha, to make the earth rise 
 out of his back; 4, half -man, half-lion, to slay the 
 demon Hiranyaka^ipou; 5, the dwarf Vaman, to 
 conquer the world from the giant Bali; 6, the 
 Brahman Paragou-Rama, to exterminate the 
 Kchatryas, the oppressors; 7, Prince Rama- 
 Tchandra, to overthrow Ravana, king of the 
 Rakchazas. . . . All very elusive and very ter- 
 rible tasks, and, in any case, most fatiguing. 
 
 Now the idyll opens, and the god gives himself 
 up to it with all his heart. After having crushed 
 the wicked serpent Kali, he goes all over the coun- 
 
142 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 tryside with his flocks, pulls their garments off 
 the bathing girls, talks gallantry to the shepherd- 
 esses, plays the flute for them, profits by their 
 inattention to milk their cows under their noses, 
 and finally seduces them all, or nearly all — 16,000, 
 according to the sacred books. Then this flighty 
 lover, this Hindu Lovelace, would have begun his 
 sentimental escapades all over again, if Brahma 
 and Siva had not energetically restored order. Did 
 not one of his last pranks — if I may be pardoned 
 the irreverence of the word — bring him a severe 
 reproof from his peers? Listen to this verse from 
 the Purdnas, in which Krishna deserts nothing 
 more nor less than a goddess, his wife — I should 
 say one of his wives, the devi Radha, to fly to the 
 arms of a simple nymph, the delightful Viraja! 
 This is too muchl . . . And the incorrigible fel- 
 low is summarily recalled to propriety and to heav- 
 en. Vishnu's only punishment will be having to 
 repair, a few centuries later, the too human follies 
 of that bad fellow, his representative, at the time 
 when he is stigmatizing Buddhism the liberator. 
 Buddhism the abolisher of castes, Buddhism the 
 rival which, in its turn, is to conquer the world. 
 
 "From a watcher of flocks, he made himself a Buddhist 
 monk, 
 In order to preach false doctrines to the impious. . . ." 
 
HOLY MUTTRA 143 
 
 Truly, now, do you not find it amusing, the 
 earthly adventure of this gay god, who is pugna- 
 cious, something of a practical joker and very 
 much of a rake? It is Pan, breathing in his flute, 
 or Apollo singing. . . . Heu! Woe to you, pass- 
 ing beauties, who listen to him. 
 
 Muttra celebrates all this, Muttra that knew 
 the joyous bathing parties of the Aryan Melibee 
 and the prolonged siestas under the tender leaves 
 of the moussendes and the flowering ixoras, and the 
 mad pursuits of the brown-skinned dryads, 
 crowned with jasmines, cinnamon flowers and 
 white roses, the moonlight talks when the divine 
 shepherd with the indigo skin — as the old minia- 
 tures show him — held under the charm of his per- 
 suasive tongue the village girls and the great white 
 zebus kneeling around him. A fresh oasis in 
 which the imagination rests and relaxes after the 
 fevers and the ghostly oppressions of Ellora, that 
 somber crypt with its nightmare pandemonium. I 
 shall think of it later, this Eden-like Muttra, when 
 I explore the putrid ghats of Benares and the sin- 
 ister caverns of Madura. For me Muttra will 
 always exhale the gentle and intoxicating perfume 
 of an eclogue: 
 
 "... sub tegmine fagi.** 
 
144 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 And what a touching intimacy — others might 
 say promiscuity — of beasts with menl . . . Be- 
 cause Krishna petted them, these dumb and hum- 
 bler brothers, the people revere them today. In 
 the market-place, little prying foxes and white- 
 headed vultures share fraternally the scraps of 
 food that lie about under the paternal and debonair 
 eyes of the gray buffaloes. Up above, on the roofs 
 of the houses, swarms of monkeys (the city num- 
 bers more than 10,000 of them) gravely hunt for 
 fleas. In a few moments they will come gambol- 
 ing down from the cornices to collect their scraps 
 from the human feasts. I shall touch them, I 
 shall almost caress them — almost — for one would 
 think they suspected that I am not one of their 
 own people, I who in the Occident shut up their 
 kindred in barred prisons! . . . But how amusing 
 they are to watch, these four-handed beasts, so 
 "natural" in their grimaces, their suppleness, their 
 malice, and also in- the maternal rocking of their 
 little ones. 
 
 Noon. I pass a procession in rags and tatters. 
 A strolling showman is leading about the miracle 
 of his five-footed calf ("a teratological foot that 
 protrudes from its back"). Loungers accompany 
 him. Not gamins but full-grown men, old men, a 
 few women, their amber-colored arms holding 
 
DELHI — THE DIWANIKHAS OF THE GREAT MOGULS 
 
 DELHI — THE FIRST IMPERIAL ENCLOSURE AND THE GATE OF LAHORE 
 
MUTTRA BATHING ON THE BANKS OF THE DJUVINA 
 
 MUTTRA — THE MARKET-PLACE 
 
HOLY MUTTRA 145 
 
 copper jars on their heads over their twisted black 
 hair. This procession makes its way towards the 
 Djumna, where the calf is going to drink. Very 
 well, let us follow it, since at Muttra the temples 
 arc, So to speak, "on strjke" and it is the river 
 which sanctifies and listens to prayers. We go 
 down obscure little streets, little nameless streets 
 which enchant me ; then the quay. Laughing girls, 
 wrapped in their dripping saris, are returning 
 from their ablutions, a pomegranate flower, red 
 as a wound, in the corner of their lips. Let us 
 make haste! Suppose they are the last! . . . 
 
 But now, close to the last steps which are lapped 
 by the sacred waters, there rises a confused com- 
 motion: bubbles of air rise and break on the sur- 
 face, the stir increases, then there appear thin 
 necks, surmounted by the heads of reptiles. . . . 
 Instinctively I recoil. The fear of the cobra is 
 before all else the beginning of wisdom. But I 
 quickly discover my mistake : my pseudo-serpents 
 are only inoffensive, gluttonous freshwater turtles. 
 There are hundreds, thousands, myriads of them, 
 despite the voracity of the crocodiles and the 
 gavials. The most audacious now climb up on to 
 the flags, between my feet, between the four normal 
 feet of the miraculous calf. Nothing could sur- 
 prise that calf ; it drinks its water ingenuously, in 
 
146 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 little draughts, without hurrying, like a calf who 
 knows what is due him for his quasi-divine de- 
 formity; and the liquid falling from his disgust- 
 ing lips is at once collected by ten trembling hands, 
 armed with goblets. I turn with a slight repulsion 
 from these drinkers, these mad hierophants. 
 
 And then this spontaneous generation of tor- 
 toises attracts and amazes me so ! 
 
 Suddenly, at my side, a soft singing begins, a 
 nasal humming through a closed mouth. The 
 bubbling begins again, a new crop of flat heads 
 rise from the yellow water: stretched necks, tooth- 
 less mouths, opening to receive before they fall 
 the daily doles of boiled rice flung to them by the 
 priests, with the august gesture of sowers of grain. 
 
 ik *k jlt ijt ^ ^ 
 
 Kind and simple folk, observing to the letter 
 the charitable doctrine of the Baghavadgita, O 
 people of Muttra, who protect and give lodging to 
 your monkeys, who feed your foxes, your vultures 
 and your tortoises, deign to receive here the praise 
 of an infamous melek! 
 
 And thou, Krishna, may thy Virgilian example 
 disgust me forever with the sacrilegious beefsteak I 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 INDIA ONCE REVOLTED HERE 
 
 In the country' of Nana-Sahib — Sou/enirs of the Insurrection of 
 1857 — The massacre at the Bridge of Cawnpore — At the 
 scene of the drama — The heroic resistance of the garrison 
 of Lucknow — When will the complete pacification take 
 place ? 
 
 VER since the Imperial Govern- 
 ment took the place of the old 
 India Company, assuming the gen- 
 eral direction of affairs and the ex- 
 ploitation of the country, no seri- 
 ous revolt has taken place among 
 these vast agglomerations of peoples, none, that is, 
 except the famous insurrection of 1857, called the 
 Sepoy Mutiny. 
 
 Because the Hindus, Mohammedans or Brah- 
 manists have attempted only once, at the instiga- 
 tion of such a daring Mahratta agitator as Nana- 
 Sahib, to free themselves from the European yoke, 
 should we conclude that there has been an actual 
 pacification of the peoples of this peninsula? It 
 
 147 
 
148 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 would be bold to affirm this. There still remains 
 in these same Mahratta provinces of Gwalior and 
 •Baroda, and also in Rajputana and Bengal, a seri- 
 ous ferment of hatred which is developing and 
 reveals itself in the outward signs of an ill-dissimu- 
 lated phobia against their alien guests. A proof 
 of this was the Shwadeshist movement of the 
 Babus, at the time of the recent troubles over the 
 Partition, or the administrative separation, of 
 Assam from Bengal. Everyone knows that there 
 exist in Calcutta secret societies, the ramifications 
 of which extend as far as Burmah. Propaganda 
 by deeds, direct action, political assassination have 
 been widely advocated. Before the Great War of 
 1914-1918, not a month passed without a bomb's 
 bursting in the capital, without a train's beijig de- 
 railed on one of the great lines, without a revolver 
 being fired in the heart of the Bengal University 
 itself, leading to disturbances and street riots. The 
 formidable world conflagration suddenly revealed 
 to us an India remaining loyal, save for a few 
 insignificant troubles in the northeast and on the 
 Afghan* frontier, along that same Khyber Pass of 
 which I have already spoken. In this way Great 
 Britain was able to put to the test, as France did 
 with its Barbary possessions, the loyalty of the 
 Brahman, Buddhist, Mohammedan and Jain pop- 
 
INDIA ONCE REVOLTED HERE 149 
 
 ulation of its vast and rich colony. This means 
 that, more than ever, she will wish her vassals to 
 benefit from that great pax Britannica, the excel- 
 lent results of which I have already praised 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Nevertheless, who knows whether these same 
 Sepoys, whose exploits in Belgium and France, 
 as well as in Palestine and Mesopotamia, we have 
 watched sympathetically, might not, if they had 
 wished it, in 1857, especially if they had known 
 how, have liberated India forever from her Occi- 
 dental masters? . . . We can say today that all 
 they lacked was continuity of effort, the mutual 
 help of their chiefs, solidarity among their re- 
 ligious parties, in short, order and organization. 
 I am thinking of all this in the express which car- 
 ries me towards the two cities which formerly 
 revolted, Cawnpore and Lucknow. 
 
 Cawnpore! A mournful name that always 
 sounds in English ears like the echo of one of the 
 most frightful dramas in history! . . . We re- 
 member that the native troops of this garrison re- 
 volted in 1857, following some offense to their re- 
 ligious convictions. The deposed prince, Nana- 
 Sahib, placed himself at the head of the rebels and 
 came to besiege the British troops at Cawnpore, 
 commanded by General Wheeler. The wily ra- 
 
150 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 jah, impatient over the time lost because of this 
 unexpected resistance, proposed to the besieged 
 that they should receive the honors of war, boats 
 to take them as far as Allahabad, as well as suf- 
 ficient provisions to feed them until they reached 
 there. These overtures, at first received with some 
 distrust, were finally accepted by General Wheeler 
 under the protection of a solemn oath by Nana- 
 Sahib, who swore on a cow's tail that he would 
 loyally observe the conditions of the surrender. 
 But let us leave the story to one of the eye- 
 witnesses: "On the morning of June 27," he re- 
 lates, "the women, the children and the wounded 
 were carried by elephant-back to the quay, where 
 about twenty boats, large and small, were waiting 
 for them. The able-bodied men arrived at the 
 same point after having filed with arms and equip- 
 ment past the besieging army. When they had 
 embarked all flung themselves with a sort of joy 
 upon the food that had been prepared for them, 
 and abandoned themselves to the current of the 
 river. Then a long distance battery, which had 
 been got ready, was unmasked along the shore and 
 began to fire upon them. The smaller boats sank, 
 others caught fire. Horsemen, plunging into the 
 river, sabered most of the drowning ones who tried 
 to save themselves by swimming. Only the craft 
 
INDIA ONCE REVOLTED HERE 151 
 
 on which was the general was able to use oars and 
 get away. Unfortunately, the boat went aground a 
 short distance from there and those who were on 
 it, sixty Europeans, twenty-five women, a little boy 
 and three young girls, were taken back as prisoners 
 to Cawnpore." 
 
 Then occurred the atrocious crime, the slaugh- 
 ter without parallel in the history of colonial con- 
 quests, the frightful Massacre of the Well, of 
 which an English oflicer who arrived a few hours 
 too late has given us this haunting description: 
 
 "Hardly had we entered Cawnpore," he says, 
 *'when we rushed to find those poor women whom 
 we knew were in the hands of the odious Nana; 
 but we soon learned of the frightful execution. 
 Tortured by a terrible thirst for vengeance and 
 filled with the thought of the frightful sufferings 
 these unhappy victims had had to endure, we felt 
 strange and savage ideas awake in us. BurnijQg 
 with anger and half mad we rushed toward the 
 terrible place of martyrdom. Coagulated blood, 
 mixed with nameless debris, covered the ground 
 of the little room in which they had been impris- 
 oned and rose to our ankles. Long tresses of silky 
 hair, torn shreds of dresses, children's little shoes 
 and playthings were strewn over the befouled 
 earth. The walls, smeared with blood, bore the 
 
152 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 traces of frightful agonies. I picked up a little 
 prayer-book the first page of which bore these 
 touching inscriptions: '27 June, left the boats. . . . 
 7 July, prisoners of Nana; fatal day!' But these 
 were by no means the only horrors that awaited 
 us. Far more horrible still was the sight of that 
 deep and narrow well in which were heaped up 
 the mutilated remains of these tender creatures." 
 
 I was anxious to visit the sinister spot. In the 
 Memorial Garden there rises, in the midst of the 
 most splendid roses imaginable, a simple cross of 
 white marble which marks the spot where those 
 unfortunates were murdered before being flung, 
 still quivering, in the cistern a few steps away. 
 Today the curb of the well is surmounted by an 
 angel, holding palms in its arms, a touching statue 
 which the Italian sculptor, Marochetti, dedicated 
 to the memory of the martyrs. 
 
 Less mournful but quite as eloquent are the 
 relics of the heroic English resistance at Lucknow, 
 the ancient capital of the kingdom of Oudh. How 
 many souvenirs there are of the mutiny in this 
 residency, this Sikandra Bagh, where 2,000 Sepoys 
 were killed, and in this Dilluska Palace where 
 General Havelock died! 
 
 It was a veteran of the siege. Sergeant Ireland, 
 who did me the honors of the ruined but glorious 
 
INDIA ONCE REVOLTED HERE 153 
 
 bombarded citadel. Everything has remained un- 
 changed in its place. It is a spot of pilgrimage 
 and of patriotic commemoration. From the mo- 
 ment of entering, under the gate called Bailey- 
 Guard, we have the feelingof a desperate struggle, 
 mad, heroic, against an enemy superior in numbers 
 and assisted by fire. What astonishing strength of 
 character, what extraordinary tenacity on the part 
 of the besieged, surrounded and vastly outnum- 
 bered, as we were in 1870 at Chateaudun! 
 
 My guide explains to me how, surprised by the 
 revolt, the Europeans living in the city had taken 
 refuge in this residency. The feeble British gar- 
 rison, commanded by Sir Henry Lawrence, had 
 made haste to join them. The palace, a three- 
 story brick building, was in no way suitable for a 
 defense; nevertheless, the refugees maintained 
 themselves there valiantly for five months, under 
 the fire of bombs which had reduced the dwelling 
 to a thin shell, crumbling and smoking. When 
 General Campbell arrived with reinforcements 
 under the walls of Lucknow, and after a two days' 
 battle (the issue of which was for some time uncer- 
 tain) had succeeded in delivering the besieged. 
 Sir Henry Lawrence and the greater part of his 
 intrepid companions had paid for the defense of 
 the place with their lives. 
 
154 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 How far away this all seems to me, in spite of 
 the anecdotes of the veteran who accompanies mel 
 Such a change has taken place in the soul of the 
 Indians since these events, that I find myself won- 
 dering if the domination of the English is not as 
 final here as our own in Algeria and Tunis. 
 
 I should not wish to give even the slightest of- 
 fense to my Bengali and other nationalist friends 
 in India, but, between ourselves, I cannot see how 
 a change in the immediate order of things would 
 immediately benefit them. India is not a coun- 
 try, it is a mosaic of countries, far more so than 
 even the Central Empires. What I do believe is 
 that Great Britain will not fail to show herself 
 infinitely grateful to her Asiatic vassals for the 
 help they gave her in 1 914- 191 8 on the battlefields 
 of Europe and Mesopotamia. What I believe is 
 that this same Great Britain will also not forget 
 that the troops and the populations remaining in 
 Indian territory refused to profit by this unique 
 occasion to rise against their sovereign. Finally 
 I believe that King George V — the first to dare 
 to be crowned Emperor at Delhi — ^will deign to 
 extend to his faithful subjects a still more open 
 and friendly hand, and one stripped forever of 
 the ancient iron gauntlet. 
 
 On that day there will be in the land of Brahma 
 
INDIA ONCE REVOLTED HERE 155 
 
 the same great joy that there was in South Africa 
 on the return of Botha, the conqueror of the Ger- 
 man forces of Southwest Africa, hero and pro- 
 tagonist of the definitive Anglo-Boer union. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BRAHMANS ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 
 
 Benares in the morning — Cremations of the upper, middle and 
 lower castes — The horror of the funeral pyres of the 
 Pariahs — The Brahman lives off the altar — Priests of the 
 Temple of the Cows and the Temple of the Monkeys — 
 Yogis and Parahamsas — Sublime words of the Bag- 
 havadgita. 
 
 O Speak of the Brahmans, is not 
 that to speak of Benares, the soil 
 from which they spring? 
 
 Benares is the most astonishing, 
 the most formidable fact that can 
 be imagined. One must have seen 
 Benares in the morning, as one must have con- 
 templated Stamboul at noon, and Venice at sun- 
 set. Light mists float and gather above the yel- 
 low waves of the Ganges, in which have already 
 been mingled, as they passed Allahabad, the privi- 
 leged ashes of the dead. Along the ghats or the 
 terraced quays, a whole population is busy with 
 its ablutions: old men bent with age, men with 
 
 vigorous, bronzed bodies, women and young girls 
 
 156 
 
ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 157 
 
 with sinuous shapes, amphoras on their heads, 
 laughing, turbulent children. Further off, there 
 are the widows, shaved according to the rite of 
 Siva and going their way sadly, silently, despised, 
 almost cursed, bowed under the weight of imme- 
 morial prejudice. 
 
 On the banks the priests have already lighted, 
 a few at a time, the funeral pyres that will soon 
 reduce to ashes the miserable cast-off garment of 
 our earthly pride. Here I am again struck by 
 the persistence of the castes, castes that are so 
 rigorous and uncompromising in the affairs of 
 everyday living. On these funeral pyres their 
 proud hierarchy still makes itself felt after life. 
 Thus at Benares there are three different sorts of 
 cremations: those of the Brahmans and Kcha- 
 tryas; those of the middle classes — Vaisyas and 
 Soudras; finally those of the lower castes, the 
 Pariahs, Tchemmas and others. 
 
 The cremation of the dead member of an upper 
 caste includes many special rites, prayers, incanta- 
 tions and other practices. The corpse is first 
 brought on a litter, covered with a large shroud, 
 white for men, pink for women. Still enveloped 
 in his winding sheet, the dead man is stretched by 
 the river-side, the head and trunk resting on the 
 bank, the lower limbs bathed by the water, for 
 
158 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 purification. During this time, the funeral Brah- 
 mans finish arranging in rectangular and symmet- 
 rical order the pieces of wood which compose the 
 burning-ghat. The corpse is then laid upon it, 
 while other faggots are placed above forming a 
 second bed. Generally, the whole is so harmoni- 
 ously arranged that the dead man almost disap- 
 pears under the mass. The priests then approach 
 and pronounce the liturgical prayers, while they 
 sprinkle the fire with melted butter and sweet- 
 smelling oils. Young officiating priests throw In- 
 dian pinks and jasmine petals into the flames. 
 Then once more and without any break, the priests 
 add the sticks, the faggots and the kindling neces- 
 sary to feed the devastating fire. For once the 
 cremation has begun it must not be interrupted. 
 If the fire went out or died down it would be con- 
 sidered as a bad omen. 
 
 The funeral pyres reserved for the lower castes 
 are composed only of faggots, roots and left-over 
 logs not yet attacked by the fire, gathered con- 
 fusedly together, without order or elegance, in a 
 nearly square pile, on the river bank, far from the 
 palace and the votive temples. One young Brah- 
 man suffices to light the fire and pronounce the 
 necessary incantations. The relatives, the friends 
 and the domestic animals are grouped about him 
 
ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 159 
 
 in an impassive attitude that is intensely Oriental, 
 and watch with great serenity the work of 
 destruction. 
 
 More sinister and gruesome are those I shall 
 call the famine pyres on which are heaped up pell- 
 mell emaciated, contorted skeletons of bodies, 
 hideous to see, naked, their faces twisted with 
 agony, with glassy eyes no hand has closed. These 
 last must content themselves with what others have 
 left, half-burned faggots, knotty, smoking roots, 
 which the flame has been powerless to attack, arm- 
 fuls of damp straw, giving forth an acrid and suf- 
 focating smoke. For these there are no incanta- 
 tions, no fire sparkles joyfully, the incineration is 
 long and slow, lasting not merely for hours but at 
 times for one or two days. No one comes to claim 
 these ignored, accursed, disinherited ashes. 
 
 Such is the inexorable decree of Karma. 
 
 We may well imagine that these cremations and 
 other ritualistic ceremonies do not fail to bring 
 in to the Brahman a pretty penny. Of this priest 
 it may be truly said that he lives off the altar, with- 
 out, however, attaining to the princely tithes of 
 certain orthodox popes of the former Holy Rus- 
 sian Empire. At Benares, the number of these 
 officiators is almost incalculable; even approxi- 
 mate statistics have never been compiled. There 
 
i6o MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 are the funeral Brahmans of whom I have just 
 spoken, there are Brahmans by the thousand for 
 the temples in the city, without counting those who 
 serve private altars and sanctuaries, there are 
 Brahmans charged with watching over the upkeep 
 of the sacred animals, and finally, there are Yogis, 
 or living saints. 
 
 I have spoken, in connection with the pilgrimage 
 of Krishna to Muttra on the Djumna, of the in- 
 violable respect of the Hindus for all manifesta- 
 tions of life, and especially of animal life. At 
 Muttra, the traveler notices the presence of many 
 thousands of monkeys living a sort of common life 
 with the inhabitants, sharing their food and their 
 dwellings — just as at noon great jars of boiled rice 
 are thrown to feed the tortoises on the river ter- 
 races. At Benares it is something else: the Para- 
 dise of Cows, in the full meaning of the phrase 1 
 These blissful beasts stroll over the conquered 
 country, along the ghats or through the dark, dirty 
 little streets; at their pleasure, they impudently 
 steal vegetables under the noses and beards of the 
 merchants, who watch them with good-natured 
 smiles, thanking the divinity for the signal honor 
 of her visit. 
 
 Nor is this all ; the horned guests of the Temple 
 of Cows at Benares have their regularly appointed 
 
RUINS OF THE LUCKNOVV MUTINY 
 
 THE PALACE AT LUCKNOW 
 
BENARES — A LOW-CASTE CREMATION 
 
 A MORNING AT BENARES 
 
ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES i6i 
 
 priests and are the object, on the part of the faith- 
 ful, of a thousand marks of veneration and love. 
 They feed them with aromatic herbs, they bring 
 them offerings, they wash them with water from 
 the Ganges drawn in richly chased vessels of cop- 
 per and silver. Finally, it is not rare to see certain 
 fanatics gliding through the dark colonnades of 
 porphyry and marble under the domes with their 
 massive golden roofs, watching for the peaceful 
 animals to give way to the most necessary and 
 prosaic of needs. . . . Then there is a mad rush 
 for the fresh dung; some smear their faces and 
 hands with it; some go so far as to swallow a bit 
 of it; still others carry it off in reliquaries. 
 
 Beside these ultra-realistic and repulsive spec- 
 tacles — it is true that the Parsee teaching also has 
 such aberrations— I have had occasion to notice 
 many touching acts of piety and kindness to old, 
 infirm or sick animals. One day when I was de- 
 scending the steps to the Ganges, I saw an old, 
 half-paralyzed cow (the bovine race reaches here 
 what Hugo calls *'the age of a great-grand- 
 parent") dragging herself painfully along by her 
 front legs to get a drink from the waters of the 
 great river. When she had drunk, feeling she had 
 become heavier, this bovine *'Burgrave" attempted 
 in vain to return to the spot which she had for- 
 
i62 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 merly occupied. At once four young pilgrims, who 
 seemed to belong to a good bourgeois caste, hur- 
 ried to the animal, lifted it, and succeeded by one 
 means or another in getting it back to its original 
 position. I offer this fact, without comment, to 
 the president of our Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals. 
 
 Another curiosity of Benares is the Temple of 
 Monkeys. Several hundred years ago the great 
 temple raised to the goddess Durga was invaded 
 one day by a troup of monkeys come, no one knew 
 how, from the near-by jungle. The quadrumanes 
 installed themselves even in the sanctuary and on 
 the borders of the fishpond, with its encircling 
 steps, where slept a noisome, greenish water. The 
 superstition of the Hindus was struck by this 
 prodigy; they saw in the presence of the monkeys 
 a heavenly embassy sent by Hanuman, the monkey- 
 god and ally of men, whose combats and warrior 
 virtues were celebrated by the sacred books. From 
 that day forward the altar of the goddess was 
 deserted; prayers and pilgrimages were devoted no 
 longer to Durga the Dark, but to Hanuman the 
 Valorous. Today, this population of monkeys has 
 risen to several hundreds of grimacing and ges- 
 ticulating families; and it is one of the tourist's 
 amusements, in passing through Benares, to bring 
 
ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 163 
 
 them fruits and dainties, which they share fra- 
 ternally with the goats and pigs, under the eyes 
 of their two Brahman guardians. 
 
 Above these inferior priests, dominating them 
 with all his serene and somewhat disdainful pride, 
 rises the noble figure of the Yogi, the living saint, 
 the Master, he who really possesses the power of 
 assembling the elements and performing miracles. 
 He is by no means the servant of the animals nor 
 does he make any sale or display of his office or 
 his science; he does not market it or make any 
 money out of it. But modest, or conscious of his 
 formidable power, he hides or isolates himself 
 from humankind. You no longer, or almost never, 
 meet him in the low plains of the peninsula of 
 Hindustan ; you must go in search of him to dis- 
 cover him in his almost inaccessible retreats among 
 the high mountains of Kashmir or Thibet, where 
 he is learning to become, little by little, the Para- 
 hamsa, the Sage. 
 
 Ripened by prayer and solitary meditation, mas- 
 tering his senses and abolishing Desire, which is 
 useless to him since in him, as a pantheist, there 
 resides the essence of all things, he turns his will 
 exclusively toward the final evolution. A de- 
 tached fragment of the Great Whole, he tends to 
 mount up by stages to his primitive and divine 
 
1 64 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 state, and in order to attain it he seeks for the 
 primal cause of the world. By means of his eyes 
 man is master of Space ; the Yogi, by means of his 
 science, creates a new sense which makes him mas- 
 ter of Time. He seeks to penetrate to the sealed 
 mysteries of Matter by means of pure Thought, 
 and in actual practice by means of magic and in- 
 cantations. This is the secret of the mentrams, the 
 mentrams that preserve one from the stings of 
 bees, from the venom of serpents and the claws of 
 wild beasts ; mentrams which, they say, have power 
 over domestic animals, over rivers, over the ele- 
 ments. By means of them the Yogi can reach even 
 the Unknowable. The same procedure was car- 
 ried on in antiquity by the Egyptian adorers of 
 Horus, the Greek mystagogues of Ceres, a few 
 philosophers, philanthropists and thaumaturgists 
 like Pythagoras, ApoUonius of Tyana, Buddha, 
 Rama-Krishna, and other occultists who have had 
 the certainty of the Divine Experience. These 
 supermen cross the threshold of the Esoteric Doc- 
 trine, they have the intuition of universal knowl- 
 edge and probably approach Brahma the Neuter, 
 the Ineffable, the Absolute, of which Brahma, the 
 masculine and creative expression, has only a 
 single temple in India — at Polkhar, near Ajmeere 
 
ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 165 
 
 — Brahma the Infinite, whose name the Hindus 
 never pronounce without trembling. 
 
 Would you believe it? The Yogi is the object 
 of such veneration that at his death he escapes the 
 ordinary cremation of other men, kings, priests, 
 soldiers, artisans, beggars and pariahs, piled up on 
 the brazier of the burning-ghats. Death, great 
 leveler that it is, nevertheless distinguishes him 
 from other mortals. They enclose his body in a 
 coffin, or more often in a clay jar, and let it sink 
 solemnly to the bottom of the Ganges. A perfect 
 symbol, such a burial as this, of the favor which, 
 in permitting him to escape destruction by fire 
 (Agni), facilitates in this way the cycle of his 
 future incarnations. 
 
 So wills, so teaches the Baghavadgita, in which 
 Krishna, addressing his disciples, utters these 
 admirable words which Saint Augustine and the 
 Fathers of the Church would not have disavowed: 
 
 *'You hear within yourself a divine soul of 
 which you are not aware, for God resides in the 
 soul of every man, but few know how to find Him 
 there. The man who sacrifices his desires and his 
 works to the Being from whom proceed the prin- 
 ciples of all things and by whom the universe has 
 been formed, obtains perfection through this sac- 
 rifice and approaches God, 
 
i66 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ''Moreover, you must know that he who has 
 found God is delivered from re-birth and from 
 death, from old age and from grief and drinks the 
 water of immortality/* 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 
 
 The mysterious quarter of Kashi— True and false fakirs- 
 Conjurers, hypnotists and illusionists — The sincerity of 
 the psychometrists — Voluntary martyrs and men with 
 withered limbs — The miracle of the buried alive — Con- 
 templator& — The fakir condemned to eat and to do nothing 
 — ^Absolution without . . . perfect contrition. 
 
 HIS Spectacle of the Brahmans on 
 the banks of the Ganges or in their 
 temples, is still merely a general, 
 superficial, external spectacle that 
 can satisfy only the tourist, the 
 globe-trotter. The philosopher 
 must seek further if he wishes to make his deduc- 
 tions. Plunging to the depths of this abyss of ob- 
 scurities and splendors, he ignores the sink of im- 
 purities, the filthy pollution of the sanctuaries, in 
 order to extract from it the immaterial lesson, the 
 foretaste of the pure and infinite joys of the Ini- 
 tiation. And this visit — I was going to say this 
 exploration — we shall no longer make in the mag- 
 nificent and corrupt Benares of the ghats, but in 
 
 167 
 
i68 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 native Kashi, that mysterious and inviolate quarter 
 of the falcirs, the thaumaturgists and other v^^orkers 
 of miracles. Thither I shall try to lead and to 
 guide you. But shall I ever be able to describe 
 the indescribable? 
 
 I understand how some might object that in my 
 passionate admiration, my adoration for India, I 
 may have been a victim of auto-suggestion or have 
 deceived myself v^rith appearances, or have worked 
 up my enthusiasms from what I had already heard 
 and read in Europe. But none of that would be 
 true. I have only been the objective observer of 
 a calm, regular and serene piety, an august con- 
 tempt for death, a lofty indifference for all that 
 must return to the earth. Little do I care if the 
 Hindu believers venerate in their temples of 
 marble and gold, holy cows or impudent, thieving 
 monkeys, or that the foot of the devotee is scanda- 
 lized if it slips on the sacred excretions ! I remem- 
 ber only this: for these faithful life is transitory. 
 That is what I conclude from their mournful, re- 
 signed, passive, vegetarian existence, perennially 
 respectful of animal life, convinced abolitionists 
 of desire (at times even of sensation), splendidly 
 impassible before the funeral pyre which consumes 
 the beloved being: father, mother, husband, child, 
 brother, sister, betrothed, friend. This is what I 
 
BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 169 
 
 see in the hieratical attitude of their priests, what 
 I read in the rolling eyeballs of their contempla- 
 tive Rishis, their preaching Swamis, and their holy 
 Yogis. 
 
 Ah! what fine faces they have, inspired, Gali- 
 lean, these pundits deciphering some old text of the 
 Upanishads, in the half-light of some votive altar I 
 And what a mystic aura, wild, haggard, unearthly, 
 seems to flit through the blinking eyes of these 
 Sanyashis, anaemic and wasted by fastings, the face, 
 beard and hair soiled with ashes and dried cow's 
 dung, the neck and arms weighed down with shells 
 and strings of pods, who stare at you with their 
 ecstatic or possessed look and send a cold shiver of 
 interrogation, doubt and terror over your whole 
 body I 
 
 Often they are sincere. There are charlatans, 
 too, sometimes. But if we are speaking of actors, 
 are they not to be found in all the religious con- 
 fessions? Mountebanks and money-changers of 
 the temple, whom Jesus drove out with blows of 
 the lash! It is inevitable that now and then Hu- 
 manity should resume the rights of its unavoidable 
 weakness, nothing here below being absolute or 
 perfect. Nor does one need any profound learn- 
 ing to be able to put their right estimate on sleight- 
 of-hand tricks, on the so-called phenomena of the 
 
170 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 instantaneous germination of plants, the spontane- 
 ous bursting into flame or extinction of lighted 
 coals, the disappearance of objects and other feats 
 of juggling. To the learned Robert Houdins the 
 local color adds an exotic atmosphere of mystery. 
 Others, also jugglers — with us they would call 
 themselves "hypnotists" and would provide them- 
 selves with fancy diplomas and the sufficiently 
 cheap title of "professor" — others, I say, exercise 
 and prodigiously fortify their will in order to 
 amuse themselves at the expense of the simple and 
 "easy" European. The hypnotic power has all the 
 more force when it is exercised upon a brain 
 oftenest encumbered with mean preoccupations, 
 of the earth earthy, little fitted for a single and 
 obstinate effort of the will. The strong fluid over- 
 masters the weak fluid; between the operator and 
 the subject, it is merely a matter of a few curious 
 passes of suggestion. In short, just what people 
 study, every day at the Salpetriere. But instead of 
 calling itself electrobiology, and having as its 
 founders illustrious neurologists like Charcot, 
 Azam and Broca, in India it bears the name of 
 fakirism and is practised by poor shivering 
 wretches who, for a few pennies, will toss a rope 
 into the air, "climb up the ladder" for you, in the 
 exact and figurative meaning of the words. That 
 
BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 171 
 
 is probably what happened to me when I was with 
 the princes of Jeypore and believed I saw a fakir 
 juggle himself away and then bring an adder to 
 life. With me, it must have been a case of partial 
 hypnotism. 
 
 , One of the most interesting classes of fakirs I 
 encountered in India was undoubtedly that of the 
 psychometrists/ or diviners. These prophets of 
 the present, the past and the future reveal things 
 with surprising exactitude, by merely touching 
 some familiar object which you wear continually 
 and which you are willing to confide to them for 
 a moment. The object may have belonged to a 
 dead member of your family, to one of your 
 friends, or it may have been the property of a liv- 
 ing person. The one essential is that it shall have 
 been in permanent contact with the wearer. Thus 
 it may be a watch, a pencil, a penknife, or a jewel. 
 The object is handed to the diviner without a word 
 being spoken. He grasps it tightly between his 
 hands and strives to impregnate himself with the 
 astral particles that cling to it or, more exactly, 
 are crystallized upon it. After a few moments, 
 the fakir sinks into a trance ; his eyes turn inwards ; 
 
 'See my romance Pdrvati, pp. 155-158 (Albin Michel, publisher, 
 Paris), and its English version by Mrs. Helen Davenport Gibbons 
 (The Century Co.). 
 
172 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 the sweat gathers in beads on his forehead, his 
 hands and arms jerk and twist convulsively. . . . 
 Then suddenly inarticulate words escape from his 
 lips, at first merely confused phrases, which 
 speedily join themselves together so as to form a 
 complete and intelligible whole, an amazing and 
 circumstantial resume of the life or the tempera- 
 ment of the object's possessor. It has been my own 
 experience — and all travelers worthy of credence 
 who have had the experience will confirm my 
 words — that nine times out of ten the utterances of 
 these magicians have been astoundingly correct. 
 In India, the power of the psychometrists is never 
 disputed, either by popular belief among the na- 
 tives or scientifically in the most cultivated British 
 circles. 
 
 Let us pass to another variety of fakir, adroit 
 fellows, with an eye for business, who speculate 
 upon the disgust and pity of foreigners and make 
 use of it to earn their living. These are the volun- 
 tary martyrs, the contortionists, who will exhibit 
 before you a member that has been frightfully dis- 
 located for years and has the color of mortifica- 
 tion. That fellow began to mortify an arm fifteen 
 years ago and has succeeded in doing so by holding 
 it constantly stretched heavenward : the joints have 
 grown together, making any movement henceforth 
 
BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 173 
 
 impossible, the muscles have become mummified; 
 the nails of the hand have grown inordinately and 
 have twisted themselves like vines about the wrists. 
 This one passes his life surrounded by live coals, 
 half suffocated by the smoke, or lying on a bed of 
 nettles, cactus points or sharp bits of iron. 
 
 Wc must not forget those who are buried alive! 
 
 These last offer a rare example of courage and 
 education of the will. The experience which they 
 undergo voluntarily is worthy of being described, 
 for it necessitates a training and above all a final 
 resignation, to which, speaking personally, it 
 would give me but little pleasure to force myself. 
 For days, weeks and months, the fakir in question 
 accustoms himself to eat, drink and breathe as lit- 
 tle as possible. As we can easily imagine, the prac- 
 tice of breathing as little as possible is the most 
 painful of these preliminary tests. In short, the 
 candidate for provisional death tries to reach the 
 point of suspended life, and to enter almost wholly 
 into that animal petrifaction — if I may call it 
 so — of the toad, the lizard and the tortoise. 
 
 When the proper day arrives, the initiate 
 stretches himself out, or, more exactly, is stretched 
 out in a coffin. Brahmans seal his eyes, nose, 
 mouth and ears in turn with plugs of cotton wad- 
 ding and with wax. They anoint his body with 
 
174 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 special aromatic oils, which I suppose are also 
 antiseptic and preservative. They murmur magic 
 formulas and incantations over him, and in the 
 presence of a great assembly of people and licensed 
 w^itnesses — for in this country an event of such im- 
 portance constitutes a sort of "first night" — the cof- 
 fin lid is closed, screwed down and sealed over the 
 living dead man, swathed in cloths and bandages. 
 About the grave, which is covered with earth and 
 over which they have sown some sort of grain, 
 stand trusted guards, sometimes Sepoys from the 
 Imperial Army, who keep watch day and night 
 during the weeks or months, according to the 
 period fixed by the voluntary deceased. 
 
 Then, when the time has passed, the cofiin is 
 taken out of the tomb and opened before the priests 
 and the sworn witnesses. They verify the seals 
 under the eye of the native magistrate, and the 
 priests utter new prayers while the funeral Brah- 
 mans accomplish slowly and with infinite precau- 
 tion the work of resurrection. They massage the 
 extremities progressively, unstop the orifices sealed 
 with cotton and wax, breathe air in, apply a gentle 
 friction, exercise the extensor and respiratory 
 muscles and finally pull the tongue rhythmically. 
 When the double function of respiration and cir- 
 culation has been established, they give a few drops 
 
BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 175 
 
 of some mysterious beverage to the resuscitated 
 Lazarus, taking great care, naturally, to keep all 
 food away from him. In the same way that he 
 has been prepared by stages for the apparent death, 
 he must accustom himself, by minutely regulated 
 steps, to his quasi-miraculous raising from the 
 dead. Too great haste in the renewing of his or- 
 gans, suspended by lethargy, would inevitably 
 cause his death — a real and effective death, this 
 time. 
 
 To sum up this matter: many who have been 
 interred alive, badly prepared, badly buried, or 
 badly resuscitated, succumb to the trying experi- 
 ence. A small number of these amateur lovers of 
 the grave survive this motionless and dangerous 
 sport. 
 
 ^^Ab uno, disce omnes" 
 
 But let us continue our brief review of the prin- 
 cipal and most curious voluntary martyrs. 
 
 There are other fakirs who take it as a duty or 
 as an amusement to make the tour of the peninsula 
 with the soles of their feet covered with tacks, or 
 by crawling on their stomachs, using only the 
 movements of their abdomen and chest. Others 
 absorb themselves in the contemplation of a plant 
 or a vine, the growth of which they have watched 
 for twenty years! All their power of attention is 
 
176 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 concentrated solely on the growth and develop- 
 ment of a vegetable, the object of their observation. 
 Unfortunately, close to these tortured creatures, 
 these contemplators and do-nothings, is the wooden 
 bowl, the inevitable wooden bowl, the crucible in 
 which a lucrative business boils up in coppers! 
 
 In this connection, let me recount an anecdote 
 that reveals, oh, how well! the nonchalance and 
 the passivity of this fatalistic race. 
 
 I was visiting Buddha-Gaia, northern Indians 
 famous place of pilgrimage, a short distance from 
 Benares, and my curiosity, my appetite for f akirism 
 had just been aroused by the sight of an extremely 
 corpulent old man, seated under a fig-tree, at a 
 short distance from the great temple with its mas- 
 sive sculptures. Near this worthy were heaped 
 up jars of rice, fruits and vegetables. A great 
 crowd of idlers surrounded him, respectfully, 
 without daring to address a word to him, content- 
 ing themselves with merely touching his rags and 
 laying their offerings at his feet. 
 
 Without doubt, I was in the presence of a cele- 
 brated and venerated fakir. But what was he do- 
 ing? What mysterious and secret vow was he 
 obeying? And no bowl beside him? It was too 
 much ! 
 
A PALACE ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES 
 
 BRAHMANIC FUNERALS ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES; TO THE 
 LEFT, A CORPSE IN ITS SHROUD 
 
BENARES — THE PILGRIMS' ABLUTIONS 
 
 
 El 
 
 ^^^^HwHi^^ESr^^SP^^HBr '-' '-" *' '^ 
 
 
 
 w%.mm '■.-■■-'• 
 
 BENARES — A HIGH-CASTE CREMATION 
 
BENARES AND ITS FAKIRS 177 
 
 Full of curiosity, I approached the group and 
 questioned my guide-interpreter. 
 
 "It is a holy man, Sahib," he answered feelingly. 
 
 "Good heavens! I can see that! But what is 
 his specialty as a fakir?" 
 
 "Nothing, Sahib," answered my boy. "He is 
 awaiting his Nirvana." 
 
 "What, already?" 
 
 "He is a great saint. He has sworn not to work 
 or to beg, but to let himself die of hunger, if such 
 is the will of Siva." 
 
 "But . . . that well-fed air, those plump cheeks. 
 , . . And then those heaped up provisions? That 
 rice, those fruits and vegetables? It seems to me 
 that his vow . . ." 
 
 My boy jumped with indignation: "Oh, Sahib, 
 could you think it! But the holy man has not 
 asked for these provisions. They are offered to 
 him. Therefore he accepts them. Surely all these 
 good things ought to be eaten!" 
 
 And when, skeptical and amused, I shrugged 
 my shoulders, my turbaned guide continued em- 
 phatically: "He is not a beggar. Sahib. But what 
 can you expect? He dares not disobey Siva I I 
 assure you that in his heart it costs him a good 
 deal to eat." 
 
 No commentary. 
 
178 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 But you will say either that I am mistaken or 
 that I am afraid of taking away, one by one, the 
 last illusions of my readers in regard to this most 
 interesting corporation of fakirs. Let us be fair. 
 As I have just impartially painted it, without any 
 preconceived ideas of one sort or another, without 
 prejudices due to ignorance or a spirit of mockery, 
 this corporation, which in itself almost forms one 
 of the Indian castes, remains, whatever we may 
 think of it, one of the peculiarities, one of the 
 oddities, one of the attractions of this extraordi- 
 nary country. The fakir, even when he is a char- 
 latan, a trickster, or simply lazy, contributes his 
 own quite special note. I will go further and say 
 that he forms a part, an integral part of the pic- 
 ture, the atmosphere and the local color. This 
 being so, we owe him a little of the indulgence, 
 even a little of the favor and sympathy which we 
 bestow so lavishly on certain heroes of our detec- 
 tive stories, gentleman-burglars and other deli- 
 cious rascals who are never entirely repentent 
 . . . and whom we always absolve ! 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DAWN ON THE HIMALAYA 
 
 Calcutta-London — Chandernagor unadorned — The crossing of 
 Father Ganges — Darjeeling and its Thibetian bonzes- 
 Sunrise over the Gaorisankar — ^A dispossessed rajah — ^The 
 throne-punishment of the hermit — How one becomes 
 Parahamsa. 
 
 F Calcutta I shall say little, having 
 received few impressions from it. 
 It is a modern city, rather like Lon- 
 don, v^^hose docks, black with smoke, 
 strangely resemble those of the 
 Thames (and yet this great river 
 which flows past is the Howgli, an arm of the 
 Ganges!). In the same way the big bridge which 
 unites the ancient capital to its suburb of Howrah, 
 bears a strong resemblance to the famous London 
 Bridge, in its turbulence, its press of vehicles and 
 the affluence of the pedestrians; only here the cab- 
 horses are zebus, fastened to little carts, and the 
 thronging passers-by belong to all the shades of the 
 
 Hindu rainbow: Parsees, Bengalis, Pathans, Ba- 
 
 179 
 
i8o 
 
 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 luches, Afghans, Burmese, Sikhs, Goorkhas, even 
 a few Thibetians, Nepalese and Chinese. 
 
 The day before I had visited Chandernagor. 
 
 Poor Chandernagor! What illusions are dis- 
 pelled at the sight of this little town lost under the 
 exuberant foliage of the palms, the dear palms 
 found again at lastl What a downfall since 1673, 
 the date of its foundation by our Compagnie des 
 Indes! . . . Today, these two thousand or so brick 
 houses, ill at ease in their narrow, restricted enclo- 
 sure, owe their existence to the friendly generosity 
 of the English. A simple cordon of customs of- 
 ficials would suffice to starve out this settlement 
 and strangle in a few days its miserable little trade. 
 It is useless to look for colonists; as at Yanaon, 
 Karikal and Mahe the French population is con- 
 fined to the Administrator, the police corporal, the 
 tax-collector, the missionaries and the good Sis- 
 ters. The manager of the single hotel at Chan- 
 dernagor (what an hotel!) was, at the time of my 
 stay, an Austrian from Trieste. There is, indeed, 
 a Dupleix College, but we teach English in it 
 — French being treated as optional/ On the other 
 hand, and this is a small crumb of consolation, 
 Chandernagor is the prey, at least as much as 
 Pondichery, of the worst politics and the worst 
 journalism. The elections there are a veritable 
 
DAWN ON THE HIMALAYA i8r 
 
 traffic in dishonest influences in the two opposed 
 camps. Finally, to complete this sad but strictly- 
 true picture, I recall that it was at Chandernagor 
 that the revolutionary Bengali bomb-throwers 
 were accustomed to hold their meetings. It even 
 used to be one of the haunts of Shwadeshism, the 
 Indian nihilism. They tell me, but I have no 
 other proof of it, that the anarchist paper "Yu- 
 kantar," the organ of this party, was set up and 
 printed in our possession, under the protection of 
 our flag, and that not long ago it oflfered a reward 
 for the head of any European. Sweet land! Such 
 is the gratitude of a population to which England 
 pays annually a fee of three hundred balls of 
 opium on the condition that it does not cultivate 
 this product itself! 
 
 I try to forget these humiliating memories on 
 the forward deck of the ferry-boat from Calcutta 
 to Damukdia-Ghat, while I watch the boatman 
 cast out his sounding-line, chanting each time, in a 
 minor key, the depth of the waters of Father 
 Ganges. This precaution, if I am to believe the 
 keeper of the Parsee buffet, has become absolutely 
 indispensable to the safety of navigation in these 
 parts ; in fact, no possible sounding could map out 
 a permanent river-bed; the river here displays the 
 peculiarity of changing the banks along its sides 
 
i82 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 nearly every day. A great silence broods over this 
 immense and dreary waste, edged with mists, 
 through which shows, from time to time, the half- 
 spectral apparition of a fisherman, hauling in his 
 nets in his phantom bark. The crossing, which 
 quite stirs one's emotions, takes about three-quar- 
 ters of an hour, after which one changes to the 
 Eastern-Bengal Railway, the track of which is 
 only a meter wide. From there one reaches Sili- 
 guri, a station situated at the foot of the first spurs 
 of the Himalaya, four hundred feet above the level 
 of the sea. 
 
 Siliguri is the point of departure for the Lilli- 
 putian train which terminates at Darjeeling. This 
 line is only sixty centimeters wide, which gives its 
 trains the aspect and the charm of a set of toy cars. 
 Nevertheless, it carries a heavy traffic, and its en- 
 gines can pull as much as fifty tons, and that on 
 grades which sometimes rise one foot in forty-five. 
 The slow ascent assumes a character of grandiose 
 beauty, wild and austere: two locomotives, one in 
 front and one behind, climb the steep slope, be- 
 yond which rise the immaculate peaks of the Kich- 
 ijunga chain. Bold curves and dizzying zig-zags! 
 We mount up through silent, virgin forests, alter- 
 nating along the slopes of the mountains with little 
 bare mounds from which gushing fountains and 
 
DAWN ON THE HIMALAYA 183 
 
 cascades spread out in sparkling drops over the 
 moss and lichens. Then the first tea-plantations of 
 Kurseong stretch their carefully spaced bushes 
 over the uplands. I am already struck by the 
 change in the type of the inhabitants : no more of 
 those handsome profiles, with straight noses, oval 
 chins, large black eyes, but a complete and ethnical 
 transformation in the Mongol faces of these short, 
 thickset mountaineers, of a bilious complexion, 
 with undeniably almond-shaped lids, with large 
 smiling mouths which no longer have that bitter, 
 disillusioned, melancholy look, that racial lassi- 
 tude which I have so continually noticed in most 
 Indians, Aryans as well as Dravidians. 
 
 Darjeeling! 
 
 I allow myself to be carried off to the hotel, in 
 spite of the bumps and jolts of my primitive rick- 
 shaw which is dragged along by feminine arms — 
 for in this anything but commonplace country the 
 woman does the work of the man, who is piously 
 occupied in smoking, gossiping, meditating or 
 ceaselessly turning his prayer-wheel. Yes, so great 
 is masculine laziness in these Himalaya that the 
 poorest family counts among its everyday domestic 
 utensils this precious instrument of piety, in the 
 interior of which the Buddhist bonzes have written 
 miles of prayers. When these litanies are once 
 
1 84 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 wound up, the devout man has nothing to do but 
 to turn his ''cri-cri'': the prayer says itself all alone. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I arose this morning at four o'clock. A meri- 
 torious effort, but it is not every morning that we 
 can watch the sun rise over one of the highest 
 summits on our planet. 
 
 A dense fog floats over everything as my furry 
 pony, preceded by a guide bearing lanterns, sets 
 out over the road which leads to Tiger Point. 
 From there I hope to see the setting of the first 
 star on the summit of Gaorisankar, called Mount 
 Everest by the English. 
 
 First, there is a sharp ascent, abrupt and fatigu- 
 ing, by a zig-zag path across which my mount's 
 shoe sets stones rolling every moment. My eyes, 
 beginning to grow accustomed to the darkness, 
 soon make out in the distance a sort of rustic chalet, 
 built on a platform and dominating on one side the 
 unlimited plain, the basin of the Ganges and the 
 Brahmaputra, on the other the four or five suc- 
 cessive levels of the mountains which rise, step 
 after step, up to the gigantic white chain. 
 
 I feel isolated, lost on this platform, in this sea 
 of morning mists, which the timid light of dawn is 
 piercing little by little. First, there is a diffused 
 
NANGA-BABA, THE ASCETIC, IN HIS WATCH-TOWER, TURNING HIS 
 BACK TO THE GANGES 
 
 
 .^ 
 
 A FANATIC OF THE SECT OF SIVA, PROCEEDING ON A PILGRIMAGE BY 
 ROLLING 
 
DARJEELING (HIMALAYA) — A THIBETAN BONZE AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 CAWNPORE — MEMORIAL OF THE MASSACRE IN 1 8 57 
 
DAH'N ON THE HIMALAYA 185 
 
 silver light, which bars the horizon with a parallel 
 band, the two extremities of which grow gradually- 
 less. This band of light sets glittering confusedly 
 the meanderings of the rivers, streams, torrents 
 and the motionless basins of the ponds, revealing 
 geographically the vast network of arteries and big 
 and little veins that feed the body of the peninsula 
 of Hindustan. A loose mass of black clouds stands 
 out fantastically against the luminous ray, which 
 now slowly loses its paleness, turning to straw 
 yellow, to amber and to orange. All at once the 
 sun bursts through; the dark curtain is torn open 
 and a lake of fire appears. How can I translate in 
 words this Dantesque vision, so sinister and so 
 terrifying? It seems to me that those black ravel- 
 ings have become the damned, dancing their in- 
 fernal, hideous and eternal round. It is beauti- 
 ful, tragically beautiful, horribly beautiful. And 
 yonder, the cone grows rosy, little by little, colored 
 by that lake which has become an ocean. Now a 
 purple sea extends before me, a blood-covered ex- 
 panse on which the damned melt away, shade off 
 and vanish. One would say that, in his supreme 
 forbearance, God was opposing himself to the eter- 
 nal torture of the condemned throughout the cen- 
 turies. An era of pity, perhaps of pardon and for- 
 getfulness, opening with this red-gold apotheosis 
 
i86 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 in which the sublime Redeemer sinks once more. 
 But then what are we to think of the implacable 
 vengeance of which the Scriptures speak? 
 
 This haunting doubt pursues me into the sunken 
 gorge which I now enter on the way to the hidden 
 retreat of a hermit, a Parahamsa, one of those 
 unknown sages who have taken refuge in the inac- 
 cessible solitudes of the Himalaya. I had been 
 told at Benares of this ascetic. His history has 
 something of the symbolic about it. An ancient 
 dispossessed rajah, he now leads in a bamboo hut 
 the life of a contemplative philosopher, detached 
 from all earthly desires. 
 
 As with my guide I enter the hermit's enclosure, 
 an unexpected sight nails me, so to speak, to the 
 threshold. Before me, in the middle of a court, 
 on a heap of vegetable rubbish where fowls are 
 pecking, a motionless, smooth-skinned old man is 
 seated on a throne of teak-wood, gilded, sculp- 
 tured, carved by marvelous unknown artists. It 
 strikes me that this shining seat must formerly have 
 been encrusted with gems, to judge from the gap- 
 ing settings from which stones have been brutally 
 torn. I stop, uncertain, troubled and out of coun- 
 tenance before this man, in the pose of a Buddha, 
 whom I have just disturbed from his meditation 
 on Nirvana. My letter of introduction from Ben- 
 
DAWN ON THE HIMALAYA 187 
 
 ares trembles in my hand ; I am in half a mind to 
 take myself off. How is that dreamer there going 
 to receive me? Has he even seen me? 
 
 Apparently not; but without looking at me he 
 motions me to approach. The interview begins at 
 once through the translations of my interpreter. 
 The hermit's voice is a little dull, broken by age, 
 but still soft and harmonious. I learn about his 
 manner of life, his vow and why, by a hermitical 
 refinement worthy both of Saint Benedict and Si- 
 mon Stylites, he voluntarily surrounds his ancient 
 throne with manure and offal, which he is obliged 
 to cross each time he comes to sit there. A punish- 
 ment for his past life of debauchery and tyranny? 
 Or the symbol of the compromise, the baseness 
 and villainy which generally constitute the ap- 
 proach to power and its preservation ? Just which, 
 I have difficulty in making out from my guide's 
 jargon. The hermit has taken my letter of intro- 
 duction and looked it over, without speaking, with 
 his dead eyes, already filled with the Beyond and 
 clouded with ecstasy. 
 
 Then, regretfully shaking off his hypnosis, he 
 says to me : "So there are those among the f eringhis 
 of the West who wish to instruct themselves in our 
 doctrine?" 
 
 I reply to the Parahamsa that in Europe there 
 
i88 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 are numerous disciples of Vivekananda, of Annie 
 Besant, and that Paris, as well as London and 
 Madras, has its theosophical lodge; I speak to him 
 of the Blue Lotus of Madame Blavatsky. All this 
 is not unknown to him. These names and these 
 associations are not unfamiliar to him, thanks to 
 his reading and his reflections in former times 
 when he used to reign, when he commanded a 
 people, courtiers, armies. Today these recollec- 
 tions are only an echo in his weakened memory. 
 And he rejoices in his own downfall: 
 
 "Thou seest here, O stranger, a man who, de- 
 spoiled of his kingdom and his riches, glories in 
 this supreme joy, the only true one which this in- 
 carnation has afforded him. As a king I learned 
 to know men; they are all falsehood, deceit and 
 treachery. I myself who speak to thee, I have 
 been, I still am, the vilest among them. I wished 
 to enslave my subjects. The oppressor has pun- 
 ished me for it. I have seen my wives and sons 
 murdered, my palace burned, my treasures con- 
 fiscated, my titles abolished. But why should I 
 complain against this just punishment of my sins? 
 ... I am conscious of a former state in which I 
 was even baser and more miserable. The pro- 
 gression announced by the master is therefore on 
 the way to realization. The Gautama has said it: 
 
DAWN ON THE HIMALAYA 189 
 
 'Nothing that is to happen will happen before its 
 appointed hour.' It is the sage's part to be patient 
 and to await his next and more perfect evolution. 
 Why should the ambitious and stupid man desire 
 obstinately to hasten this change, scorning the 
 usual term?" 
 
 I look at this strange old man. He frightens me 
 a little with that calm air of his, like a living idol. 
 And as I bid him farewell, bowing respectfully, 
 as before one of the highest personages whom I 
 have encountered in this country, I hear him mur- 
 muring softly the ritualistic invocation of the pil- 
 grims to the Ganges: ''Om Brahma kripa'i kevo- 
 lom," "O Brahma, may thy will alone be done!" 
 
 In this fashion, the Grand Lama of the Thibet- 
 ans must pray at Lhassa. 
 
PART IV 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 
 
 Albert Besnard and UHomme en Rose — First annoyances — ^An 
 indiscreet nurse — Strolling near the Char-Minar — His 
 Highness, the Nizam, has me arrested — The incident 
 closed — A nightingale worth 7,000 rupees — The ruins of 
 Golconda — Yesterday and Today. 
 
 lYDERABAD is the land of the 
 Thousand and One Nights! 
 
 All my impressions can be 
 summed up in this one exclamation 
 of admiration. No city in India, 
 unless it is Jeypore, possesses so 
 much Asiatic splendor and local color; and I un- 
 derstand why my illustrious friend Albert Besnard 
 has stayed here so long. Was it not here, for that 
 matter, that we met? Captivated, both of us, by the 
 fabulous and legendary side of this city, we have 
 drawn from it our own respective observations. 
 He, the marvelous artist, has caught on his pallet, 
 and also in that living book of his, so full of color, 
 UHomme en Rose, the highly Oriental strange- 
 
 193 
 
194 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ness of "this field of gaily-colored turbans." I, in 
 my more modest sphere of writer, have been con- 
 tent to jot down in my traveler's note-book the 
 coming and going of this multi-colored crowd, the 
 extraordinary procession of these princes, these 
 imans, these fakirs, the sing-song supplications of 
 these beggars, the sly winking of these bearded 
 merchants, squatting at the back of their shops, like 
 hairy spiders in search of prey. How much per- 
 sonality has this tradition-loving people, so far 
 removed from our Europe! What atmosphere! 
 I am positively impregnated with it, gripped by it, 
 denationalized. 
 
 A Dutch Catholic missionary, whose acquaint- 
 ance I make in the train, between the stations of 
 Ra'ichur and Wadi, warns me of the astonishment 
 I shall feel on entering the States of the Nizam, as 
 they call the sovereign of the Dckkan who reigns 
 over twelve millions of subjects, most of them Mo- 
 hammedans. This virtual unanimity of religious 
 belief, according to the reverend father, does not 
 prevent the authorities from showing an extremely 
 liberal attitude towards the Christians and the 
 Hindus. To support his statement, the good mis- 
 sionary shows me in his portfolio a special permit 
 from the sultan's high police, dispensing him from 
 all administrative annoyance, and at the same time 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 195 
 
 a permanent free pass to travel first class on all the 
 railways of that region. "The English," he adds 
 in this connection, "also prove by this that on their 
 side they honor and favor, without distinction, all 
 the sowers of the good word and propagandists 
 of civilization." It is unnecessary to add that they 
 are repaid for it. I shall always remember the 
 enthusiastic way in which the Dutch priest ex- 
 tolled to me the benefits of the English occupation 
 of Central India, and especially how he praised 
 the English canal of Bezwada, to which all the 
 surrounding plains owe their present fertility. 
 
 I reach Hyderabad at about seven in the eve- 
 ning. Why am I not a missionary! A caviling, 
 indiscreet, inquisitorial policeman questions me as 
 I leave the train: "Where do you come from? 
 Who are you? What are you doing? Where are 
 you going? Why are you traveling? Is it on 
 business or for pleasure?" All this respectfully, 
 of course, but with such persistency as to make 
 one's hair rise. They make me pass a second sani- 
 tary examination at the station; they change my 
 first plague-passport for another, more detailed, if 
 such a thing is possible. And yet I come from 
 Bangalore, an exceptionally healthy city! I shake 
 with indignation, I protest, I call down the aveng- 
 ing thunders of my consul. All my French trepi- 
 
196 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 dation brings only one result, an amused smile on 
 the lips of my obsequious questioners. For a 
 crowning insult, they tell me that I must go day 
 after tomorrow to the Civil Hospital and have 
 myself examined by a nurse appointed for this 
 duty. ... If I decide to remain at Hyderabad 
 for ten days, I shall have the advantage of being 
 examined only every other day. What luck for 
 me! 
 
 OufI I have just been before this new-fash- 
 ioned examining board. The nurse, a half-breed 
 blackamoor, has contented herself with examining 
 my face, hands, arms and chest, fortunately not 
 going further. And now, my baggage installed at 
 the Secunderabad Hotel, I relax my mind by mak- 
 ing a little trip through the town, accompanied by 
 my boy. I adore these aimless strolls about the 
 little streets and bazaars; I have generally ob- 
 served that this is the best way to glean observa- 
 tions of all sorts. We therefore set off on foot, 
 without the least ostentation, across the bridge of 
 the river Musi, which one might walk over, the 
 drought has so dried it up. Then we pass through 
 the wall of forts built in 1555 by the king of Gol- 
 conda, Mohammed Kuli. Along the river bank 
 they have built levees and permanent barricades 
 because of the frequent inundations. Do not laugh 
 
111. :T|T|jp-- 
 
 #< 
 
 pp:,-^-.^T--{l Ji 
 
 jr* 
 
 A STREET IN" HYDERABAD 
 
 RUINS AT GOLCONDA 
 
H. H. PRINCE AGA-KHAN, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL HEAD OF THE 
 MUSSULMANS OF INDIA 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 197 
 
 at the paradox! They are still speaking of the 
 ravages of the last flood of 1908. 
 
 We make our way toward the Char-Minar, a 
 majestic building of white rough-stone, flanked by 
 four minarets. They still call it the Fish's Gate, 
 undoubtedly because a gigantic wooden carp, 
 wrapped in red muslin, swings there. At its en- 
 trance are lines of blind men, each led by a sharp- 
 eyed child, who with indistinct, voluble voices, 
 chant their complaint like an anthem to the crowd. 
 Turbaned horsemen, mounted on frisky little long- 
 tailed horses, pass and repass along the highway. 
 I am struck by the appearance of these horsemen, 
 some of them armed with Arab guns, others with 
 yatagans and kandjars, a perquisite which, as with 
 our Corsicans, has been granted them from time 
 immemorial. I follow the highway mechanically, 
 interested in all that surrounds me. The further 
 I advance, the more congested becomes the traffic. 
 My boy explains that today happens to be a great 
 Mohammedan festival and that the people are 
 coming to render homage to His Highness, the 
 Nizam. We advance with great difficulty, and 
 soon we are under the very windows of the zenana 
 where, from behind the dirty screens of yellow 
 grass, the monarch's hundreds of wives are mo- 
 tionlessly watching the ebb and flow of the crowd. 
 
198 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 A remark here. I am always infinitely respect- 
 ful of the customs and religious ceremonies of the 
 countries I visit, modeling myself in this on the 
 English, who are thoroughly tolerant rulers. But 
 truly I did not think I was committing a sacrilege 
 in mingling innocently with the prince's subjects. 
 Just then, however, my glance fell on the balcony 
 where the sultan stood. Was it because, untidily 
 dressed as he was, badly shaved, with his hair in 
 disorder and his black garments covered with 
 spots, the Nizam, who was surrounded by his little 
 Crown Prince, four years old, and two half-breed 
 nurses, was ashamed to be surprised in such a state 
 by a European? Or was he suddenly seized with 
 an irrational hatred of foreigners? However that 
 may be, this potentate — one of the most powerful, 
 and above all one of the richest in India, possessing 
 an income of no less than seventy-five millions — 
 made me a sign with his hand to retire. Very 
 much astonished, I did not comply with his com- 
 mand but contented myself with saluting him re- 
 spectfully. He then repeated his gesture with 
 more impatience and irritation, this time covering 
 his head with his dastar, a miter of yellow silk 
 somewhat recalling the bonnet of the Venetian 
 doge. At this moment I felt myself violently 
 seized by policemen armed to the teeth, who 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 199 
 
 hustled and dragged me ofif in spite of my protes- 
 tations. In vain did I allege my good faith, my 
 pacific intentions; in vain did I produce from my 
 pocket-book the vice-regal recommendation which 
 had been delivered to me in Calcutta. It was of 
 no use and, moreover, the fanatical crowd 
 swarmed around me and threatened to do me 
 harm. Then my boy exhorted me to prudence in 
 this independent State where the English control 
 is insufficiently exercised; and I retraced my steps, 
 outraged at this uncivil and summary incident. 
 
 The next day, of course, I complained vehe- 
 mently before the British Comrnissioner of the dis- 
 courteous treatment to which, without the least 
 appearance of provocation on my part, I had been 
 subjected. Everything leads me to believe that the 
 Resident's rebuke had a good effect, for two hours 
 later an aide-de-camp of His Highness came to 
 explain to me in ludicrous terms that there had 
 been a misunderstanding on my part, that his 
 Master, in inviting me to withdraw, had had only 
 the idea of preserving me from jostling or event- 
 ual ill-treatment by his subjects. His High- 
 ness, he assured me, deeply regretted the incident. 
 He offered me his carriages, his automobiles and 
 even one of his chamberlains as a guide to palliate 
 the first bad impression. I received these excuses 
 
200 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 coldly and declined the offers of the intermediary, 
 adding that as a guest who had been magnificently 
 received by the Maharajahs of Kapurthala, Jey- 
 pore, Gwalior, Cooch-Behar, etc., I could expect 
 nothing more from the princely hospitality of In- 
 dia. I have never known — or cared, for that mat- 
 ter — whether or not this little well-merited lesson 
 bore its fruit. 
 
 In regard to this same potentate, here is a typi- 
 cal anecdote which I shall give in its entirety. 
 
 One d^y when he was walking in the streets, 
 without ceremony, with his little son, the Crown 
 Prince, he noticed a small boy who held on his 
 fist, as is the fashion in Hyderabad, a red-tailed 
 nightingale, fastened by a string to his foot. On 
 hearing the impassioned trills of the bird vir- 
 tuoso, the royal child was deeply stirred. 
 
 "I wish I could have it!" he murmured in ec- 
 stasy, his hands clasped. 
 
 "Very well," said the Nizam. And, addressing 
 one of his officers, "Go," he said, "buy me that 
 nightingale for 700 rupees." 
 
 "Seven hundred rupees!" exclaimed the courtier. 
 "But Your Highness can get it without difficulty 
 for 700 annas!" 
 
 "Ah, is that sol" returned the sovereign, frown- 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 201 
 
 ing. "Indeed! But this time I wish to pay 7,000 
 rupees. Go, bring me the bird and a receipt." 
 
 Ostentatious, omnipotent, capricious — and bar- 
 baric, a good many of them are still like thatl 
 
 For the rest, as this man has died since my trip 
 through his States, peace to his ashes I 
 
 The next day is the great Mohammedan feast of 
 Moharram: three hundred elephants, a hundred 
 and twenty camels, caparisoned in scarlet, more 
 than a thousand horses and mules, their brows 
 covered with masks that give their noses the ap- 
 pearance of beaks, pass in a procession under the 
 Char-Minar and along the great arteries of the 
 city. A regular army which I estimate at approxi- 
 mately thirty thousand men files past the palace 
 of the sultan, preceded by its standards and music; 
 mercenary battalions of Arab infantry from Hed- 
 jaz follow it. The guns thunder, the rifles crack, 
 the people shout. Standing up on the coachman's 
 seat in my carriage, so that I may look down on 
 the yelling, stamping crowd, I take many snap- 
 shots. Oh! the harmonious and intensely Oriental 
 mixture of all these colored stuffs, agitated by a 
 pious delirium I And what a variety of shades in 
 these turbans and head-dresses that range from 
 purple to crimson and amaranth, from lilac to dark 
 violet, from ocher to sulphur and saffron, from 
 
202 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 green-blue to olive-green, from beige to sepia and 
 chestnut, from royal blue to dull turquoise! . . . 
 "Out of the way!" the j^w-runners cry, shaking 
 their fly-chasers before a closed coach. Through 
 the gaping shutters, I distinguish a white cloak 
 falling over a sari of salmon brocade. It is a 
 woman, a woman of the nobility, a princess no 
 doubt. My coachman pulls his horses to one side: 
 "Prime Minister's lady, Sir!" He has recognized 
 the livery. The carriage passes and I breathe for a 
 moment the faint perfume of amber and benjamin. 
 Was she beautiful perhaps? Ah! who can express 
 the tormenting secrecy of these veils! And the 
 enigmatic smile which hides behind them! And 
 the harmonious flight of these draperies, many- 
 colored or even uniformly white, which mold, 
 perhaps, the body of an antique goddess, the finely 
 arched form of a pre-Homeric virgin! 
 
 This mirage of Asia is still in my eyes two days 
 later when I let my dreamy glance wander over 
 what remains today of enchanting Golconda. This 
 mirage peoples with life, in my eyes, the streets, 
 palaces, mosques, harems, baths and bazaars of 
 the City of Diamonds, which has now become the 
 City of Silence. 
 
 Before arriving at the august ruins, I have 
 skirted, in company with a student, the steep bank 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 203 
 
 of a fish-pond which bears the pretty name of Mir- 
 Allam. Here of old the royal wives and courte- 
 sans came to go sailing on a galley with sails of 
 stretched silk; no indiscreet glance could reach 
 these sumptuous captives. Only the thin, nasal 
 song of the eunuchs scanned, to the sound of the 
 vina, the sister of our guitar, the cadenced breath- 
 ing of the rowers. A twilight of dream has fallen 
 over weary Golconda, whose interminable, cren- 
 elated encircling walls seemed to serve as a sup- 
 port to the galloping hordes of nocturnal clouds, 
 amid which the first stars were beginning to shine. 
 Before me stretches the gray, dusty road, kept 
 in order here and there by a gang of women of 
 the district. And soon here I am before the gates 
 of the first circular rampart which once measured 
 seventeen kilometers. They are covered with iron, 
 these gates, and also studded with sharp points, to 
 prevent the war elephants from shaking them with 
 blows of their tusks or from rubbing their backs 
 against them for sport. The Nizam, I am assured, 
 provides for their upkeep, as well as for the re- 
 pairs to the second, enclosing wall, within which 
 fabulous treasures may still be heaped up, pell- 
 mell, in ingenious and unknown hiding-places. In 
 the court separating this first wall from the second 
 there are heaps of stone and cast-iron cannon balls, 
 
204 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 arms of all sorts and also machines for a siege that 
 recall the ballisttB, the battering-rams and the cat- 
 apults of heroic Troy. There are endless stairs 
 and steps, a second iron-covered door, at a turn- 
 ing, then an inclined plane by which I reach Gol- 
 conda proper. 
 
 What devastation! Aurengzeb the Mogul has 
 passed here. . . . There is no harmony of bright 
 colors to spread their warmth over this sad gray- 
 ness. It would fill a painter with consternation 
 and ravish an architect. For these speaking ruins 
 have preserved their ancient style, still uplifting 
 their delicate profiles among the enormous blocks 
 of gray granite, as irregular as those of the ruins 
 of Apremont and Franchard. One's foot stumbles 
 and slips over the debris: cracked cisterns, circu- 
 lar roads overgrown with brambles, crumbling 
 underground vaults, gaping oubliettes, mosques 
 tottering on their foundations. A high wind might 
 knock it all down. Nothing is left of its grandeur 
 and power but a memory, clinging to a few cracked 
 and falling stones. 
 
 But how beautiful it is ! Majestically and tragi- 
 cally beautiful! Beautiful as the loved face of a 
 dead grandmother! The same serenity, the same 
 self-communion, the same peace. . . . 
 
HHmr Vfmfffi 
 
 
 Pv ' 
 
 m 
 
 
 ■jtrr. .« U..I w. .1 JilWL 
 
 .",1 
 
 TANJORE — THE GREAT PAGODA OF THE BLACK BULL 
 
 TANJORE — THE TEMPLE OF SOBRAMANYE 
 
HYDERABAD AND GOLCONDA 205 
 
 In the distance is the stir and noise of Hydera- 
 bad, all white, with its perpetual holiday air. 
 
 Yesterday — which is no more — feels mounting 
 close to it the living Today. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 
 
 Pondichery and the Adrian Bonhoure project — A few words 
 about the Tamil race — Remnants of the past — We go as 
 far as Villianur — The dancing-girl trick — Madras, a 
 mirage of Europe. 
 
 F the magnificent heritage of Du- 
 pleix, Bussy, Mahe de la Bourdon- 
 nais and Lally-ToUendal, there re- 
 mains to us today only a modest, a 
 sort of honorific legacy the import- 
 ance of which, economically speak- 
 ing, is, except for Pondichery, almost nil. 
 
 England, even if it is in a friendly fashion, hems 
 in our settlements. Our scattered possessions, such 
 as Yanaon, Karikal, Mahe, Chandernagor, the 
 quarter in Dacca and other enclosed territories 
 have no connection with one another. The ter- 
 ritory of Pondichery alone is held entirely or al- 
 most entirely under one control. One of our most 
 distinguished colonial administrators, M. Adrian 
 
 Bonhoure — who presided so happily over the de- 
 
 206 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 207 
 
 velopment of New Caledonia, then of Tahiti and 
 its dependencies, finally of Djibouti, our flourish- 
 ing Somali sea-coast — conceived in 1909, when he 
 was Governor of French India, a vast and beauti- 
 ful project the aim of which was the enlargement 
 and unification of our domain of Pondichery by 
 means of the reconveyance to the English of our 
 settlements of Chandernagor, Mahe, Karikal and 
 Yanaon. It was an essentially practical plan, since 
 it permitted the French colonial effort, instead of 
 dissipating itself sterilely, to be directed effica- 
 ciously to a single outlet, benefiting at once by one 
 port and one railway system. The enclosed terri- 
 tories, a perpetual cause of disagreement and liti- 
 gation, would disappear. We should gain for our 
 business a unity of plan and a celerity in realizing 
 it. Our neighbors across the channel, after a few 
 formalities, seemed well-disposed towards this 
 friendly arrangement. It was from France that 
 the obstruction came, from France where our un- 
 lucky and quite national ignorance of geographi- 
 cal and colonial questions prevented us from 
 grasping the utilitarian import of such a trans- 
 action. The chauvinistic press was roused ; it cried 
 haro on those impious souls who proposed to sell 
 Chandernagor at auction, alleging that this would 
 be to attack the History of France, to profane the 
 
2o8 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 memory of Dupleix, to disfigure his work . . . 
 such were the headlines of the sensational front- 
 page articles. At once a movement formed itself 
 in favor of the statu quo. Parliament itself judged 
 the suggestion inopportune, even questionable. 
 And the affair was closed, to the great joy of cer- 
 tain functionaries and electors whom the reform 
 would probably have injured. Therefore, M. 
 Adrian Bonhoure, broken-hearted, had to put his 
 plan away among his papers. Oh, heedless met- 
 ropolitanism ! Oh, centralization!^ 
 
 There are two ways of reaching Pondichery, by 
 sea, on board the Messageries Maritimes, from 
 Colombo or Calcutta, by land, by taking the great 
 English line which unites Tuticorin to Madras, 
 changing at the branch station of Villupuram. It 
 was by this latter method of transportation that I 
 reached the capital of our French settlements in 
 India. This territory of Pondichery has belonged 
 to us since 1872. The city was founded two years 
 later by Francois Martin. Its area can be esti- 
 mated at about 29,145 hectares, of which 2,004 ^^^ 
 
 *As this work is appearing, we have reason to believe that, on the 
 
 enlightened initiative of M. Albert Sarraut, Deputy from Aude 
 
 who was twice the eminent Governor-General of our Indo-China and 
 contributed so powerfully to its present prosperity — this Minister for 
 the Colonies has resumed the study of this project, awaiting the op- 
 portunity to carry it out as after-the-war circumstances, colonial and 
 diplomatic, may permit. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 209 
 
 wooded, 9,707 uncultivated land, and the rest con- 
 sists of rice and other plantations. 
 
 The principal resources are rice, indigo, 
 copra, tapioca, earth-nuts, betel, poppies, etc. 
 Several sorts of cotton cloth are manufactured 
 there, and the most highly esteemed are dyed blue. 
 I must mention in passing the great spinning mill 
 at Savannah which employs more than 2,000 
 workers. As for a few details about the inhabi- 
 tants: the Pondicherians are deeply bronzed and 
 of the Dravidian race. The men, who are darker 
 skinned than the Cingalese, are very scantily clad : 
 on the head a sort of turban, about the loins a piece 
 of white muslin. And that is all! I hasten to add 
 that the women's costume is slightly less rudi- 
 mentary: a little short vest confines their breasts, 
 leaving bare the arms and the abdomen ; a waist- 
 cloth falls from the hips to the knees. Their walk 
 is plastic and one cannot but admire the outline 
 and the movement of their shoulders and their 
 arms as they balance great vessels of shining cop- 
 per on their heads. With one's eyes shut, in the 
 middle of the night, in the darkest street, one 
 would immediately know the Tamil woman sim- 
 ply by the clinking of her ornaments, her neck- 
 laces, bracelets and rings which, covering her from 
 head to foot, make her sound like an Andalusian 
 
2IO MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 mule. Like many other Indian women, she wears 
 a little gold button ornamented with pearls 
 screwed into the nostril, or, more often, a large 
 ring of gold or silver wire at the partition of the 
 nose. Widows, on the other hand, are entirely 
 without trinkets and have their heads shaved. 
 
 From the station, which is in British territory 
 and on which the name is written in the English 
 style, Pondicherry — I make my way, in a four- 
 wheeled rickshaw, to the Southern Quarter to pay 
 my first homage as a newly arrived Frenchman 
 to the statue of Dupleix. Our glorious compatriot, 
 whose name ought to remain engraved imperish- 
 ably on our hearts by the side of Montcalm's, is 
 represented with his hand on the hilt of his sword, 
 bare-headed, his eyes fixed on the waves that come 
 to die on the strand. The pedestal and the eight 
 rostral columns that surround it were brought 
 from the now ruined temple of Gingi. I admire 
 the fine sculptures, very Indian in manner and 
 harmonious as a whole. Opposite, a boom serves 
 as a landing-bridge; a double rail transports to it 
 the merchandise brought by the chelingues, a sort 
 of canoe with eight or ten rowers. A few steps 
 from the statue, on a large square, rises a little 
 pavilion or rather a fountain, and the palace of 
 the governor, the fiat roof and European pillars of 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLE IX 211 
 
 which, in the style of the Bourse or the Madeleine, 
 are a little out of place in the midst of this exotic 
 scenery. How greatly I prefer the cathedral of 
 the foreign missions with its Jesuit or Rococo 
 architecture, which clearly belongs to its own 
 eighteenth century, and the little white provincial 
 houses of the Rue Royale, the Rue Dupleix, the 
 Rue St. Louis and the Rue Quay de la Ville 
 Blanche! 
 
 I see them slipping past, one after another, those 
 low dwellings, whitened with chalk, in the inte- 
 riors of which one not infrequently perceives a 
 Louis XV pier-glass or a parquet floor of lozenged 
 oak. In this setting, a little affected and man- 
 nered, once danced perhaps the red-heeled gallants 
 and the furbelowed marquises of whom that 
 strange Jeanne de Castro, otherwise Madame 
 Dupleix, was the vicereine. Today the occupants 
 of those pretty little houses are only Creoles who 
 have emigrated from Mauritius or Bourbon Island 
 when they are not, quite simply, half-breed Eura- 
 sians, and dirty, at that. The days follow one 
 another. . . . 
 
 I am thinking of all this, in a melancholy way, 
 while two men push and one pulls me in a little 
 Pondicherian vehicle towards the Pagoda of Vil- 
 lianur, situated a few miles distant in the French 
 
212 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 enclosure. I use this word "enclosure" intention- 
 ally, for we had to make no less than five or six 
 successive passages over territory that was alter- 
 nately French and English in order to reach this 
 temple. One can form some idea from this of the 
 iiicessant difficulties that the respective neighbor- 
 ing proprietors of these frontier domains experi- 
 ence. Traveling at the rate of about two kilo- 
 meters an hour, the two men pushing behind and 
 the one who is pulling in front contrive to stream 
 with sweat; their bronzed faces turn toward me at 
 times and interrogate me with good-natured, lazy 
 smiles. Is it really absolutely necessary that I 
 should go as far as the pagoda? The truth is that, 
 in my inmost heart, I feel somewhat shame-faced, 
 lounging all by myself in this little four-wheeled 
 cart, surmounted by a parasol; I look like an in- 
 valid in a merry mood. But how can I do other- 
 wise? It is the only practicable method of loco- 
 motion in Pondichery. (What a world of comfort 
 and speed separates these grating, jolting arm- 
 chairs on wheels from the flexible, delicious rick- 
 shaws, with their pneumatic tires, of Saigon!) 
 
 The first persons we pass on the road are a squad 
 of French Sepoys, quite military in their bearing. 
 Some of them, seeing me crammed into the corner 
 of my little wagon, have a mocking smile in the 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 213 
 
 corner of their lips. What can you expect? They 
 are voters like myself and from universal suffrage, 
 especially in a colonial land, we can ask nothing 
 but strict equality, however familiar and contemp- 
 tuous. In the fields the peasants are busy with 
 their picoites, by means of which they draw water 
 from the wells — a sort of see-saw, like those which 
 we observe every day in the outskirts of Cairo 
 and which they set in motion by walking from one 
 end to the other of the tilting beam. Finally, after 
 having crossed or skirted a maze of canals shaded 
 by palm-trees, as pleasing in their appearance as 
 those I admired yesterday at Coudepacom, we 
 reach the famous pagoda. 
 
 These six kilometers have seemed interminable 
 to me; and my first care, on arriving at the vil- 
 lage, over which floats our national flag, is to de- 
 mand with hue and cry a cool, sparkling soda, 
 lightly colored with whisky. My men, more sober, 
 content themselves with cocoanut milk. An old 
 Brahman then approaches me and in an evil 
 Anglo-French jargon whispers to me some indis- 
 tinct and mysterious sentences: "Yes, master, moi 
 connaise belle danseuse . . . three rupees only 
 . . . tres attractif toi verras!" 
 
 I know this dancing-girl trick of his ; it has al- 
 
214 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 ready been played on me several times. It is a 
 classic trick of the indigenous artful dodger who 
 dresses his daughter up in tinsel, covers her with 
 bells and sets her jigging before the blissful Euro- 
 pean. I leave this worthy discomfited and make 
 my way to the sacred pond, on the bank of which 
 I sit down. Before me there is a little pagoda 
 surrounded by water, behind which are outlined 
 in the background pyramidal gopuras. It is all, 
 I must confess, very like what I have already seen 
 elsewhere, but a chauvinistic pride seizes me be- 
 cause this temple is ours, the last vestige of our 
 dominion in this country which is so firmly at- 
 tached to the Brahmanistic dogmas. Besides, this 
 little pagoda of Villianur is one of the prettiest 
 things, architecturally speaking, in which our 
 French eyes can take pride. I have not found its 
 equal either in Mahe or in Chandernagor. On 
 this score alone did I not owe it the honor of a 
 visit? 
 
 I return to my rickshaw and find the old im- 
 presario there chanting his couplet to me again: 
 "Yes, master, toi jamais vue si beautiful bayadere 
 . . . moiy en a, f aire danser lotus, cobra, peacock." 
 
 I fling him a handful of annas, for the probable 
 cost of the disguise, and I hear him murmuring to 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 215 
 
 my astonished boy, "That's a Parisian. ... I 
 knowl" 
 
 And now, since this morning and for a few 
 hours, here I am at Madras. Madras — that is to 
 say, a sudden return to the things of Europe which 
 — with no offense to lovers of local color — also 
 have their good side. Who, in fact, can describe 
 the Edenlike charm of a good bath in a bath-tub 
 after the too truly tublike tub of India! And the 
 delight of a drive in a real carriage along a clean, 
 level highway, without bumps or ruts! And the 
 sybaritic consumption in the "tea-room" of well- 
 buttered toast and muffins! 
 
 Is not Madras, after Calcutta and Bombay, the 
 largest city of British India? As the capital of 
 the presidency of the same name and the residence 
 of the governor, it has never ceased to be the seat 
 of the government and of a Court of Appeals and 
 numbers today nearly half a million inhabitants. 
 Its surface is so spread out that every cottage has 
 its little garden, and many vast dwellings and pal- 
 aces are surrounded by a park. This privileged 
 situation (which reminds me somewhat of Wel- 
 tevreden, the elegant quarter of Batavia) permits 
 everyone, without leaving his home and in the 
 very center of the city, to imagine himself in the 
 
2i6 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 country and to have all its pleasures. Quick 1 be- 
 fore dinner at the "D'Angelis," a short ride in a 
 victoria about the city! Am I in India? Impos- 
 ing modern monuments follow one another like 
 stepping-stones along the beach on a strip of earth 
 twenty kilometers by twelve in length: the Col- 
 lege, the High Court of Justice, which is crowned 
 by the lighthouse, the Museum of Art and Com- 
 merce. Other buildings, like the Shepauk Build- 
 ing, the former residence of the nawabs of the Car- 
 natic, are visibly inspired by the Doric, Ionic, and 
 Saracen orders and, like the Theosophical Lodge 
 and the School of Arts, also attract my attention. 
 One must not fail to visit this School of Arts, for 
 in it one can see the natives revealing all their 
 aptitude for ceramics, engraving on metals, beaten 
 copper work, sculpture, painting, enameling, etc. 
 . . . Afterwards I go to Fort St. George, where 
 one finds the first English church built in India 
 (1678- 1 680), not far from the black city and the 
 bazaars, then to the People's Park and the Botan- 
 ical Gardens, where splendid tigers are roaring. 
 And, without my giving him any order, as if 
 mechanically, the irreproachable driver of my 
 comfortable victoria takes me along the boulevard 
 of the Ramina Road, on which the British and 
 Tamil elegance of Madras is accustomed to gather 
 
MADURA — THE PALACE OF THE ANCIENT RAJAH WHO WAS 
 DISPOSSESSED 
 
 THE SACRED ROCK OF TRICHINOPOLY 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF DUPLEIX 217 
 
 each evening to enjoy the cool of the day and the 
 music while they consume ices and sherbets. 
 
 This Marina Road, why, it's the Promenade des 
 Anglais at Nice, it's the jetty at Ostend! 
 
 I pinch my elbow to see if I am really 
 awake 1 . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CJUUUU UUUUUU 19 1 
 
 THE TEMPLES OF COROMANDEL 
 
 Tanjore and its bull of black marble — ^The jewel of Sobraman)re 
 — Bad taste of native royalty — ^The sacred rock of 
 Trichinopoly — Sri-Ragham and its 20,000 Brahmans. 
 
 N leaving Madras to go to Tanjore 
 and then to Trichinopoly, the city 
 of the monolith, one is struck by 
 the exuberance of the tropical vege- 
 tation. Everywhere are clumps 
 of cabbage palms, cocoanut trees, 
 bananas, cut here and there by masses of violet 
 bougainvilliers and purple hibiscus. All this ver- 
 dure sways and undulates above immense green 
 rice-fields. A smiling, enchanting country, if 
 there ever was onel 
 
 Several architects, English as well as French, 
 who had journeyed to India before me, had espe- 
 cially recommended to my attention the Temple of 
 Tanjore as ofifering, with those of Madura and 
 Sri-Ragham, the most perfect examples of the 
 Dravidian style. ''That of Tanjore, above all," 
 
 2I8 
 
THE TEMPLES OF COROMANDEL 219 
 
 they told me, "has the merit of not too greatly 
 shocking our European aesthetic conceptions. It 
 cannot fail to charm you; it is a masterpiece, an 
 adorable masterpiece, consecrated to the glory of 
 Sobramanye and giving the impression of a piece 
 of jewelry, artistically worked out to the last 
 detail." 
 
 To find my way there I pass, as soon as I have 
 arrived, through the big and little forts of the 
 ancient citadel ; by means of shaking old draw- 
 bridges, I cross deep moats close against the 
 crenelated encircling wall. Then suddenly I find 
 myself in an immense paved court. Here rises the 
 great pagoda, the gopura of which, covered with 
 symbolic figures, is more than two hundred feet 
 high and has thirteen tiers crowned with a mono- 
 lithic dome. A few feet away rises the colossal 
 reclining bull of black marble (representing Siva) 
 which is called Nandy and measures not less than 
 thirteen feet in height. It is surrounded by a rail- 
 ing to the bars of which the faithful are accus- 
 tomed to fasten gifts and votive ofiferings. Above 
 my head, the vault of the pavilion which shelters 
 the idol is decorated with many-colored frescoes 
 of the most striking effect. 
 
 I advance a hundred feet to the right of the 
 square, towards the jewel of Sobramanye, which 
 
220 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 attracts and fascinates me. And slowly, as one 
 tastes an old Roman portal or a Gothic rose-win- 
 dow, I make the tour of the building and pick out 
 its beauties, one by one. They are exquisite, these 
 somber sculptures which, owing to their lightness, 
 one might easly mistake for wood-carvings! On 
 the other hand there is nothing very striking to be 
 noted in the interior in which reigns a mysterious 
 obscurity and which one reaches by a flight of 
 steps, bordered on each side by a finely carved but 
 massive balustrade of stone. But the chief char- 
 acteristic of this little monument, that which most 
 particularly arouses one's admiration, is the purity 
 of line of the general plan, the regularity and soli- 
 darity of the courses and the basements; finally, 
 the almost Greek simplicity shown by the work- 
 men who cut these rigorously cylindrical pillars, 
 which one would swear were inspired* by those of 
 the Theseion at Athens. 
 
 Strange that a people who created such admir- 
 able masterpieces should have degenerated in our 
 day to the point of ignoring, almost disliking them, 
 and in any case of preferring to them such somber 
 horrors as, for example, the so-called "palace" of 
 the deposed ex-Rajah of Tanjore, whose descend- 
 ants are today pensioned by England! Certainly 
 I should not care to share the enthusiasm of my 
 
THE TEMPLES OF COROMANDEL 221 
 
 good boy, Subbaraya-Pillai, for that large and in- 
 significant white building which was shown to us 
 by a ragged guardian. I had to hold myself in 
 so as not to burst out laughing at the incoherent 
 decorations of the rooms, the bad taste of this petty 
 provincial establishment, the ridiculous portraits 
 of the sovereigns, smeared on by some wretched 
 dauber, the treasures (worthy of the boutique a 
 treize!) of the present Ranee, who is more than 
 seventy years of age, and the modern lusters, dusty, 
 heavy, absurd, unquestionably imported from 
 Diisseldorf or Leipzig. 
 
 Poor naive kinglets! 
 
 And, dreaming, I invoke the splendor of the 
 vanished ages, the great ancestors of these folk 
 who raised those holy stones to the glory of their 
 gods, the sublime builders of the pagoda and the 
 little temple. In the street, just now, a Moham- 
 medan procession winds past to the sound of a 
 barbaric and yet harmonious music; the crowd 
 makes way before the trophies, the standards, the 
 fifes and the madly beating tom-toms ; the acolytes 
 of the priests throw ashes over the bent heads; 
 three elephants, two camels, richly caparisoned 
 horses led by the hands of the Sepoys, close the 
 march. This stately procession makes its way 
 toward a pond of stagnant water, where sterile 
 
222 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 women come to bathe, the banks of which are peo- 
 pled with monkeys. 
 
 The sun sinks slowly over a vision of what must 
 once have been the splendor of the kings of Tan- 
 jore, a splendor that today is fallen forever. 
 
 Of Trichinopoly, a large city of 91,000 inhabi- 
 tants, watered by the Cauvery, there is nothing 
 very much to be said. The interest of the visit 
 lies exclusively in the ascent of an enormous rock, 
 236 feet high, on the flat top of which rises a fort 
 and a temple dedicated^ to Siva. One reaches it 
 by a stairway of about three hundred steps cut in 
 the solid rock and skirting a line of little chapels 
 generally consecrated to the worship of Vishnu. 
 From the terrace one looks down over a magical 
 view : from the foot of the rock rises the long mur- 
 mur of the town, the river stretches out its silver 
 moire ribbon, the palm forest undulates in the 
 little shivers of the wind. Bells, ringing, scatter 
 their pious notes on the air; it is the brass clappers 
 of Saint Joseph's College, which is directed by the 
 French Jesuit fathers, calling the students to 
 prayer. The history of India tells us that in this 
 city there took place, in the eighteenth century, 
 memorable battles between Dupleix and our Eng- 
 lish friends of today; it is not surprising, therefore, 
 
THE TEMPLES OF COROMANDEL 223 
 
 that the French tourist should find there many a 
 memory and vestige of the former inhabitants. 
 
 Through the narrow streets of the lower city, 
 where I jostle an incessant procession of carts 
 drawn by zebus or little nervous horses, I drive 
 to the temples of Sri-Ragham and Jambukeswar. 
 The former, dedicated to Vishnu, is one of the 
 most gigantic known; its outer encircling wall 
 measures no less than 2,475 f^^^ by 2,880 and is 
 twenty feet high ; seven successive enclosing walls, 
 built in squares and separated by three hundred 
 and fifty feet from each other, surround it with 
 their massive battlements; the central enclosure, 
 which is entered only by the officiating priests, 
 contains relics; the total population of Brahmans 
 and merchants who live in the interior of this 
 sanctuary is estimated at more than 20,000 souls. 
 From the architectural point of view, I note the 
 first entrance, the superstructure of which is 
 adorned with allegorical frescoes while the colon- 
 nades seem inspired by the Doric style. Above 
 the walls there soar into the air the twenty-one 
 gopuras or pyramidal bell-towers, sculptured and 
 carefully worked like the doors of a cathedral, 
 with this difference, that the statues of the saints 
 are replaced by monsters and divinities in fero- 
 cious, gesticulating attitudes. But the marvel of 
 
224 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 marvels is undeniably the facade of rearing horses 
 in high relief, upholding the massive entablature 
 with their heads. The most phlegmatic European 
 is struck dumb with admiration in the presence 
 of these incomparable sculptures whose state of 
 preservation is perfect. 
 
 The pagoda of Jambukeswar ofifers a certain 
 analogy with the great temple of Tanjore: there 
 are the same richly sculptured gopuras, the same 
 sacred ponds with greenish, stagnant water, which 
 seem to be no longer used by the pilgrims for their 
 ablutions. . . . But what especially characterizes 
 this monument, which is dedicated to Siva, is the 
 magnificent series of columns by which one ap- 
 proaches the Holy of Holies, where a sacred ele- 
 phant stands guard on the threshold. Near this 
 emaciated pachyderm, my guide points out to me 
 a fakir thug, of the sect of the Stranglers of the 
 Nerbuddah, who has been rendered famous by his 
 three unsuccessful attempts at suicide. While 
 quite young, having submitted to the ordeal of the 
 Virvir, of the Nirvanist P'aousigars, this Dandu- 
 Baba had himself suspended over a brazier by an 
 iron hook fastened into the flesh of his back. The 
 muscles tore out and he fell, but only rolled on the 
 burning coals. Later, at Benares, having fastened 
 jars pierced with holes about his body, the fanatic 
 
THE TEMPLES OF COROMANDEL 225 
 
 flung himself into the Ganges, which little by little 
 immersed him. But he was pulled out in time 
 by a fisherman. Finally, at Puri, on the coast of 
 Orissa, he tried to get himself crushed beneath 
 the car of Juggernaut. But the front wheels hav- 
 ing become suddenly wedged, he got off with two 
 crushed fingers. Since then he has resigned him- 
 self to living . . . unless some day, when the 
 sacred elephant has eaten too much, he decides to 
 let his foot come down on him like a pestle I 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE HORRIFYING COAST OF MALABAR 
 
 Some simple ethnographical remarks — With the French Ad- 
 ministrator of Mahe — "Do you like sardines? They have 
 put them everywhere" — The buffalo's agony — Cochin, the 
 Indian Venice — ^A Court of Miracles — Nightmare visions 
 — White and Black Jews — On board the "pirate" 
 Gneisenau! 
 
 12- 
 
 DO not know why the classical itin- 
 erary for the traveler in the South 
 of India is generally limited to a 
 visit to the coast of Coromandel, 
 disdaining that of Malabar. 
 
 Not that I wish to dispute the 
 incontestable architectural superiority of the 
 temples of the former to those of the latter, which 
 hardly exist; but when one sets out to make the 
 acquaintance of a country as many-sided, as va- 
 ried, as full of marvels as the peninsula of Hindu- 
 stan, it does not do to take as one's only objective 
 the contemplation of sanctuaries and ancient royal 
 dwellings; one must also pay attention to ethno- 
 graphical problems, to the enthralling examination 
 
 226 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 227 
 
 of the distinctive characteristics of the races, to the 
 study of curious customs, varying infinitely one 
 from another. Take, for example, the case of the 
 Moplas, a mixed race of the Arab-Dravidians, of 
 the Mussulman faith, who appeared at the time 
 of the Portuguese, especially during the great ex- 
 peditions of Vasco de Gama, who wear that queer- 
 looking turban and those high wooden sandals that 
 recall the Japanese clogs. Later on I shall have 
 occasion to speak also of the White Jews and the 
 Black Jews of Cochin, no less interesting than the 
 Topas, a mixed French, Portuguese and Indian 
 product, settled in the region of Mahe and Cali- 
 cut. One must see everything in India, or almost 
 everything. . . . And in this remaining category 
 I shall give first place to the coast of Malabar. 
 
 From Erode to Calicut is an extremely pictur- 
 esque trip; wooded mountains, rocks, ponds cov- 
 ered with reeds and abounding in water-fowl, and 
 above which soar the great fisher-eagles, with their 
 brown plumage and white heads. The mountain- 
 ous appearance of the country is a relief after the 
 plains and rice-fields of Coromandel. But how 
 many difficulties lie in the way of entering this 
 unhealthy province, where cholera, bubonic 
 plague and leprosy are endemic — strangely 
 enough, since the land is well-aired and watered 
 
228 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 by large rivers, very much like those of the South 
 of Ceylon. In order to be able to stop at Calicut, 
 at Mahe, at Cochin, I was obliged to fortify my- 
 self with a plague-passport, which certifies that I 
 am not infected with any of the aforementioned 
 maladies — a wise measure dictated by the authori- 
 ties in the desire not to increase the scourge. 
 
 After a short stop at Calicut (the native town 
 of calico, dear to our housewives, where I hastily 
 visit a cotton spinning-mill) I reach Mahe, our 
 charming French possession on the Western coast. 
 
 There I am received and treated in the most 
 hospitable fashion by the Colonial Administrator, 
 M. Louit, who is temporarily replacing M. Bar- 
 bier, the Resident. Thanks to him I have the 
 honor of occupying a beautiful room in the Resi- 
 dent's palace, a historic chamber, if you please, 
 in which Dupleix slept, then Mahe de la Bour- 
 donnais. M. Louit takes me for a stroll over the 
 ancient crenelated ramparts, now transformed into 
 terraces and gardens, with an outlook over the 
 sea and the estuary of the little river of Mahe. 
 I could imagine myself on the Riviera, were it not 
 for just that little river, shaded by cocoanut trees 
 and quite Asiatic, which serves as a frontier for 
 our enclosure. In fact a wooden bridge, owned 
 jointly, separates — cordially, I may say — the 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 229 
 
 French shore from the British shore. We visit the 
 "native village," and its quarter inhabited by the 
 half-breed Topas. I say native village, for it must 
 not be imagined that there exists here a neighbor- 
 ing little French or European quarter, such as 
 there is at Pondichery. Like Chandernagor, Kari- 
 kal and Yanaon, Mahe contains, one might say, 
 no colonists. If in each of these settlements you 
 count up the Administrator, the druggist, the mis- 
 sionary and two or three good Sisters, you will 
 obtain the total of the six or seven persons of our 
 nationality. Oh I pardon me, I was forgetting 
 Mahe's one French colonist, a certain M. de la 
 Haye-Jousselin, a widower and something of a 
 misanthrope, who directs an important sardine 
 cannery on the English side of the river! This 
 sardine industry — for the fish abound in these 
 parts — ought to attract to Mahe more than one 
 of our Bretons who are complaining of the disap- 
 pearance of the precious fish at Douarnenez, 
 Audierne and Concarneau. Real fortunes might 
 be built up there in no time: the cost of labor is 
 next to nothing and the oil of the earth-nuts, popu- 
 larly called cacahouettes, is ready to one's hand. 
 The only thing to be thought of is the soldering 
 and the importation of boxes. I hope my appeal 
 will be heard and understood, but in a somewhat 
 
230 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 more patriotic fashion than that of M. de la Haye- 
 Jousselin, the French colonist who has established 
 himself on Anglo-Saxon territory! 
 
 And those sardines! There are vast quantities 
 of them, too many! I made this discouraging dis- 
 covery during the course of a dinner to which I 
 was asked by the Administrator. The trouble was 
 caused by the sardine heads, cut ofif and flung to 
 the chickens and animals as food: creamed eggs, 
 fricasseed chicken, roast duck au riz creole and 
 with hearts of palm, yes, everything had the taste 
 of this fish ! My host positively tore his hair. "It's 
 frightful," he said to me; "shutting up my fowls 
 in a carefully wired enclosure and making them 
 fast for several days after I have bought them 
 isn't of any use. Nothing does any good. I believe 
 the air itself is sar dined!" 
 
 We took coffee on the terrace, by moonlight. 
 M. Louit extolled to me the resources of the little 
 colony of eight thousand souls which he admin- 
 isters. His native subjects, it appears, are very 
 easy to live with. But that does not prevent the 
 solitude from weighing on him. And there is a 
 great deal of joy for him in the thought of the 
 next stop of the cruiser Dupleix, which is to coal 
 at Mahe in a week's time. The Dupleix at Mahel 
 History is certainly nothing but repetitions. 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 231 
 
 "Well, everything is doing nicely," the Admin- 
 istrator said to me jovially, rubbing his hands; "at 
 least for a while I shan't have to eat sardines all 
 by myself!" 
 
 But an end to joking. A horrifying, repulsive, 
 pitiful spectacle awaits me at Cochin, the center 
 of the plague, cholera, leprosy and elephantiasis. 
 
 Cochin is situated on the point of a peninsula, 
 on a sort of lagoon which one reaches by steamboat 
 from Ernakulam, the terminus of the railway. The 
 whole trip, before one reaches this last spot, pre- 
 sents a picturesque panorama: it is not quite the 
 jungle, since one can see emerging here and there 
 from the underbrush oases of cocoanut and banana 
 trees and clumps of bamboos serving as enclosures, 
 from which rise up flocks of crows with black 
 heads and tails and chestnut-colored wings. In 
 the fields the peasants go about naked to the waist, 
 their heads shaven, with the exception of a little 
 round tuft on the very top of their skulls, a tuft 
 knotted into a chignon and flung forward on the 
 left side, sometimes above the forehead. The 
 women proudly carry their whimpering offspring 
 on their backs, lifting high their fine, firm breasts 
 which have never known the torture of the corset. 
 The language spoken by these people is Malay- 
 sian, an idiom related to Tamil but nevertheless 
 
232 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 distinct. One finds also among the coast popula- 
 tions the descendants of pure Arab stock from the 
 land of Oman. 
 
 Just before the juncture of Schoranur, where 
 one changes cars, our train receives a shock. We 
 stop. The cowcatcher in front of the locomotive 
 has just knocked over and crushed a bufifalo. I 
 lean out of the window and make questioning sig- 
 nals to the conductor. "Nothing," replies this far 
 from orthodox Hindu, as he whistles to start again. 
 These things happen so often! . . . We continue 
 on our way without troubling any more about the 
 unhappy beast which, its side torn, is dying on the 
 embankment. Through the palms, stirred now 
 and then by a warm breeze, I distinguish the bell- 
 tower of a Catholic church. Who knows whether 
 in this forgotten mission, some compatriot of ours 
 is not leading a glorious and unknown existence? 
 ... At the stations, the armed Sepoys, infinitely 
 respectful of the white man, stand at attention and 
 give me the military salute. On the quay of An- 
 gamali, the first station of the independent State 
 of the Maharajah of Travancore, my boy falls 
 into an endless and very inopportune conversation 
 with one of his friends whom he has met by 
 chance. I find him positively comic, this friend, 
 with his European collar and necktie fastened 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 233 
 
 over a pale pink shirt, the tails of which float out 
 over a. dirty old pair of gray trousers. But this 
 Hindu fashion of wearing the shirt should not 
 surprise me; have I not already noticed it among 
 most of the Afghans, and even some of the Kash- 
 mirians? I get ofif at Cochin just as night is fall- 
 ing. Everything is silent, dark. Not a carriage, 
 not a horse, not a draught-animal. You would 
 think you were in Venice. The illusion is com- 
 plete when the Malabar gondolas glide noiselessly 
 by over the turgid water of the canals. Shadows 
 wander along the single interminable street; on 
 the doorsteps are crouching bodies, twisted as if 
 in convulsions, whether living souls asleep or dy- 
 ing souls in agony, one does not know. At times 
 the highway is literally blocked with animals: I 
 have to climb circumspectly over a veritable bar- 
 ricade of horns, the horns of zebus, rams and goats. 
 My boy and my porters follow me grumbling. 
 What an extraordinary arrival in this mysterious, 
 faraway cityl 
 
 Why I do not know, but this first night I sleep 
 badly, in the room of the dawk-bungalow where 
 I have taken up my quarters. Intolerable heat, 
 mosquitoes humming ravenously about my mos- 
 quito netting, creepings and crawlings over the 
 straw mattings on the floor. ... A certain expe- 
 
234 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 rience of the tropics has somewhat hardened me 
 against these nocturnal terrors ; long nights passed 
 under a tent have accustomed me, during the hours 
 of sleep, to the company of insects and reptiles 
 that I have known were harmless. To tell the 
 truth, I am more affected by the disconcerting 
 manner of this arrival in an unknown city noto- 
 riously unwholesome and dangerous, owing to the 
 contagious diseases that abound there, a city to 
 which the tourist very rarely ventures. 
 
 But it was on my awakening that I was greeted 
 with the true nightmare. Never shall I forget 
 the frightful spectacle of these people of Cochin, 
 dragging through the streets, through the alleys, 
 along the canals, the spectral horror of their ills. 
 On all sides one saw nothing but frightfully dis- 
 tended legs and feet, swollen by the oedema of 
 elephantiasis — what is called in popular medical 
 language the Cochin leg. I turn away with pity 
 and nausea from these unfortunates, the calves of 
 whose legs look like tree-trunks : the least affected 
 ones look as if they were wearing heavy sewer- 
 man's boots. This form of leprosy is, it appears, 
 hereditary and congenital; it is due principally to 
 impure water. Medical treatment brings but slight 
 results; the only consolation of the sufferers is to 
 see how many others (almost all, in fact) are in 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 235 
 
 the same boat with themselves. After all, these 
 poor wretches do not seem to realize the full im- 
 port of their repulsive infirmity. The absence of 
 pain and the continuance of their normal lives 
 have, no doubt, much to do with this. Some of 
 them even profit by the disgust which they inspire 
 in foreigners, and make a good little income out 
 of it. 
 
 But nothing equals the hideousness of the lepers 
 suffering from facial lupus. These may be called 
 the living dead; their faces, devoured by the dis- 
 ease, are nothing but one wound. No fantastic 
 vision of Edgar Allan Poe could give any idea of 
 these flat faces, whose eyes devour you with their 
 lidless stare, whose gaping nasal cavity is an ooz- 
 ing hole, covered with flies, whose mouth, lipless 
 but filled with dazzling teeth, is fixed in a per- 
 petual, motionless grin. 
 
 Compared with these disinherited ones, the 
 mere sight of whom makes me ill, the immense 
 mass of the maimed and deformed and the other 
 Quasimodos with whom the town swarms, is only 
 an Asiatic, perhaps a slightly more brutal, trans- 
 position of our medieval Court of Miracles. I 
 quickly hail a rickshaw, which is dashing by. It 
 snatches me away from the horde that surrounds 
 me and to which I throw a handful of small coins. 
 
236 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 Claw-like hands stretch out. But we are off at 
 full speed toward the British cantonment and inde- 
 pendent Cochin. The Maharajah has fixed the 
 sum of two annas as the toll-rate, or more exactly 
 the entrance fee, into his State — a curious rem- 
 nant of Indian feudalism, which the European 
 rulers have scrupulously respected. Hardly have 
 we passed the boundary when an armed Sepoy 
 rises up from some straw and warns me in bad 
 English that the quarter into which I am going 
 is at the moment ravaged by the plague. This 
 morning they have burned fifty corpses again. I 
 judge it more prudent to retrace my path and post- 
 pone my visit to the carved wooden temple of 
 native Cochin. 
 
 So I give the order: "To the Jewish quarter 1" 
 We go down a large avenue, then through a 
 series of infinitely curious little streets, where I 
 want to stop and take some photographs. But to 
 my great astonishment, the Malabar boy who is 
 pushing me refuses, with a gentle obstinacy, to 
 make any stop. "No good, master, no good!" And 
 we continue on our wild jolting way. A few hours 
 later I learn that this quarter is a prey to cholera 
 morbus. I have had a narrow escape 1 But here 
 we are in Kalvati, where the White Jews live. 
 At the end of this quarter we can already see the 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 237 
 
 outlines of the houses of Mottancheri, the head- 
 quarters of the colony of Black Jews. Hindu 
 temples and synagogues jostle one another. On 
 the doorsteps of the dwellings are beautiful Jew- 
 esses, with white, faintly bronzed skins, whose 
 type recalls that of Hagar or Rebecca. The men 
 and the little boys are almost uniformly clad in 
 light pajamas imported from the Occident: they 
 have bare feet thrust into sandals or slippers and 
 in general no head-dress, except the rabbis and old 
 men, who wear the traditional Jewish turban. 
 Altogether, in our day, these White Jews number 
 200. The date of their immigration goes back 
 to the last destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. 
 It is a strange thing, but this little agglomeration 
 of White Jews abstains disdainfully from any con- 
 tact with their black-skinned co-religionists. These 
 latter, however, are the converts of their ancestors; 
 the same Talmud is taught without distinction in 
 all their synagogues. But nothing has been able 
 to prevail against the prejudice of color. 
 
 In the afternoon, to escape the sickening spec- 
 tacle of the lepers and the victims of elephantiasis, 
 I lounge about the port and wait for the fishermen 
 to pull in their nets. Out in the roads, a big war- 
 ship is sending up from her smokestacks heavy 
 
238 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 columns of black smoke. It is the Gneisenau, tne 
 German armored cruiser, manned by a crew of 
 seven hundred and charged, this year, with carry- 
 ing the Crown Prince on a hunting trip to India. 
 On the quay, the officers and sailors come and go. 
 My fluency in their tongue permits me to begin 
 a courteous conversation with the ship's doctor, 
 Herr Gustav Koch of Hamburg. Through him 
 I learn that the dingey which has just brought him 
 to shore is awaiting three charming American 
 ladies and two of their compatriots, one of whom 
 is a consul, who have asked the favor of being 
 the prince's guests and visiting his warship, 
 
 "If you wish to join them," he adds, "nothing 
 is simpler. Here they are. Come on board with 
 
 us." 
 
 "With great pleasure, thank you." In my heart 
 I am rejoicing at this escape from the obsession 
 of the pathological nightmare, nor am I displeased 
 at the chance to do a little authorized spying on 
 the enemy ship. The dingey comes alongside. 
 Salutations, presentations to our gracious compan- 
 ions; then an officer gives the signal for departure. 
 
 On the vessel Commander von Uslar and his 
 stafif are awaiting us. 
 
 * 
 
THE COAST OF MALABAR 239 
 
 The years have gone by. 
 
 Why must the remembrance of this princely 
 reception, when champagne flowed and the ship's 
 orchestra played Yankee Doodle and the Mar- 
 seillaise, be forever effaced and spoiled hence- 
 forth by the barbarous bombardment of Papeete, 
 the work of this same Gneisenau, sunk shortly 
 after ofif the Falklands by the valiant British fleet? 
 
 Never to my ear could those seven cannon shots 
 that wished us farewell at Cochin have foretold 
 the unjustifiable naval attack on the unfortified 
 harbor of my dear and poetic Tahiti! I shall al- 
 ways see in imagination the panic of those delight- 
 ful and indolent Polynesian islanders fleeing des- 
 perately before the Teuton shells, and imploring 
 on the threshold of the old palace of Pomare the 
 protection of the machine-guns that had been land- 
 ed from the Zelee, the poor Zelee, shamefully 
 bombarded by the pirates on the coral seas I 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 
 
 The Mussulman Moharram at Madura — Indian Aissaouas — 
 The Great Temple and its treasures — Under the trading 
 arcades of Poutou Mandabam — Noon in the streets — Last 
 picture of India which, alas! I am leaving. 
 
 ROM Trichinopoly in a few hours 
 one reaches Madura, the holy city 
 of southern India, the Tamil Ben- 
 ares. 
 
 What strikes you on entering this 
 city is the total absence of hotels, 
 restaurants, banks, in a word of all that the Eu- 
 ropean, coming from Colombo or Madras, thinks 
 he has a right to expect. The visitor is obliged 
 to take his meals and even sleep in the very sta- 
 tion of Madura, where they have fitted up a great 
 dining-room and several scantily furnished bed- 
 rooms. There is, indeed, a dawk-bungalow for 
 the use of strangers, but the few rooms that go 
 to make it up are uncomfortable and unsanitary; 
 
 moreover, one is exposed to the promiscuity of 
 
 240 
 

 1 
 
 w^^^nf 1'i '^i'llPf!?^ 
 
 ?pi"'ii|lnl3|3 
 
 ilJi,|»--iT«^" 
 
 T| 1 1 M M "^ 
 
 M Ml th 'l....^;^^- - 
 
 HP^ --^v^^^^l 
 
 ' i m . - 
 
 THE PAGODA OF JAMBUKESWAR, NEAR TRICHINOPOLY 
 
 THE ENVIRONS OF MADURA — THE PAGODA AND POND OF 
 TEPPA-KULAM 
 
THE CAR OF THE JUGGERNAUT 
 
 SRIRANGAN ENTRANCE TO THE TEMPLE 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 241 
 
 the natives, who come and go before the threshold, 
 as well as to the deafening racket of wailing in- 
 fants and beggars stammering out their long and 
 monotonous litanies. Do not look in Madura, 
 therefore, for English shops and street-cars. So 
 much the better! There is an unbelievable amount 
 of local color; one elbows a heterogeneous assembly 
 of priests and merchants. The rarity of the Eu- 
 ropean note is more striking in these surroundings 
 than elsewhere. In the matter of vehicles, the 
 little ox-carts called djerkds are almost the only 
 means of locomotion in this ancient city of Coro- 
 mandel. 
 
 When I stopped off there for the first time, the 
 great Mussulman feast of the Moharram was in 
 full swing. It is a sort of carnival which takes 
 place once a year, in January, and lasts eight days. 
 It is in celebration of the defeat and massacre of 
 the sons of Hussein and Hassan by the orthodox 
 troops of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet. The 
 fanatics smear themselves with wax, daub their 
 faces and their whole bodies with violent colors, 
 trick themselves out in ragged finery of all shades, 
 and are escorted by a crowd of street urchins. 
 ''Ddou seya mandam andreh/" they cry, waving 
 their sabers and lances ferociously while, out of 
 their respected paths, the drovers pull the little 
 
242 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 zebus with their painted horns and their backs 
 laden with shellfish, crying in their turn, "Ei/ EU 
 'ttah!" The procession takes its way towards a 
 circle dug in the earth and filled with lighted 
 coals, in one of the village squares. These A'is- 
 saouas then dash forward with savage cries toward 
 the burning brazier, which they tread and cross, 
 some running, others walking slowly, amid the 
 loud acclamations of the spectators who watch the 
 voluntary martyrs with devotion. 
 
 I leave these possessed spirits and these madmen 
 to their savage practices and betake myself to the 
 Great Temple, which is certainly entitled to be 
 classed among the architectural marvels of the 
 world. To reach it one goes down the great high- 
 way called Permal-Kohil, passing the pond of the 
 same name. To the right rises the church of the 
 Catholic mission about which are grouped the 
 richest dwellings of the Madura merchants. Then 
 I enter the West-Massis, which cuts the Permal- 
 Kohil at right angles. There my curiosity is at- 
 tracted by the capricious little designs and ara- 
 besques, drawn each morning in many-colored 
 chalks on the pavement in front of the houses, as 
 an homage to the tutelary deity. I admire also 
 the beautiful fountain, presented to her fellow- 
 citizens by a rich Hindu lady named Lakchmi, 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 243 
 
 which represents, from right to left, Sobramanye, 
 the second son of Siva, then Minakchi, his wife, 
 then Ganesa, Siva's eldest son, whose elephant 
 trunk falls in classic lines over his beneficent 
 navel. And here is the great street of the West 
 Tower, leading straight to the colossal temple, at 
 the end of which, to the right, rises a little votive 
 altar in the form of a lingham, (At daybreak old 
 widows with shaven heads come to sprinkle it pi- 
 ously with red and white powder.) In the streets 
 there is a veritable tintinnabulation of brace- 
 lets, rings, anklets, and those ear-rings that pull 
 the lobe far down. Among poor women this last 
 ornament is called pambaram, among the rich 
 itediki. Very strange, also, are the heavy nose- 
 pendants called mouketti, and those fastened to the 
 partition of the nose and called pillako. Nothing 
 could be more droll, finally, than those shameless 
 little girls and those quite naked babies whose only 
 costume consists of a silver heart hung from their 
 hips by a cord. 
 
 I arrive in front of the entrance gopura. It 
 is the fourth porch of the West Tower within the 
 parallelogram of the great surrounding wall; its 
 own walls are painted with the colors of Vishnu. 
 Great cocoanut trees with waving tops sway above 
 the flowering bananas. But what religious majesty 
 
244 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 presides over the entrance to the South Portal of 
 the sanctuary! Two gigantic stone elephants stand 
 guard there, near the pond of the Golden Lotus. 
 A little way off I see the apocalyptic Car of Jug- 
 gernaut which, during the great festivals, is 
 dragged by human arms through the principal 
 street of the city. About it are grouped, like hum- 
 ble satellites, little cars covered with straw or 
 sheltered under a hangar of corrugated iron. In 
 our day there are still men fanatical enough to 
 get themselves crushed under its massive, holy 
 wheels. This thought obsesses me; and it is not 
 without a certain emotion that I venture for the 
 first time into the hall of Peret, where the sacred 
 paroquets, cockatoos and parrots are chattering in 
 their gilded cages suspended from the walls and 
 from vaults moldy with saltpeter. 
 
 How can one express the marvel of those splen- 
 did high reliefs representing elephants, lions, 
 monsters, gods and goddesses, grimacing genii, all 
 carved out of the solid blocks of stone and as care- 
 fully worked as the Gothic lace of our cathedrals I 
 In striking contrast, there rises to the left, encrust- 
 ed, as it were, on the breast of this floral sculpture, 
 a little black idol, dirty, greasy, grotesquely clad 
 in a white shirt bordered with red. It is my sym- 
 pathetic friend Ganesa again, bidding me wel- 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 245 
 
 come. Really I cannot do better than to sprinkle 
 his pedestal, as the custom is, with a libation of 
 cocoanut milk. 
 
 "The Prakaram, sahib!" 
 
 It is my native guide, my faithful Subbaraya 
 Pillai, who utters this exclamation in which rever- 
 ence and fear are mingled. One of the mysterious 
 galleries of the temple has just opened before me, 
 a second interior, covered passage where reigns a 
 disquieting half-light. It leads to the great hall 
 where the priests, on certain occasions, are accus- 
 tomed to spread out in sumptuous flat baskets the 
 treasures of Minakchi, the Goddess-with-the- fish's- 
 eyes. It is very seldom that one can see these treas- 
 ures. The Brahmans do not permit the simple 
 tourist (even if he is furnished with British recom- 
 mendations from high quarters) to look at them 
 save at a charge of fifteen' rupees, in addition to 
 a tip of five rupees for the guardian. Total, about 
 seven dollars, which is rather dear. Fortunately 
 it so happened that on my visit I met there a high 
 English official from Southern India, whose guest 
 I had been in the country of Malabar. Thanks to 
 him I was able, without untying my purse, to view 
 these incomparable treasures piously preserved in 
 a cave where the vampire bats wheel and flit with 
 their funereal laughter. An unbelievable heap of 
 
246 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 precious stones, most of them square-cut and clum- 
 sily inserted in their mountings of chased or fili- 
 greed gold: pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, 
 emeralds, beryls, topazes, etc. . . . The diamonds 
 attract my attention particularly: they are enor- 
 mous but badly set ofif, rose-cut, or like fragments 
 of glass, sometimes even of dull glass. We are 
 far from the diamond-cutters of Amsterdam and 
 the brilliant displays of Paris! ... I observe the 
 beautiful tapestries embroidered with pearls, 
 head-dresses, hats, bonnets, tunics of multi-colored 
 silks but dirty — all these riches displayed with a 
 taste that is na'ive and barbaric. 
 
 I next visit the celebrated Room of the Thou- 
 sand Columns (in reality there are only 997). 
 What refinement in the sculptures and the orna- 
 mentation! The general plan, also, is worthy of 
 admiration because of its beautiful and severe ar- 
 rangement. In this hall are a great quantity of 
 pasteboard masks for the sacred processions, as 
 well as tambourines and little bells used to an- 
 nounce to the people the passage of the idols. Still 
 preceded by my guide, without whom I should 
 certainly lose my way in this labyrinth, I proceed 
 toward the dark cavern where the two genii with 
 multiple arms and legs, who are named Djea and 
 Vidjea, defend the entrance to the tabernacle. 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 247 
 
 There, wrapped in its swaddling-clothes, dim and 
 indistinct, is the grotesque doll that represents Siva 
 the Redoubtable. Very shortly a procession is go- 
 ing to carry it away. . . . 
 
 But what is this? From the altar of the planets 
 and the constellations, a pleasant fruity odor 
 spreads through the vault, the exhalations of flow- 
 ers, fruits and sweet-smelling oils brought by the 
 faithful. A great throng of pilgrims, in fact, has 
 just plunged into the gallery of the Prakaram, in 
 order to file, their ofiferings in their hands, before 
 the altar of the sanguinary Kali, then before that 
 of Siva. This fresh and springlike odor pursues 
 me to the exit. In the darkness through which I 
 have been floundering, in the chaos of this incom- 
 prehensible and age-old Sanskrit theogony, the 
 whififs of this perfume that reach my nostrils give 
 me a delicious sensation of renewal. The Euro- 
 pean soul feels itself so constrained in the mys- 
 teries of the Hindu religion, the secrets of which it 
 can pierce only so incompletely! It is already too 
 highly favored if it can grasp by intuition the 
 sealed meaning of the rites and ceremonies of 
 which it is the witness. 
 
 Bright rays of sunshine now light up the portal 
 of the Minakchi-Naik gallery. It is here that, in 
 the evening at about seven o'clock, the Brahmans 
 
248 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 light little rudimentary night-lights, simple wicks 
 dipped in oil which, when night has come, illu- 
 mine the entrance to the passages and caves. Under 
 the arcades young girls and children are laughing- 
 ly selling flowers, fruits and ex-votos, little per- 
 fumed sachets, seals and many-colored powders; 
 a little further on are rice-cakes, destined to feed 
 the pilgrims and the guardians of the immense 
 pagoda. On the steps at my feet, little boys are 
 playing and quarreling; their heads are half- 
 shaven, after the fashion of Coromandel, the re- 
 maining hair being fastened together in tufts or 
 twisted behind the head, which makes them look 
 like little Chinese. 
 
 "Salaam, sahib, salaam/" 
 
 Leaving their games, they prostrate themselves 
 as I pass, calling down on me all the blessings of 
 the Brahmanistic Trimurti. The whole crowd of 
 them, delighted with the few annas I have thrown 
 them, have dragged me toward the great elephant 
 dedicated to Siva. Daubed and tatooed, the pachy- 
 derm, fastened by its feet to the pillars that sur- 
 round it, swings its trunk heavily from left to right 
 and breaks forth, from moment to moment, into 
 a long trumpeting that tells me how impatiently 
 it is awaiting my titbits. There are a great many 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 249 
 
 of these elephants consecrated to the divinities in 
 the interior of the temples. The piety of the faith- 
 ful, I imagine, provides for their subsistence more 
 than the care of the ushers or guardians licensed 
 by the British authorities and entrusted with the 
 policing and internal administration. 
 
 Here I am, quite outside of the first cincture of 
 the temple, in the merchants' hall called Poutou 
 Mandabam, the new market built by the king 
 Tirumala Naik in the seventeenth century of our 
 era, and which cost that potentate the sum of five 
 million dollars. Impossible to imagine, still more 
 so to describe, the extravagant richness of those 
 four rows of columns, all of sculptured stone, 
 which constitute a veritable forest of high and low 
 reliefs, wrought and decorated to an infinite de- 
 gree 1 Under these vaults, the bronze and copper 
 merchants, the potters, the booksellers, the tailors, 
 the carpenters, the cabinet-makers, the goldsmiths 
 toil and cry their wares, squatting on the ground. 
 I have the good luck, thanks to my guide's inter- 
 preting, to acquire some very old and rare forks 
 of chased copper, which have been used in the 
 sacrifices, as well as some antique statuettes of gods 
 and goddesses destined to increase my little Hindu 
 pantheon. 
 
250 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 The poignant hour of departure is approacn- 
 ing. . . . Before I enter the train again for Tuti- 
 corin, Ceylon, Java and Angkor, I want to fill my 
 eyes, I want to line my bags, too, with all those 
 dear knick-knacks of art that will bring India back 
 to me. 
 
 We are passing through the last wall and across 
 the city; following the labyrinth of streets and 
 passages under the hot noonday sun, we reach the 
 station. We file past the shops of the perfumers, 
 preparing their pastes, their cosmetics and their 
 unguents. Very curious, these shops, in the back 
 of which are cages, each containing a living skunk, 
 the glands of which, as we know, furnish the odor- 
 ous matter that is the basis of Indian perfumery. 
 Some young girls pass, crowned with pinks and 
 smeared with curcuma. Their black eyes laugh 
 in their safifron faces. They are on their way, I 
 see, to a little shop to buy a cocoanut the refreshing 
 milk of which they will eagerly drink. 
 
 Above our heads eagles are wheeling, ravens 
 croaking, while palm-rats chase one another over 
 the tiled roofs and the interwoven palms and mo- 
 tionless lizards bask in the sunlight. 
 
 It is the noon hour, under the cloudless sky of 
 India, to which I must say farewell this evening 
 
MADURA THE MYSTERIOUS 251 
 
 (for the second time, alas!) with the same pang at 
 my heart and the same grave look one gives to 
 people and things one loves — and that one must 
 leave without the absolute certainty of seeing them 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 DEAD HINDU CITIES 
 
 Mirages of the past — Anuradhapura, the Cingalese Nineveh — 
 The Javanese temples of Mendoet and Boroboedoer — ^The 
 life of Buddha in sculpture — Hindu colonies in Cambodia 
 — ^Angkor, the prodigious and mysterious. 
 
 NE of the most vivid and lasting 
 impressions of my youth as a stu- 
 dent will always be that luminous 
 morning when, for the first time, 
 I climbed up the Propylaeum of the 
 Parthenon. 
 
 I had not mounted the Acropolis with the de- 
 sign of making there — after the fashion of Cha- 
 teaubriand, Renan, Barres — the mystic or philo- 
 sophical or pagan pra3rer which each of us, ac- 
 cording to his ego, feels rising invincibly to his 
 lips. If such an audacity had occurred to me for 
 a moment, the insufficiency of my means would 
 have at once revealed the sacrilegiousness of it. 
 Having reached the summit of the sacred hill, 
 
 therefore, I turned and looked about. And I was 
 
 252 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 253 
 
 immediately seized, conquered, overwhelmed by 
 the august setting and the serene beauty of the 
 place of prayer. At my feet a second city had 
 risen up, an ancient city, how different from the 
 modern city, prosaic, turbulent and busy. For 
 the first time in my life, I saw a dead city, the 
 Athens of Pericles, of Plato, iEschylus and Phid- 
 ias, to which my still recent studies in the human- 
 ities had so tenderly attached me. A dead city! 
 Can you understand what magic there is in this 
 word for a twenty-year-old spirit? To bend over 
 the vestiges of the past, to attempt to draw out its 
 secret by reading the life of a vanished or a long 
 submerged people on the bas-reliefs of a wall or 
 the columns of a temple, from the pillar to the 
 frieze, running through the whole scale of the cap- 
 ital, the abacus, the architrave; to pick out along 
 the paved streets the traces of cart-wheels ; to lean 
 over vaults still impregnated with whiffs of ancient 
 incense where millions of prayers, anthems, im- 
 precations, menacing or naive, have, as it were, 
 crystallized. Ah! that beautiful, captivating, 
 fascinating search! How one feels one's whole 
 self vibrate to it, senses, heart and brain! . . , 
 
 It was in this way that I, the child of a supreme- 
 ly living city, Paris, became, during the course 
 of my travels, a passionate lover of dead cities. 
 
254 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 And in particular of three ancient cities of Hindu 
 colonists that shone, centuries and centuries ago, 
 with the same brilliancy as the Greek Alexandria 
 in Egypt, and the Latin Timgad in Algeria : Anu- 
 radhapura, Boroboedoer, Angkor! . . . Three 
 names, three epochs, three glories of the past, of 
 the time when India, the prodigious sower, scat- 
 tered its excess of men to the four winds of the 
 world, in order to reap the harvest of kingdoms I 
 Anuradhapura is the barbarous name of the 
 ancient Anuragrammum, which was known to the 
 Romans and was for twelve centuries the capital 
 of Ceylon. Situated in the center of the island, 
 about fifty-four miles from Trincomalee where 
 the pearl fisheries are, it bears the deep imprint 
 of the Hindu influence and civilization. Its ruin 
 and devastation were the work equally of the con- 
 quering Tamils and Malabars, whose fanatical 
 Brahmanism had driven them forth in a crusade 
 against the Buddhism that was then threatening to 
 win over the entire island. Why is it that the 
 passage of the invaders has left — as did that of the 
 Thai at Angkor — only a dead city, abandoned and 
 sacked, about which the jungle has protectingly 
 wound its octopus-like arms? . . . You fall into a 
 reverie as you contemplate these temples and pal- 
 aces which were built two centuries before Christ, 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 255 
 
 the home of a splendor and magnificence that made 
 Anuradhapura the rival of Babylon, Nineveh and 
 Persepolis. But however devastated it may be to- 
 day, this "City buried under the vines," as Pierre 
 Loti has exquisitely named it, still permits us a 
 glimpse, here and there, of some marvel which is 
 intact, or almost intact: the fish-pond of Pokuna, 
 a short distance from the Queen's Baths, where 
 only the bull-frogs, the tortoises and the water 
 adders disport themselves today; the forest of col- 
 umns of the pagoda of Lankarama, with its almost 
 Ionian abaci; the decorative cornice of the great, 
 massive dagoba of Ruanwelli and its curious di- 
 vinities with their head-dresses of hieratic tiaras 
 made from the body of a crocodile, the tail of a 
 bird, the trunk of an elephant; the upright statues 
 of King Dutughemunu and his priests; the foun- 
 dations and courses of Abayashiri, the truncated 
 column of which dominates all the surrounding 
 country from the top of its hill ; and also the sculp- 
 tured doorways of the princely and priestly dwell- 
 ings, the parvis of lunar marble, decorated with a 
 procession of different animals, all strikingly life- 
 like; finally those dreaming Buddhas, life-size, 
 which one meets at every step, under the trees, in 
 the branches, and which almost frighten one with 
 
256 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 their fixed gaze and the tranquil, mocking expres- 
 sion of their lips. 
 
 Oh ! what a strange thing it is, this necropolis of 
 stone, over which the sun sheds in spots a light 
 which is bright indeed, but powerless to bring to 
 life a whole past of activity, luxury and opulence, 
 of tumultuous, sensual, frenzied joy. . . . 
 
 Listen to this old, this very old and very evoca- 
 tive Cingalese inscription: 
 
 "Innumerable are the temples and palaces of 
 Anuradhapura ; their golden cupolas and pavilions 
 glitter in the sunlight. In the streets, there is a 
 multitude of soldiers armed with bows and arrows. 
 Elephants, horses, chariots, thousands of men, 
 come and go continually. There are jugglers, 
 dancers, musicians of divers countries whose tim- 
 bals and instruments are ornamented with gold. 
 The greatest streets are those of the Moon and the 
 King, the street covered with sand, and a fourth. 
 And in the Street of the Moon there are eleven 
 thousand houses." 
 
 And today all this that once lived, laughed, sang, 
 loved and suffered, all this is nothing but a king- 
 dom of crumbling ruins, gray rubbish and verdure 
 on a foundation ojf ocher-colored earth. 
 
 Sic transit gloria mundi. 
 
 Less poetry, less reverie, less melancholy, more 
 
TEPHA-kUI.AM — ^IHK TKMFLK AND STATUETTES OF KALI 1HI-. si. AVER 
 
 MADURA — THE GREAT I'AGODA 
 
BOROBOEDOER (JAVA) — THE GREAT TEMPLE DEDICATED TO BUDDHA 
 
 GIANT HEADS OF BUDDHA OF THE CITY OF ANGOR-THOM 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 257 
 
 religious feeling emanates from the dead cities of 
 Indo-Java. 
 
 It is in the region called Midden-Java, or the 
 heart of Java, that the principal monuments of 
 Hindu inspiration are assembled; almost all of 
 them go back to the year 800 of the Sjaka era, that 
 is to say, to the ninth century of our Christian 
 era. Such, for example, are the temples of Tjandi- 
 Bima, Prambanam and Mendoet, w^hich reveal 
 many traits in common. The architecture is some- 
 what heavy and squat, without real grandeur; here 
 and there, among the confused heaps of stones, 
 one finds some fragment of a bas-relief, some alle- 
 gorical statue relating to the theogony of the 
 Vedas; strictly speaking, there is nothing astonish- 
 ing, nothing unique, save perhaps the pagoda of 
 Mendoet, which the volcano Merapi covered with 
 ashes in the ninth century and only brought to light 
 a thousand years later. The square base of this 
 pagoda, built of brick covered with sandstone, 
 gives it somewhat the appearance of a mausoleum. 
 The bas-reliefs that adorn it represent fables, 
 among them the apologue of the tortoise and the 
 two ducks. Other symbolical sculptures, also, are 
 to be noted a little to the front of the steep, pro- 
 jecting stairway that passes under the pyramidal 
 vault. In the interior of the sanctuary are three 
 
258 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 colossal figures of Buddha, not squatting, in the 
 legendary position, but seated in Occidental fash- 
 ion, the head aureoled with a sort of flame. At 
 Tjandi-Sewoe, another archaeological pilgrimage, 
 there are only ruins, except for two grimacing and 
 grotesque kneeling genii that seem to be keeping 
 guard over the foundations of a vanished palace 
 of dreams. 
 
 Quite different is Boroboedoer, the marvel of 
 Java, the architectural rival of Angkor. 
 
 Boroboedoer (the construction of which was 
 contemporaneous with Charlemagne) signifies in 
 Javanese "Thousand Buddhas." It is a strange 
 vision, a building the first and last of its kind, re- 
 sembling no other monument of Brahmanic in- 
 spiration; it is, if I dare to use such a figure, a 
 hymn in stone to the greater glory of Buddha, the 
 Reformer. 
 
 Imagine an immense bell, itself adorned with a 
 multitude of other little open-work bells carved 
 upon it, the whole framed by the summit of the 
 volcano Merapi, nine thousand feet high, and the 
 peak of Mount Soembing, about ten thousand feet 
 high. In addition to its pedestal, which is par- 
 tially buried in the earth, and to its dagoba, or 
 central bell-tower which, they say, shelters some 
 relics of the great Contemplator — the temple has 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 259 
 
 seven stories, or more exactly seven terraces. (Ob- 
 serve this number seven which one meets myste- 
 riously in all the Sanskrit myths, and for which 
 many other religions show an elective affinity.) 
 About one hundred and sixty feet high and with 
 a total length of about three hundred and twenty- 
 five feet, the edifice is turned towards the four 
 cardinal points, as is shown by the four stairways 
 passing under the curiously carved doorways. Two 
 hundred statues of Buddha and fourteen hundred 
 bas-reliefs serve as decorations. 
 
 One must wander at one's leisure along these 
 galleries, open to the sky, to study and sometimes 
 decipher the meaning of these astonishing sculp- 
 tures which Dr. Leemans, the learned Dutch 
 archaeologist, and the late king of Siam, Chula- 
 longkorn, brought to the attention of the civilized 
 world in 1896. It also seems likely that the in- 
 spiration of Christianity — the monument dates 
 from the ninth century of our era — was not abso- 
 lutely foreign to those who adapted certain of the 
 legends represented there. But it is the single 
 instance of anything being borrowed by the build- 
 ers of Boroboedoer from other religions. 
 
 While at Angkor we shall soon see Buddhism 
 and Brahmanism existing side by side, at Boro- 
 boedoer, on the contrary, we find nothing but the 
 
26o MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 single, final glorification of Siddhartha Gautama, 
 surnamed Cakya-Muni (the ascetic), then Bud- 
 dha (he who comprehends). In all the bas-re- 
 liefs that run along the base of the friezes of 
 Boroboedoer, cover the entablatures, wind along 
 the quasi-ogival porticoes, there mounts up towards 
 the central dagoha as it were an interminable ac- 
 clamation. All the phases of the life of the Regen- 
 erator, the obscurest as well as the most glorious, 
 are respectfully and chronologically recorded: his 
 birth, first, at Kapilavastou, in the garden of the 
 Loubini where, as the king's son, surrounded and 
 adored by all the gods in the Hindu Pantheon, he 
 receives on the head a rain of lotus blossoms fallen 
 from the skies, while the choirs of Bodhisattvas 
 or friendly genii intone his praises; then his ado- 
 lescence and his intellectual precocity which 
 astonished and stupefied his masters and all who 
 surrounded him; then his marriage to the princess 
 Gopa, his life of luxury and pleasure; then, on a 
 walk one day, his successive meetings with an old 
 man, a leper, a corpse and a monk, and the reflec- 
 tions suddenly inspired in him by the weakness 
 and nothingness of human vanities; his flight from 
 the royal palace that very evening to go and taste 
 among the philosophers and hermits the first-fruits 
 of the pure and infinite joys of the Initiation; his 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 261 
 
 retreat for six years in a distant forest, with the 
 animals of the jungle as his only companions ; his 
 instruction and his fast of forty-nine days at the 
 foot of the sacred fig-tree, the Bo, in the shade of 
 which, struck with grace, his soul finally opened 
 to knowledge. 
 
 Later on we shall see him surrounded by his 
 favorite Bhikchous, wandering all over India, con- 
 verting kings, priests, warriors, beggars, always 
 humble and gentle, preaching his belief, his head 
 shaven, his body wrapped in a poor sari of yellow 
 cloth, his only wealth the staff and the bowl from 
 which as he journeyed he ate his frugal pittance. 
 Then the circular bas-relief — which is always the 
 same and unwinds like a ribbon from the base to 
 the point of the edifice — shows us the death of the 
 Reformer. It is night. . . . The Master, eighty- 
 one years old, is seated in his favorite pose of medi- 
 tation; he exhorts his disciples to follow no other 
 guides than his doctrine and their own conscience. 
 . . . The first ray of dawn pierces the sky, and 
 Cakya-Muni enters into ecstasy, to sink gently into 
 death and the Nirvana of his dreams and hopes. 
 
 Ah I what a beautiful missal page is that, carved 
 in the living rock by marvelous artists to whom 
 Faith, even more than the wings of genius, has 
 given the secret of moving, century after century, 
 
262 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 all the races and all the religious beliefs, without 
 distinction, of our humanity. 
 
 Observe how far aesthetic pleonasm can go, how 
 far it can insinuate itself. Here are little cupolas, in 
 the shape of hand-bells, symmetrically surround- 
 ing the central dagoba which may be considered, 
 if you wish, the chief bell, the "Savoyarde" of this 
 basilica. There are thirty-two of them on the first 
 terrace, twenty-four on the second, and sixteen on 
 the third. Well, they all, through their stone 
 open-work, permit one to see a naked Buddha 
 seated in meditation. The idol — pardon mel the 
 statue (for Cakya-Muni, who taught that other 
 sages had existed before him, never demanded 
 any worship) — the statue, I say, is enclosed in a 
 sense under each of these big or little satellite bells, 
 and so well enclosed that one does not know 
 whether it is independent or forms a part of it. 
 It is a marvelous achievement of art. A little more 
 and we should expect to see invisible force move 
 and set ringing these stone clappers, with their 
 human shapes, giving them all at once a mysterious 
 and paradoxical resonance. . . . 
 
 A curious thing! Buddhism has almost com- 
 pletely disappeared today in Java. But the popu- 
 lation about Boroboedoer, which is principally 
 composed of Mussulmen and Chinese, still believe 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 263 
 
 that by touching one of these imprisoned statues 
 one imprisons one's happiness, and that by prostrat- 
 ing oneself and praying before the bas-relief of the 
 birth of Buddha one is certain to obtain a numer- 
 ous posterity. Islam, which, in our day, has re- 
 placed Buddhism in most of the Dutch settlements 
 of this island-India, has unfortunately none of 
 these charming and poetic superstitions. In the 
 Mohammedan architecture and sculpture of the 
 country there is the same poverty of the imagina- 
 tion, the same insipidity and the same mediocrity. 
 At Sumatra, as at Java, I have seen, masquerading 
 under the pompous name of mosques, mere com- 
 monplace square wooden houses, far more, I must 
 confess, like our covered European markets than 
 the splendors of marble and porphyry which I 
 have admired at St. Sophia in Stamboul, the 
 Djumna-Mosjid at Delhi and the Taj at Agra. 
 
 And now, at a bound, let us leap the space that 
 separates Java, the Enchantress, from Angkor, 
 that marvelous Angkor to which every one of us 
 has made a pilgrimage, if only in our dreams I . . . 
 
 "Marvelous Angkor!" 
 
 It is also called mysterious Angkor because of 
 its enigmatic history, its at once near and distant 
 past, its uncertain and problematical existence. 
 
264 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 . . . If you question some Cambodian about it, 
 wandering through this desert of ruins and splen- 
 dors, he will shake his head with a half-Nirvanic 
 smile at the corner of his lips: "Winged genii built 
 it all in one night. . . ." 
 
 And you will go your way charmed with the 
 unsophisticated and deliciously legendary reply, 
 without any other enlightenment about these 
 strange Khmer, about the genesis of their colossal 
 works of architecture and sculpture, or finally 
 about the titanic wave that engulfed them a bare 
 five or six centuries before our time. What we 
 know of them, or what we believe we know of 
 them, is that they built their first temples, the 
 Prakhan and the Bayon, for example, toward the 
 year 800 of our era, and reached the summit of 
 their art about 1200, with this other Parthenon, 
 the Great Temple, even richer and more grandiose 
 than Angkor- Vat. Thus while we in Europe were 
 raising heavenward the filigree-work of our 
 Gothic fleches, they were continuing to make the 
 Hindu basements and embankments, the marvelous 
 bas-reliefs, like those of Egypt and Assyria, and to 
 reproduce, by intuition and synthesis, the Doric 
 column and the Corinthian capital. But what is 
 even more astounding is that they had anticipated 
 by three centuries the interlacing of Renaissance 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 265 
 
 foliage. Yes, these Khmer conceived before we 
 did the most delicate motifs of our chateaus of the 
 Loire I . . . The same efflorescence of stone blos- 
 soms today at Angkor-Vat as at Blois, with this 
 perhaps paradoxical difiference, that its obscurity, 
 the lava at its roots and the octopus-like vines have 
 preserved the former better from the slow, sure 
 and inexorable devastation of time. 
 
 But, first of all, who were they, whence did they 
 come, those whom the mystery of their past obliges 
 us to call merely "the Masters of Angkor"? They 
 were, it is believed, an artistic and warlike race, 
 Brahmanistic in religion and probably belonging 
 to the caste of the Brahmans. And it must have 
 been one of their chiefs, Kambu by name, who 
 founded toward the fifth century of our era the 
 kingdom called Kambudjas, whence we have the 
 modern name of Cambodia. The only exact 
 knowledge we have of them is that their sway over 
 the Indo-Chinese country which they established 
 lasted eight centuries. Eight hundred years dur- 
 ing which they raised, to the glory of their gods, 
 immense temples surrounded by deep moats and 
 ramparts pierced by semi-pointed doorways, per- 
 mitting the passage of chariots and the armed war- 
 elephants. These walls and moats must have been 
 intended to protect the princes, priests, divinities 
 
266 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 and their treasures quite as much as to increase 
 the mystery that enveloped the ceremonial rites. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that Angkor and its de- 
 pendencies composed an isolated group in the land. 
 Other ruins, almost equally admirable — such as 
 Pnom-Chisor and its mediaeval eagle's nest of a 
 citadel; Prakhan and its eight kilometers of sur- 
 rounding wall; Vat-Nokor and its pagoda, Koh- 
 Ker and many other sanctuaries, today lost in the 
 jungle, equally deserve the visit of the tourist and 
 the inspection of the archaeologist. But to reach 
 them is difficult, almost impossible; for the time 
 being we must give them up. 
 
 The only historic data we have that can tell us 
 anything about the extent and frontiers of the an- 
 cient Khmer kingdom is an old Chinese inscrip- 
 tion, going back to the year 650 of our era. It tells 
 us that the country was bounded "on the north by 
 mountains and valleys, on the south by a great lake 
 and swamps that were often flooded. One could 
 count as many as thirty cities there, dowered with 
 magnificent buildings. Each city was peopled 
 with many thousands of inhabitants." 
 
 One question suggests itself. What must have 
 been the course followed by these Hindus as far 
 as the basin of the Mekong? 
 
 If we are to believe M. Foucher, who gave his 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 267 
 
 views on this matter in a lecture before the Comite 
 de VAsie Frangaise, in 1908, we should be correct 
 in ascribing this ethnical Hinduization to priests 
 of the rite of Siva who came from the basin of the 
 Ganges in successive human waves which were 
 blended, amalgamated, with the conquered popu- 
 lations, constituting at each influx a new ruling 
 class, but of the same origin as the old, and graft- 
 ing itself upon the former. 
 
 The regretted General de Beylie, in his work 
 entitled U Architecture Hindoue en Extreme- 
 Orient, takes issue with this hypothesis. In his 
 opinion — based on certain indications given by the 
 Chinese annals and on an orographical study of 
 Cambodia also — civilization was brought to the 
 peoples of this part of Indo-China not by Sivaite 
 missionaries but by adventurers, exiles or traders 
 who came by sea. These immigrants must have 
 come originally not only from the Dekkan and 
 southern India, but even from the coast of Orissa 
 and the valley of the Ganges, especially so far as 
 concerns the coast of Burmah. Their point of de- 
 parture may have been Madras, and they may 
 have put in at different ports on the eastern coast 
 of the peninsula of Malacca, with frequent chang- 
 ings of ships at the Isthmus of Kra, to end their 
 
268 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 journey among the deltas of the Menam and the 
 Mekong. 
 
 As for us, without presuming to pass judgment, 
 let us state emphatically that whether they came 
 by land or by sea, the Hindu colonists brought with 
 them a mature art, genially conceived and lavished 
 on everything about them, as a delight to the eyes, 
 as well as copings for their monuments, as elab- 
 orately and carefully decorated as a piece of 
 jewelry, and even the three materials they em- 
 ployed, linonite, sandstone and wood. 
 
 But whence did they recruit the thousands of 
 artisans necessary for the realization of their 
 grandiose projects? 
 
 It is probable that for procuring, transporting 
 and preparing the raw materials they had recourse 
 to the conquered peoples who had been reduced to 
 slavery and were requisitioned as workmen to cut 
 out the blocks which Hindu artists, recruited from 
 the conquering armies, then sculptured and fin- 
 ished. And here I must stop for a parenthesis, 
 the double import of which, social and philo- 
 sophical, will escape no one. Before Jesus Christ, 
 all labor was forced labor, compulsory labor, slave 
 labor. History and archeology have established 
 irrefragably that the pyramids of Gizeh, the 
 temples of Thebes, the Colosseum of Rome, the 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 269 
 
 sanctuaries and palaces of Anuradhapura, Boro- 
 doedoer and of Angkor were the work of an en- 
 slaved humanity. Then came Christianity, which 
 loosened all chains. Centuries passed. . . . And 
 presently the cathedrals, Romanesque, Gothic, 
 Renaissance, pure jewels set by hands that were 
 free, whether voluntary or hired, flung heaven- 
 ward their golden fleches, like rockets of liberation 
 and hope. 
 
 But to return to the Khmer kingdom. For 800 
 years, during the course of which were raised the 
 buildings we admire today, till 1250, the period 
 of decadence and weakness, even until 1296, the 
 date at which the Chinese traveler Tcheou-ta- 
 Kouan declares that "during the recent wars with 
 the Siamese the land has been completely devas- 
 tated," dynasties succeeded one another there. If 
 we accept this Chinese report we may suppose 
 that the victorious Thai armies crowned the hu- 
 miliation of the conquered by destroying the proof 
 of their genius and their power of old. But it is 
 also possible that the slaves of the Hindu immi- 
 grants, after the overthrow of their conquerors in 
 the thirteenth century, may have quite simply re- 
 volted and turned their fury against the sanctuaries 
 of the divinities which had been unfavorable to 
 
270 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 them, against the temples and palaces the construc- 
 tion of which had cost them so much hardship and 
 caused so many deaths, in a climate so feverish 
 and unwholesome as that of the Great Lake of 
 Cambodia. 
 
 In any case, whether because of destruction from 
 the outside or internal mutiny, it is probable that 
 we are confronted by an act of vandalism. In fact, 
 the archaeologists assure us that the majority of 
 the ruins could not have been caused by vegetable 
 growth or by seismic disturbances, which are un- 
 known in this region. Only the combined efifort 
 of several hundred men, united in a blind rage of 
 destruction, could have caused such wrack and 
 ruin as that, for example, of the towers and the 
 galleries of Prakhan. We can pick out on the 
 ground stones that are intact corresponding to 
 other stones in perfect condition that have re- 
 mained in their places ; and we observe, also, mas- 
 sive parts of some building that is no longer any- 
 thing but a heap of blocks while just beside it there 
 still rises a light wall which the least effort might 
 have overthrown. 
 
 Scientific deductions that proceed, unfortu- 
 nately, from nothing but conjectures! In contrast 
 to the Egyptians and the Greeks, the Khmer, if 
 they built much, scarcely wrote at all. Are we 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 271 
 
 perhaps attributing to them here intentions they 
 never possessed? 
 
 But my traveler's eyes, the eyes of one who has 
 contemplated so many august ruins — Greece, 
 Egypt, Timgad, Carthage, Golconda, Amber, 
 Anuradhapura, the tombs of the Mings and those 
 of Hue, the Hindu temples of Java, Boroboedoer 
 and Prambanan — my traveler's, my pilgrim's 
 eyes, as my master and friend Pierre Loti immor- 
 tally said, my eyes refused to solve the riddle, they 
 saw, they only wished to see the marvel. 
 
 And it is this marvel, this miracle that you 
 should hasten to visit, for it is impossible that five 
 or six years more should pass without the most 
 beautiful ruins in the world being definitely clas- 
 sified, visited, swarmed over by the whole Anglo- 
 Saxondom of two continents. Too many Baed- 
 ekers will then reel off their anthems under the 
 vaults of Angkor- Vat or the domes of Angkor- 
 Tom. Who knows, even, whether the present com- 
 fortable bungalow, so in harmony with the spot, 
 will not be replaced by some Angkor Palace Hotel 
 with bedizened and obsequious lackeys? It is all 
 wrong that the amazement, the emotion that sim- 
 mers in you, that boils up and boils over should 
 be diminished, lessened, destroyed by your sur- 
 roundings. The poet, the artist, the thinker that 
 
272 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 dreams in each of you would suffer too much from 
 contact with these contingencies, these banalities. 
 Go alone by yourself, therefore; commune with 
 the radiant beauty of things, enjoy in solitude, as 
 an egoist — oh, yes! — the unspeakable majesty of 
 these places of prayer, where the faith that moves 
 mountains once heaped up the most disconcerting 
 and formidable pile of stones that have ever been 
 cut, sculptured — I was about to say chased. 
 
 Ah! how triumphant it is, the arrival on ele- 
 phant-back at Angkor-Tom, before the Ninevite 
 glory of this Bayon, a veritable Tower of Babel 
 with a human face, which the pick of the late M. 
 Commaille, its learned and respectful curator, first 
 shaved of its too thick hair of fig and banana trees! 
 And how bewildered the spirit is in the presence 
 of such a grandeur of plan and such exquisite skill 
 in the execution of these bas-reliefs, which we owe 
 to the chisels of obscure workmen whose name 
 and race have remained unknown. These bas- 
 reliefs — on which for hundreds and hundreds of 
 yards the battles of the peoples on foot, on horse- 
 back, on elephant-back, in junks, unroll them- 
 selves — make me think of the celebrated motifs of 
 Boroboedoer of which I have just spoken and to 
 which they are often compared. But if it is true 
 that Javanese statuary brings more delicacy and 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 273 
 
 perfection to its representation of the life of Bud- 
 dha, I nevertheless dare to affirm here, without 
 fear of any scientific denial, that the Khmer statu- 
 ary is far more vigorous, imaginative and varied 
 than its fortunate rival in Malaysia. It is a whole 
 page of history in images, or rather in reliefs, that 
 we live through again in the Khmer work. What 
 discoveries are waiting for the patient archaeolo- 
 gist who is willing to stick doggedly to this beau- 
 iful and noble task! . . . 
 
 Along with the epic episodes of the Vedas and 
 the Ramayana, along with the churning of the 
 "Ocean of Milk" and the struggle between human 
 beings and monkeys, one finds in them savory and 
 picturesque interpretations of the Hindu paradise 
 and hell. The heavens are represented by a suc- 
 cession of thirty-seven aerial towers with three 
 compartments each. Man in the state of blessed- 
 ness, fat and jovial, occupies the central chamber: 
 he has the features of a prince and is seated on a 
 throne, surrounded by beautiful ladies who are 
 fanning him and offering him fruits and flowers, 
 or even holding out to him an oval mirror. Such 
 — at least according to Brahma — are the conditions 
 of perfect felicity. One might well consider them 
 monotonous rather than delightful. And indeed, 
 the conception of the Khmer hell seems more 
 
274 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 subtle even in its puerility. Let us pass in review, 
 therefore, some of the tortures of the condemned, 
 whom the bas-reliefs represent with their human 
 faces each one more skeleton-like than the others. 
 Here is the savory text: 
 
 Inscription 6. 
 
 "The damned who, having wealth, have never- 
 theless practised works of wickedness." 
 
 Punishment: "Condemned to be thrown upon 
 thorny trees, skinned and scraped with a grater." 
 
 Inscription 8. 
 
 "Those who cheat or rob their neighbors." 
 Punishment: "Tortured alive by demons who 
 
 tear out their tongue and drive stakes into their 
 
 mouth." 
 
 Inscription 17. 
 
 "Those who steal strong liquors or approach the 
 wives of scholars." 
 
 Punishment: "Torn by vultures and thrown 
 into a lake of liquid, sticky pus." 
 
 Inscription 23. 
 
 "Those who take the wife of a friend." 
 Punishment: "Tortured in couples, tied fast, 
 larded, flung into a frying pan and cooked." 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 275 
 
 (A punishment for adultery that strangely re- 
 sembles the recipe for a good French country 
 dishl) 
 
 Inscription 27. 
 "Those who steal parasols." 
 Punishment: "Thrown into burning braziers," 
 
 Inscription 30. 
 
 "Those who steal flowers from a garden." 
 Punishment: "Condemned to have the face torn 
 
 by birds of prey, then to be later fastened to thorny 
 
 trees and pierced by arrows." 
 
 (One could not more severely act the part of 
 
 the knight-guardian of the rose on its stem. — 
 
 Pierced by arrows for having picked flowers? 
 
 What disloyal rivalry with cruel Cupid!) 
 
 But with your permission let us leave this Bayon, 
 where too many contradictions disconcert us. 
 And, crossing the encircling walls of Angkor-Tom, 
 let us plunge for a few moments into the jungle. 
 There await us the most extraordinary surprises 
 of nature struggling with human labor and art. 
 
 There is Ta-Prom, there are Ta-Menam and 
 Ta-Keo, there is Prakhan, all those old sanctuaries 
 
276 MYSTERIOUS INDIA 
 
 covered with moss and forsaken under the crum- 
 bling ruins on which one puts a trembling foot — 
 the anguish of sacrilege or the fear of a catas- 
 trophe, who knows? — fallen pillars over which one 
 has to climb like a goat, crumbling galleries where 
 one slips along like a rat. And what surprising 
 discoveries during this aerial and subterranean ex- 
 ploration, in the half-light of a City of the Sleep- 
 ing Wood, which one would swear had been drawn 
 by a Gustave Dore I 
 
 But now the purple or salmon-colored hour of 
 sunset leads us back to that unequaled marvel, the 
 unique and prodigious Angkor-Vat. . . . 
 
 It rises up, the Temple, in the deep sadness of a 
 dying sunset. A flush of rose-gold, then of red, 
 falls full on its five massive towers where the bats, 
 its only present inhabitants, are already in flight, 
 wheeling and clamoring. 
 
 It is the sacred hour, the moving hour for one to 
 scale all those fairylike terraces and after them 
 the monumental, the almost perpendicular stair- 
 way that leads to the Holy of Holies, the Taber- 
 nacle. There smile eternally, with their same 
 ironic and kindly smile, the Buddhas of all sizes 
 that were accumulated by the piety of the faithful ; 
 there the divine Apsaras, their breasts erect, their 
 hands gracefully turned palm upwards, still dance, 
 
DEAD HINDU CITIES 277 
 
 supple and wanton, naked virgins haunted by noth- 
 ing evil; there also, on the lower levels, grin the 
 evil and shadowy Asouras. An old bonze in a 
 yellow robe moves to and fro on the highest ter- 
 races of the building, his eye anxious and scruti- 
 nizing. He comes toward you, excuses himself, 
 mumbles a smile between his black teeth, then 
 lights, one by one, the lamps of the sanctuary. The 
 Faith of the vanished giants who built this mirage- 
 like acropolis must not be extinguished, must not 
 die. 
 
 Your head slightly bowed, you descend the 
 temple steps. The humble and touching appeal of 
 the yellow man has stirred you, the last echo of a 
 magnificent epopee that has grown dim in this 
 corner of decaying stones and under these somber 
 vaults. 
 
 Angkor-Vat has fallen asleep under the caress 
 of the twilight, as the nymph Viraja, in the Sans- 
 krit legend, fell asleep under the kiss of Krishna 
 the Seducer. 
 
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