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IN INDIA 
 
 Translated from the French 
 
 ANDRE CHEVRILLON 
 
 WILLIAM MARCHANT 
 
 
 1 APR ^51896/ 
 
 NEW YORK X^^^w^^^'^^ 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY^ ^ 
 
 1896 
 
Copyright, 1896, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO, 
 
 ^;6^ 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. At Sea, i 
 
 II. Ceylon. Buddhism. ii 
 
 III. PoNDicHÊRY. Calcutta, . . . . .44 
 
 IV. The Himalaya. Darjiling, .... 55 
 V. Benares. Brahmanism. Hinduism, ... 73 
 
 VI. Lucknow. Cawnpur. Agra 155 
 
 VII. Delhi. Jaipur, 185 
 
 VIII. Bombay, 213 
 
 IX. Ellora 226 
 
 X. The Voyage, 240 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT SEA. 
 
 Off Massouah, November 3. 
 
 For three days we have been going straight 
 toward the South, and, the other morning, just as 
 the faint outline of Sinai was vanishing upon the 
 horizon, we came into the regions of excessive heat. 
 It is a moist, close heat, in which the muscles are 
 relaxed, the whole body seems melting and sinking 
 away — a heat oppressive, prostrating by night as 
 well as day. At times one's clothing seems to burn 
 the skin and to become unendurable. There is no 
 going below for meals : all day long we lie inert in 
 our steamer-chairs. A double tent shuts in the 
 deck, completely hiding both sea and sky ; and 
 still, the eyes become inflamed with the excess of 
 light. 
 
 Coleridge's weird poem of the "Ancient Mariner" 
 comes to my mind. Thus he sailed, oppressed with 
 a strange numbness, a kind of torpor, that cannot be 
 shaken off. There is not the slightest breeze ; our 
 speed outruns the light wind which follows in our 
 
2 IN INDIA. 
 
 wake ; the fiery air is heavy and motionless ; we are 
 not conscious of the ship's advance. There is some- 
 thing unnatural about a sea like this ; it seems under a 
 spell, struck by a malediction ; it has not the fluidity 
 of water. Sometimes a glimpse of it can be seen 
 through a rent in the canvas shelter, and it is a sheet 
 of molten glass, inert, dense, heavy ; nothing could 
 be more dismal than its monotonous glare in the 
 sunlight. At a distance it steams, and this whitish, 
 quivering haze, this tremulous fog, shuts us in, hid- 
 ing the sea a few miles away. Beyond, the imagi- 
 nation depicts fiery wildernesses, terrific solitudes 
 void of all life. 
 
 By night, the sensation of rapid motion, of slip- 
 ping away into some unknown world, recurs. The 
 constellations are seen to be leaving their familiar 
 places. In each twenty-four hours they have gone 
 so many degrees further northward. The Great 
 Bear is plunging downward to the horizon : now 
 he has lost two, now three, of his big stars: now 
 he is gone completely ; and in front of us rise, spar- 
 kling, the four points of the Southern Cross, while 
 slowly the great belt of the Milky Way is pushed 
 back. 
 
 Lying upon the deck, which by night seems 
 deserted, one hears the incessant rustling of the 
 water; looking fixedly at the stars, you feel con- 
 scious of an ascent toward the equator, of a going 
 up over the convexity of the globe, over this great 
 dark ball that hangs in space ; and at certain 
 moments you seem to see the measured movement 
 of the heavenly bodies — those eternal beacons, 
 
AT SEA. 3 
 
 millions of leagues away, in inconceivable depths of 
 space. 
 
 One o'clock, A. M. The mercury stands at ioo°, 
 and still it is a moist heat. One falls into a strange 
 drowsiness, interrupted by feverish awakenings, 
 when the swarms of stars that appear suddenly 
 frighten one. Then follows heavy sleep, a sinking 
 away into black darkness, wherein the brain gropes 
 confusedly, amid flashes of sharp pain and sudden 
 swoons, dropping abruptly off into unconsciousness, 
 or, again, feebly striving against the crushing torpor. 
 After this, a sort of fevered excitement, a singular 
 lucidity of mind, crowds of recollections, whole 
 periods of life appearing entire; and, suddenly, 
 around you, the wondrous tropical night, large and 
 luminous, deep blue between the stars which, low 
 on the horizon, blaze as bright as in the zenith. 
 Nor is the sea dark now, but full of a deep light, 
 illumined in its depths by all the absorbed sunshine 
 of the day, and on its surface by countless splashes 
 of starlight. 
 
 Four o'clock. The white stellar dust overhead is 
 gone. Only the great stars still throb with a pale 
 light, and a faint rose color flushes in the East, so 
 faint one can but just see it. Suddenly it has gone 
 all round the edge of the sky, like some pervasive 
 fluid of infinite tenuity, melting by exquisite grada- 
 tions into the pallid spaces overhead. The blue of 
 the sea becomes visible, a chaste, dull, neutral blue, 
 not yet touched by the sun. The horizon retreats, 
 becomes defined, and the watery space broadens in 
 the daylight. 
 
4 IN INDIA. 
 
 November 5. 
 
 We reached Aden last night. Awaking, in the 
 morning, the coast is visible. How describe it? It 
 is a negro land, nude and black, under a blazing 
 sun — a huge bank of coal, rising out of the sea; no 
 vapor, no vegetation softens the sharp silhouette of 
 the gloomy volcanic rocks outlined with implacable 
 hardness against the blue of the sky. Contrasted 
 with this landscape of Erebus, the sea again seems 
 liquid, cool, of a delicate greenish tint. On the left 
 lies the Arab coast, a dazzling white wilderness, 
 melting in the distance into white undulations of the 
 heated atmosphere. 
 
 We shall be off again almost immediately, and 
 have no time to go on shore. Looking from the 
 deck, I see upon a road groups of superb negroes 
 draped in red — a red victorious and brutal in the 
 sunlight, flaming against the blackness of the land- 
 scape ; meagre, withered camels, moving their slen- 
 der, thick-lipped heads from side to side with gentle, 
 haughty undulation ; files of little Scriptural asses; 
 lastly, two English soldiers with tennis rackets. 
 They are all coming down toward the shore on a 
 road of cinders along below the carbonized rocks. 
 
 On our deck some oily Jews, with greedy, piteous 
 faces, weep, endeavoring to persuade us to buy 
 ostrich feathers. Invincibly persistent, they cling 
 to us, they surround us with their timid yet eager 
 gestures. What a contrast between their lamentable 
 aspect, as of whipped dogs, and the gayety of these 
 supple negro boys with their broad, white laugh ! 
 The well-developed, active bodies are lustrous in the 
 
AT SEA. 5 
 
 sunlight. A very small black boy, scarcely a five- 
 year old baby, with irresistible grimaces, with the 
 graceful clumsiness of a young kitten, is determined, 
 at all hazards, to sell me an old East India Company 
 rupee. He forces it into my hand, and the touch 
 of the little paw, dry and parchment-like, reminds 
 me of a monkey's. 
 
 We throw small coins into the water, and the 
 whole little crowd dive for them. They jump off 
 like frogs, their heads cleaving the lustrous surface 
 of the water, and the eye follows the black kicking 
 until it disappears in the green depths. Other boys 
 paddle around the ship, astride upon tree-trunks, 
 urging themselves on with a smacking of the lips 
 and with strident cries like the chirping of crickets. 
 They are the offspring of the sea, rejoicing in life 
 and movement, like insects hatched in the sand and 
 hopping about upon the shore. Now and then a 
 shark snaps one up, but what does it matter? What 
 matter if a swallow darts upon a fly? One of these 
 children has had an arm taken off by a snap of the 
 powerful jaws; you find yourself wondering that 
 the arm has not grown again, like a lobster's 
 claw. 
 
 Four English ships, arriving last night, have sailed 
 again immediately; and our steamer, long, slender, 
 lying low on the water, its two raking funnels smok- 
 ing all the time, seems like a runner detained 
 against his will, eager to get away, impatient to 
 resume his race and arrive on the farther edge of 
 Japan ! 
 
 At nine o'clock I hear begin that motion of the 
 
6 IN INDIA. 
 
 screw which is now to last uninterruptedly for a 
 week. 
 
 November 6. 
 Under the double tent the evenings are disagree- 
 able, with stale odors of tobacco, of cooking, of oil 
 from the engine-room. It has became tiresome to 
 pace the deck with one's fellow-passengers, exchang- 
 ing commonplaces on European politics — this is to 
 endure all the boredom of civilized life. One would 
 gladly escape being elbowed by this crowd moving 
 about under the electric light, like any crowd in 
 Hyde Park or the Champs-Elysées; tall, correct 
 Englishmen, mindful of their digestion, and at this 
 hour making the fifth mile of their constitutional; 
 French functionaries who smoke, leaning against the 
 quarter-nettings; yawning loungers extended in 
 steamer-chairs; bare-legged children who drive 
 hoops, while their mammas embroider or read the 
 latest novel. From the ladies' cabin come waltz- 
 tunes, as of hand-organs in London or Paris streets : 
 "The Beautiful Blue Danube," or "Sweet Dream 
 Faces," or that eternal "Kathleen Mavourneen," 
 which, with all its foolish sentimentality of words, 
 has the irresistible charm of an old French chan- 
 son — how hackneyed it all is! And yet how hard 
 it is to put all these commonplace things com- 
 pletely out of the mind! In truth, it requires a 
 great effort of the imagination to grasp the strange 
 reality : to be conscious of the black expanse upon 
 which we lie, itself moving in the darkness outside 
 of all these human noises ; the ten thousand feet 
 straight down between us and the submarine ground 
 
AT SEA. 7 
 
 weighed upon by this black watery mass — these 
 unknown depths where things have remained change- 
 less through eons. 
 
 But go quite aft, and put your head out from 
 under the tent : the people who are walking the 
 deck disappear, the waltzes cease, the Edison hght 
 goes out. A strong wind smites you in the face, 
 taking you by surprise. At first you see nothing 
 but the empty blackness of space ; suddenly the tall 
 masts with the crossed yards lift their immense geo- 
 metric lines, swaying slowly against the bright stars 
 and the swarming cosmic dust ; a pervasive low 
 noise fills the darkness. At your feet, under a black 
 whirl, phosphorescent masses, bluish globes, fly, and, 
 beaten madly by the screw, make a broad milky 
 path — a great undefined furrow in the darkness. 
 And you feel yourself alone upon the huge thing 
 which is running bHndly on, lost in the night, be- 
 tween the mystery of the sea, brooding a luminous 
 life, and the mystery of the sky, where shine, in 
 whitish patches, suns as yet unformed — between 
 these two overwhelming blacknesses in which float, 
 coming one knows not whence, the beginnings of 
 worlds, and the beginnings of life. 
 
 November 7. 
 In the morning, but few passengers on deck. All 
 day long the ship rolls heavily : she lies down slowly 
 to starboard, recovers, lies down to port, and her 
 three masts describe their regular oscillation against 
 the sky. The huge creature, whose dull heart- 
 throbs one feels, quivers all over, exults in this 
 
8 IN INDIA. 
 
 slow, mighty movement, in this profound rhythmic 
 oscillation, in this going forward through the heavy 
 blue seas which lift the surface in vast glassy domes, 
 in all this disturbance which comes to us from the 
 South, from the great watery spaces which cover 
 the austral hemisphere. Separated from us only 
 by the bulwarks there is a liquid tumult, a merry 
 uproar of glittering foam falling back into the blue ; 
 there is a flying white water-dust spread in sheets, 
 dazzling with light, and flying backward in sinuous 
 furrows with a great noise as of tearing silk. 
 
 Beyond is the immense disk of the sea, of a mar- 
 vellous blue, and on the starboard side burning like 
 molten metal ; the barren sea burning under the 
 fury of the blazing sun — the lord who from on high 
 devours the heavens and fills all space with his shin- 
 ing; only an infinite, gloomy splendor, only these 
 brute forces of heat and light, only these eternal 
 things whose indifference crushes us— and no life 
 at all, for the little flying-fish, springing back and 
 forth over the angry surface, seem but flames thrown 
 out from it like arrows of white fire. 
 
 After a time this great blaze of light makes one 
 sad, and weighs down the heart with an extrejme de- 
 pression. It is easy to understand the homesickness 
 of men 'of the North condemned to sail these South- 
 ern seas. Here the infinite has no vague gentle- 
 ness, no melancholy charm, alluring and tempting, 
 no subtle sadness whose very pang is a pleasure. It 
 crushes and stupefies, and the whole being sinks 
 under it, incapable of any effort to rally. 
 
 As one thus lies inert, a whole inner world of 
 
AT SEA. 9 
 
 memories awakens; it grows, and fills the mind. It 
 is an enfeebling besetment, but one has not strength 
 to fight it off; it is a half-dream, very simple, yet 
 weighted heavily with emotion. A scene appears 
 as through a mist torn apart, then closing in again : 
 though heavy masses of foliage falls a greenish light, 
 there is a muddy bit of road between patches of 
 yellow broom ; sad little trees writhe against a gray 
 sky. There are cottage-roofs, lustrous, wet with 
 rain. Why can I not to-day dispel this vision of a 
 little place near the gloomy harbor of Brest? Still I 
 see it. The place is not far from Portsic. There 
 is complete solitude ; bare fields, sad and wintry, 
 divided into wan squares, and bounded by low, black 
 hedges. The wind is coming up, and clouds come 
 with it; they rise higher, and gradually weave a 
 pallid veil over the sky. Three trees graze each 
 other with their slender branches. Behind is the 
 Goulet ; how cold and gray the water, fretted by a 
 slight ripple, which is touched at one point by a 
 trembling ray of pallid sunlight ! This ripple frets 
 the stream between banks the color of rusted iron. 
 On these banks not a detail, not an accident of color, 
 only the hard, rough outline. There is a profound 
 sensation of melancholy, bitter, and not temporary, 
 but enduring. These rocks, this gorse, this stream, 
 this little icy wind — all this has suffered thus 
 for ever, rigorously and patiently. Long, long 
 has this gray water shivered between its walls of 
 rusty iron. Presently, something strange is notice- 
 able ; upon this rough promontory of rock, high up 
 against the pale sky, there is what seem like splashes 
 
lO IN INDIA. 
 
 and trails of blood ; there are reddish lights, mys- 
 terious gleams, motionless, dismal. Then one is 
 aware that this also is water, but infinitely remote, 
 as in another world. And beyond lies darkness, 
 ashen, cold, dense — where a distant sea, crimsoned 
 by an invisible sun, fades away, vanishes, ends — 
 like suffering absorbed in nothingness. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 
 
 Yesterday, between two games of quoits, a lit- 
 tle English girl, pale and discontented-looking, 
 promised the captain a smile, if we should reach 
 Colombo this evening. 
 
 The captain will win his smile ; at five o'clock 
 foggy stains appear on the horizon ; about six, under 
 a lowering sky, heavy with great violet-colored 
 clouds, a grove of cocoanut trees becomes visible. 
 Drawing nearer, we are able to distinguish a host of 
 tall, stiff, slender trunks, bursting, by an oblique 
 impulse, into a foliage of palm leaves above. It is 
 a vast forest, which seems to rise out of the sea. 
 Even within two miles of land it is impossible to 
 see the ground : there is only the dense growth upon 
 it, — in every direction, this mighty vegetation over- 
 flowing with strength and sap, — the great equatorial 
 vegetation which springs out of ground soaked with 
 rains, and spreads wide its enormous leaves in the 
 furnace-heat of the air. 
 
 We have not yet reached the land, and still, the 
 sensation of this equatorial world is already very 
 distinct. There is not the limpid, liquid blue of the 
 classic East. Here, both sea and sky are violent, 
 surcharged, so to speak. You feel that this is a 
 
12 IN INDIA. 
 
 place of storms and typhoons, a region situated on 
 the girdle of the globe, looking toward a hemisphere 
 of ocean — an overwhelming nature, under the ver- 
 tical sun. 
 
 Meantime the sea grows dark; there are flushes 
 of red across it, and spaces of undulation. These 
 disappear, and there remains only a dull purplish 
 lustre, pulsating under the tumultuous sky. Over- 
 head, a chaos of light and colors; in the West, a 
 vague radiance of a soft rose-tint ; in the East, 
 enormous cloud-masses rolling up, piling themselves 
 high, then breaking down into fantastic shapes, in 
 violets, greens, and flaming orange. Then, all be- 
 coming colorless, there remain only black heaps, 
 masses of gigantic dead shapes. 
 
 But the heavy, oily water still gives out a myste- 
 rious light which projects itself into the wan space. 
 On the surface, a swarm of black objects — crawling 
 among the waves, in pirogues, upon gliding trunks 
 of trees — gather around the ship's side with deafen- 
 ing outcries. Then, of a sudden, in tv^^o minutes' 
 time, all this disappears into the night, an impene- 
 trable, stifling night, later filled by a heavy, violent, 
 warm rain. 
 
 Having landed, I can see nothing, so dense is 
 the darkness. Further on, by the gaslight, I con- 
 jecture broad, straight avenues, with red soil, bor- 
 dered by great gardens and palm-groves. The 
 heat, endurable upon the water, is overwhelming 
 here. The air, motionless and laden with the dis- 
 turbing perfume of invisible flowers, weighs upon 
 the mute city. Figures in narrow white garments, 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 1 3 
 
 moving very quickly, bare-footed, silent, graze us in 
 passing, and disappear. This is altogether a new 
 world, very different from the East as we know it in 
 Egypt. Yes, one is very far away from home in 
 this silence, this darkness, these heavy perfumes, 
 this moist heat. 
 
 The Oriental Hotel is a large and comfortable 
 building. The proprietress, a most correct English- 
 woman, instals me, giving brief orders that servants 
 receive with silent inclinations of the head. I have 
 a great whitewashed room, entirely without furni- 
 ture, except a little iron bedstead covered with a 
 mosquito netting, and a deep armchair of cool straw, 
 in which I recline during the silent, oppressive 
 hours ; on the ceiling is an odd-looking spot — a lit- 
 tle, motionless lizard ; then two, three little lizards, 
 watching me with very sharp eyes. 
 
 In the long corridors crowds of Bengalese and 
 Cinhalese servants, slender and gentle-looking. 
 They glide noiselessly, with timid gestures, very 
 respectful in the presence of the tall, solid Euro- 
 peans, the handsome, muscular Englishmen, who, 
 in evening dress, with shining white shirt-fronts, and 
 the air of superior and unapproachable beings, make 
 their way into the great dining room. 
 
 It is a very handsome dining room, full of passing 
 Europeans, black stains in the white Asiatic crowd. 
 It is like a great restaurant, situated where the high- 
 ways of the world cross. At these tables are 
 travellers from the opposite sides of the globe ; pas- 
 sengers on the Paramatta, which sails to-morrow for 
 Australia and New Zealand; French army officers; 
 
14 IN INDIA. 
 
 passengers on the Caledonian, which goes on to-night 
 to Singapore and Saigon ; Chinese on their way to 
 Europe ; English civilians going out to administer 
 India. 
 
 Opposite me at table, four Frenchmen, rich bour- 
 geois, who, having had enough of Scotland and 
 Switzerland, are on the way to Japan : Parisians by 
 birth and race, flâneurs dii boulevard, readers of the 
 Figaro, habitués of the Palais Royal, admirers of 
 M. Sarcey, republicans and liberals after the school 
 of M. Thiers; one a laureate of the Académie des 
 Sciences morales ; all four typical of French educa- 
 tion, of the Lycée and V Ecole de Droit, and of the 
 boulevard. Two of them are well versed in literature 
 and philosophy — the philosophy of Victor Hugo 
 and of M. Paul Bert. With this, a raciness some- 
 what cynical but brilliant, a clear head visibly be- 
 wildered, however, at sight of a world which seems 
 to be able to do without Paris. A third is more 
 simple, of a stronger and sturdier growth, more san- 
 guine and ruggsd, more frankly cheerful, getting 
 more pleasure out of life, noisy, and "a ladies' man" ; 
 not quite so much the epicure, a little more the 
 glutton; precisely M. Zola's representative of the 
 middle class, the plump bourgeois who, seated on his 
 hearth-rug, digests his dinner. There they are, 
 flushed, rapid in word and gesture. Mobile in face, 
 in contrast with the blond, tranquil Englishmen and 
 the graceful Cinhalese— two of them agreeably ex- 
 cited, the third man on his high horse, full-blown, 
 expanded, his heart open ; happier, more jovial, 
 more simply egotistical than ever. He cries: 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. i5 
 
 "Bring us some good wine!" And the party drink 
 champagne from goblets. 
 
 Two hundred guests are at dinner. The great 
 punkahs swing slowly back and forth with regular 
 and ample sweep, red, between high, whitewashed 
 walls. Upon the lustrous tablecloths a profusion of 
 blood-red flowers ; and all around us in motion a 
 multitude of Cinhalese servants, very serious, very 
 gentle, a yellow shell comb at the top of the chi- 
 gnon, dark in their narrow white garments, mute, 
 moving noiselessly on naked feet among the tables 
 with their floral decorations and their crowd of 
 guests. 
 
 November io. 
 
 In the morning we walk about the city — a mar- 
 vellous city in which there is nothing to be seen but 
 verdure, the plants hiding the houses. The atmos- 
 phere is damp and very hot, and penetrated through 
 and through with moist light. 
 
 The streets are the avenues of a vast tropical gar- 
 den. Palm trees, ferns, ebony trees, sandal-wood, 
 cinnamon trees, camphor trees, pineapples — plants 
 with strong sap ; the most prized hot-house flowers 
 are at home here, growing without cultivation ; and 
 all this vegetable world gives out a strong, heavy 
 perfume. You feel that this is a summer which 
 lasts forever; that every month in the year, without 
 interruption, the dark crests of the great cocoanut- 
 palms are covered with their heavy fruit ; that this 
 red soil produces incessantly, that it is always bring- 
 ing forth these swarms of great flowers, that these 
 trees have always the same green and supple mag- 
 
1 6 IN INDIA. 
 
 nificence. They crowd each other and are all en- 
 tangled ; there is not a suggestion of the regular, 
 slow growth of European trees. These cocoanut- 
 palms look fresh and soft, like enormous annuals : 
 like some giant cereal, — frail, bending, soaked with 
 sap, — which has grown out of all measure in a hot 
 night of June. Some spring to a very great height, 
 lifting far above the others, with a flexible curve, a 
 strong, graceful impulse, their lofty crest of leaves, 
 spread wide in the warm atmosphere. 
 
 And the red road goes on and on, between lus- 
 trous heaps of drooping palms, masses of dark vege- 
 tation, from which the great sword-like leaves, spring- 
 ing out, flash with green light. Here and there 
 are large ponds of black water — water which is 
 almost invisible, so distinctly and perfectly is the 
 surrounding vegetation reflected in it. Broad bands 
 of pink lotus trail over this water and seem no 
 more real than the green of the palms' reflection. 
 Here and there, gleaming white, far within a fabu- 
 lous garden, some handsome villa, crowned with 
 palm trees — its galleries, verandas, balustrades, 
 steps, all loaded with enchanted flowers. Timid, 
 frail, the Cinhalese glide past, a delicate, gentle race, 
 with masses of ebony-black hair worn long like a 
 woman's, a race made languid by perpetual summer 
 and the constant moist sunlight. They move 
 slowly, their serious and tranquil faces, strangely 
 exotic, expressing an uncomprehended soul — the 
 soul formed by this world so remote from our own. 
 
 Going by train to Kandy, on the way I made the 
 acquaintance of a Cinhalese gentleman. Very civil- 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 1 7 
 
 ized, this gentleman — very correct in his tweed coat 
 with a gardenia in his buttonhole, only his legs were 
 sheathed in a very narrow white petticoat. His 
 physiognomy, almost European — like an Italian, 
 but more delicate, feminine, and sunburnt : features, 
 bony and salient ; a strong lustrous beard, black and 
 curly. 
 
 After fifteen minutes of silence, conversation be- 
 gins as in a European railway carriage. He ofïers 
 me a match and remarks that the weather is very 
 warm. A sentence as to the temperature is, in Eng- 
 lish countries, the indispensable preliminary rite by 
 which human beings enter into communication with 
 each other. After this, in a few very definite words, 
 he gives me information concerning the population 
 of the island, its government, its religions. As he 
 talks, I feel how deep is here the English stamp : he 
 speaks the language with singular purity, without 
 the least accent. He is a Christian, a lawyer, a 
 member of the legislative council. His disdainful 
 pity for "the ignorance and idolatry" of the poor 
 Cinhalese peasant is worthy of an English colonist. 
 But, in fifty years, he says, all this will be changed ; 
 the railways have already done much good ; before 
 them, the savage country retreats. "At Colombo, 
 we hope to found a great university, like that at 
 Bombay or Benares, and later, when we are worthy 
 of it, to have our parliament — a national assembly 
 elected by suffrage of various grades ; all this, of 
 course, by degrees, and without separation from the 
 great British Empire, from England, to whom we 
 owe our entrance into the world of civilization." 
 
1 8 IN INDIA. 
 
 He adds that he is "Aryan" ; this is as clear and 
 certain to him as it is certain and clear to me that I 
 am French, consequently he esteems himself the 
 equal of any European ; and certainly he is the 
 superior of many Europeans in intelligence, educa- 
 tion, and manners. 
 
 But he is somewhat too English; it is too evident 
 that to him the Englishman is the ideal model of 
 humanity. A copy so perfect is not natural. And 
 then all this European displays swears at his white 
 petticoat and at certain Asiatic hints in his physi- 
 ogomy. Naturally, one prefers the Chinese with his 
 pigtail and his blue robe, to the Japanese in frock 
 coat and Derby hat. One is distrustful at the 
 astonishing address with which individuals of yellow 
 or black skin imitate the European ; and cannot but 
 question whether the imitation goes at all below the 
 surface, whether the depths do not still remain mys- 
 teriously Mongol or Negro. Certainly this man does 
 his best to surprise me, with his air of knowing the 
 world, his stiff manner, the nonchalant slowness of 
 movement with which he takes an Eg3/ptian cigarette 
 from his case of yellow tortoise shell. 
 
 It is amusing, this little railway upon which my 
 friend, the Cinhalese lawyer, counts to bring civiliza- 
 tion into the depths of the palm forests; a pretty 
 plaything, a nice little toy railway, not very likely 
 to alarm the eternal vegetation of the equator. The 
 engine burns no vile black coal, but fragrant woods. 
 We glide along under great trees whose leafy tops 
 make a green arch above the track. There are 
 charming stations which have but slight resemblance 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 19 
 
 to a French gare, little cabins all pink and blue with 
 climbing flowers, and hidden under great glossy 
 shrubs. There is no restaurant, but slender, bronzed 
 epheboi, in bright-colored robes, pass, slow and smil- 
 ing, holding out baskets filled with pineapples, man- 
 goes, bananas in pink clusters, or indeed yellow 
 young cocoanuts which they open adroitly with 
 three blows of a hatchet, that you may drink out of 
 the nut its cool and perfumed milk. 
 
 We pass through low lands, damp under the 
 interminable marshy forest. The earth is a vege- 
 table slime which produces unweariedly these mul- 
 titudes of great, wild, primitive trees. The light 
 never strikes through them ; their sombre verdure 
 reflects itself in the blackness of melancholy pools 
 of water. The imprisoned air sleeps heavily among 
 these crowded trunks. Their feet in the tepid 
 water, their heads in the blazing sunshine, the trees 
 spring out of a thicket of colossal brakes, interwoven, 
 gripped fast by tropical climbing plants. Within, 
 one may conjecture what must be the dense hum- 
 ming, and the furious whirring, of myriads of 
 insects — the violent, primitive life as of the first 
 geologic ages, when, after the great rainy periods, 
 organic life came out of the ground upon the sum- 
 mons of the torrid sun. 
 
 We cross the Kelanya Ganga, a brown river flow- 
 ing between tall green bamboos ; then follows an up 
 grade, and almost instantly the landscape changes. 
 We emerge at last from the oppressive virgin forest, 
 and enter a wild garden, intersected with cool, open 
 rice swamps, starred with flowers — the fragrant 
 
20 IN INDIA. 
 
 flowers of the champak and frangipani — a garden of 
 delights, where rocks repose under tall, quivering 
 ferns, where little mossy huts, crouching beneath the 
 Cinhalese greenery, are almost hidden from sight ; 
 an Eden, where parrots cleave the air like arrows of 
 light, and great butterflies seem flying flames, where 
 the trees are loaded with golden fruit, and the noble 
 luminous palms hold up green transparencies against 
 the sky. Sometimes roads, like red ribbons, are 
 seen, amid this splendor of flowers; and a peculiar 
 warm fragrance, like the perfume of a greenhouse, 
 arises from the purple earth. 
 
 Very near us, as we pass, half hidden by a curtain 
 of climbing plants, two lofty, dark masses, dull- 
 colored like rock, move, and I perceive two ele- 
 phants. Peaceful, imperturbable, their great heads 
 drooping, sweeping the ground with their pendant 
 trunks, their big feet spread out softly in the red 
 dust, they move along as if asleep, cradling with 
 their monotonous motion their drivers, who seem 
 also sleeping. Why is it so impressive, the sudden 
 vision of these monsters framed in this equatorial 
 scenery? Is it because they are at home in these 
 thickets, because we know that over there, beyond 
 the mountains, their kind wander at liberty, because 
 they make part of this world, are the living manifes- 
 tation of this nature, like the palm trees? 
 
 We go on ascending, now along the edge of the 
 rock, making a circuit around steep declivities. At 
 this point vegetation is tamer, and it is possible for 
 man to struggle with it : the plantations of coffee 
 and cocoa begin. We are now on the edge of an 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 2 1 
 
 immense amphitheatre, sinking beneath us to a 
 depth of several thousand feet, clothed with palm 
 trees and gigantic ferns — a misty amphitheatre, a 
 shadowy valley which traverses half the island, 
 extending as far as Colombo. In its gloomy depths 
 there are the same primitive damp forests — those 
 impenetrable forests from which comes a mysterious 
 sound of life. But beyond, across this valley, the 
 Cinhalese mountains lift their summits to the sky, 
 the old sacred summits, of which all the religions of 
 the island dream ; the crests of barren rock, raised 
 toward the sun, victorious, at last enfranchised from 
 the weight of all this vegetation. 
 
 We reach Kandy, the old native city, the ancient 
 capital of the Cinhalese kings. The Cinhalese kings ! 
 The words have a singular charm. Do they not 
 evoke an impossible, enchanting fairyland, a little 
 court, all fanciful as ever poet dreamed of? The old 
 palace is there, on the edge of a lake of black water, 
 under tall palm trees. 
 
 All around the little city, sleeping at the foot of 
 low hills, the happy roads wander among flowers. 
 
 Near the palace, on the shore of the black lake, 
 wherein swans mirror their white splendor, is a Bud- 
 dhist temple, an old, strange temple, somewhat 
 Chinese of aspect, with its conical roofs, its rotund 
 pavilions, its carved balustrades, its doors guarded 
 by monsters — a grotesque, outlandish edifice, all 
 white under the thick shadow of the trees. I know 
 not why I had so much trouble in believing that this 
 was a temple. At the first glance, you suspect, you 
 feel, that an Egyptian mosque is a sacred spot. 
 
22 IN INDIA. 
 
 But the Semitic world is near our own, and inter- 
 penetrates it. This Cinhalese world is completely 
 separate from us, and has always been so. It is 
 impossible to understand it by sympathy, to dis- 
 cover the habitual mental condition of the race 
 which reproduces itself under these palms, whose 
 vague aspirations are expressed by these architec- 
 tural forms and by daily offerings of flowers to the 
 smiling Buddha. 
 
 Whence come they, and what do they signify, 
 these three formidable monsters grimacing upon the 
 portico? And of what are they thinking, all day 
 long, these monks who wander over the marble 
 pavements? Barefooted, with shaven heads, one 
 bare arm emerging from the great yellow robe which 
 drapes them, they glide along the passages ; there 
 are five or six, going noiselessly past, lighting the 
 inner darkness with the soft gleam of their saffron- 
 colored garments. They smile mysteriously, with 
 a gentle seriousness that is indescribable. 
 
 The monk who is my guide conducts me into the 
 great central courtyard, to the sacred fig tree which 
 consecrated the monastery. It is a scion of the 
 tree Bo, which, for five years, sheltered the medita- 
 tions of the divine Sakya-Muni. With a slow bend 
 of the head, the monk gave me a leaf of this tree; 
 at the moment I seemed to read the meaning of his 
 face : the pallid face of a vegetarian, quiet and re- 
 fined, the prominent forehead, the intelligent, close- 
 shut lips — yet always with the same half-smile, so 
 serious and tranquil. 
 
 Silent, they wander among perpetual flowers, in 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 23 
 
 the shadoAV of the giant bamboos, fed with the few 
 grains of rice that they receive from charity, in the 
 cool darkness of the marble corridors, at the foot of 
 the serene image of the great Buddha: very differ- 
 ent are these from the men who, at this moment, 
 with anxious eyes and wrinkled foreheads, jostle 
 each other in the fogs of Bond Street, or on the 
 slippery pavements of Paris. 
 
 What is there under this immutable smile? The 
 Buddhist priest, Sri Smangala, superior of the mon- 
 astery of Kandy, a very wise and very learned man, 
 who is interested in our Europe, and has the opin- 
 ion that, with their positivism, their psychology, 
 and their ethics, our thinkers are not far from the 
 doctrines of Buddha, has had the kindness to con- 
 verse with me for a half hour. He indicates to me 
 certain books, and gives me an idea of the life of 
 these monks. But, after all, we can only see the 
 outside ; it is impossible to penetrate their souls. 
 
 There are two classes of monks, the novices {sa- 
 inancrd) or mendicants, properly so called ; and the 
 elders [sramand), those who can control their wills. 
 To attain the mastery over one's self, which is the 
 grand aim, the monk follows the precepts laid down 
 in the Pittri MokkJia, the oldest of the sacred books 
 of Buddhism, which is admitted, even by the severest 
 criticism, to date from the year 350 B. c. 
 
 A monk is allowed to possess eight things: 
 three robes, a girdle, a wooden bowl to receive 
 alms, a razor, a needle, and a filter to remove from 
 what he drinks the particles of organic matter, 
 which are held sacred, because they have life. In 
 
24 IN INDIA. 
 
 the monastery all the minor rules concerning this 
 life of poverty are strictly observed. The novice 
 rises before daylight, washes his garment, sweeps 
 the corridors of the temple and the ground around 
 the sacred fig tree, then draws the water for the 
 day's use, and filters it. He then withdraws into a 
 solitary place, and meditates ; having placed flowers 
 before the sacred tree, he thinks upon the virtues of 
 Buddha and upon his own failings; after this, he 
 takes his bowl and accompanies his superior, who 
 goes out to beg. They ask for nothing, but they 
 stand silently before the door. Returning, the 
 novice washes his master's feet, washes his wooden 
 bowl, boils his rice; and thinks upon the goodness 
 and charity of Buddha. After an hour he lights a 
 lamp and begins to study, copies manuscripts, or 
 else, perhaps, sitting at the feet of his superior, re- 
 ceives instruction from him, and confesses to him 
 the faults of the day. 
 
 The elder monks, enfranchised from manual labor, 
 give more time to meditation ; not to prayer, for 
 the Buddhist does not invoke aid from the Divinity. 
 To escape from suffering, he depends upon himself 
 only, using the method which Spinoza and the 
 Stoics also recommend, namely, to forget the fleet- 
 ing self in a consideration of the universe of exist- 
 ences. This universe he contemplates in five medi- 
 tations, of which the first is called Maitri-bhavana, 
 or reflection upon love. Thinking upon all crea- 
 tures that hve, and reflecting what happiness 
 would be his, if he were himself free from all sorrow, 
 passion, or evil desire, he wishes to all beings this 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 25 
 
 felicity. Then, toward his enemies, remembering 
 only their good actions, he strives in all sincerity to 
 wish them the same happiness that he would desire 
 for himself. 
 
 The second meditation {Karima-hhavand) is that 
 of pity. Thinking of all beings who suffer, and en- 
 deavoring to conceive their sufferings, he seeks to 
 awaken in himself the grief that others feel, and to 
 have sincere pity for them. 
 
 The third is the meditation upon joy {Miidita- 
 bhavand). Thinking of all people who are happy, 
 or believe themselves to be so, the monk represents 
 to himself the happiness of others, and rejoices in 
 their joy. 
 
 The fourth meditation {Asubha-bhavanci) is upon 
 impurity. Thinking upon the wickedness and the 
 pollution of the body, the monk says to himself 
 that this is all fugitive as the foam of the sea, that 
 all this exists only from the alternating succession 
 of births and deaths, and that this succession is only 
 an appearance. 
 
 Lastly, comes the meditation upon serenity {Upek- 
 sha-bhavand). Thinking of all things that are 
 esteemed to be good or to be evil, and that are 
 evanescent : power, and dependence ; love, and hate ; 
 wealth, and poverty; fame, and ignominy; youth 
 and beauty, old age and disease ; — he contemplates 
 them all with invincible indifference, with absolute 
 serenity. 
 
 There are in this monastery a hundred and twenty 
 monk?; it is a learned, and morever, a legal institu- 
 tion, respected as, in old times some great abbey, 
 
20 IN INDIA. 
 
 Cîteaux or St, Germain, with us. I visited the 
 library, a quiet hall with a domed roof, where the 
 palm leaf manuscripts are kept, enveloped in linen. 
 In a corner some Japanese novices — pilgrims and 
 students from the other end of the Buddhist world — 
 were reading. I was shown a beautiful red book, 
 containing three /zV«/èrt^, or sacred writings, from the 
 Buddhists of the South. On the first page were 
 these words: 
 
 " To the very reverend Sri Weligama, Superior of 
 the Monastery of Kandy, in token of respect, 
 
 "Edward, Prince of Wales." 
 
 About five o'clock the heat of the sun has abated. 
 I quit the temple, eager to lose myself in this equa- 
 torial nature. Nature is the one thing to be seen 
 here, and, in the presence of her grandeur, men and 
 customs fail to interest. Whence comes this all- 
 powerful attraction? Is it because our remote 
 ancestors, the first beings who had the human form, 
 made their appearance in a world like this, when the 
 continents were covered by all this tropical growth? 
 Is it that their instincts, asleep for centuries, awaken 
 in us, at sight of things which were familiar to them? 
 
 I follow a deserted road, between hedges starry 
 with blue, yellow, and red flowers — enormous,, splen- 
 did flowers, with stiff, satiny petals, growing wild 
 here, but more magnificent than a king's conserva- 
 tories could show. And out of this sumptuous par- 
 terre spring tall, supple stems, caoutchouc, Chinese 
 bamboo, with palm leaves ten feet long. At the 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 2 7 
 
 left, below the road, a grove of cocoanut trees ex- 
 tends down the hill, and the straight, close-crowded 
 stems, each crowned with its great cluster of stiff 
 leaves, is like an army of young men, lordly and 
 primitive, their heads bristling with great savage 
 plumes. They are there by thousands, the axils of 
 their branches laden with young cocoanuts, which 
 must be very tender and cool to eat. Nothing gives 
 a better idea of force than the way these rigid, 
 parallel columns spring up into the air. The vio- 
 lence of the organizing power which raised them out 
 of the soil, the suction of earth and water by their 
 roots, the swarming multitudes of them brought 
 forth in this tropical heat — all this is very impressive 
 to the imagination. Other trees are loaded with a 
 green scaly fruit, as large as one's head ; this, I recog- 
 nize as the breadfruit. Here are also mango trees, 
 the nutmeg, the cinnamon, the mahogany tree, im- 
 penetrable thickets of unknown essences, whence rise 
 in sheaves twenty kinds of palm trees, not stifï, soli- 
 tary, dusty, like the Egyptian palm, but supple, 
 glossy, grassy — these children of the humid equator. 
 You have but to step on the green grass along the 
 roadside, and at once it curls up, withers, grows 
 yellow in great spots. This intensity of vegetable 
 life is something marvellous. It quivers in these 
 sensitive plants ; it stiffens in these tropical creepers, 
 which drop from the highest tree-tops to the ground 
 in tight-stretched curtains of green ; it blazes in 
 these scarlet leaves, and in the gleam of poisonous 
 flowers amid the verdure. Amid all this vegetation 
 run mad, the red road goes on. Below, among the 
 
28 IN INDIA. 
 
 pillared cocoanut-palms, here and there I catch a 
 glimpse of a broad yellow river running with great 
 rapidity ; and in the distance, northward, drowned 
 in a tide of grayish clouds, is the vapory outline of 
 mountains. This is the virgin land of Ceylon, where 
 still roam the wild elephant, akin to the vanished 
 mastodon, and the Veddah, the last survivor of the 
 prehistoric man. 
 
 Some Cinhalese go by — the men wearing the long 
 skirt, girt about the waist, the rest of the figure 
 nude, the hair fastened up in a knot, slender and 
 bronzed ; the women, gracefully draped, with lifted 
 arm half-bent, shelter the head by a great stiff leaf 
 used as a parasol. One, a Greek torso, with Aryan 
 features, her bronze skin lustreless against the 
 crimson of her short drawers, carries a jar upon her 
 shoulder. 
 
 A family returning from hunting go by in Indian 
 file. At its head a man, in red skirt, a long, slender 
 gun in his hand, walks with short, timid steps. The 
 woman follows him. Behind trot two little boys, 
 quite naked, very frail-looking, and one holds the 
 spoils by its claw — a poor little yellow parrot, whose 
 pretty head hangs down, the eyes closed in death. It 
 is a happy and peaceful population which lives under 
 these lofty palms, finding food at hand in the cocoa- 
 nut and the bread fruit. A family possesses a 
 cocoanut grove: they live in its shelter; they live 
 upon its fruit. They go half-clad, graceful and slow 
 of motion, smiling as you pass them, perpetually 
 combing their hair with a comb of yellow tortoise 
 shell. At every fountain basin, the bathers are 
 
CEYLON-. BUDDHISM. 29 
 
 Sporting in the water, or lounging under the trees in 
 the green shadow of the foliage. A happy race, 
 an idle existence; they are Tennyson's lotus-eaters. 
 Their religion is worthy of themselves, simple and 
 calm. It does not lead to passionate emotions, like 
 Christianity; nor to overwhelming metaphysical 
 meditations, tyrannical rites, and foolish ceremonies, 
 like the Indian Brahmanism. Without doubt, there 
 is in Buddhism much high metaphysics with which 
 the Cinhalese priests are familiar; but they do 
 not worry the people with this. To live peaceably, 
 and in the evening to come and bow before the 
 smiling Buddha, and throw at his feet the great 
 flowers of the frangipani : their religion requires noth- 
 ing of them — nothing more than this. Man is very 
 gentle here, very languid, dominated by this over- 
 whelming nature, by the fiery sunshine and the over- 
 flowing vegetation. He makes no revolt, no struggle 
 against the uncaring or rival development of the 
 inanimate around him. There is no tragic conflict, 
 no "struggle for existence," none of that manifes- 
 tation of the human will by which man asserts his 
 supremacy and takes his place as a force, in the 
 presence of the forces of the material world. Here 
 all destinies are alike; they all live here among the 
 flowers, feebler than they, half asleep in the warm 
 air and the enervating perfume. 
 
 At last, the road turns, and leads back to the 
 town, lying along the edge of an immense plateau, 
 and always under the shadow of enormous trees. 
 On one side, a dense, shadowy jungle, where mon- 
 keys abound ; on the left, the misty valley, termi- 
 
so jj\r INDIA. 
 
 nating in the far distance with phantom outlines of 
 mountain crests and peaks. And now, suddenly, 
 without any twilight, night comes on ; and forests 
 and horizons alike disappear in the sudden darkness, 
 like some luminous dream which melts away all at 
 once. 
 
 Now the equatorial stars come out. There is a 
 great silence, with a few plaintive sounds out of the 
 invisible forests, and the buzzing of insects. Mo- 
 ments like these are loaded with an indescribable, 
 pleasurable melancholy; certain successions of 
 sounds make the heart heavy, one knows not why; 
 traverse the soul with a strange, deep thrill. Sud- 
 denly, one feels so remote, so lost, in the indifferent 
 tranquillity of nature! One feels himself detached 
 from the group to which a human being belongs: 
 his country, friends, family; the illusion that life 
 makes to each of us is unmade, and the man stands 
 alone, a creature for a moment flung out of the 
 darkness and driven hither and thither upon the 
 surface of the incomprehensible. 
 
 Millions of stars — stars that seem alive — quiver 
 in the spaces overhead. Below, the silent silhou- 
 ettes, the giant phantoms of great ferns and unfa- 
 miliar trees, seem like a dream. The air is full of 
 the humming of the great tropical insects. Fire- 
 flies flit in the darkness, and you turn your head to 
 listen, as you catch a far-distant, almost impercep- 
 tible, sound of barbaric music, a strangely rhythmed 
 noise of trumpets and gongs telling of an offering of 
 flowers in some temple in a remote village. 
 
 As I draw near Kandy the road becomes popu- 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 3 1 
 
 lous. Men and women are crowding into the town. 
 From afar, in the silence, the singular Buddhist 
 chant calls them across the jungles, and they come 
 from their remote little dwellings, scattered in the 
 thickets under the tall palm trees. 
 
 Moving rapidly among the silent bands of the 
 flower-laden worshippers, I cross the city, almost 
 invisible in the dense darkness. There is no other 
 sound than the throbbing of the gongs which fills 
 the air. Beside the black lake, upon the great por- 
 tico, the three monsters are always watching, and 
 the entrance to the gardens is guarded by priests, 
 who silently receive the offerings. Passing under a 
 silver grating, we come into the darkness of a great 
 hall, where small sacred lamps throw mysterious 
 gleams. Perfumes arise from a hundred censors and 
 spread in bluish clouds, which hang motionless over- 
 head ; and this heavy, stupefying incense gives to 
 the scene a certain unreality and character as of a 
 dream. Here and there, half visible in the obscur- 
 ity, there are formidable silhouettes of enormous 
 Buddhas, Buddhas sitting, Buddhas reposing, in the 
 midst of flowers. 
 
 We ascend a dark staircase; on either side are 
 obscure frescos of demons confusedly struggling 
 amid flames; above, standing behind a silver balus- 
 trade, priests receive the flowers which the worship- 
 pers lay upon a large table. In front of this silent 
 multitude a very handsome youth stands motion- 
 less, his arms filled with a great heap of fragrant 
 jasmine. He offers the flowers, then bows sev- 
 eral times before the image, and then stands, half 
 
32 IN INDIA. 
 
 bending forward, his hands crossed on his breast, 
 smiling, with his beautiful curved lips and long, 
 lustrous eyes, a strange smile, mystic and wild. 
 There is an oppressive silence, suddenly broken by 
 the deep vibration of the tom-tom and trumpet, and 
 the Asiatic chant rising from below. In the faint 
 light of the sacred lamps, the priests, indistinct, 
 silent, standing behind the flowers, are solemn and 
 hieratic. To see this serious, effeminate crowd, 
 thus moving about in the dim, perfumed vapor, to 
 see them slowly perform the prescribed gestures of 
 the rite, seems like some consecrated mystery of 
 remote ages, some Eleusinian initiation. 
 
 Quite in the background, in a solitary tabernacle 
 behind the priests, an inviolate retreat, a great figure 
 of crystal, vague in outline, casting no shadow, sits, 
 with crossed legs. And its transparency seems as 
 that of a phantom, a pure spirit, enfranchised from 
 matter; this is a symbolic image of him who, by 
 the intensity of his meditation, breaks the bonds of 
 flesh and of desire. Dominating the crowd, he 
 seems superior to the restlessness of humanity, and 
 the eternal smile of his translucent lips tells he has 
 entered into eternal peace. 
 
 The more I observe this country and these men, 
 the better I understand, it seems to me, this religion 
 and this system of ethics. The point of departure 
 is in the human being, the fatigue: the crushing 
 load, an immense need of rest and quietude, in pres- 
 ence of natural phenomena that are so violent, dis- 
 proportionate, and full of change, where all visible 
 things undergo incessant renewal, are forever spring- 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 33 
 
 ing into existence and forever perishing. What is 
 said to-day by our great European thinkers has 
 been taught by the Buddhist sages for the last three 
 centuries. Nothing is^ they say ; all becomes ; the 
 world is but a current of ephemeral appearances; 
 there is nothing stable in it, and nothing permanent 
 except change itself. The earth, the sky, the 
 twenty-eight inferni, demons themselves, and the 
 inferior worlds which they inhabit, all is forever 
 flowing past like the waters of a river; or, more 
 truly, is coming and going like the diverse colors of 
 a flame, which springs up, becomes intense, decreases, 
 is extinguished. After this one, another, and then 
 another; and so on, through a series in cycles, in 
 periods, perpetually repeating themselves. The 
 series is eternal ; it had no beginning, and will have 
 no end. 
 
 In this universe, what is man? A something that 
 thinks, but, like all the rest of things, nothing more 
 than a sum of forces, united for a time, but con- 
 demned presently to separate; a collection of facul- 
 ties and tendencies, a series of images, ideas, fan- 
 cies, wishes, emotions, which are transitory, while 
 their order for a time subsists, as the form and 
 structure of an organized body endures through the 
 perishing and reconstructing of the molecules which 
 compose it. Nothing in man is stable, neither the 
 incidents which collectively and successively, ac- 
 cording to a certain law, constitute his personality, 
 nor that law itself, which changes slowly with his 
 growth and his decline. There are five elements 
 {skandhas) whose cohesion makes the individual, 
 
34 IN' INDIA. 
 
 and the Buddhist shows in detail that no one of 
 these elements is a permanent substance. The first 
 comprises the material qualities (extent, solidity, 
 color) ; these are like the foam, which slowlj^ is born, 
 then vanishes. The second includes the sensations; 
 these are like bubbles dancing on the surface of the 
 water. In the third, perceptions and judgments are 
 like the vague mists of noonday. In the fourth, the 
 moral and mental tendencies "are like the plantain 
 stem, which has no strength or solidity»" To con- 
 clude, thoughts, the fifth, are spectres, illusions of 
 magic. 
 
 "O mendicants!" said Gautama, "in whatever 
 manner the different teachers regard the soul, they 
 imagine it to be one of the five elements, or to 
 be the sum of them all. Thus, O mendicants! the 
 man who is not converted, and who does not under- 
 stand the law of the converted, sometimes considers 
 the soul as identical with the material qualities, or 
 as possessing them, or as containing them, or as 
 residing in them ; sometimes as identical with 
 sensation, or as containing it, or as residing in 
 it," and so on, as to the other three elements. 
 Conceiving the soul, therefore, in one or other 
 of these ways, he reaches the idea: I am. From 
 sensation, for example, the ignorant or sensual 
 man derives the notion: "I am; this / exists. I 
 shall be or not be, I shall have or shall not have 
 material qualities, I shall have or not have ideas. 
 But the wise disciple of converted men, though he 
 possesses the five organs of the senses, being freed 
 from ignorance, has attained to knowledge. For 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 35 
 
 this reason the ideas: I am, this /exists, I shall be 
 or shall not be, no longer present themselves to his 
 mind." 
 
 Descartes has said : Cogito, ergo sum. The Bud- 
 dha would have said : "I think, therefore I am not." 
 For what is thought but a series of changes, a suc- 
 cession of different events? According to modern 
 psychologists it is nothing else. A mechanism, 
 which Taine in France and Stuart Mill in England 
 have studied, creates in us the illusion of the /-sub- 
 stance, the most pernicious of all, Buddhists say — 
 the principal snare laid for us by Maya, the great 
 Tempter; for this is the tie which attaches us to 
 things, the great mirage which plucks us from im- 
 mobility and indifference, and flings us into action 
 and drives us onward. Buddhism calls this heresy, 
 the heresy of individualism {sakkaya ditthï). 
 
 Once admit that there is nothing in the world but 
 a flow of appearances, that neither in ourselves, nor 
 outside of ourselves, anything is lasting, and con- 
 duct becomes clear ; the man recognizes as an illusion 
 this /which seemed to him so important. He is at 
 once enfranchised ; he no longer aspires to continue 
 this/; he ceases to make effort, or to desire; he has 
 lost the thirst for life, and is thus set free from 
 suffering. For whence comes suffering? Precisely 
 from these events which constitute personal exist- 
 ence: birth, old age, illness, decreptitude, death. 
 And why are these events suffering? Because the 
 illusion of the /, whence comes the will to live and 
 to persist in existence, creates desire and fear, makes 
 us repulse old age and illness and death, and desire 
 
3^ IN INDIA. 
 
 their opposites. Uproot from us this love of being, 
 and, ceasing to resist, or act, or think, escaping the 
 universal law of change, we shall become insensible 
 to suffering, which proceeds from change. " He who 
 conquers this contemptible thirst of being, suffering 
 quits him, as drops of water slip off the lotus leaf." 
 There follows an enumeration of the Avays that lead 
 to this condition of perfection : the first, which de- 
 stroys the heresy of individualism and the belief in 
 the necessity of rites and ceremonies; the second, 
 which destroys all passion, all hate, all illusion ; the 
 third, which removes the last traces of self-love; the 
 fourth, or lofty path of the arahats, that is to say, of 
 men enfranchised by intuition, who have ceased to 
 aspire to any existence, material or immaterial. 
 
 Arriving at this point, the man has given up him- 
 self; he no longer gravitates toward himself, he is no 
 longer a centre of attraction, an egoistic force labor- 
 ing to persist. He can give himself to others; and 
 charity, pity for another's sufferings, penetrates his 
 heart. "As a mother, at the risk of her own life, 
 defends her son, her only son, let a man cultivate a 
 boundless love for all that exists, for the entire 
 world; let this love extend around him, above him, 
 below him, free from the rival sentiment of self- 
 interest : let him persist firmly in this condition of 
 mind during all his waking hours, whether he is 
 standing or sitting, in action or in repose." "His 
 senses are at peace. He is like a well-trained horse ; 
 he is freed from pride, washed from the pollution of 
 ignorance, insensible to the incitements of the flesh." 
 It appears that the gods themselves envy a fate like 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 3 7 
 
 this. " He whose conduct is upright is like the broad 
 earth, immovable; like the columns which sustain a 
 portico, steadfast ; calm as a lake of crystal." For 
 him there is no further birth. "Tranquil is the 
 mind, tranquil are the words and acts of him who is 
 enfranchised by wisdom. They aspire not to a 
 future life; the allurement of living having disap- 
 peared, and no new desire arising in their hearts, 
 they, the wise, become extinct, as a lamp to which 
 no new oil is supplied." This is the supreme 
 felicity. Having sounded the depths of all things, 
 Sakya-Muni, like the Brahmas, his predecessors, 
 found nothing substantial. All substance that he 
 touched melted under his hand, and his embrace 
 enfolded only the empty air. Everywhere gleamed 
 illusive phantasmagoria, everywhere events whirled 
 and fled away. Nothing was permanent; let us 
 cease, therefore, to wish to be permanent ourselves. 
 Nature deceives the ignorant, to attain her ends ; but 
 the wise man refuses to be duped by her. He escapes 
 from the incessant motion of appearances to take 
 refuge in the calm of nothingness. He has made a 
 void in his own mind, nothing moves within him, 
 and if his lips stir, it is only in a smile of charity and 
 compassion for the sad human tumult. 
 
 Such are the characteristic features of this Bud- 
 dhist religion, whose rites I witnessed in the faintly 
 lighted temple near the black lake. Inertia, a con- 
 dition of being at peace, a blessed quietude, an 
 indifference of the will, a numbness of the person- 
 ality, gentleness — all these Buddhist virtues are 
 visible among these Cinhalese of the interior, this 
 
38 IN INDIA. 
 
 gracious people who just now bent silently before 
 the sacred image, ignorant of effort, of revolt, and 
 of despair, smiling and at rest, among the flowers. 
 Whether their tranquillity and languor come to 
 them from their religion, or whether their religion 
 only gives expression to tendencies in them which 
 surrounding nature has established, they are true 
 Buddhists. They are walking in the first of the 
 paths of salvation ; above them, these priests who 
 receive the flowers, impassive behind the silver rail- 
 ings, these ascetic mendicants, with close-shut lips 
 and intellectual brows, are sages walking in the 
 second and third paths, victorious over passion 
 and hate and illusion. But the Buddhists tell us 
 no man has attained to the highest path, no man 
 has reached the lofty, serene regions, the calm of 
 Nirwana, except the Master, whose pale, expression- 
 less face is faintly seen in the dimness, above the 
 priests and the worshippers, with eyes nearly closed, 
 amid moving clouds of perfume. 
 
 In the morning it was a great surprise on awak- 
 ing to find myself here, the red road in front, and 
 the tiny houses crouching among the verdure of 
 the hills. At this early hour, all things have a sin- 
 gular glitter, a wet, fresh lustre. Silvery mists cling 
 to the hillsides, and softly enwrap the terraced palm 
 trees, which rise out of the vapor, dripping with 
 dew and shining with virgin brilliancy. Not a per- 
 son is to be seen on the road leading to the Pera- 
 dinya Gardens ; there is only this fragrant vegeta- 
 tion, as of a newly created paradise in which man 
 has not yet appeared. 
 
CEYLON. BUDDHISM. 39 
 
 At a bend of the road a bridge of black wood 
 appears, and I stand still in wonder. Under the open 
 sky, between two walls of solid verdure, a muddy, 
 lustrous river moves with slow current. There 
 is not a wave, not a ripple, not a shiver on its sur- 
 face ; the heavy water moves as if solid, its brown 
 lustre cut by strong, motionless shadows. On both 
 sides the luxuriance of wet vegetation : at the left 
 noble palm trees, rising in terraces, lustrous, mighty, 
 and regular, thrice royal in their height, their 
 beauty, and their glossy foliage; at the right, thick 
 clumps of trees, verdant walls of bamboo, and tropi- 
 cal climbers, a luxuriance of green and supple 
 things, which spring out of the muddj^ soil, crowd- 
 ing, crushing each other to get to the light, and 
 then falling back in a confused mass, spreading 
 itself out in the blackness of the shadow which all 
 this vegetation casts upon the river. And all 
 along, so far as the lustrous curve can be seen, the 
 same display of useless strength carelessly lavished 
 to overflowing, the same furious outburst of life. 
 
 Not far distant are the Peradinya Gardens, where 
 I spend the day, dining alone on a little rice and 
 some cocoanuts in the hut of a Cinhalese keeper. 
 One can walk for many leagues in this place, meet- 
 ing no human being, yet still conscious of a cer- 
 tain order, a plan in this marvellous, wild garden. 
 It is the paradise of some Eastern tale, designed, 
 inhabited, by invisible genii, far from the real, terres- 
 trial life. Humming birds in endless variety, a little 
 winged world, sparkle in the magnificence of this 
 solitude. There are wide lawns where tropical 
 
40 IN INDIA. 
 
 plants can grow freely and attain their full size; 
 there are stiff avenues of lofty trees, which shoot 
 up, shining and metallic, their foliage, a single clus- 
 ter of palm leaves, a hundred and twenty feet from 
 the ground ; there are ferns of improbable shades, 
 blue ferns, subtile as vapors; there are leaves as 
 delicate as dream vegetation — green lace, like a cob- 
 web, varieties of Adiantum, a very fairies' hair. At 
 the end of an avenue of banians there are giant 
 caoutchoucs extending their enormous branches so 
 far that, unable to be supported by the parent trunk, 
 they drop to the ground, take root, and form new 
 trees. In every direction their monstrous roots, 
 thrown out from the ground, rise, in rough vertebrae 
 four feet high, and spread to a great distance with 
 powerful, sinuous motion. It is like molten rock, a 
 radiation of cooled lava from some primeval crater 
 long extinct. 
 
 At last I reach the triumph, the apotheosis, so to 
 speak, of the island's vegetation. On the edge of the 
 gardens, beside the slow-moving, yellowish water of 
 z. ganga, there is a sheaf of bamboos a hundred feet 
 in circuit. They are crowded together, smothering 
 each other, each one as large as a European tree. 
 The hard stems, bluish and glossy, in joints two feet 
 long, perfectly round, are gorged with water. Some, 
 spotted with green, seem to have been poisoned. 
 They grow so crowded that only the outside stems 
 are visible; the others, covered and repressed, 
 spring straight up in darkness. With a supple 
 movement, at the height of a hundred feet, they 
 separate, spread apart in the form of a vase, and are 
 
CE YL ON. B UDDHISM. 4 1 
 
 lost in a great rustling mass of dark leafage. This 
 gloomy sheaf has something actually sinister in its 
 aspect ; it seems to be an upspringing of venomous 
 sap. Really, you feel yourself overcome with terror 
 in the presence of a gigantic force whose outburst 
 nothing can arrest. It is impossible to describe this 
 crowd of trunks, packed close against each other, 
 the violence of their impetus, the lithe slenderness 
 of the lofty stems. The life is strong and simple in 
 these giants of the tropical flora. In June and July 
 they grow a foot a day. Now, even in November, 
 the sap is all in ebullition, and the organic work 
 goes on in a tumult of eagerness; this is quite dif- 
 ferent from the slow growth of our oak trees in 
 Europe, built up, cell after cell, by the deliberate 
 hand of centuries. These bamboos are big grasses; 
 they have the brilliancy and suppleness of ferns, as 
 they spring up impetuosuly from the deep soil 
 toward the creating sun. 
 
 November 12. 
 Yesterday, on the railway, returning from the 
 interior of the island, I met a Hollander; fat, gentle, 
 pale, peaceful of gesture, scanty of speech. Of the 
 Dutch temperament there is left only the phlegm 
 and softness; the sanguine fîesh tint has disappeared 
 under the heat. After five minutes he asked me 
 my address, that he might send me some flowers; 
 for my pockets overflowing with roses, jasmines, 
 mimosas, my admiration for the very great size 
 of the floral display on every side had surprised 
 him. After a time I learned that my man is a 
 native of Ceylon, that he has tea plantations in 
 
42 IN INDIA. 
 
 the mountain, and lives, with his family, at Colombo. 
 To-day I dine with him. His bungalow, situated in 
 the cinnamon gardens, is like a villa of some rich old 
 Roman : deliciously bright and cool, immense halls 
 separated by partitions of fragrant woods, carved 
 and cut in fretwork; great wicker chaises longues, 
 where one may recline all day with cigarette or 
 book. The children pretty, but singularly pallid, 
 a translucid, waxen tint, fined down and enfeebled 
 by the climate; a household of servants, who seem 
 very much beloved ; parents and children speak 
 Cinhalese to them. 
 
 After breakfast we loiter in the garden, where 
 grow freely the rare flowers of our greenhouses, and 
 the most beautiful Cinhalese palms. As I broke a 
 blade of some large grass-like plant, a jet of sap 
 burned my hand. This shows the heat and activity 
 of Cinhalese vegetation. 
 
 I am obliged to go ; to-night we shall be at sea. 
 I desired to see again the calm and serious eyes of 
 the monks, and the smile of the reclining Buddha, 
 that the recollection might not be lost at once ; 
 accordingly I ended my last day in the temple of 
 Colombo. 
 
 In the evening, while the day was dying, I went 
 as far as the beach of Mount Lavinia, a solitary 
 shore bordered by a tall, dark forest of cocoanut 
 trees, which suggests a thought of little savage, 
 desolate islands upon the equator's line, lost in the 
 vast expanse of waters. In the distance, roughened 
 by the wind outside, the sea was blue, the vast 
 Indian Ocean, all alive, full of ardor and force, foam- 
 
CEYLON-. BUDDHISM. 43 
 
 ing upon the horizon in sudden and silent patches 
 of white. The big waves coming in upon the red 
 land broke with dull, heavy sound, and amid the 
 monotony of this tumult, from time to time, I heard 
 the sad rustling of the tall cocoanut trees. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 pondichéry. calcutta. 
 
 November i6. 
 
 We resume the sea life : long enervating days 
 upon the tranquil water, under the same sky, pale 
 with excess of light ; long nights on deck, under 
 the tropical stars; and then, a weariness of this 
 monotony. 
 
 One morning we awake in the harbor of Pon- 
 dichéry. Natives, nude and black, each with his 
 big turban on, have come paddling out to us. 
 Rapidly resuming their costume of ceremony (which 
 is only a handkerchief), and climbing by the port- 
 holes like a band of lively ants, they seize upon us 
 and hurry us into their skiffs. They ply their pad- 
 dles rapidly, their eyes shining with delight, and 
 utter enthusiastic cries, in which suddenly we recog- 
 nize French words : 
 
 ** Hurrah pour papa ! Hurrah pour maman ! 
 Hurrah pour le bon voyage !'* 
 
 This is all they know of our language, the big, 
 savage children. This ignorance does not prevent 
 them, I understand, from possessing the franchise, 
 and voting, with all the dignity of free citizens. 
 The high priest of the pagoda comes to an agree- 
 ment with the governor, and the people vote under 
 
PONDICHÉRY. CALCUTTA. 45 
 
 his orders, as they would perform a rite, a religious 
 ceremony akin to the periodical procession of the 
 sacred images in their chariots. 
 
 A great crowd on the pier. We bring with us 
 a high functionary of the Republic. The military 
 forces of French India, the three hundred Sepoys 
 that Great Britain tolerates, are here, drawn up in 
 double rank, enchanted at playing soldier, very 
 much pleased with their brilliant uniforms. With 
 many blows from the butt-end of guns the crowd 
 of curious natives is kept off; the whites, however, 
 pass freely under the arches of triumph on which 
 appear ofificial welcomes and acclamations. Poor, 
 white population of Pondichéry, poor Frenchmen, 
 born so far away, posterity of gallant ancestors who 
 established themselves here when France v/as a fa- 
 mous power on Indian soil, and are now so forgot- 
 ten, so remote ! I notice descendants of old colonial 
 families, and nothing is more striking than to dis- 
 cover in them the features and the expression of our 
 race. They seem marvellously provincial, behind the 
 times, with a kind of fatigue, effeminacy, enfeeble- 
 ment, sometimes an appearance of being withered. 
 Everything here seems like a little French provincial 
 town, very remote from the centre, yet living only 
 by the few drops of life distributed from their own 
 centre, the fatuous sub-prefecture, where everything 
 is according to rule, tiresome, old-fashioned. This 
 place is much more remote from Paris than Carpen- 
 tras or Landerneau. 
 
 Meantime the high functionary disembarks. The 
 notables receive him ; there are prolonged presen- 
 
46 IN INDIA. 
 
 tations and official smiles. Very pompously, a 
 native personage bends before him, much entangled 
 in his v/hite robes, loaded with jewels, very stout and 
 heavy of motion, his little eyes blinking in his fat, 
 dull Brahman's face. He leans with dignity upon 
 his silver cane, an heirloom with which his family 
 was honored one day, when, bullets having given 
 out, his ancestor offered ingots of gold with which 
 to bombard the English laying siege to Pondichéry. 
 
 More presentations, addresses, shaking of hands. 
 Now the functionary of the Republic, attended by 
 his secretaries in black coats, advances at the head 
 of the procession, passes under the triumphal arches, 
 and the French army of the three hundred Sepoys 
 marches after. Very touching, and slightly comic in 
 its exotic setting, is this ceremony, which recalls 
 our distributions of prizes, official inaugurations of 
 monuments, and electoral rounds made by ministers. 
 
 The city is agreeable to behold, bright and clean. 
 Everywhere this red Indian soil, and perfumes 
 from unseen sources. The roads stretch away in 
 straight lines, bordered by palm trees, and con- 
 stantly traversed by little striped squirrels raising 
 little clouds of dust. We are already far distant 
 from Ceylon ; this vegetation has something precise 
 and well regulated about it. This avenue of palm 
 trees was no doubt the same ten years ago that it 
 is to-day; there is nothing of the soft undulation of 
 rapid growth here. 
 
 The greatest delight of the eye here is to observe 
 this multitude of women moving about, so simply 
 and superbly draped. With their erect bearing, the 
 
PONDICHÊRY. CALCUTTA. 47 
 
 shoulders thrown back, the head carrying a copper 
 jar, their outlines are truly statuesque. Notwith- 
 standing the brilliancy of color, it is a world that 
 makes one think of ancient Greece ; the same plas- 
 tic attitudes, the same tranquillity of gesture, the 
 same outdoor life, and the same small houses built 
 of earth, low, cool, white, square, devoid of furni- 
 ture, where women sit in the shadow and spin. 
 
 At two miles' distance from Pondichéry we come 
 to the pagoda of Villianur; and we no longer think 
 of Greece. Above the village, twenty wretched 
 hovels of dried mud, twenty huts of savages, within 
 whose shade black figures with bestial heads are 
 drowsing, rises an indescribable something, a bluish 
 heap of swarming figures, a confused pyramid of 
 porcelain monsters, grimacing, innumerable, in ser- 
 ried ranks, one above another. It is hideous and 
 insane, this pagoda roof ; it is an imagination of a 
 diseased brain, which, crushed, perverted by the 
 torrid sun, raves in grotesque and horrible visions. 
 And in this heap of shapeless figures, of twisted 
 limbs that writhe about each other, there is not 
 merely the lack of sanity, but there is also a some- 
 thing savage, disturbing, incomprehensible, like the 
 Polynesian idols or the ancient sanguinary Mexican 
 divinities, — something that speaks of the old indige- 
 nous races which the Aryan conquerors met every- 
 where in India: mysterious black races that still 
 people this southern part of the peninsula, send- 
 ing out wandering tribes through the forests of the 
 interior. This character is noticeable in all the 
 architecture of Southern India. Next door to Pon- 
 
4^ ÎN- INDIA. 
 
 dichéry, at Madura and Trichinopoli, it attains its 
 utmost extravagance and strangeness, displaying 
 itelf in granite pagodas as large as cities, covering 
 the earth with pillars, heaping up, in gigantic pyra- 
 mids, gods and goddesses, demons, heroes, monkeys, 
 horses, elephants — a whole world of human and 
 animal forms, which are massed together in most 
 astonishing confusion. 
 
 A crowd of black-skinned priests and worshippers 
 came yelping about us, and a hundred hands were 
 greedily stretched out. Some random blows with a 
 stick from my guide, and sadness settled upon their 
 faces, outcries changed to wailing, and the begging 
 hands were extended, clasped in supplication. 
 Quick, some little silver coins to restore joy in this 
 poor black world ; and the piteous faces of the Brah- 
 mans are overspread with broad smiles of infantile 
 delight ! At once they send the crowd away, and 
 consult, with an air of mystery. Two minutes' con- 
 ference, and then two of the older priests slip away, 
 they vanish into the sanctuary, and return triumph- 
 antly, their faces radiant at the surprise they are 
 preparing for us, leading out a troop of bayaderes in 
 full costume. Clad in silks, their noses, ears, arms, 
 and ankles loaded with rings, with languid, alluring 
 gestures, and shiverings of the body and of the 
 finger-tips, they execute an erotic pantomime. Not 
 very seductive, these bayaderes, with their brutish 
 fat faces and thick lips Avhich mark the inferior race. 
 Their look is vacant and almost idiotic, the mouth 
 open in a stupid smile. Evidently the soul is lack- 
 ing; these black women are too near the animal. 
 
PONDICHERY. CALCUTTA. 49 
 
 Behind them is the entrance to the sanctuary; we 
 are not allowed to go in ; but in the darkness I can 
 discover vague figures of gilded divinities, and an 
 extremely ugly idol in a tabernacle. Idols, baya- 
 deres, pyramids of monsters heaped upon each other, 
 black-skinned worshippers, savage, begging priests, 
 we leave them all with little delay, somewhat con- 
 fused, not very well comprehending what we have 
 seen. 
 
 In the evening, returing to Pondichéry, I observe 
 the statue of Dupleix. He looks toward the sea, 
 standing, in an attitude of command, bold, imperi- 
 ous, with defiant eyes full of an extraordinary deter- 
 mination and hardihood. "A famous man," says 
 an Englishman, "and one who gave us no end of 
 trouble. And now what good is Pondichéry to 
 you? You oblige us to keep customs officers on 
 the frontier; and all our robbers take refuge with 
 you. What does this colony bring you in?" 
 
 "Nothing at all," a Frenchman replied; "but 
 Dupleix must have a statue in India, and he must 
 have it on his own ground." 
 
 November 19. 
 
 What is this new sea on which we sail to-day, all 
 brown and muddy, with dense, heavy waves? There 
 are no shores on the horizon. As far as the eye 
 can see, quivers, under the clear blue sky, this great 
 mud-colored circle, shot through with tawny lights. 
 We are entering the mouth of the Hoogly ; these 
 waters are loaded with earth brought by the Ganges 
 and the Brahmaputra from the plains of Hindustan 
 and the slopes of the Himalaya. About two o'clock 
 
50 IN INDIA. 
 
 in the afternoon the sea begins to be covered with 
 flecks, brown like itself, but motionless, dull, or of a 
 uniform lustre, and in the general glitter the only 
 points that do not sparkle in the sunlight. This is 
 the mud which the river deposits, earth which it 
 casts up from its waters — earth as yet inert, entirely 
 bare, primitive brute matter; but destined to be a 
 source of life in the future, Avhence will spring tropi- 
 cal jungles with their swarming organisms, their 
 venomous vegetation, their hum of fiery insects, 
 their pestilential marshes. And one recalls to mind 
 that far away, beyond the horizon, along an extent 
 of two hundred miles, this prolific slime is slowly 
 accumulating; in the midst of the barren waters 
 there is silently forming a new bit of Asia. 
 
 By degrees a shore appears ; but very indistinct, 
 ill-defined, a shore of soft mud, only a little above 
 the water, like the earth in early days of creation. 
 Then, there is vegetation : herbaceous, at first, 
 gloomy thickets of bamboos and climbing plants; 
 then dense jungles which thrive in an air made pes- 
 tilential by too rapid vegetable growth and decay, — 
 deadly hot-beds of fermentation where cholera and 
 fever are endemic, — where Nature, left to herself in 
 the absence of man, again essays the soft forms of 
 primitive life, and crocodiles and serpents and giant 
 frogs bask in the tepid mud, and flowers, stimulated 
 by the putrid miasma, climb like flames around the 
 lofty trees. It is a place where, if one were ship- 
 wrecked, the river itself would be less dangerous 
 than the jungle with its fevers and its beasts of 
 prey; and so, here and there on the shore there are 
 
PONDICHÊRY. CALCUTTA. 51 
 
 white towers where sailors who have been cast away 
 can find food and medicine and be out of reach of 
 tigers while they wait for some passing boat to take 
 them off. 
 
 We advance slowly, with infinite precautions. 
 The great river is vehement, and would quickly over- 
 turn the boat if, caught for an instant on a sand 
 bank, she presented her side to the current. We 
 take soundings constantly. The river bed is of 
 moving sands, which the violence of the water dis- 
 places, agitates, digs out, heaps up. Now the shores 
 close in, and cultivated lands appear: vast golden 
 harvests, light-colored rice fields, noble clusters of 
 shining palms. On the edge of the bank a white 
 file of natives is moving through the tall grass. 
 Upon the river great vessels are passing slowly, 
 powerful steamers, whose destinations are England, 
 and America, and Australia. There are brigs at 
 anchor in great numbers, the splendid sunlight shin- 
 ing upon their poor worn sides, which have the 
 sinuous curve of the waves. They have labored on 
 their solitary way, lost in the far-off darkness of 
 ocean, racked in all their ribs, lifted on cruel waves, 
 falling into treacherous hollows with heavy shock, — 
 patient hours of obscure suffering. To-day, how 
 peaceful is their sleep upon the shining, rippling sur- 
 face of the great river! 
 
 The activity increases: one feels the nearness of 
 a vast human hive. Heavy lighters go by, laying 
 their broad paunches upon the heavy brown water, 
 careening under the effort of the strained sail, the 
 man at the helm a black figure against the light tint 
 
52 m INDIA. 
 
 of the sky. The water around us is now yellow, 
 sirup)^, and the waves, as they rise in light-colored, 
 sinuous undulations, seem to glide over the darkness. 
 
 A great Liverpool steamer crosses us, high out of 
 the water, five hundred feet long, all black, her huge 
 side rising like an iron fortress. We have a glimpse 
 of an English crowd: anxious-looking faces; men in 
 white flannel ; girls with yachting caps ; red soldiers. 
 
 And then palm trees again, which are singularly in 
 contrast with great yellow factories and huge smok- 
 ing chimneys, exactly like those which blacken the 
 grisaille of our northern sky. Suddenly, a bend of 
 the river; a forest of masts appears, and behind 
 them, lofty houses — Calcutta, all white, all glittering 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 November 23. 
 
 Three days at Calcutta. I have seen nothing, con- 
 fused by the crowd, overwhelmed by the heat. One 
 thing comes to the surface — the sensation of white : 
 white light, white houses, the white-clad crowd 
 streaming through the streets. It is to Colombo or 
 Pondichéry as London is to a peaceable country 
 town. By the number of shops, ofificers, banks, car- 
 riages, placards upon the walls, you would think it 
 might be Holborn or the Rue de la Bourse. But 
 in the streets, instead of Europeans in black coats 
 and silk hats, there is a noisy multitude of small and 
 slender Bengalis, wrapped in white muslin, deli, 
 cate, feminine of feature — not indolent and droAvsy 
 as in Ceylon, but active, nervous, rapid, quivering 
 with life. Here, as in London, from the pencil ven- 
 ders kneeling in a row along the sidewalk, to the fat 
 
PONDICHERY. CALCUTTA. 53 
 
 babus reclining in their carriages, all the world is in 
 hot pursuit of money; it at once is apparent that 
 this city is one of the commercial centres, one of the 
 great markets, of the world. 
 
 Nothing is more grotesque than the mélange of 
 Asia and London. At times you might think your- 
 self in the West End, near Hyde Park. The same 
 broad, straight streets, the same monumental houses, 
 the same porticos with Greek columns, the same 
 broad sidewalks, the same parks with railings around 
 them, the same English statues at street corners. 
 But, at certain hours, all this is deserted ; light fills 
 all the space, and vibrates with a white splendor in 
 the silence. In the active hours, naked men, whose 
 black skins exude moisture from every pore, run 
 about, fighting the dust, flinging water from the 
 leathern sack that they carry under the arm. In 
 offices men work the punkah overhead. At times 
 in summer the shops are shut, the horse-cars stop 
 running, the streets become empty. Upon the 
 whole, activity is artificial here. Nature is too 
 strong for man to be able to forget her, as he does 
 in Belgium or in England ; for him to give himself 
 entirely to labor, for him to cover everything with 
 his work. One can be very happy here, but there 
 must be tranquillity and silence, and the green shade 
 of trees — the kind of life natural to the country. 
 
 Some expeditions at random in the town: One 
 morning I attempt to penetrate the native quarters. 
 In the narrower streets always the same hurrying 
 crowd of Bengalis, the same thousands of white 
 petticoats, the same thousands of dark, thin, refined 
 
54 IN- INDIA. 
 
 faces. From time to time, yellow faces of Chinese, 
 in their blue frocks; and foreign faces — men from 
 Nepaul, from the Dekkan, from Afghanistan. In 
 vain I seek the outskirts of the town, the streets go 
 on ; they are crossed by others, they end in new 
 streets, always full of the same fluttering white 
 garments and the same multitude, with its confused 
 noise, its continuous hum as of a hive of bees. And 
 one returns, oppressed by the feeling of this human 
 tide. We are accustomed to say, it is true, that our 
 Europe is but a little corner of the globe, where 
 there has been a local and peculiar development of 
 humanity ; we all know that there are other human 
 types; we know that there have been others, just 
 as, beside a certain forest of oaks, there grows a 
 forest of pines; just as, before a certain forest of 
 oaks, there grew a certain forest of great ferns. But 
 this is merely a cold and abstract idea, void of images 
 and emotions. Here we do indeed perceive the 
 mystery and the diversity of this humanity rising 
 from its deep, obscure springs in millions of undu- 
 lating waves, all of them ephemeral, born only to 
 disappear, forever driven out of existence by the 
 incessant afflux of new water, which some blind, 
 imperious effort, we know not what, lifts toward the 
 light. Thrown suddenly into the midst of this teem- 
 ing Asiatic world, we discover one of these springs, 
 entirely distinct from our own, having never mingled 
 with it, yet equally deep, inexhaustible, copious, and 
 equally grand in its manifestation of the Being Avho 
 is never weary in diffusing himself abroad, according 
 to countless types, in all the variety of sentient life. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 the himalaya. darjiling. 
 
 November 24. 
 
 Twenty-four hours of railway brings us to 
 Darjiling, and the chain of the Himalaya. We take 
 the train at the Bengal Northern station. It is as 
 large as King's Cross or the Gare de Lyon. In 
 the great glazed terminus trains ready to depart 
 await their passengers; and multitudes of Hindu 
 employés of every kind, inspectors, ticket-sellers, 
 guards, porters, lamplighters, refreshment-sellers, 
 quietly and safely carry on its business. Native 
 book-sellers have their shops, adorned with the last 
 English romances; piles of newspapers arrived, 
 damp, smelling of printer's ink, great English 
 "papers" of eight pages, loaded with advertise- 
 ments, stiff, lustrous, and not easily unfolded. 
 Five or six babus came into my wagon, installed by 
 their "boys." They opened the newspapers and 
 lighted their cigarettes. Soft faces, gentle and 
 heavy, English short coats; but their untrousered 
 legs showed brown under the draped muslin of their 
 skirts. 
 
 The train moves out : great stores of coal, gas- 
 ometers, factories, the usual décor of the suburbs of 
 a great city. Then the flat country, rice fields, bou- 
 
56 IN- INDIA. 
 
 quets of palm trees, shining in the softest and rich- 
 est light. 
 
 Toward the horizon, — pale blue, but not at all 
 misty, — the sun descends, but without the slightest 
 change of appearance. It melts, yet remains intact, 
 a pure disk of fluid fire, which throbs slowly, sinks 
 insensibly, melts as it touches the plain, vanishes in 
 a rosy light which floats motionless, vaporized upon 
 the horizon's belt, and dies into the blue overhead. 
 There trembles a single star, rayless, like a great 
 drop of perfectly white water. In the zenith the 
 sky grows dark, while the horizon reddens like glow- 
 ing ashes; and we spin along in the plain, the inter- 
 minable and empty plain, which now vanishes on 
 all sides into the darkness. 
 
 In the north are distinguishable vast pale 
 stretches, vague gleams of light, the distant sheets 
 of water of a great river which has overflowed its 
 banks. 
 
 November 25. 
 
 In the morning, a vast level country, yellow with 
 grain ; then russet with dry grass. This suggests, 
 for some unknown reason, Tourgenieff and the Rus- 
 sian steppes. All things awake, in calm of the first 
 hour: the clear cry of large birds which are passing 
 in triangles; in the tall grass files of men are going 
 to their daily labor. The familiar feeling recurs, to 
 which our own plains give rise — one loves this rich 
 and gentle earth, full of tranquil strength — good 
 to men, to animals, plants, to all existences that 
 quietly pursue their regular life upon its deep breast. 
 
 About eight o'clock, straight in front of us, in the 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 57 
 
 open sky, well above the plain, something floated, 
 at which I looked for a long time without thinking 
 about it, — a pale outline, whose paleness and precis- 
 ion finally excite attention. Suddenly comes the 
 thought that this must be the Himalaya, a hundred 
 miles away. So high, so light, its snows, scarcely 
 tinged with blue, seem regions of a thinner air in 
 the dense azure. This cannot possibly be part of 
 the earth. Under it, there is nothing; there are no 
 mountains to be seen ; there is, again, the void, blue 
 depth of space; and it seems as if this were heaven 
 opened, an inaccessible paradise hung in ether, an 
 abode of the luminous, sovereign devas. 
 
 At Siliguri we change trains. The first slopes are 
 now only twenty miles away; the approach of a 
 new world makes itself distinctly felt. Beside the 
 slender Bengalis, there are Mongol mountaineers, 
 short and thick-set, with square face, yellow skin, 
 oblique eyes, felt boots, a three-bladed poignard 
 stuck into the belt ; and their cloaks of a dark 
 woollen stuff contrast with the light-colored robes of 
 the effeminate-looking Hindus. This is the frontier 
 of the two races, the limit of two human continents; 
 for the Tatars, who begin here, cover Central Asia 
 and China, extending to the Arctic snows. What an 
 astonishing human variety in this station here, at 
 the foot of the Himalaya! A dozen English ofifi- 
 cers and planters, two or three German and Swedish 
 travellers, then a crowd of Hindus, Lepchas, Bhu- 
 tiâs. European coats, the white skirts of the Ben- 
 galis, the red robes of the Lepcha women, — who, 
 in feature, ornaments, and dress are almost Siberian, 
 
58 IN INDIA. 
 
 —cloaks from Tibet, are piled into open cars which 
 resemble sledges; the little locomotive whistles, 
 and we run toward the blue wall which bounds the 
 plain. 
 
 When the vapors which are pumped up from the 
 ocean by the equatorial sun are driven by the 
 southwest monsoon, they rise into the Indian sky, 
 traversing it in great white multitudes, or melting 
 away in the hot air. In the north they encounter an 
 icy barrier, twenty-three thousand feet high, and 
 then fall in snow or rain upon its slopes. Almost 
 nothing goes beyond. The plateaus of Tibet are 
 arid, the southern slopes receiving all the water 
 drawn from the Indian seas. Nothing can give an 
 idea of these rains. While in London there is an 
 average fall of two feet of water annually, the aver- 
 age here is thirty-one feet. In the year 1861 there 
 was a rainfall of sixty-seven feet. There is great 
 depth of earth, an extreme heat of the sun, and it 
 may be imagined what the vegetation must be. 
 These mountains, whence descend all the great 
 rivers of the plain, spread life throughout Hindu- 
 stan, and at its source this life has its greatest 
 violence. 
 
 Imagine, then, a monstrous elevation, the great 
 backbone of the earth, against which tempests from 
 the ocean break in storms and downpours of water, 
 like the primitive cataclysms of the world ; a virgin 
 growth, springing up in this fire and water and 
 mist, where all the trees and all the plants of the 
 world, from jungles of bananas and tropical climbing 
 plants, to forests of fir-trees, are superposed ; add to 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 59 
 
 this the tumult of cataracts, the impetuous cry of 
 the young rivers ; lower down, the mewing of tigers ; 
 high up above the rocks the scream of eagles in the 
 icy air; everywhere, re-echoing peals of thunder: a 
 dense, violent, noisy life, which seems to stream 
 down from above ; or rather we might say, which 
 ascends into space, becoming fainter, like the mur- 
 mur of a distant multitude, and expiring in the silent 
 indifference of ice-masses, which project into empty 
 space : and one perhaps will feel the grandeur of 
 this mountain world. 
 
 We begin to penetrate it, entering the jungle, the 
 thick fur of trees and plants which extends as far as 
 the snows. Even the Cinhalese forests were not like 
 this: the palms and bamboos, of too rapid growth, 
 seemed fragile there, and the admirable lustre of the 
 stems and leaves was due to a perpetual miracle of 
 heat and light. Here, it is the tree itself, solid, lig- 
 neous, ancient, not slender and smooth, but rugged, 
 enormous of trunk. Magnolias, mahogany trees, 
 are buried under heavy green mosses, which from 
 every branch hang like dripping hair. Climbing 
 plants, two hundred feet long, cross from tree to 
 tree, strained like cables, like great snakes stiffened 
 in some efïort ; and beneath the lofty forest there is 
 another, a light mist of ferns, thickets of tall plants, 
 of rhododendrons, smothered in the darkness. 
 
 Now the first slopes are below us, whence the 
 forests descend, stretching out into the plain, like 
 a great dark cloak fallen at the mountain's feet, 
 spreading itself out in vast folds, in heaps of shining 
 verdure, veiled in luminous vapors, pierced with 
 
6o IN INDIA. 
 
 deep holes of shadow. On one side the mountain 
 opens in an amphitheatre, ten miles broad, full of a 
 thick bluish atmosphere that is visible. Within it, 
 three forests seem to have fallen in, and lie heaped 
 up and reeking in the sunlight, giving out sheets of 
 quivering, resinous heat, exhaling the breath of their 
 mighty vegetable existence. 
 
 Beyond, the plains of Bengal extend, vague, indis- 
 tinct; they rise toward the sky, vanish, disappear 
 high up in the light and the mist. 
 
 At seven thousand feet it is very cold ; we already 
 have the cold of Central Asia. We encounter the 
 fog coming toward us like a vast, gray tide : it moves 
 slowly around the trunks of the great forest, clings 
 to them, invades the thickets, is torn, floats in frag- 
 ments, reunites, puts out the sun, leaving it a 
 greenish disk like some strange moon. On each 
 side are pale phantoms of giant trees, vaporous 
 glimpses of dripping undergrowth, a foggy, colossal 
 vegetation which seems to have grown up without 
 sunlight, in some world of dreams. How far away 
 we now are from the luminous plain where man lan- 
 guishes in his white muslins! From time to time 
 appear miserable Lepcha villages, half visible in the 
 wet darkness, little conical huts, almost Chinese, in 
 which blaze huge bright fires; low, dark shops, full 
 of bananas and oranges from the plain, and smoked 
 meat. A Mongol population, splashing about in 
 the mud: children like grotesque figures in yellow 
 wax ; little, angular women clad in heavy red woollen 
 garments; men wrapped in their goatskin cloaks, 
 with green boots, and little three-peaked felt hats, 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 6 1 
 
 much more unlike ourselves, with their heavy faces, 
 their projecting cheek-bones, their oblique eyes; 
 much more foreign than the Hindu or the Cinhalese, 
 and telling of an entirely distinct human race. 
 Everything here is Mongol. The yataghans, the 
 objects of lacquered wood, the stunted statuettes, 
 that are sold in the largest village, suggest China; 
 it is the same outlandish art, the same curious un- 
 shapeliness. How explain this, except by an affin- 
 ity of race, stronger than barriers and distances, for 
 Tibet is still far away, the other side of the high icy 
 passes, almost inaccessible; and English India is 
 close by ! 
 
 Suddenly the fog breaks; it flies beneath us, cleft 
 like a torn curtain, and there is revealed in full light, 
 from base to summit, the whole great white chain. 
 We have just reached the crest of the only line of 
 foothills which separates the high peaks from the 
 plains of India. Between us and the snows there is 
 only a sombre circular valley of a hundred square 
 leagues, in which the fog adds its darkness to the 
 shadow of the primeval forests. Across the valley, 
 deployed upon an arc of a hundred and fifty degrees, 
 twenty peaks rise to a height of twenty-three thou- 
 sand feet ; they rise out of the depths of the valley 
 like huge waves, stiffened, made solid, in their 
 upward spring. In the centre, opposite us, so near 
 that apparently its fall would reach us where we 
 stand, Kunchain-Junga unrolls the dense jungles of 
 its vast base, lifts its rocky masses, its bluish glaciers, 
 and outlines up there against the cold pallor of the 
 sky the sharp peak of its summit, at a height of 
 
62 IN INDIA. 
 
 twenty-six thousand feet. With a glance the eye 
 measures this prodigious height. 
 
 This is what I have before my eyes : in the fore- 
 ground, along the ridge which we have just reached, 
 specking with white dots the black background of 
 its forests, the little villas of Darjiling, the ultimate 
 verge of the civilized world, on the edge of the abyss 
 of savage Asia, the great unknown country, peopled 
 by yellow races; then, the dark void of the immense 
 valley, a shadowy amphitheatre filled with shape- 
 less, floating clouds. Five slender, misty rays of 
 light traverse it, coming from a dazzling mass which 
 is behind us, over the black shoulder of the moun- 
 tain. Fixed above the sombre darkness of the float- 
 ing vapors, these rays measure the gulf. Neither 
 ocean nor desert could give the vertiginous sensation 
 of space, as do these five rigid lines, flung across this 
 valley, forty miles in breadth, closed by a wall 
 twenty-four thousand feet high. In this deep, a 
 confusion of ridges and slopes; but, above, calm 
 uplifting, sovereign light, the inviolable serenity of 
 the great summit where unite all the obscure moun- 
 tain chains, which, in Nepaul, in Tibet, in India, 
 have lifted themselves, and struggled through the 
 darkness to meet each other, and with joint impulse 
 rise above all things into the silence of bright space, 
 and dominate the world. 
 
 November 26. 
 
 One arrives, prepared by this journey for great 
 emotions; and here is an English summer resort. 
 On the road from the station, opposite the Hima- 
 laya, are large posters: Coleman's Mustard, Pears' 
 
THE HIM ALA VA. DARJILING. (>Z 
 
 Soap, Beecham's Pills; then, a crowd of children on 
 horseback, active, chubby little Saxons, young girls 
 sitting straight in the saddle, the complexion clear, 
 a pink flush on the cheek, wearing jockey caps and 
 perfectly fitting habits, followed by the Hindu ser- 
 vant, humble in the presence of the stronger race. 
 You pass cottages whose bay-windows are framed 
 in clematis and climbing roses. On the gates of 
 the little gardens are names of English villas, "Birch- 
 wood," or "Woodland House." The highest points 
 of Darjiling — whence one's eyes rest upon the en- 
 tire Sikkim — is dotted with gay little villas, among 
 them rising a little Saxon church tower of gray 
 stone, like those that keep watch over the pale Eng- 
 lish landscape. Near by, a tennis ground, from 
 which the players, in their flannels, are just going 
 off. 
 
 At sight of all this the mind changes its orienta- 
 tion, and old recollections emerge from the dark- 
 ness in which they slept, old currents of ideas and 
 emotions recur. You are in England, it is sunset of 
 a summer's day, and if you look up, you expect to 
 see the red streaks of the sky across a wan field. 
 Here are the "Assembly Rooms," where there is 
 dancing in the evening, and the first flirtations 
 which lead to marriage. Here is the Dissenting 
 Chapel, which Methodists, Baptists, and Wesleyans 
 enjoy in turn. Here are the scarlet soldiers, ath- 
 letic, with lustrous hair, who live like gentlemen in 
 their barracks, and, switch in hand, assume airs of 
 importance in the street. Here is the genteel and 
 respectable "boarding house," such as you may have 
 
64 IN INDIA. 
 
 known at Eastbourne or Scarborough. You put on 
 a black coat for dinner; the mistress of the house 
 says grace, and ceremoniously sends round thin slices 
 of lamb or beef, and heavy bits of "pudding." The 
 husband, a personage of less importance, but cor- 
 rect, adds to the respectability of the house. There 
 is conversation, the tranquil conversation of well- 
 bred people who are not suspicious of one another. 
 In the drawing room, after dinner, a young lady will 
 seat herself at the piano, and the evening passes 
 with songs from Gilbert and Sullivan's last operetta, 
 or some patriotic or sentimental melody, and there 
 are plans for the next day's excursion. 
 
 Compare with this the French colony in Tunis 
 or Tonkin, usually all bachelors! How a man is 
 bored there! How he feels his exile! But these 
 English are in England, here. They have brought 
 hither not only their institutions, their customs, 
 their prejudices, but their whole natural environ- 
 ment, and the mise en scene to which they are accus- 
 tomed. The contact of a different world seems not 
 to affect them at all. In fact, no race is less capable 
 of adaptation, less flexible; none so continuously 
 persists in its own type and personality. Hence, 
 their moral energy, and the force of their will, 
 directed by certain immutable ideas; hence, also, 
 their limited sympathy and comprehension. These 
 people ignore the native entirely, and make no 
 effort to understand him. From the height of their 
 civilization they regard him as a half-savage "idol- 
 ator." "Idolator " is the term by which are desig- 
 nated indiscriminately the Hindu, the Buddhist, 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 65 
 
 and the Parsi.* This is quite the Biblical point of 
 view; thus the Jews spoke of other nations. At 
 Ceylon, a planter, who had been resident in the 
 island for fifteen years, put this question to me: 
 "And what are the names of their idols? What is 
 it that they worship?" 
 
 Just now I was admiring the hauteur, the phlegm, 
 the disdainful silence of two English soldiers in the 
 shop of a vender of Chinese things; they turned 
 over his bibelots without a glance at himself. This 
 evening, at table d'hote, a young officer, lately 
 arrived, having visited during the day a lama's 
 temple, sums up his impressions briefly: "A nasty 
 hole, which I was only too glad to get out of." 
 The inhabitant is to them only a coolie, "a boy," 
 useful for carrying luggage or blacking boots; as 
 the country to them is only a place for industrial or 
 agricultural exploitation. They cut away the finest 
 forests of Darjiling or of Ceylon that they may 
 cover the denuded soil with their melancholy tea 
 plantations. Make the ascent of the Sinchul, the 
 adjacent height which overlooks Darjiling, and you 
 will see the grandest panorama in the world : south- 
 ward, the plains of India; on the north, the Hima- 
 layan peaks; but the foreground of the picture is 
 pure English — gardens, plantations, villas, churches, 
 barracks. 
 
 They civilize; and this not only for their own 
 advantage, but from a sense of duty toward the 
 
 * In Italy, Germany, and France an Englishman speaks of the in- 
 habitants as " the natives." In English, the word " foreigner" has 
 the same meaning that " barbarian " had among the Greeks. 
 
66 IN INDIA. 
 
 native population. To cover India with railways, 
 to enlarge and multiply its seaports, to increase ten- 
 fold its commerce, to convert it to Protestant Chris- 
 tianity, to suppress its castes, to enfranchise its 
 women, to open its zenanas, to give it — with a liking 
 for trousers, black coats, cricket, football, English 
 music and poetry — *'a practical and sensible educa- 
 tion" : in this, say the English, consists their mission 
 in India, being persuaded, with Addison, with Syd- 
 ney Smith, with Macaulay, that the augmentation 
 of human well-being, a decent, reasonable, comfort- 
 able civilization, in a word, English civilization, is 
 the chief end and aim of humanity. "When we 
 have finished our work in India," an Englishman 
 said to me in Ceylon, "very probably the Hindus 
 will be able to do without us, and will turn us out. 
 But we shall have accomplished our mission." 
 Thereupon he extolled "the railway which strikes 
 through the forests, brings life and light to the 
 interior of the country, and makes war on old super- 
 stitions and Buddhist mummeries." They are so 
 enterprising that India — now furnished with manu- 
 factories, railways, universities, banks — has to-day 
 the budget and the commerce of Italy or Austria; 
 they are so rigid and so strong, that this handful of 
 men among the two hundred million Hindus remain 
 absolutely unchanged, while the Hindu seems to 
 become English from contact with the hundred 
 thousand colonists. At Calcutta I had the oppor- 
 tunity to see books and newspapers of Hindu 
 authorship; not only was their English excellent, 
 but there were the turns of thought, the style, the 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 67 
 
 prejudices, all the English forms of feeling and think- 
 ing. Some articles might have come from the pen of 
 the reverend editor of a well-known magazine pub- 
 lished in London. Thus, certain artistic individuals 
 of plastic soul, after talking long with a man of orig- 
 inal and powerful personality, unconsciously copy his 
 attitudes and gestures, and the inflections of his 
 voice. "A race of flint," says Carlyle of the Anglo- 
 Saxons; yes, a race of flint, which, imprinting itself 
 without itself suffering abrasion, into the soft Hindu 
 clay, stamps all its own angles and projections there. 
 Haughty conquerors, untiring organizers, they are 
 here the noble race, a new Brahman race, devas of 
 superior order. And I felt it this morning, when I 
 saw above the grotesque crowd of wretched Mongols, 
 the upright carriage, the calm movement, the tran- 
 quil, strong gesture, the bright faces, the serene and 
 determined look of three young Englishmen. 
 
 November 27. 
 
 I rise before four o'clock to see the first rays of 
 the sun on Kunchain-Junga. It is frosty and dark: 
 nothing is visible but the outlines of neighboring 
 trees, and, up there among the cold constellations, 
 the waning moon, too slender a crescent to throw 
 any light. There is nothing to be seen, but you 
 know that in every direction the ground steals away, 
 sinks, and you are conscious of the immense dark 
 forests below, and of the country of Sikkim, extend- 
 ing in the darkness. The great chain has disap- 
 peared entirely. 
 
 About half-past four, high up in the sky appears 
 
68 IN INDIA. 
 
 a star, a very singular star, for as you watch it, it 
 seems to grow larger. A spot of rose-color comes, 
 remains, increases. Then sharp outlines are lighted 
 up. Below, the very blackness of night, not a sign 
 of dawn, the earth asleep in the darkness ; and you 
 are afraid of those luminous things appearing up 
 there in space, that light not of this world, which 
 seems a prelude to some stupendous change in the 
 established order. 
 
 Then all the snowy summits, coming out of the 
 night, are lighted up like the mysterious shore of a 
 pink sea; and then, a long time after, the old forests 
 reappear. 
 
 About seven o'clock I took a guide to penetrate 
 a little the mystery of the jungle. We follow a 
 route lying along the edge of the great valley and 
 commanding it. Below us, out of the dense thickets, 
 tree ferns arise, like palms, out of their sheath of 
 tawny moss soaked in dew. Further down, the 
 jungle descends, with its domes of lustrous trees, 
 seen from above, half veiled by the heavy air — de- 
 scends to the bottom of the great valley of the 
 Sikkim, which, four thousand feet below the road, 
 displays the sombre stretch of its virgin forests. 
 Beyond, above the bluish vegetation, begin the 
 glacier-streaks, and high white outlines cut sharply 
 the pale sky. 
 
 My guide walks with a strong, heavy step, the 
 step of the mountaineers of Tibet — a true Chinese 
 type; not the delicate, slender Chinese, but the man 
 of the North, tall and angular. A face ploughed by 
 deep v/rinkles, chapped, tanned by the sun. A 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 69 
 
 small green three-peaked hat, whence descends a 
 black queue of braided hair, an immense sheepskin 
 cloak, boots of green felt turned up in very long 
 points. Savage ornaments : a green ring, and 
 another of ivory on the thumb ; the left ear stretched, 
 lengthened, by a silver disk. He walks on silently, 
 with his regular step, leaning on a great teak-wood 
 pike, covered with pointed characters that are unlike 
 the Hindustani letters, complicated with a sun-dial 
 whereby the Tibetans read the hour, when they 
 roam their vast desert-plateau beyond the Himalaya. 
 Sometimes, with a motion of the arm, a slow smile, 
 and gutturals which are not human, he designates 
 the remote mountains. We communicate by signs — ■ 
 he, the strange Mongolian man, whose race, since 
 the first days of humanity, has roamed the steppes 
 of Central Asia ; I, the Parisian tourist, arriving in 
 this land after the long voyage over monotonous 
 seas. What an abyss between his race and mine ! 
 Impossible to find for us a common origin, in the 
 darkness of the past ! Impossible to understand this 
 motionless face, shut against me, this face not made 
 like ours, in which the soul cannot be read. 
 
 On the edge of the road, as I examined with sur- 
 prise a rock curiously carved, he twice raised his arm 
 toward heaven, toward the sun, I think. This time 
 he seems to have understood me. The same 
 gesture, before a row of long poles whence hang 
 white rags covered with sacred characters. These 
 poor banners are religious emblems, and have 
 innumerable prayers inscribed upon them. A wind 
 blows them toward the sky, and all these silent 
 
70 IN- INDIA. 
 
 prayers are heard. At this moment they hang inert, 
 along a narrow pathway which goes down to the 
 miserable hovels of a community of lamas, on the 
 side of the great valley. At its entrance a lad, a 
 novice, seated on the ground, is reciting, with nasal 
 tone, prayers written in Chinese on old strips of 
 some woven fabric. Emerges, from a corner where 
 he had crouched invisible, a yellowish creature, a 
 lama, who comes up and walks around us, making 
 profound salutations, his hands lifted to his fore- 
 head. He is horrible and pitiable, this lama, really 
 unnatural; all the Tartar traits exaggerated, the 
 eyes bloodshot, no chin at all, the mouth lost in the 
 flabby fold of the yellowish neck, the expression 
 brutish and rigid. 
 
 At the door a row of prayer cylinders, which 
 my guide has had an eye on for some minutes. 
 Furtively he goes up to them, and, with an enig- 
 matical smile, one by one, without haste, he turns 
 them all. What is he thinking of, while in a low 
 voice he mutters his gutturals? What is the obscure 
 emotion which has dictated his act? 
 
 In the interior, behind a glass case, the vague 
 sketch of a seated Buddha, not calm and smiling, but 
 grimacing with a Mongol grimace. Before him on 
 an altar, offerings — poor offerings, not sumptuous 
 lîowers, as in Ceylon, but grains of rice, some water, 
 and, in old English gin or whiskey bottles, some 
 miserable withered plants. All this tells of a primi- 
 tive and barbaric poverty. On the walls, very 
 ancient frescos are scaling off, ancient bluish paint- 
 ings which seem to have been monsters of the 
 
THE HIMALAYA. DARJILING. 7' 
 
 Mongol imagination, hideous to see. "Darjiling," 
 says the lama, indicating one of them ; another is 
 Kunchain-Junga, the mountain. By what mysterious 
 association of ideas has that grand, simple, noble 
 form a shapeless, complicated dragon for its sym- 
 bol? What kind of vague emotion, terror or sad- 
 ness, did the view awaken in their ancestors? 
 
 I slip a few annas into the yellow paw which the 
 poor lama slyly extends to me, and we leave the 
 little mud temple, in the shadow of its floating ban- 
 ners, under the guard of the thousand prayers which 
 stream in the wind, clinging all solitary on the edge 
 of the great misty amphitheatre. 
 
 This evening, all the space is filled with clouds, 
 and gray vapors drown the valleys which go toward 
 India or toward China. Far away in the west 
 there are gleams of rose-color, of unknown origin. 
 Upon the black sides of the mountains and on the 
 crowded peaks there is a slow, monotonous proces- 
 sion of gray things, creeping upward interminably. 
 In this pale mist the lower spurs of the mountains, 
 crossing each other, are distinguishable only as 
 superposed walls of blackness. And this produces 
 a vague infinitude, not of surface, like the ocean, but 
 of depth, wherein is outlined a dark world where 
 slowly gather incompleted shapes, spaces of shadow, 
 confused lights, conjectural forests, ridges that cross 
 each other, blue rays darting across the void : a gray, 
 undulating confusion. 
 
 Upon a ridge one tall twisted tree seems to mark 
 the world's end, on the edge of the abyss. Below, 
 nothing: a vaporous chaos, wherein vague forms 
 
72 IN INDIA. 
 
 are floating. Literally, one seems to have come to 
 empty space, to the world's misty edge, and only 
 chaos beyond. 
 
 At this moment I hear singing, — clear childish 
 voices from a school of little English girls, which is 
 somewhere here on the hill ; it is like a memory of 
 childhood coming to a man at the last instant of his 
 life, with the darkness of the Beyond before him. 
 What is it that fills these moments with so painful 
 and subtle emotion, why are these sunsets so mys- 
 teriously sad, impressing theipselves more deeply 
 upon the memory than all the grand sights one 
 has come so far to see? 
 
 The tree shivers in all its branches, and the gray 
 vapor creeps higher and higher upon the wan back- 
 ground of the sky. And now, the Sikkim is buried 
 in fog. But above all this melancholy confusion, 
 one remembers that the great crimsoned summits 
 rise, that they rest upon a bed of quiet cloud, alone 
 in the presence of the dying sun. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 benares. brahmanism. hinduism. 
 
 November 29. 
 
 A SUDDEN scene-shifting. Yesterday evening I 
 arrived here after twenty-four hours on the Bengal 
 Northern, and twenty-one hours on the Great Penin- 
 sular. On the road there is nothing to see. From 
 the cold Mongol regions we come down at once 
 into the sacred plains of India, through which fiows 
 the ancient, divine Ganges. 
 
 For this is classic India, India of the Indians. 
 Here, the European has no dwelling place ; he only 
 passes through. He has transformed nothing, has 
 established himself neither as merchant nor manu- 
 facturer. This city, these Hindus, these temples 
 are the same to-day that they were ten centuries 
 ago. This is the heart of the Hindu world, the 
 very focus of Brahmanism. Those old Brahmans 
 who, "after they have seen the sons of their sons," 
 go away into the depths of the forest, there to 
 remain in solitary meditation on the substance of 
 things, go from Benares or from adjacent parts of 
 the Ganges valley. Upon this soil were elaborated 
 the six great systems of Hindu philosophy. 
 Twenty-five centuries ago this city was already 
 famous. Yes, when Babylon was struggling with 
 
 73 
 
74 IN INDIA. 
 
 Nineveh ; when Tyre was throwing out her colonies 
 along the shores of the Mediterranean ; before the 
 agora of Athens resounded with the eloquence of 
 her orators, and the temples of Greece were peopled 
 with their marble statues; when Rome was but a 
 peasant hamlet ; when the old Egyptian cults were 
 in their prime ; then, this city, great and famous, was 
 filled, as it is to-day, with white-skinned Brahmans, 
 in feature resembling those of to-day, even then 
 bowed down by a ritualistic tyranny, crushed in 
 upon themselves, absorbed in metaphysical specu- 
 lations, indefinitely dividing the fine spun thread, 
 arriving at vertigo, and in their hallucination seeing 
 the solid earth give way and sink into that calm 
 nothingness whence eternally arise the appearances 
 of things. Sakya-Muni was one of these Brahmans; 
 he was born not a hundred miles from here, and 
 after his five years' meditation, he came to preach 
 at Benares. 
 
 To-day not a trace remains of our European 
 world as it then was; it is altogether dead, finished, 
 buried in the abyss of time. But this city of 
 Benares remains always the Kasi, "the resplendent 
 city," of India. 
 
 In the morning, when the throbbing disk of the 
 sun rises behind the Ganges, twenty-five thousand 
 Brahmans, crouching on the river bank, in the pres- 
 ence of the Hindu multitude, repeat the old Vedic 
 hymns to the sun, to the divine river, the primitive 
 powers, the visible sources of life. Rome is not so 
 sacred to the Catholic as is Benares to the Hindu ; 
 each stone of it is holy. No pollution, no sin can 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 75 
 
 endanger the man who dies within its walls. Were 
 he Christian, were he Musalman, had he even killed 
 a cow or eaten its flesh, he is no less certainly trans- 
 ported into the Kailas, the Himalayan paradise of 
 Siva. Happy, therefore, the man who can die 
 within the walls of Benares ! More than two hun- 
 dred thousand pilgrims come hither every year from 
 all parts of India; among them, many old men and 
 many incurably ill. When a man could not come 
 here to die, often his ashes are brought, that "the 
 sons of the Ganges," the Brahmans of Benares, may 
 pronounce the prayers of the dead, and the sacred 
 river may accept them. "Kasi, holy Kasi," say the 
 Hindus; "aman dies peacefully when he has seen 
 thee!" 
 
 This city is most extraordinary : elsewhere religion 
 is only part of the public life; at Benares there is 
 nothing else to be seen. It fills everything, occupy- 
 ing every moment of man's existence, and covering 
 the city with its temples. There are more than 
 nineteen hundred of them ; and the multitude of 
 chapels is past all counting. As to the idol popu- 
 lation, it is nearly twice as numerous as the human, 
 something like five hundred thousand. ' 
 
 Yesterday evening, on arriving, as it was still day- 
 light, I walked as far as the river. The tortuous 
 lanes swarm with half-naked humanity. At the 
 entrance to the sacred places, the crowd is more 
 dense : white-faced Brahmans jostle and elbow you ; 
 fakirs sitting on their heels, naked, covered with 
 ashes, the bald head lustrous, the eye fixed, thus 
 motionless in the universal swarming, seem made of 
 
76 IN INDIA. 
 
 stone. Stalls overflow with religious objects, neck- 
 laces of yellow flowers, rosaries, sacred stones, strange 
 emblems. In the walls, above the doors, niches 
 shelter shapeless divinities, monstrous gods with 
 heads of elephants and bodies encircled with ser- 
 pents. Here and there, wells, from which ascends a 
 fetid odor of decayed flowers, are inhabited by gods, 
 and around them the crowd is dense. Upon the 
 walls blue paintings narrate the Hindu mythology ; 
 the temples are girt with a garland of obscene 
 divinities, and in the midst of the streets, as if the 
 temples were not numerous enough to contain all 
 the idols, small altars make a pedestal for the fat 
 Ganesa or the shapeless Kali. One's foot slips in 
 the heaps of decaying flowers, there is a strange mud 
 of ordures and sacred jasmine, putrefying in this 
 Ganges water with which all the altars are sprinkled ; 
 and from the glutinous soil rises a strange, nauseat- 
 ing odor. In the midst of the human multitude 
 monkeys gambol and chatter, clinging to the roofs, 
 and cows wander freely and eat the flowers. And 
 you have the same sensation of bewilderment and 
 vertigo, as in reading the old Hindu poems, which 
 make the mind faint with their accumulation of 
 myriads of millions of ages, with their endless 
 enumeration of gods and elements and plants and 
 animals, whirling and intertwined. All our mental 
 habits are set at naught. Imagine yourself to have 
 landed in a country where the inhabitants walk on 
 their heads. This race thinks, and feels, and lives in 
 a fashion contrary to our own ; and one's first idea 
 on arriving in Benares is that insanity is normal here. 
 
benares. brahmamism. hinduism. 77 
 
 November 30. 
 I rise at five. At half-past six I am on the river. 
 Fresh morning light, white in the horizon as hquid 
 silver. The broad Ganges spreads its brown surface, 
 rolling its muddy, choppy current between desert 
 stretches of sand on the left bank and on the right 
 a league of temples, palaces, mosques, marble walls, 
 whose long line disappears in a rosy mist. Immense 
 stairs descend in a grand sweep to the water's edge, 
 and their parallel lines make a broad oblique surface, 
 all glittering in the sunshine. In this light swarm 
 the Hindu people- — pilgrims, worshippers, priests, 
 who come to perform their matutinal devotions, to 
 adore the Ganges and the rising sun. They are 
 there by thousands, fat, white old Brahmans, seated 
 on stone tables, a huge straw umbrella over their 
 heads, reading the sacred texts to the crowd who 
 are dabbling in the water ; brown Siidi'as,\N\\.\\ heads 
 shaven except for a little tuft falling backward, supple 
 in their dark nudity ; women, draped from head to 
 foot in brilliant color, who pray standing, with arms 
 lifted and clasped hands stretched toward the sun. 
 As my boat advances over the shining water, the 
 temples and the crowd are more numerous. Flights 
 of steps, four hundred feet broad, rise in enormous 
 pyramids, striped with their thousand stairs. Mas- 
 sive octagonal pillars plunge into the water; square 
 façades, great carved cones of red stone, cubes of 
 marble whose sides are excavated into niches, chapels, 
 succeed each other, or are piled one behind another: 
 it is a colossal accumulation of stone, lavished, super- 
 posed, in geometrical constructions; as in ancient 
 
7 s IN INDIA. * 
 
 Egypt or in the legendary Assyrian cities. And 
 under all this architecture, on the bank of the old 
 river, a hundred thousand Hindus are in motion, ful- 
 filling their religious rites. 
 
 For four hours I go up and down on the river. 
 How describe this inexhaustible variety, this endless 
 succession of forms and attitudes? Upon the broad 
 steps white in the sunlight, between the piles, — higher 
 up, upon the terraces and upon the heaped blocks of 
 ruined temples, — still higher upon balconies and roofs 
 of massive stone, under a forest of straw parasols, 
 the same swarming of brown figures, the same flutter 
 of simple colors. Five nude figures, crouching upon 
 a pillar, abruptly separate, flinging themselves into 
 the water, which splashes up in every direction. 
 Behind these, Brahmans with lips moving in prayer, 
 are waving branches, and monotonously strike the 
 water with them. Below, women emerge from the 
 river, serious and upright in their dripping blue 
 mantles which cling closely, moulding the figure. 
 Crouching on a high marble block, isolated from the 
 crowd, a man wrapped in red silk, motionless, in a 
 hieratic posture, regards the sun. Then, strange 
 attitudes and gestures as of maniacs: two women 
 grasping the nose with one hand, and with the 
 other striking the breast ; a trembling old woman, 
 her poor body outlined in all its meagreness by the 
 dripping garment, joining her wrinkled hands and 
 whirling six times consecutively. Others, with a 
 rapid vibration of the lips, splash the water methodi- 
 cally, making it spurt aAvay from them ; old men in 
 attitudes of river-gods, hold copper vases. And, as 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 79 
 
 background to all this, behind the countless conical 
 chapels on the stairs themselves, a row of eighty 
 temples and palaces. I notice one larger than the 
 rest, a vast rose-colored cube, sharply relieved 
 against the sky, flowery with balconies, covered with 
 arabesques, notched with colonnettes, pierced by its 
 windows with arched shadows. It flings down to 
 the Avater's edge its grand staircase, which stretches 
 abroad oblique sheet of glittering white; and upon 
 its highest steps, nude men are straining their lus- 
 trous muscles, brandishing clubs, designing heroic 
 silhouettes upon the marble. 
 
 We have gone over two miles, and the spectacle 
 is the same. The crowd, the architecture, the sun- 
 light, seem to be visions of some opium-dream, 
 where time, space, and all that they contain, appear 
 enormously magnified and multiplied. Here, as 
 further down the river, at the foot of the edifices 
 are platforms of wood or stone, making out into 
 the luminous water, and each has its own swarm, a 
 hundred women draped in white, bending over the 
 water; figures of young men, standing erect ; Brah- 
 mans, motionless, meagre, with salient vertebrae, 
 bent over, as absorbed in some doleful reverie; 
 groups of children gambolling around funeral piles, 
 where the dead are burned ; sacred cows, in quiet 
 outlines against the white of the marble stairs; and 
 from all this moving, praying, singing multitude 
 rises a great noise, a confused rustle of human life. 
 Everywhere on the edge of the great careless river 
 there is the same swarming life, the same vast wave 
 of humanity heaping itself up. 
 
So IN INDIA. 
 
 Thousands of pigeons fly about and light upon 
 cones of temples ; gray crows and great vultures 
 with pendant crops pose upon bases of columns. 
 The air is noisy with the chatter of magnificent par- 
 rots; the smoke ascends from the cremation of dead 
 bodies, and here and there the river is black with 
 ashes that have been thrown into it. Great patches 
 of flowers are floating down the current ; prayers 
 without number are ascending to Siva, to Durga, to 
 Ganesa, to Surya, the sun, which has become burn- 
 ing. In presence of the great river, among the 
 pyramids of stone, under the colonnades of the 
 chapels, at the foot of these huge edifices — strange 
 as Indian vegetation and Indian religion — swarms 
 the infinite life of India. For a moment you seem 
 to feel, in yourself, the overwhelming sensation 
 which, repeated for generations, modifying the struc- 
 ture of the Aryan brain, has translated itself into 
 their poems and their philosophies. 
 
 Behind individual and perishable existences you 
 feel the force which unfolds itself to produce all 
 things and all lives, imperishable, eternally present, 
 always the same, amid the millions of deaths and 
 births which manifest, but do not diminish it. It 
 is this force which they adore; it is the cult of this 
 force which is the substance of their religion. When 
 once this is understood and felt, it becomes pos- 
 sible to understand the contradictions, the incoher- 
 ences, of this complex Hinduism, where a fetichism 
 as of savages is allied to the profoundest specula- 
 tion ; which adores three hundred and thirty mil- 
 lion gods, and also animals, trees, elements, plants, 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 8l 
 
 stones; at once Pantheistic, Polytheistic, and Mono- 
 theistic, according to its method of regarding the 
 Universal Being, his principal incarnation, certain 
 portions, or the totality, of his manifestations in 
 matter or in spirit. This being once understood it 
 explains the insanities of their imagination, the 
 strangeness of their dreams, which find expression 
 in those interminable, bushy poems, where man, 
 overwhelmed by nature, has for equals and com- 
 rades the monkey, the bear, elephants, plants, 
 insects. In them all there is life, coming and going 
 in waves, dying and being born, multifold, infinitely 
 diverse. And the contrast made it all more clear 
 to me when I saw, above this confused multitude, 
 above this inflorescence of temples, springing up 
 white against the blue of the sky the two minarets 
 of a Musalman mosque. They sprang straight up- 
 ward, with the ardor of a prayer, with the impetu- 
 osity of a cry; and one perceived the fervent work 
 of a simple, resolute, monotheistic, and ardent 
 race. 
 
 Noon. I leave the river, and am driven rapidly 
 through the city. Very quickly the lanes, the 
 shops, the chased copper spread out on the side- 
 walks, the temples, the idols in the streets, fly past 
 us. Then, the dusty countrj^ At the hotel it is a 
 strange sensation to come back to European tran- 
 quillity and reasonableness, fine, calm order, correct 
 costume, commonplace and courteous conversation. 
 You fall back into your accustomed place, and the 
 impression of what you have just seen disappears 
 like a dream. And still, a certain disturbance re- 
 
«2 IN INDIA. 
 
 mains. If we see a man who makes frantic gestures, 
 talks incoherently, conducts himself differently from 
 the rest of us in all respects, we have no hesitation 
 in saying he acts like a madman. But when you 
 have been alone in the midst of an entire population 
 who are acting thus, you need to be very strong and 
 sure of yourself to express such an opinion. Here, 
 myself and my neighbor at the table d'hôte are the 
 exceptions. You doubt, at least, if there is a rule, or 
 an exception; you lose your bearings; you have no 
 longer a standard by which you measure things and 
 are accustomed to see others measure them. It 
 impresses you strongly that our European ideas 
 and customs are only local ideas and customs; that 
 our point of view is merely different from the Hindu 
 point of view; that, in substance, one is as valid as 
 the other; and that all fashions of existence are 
 legitimate, in that they exist. By what right have 
 I said that the normal condition of this people is 
 insanity? 
 
 After tifîfin I hesitate in deciding what to do; 
 outdoors the sun blazes down upon a country which 
 at this hour is entirely deserted. I open certain 
 books, that I may seek the meaning of what I have 
 seen. What do these rites signify, these gestures as 
 of maniacs — what do they indicate? After an hour's 
 reading the primitive sensation recurs : these men 
 certainly must be mad. 
 
 Here is the daily life of one of the twenty-five 
 thousand Brahmans of Benares. He rises before 
 the dawn, and his first care is to look at an object 
 of good omen. If he sees a crow at his left, a kite, 
 
BE ATA RE s. BkAHMAMlSM. HINDUISM. 83 
 
 a snake, a cat, a hare, a jackal, an empty jar, a 
 smoking fire, a woodpile, a widow, a man blind of 
 one eye, he is threatened with great dangers during 
 the day; if he intended to make a journey he puts 
 it off. But if he sees a cow, a horse, an elephant, 
 a parrot, a lizard, a clear-burning fire, a virgin, all 
 will go well. If he should sneeze once, he may 
 count upon some special good fortune; but if twice, 
 some disaster will happen to him. If he yawns, 
 some demon may enter his body. Having avoided 
 all objects of evil omen, the Brahman drops into the 
 endless routine of his religious rites. Under penalty 
 of rendering all the day's acts worthless, he must 
 wash his teeth at the bank of a sacred stream or 
 lake, reciting a special mantra, which ends in this 
 ascription : 
 
 "O Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, thou springest 
 from Vishnu's foot, thou are beloved by him ! 
 Remove from us the stains of sin and of birth ; and 
 until death, protect us, thy servants!" 
 
 He then rubs his body with ashes, saying: 
 "Homage to Siva, homage to the source of all birth ! 
 May he protect me during all births!" He traces 
 the sacred signs upon his forehead — the three verti- 
 cal lines representing the foot of Vishnu, or the three 
 horizontal lines which symbolize the trident of Siva, 
 and twists into a knot the hair left by the razor on 
 the top of his head, that no impurity may fall from 
 it to pollute the sacred river. 
 
 He is now ready to begin the ceremonies of the 
 morning {sandhyd), those which I have just observed 
 on the banks of the river. Minutely and mechani- 
 
84 m WDÎA. 
 
 cally each Brahman performs by himself these rites 
 of prescribed acts and gestures. 
 
 First, the internal ablution : the worshipper takes 
 water in the hollow of his hand, and, letting it fall 
 from above into his mouth, cleanses his body and 
 soul. Meanwhile he mentally invokes the twenty- 
 four names of Vishnu, saying: "Glory to Kesava, to 
 Narayana, to Madhava, to Govinda," and so on. 
 
 The second rite is the exercise or "discipline" of 
 the respiration {prajayamd). Here there are three 
 acts : first, the worshipper compresses the right nostril 
 with the thumb, and drives the breath through the 
 left ; second, he inhales through the left nostril, 
 then compresses it, and inhales through the other; 
 third, he stops the nose completely with thumb and 
 forefinger, and holds his breath as long as possible. 
 
 All these acts must be done before sunrise, and 
 prepare for what is to follow. Standing on the 
 water's edge, he utters solemnly the famous syllable 
 OM, pronouncing it atwi, with a length equalling 
 that of three letters. It recalls to him the three 
 persons of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, who creates; 
 Vishnu, who preserves; Siva, who destroys. More 
 noble than any other word, imperishable, says Manu, 
 it is eternal as Brahma himself. It is not a sign, but 
 a being, a force ; a force which constrains the gods, 
 superior to them, the very essence of all things. 
 Mysterious operations of the mind, strange associa- 
 tions of ideas, from which spring conceptions like 
 these! 
 
 Having uttered this ancient and formidable syl- 
 lable, the man calls by their names the three worlds: 
 
BENARES. BRAHMAN ISM. HINDUISM. 85 
 
 earth, air, sky; and the four superior heavens. He 
 then turns toward the East, and repeats the verse 
 from the Rig- Veda: "Let us meditate upon the 
 resplendent glory of the divine vivifier, that it may 
 enlighten our minds." As he says the last words he 
 takes water in the palm of his hand and pours it 
 upon the top of his head. "Waters," he says, "give 
 me strength and vigor that I may rejoice. Like lov- 
 ing mothers, bless us, penetrate us with your sacred 
 essence. We come to wash ourselves from the pol- 
 lution of sins; make us fruitful and prosperous." 
 Then follow other ablutions, other mantras, verses 
 from the Rig-Veda, and this hymn, which relates the 
 origin of all things: "From the burning heat came 
 out all beings. Yes, the complete order of the 
 world: Night, the throbbing Ocean, and after the 
 throbbing Ocean, Time, which separates Light from 
 Darkness. All mortals are its subjects. It is this 
 which disposes of all things, and has made, one after 
 another, the sun, the moon, the sky, the earth, the 
 intermediate air." This hymn, says Manu, thrice 
 repeated, efïaces the gravest sins. 
 
 About this time, beyond the sands of the opposite 
 shore of the Ganges, the sun appears. As soon as 
 its brilliant disk becomes visible the multitude wel- 
 come it, and salute it with "the offering of water." 
 This is thrown into the air, either from a vase or 
 from the hand. Thrice the worshipper, standing in 
 the river up to his waist, flings the water toward the 
 sun. The further and wider he flings it the greater 
 the virtue attributed to this act. Then the Brahman, 
 seated upon his heels, fulfils the most sacred of his 
 
86 IN INDIA. 
 
 religious duties : he meditates upon his fingers. For 
 the fingers are sacred, inhabited by different mani- 
 festations of Vishnu : the thumb by Govinda, the 
 index finger by Mahidhava, the middle finger by 
 Hrikesa, the third by Trivikama, the little finger by 
 Vishnu himself, while Madhava resides in the thumb. 
 "Homage to the two thumbs," says the Brahman, 
 "to the two index fingers, to the two middle fingers, 
 to the two 'unnamed fingers,' to the two little fingers, 
 to the two palms, to the two backs of the hand." 
 Then he touches the various parts of his body, and 
 lastly, the right ear, the most sacred of all, where 
 resides fire, water, the sun, and the moon. He then 
 takes a red bag {gomukhi), into which he plunges his 
 hand, and by contortions of the fingers rapidly 
 represents the chief incarnations of Vishnu : a fish, 
 a tortoise, a wild boar, a lion, a slip-knot, a garland. 
 There are a hundred and eight of these figures, of 
 which not one should be omitted, and the merits 
 attached to these gestures are infinite. 
 
 The second part of the service is no less rich than 
 the first in ablutions and mantras. The Brahman 
 invokes the sun, "Mitra, who regards all creatures 
 with unchanging gaze," and the Dawns, "brilliant 
 children of the sky," the earliest divinities of our 
 Aryan races. He extols the world of Brahma, that 
 of Siva, that of Vishnu ; recites passages from the 
 Mahabharata, the Puranas, all the first hymn of the 
 Rig- Veda, the first lines of the second, the first words 
 of the principal Vedas, of the Yajur, the Sama, and 
 the Atharva, then fragments of grammar, inspired 
 prosodies, and, in conclusion, the first words of the 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 87 
 
 book of the Laws of Yajnavalkya, the philosophic 
 Sutras; and finally ends the ceremony with three 
 kinds of ablutions, which are called the refreshing 
 of the gods, of the sages, and of the ancestors. 
 
 First placing his sacred cord upon the left shoul- 
 der, the Brahman takes up water in the right hand 
 and lets it run off his extended fingers. To refresh 
 the sages, the cord must hang about the neck, 
 and the water run over the side of the hand be- 
 tween the thumb and the forefinger, which is bent 
 back. For the ancestors, the cord passes over the 
 right shoulder, and the water falls from the hand in 
 the same way as for the sages. "Let the fathers be 
 refreshed," says the prayer; "may this water serve 
 all those who inhabit the seven worlds, as far as to 
 Brahma's dwelling, even though their number be 
 greater than thousands of millions of families. May 
 this water, consecrated by my cord, be accepted 
 by the men of my race who have left no sons." 
 
 With this prayer the morning service ends. Now, 
 remember that this worship is daily, that these 
 formulas must be pronounced, these movements of 
 the hands made, with mechanical precision ; that if 
 the Avorshipper forgets the fiftieth one of the incar- 
 nations of Vishnu which he is to figure with his 
 fingers, if he stop his left nostril when it should be 
 the right, the entire ceremony loses its efficacy; 
 that, not to go astray amid this multitude of words 
 and gestures required for each rite, he is obliged to 
 use mnemotechnic methods ; that there are five of 
 these for each series of formulas ; that his attention 
 always strained, and always directed toward the 
 
88 IN INDIA. 
 
 externals of the cult, does not leave his mind a 
 moment in which to reflect upon the profound 
 meaning of some of these prayers; and you will 
 comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks 
 of the Ganges at Benares present every morning; 
 this anxious and demented multitude, these ges- 
 tures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid move- 
 ment of the lips, the fixed gaze of these men and 
 women who, standing in the water, seem not even to 
 see their neighbors, and count mentally like men in 
 the delirium of a fever. Remember that there are 
 ceremonies like these in the afternoon, and also in 
 the evening; and that, in the intervals, in the 
 street, in the house at meals, when going to bed, 
 similar rites no less minute pursue the Brahman, all 
 preceded by the exercises of respiration, the enun- 
 ciation of the syllable OM, and the invocation of 
 the principal gods. It is estimated that between 
 daybreak and noon he has scarcely an hour of rest 
 from the performance of these rites. After the 
 great powers of nature, the Ganges, the Dawn, and 
 the Sun, he goes to worship, in their temples, the 
 representations of divinity, the sacred trees, finally, 
 the cows, to whom he offers flowers. In his own 
 dwelling other divinities await him : five black 
 stones, representing Siva, Ganesa, Surya, Devi, and 
 Vishnu, arranged according to the cardinal points; 
 one toward the north, a second to the southeast, 
 a third to the southwest, a fourth to the northwest, 
 and one in the center, this order changing accord- 
 ing as the worshipper regards one god or another as 
 most important; then there is a shell, a bell — to 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 89 
 
 which, kneeling, he offers flowers — and, lastly, a 
 vase, whose mouth contains Vishnu, the neck Rudra, 
 the paunch Brahma, while at the bottom repose the 
 three divine mothers, the Ganges, the Indus, and 
 the Jumna. 
 
 This is the daily cult of the Brahman of Benares, 
 and on holidays it is still further complicated. 
 Since the great epoch of Brahmanism it has re- 
 mained the same. Some details may alter, but as a 
 whole it has always been thus tyrannical and thus 
 extravagant. As far back as the Upanishads appears 
 the same faith in the power of articulate speech, the 
 same imperative and innumerable prescriptions, the 
 same singular formulas, the same enumeration of 
 grotesque gestures. Every day, for more than 
 twenty-five hundred years, since Buddhism was a pro- 
 test against the tyranny and absurdity of rites, has 
 this race mechanically passed through this machinery, 
 resulting in what mental malformations, what habit- 
 ual attitudes of mind and will, the race is now too 
 different from ourselves for us to be able to con- 
 ceive. A negro, a Terra del Fuegan savage, re- 
 sembles us more than do these people. The negro 
 is more simple than we, nearer to the life of the ani- 
 mals; but, if we divest ourselves of the unstable 
 acquirements of our civilization, we discover, con- 
 cealed, yet alive, in the depths of our souls nearly 
 all of his instincts. On the contrary, the Hindu 
 soul is as completely developed as our own ; its 
 vegetation is no less rich, but it is entirely different. 
 It is stupefying to see the crowd of ideas, according 
 to us incoherent and absurd, that form the sub- 
 
9° IN INDIA. 
 
 stance of their minds. Each man belongs to a 
 caste, in which, like his ancestors, he is inexorably 
 shut up. At bottom, the idea of caste is as the idea 
 of species among animals. The distinction between 
 a dog and a bull is of the same nature as that be- 
 tween a Sudra and a Brahman. Hence the horror 
 attaching to the idea of marriage between persons 
 of different castes. Notice that to-day the castes 
 are as numerous as the trades and professions. 
 Each Hindu is born a priest or a doctor, a scribe or 
 a potter, a blacksmith or an engraver; and he be- 
 lieves himself lost if a man of lower caste touches 
 his food or eats at his side. If he quits India, if he 
 crosses the sea, he becomes a pariah : that is to say, 
 he loses his relatives and friends, and can neither 
 buy or sell, eat, drink, or live, with any person what- 
 ever. He is polluted, and nothing can efface this 
 pollution but the supreme purification, the purifica- 
 tion "by the cow." Having given large sums of 
 money to the Brahmans, and called together the 
 men of his caste, he swallows the four products of 
 this most sacred of animals, a paste made of the 
 milk and butter and the solid and liquid excrement 
 of the cow. For this animal is one of the high in- 
 carnations of divinity, inferior to the Brahman, but 
 superior to almost all the rest of humanity. 
 
 Our Hindu has many gods, strange deities not 
 well suited to give habits of order and perspicacity 
 to the brain that seeks to conceive of them. In 
 substance they are almost all metaphysical beings, 
 so abstract that they escape the grasp of the ordi- 
 nary mind. For example: Kali is "the energy of 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 91 
 
 Siva," and Siva himself, the eternal power which 
 persists under the change of appearances. These 
 are religious ideas which could not be considered 
 anthropomorphic, scarcely capable even of figured 
 representation. But Kali peoples the temples with 
 her idols. She is a black monster, greedy for blood. 
 Children were formerly sacrificed to her, but now 
 goats are immolated on her altars. No cult is so 
 pleasing to her as the repetition of those of her names 
 which contain the letter M. You think you have 
 grasped her and understand her; but, behold, she is 
 transformed ; she melts away, her attributes change, 
 she becomes identified with Durga, with Parvati, 
 with Samunda. She was black and hideous; she is 
 now seductive and beautiful. Her forms are end- 
 less: an enchanting girl of sixteen; a nude, head- 
 less woman ; a stork; a puff of smoke. 
 
 In the same way Siva is a giant and a dwarf, he 
 has a blue neck, he is clothed in skins, he is a destruct- 
 ive monster, he is a kindly and amorous divinity; 
 he has one thousand and eight manifestations and 
 a name for each. At times he is confused with 
 Vishnu ; the man intending to worship Siva, wor- 
 ships Vishnu and his diverse incarnations, the fish, 
 the halter, the wild boar, the string. The Hindu 
 also worships Ganesa, and if he writes a book, dedi- 
 cates it to him as the god of literature. And how 
 does he conceive of this divinity? As a fat, white 
 Brahman, whose face ends in an elephant's trunk! 
 
 When the Brahman prays, after having held his 
 breath as long as possible, he repeats, up to the 
 sixty-fourth time, the same mantra. He believes in 
 
92 IN INDIA. 
 
 the supernatural virtue of simple syllables. "Am for 
 the forehead," he saj^s in honor of Durga, "/;;/ for 
 the right eye, Im for the left eye. Urn for the right ear, 
 Uni for the left ear. Run for the right nostril, Rim 
 for the left nostril." Not content with his three hun- 
 dred and thirty million gods, he also reveres animals, 
 plants, and stones. Sacred cows block up the 
 temples, bulls roam freely through the streets. To 
 buy grass and give it to these animals is a meritori- 
 ous act. The sacred places are zoological gardens, 
 where pigeons fly, where cows low, where monkeys 
 chatter; and out of this confusion of men and 
 animals arise strange odors and a marvellous up- 
 roar. The monkeys have their temple, where no 
 man enters except unshod. A rajah on one occasion 
 solemnly celebrated the marriage of a pair of orang- 
 outangs: a hundred thousand rupees were expended 
 in ceremonies, fêtes, and sacrifices. The male 
 monkey, drawn about the city on a car, attended by 
 an army of worshippers, wore a crown ; and the 
 rejoicings lasted two weeks. In the neighboring 
 city of Allahabad, where snakes are gods, the 
 priests and worshippers creep up to the summit of 
 the hill where the temple stands, with writhings 
 and contortions as of snakes! Peacocks, too, are 
 worshipped, and eagles, tortoises, crows, crocodiles. 
 "Pay respect to dogs," says a hymn, "and to the 
 lords of dogs; to horses, and to the lords of 
 horses." 
 
 The same worship is paid to certain trees, certain 
 flowers, to black stones, to round stones, to stones 
 used as flat-irons, to razors, ploughs, bellows, and 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 93 
 
 scissors. It may be affirmed that there is no creature 
 of the animal world, no vegetable or mineral object, 
 which is not divine in some part of India. In the 
 midst of these mad ideas, there are intuitions of 
 broad scope upon the divinity of Nature, on the 
 radical unity underlying all her manifestations. 
 "Venerate," says the Hindu hymn, "venerate and 
 honor the eternal masculine, Perusha, who has thou- 
 sands of names, thousands of forms, thousands of 
 eyes, thousands of heads, thousands of arms, and 
 lives for ten thousand million years." 
 
 Our Hindu has his ethics. An inner voice dictates 
 to him certain actions, which it is meritorious to per- 
 form and criminal to neglect. But his code and 
 ours have no similarity whatever. Every society 
 rests upon a certain number of sentiments common 
 to all its members, which check or direct the selfish 
 instincts that would tend to the undue development 
 of the individual, at the expense of his neighbors 
 and of the harmonious life of the whole group. It 
 cannot be denied that these sentiments vary; and as 
 they vary, the form and structure, the power, and 
 the cohesive strength of the society, differ. They 
 may be very simple, as in the ancient cities; they 
 may be very complex, as in our modern communities, 
 where, slowly, through the ages, extremely diverse 
 circumstances have superposed upon the ancient in- 
 stincts a great variety of delicate sentiments. But, 
 simple or complicated, they are a condition without 
 which social life is impossible. With the Hindus 
 ethics have a different origin, it seems, and a different 
 character. They are not a code of duties toward 
 
94 IN- INDIA. 
 
 one's neighbor; they are nothing but a series of pre- 
 scriptions regulating the external life, actions, food, 
 and dress. Imagine that, in the Middle Ages, had 
 disappeared the social instinct which forbade a man 
 to betray, to lie, to steal, to murder, to do violence 
 to women, and also the sense of honor which com- 
 manded him to fight bravely, to protect his vassal, 
 to follow his suzerain, to stand by his comrade, to 
 sacrifice himself for the band in which he is enrolled, 
 to keep his plighted word, to be solicitous as to his 
 own reputation. Suppress entirely religious moral- 
 ity, consecrating these sentiments; and retain only 
 the religious observances commanded by the Church, 
 to attend Mass, to communicate at Easter, to con- 
 fess, fast, observe Lent, have one's children baptized, 
 submit to extreme unction; now multiply these 
 observances infinitely, so that they fill the man's 
 entire life; and you have an idea of the Hindu's 
 moral law. 
 
 It is not forbidden him to lie; it is not forbidden 
 him to steal : before the English rule, certain sects 
 commanded assassination, or honored Siva by an 
 organized violation of women. But if the Hindu 
 sees meat eaten, if he swallows a cow's hair in a cup 
 of insufficiently filtered milk, he is lost, condemned 
 to the worst transmigrations — to the hells of blood, 
 of boiling oil, of reptiles, of molten copper : more than 
 that, he has a horror of himself, for these commands 
 and these prohibitions are not addressed to the 
 outer man only; there are sentiments corresponding 
 to them, deep-rooted by an observance of twenty- 
 five centuries — organic, traditional sentiments, which 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 95 
 
 form the very substance of the moral nature, en- 
 during through life, entirely independent of chang- 
 ing circumstances or ideas, real categorical impera- 
 tives like those which, with us, forbid murder and 
 theft. Intelligent babus, well-informed as to our 
 ideas, our sciences, European in philosophy and 
 ethics, have been seen to faint dead away with 
 horror at having by accident tasted bouillon. In 
 1857 the Sepoys, having the idea that the cartridges 
 which they must tear with their teeth were greased 
 with animal fat, revolted like men in desperation 
 and mad with terror. Formerly, when the English 
 were careless about observing the caste rules in 
 prisons, men under sentence for murder would let 
 themselves die of hunger rather than touch the 
 polluting food. To disobey a precept, of which the 
 origin and the object are alike absolutely unknown, 
 is the Hindu idea of sin — the abominable and deadly 
 sin. A strange sin, moreover, for which neither 
 repentance nor subsequent right action can make 
 amends; and only to be effaced by the mechanical 
 performance of an entirely meaningless act, the 
 repetition of a syllable, a bath in the Ganges, a 
 plunge into some fetid well inhabited by Siva. To 
 touch a Brahman's ear; to listen to the story of 
 Ganga's descent; to eat, at certain fixed times, a 
 mixture of rice and peas ; these are all-powerful 
 means of redemption. Every Hindu knows the 
 edifying story of Ajamil, the assassin saved by Vish- 
 nu because, as he was dying, he called for his son 
 Narayana, and this name designates one of the 
 god's incarnations; or of Valmik, the robber whom 
 
96 IN INDIA. 
 
 Siva carries away to the paradise of Kailas, because 
 he had often cried out: "Mar! Mar!" which means, 
 "kill! kill!" and this word inverted {Ram) is the 
 name of the great Rama! 
 
 If we look at certain general customs, they mani- 
 fest no less clearly the strangeness, the contradic- 
 tions, in the habitual sentiments of this people. 
 Here on every side, in the streets, are birds living 
 unmolested in the midst of the human crowd ; here 
 are blue peacocks, that wander through the city at 
 will ; observe the hospitals for sick animals, where 
 are tenderly cared for all sorts of living creatures, 
 dogs, gazelles, eagles. Is it not a sign of the gentle 
 character, the radical goodness of these Hindus? 
 But in 1857 they outdid in cruelty the aborigines 
 of America; and though public human sacrifices 
 have disappeared under the English rule, there is 
 sometimes seen a child's dead body upon an altar 
 of the hideous Kali. Love is unknown in India. 
 Children are married to each other when they are 
 nine years old, then strictly separated till the age of 
 maturity. After that time, the woman is immured. 
 Except her female relatives, no person sees her; no 
 friend may make allusion to her existence even in the 
 most remote way. If the husband learns that she 
 has seen a kinsman, has spoken even to a brother, he 
 brands her in some way; he may, if he will, cut ofï 
 her nose. As a widow she becomes a pariah, an 
 object of evil omen, whom all avoid with disgust. 
 The married man is not held to fidelity, or even the 
 merest external decency. Those offences against 
 morality that we surround with so much reserve and 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 97 
 
 secrecy are here paraded in the open day ; no reli- 
 gious law requires their concealment. More than 
 this, there is a recognized caste of prostitutes; their 
 trade is a sacred duty ; and in the south of India, 
 every temple has its troop of bayaderes. A sect of 
 Saktists, worshippers of "the energy of Siva," "the 
 force that develops the world," on their feast-days 
 are even released from all distinctions of castes 
 and ties of relationship. Men and women assume 
 a mystic character; they are no longer individuals, 
 but direct incarnations of Siva and Kali. "All men 
 are myself," says the god to the goddess. After 
 drinking wine and intoxicating liquors, eating fish 
 and meat and rice, the union of Kali and Siva is 
 celebrated with inconceivable orgies, and the wor- 
 shippers feel the limits of personality disappear; 
 they become absorbed in Siva, identified with "the 
 soul of the world." 
 
 This cult is "the path leading to the highest form 
 of salvation" ; absorption, that is to say, in the 
 Supreme Existence. He who follows it is called 
 Siddha, the perfect one ; he who knows it not is a 
 pasu, a beast, an impure being. "For," says one of 
 their texts, "there is salvation in the use of intoxi- 
 cating liquors and animal food, and in union with 
 women." It is true this is only a sect among the 
 Hindus; but the point to be noted is that these 
 ideas, which to us appear inconceivable and incred- 
 ible, dwell familiarly in their minds; that the Hindu 
 does not possess those fundamental sentiments and 
 ideas which, with us, would oppose to notions like 
 these an insurmountable barrier and throw them 
 
98 IN INDIA. 
 
 outside the regular action of the mind ; that, more- 
 over, certain kindred notions enter into the daily 
 cult of them all ; in short, that, between the Saktist 
 and the ordinary Hindu, the difference is one of 
 degree, and not of kind, and that in all the race 
 there exist those germs of mental and moral mala- 
 dies which, in certain sects, are seen in chronic form 
 and of intentional development. 
 
 Now these are souls strangely constituted, dis- 
 turbed, perverted, vitiated from their birth. Into 
 these souls, moreover, there now fall, by chance and 
 in abundance, general ideas from all quarters, like 
 seeds of disease falling into an organism already 
 unsound. Thousands of young Hindus prepare for 
 the examinations which admit to a public career; 
 and they fill the numerous universities of India. 
 They study Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, the old Asi- 
 atic philosophies, two or three literatures. They are 
 penetrated with the English ideas which are in the 
 air, everywhere about them. In the higher classes, 
 their professors are Englishmen. From their 
 earliest schooldays, Addison and Macaulay have 
 been their classics. Later, they attack the philoso- 
 phers, Hamilton or Spencer. They read English 
 reviews and journals; here they find literary and 
 political essays, miscellaneous news, statistics, re- 
 ports of every kind, which describe in detail, dis- 
 sect, classify, catalogue, all the countless forms 
 of English life — intellectual or moral, artistic or 
 religious, commercial or social. The novel gives 
 them English types of character — laborers, clergy- 
 men, sailors, young girls, squires, business men; and 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 99 
 
 under all these forms lies a conception of life, re- 
 ligion, duty, love, death — not merely that of another 
 race, but of another human nature. Not only are 
 these young Hindus nourished upon foreign ideas, 
 but they live the life of a foreign soul, which thinks, 
 feel, desires, in a manner contrary to their own. It 
 is an operation which must cause anxiety, this in- 
 fusion of another blood ; and it may result, like the 
 crossing of very distinct animal species, in the pro- 
 duction of monstrosities which cannot live. 
 
 This morning, on the river bank, these thoughts 
 occurred to me while I was exchanging a few words 
 with a young Brahman whose intelligent and amiable 
 face had much impressed me. This youth is a pupil 
 in an English school in Benares, and expects to 
 enter the university at Allahabad, in preparation for 
 the civil service. He has read Addison ; he is to 
 study the Upanishads. Meantime he is preparing 
 for the mathematical examinations. The question 
 of India for India came up; he is interested in the 
 congress of Allahabad, which asks for an autono- 
 mous parliament. At the same time, he belongs to 
 a caste which he must not quit ; he worships the 
 Hindu gods, pronounces the syllable OM in their 
 honor; he holds his breath; he offers flowers to the 
 sacred cows, as part of his customary devotions. 
 It must be, of course, that European culture tends 
 to destroy his hereditary faith in all these rites; but 
 let us not forget that he lives among Hindu cults, 
 that every morning he sees the multitude devoutly 
 splashing in the river, and the Brahmans figuring 
 with their fingers the hundred and eight incarnations 
 
loo IN INDIA. 
 
 of Vishnu ; that the first words he ever heard, those 
 which he still hears most frequently, are religious 
 formulas, sacred syllables, Vedic texts, and extracts 
 from the Puranas; that, in his presence, his father 
 worships the five black stones, a bell, a vase ; and 
 that this spectacle, incessantly repeated, imprints on 
 the very depths of his being a stamp, upon which 
 neither reading or reasoning can have the slightest 
 effect ; and that, hence, all which seems to us so 
 extraordinary appears to him natural, and those 
 ideas which to us are contradictory of each other in 
 his mind belong together. It is an astonishing in- 
 tellectual and moral structure, too different from our 
 own to be to us sympathetically conceivable. With 
 much erudition, a European mind may be flexible 
 enough to reproduce for itself the ideas and senti- 
 ments, the sequences of images and emotions, which 
 formed the soul of a mediaeval monk or of an 
 Athenian architect. This is because, in spite of 
 the passage of centuries, they are not altogether 
 strangers to us; it is because they make part of the 
 same human group with ourselves ; it is because they 
 were on the path of that slow evolution which has 
 now reached us— the historic wave which at this 
 moment lifts us into the light; they had their share 
 in giving it its direction and its form. The vital sap 
 which circulates in the European of to-day passed 
 through them, as that which nourishes a topmost 
 leaf was elaborated in the dark roots. Something 
 of them survives, and makes part of the accumulated 
 inheritance which the European generations hand 
 down ; for the present contains all the past. Some 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. loi 
 
 few men can understand a Greek temple or a prayer 
 of the ninth century. Who of us can really feel a 
 Purana, or a Hindu edifice? Granted that there was 
 once a certain tie of blood between us and these 
 Indian peoples, the crossing with black races, the 
 secular action of a different climate and different 
 natural phenomena, have destroyed it. Their soul 
 is a composite of a mysterious kind, not only beyond 
 our experience, but outside of what is possible for 
 us to comprehend. We note its manifestations, we 
 perceive the externals — physiognomies, gestures, 
 rites, prayers, style, art, customs. The substance 
 of the soul is impenetrable. 
 
 This afternoon, some expeditions hither and yon 
 in Benares. For a very few rupees, I have a ba- 
 rouche with two horses, a coachman, groom, and a 
 peon, who accompanies the carriage, running with 
 admirable gravity. These people are naturally 
 silent, serious, with unchanging faces. The trotting 
 peon, in his tight red tunic, who clears the crowd 
 before us, is absorbed in the gravity of his function. 
 His elbows held close in, his chest dilated, his head 
 high, he runs — now and then ejaculating a sharp, 
 short cry. 
 
 The division of labor is carried to a great extreme 
 here ; there must be the coachman to drive, the 
 groom to open the carriage door, the peon to clear 
 the road. A European in India must submit to all 
 this display. It would be monstrous for him to go 
 on foot, or to carry a package ! An English officer 
 must not go from one place to another without a 
 whole caravan of men and luggage in his train. Last 
 
I02 IN INDIA. 
 
 year in London, I heard a corporal relating that in 
 India he would ring for his servant to pick up a 
 handkerchief. Many gentlemen keep a man espe- 
 cially to take care of their pipes. The house of 
 a civilian requires fifty servants; there are tailors, 
 bakers, washermen, not to mention a crowd of 
 people who come every morning for the day's work. 
 Thus at Rome, the patrician had his army of ser- 
 vitors, clients, and freedmen. The white man is here 
 the master, the noble, and many believe him a 
 sorcerer. Secretly, however, he is despised, as cere- 
 monially impure, polluted by the daily use of liquors 
 and meats. In contrast to this serious, quiet, and 
 wily race, he appears coarse, with his noisy laughter, 
 his athletic sports, his many requirements, his vigor- 
 ous movements, his activity always conspicuous. 
 His wife, seen in the streets unveiled, outrages all 
 decency. In the scale of being, he ranks far below 
 the Sudra; a Hindu must have committed many 
 and odious sins to return to earth as a European. 
 At the same time, terror and respect prostrate the 
 Indian before his white master, who seems omnipo- 
 tent with his strength of muscle, with his wealth, 
 his weapons, and his mysterious inventions. What 
 does the Hindu think of these iron threads stretched 
 across the country, or of this black veil under Avhich 
 we put our heads, taking aim with a mysterious box 
 at some edifice? This morning, for nothing in 
 the world would my boatmen touch a piece of my 
 photographic apparatus. My "boy" awaits my 
 orders, bent nearly double, his arms crossed on his 
 breast, as if he were a slave. All Sepoys present 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 103 
 
 arms to the European traveller. You respond with 
 condescension, half scornful, just moving the head, 
 and fall back in your barouche, which, for thirty cents 
 the first hour, and twelve for the subsequent hours, 
 carries you at a gallop from palace to palace, from 
 marvel to marvel. 
 
 It is well to accept one's vocation of tourist, and 
 follow your guide with docility. Mine, who has 
 traditions, takes me to the bank of the Ganges, and 
 we cross the river on a barge. This brings us to 
 the palace of the Maharajah. Three broad marble 
 courts give access to the grand hall, furnished with a 
 luxury too conspicuous, half Hindu, half-European. 
 
 There is nothing to see here except the gallery of 
 portraits, the ancestors of His Highness, all Kshat- 
 riyas, of the warrior race, the true Aryan conquerors 
 of India, very stiff, very pompous, in their full white 
 robes, one hand on the heart, holding flowers; or 
 else armed with the strange weapon used in the 
 tiger-hunt. One ancestor standing, his chest well 
 thrown out, like the king in a comic opera, his arm 
 extended and one finger on the head of a large cane — 
 recalling the attitude of Rigaud's Louis XIV. — his 
 beard spread wide on both sides of the face, poses, 
 with a braggart lordliness and an air of consummate 
 coxcombry. At his side, upon the same wall, the 
 Prince of Wales, very swell and very insipid ; and a 
 portrait of the winner of the Derby in 1865, the 
 great, meagre, classic horse, with his minute jockey 
 in the yelloAv silk cap ; old chromolithographs that 
 you will see in any English inn, but precious bibelots 
 here in India, and framed accordingly. 
 
I04 IN INDIA. 
 
 This rajah, who gives a hundred rupees daily to 
 support the sacred cows and to keep up the temple 
 of Siva, was present in 1887 at the Queen's Jubilee 
 in England. It is said he was much impressed by 
 what he saw at that time, but chiefly by the great 
 height of the English horses. 
 
 Opposite, on the other side of the Ganges, in the 
 vast crowd of edifices that border the river, is 
 the temple of the monkeys. There they are, the 
 tawny gods, frisking over the porticos, or hanging 
 by the tail from the notches in the stonework. At 
 sight of us, a great tumult, a great tremor of curi- 
 osity ; with supple leaps they gather, chattering, 
 winking, scanning our faces with their anxious, 
 piercing eyes. Piously I make my offering, some 
 grain bought of the Brahman who guards the 
 entrance to the temple ; at once an angry whin- 
 ing, sharp outcries, a scramble of hairy bodies, a 
 confusion of sinuous backs. 
 
 As may be supposed, these divinities are not in 
 confinement, like the monkeys of the Jardin des 
 Plantes. The temple is merely their headquarters, 
 whence they sally out every morning to infest the 
 city, pillaging the houses and gardens. An Eng- 
 lishman killed some of them who were stealing his 
 fruit ; thereupon there was great uproar in Benares ; 
 he was besieged in his own house, and it was neces- 
 sary to call in the Sepoys to protect him. 
 
 On Wednesday is the great monkey feast ; almost 
 all of the sacred band remain in their temple. 
 Devotees come in crowds and bring offerings — grain, 
 cocoanuts, and fruits. A goat is solemnly sacrificed ; 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 105 
 
 an exciting spectacle, which makes the hairy crests 
 stand on end, makes the teeth chatter and the eye- 
 brows draw together in a frown, above the sharp 
 little eyes. 
 
 It is proper to visit the Hindu University; for 
 this Benares is a very ancient centre of Indian cul- 
 ture. Formerly its teachers philosophized, and stu- 
 dents came from afar to receive instruction in their 
 doctrines. Astronomy, which contemplates the 
 eternal skies, was also much in honor here. This 
 morning I visited an ancient observatory, full of 
 mysterious instruments of stone, covered with 
 strange writings; and my mind reverted to those 
 obscure ages when this city, unknown to our 
 Europe, elaborated that old Oriental science where- 
 by the inquisitive Brahmans were able to calculate 
 the sun's declination, and the revolution of the stars 
 around the pole. 
 
 Sanskrit has continued to be the language of the 
 pandits here. They use it as the professors of cer- 
 tain Swedish universities to this day write in Latin. 
 At Benares, the old sacred texts are constantly ex- 
 plained and commented upon: the Vedas, the great 
 epics, the Upanishads, the Puranas; some of these 
 Brahmans are known to our European Orientalists. 
 
 The English call Benares the Oxford of India, 
 and the university building which they have erected 
 seems brought from Oxford. To see these arches, 
 these square, crenellated towers, these portals, these 
 niches, these clusters of slender colonnettes, you 
 would think yourself at the doors of Oriel or Magda- 
 len. Only instead of the old granite, all exfoliated 
 
lo6 IN INDIA. 
 
 by time and weather, all stamped with the sadness of 
 the wan sky, this is a stone glittering with light, im- 
 penetrated with the felicity and mildness of the blue 
 ether. For surroundings, instead of monotonous 
 lawns and the fine, tremulous foliage of the English 
 trees, there are tall, stiff, lustrous palms. Within, 
 under the pointed arcades, there are groups of 
 students gathered around their professors. But 
 these are not the blond, bold heads that you have 
 seen at Oxford in a hall so similar to this; fat, 
 gentle, effeminate. Oriental faces, and slender fig- 
 ures draped in soft garments. The pandit Bapu- 
 Deva-Sastri, professor of mathematics, is my guide, 
 and the young men salute us as we enter, with a 
 graceful inclination of the body, the eyes downcast, 
 lifting their clasped hands to their lips, with a 
 repeated gesture. Before a blackboard covered with 
 algebraic symbols, boys are seated cross-legged ; on 
 their heads are velvet caps wrought with gold ; the 
 oval faces, the long eyelashes, the colorless com- 
 plexions, the beautiful curve of the lips, have an 
 enchanting gentleness and seriousness. 
 
 Further on, older students are occupied with a 
 lesson in philosophy; two books lie on the pandit's 
 table; they are Hansel's "Philosophy," and Herbert 
 Spencer's "Social Statics." 
 
 It is difficult to see anything in Benares beyond 
 the streets and the public buildings. Letters of 
 introduction give you access only to European 
 homes; and of the Hindu world you can see scarcely 
 beyond its exterior. However, leaving at this point 
 my guide and his catalogued lists of "sights," I was 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 107 
 
 able to visit two Indian houses. The first is that 
 of the babu, Devi-Parshad, dealer in cloth of gold 
 and silver; little, white, cool rooms, with very low 
 ceilings, and entirely without furniture. The stone 
 walls, adorned with carvings and painted flowers, 
 are recessed in square niches where abide red gods — 
 quadrupeds with human faces, the monstrous Ganesa, 
 patron of commerce as well as of literature. Above 
 the gods, English diplomas, awards of expositions, 
 as you would see them in a Parisian office. 
 
 At the end of the last room, padlocked doors, 
 which a lad opens for our gratification, keep secure 
 the riches of the house — fantastic stuffs woven of 
 precious metal, laces like cobwebs, marvellous silks 
 of the "Thousand and One Nights," sun-color, moon- 
 color, which are cautiously displayed before us. In 
 the centre of the room, on a pile of cushions, is 
 enthroned the master of the house, effeminate and 
 nonchalant of face. Seated amid the silks which 
 cover him, he is taking his music lesson, and from 
 his long guitar rise the Oriental ritornelles, compli- 
 cated, dissonant, sad, and eternally the same. 
 
 On the ground, in a corner, a scribe, in a great 
 green robe, is bent over books filled with cabalistic 
 writings. An old, shaven face, thin, compressed 
 lips, an aquiline nose supporting spectacles, the 
 intelligent and austere countenance of an Alsatian 
 schoolmaster. He shows' me his sacred cord, 
 which proves him to be a Brahman ; I have already 
 seen among men of his caste faces singularly 
 European. Just now, on the shore of the Ganges, a 
 young man had the prematurely old, thin, fatigued 
 
Io8 IN INDIA. 
 
 features of a Parisian student. Strange power of 
 type, that thousands of years are powerless to de- 
 stroy — the same in a Roman bust, in the Jldtieur of 
 a Parisian boulevard, in a Brahman of Benares. 
 
 While the babu winds his eternal, plaintive scale, 
 this old scribe, who seems very learned, demonstrates 
 to me the relationship between English and Sanskrit. 
 He brings together the words pitar and father, 
 bliratar and brother, duhitar' and daughter — well- 
 known parallels which are to-day in all our gram- 
 mars, but very impressive here, in the mouth of a 
 worshipper of Siva, who looks like one of our own 
 people. 
 
 Then, we go to see the dancing-girls. Their 
 dwelling is in the heart of the city, in the most 
 populous street, in the midst of the bazaar. This 
 endless streaming of the motley crowd, these figures 
 of all colors, this confusion of nudities and floating 
 garments, is always surprising. In the middle of the 
 street the human current flows more freely ; on the 
 sidewalks, rows of men are seated, carving in copper, 
 stamping bronze; merchants are busy with their 
 account-books; others, sitting on the ground, negli- 
 gently abandon their black heads to the barber. 
 
 The street is tortuous, very narrow between the 
 projecting booths, which extend out from the houses, 
 crowded with fruit, with copper ware, with jewelry 
 of colored glass, and embroidered slippers; and it is 
 still further narrowed above one's head by a con- 
 fusion of terraces, balconies, statuettes, verandas, 
 and wooden galleries, which notch the irregular strip 
 of sky. It is an interior of the Oriental anthill, 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 109 
 
 unchanged in centuries. Such must be "the quarter 
 of the shops" in Bagdad of famiHar tales! 
 
 My "boy" opens a little door which he knows well, 
 and we step into the half-light of a low hall, sur- 
 rounded by a quadrilateral of slender colonnettes. 
 There is no one here: only three stout little gods 
 sit, half visible, in their niches. At the end of the 
 hall a dark staircase, up which we grope our way. 
 On the floor above, we are in the abode of the danc- 
 ing-girls. It is dark, and the air is close, in this 
 great room, with its thick carpet and walls hung with 
 embroidered silk. For furniture, there are cushions ; 
 and from the ceiling hangs a very rich chandelier, 
 extending in innumerable branches, tufty, as all 
 Hindu things are. The atmosphere is perfumed and 
 makes one giddy. On the floor are vases loaded 
 with the inevitable yellow flowers, and there are 
 some perfume boxes, whence rise, in spirals, the 
 blue vapors of incense. 
 
 Now we see that it is inhabited, this silent chamber 
 we had thought empty. Seated on the carpets, 
 resting their elbows upon a balustrade, three women 
 are looking idly down into the street. Our entrance 
 has not aroused them from their torpor; scarcely 
 have they so much as turned their heads. Bronzed 
 faces, very pure outlines, the eyelids and eyelashes 
 singularly long, great black eyes surcharged with 
 languor and voluptuousness; yet serious, and with 
 a certain dignity which is not at all impaired by the 
 nose jewel. This immobility, this seriousness, this 
 Oriental silence, are always disconcerting. Thus 
 they pass their days, idly reclining, wrapped in 
 
ÏIO IN INDIA. 
 
 their draperies, half asleep in the darkness of this 
 hall, where the perfumed vapors rise and are diffused, 
 watching through the fretwork of the carved wooden 
 balcony the crowds that are streaming past in the 
 narrow street below; but themselves always hidden, 
 invisible from without. Sometimes they make 
 bouquets, they amuse themselves with their flowers, 
 or one of them takes her guitar, and the dark room 
 is filled with the rapid scratching of the strings — 
 minor scales of a strange rhythm, indefinitely re- 
 peated, curiously involved, ceasing on notes which 
 are not final, which make you expect something 
 further, a music strange and monotonous as their 
 life. This is the existence of all Hindu women 
 cloistered in the zenanas. A life like this should 
 produce souls of an extreme simplicity ; but why 
 are these faces so wonderfully serious, and the great 
 dark eyes full of a passion so concentrated? 
 
 Enters silently a tall, sly Hindu, who talks long 
 and low with my guide. It appears that it is very 
 expensive — a nautch — one must pay a hundred 
 rupees for it. As I hesitate upon this, it is explained 
 to me that the dancing-girls will be attired in 
 precious stuffs, costumes which have cost thousands 
 of rupees: the coffers containing these festal gar- 
 ments are brought for me to see. Indeed the boxes 
 are full of most beautiful things: Benares silks, all 
 stiff with silver stars, delicate gauzes on which quiver 
 specks of gold laces embroidered with jewels and 
 with the burnished wings of scarabs. The thousand 
 lamps of the great chandelier will be lighted, and 
 the dance lasts the whole night through. 
 
BEN-ARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. HI 
 
 It is a strange pleasure — the greatest possible, 
 according to the Hindus. There is no festival; no 
 solemnity without its nautch. When a European 
 of importance arrives at Calcutta or Bombay, the 
 great native functionaries invite him to witness 
 this; and expend vast sums to show him four 
 dancing-girls. The European invariably tires; to 
 all Englishmen who have seen it, this spectacle is 
 an incomprehensible amusement. The foreigner 
 accepts, from courtesy ; and goes away after an 
 hour, sprinkled with the perfumes, wreathed with 
 the flowers that every host owes to his guest. The 
 Hindu men remain, seated like so many Buddhas, 
 cross-legged, their hands clasped, mute and motion- 
 less ; and so the entire night passes. Observe that 
 there is nothing sensual in the classic nautch; and, 
 compared with this dance, the most innocent of our 
 ballets would seem free ; the women are loaded with 
 draperies; the more beautiful the stuffs, the more 
 expensive the nautch. Who shall explain the slow 
 intoxication, the beatified drowsiness, the vague 
 torpor, the somnolent, subtle charm, which seizes 
 upon these Hindu men, sitting in a row upon their 
 heels? The tinkling guitar goes on repeating the 
 same sad and confused phrase ; the garments of the 
 dancing-girls flash iridescent hues; the draperies 
 whirl together, then separate ; the gems scintillate, 
 the arms are slowly extended ; the body swings to 
 and fro, or stops suddenly, motionless in a pro- 
 longed shiver, of a vibration almost imperceptible ; 
 heads are thrown back as if swooning, wrists writhe, 
 fingers stiffen and quiver ; the cithern goes on repeat- 
 
I là IN INDIA. 
 
 ing its slender, melancholy phrase; and the hours 
 fly. It is a pleasure analogous to our own in follow- 
 ing the slow, graceful curling of a puff of cigar 
 smoke, or the gentle motion of a procession of white 
 clouds against the blue of a summer's sky. The 
 Me is lost for the moment, scattered into space; 
 there is nothing left but the rhythmic scintillation 
 of those precious stones, the soft undulation of that 
 smoke, the gentle and splendid movement of those 
 clouds. 
 
 Such is my poor attempt at explanation. Exte- 
 rior resemblances to our modes of being do not 
 reveal to us what passes in the interior of these souls. 
 What effort of intelligence or of sympathy, for 
 instance, could make us understand the fact I am 
 about to mention? On the 15th of July, 1857, Nana 
 Sahib gave orders to massacre the English prisoners. 
 The men having been shot in the open air, the 
 women and children, crowded in a bungalow, were 
 destroyed by repeated firing through the windows. 
 At the end of an hour, the cries within having 
 ceased. Nana caused the dead and the dying to be 
 brought out, and to be thrown into a deep well. 
 That evening the sahib ordered a nautch, and repos- 
 ing upon a sofa, he passed the night satiating his 
 eyes with the sinuous and serpentine movements of 
 four dancing-girls. 
 
 I did not go to see the nautch, finding it de- 
 cidedly too expensive. Besides, my curiosity was 
 somewhat blunted. Instead, I passed the evening 
 at the hotel, upon the veranda, lying in a chaise 
 longue ; my "boy" at my side, on the ground, 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 113 
 
 wrapped in his rug. How calm and splendid is the 
 night, broadened by the moonlight which filters 
 through the green masses of the palms, and projects 
 short and well-defined shadows of all the plants! 
 Overhead, two little silvery clouds repose alone; 
 and at times the thin, far-off cry of an insect renders 
 the silence more profound. 
 
 In the slow smoke of the Egyptian tobacco float 
 to and fro many things which I have seen to-day ; 
 many images, as yet well-defined, but destined to 
 lose their color, to disappear gradually, to fall into 
 the no ino7-e. In the nocturnal peace of this solitary 
 garden, after all the fatiguing daylight, after all the 
 tumult of the Asiatic multitude, how easy to sink 
 into the revery of the ancient Brahmans! This 
 noisy world, these luminous visions which have fol- 
 lowed one another through the last eighteen hours, 
 how it all appears a dream, an exciting dream, from 
 which one awakens to find one's self tranquil and so 
 alone, in the silence of this broad night! A dream, 
 the vast river which flowed this morning, shining 
 and muddy, past the rose-colored temples; a dream, 
 the black and white multitude swarming on the 
 bank, the wilderness of temples and chapels, the 
 narrow streets beaten hard by the naked feet of the 
 Asiatic crowd. It is difficult to conceive that, at 
 this moment, in this resonant air of night, the soli- 
 tary river is whispering and rustling obscurely on 
 the marble stairs from which the crowd has gone 
 away. There is no longer a person there in the 
 presence of the great river. The two hundred and 
 fifty thousand inhabitants of Benares, having quitted 
 
îi4 ÏN INDIA. 
 
 the streets, are stretched out upon their braided 
 mats. The Brahmans are at rest from their cere- 
 monial observances. The two thousand and fifty- 
 four temples are empty, and the rays of the moon 
 light up the innumerable chapels now deserted, 
 in which the bronze bulls and all the ancient idols 
 are now left alone. Yes, it is difficult to believe 
 that all this is real, — river, palace, people, idols, — 
 occupying its point of space on a vast globe, eight- 
 een hundred leagues in radius, covered in many other 
 places with other human mildew; and that this 
 globe — bathed on its other side in sunshine, here, in 
 the paler light of this gentle planet — is revolving 
 very rapidly and noiselessly in space! 
 
 I have before me two sacred pictures, Avhich I 
 bought this morning in a booth. They are very 
 childish; they are rude, and yet carefully finished. 
 The paint, which is used very thick, is applied upon 
 a layer of plaster, with which the paper is covered. 
 The personages are represented in profile, but the 
 eyes are as if in a front view, like the ancient mural 
 paintings of Egypt. 
 
 The first represents a beatified Brahman seated 
 on the ground ; his plump body half-naked, his 
 hands clasped upon his crossed legs, his rosary 
 around his neck, girt with the thread of the twice- 
 born ; he is looking upon the ground. The head is 
 shaven, the brow bent forward, marked with three 
 horizontal lines; the moustache white and heavy; 
 the eyes half-closed. There is nothing Oriental in 
 the face, which might be that of a German professor. 
 Only the development of the cranium is enormous, 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. Ii5 
 
 and the expression of immobility is striking. It 
 appears that this man has been dreaming thus for a 
 very long time, and that he will never arouse him- 
 self. All around is a vague green expanse, ending, 
 far-off, in the red of the sky. The man is alone in 
 the immensity of the country. 
 
 The second picture is finer, illuminated in crimson 
 and gold. A Brahman reposes beneath the palms 
 of a forest, his legs folded under him upon a rug and 
 draped in yellow drawers ; he is still more plump 
 than the other, with the same soft, inert flesh, which 
 lies in folds and fat ridges. The face, less dull, is not 
 weighed down by meditation, but lighted with serene 
 beatitude. One of his bare arms disappears within 
 the red bag, where his fingers make the sacred fig- 
 ures; the other holds daintily, between the thumb 
 and forefinger, a white lotus flower. A golden halo 
 proclaims him freed from future migrations, forever 
 absorbed in Brahma; at his feet his disciple, in the 
 white robe of a neophyte, with hands respectfully 
 clasped together, listens, kneeling. 
 
 What are they, the solemn words that the blessed 
 one is speaking under the green roof of the palms? 
 The Upanishads tell us what they are, and this 
 evening, as I turn over the leaves of the sacred 
 books, I seem to understand my two pictures : I 
 can follow the meditation of my first Brahman ; I 
 can hear the religious discourse of the master to 
 his pupil. 
 
 The recluse meditates, his eyes half closed, his 
 massive head inclined toward the ground : 
 
 "Hari! Om ! This light shining above the sky. 
 
Ii6 IN- INDIA. 
 
 higher than all else, in the highest world, beyond 
 which there is no other: 
 
 "This light is also the light which is in man. 
 
 "All things are Brahma. I meditate upon this 
 visible world as beginning, as ending, as breathing 
 in Brahma. 
 
 "This Intelligence whose body is spirit, whose 
 form is light, whose thoughts are true, whose nature 
 is like the ether, omnipresent and invisible, from 
 whom proceed all works, all desires, all sweet per- 
 fumes ; he who envelops all things, who never speaks, 
 who is never understood : 
 
 "He is also the Me within my heart, smaller than 
 a grain of rice, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller 
 than the kernel of a mustard seed ; 
 
 "He is also the Me within my heart, greater than 
 the earth,greater than the sky, greater than all worlds. 
 
 "As fire, the element, after it has entered the 
 world, while remaining one, becomes many, accord- 
 ing to what it burns, so the one Existence at the 
 bottom of all things becomes diverse, according to 
 that which he penetrates, and he also exists with- 
 out, in appearances of things. 
 
 "He is the eternal thinker, whose thoughts are not 
 eternal; who, although himself but one, satisfies the 
 desires of all. The wise, who recognize him in the 
 depth of their own Me, eternal peace is with them, 
 but not with others. 
 
 "In him does not shine the sun, nor the moon, nor 
 the stars, nor the lightning, still less this fire. When 
 he shines, all shines after him, by his light all things 
 are enlightened. . . 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 117 
 
 "Beyond the world is the Undeveloped; beyond 
 the Undeveloped, there is nothing; this is the end, 
 the limit, 
 
 "This Being is concealed in all things, and is not 
 visible on the outside, but the subtle seers perceive 
 him by their acute and subtle intelligence. 
 
 "He who has known That which no man can hear 
 or touch, or taste, or feel; which has no form, which 
 does not pass away, eternal, without beginning, 
 without end, unalterable ; that man is saved from 
 the jaws of death. 
 
 "The wise man who knows this Being, as bodiless 
 among bodies, as immutable among things that 
 change, as omnipresent, this wise man is freed from 
 grief. 
 
 "But he who is not calm and subdued, whose spirit 
 is not in tranquillity, he will never know this Being. 
 
 "Who knows where he dwells, He to whom Brah- 
 mans and Kshatriyas are onl)'- food,* to whom death 
 itself is but an aliment?" 
 
 Thus goes on the revery of the recluse, on his 
 way toward the perfect condition. He has not yet 
 attained it, for he thinks; and immobility is not yet 
 established in his brain. When the five "instruments 
 of knowledge" (the five senses) are inert, when the 
 mind acts no longer, then the man is delivered. 
 Then the qualified Brahmâ which is himself, enfran- 
 chised from mode, change, and illusion, again be- 
 comes the neuter Brâhma, the absolute, "which is 
 neither cause nor effect, nor this, nor that, nor past, 
 nor future." Formerly, polluted by ignorance, the 
 * In whom are absorbed the races and generations. 
 
Il8 IN INDIA. 
 
 man manifested himself in appearances. Now "he 
 is as pure water poured into pure water, remaining 
 the same." As a wave of the sea, losing its form 
 and its impulse, sinks into the sombre depths of the 
 motionless waters, so the man, emptied of the desires 
 and emotions and thoughts which made up his per- 
 sonality, sinks, disappears, in the calm, black depths 
 of being. 
 
 This is the same doctrine which the Brahman with 
 the golden halo, seated under the palm-trees, unveils 
 to his kneeling disciple, and the following story,* 
 also from the old Upanishads, may serve as a com- 
 mentary upon my second picture : 
 
 "Hari! Om ! In those days lived Svetaketu 
 Aruneya. His father Uddalaka said to him : 'Sva- 
 taketu, go now to school, for there is no one of our 
 race, my beloved, who, not having studied the 
 Vedas, is Brahman by race only.' 
 
 "Having begun his training at the age of twelve, 
 Svetaketu returned to his father when he was twenty- 
 four, having studied the Vedas, vain, believing him- 
 self very learned, and proud. 
 
 "His father said to him : 'Svetaketu, since thou art 
 so vain, hast thou ever sought that instruction where- 
 by we learn to hear what is not audible, to see what 
 is invisible, to understand that which is incompre- 
 hensible?' 
 
 " 'What is this instruction, my lord?' the young 
 man asked. 
 
 * The word Upanishad indicates, according to Max M tiller, the 
 attitude of the disciple, with hands clasped, and eyes fixed upon his 
 master. 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 119 
 
 "The father replied : 'My dear son, as, from a piece 
 of earth, we know all earth — diversities being but 
 names and arising from language, the truth being 
 that all these things are earth — likewise, my dear 
 son, is that which we learn by this instruction.' 
 
 "The son said : 'Surely these venerable men know 
 it not. For if they had known, why should they 
 not have taught it to me? Instruct me then, my 
 lord !' 
 
 " 'So be it,' said the father. 
 
 "Then, in the forest, the disciple kneels, clasps his 
 hands, and remains motionless. The father, seated 
 on the ground, holding in his left hand the slender 
 stem of the lotus, speaks as follows : 
 
 " 'In the beginning, my dear son, there was only 
 that which is; that alone and nothing second. 
 
 " 'Others say that in the beginning there was only 
 that which is not, alone ; and that from that which 
 is not came forth that which is. 
 
 " 'But how could this be so, my dear son? How 
 could that which is come forth from that which is 
 not? No; only that which is existed in the begin- 
 ning; that only, and nothing second (that is to say, 
 since there is something rather than nothing, being 
 exists from all eternity). 
 
 " 'And That thought : " May I be many ! May I 
 extend myself!" And from him came forth fire. 
 
 " 'And the fire thought : "May I become many! 
 May I spread !" And from it came forth water. 
 
 " 'This is why we see that when a man is warm, he 
 perspires. For water appears upon his body and 
 it comes from fire. 
 
I20 IN INDIA. 
 
 " 'And the water thought : "May I become many ! 
 May I spread !" And from the water came forth 
 earth, all solid things, and food.' " 
 
 In the five subsequent Khandas, the disciple learns 
 that all things are made from the union of fire, 
 water, and earth. "In these things also man has 
 his root. 'By means of digested food, this scion, the 
 body, is formed and grows. And what could be its 
 root except the earth and food? And since earth 
 and food are scions, seek their root. It is water. 
 And the root of water is fire. And the fire is also 
 a scion. And its root is the True One. 
 
 " 'Yes, all things have their root and dwelling- 
 place, and place of rest in the True One. 
 
 " 'When a man leaves this world, his speech is ab- 
 sorbed into his mind, his mind into his breath, his 
 breath into heat, heat into the most elevated of 
 beings. 
 
 " 'And this thing, this subtle essence, the root 
 of all — in this, all that exists has its being. It is 
 the True. It is the Being; and thou thyself, O 
 Svetaketu ! art this Being.' 
 
 " 'My lord, deign to instruct me further,' said the 
 son. 
 
 " 'vSo be it,' the father answered. 
 
 " 'The rivers, my son, flow, some to the East, as 
 the Ganges, others to the West, as the Sindhu. 
 
 " 'They go from the sea to the sea (that is, they 
 rise from it as clouds, and return to it as rivers). 
 They again become truly the sea. And as these 
 rivers, when they are in the sea, no longer say : "I 
 am this river, or I am that river"; so, my son, all 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 121 
 
 creatures, when they go forth out of the True, know 
 not that they go forth out of the True. 
 
 " 'In this thing, this subtle essence, all that exists 
 has its being. It is the True, it is Being, and thou 
 thyself, O Svetaketu, art this Being.' 
 
 " 'My lord, deign to instruct me further,' says the 
 son. 
 
 " 'So be it,' replies the father.* 
 
 " 'A man was carried away from his own country 
 by robbers. His eyes being bandaged, he was led 
 into a forest, full of terrors and dangers. And not 
 knowing where he was, he began to weep, hoping to 
 be delivered from his bonds. Then a passer-by had 
 pity upon him, cut his bonds, and sent him back 
 rejoicing, to his own country. 
 
 " 'Our country is Being, the king of the world. 
 This body, made of three elements, fire, water, and 
 earth, subject to cold and heat, is a forest in which we 
 wander. And the bandages upon our eyes are our 
 desires for many things, real and unreal, our wives, 
 our children, our cattle; and the robbers who have 
 brought us into this forest are our actions. (The 
 actions of preceding life which have caused us trans- 
 migration, instead of the absorption into Brahma). 
 
 'Then we weep, and we say: "I am the son of 
 such a one, I am happy, I am sad, I am foolish, I 
 am wise, I am righteous, I have been born, I die." 
 These are the bonds which fetter us (individuality). 
 Sometimes we meet a man who knows the Me of 
 Brahma, and whose bonds have been broken. He 
 has pity on us, and instructs us that we are not the 
 * Here the text has been expanded by a commentator. 
 
12 2 IN INDIA. 
 
 son of such a one, that we are not happy or sad, 
 wise or foolish, that we have not been born and do 
 not die; but are only That which Is. 
 
 " 'In this thing, this subtle essence, all that exists 
 has its being. It is the Being, the True, and thou 
 thyself, O Svetaketu ! art this Being.' 
 
 "And Svetaketu understood what his father said; 
 yes, he understood it. 
 
 "And knowing him who is one, who animates all 
 germs, in whom all unites and all separates, the 
 adorable lord, the dispenser of benefits, Svetaketu 
 eiî tered fo rever in to peace y 
 
 This pantheism, which was taught for two thou- 
 sand years, is not the doctrine of an isolated 
 thinker, or of a school. It describes in philosophic 
 language the special vision of the world which, more 
 or less clear, has been that of all this race. To 
 understand it, observe the spirit of another human 
 variety, and, together with these old philosophic 
 poems of the Brahmans, read the Bible. What do 
 you find there? It is lyric poetry: angers, despairs, 
 enthusiasms, hatreds, violent emotions, shocks of all 
 kinds ; all possible feelings of the soul, expressed in 
 brusque metaphors and brilliant imagery, in an 
 abrupt style, in a simple language, incapable of fol- 
 lowing the undulations of speculative thought, but 
 exactly made to render an emotion by a cry. Now, 
 what is the effect upon man of lasting and vehement 
 emotion, but to cause him to fall back upon his own 
 thoughts? When he suffers, when he hates, he is 
 occupied altogether with himself; he perceives him- 
 
BENARES. BRAFIMANISM. HINDUISM. 123 
 
 self as distinct from the exterior world which causes 
 him suffering. In an emotional soul, the coherent 
 Me declares itself, stands alone; and when the man 
 essays to conceive of that which stands behind all 
 things, he conceives of it also as a Me, distinct and 
 omnipotent. 
 
 With these Brahmans the opposite faculties have 
 arrived at opposite results. "What do we find in the 
 Vedas? Poems upon Nature, hymns to the Sun, 
 the Rain, the Clouds, Fire, the Sky, the Earth, the 
 Wind, the Storm, the Dawn of Day. No subjective, 
 personal poetry. Instead of permanent emotions, 
 there is a changeful play of images. The soul is no 
 longer a distinct being, but a reflection of nature, 
 a changeful reflection of its events which change. 
 It becomes the cloud floating in the blue; it be- 
 comes the sun which rises in the East. When an 
 emotion penetrates the soul, it does but pass through 
 it. It does not remain ; it does not develop slowly 
 into interior, concentrated passion. It is at once 
 projected beyond the man himself, who thus lends 
 to the external world his ever-changing and fleeting 
 emotions. If he is joyous, it is the gayety of Agni, 
 sparkling amid the vine branches ; if he is timorous, 
 it is the timidity of the Auroras veiling themselves 
 in cloud, like blushing girls. In short, instead of 
 concentrating himself in one substance — a Me, who 
 wills, acts, bleeds, cries out' — the Vedic poet is scat- 
 tered abroad through the world ; he diffuses himself 
 in things, his soul is filled with the forms, sounds, 
 colors of nature, and nature is animated with his 
 thoughts and desires. 
 
124 IN INDIA. 
 
 These living and divine forces of nature he adores; 
 but there is something pecuhar in his polytheism. 
 Indra, Varuna, Agni, Surya, are souls, elemental 
 souls — not rigidly shut into a few fixed attributes, 
 not conceived of as distinct unchanging personalities, 
 but varying, floating, capable of reciprocal trans- 
 formations. This Aurora is also the Sun, the Sun 
 is also Fire, Fire is also Lightning, Lightning is 
 Tempest, Tempest is Rain. Varuna becomes 
 Agni, Agni becomes Surya. They all unite, blend, 
 mutually interpenetrate. There is no permanence, 
 either in the human person, who does not conceive 
 of himself as a person, or in the external world, 
 which is all change. Nothing remains in the whole 
 universe but a whirl of ephemeral thoughts and 
 forms, an ever-flowing stream. The germ of this 
 conception is in the Vedas, but it is in the old philo- 
 sophic poems of the Brahmans that it grows, 
 matures, and attains its full development. In read- 
 ing these poems, we are stupefied at the discovery 
 that the most rooted of our European notions, the 
 idea of the me-siibstance, does not exist for them. To 
 understand such a mental condition as this we need 
 to recall certain rare and very fugitive moments of 
 our own lives. Every man knows those moments of 
 morbid dream in which the me seems to melt away. 
 One speaks his own name aloud, and it seems to be 
 a meaningless sound, designating no one; one ques- 
 tions anxiously, "Is there any myself?'' "What 
 does it mean, myself? " 
 
 This strange sensation, with us so transient, is per- 
 manent with them. Their personality appears to 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 125 
 
 them only as a point where visions cross each other; 
 they feel nothing permanent within themselves. 
 Everything about them is transient, and the doc- 
 trine of the universal flow becomes systematic : 
 "The body comes from food, that is to say, from 
 the earth ; it attracts to itself external elements," 
 rejects them and attracts others; thus it grows, and 
 subsists, in a life made up of changes. That their 
 enumerations heap together "water, sky, earth, 
 ether, fire, birds, grass, trees, worms, moths, ants, 
 thoughts, abstractions, the Vedas," is due to the 
 consideration that all these things blend in the uni- 
 versal whirl. As these vapors exhaled from the 
 soil, the sea, animals, plants— which, just now, were 
 a part of the soil, the sea, the animal, the plant — are 
 mingled, rise, are lighted up in the sky, float, 
 traverse space at random, grow cool, fall, and, as 
 chance wills, become once more soil, sea, plant, 
 animal, things thus unite and separate which v.'e 
 believe to be distinct. "The priest, having become 
 air, becomes smoke; having become smoke, he be- 
 comes fog; having become fog, he becomes cloud, 
 and falls in rain. Then he returns into life as corn, 
 rice, grass, tree, millet." 
 
 Between this view and pantheism, there is but a 
 step ; and this step they take in two ways. Since 
 all forms pass, and do but appear, they are illusory. 
 If we take away qualities and modes of being, what 
 remains? "Nothing," say the Buddhists, "Nada; 
 the world is not ; nothingness is the only reality." 
 "That which is," say the orthodox Brahmans; that 
 which is, and of which nothing more can be said 
 
126 IJV INDIA. 
 
 than, it is; the tat, void of all quality; which is 
 neither this nor that, neither cause nor effect ; in 
 short, the neuter Brahma, indeterminate, unde- 
 veloped, "which thinks not, wills not, sees not, 
 knows not," — Being, pure and abstract. On the 
 surface of this neuter Brahma, which is attained by 
 pure thought, is the masculine Brahmâ, living, tan- 
 gible, having color. For, after considering the one 
 substance which is hidden under the whirl of forms, 
 one may consider the power which organizes and 
 keeps up this whirl. Since all is motion in the 
 world, there is a power which guides this motion. 
 Since the world is not inert, like a stone, but living, 
 like a tree,* there is a soul which sustains and 
 develops it. This soul is Brahmâ, the universal 
 germ, "the living and incarnate Me." Since he is 
 living, he has qualities, and is not the same with the 
 neuter Brahma, of which he is only the first mani- 
 festation. He is Brahma, but Brahma now veiled 
 by the illusory Maya, Brahma subjected to time. 
 "There are two forms of Brahma: he zvlio hnows 
 time, and he zv ho knows not time : he who knows 
 time has parts. Time matures and dissolves all 
 beings in the great Me, the living soul; but he who 
 knows in what time itself is absorbed, he compre- 
 hends the Vedas." 
 
 We must conceive, then, in the beginning and at 
 the root of all things, the absolute Being, pure and 
 void, which is at the bottom of all forms and all 
 germs. Developing itself outward, it is subjected to 
 
 *A favorite metaphor with the Brahmans. Often the world is 
 designated by the single word, " the tree." 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 127 
 
 Maya, illusion. "Like a spider wrapped in threads 
 drawn from her own substance, it assumes qualities 
 coming from itself," and its first projection is the liv- 
 ing Brahmâ, the soul, or subtle and universal idea, 
 "which acts within the world and diversifies it. 
 This soul is neither male nor female, yet neither is 
 it neuter." This it is, which, "becoming this and 
 that," takes millions of ephemeral forms, all emerg- 
 ing from itself, all falling back into it ; itself fugitive, 
 like all this visible universe, and condemned, after 
 these myriads of millions of centuries which to 
 Brahma are as a day, to be absorbed in the neuter 
 Being "which has neither shadows, nor body, nor 
 color." 
 
 Let it be conceived that the world is an immense 
 tree, solidly rooted in the ground. Whence do they 
 come, these innumerable leaves that rustle in the 
 wind, that glisten in the light, these wide-spread 
 branches, this delicious fruit, this solid column of a 
 trunk, ever growing stronger, all this lustrous and 
 perfumed vegetation? They come from a primitive 
 germ, now diffused, but still vital and active, alike 
 in the deep, dark roots and in the impalpable dust 
 which gives the petal of the flower its color and 
 smoothness. Bark, leaves, flowers, cells, all change — 
 they die and are renewed, like everything in the 
 world. But the primitive force which reared the 
 tree subsists through all these deaths and births ; 
 gives their form and their order to the ever new and 
 fleeting elements. Whence, then, does it come, this 
 active force which is like the living Brahmâ that 
 animates the universe? From the soil, the inert 
 
128 IN INDIA. 
 
 ground, of which one day a portion became organic. 
 This soil is the image of the primitive Brâhmâ; 
 from it all proceeds; to it all returns; and when, 
 after centuries, the force which sustains the tree 
 shall be exhausted, changes ceasing, development 
 being arrested, the tree will return to the earth, and 
 again all will be motionless. 
 
 "At this moment, thou art a woman, a man, a 
 child, a young girl, an old man leaning upon a staff, 
 thou art born with thy face turned on all sides. 
 Thou art the blue honey-bee, the red-eyed green 
 parrot, thou art the thunder-cloud, the seasons, 
 thou art the seas. Thou art without beginning, 
 being infinite, thou of whom all worlds are born. 
 But as the flowing rivers which go toward the ocean 
 are absorbed and swallowed up in it, losing their 
 names and their forms, so the sun and moon, the 
 Kshatriyas and Brahmans, mosquitos, bees, flamin- 
 gos, the Devas, Vishnu, Siva, and time itself in which 
 lives the second Brahmâ, will be absorbed in the 
 inconceivable existence, and their names and their 
 forms will be no more." And in reality, at this 
 moment they are not, these forms; they are only 
 appearances. Brahma, regarding himself in the 
 mirror of time and of illusion, perceives himself as 
 multiple and mutable, but in reality there is only 
 that wJiich is. 
 
 This is no mere theory, no scholastic thesis, no 
 philosophy framed by idle speculation, but an 
 active, practical, deeply rooted belief, elaborated 
 by solitary and concentrated meditation. Thrown 
 back upon himself, absorbed in reflection, the 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 129 
 
 Brahman no longer distinguishes the real world 
 from that of his dreams, and sees it floating 
 to and fro like a vapor. Hence the tie which 
 attaches him to this world has no strength. How 
 can a man love that which is known to be unreal? 
 Why seek to grasp what must inevitably slip from 
 the hand? 
 
 "O holy one! what profits it to be happy in 
 this vile and fragile body, an accumulation of bones 
 and blood and skin, of nerves, marrow, flesh, tears? 
 What profits it to be happy in this body, which is 
 assailed by hatred, covetousness, envy, deception, 
 fear, anguish, jealousy, the separation from friends, 
 hunger, thirst, old age, death, disease, suffering? 
 And we see that all is perishable, flies and moths 
 and other insects, grass and trees, which grow up 
 and decay. Look back toward those who are no 
 more ; look forward to those who as yet are not. 
 Men ripen like grain, they perish ; and like grain, 
 they spring up anew. There have been powerful 
 men, strong to draw the bow, chiefs of the people, 
 Sudyama, Asvapati, Sasabindu, and kings, who, with 
 their families about them, have abandoned their great 
 felicity, and gone forth, out of this life ; and what 
 has become of them? The great oceans dry up, the 
 mountains fall, the polar star changes its place, the 
 earth will be submerged, the gods also will pass 
 away. In a world like this, why desire to be happy? 
 Oh, bend toward me! In this world I languish, as 
 a frog in a dry well !" 
 
 Thus the King Krihadhrata bewailed himself, 
 who, cutting off the root of desire in his heart, had 
 
130 IN INDIA. 
 
 taken refuge in the forest. For a thousand years he 
 remained there, with lifted arms, looking at the sun, 
 motionless like his brethren, the gymnosophists, 
 who sit solitary in the Indian jungles. For to im- 
 mobility all Hindu philosophy practically leads. 
 Illusion being recognized as such, what is more 
 natural than a wish to escape from it? And how 
 succeed in doing this, unless by destroying in one's 
 self all that makes part of this illusive and fugitive 
 world, namely, desire, will, sensation? Meditation 
 has made a void within the soul ; there remains to 
 him no further motive of action ; he understands 
 that nothing is worth the trouble of a motion, and 
 that he himself does not exist ; he seats himself 
 upon his heels and meditates. 
 
 Upon what does he meditate? Upon Brâhma. 
 The knowledge of Brâhma is enfranchisement. The 
 Brahma who is one's self, and who perceives himself 
 to be diverse and mutable by the very fact that he 
 recognizes himself as Brahma, turns away from the 
 magic mirror of Maya. Let us repeat "I am Brahma," 
 "for he who knows that he is Brahma, is one with Him 
 who is One." Beyond the misty veil of appearances, 
 let us strive to behold Him who is: immediately all 
 barriers of our limited being falling, we become 
 again the eternal and infinite, returning finally into 
 that whence we came forth. It is a singular fact 
 that here, for the first and possibly for the last 
 time, the human being attaches salvation, not to 
 acts, not to faith, not to emotions, not to cere- 
 monies, but to knozvledge. 
 
 "Those whose conduct is good, who read the 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 131 
 
 Vedas and perform the sacrifices, will ascend after 
 death to the abode of the devas, but the fruit of 
 their good works being consumed, they return into 
 this world, for they are tuithout knowledge. They are 
 born in new forms, they have will and power and 
 sensation, they live again. This is the worst suffer- 
 ing, and can only be escaped by becoming absorbed 
 into the unconsciousness and inertia of pure Being. 
 The man who sees a difference between Brahma 
 and the world goes from change to change, from 
 death to death." That is to say, he will forever be 
 reborn. 
 
 That a man may enter into calm, he must hold 
 his breath, fix his attention, destroy his senses, cease 
 from speaking. He presses his palate with the tip 
 of the tongue, breathes slowly, looks fixedly at a 
 point in space, and thought ceases, consciousness 
 is abolished, the feeling of personality vanishes. 
 "We shall cease to feel pleasure and pain, having 
 attained immobility and solitude." The human 
 existence, recognizing itself as the absolute Being, is 
 rid of time and space, of number, limit, and quality. 
 "As a spider rising by means of its own thread 
 gains the open space, so he who meditates rises by 
 means of the syllable OM, and gains independence." 
 "That which is without thought, though situated at 
 the heart of all thought ;* that which is hid, though 
 at the foundation of all things — let a man plunge his 
 soul into this, and his being will go forth free from 
 its bonds." Thought and will being abolished, the 
 whole phantasmagoria of Maya disappears : "We 
 
 * Cf. Spinoza. 
 
132 IN INDIA. 
 
 become like a fire without smoke, or like a traveller, 
 who, having left the carriage which brought him, 
 watches the revolution of its wheels." "Grief can 
 no longer live in us ; he who knows Brahma is for- 
 ever consoled." That is to say, we comprehend 
 that we are nothing but a spark of the one absolute 
 Being; henceforward, what suffering could reach us? 
 "We no longer say: this body is myself, I am such 
 a person ; but / am BraJima, I am the worldT 
 "Pure, undeveloped, tranquil, unbreathing, bodiless, 
 eternal, immutable, imperishable, firm, passionless, 
 unborn, independent," I have forever entered into 
 peace, for I have thrown off conscious existence. 
 Such is the supreme felicity, reserved for the adepts 
 of the mysterious doctrine celebrated by the Upan- 
 ishads with a solemnity of language which gives an 
 idea of the fervor, the enthusiasm, the tremor of re- 
 strained hope wherewith the Brahman is thrilled, as 
 he looks forward to that day of deliverance after 
 which he will never again say Me, of himself. " He 
 who, knowing the Vedas and having repeated them 
 daily in a consecrated place, having made no 
 creature suffer, concentrates his thoughts upon the 
 Existence, and is absorbed therein, attains the 
 world of Brâhma, and returns no more; no, Jie 
 returns no more.'" 
 
 Thought, cast into a metaphysical vertigo and by 
 its own effort abolishing itself, and the annihilation 
 of the will, are intellectual and moral effects of 
 the Brahmanic philosophy. We see this philosophy 
 emerge from a primitive tendency manifested far 
 back in the Vedic age, and unroll the series of these 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 133 
 
 results. That they are inevitable appears clear, when 
 we observe that elsewhere the same causes have 
 produced the same effects. We cannot consider 
 nations — for the case of India is unique — but we may 
 individuals, for it is surely legitimate to compare the 
 average soul of a race with some individual soul, 
 observing in both the same structure and the same 
 ties. We have had Hindu minds in Europe. In 
 England, where man is so valiant and so active, 
 where personality is so strong and stable, where 
 poetry is so subjective, where religion is a mono- 
 theism so Hebraic, Shelley was almost such. Critics 
 have long since noted in him faculties analogous to 
 those which wove the Vedic myths. No poetry is 
 more impersonal, no sympathetic imagination more 
 capable of reproducing the elemental sensations of 
 elemental beings — the gladness of the earth revolving 
 in the light of space, with its girdle of seas and con- 
 tinents, its forests, its clouds, its humid blue atmos- 
 phere ; the peace of the splendid cloud floating in 
 the warm ether, then laughing in the thunder and 
 falling in the rain, mother of future harvests; the 
 ecstasy of the lark, intoxicated with the sight of the 
 luminous plains, quivering with joy, throbbing 
 invisible in space, 
 
 " Like an unbodied joy whose race has just begun," 
 and the timid affection of the fragile plant dream- 
 ing of its future buds. Shelley became earth with 
 the earth, a flower with the flower, a brook with the 
 brook, and his poetry is a changeful reflection of 
 changeful nature. He was destitute of that durable 
 emotion on which personality is founded ; the sensa- 
 
134 IN' INDIA. 
 
 tion of the Me, with him, was reduced to its mini- 
 mum. He is always speaking of that ecstasy in 
 which the observer becomes one with the object con- 
 templated. His soul is not distinct, isolated in 
 nature, but is all scattered through it. Hence, all 
 natural objects appear to him to be alive and to have 
 a soul; to be capable of sensations; and moreover, 
 to be constantly in motion, ever changing, always 
 undergoing transformation. The sensation of Life 
 — of Life at the same time one and multiple — this 
 is what his poetry expresses. He recognizes a soul 
 of the universe, a soul of which we are the thoughts, 
 into which death absorbs us, which quivers in the 
 worm and in the star ; a soul of which nature is the 
 mystic garment, hidden under the things which are 
 seen, and, at rare moments, shining through beauti- 
 ful and noble forms, as a pale flame within a vase of 
 translucent alabaster. Let a man re-read "Prome- 
 theus Unbound," where all beings unite in chorus, 
 and especially that marvellous dialogue of the Earth 
 and the Moon, and let him say if the poet were not 
 intoxicated with that universal, eternally upspring- 
 ing life which circulates through all things; if he 
 were not transported by the vision of the living 
 Brahmâ displayed in sounds, and perfumes, and 
 colors. Beyond this, Shelley never went. He 
 never perceived the neuter Brâhma, motionless, 
 without qualities. Of the two stages of Hindu 
 intelligence and feehng, he passed through the first 
 only. He knew the dream, the gayety, the ecstasy 
 of the Vedic poets ; he never attained to the inertia 
 of the gymnosophists. A pantheist he was, but with 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. I35 
 
 a joyous pantheism, and he remained vaHant and 
 sound. 
 
 Amiel is a case more nearly complete. He pene- 
 trated beneath the living Brahmâ, he became be- 
 numbed with the torpidity of the "enfranchised" 
 Brahman, and his aptitude for revery and specula- 
 tion, the paralysis of his will, had exactly their 
 point of departure in the plastic faculty which we 
 have noted as the origin of the Hindu pantheism. 
 "My mind," he says, "is the empty frame of a thou- 
 sand effaced images. It is without substance, being 
 now form only. To return into the body has always 
 appeared to me singular, an arbitrary and conven- 
 tional thing. I appear to myself as a receptacle of 
 phenomena, as a subject without fixed individuality, 
 and hence, resigning myself only with an effort to 
 the rôle of an individual, the inhabitant of a certain 
 city, in a certain country." 
 
 From this habitual sensation of seeing in the uni- 
 verse only a misty dream wherein appearances come 
 and go, the distance is short to pessimism and im- 
 mobility. Hindu inertia, Hindu pessimism, Hindu 
 pantheism, these three stages, of the will, of the 
 emotional nature, and of the intellect, Amiel tra- 
 versed. He recognizes himself as akin to the Brah- 
 mans: "This mental phantasmagoria lulls me as it 
 does the Indian yogi; to me, everything is smoke, 
 illusion, vapor, even my own existence. I attach so 
 little importance to all phenomena that they pass 
 over me like gleams of light, and are gone without 
 leaving a trace. Meditation is like opium ; it intoxi- 
 cates, and reduces to transparent vapor the moun- 
 
136 IN INDIA. 
 
 tains and all that is." This is the hallucination of 
 the solitary Brahman, who, concentrating his thought, 
 sees the procession of the worlds rising like a mist, 
 for thousands of centuries, out of the empty dark- 
 ness of being. Amiel's revery embraces the whole 
 world. "Each civilization," he says, "is like a thou- 
 sand years' dream, in which heaven and earth, nature 
 and history, appear in a phantasmic light, performing 
 a drama invented by the hallucinated soul." He 
 seems to himself no longer a solid substance; he 
 melts, and becomes a vapor like everything else. "I 
 am fluid as a phantom, which is seen, but cannot be 
 grasped. I resemble a man to the same extent 
 that the manes of Achilles, the shade of Creusa 
 were like human beings. Without having died, I 
 am a ghost. Others appear to me as a dream ; I 
 am a dream to others." Such is the strange sensa- 
 tion which, repeated upon successive generations, 
 has produced not only Hindu philosophy, but many 
 of the characteristics of Hindu civilization. Ob- 
 serve that there is not a fact noted in these two vol- 
 umes of Amiel's Confessions, not a detail of real life. 
 Naturally, when one is devoted to the contempla- 
 tion of the infinite, and occupies himself with the 
 absolute, how should he be interested in the acci- 
 dental and the limited? When the whole world 
 seems a vapory illusion, why should a man care to 
 study it, in the view of finding for himself the best 
 place there? The solid foundation upon which we 
 rest our seventy years of human life disappears all 
 at once, and the individual, losing his interest in the 
 real and visible world, loses also his hold upon it. 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 137 
 
 This is the case in India. With the exception of 
 philosophy and astronomy, which treat of what is 
 eternal, the Hindus have had no sciences. They 
 have not had, as the Greeks had, the curiosity to 
 seek out the laws which govern facts; they have 
 not enlightened their obscure vision of nature. Cer- 
 tain of the Upanishads seem written by children or 
 insane persons. Dogs and flamingos converse and 
 philosophize. There is no history. This abundant 
 literature is all revery and metaphysics. Not a 
 date, not an anecdote, not a serious genealogy. 
 Almost all that we know of the greatest religious 
 event of Asia reaches us through the accounts given 
 by Chinese pilgrims. Of Buddhism we are told 
 neither when it begins, nor how and when it disap- 
 pears from India. But what more foolish than to 
 study social conditions, civilizations, the history of 
 mankind, if mankind, society, civilization, are, as 
 Amiel says, only dreams projected by the soul, 
 only waves rising for an instant on the surface of 
 Brahma! As a matter of fact, there is here no 
 effort at social organization, no precise grouping in 
 states or nations, no constitution definite and 
 secure. Once Brahmanism established, and the 
 philosophic dream begun, there is no resistance to 
 attacks from without. Her civil, military, and polit- 
 ical organization being rudimentary, India, incapable 
 of definite form, is gelatinous, so to speak; vague, 
 incoherent, powerless, at the mercy of the first 
 aggressive comer, Musalman or English, what does 
 it matter to her, provided only she is left to her 
 dream of that which is durable, that which truly is, 
 
138 IN INDIA. 
 
 a knowledge of which enfranchises from sorrow; 
 provided only that she is permitted to intoxicate 
 herself with Being, in the repetition of the syllable 
 OM, which gives peace ! 
 
 December 2. 
 This morning I return to the river bank. To 
 understand Brahmanic India, no spectacle is so use- 
 ful as a sight of this people in their out-of-door life 
 on the bank of the sacred Ganges. Here they pray, 
 they loiter, they converse, they eat, they fall asleep, 
 they die. Upon litters the sick and the dying lie 
 extended, some of them brought from great dis- 
 tances to end here. Even the form that was once a 
 living being is destroyed in the presence of the 
 river; for here is the place of cremation. There 
 are the funeral piles, and near them the unconcerned 
 crowd continues splashing in the river, praying, 
 drawing water, performing its ablutions. A few 
 steps distant from the sad spot, men turn their 
 backs to it, and dry themselves calmly, sitting in 
 the sun. Like a natural and familiar occurrence, 
 the dissolution of the individual goes on amid the 
 general life of which it is but an incident. There 
 is nothing frightful about it. Certainly, to the 
 Hindu, the Me has not that strength of coherence 
 which makes us believe in its inevitable permanency, 
 which gives to us will to live, and will not let us 
 think Avithout horror of annihilation. After a body 
 has been burned, the relatives do not weep, but 
 sing: "Is it not folly to wish anything lasting in 
 man? Is he not fleeting as a bubble on the water, 
 frail as the stem of a flower? Earth, ocean, and the 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. I39 
 
 gods must perish. Why, then, should not the world 
 of men, evanescent as foam, be seized by universal 
 death, and perish also?" 
 
 I watched it take place, this disappearance of a 
 human form. A Brahman presides over the crema- 
 tions, ensconced in a dark rectangular niche at the 
 top of a small square tower, impassive, a cap on his 
 head, the meagreness of his body visible through his 
 yellow garment. At the foot of the tower are heaps 
 of wood, and here and there, as if thrown down care- 
 lessly, tightly strapped in pink or purple coverings, 
 secured within four green bamboos, lie rigid figures. 
 Two fires are burning : on one the corpse is still 
 intact, the limbs secured with cords as if trussed for 
 the spit; the other pile has just ceased blazing, and 
 tiny rose-colored flames are quivering over the 
 ashes and charred wood and calcined bones. Then 
 the horrible heap is thrown into the Ganges, and 
 floats slowly away on the tranquil current. The 
 brown stain broadens, then disappears, on the 
 smooth surface of the heavy water. All around 
 there is a vague dazzle of color in a mist of light, a 
 confused rustling, and the splendid flight of scream- 
 ing birds. 
 
 Every day this scene is repeated. There is noisy 
 music of gongs when an old man is burned ; but if 
 the person is very young there is wailing, and a 
 mourning procession walks round the pyre. 
 
 Between the palaces which crown the ghats, the 
 flights of stairs ascend — broad at the water's edge, 
 and growing narrower till they vanish under dark 
 doorways. On the steps, women, statuesque in 
 
14° IN INDIA. 
 
 their blue draperies, very upright, support grandly 
 with lifted arms the vessels full of river water, the 
 heavy copper jars that they carry on their heads. 
 Others carry baskets full of white flowers, and place 
 them in front of tranquil cows. 
 
 I make my way upward through narrow lanes, full 
 of white light, where the shadows are sharply out- 
 lined on the pavements. On the walls blue ele- 
 phants are marching up, loaded with gods. At the 
 corners of the houses are altars or little temples, 
 where the ceremonial flowers are in heaps before 
 grotesque images. Through windows somewhat of 
 the indoor life can be seen ; always the same low 
 square rooms with their range of colonnettes ; dark 
 courtyards, sculptured walls. Around us there are 
 more and more monsters and chapels, crowded and 
 heaped one upon another; there is an orgy of 
 sacred figures, shrines, altars, in the tortuous lane. 
 The white eyeballs of gods gleam in the shadow, 
 their multiplied arms writhe, their mouths grimace 
 frightfully. This one is Mahakal, or the Great 
 Fate; this is the god Bhaironath, chief policeman, 
 who keeps order in Benares, and his club is also 
 a divinity, represented by a stone covered with 
 a mask; this is the genius of the planet Saturn, 
 whose silver head emerges from a platform ; this is 
 Anupurna, "the good goddess," who feeds all her 
 worshippers; and here, as everywhere else, is the 
 son of Siva, the astonishing Ganesa, seated, his legs 
 crossed, his stout waist girt with the Brahman's 
 sacred cord, and his red elephant's trunk lying on 
 the ground in voluminous folds; while, at the feet 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 1 41 
 
 of the huge clumsy divinity, is the tiny mouse, 
 bridled and saddled, which serves him as a courser. 
 Across gratings I catch a rapid glimpse of a Brah- 
 man seated on the ground before the idol whose 
 guardian he is, his eyes fixed, his meagre limbs 
 motionless. In dark corners are sacred wells, into 
 which the crowd throw flowers — the well of Fate, 
 that of Science, that of Mankarnika. 
 
 As we advance, it is with difficulty that we force 
 our way through the crowd. The narrow lanes are 
 made still narrower by projecting stalls where there 
 are masses of rosaries and statuettes, and, especially, 
 great yellow heaps of jasmine. The air is thick with 
 the odor from all these people, these flowers, and 
 these wells of stagnant water: we make our way 
 onward through the noise of prayers, confused, 
 elbowed, crowded, carried by the multitude, pushed 
 against by a hundred screaming beggars ; and always 
 there are rows of idols, and chapels whose porches are 
 guarded by motionless fakirs. Finally an odor more 
 nauseating, of fetid mud as from a cowyard, together 
 with decomposed flowers, announces the great 
 temple of Siva. Here is its gilded dome, here are 
 its towers, not isolated in an open space, but crowded 
 close by houses, encroached upon by shops, rising 
 in the very heart of these lanes. This is the centre 
 of the Hindu ant-hill; and, like an ant-hill, it is in 
 feverish, disorderly agitation. There is no common 
 action on the part of this multitude; each is going 
 his own way, regardless of everyone else. Old 
 women of Brahmanic race, white-faced, in their white 
 draperies, toothless, stumbling, muttering, go by like 
 
ï4â /^ ÎNDIA. 
 
 sleep-walkers; with hysterical gestures they throw 
 flowers upon the ground, or sprinkle it with Ganges 
 water. In the presence of all this multitude, priests, 
 with sanctimonious air, sit drowsing in the sun, at 
 the entrance of the temple. There are men running 
 rapidly around two trees : there are others calling 
 upon Siva, and striking bells hung in a row before his 
 sanctuaries. There are files of trembling old Brah- 
 mans, gray-haired and ill-shaven, who, leaning against 
 each other, advance with difficulty ; there are men- 
 dicants with white skin, of a wan white, entirely 
 white hair, and a sort of collar of grayish beard. 
 Many faces quite European catch your eye for a 
 moment, then are lost in the crowd. You recognize 
 very rapidly the fellow-Aryan, the man of our own 
 race ; but brutalized or enfeebled in mind, by suc- 
 cessive invasions, by tyrannies, by the burning 
 climate, by centuries of suffering. The look is 
 strange, fevered, or idiotic. There is an air of in- 
 sanity everywhere. 
 
 Within the temple, on the black pavement, 
 slippery with mud and the crushed flowers, this 
 eddy of the human tide carries us at random under 
 colonnades, past infected wells, where men, leaning 
 over, are anxiously seeking to see their own image 
 in the water, past a colossal statue of a bull in red 
 stone, into a sacred cow-house, where the animals, 
 their mouths filled with flowers, their eyes shut, 
 regally accept the worship of the insane multitude; 
 and suddenly, a shiver of terror — I have brushed 
 against an indescribable object, a naked creature of 
 uniform gray color, rigid as stone — a fakir, covered 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 143 
 
 with ashes, who seems to be dead, and does not 
 even start at the collision ; and now, hustled by the 
 crowd, suffocated, terrified, I find myself, without 
 any idea how, again among the little lanes where 
 the flowers are sold. From here I see the human 
 wave flowing slow, a dense crowd around the pagoda. 
 The portico is guarded by mendicant Brahmans, old 
 bald-heads nodding with stupor. Above them, the 
 painted image of the lord of Benares, the ascetic 
 god, Siva, who creates and destroys, emblem of the 
 Power which reproduces all beings, and, from mil- 
 lions of deaths, calls forth millions of lives. 
 
 December 3. 
 
 After a few days passed in this Hindu world, the 
 mind begins to be filled with Hindu impressions. 
 To-day, in leaving the temple of Siva, it seemed to 
 me that, under these diverse images, I begin to 
 make out a fundamental idea, as, in the different 
 notes of a musical instrument, you recognize the 
 same timbre. 
 
 Observe this vase of Benares brass. You admire 
 the lustre of the metal, the fineness of the chasing: 
 but these are only peculiarities of brass vases. Ob- 
 serve another characteristic more interesting, be- 
 cause very general : what does all this chasing 
 represent? At first sight, you scarcely know; it 
 seems only a confusion of lines, curving, interlaced, 
 entangled by chance. By degrees, vague forms 
 are discernible — gods, genii, fish, dogs, gazelles, 
 flowers, grass; not grouped after any design, but 
 thrown together, piled one over another in a confused 
 
144 IN INDIA. 
 
 living heap, like the slimy mass brought up in a 
 net, where, amid the seaweed, you can discern claws 
 that move, scales that glitter, and the twisting and 
 writhing of soft creatures. So, every one of these 
 chasings is endlessly complicated ; these gods have 
 their six arms; these plants extend in every direc- 
 tion with stems and leaves; these flowers are en- 
 twined and twisted into each other. In short, 
 nothing is simple; everything is multiple, tufty, and 
 this complexity, for want of leading lines, remains 
 irregular. 
 
 Accumulated number, without order or propor- 
 tion, is the characteristic to be discovered here at 
 every moment: in this inundation of divinities who 
 overflow their temples and fill all the streets with 
 their multitude ; in this ant-hill of men of every color 
 and caste, which rustles in the morning on the river 
 bank; in this human wave which just now swept 
 around the images of Siva; in this confusion of 
 chapels, altars, sacred wells, statues of animals ; not 
 forming simple, geometrical figures, — as in ancient 
 Egypt where avenues of sphinxes, ending in pyram- 
 idal pylons, gave access to rectangular courts, — but 
 scattered, at random, in tortuous lanes, amid shops 
 and houses. This characteristic appears, again, 
 in the strange architectural constructions, where 
 stone grows out of stone, as a leaf out of a leaf; 
 and torsos, heads, arms, legs of gods innumerable, 
 bodies of quadrupeds and of snakes abound, 
 crushing each other, rising in a confused pyramid 
 of living forms. Spontaneously, owing to a spe- 
 cial construction of the Hindu mind, things appear 
 
B EM A RE s. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. US 
 
 to these people as infinitely coniplex. While the 
 Greek was especially sensible of the correct and the 
 well-ordered, the Hindu perceives chiefly the multi- 
 tudinous and the diverse. This nature surrounding 
 them does not seem to them a harmonious and 
 limited whole, but rather an immense vegetation, 
 with ever-increasing branches, an inextricable net- 
 work of offshoots, all growing vigorously and unre- 
 strained. 
 
 To understand the Hindu point of view, contrast 
 it with our theistic position. These people of India 
 never conceived of an intelligent and moral archi- 
 tect of the universe, who made man in his own 
 image, by intelligence and reason, sovereign of the 
 creation which, in perfect order, in classes and spe- 
 cies and genera, lay below him. They do not feel 
 themselves separated from creation, but brothers of 
 all living things, making part of Nature, born of her, 
 and yet oppressed and crushed by her grandeur 
 and multiplicity. They fix no date of six thou- 
 sand years ago for the beginning of things. Con- 
 sider those gigantic poems, those endless enumer- 
 ations, those prodigious accumulations of figures, 
 those myriads of millions of centuries, those frantic 
 metaphors prolonged beyond all possibility of the 
 mind's following them, by which Hindu authors 
 strive to figure the immensity of the universe, 
 the infinity of space and time; and you will 
 perceive that they have had, carried almost to 
 vertigo, the sensation of the illimitable ; not an 
 abstract, mathematical infinity, which can be ex- 
 pressed by a symbol, but the living illimitable. 
 
Î46 m INDIA. 
 
 wherein grow, unite, contend, all forms and all 
 forces, and to symbolize which all their work, in its 
 extravagance and disorder, aims. 
 
 The present religion of India is a Hindu work, 
 as complicated, irregular, and multitudinous as a 
 pagoda-roof or the chasing of a Benares vase. It 
 was developed out of Brahmanism, as leaves, 
 flowers, seed, grow out of a straight and simple 
 stem. First, say the old Brahmans, there is one; 
 then he becomes three; then five, then seven, then 
 nine; then they say he is eleven, and a hundred and 
 ten, and a thousand and twenty. It is these thou- 
 sand and twenty forms of Being, that is to say, the 
 infinite variety of these forms, which Hinduism 
 adores. As they are of every kind, vague and 
 diverse, so the religion will be diverse and vague. 
 Its sects, its rites, its divinities, its doctrines are 
 innumerable. It is impossible to grasp it, to dis- 
 cover its dogmas and fundamental articles of faith, 
 to disentangle its great general outlines. There is 
 everything in Hinduism. Take all the beliefs of 
 the human race, all the religious observances which 
 express these beliefs, Christianity, Islamism, Bud- 
 dhism, ancient polytheism, fetichism ; the worship 
 of the forces of nature, the worship of ancestors, of 
 demons, of the sparrow-hawk, of animals; plunge 
 all this into a philosophic pantheism, and you will 
 have that extraordinary whole, made up of contra- 
 dictions and incoherences, which is called Hinduism. 
 
 The Brahman who, concentrating his thought, 
 strives to lose himself in Brahma; this inert fakir 
 who, with arms stretched for years toward the sky. 
 
ÈEUAkES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. Î47 
 
 aspires to the paradise of Siva ; this rajah who, in 
 honor of Vishnu, the charitable god, devotes three 
 hundred rupees daily for the support of the poor; 
 this Saktist, who plunges into mystic orgies; this 
 Sudra, kneeling before a round stone — these all are 
 members of the great religious community of India. 
 Between the different sects there is no profound 
 separation. The worshipper of Siva calls the wor- 
 shipper of Vishnu a brother. Not that he sees in 
 Vishnu a second divinity, equal or inferior to Siva, 
 but that he considers Vishnu as also manifesting 
 Siva, as himself contained in Siva. Each god is so 
 varied in his forms and his attributes that, in certain 
 forms and certain attributes common to all, they all 
 meet and blend. Siva, who is lord of death, is also 
 lord of life. He is love and terror; harmful and 
 benignant ; he is the great ascetic ; he is a scholar 
 and a philosopher; he is a mountaineer, merry and 
 wild ; a Bacchus, drunken and dancing, followed by 
 a troop of intoxicated buffoons. His images express 
 the diversity of these attributes; he has five faces, 
 six arms, three eyes, a thousand and eight names. 
 Hence, his cult is within the reach of all. The 
 Hindu professor who was my guide yesterday in 
 the University bore on his forehead the three hori- 
 zontal lines of the Sivaists. Probably he adores in 
 Siva, "the producer and the destroyer"; that is to 
 say, the eternal activity of Being which, unfolding 
 itself with this double rhythm, organizing and dis- 
 solving all beings, may be simply a supreme God, 
 personal and creative. On the other hand, when 
 the black worshipper expels demons by covering his 
 
148 m INDIA. 
 
 cabin with the excrement with which Siva's bull has 
 furnished him ; when he sprinkles the stone which 
 symbolizes the god ; when he rings a bell to awaken 
 it ; when he dresses this stone ; when he covers it 
 with food, — with cream, with curry, with rice, with 
 cakes, — when he deluges it with perfumes, he prac- 
 tises only the savage cult of the stone and the bull. 
 
 Nor have they any system of morals, anterior to 
 religion and of higher range, that is present to guide 
 in any one direction the mass of beliefs and cere- 
 monials. The orgies of certain sects and the self- 
 torture of the fakirs are two forms of the cult of 
 Siva. It matters not that they are mutually con- 
 tradictory ; the series of sacred texts extends over 
 a period of time so long, they were composed at 
 periods so different in the social development, they 
 form a mass so enormous, that they authorize all 
 morals and all dogmas, and the religion of each sect 
 forms a system as vague, as inconsistent, as the 
 Hindu religion in its entire mass. 
 
 For instance, what is Vishnuism? Originally, 
 Vishnu is "the preserver." Between Siva who 
 organizes and Siva who dissolves there is a space 
 for a power that supports. This plant, which has 
 sprung out of the soil, will presently return into the 
 soil ; meanwhile, by the effect of an interior force, 
 it lives and retains its form. This force, which thus 
 sustains the entire world, is Vishnu, whose ordinary 
 symbol is very appropriately a tree. Becoming 
 popular, the abstraction becomes also a distinct 
 being, a personal divinity, without whose aid the 
 world would perish ; hence, a divinity who is chari- 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 149 
 
 table and kind, and, in ten successive incarnations, — 
 as a fish, a tortoise, a wild boar, a lion, a dwarf, 
 Rama, Krishna, Buddha, — has come into the world 
 for its salvation. 
 
 Thus multiplied and developed, Vishnu disappears, 
 as a stem is concealed by its own vegetation ; and 
 nothing further is seen of him but his incarnations. 
 Two of these, Rama and Krishna, are especially 
 popular, and the cult and doctrines of their wor- 
 shippers go on changing and multiplying, extending 
 their ramifications through the centuries. Sects 
 produce other sects; and, around the central stem, 
 such a mass of them have budded forth that only 
 this confused mass can be perceived. In the 
 eleventh century, in the twelfth and thirteenth, 
 twice in the fifteenth, again in the sixteenth and 
 eighteenth, and once more, very recently, religious 
 leaders have arisen who have added to the exten- 
 sion of Vishnuism. Some of these teachers, pan- 
 theists, recognize only one substance in divers 
 manifestations; others distinguish two irreducible 
 principles. Madhava accepts all the gods, but sub- 
 ordinates them to Vishnu, who alone is immortal. 
 Some do not concern themselves with metaphysical 
 speculations. They make no address to the intel- 
 lect ; they appeal only to the heart. One thing 
 only is important, faith in Krishna, who has loved 
 mankind ; and, with this, good will and love to 
 our brethren, all living creatures. Besides these 
 teachers, who are the greatest, there is an infinity of 
 others. As soon as, amid the suffering multitude, 
 there stands up a man as a messenger of God, he 
 
15© IN INDIA. 
 
 finds disciples; a sect gathers around him. Mean- 
 while legends grow and multiply; a thousand rude 
 images translate to the ignorant masses the fervent 
 ideas of an inspired few. In turn, these men are 
 venerated as gods, as partial incarnations of divinity. 
 It is singular that, instead of being mutually hostile 
 or destructive, these different beliefs add themselves 
 to one another, subsist together upon the trunk of 
 Vishnuism, as last spring's off-shoot grows beside 
 the older branches. A doctrine of the eleventh 
 century will have adepts who live as brethren with 
 the disciples of a master not fifty years dead. Like 
 a living thing, the religion of Vishnu retains all the 
 forms through which it has passed, all the scions 
 which it has thrown out in the different centuries. 
 Like a living thing, also, it contains in itself the 
 principle of its development, while it draws material 
 from its environment. The idolatry of the black 
 races. Buddhism, the religions of Islam, Christianity, 
 have in their turn furnished elements which it has 
 assimilated. 
 
 To-day, destitute of precise dogma, of regular 
 hierarchy, formed by a hundred groups living one 
 beside another, it suggests those primitive organ- 
 isms, those pulpy creatures with tentacles innumer- 
 able, destitute of vertebrae or bony system, capable 
 of resisting any mutilation exactly because they 
 are composed of independent centres, of which each 
 could be wounded to death without the destruction 
 of the whole. Such is also Hinduism, of Vv'hich this 
 religion of Vishnu, so varied and so comprehensive, 
 is nevertheless but a part. At Calcutta, an English- 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 151 
 
 man was expressing in my presence his regret at the 
 meagre success of the Protestant missions. A few 
 Hindus are converted, frequently from interested 
 motives, to obtain employment from Europeans. 
 After some years they return into their caste and 
 their sect. The Brahmans listen with patience, 
 toleration, and curiosity. Their own religion is a 
 thing too fugitive and multiple to be encountered 
 hand to hand. It cannot be refuted, as English 
 missionaries seek to refute the Muhammadan faith. 
 Instead of being destroyed or arrested by the obsta- 
 cle which the apostles of Christianity opp9se to it, 
 so powerful is the vitality of Hinduism, so great its 
 adaptive faculty, that it surrounds, envelops, ab- 
 sorbs the obstacle ; and pursues its growth, enriched 
 by a new philosophic and religious idea. Thus the 
 Brahman teachers offer to receive the Christ among 
 the three hundred and thirty million divinities of 
 the Hindu pantheon, provided it be permitted them 
 to consider him as one of the forms of Vishnu, incar- 
 nated for Europeans. Thus, at Calcutta, the new 
 sect, the Brahmo-Somaj, adopts the moral theism of 
 English liberal Christianity. The existence of a 
 personal God, eternal, distinct from creation ; the 
 paternal government of the world ; the distinction 
 of soul and body ; future rewards and punishments — 
 all these general ideas of that moderate and reason- 
 able philosophy now current in England, this sect 
 freely adopts. In the same way, formerly, Hindu- 
 ism, not rejecting but only eliminating slowly the 
 dogmatic elements of Buddhism, fed upon its sub- 
 stance. Gentleness, universal kindness, extended 
 
152 IN INDIA. 
 
 even to animals, asceticism — by all these traits the 
 soul of Sakya-Muni still inhabits the peninsula. 
 
 Thus lives and grows the religion of India, the 
 most plastic of all religions, the most capable of 
 adapting itself to circumstances; so complex, made 
 up of elements so dissimilar and changeful, so un- 
 certain in form and direction, that it does not seem 
 to be a religion ; and still it may be called such, as 
 we give the name of India to this geographic whole, 
 made of countries and climates so diverse ; as we call 
 Hindu this human group where are mingled races 
 of all colors and all stages of civilization, and yet, 
 not without a certain unity. At first, clear, at its 
 pantheistic source ; then made obscure by the relig- 
 ious ideas of conquered and conquering peoples; ex- 
 tended over thirty centuries, of which each one has 
 modified its form and added to its contents ; to-day 
 the Hindu religion is spread out as an immense net- 
 work of beliefs, observances, morals, philosophies, 
 sects, in which the eye no longer can recognize any 
 general outlines. So the Ganges, broad and turbid, 
 swollen with the incessant afiflux of tributary rivers, 
 loaded with vegetable débris as it flows through 
 jungles, through ancient cities, through English 
 cities, overflows its banks, spreading out in unde- 
 fined sheets, covers great extents of country with 
 its milky water, then slackens its current, deposits 
 its mud and fertilizing slime; and thus extending its 
 length and its undefined delta, divides, ramifies, is 
 lost in a thousand obscure and tortuous mouths. 
 
 Half seen, half guessed at in its great features, 
 I leave this religious world of India. This even- 
 
BENARES. BRAHMANISM. HINDUISM. 153 
 
 ing I bid adieu to great Benares, and I have come 
 once more to the sacred shore of the old Ganges, 
 where, for the first time, in the morning light, 
 I felt the rustling, palpitating life of this ancient 
 race of mankind. 
 
 I have sent my guide away, and wander along the 
 bank alone. The crowd is gone from the palaces 
 and the great pyramidal stairs. I hear the little 
 sound of the water against the marble — the quiver- 
 ing water, on whose surface a faint rose-color still 
 trembles, which now dies, giving place to pale lights, 
 wan gleams. In the peaceful atmosphere of even- 
 ing, things come out clearer and more solid than in 
 the glitter of the day. Opposite me, across the 
 great slow river, there is the pallid stretch of bar- 
 ren sands. Between the desert and the lofty pagan 
 edifices the Ganges describes its gradual curve. 
 
 I wander at random over the pavements, among 
 the blocks of a ruined temple, between red columns, 
 in front of imposing palaces. The last women com- 
 ing up from the river, laden with their water-jars, 
 pass, slow and stately. Great lean dogs lie stretched 
 out on the steps; and here and there between the 
 chapels of pink granite, the cow, a living idol, re- 
 poses from the day's adoration. A few Brahmans, 
 their followers all gone, remain solitary, seated upon 
 their stone tables; two of them are murmuring with 
 modulations as of a plain-chant, the last prayers of 
 the evening; three others are silent in the presence 
 of the gray water — the gray water, rippling and 
 flowing eternally. 
 
 And now, above, from a terrace resound deep, 
 
154 IN INDIA. 
 
 heavy strokes of a gong, whose vibration strikes 
 through me, and then the solitary voice of a trumpet 
 arises, nasal and strident, in the vast silence — minor 
 scales, simplified and rapid, with the sharp timbre of 
 a bagpipe — plaintive notes, prolonged, repeated with 
 insistence, like a grief that one cannot leave alone ; 
 unexpected modulations, almost discords, which 
 disturb and torment ; a peculiar rhythm, a Hindu 
 music, made for the soul of a different humanity, so 
 sad in its very strangeness, that, without compre- 
 hending it, one shivers at the sound. 
 
 Darkness has invaded all the space; the long row 
 of temples has disappeared into the night. The 
 three Brahmans are still there, seated on their heels, 
 their heads bent toward the dark water. 
 
 And still I hear this bagpipe voice. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 lucknow. cawnpur. agra. 
 
 December 6. 
 
 This India is very varied. At seventy leagues 
 from Benares, the great pagan city, begins another 
 world. Lucknow is a Muhammadan and English 
 city. Sumptuous hotels, elegant white villas in their 
 luxuriant grounds, broad avenues, vast, well-kept 
 parks where trot well-appointed riders, companies 
 of Scots Greys, with blond soldierly faces, factory 
 chimneys smoking on the horizon — these are what 
 I have already seen in Calcutta. The Saracenic 
 architecture of the mosques is beautiful and simple, 
 tranquillizing after the Hindu frenzies. But the 
 material is poor; the buildings are plaster, for which 
 reason one has no desire to see them again. 
 
 The most beautiful thing here is nature, happy 
 and peaceful, not licentious and oppressive, as in the 
 humid South. The sky is of a pale blue ; the air is 
 stirred with a light breeze, that is almost cool ; in- 
 stead of endless tall palms, there are slender trees 
 with delicate rustling foliage. Oranges and man- 
 darins shine golden in the groves; and great fragile 
 roses, more splendid than ours, spread a familiar 
 perfume. Such must be Persian nature, in the 
 poems of Firdousi. 
 
 IS5 
 
156 -IN INDIA. 
 
 '. There is the same tranquil beauty, the same happy 
 blossoming of flowers, in the cemetery of Lucknow 
 where lie the dead of 1857. The Residence, which 
 Sir Henry Lawrence with his handful of soldiers so 
 long defended, is a heap of ruins, blackened by fire, 
 torn by cannon-shot, all covered now with the green 
 of climbing plants, where flame great drooping 
 clusters of yellow flowers. 
 
 I have been re-reading the story of the siege. 
 What impresses one in this narrative is the senti- 
 ment that supported the defenders. There was 
 something besides courage and love of country or 
 desire of glory ; I mean, first, a certain grave pride 
 and tenacity; and then, a religious sentiment very 
 serious and very lofty. Every morning the officers 
 and soldiers, with the women and children who had 
 been brought into the Residence for shelter, sang 
 psalms — those which their persecuted Puritan 
 ancestors had sung to strengthen their courage and 
 support them ; and the grand Biblical verses gave 
 them that grave and silent enthusiasm, that fervor, 
 which makes men able calmly and coolly to sacrifice 
 their lives. "Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried 
 to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy upon 
 his soul! " says a slab in the little fragrant cemetery. 
 
 To-day, in Cawnpur, I have seen the well into 
 which Nana Sahib flung the still palpitating bodies 
 of the women and children massacred at his com- 
 mand. All around it is now the silence of a great 
 park, and the calm of flowers. A marble angel with 
 folded Avings stands on the edge of the well, which 
 has been surrounded with a Gothic balustrade. The 
 
LUCK NOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 157 
 
 downcast eyes have a divine serenity, the clasped 
 hands droop with a gesture of forgiveness. 
 
 December 7. 
 
 We are on our way toward the Musalman 
 country, going straight to the Northwest. I much 
 admire the Indian railways. In the cabinets de 
 toilette you can have a douche; there are little beds 
 that can be pulled down if you wish to recline; and, 
 by night, every traveller of first or second-class has 
 a right to one of these little beds. If you wish to 
 have your meals on the road, you notify the con- 
 ductor, who orders them by telegraph, and the table 
 is ready at the stations where the train stops, in the 
 morning, for breakfast ; at one o'clock, for tififin ; at 
 six, for dinner. Thus you traverse, without fatigue, 
 distances of a thousand miles; and you think with 
 pity of those poor travellers who, leaving Paris by 
 evening train, reach Marseilles or Brest, tired to 
 death, and feverish with the sleepless night. 
 
 Among my travelling companions I observe 
 always the same friendly and social disposition. 
 Officers, missionaries, business men — in fifteen 
 minutes you have made the acquaintance of them 
 all, and there is the courteous conversation of gentle- 
 men, almost always instructive. They are interested 
 in public affairs, they have ideas as to the future of 
 India, as to the progress of Russia. One of them 
 said to me that in fifty years India would have its 
 autonomous parliament. He is an advocate of this. 
 "Our duty," he says, "is the education of India." 
 Observe, to make an Enghshwoman of her — the 
 
15^ IN INDIA. 
 
 old Asiatic queen! "When this education is com- 
 pleted, we shall have nothing further to do but to 
 withdraw. We shall have done our duty by India." 
 His daughters listened, two charming English girls, 
 all fresh and pink, in their simple gowns of light 
 flannel. The calmness and gravity of their faces 
 were striking. These are not adventurers, these 
 English colonists, but honest, energetic fathers of 
 families, who live in all the peace and happiness of 
 an English home. 
 
 "England is doing her duty toward India;" she 
 is civilizing India. For instance, to destroy caste 
 prejudices, she is employing a very effectual method, 
 she makes the Hindus travel. By traversing differ- 
 ent regions of the peninsula, by elbowing each other 
 in railway trains, they learn much, and their minds 
 must needs be enlarged. For this reason the railway 
 companies keep their prices as low as possible. The 
 ticket on which my "boy" travels three thousand 
 miles, from Calcutta to Calcutta, by Delhi and Bom- 
 bay, costs forty-four rupees (twenty-two dollars). 
 Consequently, the third-class carriages are always 
 crowded with Hindus, a motley and picturesque 
 load. 
 
 This line, constructed and owned by an English 
 company, is worked by the native people. Hindu 
 are the engineers, Hindu the conductors and the 
 station-masters, which is at once apparent by the 
 way the service is carried on. There is none of the 
 automatic precision, the calm exactitude, the grav- 
 ity and determination of English employés. At 
 Benares I desired to send my luggage at once to 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. I59 
 
 Bombay. Thereupon the station was thrown into 
 confusion ; there were colloquies between the 
 station-master and the various clerks and ticket- 
 sellers, and my "boy" ; colloquies quite undignified, 
 abounding in gestures and outcries, a great flux of 
 words. We were twenty minutes belated in start- 
 ing, and I had been obliged myself to paste the 
 labels on my boxes. No, India is not yet altogether 
 anglicized; no, her "education" is not yet complete. 
 At the stations my "boy" gets down quickly from 
 his carriage to see if I desire fruit. He is forty-eight 
 years old, short, thin, puny, a real Bengali, delicate 
 and sickly. Very precious, this "boy" — at once a 
 guide, servant, interpreter, and companion. Only 
 it is understood that he is not to serve at table. To 
 see a Christian hog eating, to inhale the odor of 
 meats — this would be a pollution not to be thought 
 of. As he knows the English language well, and 
 is familiar with the country we traverse, he requires 
 thirty rupees a month ; on this he feeds himself, 
 very frugally, it is true : a little rice, which he boils 
 in his brass jar, and eats, sitting on his heels on the 
 ground ; and a little water to wash his mouth, 
 according to ceremonial : he requires nothing more. 
 His duty is to have the luggage registered, to know 
 the number of my packages, to be perpetually 
 counting them, to see that nothing is lost. Not a 
 handkerchief can go astray but in three minutes he 
 knows it, and obliges me to rummage in all my 
 pockets. Hindu by race and by religion, in sect a 
 Sivaist, he seems particularly to venerate cows and 
 monkeys. When once I endeavored to rally him on 
 
i6o ZAT INDIA. 
 
 this subject he smiled mysteriously, but would not 
 speak. 
 
 Cheddy belongs to the Sudra caste, which was 
 created from the feet of Brahma, we are told : "Pure, 
 in body and mind, the humble servitor of the higher 
 classes, gentle of speech, never arrogant, seeking 
 shelter with the Brahmans," such is, says Manu, the 
 true Sudra. This one, who is about as stout and 
 strong as a grasshopper, would sink under the 
 weight of a satchel ; and it is agreed that he shall 
 carry nothing. To make amends, he follows me 
 like my shadow, sleeping across my threshold like 
 a little faithful dog, and fights like a lion with the 
 beggars who assail me. He knows a few words of 
 Sanskrit, also English, Bengali, Hindustani, and the 
 history of the rajahs, the shahs, and the khans ; and 
 in the evening, by the light of a lantern, seated out- 
 side my door, he reads in some mysterious volume. 
 But notwithstanding all this knowledge, his heart is 
 humble, a truly timid and pure Sudra's heart. 
 
 We converse. Although a pupil of Protestant 
 missionaries in Calcutta, he is not a convert. He is 
 very fond of the English: "English judge says to 
 poor man: 'You are right'; and to rich man: 'You 
 are wrong!'" Here we have the little fact which, 
 often repeated, secures English rule in India. 
 Under this régime the peasant is unmolested. He 
 is no longer hunted down and harassed by all the 
 functionaries of the native or Musalman govern- 
 ments: he pays a small regular tax, and he is mas- 
 ter of his earnings. He has a feeling entirely new 
 to the Hindu peasant, that of security. 
 
LUCK NOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. i6i 
 
 On the other hand, Cheddy Lai does not love the 
 British soldier. "Too proud," he says to me ; "poor 
 Hindu carry all their luggage." This single sen- 
 tence suffices. You see the arrogance, the haughty 
 silence of him, of Tommy Atkins realizing in India 
 the dream of the English lower classes, to treat him- 
 self as "a gentleman," and have himself waited on. 
 How often have I seen him as he steps from a train, 
 proud and calm, his head held high, his fair hair 
 well pomatumed, correctly gloved, switch in hand, 
 making his spurs clink, and with his lofty, big- 
 chested stature dominating the crowd of coolies 
 who stagger under the weight of his travelling- 
 bags ! 
 
 Ever toward the Northwest we run, toward the 
 land of the Musalman. The country is beautiful: 
 interminable, solitary plains, all silvery with the 
 white shiver of tall reeds. To the horizon's edge 
 they crowd, one upon another, lifting out of its 
 sheath a tall dry stem, at whose summit trembles a 
 plume pale and light as smoke. Sometimes ante- 
 lopes come in sight at a little trot, then stop and 
 look, one foot held up, the slender head turned 
 anxiously toward us. Storks and herons, very 
 serious, watch us as we pass. The great sky is 
 vaporous with light ; before us the rails stretch in 
 shining, rigid lines, meeting in the distance, at a 
 point that we shall never reach ! By night, the 
 darkness and solitude in these desolate plains are 
 solemn, and now and then an almost imperceptible 
 cry, guessed at in the great silence, the far-ofï yelp 
 of a jackal, is vaguely sad. 
 
102 IN INDIA. 
 
 December 9. 
 
 I am in the capital of the ancient Moguls ; and 
 there are many things to see, especially in architec- 
 ture, palaces, and tombs. For they struggled 
 against time and death, these Musalmans. They 
 did not accept being totally abolished. While the 
 peaceful and meditative Hindu returned without a 
 struggle, without leaving any trace behind him, into 
 the bosom of that being which, for an instant, had 
 thrown him out upon the surface of this illusory 
 world — they, the passionate and self-willed, asserted 
 themselves after death in jasper and marble, as they 
 had impressed themselves, during their lives, with 
 fire and sword. 
 
 Akbar was one of these; and his tomb stands, 
 intact as on its first day, in the silent country. Four 
 great gates, facing toward the four cardinal points, 
 four triumphal arches, flanked with minarets, 
 crowned with bell-towers, give access to a solitary 
 garden, where golden fruit hangs amid the foliage. 
 From each gate leads a broad road with red pave- 
 ment, and all converge toward the central monument. 
 It is at once Chinese and Saracenic, this tomb, con- 
 sisting of a succession of terraces, retreating as they 
 rise, surmounted by Mongol kiosks. Here the solid 
 rests upon the open: upon rows of colonnettes rise 
 marble walls incrusted with precious stones, which 
 are set with absolute regularity and blaze upon the 
 perfect white of the surface. Each terrace is a 
 quadrilateral, paved with mosaic, framed in its 
 slender columns, connected with each other by 
 Saracenic arches. Behind these marble columns a 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 163 
 
 corridor surrounds the terrace, closed on the 
 outer side by a lace of white stone, exquisitely 
 relieved against the pale blue of the sky. Light 
 and delicate as it is, this architecture of perfect 
 stone seems indestructible in this youthful, luminous 
 atmosphere which penetrates it from every side. 
 
 Within the centre of the building, at the mathe- 
 matical point where the diagonals of the square 
 intersect, is the great tomb of Akbar, a rectangle of 
 marble, on whose surface are only a few lotos flowers 
 in relief, the frail stems creeping over it very timidly 
 and gently. There in the shadow the Mogul has 
 been sleeping for two hundred years. Outside, to 
 glorify him in the light, there are the graceful curves 
 of the carved marble, the splendor of the colored 
 paving-stones, the profusion of mosaics, the purity 
 of perfect lines, the consummate art which cost the 
 labor of an uncounted multitude of workmen. They 
 are all dead ; but this perfect architectural work, 
 one of the noblest achievements of their race, stands 
 here under the sky in the peaceful country. 
 
 There are sounds of accordions floating in the air. 
 Some English soldiers, lounging on the terrace, are 
 playing their national airs. Leaning upon this ex- 
 quisite balustrade, four of them are smoking their 
 briarwood pipes; and the smoke curls upward, tran- 
 quil and calm, like the rest of the scene. 
 
 It is good to note with accuracy the details of a 
 vision that one will never see again. To-day, the 
 9th of December, at half-past eleven, this is what I 
 have under my eyes, from the summit of the tomb 
 of Akbar. Outside of the lacework of stone and the 
 
104 IN INDIA. 
 
 white kiosks that bound it, lies a vast square carpet, 
 the great park, with its dense clumps of trees and 
 the brilliancy of its flowers, girt with a bastioned 
 wall. To the north, south, east, and west, fifteen 
 hundred feet away from the tomb, are the four im- 
 posing gates, four angular surfaces of red granite, 
 brightened with white marble, each with its immense 
 Moorish archway. Beyond, in every direction, lies 
 the great tawny plain. Domes of trees make spots 
 of verdure upon the withered, yellow grass. On the 
 east there ar& ribbons of blue water. Here and 
 there, in the desolate country, columns and towers 
 rise among the shrubs and trees, the ruins of a city 
 which has left only these few imperishable monu- 
 ments; and, standing quite by itself, the pale splen- 
 dor of the marbles of the Taj, bluish in the misty 
 light, like heaps of distant snow. 
 
 At the citadel. — A curious fortress of red sand- 
 stone on the shore of the Jumna. On the summit 
 of the rugged walls and massive bastions, made to 
 resist assaults and rising like cliffs out of the river, 
 there runs the most delicate embroidery of faintly 
 tinted marble, rendered more exquisite by contrast 
 with the huge rough masonry on which it rests. It 
 is a rock crowned with lacework, in which cannon- 
 balls have made pitiful rents. In the fortress there 
 is everything — mosques, harems, palaces, halls of 
 justice, gardens, a whole marble city, hidden behind 
 the lofty crenellated walls, a whole royal city, or 
 rather, it is an entire camp,* whose chief, sheltered 
 
 * The forts of Delhi and Agra are permanent camps copied from 
 the Mongol camps of the steppes. 
 
LUCK NOW. C AWN PUR. AGRA. 165 
 
 behind the thickness of the accumulated stone, 
 surrounded by his ministers, his counsellors, his 
 generals, his poets, his musicians, his wives, fulfilled 
 his duties as Emperor and Musalman, enjoying, 
 meanwhile, the refined delights, the consummate 
 luxury of an artistic and amorous tyrant. 
 
 Crossing a drawbridge, passing under a fortified 
 gateway and in front of a guard house, past loung- 
 ing European soldiers, one comes to a broad paved 
 road, which rises between the bastions and gives 
 access to the interior, where edifices are crowded 
 together like the tents in a camp. 
 
 First, the Moti-Masjid. Around the three sides 
 of a square court with marble pavement, stands 
 the marble mosque. Fifty-eight stout columns, 
 united by Saracenic arches, carved in floral designs, 
 support the heavy flat roof, and in this deep gallery 
 the marble has the soft, warm tints of old ivory. 
 There is nothing more, neither painting nor wood- 
 work — two colors only, the blue of the sky, the white 
 of the marble ; and this sumptuous simplicity, this 
 splendor of sunlight on the pure stone, express 
 better than anything else could, the spiritual ardor, 
 the enthusiasm of the Musalman soul. 
 
 Upon the roof, three pointed domes expand their 
 glittering balls, outline their admirable curves against 
 a pale sky, which is so light, so pure, that it seems de- 
 void of air, a mere ether, containing nothing but light. 
 
 Then there is a succession of great courtyards, 
 closed on three sides: the Court of Tournaments, 
 where horses pranced, and tigers and elephants 
 fought in the presence of the emperor; the Diwan-i- 
 
1 66 IN INDIA. 
 
 Khas, where, from his throne of black marble, Akbar 
 pronounced his sentences of death ; the Diwan-y- 
 Am ; the Jahangir Mahal ; then corridors whose 
 walls are incrusted with birds and flowers, — parrots 
 of emeralds, lotus flowers of lapis-lazuli, — whose 
 windows are made of a single slab of marble all cut 
 out in open-work. And with all this wealth of dis- 
 play, these incrustations of gems, the outlines and 
 tones and lights are harmonious; all is simple and 
 perfectly proportioned, as in a Greek temple. This 
 was a spontaneous efflorescence of art, perfect like 
 that of the free cities of Hellas, testifying to a no 
 less refined education of taste and intellect, reaching 
 its climax under religious despots who, masters of 
 the lives and of the labor of a great people, crushed 
 and kneaded the human material, that they might 
 render eternal their own vision of beauty. 
 
 What modern poet has ever had a dream so 
 delicious as that Mogul who built the zenanas and 
 the women's bathrooms? In rooms to which the 
 daylight has no access, cool with the coolness of 
 marble, there are great basins of jade, the running 
 water dripping from one to another of them. Upon 
 the translucent white of the walls and columns, ten 
 thousand little facetted mirrors gleam like diamonds 
 in the darkness, and reflect the light of innumerable 
 tiny lamps burning in niches. The "Thousand and 
 One Nights" has conceived no such vision ; it is a 
 palace of fairies or genii, situated underground, far 
 from our world, remote from sunlight, built of 
 precious stones, full of darkness, yet lighted up by 
 the inner fire of these gems. 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 167 
 
 Within, imagine what Akbar used to see — the 
 graceful crowd of Circassian and Arab and Hindu 
 women, the pick of all Asia, chosen by a tyrant's 
 caprice ; the indolent girls, lying along a basin's edge, 
 dipping a bare foot in the water; the sleepy girls, 
 lulled by the cool murmur of running streamlets; 
 girls bathing, wringing their heavy, wet hair, 
 reflected in the shadowy, liquid mirror; and the 
 whole wrapped in a vague, mysterious light : verily, 
 for Akbar, after affairs of state, in the oppressive 
 heat of noon-day, this was a cool, peaceful, deli- 
 cious place. 
 
 In the upper part of the fortress, separated by 
 gardens from the Emperor's palace, on a terrace 
 overhanging the river and commanding a view of 
 the whole plain, is the women's apartment — six 
 chambers of spotless marble, whose walls, of open 
 fretwork, or simply with rectangles here and there 
 cut out, allow free passage to light and air. This 
 harem is the dainty pearl crowning the red bastions 
 of the fortress. Literally, these dwelling-places are 
 made of precious stones; all the walls are jewels. 
 Over the twelve sides of each of the slender col- 
 umns creep delicate, twining stems, whose flowers 
 are amethysts and turquoises. Along the marble 
 walls, other flowers in marble, rows of lilies and 
 tulips whose wide-spread petals droop with careless 
 grace, are in low relief. The rooms are shaped like 
 gems; octagons whose surfaces, polished by the 
 workman, repolished by time, play with the light, 
 imprison it, softened and tempered. The ceilings 
 rise in cones, cut in facets, ending in an acute point 
 
l68 IN INDIA. 
 
 of crystal. Through them all floats a cool half-light 
 in which gleam the arabesques and flowers, inter- 
 twined and involved in a design past all disentangle- 
 ment ; while here and there, the entire thickness of 
 the stone has been tenderly cut out in open-work, 
 making a delicate lace upon the white light of the sky. 
 
 Around these rooms are terraces, not edged with 
 balustrades, but surrounded with air only, ending off 
 suddenly at the vertical drop of the high red walls, 
 perpendicular to the river's edge. How often idle 
 queens and odalisques, forever immured in this 
 gleaming white paradise, have stretched themselves 
 out along this marble surface, to watch the sunlight 
 die, and the slow waters of the Jumna grow pallid, 
 their languid eyes filled with the self-same vision 
 which is mine at this moment! A rosy radiance 
 floats in the immense plain, enwraps all the vague 
 forms. Before me, on a marble cornice, a parrot 
 sits motionless; all is silent in the slow waning of 
 the day. Below, the cold current keeps a little 
 light in motion, among the shallows. There are 
 camps on the shore from which the smoke rises 
 straight. Along a dusty highroad, oxen are draw- 
 ing heavy wains, whose massive wheels turn slowly. 
 Further off, a line of camels are moving along with 
 a proud, timid undulation of their swan-like necks, 
 a melancholy procession, half-hidden in clouds of 
 dust, half lost in the vaporous light which floods the 
 whole picture. 
 
 December ii. 
 
 The Taj, as everybody knows, is a mausoleum 
 erected by the Mogul Shah Jahan to the Begum 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 1 69 
 
 Mumtaz-i-Mahal. It is a regular octagon, sur- 
 mounted by a Persian cupola and having four 
 minarets at its angles. The building itself, stand- 
 ing upon a terrace commanding the adjacent gar- 
 dens, is made of blocks of white marble, and rises 
 to a height of two hundred and forty-three feet. 
 We alight from the carriage in front of a noble por- 
 tico of red sandstone, pierced by a lofty Moorish 
 archway, covered with white arabesques. We pass 
 under the arch, and the Taj appears in sight, half a 
 mile distant. Probably no masterpiece of architec- 
 ture produces an equal efïect. 
 
 In the very centre of a marvellous garden, re- 
 flected in all its whiteness in a canal of dark water, 
 which lies motionless, with clumps of black cypresses 
 and great mounds of crimson flowers on its banks, 
 the perfect structure rises like a vision. It is a 
 floating dream, an aerial thing without weight, so 
 accurate is the balance of the lines and so faint the 
 shadows on the virginal, translucent stone. These 
 black cypresses which frame it ; these masses of 
 verdure, through which here and there the blue sky 
 is seen ; this turf in the strong sunlight, with the 
 sharp, black shadows of the trees falling across it — 
 all these solid things render more unreal the white 
 vision which seems ready to vanish into the light of 
 the sky. I walk toward it along the marble bank 
 of the dark canal, and the mausoleum assumes 
 relief. Approaching nearer, the eye takes more 
 and more delight in the surfaces of the octagonal 
 monument. These are rectangular expanses of pol- 
 ished marble, on which the light rests with a soft, 
 
lyo IN INDIA. 
 
 milky lustre. One had no idea that a thing so 
 simple as mere surface could be so beautiful, when it 
 is broad and pure. Then the eye follows the grace- 
 ful and well-ordered intertwining of great flowers, 
 flowers of onyx and turquoise, incrusted along a 
 projecting part of the building, and the harmony of 
 the delicate chasing, the marble lacework, the 
 springing arches, the notched balustrades, the in- 
 finite play of the simple and the decorated. 
 
 The garden is the complement of the building, 
 both uniting to form the one artistic conception. 
 The avenues leading to the Taj are bordered with 
 funereal trees, yews and cypresses, that render still 
 whiter the far-off whiteness of the monument. Be- 
 hind their slender cones, trees of luxuriant foliage 
 are massed, adding depth and opulence to the more 
 sombre growth. The stiff, dark trees, relieved 
 against this light foliage, stirred by the wind, rise, 
 solemn, out of the thickets of roses and the great 
 masses of unknown, perfumed flowers of this soli- 
 tary garden. Combinations like these are the work 
 of an artist. Broad, open lawns, the crimson cups 
 of flowers, petals of gold, swarms of humming-bees 
 and parti-colored butterflies bring light and joy into 
 the gloom which befits a cemetery. The place is at 
 once luminous and serious ; it has all the rapture of 
 a Musalman paradise, amorous and religious; and 
 the^poem in verdure unites with the poem in marble 
 to tell of peace and splendor. 
 
 Inside, at first all is darkness, a profound night, 
 with the faint gleaming of a grating of ancient 
 marble, a mysterious lacework around the tombs, 
 
LUCK NOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 171 
 
 extending on and on, with a sepulchral glimmer, a 
 yellowish lustre, as if the light itself were ancient 
 and had been absorbed centuries ago. And the in- 
 terlacing lines and curves of pallid marble continue, 
 until they vanish into the darkness. 
 
 In the centre are the tombs of the lovers, two 
 small sarcophagi, on which rests a faint light from 
 some unknown source. This is all. There they lie 
 in the silence, surrounded by these perfect things 
 which celebrate their love lasting into death, isolated 
 from all the Avorld by the mysterious marble lace 
 which enwraps them and seems to float around them 
 like a dream. 
 
 High above, as if through dense smoke, one sees 
 the dome rise in the darkness, rise and never end ; 
 and its walls seem vaporous, the marble blocks 
 unsubstantial. All is aerial here, nothing is real and 
 solid; this is a world of visions. Sounds even are 
 no longer of the earth. A musical note uttered here 
 is repeated, above one's head, in regions which we 
 cannot see. Pure as the voice of an Ariel, it grows 
 fainter, then dies; and suddenly is heard again, far 
 off, glorified, spiritualized, multiplied indefinitely, 
 repeated by countless, remote voices, by an unseen 
 choir of angels who carry it up, ascending higher 
 and higher, until it loses itself in a faint sound 
 which remains continuous, hovering on like the 
 music of a soul over the tomb of the beloved. 
 
 I visit the Taj again at noonday. Under a vertical 
 sun the melancholy phantom is dead, the gentle 
 sadness of the mausoleum has disappeared. The 
 great marble table upon which it stands has a 
 
172 IN INDIA. 
 
 blinding glitter. Reflected back and forth from all 
 sides the sunlight multiplies its effect a hundredfold, 
 and some of the façades are like white-hot metal. 
 The incrustations are sparks of living fire, and their 
 hundred red flowers glow like burning coals. The 
 sacred texts and hieroglyphics set in the black 
 marble blaze, as if written by the finger of an angry 
 god. All the mystic rows of lotus and lily, in relief, 
 which before had the softness of yellowed ivory, are 
 now like flames upon the surface. I retreat to the 
 edge of the inclosure, and, dazzled, I see for an in- 
 stant, relieved against the sky, the incandescent 
 lines and surfaces of the edifice, implacable in its 
 virgin whiteness. Certainly this strict simplicity 
 and the intensity of this light have something 
 Semitic in their effect, like "the flaming sword" of 
 the Bible. The minarets rise into the blue like 
 columns of fire. 
 
 All around it is the cool darkness of the overarch- 
 ing trees, where I linger until twilight. This garden 
 is the work of a worshipper, who desired to glorify 
 Allah. It is a place for religious joy: "Let no man 
 who is not pure in heart enter the garden of God," 
 says the Arab text graven above the gate. There 
 are parterres which are heaps of velvet, some of the 
 strange flowers are like bunches of crimson moss. 
 Trunks of trees rise all blue with convolvulus; else- 
 where great red stars gleam amid the dark foliage. 
 Among the flowers countless butterflies make a per- 
 petual cloud. Many beautiful little living things, 
 tiny striped squirrels, and birds in abundance, green 
 parrots, brilliant perroquets, a whole little world. 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 1 73 
 
 splendid, happy, and secure ; protected against 
 vultures and hawks by white-clad guards who with 
 their long pea-shooters keep away all mischief and 
 cruelty from this place of peace. 
 
 Upon the surface of the motionless water water- 
 lilies and the lotus outline their stiff petals, seeming 
 to rest solidly upon the dark mirror. Between the 
 dense masses of foliage there are glimpses of English 
 lawns all fîooded with sunlight, and of spaces of 
 blue sky sometimes traversed by a triangle of white 
 storks ; and now and then the far-off vision of the 
 phantom tomb, a sad, virginal ghost. How calm 
 and splendid is this solitude, full of a pleasure at 
 once intoxicating and serious ! It is the beauty, the 
 love, the sunlight of Asia, of which Shelley dreamed ! 
 
 December 12. 
 
 After three days devoted to marble palaces, one 
 wearies of exquisite things. And so, this morning, 
 instead of taking the railway train, I take a carriage, 
 that I may go to see a big bit of country, the real 
 Hindu land, not merely from a railway train, but 
 loitering along the roads at pleasure, through the 
 villages, far from the marvels that tourists visit. 
 We drive slowly, and are the whole day in making 
 the thirty miles between Agra and Muttra. 
 
 There is nothing very noticeable in the appear- 
 ance of the country ; the palms have disappeared ; 
 there are little bushy trees, suggestive of the apple 
 orchards of Normandy; and the plain is spotted 
 with patches of russet grass and tall yellow reeds. 
 This December morning is like the very early hours 
 
174 IN- INDIA. 
 
 of one of our beautiful June days, still and bright. 
 A herd of meagre buffaloes goes past us, their long 
 black heads bent resignedly toward the ground, and 
 for a long time these are the only living creatures 
 that we see. 
 
 Later we come to a group of little huts, one of 
 those Hindu villages whose aspect has not changed 
 in three thousand years, where there has been always 
 the same calm, primitive life, since the beginning of 
 history. These villages would be interesting study, 
 for they have kept the ancient traditions of our 
 Aryan races. Their organization is like that of the 
 primitive Greek and Germanic communes. There 
 is no written law : all is regulated by immemorial 
 and unexplained custom ; the whole political life is 
 instinctive, as in an ant-hill. It is a natural group- 
 ing, the true form of grouping of Hindu society. 
 The Mongols, and before their time, the Pathans, 
 were able to destroy the native monarchies and 
 establish everywhere their own rule. But the 
 village was a molecule too minute to attract atten- 
 tion, too small and coherent to be broken up; and 
 it is this which has enabled the Hindu world, the 
 Hindu spirit, Hinduism itself, to subsist, through 
 centuries of tyrannies and exterminations. 
 
 I can see in passing only the out-door aspect : 
 these are scenes of other days which carr}^ one's 
 thought back to the Homeric age. A group of 
 women around a well, "each bearing the amphora, 
 one hand on the hip," naked babies, wallowing in 
 the dust, little girls clad with a single piece of red 
 stuff, which leaves half the childish figure bare; 
 
LUCK NOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 1 75 
 
 with the timid, frightened mien of kittens they run 
 back as we come near. The potter, seated on the 
 ground, is kneading his clay ; old wrinkled women, 
 with skins like parchment, are pounding rice in a 
 mill of rough stone ; a little naked group of scholars 
 are gathered around the master, who is humming in 
 a kind of plain-song, as he unrolls a manuscript. 
 At the threshold of a door, a man sitting on his 
 heels, with the air of a patient martyr, has given 
 himself into the hands of a barber who is tenderly 
 shaving his head. There are beggars, who might be 
 centenarians, wretched, fîeshless creatures, tottering 
 on their sticks, squealing as they hold out a black 
 paw. In the midst of the road, shoemakers, sitting 
 in a ring, ply the awl, and smoke at a hookah whose 
 mouthpiece is passed from hand to hand. At the 
 end of the village, very neatly arranged on little 
 tables, are a few dainty bits of sugar-cane, and fresh 
 leaves of green betel twisted into horns. 
 
 Soon it is left behind us, this little world, some- 
 what stirred by our passage, and we are again upon 
 the highroad which cuts the plain Avith its straight 
 line. Occasionally we pass a string of camels; they 
 move along with a soft, haughty step, turning from 
 side to side their meagre, thick-lipped heads at the 
 end of the long flexible necks, which curve and 
 undulate, with the rider pitching about on the top 
 of the backbone. Then, bands of peasants, the 
 head and the waist wrapped with white; and 
 women, whose arms and ankles are cuirassed with 
 porcelain bracelets ; and little donkeys, invisible 
 under their huge loads. Sometimes there are 
 
176 IN INDIA. 
 
 enormous rude wains Vv^ith heavy wheels; the pole, 
 a little tree roughly squared, like those which the bar- 
 barian peoples must have used in their migrations. 
 These are drawn by great white oxen, big hunch- 
 backed oxen, with short muscular necks, their horns 
 painted gold color or blue. Tranquil, amid the 
 buzzing of the eager flies, their eyes half-closed, 
 they move along with a stupid air of triumph, as if 
 they knew very well that they were gods. 
 
 On every side are the great, shining fields full of 
 green harvests, and the brilliant garments of the 
 women who are reaping seem like scattered poppies 
 and violets just visible in the dense growth. 
 
 December 13. 
 Last evening by moonlight we reached the dâk 
 bungalow of Muttra. It is an abrupt return into 
 the world of Hinduism. Here Vishnu was incar- 
 nated under the form of Krishna, and the city is 
 consecrated to the worship of this hero. By turns, 
 Hindu, Greek, Buddhist, Musalman, and then Hindu 
 again, Muttra has always been one of the religious 
 capitals of Asia ; it is celebrated in the Baghavata 
 Purana. In 404 a Chinese pilgrim counted here 
 twenty monasteries and three thousand Buddhist 
 monks. Five hundred years later the Musalmans 
 invaded the country, and the Brahmanic pagodas 
 which had been reared upon the ruins of the Bud- 
 dhist monasteries were destroyed by the conquerors. 
 From 1017 to the date of the English conquest, 
 incessantly trodden down by the Muliammadan 
 chiefs, Hinduism, like a sturdy and deep-rooted 
 
LUCK NOW. CAVVNPUR. AGRA. in 
 
 plant, never ceased to spring up again ; and no 
 destruction could put an end to its incessant efflor- 
 escence in temples and chapels. 
 
 In the eighteenth century Aurungzebe levelled 
 them all to the ground, and built mosques out of 
 the material. Fortunately the French traveller 
 Tavernier had seen the chief pagoda, and his de- 
 scription reminds one of the temples of the south, 
 those of Madura and Trichinopoli. "From base to 
 summit the exterior is covered with figures of rams, 
 monkeys, and elephants in stone, with niches in 
 which are monsters, and with windows up to the 
 height of the domes and balconies. Statues of 
 monsters are in a ring around these domes; this col- 
 lection of hideous images is frightful to see." Hav- 
 ing paid two rupees, he was permitted to behold the 
 god himself. "The Brahmans opened a door and I 
 saw a kind of altar covered with old brocade, on 
 which stood the great idol. The head was of black 
 marble and the eyes appeared to be rubies. The 
 body and arms were entirely hidden by a robe of 
 red velvet. Two smaller idols, white-faced, were 
 placed at the two sides." 
 
 He is to be seen everywhere here, Krishna,* the 
 dark god, the blue god. All the religious pictures 
 adorning the stalls represent him, surrounded by his 
 women, playing on the pipe, a smile in his enam- 
 elled eyes. He is the popular divinity of India, the 
 good-humored, laughing god, friendly to men. He 
 was born of a woman, and countless poems relate 
 
 * Probably a god of the black, pre-Aryan races, absorbed by 
 Hinduism. 
 
178 IN INDIA. 
 
 his marvellous childhood, the wickedness of the 
 king who sought him out among the other children 
 to destroy him, the humility of his life as a little 
 shepherd, his flute songs during the rains and in the 
 hot season, the instruction that he gave the Brah- 
 mans while yet a child, his sports in the sacred 
 waters of the Jumna, his dances with the^^/w — the 
 young and charming cowherd girls of Muttra — his 
 amours in the tropical forest. Meanwhile, miracles 
 proclaim his divinity. He destroys dragons and 
 demons. One day, as he is dancing with his young 
 companions, he becomes multiple, and each girl has 
 him in her arms. He raises a mountain for a shelter 
 to the human race against aerial genii. He charms 
 all things, movable and immovable, the entire crea- 
 tion. "At the sound of his flute, the young girls 
 hastened thither, happy and also sad with love. 
 The cows, hearing this flute, stood motionless, the 
 grass in their mouths; the little calves with de- 
 lighted faces forgot to feed. The gazelles stretched 
 their necks; the soft melody disturbed ascetics and 
 wise men. Rivers turned back like snakes, and 
 ceased flowing. Arrested in their flight, birds 
 perched at his side, jealous of his music, and, %vith 
 closed eyes, listened to the sounds of his flute." 
 Later he preaches gentleness and self-abnegation ; 
 forbids pride and selfishness; fights against "the 
 Me sentiment"; defends the weak and teaches the 
 brotherhood of all mankind. 
 
 This is a singular divinity, with traits of Orpheus, 
 Adonis, Hercules, and of Jesus, at once ascetic and 
 sensual. To die to the world, to forget one's self 
 
LUCKNOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 1 79 
 
 for love of the divinity, or of one's neighbor, this is 
 his doctrine ; a teaching which would seem more 
 fitting for the austere and gentle Buddha than for 
 Krishna ; but on the other hand, with an inexplicable 
 contradiction, he teaches a free abandonment to all 
 the gratifications of opulent nature. A poor hump- 
 backed creature, having poured lotus perfume upon 
 Krishna's feet, rises, erect and beautiful as a queen, 
 and all the pollution of her heart is washed away. 
 
 Then men proclaim him divine; and, in the uni- 
 versal homage which hails him, Krishna, the shep- 
 herd, disappears; his human form is dissolved, the 
 "illusion" which concealed him vanishes; through 
 the veil which covered him appears a vague, radiant, 
 pantheistic idea, a universal power which the whole 
 choir of nature adores : "Thou art he who createst ; 
 thou art the creating force, O sacred Master; it is 
 thou, O Lord, who makest the succession of births 
 and deaths; thy incarnations have revealed thee to 
 man, thou art the productive force, thou art Brahma. 
 The fourteen worlds are in thy mouth, as fruit is 
 between the teeth of a monkey. If thou with- 
 drawest them, who can compel thee to emit them 
 anew? If thou hidest thyself, all becomes con- 
 fusion, and the destroyed bodies have no longer a 
 covering to enwrap them. As water dwells in the 
 lotus-leaf, as the perfume in the flower, as fire in the 
 wood, as water in milk, thus thou, in thine own 
 form, art in the depths of all being." 
 
 These pantheistic flashes strike abruptly through 
 the descriptive luxuriance of the poem ; and then 
 the veil, for a moment lifted, falls; the metaphysical 
 
i8o IN INDIA. 
 
 world, of which there was a glimpse, is again shut 
 away; and around us closes in "the illusion" of 
 nature, all full of light and life. "The green buds 
 of the santal tremble at the extemity of the branches 
 like limpid drops of ambrosia. When they heard 
 the sound of his flute, the lotus, the jasmine, the 
 pandanas, and the champak quivered in their hearts. 
 The flowers became the color of the salve of anti- 
 mony and of red lead; they shivered, they were 
 afraid, the blue and white flowers." The simplest 
 of these idyls, the most ardent and splendid, repre- 
 sents the young divinity with the shepherd girls of 
 Muttra. They cannot behold without rapture his 
 beautiful dark brow, they languish for love of him ; 
 "and like white lotus flowers whose root is wounded 
 under the water, the moonlight of their downcast 
 faces shines with pallid splendor." It is a poem 
 like one of the luminous, voluptuous nights of India. 
 It is like a southern jungle, where, in an air dense 
 with stupefying perfumes, butterflies, strangely 
 splendid, fly heavily, and impenetrable tropical 
 climbers bar your path, all rustling and throbbing 
 with unseen life. Here and there, the strong up- 
 ward thrust of a cocoanut palm leads your glance 
 upward, and through a gap in the dense foliage you 
 can see for an instant the dazzling, creative orb 
 which fills all the sombre forest with its heat, and 
 from the inert slime calls forth this world of living 
 things. 
 
 December 14. 
 Upon the Jumna. — I arrive too late to witness the 
 sacred dip of all the population. The men have 
 
LUCK NOW. CAWNPUR. AGRA. i8i 
 
 gone, and only a few groups of women remain. 
 Young girls, the slender torso rising out of a blue 
 drapery which falls from the hips, their arms lifted, 
 the wrists crossed upon the head, standing erect on 
 the steps that lead down into the water, watch our 
 boat as it passes. Others, stooping, are entirely 
 concealed by the harmonious folds of some ample 
 material ; only the dark face is visible beneath the 
 light drapery resting on the curve of the head. One 
 little girl, throwing off her garment, stands quite 
 nude ; she stoops toward the water, half bent over it. 
 Another child, still younger, clasps close with her 
 slender arms the pink muslin drapery enveloping 
 her from the head to the ankles with their bands of 
 silver. It is graceful and charming. Some have 
 risen and slowly lift to their heads the heavy copper 
 vases filled with river water, and the movement of 
 the arms and the torso is noble and graceful. The 
 faces are of a pure oval, a little rounded, of a beau- 
 tiful bronze tint, caressed by the blackness of their 
 waving hair; with something serious and sombre, 
 almost classic in their features, yet not without 
 warmth and tenderness. They are here in great 
 numbers, small and large, chattering and laughing, 
 playing with the water much like their predecessors, 
 the Hindu girls beloved of Krishna; washing their 
 hands and arms, and their hair; taking off and put- 
 ting on their great veils ; spending the whole day in 
 the coolness of the broad, deep river. In this light, 
 with these simple draperies, the motion or gesture 
 of these young girls gives one pleasure, a bare 
 arm lifted, the head slowly turning upon the young 
 
152 IN INDIA. 
 
 neck, a bent figure lifting itself. It is indeed a very 
 simple and quiet pleasure to watch this play of 
 noble colors and of human outlines on the bank of 
 the translucent water, upon the luminous marble. 
 
 An hour's drive brings us to Bindrabund, which is 
 also a sacred city. Holy places are numerous in this 
 classic corner of India. The shores of the Jumna 
 at all these points are celebrated in the great epics. 
 
 At Bindrabund, as at Muttra, the monkeys swarm ; 
 they frolic in the streets and accompany the inhabi- 
 tants to their matutinal dip. Now they gather, ming- 
 ling with the inquisitive human crowd, to see us arrive; 
 and the rapid winking of their eyes is much more in- 
 telligent than the slow, stupid gaze of these Hindus. 
 
 Men and monkeys live here the same idle and 
 abstemious life. They eat the same cereals, they 
 dwell in the same houses; the former usually estab- 
 lished inside, the latter more commonly clinging to 
 the balconies, or perched upon the roof, where they 
 are quite at their ease, the lucky rascals! teasing 
 each other or cleaning each other in the sunshine; 
 the theories of Darwin are put in practice in Bind- 
 rabun, and the human being is peacefully domesti- 
 cated with his "poor relations." 
 
 Two great temples are in process of building, at 
 the expense of the rajah. One is nearly done, and 
 will be completed in two years ; the cost is estimated 
 at twenty-five lacs of rupees (about a million and a 
 quarter of dollars). The architect, the workmen, 
 the sculptors, are all natives. He is the greatest 
 independent prince in India, this rajah of Jaipur, 
 who supplies the money; and the god, with his 
 
LUCK NO IV. CAWNPUR. AGRA. 183 
 
 hundred million worshippers, is the most popular of 
 divinities. Without any doubt, Hinduism is very 
 much alive, as any man may see who regards these 
 thousands of laborers who are hewing stone for the 
 greater honor of Krishna. 
 
 The architect, delighted to receive a European 
 visitor, shows me his plans, which appear very scien- 
 tific and geometrical. He explains to me, later, 
 the detail of the inferior divinities whose niches will 
 surround the statue of Krishna. I observe that he 
 says, God, not the god, in speaking of the latter. 
 "This," he says, "is God's dining-room. Every day 
 the value of a hundred or two hundred rupees in 
 food is served to him here, by the rajah's order ; and 
 it is then distributed among the poor." 
 
 But this is an interesting rajah ! He is a civilized 
 person, I am told, and to him Jaipur owes its Uni- 
 versity. Why, then, does he build this temple to 
 Krishna? What idea, vague or distinct, does he 
 have of this divinity and his incarnations; of the 
 entire multitude of the Hindu gods; of their ava- 
 tars and of their sacred animals? Is his faith in 
 any degree sincere? Does he go beyond the mere 
 conformity to custom and to the religion of his 
 country? Is he conscious of any lack of harmony 
 between his ideas and his religious needs. 
 
 I am glad to see how the buildings of Agra were 
 constructed. They are making a marble lacework, 
 in imitation of those airy balustrades, that exqui- 
 site guipure which gives the lightness of a dream to 
 the Mongol edifices. Fifteen men, bending over a 
 block of stone, are cutting it out with jewellers' 
 
1 84 IN INDIA. 
 
 tools, copying a complicated design of interlaced 
 leaves and stems. This being completed, they turn 
 the stone, and work from the other side, to meet 
 the first work; with what care, with what infinite 
 precision, may be understood when you reflect that 
 on the two sides the flowers and stems must per- 
 fectly correspond. Work like this is done only at 
 great loss; one block of marble in three is spoiled. 
 I also saw the incrustation with gems; they use the 
 lamp, as jewellers do in setting precious stones. 
 
 There are four thousand workmen. The average 
 wage is four annas (about eight cents) a day. The 
 temple will have been five years in building. Not- 
 withstanding the expense, and the length of the 
 labor, it is already evident that this building will 
 not equal the perfect edifices of the Mongol em- 
 perors. The marble here is used only as a facing; 
 the Mongol work, on the contrary, was absolutely 
 sincere, made of the same rare material, polished 
 with the same care, in the invisible portions of the 
 building as in its exterior. It was not done for the 
 purpose of being admired; it was an end in itself, 
 like a prayer or like a grand psalm. Provinces of men 
 were laid waste to provide means ; at it, nations wore 
 out their hands and their knees. The labor lasted a 
 half century; and the building was reared at what a 
 cost of human suffering! But the work was abso- 
 lutely beautiful. In like manner there is required the 
 long and silent labor of a thousand invisible roots, of 
 all the obscure vessels and concealed tissues, a slow 
 elaboration from the juices of the whole plant, to 
 expand a flower, and give to it its subtle perfume. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 delhi. jaipur. 
 
 December 15. 
 
 You perceive at once the great capital. The 
 EngHsh city lies among the trees: broad avenues, 
 elegant villas, vast gardens. In the distance, 
 crowded blocks of houses, minarets, Hindu cones, 
 rise on every side, bristling against the sky; this is 
 the native city. 
 
 One begins with the public edifices. Probably my 
 eye is blasé; I see nothing approaching the perfec- 
 tion of Agra. The fort has been spoiled by the 
 English occupation ; in many places the valuable 
 stones have been dug out, and their place supplied 
 with red or green wax. In general, the plan is the 
 same as that of the fort at Agra. Very high exte- 
 rior walls, extensive courts for parades and shows 
 with elephants, sumptuous halls decorated with gold 
 scrollwork, their walls incrusted with jewelled birds 
 and flowers, harems which are exquisite as a dream ; 
 all this I have already seen in Akbar's capital. "If 
 Paradise can be found in the world, it is here!" 
 says a Persian inscription. 
 
 No doubt this fortress, also, shelters a paradise of 
 idle delights ; there is the same abundance of mosaic 
 work, of marble trellises, of sinuous lotus stems and 
 
 iSs 
 
1 86 IN INDIA. 
 
 flowers in relief; there are the mysterious, shadowy 
 bathrooms, and the terraces without balustrades 
 whence you will see the sun go down across a reedy 
 plain, all resembling Agra. The little mosque for 
 the women is a jewel in marble that would seem to 
 have been cut from a single block; the three domes 
 are like pearls. The whole thing should be kept in 
 a jewel-case. 
 
 Better still, however, do I like the great mosque, 
 the most beautiful in India, they say, and, probably, 
 in all Asia. Broad stairs that, with a single oblique 
 bound, fall in sheets of marble; above, a court 
 paved with polished alabaster all white, dazzling, 
 which you would say had been made from one 
 immense lustrous stone; on three sides of this 
 court a deep gallery, sustained by three rows of 
 pillars; at the right and left, stiff slender minarets: 
 this is the grand Muhammadan style. An astonish- 
 ing severity and simplicity of lines: a general effect 
 of something dominant and supreme. The towers 
 in their simplicity rise high above the city, imperi- 
 ous as a conqueror. It was here that the emperor, 
 attended by his nobles and his people, standing 
 upon the pavement, facing a white Avail, used to 
 listen to the harsh sentences of the Koran, the 
 fierce and ardent law. Thereafter, he would order 
 the sack of a Hindu city; then build mosques, with 
 the materials of the destroyed pagodas; then 
 glorify in his heart the proud name of Allah. 
 
 The priests of Allah are not proud. The high- 
 priest, with silent gravity, showed us relics of 
 Muhammad, a sandal, a hair of his beard. As I 
 
DELHI. JAIP'UR. 187 
 
 bent my head before him, full of respect and grati- 
 tude, suddenly he held out his hand. Cheddy Lai, 
 who has charge of the baksheesh, presented him with 
 three annas. Silent as before, the high priest bowed, 
 thanking us with a dignified gesture. 
 
 However, he keeps up appearances. The Hindu 
 dealers are more demonstrative. At the railway 
 station, twenty shawl-merchants worry the unlucky 
 traveller. They accompany him to his hotel, run- 
 ning beside the carriage, climbing on the step, cling- 
 ing to the door, gesticulating, assailing him with a 
 hail of cards, inundating him with a never-ending 
 flow of obsequious speech. At the hotel, one is not 
 rid of them. They install themselves upon the 
 veranda, they mount guard outside your bedroom, 
 outside the dining-room : you come out, they rush 
 upon you ; it becomes a scufHe, you show your fists, 
 brandish your stick to get through. The first 
 encounters being over, you suppose yourself at 
 peace; take notice that all the time piercing eyes 
 are on the watch for you. At six in the morning, 
 you awaken. Instantly, at the other end of the 
 great white bedroom, a door is set ajar a few inches ; 
 five arms are pushed through, brandishing stuffs, 
 slippers, caps. They saw you fall asleep ; they saw 
 you wake. Some conceal themselves, following you 
 in the street on the opposite sidewalk, waiting till 
 you are tired, alone, unprotected ; and seize the 
 opportune moment to present themselves. 
 
 A few minutes ago, sauntering in the great bazaar, 
 I accompanied Cheddy to a shawl-dealer's, who this 
 morning very nearly got himself crushed by my 
 
1 88 IN INDIA. 
 
 garry in his endeavor to obtain the promise of a 
 visit. We find a fat man, of gentle face, seated 
 upon cushions, drinking coffee with some friends. 
 Upon our entrance he springs to his feet, he runs 
 back and forth, he whirls abcfut me, he envelops me 
 in his gesticulations. In the twinkling of an eye, 
 before I know how he has done it, we have each had 
 a cup of coffee, and are seated before a bale which 
 he unrolls with the agility of a monkey; out of it 
 emerge, as if by magic, rare silks, embroideries in 
 gold, which he holds up in the light, with which he 
 drapes himself, with which he drapes me, with all 
 sorts of feminine airs and graces. "I want you, sir, 
 to see this beautiful thing. What do you think of 
 it? Is it not beautiful? Put it aside. You look at 
 me. Don't you think it will do for the young lady 
 at home?" The abrupt English, the colorless accent 
 are something amazing; but the short sentences 
 accumulate Vv^ith deafening ardor. In three minutes 
 it appears that I have made my selection : a shawl, 
 a little rug; only a hundred and fifty rupees. I 
 know Hindu dealers, and I have sense enough left 
 to offer half. Almost before I have mentioned the 
 sum my man cries: "Let's toss up!" That is to say, 
 the price shall be a hundred and fifty rupees if the 
 coin falls head up ; seventy-five, if tails. I refuse. 
 At once the things are mine, and the transaction is 
 so promptly made that it is clear the Hindu is not 
 the loser. 
 
 Now, satisfied, he becomes calm ; and, in another 
 tone of voice, enters upon a new subject. It appears 
 that this evening, at the hotel, I am to have the 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 189 
 
 honor of meeting a duchess. All the shawl-dealers 
 have been on the alert since her arrival ; and each 
 one, watching her, keeps watch upon his rivals as 
 well. My man begs that I will speak of him at the 
 table d'hôte. "Give and take," he says; and to per- 
 suade me, offers as a present a cap whose silver he 
 exhibits in the light. Treating me as a friend, he 
 confides the fact that he has a stock of shawls worth 
 three lacs of rupees, showing me also diplomas from 
 English Expositions. 
 
 It is easy to see that these Orientals do not know 
 the feeling of shame. It appears that honor and 
 conscience are products of the West, which cannot 
 be elaborated here. All beg for baksheesh with 
 clasped hands; and in the most serious and the 
 richest of them, you may find a beggar and a thief. 
 
 December 16. 
 
 Taking a carriage, I go to visit the Kutab-Minar, 
 the great tower which is ten miles distant from 
 Delhi. 
 
 Our road is an Asiatic Appian Way. Ruins from 
 every century, left by three races and three religions, 
 strew a great, melancholy plain. Fragments of 
 ancient Hindu Delhi, of Afghan Delhi, of Mongol 
 Delhi, cover a dead extent of seventy miles square. 
 Slowly, in the course of centuries, the city has 
 changed its site, as a river changes its bed. As far 
 as the eye can see, among the withered brushwood, 
 rise ruinous domes and broken columns. These 
 yellowish heaps are the remains of Indra-Partha, the 
 city of Indra, for which the five brothers of Maha- 
 
1 90 IN INDIA. 
 
 barata fought, three thousand years ago ! Further 
 on a granite pier, covered with faded characters, 
 proclaims the edicts of the Buddhist king Asoka. 
 Everywhere, like tombs in a cemetery, are heaped 
 the fragments of Mongol art, monumental mausolea, 
 domes surrounded with kiosks, all discolored by 
 time, brought to a uniform tint with the sad and 
 withered vegetation, all taken back by nature. A 
 few tombs are as imposing as Akbar's at Secundra, 
 and rise solitary amid the arid steppe. The blue 
 peacocks wandering about them are the only liv- 
 ing things that haunt the spot. Generations have 
 swarmed here, and of their dead life there remains 
 this imperceptible residue; as it takes centuries of 
 forest growth to make a thin stratum of coal. The 
 Vedic age, the Brahmanic age, the Buddhist age, 
 the first Musalman dynasties, the Mongol epoch — 
 each historic period has left, so to speak, its small 
 deposit. 
 
 This is the history of the Kutab: four ancient 
 Hindu forts, still quite recognizable, once inclosed 
 a great city with its Buddhist temples, where monks 
 in yellow robes with shaven heads went peacefully 
 to and fro ; of this period there remains a huge iron 
 post, having on it Sanskrit inscriptions. About the 
 year looo, over the Himalayan wall came the first 
 Musalman hordes. The city was razed, and from 
 the stone of its great temple was built a mosque, 
 whose ruins lie around us.* Here is a triple colon- 
 nade in which have been recognized the old Bud- 
 dhist piers and the patient, complicated, confused 
 
 * About 1 193. 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 191 
 
 labor of the poor Hindu workman. These stones 
 are very deeply cut, and are loaded with chasing, 
 half effaced by time. Here and there symbolic fig- 
 ures have been mutilated by the higher morality of 
 the conquering race. By degrees you accustom 
 yourself to read what the blurred stone has to say, 
 the lines grow clearer. You can discern processions 
 of gods surrounded by guards and worshippers; 
 then animals, tigers, monkeys, and elephants, which 
 very early seem to have greatly attracted the 
 Hindu mind. These thousands of blocks of stone, 
 once forming irregular chapels and grooved roofs, 
 the Musalmans employed in colonnades, rectangular 
 galleries, simple geometric rows. Upon the great 
 bare walls, cabalistic figures, letters like birds' tracks, 
 thundered against the blasphemer. Above it all, 
 dominating the immense cemetery of the plain, 
 inviolate by time, the Kutab sends up, two hun- 
 dred and fifty feet high, its shaft of red stone and 
 white marble. Up there, six centuries ago, when 
 yonder sun sank behind that horizon, the sharp cry 
 of the muezzin was wont to break the silence of the 
 great plains. 
 
 Jaipur, December 17. 
 At eight in the morning I take the Rajputana 
 express; a curious phrase that, and significant of 
 many things! The exteriors of this civilization of 
 English India are very brilliant. Except at Benares, 
 where you see exactly the same spectacles that were 
 to be seen two thousand years ago, in all the cities 
 that I have visited so far, in Calcutta, Lucknow, 
 Cawnpur, Agra, the beauty and neatness of the ave- 
 
192 IN INDIA. 
 
 nues, the wealth of the villas, the luxury of private 
 and public gardens, the comfort and number of 
 hotels, the multitude of carriages, the grand scale of 
 the railway stations, would do honor to a great Euro- 
 pean city. The question remains to what depth 
 this English life has penetrated the Hindu world. 
 
 All around is the same vast plain, where slender 
 grasses grow feebly in the sand. This is the limit 
 of the vegetable world. A few leagues westward 
 the desert, the gloomy, yellow waste, begins. 
 
 And now, the sharp and simple outlines of sandy 
 mountains rise here and there from the level of the 
 plain like precipitous islets emerging from the sea. 
 There are no spurs, no preliminary undulations of 
 the ground. I observed in the Red Sea a similar 
 efïect; the promontory of Sinai, emerging on the 
 edge of the blue horizon designed in the arid air an 
 outline no less clear and hard. From time to time, 
 long lines of camels announced that the nomad 
 world, the world of the tent, was near. 
 
 About two o'clock, at Ulwar, the aspect of the 
 country becomes more fresh and animated. Great 
 gray monkeys are playing in the grass. Near the 
 station are the eternal blue peacocks, which seem to 
 people all the Northwest of India. While the train 
 stops, I observe a group of women leaning against 
 a gate. The youngest, wrapped in a red garment, 
 has the beautiful oval face and the colorless com- 
 plexion of a Florentine of the Renaissance. The 
 features are of classic regularity, with that inexpres- 
 sible gravity and dignity we meet so often here 
 among low-caste women. There is nothing savage 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 193 
 
 or inferior in these types, of the purest Aryan stamp. 
 This one stood motionless, so calm, so serious, her 
 great sombre eyes full of concentrated passion. 
 
 Two British soldiers, of the Scots Greys, came 
 into my compartment. The fine types of race ! 
 Each man as tall and stout as two Hindus; solid, 
 well set-up, buttoned tight in their gray jackets. 
 Nor are they simply fine, healthy animals. This 
 flesh is all muscle, hardened by training. Their 
 faces, under the Scotch caps, are full of frankness 
 and honesty. Features strong, well cut, expressive, 
 complexions clear, gestures to the point, and made 
 quietly. Their moral and physical training has 
 given them a certain repose of manner, a certain 
 dignity, a stamp of "the gentleman." During the 
 eight hours' journey from Ulmar to Jaipur they 
 remained silent and impassive, speaking once only, 
 to refuse a glass of wine ! Evidently they are 
 "teetotalers." 
 
 I was looking over a book by a Bengali on the 
 English establishment in India, and from time to 
 time my eyes left the book to observe the two 
 Scots; they aided me in understanding it. In that 
 peculiar mental condition, stimulated and yet slightly 
 confused, which is caused by sleeplessness and con- 
 tinuous, rapid motion on the railway ; in that half 
 fever which accelerates at the same time that it 
 blurs the associations of ideas, their faces interested 
 me strangely. I seemed to see, in these soldiers 
 that chance had thus thrown in my way, not indi- 
 vidual personalities, but the type itself of the race 
 now mistress in the peninsula' — the pure, complete, 
 
194 IN INDIA. 
 
 developed type ; and their faces were to me as a liv- 
 ing expression of the British soul. I could read in 
 them the calm, decided will, the tenacity, the habit 
 of self-control, the enthusiastic pride underlying the 
 other qualities, and the practical aptitudes which, 
 in England, have doubled the active force of the 
 human being and his grasp upon realities. 
 
 And with this, whiffs of England came into my 
 head ; separate, simple images coming, one by one : 
 a November evening, in a little chapel on the 
 Devonshire coast ; outside, the black water, splash- 
 ing in the darkness ; here, the whole village crowded 
 into a hall of bare pine boards, all heads turned 
 toward a man of the village who is preaching ; hard 
 faces, ploughed with wrinkles; rows of old fisher- 
 men clasping their Bibles with gaunt, trembling 
 hands: then, the yellow atmosphere of the city, at 
 the hour when the streets are black with the crowd : 
 again, young men in white flannel throwing balls in 
 grayish fields: long lines of great misty vessels on 
 a dull-colored river, whose leaden mirror gleams 
 dolefully through a fog: brick cities, drowned in a 
 sluggish smoke rising from ten thousand factory 
 chimneys. 
 
 Then these confused images blend and disappear; 
 and, without transition, as if one turned the mental 
 stereoscope, in a rosy light, a great muddy river 
 appears; the divine Ganges is flowing past its two 
 thousand pagodas, at Benares, and on its banks 
 the inert crowd of Brahmans, sitting on their 
 heels. 
 
 The Thames below London, the Ganges at 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 195 
 
 Benares — in the presence of this contrast one 
 measures the abyss separating the two races which 
 here we see placed together. In the depths of the 
 English soul, as great Englishmen have made it 
 visible to us — Cromwell or Milton, Wordsworth or 
 Carlyle — and as we see it still more clearly in their 
 works of art, where the type, pure and clear, is 
 thrown into stronger relief than in the real world, in 
 Robinson Crusoe or in Tom Tulliver, one perceives 
 a strong and almost changeless personality; a stead- 
 fast will, supported by a few permanent and power- 
 ful sentiments, a solid axis, on which everything 
 rests. They all conceive life as a series of prescribed 
 acts, whose aim is to ameliorate the condition, to 
 augment the well-being, and to perfect the moral 
 nature. This ideal, with an admirable enthusiasm, 
 and with a narrowness of mind which seems the 
 penalty of her active virtues, England sets before 
 India; multiplying schools for boys and girls, 
 colleges, and universities ; and ruining herself with 
 missionaries. It is said that the results are meagre 
 and that English culture produces only miserable 
 failures: Chunder Dutt, the Bengali whom I have 
 just now been reading, is a specimen of the con- 
 verted babu ; he imagines no other model than the 
 English. Hence, he demands the complete applica- 
 tion of the English moral code; he denounces femi- 
 nine dress and the promiscuous dip in the sacred 
 rivers. Here is the idea of this Bengali, who aspires 
 to be the English clergyman :* to have the sacred 
 shore of the ancient river divided by barriers and 
 placards, "Ladies on one side, gentlemen on the 
 
196 IN INDIA. 
 
 Other." But this invention denotes a lack of culture 
 and the critical faculty. Chunder Dutt, who has 
 read Macaulay, has not read Renan. However, this 
 scandal is not about to cease. The success of the 
 missionaries in India is really very small. It has 
 been estimated that every Hindu conversion costs 
 England a thousand pounds sterling; and however 
 sincere the convert may be, and however hard he 
 may strive to make himself as an Englishman, it is 
 certain that all he can do is only to assume a dis- 
 guise. For the intellectual and moral habits of 
 a people, like the organs of a plant, are conditioned 
 upon a certain combination of circumstances which 
 is infinitely complex, and in which the principal ele- 
 ment is the entire series of its antecedents. All 
 their past has made them what they are. 
 
 Ah! ancient ascetics, profound dreamers, who 
 sought, twenty centuries ago, to tear away the rain- 
 bow-hued veil which illusion weaves over the dark 
 reality ; who renounced all personal desire, to shelter 
 yourselves in indifference and immobility; with 
 what a smile of disdainful pity would you regard 
 that Western race which now rules in your land ! 
 They do not believe that the world is a dream, these 
 newcomers. They have not ceased from saying: "I 
 am." They rejoice in their strength, and their will 
 obtains its gratification. They act, they build upon 
 this world which they believe of rock, and you be- 
 lieve is shifting sand. What would you say of their 
 haste and fever? What would you say of these 
 ships loaded with this world's goods; of these trains 
 which devour the distance, as if it were of any con- 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 197 
 
 sequence to change one's place, to go any whither? 
 But above all, what would you say of this meagre 
 English philosophy, which vegetates in yonder land 
 of fogs where there is no luxuriance of nature ; and 
 of this theistic heresy, which they propose to natu- 
 ralize in the home of broad speculation? This, at 
 least, is certain : you would make no attempt to 
 enlighten them, blinded by Maya. You would 
 leave them to their ignorant goings to and fro, to 
 their pride ; and, slowly closing your eyes, you 
 would return with delight to your solitary dream, to 
 your tranquillizing contemplation of the eternal and 
 motionless! 
 
 It is certain that the English stratum is greatly in 
 evidence in India, even in the states which are inde- 
 pendent. There is always an "English Church," 
 severe and unadorned, like those which keep guard 
 over the country in England. At the spacious rail- 
 way stations, colonists in shooting jackets are read- 
 ing eight-paged "papers." Placards announce "a 
 match between the cricketers of Lucknow and the 
 champions of Allahabad"; or races at Ahmedabad 
 and Baroda. Other placards advertise a machine 
 which turns out ten thousand bottles of soda water 
 daily. The romances of Ouida and of Walter 
 Besant lie on a counter. 
 
 Meantime women, clad as were the Hindu con- 
 temporaries of Homer, their ankles, ears, and noses 
 adorned with rings, carry stoneware jars. Warriors 
 go by, bristling with sabres, loaded with bucklers ; 
 and we are upon the territory of a prince who, at 
 Bindrabund, is erecting a pagoda to Krishna. 
 
ipS IN INDIA, 
 
 December i8. 
 At Calcutta, English India; at Benares, the India 
 of the Brahmans; at Agra, the India of the Grand 
 Moguls; here, the India of the rajahs, the India 
 of novels and the opera — fairy-like and incredible. 
 The Rapjutana is a very ancient Hindu kingdom, 
 resembling those which covered the peninsula before 
 the Musalman establishments in the early centuries 
 of our era. It has never been conquered. Against 
 the diverse races who have ruled in India, the 
 Rajputs have maintained their independence. 
 They are still the Aryan people that they were in 
 the fabulous time of the Ramâyana. Across a hun- 
 dred and thirty-nine generations, the rajah claims 
 descent from the sun, who was father of the great 
 Rama; and he still governs according to the law of 
 Manu, as did the Hindu kings, his ancestors, who 
 lived before Caesar. The nobles are of a race equally 
 good, like himself descendants of the sun and moon, 
 and the early history of the great Rajput families is 
 lost in the night of time. The population, organized, 
 as in the primitive days, in clans, in tribes, is of noble 
 race, of white race. Every Rajput is by birth a 
 Kshatriya, belonging to that caste of Aryan Avarriors 
 who recognize no superiors but the Brahmans. 
 Hence a man of the country esteems himself the 
 equal of his princes. He is called "the king's son." 
 His character is proud, manly, honorable ; he has a 
 horse, a lance, and a shield ; in battle he follows the 
 chief of his clan, and loyally stands by his father, 
 the king, in defence of the gods and the country. 
 Even from the hotel, outside the city, you 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 199 
 
 recognize a very original world. Low, yellowish 
 hills, all crowned with strongholds and crenellated 
 towers, encircle the horizon, A mediaeval stage- 
 scene was not a thing to be expected in the tropics. 
 Along the road, through the crowd of little donkeys, 
 past troops of women who sing as they walk, horse- 
 men, mounted on fine Arab steeds, a round buckler 
 at the belt, a sabre at the side, coififed with red tur- 
 bans, their great beards parted in the middle and 
 spreading out, flattened and bristling, at the right 
 and left, prance with an air of the most audacious 
 courage. Nothing of that gentle, indolent, dreamy 
 expression which I have so often seen in India. 
 This is a very active world : people on foot, horse- 
 men, camels, elephants, heavy carts, small donkeys, 
 crowd the roads, and all this crowd is noisy, and 
 glittering in the dust and sunshine. 
 
 After half an hour on the way, we arrive at the 
 postern of the fortified wall surrounding the city. 
 I pass under high bastions, cross a drawbridge, then 
 a little inner courtyard, where kneeling camels are 
 waiting to be unloaded, and of a sudden, I emerge 
 into the scenery of an opera, misty, light, fantastic, 
 charming, indescribable. 
 
 The first thing you are conscious of is the pink 
 color of the picture. Let the reader supply this 
 color as I attempt to describe what I beheld. Let 
 him imagine a street a hundred and twenty feet 
 wide, and two miles long, bordered with pink 
 houses, pink temples, pink palaces, pink bell-towers, 
 and pavilions, the pink a most delicate rose-color, 
 and this street so straight that to its very end you 
 
200 IN INDIA. 
 
 see the houses, shops, façades, in perfect alignment 
 succeeding each other, growing indistinct in the dis- 
 tance, vanishing in a mist of this same extraordinary 
 pink. There is not a spot of dark color anywhere, 
 not a European carriage, nothing but the multi- 
 colored twinkling of the crowd. On the sidewalks 
 to the right and left, as far as you can see, it is a 
 bazaar in the open air, a row of dealers seated on the 
 ground, and, upon blue and red rugs which are 
 spread out upon the pavement, a great display of 
 shining objects — slippers embroidered with silver, 
 piles of oranges and bananas, painted images, stuffs 
 splashed with sunshine. To right and left all is 
 graceful and luminous ; one could spend a day walk- 
 ing through the streets, and it would be a pleasure 
 to retain an exact memory of each detail. The eye 
 cannot be satisfied with seeing. Vainly I cry to my 
 coachman : Hasta! hasta (Slowly ! slowly !) we still 
 go too fast ; and to his great disgust, I leave the 
 carriage, that I may saunter at will. 
 
 Rajput nobles and functionaries, adorned as for a 
 play, clothed in embroidery, loaded with feathers 
 and jewels, their imposing beards skilfully spread 
 out fanwise ; handsome, well-groomed horses; ro- 
 mantic soldiers, with shield and sword ; students, 
 guards, women of the people, sometimes carrying a 
 naked baby astride on the hip : all go by in a light 
 mist which is the evaporation of the heavy dew. 
 
 From the edge of their stalls, the little dealers 
 stretch out their arms to me, offering, Avith a pretty 
 smile, marble statuettes, pictures of gods hastily 
 daubed, yet not without spirit and expression. The 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 20 1 
 
 walls are all tattooed with designs in blue: ele- 
 phants, leopards, trees, locomotives, Europeans 
 very stiff, buttoned tight in ridiculous frock-coats. 
 There are grown men flying kites and running about 
 the streets, like schoolboys. And all this whimsical 
 people, laughing and playing, this boyish, artistic 
 people, seem created by a poet's comic caprice, in a 
 dream world where all must be light, droll, gay, airy, 
 and none of the sad and hateful realities of life 
 should remain. 
 
 In this world men live like brothers with the ani- 
 mals, those good souls that are more simple and more 
 tranquil than we. See the strings of little donkeys 
 with their little trot, the gentle camels of slow and 
 undulating gait, lifting their long womanish necks 
 above the crowd ; the flocks of gray monkeys upon 
 the roofs; the peaceful cows with great greenish 
 horns, themselves white, statuesque, as if carved in 
 marble. There are small dogs, colored yellow, blue, 
 or pink. Further, in a large open square, a crowded 
 population of pigeons, lighting by myriads, cover 
 the ground with a dense, undulating, bluish floor, 
 which opens as the heavy bulk of an elephant, 
 caparisoned with red, passes through. Among all 
 these living animals, here and there are altars for 
 their worship ; tiny tabernacles filled with little 
 bulls, little elephants, little monkeys. This square 
 is at the intersection of two streets, which meet at 
 right angles, the other street just as broad, as 
 straight, as pink as the one we have followed. 
 Here, at the foot of temples guarded by elephants 
 in stone, there is a great confusion of passers-by, of 
 
202 IN INDIA. 
 
 flowers, of donkeys, camels, horsemen, and dealers. 
 Among the crowd of pigeons picking up their food, 
 there are a hundred cows peacefully reposing, in- 
 different to all the stir around them ; boys, standing, 
 hold up tall branches that fill the space with ver- 
 dure : these the worshippers buy, and lay them be- 
 fore the cows, who accept this homage as their due, 
 and munch serenely. From the tops of trees hang 
 earthen vases green with moss, on which alight 
 flocks of parrots, their pretty round heads ringed 
 with red. 
 
 Suddenly, a prancing of horses. What is this 
 proud cavalcade which comes into the square? The 
 fine animals with their lustrous coats, the handsome 
 cavaliers with glittering weapons ! This is the 
 brother of the rajah, followed by his barons, pre- 
 ceded by his men-at-arms, who run on foot, carrying 
 halberds. A velvet cap over one ear, in a green 
 embroidered tunic, the prince manages his capering 
 horse. For an instant I see him, a bold and noble 
 face, which shows the grand ancestry, the good 
 blood, the instinct of command. He is a true 
 Kshatriya, lineal descendant of the first conquerors 
 of India. 
 
 Meanwhile, the elephants come back to their 
 stable. Here are seven, rugged and sombre colossi, 
 taciturn philosophers, full of slowness, superior to 
 all the beings who are scurrying about them. One 
 by one they disappear under a porch, brushing the 
 ground with their trunks, each with three cornacs 
 on his massive head, with its huge flapping ears. 
 Bending the knee, as with a human gait, gently 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 203 
 
 setting down their big, soft feet, they pass, silent as 
 shadows. What profound thought in those sad, 
 heavy heads, and how they ignore this inferior 
 population of men and beasts who scatter before 
 them ! It is comprehensible, as you see them, that 
 Ganesa, the wise god, should have an elephant's 
 head. 
 
 At every instant the pictures change; I try to 
 note this one as it flies: before a lofty door of the 
 palace, into which disappear pachyderms, camels, 
 a whole city full of men, the air is thick with falcons. 
 They whirl and scream before the red image of the 
 elephant god, which sleeps in a niche over the porch ; 
 and shrill trumpets make a Hindu music. 
 
 All around the square are temples, monuments, 
 university, palaces ; one, among the rest, of a singu- 
 larly vivid rose-color, rising in the form of a pyra- 
 mid, bristles with a nine-storied façade, composed 
 of a hundred bell-turrets, and sixty-four projecting 
 windows, adorned with colonnettes and balconies, 
 pierced in open-work with countless flowers cut out 
 in the stone; a vaporous, airy, impossible construc- 
 tion. This is the palace of the Wind — the palace of 
 the Wind? How enchanting the name! There is, 
 also, on a beautiful little hill outside the city, the 
 palace of the Clouds ; and on another hill the temple 
 of the Sun. The rose-colored gate at the other end 
 of Jaipur is called the gate of Rubies. This is clearly 
 the city of a fairy tale. A trumpet-call ! A brazen 
 voice which makes one look around. Running very 
 rapidly, comes a merry funeral train ; comes the 
 corpse closely wrapped in white gauze; come the 
 
204 IN INDIA. 
 
 bearers who carry it, slung from bamboos; comes 
 the family, leaping, clashing cymbals, screaming out 
 the sacred syllable : "Ram ! Ram !" They have all 
 gone by, disappeared, the noisy troop! Now there 
 are greyhounds in a leash, with crimson blankets, 
 from the royal gardens where, on camp-beds, lie 
 asleep the hunting leopards and lynxes of his High- 
 ness. Strange, lean, supple creatures, these grey- 
 hounds ; very noble, with a keen light in their pierc- 
 ing eyes, as, with rough tongue, they lick the hand 
 their attendant holds out to them. Not far dis- 
 tant I see a wedding party; fifty women, clothed 
 in silky yellow, seated on the ground, are chanting, 
 and the bride, a slip of a girl, ten years old, stands 
 alone in the centre. At the end of the street, be- 
 hind a grating, which makes a façade upon the side- 
 walk, in the presence of the passing crowd, ten man- 
 eaters, ten royal tigers, with lowered heads, measure 
 with long, gentle steps the cage to which, after due 
 form of law, they have been sentenced. They well 
 deserve their title of sahibs, "lords," these beasts. 
 The greatest beauty of them all is the assassin of 
 sixteen women. I have the same feeling at sight of 
 the formidable, gloomy head, the sinuous, gliding 
 back, the suppleness of the thick muscles, the pos- 
 sible snap of the terrible jaws, the tawny splendor 
 of the coat made of living light, that I had in Ceylon, 
 before the sheaf of bamboos springing up into the 
 flaming sky. 
 
 Among this multitude of images crowding one 
 upon another, a sight which is incessantly repeated 
 never loses its charm. You are never tired of admir- 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 205 
 
 ing the suppleness and freshness of nude youthful 
 figures. The slender, curving torsos of the children, 
 both boys and girls, are adorable. The long black 
 tresses fall over the pretty, wild, timid face, and over 
 the delicately modelled chest. You are conscious 
 of the strength and health of the young muscles and 
 the pure blood. It is something perfect. The light 
 and shade are harmoniously blent upon the smooth 
 bronze of the skin, all enveloped in sunshine and 
 atmosphere. The young women, half nude, know 
 how to adjust their drapery with extreme grace. 
 There is nothing more delightful to the eye, more 
 simple and tranquil, than these folds of soft stuff. 
 In the little girls, who are extremely slender, you 
 can see the peaceful undulation of the interior frame- 
 work. They also, even the very youngest, carry 
 upon the head handsome round jars, which they 
 hold with stretched arms, lifted as high as possible, 
 the chest dilated with the effort, and the bronze skin 
 all lustrous in the sunHght. 
 
 I enter a temple whose broad steps descend 
 into the square. Below, kneeling camels are asleep 
 and dogs lie upon the steps, stretched out in the 
 sun. I ascend and enter a court, where cows 
 wander freely over the marble pavement. In a 
 corner are the two sacred trees, the male and female 
 banian, the latter called ÛiQ pipala. An old woman 
 is running rapidly around the first one, and another 
 woman is pouring a little water upon the leaves of 
 the second. On one side, a second courtyard has 
 a gallery supported by columns. There, in the 
 shadow, a red group of seated women listen quietly 
 
^o6 IN INDIA. 
 
 to the nasal chant of a priest reading the Ramâyana. 
 The pretty, regular faces, seen under their wraps, 
 scarcely look absorbed in meditation. Every 
 creature is perfectly at home in the temple: the 
 priest seated on his heels, garlanded with flowers, 
 swings his body to and fro to the rhythm of what 
 he reads. Quantities of sparrows are pecking here 
 and there, and large crows hop awkwardly upon the 
 backs of the drowsy cows. Strictly characteristic 
 of Hinduism is this worship in the open air, this 
 sacred place which is at once a cow-house, an 
 aviary, and a temple. An intense light strikes upon 
 the walls, on which are rudely set forth in blue 
 paint the adventures of five hundred gods. Behind 
 the priest, at the end of the gallery, is a dark taber- 
 nacle wherein the idol is visible, a small, black-faced 
 doll, Paravati, attired in red and guarded by two 
 lions. Beneath, her husband, the formidable Siva, 
 is represented only by his emblematic stone. Here 
 childless women come to pray, and young girls who 
 desire to be married. 
 
 Opposite the temple, on the other side of the 
 great square with its seething crowd of men and 
 beasts, stands the maharajah's college. I was admir- 
 ing its façade, eccentric and rose-colored like that of 
 the palace of the Wind, when a student invited me 
 to enter. I was introduced to the principal, whom 
 I found seated in a little dark cabinet surrounded 
 by books. A Hindu face — very gentle, refined, a 
 little anxious-looking — the air of a student, thin, 
 stooping, clad in a long black tunic. With quiet 
 gestures, and in a few words of perfect English, he 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 207 
 
 made me welcome, and conducted me to the class- 
 rooms. The higher examinations being near, the 
 students who were preparing for them had remained 
 at home, and we saw only the pupils of the first and 
 second year. In great pillared halls, little groups 
 of these boys were gathered around their instructors. 
 There were neither chairs, nor benches, nor desks. 
 All rose at our entrance, and bowed low, twice 
 touching their lips with a graceful and eager gesture. 
 In one hall, however, the boys remained seated ; 
 these, the principal explained to me, are the sons of 
 the rajah and of his nobles; and, being descended 
 from Rama and the sun, are not expected to salute 
 a visitor. 
 
 The whole instruction here is gratuitous, and the 
 examinations give entrance to government careers. 
 The students are taught mathematics, the English 
 language and literature, the dialects of India, and 
 the Persian language. For the higher classes there 
 is also instruction in Sanskrit, Pali, the Brahmanic, 
 Buddhist, and Persian philosophies and the philoso- 
 phies of modern Europe. Spencer and Stuart Mill 
 are read as classics. 
 
 The principal, who is a Bengali, is ready to con- 
 verse, and seems well-informed as to what is going 
 on, not only in England but in the rest of Europe. 
 He speaks admiringly of Burnouf, of Barthélémy 
 St. Hilaire, of Bergaigne, of the great French Sans- 
 kritists. As a rule, he says, India knows Europe 
 only through England. "A young student who 
 enters on the higher studies begins with the English 
 classics:. Shakespeare, Milton (a good beginning for 
 
2o8 /A^ INDIA. 
 
 a Hindu brain), then, and especially, Addison, Pope; 
 later, the philosophers and economists, Locke, 
 Hume, Adam Smith, Burke; all the thinkers of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, down to Her- 
 bert Spencer, whose influence is very great. In 
 respect to France and Germany, we know them 
 only at second hand. In general we do not know 
 the languages of these two countries. And still we 
 are beginning to admire something outside of Eng- 
 land ; and if Hegel and Fichte are unfamiliar to us, 
 we study the Oriental philosophies, especially the 
 Upanishads, the ancient Vedantism, where we find 
 included all Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Schopen- 
 hauer." 
 
 By degrees he becomes animated, and I seem to 
 detect in him a fund of enthusiasm for the old 
 metaphysics of his country. "Within the last five 
 or six years," he says, "there has been a reaction in 
 its favor. Under English influence, writers in Cal- 
 cutta (the school of the Brahmos) have denounced 
 the immoralities and follies of the Hindu religion. 
 We now begin to recognize that under its extrava- 
 gances is hidden a profound idea, and you will see 
 that it is defended by our scholars and thinkers. 
 We aspire to be ourselves. Observe the maharajah, 
 who has introduced English ideas, has given us a 
 college in Jaipur, a museum, and an industrial 
 school; he does nothing against Hinduism. In his 
 palace at Amber, there is always the sacrifice of 
 goats to Kali. But beneath the symbol, he sees the 
 idea; we distinguish the spirit beneath the letter, 
 the thought contained in the religious forms which 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 209 
 
 appeal to the multitude. There is a reaction 
 against the English theism which young Bengal, 
 that is to say, the intellectual élite of India, had 
 Avelcomed with too great enthusiasm. We feel that 
 we have something of our own, original and more 
 profound. That we read and admire Herbert 
 Spencer is because he criticises the idea of a per- 
 sonal God as one of the forms of anthropomorphism." 
 
 Does this Hindu speak truly? Is it possible that 
 India, becoming once more conscious of herself, is 
 throwing off the intellectual yoke of England? 
 Does she propose to bring forward her idea of life 
 and the world, in opposition to the English concep- 
 tion? Is it possible that in the peace enjoyed under 
 English rule, the Hindu brain, so long paralyzed by 
 Muhammadan oppression, once more begins to 
 work? And if so, what will come of it? 
 
 Meanwhile it is interesting to see the poles of 
 humanity thus brought face to face — English energy, 
 practical will, and positive sense, and Hindu specula- 
 tion and tendency to the metaphysical dream which 
 makes thought triumphant, sovereign over desire 
 and illusions, and kills the active faculties. 
 
 December 19. 
 A day devoted to the gratification of the eye, 
 first, wandering alone through this astonishing pink 
 street, filling the soul with the delight of color, 
 intoxicating myself with the whimsicalities of this 
 Jaipur. Then, outside the town, Ave take the road 
 leading to Amber, a pretty white ribbon, lying amid 
 the verdure of strange thick-leaved plants, as tall as 
 
2IO IN- INDIA. 
 
 little trees. With their spiny, fat tennis-rackets of 
 leaves, they cover the ground for a great distance ; 
 a stiff, immovable vegetation which seems that of 
 some other planet. From the midst of it arise 
 ancient structures, innumerable kiosks and pavilions 
 of marble, shining in the good sunlight. Red and 
 blue troops of men and women are gayly moving 
 along the road. 
 
 I have never seen so many and so handsome 
 peacocks. They wander in the road, the sap- 
 phire in their plumage gleaming softly in the 
 light. These birds are v^ild, yet perfectly tame; 
 they belong to no one, and live unmolested among 
 the human beings. Like all harmless creatures, 
 they are sacred to the good Hindus, who count it a 
 religious duty to feed them. "They do no harm," 
 Cheddy says to me soberly. "English very naughty, 
 throw stones at them." 
 
 Further on, a deserted palace, green with wild 
 vegetation, seems to rest upon the mirror of a stag- 
 nant pond, whose black, infected water gives back 
 a dull reflection. On its shore crocodiles lie motion- 
 less, asleep. All about us the graceful, sunny hills 
 are relieved against a tranquil blue sky. The sun is 
 not too hot, the air subtle, light, exhilarating. 
 
 Six P. M. We make a hurried visit to the maha- 
 rajah's palace, the stables where a hundred Arab 
 horses paw the ground, the kennels, the chained ele- 
 phants, the greenhouses; and then it is time to say 
 good-by to the pink city. Near the railway station, 
 a little Rajput schoolboy, loaded with his Hindu- 
 stani books, bids me a delicious "Good afternoon !" 
 
DELHI. JAIPUR. 2IÎ 
 
 In the train, at once repossessed by the European 
 environment, one has a feeling of having come out 
 from a brilliant theatre, from a spectacle made to 
 amuse, to divert from real life, like one of Shake- 
 speare's comedies, or like a pastoral of Watteau. 
 An operetta-world, the world of a dream : this 
 patriarchal community, these clans, these cavalcades 
 of nobles, the children of the sun ; this wise king, 
 beloved by his little nation, tyrannical — for instance, 
 one may not photograph at Jaipur without the 
 rajah's express permission — and paternal ; these 
 warriors, with lance and shield, with their whimsical 
 beards and showy dress ; the happy, laughing 
 people ; the blue dogs, the hunting leopards and 
 lynxes. It is the stage-scene of an operetta, these 
 streets crushed-strawberry color, the pink houses 
 which you cannot believe are really stone, the crenel- 
 lated castles on the hills, the light, fantastic struc- 
 tures, the palace of the Wind, the palace of the 
 Clouds, the gate of Rubies, the hall of Splendors, 
 the humid greenhouses full of a fresh odor of 
 vaporous ferns, the fields covered with thick-leaved 
 plants, the blue peacocks popping out from thickets, 
 the deserted kiosks on the shore of dark pools. It 
 is an operetta-existence, where nothing is serious, or 
 heavy, or sad, that is lived by this laughing, artist- 
 population, who do no other work than carve little 
 gods and little beasts in marble, embroider slippers 
 with silver, illuminate their walls with blue designs, 
 bestride Arab horses, feed the birds of the air, fly 
 kites, and enjoy, in full security, the light of day and 
 the goodness of things. Yes, a happy, simplified, 
 
212 m INDIA. 
 
 childish h'fe, which lacks only its orchestra, chorus, 
 and ballet, and whose dazzling poetic vision clings 
 in one's memory, as he turns away toward the dark- 
 ness and the sadness of our Europe. 
 
 The hills have closed in about the charming city. 
 Now a golden dust floats in the air. A solitary 
 heron stands motionless on the edge of a lake, which 
 is all rose-color and blue in the twilight radiance. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BOMBAY. 
 
 December 21. 
 
 Thirty-SIX hours of railway. As we advance 
 southward, toward the great English city, the train 
 becomes crowded : fat babus, important native mer- 
 chants, encumber the carriages with their travel- 
 ling-bags, loll indolently and insolently upon the 
 cushions. The third-class are crammed with a 
 Hindu crowd, chattering, laughing, and conversing. 
 For luggage they have only their brass jars, engraved 
 Virith figures of Krishna and Ganesa. At the 
 stations Brahmans, loaded with leathern bottles, 
 come to refill these jars. Only the Brahmans can 
 perform this duty, for a Kshatriya travelling would 
 be defiled by drinking water which a Sudra had 
 poured out. But everybody can touch what the 
 Brahman has touched. Be his duties ever so servile, 
 the Brahman remains a Brahman, preserving his 
 supernatural virtue ; the superiority of caste re- 
 mains, whatever the inferiority of occupation. 
 
 There is little to notice. In these long journeys 
 the mind, blurred by the multitude of images lately 
 perceived, becomes somnolent, and is interested in 
 nothing. Cities rapidly seen, Baroda, Ahmedabad, 
 great railway stations, tiffins, breakfasts with the 
 
214 IN' INDIA. 
 
 everlasting curry, the simple outlines of blue moun- 
 tains. Athwart all this, the same arid country ; and, 
 perpetually, the amazing troops of monkeys leaping 
 in the tall brush. 
 
 The second morning, as I awake, there is a sur- 
 prise. Suddenly you seem to be in Ceylon again. 
 Again the moist region, hot, stormy ; the great 
 equatorial vegetation. Everywhere there is water. 
 Dense forests of palm-trees descend toward lagoons, 
 mirror their slender colonnades in the blue estuaries, 
 and their great green leafy coronets, rising in the 
 moist air, make shadowy arches, under which small 
 houses find shelter. The ground is black, marshy, 
 abounding in pools of water. Thousands of large- 
 footed birds people the edges of the marshes and of 
 the salt-water inlets. Here and there, on the west, 
 the water is continuous; roads form and increase in 
 extent, immense spaces of a calm and splendid blue, 
 spotted with islets that seem half-sunken forests, 
 and bordered here with cocoanut groves, there with 
 low hills, which their dense vegetation covers like a 
 thick bluish mist. Now, a great space of the Indian 
 Ocean appears; the space seems to broaden to con- 
 tain all this light. 
 
 Then a clattering of iron; a great uproar; a huge 
 railway terminus; we come into the station of Bori- 
 Bunder; this is Bombay. 
 
 Five P. M. It is extremely warm, with a moist heat 
 as of a greenhouse, very fatiguing and enervating. 
 One has not strength to select and group impres- 
 sions, and, indeed, it is all too varied. This city is 
 composed of several cities, spread out over five 
 
BOMBAY. 215 
 
 islands. It would seem that all the races, all the 
 religions, all the forms of architecture, all the indus- 
 tries of the globe are blended and confused here 
 into an extraordinary mixture, seething and smoking 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 I am sitting on the terrace of a café on the Es- 
 planade. Here, the island is contracted into a very 
 narrow tongue of land, the sea visible on both sides, 
 on the right a great harbor, girt with forests on the 
 remote edge; on the left a broad yellow beach 
 which, curving slightly, stretches away toward a 
 promontory, and dark, shiny clumps of palm-trees. 
 Upon this beach, two miles or so of straight road, 
 which is bordered on the left by immense buildings, 
 Gothic or Venetian, separated from the city by 
 lawns and gardens. 
 
 Along this road by the sea, all the commercial 
 aristocracy of Bombay is now on its way to the 
 Esplanade to enjoy the evening breeze. Here, fac- 
 ing the harbor, the carriages are standing in a crowd, 
 while the Sepoy band plaj^s European airs. Beside 
 the fat Hindus in their white tunics and pink tur- 
 bans, many Englishmen and Parsis, the latter 
 dressed in European style, but grotesquely coiffed 
 .with a mitre of starred pasteboard; also, European 
 and native officers are gathered outside the cafés, 
 sipping their lemonade or cocktails. There are, 
 moreover, many ayahs, Hindu nurses with their 
 babies, adorned like shrines covered with velvet and 
 brocade. 
 
 In the carriages, motionless as at a race, the Parsi 
 ladies sit in state. This is the first glimpse of femi- 
 
2i6 IN INDIA. 
 
 nine "society" in India, The high-caste Hindu 
 women are all mysteriously shut up in the zenanas, 
 and you must go to the dealers to see the silks and 
 costly embroideries of Benares and Delhi. But 
 here they may be seen in the open air and sunlight, 
 draped about the supple and living figure: yonder 
 old lady is clad in one piece of material which en- 
 wraps her from head to foot ; but the material is 
 a heavy crimson silk, fringed with gold. As she 
 moves slightly, it falls in great lustrous folds. They 
 are all thus attired, in Greek style, and have veils of 
 muslin, or of mauve or blue silk, which follow the 
 pure outline of the head, and with their strong, 
 simple color set off the gentleness of Aryan features 
 and the whiteness of soft faces. Languid, leaning 
 far back in their carriages, they await, these opulent 
 Oriental women, with half-closed eyelids, the even- 
 ing breeze which shall reanimate them. 
 
 And there is a marvellous light upon this showy 
 assemblage, a light of a kind that one never observes 
 except in the neighborhood of great spaces of tropi- 
 cal seas, coming from the water, as well as from the 
 sky. I have seen nothing like the sky here, either 
 in Egypt, Ceylon, or the interior of India. It is not 
 at all blue, but is all white, liquid light, full of heat 
 and moisture. 
 
 Now the sun sinks behind Malabar Hill, and in 
 this air, peculiar to Bombay, there are very curious 
 effects of radiation. A rose-colored vapor invades 
 everything, encircles sea and land, and covers the 
 remote forests, which are not relieved against the 
 golden horizon, but vanish into it and disappear. 
 
BOMBAY. 217 
 
 The sun seems to melt as it sinks, and to sink in 
 front of the trees. 
 
 Soon a light breeze springs up, and the roseate 
 water quivers. The great black steamers in a row 
 seem dead things in this universal faint stir. Out 
 toward the open sea, clouds of vessels have spread 
 their wings, and in the silence and the light fly like 
 a dream, so tranquil that they seem to be borne 
 away upon some broad current, as if the whole 
 water were slipping away with them ; and in follow- 
 ing them you forget the Sepoy band, and the parti- 
 colored ground, and the languid Parsi ladies, un- 
 til the little pink swarm is so far, so far away that 
 it seems to be going out of our v/orld, to be rising 
 into space, into those blessed regions where is noth- 
 ing but the calm of ether. 
 
 December 23. 
 
 Certainly it is not easy to describe the aspect of 
 this Bombay, diverse and confused as it is. The 
 eye cannot arrange in order the images which fill it. 
 I write them at random, as they recur this evening 
 after a day spent in the streets. Perhaps this is the 
 only way to give an idea of the whirl of forms and 
 colors, the confusion of races and of religions. 
 
 Everywhere, and at every hour of the day, there 
 is the streaming crowd, more dense than in Benares, 
 a motley crowd wherein are blended all the cos- 
 tumes of Asia; wherein all types of humanity elbow 
 one another; Europeans in coats, the Arab with his 
 fez, Persians, Afghans, thick-lipped negroes, slender 
 Malays, efïeminate Cinhalese, Parsis and Jews, Chi- 
 nese in robes of silk. Probably, since the time of 
 
2l8 IN INDIA. 
 
 Alexander, there has been no such epitome of the 
 entire world, no city so cosmopolitan. There are 
 bits of London here, bits of Benares, bits of Shang- 
 hai. Underneath this flux of foreign races, there is 
 a native substratum of half-naked humanity : fakirs 
 gray with ashes ; letter-writers kneeling on the side- 
 walks; schools receiving instruction in the open air; 
 worshippers bending before sacred images, covering 
 them with native flowers ; coolies who run, balancing 
 packages at the end of a long bamboo ; naked bar- 
 bers who are shaving their customers ; a whole popu- 
 lation of women who serve as porters, girls of low 
 caste, almost négresses, dripping with sweat, their 
 legs bare to the thigh, sitting on the ground in the 
 shade of the walls, a crowd of them together, miser- 
 able-looking objects, stupefied by hard labor; and 
 over everything an atmosphere loaded with vapor. 
 
 I see ancient carts dragged by heavy, patient 
 oxen, amid tram-cars, victorias, palanquins, sedan- 
 chairs. I see walls covered with blue elephants, 
 with placards, in English, Persian, Urdu, Hindu- 
 stani ; mosques. Christian churches, — Anglican, Wes- 
 leyan, Catholic, — Hindu temples, Parsi temples. 
 Railways run along the boulevards, past pagodas 
 bristling with their hundred thousand monsters, 
 past the statue of Her Majesty the Queen, past the 
 Gothic buildings of the University, past the blue 
 expanse where sleep at anchor the great steamers. 
 
 From this mass of images repeated all day long, 
 melting one into another, I essay to detach a few 
 salient pictures. Here is the great market, six 
 o'clock in the morning ; in a fog, shot through with 
 
BOMBAY. 219 
 
 sunlight, three or four thousand men, women, chil- 
 dren, naked or clad in beautiful colors, struggle with 
 each other among the oranges, bananas, pineapples, 
 flowers, amid a deafening clamor which rises from 
 cages of monkeys and baskets of birds ; and, before 
 soft heaps of silvery fish, there are rows of half-nude 
 women with lustrous dark skins, kneeling upon tables. 
 Here are the offices of the railway station at Bori- 
 Bunder, an immense hall, where two hundred em- 
 ployés, leaning over their desks, are blackening 
 paper; or, pen over ear, are searching registers. It 
 might be a great banking house or a public office in 
 Paris; but these men are all Hindus, all worshippers 
 of Siva and Vishnu, marked on the forehead with 
 the religious sign, the three lines drawn with ashes. 
 There is the sea, visible at every street corner, blue, 
 motionless, as in a painted picture. There is the 
 native city — a city in a forest, a crowd of narrow, 
 tortuous streets, under an uninterrupted roof of 
 palms. There is a little street, where a marriage 
 festivity is in progress, crowded with half-clad 
 humanity, which flows slowly like a glutinous wave 
 among the sumptuous crowd of guests whose silk 
 garments are richly lustrous. There are rows and 
 rows of little girls, draped in splendid stuffs, and 
 these small dark heads, with smooth, lustrous bands 
 of hair, so black that it has a blue gleam hke a 
 raven's wing, are strangely grave and childish. The 
 crimson and orange of the sinuous satins flame 
 against a whitish background of smooth limbs and 
 fat torsos of Brahmans, and against innumerable 
 nude figures. And all this crowd makes an eddy in 
 
220 IN INDIA. 
 
 the narrow street, sending out a suffocating heat 
 under the palm-trees which shelter the houses, and 
 the sacred fig-trees, where squirrels run and parrots 
 chatter, as many as the figs. 
 
 At the end of this Hindu city, near the sea, is the 
 hospital for animals. There are kennels of mangy 
 dogs; one very feeble old eagle; some pigeons and 
 parrots; peacocks dragging through the courts the 
 splendors of their tails ; a consumptive porcupine 
 whose dull eyes are pitiful to see; a small crippled 
 deer; and halls filled with blind cows. Through 
 this curious menagerie wander idly many Brahmans, 
 perpetually chewing betel, and living as brothers 
 among these sufferers, these animals who are sacred 
 because they manifest for an instant Siva the Inde- 
 structible, because they are sparks in the vibrating 
 flame of life. "Health, O cow!" says a powerful 
 mantra, "thou mother of Rudra, sister of Aditrya, 
 source of Ambrosia!" 
 
 Returning through the broad streets of the busi- 
 ness town, you observe a very curious blending of 
 English and Hindu life. Great walls are covered 
 with placards like these: "Theistic Bombay Tem- 
 porary Relief Association." " Hindu Cricket Club." 
 "Parsee Cricket Association." I should like to see 
 a game played by these Orientals. They would 
 scarcely put much ardor into their game, the Hindu 
 cricket-players. Clubs of native "sportsmen" are 
 quite the most amusing copy of England that I 
 have seen in India, more comic even than an article 
 on English morals signed by a babu. Very English 
 also, this union of a theistic society and a cricket 
 
BOMBAY. 2 21 
 
 club — a compound of athletics and philanthropy. 
 Probably the cricket-players are theists, and the 
 theists are cricket players. Similarly, in a London 
 shop, I saw the photograph of an Anglican bishop 
 with this note appended : "One of the Oxford Eight, 
 in the University race of i8 — ." In England this 
 exploit completes an Episcopal personahty as much 
 as would an edition of Euripides or a volume of 
 sermons. Everybody has heard of an ideal type, 
 the "muscular Christian." 
 
 Elsewhere, red flags are flying above the heads of 
 a Hindu crowd. "Hallelujah!" say the flags. 
 "Are you saved? Are you fighting? If not, why 
 not? When do you intend to get saved?" Sand- 
 wich-men are going about announcing "the arrival 
 of the Salvation Army from Canada, and a general 
 attack upon the Devil by Captain Hallelujah Smith, 
 formerly a circus clown." In the midst of the Hindu 
 crowd, the English Salvationists form a little ring: 
 they are all barefooted, clad in Oriental costume, 
 the women draped in red, their blond faces sur- 
 rounded with orange muslin, the men in Bedouin 
 mantles and turbans. Curious, these English faces, 
 the soft pink and white skin, in Asiatic costumes ! 
 
 A kind of little Hindu monkey makes a confes- 
 sion in a nasal voice. Then, successively, the 
 English Salvationists testify, each holding an um- 
 brella as parasol. Then a drum, castanets, and a 
 key-bugle. The Englishwomen stand quietly, their 
 hands drooping and clasped, and sing hymns to 
 polka tunes, while the men accompany with accor- 
 dions. One of them makes an exhortation in 
 
22 2 IN INDIA. 
 
 Hindustani, a very young girl, in Oriental drapery, 
 her bare feet in the dust, the eyes of an angel, a lily 
 complexion untouched by the Indian sun, a pensive 
 expression, so serious, calm, and maidenly, one of 
 Burne-Jones's Madonnas. 
 
 There is something at once comic and touching in 
 the energy and sincerity of these evangelists. Their 
 great lack is of that sympathetic imagination which 
 makes it possible to conceive modes of soul foreign 
 to one's self. How much superior were the Jesuits 
 who, in the eighteenth century, had such success in 
 China ! With what skill they adapted Christianity 
 to the faculties and needs of the Chinese soul! 
 These people here employ the same procedure to 
 touch the heart of a poor day-laborer in the East 
 End, moving about in the black mud, the stinging 
 fog of the Docks, and to reach these Hindu souls — 
 of which we are so ignorant ! The grand Wesleyan 
 hymns sung to tunes from the dance hall, what emo- 
 tion can they awaken in these Asiatics? Are they 
 touched at sight of young women who have come so 
 far, to mingle with the Bombay populace, to wear 
 the same clothes, to live the same life with them, to 
 be their sisters, to love them in Jesus Christ? 
 
 On this point, Cheddy Lai, whom I have consulted, 
 says: "The other missionaries are liked better. 
 These do not come in a carriage, as Europeans 
 should ; they dress as we do ; they are thought to 
 be poor, and they are despised." 
 
 I returned by the beach, which is not on the ^^gç. 
 of the harbor, but of the open sea. Not a boat to 
 be seen. From here the city is hidden, and there is 
 
BOMBAY. 223 
 
 only this yellow sand, wet from the retiring tide, 
 and the soft blue of the ocean. There are familiar 
 perfumes of seaweed inhaled, in childhood, on 
 Breton sands. Inland, there must be great cliffs, 
 sombre ridges of moorland, lighted by pale yellow 
 broom. This landscape, the same in Europe and in 
 India, tranquillizes the mind, discomposed at sight 
 of great ethnic differences, this seething mass of 
 foreign peoples. 
 
 Little waves are running in ; they rise with a pale 
 transparency, tremble in a silvery gleam, and break 
 with a soft splash. A Parsi has come down to the 
 edge of the water, and, his lips moving in prayer, 
 watches the sun, whose throbbing disk is about to 
 disappear. Just as it touches the water-hne, the 
 Parsi bends his head twice, and then stretches out 
 his arms toward the great rosy radiance which floats 
 in the West. 
 
 December 24. 
 
 This morning, after the chota hazri, I went up to 
 Malabar Hill, a green promontory covered with 
 villas and palm-trees; between them is seen the 
 vague, shining blue of the sea, and the sparkle of 
 charming, misty Bombay. The morning dew is 
 evaporating in a thin mist whose white veils float, 
 waver, are torn like gauze, and out of which the 
 tall, fresh palms Hft their heads. On the ground 
 are flowers, as in Ceylon, flowers of azure and crim- 
 son, on which tremble big drops of water. 
 
 Further on, a garden where this vegetation is 
 growing regularly, with a studied order; a garden 
 like that of the Taj, solem.n in its light and silence 
 
224 IN INDIA. 
 
 and beauty. Among the clumps of trees rise three 
 towers, white, low, extremely massive, that are not 
 temples or habitations of man, enigmatic, disturb- 
 ing here in the solitude. Around, great birds hover 
 in the air. 
 
 It is the Parsi cemetery ; this garden is a funereal 
 spot ; upon these towers the dead are exposed and 
 are devoured by vultures ; a priest came to explain 
 these things to me. 
 
 Clothed in white, he says, two by two, each couple 
 holding the two ends of a muslin scarf in token of 
 their common grief, through the streets of Bombay, 
 along the shore, under the palm-trees, among the 
 flower-beds, the Parsis slowly follow their dead, 
 whom two bearers carry, wrapped in a shroud. 
 When they reach the foot of the tower, a little door 
 opens, the body is received, and the door closed 
 again. Then the procession disperses. No man has 
 ever seen what takes place behind the closed door, 
 except the two mysterious guardians of the cemetery. 
 
 The platform on the summit of the tower is 
 divided into three concentric zones, inclined toward 
 a central well which communicates with a vault. 
 The dead are laid in these great circles, the men, 
 the women, the children. Each body is taken from 
 its shroud, for, says a text of the Zend Avesta: 
 "Naked thou camest into the world, and naked 
 shalt thou go out from it." 
 
 At ten o'clock in the morning and at six in the 
 evening, the great tawny vultures come flying from 
 all the points of the sky, and take up their position 
 upon the towers. In less than fifteen minutes not a 
 
BOMBA Y. 225 
 
 trace of the human form is left except a skeleton, 
 which the extreme heat of the sun soon separates, 
 and the rain carries down into the well. Here at 
 the bottom, where the dust and débris accumulate, 
 there are filtering stones, which purify the rain 
 water, so that no human particle enters the ground. 
 Saith the Zend Avesta: "Thou shalt not defile the 
 earth, thy mother." 
 
 As we stood in the garden more than fifty vultures 
 were sitting gravely on the edge of a tower, and I 
 could plainly see their strange, fierce eyes, those 
 fixed eyes where shines a flame fed on human fuel. 
 An admirable sepulchre, those birds' bodies ! No 
 sooner dead than to live again, to return at once 
 into a whirl of life, more rapid and brilliant by far 
 than the preceding. To have been a poor Parsi 
 grande dame, one of those languid women, in her 
 sumptuous drapery, waiting indolently for a breath 
 of air to come, and now to cleave the glowing sky, 
 with impetuous, strident flight ! 
 
 Around us, the calm and splendor of the tropi- 
 cal garden. The warm air is full of perfumes, and 
 the perpetual little striped squirrels run merrily 
 through the avenues. 
 
 From here the view over the city is very beauti- 
 ful. The sea is of a very soft, dull blue under the 
 sky white with its heat, vaporous, pale by reason of 
 the moisture which it draws up. At the left, on 
 the shore of this water, is another sea of dark and 
 lustrous green, whose waves are motionless, a sea of 
 palm trees, out of which rise turrets and Gothic bel- 
 fries and roofs of pagodas. This world is beautiful. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ELLORA. 
 
 December 26. 
 
 Nearly two hundred miles on the Great Penin- 
 sular by moonlight, among weird silhouettes of 
 mountains rising in vast flocks. Forests, houses, 
 cliffs, all the details of the landscape disappear, and 
 the great silent shapes, misty as phantoms under 
 the pallid moon, seem the sole inhabitants of the 
 dark globe. Then thirteen hours in a cart, over a 
 bad road, along with the driver, in the Nizam, in 
 the heart of the Dekkan: — this may well have tran- 
 quillized one's mind, after the heat and uproar of 
 Bombay. 
 
 A savage, deserted country, carpeted with moor- 
 land and jungle. Sometimes a little Hindu hamlet, 
 a small pyramidal pagoda, grotesque, complicated, 
 like all pagodas, and a sacred pool where the peas- 
 ants bathe in the morning, according to the cere- 
 monial. 
 
 Upon the road, not a person, except, about nine 
 o'clock, a troop of men, children, women, following 
 a string of heavy, antique wains drawn by big white 
 oxen. Whither are they going? It looks like the 
 migration of a tribe, after the most primitive 
 fashion. 
 
 226 
 
ELLORA. 227 
 
 This nomad horde is soon out of sight. About 
 noon, southward, is outlined against the sky a 
 tawny line of hills. It is a vast amphitheatre open- 
 ing into a great plain, lying north and south, pierced 
 with caves by the men of earlier times. Here, in 
 the heart of the peninsula, are the silent haunts of 
 the divinities who, for three thousand years, have 
 succeeded each other in this Indian land. There 
 sit the Vedic gods, Indra and Surya; then, the 
 inert Buddhas, with closed eyes and crossed legs ; 
 and then, the Brahmanic Pantheon — Siva, Paravati, 
 Vishnu, and the whole train of their incarnations; 
 then, the twenty-four Sages of the Jains ; all hewn 
 in the ancient rock, cut out in the mountain of 
 which they still remain a part, alone in the solitude, 
 in face of the unchanging landscape; intact as on 
 the first day. 
 
 At twenty rods' distance from the mountain, noth- 
 ing is distinguishable. All is covered with a forest 
 of impenetrable brushwood, the sombre jungle which 
 seems thrown down from the hilltop to guard the 
 secret of the place. It grows in the glowing sand 
 in the dry and terrible heat, all in a mass at the foot 
 of the clifï. There are no flowers here, none of the 
 luxuriance and beauty of the vegetation of Ceylon 
 or Bombay. All is arid and burning. We advance 
 cautiously. Under the thorny shrubs, upon the 
 glowing mica, gleams the gliding of formidable 
 cobras. They debar access to the temples of Siva; 
 and one remembers that, in images of the god, they 
 are multiplied around his neck and his waist, mystic 
 symbols of all-destroying Time. 
 
22 8 llSr INDIA. 
 
 We reach the foot of the cliff, which rises a per- 
 pendicular wall. Just in front of us, it yawns apart, 
 disclosing within, an isolated gray mass of rock about 
 as high as the cliff itself; but there is something 
 peculiar about this mass of rock: it is hollowed out, 
 recessed, its surface is rough with scales and little 
 spires, like a granite cliff tortured by the eternal 
 gnawing of the sea. Suddenly you recognize the 
 entangled lines of a pagoda. This is the Kaïlas, ' 'the 
 Paradise " of Siva, a Hindu temple made of a piece 
 of the mountain: pavilions, terraces, pyramids, bell- 
 towers, stairs, obelisks, guardian elephants, all out 
 of one block, all hewn in one enormous stone, which 
 has been detached, cut out, chased, like a piece of 
 ivory in the hands of a Chinese workman. On each 
 side and behind it, like the case to contain a precious 
 object, three rough, perpendicular walls of rock rise 
 to the height of a hundred and thirty feet, as if 
 hewn by three strokes of a magic sword to isolate 
 the rock which glorifies Siva. The open space where 
 the Kaïlas stands is nearly four hundred feet deep 
 and two hundred broad ; the isolated rocky mass 
 itself is a hundred and sixty feet long, a hundred 
 broad, and rises to the height of a hundred feet. 
 
 As you stand looking at this Kaïlas, a strange feel- 
 ing comes over you, at first entirely inexplicable. 
 Is it because of the surrounding silence and desert; 
 is it because there is nothing constructed in this 
 pagoda — I mean to say, no stone laid upon stone ; or 
 is it because the uniform tone of coloring is that of 
 rock Aveathered since the beginning of the geologic 
 epochs, that of the brown wall, which from north to 
 
ELLORA. 229 
 
 south, as far as the eye can see, bounds the plain? 
 One cannot say, but the singular fact remains that 
 nothing here suggests the idea of human labor. 
 There is no inscription, no detail suggesting a daily 
 ceremonial, no place where the priests could be 
 lodged. This is a work of nature, in praise of the 
 divinity who symbolized her; this pagoda, which 
 makes part of the solid strata of the earth, is like an 
 eternal, indestructible thing — not, however, inert, 
 but still alive with the life of the great earth itself. 
 For its roof of massive rock is still covered with all 
 the primitive stratum of vegetable growth, bristling 
 with grasses and with great stiff plants which seem 
 to be sacred candelabra. All around, the heated 
 atmosphere quivers in white waves ; and animal life 
 palpitates : flocks of parrots whirling in the air like 
 green flames; crows hopping over the ancient 
 statues-j- squirrels which seem at home here, running 
 over the steps, trotting in and out through the taber- 
 nacles. Inside the Kaïlas, in the darkness of the 
 sanctuaries dug into the living rock, in the mysterious 
 bare chambers with their mystic symbols of Siva, 
 bats fly in silent circles. 
 
 I walk around outside the monolith, and am over- 
 whelmed by the enormous size of the stone box in 
 which it stands, of the wall which shuts it in and 
 overhangs it, recessed at its base, hewn out in a black 
 groove, a sombre gallery going entirely around it, 
 and supported by rough pillars. Above this gallery, 
 the cliff drops plumb, like a heavy, voluminous 
 mantle of rock, striated with blue lines bj/ the eter- 
 nal drip of water. On the three sides, facing this 
 
230 IN INDIA. 
 
 perfectly naked clîff, the Kailas presents its tangle of 
 figures of gods and animals; it lifts its pyramids, it 
 unfolds all its complication of outlines» There could 
 be nothing so impressive as the contrast : remove this 
 pagoda out of the brute mass from which it was 
 hewn, set it up in the open air, and you would lose 
 the feeling of the bhnd, crushing labor which sepa- 
 rated it from the cliff, in order to carve it. Espe- 
 cially, you would detach it from nature; it would no 
 longer be a part of the earth itself, thus expressing 
 the fundamental idea of the Siva-worship. 
 
 The power, the constant energy, itself invariable 
 amid the motion or the pause of its dispersed mani- 
 festations, the Being, unknowable and absolute, who 
 displays himself in the incessant production of indi- 
 vidual beings, from whom comes, into whom is ab- 
 sorbed, all life, could by no symbol be so well 
 expressed as by this rock which, rising out of the 
 solid strata that form the substance of the globe, else- 
 where crops out in cliffs, but here follows geometric 
 lines of terraces; then becomes supple, comphcated, 
 undulating, in organic forms; represents all manifes- 
 tations of life : first, an army of gigantic elephants, 
 almost completely detached from the rock, but still 
 making part of the brute mass; then, higher up, 
 among entanglements of tropical creepers, among 
 processions of monkeys and of tigers, rises, yet 
 still caught at its sides, in the animal world ; dis- 
 plays, after this, human forms, unfolds the epic of 
 the Ramâyana, relates the conquest of the inferior 
 races by the nobler races; higher still, multiplies 
 figures of genii and secondary gods; then is ex- 
 
ELLORA. 231 
 
 cavated in mysterious halls where, in the darkness, 
 centre and root of all this flowering of life upon the 
 outer walls, is the mystic symbol of Siva; and, at 
 last, slender, light, airy, lifts its sharp, pyramidal 
 point into radiant space. 
 
 Right and left, as we leave the Kaïlas, there are 
 sacred caves piercing the side of the hill, along a 
 length of nearly two miles. 
 
 First are Sivaist crypts, difficult of access, invisible 
 from without. We are obliged to cling to projec- 
 tions of the cliff, and creep over masses of débris 
 bound tight by the jungle to the face of the rock. 
 These caves are the secret places where the old 
 Brahmans concealed their religious mysteries, and 
 he who penetrated here ignorant, would indeed 
 emerge initiated. 
 
 Deep galleries lead into the hillside, made visible 
 at first by a wan, cold light, which lies pallid on the 
 gray stone; then plunging into an ever-deepening 
 darkness, between rough pillars hewn out of the 
 rock. In this darkness, where there is no sound but 
 the rush of bats, you see gleaming eyes of gold in 
 giant bas-reliefs of monstrous gods, dancing or sit- 
 ting enthroned. The further you advance, the 
 more indistinct becomes this row of forms, at first 
 visible in the gray light from the mouth of the cave, 
 but all the time growing fainter, until they are lost 
 in the distant darkness. Why are they all so much 
 alike; why have they all the same attributes? This 
 is Siva, in the entire series of his incarnations. 
 Yes; all these mystic outlines, sinuous and flexible 
 as life, are those of his various bodies; and each 
 
232 I M INDIA. 
 
 of these huge bas-reliefs has one of the god's 
 faces. 
 
 Here he is, Siva the Destroyer, and his three eyes, 
 which behold the past, the present, the future, shine 
 with a white light, that light which reduces all crea- 
 tures to ashes ; his six arms brandish swords, where- 
 on hang transpierced corpses, his feet trample upon 
 skeletons. Elsewhere, he reposes, contemplative, 
 girt with serpents about his neck and body, emblems 
 of his eternity. Again, Siva, with soft, confused 
 outlines, mysterious, androgynous, smiling. From 
 his side emerges a soft-outlined female figure, and 
 above his head, very faint, in much lower relief than 
 the figure, a cloud of human forms rise, floating, as 
 the smoke ascends from a flame. It is still Siva, 
 who, far back in the dark gallery, smiles at Paravati ; 
 it is he who dances merrily, surrounded by his 
 buffoons; it is he who, again, fierce, with teeth set 
 in fury, transpierces a child. And skeletons, signify- 
 ing death, alternate with bulls, which signify life. 
 And in the depths of the gallery a nude stone repre- 
 sents the eternal Siva emblem. 
 
 Before all this transparency of symbol, this reve- 
 lation of the god, one stands astonished. The idea 
 radiates from these images and transfigures them. 
 This Siva is no longer a foreign divinity, peculiar to 
 a certain race and a certain epoch, to be observed 
 and studied as such. We knoAV this power our- 
 selves. It is Nature expressed in these changeful 
 forms, outlined here on the walls in this subter- 
 ranean solitude. This is the divinity manifested as 
 well in the perpetual coming forth of young and 
 
ELLORA. 233 
 
 brilliant life, as in its frightful destruction ; the 
 eternal and impassive, who knows not the suffering 
 nor the joy of the created. The Brahmanic religion 
 conceived the destroying and the renewing force as 
 two aspects of the same power; it made of the 
 Destroyer and the Regenerator one divinity ; and 
 in this lies its great originality. 
 
 While other races, powerless to rise above the 
 human point of view, regarded good and evil, the 
 beautiful and the hideous, as distinguishing attri- 
 butes; and classed their gods in accordance with 
 characteristics strictly relative to human sensibili- 
 ties, the Hindus conceived that, from the eternal 
 point of view, there was neither god nor devil, but 
 an absolute Power which, whether creating or de- 
 stroying, remains itself the same. More definitely, 
 death appeared to them as one of the changes whose 
 succession makes a life. For, according to them, as 
 according to modern science, — La vie c est la mort, 
 says Claude Bernard, — the living being is but a form, 
 a mode of grouping; its material is forever passing 
 away ; we live by the periodic death of the cellules 
 whose association makes our body. We are eddies, 
 at every moment composed of new substance ; as 
 each eddy gives up a certain quantity of matter, it 
 absorbs and carries off a certain other quantity of 
 matter, equivalent to what it has lost ; and deaths 
 are perpetually made good by births. 
 
 It is the same with all the groups everywhere in 
 the visible world, they are forming or separating, 
 but separating only to form new combinations, 
 under whose variety persists a diffused being, itself 
 
234 IN INDIA. 
 
 one and imperishable. The world may be com- 
 pared to an ocean, in which are moving millions of 
 waves. Each wave which rises and sinks is a life 
 which begins and ends, no sooner falling in foam, 
 then an irresistible impulse lifts it again toward the 
 light. But who does not see that these rhythmic 
 undulations are only appearances, since at each 
 moment their material is different and in each one 
 of them there is nothing real except the single, 
 general force, which blindly, indifferently, without 
 regard for local shocks or interferences, keeps all 
 this sea in its murmurous motion? An individual 
 being is but a momentary fragment of this force. 
 The individual changes, grows, dies; but the force 
 remains unaffected. It is the same Siva, radiant in 
 the candid young forehead of the girl, in her firm, 
 delicate cheek with its tint of rose, who reduces to 
 nameless liquids this corpse upon which we dare not 
 look. It is the same Siva who acted in our primitive 
 nebula, and who now is sun and planets, and the 
 continents, seas, mountains of the globe, its organic 
 forms, its races of men, its communities and cities. 
 It is the same Siva who, transforming visible action 
 into molecular, by the slow destruction of planets, 
 returns to his primitive condition of abstract energy, 
 whence may emerge a new sun, planets, seas, conti- 
 nents, vegetation, a whole multiple and luminous 
 life. 
 
 Let us go further: this energy of our solar system, 
 even, is not an isolated power; it is but part of the 
 total energy, since throughout the universe, all stars 
 — or, to speak more exactly, all particles of matter — 
 
ELLORA. 235 
 
 make their attraction felt. Our system moves, as a 
 whole, toward a certain point in the firmament. 
 Who knows if it is not describing an immense circle, 
 lessening slowly ; if it may not fall, and all the other 
 systems also, into a certain central point, as its own 
 planets fall into its sun, and if the whole universe 
 does not tend to return to homogeneity, to the 
 undifferentiated? This possible law Hindu wisdom 
 may have grasped, in speaking of those "days of 
 Brahma," those incalculable periods, during which 
 the neuter Brahma expands, develops, throws out 
 beings, attains consciousness, contracts again, re- 
 turns into its primitive condition ; becomes again 
 the neuter Brahma. Had not the Sivaist this idea, 
 in saying that, at the end of each kalpa, Siva 
 destroys men, gods, demons, all created things? 
 
 Whether or not science, at the present day, con- 
 siders probable these alternations of development 
 and of universal dissolution, certainly she makes 
 known to us a universal and permanent power, act- 
 ing at every moment, and at every point of the uni- 
 verse, and of which we can say nothing except that 
 it manifests itself to us above and below, in the 
 general and the special, in movements, in cycles of 
 organizations and dissolutions, in phenomena of 
 local groupings and of separations of matter, which 
 are each other's complement, appearing, according to 
 the point of view, as lives or deaths, as ends or be- 
 ginnings. How better personify this power than as 
 the Hindus have done? How better represent it 
 than by this Siva whom they call "the Destroyer- 
 Organizer" — "he who brings life out of death?" 
 
236 IN INDIA. 
 
 In a sacred picture which I found at Jaipur, he is 
 seated at the bottom of a cave, in the depths of the 
 earth. Above him is a rich country, luxuriant in 
 vegetation. His beautiful feminine limbs repose 
 inert: his serene lips are parted in a mysterious 
 smile. Upon his forehead the crescent of the new 
 moon measures time; around his neck a snake signi- 
 fies the endless revolutions of the years ; other ser- 
 pents, entwined about his loins, tell of the circle of 
 births and deaths. His braided hair supports the 
 fruitful Ganges; his trident announces his triple 
 power — to create, to destroy, to re-create. He 
 holds a bow, a thunderbolt, and an ax, the weapons 
 surmounted by skulls. A bull sleeps at his feet. 
 All these symbols are here in these carvings of 
 Ellora. He is the reproductive force, "the eter- 
 nally-blest," with its emblem, the mystic stone ; he is 
 the power which dissolves, symbolized by skeletons 
 and swords; he is "the great ascetic," passionless, 
 immovable, immutable, "rooted in the same place 
 for millions of years." He is the god of Brahmans, 
 of grammarians, of scholars; that is to say, he is 
 intellect, order, language. He is the lord of the 
 dance and wine; that is, of gay and brilliant life. 
 He is bi-sexed ; and vaguely outlined figures rise 
 about him in vaporous processions. 
 
 In the obscure depths of the hill, upon the rude 
 walls of rock, one grasps the meaning of these 
 images left there for all time — far from cities, far 
 from the tumult of human life — by men hidden 
 from us in the darkness of the past, of whom we 
 know absolutely nothing except that they were the 
 
ELLORA. 237 
 
 contemporaries of our barbaric ancestors, and that 
 they lived at this point in space. But him whom 
 they perceived behind all things, we, to-day, also 
 perceive; we hear him also; in our "Faust" we 
 hear his voice: 
 
 "In the stream of life, in the whirl of action, I 
 float, I rise, I sink, I move hither and thither. Births 
 and tombs, eternal sea, changeful motion, ardent 
 life; I work at the noisy loom of time and weave 
 the mantle of divinity." 
 
 All the religious history of India is concealed in 
 these caves of Ellora. There is a succession of 
 Sivaist halls, overloaded with the same wealth of 
 sculptures and bas-reliefs. 
 
 Here is a very unadorned cave sunk far into the 
 rock, supported by rude pillars whose sole ornament 
 is a symbolic circle. The walls are rough-hewn, 
 and it would seem that this sanctuary was left 
 unfinished. As we advance the light from the 
 entrance grows faint, and it is all blackness before 
 us. We are about to turn away, with the idea that 
 there is nothing to see, when I become aware of a 
 huge phantom somewhere in the distance, an appari- 
 tion which nails me to the spot. My eyes have 
 become accustomed to the darkness; and there, a 
 hundred and twenty feet from the cave's mouth, a 
 giant figure, a white, colossal Buddha, seated with 
 crossed hands, a smile frozen on the lips, formidable 
 in its rigidity, is vaguely outlined, at the very end 
 of the cave, against the blackness of a niche. This 
 is all; he sits alone in the darkness, in this silence 
 as of a tomb ; in this great excavation, hewn out of 
 
238 IN INDIA. 
 
 the rock, remote from all outside life. At his feet 
 a pool of black water, motionless like himself, re- 
 flects his smile and his immobility. 
 
 There are several caves like this, occupied by 
 solitary Buddhas, who, with half-closed eyes, have 
 entered into serenity. A strange contrast with the 
 Sivaist caves, overflowing with all forms of life, 
 expressive of all the exuberance of the Hindu 
 imagination. Yet, notwithstanding their difference, 
 they translate conceptions which are each other's 
 complement. Those lead to this, as an orgy of 
 metaphysical speculation leads to the paralysis of 
 the will and complete inaction, as his meditation 
 upon the one Existence has led the Brahman to 
 forget his own personal being, and — showing him 
 illusions everywhere and destroying desire within 
 him — has set him free from all temptation to effort 
 or action. Siva and Buddha sit side by side, as 
 Brahmanism and Buddhism have been able to live 
 in harmony, one appealing to the mental powers, 
 the other dictating the practical life; and these 
 caves may have been contemporary. At the same 
 time, the extreme difference of the styles would 
 seem to indicate that long spaces of time separate 
 them, and that the hill remains sacred to successive 
 cults, not merely to the Sivaists and Buddhists, but 
 also to the Jains, who have in their turn excavated 
 sanctuaries in these cliffs; and that all the Indian 
 religions, one after another, have inscribed them- 
 selves here. 
 
 They may pass, and reappear; and the races them- 
 selves may vanish ; but the Buddha will never relax 
 
ELLORA. 239 
 
 his smile — this smile which has been upon his lips for 
 two thousand years. How peaceful the cool dark- 
 ness of the cave, at the feet of the great tranquil 
 figure ! What happiness it must be to feel one's self 
 at last enfranchised; to be no longer conscious of 
 the flight of life, of the incessant fall into the sad 
 past of all beloved objects; to conquer time as he 
 has done whom twenty centuries leave untouched ! 
 As I stand leaning against his solid knee, under the 
 deathless gesture of his wan hand, I can see the calm 
 gaze which has filtered between his eyehds ever 
 since the day when a nation of laborers — vanished 
 how long ago — detached him from the rock. Out 
 there, at the other end of the gallery, there is day- 
 light, a luminous rectangle, framed in the sombre 
 stone, and cut by black columns ; there is a far-off, 
 splendid landscape, a vast country, quivering in the 
 overheated air. Flocks of birds make a streak 
 across the torrid sky. In the distance glitters a 
 small pagoda, dominating a hamlet where, for many 
 a year, lives of men have silently followed one 
 another. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 the voyage. 
 
 December 28. 
 
 At seven in the morning we leave Bombay. You 
 go on board the steamer, select your cabin, study the 
 faces of the people with whom you are to spend the 
 next three weeks, go to look at the engine — and 
 suddenly become aware that you are off. In the 
 blue of the water, a great, rigid white furrow — broad 
 as a road, whispering and pulsating — leads back to 
 the already misty hillsides and the glittering roofs 
 half hidden by trees. The watery space rapidly 
 increases behind us; all the low ground soon van- 
 ishes. Only the mountains long remain visible, as 
 on any remote shore. 
 
 It is always sad, this sudden disappearance of a 
 world in which one has lived for some time. 
 Abruptly these things, which just now were present, 
 enter into the past, and take on the halo of an inex- 
 pressible regret for that which is no more. These 
 memories — at present a part of one's self — are 
 destined to lose their color; the feeling which now 
 accompanies them will let them go ; presently, they 
 will die : and you feel a great indifference — it would 
 be a great aversion, if these memories were more 
 dear — for this future self, this stranger, who will be 
 
THE VOYAGE. 24I 
 
 composed of sentiments at this moment unknown. 
 The Buddha was right in teaching that grief comes 
 of time. 
 
 AH passes away with marvellous rapidity ; this 
 ocean, this sun casting the shadow of the rigging, 
 this ship, seem to be the only realities. It is diffi- 
 cult to conceive clearly that there is a pink Jaipur, 
 a real city of solid structures, or a seething Benares, 
 upon which this light is shining. 
 
 With what facility one returns into the native 
 environment ! European things recover their hold 
 upon you so rapidly that you seem never to have 
 left them. Almost immediately it becomes amus- 
 ing to observe one's fellow-travellers. There are a 
 dozen, differing widely from each other, whose lives 
 are thrown together here for a few days. A con- 
 tact at every moment establishes intimacy so com- 
 plete that we soon seem to have known each other 
 always. There are no reserves ; after five days one 
 has more "human documents" than after a season 
 of balls and dinners in Paris. 
 
 Here is an Englishman, an officer of Hussars. I 
 attempt to describe him, because he seems to me a 
 specimen of a very important class. Twenty-six 
 years old : "a splendid young fellow." Fair and 
 freckled, with clear-cut features ; his blue eyes bril- 
 liant, straightforward, bold, and kind ; a happy face, 
 lighted with rapid smiles; sometimes, abruptly, a 
 great burst of laughter. You can see the enthusi- 
 asm of youth, high spirits, the constant joy of a 
 free and generous existence. In the afternoon he 
 pitches quoits with the ardor and vivacity of a boy. 
 
242 m INDIA. 
 
 He puts his heart into the game, and his move- 
 ments show the suppleness of the fresh young figure. 
 In repose, he has the alert and simple bearing of a 
 man perfectly at his ease, master of himself, habitu- 
 ated to independence, with a reserve of gravity 
 under the sparkle of animal spirits. 
 
 His young wife admires him as Desdemona, 
 Othello: to her he is the steadfast, strong, and faith- 
 ful man, who is the young English girl's ideal, the 
 hero of all the English novels. And indeed there 
 is in him a grave and solid substratum of character. 
 Upon religion and duty, and the family relations, 
 he is endowed with hereditary ideas, extremely well 
 defined and deeply rooted. Physically and morally 
 he is a "gentleman," by race and education. "My 
 ancestors," he says, with a certain pride, "came into 
 Ireland with Cromwell." Born upon the paternal 
 estate, he is the heir of a line of "squires." 
 
 His first years of childhood, spent in the country 
 among the farmers who loved and respected him 
 as "the young master"; the generous home life in 
 the great manor-house ; the first riding to hounds, 
 with his father and grandfather, they in red coats on 
 their big hunters, he mounted on a little pony; the 
 study of the Bible, and the firm fixing of religious 
 sentiment, from the nursery, by pictures, by texts 
 which decorate the walls, by family prayers, where 
 all the servants are also present, by long and solemn 
 services, listened to in "the squire's pew" of the 
 parish church. Then Rugby, the sense of freedom 
 and self-respect acquired, the contact with "the 
 other boys," whose good opinion must be gained; 
 
THE VOYAGE. 243 
 
 much cricket and football. After this, preparation 
 for the army examinations, the military career hav- 
 ing been chosen as most worthy of "a gentleman." 
 He is now lieutenant in "a crack regiment," and 
 speaks proudly of his corps: "My regiment was at 
 the battle of Quatre-Bras. Three times they 
 charged the Poles, but without being able to reach 
 them. Every one of the officers was killed. We 
 have the whole story of it in the regimental Gazette'' 
 
 In India his life had three great interests : his 
 wife (with whom he is in love), the service, and sport. 
 A liberal, expensive life : that of a gentleman among 
 his equals. I saw the photograph of his house, a 
 great airy villa, with Doric columns, standing in a 
 broad lawn ; his wife in an English cart, before the 
 portico. "You can't be an officer," he explains, 
 "without resources of your own." His pay is a 
 hundred and seventy-five rupees a month. The mess 
 table alone, with wine, costs two hundred. Horses 
 and uniforms are expensive; the club, the dinners, 
 are costly. In short, they live as aristocrats, as 
 nobles; and in general they are nobles, in pride and 
 courage. A noble's duty is to be a leader; and 
 these sons of squires are well fitted to lead. The 
 sentiment of duty, backed up by self-respect, will 
 easily make heroes of them. On this point, see 
 what they did at Lucknow : remember the conduct 
 of Sir Henry Lawrence, their devout resignation, 
 their calm and serious valor. 
 
 "What does the Indian officer do, when he is 
 not occupied in military duty? How does he kill 
 time?" "Why, play games, of course," he says, with 
 
H4 IN INDIA. 
 
 a flash of his blue eyes, in his quick, frank voice. 
 "We play cricket, and hunt, and play polo. My regi- 
 ment are famous polo-players. Our champions went 
 out to America,, and challenged the whole United 
 States. The old Yankees couldn't touch them ! 
 We were proud, I can tell j^ou." "Is the game 
 rough!" "Oh, yes!" he says; he himself has had 
 his skull cracked, and a young officer of his regiment 
 was killed at this game. Then they have football 
 and tennis. 
 
 Three or four conversations with my hussar upon 
 all the great topics — religion, morals, politics. He 
 talks with admirable frankness, as Englishmen often 
 do when you speak their language and they feel at 
 their ease. He conversed with enthusiasm, with no 
 effort to shine, and with no attempt to study my 
 ideas inquisitively or critically. He had much to 
 say, speaking with great sincerity, of what he con- 
 sidered "vital subjects." His ideas are ver)/ simple ; 
 he makes no attempt at philosophy. At once he 
 speaks of God, the personal English divinity, with a 
 mysticism singular in a creature so healthy and 
 active. "Don't you know," he says, "it is only a 
 matter of feeling, and it is impossible to prove that 
 I am right, but I can't think that God doesn't take 
 care of us. I am certain that God loves us. Just 
 so a man can't prove that his wife loves him, and 
 still he is sure she does. About the soul, I think it 
 is a kind of double, inside the body. When a man 
 dreams, his body is weighed down with sleep, but 
 his soul lives, remains active, goes about. What do 
 you suppose becomes of the human body, when it 
 
THE VOYAGE. 245 
 
 decays? Do you suppose it disappears entirely? 
 No; this body contains a subtle essence, which may 
 have the same form ; and this essence lasts." These 
 are the primitive notions of mankind, which, accord- 
 ing to Herbert Spencer, mark the very earliest stage 
 in the idea of a spiritual world. It is singular to 
 meet them, so fervently expressed, in an English 
 army ofificer. "Take the parable of the seed," he 
 says. "The seed develops, becomes a plant; it is 
 the same that it was at first ; and still, it is different. 
 I think the soul develops like this, after death." 
 He quotes Scripture, and speaks of Jesus Christ 
 with affection and enthusiasm. "How can anyone 
 compare the Buddha with Christ?" he says. "What 
 did Jesus gain by his teaching? Nothing but to be 
 crucified." 
 
 To-night he put to me this question, which a 
 Frenchman has to answer constantly in an English 
 country: "Your novels give a very sad idea of 
 France. Why are they so smutty? And how can 
 we judge you, except from the descriptions your 
 own people give, your Daudets and Zolas? It 
 seems to me," he says, "that the proper work, the 
 mission of the novelist, is to raise the level of 
 morality, to be an educator. But yours are cor- 
 ruptors." I seek to explain to him the theory of 
 the roman experimental, the scientific method. "I 
 don't understand this," he says. "What is the 
 aim of science, if not to render mankind better 
 and happier? Your people degrade it. Besides, if 
 they must paint reality, why need they stir up all 
 this mud? George EHot, who is more reahstic than 
 
246 IN INDIA. 
 
 the French, remains pure, all the same, and her 
 novels give one strength. Life is not filthy ; or, at 
 least, such has not been my experience." 
 
 I believe it ; his life is one of those successes in 
 which the labor of a hundred generations results. 
 An American writer has said that the English gen- 
 tleman, developed in the open air, quietly estab- 
 lished upon a few strong moral ideas, is one of the 
 perfect specimens of our human nature, in his noble- 
 ness and in his happiness. This Englishman has 
 behind him a wholesome and merry youth ; he 
 respects himself, he is a master of others ; his beliefs 
 are clearly defined, his activity and energy are over- 
 flowing. He married an innocent, merry little girl, 
 a "child-wife," who reveres him as a hero, and with 
 whom he is in love. He has scarcely seen anything 
 that was not good and beautiful; the literature with 
 which he is familiar is serious, moral, pure, and i-n- 
 tentionally silent as to the dark lower levels of 
 humanity. Certainly, he is not complex; he has 
 not the quivering sensibility, the subtle perceptions 
 of the heroes of our romances; but neither is he a 
 saddened and nervous sceptic. His candor, his 
 optimism, his freshness of nature, his happy and 
 intact vitality, are those of a strong and virgin soul 
 whose free development has been in no way checked 
 or distorted. 
 
 The same is true of the three other officers on 
 board, who are all going home on a year's leave. In 
 the morning after their douche, attired in whimsical 
 pajamas, they pace the dripping deck. Then, in 
 short light coats and cloth caps and flannel trousers 
 
THE VOYAGE. 247 
 
 and canvas shoes, all day long they talk, they 
 laugh, they eternally fill their short, straight pipes 
 with smooth English tobacco, they read inoffensive 
 novels of simple morality and complicated plot. D. 
 is the youngest, the most "boyish" of the four. But 
 Captain M. is the most seriously, profoundly, and 
 constantly cheerful. He also is a squire's son, and 
 grew up in a corner of this patriarchal, bucolic 
 England, now fast disappearing. "I liked the old 
 farmers," he says; "they had a nice way, when they 
 were in trouble, of coming to ask a bit of advice 
 from my mother." In the morning, when he is 
 dressing, we hear him singing like a blackbird in his 
 cabin. He talks with everybody, and his radiant 
 smile makes you happy to the bottom of your heart. 
 At dinner, in evening dress, his big chest strains the 
 broad starched surface of his shirt-front. Seated at 
 the end of the table, where he carves huge "under- 
 done" slices of roast beef, he is happier and grander 
 than ever. To-day, January ist, as he had beside 
 him at table two young Italian girls, with whom he 
 is carrying on the customary flirtation, he proposed : 
 "Queen Margherita!" but in his everyday voice, 
 and with a smile. Then he stood up ; and this time, 
 his face all lighted up, looking slowly around him, 
 solemnly he said : "Gentlemen, the Queen !" and I 
 shall never forget the youthful enthusiasm with 
 which the lieutenant of Hussars rejoined : "God 
 bless her!" 
 
 Miss M., of the Wesleyan missions, resides at 
 Jaipur, where her duty is to visit the zenanas and 
 make the acquaintance of the Hindu ladies as a 
 
248 IN INDIA. 
 
 friend, a missionary, and a teacher. Small, dry, flat, 
 strong, with thin lips, with eye-glasses perched upon 
 her aquiline nose, she walks the deck like a grena- 
 dier, in the company of one of the officers, or of 
 Professor M., from the University of Bombay. At 
 first sight, she is most unattractive. I think of 
 those great, dark, timid eyes of the Indian women, 
 of their silent grace and gentleness. One perceives 
 them to be imaginative and impassioned, sensuous 
 and dreamy. It is easy to understand how shock- 
 ing to the Hindu must be the independence and the 
 mannish ways of the Englishwoman. 
 
 She has described to me her life in Jaipur. She 
 lives with another lady of the missions in a comfort- 
 able house furnished with punkahs, tatties,* and all 
 English comforts. There is riding, with a groom 
 in attendance, accompanied by dogs, and there is 
 tennis-playing with the English residents. Here we 
 have an English Sister of Charity, devoted, like our 
 own, to a religious idea, toward which all the acts of 
 her life converge, but preserving the exterior, the 
 habits, the tone, of an Englishwoman of the middle 
 class, the wife of an official or a doctor. Celibacy 
 increases her freedom of action. She is not in any 
 way secluded from the world. She surrounds her- 
 self with all the comforts of life. Her personality 
 is not enfeebled under the action of a uniform rule; 
 on the contrary she has an individuality which 
 would be remarkable in any woman. You feel her 
 to be mistress of herself, and entirely secure ; she 
 
 * The tatty is a machine for producing a vapor of perfumed water 
 in order to cool the room. 
 
THE VOYAGE. 249 
 
 respects herself, and is able to make herself re- 
 spected by others. "I have never," she says, "been 
 insulted by any Hindu ; and yet I often go out 
 alone on horseback. It is understood that I am a 
 lady, and everyone treats me as such." 
 
 She has had a Puritan education, without superior 
 instruction and without broad intelligence. Narrow 
 of mind, uncompromising, destitute of the sympa- 
 thetic faculty — what does she know of the Hindu 
 women to whom she has consecrated herself? 
 What does she understand of the circumstances 
 which have determined the condition of the Avife 
 and the widow in India? This religion which she 
 labors with all her strength to destroy, "which we 
 must eradicate from the country," she confuses with 
 all the religious forms which are not her Protestant 
 Christianity: "idolatry," the one word suffices to 
 designate it. But the good woman is full of her 
 subject: "We want to make these poor Hindu 
 women happier, to get a little liberty for them, to 
 teach them to think for themselves." That is to 
 say, to make them European and English. She is 
 always ready to talk about her "missionary work," 
 her hopes, her methods. With what emotion she 
 quotes the words: "Who is he. Lord, that I might 
 believe on him? I that speak unto thee, am 
 he." A text, which, she says, produced a great 
 impression upon a Musalman. The Hindu toler- 
 ance surprises her; it saddens her also, as proving 
 their indifference. No husband has ever forbidden 
 her visits to his wives. She is much beloved in the 
 zenanas. "Come and see us," the Hindu ladies say 
 
250 IN INDIA. 
 
 to her, "we have need of you. Tell us about this 
 Jesus of whom the sahibs talk so much." They 
 sing hymns: but, after all, these are only diversions 
 from the monotony of imprisonment; they do not 
 dream of becoming converted ; all the moral and 
 psychological conditions necessary for the establish- 
 ment among them of a faith like Miss M.'s are 
 entirely wanting. It would require generations, and 
 a complete charge of environment, to bring this 
 about. One of them, to whom Miss M. had given 
 two dolls, placed them at the foot of the Krishna, 
 and bowed before them. 
 
 Miss M. talks religion to me ; she lends me reli- 
 gious books; she demonstrates to me the "idolatry" 
 of the Roman Catholic faith : she predicts to me the 
 future extension and the supremacy of Wesleyan 
 Protestantism ; she speaks with pride of the useful- 
 ness and grandeur of her "work." The excellent, 
 courageous woman ! She is now on her way to 
 Scotland for a year's rest, after seven years of labor. 
 Then she will return to resume the harness in Jai- 
 pur. When she becomes too old for service the 
 missionary society will give her a comfortable pen- 
 sion. Meanwhile, alone, she leads a contented life; 
 her existence is wholesome, industrious, and worthy 
 of respect, resting upon a grand, serious idea. §he 
 aids in spreading civilization, the civilization of 
 England. She labors for the ideal which her race 
 has conceived. Life has a meaning for her. It is a 
 combat with evil. When her last hour comes, she 
 will fall peacefully asleep, "and God will gather his 
 servant unto him." 
 
the voyage. 251 
 
 January 2. 
 
 It is a strange curiosity this, to interest one's 
 self in the differences among the races of mankind, 
 and their diverse fashions of looking at the world 
 and regarding life, when one has the constant pres- 
 ence of this great monotonous sea, on which we 
 have been borne forward for now eight days. After 
 these conversations, perhaps as a result of them, one 
 recurs easily to the Hindu thought, the Brahmanic 
 dream. 
 
 At seven o'clock, after the bath, with bare feet in 
 yellow grass slippers, you saunter upon the deck, 
 now just washed down. A fresh, subtle air slips 
 under the light clothing and enfolds you deliciously. 
 You abandon yourself to the caress, and are happy 
 in the happiness which all things diffuse. The 
 spaces of sky and sea are full of a calm, broad radi- 
 ance : the vast water is all penetrated with light, as 
 with a great deep joy. Surely this water is not in- 
 sensible; it rejoices or it is sad, as the sun broods 
 upon it or deserts it. This universal motion, this 
 vague, incessant sound, this light breath which stirs 
 its surface, all declare it alive. It is a great divine 
 being, for it is happy, very ancient, the simplest of 
 things ; for it is solitary, and its presence fills the 
 world. Beyond the horizon, far in the south, spread 
 boundless, following the curve of the globe, it shines 
 the same, tranquil or astir, alone under the sky, 
 unseen. No eye looks upon it ; but it is there. 
 What is it, then, in itself? Perchance a great ele- 
 mental soul, limited to the world of feeling, scarcely 
 capable of revery, traversed by emotions very 
 
252 IN INDIA. 
 
 simple and very obscure, a delight in being alive,- 
 sadness, anger, depression, affection, desire, effort. 
 
 Close by the ship flame little green wavelets : a 
 thousand little lives play on the surface of the great 
 solitary being. They spring from it, are made of its 
 substance. They rise, expand, quiver, run, whirl, 
 sparkle; and are no more. And others rise in mul- 
 titudes, in generations; and there is an incessant 
 shiver of coming into existence, appearing, and dis- 
 appearing, without an instant's permanence, since at 
 each imperceptible fraction of time, each little mov- 
 ing wavelet is composed of new water, so that, for 
 the few moments of its life, nothing in it is perma- 
 nent but its form. And yet, notwithstanding its 
 nothingness, each is a distinct little individual, tak- 
 ing existence in its own way. There are idle ones, 
 giddy ones, violent, rebellious, capricious ones. In 
 front there is a bright sparkle of merry foam ; along 
 the ship's side a rapid running of murmuring water; 
 behind it there are placid undulations of sinuous 
 crystal, smooth surfaces as of great mirrors, which 
 writhe slowly and noiselessly, where vague orange 
 gleams shine, twist, and disappear; and beneath this 
 moving diversity sleeps the dull water which has 
 never risen to the surface, which knows not what it is 
 to glitter in the sunlight. And yet, these mornings, 
 even this is penetrated all through \vith light — an 
 equal, motionless light, not disturbed by agitations 
 of shadows like that of the quivering surface. And 
 the whole ocean throws out a strong and gentle 
 radiance which comes from its great inner spaces. 
 
 Overhead, the sky is very pale, whitish, with a 
 
THE VOYAGE. 253 
 
 lustre of molten opal. A peaceful troop of little 
 clouds is moving across it very slowly. By degrees 
 the space grows empty, the universal light traverses 
 it, dwells in it, and fills it. Sometimes you feel pass- 
 ing over yourself, like a vague sadness, the shadow 
 of the little mists that glide across the sun. No 
 other event. Thought has put an end to itself ; and 
 so you forget that you are, and return into the 
 quietude of that which is enduring, which never 
 changes. 
 
 Port Said, January 7. 
 
 After the Hindu East, this Egyptian East is a 
 very poor thing. Where are the bare bronzed skins 
 of the swarming crowd under the Indian sun ? These 
 people are too much clad, too much covered up, in 
 their green petticoats. 
 
 Ugly, regular streets laid out at right angles, 
 bordered with square shop-fronts covered with 
 placards. An unpleasant odor rises from the brown 
 sand underfoot. Cafés-concerts, shops of vile pho- 
 tographs, dry-goods establishments, succeed one 
 another. A population of villainous Levantines. 
 The place is a cosmopolitan hotel, where all ships 
 set ashore their passengers ; and it is abundantly 
 supplied with all those pleasures which the sailor 
 may desire after long voyages. There is nothing so 
 sad and so unsightly as these hackneyed cross-roads 
 which have no existence of their own, and only live 
 by the continuous passage of strangers in search of 
 amusement. There is nothing here but a little Euro- 
 pean scum flung down upon the edge of the desert, 
 in which all the streets come to an end so strangely. 
 
254 IN INDIA. 
 
 At the very extremity of the town, in the Arab 
 quarter, we go to see some dancing-girls from Upper 
 Egypt. Tobacco smoke, torn into bluish clouds, 
 envelops in a low, close hall a curious crowd of 
 various nationalities: Arabs, negroes, Europeans, 
 Copts. An Abyssinian woman, a kind of Hottentot 
 Venus, whose stout brown figure shows through the 
 transparency of her white garment, advances on 
 tiptoe, with a negro smile, following the incompre- 
 hensible rhythm of the music. Suddenly she stops, 
 entirely motionless. Then a horrible thing, inde- 
 scribable : slowly her back begins to shiver under her 
 white garment, trembles, is agitated by successive 
 shocks, vibrates strangely; then, with writhings of 
 the hips, sinking to the ground, half-rising, she 
 sways to and fro, like some creeping beast that has 
 been wounded and is about to die. 
 
 Then appears upon the scene, with unnoticed en- 
 trance, a very young Arab girl. A strange, cold 
 smile upon her haughty lips, her eyes half-closed, 
 slowly and disdainfully throwing back her head, her 
 slender young figure rigid, the chest advanced, she 
 stretches out both arms, all the fingers quivering. 
 Meanwhile, noiselessly, with a rapidity of sinuous 
 motion that is like a snake, a third spins around the 
 hall, describing complicated circles. Closely draped 
 in red velvet, her black hair drawn tightly around 
 her flat head, her outlines angular and precise, the 
 body very long, impassive, with sphinxlike smile, 
 she has the figure, the aspect, the features of the old 
 Egyptian drawings. Throwing herself to the left 
 with an abrupt jerk of the hips, throwing herself to 
 
THE VOYAGE. . 255 
 
 the right, monotonously she glides in circles with 
 ever-increasing rapidity; a sombre being whose 
 silence and gravity are enigmatical ; sometimes stop- 
 ping suddenly, while something like a slow spasm 
 runs over her whole figure, then moving forward, in a 
 kind of magic circle around the two almehs. At 
 last, in the stupor which the monotony of Oriental 
 music causes, you cease to distinguish the three 
 dancing figures; you only see the endless intricacy 
 of lines, which they describe, yourself hypnotized, 
 as at sight of a long-continued juggling with glitter- 
 ing balls. 
 
 Next door, a café chantant. Seated in rows upon 
 cushions, cross-legged, the musicians are scraping 
 on their strings, swaying backward and forward to 
 the rhythm. One of them I notice : he has the 
 strange, gentle, sleepy eyes of the dreamer, and a 
 faint, unchanging smile. I feel that he could sit 
 there all night, smiling always and drawing from his 
 cithar the same eternal Oriental phrase. 
 
 Upon a platform three women are seated. In the 
 centre, a fat and slatternly Syrian, with banged hair. 
 At the right, a Copt, in a shabby dark garment, 
 loaded with brass necklaces, feeble-looking and 
 depressed, in an attitude of inexpressible fatigue 
 and sadness. At the left, a very young Arab girl, 
 slender, wrapped tightly in her white drapery, ex- 
 tremely erect, her long-fringed eyelids cast down, 
 an air at once imperious and savage. At certain 
 cadences in the chant which the cithars are repeat- 
 ing, her voice is heard, her whole figure grows 
 more erect still, it stiffens, and there is an almost im- 
 
256 IN- INDIA. 
 
 perceptible shiver from head to foot ; the thin nos- 
 trils dilate, and even the finger-tips vibrate. In this 
 frail form, as in the chant, there is harshness, there 
 is sensuousness, and most of all, unutterable pride. 
 And an hour long this music trembles, complicated 
 and childish, without recognizable motif, made of 
 subtle discords, quarter-tones, that could not be 
 written out. After twenty minutes of it, you feel 
 its strange, sad, sensuous charm. It is absorbing 
 and monotonous, like those Saracenic designs and 
 mosaics in whose complex and infinite interlacing 
 you lose yourself; like those dances of almehs whose 
 slow entanglements and undulations the Orientals 
 can follow through a whole night. It is like the 
 intoxication of opium or of hashish; and one could 
 stay for hours, spellbound by the succession of 
 chants and the slender music, following, as in a con- 
 fused dream, the sudden growing erect and shiver- 
 ing of the Arab figure. 
 
 There is no spectacle, no book, no study, which 
 brings you so abruptly and so far into the soul of a 
 stranger race, as do ten notes of its music. Noth- 
 ing gives so fully the sensation of the distance 
 which separates us from them. A Musalman chant, 
 heard suddenly, in the evening, as you pass by a 
 mosque; a Buddhist chime, flinging out its call in 
 the abrupt twilight, in the depths of an amazing 
 Cinhalese forest, where the serried trunks of the 
 cocoanut-palms mirror themselves in the red water 
 of stagnant ponds; Hindu gongs, heathen trumpets, 
 vibrating upon the high terraces of Benares, as the 
 sun is sinking beyond the roseate Ganges : all these 
 
THE VOYAGE. 257 
 
 are sudden openings, they are abrupt flashes, which 
 for an instant throw a strong light and reveal every- 
 thing. In recollections of these are summed up, are 
 fused, all the sensations of a journey. And here, 
 one feels the Arab life, the encampments and the 
 marches of ancestors in the silence and monotony of 
 the desert, and the Semitic soul, dominant, traversed 
 by sudden shocks and by impulses of violent will. 
 
 January ii. 
 
 Yesterday evening, about ten o'clock, we came 
 into bad weather. All night long, tossing in my 
 berth, I hear the uproar of the black water outside, 
 and of objects pitching about within. At last it 
 benumbs and stupefies one, this tumult which enters 
 one's dreams; and with eyes open, in an odd condi- 
 tion of somnolence, one submits, like an inert thing, 
 to the action of the tremendous power which is at 
 work in the darkness. 
 
 At daylight the air has grown cold and we shiver. 
 We are off Crete. A sea tumultuous and livid like 
 the sky; ragged clouds hanging low, waves rising 
 from the deep, mingle, rush, fly, in a gray fog, a salt 
 vapor, with a clamor of wind and water. And all 
 day long the ship falls, falls into black valleys ; rises 
 staggering under a mass of blue-green dripping 
 foam ; gets above the horizon, which has lost its 
 level, above the great circle of pallid sea, which 
 oscillates upon the wan sky as if shaken in its very 
 depths. 
 
 In the evening there is a little peace overhead, 
 but the heavy seas are running as madly as ever. 
 
258 IN INDIA. 
 
 In the distance crests of waves shine, like whitish 
 lightning, upon the gray tumult of the water. 
 
 A northern twilight, interminable and cold : a red 
 bar, a gleam fixed in the horizon, which lingers 
 there sadly for hours, which seems as if it would 
 never disappear, and toward which we advance 
 steadily. A sad return into sombre Europe ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aden, 4-6 
 
 Agra, Mogul capital, 162; Tomb 
 
 of Akbar, 162-64; citadel, 164- 
 
 68; Taj, 168-73 
 Akbar, Mogul emperor, Musal- 
 
 man, 162 ; his tomb, 162-64 ! 
 
 his palace, 164-68 
 Allahabad, its worship of snakes, 
 
 92 
 Almehs, Egyptian, at Port Said, 
 
 253-55 
 Amiel, a Hindu mind, 135, 136 
 Animals, Hindu worship of, 90, 
 
 92, 104, 105, 142, 153, 176 
 Arab dancing-girls, 254-56 
 Architecture, Cinhalese, 21, 22; 
 
 Hindu, 77-79, 144, 145, 182-84, 
 
 203, 228-31 ; Musalman, 81, 
 
 155, 163-73, 186 
 Aurungzebe, 177 
 Autonomy of India, possible, 17, 
 
 66, 99, 157, 158 
 
 B 
 
 Babus (native merchants), 55, 95, 
 
 107, 108, 195, 213 
 Bayaderes, at Pondichery, 48 
 Benares, sacred city of Brahman- 
 ism, 73-75; first impressions of, 
 75, 76; scenes by the river in the 
 
 morning, 77-81, 138-40; palace 
 of the Maharajah, 103, 104; tem- 
 ple of the monkeys, 104, 105; 
 the University, 105, 106; shop, 
 107, 108; dancing-girls, 108-10; 
 street scenes, 140, 141; temple 
 of Siva, 141-43 ; last look at, 
 
 153, 154 
 
 Bengalis, appearance and charac- 
 ter of, 52-54 
 
 Bindrabund, sacred city, abound- 
 ing in monkeys, 182; temples in 
 honor of Krishna, 182-84 
 
 Bo, the sacred tree of Ceylon, 22 
 
 Bombay, cosmopolitan city, 214, 
 215, 217, 218; atmospheric ef- 
 fects, 216, 217, 223 ; street 
 scenes, 217-20; hospital for ani- 
 mals, 220 ; English placards, 
 220, 221; Salvation Army, 221, 
 222; Parsi worship, 223; Parsi 
 cemetery, 224, 225; point of de- 
 parture for Europe, 240 
 
 Brahmâ and Brâhma, 117, 125-27, 
 
 235 
 
 Brahmanism, its ceremonials, 77, 
 78, 82-89, 138-43; theology, 89- 
 93, 146-52; ethics, 93-98; vision 
 of the world and of life, 114-38, 
 143-46 
 
 Brahmans, highest caste of Hindus, 
 73, 75. 82-89, 90, 114 
 
 361 
 
202 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Brahmo-Somaj, new sect of 
 " Young Bengal," 151, 208, 209 
 
 Buddha (Gautama), Sakya-Muni, 
 statues of, in Ceylon, 22, 23, 31, 
 32; a Brahman of Benares, 74; 
 his statues in cave temples of 
 Ellora, 237-39 
 
 Buddhism in Ceylon; its ceremo- 
 nial, monasteries, characteristic 
 features, 21-26, 29-38; in India, 
 its date unknown, 137; absorbed 
 by Hinduism, 151, 152; perpet- 
 uated in the caves of Ellora, 
 237, 238 
 
 Calcutta, arrival at, 52; first im- 
 pressions of, 52-54 
 
 Caste system of India, 90 
 
 Cemetery, English, at Lucknow, 
 156; Parsi, at Bombay, 224, 225 
 
 Ceylon, approach to, 11; first im- 
 pressions, 12-16; aspect of the 
 country, 12, 15, 16, 18-21 
 
 Cheddy Lai, the Sudra "boy," 
 159-61, 187; his opinions of the 
 English, 160, 161, 210; of the 
 Salvation Army and the mission- 
 aries, 222 
 
 Chunder Dutt, converted babu, 
 196, 197 
 
 Cinhalese, their appearance and 
 character, 12, 15, 16, 18, 28, 29 
 
 D 
 
 Darjiling, arrival at, 62; English 
 character of the place, 62-67, 72 
 
 Delhi, a great capital, its fortress, 
 185, 186; its mosque, 186; its 
 shawl merchants, 187-89 
 
 Dupleix, statue of, at Pondiche'ry,49 
 Durga, a Hindu divinity, 80, 91, 92 
 
 E 
 Elephants, 20, 28, 202, 203 
 Ellora, cave temples of, 227-39 
 English authors studied in India, 
 98, 99, 106, 207, 208, 209; 
 English conviction of duty 
 toward India, 65-67, 157, 158, 
 195, 249; English influence, ef- 
 fects of, in Ceylon, 17, 18; and 
 in India, 66, 67, 195, 197; Eng- 
 lish judges in India, their im- 
 partiality, 160; English life and 
 manners transplanted into India, 
 52, 53, 62-67; English officers, 
 met on shipboard, 241-47; Eng- 
 lish soldiers in India, 65, 161, 
 193, 194; Englishwoman, a mis- 
 sionary, met on shipboard, 247- 
 50 
 
 G 
 Ganesa, Hindu divinity, 76, 80, 
 
 88, gi, 140, 141, 203, 213 
 Ganges, the river, below Calcutta 
 (the Hoogly), 49-52; at Benares, 
 77-80, 138-40, 153, 154; an ob- 
 ject of worship, 83, 88; "the 
 divine Mother," 89; an image of 
 Hinduism, 152 
 
 H 
 
 Himalayas, the, first sight of, 36, 
 57 ; backbone of the earth, 58, 
 59 ; forests of, 59, 60 ; mixed 
 population of the foot-hills, 59, 
 60, 61 ; change of temperature 
 on approaching, 60 ; seen from 
 Darjiling, 61, 62, 67, 68, 71, 72 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Hinduism, a development of Brah- 
 manism, 146 ; its complicated 
 character, 146-52 
 
 Hindus, their peculiar ethics, 93- 
 98; their souls a mystery to us, 
 98-101 ; their relations to the 
 European races, 102, 103 ; the 
 nautch their greatest pleasure, 
 III, 112 ; peculiarities of their 
 mental organization, 137, 145 
 
 Indra, Vedic divinity, his statues 
 in cave temples of Ellora, 227 
 
 Instruction in India, 98, 99, 105, 
 206-09 
 
 Jahan, Shah, builder of the Taj, 
 168 
 
 Jains, Hindu Buddhists, their 
 sanctuaries in the caves of 
 Ellora, 228, 237 
 
 Jaipur, capital of Rajputana, 198 ; 
 street scenes, 199-203 ; build- 
 ings, 203 ; tiger cage, 204 ; tem- 
 ple of Siva, 205, 206 ; college, 
 206-09 ; scenic efïect, 209 
 
 Jews, at Aden, 4 
 
 Jumna, the river, " the divine 
 Mother," 89 ; at Agra, 164 ; 
 scenes on its banks, 180-82 
 
 K 
 
 Kailas, the Himalayan paradise of 
 Siva, 75, 96 ; the great temple 
 of the caves of Ellora, 228-31 
 
 Kali, Hindu goddess, 76, 90, 91, 
 96, 97, 208 
 
 Kandy, ancient capital of Ceylon, 
 21-30 
 
 Kasi, name for Benares, 74, 75 
 
 Kelanya Ganga, river of Ceylon, 19 
 
 Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, 
 149 ; specially worshipped at 
 Muttra, 176; "the blue god," 
 divinity of the pre-Aryan inhab- 
 itants of India, 177 ; story of his 
 life, 177-79; poem concerning 
 him, 179-80 ; his temple at Bin- 
 drabund, 182, 183, 197 
 
 Kshatriyas, warrior caste of Hin- 
 dus, 103, 128, 198, 202, 213 
 
 Kunchain-Junga, a peak of the 
 Himalayas, 61, 62 ; seen at sun- 
 rise, 67, 68 
 
 Kutab-Minar, tower near Delhi, 
 189-91 
 
 Lama's temple near Darjiling, 
 
 65, 70, 71 
 Lawrence, General Henry, tomb 
 
 of, at Cawnpur, 156 
 Lucknow, a Muhammedan and 
 
 English city, 155 ; siege of, 
 
 156, 243 
 
 M 
 
 Madhava, Hindu author (four- 
 teenth century), 149 
 Malabar Hill, 223-25 
 Maya, the goddess, 127, 131, 197 
 Meditations, the five Buddhist, 24, 
 
 25 
 Missionary, Wesleyan, to Jaipur, 
 
 247-50 
 Monastery, Buddhist, in Kandy, 
 21-26 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Mongol types in Northern India, 
 57, 58, 60, 61 
 
 Monkeys, 104, 105, 192 
 
 Monks, Buddhist, their rules of 
 life, 23-26 
 
 Mosques : in Benares, 81 ; in 
 Lucknow, 155 ; in Delhi, 186, 
 190, igi 
 
 Mumtaz-i-Mahal, her tomb, the 
 Taj, 168, 169 
 
 Music, Oriental, its strange char- 
 acter, 256, 257 
 
 N 
 
 Nana Sahib, Ii2, 156 
 Nautch, the, 1 10-12 
 Negroes, at Aden, 4, 5 
 
 Pantheism. Hindu, 122-30 
 Parsis in Bombay, 215, 216, 223 
 Parvati, Hindu goddess, wife of 
 
 Siva, 91, 206, 232 
 Peacocks, blue, igo, 192, 210, 211 
 Peradinya Gardens, 39-41 
 Perusha, 93 
 
 Pictures, two Hindu, 114-22 
 Pondichery, arrival at, 44 ; French 
 element in, 44-46, 49 ; aspect of, 
 46 ; statue of Dupleix in, 49 
 
 R 
 
 Railways in Ceylon, 18, 19 ; in 
 India, 55, 157-59, 195, 213, 
 214, 226 
 Rainfall of Northern India, 58 
 Rajputs, very ancient Aryan peo- 
 ple, 198 
 
 Rama,incarnation of Vishnu,96, 149 
 Rig-Veda, 85 
 
 S 
 Saktists, a Hindu sect, 97, 98 
 Sakya-Muni (Gautama), see Buddha 
 Salvation Army in India, 221, 222 
 Samunda, Hindu goddess, 91 
 Sanskrit, 98, 105, 207 
 Scots Greys, in India, 155, 193, 194 
 Sepoys, 95, 96, 104, 215 
 Shawl merchants of Delhi, 187-89 
 Shelley, a Hindu mind, 133-35 
 Shipboard, life on, i-io, 44, 49- 
 
 52, 240-53, 257 
 Sikkim, the, 63, 68, 72 
 Siliguri, 57 
 Siva, Hindu god, 80, 88, 90, 91, 
 
 94, 95, 97, 104, 128, 141, 143, 
 
 147, 148, 219, 220, 227, 228-39 
 Soldiers, English, at Aden, 4 ; in 
 
 India, 65, 155, 161, 163, 193 
 Sudra, low caste of Hindus, 77, 
 
 90, 102, 160, 213 
 Surya, Hindu god, 88, 124, 227 
 
 Taj, the, tomb of Mumtaz-i-Mahal, 
 168-73 
 
 Tavernier, French traveller in In- 
 dia (1641), 177 
 
 Tea-planters in Ceylon, 41, 42 
 
 Temples : Buddhist in Kandy, 21, 
 22, 31, 32, 37, 38 ; Hindu, at 
 Villianur, 47-49; Lama's, at Dar- 
 jiling, 70, 71 ; in Benares, 79, 
 104, 141-43 ; at Muttra, 177; in 
 Bindrabund, 182, 183 ; in Jai- 
 pur, 205, 206 ; in caves of El- 
 lora, 227-32, 237-39 
 
INDEX. 
 
 265 
 
 Tigers, caged, in Jaipur, 204 
 Trichinopoli, pagodas of, 48, 177 
 
 U 
 
 Upanishads, the, 85, 105 ; extracts 
 from, 115-23 ; meaning of the 
 word, 118, Jiote ; singular char- 
 acter of, 137 ; contain much 
 modern thought, 208 
 
 V 
 
 Vedas, the, 123, 124, 128 
 Vegetation, tropical : of Ceylon, 
 
 II, 12, 15, 16, 18-21, 26-30 ; 
 
 39-42; of India, 50, 59, 68, 214 
 
 Villages, their organization in In- 
 dia, 174 ; picturesque aspect, 
 
 174. 175 
 Villianur, pagoda of, 47-49 
 Vishnu, Hindu god, 84, 86-89, 9^^» 
 
 95, 126, 128, 147-50, 176, 219, 
 
 227 
 
 W 
 
 Wales, the Prince of, in Ceylon, 
 26 ; his portrait in Benares, 103 
 
 Zenanas, no, 247, 24g 
 Zend-Avesta, quoted, 224, 225 
 
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