LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Shelf .._K_-'74 m^M^^ A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA AMONG THE METHODIST MISSIONS / / .i^. REY. M* Y'^B^HOX, Pli.D., D.D. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D,D., LL.D. NEW YORK: HUNT &^ BATON CINCINNATI: CRANSTON &- STOWE iSgi Copyright, 1891, by HUNT & EATON. New York. PREFATORY NOTE. These letters are sent out with a hope that they may do some good for missions. It is also with the purpose that the fugitives may not be wholly lost that they are gathered into book-form, since gaining the facts they contain and writing them out were both pleasant and profitable to me. They were mostly written during the months of my passing through those sections of which they treat in a tour of the world. Should any income accrue from tlieir sales it is dedi- cated in advance to a certain field of mission work. I gladly acknowledge the valuable aid of Rev. Joseph H. Gill, for several years a missionary in India, in reading and correcting these letters. Also I here express my thanks to the editors of those periodicals in which many of them were printed in allowing this use of them from their columns. M. V. B. Knox. INTRODUCTION The author of A Winter in India and Malaysia is a busy pastor, and a faithful student of men and coun- tries. His lines of study had reached out widely, and for years he had utilized his spare time in a careful examination into the progress, the life, and the achieve- ments of the great nations of history. As his studies advanced he became keenly sensible of the need of a personal visit to distant nations yet in the darkness, or at best in the gray dawn of a new period. He saw India and Malaysia with the eye of a careful observer. He seems to have become absorbed, the farther he jour- neyed, in the missionary feeling, until in time his mis- sionary passion overpowered all else. In describing the life, architecture, and countries of India and Malay- sia he never once forgot the supreme need of the Gospel, or failed to appreciate the invaluable power of his own ecclesiastical body — the Methodist Episcopal Church- in sending a strong missionary force of men and women to hasten the coming of the glad day of universal evan- gelization. Dr. Knox's A Winter in India and Malaysia is so well written, so full of life and movement, and has so sprung out of the very experience and needs of the pastor at home, that they who read will hardly cease until they 6 INTRODUGTIOK reach the end. Those who are asked to make contribu- tions of money for missions must know why the appeal is made. They must see the object, the true need. The author of this work aims to bring the country to us here at home, that we may better understand the absolute need of bestowing our best gifts of missionaries and gold for its redemption. I cordially recommend this work as a most valuable addition to our literature of the East. It should be cir- culated throughout the country. It should have a place on the pastor's table, in the Sunday-school library, and in the Christian homes in all parts of our land. Many of its pages abound in matter entirely new to our American readers. The book, however, is mostly to be prized for its intense and beautiful loyalty to the kingdom of the Christ. John F. Huest. Washington, D. C, Septemler 1, 1891. CONTENTS. LETTER PAGE I. Street Sights in Bombay 9 11. My First Evening in Bombay 16 III. Methodism in Bombay 20 lY. A Thousand Miles' Run Through India 30 V. In and About Delhi 37 Yl. A Commencement Season in India 46 YII. Into the Himalayas at Naini Tal 50 YIII. At a Camp-meeting in India 57 IX. Education Work in North India Conference 68 X. In and About Muttra 15 XT. At Agra 84 XII. Nanak, the Punjab Reformer 95 XIII. A Day among India's Paupers 101 XIY. Annual Sunday-school Gala at Lucenow 105 XY. Caste 112 XYI. Religiousness of the Indian People 120 XYII. Among the Missionaries at Shahjehanpore 128 XYIII. A Day op Hunting in India 131 XIX. The Birds of India 143 XX. At the North India Conference 151 XXI. The JSTative Races of India 160 8 CONTENTS, LETTER PAGE XXII. Benares, the Holy City of the Hindus 169 XXIII. The Work op the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society — Schools — Sunday-schools.. .'. 180 XXIY. Woman's Work — Medical, Bible Readers, Dea- conesses 189 XXV. Woman's Work — Zenana, Orphanages 198 XXVI. The Question of Clothing and Homes 208 XXVII. At the Bengal Conference 215 XXVIII. Means of Locomotion 224 XXIX. In the Matter of Servants 231 XXX. The Future of Methodism in India 239, XXXI. The Methodist Press in India 246 XXXII. At Calcutta 252 XXXIII. Methodism in Rangoon, Burmah 262 XXXIV. The Great Buddhist Pagoda at Rangoon 268 XXXV. At Penang 280 XXXVI. Across the Track of Mrs. Leayitt's Woman's Christian Temperance Union Work in India. . 286 XXXVII. A Week with Our Missionaries at Singapore 292 XXXVIII. A Day Under the Equator 298 XXXIX. Qualifications FOR Successful Missionaries 303 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA AMOJSra THE METHODIST MISSIONS. LETTER I. STREET SIGHTS IN BOMBAY. Ojs'e is partly prepared to see India if he has passed through Egypt and Palestine on his way here, as I did, but even then he feels that the East of India is differ- ent from the East of Egypt and Syria. The Arabs are not Hindus. The former are a much finer, larger race in person, and are more filthy than the people here. The sight of hundreds of coolies on the wharves, busy unloading and loading the great ships, their bare slender legs and their brown bare arms and shoulders impress one that Bombay is Oriental and at the same time warm. The glare of the sun, even in the morn- ing and the winter-time, also intimates the great heat. As I first cast a glance from the SomerhilVs deck upon England's busy trafiic in Bombay, and the great, strong paraphernalia necessary for dock work, there came a sense of loneliness thinking of the great city and greater country all unknown to me. Once on shore, the tram-cars, the roadway built and carried on by a New York syndicate, suggested that with these 10 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. and railways my task of g-etting over the land would uot be very hard after all. An admirable net-work of street-cars runs all through the city, and in these one finds all classes and races, Eui-opeans, Hindus, Moham- medans, Parsees, and others. Caste yields to travel. All these Indian cities have the old native part and the newer English part, the former dirty, squalid, the latter with wide, clean streets, ample grounds, and strong, fine buildings. It is so in Bombay. The *' Fort " or southern part of the island has most of the English establishments, the Malabar Hills in the west part having the rich Parsee residences and some En- glish, while the rest of the city has mostly natives. The native portions have their poorer and their bet- ter streets. Many Hindus and Mohammedans are rich, and for native houses have good ones well sit- uated in yards and gardens. It is as impossible to call the streets, homes, and clothing of the rich character- istic of the Hindu life as it is to call that characteristic alone where the coolie is stark naked save a limited breech-cloth, and who lives among squalid lanes in dirtiest houses of one room only for the whole family. It takes these extremes and all the gradations between them to show the life here. All the streets swarm with people, so numerous are they in this country. It was my fortune to be taken by the missionaries through some of these streets in the denser 25art of the city. Smells arising from bad drainage, from cooking native foods, from the native worship, from the natives themselves, nnd from unknown sources, crowded upon one's olfactory nerves. It was well if he had learned to be around old tanneries and bleacheries. In many cases the mats or blankets that may have covered the entrance from the street to the single room occupied STREET SIGHTS IN B 0MB A Y. 11 by a family were removed for the clay, and thus glimpses of coolie homes were obtained without hav- ing to enter them. A light bamboo bedstead or two were sometimes to be seen, on which some rags lay, a copper kettle for cooking, a bit of mud fire-place in one corner, with no chimney for the escape of smoke, save into the room, an earthen floor, or one a grade higher made dry with a plastering of bullock-dung, not a chair or bench, and for dishes possibly three or four copper or brass ones of j^eculiar shape and many pur- poses. With one of the ladies in charge of the native Christian work I went into some of the homes of those reached by the beneficent ministries of the Gospel. More cleanly homes, better clad families, and more comfortable arrangement of beds, benches or chairs, dishes and other household utensils, were to be distin- guished. Christianity touches the whole life. On getting into an Oriental city one is impressed by the exceedingly varied and many-colored costumes. White is apt to predominate. Peoples in hot climates are inclined to adopt that color as a guard against the excessive heat. Here one sees persons clad all in white, from the white turban to the white pants on his legs, or the white cloth that by a peculiar folding cov- ers the loins and hips, reaching to the knees. Even the breech-cloth of the coolies once was white. But this color is not absolute. The better classes often wear several colors. One will have a red or green tur- ban, a purple or black jacket, and then white pants, with his feet encased in red slippers. Women go in blue, white, or green chuddars. Bright colors, if white is not used, are apt to be assumed. With a street full of such costumes under a bright Indian sun the effect is fanciful. At any time one might think every 12 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. body was out-doors, but on second thought he knows that the harem-kept women of the better classes are never seen on the street. Mingling with these moving masses of humanity are such grotesque carts and wagons that to stop and gaze at them is a Yankee's first impulse. Carts, carriages, cabs, all are strange. Now and then a tony carriage may roll by that was brought from England or even America, but nearly all are native. For eight annas, about sixteen cents, one ^an ride to almost any part of the city in a good four-wheeled cab, or " ghari," but al- ways with a poor, miserable horse, for the Indians do not know how to take care of horses. For two or four an- nas, if you are democratic and independent enough to break your Western caste, you can have a ride a mile or two in a bullock-cart. Only remember that if some European sees you he will think you are lowering your- self by riding in that way. But then for a Yankee such a ride for a trial is a fine one. I climb into one, cushioned, small, covered with white cotton-cloth, the driver perched forward on a bit of seat, as much sur- prised as the European sitting near by in the street-car. But two other Yankees, both missionaries, share the odium with me. Away we go. The small, white, hump- shouldered bullocks strangely yoked and harnessed to the diminutive cart, urged into a smart trot by the driver, are as sharp as horses in shunning other carts ^and the thronging crowds that part one way and the other at the cries of our Jehu. If the bullocks do not go fast enough he can, from his place, easily catch one by the tail and give it a twist. Bullock-driving by voice, stick, and hand-pushing is a science. After all, if one rides quickly and safely and cheaply through a great city, why bother about the manner ? STREET SIGHTS IN BOMB A F. 13 The shops to be seen in Bombay defy description as much as the masses of people in the streets. In the native quarters they are generally open entirely on the side toward the street, like a porch, and then in a space eight or twelve feet square are piled the goods, cloths, or food, or shoes, or chinaware, or iron, while the seller sits cross-legged or on his haunches ready to wait on you as you approach the front of his room. You do not enter, since the salesroom is three feet above the street, with no steps to go in, and there is no room for your great shoe-clad feet. He is always barefooted. The stores in the newer parts of the city are more like those in America. In the native shops the work or trade of the occupant goes on openly, instead of being done in the back rooms, as among us. Tailoring, cook- ing, shoe-making, blacksmithing, and the like, progress. In front of a confectioner's I saw three native women pounding some spicery or other in a mortar. The pestles were each about four feet long and two inches in diameter, the mortar large and deep. Standing around it, they threw the pestles alternately into the mortar, by a deft rhythmic order, so one did not bother the other; and further, each woman changed hands at every throw, now the right, now the left, the whole combining to make an interesting sight. The many temples and mosques in Bombay show the In- dians to be a religious race. In addition to these, images and emblems are set up in little recesses in the walls of the streets and houses, being always strewn with red ocher and oil. In front of one small image in a temple con- tiguous to the street, at which a young priest stood officiating, was a narrow tank into which the oil poured over the god ran, and this the priest, dipping out, sold again and again. Dirty, frowsy, hideous fakirs are 14 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. every now and then to be met, willing to accept alms from the Western man as well as from their own peo- ple. One kind of a religious beggar had a high conical hat made of peacock's feathers, and to attract to alms had a clanking instrument made of steel springs in one hand, with which he kept up a rude melody as he droned a nasal song. A mendicant bag hung over one shoulder to receive the gifts of the people. Another had a conch-horn that he blew, which he said conveyed salvation to all who heard. I heard it! Once I saw a man who under some vow was measuring his length along the dust and dirt of the pavement. Several times I saw men going about with an instru- ment on their shoulder like a rude harp with one string. They would utter some cry and twang this single tight string. Our missionaries told me it was a cotton-cleaner, and later I saw it in operation. The use of cotton in quilts, pillows, coats, pants, and caps is very extensive, and naturally it gets both dusty and hard packed. A pile of this packed or freshly washed cotton will need to be "picked," or fluffed, which the men wath these instru- ments do, by snapping this string most dexterously through a little of it at a time. The rhythmic hum of this tight string makes a noise heard half a block away. I went into the Crawfurd Market, centrally located in Bombay, thus getting a glimpse of the multitudi- nous productions of India. Here were oranges, sweet, delicious ones; pomegranates, apples, grapes, a few lingering mangoes, out of season and poor; pine-ap- ples, pumalos, allied to the orange, but vastly larger; custard-apples, lemons, limes, bananas, and many other fruits. There were beautiful flowers; rich, creamy- looking native sweet-meats; of vegetables, besides many STREET SIGHTS IN B 0MB A Y. 15 that I did not know, ivere cucumbers, squashes, egg- 23lant, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, and yams as large as pumpkins. A part of the great market was devoted to birds, where could be obtained pigeons, quails, j^ar- oquets, bulbuls, and others. One of the most interest- ing kinds was the Java sparrows, hundreds of the lively little dark fellows, in a cage, brightly marked with blood-red, bronze, and other colors. Liquor-shops, many anid increasing, carry their curse more and more, in spite of Hindu and Mohammedan religious objections, into the homes and lives of these people. The blessings of Western civilization are at- tended by cursings. Satan ever appears among the sons of God. 16 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. LETTER II. MY FIRST EVENING IN BOMBAY. Haying fallen into the hands of the missionaries, and telling them I wanted to learn all I could about their work here, they have already given me some fine views. First I went with A. W. Prautch to some street- preaching, which is peculiarly hand-to-hand work among the natives. As we came to the corner where the agreement had been to hold the. service we found that one of the native Methodist preachers was already speaking. Forty or fifty were gathered about him list- ening attentively to his earnest words. I noticed two tall, finely dressed Hindus listening, who wore on their foreheads the painted spot indicative of the devotee of some god or other in their pantheon. As the preacher ceased, to give way to another, the taller of the two Hindus spoke a few minutes, the import of whose words, as told me by Mr. Prautch, was that God, who made all things, as the preacher said, must have made sin, so if God was the author of sin he was not the good and holy God described. To this challenge the next preacher, a native also, under the auspices of the Anglican Church, responded in proper arguments as interpreted to me. What surprised me was the absorbed stare of those who listened. Two or three with a peculiar kind of crooked saws on their shoulders stopped a while to hear, then passed on. Several women also stood during the whole half hour, eager listeners, while numbers of the group MY FIB ST EVENING IN BO JIB A Y. 17 about weve boys from ten to fourteen, whose great dark eyes, wide open, showed that they were drinking in the truth. One man, with a big bundle of wood on his head, stood nearly all the time among the crowd. I noticed especially a group of three or four young men, sixteen or so, naked to their waists, standing eager to hear, their hands clasped over each other's brown shoulders in attitudes like some exquisitely fashioned bronze group, which, indeed, they much resembled. It is found all through India that this street-preaching does much good. From there Mr. Prautch took me to the location of one of his schools, where a native teacher gathers for a couple of hours each day forty or more boys and girls, from six to ten years of age, to teach them to read in the native language. It was now getting dark, so I could but dimly see the people who thronged about us. Many of them were the children of the school; mothers also were there with babes resting on their hips, while a good sprinkling of men also came. The place was a narrow alley between low sheds covered with bamboo- leaves and divided into sections a dozen or fifteen feet long, each section making a house for a whole family. It was a strange cluster of homes. We had scarcely arrived wdien we heard a man calling out loudly, and soon saw a devotee coming near us with a small square lantern, a conch-trumpet, a begging-tray, and a bag into which to put the things given him. A con- stant coming to him by one and another, mostly women out of the huts, was going on, almost all bringing some food, rice, or flour, which, as his tray was partly filled, he put into the bags hanging from each shoulder. Then, in response to these gifts and attentions, he marked the foreheads of all he could reach with 2 IS A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. chalk. ]^Ir. Praiitcli knew of these fellows, but, to enter on a talk, asked him what he marked the people for, and his answer was that he conveyed a blessing with his chalk-mark. A long discussion followed between the two men, quite a crowd gathering round, so that the falseness of such notions uncovered by Mr. Prautch was listened to by fifty or a hundred eager people. It was a wild, weird scene, under the tropical starlight, some palms and other trees growing not far away with their outlines sharp against the sky, the long, low huts swarming with human beings, the listening crowd gathered about us, the two men in eager discussion. The devotee, hard pressed, blew a long blast on his conch, declaring that all who heard it would be saved. Finally, Mr. Prautch struck in and sang, the children whom he is having taught crowding close about him, joining heartily in singing the refrain, which was a sort of doggerel satire on this class of mendicants. The Hindu said that these people would do any thing for him, to prove which claim he said, ■' Give me a smoke of gongee," when a man brought him a big pipeful of that hateful drug, which he smoked with great ap- parent satisfaction. Then he called for a bowl of water, which was quickly reached to him. Yet this teacher could not read a word, acknowledging this to Mr. Prautch, and also publicly confessing that he begged to get a living. As he sounded his conch and moved away Mr. Prautch preached Christ to the lingering crowds, sang a hymn with the children about Jesus, and we passed on. Hearing some native music in a yard where Mr. Prautch was acquainted, we turned aside to find half a hundred people gathered about a miniature temple as large as a bushel-basket, in which and before it lire was kept burning. As some attended this fire a JfY FIRST E VEmNG IN B OMBA Y. 19 man dressed as a woman danced and whirled about among tlio bv-standers, keeping time by cries or hand- clapping with the rude music made by the half dozen players. They were very demonstrative to Mr. Prautch and me, crowding about us to shake hands as we started to go away. From these manifestations of native re- ligiousness we went at half past seven to the ample rooms of Mr. Dyer, where a good-bye meeting was to be held among the English and Americans for Mr. Gladwin, who was about leaving for Ceylon on a mission in the interest of social purity. Mr. Dyer and Mr. Gladwin have both been doing heroic work in this field, and there was need of it, for the Indian govern- ment drew a large resource from the licenses granted to brothels, but the revenue has been stopped by the English Parliament since the agitation begun by these two men. Mr. Gladwin was for several years in our mission work; then, leaving that, worked with the Salvation Army, but for three years has labored with Mr. Dyer in this new crusade. About forty gathered in Mr. Dyer's rooms, a psalm was read, songs of Christ were sung, prayers offered, short talks made, all in a free and hearty spirit, being most like simple, intense Methodist social meetings of any thing I have seen since leaving London. Faith, prayers, wide hopes in God's providences and help were urged and well illus- trated. Four of our missionaries were present. As we went home through the fragrance of tropical flowers and under the bright moon of an India sky I deemed the Anglo-Saxon race great and strong, partly good, noble, and grand, and partly hard, selfish, and brutal. 20 A WINTER IN INDIA AND 2IALA YSIA. LETTER III. METHODISM IN BOMBAY. The city is occupied by quite a net-work of stations. There are three English-speaking churches belonging to us founded by Bishop William Taylor, a Seaman's Rest, two stations of native work, and a brisk station of Woman's Foreign Missionary Society work. Yet in the hundreds of thousands here there are room and call for more work and workers. By location and common acquiescence the Grant Road Church is the center of our missions in this city. It was one of the Taylor foundation. Of this Rev. H. C. Stuntz is pastor, hav- ing come to India two years ago, and to this church last Conference. He and his family, consisting of a wife and two-year-old boy, are well and happy in their work. The church building is capable of seating four hundred and fifty hearers, was erected in 1878 by the people of Bombay, and is valued at 35,000 rupees. Last year a parsonage was erected in the rear of the church at a cost of 8,000 rupees, not all paid yet, but borne by the local board. It is commodious and pleasant. There is a membership of sixty-five English-speaking people, with an average attendance of one hundred and fifty, a Sunday-school of seventy-five, and an English-speaking mission at Parel, a railroad suburb five miles out, where they gather every Tuesday evening. In this church are the usual social meetings of a home Methodist church. The ringing personal testimonies to present and METHODISM IN BO MB A Y. 21 full salvation heard here sounded good. Twenty have been converted since Conference. Besides their own sup- port the three churches aid the local native work, contribute between one and two hundred rupees to our Missionary Society, and, including all missionary contri- butions, give jij>6r capita about three dollars a member. That is better than some New England churches do. The Fort Church was the first of the English-sj^eak- ing churches organized under Bisliop William Taylor, and so is sometimes called the cradle of Bombay Meth- odism. It has a membership of sixty, in charge of Rev. E. F. Frease, who, with his wife and child, came to India last winter. They have worshiped in halls as they could get opportunities, but this year, having de- cided to build, have leased ground of the Port Trust Company for fifty years, and have the foundations of their church, to the bottom of the lower window, now laid, built out of trap-rock furnished from the quarries close to the city. It is nicely planned, will seat three hundred and fifty people, with an ample parsonage above the church, and is located in an admirable part of the city, on the narrow neck of the island south- ward. It will cost 112,000, of which- sum the ]\[ission- ary Society will pay |o,000, the remainder to be raised here. They have a membership of seventy, with an average attendance of one hundred and fifty, and a Sunday-school of sixty-five. Mr. Frease does street- preaching by an interpreter; the prayer and class-meet- ings are well attended, and forty conversions have taken place since Conference. With a church of their own this vigorous society will prosper better than ever, and can then much better jDush the native work begun by Rev. W. E. Robbins, now carried on by Miss Thompson and others. 22 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. Tlie Mazagon Church is located in the soutli-eastern part of the city. It was organized sixteen years ago, among the English-spealcing population, after William Taylor's campaign. It was expected that the popula- tion would fill in thickly close about it, but the cotton- mills, soon after erected, being placed in another part of the city, these expectations were not realized; so that it is left in rather a sparsely settled region. Still, there is contiguous to this location a large section of the city in which no missionary work is done save by this church. A debt hung over tlie pretty church build- ing for some years, which was finally paid by the Mis- sionary Society to make it a chapel for native work. It will seat about one hundred and fifty. Contiguous to it the society has built a fine parsonage, recently fin- ished, and into it the pastor, Rev. "W. E. Bobbins, has moved. The two buildings make a fine set of 23roperty. As members of the church there are only about half a dozen English-speaking people now con- nected with it, and the same number of natives. The united attendants of both classes number about seventy. There are three day-schools in the vernacular, having together about sQventy-five scholars, conducted by the church, and all these are organized, as Sunday-schools. One is at the church, the others away from it. There is also another Sunday-school three miles from the church, under its direction, in which there is a large at- tendance; so that, all told, the church has about one hundred and fifty scholars under instruction on Sunday. Street-preaching is regularly done by native helpers in the vernacular, besides wdiich they sell books, tracts, and gospels. A Bible woman is also kej)t at work doing the particular work that this class alone can accomplish. About once a month Brother Robbins goes out of the METHODISM IN BOMB A Y, 23 city to a point twenty miles away to preach to a fine gatliering. The native work is in charge of Rev. W". W. Bruere and wife, with their head-quarters in the rented school- building near the Grant Road Churcli, which latter they use for most of their services. They have a mem- bership, including Prautch's ingatherings, of one hun- dred, counting probationers. They have quite a regular audience of about one hundred, four Sunday-schools — one in the church and three outside — with over three hundred scholars. They keep up one day-school of sixty boys, with teachers paid by our Missionary So- ciety, besides a boarding-school in which they have thirty boarders with ten day-scholars. They keep up street-preaching in the vernacular at two places, besides much work done in the homes. I visited several of the Christian homes of these people and found little in them that would suit an American housekeeper. This work is very encouraging. Miss Power, a native, does much zenana work. The head teacher in the native school is a promising man from a low caste educated by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and is so eager to work for Christ that he has begged the privilege of Brother Bruere to hold meetings for the natives every night in the school-room ; so from six to eight he is there, talking, selling tracts and gospels, and is thus doing vast good. To gain a just knowledge of Mr. Prautch's work one needs to know something of the worker. He is only twenty-three years old, having been found in Chicago by Dennis Osborne five years ago, a poor boy of German parents, converted in D. L. Moody's church in that city, surrounded during his years till that time by very dis- advantageous conditions, so that he began work for the 24 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. Lord but poorly prepared. He had hopes of getting an education by coming out to India, but soon found the Methodist schools here not well adapted to his wants. He began studying by himself, came here, and commenced to work for the Lord. He has now mas- tered two of the native dialects, so he can do street- preaching, and in the midst of a native locality of sixty thousand people, one of the poorest, worst parts of the city, is doing valuable, heroic work. He is as yet un- married, but I may not tell what a few months are re- puted to have in store for him. He rents a native house and lives right among the people much like the people. If his health is not injured by such a life many things might be said in its favor. He considers his most im- portant work to be the enormous masses of Christian literature he sells to the natives. From February to September this year he and his native helpers sold 60 New Testaments, 5,645 gospels, and 20,130 tracts. They go along the streets, one on each side, crying their books and tracts, which the j)eople often buy w^ith the utmost avidity. Sometimes a woman will send enough money to buy several gospels and tracts, leaving him to send what ones he will. His three most promi- nent tracts sold are " The Great Physician," " The True Saviour," " The Kesurrection." During eight months past he has printed at his own expense, and distributed, 21,000 tracts, and the day I was with him had com- pleted a contract for the printing of 12,000 more. He sells these at such a price that he makes a little on their cost, the margin being used, as also that above his rent and cheap living from the Mission Rooms, in pushing his work among the natives. He has under his direc- tion five schools among the boys and girls, with three teachers, who are paid by the Missionary Society. In METHODISM m BOMBAY. 25 these schools are taught the primary things, as reading, arithmetic, writing, geography — then one hour every day the Bible, Catechism, and singing. In these schools are about one hundred and fifty scholars. There are carried on six Sunday-schools, having two hundred and seventy scholars. He keeps two Bible women at work, who visit hospital wards for women, pri- vate families, and do what they have opportunities for doing. In the liomes they sing hymns, read the Bible, and talk of its truths to the native women as they will listen. By this means from twenty to fifty women are reached every day. Mr. Prautch has had eight native preachers at work during the year, keeping up street-preaching regularly at several spots ; has five places for regular preaching in rooms, for three of which he pays rent, two places lately having been given up because of the inability of himself and assistants to bear the weight of their mul- tiplied duties. An organization consisting of seventeen members is kept up as a sort of adjunct of the native church on Grant Road, twelve having been baptized within a year. He has two or three Europeans whose living he pays for, and who live and labor with him. One of these, with a few ruj)ees only in his pocket, re- cently went across the harbor, where is a place, ten by fifteen miles, in which live one hundred and thirty thou- sand people with ho missionary work done among them. He has got a home, has begun preaching and teaching, and within two weeks sends word for one of the or- dained ministers to come over and baptize two who have professed Christ. Mr. Prautch is responsible for this man's living and the pay of his native helper. One of our pastors. Rev. H. C. Stuntz, will go and baptize these men at once. 26 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. The Seaman's Rest was begun only three years ago by Dr. J. S. Stone, then pastor of. Grant Road Church, who first furnished tea to some of the neglected sailors in port; the work so enlarged that a call was made for more space, a small room was rented at forty rupees a month, a revival broke out, and then they had to go to a still larger hall costing one hundred and ten rupees a month. Up to this time the expenses had all been paid by private subscriptions. A. W. Prautch, now in native work, was put in charge of it, and during the first full year nearly three hundred sailors were con- verted. The city government, seeing the good done by this mission in restoring and keeping order along the extended quays, before unsafe to orderly people from rowdyism and drunkenness, granted two hundred rupees a month to it as long as it should be sustained. At once an American colored man oifered to build a commo- dious house for this amount, and receive his pay for it in monthly installments ; so they have just completed on the main street at Prince's Dock a house worth twenty thousand rupees, with chapel, refreshment-room, read- ing-room, home for the superintendent and assistants, besides several rooms to rent. The present superin- tendent is Rev. B. Mitchell, a Scotchman, who, four years ago, penniless and almost in despair, was found on the streets of Bombay by Rev. J. S. Stone, and led to Christ. During the present year two hundred and eighty have been converted or reclaimed here, including four captains of ships, besides other officers. Meetings are held every night but Wednesdays and Saturdays. On Thursday nights is free tea, and after that preach- ing, at which there are often one hundred and fifty 23resent. It is supported by private subscriptions; these are solicited from every ship that comes in as well as METHODISM IN BOMB A Y. 27 from individuals in the city. There is a department for work among native sailors, but not yet made effect- ive. The sailors reached here and helped go all over the world, like those from the East Boston Bethel under Dr. L. B. Bates. On going to the department of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society work of Bombay Methodism I found the ladies nicely located in an airy, commodious, garden-embowered home. But these pleasant surround- ings must be given up this year, not behig owned, but only rented, and circumstances compelling a change. As yet they have not found any new place to suit them, either to rent or buy, for they will do the latter as soon as they can, their choice being to buy and build. Real estate is very high in this city. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in America has appropriated the money to buy. The work done here by the women can be roughly divided into two classes, zenana and school. In the zenana work they get chances among all kinds of people, Hindus, Mohammedans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs, Beni-Israelites, and others. The Beni-Israelites are Jews who have partly forsaken the traditions of their race and become mixed in blood and religion with other races. The women usually spend an hour in each home teach- ing the native women during a part of it to sew, cut garments, read, do fancy work, and the like ; in short, give them something to do ; then the other half hour im- press gospel teaching upon them. In this work they now enter about one hundred and fifty homes, so planning it as to visit each one every week. Nearly or quite tw^o hundred women are regularly reached. Miss De Line, in charge of the zenana work here, has five English- speaking helpers, all born in India, besides Miss Thomp- son, from America. Just now Miss Abrams, in charge 28 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. of the school, is off on sick leave, and Miss Thompson, who is sister of Mrs. Frease, is successfully doing the work of teacher. These noble women have a wide variety of experiences, passing from the region of utter rejection of their approaches and abuse to the most hearty and eager acceptances of their blessings and help. In their four years of work they have seen quite a number of conversions, some of which are openly confessed; others are obliged from the conditions of their homes and the results threatened to live their Christian faith in secret. Three sisters in one home secretly live their faith in Christ, praying, reading the Bible they keep hidden from their people, and are afraid to ask for baptism, which is here the separating mark and act in their relation to their heathen relatives. A mother with six children, converted to Christ, does not want publicly to be known as a Christian, for then her hus- band would turn her from her home, from himself and all her children. If thus turned away she would have no home but in the mission. If a man is baptized he can stay at the head of his home though all the rest may remain heathens. In most instances the men are glad to have the women come to their houses with the mission they bring of elevating the tone of their homes and wives, hoping the latter will get the benefits and amenities of Western civilization without accepting the new religion. The women of the mission think much good is being done. " The eyes of India are turning to Christ," says Miss De Line. One native Bible woman, sixty years old, gray, keen, shriveled, but a vast force from her powerful personality, is employed and paid for her work by the Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society. In the schools, of which there are four — three city METHODISM IN BOMB A Y. 29 schools away from the head-quarters and one there — they have over seventy scholars. In the outside schools the primary branches are taught, with Bible instruction gradually taken in; in the school at head-quarters the purpose is, as it is a boarding-school, to run it up to the matriculation grade, much like a high-school in America. In this was a bright group of girls from six to sixteen years of age. The teachers of this school are paid by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, save one Bible woman, who is paid by some American pegple out of private funds. These schools among girls and boys are raising up cultured, well-prepared native workers for ■Methodism, whose distinctive Methodistic preparation for work will be of great worth to South India as the years go by. A crying need all through the South India field is for reliable, properly instructed native workers, both men and women. 80 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. LETTER IV. A THOUSAND MILES' RUN THROUGH INDIA. The run began at Bombay 7 P. M. Monday, No- vember 26, and ended five days later at Moradabad. The night ride was not good for seeing the country, so that the first two hundred miles must be taken on trust, as I took it, though I could see that we crossed wide rivers, a few inlets from, the sea, and a low level reach of country. After a while enough room was at- tained in the car to stretch out on the seat for a good rest and cover myself in the blankets every one must carry in India for sleeping. Then in what seemed but a short time the fact suddenly came to me that it was past sunrise, that the English engineer on the other side of the compartment was smoking his morning pipe, a,nd that I needed to bestir myself. This I did by looking out of a window to see a tree not a hundred feet from the railway full of monkeys quietly looking at us as we thundered by them. They were so gray as to appear almost white in the bright sunlight, some as large as a big dog, others half that size. All the day groups of similar ones could be seen here and there, sometimes in trees, then on the banks of the railway or in the fields of grain, with the natives letting them get their fill, for these East Indians think monkeys sacred creatures, worshiping them sometimes, so that they are well treated in their roguish pilfering. They looked odd, indeed, with their long tails high over their A THOUSAND MILES' RUN THROUGH INDIA. SI backs. The natives were bathing as a sacred act in the rivers as we crossed them early in the morning. They seem to think that cleanliness is not only next to god- liness, but is a part of it. The foliage, animals, birds — every thing — seemed strange to me. The rice fields, from which the crop had not long been harvested, were sown to wheat for the second crop daring the year, and were being irrigated. Most of it was done with water drawn up from wells. Across a couple of up- right timbers a roller would be placed on which was a wheel; over the wheel ran a strong rope, on the lower end of Avhicli a bullock-skin was hanging, so shaped and tied as to form a great bucket. This being dipped in the water at the bottom of a large well a yoke of bullocks hitched to the rope would speedily draw it up, when it would be caught by a man and emptied where it could run off into a prepared sluice to the fields of grain. One well seemed capable of affording water for three or five acres. The winter crops, there being no rains during this season, can be raised only by irrigation. All the way this method of irrigation was going on. The trees were familiar-looking, yet wholly iinlike those in America. The palm grew rarer and shorter the farther north we went, the cocoanut giving way to the date-palm. The mango-tree, the fruit of which, now out of season, to my great regret, and the boast of all dwellers in India, looks much like a chestnut-tree, the leaves being a little more slender. The " momra " tree, looking not unlike a second growth white oak, yields a fruit out of which a sharp, intoxicating liquor is made, said to be something like rum, on which the people get drunk; so the government has put a tax on it "for revenue only." Acacia or locust-trees of dif- ferent species abounded, one of them, the " babul," 82 A WIXTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. now richly clad with brig-ht yellow blossoms, have per- sisted from Bombay to Moradabad. Not only are they in bloom, but many other kinds of trees are rich in scarlet or yellow or red blossoms. While ground in New England is frozen hard, and possibl}^ snow-covered, In- dia can furnish along the roads and fields a hundred beautiful blossoms, roses, asters, oleanders, morning- glories, creepers, and others. The yards of the rail- way stations were many times most profusely planted to flowers. Such masses of them kept driving out of my mind that it was Thanksgiving season, when, in the Northern States, the thermometer usually indicates from five to fifteen degrees below zero. As we came north- ward there was some change in the trees. To my re- gret, banyan nearly ceased, as I was w^anting to look at it with more leisure than I could have on a pass- ing train, I noticed one peculiarity of this and some other kinds — that the main body, instead of being solid, would be composed sometimes of many sections grow- ing tightly together, but yet distinct. The trees do not cover the country, as in New England, but are loosely scattered over the fields, as in some old pastures with us, seeming, a mile or two away, however, to form complete forests. From the time I awoke, two hundred miles out of Bombay, the first morning, all the way to Moradabad I was surprised at the vastness of bird life. I kept my eyes now and then steadily glancing ahead toward the engine to see if there was any moment when no birds were to be seen fleeing from the train, and sometimes a mile would be passed without there being any mo- ment when T could not see them. And such birds ! — from the tiniest kind of sparrows all the way up to vult- ures, and adjutants which stood four feet high. These A THOUSAND MILES' RUN THROUGH INDIA. 33 last would stand, a conspicuous sight, on some wheat- field or other, their light gray bodies, white tail and neck giving the impression of a totally white bird. Their head is a brilliant scarlet. Peacocks abound, half domesticated, like the robins in America; and, be- ing considered sacred, the natives make a great row if Europeans kill them or monkeys. The natives never kill any of the birds or animals, so their tameness is a constant astonishment to Western people. Hawks, pigeons, fly-catchers, and other birds would sit on the railway fence-posts and telegraph wires as the train roared along. Birds in brilliant plumage, such as we never see in northern United States, abounded. Paroquets, fly-catchers, hoopoes, and others bore colors from dull gray all along through brown, black, white, blue, red, slate, green, orange, with endless variations in all of these colors. O, how I wanted leisure and opportunity carefully and fully to study this feathered wealth ! If bird life abounded the glimpses obtained of an- imal life showed that this also was rich, if not so read- ily seen as the other. The monkeys, with their half- domesticated instincts, were comical and impudent. A jackal or two sneaking away at early morning from the noise of the train, as well as the ground freshly dug up by them overnight in search of moles and other earth-hid- den food, suggested how many might be seen and heard under other conditions. Pretty squirrels, striped not un- like the American chipmunk, but with more bushy tail, sought food close by human habitation undisturbed by the Indian boy. They said I should see deer and ante- lope; and it was true, for the second morning a single one of the latter bounded gracefully away over the plains, while only ten miles out of Delhi a herd of twenty-five deer was seen grazing on the green, succu- 3 84 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. lent wheat three or four inches tall. What a sight for one with hunter instincts \ Later still one ran beside the train half a mile pursued by a dog. Then those ac- quainted with the country told of hares and other small animals in abundance. As we came through the Ara- valli Mountains the afternoon of the first day the En- glish engineer told of bears, tigers, cheetahs, panthers, deer, antelope, and smaller game living in them. An English officer last year in a week there killed three tigers, three bears, and one panther, besides other game. In the same mountains are the Bhils — a race of wild men, they call them; rude, unsubdued fellows, whom neither the native rajah nor the English have yet been able to bring under control. They go nearly naked, are warlike, living by the chase and robbery, even at- tacking the cars in their love of plunder. I was glad we went through the mountains in the day-time. The people whom I have seen during this run have presented a great variety of conditions, from the well- dressed, inquisitive Parsee to the naked coolie, as poor and thin as a man could be and work. The route has been through several native States which England lets have their own way, customs, and laws, if they regu- larly pay the demanded tribute. Many of the people went armed with some old sword or dagger, or even with bow and arrows, for England discourages the keeping of fire-arms. It had a comical look to see some half -naked native going about wnth a long sword tucked under his arm or slung to a strap hanging over his shoulder, while the primitive bow and arrows did not look like very formidable weapons. If they did not have any more deadly weapons they almost invariably carried a long cane like a light cliib. Some fortifica- tions, as antiquated as their weapons, crowned a hill-top A THOUSAND MILES' RUN THROUGH INDIA. S5 here and there. These natives in Bombay, and for the first day seen out on my trip, wore only cotton goods, but the second day I saw some of the rich ones with woolen garments. Even then, when a thick quilt and my overcoat had failed to keep me warm in the cars through the night, early the next morning, before the sun was up, many of them were lounging about the sta- tion bare-legged and bare-armed. O, the misery and squalor of India's millions ! Women toiling in the fields or at hard labor of other kinds, carrying great loads on their heads at building or harvesting or other works, half -naked; men still less clad, slim, poor, and hard-worked, beaten, kicked — who can wonder at their degradation till they worship a thousand things, from a stone set up to peacocks, mon- keys, cows, and the sun in the heavens above us ? Their methods of work, from splitting wood with an instru- ment almost as blunt as a sledge-hammer to their wooden plows, were of the crudest kind. Grain was threshed with a crooked stick by people sitting on the ground, and winnowed by the wind. Huts of mud or of leaves and branches, with a fragile thatching, were the only home of some of these people. Others had comfortable-looking houses of brick or stone. But how like the taste of more highly civilized people is theirs ! I counted rings on three fingers of a woman, besides bracelets of massive silver two thirds to the elbow. And she, too, seemed proud of her finery. In much of this country there has been long drought, so the first crops this year were a failure, the rivers have run dry, the pastures are almost worthless, and there is much suffering, actual and threatening. The natives dig up the roots and the few blades of grass attached to them, carrying great bundles for their goats and cattle. I 36 A WINTER JN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. saw two breeds of domesticated cattle — the bullock, mostly white, small, hump-shouldered, big-eared, and then the mouse-colored buffalo, almost hairless, larger,, hideous-looking about his crooked lop-horns and pro- jecting muzzles. I saw no sheep, but many goats. The country seems almost a level plain, with ranges of hills or mountains here and there rising abruptly from this dead flatness. Most of the country is highly cultivated, but long tracts through the native States lie untilled, while other stretches seem but poorly adapted to culti- vation, having vast quantities of pampa-grass in huge tussocks, the stalks standing from eight to tAvelve feet high, now ripe and dry. There was more untilled land than I expected. It is certain that this country, so thickly settled, could be made to sustain many more peoj^le if all of it were cultivated. The rock noticed was a little coarse granite, much trap, and more of finely laminated sandstone, from the last thousands and thousands of fence-posts being split and used beside the railway. Another kind of fence was cactus-hedges and those grown out of the century-plant. The mud huts of the villagers had no garden or yard of flowers, all about them being dirty, dusty, and cheerless. These people show the abjectest fear of the British, and to most of them every white man is of that dominant race. They cringe, step out of the way, bow low, and studiously deprecate his wrath. In Delhi I had more salutes from policemen and native soldiers in one day than I had received since 1861-65. England treats the people with a disdain that to Americans seems far too harsh even for conquerors of so vast a people as this. My thousand miles were really ten hundred and forty. My exact fare for that distance, intermediate class, was 14.70 — cheaper riding than one gets in the United States, IN A ND ABO UT DELHI 37 LETTER y. IN AND ABOUT DELHI. A CONTINUOUS run of forty-six hours from Bombay has landed me in Delhi. The memories of this renowned city have crowded upon me with peculiar force ever since the cars bringing me were headed this way. To me it has always seemed as though Delhi must be more truly an Indian city than any other of the great ones, for Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta are on the sea-board, and thus must have become much internationalized. To see green trees, bright flowers, fresh-growing wheat, luxuriant gardens and j^arks in late autumn is very odd, but what we really must have expected. The night air is perceptibly cooler than at Bombay, so that in the native hotel J need all the blankets I secured there. My first experience in a native hotel has been real pleasant, since they understand and speak some Eilglish, and I can make my wants known very well. But to furnish one's own bedding when he goes to a hotel is amoug the curious experiences of a raw traveler. A bedstead, mattress, and one sheet, with a low bolster, made up the part furnished by the hotel, the whole be- ing inclosed in a netting to keep out mosquitoes. Think of these pests troubling one after Thanksgiving ! A guide who could speak tolerable English was en- gaged to meet me at seven o'clock at the hotel. A " tum- tum," or two-wheeled carriage, was to be there at the same hour to take me to the Khutab Minar, some ten 38 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. or a dozen miles out of the city. The tum-tum was on hand, but not my guide, so I went off without him, but in the hope that I should meet him on the street near the hotel, to capture whom a clerk went a long distance with me, but in vain. Yet I found the driver a sharp fellow and able to show me around ver^^ well. Along we went through the city already stirring, since the Eastern business man is at his shop early. A continu- ous stream of people met us, bringing cheap country products to the city for the early market; donkeys and bullocks, buffaloes and women, laden with bundles of fagots, dried grass, or dried cow-dung for fuel, a few vegetables for market, masses of reeds for mats, and other things. The road was a good one, such as the British make here, of finely pulverized stone that be- comes as hard as a concrete floor. Its sides were lined with trees, now in the richest foliage, acacias, tamarisks, mangoes, and many of which I have not yet learned the name. Birds by the hundreds, of brilliant plumage and odd shapes and habits, were flying hither and thither. I knew the hoopoes, fly-catchers, doves, and some others. What interested me more than all else was the con- tinuous succession of ruins every- where along this road, . something I had heard of but had not fully compre- hended. Old buildings, massive walls, towers, mosque- domes, arches, and chimneys extend everyway as far as one can see from the road, a very wilderness waste of crum- bling brick and decaying sandstone. Ancient Delhi must have extended vastly farther than the present one. The Khutab Minar was in sight miles of the way, now seen by glimpses through the tree-tops, now hidden, then coming out in fine relief against the brilliant sky. About its base were many ruins, but among them a few IN AND ABOUT DELHI. 39 huts for villagers, and two or three good buildings for British officers, who are here to keep these noble monuments and ruins intact and to collect taxes in the local district. The Minar is certainly the finest tower I have ever seen, not one built by mcdiseval or modern purpose equaling it in grace and beauty of finish. It is all the more impressive as it stands among so many ruins, themselves noble relics of an age of great deeds and high civilization. It rises to the height of two hundred and fifty-one feet, slender, of exquisite sym- metry, made of richly tinted red sandstone that abounds in a neighboring province and which was brought here for this and other buildings about Delhi — brought all that distance by the cumbersome, slow methods before railways. I think the base is not over forty feet wide, with a gradual taper that is most pleasing to the eye. It is not all of red sandstone, but here and there toward the top are layers of white marble. Four or five balus- trades break the column-like surface with pleasing effect, and, as one ascends, afford grateful resting-places for a breathing spell and sight-seeing, for inside this marvelous tower is a spiral passage-way leading, by over three hundred steps, to the top. Up this I climbed, a guide accompanying me furnished by the British authorities — a native speaking good English — who pointed out the sights for me. Beyond us, as well as along the way we had come, the plain was almost a con- tinuous stretch of ruins, attesting the vast populousness at some former time of this rich Jumna valley. A few squalid villages here and there, some patches of culti- vated soil, were like spots of life among death and deso- lation. A dozen miles away I could see the blue Jumna, hardly less sacred than the Ganges, uniting with that river far toward the ocean. Across the plain. 40 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. a hundred miles or more, could be seen mighty masses of clouds under which I knew the Himalaya Mountains were lying, and with the aid of my field-glass could catch dubious glimpses of their gray shoulders through the rifts and uplifts, thus obtaining my first sight of that gigantic mountain range. I shall soon be among them if fortune favors. Near the base of the Khutab stands the foundation of another tower, an exact copy of this one, built forty or fifty feet high, when it seems to have been aban- doned and now is slowly crumbling into ruins. It is suggested that this problematical Khutab and its twin, started and then not finished, were the two minars of a gigantic mosque, standing at the comers, in the relation to it as is now seen in some Indian mosques on a smaller scale. Not far from the base of the Khutab stands the famous " Iron Pillar/* a huge shaft of solid iron, twenty- four feet above the ground, with a diameter at the sur- face of the earth of sixteen inches and tapering slightly above. They have dug down twenty-six feet below the surface without finding the foundation on which this pillar rests, so that it is certainly fifty feet long, and probably much more, as it was not loosened by this ex- cavation. Its weight, as it is a solid shaft, is more than seventeen tons. It is not rusted, suggesting to some minds other metals than iron in the composition. Assays by British officials have proven it to be wrought iron, as could be plainly seen by its indented surface. On its sides are inscriptions in Sanskrit, by which it is learned that these at least were made by Rajah Dhava, a worshiper of Vishnu. Its base is said to rest upon the head of the serpent king Vasuki. The origin of this larg- est piece of forged iron in the world, its object, its age, IN AND ABOUT DELHI. 41 are all lost in obscurity. Guesses are made with some show of reason that it is three thousand two hundred years old, carrying it back to fourteen hundred years B. C. It was probably an object of worship among the early Aryan races, representing some gross notions that are yet prevalent in the native worship. On our way back from Delhi the driver took me off the main road to the tomb of Hamousi, one of the noble monuments of Saracenic art. It is surrounded by a high wall and a Avide court, stands on a platform twenty feet high and three hundred feet square. The magnificent dome is of white marble, while the building and pavement of the wide platform are of red sand- stone. In the wing of the great building are the rest- ing-places of his wives and other prominent people, while his own is under the airy dome. It is all, the towers, platform, dome, graceful fretwork cut from stone, inlay- ing, and peculiar style, a very imposing structure. Further on w^ere immense forts fast falling into decay; one, the red sandstone walls of which are yet sixty to a hundred feet high, was a mile around. Those old Mo- hammedan conquerors were giants in their w^ay. It had been a good forenoon of seeing, and after a one o'clock "tiffin," I went again in the tum-tum, this time with the little old guide who missed me in the morning, to see the points of interest connected with the Sepoy rebellion and the retaking of Delhi. We drove through the wall at the Cashmere Gate to find it still retaining the marks of the sharp can- nonade to w^hich the British subjected it and the ad- jacent walls. Great cannon-ball holes were knocked in the soft brick-work during those dreadful days till in some places it crumbled down. Across the fields, now fine gardens and parks around the homes of the British 42 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. officials, we went to the location of the batteries situated from three to eight hundred yards from the walls, where the big guns stood which terrified more than they hurt the natives in the city. Then, after days of cannonading, came the spirited assault, the blowing down of the Cashmere Gate with powder, the scaling of the walls and occupancy of this corner of tlic city when the weak native prince and his numerous army fled from the other side of it. My guide said he was there at that time, a hoy of fifteen, and remained in the city with multitudes who were glad to welcome the conqueror. Two or three miles away is the " Ridge," a rocky rise of ground half a mile long by a quarter wide, where the British residents lived after Delhi was capt- ured by the natives in that dreadful mutiny, and de- fended themselves with hastily constructed intrench- ments, till an army could come from the north to their rescue and to the recapture of the city. A noble monu- ment in commemoration of these events stands on the crest, recounting the deeds of those who fell and those who lived. Not the least interesting was the recorded fact that some of the native regiments were of the faithful ones — the brave Sikhs and Goorkhas, not Aryan Hindus, nor Semitic Mohammedans, but tribes of the aboriginal Turanians, who alone of the Indians were for some time after the mutiny allowed in the British mili- tary service. On the same hill stands a granite column about fifty feet high, round, and five feet in diameter, with inscriptions on it, first set np by Asoka, a Hindu prince, a distance from here, in the third century before Christ. It was brought to Delhi about A. D. 1300, and by a magazine explosion thrown down and broken in 1793, then set up and repaired by the British IN AND ABO UT DELHI. 43 at some recent date. It is a curious kind of Cleopa- tra's Needle. Odd that those old peoples sought im- mortality that way. From there we drove through the city to the "Fort," which now is occupied by a strong garrison of English troops. This is a questionable point in British occupa- tion, so that in the city and in easy reach of it there are strong garrisons. The fort was built by the Mogul conquerors of the Punjab, and is, like so many of them in India, under the old regime, a royal establishment as well as a place of defense. Here are palaces, halls of public and private audience, the queen's palace, the king's bath-house, the jDcarl mosque, and other build- ings, all of the most dazzling white marble. The in- laying of precious stones is the first I have seen, and such parts as are intact are beautiful beyond expression. These precious pieces, however, were mostly dug out during the anarchy of previous years, by some rapa- cious vandals, and where they are gone the English gov- ernment has had them replaced by colored cements, so that their form is preserved. Figures, flowers, birds, are of exquisite symmetry, while over one archway in the hall of j^i'ivate audience is the renowned sentiment in Arabic: "If there is a paradise on earth it is here, it is here." The pearl mosque, of Avhite marble, is a pearl indeed, the perfection of Saracenic art, and I can- not see how one could enter its spotlessly white cor- ridors and prayer-room and not be devout. Shah Jehan worshiped here, turning his face westward to have it toward Mecca. Not far away is .the Juma Musjid, said to be the largest mosque in the world. It is of brick and the fine red sandstone of this region, and is truly an im- posing edifice. Like so many buildings I have seen 44 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. liere, it has first a broad platform, then rising above that the editice proper. This is not one buihling but several, arranged around a central paved court, which has an immense well in the center. On the west side is the large prayer mosque, which one enters along cor- ridors of fine columns, to find only bare marble flagging in black and white squares, each black square marking a place for one of the faithful to kneel in prayer. There was not a chair or bit of furniture, save a high desk for the reading of the Koran, almost as small as a step-ladder. Here was more than Puritan simplicity — but among the followers of a false prophet! On an- other side of the court were low rooms for various purposes. In one of them an old priest took me to a cell in which Avere relics — real ones, to be sure — of Mohammed. First was a section of the Koran written by a grandson of the jDrophet on j)arch- ment in Arabia; a bit of it still older; then a whole one written on j^aper, several hundred years before paj^er was invented; one of the prophet's slippers kept safely in a glass case; a hair from his head, stuck with glue to the under side of a glass cover, and last a foot-j)rint of the same wonderful j^rophet which he made when, some time at Mecca, he stepped on a slab of sparkling quartzite. O, but those priestly fel- lows, whether at Rome or Delhi, have relics, and then all want backsheesh for showing them. In this vast mosque were gathered forty thousand of the faithful to pray for the success of their arms when the British were to make the assault on the walls at the Cashmere Gate. But Delhi must fall in spite of Mohammedan prayers, and a better faith dominate this city and country. A hurried run through the bazars, seeing the odd . m A ND ABOUT DELHI. 45 native products of hand and soil; the purchase of a shawl for the one who could not come along, a retreat to the inviting old dak bungalow hotel, tired and sur- feited with marvelous sight-seeing, ended the only day I was in Delhi. 46 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. LETTER VI. A COMMENCEMENT SEASON IN INDIA. The Methodist Theological School for India is lo- cated at Bareilly, and it was my fortune to attend its closing exercises December 6-9, 1888. In company with Rev. E. W. Parker, D.D., and two other mission- aries, I had come thirty miles from the camp-meeting ground at Chandusi, because a grand celebration was to be held the following week. I arrived at Bareilly December 6, and listened that night to a sermon in Hindustani by the Rev. C. P. Hard, of the Bengal Conference, on the Master's sending out the seventy. The next day, December 7, was spent in oral examina- tions and such other duties as fall in the usual routine of a commencement. That evening the students gave an entertainment, literary and musical, that, to my re- gret, I missed, after which, at the house of the presi- dent. Rev, Dr. T. J. Scott, I met the graduating class of seven, finding them a group of men having a noble, willing, devoted spirit and purpose. The commence- ment proper took place at eleven o'clock Saturday, December 8. Two schools are taught jointly, the theological and a normal school; the latter to pre- pare teachers for the educational work of our India Mission. In this department four had completed the course, receiving diplomas, but not taking public part in the exercises on commencement day. An audience composed mostly of students, their friends, A COMMENCEMENT SEASON IN INDIA. 47 the teachers and professors, and visiting missionaries, listened. The young men were on the programme to make speeches, not to deliver orations, but they had selected topics, formally arranged them, and each spoke twelve or fifteen minutes. Here is the list of themes: "The King's Crier," " Times of Refreshing," " Spiritual Food," "The Search for Peace," "The Rainbow an Emblem of Christ," "The Hunt for Souls," "The Time has Arrived," the last being valedictory. This list might stand beside one prepared in a Methodist theological school anywhere in the United States. The names and themes of the graduates do not read well in English, Bad shah Ka Naqib being the salutatorian's and Waqt Apahuncha the valedictorian's theme, while their names were, respectively, Chote Lai and Nizam Ali. As the plan and argument of the young men's speeches were interpreted to me I judged they Avere doing well. The Hindustani speech does not seem to me at all well adapted to oratory, but if I could under- stand it perhaps my opinions would change. Most of the graduates had done some preaching for several years, and in their gestures I deemed I could detect some indications of bazar service. One or two had features such as an American might covet, good straight, well-cut, Aryan type. Their brown skins, coal-black hair and whiskers, and gleaming eyes were in peculiar contrast to their white-faced, blue-eyed ])rofessors. The programme had on it " Native Music," which, on hearing, made me think its production in any seminary or college in America would create a sensation. The instruments used were three — a long rude guitar, a small keg-shaped drum beaten with the finger-tips, and a little violin of three or four strings, the whole thing 48 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. not more than eighteen inches long and three inches wide. Two students sang to the accompaniment of these instru- ments. The key would be pitched high and then run on in a minor monotone, often antiphonal and recitative, rather than the ordinary ways of singing in America. President Scott whispered to me that it was " wild and weird," and at once I added, " rich." Dr. J. W. Waugh, who has been here many years and heard much of it, said to me that he still liked it, the beating of the drum making his heart thump in his breast. The songs were airs and sentiments of the country adapted to Christianity, one being in praise of Christ, another the peace and rest found in him. I enjoyed it greatly, and am promised more of it at the celebration next week. The native Christians especially are adepts in it, and use it to advantage. Saturday evening a reception was held, at which a fine gathering of English officials, native gentlemen, professors from the Government College, and others were present. Among them was a prince royal from Burma, who escaped King Thebaw's bloody slaughter of his relatives. The English government has brought him here to be educated in their college. His dress was different from that of the natives, and his face de- cidedly Turanian. Many of the native gentlemen could speak English, with one of whom I discussed American institutions and government, and, later, with another, the proposed Indian Congress. The first one I also plied with questions about the aborigines of In- dia. They were posted on all points. On Sunday President Scott preached the baccalaureate sermon at eight o'clock in Plindustani; at three the alnmni sermon was delivered, and at six I was com- pelled to preach. I had, by request, spoken a little to A COMMENCEMENT SEASON m mniA. 49 the students Saturday at commencement, what I said being translated by President Scott. This theological school has sent out about one hundred and fifty stu- dents, all graduates but forty, and with one or two exceptions these men have been true to the teaching received in the school. They are pastors in our own Conferences or for other denominations, and are doing noble work. The two classes now in the school, and the new one to enter, are much larger than the one just graduated, and are considered very promising. Of the seven graduating this year one was a Brahman, two Sikhs, and four had no caste. In America commencement is associated with warm days, hot sun, a profusion of flowers, and not the bleak winds, frozen ground, and snows of December. Well, let me say that here the sun is so powerful that no one goes out without cork hat or umbrella for fear of sun- stroke; not a bit of frost has touched Bareilly, though the nights are chilly, and a profusion of flowers is on trees, vines, bushes, and plants, the yards and gardens producing masses of magnificent roses. 4 50 A WINTER M INDIA AND MALA TSIA. LETTER yil. INTO THE HIMALAYAS AT NAINI TAL. At seven o'clock in the morning, December 11, Pro- fessor Messmore, of our theological school at Bareilly, and I started horseback from the mission house at Huldwanee, where Rev. Thomas Craven now has charge, to ride to Naini Tal. The course lay along the fine road over the gravel-drift brought down from the mountains, and the first hour's ride, in face of a chill wind blowing down the gorge, was most exhilarating. It gave us a chance to see the mountains during these four miles before getting fully into their recesses. Like all the hills and mountains I have seen in India, they rise abruptly from the plain, broken, jagged, and sharp. As soon as we left the open country the luxu- riant vegetation assumed a new aspect; trees not seen on the plains, flowers peculiar to the timber, vines, creepers, and bushes abounded. I had heard much about the creepers on the trees, but was not fully pre- pared for what I saw. Close beside the road many creepers hung in long straight lines or reaches of thick growth from the ground upward to the tops of the tall- est trees. Far off on the hill-sides I could see long stretches of forest, the tops and limbs of t]ie trees so overloaded by the vine-growth that the identity of sep- arate trees was lost under the masses of creepers. The peepul-tree on the plains has a sturdy growth, the trunk sometimes rough and i^artly divided, in other INTO TEE EIMALA YAS AT NAINI TAL. 51 cases smooth as an American beech. But in the thick forest on the hill-sides I found that it acted as a creeper, throwing itself around the solid trunk of some other tree, inclosing it in its arms as if a sentient thing, mak- ing a net- work of formation like lattice clear around the body of the other. It was a wonderful growth. Grace- ful festoons, suggesting swings for wood-nymphs, often fell close to the ground •between two supporting trees. Dense undergrowth of plants new to one from the West in places covered the rich, damp ground. As we rode up the gorge made by the waters of Naini Tal River here and there a little plot was cultivated, wheat, bananas, oranges, lemons, and other products growing on the terraces in great luxuriance, if only water could be obtained for irrigation. When yet five miles from the place Professor Messmore pointed out some of the buildings at Naini Tal, far, far above us. But the good horses carried us up steadily, surely. The trees began to change again, now to more of temperate feat- ures, the willow, acacia, pine, and a little short of Naini Tal the oak, appearing. Strange birds flitted among the trees, one much like our robin, another a blue jay whose tail-feathers were full fourteen inches long, and a jungle cock, considered the lineal ancestor of the common fowl, slowly walked across the road ahead of us. He was bronze, red, and black, shaped much like the game- cock, with long curved tail-feathers such as we see often in American roosters. Three miles short of Naini Tal a big brewery blots the landscape and sends out its liquid curse to blight Anglo-Saxon and Hindu homes alike. Then a steep climb, part of the way on foot, sometimes riding, and being gladly met by Professor Foote, who knew we were coming, we at last, having ridden sixteen miles 52 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. that morning, crossed the pretty bridge spanning the outlet of Naini Tal, and gazed upon that place of beauty, rest, and health. It is a great basin with the lake in the midst. On every side rise high hills save the way we came, where the water plunges rapidly- down the deep gorge toward the plains. The hill-sides, from five to fifteen hundred feet above the lake, are covered with a sparse growth of oak, cedar, pine, and other familiar trees, the level of the lake being about six thousand feet above the sea. Houses of the missionaries, English officials, schools, and churches are scattered on every part of the inclosing hill-sides, helping to make a most charming landscape, as the white stone houses, gardens, yards, and parks cover every part. Under direction of Professor Foote I soon was taken to the home of Rev. John Baume, the pastor of the English-speaking church, and I found in the hospitality of himself and wife most pleasant remind- ers of American spirit. The mission-grounds, having been bought early in the history of this charming sani- tarium along the wise lines of Dr. William Butler's insight, are ample and centrally located, while the church of the English audience is as wisely posted. The boys' school, under the direction of Professor F. W. Foote, is now prospering. He is hoping to purchase a fine property soon, located on the eastern slopes, where it can overlook all the lake and surrounding re- gions. The girls' school is directly opposite the other, in the more shady groves of the west side, but also in a place giving an entrancing view. Miss Knowles, sister of Dr. D. C. Knowles, has done a noble work in founding this school, both for Indian Methodism and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. There is an Anglican church and a Roman Catholic one, as INTO THE HIMALAYAS AT NAINI TAL. 58 well as a couple of Hindu temples and a Mohammedan mosque, in this quiet mountain nook. Naturally enough, I wanted to see all I could the two days I had to stay, so the first afternoon Professor Foote came to show me to a spot from which I could obtain a fine view of the great mountains beyond. The twelve-year-old girl of Rev. Dr. J. W. Waugh went pony-back with ns to " Snow Seat," a thousand feet above the lake, on the north-east side. From the top of Khutab Minar, near Delhi, I had obtained a tantaliz- ing glimpse of the "Snowy Range;" from Moradabad the white peaks stood out dimly to view one morning, while on the cars in coming to the foot of the mount- ains I had also caught the white gleam above the lower ranges ; but now, as a little behind the sprightly Nora Waugh I reached " Snow Seat," the grandeur of the vast uplift burst fully on ray sight. I felt it surely re- paid me for much time and trouble. These mountains are not a single range, but a mighty uplift extending more than a hundred miles across their axis. The " Snowy Range " is sixty miles from Naini Tal, and a hundred miles of its extent burst on the vision that moment. All the glory of that sight cannot be put into words. Sharp peaks, snow-clad, for two thousand feet, run up like gigantic saw-teeth, a hundred of them in view at once. Their steep, ragged outline and broken sides showed their formation to be geologically recent, as those close about us did. The declining sun lay a soft pink radiance over the snow that was charm- ing, while the ranges between us and the snow were touched with the lights, shades, colors, and outlines common to such a sight. With the glass I could see great glaciers, the crevasses across two or three of them being plainly discernible by the hollows in the surface S4 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. of the recent snows. As the sun sank lower it brought out in fine distinctness the profound gorges and spaces in the great range, and at the same time tipped the peaks here and there with a glory all their own. A crag only on some peak would catch the sun, while all the rest would be hidden by a greater peak west of it. Finally, as the sun totally disappeared, a ghostly, ghastly white on the " Snowy Range" took the place of the pink of that luminary, producing an unearthly beauty that to me seemed finer than the sunset. The sky for a few moments held the pink that last was seen on the mount- ains; above that was a rich green, which in turn melted into orange; then the blue of the untinted sky pre- vailed. We slowly descended to the dim basin of Naini Tal and the lighted houses. The next morning Professor Foote, by previous ar- rangements, was at Mr. Baume's long before daylight for the ascent of a still higher peak, Cheena, to see the sunrise on the mountains. As I waited a few min- utes the zodiacal light shot a mighty pyramid of bright- ness over the eastern mountain-tops, as it is not seen in m.ore northern climes. A ride of an hour and a quarter, first through a stretch of yards and among private houses, then up the ascent by steep, narrow, zigzag paths, our horses puffing heavily as the air grew thinner and thinner, up still around the top of Cheena, through heavy oak forests, till at last, as the daylight had deep- ened, we reached the crest, more than eight thousand feet above the sea. From this point we could see more of the " Snowy Range " than from " Snow Seat," a stretch of fully two hundred miles. The lights and shadows over the mountains surrounding us and those short of the " Snowy Range " were most exquisite. A slight smoke or mist hung among them in such a way INTO THE HIM ALA YAS AT NAINI TAL. 55 that the tops of the mountains would show the dark green of their wooded slopes, then gradually change below to purple, opalescent, and light smoky blue. The sunrise, brilliant in the gorgeous red, orange, green, and blue of the sky and burnished gold of the cloud- flecks of the east, did not color the snow-covered peaks as richly as I had hoped. We were partly on the wrong side. Still, some rare sights of single peaks being touched with the pink that persisted on the snow the night before were granted us. Then the pure white took the place of the pink as the sunlight increased. Great bars of the sun's rays shot from crests and gorges among the lower mountains, across the valleys and shadows, in a glory that would defy all skill of painter. As we sat on the dry grass that covered the crest I suddenly noticed that masses of edelweiss were growing all about us. I knew it was to be found in the Hima- layas as well as in the Alps, but for the time had for- gotten it. Some enterprising Swiss should come here and get bushels of it, and, taking it home, sell it as they do in the Alps, at a franc a sprig. A couple of Goorkha soldiers from the garrison below came each with a gun on a hunting trip, and were barefooted, though j)atches of snow in shady places were on Cheena. These men are aboriginal inhabitants of India, found here by the Aryan Hindus when they entered India. When did these Goorkhas and other Turanian hillmen enter India ? That afternoon, as the shadows began lengthening, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Baume and Professor Messmore, I visited the American Cemetery, where lie the bodies of a number of devoted men and women who counted not their lives dear to themselves, so they might carry the Gospel to suffering India. Mrs. Bishop Thoburn, Mrs. N. G. Cheney, a child of Dr. Butler's, 56 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALA TSIA. named Washington, are among them. Their resting-place is a retired, quiet nook. Thence we went along shady walks by the west side of the lake to the girls' school, to find its present principal, Miss Easton, frying dough- nuts like a Yankee woman, though she declared she was a Knickerbocker. But she could make good dough- nuts if not a Yankee. Doughnuts in India! It made one think of his Western home, of his mother, sisters, and wife, all at a time. For five months I had not eaten one. That school there among the trees is a monument to American womanhood that has reared it, and is to be a power to aid Western civilization, with all it means to woman in getting a firm hold in India. From there we went to the famous rock shrine of the Indian goddess Naini, close by the lake-side, where it is said the natives formerly sacrificed a human being each year to the local deity, and they now declare that the goddess will still secure her victim by a person being drowned in the lake every year. For themselves they are now content to kill a goat yearly at this place where I saw the sign of the goddess, some tridents painted on the rock, and a handful of fresh sweet-meats which some devotee had but just offered. A walk by Hangman's Bay, suggestive of the awful days of the mutiny, across the outlet of the lake, up the hill to Professor Foote's, where a sub- stantial dinner was offered us, and also banks of roses grown out-doors, even in those mountains, ended our wanderings for that day among the Himalayas. \ AT A GAMP-MEETING IN INDIA. 57 LETTER YIII. AT A CAMP-MEETING IN INDIA. They do not call it a camp-meeting here, but a mela. This word means a gathering, and is especially applied to the native religious festivals at certain times and places where tens of thousands gather; and thus the camp-meeting becomes a Christian mela. This designa- tion, painted in large characters, is hung upon the trees at the entrance to these grounds, being given in English, Urdu, and Arabic. More than a camp-meeting is tak- ing place. It is both a district Conference and a camp- meeting, hence the aptness of the native name. For several days before the time for opening tents were being put up and preparations similar to those occurring in America at such a time took place. Chandusi, where it is held, is centrally located for the Rohilcund Dis- trict of the ISTorth India Conference. Dr. E. W. Parker, presiding elder of this district, is in charge. It is at a railroad junction, and held, free of any charges, in a fine mango grove. Let people in New England take a peep at this camp- meeting-ground. It is level, dry, the mango grove cov- ering sixty acres or more, and is divided by the main road running northward from the contiguous city of Chandusi. As I write — December 14, but one would think it early September in America — the leaves above us are all green, the trees full of birds and monkeys, and the sun so strong through the day that one must 58 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. protect himself from it with a pith hat and an um- brella; yet tlie nights are thoroughly chilly, but without frost. The m:ingo-tree looks much like a chestnut- tree, low, branching, thick-topped, though the leaves remain on all winter, as is true of the trees in India, though they look like our deciduous ones. The mis- sionaries' tents are all on one side of this road, with the tents and inclosure for the school-girls, while the tents and huts for the native families and the school-boys are on the other side. Centrally, between these two sec- tions, close to the great wagon-road, is an immense awning under which two thousand people can sit — on the ground, and never in chairs, for this is the way the Indians sit. Straw was first spread on the ground under this awning, then native matting and carpeting above that. The American missionaries bring their own chairs, while at the outer edge of the space a few natives may be seen sitting on benches provided. An audience here presents a unique appearance. Glance at it. The white turbans and jaunty students' caps worn by the men and boys through the services produce, as their wearers all sit on the left of the open space kept as an aisle, a most varied and picturesque effect, in contrast with the dark-brown expressive faces and gleaming black eyes beneath them. At the right sit the women and school-girls, as compactly as people on seats cannot gather, each one having the head and shoulders, morning and evening, covered with a thin, coarse, dark red-and-black calico quilt of native make. In the middle of the day their heads are covered with white chuddars. There are bright faces, full of mean- ing and hope, as Christianity has come to them bear- ing its burden of help to woman. A vivid contrast is AT A GAMP MEETING IN INDIA. 59 plainly to be seen between these women and girls and those still in the old beliefs. On the outskirts of these Chandusi audiences are always files of men, usually Hindus or Mohammedans, standing in respect- ful attention listening to the services ; some passing coolie stops, with his load on his head or back, also to listen. I took a turn among the native cottages under the mango-trees. The sly monkeys are much more afraid of us Western people than of the natives, scampering away as we approach. The people at such a gathering as this set down their tents or huts as each one chooses, little attempt being made at regularity. A few of them have cotton tents more or less commodious, but most of the homes are native-made and peculiar. They are of coarse, native grass, of thatched structure, ten feet long by six wide, their form being like setting a narrow roof down on the ground. Under this primitive covering old mats, carpeting, or straw is spread for sleeping. Their cooking apparatus consists of a small hollow space in the ground, around which, and raised a few inches above the level of the earth, is a horseshoe- shaped ridge of hard, baked mud, six inches across, on which they set their copper kettles or flat iron coverings for baking thin loaves of bread. The District Conference held a three-days' session December 11-13, which, considering that there are 221 members of it, is quite an aifair. Of this number 8 are American missionaries, 19 ordained native preach- ers in Conference relations, 7 ordained local preachers, and 47 unordained native preachers. The other 140 members are exhorters and teachers, though in some instances one man combines both these duties. This body of workers all had to be taken through the dis- 60 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. ciplinary course of examinations, reports, and appoint- ments, so that their duties were hardly less than tliose of an Annual Conference. One specialty in the reports was the amount of collections, looking to self-support. After the work, character, and progress in studies had been ascertained, seven were recommended for ordina- tion and four to admittance on trial to the Annual Con- ference. It has become a rule here to keep a man in the work four years as a local preacher, having him take the course of study prescribed for local preachers before he can be recommended to the Annual Confer- ence on trial. At this District Conference nineteen were granted local preachers' license, and all given work but two, who hold some government office. Six- teen young men were recommended to the theological school at Bareilly. It will be seen from these things that Dr. Parker's duties are not light. The real camp-meeting was opened by a sermon from our native pastor at Moradabad, Hiram L. Cutting. It seemed earnest and practical as its outline and sen- timent were given to me. Miss Leonard, the holiness evangelist, was present and spoke a few moments on her specialty. The noon hour was given to the young people from the five school stations, Bijnour, Morada- bad, Budaon, Bareilly, and Shahjehanpore. Their lit- erary programme consisted of recitations, songs, Bible paraphrases, a debate, essays, and the like, and was deemed fine in its merit and delivery. " Sweet Home," sung in English by Miss Doherty, Mrs. Parker's assistant, and Miss Jeffreys, assisted by six native girls, was inspir- ing. One of the marvels of that hour was to see two young women enter the debate with two young men — and, as it would be likely to happen in America, beat them — ^the young women standing there, modest and ATA CAMP.MEETING IN INDIA. 61 bashful, to be sure, yet before two thousand people, and that in India, where woman has been taught for scores of generations that she is only a beast of burden, a thing of use, man's slave, to be kept veiled, a pris- oner in her own house. Christianity is teaching some of the daughters of India a few of their privileges. At four o'clock in the afternoon was a grand parade of the Anti-Tobacco League, in which more than eight hun- dred walked, the banner for the largest number at one place being awarded to Moradabad. The tobacco habit here is even a greater burden than in America, and this movement among the native Christians, the preach- ers, teachers, and young people, having been inaugu- rated and carried out by Drs. Scott, Parker, and others, is full of worth and promise. The preaching was done partly by native preachers, partly by Americans. Rev. Mr. Lucas, from the Pres- byterian Mission, was present and preached once. As all the sermons were in the vernacular I could get them only by their being translated to me as they were going on. One of the districts of the North India Con- ference is in charge of a native, Zahur ul Haqq, who preached Saturday morning. See him as he stands there addressing the great audience of eager listeners ! He is elderly, has gray whiskers and hair, the former heavy and long, the latter scant and curling a bit on his neck, the top of his head bald. Such a head and face are worth looking at ! If there is any thing in the shape of heads his is metaphysical, logical, a high pointed one, while the face, the heavy brows, Roman nose, and the large strong mouth show a man of firm- ness and energy. Such he is. His height is slightly more than medium, his build firm, somewhat inclined to corpulency. How is he dressed ? In a long loosely- 62 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. fitting coat of quilted calico, such as many of the men wear, combining tlie cut of a dressing-gown and over- coat, and reaching nearly to his ankles, his feet in- closed in good shoes and stockings. His manner of preaching is direct, forcible, animated, and his points on the theme that Christ came to seek and save are well put. Mr. Haqq was formerly a Mohammedan. Being present at a love-feast, and listening to the testi- monies, he believed, was soundly converted, and, hav- ing been previously educated, was set at work with most pleasing results. Sunday, as in America, was the great day of the feast. It opened with a love-feast at eight o'clock. Dr. E. W. Parker, presiding elder, was in charge, with a dozen or twenty other missionaries present. The singing of our familiar church tunes to words that one does not understand conveys a strange impression, but I could sing the English words in the loud volume that swelled in the vernacular from two thousand natives. Those two thousand under the broad awning in the midst of green groves of wide-spreading mango-trees are an inspiration to a Western man. The dark, earnest, happy faces of the men and women, of the boys and girls, as they show so pleasantly in contrast with white turbans and caps, and the dark red, green, and brown chuddars, speak volumes for the Christianity that has set them right with God and man. As they begin to speak, the men, who are all seated on one side of an open aisle, and then, after a while, the women on the other side, it can be seen, if not understood, that they have an experi- ence to tell. O blessed gospel power that sets free the tongue to tell of its victories! Here are wise men grown gray during twenty-five AT A OAMP-MEETINO IN INDIA. 63 years of labor in our mission work in India, and work- ing beside them men who once were Mohammedans, Jews, Hindus — and even Turanians, tliat old race in- habiting this country before the Hindus. Of the mis- sionaries some were from Europe, most from America. A Kentucky Presbyterian mingled his joy with an Ohio Methodist. Said one native worker: "A year ago this meeting prayed for my work, and God has been blessing me in it; and now I would like you to pray for it the year to come just four minutes." An old man like Abraham, leaning on his staff, said that he was the Lord's; living he was the Lord's, dying he was the Lord's. Another: "I want my heart to be a fount- ain of grace, to drink myself and offer to others." Many said they loved the Lord with all their heart. One from the Bareilly Normal School said he had been to the camp-meeting six years before, and never re- ceived any light, but that at his own town a Salvation Army girl had enabled him to enter the light. An- other said the time was when he could not speak in meeting; now he could not keep still for the love of Christ in his heart. A high-caste Brahman who was put into jail at Bareilly for helping to mob one of our na- tive preachers in the bazar, and who had said he should become a Christian when he got out, spoke, say- ing that once he was not saved, but was now. An- other, " Once I was blind, now I see," Many recited Scripture, others hymns. The witnessing lasted two solid hours, and in that time those who kept count say that nearly three hundred spoke, and then when Dr. Parker asked all to rise who wanted to witness but had not done so the mass who stood up was so great that it seemed as though no one had spoken. It was a scene certain to assure any who may question if missionary 64 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. work in India pays that at least in the Rohilcund Dis- trict it pays a thousand-fold. Probably sixteen hundred or more native Chris- tians sat under the awning at that love-feast. After witnessing a call was made for the unconverted to come forward for prayers, and thirty-three soon re- sponded, mostly young men and women, and numbers of them later witnessed to salvation. At noon, in connection with Miss Leonard, the evangelist, I was set at work by Dr. Parker with the native preachers and teachers. A hundred or more of these were present under the awning at the same time that other meet- ings were going on elsewhere. The woman's meeting- tent was full to overflowing, while the boys' meet- ing and the girls' were also fall. At the awning I spoke of the baptism and power of the Holy Spirit, Rev. Dr. Robert Hoskins of our mission translating. It seemed slow, difficult work, yet I hope good was done. Miss Leonard spoke after me, and almost all of those present came forward seeking the fullness of the Spirit, and many deep, full consecrations were made. It was a time of power and of freedom obtained from all sin. Following this came a service at which four men and nine children were baptized. At three o'clock the great meeting of the day took place. Rev. Dr. Johnson, of the Lucknow District, preached to an immense audience, including Hindus, Mohammedans, nominal Christians, and those active in the work. The awning space was crammed and at least a thousand stood up outside those sitting. It was a time to inspire a man. Dr. Johnson, using the text, " If ye love me, keep my commandments," and standing centrally under the awning, powerfully impressed the respectful listeners. Following him came tAVO rousing AT A GAMP-MEETING IN INDIA. 65 exhortations, first by Rev. Dr. Hoskins, then Rev. Dr. Parker, the whole crowd nearly all staying to the end. It was one of the opportunities of a man's life to speak to so many who were generally regarded as heathen. In the evening another interesting service took place. Hardly any save native Christians were present, but about two thousand of them were seated under the awning. Rev. Dr. B. H. Badley spoke on Tit. ii, 14 — on holiness as a condition for successful work in God's vineyard. It was a strong sermon, its main features being translated to me, as were those of Dr. Johnson's. I spoke afterward on the theme of the sermon. Im- mediately following that a sacramental service was held under the conduct of Rev. Dr. P. T; Wilson, as- sisted by three American missionaries and three native preachers. It was a most interesting time. It was estimated that eight hundred persons partook of the sacrament. Lines, sometimes double ones, reaching across the awning were formed on the carpeting, and the hearty acceptance by the people was most pleasant. Those who had been of diverse races and far distinct castes knelt side by side* As the service was closing Dr. Parker knelt, as it happened, by the side of a Hindu boy for the sacrament, and one native preacher brought him the bread and another the wine. The whole scene was affecting; the still moonlight night, the broad awning lighted by lamps hung on the sup- porting poles, the dark faces of the listeners, the varied costumes, the issues discussed, the close attention paid by the people, all combined to make it a scene never to be forgotten. So mightily was I impressed with the day and all its promise that I sent Chaplain McCabe this note, which he flung out to the American public: 5 66 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. " Chandusi, India, December 16, 1888. "Dear Chaplain: I wish you could have attended the love-feast of the mela here this morning. At least 1,600 Christians were present, and in two hours' time almost 300 spoke in true Methodist, Christian spirit. They were all the way from the old man leaning on his staff to the sprightly boys and girls ten and twelve years old from the day and Sunday-schools. The sing- ing was uplifting, though I could understand the tunes better than the words. The glory of God was present. It was about as hard to stop their testifying when the time came to stop as it is sometimes in America. These people wanted to tell about the Christ whose death had redeemed them. It was almost worth coming clear to India to see and hear. After all had spoken who could have the time a great host stood up to- gether to testify by that. Then, as Dr. Parker invited them forward for prayer, thirty-three came, sixteen men and seventeen women, most of whom afterward professed conversion. If the work of getting money lags in America the conversion of souls here does not. This district, the Moradabad, reports this year 1,475 baptisms. The cause goes on ; the mission- aries are shouting happy. Every-where the demand is for more workers. Push for the money and send on the workers. It is God's time and man's oppor- tunity. The day all through has been a glorious one. Thousands have waited on the word. Thirteen were baptized this afternoon." Monday morning a song and prayer service was held, after which the appointments of native local preachers, helpers, exhorters, and teachers, made by the District Conferences, to the number of about two hundred, for AT A GAMP-MEETING IN INDIA. 67 both Presiding Elders Haqq and Parker's districts, were read. It seemed like the close of an Annual Conference. Then the niela ended, and every one set out to his home and work. Who can weigh the good done for time and eternity ? 68 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA 7SIA. LETTER IX. EDUCATION WORK IN NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. Very soon after landing among the Methodist mis- sionaries here I became convinced that the schools sus- tained in the cities and villages were among the most successful agencies used to build up our work broadly and safely. Subsequent information and inquiries have confirmed and strengthened that opinion. One of the problems that has always confronted the Church, from the earliest centuries, has been how to make pure, real, and intelligent Christian character in the converts from heathenism. Think of Paul's letters, along these lines, to the Corinthians, Galatians, and others. The Roman monks who led our Anglo-Saxon ancestors to the truth, as can be seen by reading the history of the early Church in England, wrestled with the same problem. One just converted from the worship of idols, the spell of superstitions, the force of heathen customs, and from the long list of mighty influences which in paganism combine to dwarf and enslave the spirit, cannot in a day or year pass from those things to a broad-minded, firm, free Christian character. Many of the old roots will remain. How to build up character, then, is a mighty problem here as every-where. During nearly a genera- tion of experience the missionaries have found that the work which can be done in the evangelical school is one of the most potent means to this end. They are wise who put large sums of money into the schools. EDUCATION WORK IN NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 69 Take, for instance, the system of schools set in mo- tion by the munificent gift of Dr. J. F. Goucher, the head-quarters of which are at Moraclabad, under the direction of Dr. and Mrs. E. W. Parker. There is the Goucher High School for advanced pupils in that city ; then a hundred schools are scattered over the old prov- ince of Rohilcund for both boys and girls. Of boys' schools of the primary grade Dr. Goucher's endowment supports sixty, in which there are being taught more than two thousand pupils. The conditions upon which his endowment is used make it obligatory that the teachers hired shall be Christians and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, that each school shall be opened every day with reading of the Bible, singing a Christian hymn, and prayer, all in the vernacular. In addition to this the teachers are urged by the mission- aries to visit tlie parents and friends of these boys at their homes after teaching hours, to talk with them and interest them in Christianity. These schools, according to Dr. Goucher's conditions, must be in villages and communities that are inquirers after Christianity, and be regarded as evangelical forces seeking to lead the children and people to Christ. Out of these primary schools the brightest and most promising of the boys are being passed, after examination, to the high school at Moradabad, where they can have the benefit of one of the hundred Goucher scholarships awaiting them. Dr. Goucher sustains forty girls' schools of primary grade also, located and conditioned like the others, from which there is going a constant stream of the most promising of the girls to Mrs. Parker's school at Morad- abad, where Dr. Goucher has a few scholarships, but which he is said to purpose increasing to forty. All through the North India Conference similar schools of 70 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. primary grade are sustained by mission funds, or other- wise, feeders of the various graded schools established at the great centers. In the two high schools at Morad- abad, and at other places, the young men and women are prepared for matriculation in the government uni- versities at Calcutta, Allahabad, and elsewhere. Through the one hundred schools sustained by the Goucher Fund about three thousand families are directly reached; and over three hundred thousand people, those in the four castes — Mazbi Sikhs, Leather- workers, Sweepers, and Thakurs — that are most fully patronizing the schools, are more or less positively reached by that agency. During the five years this fund has been operative, between one and two thousand souls have been converted through the means thus put at the disposal of the missionaries. Here is a field so promising that its success should lead other rich Christians of the United States to put their money at work for Christ in it. This is done by some. Mr. J. H. Frey, of Baltimore, before his death had seventeen scholarships in use at the Bareilly Theological School, and in his will secured to the Oudh District enough to support about thirty j)rimary schools. Mr. W. E. Blackstone, of Chicago, has put $3,000 into the new training-school and dea- coness home at Muttra. Let the good work go on. In all the North India Conference this year reports 488 schools, with over 1,600 pupils. O, but the cry there is on every hand here for workers ! Not less than a thousand openings for work in the North India Confer- ence alone, with magnificent promise of success, must be refused this year for lack of means and workers. The sum of forty or fifty dollars will sustain a primary school a year like those found already to produce such rich harvests. EDUCATION WORK IN NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 71 A remarkable paper on early marriage, prepared by Mrs. Dr. Mansell, and read at a district conference, had so much of worth that it has been printed and widely scattered. It claims, among other things, that the physical deterioration of the Indians is owing more to marrying too young than to the climate. It is a start- ling statement, and if it can be sustained by facts and figures opens up new demands on Christian care and philanthropy. Our missionaries seek delay in marriage among the young people under their direction, and in this effort commendable success is being reached. Al- ready later marriage, better food and clothing, and other things are giving a sturdier physique, and with that a better brain-power; so that the young people sent up from our schools to government examinations for the universities and other fields succeed better than non-Christians, for they are found to be mentally and physically better able to stand the excessive strain of great intellectual efforts. It is the policy of our missionaries to build up graded schools at each of the larger stations, so besides those at Moradabad they are at Cawnpore, Lucknow, Bareilly, Budaon, and elsewhere, for boys or girls. Like those at Moradabad, they are fed from the lower schools, though some of the young people come directly from the Christian families. In these schools have been prepared most of the native workers used by the missionaries. They get culture here that both in degree and kind they would otherwise lack. Along with the regu- lar studies pursued the great principles of Christianity are taught, and thus they become rooted and grounded in the faith, and at the same time get almost wholly freed from tlie baneful effects of the heathenism which must always act on their parents, who have failed of 72 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. similar advantages. Preachers, exhort ers, teachers, both men and women, zenana workers, helpers, and others are sent out from these schools by the scores, so that our widening fields are partly supplied. But the demand is greater than the supply. Hundreds of native men and women could be judiciously set at work at once in the three India Conferences if they could be obtained. When a young man shows special aptitude as a pros- pective preacher, he is, on finishing his course at some one of these schools, sent to the theological school at Bareilly, where he can have a three-years' course to fit him better for the ministry. His schooling then does not cease, for he is usually required to take the course of study for local preachers, and serve in that oftice for four years; and then, if promising enough, is recom- mended to the Annual Conference, where he takes the regular Conference course during the four years as we do at home; and this year they have presented to the Conference a post-graduate course which the preachers can elect to carry on after their regular course is ended. By these means there is being obtained a fine body of native ministers who are doing good work for God and Methodism. These men are from different nationalities — Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans, Turanians — and from all castes — Brahmans, Rajputs, Sikhs, Chamars, Sweepers — and of no caste. That God is no respecter of persons has illustration here. High caste, low caste, outcasts, sit together, study together, eat and work together, sing and pray together, lifted to the high estate of children of God. Cultivated women, without whose elevation India cannot be elevated, sit as wives or sisters with these men, having the many-phased enfranchisement that Christianity gives to all. EDUCATION WORK IN NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 73 Methodism in India feels that the time has come for yet higher education of its youth, the same as early Methodism felt in the United States. It must have full colleges. It justly dreads to send the young men and women carefully taught Christian truth in the high schools to mingle, in a great university, with the Hindu and Mohammedan young people to be found in govern- ment colleges, lest in some instances they become drawn away. A growing number are prepared every year for matriculation, so that a college for young men and one for young women are imperatively demanded. This need is so pressing that last year the Conference voted that Dr. Bad ley, in charge of the Centennial High School at Lucknow, should go ahead a year with his class beyond matriculation ; and this he did. In the same city the Girls' High School, Miss De Vine in charge, had had its classes carried into a college depart- ment two years under the efficient teaching of Miss Kyle. Here, then, is an embryo college for young men and one for young women. They are demanded by the advanced needs of the young people, to save them fully to us, to prepare still more highly cultured workers in our mission, and to give among the people due prominence to the exalted place we occupy in the field of education. Indeed, Dr. Badley has taken steps already toward building a college. A board of trustees has been organized several years. At Lucknow, directly oppo- site the mission compound and the Centennial High School, is an open plot of five acres, formerly belonging to government, which has been presented to our mis- sionaries for the purpose of erecting a college. It is worth four thousand dollars. It is most opportune, and comes in answer to needs and prayers. It comes when 74 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA government is favorably disposed to mission work and schools. It comes, on the other hand, when the mis- sionary treasury is so depleted that it cannot devote any thing this year to building. The conditions of the gift are that it must have a building erected on it, which the government will approve, within two years. Plans have been submitted which the government- has approved, a contract for building, most advantageous in price and payments, has been concluded, and our mis- sionaries feel that some way, by some means, the project must go ahead. Here is a chance for some rich man in America to build himself a lasting monument and make a name fragrant w^ith blessings to humanity. What chances India offers for money to go on perpetuating its rich blessings and multiplying its living forces coined into Christian character in the young people it can send out to help in redeeming those masses ! m AND ABOUT MUTTRA. 75 LETTER X. IN AND ABOUT MUTTRA. The railroad run from the Cliandusi raela with Pro- fessor Foote and Dr. J. E. Scott and wife, though tedious in slowness, was most pleasant in associations, and the awaiting ghari at the station at nine o'clock at night was gladly welcome to take us to the mission house. An early chota hazari next morning prepared us for a drive of four hours about the city and mission property. Our mission at Muttra is a recent venture, and already has fine promise. Nine acres of land from which our folks were kept for some time were finally secured at advantageous conditions on perpetual lease, and on this land already five mission buildings are going up for both the parent board and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. The location is airy, sightly, com- modious, while the buildings seem to be fine adaptations to the needs of the hot India climate. Several points for mission work had been opened near Muttra; in the heart of the city a school at which a hundred boys already are in attendance. Here and at two places where mission work is begun more than a hundred thousand people live. O, but the swarming masses of people to be seen in such a city as this ! In driving through the streets the utmost care must be taken not to run over them, and the native driver is constantly shouting the idiom, " Save yourselves ! " Where the boys' school is kept Dr. Scott has Sunday services, and meets every Sunday 76 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. evening a packed house of the educated natives and others, who eagerly listen to the Gospel. What a chance for a missionary ! A block is for sale cheap, fronting on the main street of the city, and reaching back to the Jumna River, that I hope can be secured, and which could be used for school and church pur- poses. Under the shadow of some Mohammedan min- arets rising above a fine mosque a location could be se- cured by perpetual lease, with ample room for a hospital, training-school for women, and a dispensary. If only the money could be had for these purposes this holy city of the Hindus could be so entered at this beginning time as to give grand promise of victories for Christ. Muttra is one of the most sacred cities of India. It is a center, here and at Brindaban, only six miles away, of Krishna's worship, as one of his incarnations is located at this place in the myths regarding him. Here, on the banks of the Jumna, he is said to have rested, the place now being marked by a stone, after his victory over Kansa, an uncle who tried to usurp the government. An ancient stone fort, said to be two thousand years old, was Kansa's stronghold. From the railroad bridge we could see half a mile of the bathing "ghats," where hundreds of natives were going down into the river in the sharp cold of the early morning to bathe as a relig- ious rite; but you are glad on sanitary grounds that they do so. The Jumna is only less a sacred river than the Ganges, and where they unite their waters near Allahabad the location is considered peculiarly holy. After seeing this interesting view for a while we wan- dered along these " ghats," seeing in one place near the river-bank a tall sandstone tower raised to mark the spot where, two hundred years ago, a noble Hindu lady performed suttee with her dead husband's body. m AND ABOUT MUTTRA. 77 Holy monkeys ran about in the temples along the river-bank, thievish, clirty, disgusting, while sacred turtles lifted their sluggish heads above the waters of the Jumna to eat the sweets thrown as offerings into it. In another place, where there was a swarm of bathers going into the water and coming from it, two or three stone arches stood, grown old in the passage of years, under each of which some rich rajah had years before been weighed over against his weight in money, and then the coins scattered among the crowds of waiting people. As we were there a new one, farther up the court from the river^ was being built, under which a certain rich man was to be weighed at the great mela which was coming off in March, and then his weight in money to be scat- tered among the expectant masses. All this is done to gain merit for this world and the world after this one. Get these devotees converted to Christianity, and what missionaries they would make to unconverted peoples ! Not far away was the pretentious house of a man who is said to be so rich that he stands in the relation to the banks of India that the Bank of England does to the money matters of Great Britain. He is worth, it is re- ported, fully a hundred millions of dollars, the accumu- lations of several generations, to which he has added that of his own shrewd dealings in the banking business. Many of the houses in this city are very fine, accord- ing to the notions and needs of Eastern architecture; much beautiful carving in wood and casting in bronze adorn the doors and fronts of the costly mansions. The temples here are also very rich, one almost opposite the banker's house being especially so, as it is the peculiar care of this man of rupees. A city of such wealth and pilgrimage offers to its peo- ple special advantages, so that in their |)hysique they 78 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. show good living, being the tallest, plumpest lot of Hin- dus I have yet seen, their food seeming to have given them better growth. They eat no meat at all. The wor- ship of Mahadeo, a most foul, disgusting superstition, and of grossest impulses, is the prominent idolatry here. One cannot tell of the emblems and practices. If Paul saw at Athens as gross worship as one can see in such a sacred city of India as this it is no wonder his spirit was stirred within him. Dr. Scott and his vigorous wife are deeply moved at the situation, and the Church will expect to learn grand results from their hard work here. He is popular among these same sleek, fat Hin- dus, but the victories of Christ will be likely to chill their regard for him. In the afternoon we drove six miles from Muttra to Brindaban, another holy city, not now so lively as the former one, but to be especially a center of interest at the March mela. Then pilgrims by the ten thousands from all parts of India will be here, so religious are this people. A railroad spur by that time is to reach from Muttra to Brindaban, nnd crowds will avail them- selves of this mode of transit, even though it is offered them by their Anglo-Saxon conquerors. The way the people of India ride on the cars since their pundits have found that the principles of steam locomotion were fore- shadowed in the Vedas is most surprising. Every train is crowded, and you seldom see a train of less than a dozen or fifteen cars. In these the high castes, middle castes, low castes, and even outcasts and women ride. The cars in India are a leveler and civil izer as well as a convenience. All along the drive from Muttra to Brindaban were temples, shrines, and the palaces of the rich, who come here a part of the year for religious purposes, as Ameri- IN AND ABO UT MUTTRA. 79 cans go to the mountains and sea-shore for recreation. The grounds and gardens about some of them were elegant, but in most cases showed neglect and that touch of indolence and decay which is so indicative of tropical places. A jungle lay oif from one side of the way that is a kind of boar-park in which the British officers enjoy the classical sport of " pig-sticking." Brindaban is named from a sacred plant which grows about here, the " brinda," an obscure weed, I found, when they showed it to me, of the labiatm group. Odd, is it not, that human beings, of the noble Aryan race, too, can be found to worship a little plant like that ? Man, when he is started wrong, can go that way very far. In the outskirts of this city we came to a new temple in course of construction. It is a thing of wonder to all observers, owing to its costliness and its proof of the activity of Brabmanism. If changes are going on in India looking toward the decay of idolatry this and other things show that it yet has much aggressive vi- tality. This temple, like most of them in the East, consists of a great court, at one side of which is the real fane, with many accessory buildings adjacent. The principal stone used is red sandstone, or rather pink- ish, of which vast quarries are found in this part of India. The temples, forts, and palaces, in all the great cities about here, are built of this beautiful stone. Even as far north as Delhi the same stone is used, the wonderful Khutab Minar being made of it. It is fine- grained, firm, enduring, yet easily worked from its evenly stratified structure. Much white marble was also used, and it is costly, a block two by four feet from Guzerat costing five hundred rupees. Out of such a block they were fashioning the form of Krishna, 80 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. which they were to set up as the god of their worship. AVas I a heretic, that I could not see the reasonableness of their making a god themselves out of stone, and then worshiping it ? Krishna was to be set up in this temple in three shapes: first, when he was a child; sec- ond, when grown to manhood; and third, in another form. Nearest to these images was being made a court or room for persons of rank and women, while further away the less choice public must be satisfied with a remoter distance from the god. The marble-work of columns, screens, panels, and the like, was being inlaid with precious stones, these being found to be, as they showed them to us, carnelians, agates, lapis lazuli, green flint, malachite, and the really costly turquois. They also were using shells, the tints made by these be- ing most delicate in the white marble. This inlajdng was much more coarsely done than some I saw at Delhi, the art seeming to have been at its height at the time of the Mogul emperors. The pieces set into the marble are stuck fast by a fine kind of cement. One favorite mode of inlaying for coarser work is to put black mar- ble into white. I have seen this in many other places as well as here. This temple is designed for a kind of eleemosynary institution as well as for worship. Back of the main temple are long corridors of rooms and spaces in which food offered at the shrines will be given out to beggars. This provision, where there is so much poverty and extreme want as in India, would be most valuable if those needing it could get its benefit, but such as mostly profit by it are the lazy priests, fakirs, and devotees, who might better be at work to support themselves. There were rooms for women to live in on one side of the court. A busy mass of workmen were IN AND ABOUT MUTTRA. 81 toiling here and there, some squaring the big blocks of sandstone, others deftly fashioning the marble-work, others inlaying, and a few, the sculptors, at work on the images. All were eager to show us about and an- swer the questions put to them. The chief architect showed and explained the plan to us, and could speak good English, having been educated in one of the gov- ernment colleges. They do not build lofty structures in the East, like our churches and cathedrals, but like this one of two stories or platforms, with an uplift above those two. The cost of this magnificent pile is to be about thirty lacs of rupees, or a million dollars, and is borne by the rajah of the native State of Jey- pore. He taxes his subjects mercilessly to raise the money for such a purpose. From the temple yet building we went to the "Seth " temple, with vaster court area than the new one, and were permitted to go into only one part, the holiest place being inaccessible to such as we were. Fat priests sat reading Hindu books, with a pupil or two in front of them, or they lay under the perches stretched on mats to doze away existence. In this temple it is re- ported that eight thousand widows and other women live, compelled, those with me said, to pander to the vices of the throngs of priests and fakirs in the temple and about it. Most of these women were in the parts of the temple that we were not permitted to visit, though we saw a few of them, and these were veritable hags. We stopped to talk with a group of priests and pupils, to find that one of the young men could speak English, as he had been a student in one of the govern- ment colleges, and ^vas purposing to return. The gates leading to this temple were huge and finely carved with figures of Yishnu, and also the Hindu triad. 6 82 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. Not far away was the well-known Govind Deva, a temple shaped like the cathedrals of Europe, built of the splendid red sandstone, and now falling into decay. How it came to be thus built is not known, but the sur- mise is that some European architect a century or two ago was commissioned to ]3ut up a temple, and so gave it the architectural cast of a Christian church. The nave, transepts, corridors, choir, and all the traditional parts of a cathedral are here. After seeing the temples built in Eastern style this one seemed very strange. During a Mohammedan conquest it was partly destroyed and then restored. Some most elaborate stone-carving is done, both inside and outside. Dr. Scott is calcu- lating on using it some time as a Methodist church, and even had us suggest the place in its vast nave where the pulpit ought to be set ! After all, stranger things than this have occurred in the conquest of the cross. Among the oth(a' temples visited in this holy city of the Hindus was that of Beliari Lull, all lined inside with costly marble. This man now lives at Luck- now, but his temple is kept in tolerable condition. On its top are almost as many figures cut in marble as on the roof of the Milan cathedral. About it are also huge lions carved in stone, and twisted columns of ex- quisite symmetry. The richness of some Indian stone- work is very great, if the taste is not along the approved lines of Western art. The past season, when at the mela the multiplied thousands were here, our missionaries, both men and women, were on hand also, preaching Christ and his gifts to those religious devotees. The good done by such a course at such a time cannot be known, and is not al- ways apparent, though in some instances men who have heard the missionaries at those places have come to m AND ABOUT MUTTRA. 83 them later to learn more or to receive baptism, while in other cases many have professed conversion and been baptized at the mela itself. Little opposition is made to such procedure by the Brahraans, though the strong arm of British lavr no doubt compels a salu- tary respect. Dr. Scott was preparing for a much more pretentious time at the coming season, and visited a rich native who had some buildings to rent, to secure them for himself and helpers against the ingathering in March. What a sight for a raw American to see, and how I should like to be that man ! 84 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. LETTER XI. AT AGRA. I KNEW that three fine things awaited me at Agra: the promising mission work, the fort, and the wonderful Taj. The last was one of the few sights that out of the many T was to view going around the world I had greatly longed to see. Getting into the city at midnight from Muttra, Professor Foote and I went to the dak bunga- low, not calling at Rev. Mr. Clancy's till after our chota hazari. It was too late for the delightful rides fre- quently offered me in the fresh, cool morning, but we were able to look over the mission property, which, as at Muttra, has made most commendable advance in the short time the place has been occupied by us. I think our mission has been established but a year and a half at this point. A broad plot of ground has been se- cured, on which was already a fine large building put up by some Euroj^ean, that affords ample room for both the missionary and the representatives of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. On one part Mr. Clancy has a church that will seat about five hundred people, nearly done, built of brick taken from the old city wall, where they were put by Akbar, and are doubtless three hundred years old. In another part a building for the use of the native girls who come to the city for attendance on the large government medical college is going up. Our mission schools are sending many finely educated young women here for a medical course, that after that they AT AGBA. 85 may do noble service for God, the Church, and their afflicted sisters of India. Among the workmen at both the church and women's building were many women, carrying mortar and bricks high up the ladders to the walls. I saw the same thing at Vienna. Christian Austria is thus, in the work of women, not a whit ahead of heathen India. But here, at least, it is a mercy to these poverty-smitten people to give the women a chance to earn a few pice a week to keep soul and body together. At the other building children as well as women were at work, boys not more than seven or eight years of age carrying baskets of dirt away like the older ones. In the East, when excavations are made, no carts or wheelbarrows are used, but workmen — women and boys and girls as well as men — carry the dirt away in baskets on their heads. I saw this done at road-building in Palestine and Egypt, as well as at all excavations in India; but in this, again. Christian Europe is not ahead of heathen India, for the same kind of work was done in the same way at the excavations in Pompeii. At the dirt-carrying in Agra the over- seer stood with a bag of cowry shells, a hundred of them worth about an American cent, being used there as cur- rency among the poor people and shop-keepers, and as each woman or child had carried off a basket of dirt and returned for another he gave to him a shell or two, making in this way a constant incentive to rapid transit. They said as much work could be obtained from the gang in half a day through this device as in a whole day without it. I noticed that each child would carry about three or four quarts of dirt at a time, while the women would bear away about a peck. There be- ing a large number at work, they looked like a row of ants coming and going. 86 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. The fort is an immense thing and a fitting monu- mental relic of the Mohammedan occupation. They say it is a mile and a half around it, and in the times of poor artillery and less scientific modes of military at- tack it must have been well-nigh impregnable. It was one of the few places away from the sea-coast that dur- ing the terrible Sepoy rebellion was successfully held by the British. We entered a huge gate-way across a deep moat to find red sandstone walls sixty feet or so in height, here and there mounted with some anti- quated cannon, and used only to be preserved. The British soldiery occupy it now as a kind of arsenal, and into some parts of the spacious inclosure they do not allow visitors to go. In Akbar's time it was more than a fort, since it inclosed his palace, judgment-hall, mosque, and other royal needs, as well as the barracks and fortress for his armies. The judgment-hall is now w^alled up where formerly it was open, the roof having been sus- tained by strong columns. The portico, which the em- peror occupied to execute judgment, is yet open; and they showed us the wide black marble slab on which he used to sit during those fatal hours. Two immense wooden doors, composed of the sweet-smelling sandal-wood, are carefully preserved, having been captured at Somnath by Lord Ellenborough in his Afghan campaign, and brought here for preservation. They are wonderful specimens of the work that Eastern despots used to have done, as they had at their command almost limitless resources of wealth and work. They are richly carved and inlaid, while on one panel are three metal bosses, said once to have been on the shield of an Afghan em- peror. The palace proper is quadrangular, like most of those Eastern buildings, inclosing a court laid out in fine gar- AT AGBA. 87 dens, walks, groves, and shady nooks. Much of it all is dilapidated, yet enough remaining to attest the mag- nificence of this once royal residence. Here were sepa- rate sections for the different kinds of wives, one for the Hindu wives, one for the Mohammedan, one for the Persian, and so on. It is claimed that he also had one European wife. Near by is the deep well, now mostly walled in, where he used to drown his bad-tempered or faithless spouses. What tales all this old palace could tell! A parchesi board lies in a small court that is forty feet across, composed of party-colored marbles, on which the game was played, with beautiful girls to run hither and thither in place of the ivory pieces when the game was played by hand. It is now damp and moss-grown from disuse. Below were wide spaces among arches, columns, and corners, where the royal wives were said to have played hide and seek with merry laughter and shout, clad only in Eve's habiliments before the fall. Far down we entered the beginnings of a passage that was said to lead under the river tc the Taj, and a second one to Secundra, five miles away, where is the mausoleum of the renowned Akbar. Doubtless these are mere rumors that have no truth in them, but there is little knowing what those old despots would take a notion to have done when they had so much wealth and labor at their disposal. Among the most artistic things seen was the canopy over one of the royal seats, a single piece of marble eight feet in diameter, most exquisitely carved and inlaid. The Palace of Glass is a batli of fiije proportions, about the walls of which are thousands of little mirrors set at all angles, each mirror being about as large as a silver dollar. Nothing made me think of the Arabian Nights as much as this room. The fountains in it, the bubbling water, the little 88 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. cascade, all suggested the wondrous stories of that marvelous collection. For the emperor's worship there was the Pearl Mosque, and a pearl it is. Like the one in the old fort in Delhi, it is small, but the perfection of Saracenic art. It stands on a platform of red sandstone, and within has none of the tawdry show of worship to be found in some of the Christian sanctuaries, but a marble tes- selated floor marking a spot where the devotee can kneel for prayer with his face turned toward Mecca. Pity it is that those Moslems in the East have so di- vorced worship and morality. The terrible climate of India is touching every thing in and about this old fort ; worn sandstone and marble, broken columns and door- ways, moss-covered walls and crumbling brick-work, all show the sure and swift decay. The Taj is a mile out of the city and immediately on the banks of the Jumna. About it lie scattered other tombs and mausoleums, for the Taj is a tomb itself, built by the great Shah Jehan over the remains of his dearly loved wife. If it is barren and suggestive of desolation and death about the Taj, one enters a true Eastern paradise when he approaches the building, for a large space is walled off for fine gardens, walks, and fountains, through which wall you enter the gardens by a magnificent gate-way of sandstone and of black and white marble, in some instances inlaid in quaint, beauti- ful designs and texts from the Koran. The govern- ment protects all this elegance of gate-way, walls, gar- dens, and tombs, so that they shall not fall into decay nor be despoiled by vandal hands. As you stand at the gate looking in, the Taj is seen three or four hundred yards away, white and still, through a perspective of trees that reach out their AT AGE A. 89 green leaves and branches over the walks and fount- ains. The gardens and groves cover many acres inside the walls, and serve actually as a botanical place, the well-posted Scotchman in general charge being eager to get some American ferns to add to the fine lot of Asiatic ones he already possessed. Trees and ferns I could see in other countries and in other parts of India, but there is only one Taj in the world, so I urged for- ward to that. As w^e came near I saw the building stood fronting us as we approached from the south, and was on a white marble platform three or four hundred yards long and two hundred wide, with a height of about twenty feet. In the center of this platform stands the Taj. At each end, on a slightly lower plane than the Taj, is a mosque where the sad emperor could wor- ship as he came to the tomb of his departed love, the one at the west end being used for this purpose, while that at the east end was put up, they said, as a com- panion-piece to complete the artistic effect. The tall minarets, that are indescribably graceful in their slim, straight beauty, rise at proper distances from the Taj and the two mosques. They are almost always a copy of the great Khutab Minar near Delhi. As we came upon the platform a genteel guide ap- proached offering to show us about, but that was not nec- essary for Professor Foote and me as long as we had in Mr. Clancy one who had been there so many times. My first impressions of this building were to be overwhelm- ing, I supposed, and when I was not so overwhelmed I was disappointed. Who would not expect to be pro- foundly moved at its presence after reading Dr. Will- iam Butler's fine description and that of Bayard Tay- lor ? But there I was in the presence of the charmer, and it seemed only a fine structure of white marble. 90 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. Oriental in outline and make, but not marvelous at all. Was it that I was sated by the vast sight-seeing of the months since I had left Jiome, or was I too tired that day, or was the Taj a thing too highly extolled ? We went into it, about it, down into the crypt, off to the ends of the platform, entered the mosques, and came out of them to look again, so as to give the building all the chances possible to captivate; yet even under the enthusiasm of Mr. Clancy added to all the rest I did not become enthusiastic. A similar lack affected Pro- fessor Foote. Inside, on a level with the platform, is the large open space under the dome, which rises a hundred feet or •more above you. Here, within a railed space, is a du- plicate of the tombs of the beautiful Noor Jehan and her royal husband side by side, as they really are in the crypt below. Every word or noise under the great dome is sent back in an echo that is far the finest I have ever heard, even after the famous ones of Naples and the Yosemite. A second story forms passages with the elegant fret-work that is the delight of all travelers, yet which is more substantial by far than I had sup- posed, the marble from which the tracery is cut being two or three inches thick and far too substantial to suggest floating away. Much of it is inlaid with pre- cious stones, carnelians and agates seeming to predomi- nate. Every-where the white marble is also inlaid in black marble with texts from the Koran, until it is claimed that the whole book is thus preserved. The real tombs of the empress and of Akbar below were very richly inlaid ; the rose at the head of the former was said to have had in its center a fine diamond, and one could see where it had been picked out by some thief. In saveral places the inlaying was most beauti- AT AGBA. 91 fill and costly. After two or three hours we went away, still not greatly charmed, but with a plan to come in the evening after the moon was up and see it by that witching light. We waited until the moon, just at the full, most fortunately, was an hour high, and then found our way again to the grounds of the Taj. It was smoky, so that a weird dimness partially hid it as we approached, but as we passed through the gate-way along the avenues of trees I saw it was with a different effect from the morning. Little sound save the distant howl of a few^ jackals and dogs disturbed the quiet; the men and boys at work about the gardens in the day were all gone, and no one, save the sleepy guards, the silent guides, and a visitor or two like us, was to be seen. Mr. Clancy said the impression of a bubble ready to float in the air was created in his mind by the rounded dome, but I could not catch such a feeling. The moon was at just the height to throw a shadow most richly on the west side of the white Taj the same time that the east side glit- tered with a soft, pearly radiance in the full light of that orb. We never know the light of the sun or moon in America as they do in India. The nearest the moon's light comes in America to look as it did that night is when its full rays glow upon the winter snow. The light and shade about minarets, the dome, the corners, and recesses, added greatly to our ability to comprehend the structure and to take its effects into our minds. Again we went inside to listen to the echo. The space seems to have a certain key-note, so that words spoken at a particular tone and some of the strains of singing filled it and prolonged the echo as other words and tones did not. The eclio — such is the shape and size of the dome — is sweet and soft and ex- 92 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. ceedingly musical. It floats about the space, at first almost as loud as the originating sound, and gradually grows less and less, but so slowly as to linger much longer than you would expect it to do. The later re- frains become so distant and sweet that they seem to be not of the earth, but of the far-away heaven. We wondered if Akbar did not come there at night, and, as we did, seem to hold converse with heavenly visitants, his visitant, of course, the one for whom his passion was so great. We sang familiar hymns, to listen to the strains of Christian song come back from the dome where the Moslem Akbar would have counted it most despicable to have such Christian sounds occur or such Christian infidels stand. By this time the Taj began to get me into its power. I was perfectly willing to be captivated if it had the power to do so, and thus did not struggle against it, nor would I seek captivation by straining after it. Then we went out and around the j^latform, getting views from every side. It was quiet, rich, solemn, and so unearthly as to seem almost ghostly ; no one wanted to talk loudly, and even the heavy footsteps of our thick shoes seemed out of place. A man and woman. Western people of some nation, were wan- dering about the same as we were doing. Mr. Clancy said he had an impression, as he walked from it, that it would all vanish as the airy structure of a dream, but I did not feel so. He says that he is more and more impressed with its unique beauty every time he visits it. The cry of some water-birds a few hundred yards down the river was a pleasant break to the impressions that came to me, for I was getting under the spell more and more. The glitter of the golden star and crescent above the dome was in fine AT AGBA. . 93 contrast with the subdued pearly gleam of the spotless marble below. Then we went off the platform among the trees of the garden to get views from that vantage ground. We would so stand that the upper part only could be seen, the dome and towers and minarets, while all below was hidden by the trees, but still it did not seem to float, though it greatly enhanced the beauty, for the white above flooded with moonlight was in charming contrast with the vivid green below. The white seemed more pearly than before, the dim distance heightening that effect. The minarets, that had seemed taller in the moonlight than in the day-time, when seen from among the trees seemed even more graceful than before, and disconnected through the green leaves they at least ap- peared to me as though they might float away. We tried the view from twenty points of outlook, now with the whole dome in sight and the minarets hidden ; then with the dome hidden and the minarets in sight ; then only small sections of each dome and minarets seen through a space as a green-encircled perspective. The thick mango-trees and others thus aided us in an end- less series of views, each different from the others, and each new one presenting new phases of beauty and en- chantment. Finally, seeking the flagged walk leading back to the great gate-way, we walked slowly backward to see the changing aspects thus offered. Once the pointed graceful tamarisks shot up into the white walls of the Taj like great inlaid columns of green marble ; then as we receded the dome and towers and minarets seemed indeed to rise gradually, more and more the farther we went back, till at last the dome and all did seem to float out on the light air, and the full impres- sion of that enchantment came to me. I gave one long 94 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA TSIA. gaze to photograph it on my memory, and turned away saying that should be my last look, and hurried toward the gate-way. I went thirty feet, it may be, clinging to my purpose, when the wonderful thing overcame that purpose to get away — I could but turn and take one more look, as the departing lover might turn and take one more look on the one he is leaving; but once turned I gazed again and again, now with my face di- rectly toward the Taj, now over my shoulder, till I stood on the raised platform leading out of the gate. Then I knew I must take a last look. In the haze and distance it had grown dimmer and dimmer, yet it was able to be distinguished, the dome, walls, minarets ; and all these were also distinctly shadowed in the still water in the tanks down the wide avenue leading from the gate-way to the Taj. Gazing hard so as never to for- get its vision, I finally turned, passed through the gate- way to the carriage, and rode away with a little feel- ing that it was all a dream. O, the beautiful, wonder- ful Taj ! NANAK, THE PUNJAB REFORMER. 95 LETTER XII. NANAK, THE PUNJAB REFORMER. India is a hot-bed of religions. Hinduism supplanted an extensive system of early practices among the Tu- ranian aborigines, fragments of which remnin to this time in tree-worship, devil-worship, and the like. Then the elaborate Hindu religion, after holding sway here for two thousand years, was compelled to meet in life- and-death struggle with Mohammedanism, the latter being propagated, not only by the sword, but by preach- ers, missionaries, and by all those influences so likely to be urged by conquerors. Last of all has come Christian- ity, for the first time meeting these great systems fairly, as it has met and overcome other great religious sys- tems. It follows that such religious ferment as must have always been going on here would produce relig- ious fanatics, teachers, and leaders. Buddha, one of the greatest figures in the world's history, arose as a re- former. Another, less known, and whose influence, not so great as that of Buddha, has yet been very impor- tant in modern times, was Nanak. He was born near Lahore, in the Punjab, in 1469, and died in 1539. His effort along humanitarian lines was to combine the best from the Hindu and Mohammedan religions, rec- oncile these two antagonistic races, and form out of their worthy beliefs a wholesome system that should be better for both. To attain this he accepted the mis- sion and claims of the Arabian prophet, and at the same 96 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. time the reputed incarnations of Vishnu. In the very age when Luther and Calvin and Zwinglius were seeking to change the trend of the Christian Church from bad to better the Indian reformer was struggling with a similai" problem in India. The Indian reformer's prob- lem met with poorer success than that of his contem- poraries in Europe, and after some variations of fort- une through the generations the project degenerated into a warlike movement. Nanak seems to have begun his public life by becom- ing an ascetic, like all religious teachers among the In- dians, but, gradually becoming dissatisfied with the life and teachings of those about him, he struck out a new path. In the Indian speech an exalted teacher is a guru, and such he became, and is so called by his followers. His teachings during his life-time, while forming a large share of the sacred books of the Sikhs, called Granth, have had much added to them by later gurus, of whom, including Nanak, they reckon ten. After four of these gurus' time, whose teachings, calculated to lead to purer lives and more nearly correct beliefs, had attracted a large following, the sect became troublesome to the rulers of the Punjab as partisans and even as rebels. The city of Amritsar was selected by the fifth guru as the sacred one of the Sikhs, and it is still considered such by them, though representatives and teachers of this religion are to be found over all the country. The Granth, now accessible to English readers through a good translation, is the best witness to the tenets of the reformer and the system since grown from them. It is probable that his teachings were not committed to writing at first, though how they were preserved is un- certain; but after three or four generations they and the additions were written out, and are now treated with NANAK, THE PUNJAB REFORMER. 97 more than reveience, being actually worshiped system- atically at Amritsar. At that city, in the middle of a wide tank of water, stands a beautiful white marble tem- ple, under the golden dome of which is the Granth spread out on a silver stand richly adorned, where a continu- ous stream of worshipers is coming and going. Musi- cians chant the praises of this worshiped book, priests wait on its altar as on the altar of a god. At the close of a day's services the tired book is carried to a house near by, where on a rich soft bed it is supposed to sleep and recuperate for another day of toil. The book be- came thus sacred owing to the course of the tenth and last guru, Govind, who, instead of nominating his successor, as the gurus did before him, declared the Granth as the form of the guru, and that an}^ Sikh wanting to confer with the guru would find him embodied in the book. The Sikhs consider the guru their incarnated mediator between Hari, the Great God, and themselves, in this being like the adherents of almost every great religion, dimly reaching out into the darkness after the Desire of all nations. Of course the purpose of Nanak to combine the two faiths failed. There are so many things in them which are utterly antagonistic that it could be sup- posed it might have been seen from the beginning. Indeed, Govind, the last guru, repudiated both Hindu and Mohammedan teachings in many respects, and him- self taught that God is not to be found save in humil- ity and sincerity. The One God was to be served, superstitions were to be abandoned, pure morals kept. Still, in many respects the reformers, from IsTanak to Govind, were not wholly able to emancipate themselves from the philosophy and tenets surrounding them. Starting at first as a peaceful, reforming faith, it be- 7 98 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. came by the teachings of the last guru a faith of the sword, to be propagated by that the same as Islam. The caste system so dreadful in the Hindu cult, while declaimed against by Nanak, continued to be tolerated, and finally has as rigid lines dividing its two classes now, householders and mendicants, as the Hindu beliefs. If in the start Nanak, as claimed, urged the brother- hood of man, there came need in the early history of the Sikhs that the reformation itself, in this respect, should be reformed. While having a wife and two sons, he favored ascetic practices by his own life and teachings, though he put a nobler construction on the family life than many other Indian reformers. He placed great stress upon another Hindu religious cus- tom, that of repeating the name of a god, or muttering. The name of the Great God, Hari, is thus to be uttered continuously, by which course many and important blessings would come to the devotee. Nor was Nanak more fortunate in his dealings with the theory of transmigration, that awful shadow hang- ing over all Hindu life and practice. The old belief that many hundred thousands of these changes must take place before man was perfected for heaven was accepted by the Sikhs. Nanak's scheme, while remotely teaching theism, can also easily be accused of being pantheistic, since mankind and all material things are but the forms of Hari. The whole creation, according to some of his teachings, is but a self-evolving of God. Still, in this faith, as in many of the Indian books, glar- ing contradictions are easily to be found. In Nanak's system it would naturally follow that contradictions in respect to this question should occur, since Mohammed- anism teaches a pure theism and Hinduism extreme pantheism. NANAK, THE PUNJAB REFORMER. 99 The outcome of Nanak's proposed reform is doubtless much different from what the reformer hoped. There has been no fusion of the two old faiths. Instead of peaceful, contemplative religious practices the Sikhs became vindictive warriors. After Govind's death, who, by his teachings and by the military organization of the Sikhs, had prepared them for their new destiny, they sought independent existence, fought with one and an- other of the rulers of the Punjab, till, on the decay of the Mogul Empire, they so succeeded in their purpose of autonomy that by 1764 their organization was per- fected, their commonwealth, consisting of twelve States, made up. Most of these Sikhs were of the Jat race, supposed to be distinct from Hindus and Mohammed- ans, a strong, tall, brave people. They issued at this time their own coin, and took other steps as a free State. At the close of the last century, and the first forty years of this, they had an able, ambitious leader in the famous Runjeet Singh, who, appealing to arms, gradually subdued neighboring chiefs with his " Lions of the Punjab," and, pushing his successful armies, drilled by European officers to great efficiency, into Afghanistan, conquered Cashmere and Peshawur. He obtained from an Afghan king the famous diamond Kohinoor, which later came into possession of the Brit- ish crown. At his death the Sikh power, the military product of the peaceful Nanak's teachings, controlled twenty millions of people. In ten years from that time it had been utterly shattered by bloody contact with the British power in two wars, and all the Punjab was an- nexed to the English dominion. Every good Sikh hopes for the time when they shall return to power in greater splendor than ever before. But England made good use of the brave Sikhs, for many of them were soon incor- 100 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. porated into the native contingent, and when the mu- tiny arose in- 1857 they generally remained loyal to the British, doing some noble lighting before Delhi and elsewhere, by which they greatly aided in establishing British supremacy in India. They could the more readily remain true in such a struggle when Hindu and Mohammedan were united against the British, since their own existence as a nation began by repudiating the faith of both those peoples. Nanak's religious followers are now variously esti- mated to number from half a million to three times that number. While holding many Hindu and Mohammedan beliefs and customs, they still appear to come nearer to Christianity, in the doctrine of God, if not in personal purity, than either. Their teachers are earnestly listened to by many people, as at melas and other gatherings they appear as public instructors. In our mission at Morad- abad and about there our missionaries have come in contact with many Sikhs, one of whom, an old teacher, earnestly and diligently seeking more light, finally, in hearing of Christ and Christianity, heartily accepted the truth. Many of the same sect, nominally, at least, accepted our faith, when, in 1868, a deep spiritual work passed over them, since which time numbers from among them have become preachers, exhorters, teachers, and successful members of our native churches. Nanak himself, were he now living, might become a grand preacher in the Methodist Church.. A DAY AMONG INDIA 'S FA UPERS. 101 LETTER XTII. A DAY AMONG INDIA'S PAUPERS. It was the 21st of December at Cawnpore. For fif- teen years it has been the custom at this place to raise a sum of money in the English-speaking Methodist church to buy presents for a crowd of mendicants, the things given being clothing, flour, salt, and the like. It is done for the holiday season as a Christmas gift. This year about seventy-five dollars had been raised. Every Sun- day during the year a couple of Englishmen, members of this church, the Foy Brothers, in important business here, have such native poor as will do so come to their bungalow, where they preach to them, both these men being local preachers. To each of these natives they give a j)ice, half a cent, every Sunday. The people who listen to that Sunday teaching and preaching are the ones to whom the Christmas presents are given. The distri- bution took place under wide-spreading trees in front of the home or bungalow of the Foy Brothers. There were assembled when I reached the place two hundred or more natives, with some American missionaries and other Western people, besides several employees and police of the bungalow. A Bible and hymn-books were brought out, one of the Foys read from the first chapter of Matthew of Christ's birth, a hymn or two were sung, and prayer offered by the native ^pastor. Two or three of the visitors spoke to the motley crowd in the vernac- ular, to whom they listened well for heathen beggars. 102 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. During this time I had a chance to look at them. They were the most miserable mass of humanity I have ever seen. Seated on the ground, each one only partially covered with ragged, dirty cotton cloth, they had evi- dences of many kinds of disease. Such evidences could the more easily be seen for their arms, legs, heads, and brown bodies were mostly naked, though it was winter season. Many were lepers, whom they permit to asso- ciate with every body in India, their fingers and toes gone, their noses or ears eaten off, while others had great white blotches where on their skin the awful dis- ease had begun its work. The sores of leprosy are dryer than I had supposed, so dry that they usually do not have to be bandaged. Others not touched with the fatal leprosy were blind, or lame, or broken in health, or old; some with skin diseases, or warped out of shape by rheumatism, or cripples from their birth. Possibly an American city like New York could furnish such a revolting mass of beggars, but I doubt it. One of the blind men had been taught to read with raised letters, and had his book with him, though it possibly was owned by the Christian mission. Not all the mass that sat there in the tropical sun that day belonged to the hundred or so that gathered to hear Sunday preaching, and as these were all certain to get some present the others constantly sought to cross the dividing-line between the two classes and mingle with the elect ones. It was interesting to watch them hitch along the ground or suddenly try to dart across the space when the backs of the Foy watchmen were turned. As the religious services closed the beggars were con- ducted by these attendants and police in twos and threes to the place where the piles of clothing and food were awaiting distribution. During this movement I was A DAT AMONG INDIA 'S PA UPERS. 103 able to see better than while they were sitting the dreadful suffering of some of these people ; and as I had just come from the scene of the bloody Cawnpore mas- sacre during the Sepoy rebellion the two combined to break vaj heart. These little groups were so pathetic ! An old couple, gray and shriveled, tottered along side by side, each sustaining the other; one would go hanging heavily on another's shoulder ; a blind woman was led away by her old husband; two blind young men were directed by an old woman, presumably their mother, while another blind one, a stalwart young man, was di- rected by a ten-year-old girl holding one end of a stick while he clung to the other end. Men with their fingers eaten off by the leprosy would come holding up the stumps to awaken pity ; others hobble along with their toes gone. A woman whose lips and mouth were cov- ered with a huge cancerous growth came and stood mutely waiting for her dole, her great black eyes being the most beautiful I ever saw, soft, lustrous, and gen- tle as a deer's. One woman could not walk, her limbs being so drawn out of shape, but sitting on the ground she went along hitch by hitch, a few inches at a time. Soon after her came a man moving in the same way, whose fingers were gone, and his feet to the instep, with leprosy. The photographs on my memory of that hour will never fade. The garments given out were jackets made of cotton puff, thick and warm, some skirts for the women, a few coarse chuddars, the enveloping garment for women, covering the body and head, and also a few thick goat's- hair blankets. About a hundred and fifty garments were given away, only one to each person. Farther on they had some bags of coarse flour which they gave out in doles of a quart or two to each, and a handful of 104 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. coarse salt. Many of those not included in the. Sunday attendants received some of these things. Here they vociferated, crowded, and almost fought to get at the distributers, for the native attendants and police could not make them mind like the English at the clothing-pile. They took the flour and. salt in their dirty old chuddars, or garments, and reluctantly went away. I was anxious to see how the man whose fingers and feet were eaten off by leprosy, and who was hitch- ing along on his haunches, would carry off his flour and. salt. They had given the poor thing a cotton jacket, which he had flung over his shoulders; in the bend made by hitching up his legs he had an old rag that he spread out on the ground, into which he received the flour and salt. The latter he carefully gathered into a brass can slung under one arm, then he rolled up the flour in the rag and put it in its place in front of his body and went hitching off. Even one old fakir was there, a saintly old Brahman, whose six-corded string, tied over his bare brown shoulder, was as precious to him as the witness of the Spirit is to a Methodist. The old women were the most veritable hags I have ever seen, there being nothing beautiful m aged heathenism. A few Chris- tian women, some of them gray, were helping take care of the crowd, and their looks were noticeably differ- ent from those of their pagan sisters. I was glad that the Foy brothers, after twenty or thirty years of con- tact with these people, had warm hearts toward them, for after all they were men and women. But O, what men and women ! Heathenism's fruit ! ANNUAL SUNDA Y-SCHO OL GALA AT L UGKNO W. 1 05 LETTER XIV. ANNUAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL GALA AT LUCKNOW. It is always held at the Christmas season. This year the English-speaking school had its picnic December 27, the native schools theirs on December 28. Ever after my purpose to travel through India this winter I had planned to be here at these gatherings. The note of preparation had been heard for a long time, as they began to collect money in November, getting four hun- dred rupees, which were used in presents and prizes. The prizes were given for regular attendance, commit- ting Scripture verses, and other excellencies and attain- ments. The fetes are held in Wingfield Park, which has ample grounds, good swards, delightful drives and walks, where all can fully enjoy themselves. The park and its trees and flowers do not hint of winter as Amer- icans think of that season. None of the trees are leaf- less, but those like our deciduous ones have massive tops of heavy green leaves. Besides these are some palms, the date, fan, sago, and others, with their long columnar trunks if fully grown, or those just starting from new settings. Along the walks are early beds of pansies set out but two or three days, but already blooming, while near by are groups of rose-bushes, with enough blossoms to show what varieties they are and how great will be their magnificence when, a month later, they will be in full bloom. The closely clipped grass is kept green by irrigation, the same as all the 106 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. plants are watered. Gigantic growth of bignonias climb over trellises or to the top of some old tree, the orange-colored blossoms just beginning to adorn their leafy columns with great clusters of pleasing forms. Morning-glories, creepers, poinsettas, and other climb- ers are trained in picturesque places, and send out vis- ions of color and beauty that tell little of icy Christmas seasons. Birds twitter through the trees and shrubs; among them the classic bulbul, with its self-assertive top-knot, pretty scarlet and black markings, is an at- tractive figure. The hum of the cricket, the lazy flight of a butterfly, the sun beating down so strong that I dare not stand in its glare save when covered with an um- brella, so combine to deceive my time-calculations that I am not having a real Christmas, but a summer picnic season. At eleven o'clock, the 27th, the children and grown folks were all gathered under a wide awning, where singing, prayer, and some words from a Wesleyan mis- sionary and myself were spoken; then the prizes were awarded, presents distributed, and a good time gener- ally enjoyed. Ample tables were spread at which the children first were served, then the grown people. In the meantime three elephants, with huge wooden sad- dles, had been brought to the grounds for our use, and many a boy and girl, both small and large, was quite willing to lose the dainty cakes, sweet-meats, and fruit in order to secure the coveted ride on the elephant. As a part of my riding around the world I ought, of course, to ride on an elephant, so here was my chance. Behold, then, Dr. B. H. Badley and myself sitting on the wide wooden hoiodah, facing one way, while an Amer- ican and an English lady sit facing the other way, hav- ing climbed to our places by means of a short ladder. ANNUAL SUNDA 7-SCHO OL GALA AT L UCKNO W. 1 07 The elephant has crouched down at the command of his driver, who, sitting astride its neck, uses to enforce his commands a sharp, murderous-looking iron prod, and, as the load is completed, at a cluck from the driver, the huge animal begins to get on its feet. The first part of the rise is to its forefeet, which causes a lurch of every body to the rear, then getting on its hind feet causes another lurch forward. Once risen, the great beast moves off with four or six persons on his back as though they w^ere feathers. The motion of elephant- riding is apt to cause nausea, like the motion of a ship at sea. They allowed the " Sahib " from America the chance of three rides, none of which was very lengthy. A merry-go-round, a revolving swing, some athletic ex- ercises, etc., were able to keep the children interested till late in the afternoon. The really great day of the gala was the 28th, when the thirteen native boys' schools, represented by about sixteen hundred pupils, had their good time. Early in the morning a note from Dr. Badley to me informed me that I was expected to meet them at the native church and head the procession through Lucknow on the back of a big elephant. Of course I hurried there, and was soon, with himself and others, on the foremost of six elephants leading such a proces- sion as this world seldom sees. Five government ele- phants were loaded with the prize boys of the schools, then following was a line full half a mile long of boys with their teachers, each school designated by an ap- propriate banner; and Mr. Maxwell's printing-office was also represented by a hundred of its workmen and a fine banner. Those on the elephants carried flags of England and the United States. Each school had its native band also, the music being of various grades of 108 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. merit and many varieties of kinds. Flutes, fifes, drums, bugles, and others made at least a noisy demonstration. The people of the city flocked to the street sides to see us, and many came on their house-tops. By special favor our elephant, once a wild one in the jungles, but now fully obedient to the driver's word, was stopped that we might see the great procession as it slowly passed us. The boys enjoyed it, and every face was beaming with excitement and interest. In Wingfield Park the boys were seated on carpets under the same awning used the day before, with the teachers, friends, and visitors outside. A hymn, prayer, then singing by a chosen lot from six of the schools for a prize that was awarded to a group of four boys whose performance was highly creditable. Four much smaller boys stood in that great gathering, not one of them ten years old, and sang most sweetly, forming a picture, as they stood in front of their banner, such as is full of hope and promise to India. The prizes given out by Dr. Badley were silver rupees and Dr. Kidder's centennial medal. They were awarded those who had committed the Golden Texts, the selected verses, the topics, and the outlines of the year's lessons. Twelve pupils were also honored who had been present every Sunday. Three or four of us talked a little to the boys, who were enthusiastic, and, by a sweeping vote, sent their salaam by me to President Harrison in the United States. That gathering was a strange one to a new visitor. Such bright black eyes, such expressive brown faces, such endless variety of costumes ! These boys were mostly Hindu and Mohammedan boys, but, being taught in the day-schools in different parts of the city, and every Sunday in the Sunday-school, their lessons for all days are in the vernacular. Many of them are being ANNUAL SUNDA T-SCEO OL GALA AT L UCKNO W. 1 09 led to Christ, and a great number believe, but owing to home surroundings delay in publicly confessing him. Dr. Badley says he has a mortuage on them all. The Centennial High School, Dr. Badley's immediate charge, has many Christian boys going through a course of study about equal to American college preparation, but beyond this the doctor is taking a fine class through freshman studies this year as the starting out of the Lucknow College that will carry students to the B. A. degree. Land to build such a college has been donated by the government, and work will soon begin on the building. I think such a college is demanded to con- serve our church interests and to hold to us the young men educated by us to matriculation. As these Hindu, Mohammedan, and Christian boys crowd close to each other under the awning at Wing- field Park you can see in them one of the most hope- ful promises for our work in India. Look at them. Their jaunty student caps by no means cover their fine- shaped heads, but sit lightly on the top, and are of as many colors as we can think of. Mostly white, but red, brown, green, blue, some like open lace, others elaborately worked with needle-work and gold or silver threads, they present a variety far beyond an American gathering of women at the season of changing millinery. Then the coats, vests, pants, slippers, and other parts of clothing almost defy description. One nawab's son, not in a Sunday-school, was shown us. He had a gold- trimmed cap with a silver tassel of large size, massive gold, chains and a locket about his neck, a coat of bright colors also gold- wrought, a green silk skirt, white stockings, and leather shoes. A young man wore a purple needle-worked cap, a brilliantly yellow coat of silk lined with red and edged with the same, while his no A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. pants were a tobacco-brown. These people seem to catch their colors from the brilliant plumage of the birds, the bright tint of their flowers, and the burning light of the sun as it floods the rich landscape, and then put it all into their adornments. This taste would appear gaudy under the gray skies of America, but I have not felt pained by it here. I^^atives put into English suits do not look well. Their native costumes fit them much better. In the mass under the awning a few of the pupils had their foreheads painted to show their special native deity, but not more than half a dozen in all the large numbers. It was a great thing for them to enter such a procession, to sit with others, and to remove their forehead paint. Christianity is working its way into Indian life. If they were willing to mingle in a Christian proces- sion, sing Christian songs, and carry Christian banners, they could not overstep caste lines enough to eat to- gether. So, on the dismissal of the crowd from the awning, each school divided into two or three groups, the Hindus by themselves, the Mohammedans the same, thus compelling a third group, the Christians. Each group gathered under some wide-spreading tree, where in the shade they ate their sweets. In the case of the Hindus men of their own caste came along to see that none was defiled or any mistakes made in the observ- ances. I Avandered out among these strange groups to find at every place a separate lot of candy, or sweets, as they call it here, having besides candy variously made sweetmeats, at making which the Indians excel. Two or three men would be dividing out these confections with funny little plates or basins made of leaves. So thick and tough are many of these native leaves that they can be pinned by twigs into such cups and perfectly serve ANNUAL SUNDA Y-SGHO OL GALA AT L UGKNO W. Ill their purposes. Each pupil received from a quarter to a half pound of these sweets, and was made as glad by them as the boys would be in America. But here was an odd thing. Almost every boy did up his sweets in a handkerchief, or otherwise, to carry them home to his parents and other members of the family. His respect for them would not permit him to monopolize his rich dainties. When I approached one group of Hindus and began closely to look at the confections the head- master of that school warned me, in tone not to be mis- taken, not to touch any of the food. It is impossible for us, with our ideas, to comprehend the restrictions of caste in this and other ways. At another place they gave me in the leaf-basket a pupil's allowance of the refreshments. The meaning to our mission of such a day is very great. Such displays attract attention in various ways, serve to lead other children to the day and Sunday schools, carry conviction to those who see them of the grand success of our Church, and have been blessed in many ways. Then the Hindus and Mohammedans have so many holidays, melas, and other gatherings that to give the Christian children a similar festival once in a while does much good. A similar gala was observed this year by our mission at Cawnpore. Our mission- aries have learned much wisdom in pushing our work, and in some ways they are having such success as no other missionaries are having. I am glad to see this success and to be at Lucknow at the Christian /"fe 112 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. LETTER XV. CASTE. No one at all familiar with India but has heard about caste. From its use here it has become a word hateful to all reasonable people. Still, to some, even in our own home-land, others must be of their own grade or clique to receive much recognition or encouragement. Chris- tianity intends to do away with all this kind of thing, but evidently has not wholly done it in the home churches, though more nearly there than anywhere else in the world. Here, instead of being a mere nominal thing, it is a most elaborate, far-reaching power, with results and practices that in their minutiae are of the most exacting nature. Knowing our aversion as Westerners and Christians to such things, a transient and casual ob- server like me does not see very much of it, though enough still to show some of the horrible things that can be done in its name. They say here that the word is the Anglicized form of the Portuguese word casta, meaning race, and from that people came into use by the English to denote the dif- ferent classes into which the Hindus are divided. Some one has suggested that probably the system of caste had its origin, not in religious sentiments and practices, but in those of a division of labor and duties inhering in the natural condition of conquerors and conquered people. Indication can be found of this in the Hindu jati, race, applied to the system, and varna, color, since CASTE. 113 the conquering Aryans greatly prided themselves on their color being lighter than that of the aborig- inal tribes they found in India. Far back in their sacred books, the Vedas, it is found that only two castes were recognized, the Aryans and the Dasyus. The first were the lordly Hindus, the Aryans, who in those times came down from Central Asia into the plains and val- leys of India, and, wresting this country from the abo- riginal tribes, the Turanians, called them the Dasyus, the second caste. This dispossessed race was driven before the more civilized Hindus into the hills, jungles, and mountains, or else were partly incorporated with the conquerors as servants and slaves. From these condi- tions seem to have arisen the Hindu terms of the sys- tem, for the two races were much different in many ways, perpetuating, no doubt, all the usual race antipa- thies likely to arise under conquest and contrast. The long residence of the Turanian tribes in the tropical climate had no doubt made them brown or black before the Aryan conquest. Manu, the great Indian lawgiver, has as fanciful an origin of caste as even the most wonderfully imagina- tive Indian could wish. He makes the number of castes four. To begin with, Brahma was born in a golden egg, and then, that the world might be peopled, this god caused the Brahman to issue from his mouth, the Kshatriya from his arms, the Yaisya from his thighs, and the Sudra from his feet. The Brahmans were the priests, the Kshatriyas the warriors, kings, and rajahs, the Yaisyas the householders or farmers, while the Sudras, those native tribes that embraced the Brah- man religion, were given menial duties. Those of the native tribes that did not yield to the claims of the hierarchy were the Dasyus, or outcasts, and to them. 114 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. such as were in subjection to the Hindus, were assigned the most degrading duties, and despised accordingly. Bearing in mind that the real origin of caste must have been from the different races and general division of duties as a more civilized community developed, the in- crease of those castes from two or four to the multi- tudes that are now to be seen about one is to be traced, no doubt, to the division of duties and employments that would naturally be demanded as a vast increase in population and industries took place. But the fanciful Indian accounts for the increase of them according to his own tropical imagination the same as he does for their origin. Manu is again authority for saying that the four original castes intermarried various ways, and so gave rise to sixteen different castes, and these again by intermarrying produced the multitudinous ones of later times. But beyond their real multiplication through the division of employment no doubt other causes were operative, as the division of castes already established into clans that in time giew to be independent, the sep- arations that would naturally occur among the people through jealousies and quarrels who were not firmly held together by national coherency, and also by the differences of thought and practices that would be likely to arise through the adoption of new gods, dog- mas, and religious rites. In all these things the ferment, which must have been even greater in past ages than that now seen in India, might most easily and naturally have produced caste as now found. The lordly Brahman during those ages was not mod- est in the assumptions for himself or light in the pun- ishments inflicted on the lowly Sudras. They say that when the Brahman came into the world he was born above the world; was the chief of all creatures, with CASTE. 115 tlie idea that whatever exists in the universe is all his property. Poor fellow ! If I should judge by some of the naked, dirty beggars I have seen belonging to this caste they must be dreadfully defrauded out of their rights. Even if a Brahman should be occupied in crimes of any sort, the king, they taught, should not slay him, but might put him out of the kingdom in possession of all his property and uninjured in body; and since no greater wrong is found on earth than kill- ing a Brahman the king should not even mentally con- sider his death. The lowly caste of Sudras, however, could not claim such amenities. If one killed a Sudra only such observances should be practiced as those prac- ticed for killing a cat, an ichneumon, a daw, or a frog, a lizard, an owl, or a crow. The Sudras, the books teach, were created merely for the service of the Brah- mans, and the latter may take possession of the goods of the former with perfect peace of mind, for nothing at all belongs to the Sudras. l!^ot less strange was the punishment decreed upon a luckless Sudra who should fall into evil-speaking of a Brahman. For violent words toward a Brahman a Sudra ought to have his tongue cut out; for insulting his name and caste, a red- hot iron, ten fingers long, should be thrust into his mouth; if, through insolence, he should presume to give instruction to the priests the king should cause boiling oil to be poured into his ear and mouth. No religious instruction should be given a Sudra, but if any one did it both he and the Sudra taught would sink into the darkness of the hell called the unbounded. Think of such a system with hundreds of gradations and thousands of observances, and even then one only gets glimpses in his mind of the absurdities and suffer- ings of the caste system. Possibly no people in the 116 A WINTER m INDIA AND AIALAYSIA. world has ever been so priest-ridden as the Hindus. The aboriginal tribes before them had no castes; the Mohammedans who later conquered the Hindus have had little or none of such notions. It is no wonder that in the Buddhist revolt against such a system the masses of the people would fly to a faith -that had in it no place for caste. Nor is it any wonder that the Brahmans made a persistent, deadly struggle against Buddhism, and finally, for their own preservation, drove it entirely out of India. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been the condition of the Indian people had Buddhism prevailed through all the generations to the present. It is certain that those races that have ac- cepted Buddhism, the Burmese and the Chinese, are better off many ways than the Hindus. To us of independent customs and spirit it is hard to comprehend the thousand ways it attempts to touch every thing connected with one's existence. Having its ori- gin in the blood, so that one born a Brahman, or to one of the lower castes, it proposes to regulate for the babe the ways of nursing, for the boy and grown man the ways of eating and drinking. Be it said to the honor of Brahmanism that there is little drunkenness among the Hindus, and they despise the one addicted to strong drinks. Caste regulates the way a man shall wash, anoint his body, be clothed, ornamented, sit, rise, re- cline. A Brahman insists that the people believing his system shall travel, visit, speak, read, listen, in a certain way; one shall meditate by rule, and by rule do his working, singing, fighting. By the prescribed way only shall social and religious rites be performed; a law exists for all occuiDations, education, errors, sins, transgressions, for associating with others, for avoiding them, and for casting one out of his caste or fellowship, CASTE. 117 for defilement and purification, for fines and other pun- ishments. By its laws property is inherited, possessed, conveyed; while it regulates bargains, losses, gains. In death, burial, and burning, caste laws shape all things, and even propose to go beyond death in its assistance and commemorations. Is it any wonder that under such a system India is moribund ? A race that under it has done as well as the Hindu can be expected to do won- derful things when living under so broad and catholic a system as Christianity. Already Christian civilization is doing much to weaken the hold that caste has on Indian character and custom. Many a young man and young woman edu- cated in mission or government schools has thereby been elevated above all caste, though in the beginning having come from one of the lowest grades. It hap- pens sometimes that children from the different castes coming to the mission schools are troubled about asso- ciating in class-rooms and in eating with one another, but the judicious missionary after a while shows that in a Christian school there can be no caste. A certain missionary gets over it by telling them that Christianity lifts its believers above all the castes. The natives themselves are coming to recognize this. They have told me of one of low caste who, on being educated in the schools, and becoming a successful physician, was honored, when he returned to his native village, by all castes, Brahmans as well as others being hearty and officious in their welcome to him. The improved modes of transit throughout all India, the good wagon-roads kept in finest shape by the gov- ernment, the railways and lines of steamers along the coasts, are all of them actual earthquake rumblings of the coming shock that will overthrow the whole thing. 118 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. When the railways were put through the valleys and plains of India against the protests of the Brahmans, they appealed to the government to furnish them with separate cars to ride in; but the government would do no such thing. It seemed odd to me even to see the way the different castes would rush together into one of the fourth- class cars of a great through train. Thus there was little of tlie exclusiveness possible, and the subter- fuge of the fakirs that their sacred books predicted the railways, and so they are at liberty to use them without contaminating themselves, is a funny somersault. Rid- ing in an intermediate railway carriage one day, I had for companions only a Brahman and a British soldier. In his lunch the soldier had some beef, which the Brahman, finding out, kept far away from the package. To plague him the soldier offered him a piece, but the disgust and horror on the good Hindu's face were most interesting. Yet he was bound to be as polite as the soldier, so he offered us some of his parched rice pressed into thin cakes, which on eating we found very palatable. I wondered if he felt in any degree rebuked by our cath- olicity. Doubtless to such a community as India possesses caste offers a few good points. It makes a minute division of labor possible, and that is always a gain to populous, advancing countries. It is bound to protect and cherish those of its own caste even if it treats the needy of other castes like dogs. In matters of cleanli- ness, needed greatly in a country so populous as India, and in a climate so hot, it impels to great care. But these are what could be reached, and should be without the evils that caste brings. Some of the Indian peo- ple are awakening to the fact that the racial deteriora- tion so marked in the slender men and women of the CASTE. 119 Hindus must be largely owing to the early marriages demanded without recourse by the caste system. Pov- erty must be intensified by the compulsion of each man to continue in the specific calling of his father. The whole tendency is to make labor degrading. Caste causes intellectual blight as well as physical, stands in the way of progress, of reform, of personal liberty, of any thing like national growth or patriotism. Its pride, arrogancy, depressing force on the aspirations natural to man, point to it as something that should not stand. It cannot perpetuate m.uch longer the tyranny of its past and present. The projection of Western ideas and of Christianity into India, the opening of all oflices by the government to any of the people, the initial awak- ening of some of the educated Hindus to the absurdities and enormities of the system, are all joining with many other influences not so apparent in forecasting the eternal doom of the horrible incubus. 120 A WINTER JN INDIA AND 31 ALA YSIA. LETTER XYI. RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE. From the first I have been surprised at the multi- tudinous indications of worship. Temples, mosques, shrines, idols, are to be seen on every hand. It seems like what Paul saw at Athens. The three great native races, Mohammedans or Semites, the Aryan Hindus, and aboriginal tribes, all appear to have had a deep religious purpose, well carried out here in this country. Hinduism is a gigantic system, with its many gods, temples, priests, ritual, traditions, customs, caste, sacri- fices, and interminable books, while Mohammedanism is but little behind it in many of its visible signs of wor- ship, the mosques even rivaling the temples of the Hindus; the aboriginal tribes have much of the ancient nature-worship still in active operation in many parts of the country. Possibly the Hindu surpasses all others in the elaborate phases of his worship, for to him all thino-s must subserve his religjion. He has his sacred cities, rivers, places, days, gatherings. His eating, washing, work, marrying, traveling — every thing — is regulated by this thought. To us who put less stress upon outward appearances all this show is not wholly in taste, it suggests, however, a deep religiosity. Per- haps they are not more exclusively so than Christians, only one is constantly meeting cases that seem strange to us matter-of-fact Westerners. If morals were not so sep- arated from these pious practices we could hope so much RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE. 121 of the latter would make a people upright and happy; but, unfortunately, there is a complete separation of religion and morals in the East. The Mohammedan Bedouin east of the Jordan will rise from his prayers toward Mecca, and proceed to rob you at once, and coolly kill you if you resist. Hardly less safe are you here in India, save under the all-powerful protection of British law. Some devout Hindu may be a thief, a libertine, or a beater of his wife. India abounds in holy cities and sacred spots. Be- nares is so holy that he who dies there is sure to go to heaven, and having been there and bathed in the sacred Ganges at its ghats is to have a passport to bliss. Muttra and its adjacent city of Brindaban are consid- ered in some respects equal or superior to Benares. Legends of their gods are usually connected with these holy cities. At Muttra Krishna did some of his most remarkable deeds of valor. At the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna is a very holy spot where tens of thousands at the annual mela gather in the search for salvation. Where the Ganges issues from the Him- alaya Mountains at Hurdwar is another holy region, and a continuous throng of pilgrims come here to worship, bathe, pray, and carry away the holy water for future use. At Amritsar, near Delhi, is a shrine-temple that calls devotees hardly less than Hurdwar and Benares. Not alone the Hindus, but the Mohammedans and abo- riginal tribes, have their places of special sanctity. In the devotion of Mohammedans Mecca holds the high- est place, but the great mosques here fall only a little behind that in sacredness. The Turanians are quite given to sacred spots and towns. Beside the beautiful mountain-enclasped Naini Tal is a hole reaching down among the rocks, where flowers, sweets, fruit, and 122 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. grain are constantly offered, and where once a year a goat is now sacrificed in place of the human sacrifice formerly offered. The whole genius of these religions seems to be that man is to be saved by his works, his acts of devotion and penance. One is surprised here at the number of pilgrimages he sees taking place. Those on such journeys are usually marked by some part of their apparel, but more often can be distinguished by their baggage. Slung at the two ends of a bamboo stick will be two rude baskets of bamboo slits, in each of which is carefully carried a jar containing the holy water from some sacred place on the Ganges or other river. Besides the jars the pilgrim will have a bit of food and a few other things necessary for his journey. These pilgrims can be seen coming and going in little knots or alone on almost every great thoroughfare of India. In some instances there is no distinguishing mark by which these devotees, who have been to some sacred place or shrine, can be identified. At the season of their melas the tide of pilgrimage is very great. Benares, Muttra, Brindaban, Allahabad, and other places are thronged by the gathered multitudes, all in search of rest, happiness, money, and many other objects. The missionaries seize upon these occasions to preach Christ to the masses, and frequently much truth is accepted by the people. But the local shrines as well as the sacred places afar are well patronized. In Bombay I saw niches in the sides of houses where some image, often but two or six inches high, was set up, and devout people offering it flowers, sweets, nuts, and the like. Red ochre is a fa- vorite thing with which to smear these precious divini- ties. Oil is also used. A young priest stood in front of one image there, that seemed to be specially promi- RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE. 123 nent, dipping up the oil that had run down from the form of the god into a little tank, and selling it out the second and doubtless the hundredth time to those crowding around. When a little was obtained the dev- otee had the priest pour it over the idol, to drip down and be sold again. At the crossing of a large bridge at Lucknow I noticed a woman and boy burning a bit of incense and placing some flowers, sweets, and a pice, a coin worth half an American cent, in a shrine only as large as a man's hat. Interested in such peculiar devo- tions, I asked our missionary, Mr. Maxwell, if I could not take the coin away to keep it as a memento. He said I could, as some one else would soon take it if I did not. Waiting till the devotees were through their devotions, and then a moment for them to get away, I approached the shrine, but a native was before me, who quietly appropriated the money. He evidently held no notions of its being sacred, for on Mr. Maxwell's offer- ing him another pice for it he readily made the ex- change, and I secured the choice coin. In Benares, in the very streets and far back from the water of the Ganges River, would be stones to mark a sacred spot, and on it little bits of food or bunches of flowers would be offered. Many of the Turanians worship objects of nature by such means that one can see the proofs. Under the sacred peepul-tree would often be found little shrines or platforms of brick and mortar for worshipers. On the branches and twigs of this and many other trees one would frequently see bits of cloth hung as an offering, while in the Himalayas, and among the hill tribes gen- erally, cocks and other birds are thus devoted. There is one section of the Himalayan tribes that makes the plant euphorbia its supreme god, and has also its god 124 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. of cholera, small-pox, and fevers. With them the mountain streams are deities, as well as many more trivial things. I could not help wondering if much of the worship and superstition of the common people of India was not part of the Turanian cult preserved in spite of Hindu faith, through Buddhism and Moham- medanism. So much of it is puerile superstition and gross sensualism that from the better teachings of the old Vedas there must have been some dreadful trend downward. Possibly the natural trend of a system so imperfect as the Yedic will account for all the degra- dation, but I doubt it in this case. Sun-worship is still ]3racticed by some of the Indian people, both among the old tribes and the Hindus. Many a time I saw at Benares and elsewhere the up- turned face and outstretched hands toward that lurai- nar}^ Doubtless this would be less degrading to human life and morals than much else of their systems. Birds and animals of one kind and another are also objects of worship. The peacock is so sacred that if one is shot by a Westerner, near a village, the villagers raise a great outcry, fearing famine, disease, death, and other calam- ities to themselves for the sacrilege. It was strange to see these birds, only half wild, and know their immu- nity from harm. The monkeys are held in much the same reverence, and have by this protection not only increased to great numbers in some localities, but have become destructive pests to the farmers. As an indica- tion of the decay of certain native superstitions it is in- teresting to learn that in some districts they are se- riously considering the necessity of exterminating these pestiferous simians. All life is differently regarded in India from what it is with us. Birds and animals are never killed. Even the deadly cobra is regarded with RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE. 125 such veneration that tlie natives do not kill it. Hence animal life of all kinds swarms throughout the countiy. One from the West is astounded at it. So strong is the native reverence for life that even the missionaries do not kill the wild animals and birds for meat that they otherwise would do but for this sentiment. One of the missionaries was sent to a locality abounding in deer. Having a gun, he used to shoot one now and then for food. An old Brahman with whom he talked about the Christian religion said : " You claim to be a good man, yet you kill these innocent creatures God has made. I cannot believe you wnll do that if you are a servant of so good a God as you tell about." It compelled the missionary to lay aside his rifle and shoot no more deer. In spite of such reverence for animal life more than one part of their cult enjoins animal sacrifice, that of the worship of Rama, the monkey-god, and of Kali, the tutelary goddess of Calcutta, being prominent. I was too late by an hour to see the daily sacrifice of a goat at the shrine of the former god at the monkey temple of Benares, but the clotted blood was yet on the stones and posts. On the contrary, at Calcutta I did see the entire act of sacrifice. It was so out of conso- nance with the usual spirit of the Hindus toward ani- mals that it appeared the more shocking. To place this along-side of other things I saw^, the patience with thieving monkeys, the immunity offered to crows, kites, vultures, and other rapacious birds, created a powerful contrast. In Bombay I saw a man smear the sides of a tree with melted sugar, to which the ants crowded in myriads to get the daily food there regularly given them. I have not seen as much of the fakirs' methods as I expected, yet enough to get practical insight into their 126 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. ways of doing things. These methods, like many of the grosser forms of idolatry, are gradually disappear- ing. In Bombay I saw one fakir measuring his length along the dirty street, walking at each time of rising only as far as his head reached from the point where he set his feet before, l^o one paid any attention to him, and he was too much absorbed in his practical mode of sanctity to pay any attention to the passing crowds about him. In Huldwanee, at the foot of the Hima- layas, one sat on his haunches backed up in a little recess in a stone wall built under a sacred peepul-tree, and there with the chill air blowing down from the mountains was nearly naked, as a disciple built a bit of fire from grass and twigs in front of him in the bazar. Mr. Craven suggested to him that such abnegations could not win him salvation, and that instead he should come to Christ for what he was seeking. He boldly declared that he was worshiping Christ, but Mr. Craven assured him he could not in that way. The abjectest sight of this kind I saw was in the streets of Moradabad. A fakir under some vow was lying on his back and making what progress he could toward the spot or shrine of his vow by hitching along sideways, a most slow and painful mode of locomotion indeed. His underside was protected from the lacerating wear that must take, place by a matting of straw fastened to his otherwise almost naked body. One could not see such efforts to win salvation as these without knowing that behind it all was a religious sentiment, which was the sublimation of centuries of intense religiousness, and which, directed into ways of truth, would make these idolatrous Indian people, as we know those converted do become, self-sacrificing, devoted, and persistent Chris- tians. RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE. 127 I was greatly interested in learning about some of their methods of prayer. A string of beads from a sacred kind of wood, or those composed of the seed of a certain kind of fruit, affords means of continuous praying. One will see a man going along the street with such a string of beads dangling loosely in his hands, mutter- ing in an undertone, as he slips the beads along the string, the name of his god — "Ram, Ram, Ram." If he wants his prayer to be three or four times as efficacious he will put the right hand, holding the string of beads, into a little bag with the thumb out, having texts from his sacred books inscribed on the bag, and, counting them over, pray in that way to the god Ram. I tried to buy a string of beads hanging about the neck of a dirty Brahman, but he would not sell them short of a ruinous price, though in a bazar I did secure a new string, which perhaps was safer for me to handle. These Brahmans are sometimes contemptuous to us Western people. In their cult such lazy fellows are superior to princes and kings, though they may be the veriest beg- gars, and in nakedness. I think their contempt for Western people must be diminishing, as almost always they were respectful, and often eager to please. To them many things are lawful that are wicked for others to do; hence till British laws rudely shook them up their course was often high-handed and peculiar. In- dia people, from Brahman to Sudra, need the Gospel most of all things. 128 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. LETTER XVII. AMONG THE MISSIONARIES AT SHAHJEHANPORE. They promised me three or four days of seeing hand- to-hand missionary work among the non-Christian vil- lagers out from Shahjehanpore, and for this I gave up a week of hunting among the tigers, elephants, leop- ards, deer, and other large game in the " Tarai " near tlie foot of the Himalayas, but finally lost both. On my getting here Dr. Hoskins said it was a poor time for his outside work, as it was New Year's week, my arrival being December 31. If I lost both my cov- eted hunting with Mr. Craven's native Christians in the jungle and the outside mission work, I have still had rich compensation. There is a double mission here, that of the city and outlying regions one way, while the orj)hanage at East Shahjehanpore, in charge of Rev. C. L. Bare and wife, is the head-quarters for another im- portant mission station. As almost every-where through these regions, our work is very promising, with many most pressing opportunities which, for lack of men and means to enter upon them, must be allowed to remain unused for the present. A Yankee abroad becomes hungry for several things — the loved ones left behind, the dear old flag, the congenial associations, and even for the food on which he grew and thrived. Is it a wonder, then, that I was delighted, in this typical household, to sit down to a surpi'ise of real Yankee dishes — salt codfish, buckwheat AMONG THE MISSIONARIES AT SHAHJEHANPORE. 129 griddle-cakes, mince-pie and apple-pie ? Then the next day, added to these were baked beans and brown bread, hot and luscious. They had received a box con- taining possibilities for these things all the way from their son at college in Boston. I found this diligent missionary, who is burdened with the care of multitudinous duties and claims, in- dulging at odd hours his high literary tastes in trans- lating into English a large and important portion of the Yedas that has not yet seen the light in our tongue. In doing this he is first compelled to make his own lexicon of Sanskrit terms. When this great work is done it will add not only another valuable classic trans- lated from other tongues into the English, but it will bring deserved praise upon this scholar, as well as lengthen the long list of those missionaries who have added to our philological knowledge and treasures. The school work done here is of the most promising kind. Not alone is it organized for the boys, but also for the girls. The latter are attending the central school to the number of forty, and the steady increase will soon demand much larger quarters than now, while through the city and near by two more primary schools are going on with about two hundred girls in them. It is due the girls, as well as the boys, that they have these advantages of Christianity. Then, too, India, as all other countries, can rise no higher than her women are elevated, and here, as every-where in Christianity, woman has vast duties to perform in winning souls to Christ and teaching the better way. The boys' schools are also most prosperous. The cen- tral or high school for them has about one hundred and fifty boys, in buildings owned by the mission, while other schools are filled with those of primary grades. 180 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. Of the high school nearly half the pupils are Christians, so that the influence for the truth is deep and good. I have told in another letter of the Sunday-school I visited in this city which is held in the place and among the pupils of one of the primary schools. The work is all charming and the prospect most promising. A good-sized native church meets in the mission com- pound, to which I had the pleasure of preaching, the translation being made by Dr. Hoskins; while at a small English church near the railway depot I also had the same pleasure. Dr. Hoskins wanted me to attend street-preaching with him one week-day, which I was most glad to do. A great wagon was filled with native Christians from the mission, some of whom had instruments, so a brass band was pretty well represented. Another wagon carried Dr. -Hoskins and me. On a corner opposite a market-shed they placed a box that Dr. Hoskins mounted, the band played, and then for ten minutes the preacher spoke to the crowd of two hundred or more that had collected. After him one of the native preachers spoke a while; then I did. Dr. Hoskins trans- lating. The band put in the interludes. By this time occurred what usually takes place there — a Mohamme- dan moulvie or priest came near, and mounting a piece of timber also began speaking, but in antagonism to Christianity. Some of the people on the street had run to a mosque and told him of the work of the Christians, so -he had hurried to offset their teachings. Their stock-in-trade argument against Christianity is that it is not monotheism, and that Jesus was of impure human origin. The whole scene was strange. The light dust of the street and moving crowds filled the air, the noisy babel of tongues was continuous, the market- AMONG THE MISSIONARIES AT SHAHJEHANP ORE. 181 ing did not cease, the rumble of carts and trarap of passers made a din, the Mohammedan preacher attracted as much of an audience as we had, the two crowds partly coalescing. Boys stood with cages of partridges on their heads, which they teach to fight, while others carried bulbuls on perches for the same purpose. Pass- ing teams were stopped that their drivers might listen to the preaching; men with great loads on their heads paused to hear the truth. The missionaries like this hand-to-hand work, and I do not wonder at it. At East Shahjehanpore is the orphanage for boys, and this demands American missionaries for its direct- ors. Rev. C. L. Bare and wife have about two hun- dred boys here, some of them doing little besides regu- lar school work, being considered promising ones for teachers, preachers, and the like; others are taught the trade of making slioes and carpentry much as they would do in America, while some poor blind ones were busy making ropes from native grass. These ropes and cords, while not as strong as cotton and hemp, are still very serviceable. Their rope-walk across the yard of their shop, their funny way of twist- ing the ropes, the facility of the blind boys in laying the grass into the first strands were all most interesting to me. These orpharnages, like this and at Cawnpore, and that for girls at Bareilly, are among the richest gifts of Christ to India. An incident will illustrate this claim. On a winter day years ago one of our missionaries, Mrs. Humphrey, of Budaon, sat warming her feet at the cozy grate, when she heard a feeble call at the door, ''Mem Sahib," and go- ing there found two boys, the one carried on the back of the other. The older one said, " We are starving, and we heard you kept children here." So she took them in. 132 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. fed, clothed, and educated them. One grew to be a successful physician, and though from the low caste of farmers was honored, as he visited his native village, by having a chair brought for him to sit in, as is done only for those whom they desire to honor most highly. That simple fact led a young fellow who saw the mat- ter to look into Christianity, who in turn became educated and was set at preaching. This preacher heard of a " guru," or teacher, in a native state who had obtained a copy of the New Testament which he had set up as an idol and was worshiping it. To this teacher the native preacher went, taught him the better way of using the book, brought him and his son to our mission, where they are now workers in the ministry, and teaching. Such wonderful things are constantly being done. The grounds of the East Shahjehanpore Orphanage, formerly the residence of an English official, comprise about twenty-five acres, with a good home for the mis- sionary, ample buildings for the shops and school, and houses for the pastor, the teachers, and servants, while in another part is a home for widows, in which about a dozen find refuge, and which is mostly self-supporting. Here is also a dispensary in charge of a native physi- cian, where he gave last year more than ten thousand prescriptions. Such piteous facts as come to the knowl- edge of these physicians ! The baleful effects of hea- thenism smite the body as well as the soul of those in it. The government gives five hundred rupees a year in medicines to this dispensary. The orphanage owns some fields that are too large to be carried on by the boys, so they are let out to reg- ular farmers at about nine rupees an acre. The gardens into which they took me afforded, in the dead of win- AMONG THE MISSIONARIES AT SHAHJEHANPORE. 133 ter, strange things in that season to a Yankee. There were green peas and beans, new potatoes, turnips, to- matoes, radishes, lettuce, and the like, kept fresh and growing by water drawn from a deep well. The gar- dener, pleased with my visit, plucked for me a big bouquet of flowers — roses, heliotropes, peas, beans, two kinds of jasmine, myrtle, and other flowers, the fifth day of January! Not the least interesting thing was a day of hunting in the jungle and another day of going to the native Christian village of Panapur. This is a place where the land bought by the missionaries has had a number of the native Christians settled, in which they are mostly saved from the sharp persecutions of their non- Christian neighbors. It is ten miles from East Shah- jehanpore, most of tlie way on one of those superb roads of India that are as smooth and level as a floor, laid down of the peculiar lime concretions filling the soil, which they all call " kunker." From that road it is three miles into the jungle, or timber, most of the way scrubby growth of Indian trees covering the ground. No other native villages are very near, and while this experiment is not wholly a success it is not nearly a failure. Two or three hundred native Chris- tians have comfortable homes, with a church and a school-house. Their fields, only in part a success, because of the alkaline soil, are yet productive, w^hile they are creating a good influence for Christianity on the vil- lages about them. Word had been sent ahead a day or two of our coming, and an hour set when I should preach to them. The Christians had scattered the news to the contiguous villages, so that through the jungle from several of these numbers had come to listen, who, together with the inhabitants of Panapur, made the 184 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. church full, and more. An American who could meet and preach to such an audience and not be deeply moved would have cold blood indeed. There were old men and women whose hair was sprinkled with white, lithe, agile young men and women, w^hile in front, squatting on the mats, were dozens of boys, and all through the audience children of smaller size. I urged that they should do just as Jesus would want them to do if he were present among them. I was introduced, as usual, by our missionaries, as " Padre Dr. Knox, Sahib," the padre being the general designation of preacher in India, from the expression taught by the Roman Catholics of different nations long before Prot- estant missions w^ere introduced. The sahib is the native term of respect. In this motley gathering were Brahmans, Rajputs, Christians, low-caste villagers, men and women, so that the old caste exclusiveness was dreadfully shaken up in the Christian church. A young Brahman, who only a year ago had stealthily approached Mr. Bare with a club from behind to kill him, and was seized by some of our native Chris- tians, was there, an attentive listener, and, having been a seeker of the truth for some months, told our mis- sionaries that now he was ready to be baptized. The leaven is working all through Indian society. Grim old Rajputs, the remnants of the warrior caste, are sitting in meek tractableness at the feet of our mis- sionaries. We wandered through the village to see some of the industries of the |)eople. Women sat under the porches busy at rude spinning and mat-making; others were cooking, all were glad to see the Americans. When leaving the village we w^ere attracted by some native music, and going to it with Dr. Hoskins I found a wed- AMONG THE MISSIONARIES AT SHAHJEHANPORE. 135 ding was being- prepared for. In one of the mud huts half a dozen women were seated on the mats in a circle, chanting to the rhythm and movement of their instru- ments the virtues and beauties of the bridegroom. It was in the house of the bride, and behind some curtains, or blankets, she was supposed to be hidden. Dr. Hos- kins told me the burden of their chanting was the brightness of the groom's eyes, the strength of person, the prettiness of his lips, the sleekness of his hair, the amount of his possessions, and the like. The instru- ments were a native drum or two beaten with the finger- tips, a kind of tambourine, a violin of two or three strings, and others as rude. It was at once a strange and interesting sight. On our first approach they ceased, but were persuaded to go on after a little such coy reserve as is usual with good singers. The young Brahman and a young local preacher of the village went with us a long way on the road as we finally left, a custom often observed as a native village is visited by some one whom they wish to honor. I noticed this custom several times. Being just at night as we came out through the timber, the monkeys that had kept out of sight during the glare of the sun were now up the trees by the dozens, scam- pering down to run off if we went toward them. Some exquisitely beautiful sparrows, the males rich red, black, and yellow, the females brown and dun, were gathered in large flocks among the tall grass and reeds. They were not more than half as large as the smallest American sparrows. At the junction of the jungle road with the main one, in an open yard, or khan, was a group of pilgrims returning from the Ganges, each with two jars of the sacred water slung to each end of a bamboo stick. They were 136 A WINTER W INDIA AND MALA YSIA. preparing their frugal supper over a fire made of grass and leaves, and were not at all averse to talking about the Christian religion and life. They seemed ashamed to claim sin-washing power in the water they had, and declared they were only hired by a rich man to go and bring it to him. A DAY OF HUNTING IN INDIA. 137 LETTER XVIII. A DAY OF HUNTING IN INDIA. We planned the day before to steal out at half past three in the morning ; so at three the faithful cook tapped at my door, saying, '* Chota hazari, sahib," which meant an early lunch for me. The vehicle for going the thirteen miles to good hunting-grounds was a two-wheeled bullock-cart, with a small box-rack filled with dried grass and a seat for me, upon which I did not sit much of the time, finding it easier to lie on the dried grass. The hours until daylight were enlivened by chimes of howls and barkings from a chorus com- posed of jackals, foxes, and dogs. The zodiacal radiance in the East is much greater than in the United States, so that we were not without light; then through the thin clouds the morning dawn gradually broke, and soon I was peering into the dim light for game. With me were the head-master of the orphanage school at Shahjehanpore, and the manager of its industrial de- partment, both of whom could speak English well ; then a man to drive the bullock-cart, one to care for the master's horse, and one to carry my gun. It is easy to have a lot of servants in India. Some herons, plovers, and ducks were gathered about the muddy pond-holes, and my second attempt to secure a shot at some ducks succeeded better than one at a flock of plovers, for I killed a green-winged teal, almost exactly like those we have in America. A shot by Frank, the master, placed 138 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. another in the bag. A flock of another kind that we failed to get a shot at were very large and fine. Pig- eons were common, and during the day we bagged quite a number of them, though they were so small we usually tried to get two in range before firing. They ^ were much smaller than the blue pigeon in America, being more like the turtle-dove. There is difficulty in stalking birds of the water habit here, as there are hardly ever any bushes about the pond-holes, but open ground. There are vast numbers at this season of the year; they congregate about the larger ponds, till in one place you can see hundreds of them, and, as the plains are level, they can be seen from a long distance. The largest of these water-birds is the adjutant, a tall wader, standing more than four feet high, dull lead- color, with a bright scarlet head. Some are brown, black, or black and white. Herons, ibises, cranes, peli- cans, and others gather into one flock. Strange, but true, that three or four of these herons are fine to eat. At ten o'clock we came to a village Avhere the man- ager and the master were knov/n and where the Meth- odist mission has a native preacher stationed. His house was open to us and his stable to our tired beasts. From there we pushed for the jungle after getting a second lunch or breakfast. The walk of two miles through fields green with wheat, dal, sugar-cane, pota- toes, and other grains was a novel sensation for me the fourth day of January, at which date I have been used to going hunting or fishing with a sleigh or snow- shoes. The jungle, toward which we toiled through a sun so hot that I was compelled besides wearing a pith hat to carry an umbrella, was like a second growth of scrub oaks in Virginia, with the addition of sharp thorns and hooked prickles on at least half the vines A DA Y OF HUNTING IN INDIA. 139 and shrubs. Making our way far into this to a tall tree, one of the men climbed it to look out for deer, but could not descry any. So we went beating about to see if we could find one. They said there were boars, foxes, and peacocks, besides other game, in there. But we toiled our devious way for a long time without see- ing more than one lone rabbit that suddenly hid in the thicket, and many small birds, when, not more than twenty yards in front of me, there was a quick rush from a dense mass of bushes and vines ; but the big game, whatever it was, kept out of sight till it had run some distance, and then, turning a short corner toward my left, a beautiful deer bounded into sight; but so thick were the bushes that I got only a snap shot at it with buckshot, missing it, and then trying again at long range with triple B shot. At that shot I thought it fell, but if it did it was quickly on its feet, and, bounding away, ran in sight for two or three hundred yards. It did not run in even jumps, but would make two or three low short ones and then bound high in the air with a leap that must have been twenty or thirty feet long. Well, there were two shots at one deer wnth no results save to show us, after being nearly discouraged, that deer were in there. Again we scattered out in the jungle, the manager and master each having a gun, when, after a few minutes, I heard a shot from the manager at my left and a loud cry which I knew meant that the deer was coming my way. In an in- stant I saw it a hundred yards or more away, making flying leaps, and, though knowing it was practically use- less to try buckshot at such long range, I fired in hope — a useless one, for the shot struck into the ground short of the game, when that one, and two others which came out of the thicket near by, went leaping off to- 140 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA 7SIA. gether. Tr}^ to imagine the feelings of one with the hunter's instincts strong in him making such work shooting deer in an Indian jungle ! An hour's follow- ing after them through the thorns, prickles, and stiff brusli, under a sun that beat on me a hundred and thirty degrees of heat, did not serve to improve my feeling of disappointment. Turning then to make my way to- Avard the village, as I had agreed with the others, and coming out of the brush into some spots of tall grass, to help at improving my feelings a rabbit scooted away from under my feet and a couple of partridges flew in good shooting range, but all the time my gun in both barrels was loaded with buckshot. I drew one charge, replacing it with fine shot, but after that did not see a partridge or quail. Tired, heated, and foot- sore, I joined the others, to hear that a glimpse of a boar had been obtained by the manager's servant, and that was all. As we were going across the fields the farmers at work told us of a herd of ten or twelve deer having been seen in a great sugar-cane field that day. Toward that we went half a mile out of our way to find that another farmer close by the cane had seen them go off toward the jungle an hour before. The master brought in another duck from a pond to which I was too tired to go. Again a deep dip into the lunch-basket sent by the missionary's wife, an hour's rest, and we were ready to go back home. It was then four o'clock and the game was out on the fields, so that we had a better chance than going into the village. Plover and pigeons were too far away for me. I let the others go after them. Then the master, horseback, saw a couple of young adjutants, and, calling two of his men, he chased the birds over the wheat-fields till he ran them A DAT OF HUNTING IN INDIA. 141 down, and his men picked them up, bringing them to the orphanage alive to tame. In the meantime the manager and I, with our guns, went to a pond at which we could see a vast flock of waders gathering, and, creeping within about a hundred and fifty yards, I fired with a barrel loaded with triple B shot, and one of the immense herons was my reward. If one was left two or three thousand flew away. Just at dusk I shot an- other from the top of a tree whose stretch of wings was eighty-two inches, while the first one's wings stretched just one hundred inches. I had determined to shoot only those birds that were edible, and, strange as it may seem to American gastronomists, both these herons were fine birds to eat, being assured so by the men with me and by the missionaries before going out. I can bear witness to the fine flavor of the smaller one, for I ate heartily of it for dinner before writing this letter. With a good bag of small birds, two immense herons dead, and two live adjutants, we had a fine lot of game as we made our way slowly back to Shahjehan- pore. But not so slowly, if we were on a bullock-cart. The white, hump-backed bullocks here are trained to rapid going compared to American oxen, so that we made the last ten miles in three hours. But in order to do so our quondam driver was obliged to work his pas- sage. He was the master, who, giving his horse to the manager, came and took the regular driver's seat. That seat was on the tongue of the cart, far ahead between the bullocks. With a short, tough stick in his right hand to use in striking or punching the beasts as he wished, he would do with his left hand what all bullock- drivers here do, curl the tail of the near ox, sometimes giving it a sharp twist, then push the hips of first one bullock, then the other, to one side, all of which things, 142 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. and various native cries and shouts, are intended to hurry up the team. Yet all of these means did not produce speed enough to suit him, so he spread my um- brella and used that first one side and then the other to frighten the bullocks to greater speed. They could not run away with us, for there is always a rope passing through a hole between the nostrils to guide and hold them. In a chorus, similar to that of the morning, of jackals and dogs, we pushed ahead, so that nine o'clock found us at home, tired, but a jolly set, such as hunters are apt to be. THE BIRDS OF INDIA US LETTER XIX. THE BIRDS OF INDIA. No sooner had I landed at Bombay than I found my- self in the land of birds. Crows, whose cawing was coarse and rasping, were tame as sparrows in America, perching on the fences, porches, in the windows, and even entering houses to steal food and trinkets. They are smaller than American crows, with gray about the neck and shoulders. One species, not common, is black all over and larger than these. The kites were also numerous in Bombay, great brown fellows, acting as scavengers about the streets and houses, and, like the crows, half -domesticated. The crows, hawks, kites, and vultures constitute a most valuable force of scavengers. Refuse of every kind about the great cities is picked up by them. In this they are also aided by the pariah dogs and the hardly less tame jackals. The latter skulk out of sight in the bushes, hedges, and jungles near the great cities in the day-time, and do valuable service at night in cleaning yards and streets. It seemed a sad degrada- tion, however, for the beautiful hawks and kites to leave their normal habits of capturing live game to pick bits of decaying meat, broken bread, and dirty scraps. So numerous are these birds that they gather sometimes about the cities in great flocks. The Indian people never kill birds nor animals, so they not only increase to great numbers, but become familiar lU A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. to mankind. I was told that the kites would sometimes snatch a piece of bread or meat from one's hand, and I saw one trying to get some meat from a small dog by swooping savagely down upon him. On the Towers of Silence, where the Parsees of Bombay lay the bodies of their dead friends instead of burying them, huge, fat, lazy vultures sat gloomily waiting for new victims to eat. A ride of a thousand miles to Delhi and Moradabad showed me a glimpse of India's wealth in birds. The cars would start up almost a continuous flock of one kind or another. All of them are new to one from America, yet most of them can be located at sight in their classified families. Every pool or pond-hole of water had some representatives of the waders — great, tall, scarlet-headed adjutants slowly walking away from the rumble of the cars; pelicans, cranes, ibises, and other tall ones were also common. The mud-hens, rails, grebes, plovers, ducks, and others could be seen flying, diving, running away, or standing in silent fear as the train thundered past them. A peculiarity I noticed at Shahjehanpore was a flock of herons fljang in a waltz- ing movement, keeping a general course, indeed, but sailing around and around each other. In this country the peacocks are considered sacred, so they are quite common, and though not domesticated, are hardly wild. One sees them about the fields, hedges, and gardens, with little fear of the natives. If an Englishman shoots one a great uproar is apt to fol- low among the superstitious people. There is another sacred bird, the Indian roller, as large as a blue jay, and allied to the fly-catcher. It has most beautiful plumage of blue, green, black, or buff, the wing bars of deep and light blue, making it very attractive as it flies. THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 145 I saw it many times sitting on the telegraph-wires, watching for insects along the railroad. I hardly won- der that these two birds of such brilliantly beautiful plumage are held sacred by the Hindus. A kind of bird the name of which I have not learned other than that of "hang-nests" has the peculiarity of building its nests attached to limbs of trees over pools of water. I first noticed these on the way from Bombay to Delhi as they hung over pond-holes made by grading the railway. The nests, bottle-shaped, eight or ten inches long, are a veritable pocket. They are made of tough grasses, hair, and the like, so that they endure long after serving the purpose for which they are built. In this place, and hung on slender limbs, they are secure from the snakes and other vermin that so often rob nests. Sometimes several of these nests would be hanging from one tree. The fly-catchers are a fine family of birds here. One, a large, black, forked-tailed bird, is called the " king crow," from its ability to drive those thievish fellows from their nests. It has the habit of the shrike in catching small birds. It also selects the telegraph-wire for a perch. The same place is chosen by a smaller, pale-green fly-catcher, that often sat still, like the king crow, as the train rushed by. This family of birds is also represented by several bright-colored species, which follow their valuable work, giving most pleasing sights. The number of the starling family I have seen is very great. Two of them have become as domestic about the streets and native bazars as the English sparrow in the United States. Their name here is mynah. They are dark, about the size of a robin, go in flocks, and when flying the common mynah shows broad white bars on its wings, reminding me of the ]0 146 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. mocking-bird at home. This family has also some briglit-colorecl species that I have not seen. The na- tives occasionally tame the common mynah, teaching it to say " Krishna," the name of one of their gocls. One species has acquired a fanciful name among the English people, that of the " Seven Brothers." It is claimed that seven of them always go together, but on counting a number of these groups I have found that the rule does not always hold good. Several times seven were present, to be sure, but at other times there was a lack, owing, they assured me, to the fact that one or two were out of sight for the moment. I presume this reg- ular number may be a whole family, two parents and five chicks of the present year's brood. The most charming kinds of sparrows are to be found here. Possibly the season was not the best for finding a large number of species, but those I did see interested me greatly. Not that I was pleased to see the trouble- some English sparrow, that in America we so much re- gret having introduced, and which I saw every- where the Englishman stays, but the native species were beau- tiful. A few species were as gray and unobtrusive as our home ones, but others were much more brilliant. One kind that I first saw in a great cage at the Bom- bay market, and afterward in the country, was much smaller than our smallest species, and of a brilliant black, red, and buff. Others had some yellow, in that approach- ing the canary-bird. As is common with such birds in the winter season, they went in flocks; their loading the tufts of tall grasses, searching for seeds, was most interesting. Of the robins I have seen three species, though they tell me there are several more. The coloration of one was a black head and back, with under parts buff, t THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 147 much like oiir orchard oriole. Their high colors, as compared with our brown matter-of-fact robins, are most interesting. The scarlet tanager is very like ours, being possibly a bit more slim, its back and head black, breast light, the body a brilliant scarlet. The nut-hatch was as saucy when I saw him as he is in America, running up and down the body and limbs of trees. Woodpeckers found ample chance for their pe- culiar mode of getting a living among the luxuriant growth of mango and other kinds of tropical trees. They are mostly black and white, as with us, the males having the usual red head. One species has a bright golden back, mottled breast, and red head, being in size like the j^ellow-bellied woodpeckers of America. A bit of a bird, slim, graceful, white below, gray above, well deserved its name of wagtail. Immediately on alighting, or when walking away from one's approach, its tail was most nervously jerked up and down. I was surprised at the number and antics of the kingfishers. Used to but one species at home, I was hardly prepared to see half a dozen here. None of them is as large, I think, as the belted kingfisher in the United States, while some are as small as our bluebirds. Every pond, river, and brook in this warm country teems with fish, so that there is ample food for them. Often I saw them hovering and hanging over the water, curiously peering down into it, and then like an arrow shooting downward after their prey. Their plumage, in some instances, is most brilliant, one especially being almost as green as a paroquet. Ah, what is that loud, sharp screeching ? Look, it is the paroquet's nervous scolding. Such noisy fellows as they are ! They never seem at rest, but always to be moving and screeching. I think they fly the most 148 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. swiftly of any bird I have ever seen. They shoot like a bolt from tree to tree. I have noticed three sj^ecies, one very small, green, and a great pet; another like him, but larger; the third larger still, green, but with scarlet about his head and bill. I have seen two or three great flocks of paroquets, at which times their screaming was almost enough to deafen one. From the cars I saw a grain-stack literally green with them, but the roar of the train hindered my hearing their noise. Frequently a native gentleman going on the cars will have two or three white parrots taken along with his luggage, kept in charge of a servant, and chained to their perches. Of the pigeons I have noticed three s^Decies. One, of which I have seen but a few specimens, is almost as large as our common wood-pigeon of the United States ; the others are both smaller. The most common of these is a small one, much like the Carolina dove of the southern and central United States. This one is some- what lighter, with more delicate tints in the color, a part of them pinkish and soft as the shading of a sea- shell. They afford delicious bits of eating, as I can at- test by those I shot during my stay at Bareilly. I cannot tell much of the quails and partridges, though I have seen many different ones, for the sight has been but a hurried one from the cars while passing. A kind noticed several times has a bronze or old gold colored back, a wide, long tail, the two combined making it an elegant object as it would sedately walk away from the railway. But I especially want to tell of one. It was among the foot-hills of the Himalayas toward Kaini Tal, in the road, as three of us were riding horseback. They had told me of the jungle fowl, generally con- sidered the wild progenitor of our common barn-yard fowl, and there one of the cocks stood in the road, look- THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 149 ing almost exactly like our American game-cock, slim, bronze and black, and rusty red, with four long arching blue-black tail-feathers. I could easily have thought him belonging to some of the villagers not far away. Up among the same hills I saw a blue jay that was a magnificent fellow, shaped and colored much like our own, but with two variegated tail-feathers full fourteen inches long. Such a bird hopping through the branches of the trees was a thing of beauty. A treepie, related to the magpie, seen on the plains here, is hardly less a brilliant sight, being of similar size to the jay, with long tail, and with colors of black, white, nankeen, and gray. The magpies are an attractive group from their number and striking party-colored plumage. Every one reading Eastern books or stories of trav- els hears of the bulbul. I did not get a sight of these till I had been a month in India. Then at Lucknow, among the beautiful trees in the Residency Park, where the British during the Sepoy rebellion held out so suc- cessfully, I saw the common bulbul and the red-whis- kered one the same morning. The note of this so-called Indian nightingale is by no means as fine as that of several American birds — say the bobolink, mocking- bird, and the thrush. But he is a pretty fellow. He is of the size and shape of the bluebird, has a black head with a pretty tuft on it, a brown back, a gray -mottled belly, tail white-tipped, the under tail-coverts being a bright scarlet. The red-whiskered bulbul is larger, like the other in shape and top-knot, but has more scarlet below and a large blotch of it on each side of his head. It seemed to me a great change from the fighting and struggle going on in 1857 at the Residency to the hun- dreds of pretty songsters all over the grounds and 150 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. among the trees, shrubs, flowers, and old ruins. I saw the same morning for the first time a honey-bird, a most iridescent fellow, hanging about the flowers somewhat like the humming-birds, with which it is closely connected. Its bill, which it wiped on one side and the other of a limb on which it was sitting, was long and slender. The hoopoe is another of the fine-looking birds of India. It frequents the ground, probing holes with its long, curved bill in search of insects and worms for food. The tall tuft on its head, the variegated color of its plumage — brown, white, mottled, and copper- col- ored — serve to make it an attractive bird. It is quite tame, so I could approach close to it in the gardens. The vast number, the strange species, the tame habits of the Indian birds fascinate one used to collecting in America. I AT THE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 151 LETTER XX. AT THE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. Through the kindness of Dr. and Mrs. E. W. Par- ker it was my privilege to stay quietly at the historic city of Bareilly during the session of 1888 as an inter- ested observer. Bishop Thoburn was present after his long and eventful stay in America, entering here upon old territory, but on new duties. It was his first Conference as bishop, but the work of presiding was not new, since he had several times been president of the India Conferences. They gave him a reception Tuesday night, at which a church full of eager listeners waited to hear what he would say. Dr. Waugh and other missionaries spoke hearty words of welcome ; so did one of the native preachers, Hiram L. Cutting. The last said his heart was filled to overflowing with thankfulness that they now had a bishop of their own in India, and that this was Thoburn. He was a good representative of the native sentiment. In response to these unanimous words of welcome from natives and Americans the bishop spoke most wisely. He recounted the peculiar providences that had led to his present onerous responsibilities, and urged that he would use his new office in serving the brethren and the Church. If the new missionary bishop is always so much in the spirit of the Master's teachings, and if the suggestions of his course are always thus car- Ir52 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSJA. ried out, the Church, whose eyes are earnestly directed upon this new venture, can well congratulate itself upon its election of this man to the episcopacy. His presid- ing has been as gentle and unassuming as his reception speech. When the fraternal delegate from the Presbyterian Mission to the Conference wished that the churches of India might become one even in name, the bishop re- sponded that " as denominations we get closer to- gether, not by discussing differences, but on our knees." At the " after-tea " prayer-meetings the clear, simple manner in which the bishop presented the ways and needs of high attainments in the religious life was most pleasing. There is a necessity at home, of course, to be ■filled with the Holy Spirit, his joy, power, and wisdom; but when missionaries stand confronting such gigantic systems as they do here, and think that it is their work to supplant these wdth the teachings of the Bible, they are in fullest need of all those things that come alone through God's indwelling. The recruits for the India work and the former mission- aries returning made quite an array, seventeen together; but of these only two were men. These two men, as Bishop Thoburn showed some time ago in the Western Christian Advocate, were all he could secure out of about a hundred who, on his issuing a public call, offered to go. Many were rejected by the physicians, either on their own account or that of their wives; others were not pre- pared in their education ; family complications hin- dered others; a few backed out, and so on, till two — think of it, ye men of American Methodism ! — tioo men and ffteen loomen were here at Conference as a fresh offering freely laid upon the altar to do God's work for Methodism in India! AT TEE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 158 I have been declaring to my parishioners at home that Metliodism, from the number of young men and women standing ready to go, could, in a year or two, send a thousand new missionaries into the foreign work, if only the money could be had. But I was wrong. I humbly confess it to those w^ho heard me. The men in all the millions of Methodism cannot be found! But the women can be found, it seems. Fifteen to two! God bless the Methodist women ! It is reported that the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society never lacks those ready and prepared to go. 1 hope this ratio is not a fair per cent. ; it cannot be. There are certainly many young men in America who have for India the spirit which thirty years ago sent out Parker, Baume, Thoburn, Waugh, and others. Of the eleven who came to India in 1859 six have gone home to heaven, and all of the other five — Dr. Parker and wife, Thoburn, Waugh, and Baume — were here at the Conference this year. What a record! And these older missionaries are now pleading for men to come here and stay. One remaining only three or five years barely gets efficient in that time, so that his valuable services are lost if he goes home. The climate drives a few home in a hurry, and some that return do not come to stay, but simply re- main a while and then go back. If the mission author- ities can possibly find men who will devote them- selves for life to mission work they will do most wisely. In a few years the present Nestors of India Methodism must lay down the burden, and while a few others of wide experience and tried usefulness are here aiding them not enough of younger men are staying to meet the prospective enlargement of the work some years ahead. So the cry goes up to the 154 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA, Mission Rooms, " Send us men who will stay their life- time I " It was a first-class inspiration to hear the presiding elders' reports. Uj) among the foot-hills of the mighty Himalayas, and among the aboriginal Turanians in the dense jungles, where only these very men can live in the summer heat, on the rich broad jDlains of the North-west Provinces, in the mud villages, in the great cities, along both banks of the sacred Jumna and more sacred Ganges, the work is pushing, growing, succeeding. Like a conquering general's order for an advance to be made all along the line, it seems the great Captain has given orders to the missionaries of India, and the shout of victory goes up every-where. I wonder if Dr. Parker's Rohilcund District is not the banner district in all Methodism this year in the number of baptisms? Look at the returns — 1,457. One man alone. Dr. Wilson, baptized 450. Dr. Parker says : " Such is the success that on my district three times as many could have been baptized had not the mission- aries made it a rule to teach the seekers the great truths of Christianity thoroughly before baptizing them." On every district and station are success and enlargement. Indeed, every American missionary in charge of a station is really a presiding elder, for he has from a dozen to forty native preachers and teachers carrying on the work in all parts of the cities and among the scattered villages. It transpired in the report on self-support and the important discussion which followed that only a small amount per capita can be secured from the people. This is not to be wondered at when it is recalled that our work is largely among the poor people; and in India this means volumes. It means families of three or five AT THE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 155 who live on four or six rupees a month — that is, one dollar and a half or two dollars. They told of a man with three children who entered into contract to receive for his work five rupees for three months, whose wife by spinning could earn seven eighths of one rupee a month, and was permitted to catch the dripping from some sugar-barrels and also pull some edible weeds from a grain field. That family lives on less than one dollar a month. Of course the living is much cheaper here than in America, but this sura furnishes only the barest necessities of life. Little from such a family can be expected. This question is a great one, and our mission- aries are wrestling hard with it. Still, in both native and European work there was raised during the year for all purposes the very fine sum of 109,697 rupees. A feature at Bareilly unique to me was the Woman's Conference. It was my privilege to attend one day, and the reports rendered by these earnest women of the work done in schools, hospitals, zenanas, orphanages, and in other places was most fascinating. Defeats mingled with victories, but the latter predominated. They have here regular sessions, receiving reports, laying out plans of work, examining classes both of American and native women — of the former even the wives of the missionaries that are not under direction of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. Their reports are printed in the Conference Minutes. The new scheme of deacon- esses is to be tried, with much hope embodied in it for India, such homes having already been started at Cal- cutta, Muttra, and Lucknow. The school results are among the most promising in the mission field. There are 408 in the North India Conference, including those for boys and girls, native and European, with over 16,000 pupils. These are all 156 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. the way from letter-learning to college classes. Each school is a center for direct or indirect evangelistic ac- tivity. In all of them the great truths of Christianity are taught, and as many of the children are from non- Christian families they are constantly influenced toward the truth. Not all of them will be led to Christ, of course, but good is done in giving them the beginnings of an education; they become acquainted with Western thought and spirit that is opposed to idolatry, while many of them become Christians. Connected with al- most every day-school is a Sunday-school, where nearly all these children are taught the truth an hour or two every Sunday. The missionaries feel they have some claim on all these pupils, and the good seed is certain to produce fruit. The recent purchase of a splendid new building in a beautiful location at Naini Tal for the boys' school at a cost of 52,000 rupees and raising it to the grade of a high school ; the decision to proceed to the erection of the new college buildings at Lucknow, as well as other positive advances in this field, show rapid growth and independent spirit. The Sunday-school report also showed magnificent advance. During the year there has been organized an increase of 109 schools, making the whole number 703, with 26,585 pupils — a gain of 2,672 during the year. Of this increase 1,544 were rated as Christian children. Many of the converts were gathered from these schools. If a year's report shows a tendency, the trend toward schools in which both sexes are present is strong, as of the 109 new schools 57 are mixed ; while another pointer is that 1,032 non-Christian girls, but only 96 non-Chris- tian boys, were among the gain. I saw some of these native Sunday-schools — not the ones alone in chapels and school-rooms — but those under trees or in mud AT THE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 157 huts, and I do confess that they were a wonder and an inspiration to me. Such eagerness to learn, such swarms of them as came, such unique appearance in face, dress, and customs, would have created a sensation at Plain- field, N. J. The statistical reports, like those of the Sunday- school, were enough to cause joy and shouting. The whole number of communicants is 7,974 — a gain during the year of 1,924, with 1,952 baptisms, 520 more than last year. They say that such a per cent, of gain all around the earthwide Methodism would have added 200,000 to our Church last year. Missions pay. A characteristic incident occurred one day. In a vil- lage about twelve miles out of Bareilly some of the Hindus beat one of our teachers — not an uncommon occurrence. These men were caught at it by the police, so that the government had a case against the offenders. But it was optional with our people whether the prose- cution should proceed to a fine and six months in jail. It having occurred on Dr. Parker's district, he advised, as they all came to him, the culprits begging mercy and promising to treat the teachers well hereafter, that they should be brought before the Conference, allowed to make their confession, and let go. So, for the moral and prudential effect of the thing, they came before the bishop, five stalwart, fine-looking natives, made their confession, and the kind-hearted bishop said gentle, forgiving words, shaking hands with each one. By a quick motion one kissed his hand, and another said, " You are our father and mother " — one of the highest native compliments. All showed complete gratitude. It was a time and place for mani- festing Christian feeling. It was not strange that these missionaries in the love- 158 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. feast Sunday morning, and at other times, should exult at the growth of this mission. Just thirt}^ years ago eleven peo^^le gathered at Lucknow, constituting the working corps; now, of natives and Americans, there were more than a hundred. Then there was not a na- tive convert, now thousands. Then they had two native helpers — Joel, and another given them by the Presbyterians; now tliere are hundreds. In that Con- ference, as in this, Baume, Thoburn, Waugh, Dr. Par- ker, and Mrs. Parker took part. Their exultation was, " What hath God wrought ! " At the two services Sunday nineteen men were or- dained, twelve to the office of deacon and seven to that of elder, all natives. It was profoundly impressive. God is raising up a great body of workers here. These men have been tried for several years, according to the purpose of our missionaries, who are very eager to test well those they put into orders before granting ordina- tion. It is worthy of note, and may be an assurance to people at home, that men raised up through our schools here from the lowest castes are grand workers. Indeed, many of the Americans claim that caste has not Adtiated the intellect of these people, but that the lowest caste men are the equal of the high caste men. As the bishop laid his hands on these men, his first duty of this kind, he says his vision reached out till he saw millions instead of thousands coming to Christ in India. I hear from missionaries, from government officials here a life-time, and others, that the abject, senseless spirit of idolatry is departing, that a return to the older purity of Hindu worship is apparent, and that the power of mission work is greater and grander than ever be- fore. I AT THE NORTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 159 The Conference is held in midwinter. When New England people in furs are taking sleigh-rides, here from the gardens and yards they cut great banks of roses, bignonia, bale, and other flowers to enliven the Conference rooms. It looks strange to a Yankee. 160 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. LETTER XXI. THE NATIVE RACES OP INDIA. India presents in its races a complete world. The Bible tells us of three great divisions of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth. Modern science confirms the book at this point, as at many others, giving us the same three great races, the Semitic, Turanian, Aryan. All these three races are well represented among the natives of this country, not to speak of the modern influx of Europeans since the conquest of India by the British. There is the lordly Briton, who is much inclined savagely to despise the effeminate natives, and I learned, as never before, the meaning of " the iron heel of the proud, op- pressor." The natives fear the power and the personal presence of the Westerners, regarding all white-faced strangers, until they learn otherwise, as belonging to this dreaded nation. While among the crowd at the bathing ghats on the banks of the Ganges at Benares I heard the Mohammedan guide tell the people I was an American, and from that time I could plainly see that they regarded me with less servility and fear than before. Still, educated Hindus told me that under British rule their people are the best off they have been since the Mohammedan conquest, and I could believe it. These three great races have each at different epochs had more or less complete domination of India. The Semitic race is represented by forty or fifty millions of Mohammedans, the Arabs, Persians, Afghans, and the THE NATIVE RACES OF INDIA. 161 like, who in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries pushed the conquests of Islam beyond the desert regions of Afghanistan into the vastly rich valleys of the Indus and Ganges, and to the Deccan. Their con- quests were strenuously opposed by the native Hindu kingdoms, but the superior strength and energy of this new race, the force given their advance by their great religious fanaticism, the deterioration of their opposers and factions among them, conspired with other things to enable them to extend their dominions to the Hima- layas and the Indian Ocean. They generally became wise administrators of affairs, did not exterminate the conquered peoples, nor did they attempt to convert by the sw^ord, relying rather on peaceful modes of propa- gating their faith. The result was that the Aryan Hindus changed in but small numbers from Brahman- ism to Islam. This Semitic race is easily seen by a traveler in India to be taller in form, with thinner features, more aquiline noses, less obsequious, and more restless under the British yoke. Several of the native States remaining are the kingdoms established by this race, and left practically intact by the British. Going back in history, possibly to fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, beyond any authentic data, indeed, regarding it, we find the second of these great races, the Aryans coming into India, doubtless through the northwestern passes by which the Moham- medans entered. This race, the Hindus, is a section of that race represented to Western history by the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, and Slavs. Philology and other evidences prove conclusively that the brown Hindus of India are of the same race as their recent conquerors, the Anglo-Saxons. Long separation of each section from the parent stem has caused great 11 162 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. differences in complexion, physiognomy, habits, and speech, but once their ancestors were the same people in the central highlands of Asia, from whence part emi- grated north-westward, the other south-eastward. It seems as though it must be impossible that these slen- der, effeminate, brown people had the same ancestors as the white-skinned, large, strong-limbed, progressive races of the West, but it is settled beyond all cavil to be the fact. The Hindus have had a wonderful history in this country. The account preserved by their own and histories of other peoples show this fact. Persian and Macedonian conquerors had reached them before the Mohammedan came. Their literature, the Vedas, the Mahabarata, Ramayana, and other books, show their mental force and fertility. The kingdoms they set up were many of them of imposing proportions, their laws most extensive, their religion, rites, and systems most elaborate, their industrial attainments among the very foremost in the world in their epoch. But the Hindus were not the first inhabitants of India. Before them the Turanians w^ere here. As the former came in they found the latter already thronging the rich valleys of the great rivers and the extended plains. Their civilization was inferior to that of the Aryans, and their power also, hence they could not stand before the invaders. The subsequent liistory of these people shows that many were reduced to a low condition of servile labor; others were driven to the hills and jungles where they still subsist, and still others retained throughout all the changes of India a certain autonomous condition, and can be found to-day as nations or peoples. Such is the kingdom of Xepaul; the nations of Tamils, Telugus, Kanarese, and others. History also gives glimpses of considerable kingdoms of THE NATIVE RAGES OF INDIA. 163 this race that arose long after the Hindu conquest. Beraa, a native hero of the King Arthur type, has many monuments of his greatness about Bijnour and Morada- bad, mounds, tanks, and the like. The low-caste people retain many of these traditions and legends, though the Hindus have always tried to blacken his character as one neglecting Brahman rites and despising caste. On his conquering large sections of the country he proclaimed that no worship should be performed, no oblations offered to, and no gifts bestowed on, the Brahmans. A Sudra monarch was reigning in the seventh century when the Chinese traveler Hwen Thsang visited Man- da war. About the same epoch a lot of herdsmen rose to eminence about Bareilly, whose reservoirs for caring for their cattle still remain. They are said to have had a city extending seven miles along the Ramgunga. Three or four hundred years later, in the eleventh cent- ury, the aboriginal tribes of the same locality asserted their independence, and for four or five centuries main- tained by their bravery and thek* strongholds their claim to be a distinct people. Special interest attaches itself to these people among missionary circles, for the most successful work done in Christianizing the natives is among them. This is rec- ognized not only by the earnest missionaries in the field, but by as high an historical and ethnological authority as Sir W. W. Hunter. In the older writings of the Hindus these people are rated as dogs, slaves, outcasts. They are the Sudras— the Dasyus, whom the lordly race that has conquered them is to domineer and despise. To them is remanded the most menial kinds of toil ; they are to be scaven- gers, sweepers, farmers, flayers of dead animals, leather- workers, nnd the like, the kinds of toil that would most 164 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. deeply degrade an Aryan-Hindu. These thus degraded have been counted in the lowest caste in the Brahman system. Their relation to the higher castes, and to the Hindu gods, even on their conversion to that faith, was hopeless and impossible of improvement. Of those that fled to the mountains the Bhils of West India furnish a good example. They live in the Ara- valli Mountains, and are often spoken of still as Avild men. They are born robbers, and only a few days be- fore I passed from Bombay to Delhi on the cars they made a partially successful attempt to wreck and rob a train on the road over which I passed. They live mostly by the chase and robbery, and of late British law is reaching them, causing them in some instances better to recognize the claims of others. Even yet some of them will not meet the tax-collector, but when he comes near their jungle-retreats, on his letting them know by beat- ing a drum that the time has come for them to pay their dues, they wait till he has gone away, then bring their tribute in the rude products of their gardens and jun- gles, laying it where the collector has been, and, retiring again within their fastnesses, let him come in peace to carry it away. Some of them are skillful archers, shooting with great force by lying on their backs and bending the bow by the aid of their two feet. Most of them now have fire-arms, though others have their prim- itive weapons. I saw in the native State of Rajputana some armed with bows instead of guns. Others carried a rude sword in a scabbard hung over their shoulders. But all are not so wild as the Bhils. In the great jungles skirting the Himalayas, which are so malarious that no European can live in them, save during a few weeks of the winter, and where even the Hindu cannot endure the climate, these old tribes live in perfect im- THE NATIVE RACES OF INDIA. 165 munity from fevers. They were doubtless driven there by the Aryan hivaders, and are now quiet villagers. They build their huts ten or a dozen feet from the ground on posts to protect themselves from the tigers and leopards that infest those awful jungles. I saw some of these huts beside the railroad from Bareilly to Huldwanee. In the Himalayas they are also quiet vil- lagers, tilling the soil, making rude cloth, doing some mining of copper and iron, and in the malarious valleys, which sometimes rival the jungles, are free from the fevers that attack all others. They seem to have lived so long in such a deadly atmosphere as not to be affected by it. The most compacted and unchanged of this Turanian race persist in considerable nations in South India, the Tamils, Telugus, and Kanarese. It is estimated by the British authorities that there are nine millions of the Kanarese, twelve millions of the Telugus, and six- teen millions of the Tamils. Being pressed back into the hills and mountains, they have been influenced less than others by their conquering neighbors and enabled to retain more of their race characteristics. These and some kindred tribes represent the family of languages that philologists call the Dravidian. It shows only re- mote relationship to the other two Indian groups of the Turanian speech, which some students have called the Kalarian and Thibeto-Burman. The people speaking these last two dialects doubtless entered India by the north-eastern passes of the Himalayas, while those speaking the Dravidian by the north-western passes of the Hindu-Kush. Not only are they found in the jungles, spurs of the Himalayas, and in compact peoples, but multitudes are found in just the condition to which the Sanskrit writ- 166 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. ers assigned them long before the Christian era. They are the Sudras — the men of work, considered so vile and low as not to have any caste. As sweepers, farm- ers, and the like they have lived through long genera- tions in the condition given them by the inexorable laws of conquest, religion, custom, and lawgivers; pa- tient, hopeful, enduring, but now with a future opening to them through Christianity. Many of these people have accepted the Hindu re- ligion, and in turn have doubtless engrafted some points of their earlier cult upon the Brahman system. The efforts made by the Brahmans to convert them to their own faith seem to have been thus far only moderately successful. In a state of partial neglect those who have been considered worshipers of the Brahman gods have kept much of their ancient faith, hence do not present a pure phase of the Hindu cult. In other in- stances, while in contact with their conquerors all these long generations, living with them as their servants, doing their hard drudgery, and subject to all the allure- ments to change to the faith of their conquerors, these strange people have not become Hinduized, but, retain- ing the worship of their own race-gods, are now counted as " devil- worshipers." It is the custom, history shows us, for conquering peoples of another faith to denom- inate the gods of their vassals as mere devils. So the Roman missionaries who evangelized our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called the Teutonic gods, Woden, Thor, Freya, and others. The Spanish conquerors of Mexico in the same way regarded the gods of the Aztecs and Toltecs. Here in India it is only the old story of the dominant race and religion. I was half inclined to think that if I were coHipelled to worship the deities of either the Hindu or the Tura- THE NATIVE RACES OF INDIA. 167 nian tribes of India I should choose the latter cult in preference to the former, for in a broad sense the Turanians are nature-worshipers. The forces of nature, the rain and rivers, tlie flowers and trees, the birds and beasts, are surely less degrading to the nobility in human character than many of the teachings of the Brahman faith, with their infamous emblems, their spirit and practice in the field of human sympathy and morals. These aboriginal tribes are very religious in their way. Vast varieties of charms, amulets, magic, are used by them. With the bodies of the dead they bury implements, utensils, and weapons for use in the world beyond, showing by this a vivid hope of immor- tality, and they make offerings to the spirits of de- parted ones, with many strange and intricate rites. Most of these tribes, especially those of the jungles and hills, down to modern times, offered human sacrifices. It is a notion of some, doubtless a memory of their migration from that direction, and with a hope of re- turning, to bury their dead with the feet northward. They seem less bigoted than the Hindus, and for this, and not being so intrenched in caste and rigid exclu- siveness, are found to be more accessible to the teach- ings of Christianity than any other race in India. The wonderful work done among the Telugus by the Bap- tists can be better understood when it is known that they are one of those almost autonomous nations. So of the Karens of Burma, an allied tribe. The surprising influx to our Church from the low castes of the North India Conference, especially on the Moradab.id District, can be explained in the same way. The missionaries are finding that these people will listen to and accept the Gospel ; hence they turn to them. The physical aspects of this race vary from those of 168 A WINTER JN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. some Mongolian characteristics among the Indian slopes of the Himalayas to those of many negroloid character- istics of the plains. Still some of the mountaineers, as the Paharis above Almorah, are much less brown than the Hindus of the lowlands. They are a sturdier race physically than the Hindus, possibly owing to their having done more manual labor than those through the passing centuries. Some of them, especially of the Mongolian type, have a remarkable development of the calves of the legs, in this making a curious contrast to the thin legs of the Hindus. Often they develop great strength as porters, wharfmen, and at other kinds of labor requiring muscular power. Their disposition is usually kind and gentle, and they make most faithful fol- lowers. In war they have proved themselves of brave and spirited disposition. They have been much used by the British as soldiers, the Sepoys of Clive and Coote being mostly of these people. Long after the dreadful Sepoy rebellion none but these aboriginal people, who re- mained true to the British during that fateful time, were permitted to enter the military service of the gov- ernment, though of late any of the natives may enlist. The native regiments that did not mutiny in that strug- gle were Turanian, the Goorkhas, Sikhs, and others justly renowned for their bravery. When Disraeli startled Europe by bringing a contingent of Indian troops to the English stations of the Mediterranean to enforce his demand that the matters about Constantinople be settled as British diplomacy saw best, those troops were not Aryan-Hindus, nor Semitic Mohammedans, but Tu- ranian soldiers, the aboriginal tribes of India. BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS. 169 LETTER XXII. BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OP THE HINDUS. A RUN of three hundred and fifty miles from Bareilly to Benares has brought two of us, Ernest Badley, son of the Rev. Dr. Badley, and myself, to this city of the saints. Of course one who visits India at all must see this place. Ernest, being familiar with the vernacular, is a valuable companion, as well as a pleasant one on his own account. A guide who could speak English was engaged and consulted as to the sight-seeing, a ghari was hired, and an hour or two after our arrival we were off for the banks of the sacred Ganges. The hotel is in the English quarter or cantonment, so that we secured a charming ride of nearly four miles through the native streets and bazars, seeing in them the cease- lessly interesting sights of an Indian city. A short dis- tance from the river's edge we left the carriage, making our way to the water down a steep bank among piles of rocks, wood, and other obstructions, to find boats and queer craft of one kind and another moored to the shore in crowded confusion, among platforms for bath- ing, stone steps, cells of fakirs, drying clothes, nearly nude men and only a little less uncovered women, all of them worshiping by their peculiar methods, or vocif- erously begging backsheesh of us Americans. Securing a boat for us two large enough to carry at least two yoke of oxen, with an upper deck where the guide sat with us, to point out the sights, with the 170 A WINTER IN INDIA AND 2IALAYSIA. rowers below, we pushed out into the stream, and then were able to look back on the banks. Up and down for nearly a mile there were the most unique, most strange and lively religious scenes I liave ever witnessed. It was one of the fifty feast-days of the year, and the sight presented at eleven o'clock was not lacking the activity and vividness that usually characterizes it only at early morning. These banks, up which the water must rise thirty or fifty feet at the rainy season, are mostly paved with a succession of stone steps, coming down from the foundation of temples, palaces, and build- ings above to the water's edge and continuing even be- low that. On these steps hundreds were bathing, only high caste people here, while those of low caste could bathe along the sandy shores which could be seen far- ther down the river. Priests, sleek, fat, their heads mostly shaven, were every- where among the bathers, directing their ablutions, reading from their sacred books, selling flowers and sweets for offerings to the river, in their way doing faithfully the offices of their order. Soon the boat came to the burning ghat, and as this was the first time I had seen bodies thus being disposed of I had the steersman fasten up so we could see the affair to our heart's content. One dead body, wrapped in white cloth, smeared with red paint or ochre, lay with its feet bathed in the water of the river, awaiting its time for burning. The priests tramped over it while at their duties as though it was only a log. Close be- side this one was another body that had just been laid on the pyre, the wood piled up cob-house fashion three feet high and about six feet long and wide. As we came one was touching the body with the sacred 23aint, then a white cloth was spread over it, which was also BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS. 171 smeared with the red paint. Then other sticks of wood were laid on the body, one way and other, until enough was put upon the pile to consume it. When all was ready the priest in charge, taking a brand on a handful of dried grass from the tire burning at another pyre, ran twice around this pile with the flaming bundle, and as he dropped it another priest, with a handful of dried grass, lighting it at this fire, stuffed it into the funeral pyre, which was quickly ablaze. To hurry the burning the priest poured some kind of oil, possibly clarified butter, on it. Just above this one was another in full blaze as we came up. Through the flame and smoke I could see the partly consumed body, arms, skull, ribs, and other parts. Still another was nearly burned up, at which one of the priests was working, crowding the brands and the disjointed members together with a long bam- boo pole. When the fire got so low that it could not burn the fragments any more he pulled the crisped bent trunk out of the coals and roughly pushed it with the bamboo stick into the water of the sacred Ganges, where, food for fishes and alligators, it sank out of sight. Several other bodies in different stages of consump- tion were burning here and there on the steep banks; on one side, overlooking it all, an old priest, sitting on his haunches, evidently had charge of the proceed- ings, for he gave directions every now and then in a loud voice. A few idle spectators, possibly the friends of the dead, also sat on their haunches near by, but there was no sign of mourning. I noticed, as an at- tendant brought earthen jars of water to quench the dying embers of those fires from which the charred re- mains had been removed, that he approached the fires by backing toward them; then one of the priests, coming in front of the water-carrier, would, by a sudden push, 172 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. throw the jar and water from his head upon the tire, breaking the jar and spilling the water at the same time. I judged it must be some symbolic act, though why they did so the guide could not tell. The scenes at the bathing ghats were exceedingly in- teresting. We watched them for hours. Little plat- forms just above the water, built of bamboo, were here and there thrust out over the river, the two planks com- posing the floor being a little space apart, between which the bathers could wash themselves or their clothing. For these people seem to believe Wesley's saying, that cleanliness is next to godliness, though never having heard of it ; more, their cleanliness is a part of godliness, since to wash and dry their clothing at the sacred river is a part of their worship. So on that day rich Hindus, men of rank and ofiice, and gen- tlewomen in rich clothing, would wash their garments and hang them in the light breeze to dry. The grown people took the whole proceedings in a grave enough way, but some of the boys made it a gala time by jumping in, diving, swimming, and pushing one another off into the water. Occasionally a man standing to bis middle in water would quickly dip himself three times fully under the muddy tide. Many had baskets and bundles of flowers, sweets, leaves, twigs, grasses, and the like, and were casting them one by one upon the water, so that the slow current was carrying away a continuous lot of these things spread upon its surface. At one place a woman, squatting beside a large pile of yellow marigolds, was casting them in, one by one, as a priest stood there evidently reciting from some of the sacred books. Another woman, who stood in the water above her knees, having bathed her face, joined her hands in adoration toward the sun. Several times I saw the peo- BENARES, THE HOLT CITY OF THE HINDUS. 173 pie thus pray to the sun. They would dip up some of the water in their hands, and by a peculiar process squirt it out through their fingers; while others would take the filthy stuff iu their mouths, either to drink it or squirt it away. Along the very brink of the water little stone and brick shrines or cells would have sitting in them a fakir or priest, though many were vacant. In the great tem- ple far up the bank some kind of worship was going on, as we could hear rude music and strange sounds from them. These temples and palaces were usually built, the guide said, by some rich rajah or prince, making a place for him to occupy for the time being, as he came here for worship. Above one built by the king of Nepaul were immense brazen glistening fixtures of some import or other that I could not learn. Bells here and there were hung up that would be tapped from the outer edge, not swung to and fro as we ring them. Very few of these temples or palaces are of architect- ural beauty. Among them was a Mohammedan mosque built by Araunzebe, as though these people meant to force their belief upon their former subjects, its minaret tall and graceful. Many of these buildings are in par- tial decay, others have their foundations undermined by the river, so they are leaning or tumbling down. Are they, like their system, touched with final decay and collapse ? Here and there along the banks were platforms built of brick and mortar six or ten feet wide, and as high, on which a fakir would sit reading from his sacred books to such as would care to listen, his place covered with a roof, or sometimes with only a big grass um- brella. As we went ashore from the hired boat we found ourselves heading a long procession of priests, 174 A WINTER m INDIA AND MALAYSIA. beggars, and people, one word at least of their jargon being intelligible — " backsheesh ! " One of them fast- ened himself to us like a leech, in spite of our strong declaration that we needed no guide but the one from the hotel. At every point of interest he was on hand to give us information. We soon found our way to the sacred well or tank, the most holy spot of this exceedingly sacred city. It is about fifteen feet wide by thirty long, and twenty feet deep; is a little way from the edge of the river, and at such, a height that high water fills it, and then reced- ing' leaves it full. The missionaries called my attention to this peculiar holy of holies before I had come here. The water yet remaining in the tank was about three feet deep, and so filthy that it was green with dirt and slime ; yet walking about in this stuff were half a dozen priests nearly naked, to receive the flowers and pice of the devotees. The surface was well covered with flowers, marigolds and bale, in single profusion or in wreaths. For a pice or two a priest brought a couple of wreaths of the sweet-scented bale flowers for Ernest and me. Groups of women stood here and there on the lower step by which the water was approached, each group attended by a priest who was giving direc- tions for the worship and prayers. They Avould drink that fetid water, bathe in it, wash their garments in it, and cast flowers and sweets on its surface. A favorite use of the water was to take some up in the hand and let it slowly drij? through the fingers. Some sat or stood with strings of sacred beads in their hands which one by one they would slip along, calling on their god, " Ram, Ram, Ram ! " As I turned from this sight a snake- charmer stood behind me with a hand-cage of snakes, wanting to show me his cobras. About his shoulders BENARES, THE HOLT CITY OF THE HINDUS. 175 was lying a boa-constrictor full two inches in diameter. The guide had told the crowd we were Americans, and I could distinguish that word as they repeated it to one another. One old fakir was covered from his tall head- gear down to his hips and legs with strings of their beads composed of fruit-stones that they use for saying prayers. It looked like a cuirass of chain-mail. A foot- print of Vishnu, as large as that of a baby, in a piece of marble, was a cause for demanding backsheesh, as also a marble post marking a place specially holy, where a beautiful princess long ago performed suttee. The re- volting, sensual emblems of Mahadeo every-where greeted one on the bases of temples and palaces, on shrines, and at particular spots along the banks, the li- bations of sacred waters, clarified butter, sweets, and ochre showing plainly the wide worship of this dread- fully debasing god. I wanted at least to bathe my hands in the sacred river, so, selecting a ghat that was not crowded, Er- nest and I went down to the brink, and, as we would do in the Merrimac or Mississippi, washed our hands from the dust and grime of traveling. A dozen or two of the devotees stood looking at the Christians perform- ing what was to them a sacred act, but to us hardly more than a noon-day hand-washing. Even the Mo- hammedan guide, following suit, dipped up some in his hand and splashed it over his face. A fakir close by vociferously set up a demand for something, and on ray asking the guide what he meant he said the man urged that as we had bathed in their sacred river we must give him money. I said, " No, no," but he was persistent, and, as we walked away, he followed us, loudly urging his claim. I told the guide to send him away, as I should not pay him any thing, but still he 176 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. kept on, and quite a crowd collected to see what would come of it all. After a while I stopped, putting my hand in my pocket, and he rushed close to me for the coveted and well-earned money. I stared hard into his gleaming eyes, slowly drew out my hand with a single pice, and, smiling on the persistent beggar, laid it on his open palm. Seeing what it was, and, I think, fully appreciating the joke, he turned grinning away, to the laughter and loud talk of his fellows. From this fascinating locality we went a mile back into the city to the region sacred to the worship of the cow. After leaving the carriage we walked along nar- row, dirty lanes to enter a small court in which was the figure of a recumbent bull cut from a single block of stone, measuring ten feet in length, four in width, and five in height. All about this figure and the court were numerous signs of worship, flowers, sweets, garlands, and the like. Under an open colonnade was the " Well of Knowledge," down which one of the gods had been thrown, but his virtues are not enough to keep the water sweet. Over the mouth of the deep well a cloth is spread to prevent the rice, sweets, and flowers that are offered to the god from falling into the water, but the success being only partial the smell coming from it made me cry, " Faugh ! " A priest keeps a bucket of the water fresh drawn for the faithful to drink and get cups of it for holy purposes, but we thought we would not indulge after the odor had once invaded our nos- trils. By looking down into the well one becomes very wise. This we did. But if the knowledge obtained is as fetid as the smell then it must be like certain doc- trines I wot of. About the walks and lanes were em- blems of Mahadeo, as well as many living cows, calves, ami bulls. The Golden Temple here, while not a large BEN'ARES, THE HOLY GTT7 OF THE HINDUS. 177 one, is immensely rich and ornate, its-dome, towers, and columns being covered with gold-leaf and glittering in the sun. In the same place is the real " Cow Temple." Being foreign unbelievers, we were not permitted to enter the sacred place by the regular entrance, though possibly our Mohammedan guide was the plague-spot, but we could go into a narrow corridor through a low door by which the dung from this stable-temple was taken out ! This we did, to find one of the strangest sights for a place of worship I have ever seen. In the temple area, not large but well attended, were some altars and other paraphernalia of worship, many devo- tees, and several priests. But the strangest of all were the cows, calves, and bulls walking about, seeming to enjoy their part of the programme, for they were at liberty to go to the altars and eat thence the flowers, leaves, grasses, sweets, and other things offered, and by this had become fat and sleek. Some devotee would approach one of these animals and reach out his hand toward it, when it would open its mouth to have chucked into it fresh flowers or sweets. Water that was holy had been poured upon the altars to run over the floor, and water that was not holy was over it also, and other things, till this precinct of sanctity was as foul and filthy as a poorly kept New England cow-stable ; yet here was worship ! Far in a recess was a statue of " Saturday," the guide said, but later I learned it was a statue of Saturn. Why Saturn was here I do not know. It was a bright, silvern face hung about with wreaths, but with no body at all. One image of worship was a woman, and many of the devotees were of that sex. A peacock, sacred among the Hindus, wandered about among the people and cows. Thence we went to the gold-beaters' street, passing 12 178 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. that of the brass-workers, to find offered for sale most charming work, merely ornamental as well as sacred. Into an upper room, along narrowest, darkest passages, the guide brought us to find the people at work weav- ing their exquisite materials, gold and silver and silk brocades and cloth. Giving Ernest and me chairs, the native trader sat on his haunches while the attendant brought web after web of the beautiful things. One, of five yards, cost two hundred rupees. The colors, be- sides the gold and silver, were of the brightest blue, green, j^urple, brown, red, yellow, and so on. I finally bought a short piece of gold and silver trimming, and when only one was purchased the quiet trader wanted to know of the guide if I would not take more — if 1 did not need some more for others of the wives at home ! I held up one finger to the sly rogue. In spite of the guide's importunities for us to drive direct to the hotel for tiffin ancl go to the monkey tem- ple the next day, we had the ghari-driver go at once to the latter. It is far in the outskirts of the city, and on the road we passed one of the famous juggernauts, now quietly standing under an open shed. It was about a dozen feet each way, and high enough to have an upper story, where were seats for the priests and a place for the god. Thick wheels supported it, and holes were in the front axle for stout ropes to be tied for the crowds to draw it. Missionaries tell me that the stories of people casting themselves under the wheels are far-drawn, arising, doubtless, from accidents, as in haste and excitement the great crowds draw the huge car through the streets. This peculiar mode of wor- ship is falling into desuetude. The monkey temple is one of the most noted fanes of this famous city. Beside it is a deep, broad tank. BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS. 179 with steps leading to it on all sides, like so many of these bathing-places, and here a boy having been nearly drowned some time during the day the family were all at the temple returning devoutest thanks for the favor of rescuing him. This temple has extensive grounds, trees, and accessory buildings. In front is a corridor where each morning a kid is sacrificed, and we saw the blood and the instruments of sacrifice where its head had been cut off. We gave the guide some pice to buy grain and sweets for the monkeys, but only one or two of these could be called up from their hiding-places, the chill}^ winter air being too severe for them to be hun- gry. As we passed the door we handed the waiting priest half a. rupee, who in return flung over our hats a garland of beautiful flowers, which we wore about the temple and home to our hotel. It was a kind of de- votement to the god, so we thought we ought to be pretty good after all these consignments to the deities of Benares. In the temple we could see from a distance only, being unbelievers, the holy of holies, in which was a figure of Durga, the Pandora of the Hindus, since from her, as from the Greek goddess, numberless ills have come to the race. A couple of magnificent bells hung in the court, which, on being struck, gave forth a rich, mellow tone. In one part of the grounds stand some grand old tam- arind-trees, said to be a thousand years old, able to tell strange stories, if they would, of India's mutations. One hollow one is said to be the lying-in place of all the monkey mothers. Beggars, as usual, followed us with their impudent importunities, and one boy ran far along beside the ghari, as we went to the hotel, trying to ex- tort by his very persistency something from us, but he got no pice at all. 180 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA 7SIA. LETTER XXIII. THE WORK OF THE A^^OMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIBTY-SCHOOLS-SUND AY-SCHOOLS. It is rather a remarkable coincidence that at least three mighty forces for the bringing in of Christ's kingdom should be correlative — Methodism woman's work and the missionary spirit. At Bombay I was in- troduced to the representative of the Woman's P^oreign Missionary Society as a walking interrogation-point, and as I met them I felt willing to ask about this part of the church work the same as I did others. Their toil in most of its results has been a surprise to me, as was that of other dej^artments. It is all better than I had surmised, before getting into the field. The mission of Methodism is partly to woman, whether she is found in America or Asia. Her enfranchisement in Methodism began with Wesley's woman leaders and stewards, and its highest gift to her is when it admitted her into the Central Conference in India as a lay delegate, with all the opportunities of work before her which that right gives. The chances in all parts of Asia for woman to be benefited are vast and deep. It is not to bring ma- terial good so much as spiritual benefit, but the good done covers woman's whole being — soul and body and spirit. The work I saw in foreign fields embodies several de- partments. The great schools built up in India, Burma, and Japan were a joy and wonder to me, who have WOMAN'S FOREIGN' MISSIONA R Y SOCIETY. 1 8 1 always believed in woman since I got well acquainted with my mother, sisters, and wife. From these schools are going out the enfranchised Christian young women, thrusting strange leaven into the social, industrial, in- tellectual, and religious life of these heathen countries. There is vast difference between woman as a plaything or slave and woman as a Christian worker. Prominent among the first of these schools I saw was the one at Moradabad under the direction of Mrs. Dr. E. W. Parker. A hundred and sixty girls were there, ranging in age from six to eighteen, pursuing studies reaching from primary grade up to those taught in an American high school, and some languages of India not taught in America. In a broad compound, or yard, the buildings are located, put up one story high, of brick, narrow, so that fresh air can easily be obtained from both ways through the rooms ; earth floors covered with mats ; a protecting veranda in front ; one of the buildings adapted for recitation-rooms, others for dor- mitories, then dining-room, kitchen, and the like. But more interesting than the odd buildings that are adapted to the needs of Indian people and climate were the girls there being taught. As it is partly a high school, to which girls come who have studied more or less in the primary schools founded here and there all over Dr. Parker's large Rohilcund District, these girls form a choice body of students. Only the most prom- ising ones are brought in from the lower schools, and as there is a large number of these schools it can be seen that the selection of those to give the advantage of the higher schools must be very careful. I saw them at study, poring hard over their books of English, Urdu, Persian; of reading, spelling, writ- ing ; of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, at all of which 182 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA. and in others many become eminently proficient. At a chapel service I was present to stand face to face with a prophecy and promise that almost drew tears from my tough eyes. As in any seminary the teachers sat to- gether, the pupils fronting them. A cabinet-organ accompanied the singing, a prayer in the vernacular was offered, my few words of cheer were translated, and they were dismissed to their regular duties. They are a brown-faced, bright-eyed lot of girls, decently clad in the cheap calico dresses and head-enveloping chuddars. Then I saw them at dinner. In a spacious dining- hall, seated on matting spread on the ground, they were arranged in long rows, each with a plate in her hand. When all was still thanks were sung to the heavenly Father ; then the cooks brought a large kettle of a kind of vegetable stew composed of bean-pods and cauli- flower, and the matron, assisted by two of the large girls, dij^ped a plateful out for each one as she came from her place in the line to the side of the dining-hall, where the cook had deposited the kettle. To each girl was given also a loaf of their native bread, looking more like a large griddle-cake than what we call a loaf. These loaves are generally baked by being stuck on the side of a hole in the ground, first heated by burning some weeds or leaves; but in this case they were baked on a broad iron griddle. I tasted the stew, to find it so strong of pepper, or chillies, that one taste was all my Yankee mouth could endure. It was a constant wonder to me that the people of India seemed to need so much pungent condiments in their food, but I have found my own appetite craving sharper condiments here than at home, owing, doubtless, to the enervating climate. In addition to their studies these girls are taught to make their own clothing, take care of their rooms, pre- WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONAR 7 SO CIETY. 1 83 pare and cook their own food, yet so as not to detract time enougli from their studies as to injure the mental drill. When through school they must go into native homes as wives of teachers, preachers, government workmen, and the like ; so Mrs. Parker's plan is not to educate them away from the possibility of living suc- cessfully in such homes. They are not to be heathen homes, to be sure, but Christian ones, for of all the hundreds of girls who have been in this school and taken in it the full course of five years or more not one has been known to go back to heathenism or to a bad life. It is a marvelous record. A story they told me of one girl shows the worth and power of their teaching and character. She was from a family brought out of heathenism a few years before, and had spent three or four years in the school, a prom- ising student. Two of her younger sisters were there also, coming in later than she had done. It transpired that the father through some influence relapsed into heathenism, and only waited for vacation to come in order to have his girls return to his home, and then, not permitting them to go back to the school, compel them to enter with him on the worship of the idols. On coming home he told the older one in the course of a few da3'^s that she w^as to be married at such a time to a certain man, though she was but fourteen years old. She plearince from Scotland, made nobleman by the sultan. This mill runs seven- teen saws, has two hundred and fifty men, mostly Chi- nese, and cuts out lumber from the tropical woods, heavy, tough, strong, aromatic. Rajah Meldrum's home, built on a gentle hill overlooking the straits be- tween the main-land and Singapore, is as pleasantly sit- uated as could well be imagined. About it is a growth of palms, bananas, bamboos, teak, and other tropical trees, while inside are the amenities of European com- fort and civilization. After a dinner the more enjoyed for the ride of sixteen miles to reach Jahore, Mr. Mun- son, of the mission, and I returned. What did we have of tropical fruits to eat ? Pine-apples, bananas, sour- sop; and to drink, the water from cocoa-nut, with rice, not dry, but soft and mucilaginous. It was a day for learning things such as seldom comes to a Yankee. QUALIFICATIONS FOR MISSIONARIES. 803 LETTER XXXIX. QUAIilFICATIOlSrS FOR SUCCESSFUL MISSIONARIES. When among the missionaries I was told many things I ought to remember, and among the most vivid things impressed upon my mind was the opinion of those longest in the field as to the kind of men and women the work wanted. There was great urgency that the people sent out should be those designing to devote their whole life to the missionary field. Only by such a consecration could they make efficient workers. It takes several years for any one to become familiar with the native tongue of the country or tribe to which he goes, very few indeed being able to teach or preach effectively in less than three years, and more often five years are passed before one can do effective work. Besides the language it takes years to learn the spirit and beliefs and habitudes of the people so as to do most efficient work among them. In India a few English-speaking congregations need pastors in that tongue who can as readily enter on successful work at once on getting there as can be done in America, and while such pas- tors are rated as in the mission field they are really only in contact with the work, not fully in it. William Taylor, when first organizing these churches, considered them an entering wedge to further work among the natives, though the people generally reached by our Church in such congregations were at the first in a most §04 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. lamentable religious condition, having been neglected by the people of other missions until their case was almost as bad as the natives themselves. Bishop Tho- burn, writing of the difficulty to get pastors for those congregations, as many have gone out to India, served these places a short time, and then returned, says he considers the English-speaking work to be the most important. Those who consider their consecration to mission work perpetual are not so easily discouraged by delays, poor apparent results, sickness, or the uncongenial sur- roundings. Of course, a few people cannot endure the climate of those countries, that of India and Malaysia especially being very exhausting, so that in some cases the only hope of saving one's life is permanently to leave the country. He who finds himself devoted to such a work falls into it so easily by the grace of God that the enthusiasm and passion for his glory among the heathen lift him far above the lesser issues. Another condition named was people with the pres- ence and power of the Holy Spirit. The minister at home lacking these does not succeed in building per- manently in the Lord's cause, nor does the one without them succeed in the mission work. There are hard con- ditions in the heathen world to be overcome, long he- reditary beliefs to be changed, firm crystallized preju- dices to be broken up, a terribly depraved human nature to be met and dealt with, and in most races to whom we go a subtle power and habit of deception that appalls one as he learns its strength. Here mere human power can with some success deal with ignorance and some other elements of heathenism, but it fails igno- bly when alone it tries to deal with these spiritual depravities. Only he can succeed whose highest pow- QUALIFICATIONS FOR MISSIONARIES. 305 ers and hardest work are multiplied and directed by the Holy Spirit. To the" missionary the Spirit is truly his sword and aggressive weapon. In all Asiatic coun- tries he is to meet men of subtile reasoning powers, men skilled in defending their own beliefs and ways. The missionary working with much of the Spirit's enduement can best lead the convicted heathen to accept the care and help of God that he so much needs in his passage out of darkness into the light. The Bible can best be taught and its teachings best received under the power and light of the Spirit. All the bene- fits to a teacher or preacher in Christian countries com- ing from a great and full baptism of the Spirit are also fully given to the missionary. The superintendent of the Malaysia Mission assured me one day what successful men in India urged upon me before, that there was little use to have any but kind-hearted people come out. There is such an easy chance to be domineering and to grow harsh under the exhausting climate and irritating conditions of the work and people that one to succeed must be saved far enough to make him sweet-hearted toward all men. The natives are very susceptible to kind treatment, since they receive so much of the opposite kind from most of the civil and military officers. Some of the brutali- ties practiced upon them by both men and women that I saw during my few months among them made my republican Christian blood boil. The natives can easily see the difference of treatment accorded them by the missionaries and by others. From what I saw and heard I judge that there is room for improve- ment in some cases even by missionaries themselves in the treatment of those people. But they have come to know that they are receiving the best treat- 20 306 A WINTER IN INDIA AND MALA YSIA. ment by far from the missionaries that they have ever obtained. High culture is an important factor in a successful missionary, but of less demand than any one of the qualifications already named. If one has studied a lan- guage or two besides the English it will, in addition to the culture obtained by it, help in learning the vernac- ulars. Yet one can succeed if he has other necessary elements of success who has only a good English edu- cation. THE END.