*Vi. > > JS> :> >:> :jg» '- Z> }":5 zm> : :>-^> :> 3B' - >j> > ^l^e ^ ]I> ,'■': i> S» - ~D'^ j> ;33g>> "^T"'" I3> "> :> :> 5> > T> 3> ^7> } LIBfMRY OF CONGRESa pp. - --- ^mn0 f n._._.... 3> '"^^ >3> .'"^^^^ ~> ^ ""TQSi^ >^> --■^^ :> i> ^^31 :>> Il3^ r> > "Zis^ ' ■■'" ^3> :^3»» ~~» ~> ISe- '? 5$ ::^^ > J> -=^# >::> -^^^^ii- II* 3K* ^'^^-^ ^ ''M^ii ■ j~5r^ ^S^ '^^s- ==y ^B!> ■-' P'li-*^ r>3S>^Vi; 5*t-rs^^ >i:^>:^ '-^'=^^ &^^ '^^^' "~>12^'' >^-4c^ ^•^►5^' -tJO>' ^^ -?t^ ^^:: fs ^'^^?^ :.'^ ^-^ <>y ) ^5>i> - 2.^-^ ;.^^^. X j[y16,1883. Price, fi5 Cents. No. 93. Tssned DTtnlghtly. Copyright, 1883, by TvsK & Wasnalls. Entered in New York Post-Office as leoond-class mail matter. Subscription price, per year, |5. ^ ^ ^. TVOTV^ I>TJE. The second half of the Subscription Frice for the STANDAItn LIB RAJRY, 1883 Series, tvas due July 2. On that date ^o, 13 was issued. Subscribers will please remit at once. WINTER IN INDIA. By the Rt. Hon. W. E. BAXTER, M.P. This is the last, and the best, of a number of most charming books of travel by the Hon. Mr. Baxter, who took many journeys in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. By the aid of this book we can accompany him through his winter tour in India. He in- troduces us to strange scenes, curi9us incidents peculiar alone to India, and obtains for us a vast fund of information and facts concerning a country which is likely to call upon itself more notice from the world than any other country on earth. Its great an- tiquity, its vast resources of wealth of various kinds, and its ancient lore, make it un- rivalled. England and America, both their merchants and scholars, especially, must ever be deeply and more deeply interested in India. Mr. Baxter tells his thrilling story in such a pure, simple styl« that readers of all ages will alike enjoy it. His position as an English statesman is a guarantee of the reliability of its every statement. W.E, Baxter Funk & Wagnalls E^RLIKR NTJM:BE5RS. PAXTON HOOD'S LIFE OF CROMWELL. No. 80, Standard Library (No. 1, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.S.A., F.C.S. No. 81, Standard Library (No. 2, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. AMERICAN HUMORISTS. By R. H. Haweis. No. 82, Standard Library (No. 3, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. LIVES OP ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. By William Edward Winks. No. 83, Standard Library (No. 4, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. Br Thomas Gibson Bowles. No. 84, Standard Library (No. 5, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. THE HIGHWAYS OF LITERATURE ; or. What to Read and How to Read. By David Pryde, M.A., LL.D.. F.R.S.E., F.S.A., etc. No. 85, Standard Libkahy (No. 6, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. A Record of a Summer. By Grant Allen No. 88, Standard Librauy (No. 7, 1883 Series*). Price, 25 cents. THE ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Complete. Collected and arrnnged, with an Introduction on her '"Analysis of Motives." Bv Nathan Sheppard. No. 87, Standard Library (No. 8, 1883 Serie?). Price. 25 cents. AN HOUR WITH CHARLOTTE BRONTE ; or, Flowers from a Yor. htre Moor. By Laura C. Holloway. No. 88, Standard Libiiary (No. 9, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. SAM HOBART. By Justin D. Fulton, D.D. No. 89, Standard Library (No. 10, 1883 Series). Price. 25 cents. SUCCESSFU^ MEN OF TO-DAY. By W. F. Crafts. No. 90, Standard Li- brary (No. 11, 1883 Series). Pr ce, 25 cents. NATURE STUDIES. Bv Grant Allen, Andrew Wilson, Thomas Foster, Edward Clodo, and Richard A. Proctor. No. 91 Standard Library (No. 12, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents INDIA. WHAT CAN IT TEACH US? By Max Muller. No. 92, Standard Library (No. 13, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. WINTER IN INDIA. BY THE ET. HON. W. E. BAXTEE, M.P. A a' NEW YORK: FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 10 AND 13 Dey Street. Puhlisliers' Note to the American Edition. >S M^ This book was recently published in England. It is being eagerly read by the j intelligent English people, partly because of the celebrity of its distinguished author, and partly because of the intimate and important relations between the two countries. It will be found, we believe, equally popular with American readers, not only because they are fond of books of travel and adventure, but also because they are already interested in India, and must become more and more so \ as the immense resources of that vast and wonderful country become developed. : The author seems to have taken deep interest in the religious and educational condition of India, as well as in her material resources. Consequently he visited j mission stations, missionaries, schools, and colleges, and gives his impi-essions of < the work they are accomplishing^. Opinions on these subjects, coming from such ; a source, are truly valuable ; indeed, considering the character of the author as a \ statesman, and his relation to the British Government, they are not less than semi- i ~ \(d. We have added to the value of the book by making an index to it. New York, June 25, 1883. 3^^ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the pffce of the Librarian of Congress at Washinstcm, D. C. ^^o mg QSifc: my COUKAGEOUS COMPANION DURING MANY JOURNEYS IN EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA, AND AMERICA : THESE LEAVES FROM MY INDIAN JOURNAL ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. CONTENTS. PAGE Chap. I.— The Voyage Out, 9 II.— Bombay : The Rajpootana Railway, . . 19 III.— Delhi and Lahore, 28 IV.— Agra and the Taj Mahal, .... 40 V. — LucKNOw AND Cawnpore, 49 VI. — Allahabad and Benares, 56 VII. — At Calcutta, 67 VIII. — The Tea Plantations, Darjeeling, . . 74 IX.— Calcutta : Its Buildings, Trade, and Life, 85 X. — Southern India : Madras ; Coonoor, . , 93 XI. — CONJEVERAM: DEPARTURE PROM MADRAS, . 103 XII.— At Poona, .... . . . .109 XIIL— Return to Bombay, . . . . . .123 XIV.— Departure from Bombay, 127 XV. — On the Indian Ocean, 135 XVI.— The Suez Canal ; Home, 143 A WINTER IN INDIA. CHAPTER I. THE VOYAGE OUT. Again we are on the move, and this time for a more extended tour even than that which we so much en- joyed through Egypt and Syria. "We have taken eight first-class and two second-class return tickets in the P. and O. steamers to India. On the 2d November, 1881, our old friend the Wave took us across the Channel ; the Belgians politely passed our baggage at the frontiers without examination, and we remained all night at the Grand Hotel, in Brussels, situ- ated between the two railway stations, thus avoiding the usual climb to the top of the hill. Next day we went on to Coblentz, passing by in the morning hundreds of fields, from which the peasants were busy removing beet-root to the sugar factories. At Herbesthal the German custom-house officers, '^ dressed in a little brief authority," made themselves so unpleasant in rummaging our valises that I considered it my duty to write in the evening to the proper quarter complaining of their conduct. At Cologne we had an hour to look at the cathedral, the towers of which are 10 A WIIfTER IN IJS^DIA. now completed. The Hotel Belle Yue, at Coblentz, commands a fine view of Ehrenbreitstein and the draw- bridge across the Rhine, the latter crowded with passen- gers and vehicles, and opened every few minutes to allow steamers and barges to pass. We spent the next night at the clean, bustling, thriving, and picturesque town of Wurtzburg, having crossed the '' blue Franconi- an moimtains," and on the following day passed over an uninteresting plain to Munich, remaining all Sunday in the Hotel of the Four Seasons. On Monday morning we were provided with a hand- some saloon carriage, in which we travelled all the way to Venice. In some parts of the Bavarian plain the peasants were making hay, which I certainly had not seen before in November. The weather hitherto had been very cold, but fortunately we had a lovely day to cross the Brenner Pass, and I never saw the glorious scenery of the Tyrol, the noble entrance to the Inn val- ley, its startling peaks, gorges, and precipices, to such advantage. Then there was a bright moon to lighten the valley of the Adige, and enable us to walk as if by day to the Grand Hotel at Trent, where we spent the night. On the following day we had four hours at Yerona, to get luncheon and see the place, and it was very late before we reached the City of the Waters, as a locomo- tive had broken down at Peschiera, detaining the train from Milan. How bright and beautiful is Yenice, and what a contrast between its stirring appearance now and THE VOYAGE OUT. 11 the dead city under Austrian domination which I knew in 1844: ! At 10 A.M. on 11th IS'ovember we went on board the P. and O. steamer Mongolia, Captain Thompson, 2883 tons, lying in the Guidecca ; and the first person that addressed me on the deck was Sir A. H. Layard, who has a house in Yenice, and who was seeing off another old friend of mine, Sir W. Gregory, formerly member for Gal way, and more recently Governor of Ceylon. We had likewise on board Mr. Kowsell, once head of the Contract Department at the Admiralty, and now one of the Commissioners of the State Lands in Egypt, with his family ; and I soon found out among the passengers several gentlemen connected with Eastern commerce whose reputation and firms I knew. The Mongolia was very high in the water, and as we *' slowed " down the Lido passage into the Adriatic, I thought 1 had never seen anything so beautiful of their kind as the varied views of Yenice from the sea. By nightfall we were off Ancona, burning blue lights on the port bow ; and so calm was the sometimes stormy guK that by 1 a.m. on Sunday we were standing in and out at Brindisi, waiting for the pilot, who was in bed. The ship is manned chiefly by natives of the East, who go under the general designation of Lascars, most o£ whom come from the islands and headlands to the north of Bom- bay, and we have a considerable number of passengers on board for Australia. The Kev. Mr. Mitchell, of Sydney, conducted divine service in the saloon after we 12 A WINTER IN INDIA. had finished the dirty operation of coahng. I never saw a more squalid, filthy, rickety-looking place than the ancient Bnindusium ; but it has a good harbor, and probably at some future time it will be more inviting to the traveller. At two o'clock on Monday morning the train came in, wearied railway passengers rushed into the cabins, and very soon heavy rolHng warned me that we were once more on the Adriatic. When I went on deck in the morning, Otranto, on the Italian coast, was in full view, and opposite, crowned with snow, appeared the lofty mountains of Albania. Passing Cape Matapan, dis- tinctly visible though 30 miles off, we had run 289 miles at noon, and until we got under the lee of Crete the good ship plunged so much that many of the passengers were sick for four or five hours. "Wednesday was a lovely day, and when I reached the deck at sunrise on Thursday, in the lurid light on the eastern horizon there could be plainly seen a dim object familiar to me — the Pharos of Alexandria. The usual din and scramble took place when the steamer stopped in the inner harbor ; but we did not require to land in boats, as the P. and O. Company have now got a wharf, and the railway carriages come down to the steamer's side. For an additional payment of £1 ($4.84) each, we shared with others a large saloon carriage, and regret- fully saying good-by to the Mongolia^ were soon pass- ing between Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudieh Canal, among fields of cotton, maize, rice, and reeds ; camels, THE VOYAGE OUT. 13 buffaloes, and naked Arabs reminding us of former times. This is Thursday, 17th November, 1881, and on the same day of the week and month in 1869 was opened the : Suez Canal— a monument of French enterprise and sa- gacity which England's short-sighted statesmen had so long and so fooKshly opposed. The rascals charged us four shillings each for a very so-so lunch at Kafr Zayad, and we were not sorry when the hot and dusty journey terminated at Suez at 9 p.m., and we were nshered into the saloon of the steamship Surat, Captain Breeze, 3142 tons, where all that the P. and O. Company could provide for weary and hungry passengers was a supper of very bad and tough cold meat. The luncheons of that generous corporation are cold ; and although the order, and especially the cleanliness, on board are all that can be desired, a company that charge so high and enjoy so large a subsidy from Government should supply better fare and provide faster steamers. There is nothing to prevent the service between London and Bombay being shortened by at least three days. The xSW^^a^, although she performed admirably while we were on board, has been rather an unfortunate ship, and has met with a good many mishaps. In 1875 we saw her disabled and being towed in the Suez Canal, and this voyage her engines stopped five times in the Bay of Biscay, so alarming the passengers that they applied to the captain of the port and Lord Kapier of Magdala at 14 A WINTER IN INDIA. Gibraltar for an independent examination of the machin- ery, greatly to the indignation of the chief engineer and of the captain. "We consequently found by no means a happy family on board, and we heard much of their ex- periences and grievances during the passage. Next day we were going thirteen knots with a fresh northerly breeze between the magnificent serrated peaks which hide Sinai from view, and the almost equally striking mountains on the African coast. We met six steamers going up to Suez. The ship is full, there being one hundred and thirty first-class passengers, whose easy-chairs cover the quarter-deck. Passing Shadwan Island, where the P. and O. steam- ship Carnatic was lost, we leave the Gulf of Suez, and, seeing the entrance to the Gulf of Akaba on the left, pass into the Red Sea, or, as it should be called, the Sea of Sea- weed, the Hebrew word for the two being the same. A wreck standing well out of the water re- minds us of the dangers of its navigation. The moun- tains on both sides are much grander than I imagined, and, as we proceed, those on the African shore present a most remarkable appearance, as if cut into gigantic steps. We have volunteer music on deck every evening at 8.30 — piano-playing, songs, and glees. Saturday, 19th, was quite calm. "We are out of sight of land, but pass the solitary light on the shoal where H.M.S. Daedalus was lost. I am surprised at the num- ber of people on board going, like ourselves, merely to travel in India, and not on official duty or commercial THE VOYAGE OUT. 15 business. The tliermometer has stood steadily at 80°. Now the temperature rises. At eight o'clock on Sunday morning it was 86° in the shade on the companion, and few people had been able to sleep from the heat. At 10.30 A.M. all hands were mustered in their Sunday dress on the quarter-deck, and at 10.45 a young chaplain going out to Delhi conducted divine service. The color of the Ked Sea is a lapis -lazuli blue. Our run was two liundred and ninety-four miles, and at 3 P.M. the tliermometer in the shade registered 95°, and very little walking was done on deck. Small sails were put out from each cabin window, to make a draught, and the punkahs in the saloon were kept hard at work. ITot a rock, or a steamer, or a light-house was to be seen. On Monday the Surat had a very unusual experience, namely, a strong head-wind, a tempestuous sea, and 96° of heat in the shade. Most people were motionless, and looked very miserable. The ports had all to be closed, and ladies slept on the saloon table and all about the place. We were shipping such heavy seas that the cap- tain had to slacken speed during the night. In the evening we passed the Island of Jebeltur, and here the navigation is not a little ticklish. There are two other Members of Parliament on board, going to see India — my friend Mr. Hamilton, of South Lanarkshire, and Mr. Johnson, who represents Exeter. We have a considerable number of British officers returning from furlough, men of large experi- 16 A WIN^TER IlSr Iiq^DIA. ence and cultivation ; and I am happy to find that most of them are by no means Jingoes, and that some who approved of the Afghan expedition are now convinced that it was a terrible mistake. A friend tells me that he went home recently with twenty-eight officers of the Cabul force, twenty-five of whom informed him that they approved of the evacuation of Candahar. "We are now in full sight of the Arabian coast, with Mocha in the distance, a strong wind dead ahead. The Straits of Babel Mandeb, or " The Gate of Tears"— so called from the number of wrecks that have taken place on that desolate shore — are fourteen miles wide, and the Island of Perim, on which flies the British flag, lying right in the channel, commands the entrance to the Bed Sea. It is only two miles distant from a very striking promontory on the Arabian coast, and we ran through that narrow passage, meeting the steamship City of Agra under full sail going north, and two other steamers also taking advantage of the wind just outside on the Indian Ocean. By 11 P.M. we were at anchor in the wonderful harbor of Aden, but the noise made by coaling, and by the naked Soumali boys diving for coins, prevented much sleep. When I came on deck I found it crowded with natives selling ostrich -feathers, baskets, and other articles. "We were anchored between a French man-of-war and the P. and O. steamer Assam, from Bombay. The Italian gunboat Chioggia passed up harbor under our THE VOYAGE OUT. 17 stern, and bj and bj tlie great P. and O. steamer Ne^aul arrived from Calcutta. Aden surprised me ; it is as fine as Gibraltar, and has a splendid anchorage. The wild barren rocks and peaks dotted over with white houses present a singular appear- ance, and it is a much more imposing place than I had imagined. We lay there till nearly ten o'clock on "Wednesday morning, and might have gone ashore, but a placard announcing that the ship was to sail at 5 a.m. prevented us. The cantonments, which are five miles from the harbor, can be seen very distinctly from the sea after leaving. Lofty mountains in Arabia were visible all Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. I learned to-day that in the Ked Sea on Sunday the thermometer in the stoke- hole was 154:°. We have several excellent artists on board, and people who fall asleep in ungraceful attitudes, especially when they are not prepossessing, find them- selves immortalized in sketch-books. On Monday night the quarter-deck was decorated with flags, and we had a ball, which was kept up for several hours. At 2.30 a.m. on Tuesday I happened to look out of my port-hole, and there, in all its glory, just above the horizon, was the Southern Cross ; and cer- tainly my feeling on seeing it for the first time was by no means one of disappointment. Between six and seven o'clock I went to the bow, and saw the land — peaks in the Ghauts on each side of Bom- 18 A WINTER IN- INDIA. *bay. The color of the water is changed to a light dirty brown ; a row of fishing-boats stationed right in the way of the navigation — why, I don't know, nor it appears does any one else — are on the starboard ; and right ahead, one by one begin to appear the spires and factory chimneys of the city. CHAPTER II. BOMBAY — THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. Before nine we had taken the pilot on board, and then the Surat wound her way up one of the finest har- bors in the world, the capaciousness and grand scenery of which took me quite by surprise ; and as soon as she dropped anchor a steam-launch came alongside with a letter from the Viceroy in camp, welcoming me in the kindest and most cordial terms to the shores of India ; and another from the Governor of Bombay, to take our party ashore if we desired it. We landed, however, in boats provided by business correspondents. The noise, scramble, and heat were what the Americans would call '' a caution." Stepping ashore at the celebrated quay called Apollo Bunder, the evening resort of the beauty and fashion of Bombay, we drove at once to the Cumballa family hotel on Cumballa Hill, a quiet villa which has the advantage of a northern aspect and breeze. This Orient is quite dijfferent from that which I had seen before ; nearly all the trees are new to me, and excepting the poinsettias and bougainvilleas, I do not recognize the flowers. The houses are bungalows, and the manners and customs of the strangely-attired, or rather non-attired, natives 20 A WINTER Ilf Iiq-DIA. strongly impress on ns that our time is six hours earlier than that of Greenwich. I was not prepared for the magnificence of the view of the city and its surroundings from Malabar Hill — the sea of palms, the noble public buildings, the bays and creeks, the peaked and dome-shaped Ghauts ; it has a resem- blance to the Bay of [Naples, but there is more variety, and the mountains are farther off. At night there were marriage festivities in the neighborhood, music and fire- works, preventing some of the party sleeping until the small hours. On the top of Malabar Hill, and within sight of our windows, are the Towers of Silence : a walled cemetery where dead Parsees are devoured by vidtures ; and you see those hideous creatures gorged and sleepy on every tree. We had a most delightful excursion in the afternoon in a steam-launch, one hour from the harbor to the cele- brated caves of Elephanta ; and the beauty of the sunset on the bay, peaks and islands, port and shipping, can never be forgotten. Then in the evening some of us were entertained to dinner in the Yacht Club. It is a fine airy erection on the Apollo Bunder, now called the "Wellington Pier, so well ventilated that punkahs are not required ; and everything was served just as it would be in the " Carlton" or '' Keform." The stranger is struck with the great number of police- men stationed along all the streets and roads, who touch their hats to every sahib who passes ; and the crowds of BOMBAY— THE EAJPOOTAlirA RAILWAY. 21 servants in every house and comiting-house, moving noiselessly about like shadows, impress a European. It is a very pretty drive to the Government House at the farthest point of Malabar Hill, past innumerable bungalows of merchants and officials — Scotch names greatly predominating — the strange trees and flowers re- minding one forcibly how far he is from home. We dined in one of these sumptuous villas, and the appetit was the fitful glare from Hindoo bodies being cremated on the other side of the bay. Notwithstand- ing the howling of the jackals, we had music and song before returning home in the moonlight. I experienced considerable difficulty next day in ar- ranging both about travelling servants and money ; and it is no joke walking along the streets of the Fort under a burning sun, even although your head is protected by a pith helmet ; but then we are rewarded by the glori- ous view of mountains, bay, and shipping from the res- taurant on the quay : I never saw anything of the kind more lovely. The municipality of Bombay is partly elective and partly nominative ; the majority are natives, and they manage economically and well. I observed how care- fully kept, repaired, and watered are all the thorough- fares. It is impossible to convey in a few sentences of descrip- tion anything like a vivid idea of this strange Bombay. The mixture of splendid public buildings and hovels, sumptuous bungalows cheek-by-jowl with wigwams, car- 22 A WINTER IJS" IKDIA. riages and ox-carts, men with bare feet sitting in brough- ams attended by liveried servants, shops full of nearly- naked people, women flitting about in garments of daz- zling brightness, with jewels in their noses, bracelets on their ankles, and rings on their toes ; tramways, cotton bales, bheesties pressing water out of their pigskins to lay the dust ; people of every nation, kindred, and tongue. More than 700,000 souls crowded in narrow lanes form a tout ensemble which to be realized must be seen. The traveller in India has to provide himself with quilts and pillows, for use both in the railway carriages and in the dak bungalows or houses provided for the ac- commodation of travellers. With this addition to our baggage we mingled with a motley crew in Grant Road Station, waiting for the mail train which had started from the harbor half an hour before, on Saturday even- ing, December 3d, at 5.30. It soon became dark, but in the bright moonlight we could see pretty well around. The line crosses from the Island of Bombay to the mainland by a very long via- duct, and there are a great many other bridges over various arms of the sea. Before turning in for the night, we ^ame in view of a fine range of peaked moun- tains, and were soon reminded, in our endeavors to draw our quilts more closely around us, that it is now no longer excessively hot, but on the contrary rather cold. The first thing I saw when day dawned was a troop of BOMBAY — THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. 23 hng6 monkeys making faces at the train, running up trees, and turning somersaults for our edification. At Ahmedabad we had a good breakfast, and changed into the carriages of the narrow-gauge Rajpootana State Railway. This interposition of a line of different width between the other great railroads in India appears to me to be a blunder, and one which must eventually be remedied, no matter what may be the cost. During the forenoon we passed through fields of maize, rice, cotton, and castor-oil, separated by cactus hedges, and saw many large herds of cattle and buffaloes. The peasants were very busy ploughing and irrigating ; most of them were nearly or quite naked, and inhabited miserable-looking huts. There were raised look-out posts, sometimes on a frame-work, sometimes on a tree, here and there, with watchers to prevent the deer, boars, monkeys, and other wild animals damaging the crops. The station-houses and the dwellings of the better class have all white domes like mosques. During this day and the following morning I saw more wild creatures, four-footed and winged, than I ever saw during the same period in all my life — deer and monkeys of various sizes and kinds, cockatoos innumerable, blue- jays, flamingoes, storks of the most graceful appi.arp'^.ce, partridges, jungle- fowl, doves, and water-birds in endless variety — nowhere in India is there finer shooting than in Eajpootana, as well in the jungles as in the desert, of both of which we had samples during our journey. Toward evening we passed between two very striking 24c A WINTER IIS- INDIA. ranges, that of Mount Aboo on the left being 5000 feet high ; and we had a glorious sunset illuminating their jagged peaks. Did not we bless th^^ promoters of the narrow-gauge line duiing the hours of darkness ? A night on the Baj- pootana State Eailway ! "What a reminiscence ! To roughlj-made carriages was added a bad locomotive- driver, and the jerking, pitching, and rolling overtask my feeble powers of description. The water-cistern in our saloon carriage was broken, my clothes were hurled on the sloppy floor, holding on for dear life was impos- sible, because there was nothing to hold by. I got up to put the quilt over me, and was banged head foremost against my vis-a-vis. JS^atives yelled at our ears the names of every station, and it was not till day dawned beyond Ajmere that we got a little broken rest. This was our first experience of luxurious railway travelling in India ; many times I tried, Christian-like, to laugh, but it seemed much more natural and easy to do the other thing. At Phalera junction in the early morning I got out for a cup of tea, and was amazed to be addressed on the platform by Mr. Primrose, private secretary to the Viceroy, formerly my private secretary at the Treasury, who had joined the train during the night. Truly thankful we were after forty-two hours' shaking on that dreadful line to take refuge in the dak bungalow at Jey- poor. Colonel Bannerman, the Political Resident at the BOMBAY — THE RAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. 25 Maharajah's capital, had arranged it for our reception, and sent carriages to meet us at the station. It is a square bungalow in the centre of a compound. There are reed huts for the &3rvants on one side, and on the other tents, in case of an overflow of guests, remind- ing us of our life in Palestine. Attended by a gorgeous man in red, we called on the Kesident in his beautiful villa in the neighborhood, and then drove through the extraordinary town of Jeypoor — a mixture of Orientalism and European innovation hard to describe. There are broad streets ; houses, higher than usual, all painted pink ; a vast palace, half a mile long and eight stories high; a well 1 aid-out and beauti- fully-kept public garden, in which the dons of the city were taking their evening ride ; runners to warn the crowds in the streets of the approach of the sahibs ; monkeys scrambling over the housetops ; bheesties mak- ing the water squirt in every direction — altogether it was like a scene in the Arabian Nights. We had a quiet dinner in the bungalow ; there was an eclipse of the moon in that glorious starlit sky, and we said good-night amid a howling of the jackals far more deafening than any we had experienced in Egypt. The stranger is struck at this time of year by the withered and burnt -up appearance of the whole country. Yast tracts on the plains are covered wdth the graceful pampas-grass, which is collected for purposes of thatching. A large party had assembled at the Residency to 26 A WINTER IN INDIA. dinner, consisting chiefly of oflicers from Bombay, who had come up to enjoy the sport of pig-sticking ; and we had much conversation on many interesting points con- nected with Indian affairs. The air next morning was quite frosty, and I felt even an ulster insufficient to keep out the cold, as w^e set off in carriages at a hand-gallop to visit Amber, the old capital of the state : a most extraordinary place, situated in a hollow, the lofty hills surrounding it being fortified somewhat in the fashion of Yerona. After a drive of four miles, we found elephants waiting us, and had our first experience of riding in a howdah. I thought the motion more unpleasant, but not so difficult for a tyro, than that of being on the back of a camel. From various points on the roof of the Maharajah's palace we obtained very remarkable and extensive views of the surrounding country. The Rajpoots of old were freebooters and thieves, like the Scottish chiefs, and their towns had to be built for purposes of defence. During our absence one of our servants saw the exe- cution of a dacoit, who was brought out of the town in an ox- cart, and strung up close to the gate of the bun- galow. The carriages and elephants have all been placed at our disposal by the Maharajah. Several successive rulers of Jeypoor have been enlight- ened, reforming men. The beautiful Mayo hospital, the water-supply to the town, and the irrigation works in the vicinity are some of the monuments of good gov- BOMBAY — THE KAJPOOTANA RAILWAY. 27 eminent in tin's little state. There are about 100,000 inhabitants in the capital, which is commanded by the Tiger Fort, on the top of a loftj hill. While I was sitting- in the veranda of the bungalow, in the afternoon, I was surprised and pleased to receive a visit from the Rev. John Traill, a Brechin man," who has been nine years connected with the United Presby- terian Mission in Rajpootana, and who, I afterward learned, is not only respected by the whole European community, but is such a favorite among the natives that all classes delight to receive and listen to him. Shortly after eight o'clock on Thursday morning we were off again on the State Railway ; and although the travelling was certainly much smoother than between Ahmedabad and Ajmere, it was by no means what it ought to be, and 1 cannot find any one hereabouts who has now a good word to say for the metre gauge. It is what the Americans call an air line, or nearly straight, as far as Bandikui, passing partly over great grassy wastes, inhabited by deer and parroquets and peacocks, and partly through fields of grain and cotton, the former of which the peasants were busy irrigating from numer- ous wells. The only town of any importance on this route is Alwur, with 50,000 inhabitants, the capital of another Rajpoot state. CHAPTER III. DELHI AND LAHORE. And now I write in Delhi, the ancient capital of the Great Mogul, historically celebrated in many ways, and the scene of events in the Mutiny of 1857 which shook the British dominion in Hindostan to its very base, and horrified and excited the wliole civilized world. Sixty- six officers and eleven hundred men fell in that terrible final assault, which once more vindicated our supremacy over a population of 300,000,000, and enables Queen Yictoria now to grant patent of accession to no fewer than one hundred and fifty -three native princes. We have plucked a leaf from that banyan-tree inside the fort where twenty-seven Europeans were massacred in cold blood ; and we have wondered and admired in the lovely private audience-hall — a garden of roses on one hand, and on the other the river Jumna, with the great railway -bridge. It is a pavilion of white marble, which once contained the famous Peacock Throne, where the puppet emperor resided during the siege, and where the Prince of "Wales received in durbar the magnates of India. The ladies' apartments are now the officers' mess-room, and the audience-chamber of Shah Jehan has been con- verted into the canteen of the British force ! DELHI AKD LAHORE. 39 Since the Mutiny, all tlie buildings near tlie fort — whicH itself is one and a quarter miles in circumference — liave been demolished, and the space has been laid out in walks and trees. We entered it by the Lahore Gate, where there is a row of native shops, for the benefit of the soldiers — *' Ram Sing, tailor," etc. — and left it by the Delhi Gate, where the walls are seventy feet high, and covered with parroquets, and near which are the comfortable-looking quarters of the married European troops. The officers have elegant and commodious- looking quarters in the centre of the ground, which is tastefully laid out, and strikes one as a most desirable abode. Close to the charming Hall of Audience, with its rich inlaid- work and transparent marble tracery, is the little mosque of Moti-Musjid, or the Pearl Mosque, a perfect gem of wliite marble with black lines, which bring into relief the exquisite work on the walls. How plain and grand it all is ; how different from the ornaments of Roman Catholic cathedrals ! This was built by no wor- shippers of images, but believers in the doctrine that there is one God. On the city side of the open space which detaches the fort stands the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, with two lofty minarets ; one of which we ascended, and had a most magnihcent view of Delhi and its neighborhood. In and around that building in 1857 assembled 40,000 men to pray for success to the rebel armies, and there, on Friday, 9th December, 1881, we 30 A WINTER IN INDIA. saw two or three thousand Mussulman worsliippers bow- ing in the direction of Mecca ; not south-east, as we had seen them do before, but north-west, within sound of the British bugles and in the presence of a few wander- ing travellers, chiefly Scotch, come out to view this won- drous land. A very handsome museum and literary institute has been erected at one end of the Queen's Gardens, and the railway terminus close by is one of the most conspicuous buildings in the city. Our drive on Friday evening was of a very interest- ing and almost exciting character. The British Com- missioner, Major Young, was good enough to accom- pany us, and explain in most graphic language, on the ground, the principal events of the siege and storming of Delhi by a handful of British and Sikh troops in 1857, We first visited tlie Cashmere Gate ; this and the ram- parts on each side are left unrepaired, exactly in the same state as they were when Nicholson's forlorn hope saved the British Empire in Hindostan ; then we as- cended the famous " ridge" from which there is a view of the city, a good deal like that of Damascus from the mountain : to a certain extent commanding it, but sepa- rated from it by narrow guUies, which the mutineers made use of to annoy the British force. On the highest point has been erected a monumental pillar to the memory of the brave men who performed one of the most remarkable exploits in history. The inscription on DELHI AND LAHORE. 31 its base tells a tale of valor which has never been ex- celled. The whole besieging force amounted, to 9866, the casualties were 3854 ; the First Bengal Fusiliers had 427 men before the city, of whom 319 were hors de comhat. ^ ' Delhi must be taken, ' ' wrote Sir John Lawrence, from the Punjaub. *' The thing is impossible, we have not force to do it," w^as the commander's reply. What must have been the feelings of one of the most humane and tender-hearted of men, in the full knowledge of the terrible sacrifice of vakiable life involved in his rejoin- der, when that rejoinder was, " Delhi mtcst he takeiiy He knew better than any man then living the attitude of the Sikhs, the magnitude of the crisis, and the absolute- necessity of the fall of the ancient capital ; and that re- iterated order saved India to England, although it did not prevent the man who issued it being hooted by a London crowd, because he did not approve of the recent war in Afghanistan. The population of Delhi was, and is yet, disarmed, because by no means well-affected to our rule ; and con- sequently game abounds in all directions round the city. One would never imagine, looking down from the " ridge," that a great mosque, a red fort, two station towers, and a few low minarets rising among gardens, represented a city of 160,000 inhabitants. The debatable land between the Cashmere Gate and the Memorial Tower is now covered with villas and wide 32 A WINTER IN INDIA. avenues, and the Nicholson Gardens, overlooking the Jumna, occupy a considerable portion of it. It was bitterly cold when at eight o'clock on Saturday morning we drove out of the Ajmere Gate over a dusty plain covered with tombs, reminding one of the Eoman Campagna and the Appian Way. The modern Delhi is comparatively new ; centuries ago there were cities on that flat. Our destination was the Khotub Minar, the highest pillar in the world, two hundred and 'thirty-eight feet above the ruined Hindoo temples and Mohammedan mosques at its base, and eight hundred and sixty years old. It is a wonderful and very imposing structure, of red sandstone outside, and inside of white granite. The ascent is laborious, and did not repay me, for one sees nothing but a dreary, tomb-covered, dusty plain. Here, as in many other places, we were mobbed by beggars ; there is, indeed, dire poverty in this land ; the squalor, emaciation, and dirt are sometimes appalling. We spent rather a dismal Sunday, two of our party being ill : principally in consequence of the miserable accommodation and cooking at the Northbrook Hotel. I was attracted by the name, and outside it looked well enough ; but altogether it answered to the scriptural de- scription of awhited sepulchre. The hotels in India are hardly worthy of the name ; few British travellers visit it, and they nearly all stay with the officials ; ours is the first family party that ever went up country, and we of course have to pay in DELHI AKD LAHORE. 33 many little discomforts the usual penalty of pioneers of progress. I write now in Clark's Hotel, at Lahore — a little whitewashed bungalow some distance outside the city, with one lofty stable-like public room in the centre, and half a dozen square vaults as bedrooms opening out of it, three at each side ; but here the landlady is an English- woman, the victuals are tolerable, and sanitary arrange- ments are well attended to. We left Delhi at mid-day on Monday, 12 th Decem- ber, and were detained half an hour at Ghazabad Junc- tion waiting for the Calcutta train. There is much sandy and sterile land in this neighborhood, and we saw some large herds of deer, but as you approach Meerut city and cantonment the country improves. The stations are prettily adorned with convolvulus and other flowers, and all the short time we have been in India we have been struck everywhere with the good roads. Our friends at home have little idea how far behind they are in this respect, some of our leading lines of communica- tion being simply disgraceful. After a good dinner in the refreshment-room at Suha- runpore, we made all snug for the night, and did not get up until within sight of the minarets of the famous mosque at Amritsir. Passing close to the camp of Meean Meer, with its numerous tents and elephants, we reached the imposing fortress-looking station of Lahore at 8.30, and found waiting us two carriages sent by Lady Egerton, wife of 34 A WINTER IN INDIA. the Governor, lie himself being absent in camp. One of them was a lofty drag seated for ten and drawn by four camels, a postilion dressed in the bright scarlet of the paramount power riding on each. In this singular vehicle, which sometimes attained the rate of ten miles an hour, we drove round the city after breakfast, through the Lawrence Gardens ; there, joined to each other, are the Lawrence and Montgomery Halls ; there is also a collection of wild animals ; and in various directions past the college are seen courts of law and other public buildings. The British residents all live outside the city, in sepa- rate bungalows of more or less pretensions, and have their names written in large letters on the entrance-pillars. The European shopkeepers do the same. On the side of a wide avenue, beneath a spreading tree, you see an immense board announcing " Mrs. Keid, dressmaker." "We ascended one of the four minarets of the principal mosque, and obtained a really magnificent view of the city and its surroundings — the sandy wastes on either side of the river Ravee, the low, mean-looking houses within the walls, and the innumerable villa gardens with- out ; and in the evening we w^ere present at an amateur concert in the bungalow of Mr. Justice Elsmie, which w^as crowded with the beauty and fashion of Lahore. There are no fewer than two hundred and fifty mem- bers of an English society here. We drove to it in our camel-carriage, drawn this time by only two camels, and had to pay forfeit for our barbaric splendor, as the DELHI AKD LAHORE. 35 creatures' heads were too high for the covered entrance- porch, and we had to get out in the dust. Lahore has a population of nearly one hundred thou- sand, and the extensive railway works employ two thou- sand people. The Bishop (French), formerly a Church missionary, called upon us — an earnest, liberal-minded man, highly respected in northern India. Here let me say that nothing so much imj)edes the progress of Christianity in that country as the proceed- ings of certain High Church dignitaries, who so thor- oughly mistake the doctrines of our most holy faith, and misrepresent the teachings of their Divine Master, as to treat clergymen of other denominations as beyond the pale, and very much on a level with the heathen. Hindoo inquirers ask if it is not true that a certain bishop says that the difference between Presbyterians and Episcopalians is fundamental ; and that another bishop withdrew the licenses of twenty -tiiree clergymen because they would not conform to his ritualistic practices. Ev- ery one 1 meet deplores the mischief done by bigots of this kind. The schools of the American Presbyterian Mission are said to be the most successful educational enterprise in the province. It cannot be for a moment doubted that, although the converts of the missionaries in Hindostan are few and far between, their teaching is shaking to its very centre the whole fabric of heathen mythology. The upper and educated classes have no belief in the gods of their fathers. I find in a hymn-book, composed 36 A WINTER IN INDIA. by Lala Behari Lai for the use of an association of Hindoo reformers, the following, which might be sung in any Christian church : " Thou art my Maker ; Thou art the Creator of the World, Thine's all the universe : Blessed be Thy name. " The sun and moon while turning Speak forth Thy praise ; Thou weighest the earth in balances : Blessed be Thy name. "The wind as it blows Opens the door to Thy glory. And wafts abroad Thy divinity : Blessed be Thy name. "From the smallest tree, From the ant to man. All is created by Thee : Blessed be Thy name. " All the rivers and seas Are full of Thy righteousness ; Thou art limitless, eternal ; Blessed be Thy name. "Thy name is great Who hath wrought all these works ; I offer all my praise to Thee : Blessed be Thy name." Lahore for many centuries has been the resort of learned men, and the native believers in one God have now their full complement there. One of our visits was to the tomb of Runjeet Singh — of white marble with black lines — a conspicuous object DELHI AlTD LAHORE. 37 on the wall below the fort. Four wives and seven con- cubines were burned at his burial. Another was to the Government prison, where twenty-four hundred men are confined, five hundred more being in another building some distance off, and a third containing two hundred and fifty women. All the arrangements, as far as eat- ing, houses, and cleanliness are concerned, appear to be admirable, but one fresh from Europe does not like to hear the clanking of so many chains. They make the most beautiful carpets, and I ordered one, to be ready in six months, at a price which w^ould rather surprise a British shopkeeper. A third visit was to the famous Shalamar Gardens, laid out in 1637 by the Emperor Shah Jehan. They consist of a great plantation of mango-trees, with many fountains and beds of roses, and are really very pretty and shady. I asked the custodian if he could show us the fruit of the mango. He said that these trees had borne none for two years ; and w^hen I inquired the reason, 1 received the truly Eastern answer, '' God knows !" Next morning we were very busy, and took full ad- vantage of our camel- carriage. The day before Christ- mas an exhibition of all the manufactures and artistic productions of the Punjaub, for which a special building has been erected, was to be opened, and Mr. Kipling, Director of the School of Art, who had charge of it, kindly allowed us to have a private view. There were a great many beautiful things, and some of them marvel- lously cheap. We next visited the Museum, chiefly re- 38 A WINTER IN INDIA. markable for a valuable collection of Grseco-Bactrian Buddhist sculptures, from the Peshawur district. After that we went to the College, in which two institutes are combined under one roof, and Dr. Leitner, the enthu- siastic principal, showed us over the building. There are ninety-seven students in the English department, each of whom receives two rupees a month from the Government, and one hundred and ninety-two in the Oriental classes, which are supported entirely by volun- tary subscriptions. Dr. Leitner, who told us that he himself was supposed to speak twenty-five languages, has raised among the rich natives three lacs of rupees for this institution ; and we had the great satisfaction of seeing and hearing students from all parts of Central Asia, in clean, airy class-rooms, being taught mathemat- ics, chemistry, medicine, law — in fact, all the branches of an ordinary university education. They were of all ages, and most of them holy men — priests of their respective faiths. Think for a moment of the immense influence which such an institution as this must have in all the vast regions north as well as south of the Hima- layas ! We devoted the afternoon to the inspection of the native town of Lahore — a strange admixture of fantastic- ally carved and painted houses with mud hovels. In the rough, narrow, nnpaved and almost impassable streets, are open bazaars, where both wares and vendors are covered with flies. In spite of a great deal of filth and squalor, singularly enough, there is an almost entire DELHI AN-D LAHORE. 39 absence of bad smells. The Wazir and Golden Mosques are curious edifices, in the centre of the city. These Punjaubees are a far finer and more stalwart race than the Hindoos, and some of the regiments in our service look very well indeed. CHAPTER lY. AGEA AND THE TAJ MAHAL. We left by the evening train on 15th December, and soon after I awoke next morning I descried a range of dark mountains on the left. Presently, as the sun got a little above the horizon, it shone upon what I first thought was a cloud ; for a moment it did not occur to me that the sky was cloudless. I took up Stanford's ad- mirable travelling map of India, and saw at once that the object was the summit of Kedarnath, or an adjoining peak, 22,900 feet high, and about one himdred and thirty miles off. My first sight of the Himalayas was not disappoint- ing ; and for two or three hours afterward, every time I looked out of the window, there was that great white solemn mountain piercing the sky. There were a num- ber of birds flying all about us that morning^ — king- fishers, kites, cranes, storks, ducks, the beautiful blue Indian jay, and many others unknown to me> We spent twenty-four hours in the Empress Hotel, Meerut — a building in which twenty-one people, being all its occupants, were murdered in 1857. Here the ^ Mutiny commenced, and I wanted to see it on that ac- count ; and also because it is one of the most important AGRA A2i^D THE TAJ MAHAL. 41 cantonments and military stations in India. Some of the bungalows are very large, especially those occupied by the King's Dragoon Guards ; and the Mall is the broadest and best-made avenue in our Eastern posses- sions, or perhaps anywhere else. Keturning to Ghazabad, we proceeded on the East Indian Railway over a poorly-cultivated plain, where many herds of cattle, buffaloes, sheep, and goats, and occasionally deer, derived a very precarious subsistence from the burnt-up pasture ; mango-orchards and cotton- fields occasionally relieved the landscape. It was nearly nine o'clock when, tired, dusty, and thirsty, we found ourselves drinking champagne in Laurie and Staten's hotel — a large bungalow in the European quarter, which covers a great space of ground outside Agra Fort. Next day was Sunday, and we mixed with a most picturesque-looking congregation of civilians and sol- diers in the English church, where the Rev. Father O'JSTeill, a well-known High Church enthusiast and celebrant, preached an impassioned sermon from the words, '' The Lord is at hand." After tiffin I had my first view of what most travel- lers believe to be the finest building in the world — the Taj Mahal — a mausoleum of pure white marble, built by Shah Jehan for his beautiful queen Moomtaza-Zumanee — the Light of the World — and in erecting which twenty thousand men were employed for twenty -two years, at a cost of between two and three millions sterling. It is as white as when first built, and richly decorated with 42 A WINTER IN INDIA. mosaics inlaid with jasper, agate, carnelian, and other precious stones, all the work of Italian artists some two hundred and fifty years ago. The building itself stands on a marble terrace four hundred feet square, with a minaret one hundred feet high at each corner. Between it and the magnificent entrance-gate built of red sand- stone and marble, is one of the most beautiful gardens that I have seen in the East. At one end of the plat- form is a mosque in the same style and of the same materials as the gateway, and at the other end a build- ing architecturally to match, but not consecrated as a place of worship. I had expected great things, but found that I liad formed no conception of the reality. Anything so fairy-like, so spotless, so gracefully gigantic, so totally unlike other creations of man, I did not imagine had ex- istence on earth. I have now seen it from various points of view — from the gateway, from under the shade of the forest -trees in the garden, from a distance, from the top of one of the minarets, from the lofty platform overlook ing the Jumna ; and each time that I shut my eyes and opened them again it seemed like a heavenly vision, a something utterly superhuman dropped down by the celestials to astonish man. I now understand what a friend once said to me: "When you see the Taj at Agra, you will say it is worth w^hile going to India for that sight alone." Photography, painting, and even sculpture fail to give one an adequate idea of this amaz- ing tomb, and all the descriptions of it that I have AGRA AND THE TAJ MAHAL. 43 ever read convey but the faintest notion of its perfect beauty. Agra Fort is a lofty and imposing edifice of red sand- stone, visible from a distance in all directions, and dom- inating both banks of the Jumna for miles around. Besides the British barracks, it contains the Palace of Akbar, with public and private reception-halls of white marble, resembling those at Delhi, and the Pearl Mosque, of the same material. How simple and grand it is — only lotus flowers carv^ed on the walls, and a few tastefully-colored mosaics : no tawdry images or orna- ments disfigure the place. How suitable for the worship of Jehovah ! The largest mosque in Agra — the Jumna Musjid — is so close as almost to form a part of the railway-station, the whistles of the locomotives and the cry of the muez- zins strangely mixing, and filling one's mind with thoughts of how this great Eastern problem is likely to be solved. The streets of the natis^e city are tolerably wide and well i^aved. The bazaars are stocked with vast quanti- ties of goods, and many elaborately- carved houses afford evidence of commercial prosperity. The traveller in the country cannot fail to be struck Avitli the spacious and well-made roads intersecting the English quarter in the neighborhood of every large town, and the obsequious respect shown to the sahibs driving in their carriages by the natives in bullock-carts or on foot. The winter smell of India is not pleasant ; the people, 44 A WINTER IN" I]S"DIA. feeling tlie cold acutely, and being as a rule very poor, without the means of procuring proper fuel, burn all sorts of refuse, and everywhere the dull, sickening odor meets you, stealing into large bungalows and even per- meating the cooking. The number of huge kites, brown and white, and of carrion crows, seems surpris- ing ; but then they are the scavengers of this land ; no one thinks of molesting them, and well do they do their duty. We have enjoyed many drives in the neighborhood of Agra, and remark here, as elsewhere, the quantity and infinite variety of the birds. Every two or three yards we come upon minas in twos and threes, with dusty-red plumage, a little larger than a blackbird ; then there are green bee-eaters, the same as in Egypt ; hoopoes, blue jays of dazzling colors, and other flying creatures, large and small, the Hindu names of which would not be edify- ing. The prettiest place near Agra is Sikandra — the tomb of Akbar, from which was taken the Koh-i-noor. It is situated in a large inclosure, laid our precisely like an English nobleman's park, the trees and flowering-shrubs in which are very beautiful, the stately tamarinds being especially conspicuous, on account of their height and spreading foHage. Then there is a lovely tomb in a garden on the other side of the Jumna, which you reach by a very rickety bridge of boats ; it is that of Itmad-ud-daulah ; a perfect gem of white marble inlaid with precious stones, the workmanship of which, and AGRA AKI> THE TAJ MAHAL. 45 particiilarly the marble screens, fills one with astonish- ment. The principal excursion is to Fattehpur-Sikri, which Akbar founded two hundred and fifty years ago, and in- tended to make his capital ; but he was forced to aban- don it because of the badness of the water. It is twenty- three miles distant, but there is an excellent road ; and it took us only three hours to drive to it. We met great numbers of carts, drawn by oxen, taking cotton and hewn stones and agricultural produce into the city, and passed through several miserable-looking villages of mud-hovels, closely resembling those in Upper Egypt. The palace, and the mosque called Bhund-Darwaza, occupy a lofty eminence on a great plain. The gateway of the latter is probably the finest in India, and rises one hundred and thirty feet above the plateau ; the quad- rangle is four hundred and thirty-three by three hun- dred and thirty-six feet, and inside of it there is a fairy- like vision, in the shape of a holy man's tomb, of the finest pieced work in white marble that I ever saw. It is just like lace ; and you can scarcely realize the fact that these delicately-traced screens of large size are really carved out of one block of so hard a material. When Akbar constructed this great edifice he was aspiring to be the chief imam of a reformed religion, and attempted in its quadrangle to expound his faith ; but his courage failed ; and all he could do was with stammering lips to repeat a stanza which one of his favorites had composed, which to my mind seems a good 46 A WINTER IN INDIA. and orthodox sermon, and which may be translated thus : " The Lord to me the kingdom gave, He made me good and wise and brave, He guided me in faith and truth, He filled my heart with right and ruth ; No wit of man can sum His state, Allahu Akbar ! God is great !" We wandered for an hour among the silent ruins of his palace, saw an English class being taught in a room once belonging to the zenana, and were amused at being told that one tower, the divisions of which appeared to us very extraordinary, had been constructed so as to enable the emperor's ladies to play to the best advantage the game of blind-man's-buff. The buildings here, and in many other places we have visited, are being repaired and restored by the Government at great expense. It cannot be said that there is any neglect of the ancient monuments of India. The principal grain on the fields at this time of year is pulse. There is a variety of other cereals used by the people, such as moong, urd, etc., and every second or third shop in the bazaars and villages is for the sale of provisions. One day we were entertained to a performance by two female jugglers, and certainly some of the tricks are very remarkable ; but that of the mango-tree appeared to us easily explicable. On two other occasions we drove through the bazaars of the city, which are extremely in- teresting, the costumes of buyers and sellers, the ladies AGRA Al^D THE TAJ MAHAL. 47 in the balconies, and the monkeys on the roofs consti- tuting a scene thoroughly Oriental. Then a couple of hari3ers used to come into the bungalow of an evening, and nothing could be funnier than their singing, in Hindu accents, " We won't go home till morning, till daylight does appear." Mr. Lawrence, Deputy Collector of the district, was kind enough to call and show me over the various offices under his control ; and also beneath the same roof I had the advantage of hearing trials, both of civil and criminal cases. To-day I have seen two corpses being carried on men's shoulders to be cremated, carefully covered, but without coffin or funeral pall. Those of the richer natives are attended by many mourners, making a loud wailing noise, the bones and ashes being conveyed to the Ganges, as being holier than the Jumna, which is close at hand. 1 have been four times to the Taj, and my original impression has not altered at all. The red sandstone of the adjacent buildings takes away from its effect, more especially at a distance ; but the proportions, the color, the workmanship and the design of the structure are per- fectly lovely ; you can scarcely realize, so admirable are the lines, that the dome is two hundred and forty-seven feet above the garden. My wife spent the forenoon of our last day in Agra in accompanying Miss Johnston, a lady from Forfarshire connected with the Medical Mission, on her visits to several of the zenanas of the poorer women of the city. 48 A WIXTER II^- INDIA. Miss Johnston carried her medicine-chest with her, and administered to those who stood in need of her aid. These poor people have no means of getting medical ad- vice, as no man, unless connected witli the family, is allowed to visit them ; and the best that can be done is for their husbands to tell their symptoms to a doctor. Some of the houses were very poor and extremely wretched, totally destitute of furniture, and the lives of their inmates appeared to my wife to be one of utter misery. The women received the medicines with the greatest gratitude. Surely this is the most potent lever that a missionary can use ! Mr. Thomson, Professor of English Literature in the University — an Arbroath man — called upon me in the morning ; Dr. Valentine, the respected medical mission- ary, whom I have now seen twice, hails from Brechin ; Mr. Weir, the banker, from whom I got my money, told me that his father was a clergyman in Arbroath ; and, to cap the Forfarshire connection, when I asked the station-master to reserve a carriage for us for Lucknow, he told me that he would do so with great pleasure, and more especially as his name, although he was an Eura- sian, was Wilham Baxter, and his father came from Scotland ! CHAPTER Y. LUCKNOW AND CAWNPOEE. At 6.22 P.M., on 24:tli December, we left Agra ; and, amid the most frightful noise — shunting in various direc- tions, and bumping of too severe a description to be con- sistent with a Christian state of mind — at Cawnpore Junction, about three o'clock in the morning, 1 heard the exclamation, " A merry Christmas to you !" Be- tween six and seven we were whirled off in gharries — • the rough covered cabs of the country — from the station to Hill's '' tumble-down-dick" Hotel in Lucknow ; and I don't know why, but my first remark on entering it was, '^ We are now seven thousand miles from London." 'No rain has fallen here since the first week in Septem- ber, and the dust lies thick, not only on all the roads and roofs and walls, but on the topmost leaves of every tree. Most of the trees of India are evergreen, or nearly so ; those which do not absolutely answer to this description only shedding their leaves for a week or two in Febru- ary. Rain is very much wanted now, and I hear fears already expressed regarding the state of the crops. People at home can scarcely realize w^hat vast districts in India are every now and then on the brink of famine. Oude is one of the finest provinces in the country ; yet a 50 A WIl^TER Iiq- Iiq^DIA. gentleman in high position told me that of its 11,000,000 inhabitants 4,000,000 were insufficiently fed, and double that number just able to get enough to sustain them, rendering anything like payment for education totally out of the question. I went on Sunday morning to the American Methodist Episcopal Church, where one of the missionaries delivered a very striking and original discourse appropriate to the season. Some of our party went to a church which shall be nameless, where the clergyman delivered no dis- course at all, but simply told a large congregation of high-bred British ladies and gentlemen not to get drunk at Christmas-time ! Lucknow, the City of E-oses, is quite a modern place — only one hundred years old — but has a population of nearly 300,000. It may be styled, like Washington, the city of magnificent distances, so widely spread are the European dwellings all around it. Its two chief charac- teristics are the number of gaudy, gingerbread-looking, painted stucco palaces and temples, the tawdry tinsel of which makes one feel quite angry (more particularly after seeing Agra), and the remarkable beauty of its public gardens and parks. I don't know any city so highly favored in this respect. The Wingfield Park is unsurpassed for the variety of its forest trees ; and noth- ing can exceed the loveliness of the flowers, the flower- ing shrubs, the walks and beds in the Eesidency, which has been left in ruins, just as it was when the mutineers marched out of it, after the rescue and retreat of that LUCKN-OW AKD CAWI^-PORE. 51 band of heroes whose exploits astonished the world. I have examined the ground with the greatest care ; have stood uncovered at Sir Henry Lawrence's grave ; have been twice in early morning to the neighboring gate of the city where General 'Neil was shot ; and to me it is simply inconceivable how the original six hundred could have held out for a day against sixty thousand assailants with upward of three hundred pieces of cannon. I have climbed to the top of one of the lofty minarets of the mosque adjoining the Imambarra Palace ; I have ascended to the top of the Martini^re College, on an eminence overlooking the city ; and how Sir Henry Havel ock, and then Sir Colin Campbell, managed, with a handful of men, first to relieve the Residency, and then to take the city by storm, passes my comprehen-" sion. No more striking instances exist in history of what British soldiers can do when led by competent men. The tale of the siege of Lucknow appeared to me a marvellous one at the time ; now that 1 have trod the ground, it seems something like a miracle, and one can- not help remarking what a fine, determined-looking body of men inhabit this capital of Oude. Its fantastic domes and minarets look far better in photographs than in the reality : just think of these yellow and pink colored arches of plaster and paint after the glorious Taj ! '' 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 1 get away from them as fast as possible, to wander among the poinsettia, bougainvilleas, hibiscus, and olean- 53 A WIKTER li^ IN^DIA. der of the gardens ; and the banians, peepuls, and tama- rinds of the park. The bazaars are extremely amusing. I find it impos- sible to describe them, but can only refer to an illustrated copy of *^ The Arabian Nights." A very interesting drive is to the Alumbagh, the scene of so much fighting in those terrible times. On our way we passed the camp of the commissariat ele- phants — a novel spectacle to a European. On the forenoon of the 27th December there was a gathering of the school-children of the American Mission in the Wingfield Park, for the distribution of Christmas prizes. It was addressed by the Rev. Mr. Johnson, from Shahjehanpore and the Rev. Mr. Parker from Moradabad, both of whom spoke with the utmost fluency in Hindostani, and seemed to rivet the attention of the audience ; and I was unexpectedly called upon to make a speech in the centre of India, just a month after I had landed on its shores. Then we lunched with Colonel Worseley, with whom I examined some of the expensive new barracks in process of erection ; and we heard the band of the Seventh Native Infantry play admirably in the Wingfield Park in the evening. The extraordinary sounds one hears at night outside these bungalows in the neighborhood of Indian towns are surprising. There are dogs and wild beasts of various descriptions, but louder than all, the yelling of the men who are hired to keep them off the compounds, and also to protect the houses against thieves. They mostly LUCKKOW Aiq-D CAWKPORE. 53 belong to predatory bands themselves, and in tbis manner levy a sort of blackmail on the inhabitants. ''There is no stillness in Indian life," said an officer's wife to me to-day. Her husband a few hours before had remarked, while we were plodding through the dust under a fiery, burning sun, '' This is our cold weather !" At dayhght on Wednesday morning, 28th December, we were galloping in gharries full speed to the railway station — why they should go at this furious pace, qiden sale ? The Oude and Kohilcund Kailway Company pro- vided us with the most spacious and well-constructed car- riage that 1 have seen in India, in which we travelled over a fertile and well-wooded plain back to Cawnpore. These Indian plains are endless, unbroken ; there is no undulation, or hillock, or mound of any kind to relieve their vast monotony. The train slackens its speed — a great viaduct is before us, and we get our first sight of the sacred Ganges. At this season it is not a very imposing river, but the wide expanse of sand shows what a mighty stream it must be after the rains. Sergeant Lee, a very remarkable man, now keeps the clean little railway hotel — a bungalow near the station. He went out to India in 18M ; has marched from Peshawur to Calcutta, twenty-two hundred miles, in four months ; was in nearly all the great battles in Scinde ; marched to the rehef of Lucknow and Cawnpore with Sir Henry Havelock and Lord Clyde ; although three times wounded, has enjoyed perfect health, without 54 , A WINTER Illf Iiq"DIA. ever being home, or even up to the hills ; is very well to do, and very thankful to God for his position and suc- cess in life. 1 write at the close of a memorable day, when, under his guidance, and listening to his vivid and naturally elo- quent descriptions, we have visited the scenes of the awful catastrophe — the three wells : first, that into which were thrown the bodies of those who died in Wheeler's intrenchment, and for which no cemetery could be found among the living ; the second, from which the beseiged could alone draw water, always at the peril of their lives, as it was commanded by the enemy's guns ; the third, into wliich were heaped the mutilated bodies of Nana Sahib's victims, which now stands in the midst of a most beautiful garden, and over which has been erected a memorial screen, and a statue by Baron Maro- chetti. We sat on the steps of the ghaut where the too- confiding ones embarked and were fired upon ; in- spected the monuments in the handsome Memorial Church ; and for four hours listened to descriptions of horrors almost too terrible for relation. It may be that the tale of the massacre, and what hap- pened afterward, may never be told. Things could be written about Sepoy barbarities in the next generation which could scarcely, having regard to the feehngs of sorrowing families, be committed to paper while any of the victims are alive ; and it may turn out that blowing from the guns was one of the mildest forms of retribu- tion practised by the British troops. LUCKNOW AKD CAWHPORE. 55 The Mohammedans in Cawnpore are wealthy and in- fluential ; they raised large sums of money for the Turks during the Russian war, and nearly all are Jingoes, although notoriously disaffected to British rule. CHAPTER YL ALLAHABAD AND BENARES. We left at mid -day for Allahabad, passing through the most fertile and best cultivated district we have seen in India — luxuriant crops, or their remains, of Indian corn, wheat, millet, pulse, and castor-oil, alternating with mango orchards and clumps of stately forest trees ; lovely birds, conspicuous among which were the blue- jay, the Sarus crane, and a kind of shrike with an orange breast, appearing in almost every field and grove. The day, as many of our days at this time were, was perfect, just like the finest in an English June ; but several things reminded us that we were not at home — for ex- ample, jackals looking at us from the edge of the maize plantations. At ^ye o'clock, wide roads, barracks, and other marks of a capital showed us that we were approaching Allaha- bad, *' the City of God," which the railways have made a place of great importance. It is situated at the junc- tion of the Ganges and the Jumna, and has a native pop- ulation of upward of a hundred thousand in addition to the Europeans, who muster strongly there, and whose bungalows, far apart, are separated from the crowded bazaars and streets of the city by the railway line. ALLAHABAD AKD BE]S"ARES. 57 There are in the British quarter of Allahabad no fewer than ninety-seven miles of fine avenues, shaded by trees and well watered ; and one morning I measured the breadth of a fair sample of them — Thornhill Road — and found it to be fifty-five paces. Chief-Justice Sir Robert Stuart and his lady were in the railway-station waiting for us, and 1 do not recollect in any part of tlie world having been treated with more overflowing hospitality. Some of us lived in his bunga- low, and he insisted upon the whole party dining there every day, where we met many of the leading residents, and altogether had what the Americans call * ' a right good time of it," military men, civilians, and journal- ists contributing to add to our stock of knowledge of Indian affairs. The day after our arrival Mr. Douglas Straight, who sat in the House of Commons with me for four years, and who is now one of the justices of the North-west Province, drove us to the picturesquely-situated fort at the confluence of the rivers, where thousands of devotees were washing in the sacred waters. We had a fine view from the ramparts, but the sun was very hot ; and we were glad to escape from it to inspect one of those case- mates where everything is kept in readiness, in the event of any attack being made upon one of the most impor- tant positions in India. In the evening Mr. Straight and other friends pro- vided myself and my daughters with horses, and we rode among the fashionables in Alfred Park. IS'ear that taste- 58 A WIKTER IN IlirDIA. fully laid out pleasure-ground is the Mayo Hall, from the top of whose tower I had a fine view of the city and neighborhood, and in which one evening there was a ball that I attended. The Muir College, in process of build- ing, named after a former respected and popular gov- -ernor of the province, is also near the park. 1 visited likewise the Christian village founded by Sir William and Lady Muir, between the European quarter and the Ganges ; and was shown over the church, school, and clean native houses by the pastor. Rev. Mr. Mohen, who speaks English very well, and was glad to see a party of strangers. The variety of costumes, vehicles, and wares, the cries, the curious groups of creatures clothed and un- clothed, the scenes which one beholds every moment in the streets and bazaars of Allahabad, are so totally dif- ferent from everything an untravelled Briton ever saw, or could imagine, that description would certainly be in vain. I get up every morning and walk in the Chief Jus- tice's garden, examining the fruits and flowers— what a magnificent display of roses ! — and rejoicing in the thought that an unclouded sun appears every day, and that no rains or storms can interfere with our plans of travel. There are no bells in Indian houses, nor do native servants wear shoes or stockings ; when anything is wanted, the master or mistress calls ^' Qui hai !" and instantly from some obscure corner an unnoticed menial noiselessly appears. ALLAHABAD AND BEWARES. 59 1 went on Sunday morning with Lady Stuart to ser- vice in the English church, which was extremely well conducted ; but the sermon— not by the minister himself — consisted of a dozen sentences, although it was IN^ew Year's day ; and surely something might have been said, of a solemn and impressive nature, suited to the occa- sion. Shortly after eight o'clock on the following morning we were again in our railway-carriage, and crossing the great bridge over the Jumna passed for a long distance through a rich and well- wooded country, where there were many fields of flax in addition to the usual crops. One is struck by the immense distances over which these railways are carried in absolutely straight lines, a curve being quite a novelty. To-day we have made the fastest run which we have yet had in this country — viz. , from Sirsia to Mirzapore : thirty-two miles in an hour. The gauge of most of the Indian railways is midway between that of the l^orth Western and the Great Western, or almost, if not exactly, the same as that originally laid down between Dundee and Arbroath. There are a good many miles of apoor, sandy country ; and, what is a novelty in these unbroken plains, a few hills before arriving at Mogul- Serai, which is the junc- tion for Benares, s^'lraated six miles off the main line. We were all disappointed with the first view of this place, the holy city of the Hindoos, whose two hundred thousand inhabitants are crammed into a very small space on a bluff on the left bank of the Ganges, and 60 A WINTER IK IJfDiA. whose beauties have been a good deal exaggerated both bj pen and pencil. Clark's Hotel, fully three miles from the railway station, is said to be the best in India ; and certainly its landlady — a native, and not even of high caste, although married to an Englishman — does everything in her power, and successfully, to make it so. The Maharajah of Benares sent two open carriages to the railway-station for. us, and placed them at our dis- posal during our residence. He is now simply a great nobleman, or zemindar, having an income of thirteen lacs (1,300,000) of rupees (rupee = 60 cents— $650,000) ; and as he was at his country house, some distance from the city, a gentleman of eminence, and much in his confidence, Mr. Shivpershad, called upon us, and offered his services. He. was brought up in the Education Department, and has lately had the honor of being elected a member of the Supreme Council of India ; speaks English not only fluently but elegantly ; ridicules the idea of any danger to this great country from Russia ; strongly deprecates the policy which culminated in the Afghan war, and maintains that the principal thing that India and its people ardently desire is peace. He took us first to visit the college, where there are one thousand students ; then to the Town Hall, the gift of a munificent native ; and afterward through the chief and very crowded street of the city to a temple inhabited by a vast number of monkeys. A great deal of money is spent in Benares, as rich people come from all parts of the Hindoo world, a few ALLAHABAD AHD BEliirARES. 61 years before they expect their end, in order to die in the holy city. The fluctuations of commerce and the intro- duction of railways have led in India, as in other countries, to many ups and downs in the fortunes of cities. Since Allahabad has become a great junction, Mirzapore, its once flourishing rival, has dwindled away ; but the sacred Benares will always hold its own as long as the Hindoo religion lasts. There are very few converts to Christianity in this part of Hindostan. '* Very, very slowly," said a mis- sionary of the London Society to me the other day, *' does the work go on ;" but then he showed me a high school, where he and one of his European colleagues, assisted by twenty-four natives, teach five hundred boys, imparting religious as well as secular instruction ; and he told me that not only is the number of pilgrims steadily falling off, but that their contributions for purposes of their faith have likewise so much declined that the punga, or principal priest of one of the temples, was lately obliged to mortgage the whole of its property in order to pay expenses. Some of our friends, it appears to me, attach far too much importance to making open and avowed converts to Christianity. They forget how many people there may be — ^women, for example — ^in this land who, if they changed their nominal religion would lose their caste, and their husbands too. May they not be excused for being Christians in secret, and thus not becoming charge- able to the funds of some society, which they certainlv 62 . A WINTER IN INDIA. otherwise would do ? The converts, no doubt, are few ; but the sapping and mining process is going on all the time. The civilians who oppose the missionaries, but who, in fact, know very little about them, admit this to be the case. There is among the masses a cessation of hostility to Christian instruction — completely in some parts of the country, and more or less so in all ; and although the attitude of the higher class of natives who have abandoned belief in Hindooism is not hopeful, as far as Christianity is concerned, the lower classes have not become Deists, like their betters ; and the known want of faith of the latter is beginning to be felt as an important factor in the feeling of the Indian peasantry toward the religion of their governors. There are said to be five thousand temples and three hundred and fifty mosques at Benares. One of the for- mer is tenanted solely by monkeys, which also swarm in the city generally, and their depredations are a serious source of loss to the inhabitants ; so much so, that the municipality recently offered a reward for catching them and taking them away to the jungle ; but in vain. The creatures confine themselves almost entirely to the roofs of the houses, decline to be made prisoners, and, as no Hindoo would kill or injure them, are masters of the situation. Heaven forbid that I should ever again enter the Grolden Temple and the various other sacred shrines in the centre of crowded Benares ; the filth and odors from wretched specimens of humanity, fakirs and beg- gars, sacred bulls and monkeys, being simply indescrib- ALLAHABAD AND BEIJfARES. 63 able ! Even the beautiful gold brocade-work in the bazaars would hardly tempt me to enter those pestiferous narrow lanes. Nothing can be more disappointing than the land side of this holy city. Sercole itself, which is the name of the European quarter, is much less inviting and pleasantly laid out than any of the other similar settlements which 1 have seen in the neighborhood of Indian cities ; but Benares from the river in early morning is another thing altogether— a scene, a sight, a kind of dream never to be forgotten. We drove in the Maharajah's carriages, attended by his intelligent secretary, to a temple at a point just above the town ; and there embarked in his highness's state barge, manned by a crew of twelve in scarlet liver- ies, an official with a gigantic silver stick receiving us at the gangway. Amidships the vessel was covered with a gorgeous canopy, and from the prow projected two ram- pant wooden horses. Thus luxunously did we drop down the sacred river for the whole length of the city, and nothing could exceed the picturesque effect produced by the rays of the just-risen sun upon its towers and domes and temples and palaces. The ghats, or long flights of stone steps from the houses and streets to the stream, were crowded with devotees of both sexes and all ages, in every stage of nudity, yet modest withal, who were bathing in its holy waters, and filling from it their brightly-burnished brazen vessels. The priests were tinkhng their cymbals of brass, and raising their voices 64 A WIInTTER IK INDIA. aloud in praise of their gods ; garments of the brightest hne glistened in the sun ; fakirs held aloft their hands in adoration ; and barges landed piles of wood, to burn the corpses laid on the banks ; while goats, cows, don- keys, monkeys, vultures, parroquets, and crows mingled freely with the devout multitude. The architecture of some of the houses belonging to native princes strikes one every now and then as singu- larly chaste and effective ; but adjacent mud hovels spoil the coup d^mil. Many of the ghats are tumbling down, and the holy river is inexpressibly dirty. Just below the rough, rickety bridge of boats is the commanding site of the old fort, where also stood the city of Kasi, founded 1600 B.C. They are about to begin a great railway- bridge over the Ganges at this spot. In the afternoon we witnessed another performance of jugglers, whose most remarkable trick was instigating a mongoose to kill a snake, whose head was reduced to pulp, but which, under the influence of their incantations, was restored to perfect health in a few minutes. Then they had scarcely gone when the veranda of the bungalow was covered with fruits and vegetables and native dishes presented to us by the Maharajah ; and in the evening we had a delightful drive through mango orchards, fields of barley in ear, springing wheat, beans, and vegetables of various kinds, to. the ruins of Sarnath, where Buddha himself once lived, and where he founded a religion even now professed by a great majority of the population of Asia. ALLAHABAD AKD BENARES. 65 There is a large business carried on in Benares in brass- work. Mrs. Clarkj of the hotel, employs sixty people ; and as scarcely any travellers require accommodation in India except in the cold season, the trade in brass is larger and more lucrative than that of keeping an inn. On Thursday we enjoyed a remarkable and truly Oriental excursion to the Maharajah's castle of Kamnug- gur, situated on a lofty bank several miles above and on the opposite side of the river from Benares, and com- manding a strikingly beautiful view of the city and its surroundings. First, we drove through gardens and fields of corn, then were carried in tangans — a sort of bath- chair, borne on poles by four coolies — to a sand-bank out in the stream, where the BaceJiorse barge was waiting to take us across to the picturesque stronghold, the battle- ments of which were manned by natives in all kinds of costumes and colors ; while on the banks were carriages and caparisoned elephants, and troops of servants wait- ing to do our bidding — the great man is said to have no fewer than three thousand retainers. He himself was at a distant country seat, but we were received by his nephew and heir, who showed us over the castle, intro- duced us to his little boy, who was learning English, let us see a performance by Nautch girls, and came, after we had lunched with friends in a pavilion in the beauti- ful gardens, to exhibit his horsemanship and his skill as a marksman by hitting with a rifie-ball a rupee thrown into the air — a feat which our entertainer, Mr. Ross, him- self one of the best shots in India, and a member of a 66 A WINTER INT ISTDIA. family celebrated for tlieir prowess in this respect, said he could not perform. Then there were snake-charm- ers and actors from the Deccan, who played on the plat- form of the immense tank adjoining the garden. We dropped down the river to the city at sunset in the barge, and in the evening attended a concert in aid of an asylum for widows, got up by Mr. Lambert, of the London Missionary Society, and patronized by all the officials. The jackals had a horrible chorus that night, and we were awakened at dawn by the trumpeting of elephants. CHAPTER YII. AT CALCUTTA. On the 6th of January, at mid-day, we joined the mail-train at Mogul-Serai Junction, and travelled over a vast, apparently interminable plain, well wooded and cultivated, fertile and irrigated ; crossed the Sone at four o'clock on a great viaduct ; halted fifteen minutes at the important military cantonment of Dinapoor ; passed the city of Patna ; at Mokameh had the best rail- way dinner we had tasted in India ; at dusk found our- selves between strangely -shaped and isolated hills, and had hardly time to rub our eyes and tie up our wraps in the morning when, punctual to the moment, at 5.40 the train drew up in Howrah Station, on the other side of the Hooghly from Calcutta. The Government House drag, with four horses and two postilions, and various servants of the Viceroy, were waiting for us, and we were very soon comfortably installed in much more spacious apartments than we had occupied for some time. 1 had a busy day, calling on merchants, missionaries, and other friends, and making various arrangements for our journey. On Sunday morning I attended divine service at 68 A WIIIirTER IK IKDIA. Union Chapel, in tlie Dhurumtollali, one of the most im- portant streets in Calcutta, and immediately afterward proceeded up the river in the Yiceroy's steam-launch Gemini, to lunch with Lord and Lady Kipon at Barrack- pore, where they generally spend Saturday and Sunday, in a villa situated in one of the most beautiful parks in all India. Opposite to it are the famous Baptist Mission premises of Serampore, identified with the names of Carey and Marshman, and where, being then Danish territory, the early preachers of Christianity took refuge, when expelled by the directors of the Company from British soil. It was a beautiful sail, the scenery on both banks being very varied, and the foliage strikingly green even in winter. There were peepul and tamarind and palm trees, picturesque-looking temples, great jute factories, with pretty villas attached ; boats of every sort and de- scription, many of them like Yenetian gondolas, passed up and down the stream ; and brilliant flowers from overhanging gardens added color to the landscape. The evergreenness of Indian trees is one of the most striking features of the country ; and I recollected when walking up the avenue of poinsettias and bamboos, which leads from the river-bank to the viceregal country seat, that 1 had not seen rain, and hardly clouds, since we were in Munich, more than two months ago. I was very glad to have a long conversation with the Marquis of Ripon, with whom I had been associated in the House of Commons in early life, and whose praises At CALCUTTA. 69 as a man and as a ruler I had heard with no surprise from persons of all political opinions and religious creeds wherever we had been during our Indian tour. I had expected, in consequence of the great change of policy since the Afghan war, to have found a good deal of difference of opinion with regard to Lord Ripon, but on the contrary there seemed to be none ; every one I met extolled his government, except an agent of some tea plantations, who knew as little about Indian politics as he did about the inhabitants of Jupiter. Calcutta is a wonderful place, containing about eight hundred thousand inhabitants, and the shipping of the Hooghly — vast steamers and sailing vessels from all parts of the world — gives one an exalted idea of its com- mercial importance. The Maidan, an immense open space larger than Hyde Park, immediately joins the river, and you have the unique sight of fashionable equipages dashing past within stone's- throw of Oceanic steamers. "We were a party of thirty at dinner at Government House on Monday evening, and I was happy to see Lord Kipon, after his recent severe illness, looking better than he has ever done in his life. On "Wednesday I had a very interesting excursion to the jute factory of Samnuggur, twenty-three miles up the river, where there are four thousand workpeople and four hundred and fifteen looms. Mr. Smith, the man- ager, took us up in his steam-launch, and we were accom- panied by Lord Lawrence, at present staying at Govern- TO A WIiq^TER IK IKDIA. ment House. We were extremely amused by the grin- mug countenances of the little boys employed : 1 never Raw anything as good in a pantomine. The Hindoos learn to work very quickly ; they will pick np as mnch ia a week or ten days a European will in six months, but are not very easily managed ; and some of the factories on the river have never been able to get a sufficient num- ber of hands, although the pay is excellent — two to three rupees ($1 to $1.50) a week, which in this country, especially when several members of the same family are employed, means affluence. Mr. Smith hospitably entertained us in his pretty bungalow on the river-bank, and we sat in the veranda afterward, watching the stream and the great jungle of bamboos opposite. There was a children's fancy ball at Government House in the evening, and a picturesque sight it was : two hundred seniors appearing in costume, in addition to the young people and those living in the mansion. l^ext morning 1 attended a meeting of the Legislative Council, in that famous chamber where so many resolu- tions for good and bad have been passed. Portraits of the various Viceroys hang on the walls, the evil counte- nance of Warren Hastings being the most conspicuous. Even in the dead of winter the heat of the business portion of Calcutta oppresses me. I feel wearied driv- ing in a gharry ; and the crowds in the streets, on the stairs, and in the offices themselves, seem as if they would run you over. The jackals are as noisy in the early part of the night round Goveimment House as we AT CALCUTTA. 71 have heard them anywhere else. They live in the clumps of palms in the garden, and like the innumerable kites are never destroyed, as they are nature's best scavengers. The streets of Calcutta are wider than those of most Indian cities, tramways are used exten- sively, very handsome new public offices are in course of construction in Dalhousie Square, and the stranger will be struck with the bustle and activity everywhere visible. I spent Friday morning with Major Baring, convers- ing principally on the financial condition of the country, and then inspected the very fine building occupied by the Bank of Bengal, where three hundred clerks are em- ployed. It appears to me that India is likely now to take a step in advance ; education, railways, newspapers, and other influences are lifting it up as it were, breaking down old prejudices, letting in the hght, and removing some of those causes which have hitherto had such a de- pressing effect on the population. The principal deside- ratum is a policy of peace, which will enable the Gov- ernment to provide out of surplus revenue — first for the relief of the miserable masses from such taxes as that on salt, which bears so heavily on the poor ; and then for the development of vast districts of the country, as yet neglected, by means of railroads and otherwisCj so as to increase production and avert famines. Such beneficial measures are out of the question if millions are to be thrown away on absolutely unnecessary and unjust fron- tier wars — wars which make enemies of proud neighbor- 72 A WINTER ISr INDIA. ing races, and wMch cost India infinitely more than the mere actual expenditure shown in the military accounts. It will be impossible largely to extend education, to open up communications, to provide the requisite irrigation, ^ or to do many other things absolutely necessary for the future well-being of the people, unless there is an end to this system of picking quarrels for which they have got to pay. The natives with whom I have conversed, Hindoo and Mohammedan as well, feel strongly on this point. The recent endeavors of the Government to stimulate private enterprise, especially in the construction of rail- roads, instead of making them itself, are theoretically, and from a politico-economic point of view, quite right ; but I doubt very much whether it will be possible, for a considerable time to come, to get much done in this way, unless the state is prepared to grant a guarantee, say, for a limited period of years ; and I should be surprised were the able and judicious men now at the head of affairs here to insist too strongly on Government refus- ing all aid. "With respect to taxation in general, we at home must never forget that great consideration should be paid to the prevailing sentiment among educated natives, al- though it may appear to us founded on erroneous prin- ciples. On this point let me quote a few words from the Indian Spectator^ a well-conducted newspaper pub- lished in Bombay : '^ One important fact seems often to be forgotten by our rulers : that the views, opinions. AT CALCUTTA. 73 and systems of free civilized countries of Europe, how- ever good from tlie point of European politics and Euro- pean economy, are not exactly or even approximately the views, opinions, and systems which ought to be cir- culated or enforced in a semi-civilized Asiatic country. It is needless at this time of the day to remind the authorities how vastly different are the political, social, and even economic conditions of this country from others. It has been more than once stated in these col- umns how dangerous it is to govern India on European principles." These cautions must be kept in mind in dealing with such matters as the tarijS, the opium revenue, and the income-tax. As far as I can learn, the question of the employment of natives in official life is making fair and satisfactory progress. I find no disposition whatever to discourage it on the part of those in power. One difficulty stand- ing in the way of its more rapid extension is, that most of the better-educated classes among them are zemin- dars, or rich land, proprietors, whose interests are consid- ered by the masses of the cultivators to be antagonistic to their own ; so much so indeed that the latter are accus- tomed to look in preference to Europeans for justice. CHAPTER VIII. THE TEA-PLANTATIONS, DARJEELING. There is an excellent custom at Government House, in Calcutta, of presenting each person living in the house with a printed list of the guests to be present at the dinner parties, so that you know whom you are to meet ; and I thought that this might be very well imi- tated at some of the London entertainments. We left for an excursion in the Himalayas on Satur- day, 7th January, and were driven to the Sealdah Rail- way Station in the viceregal chariot with the postilions. The scenery for many miles was more Oriental, as far as foliage was concerned, than any we had yet seen in India : dense jungle of bamboo alternating with gardens of palms, bananas, and mangoes, with occasional patches of wheat and tobacco ; then came wide plains, with im- mense numbers of cattle and buffaloes feeding on almost invisible stubble ; rows of fine tamarind-trees ; pictu- resque houses of bamboo and mats, like representations of scenes in Borneo. At dark we reached the Ganges, crossing it in a steamer and dining on board. I made myself comfortable for the night soon after entering the narrow-gauge railway on the other side, fell asleep shortly after nine o'clock, and was astonished THE TEA-PLANTATIOI^S, DABJEELIITG. ?5 when a man shouted in my ear at 6 a.m., '* J^ext station Silignri." Here we breakfasted, and took our seats in perhaps the most extraordinary and toy-like tram rail- road which exists on the face of the earth. An Ameri- can said of it the other day to a friend of mine : "I guess I have seen a good many queer things in the shape of railroads in my country, but this is the cheekiest little concern that ever I came across." The rails are two feet apart ; the carriages are like low tram-cars ; and so steep is the gradient — often one in seventeen — that little boys, seated on the engine, jump off at places where the sun has not melted the dew, to put sand on the rails, the tiny engine meantime puffing and blowing until the wheels can get a grip. At one place there is an actual loop, the train passing over a bridge which it had passed under a few minutes before. I am one of those unfortunate - people who become easily giddy looking down from great heights, and my friends had prepared me for a terrible experience on this line ; but except at four at five unprotected curves close to Darjeeling, it was not nearly so bad as I had expected it would be. In many of the most dangerous places there is a substantial parapet, and trees and shrubs cover the sides of the steep hills, so that you are not sensible of the sheer precipice. The views from time to time over mountains, hills, and valleys strike one with wonder ; and we had not left Siliguri Station more than ten minutes when the white peak of Kinchin] unga appeared over the lofty 70 A WINTER m IKDIA. neighboring mountains like an aerial sentinel. Passing between tea-gardens, with their white, myrtle- like flow- ers, and by many cotton-trees, the striking red blossom of which yields a coarse material which the natives use, we soon reached real jungle, and now remarked the wonderful change which has come over the features of the people — we seemed all at once to have got among Kalmucks. It would amuse a London-and-North-"Western man to see the miserable hut which serves as the first station- house on the Darjeeling-Himalaya line. At this point it begins rapidly to ascend through a forest of exceeding beauty, many of the trees being very lofty, some of them having a canopy of flowers, a,nd others covered with creepers of strange and weird -like shapes. There is a cart-track alongside the train-line, and every now and then you come upon stations to permit of convey- ances passing each other, like those on the Suez Canal. There are a good many villages and shanties for the workmen who are employed in great numbers in repair- ing and altering the line. Occasionally you steam through a crowded bazaar, and the curves well merit the American's description. Khersiong, surrounded on all hands by tea-gardens, is a bustling place ; and we found the bazaars crowded by men, women, and children of all the multifarious races which inhabit this part of Central Asia. The main street is only a few feet wide ; but the steam-car puffs along the centre of it ; and it would be difficult for a THE TEA-PLANTATIOKS, DARJEELING, 77 person who lias never been out of Europe to imagine the scene at the market-place when we started after break- fast. ^epaul, Thibet, Sikkim, and Bhotan were all within sight from points on these lofty elevations ; and hun- dreds of the races which dwell there are to be found em • ployed on the railway, or on those great plantations of tea which are accomplishing almost a revolution in this remote portion of British territory. Our engine had to stop several times, in consequence of bad coal, and it was nearly six o'clock in the evening when we arrived at Meadow Bank, one of Mr. Doyle's hotel-bungalows, which he had opened expressly for our large party, it having been shut for the cold months, as that was not the season in Darjeeling. Unfortunately the weather had become cloudy at mid-day, and we arrived in a kind of mist, auguring ill for a sight of the snowy ranges on the morrow. We were up, however, betimes. At 6 a.m. the au- thorities pronounced the expedition to the hill from which the view is best seen undesirable ; but at 7 o'clock there was a lift in the rolling clouds, the ponies were at the door, and I resolved to ride at least as far as the cantonment of Jellahbahar ; the commandant of which. Colonel Koberts, had kindly come down the evening before and offered to accompany us in the morn- ing. About half way up the acclivity which leads to his station I turned round on my saddle, and there, far up in the heavens, dense masses of clouds below them, were 78 A WINTER IK INDIA. the Himalayan peaks, which 1 had so often longed to see. There was a time of comparative darkness again when we stopped at the Colonel's bnngalow ; but he, who had been asked to take care of ns by Lieutenant- Colonel Kinloch, Younger, of Logic, and who showed us/ every attention during our stay at Darjeeling, was cheery and willing to do anything we wanted, and did not dis- courage my determination to go on at all hazards. So we descended to the tram-line at the first station, and then put our horses to face the steep path which con- ducts to the top of Senchal, 8163 feet high, on which appeared conspicuously many lofty chimneys of deserted barracks, looking like ancient monuments. The bar- racks were condemned by the Public Works — or, as they call it in India, the Public Waste — Department, because the chimneys were unsafe, and they alone remain to tell the tale. This is the highest point which travellers usually reach ; but the Colonel shook his head when I asked if you really saw from it Mount Everest, the loftiest moun- tain in the world. ^' Tiger Hill," he said, '^is the place," pointing to a wooded eminence three hundred and fifty feet higher. '' Then up we go," I replied, and in a very short time we were at the cairn on its summit, in the presence of a prospect which I confess fairly took away my breath. Nothing that I had ever seen made me feel such a sense of awe. The clouds had passed away from that amazing Kinchinjunga group, and there stood revealed, THE TEA-PLANTATION-S, DARJEELIl^G. 79 apparently quite near, but really forty-five miles off, the stupendous mountain, 28,156 feet high. On its right, looking toward us, first Kabru, 24,015, and then the sloping peak of Junnu, 25,311. On the other side of the towering giant rose Pandim, 22,017, l^arsing, 19,146, and the loveliest of all, a sugar-loaf of dazzling unbroken whiteness, 22,581, for which the surveyors have not yet found a name, but which appears on the maps as " D. 2." We stood there for an hour rapt in admiration. Never before had I seen such a sublime prospect, and never can I hope to see such a one again. There are many views of the Alps, especially of the Ber- nese Oberland, which are more beautiful, perhaps more varied, but in point of immensity they are not for a moment to be compared to this. We were standing on- the top of a hill twice the height of Ben Kevis, and facing a mountain seven times higher than the highest in Scotland. There was something almost unearthly about it ; I felt a kind of creeping coldness, and could hardly persuade myself that these towers and pinnacles were part of the earth on which we dwell. Then far away in the east were more vast mountains, capped by Donkia, 23,187, the highest peak in Bhotan ; and in the other direction the clouds kindly favored us by lifting two or three times, and giving us glimpses of the summit of Mount Everest, one hundred and thirty miles off. It was a day in my life never to be forgotten ; the farthest point in our journey, the accomplishment of a desire long secretly cherished. 1 had seen the highest of the 80 A WINTER IN INDIA. Himalayas in all tlieir grandeur, and I knew that there was no prospect in the universe so magnificent as that of Kinchinjunga's snowy range from the point on which I stood. There was hoar-frost every morning during our stay at Darjeeling, and although the sun was powerful at mid-day, we required all our warm clothing and wraps. The scenery on the mountain-sides a good deal resembles that at Men tone and Monte Generoso, but on a far more stupendous scale — that is, the declivities are four or five times higher, while the lofty trees unknown to Europe, and graceful bamboos, constantly remind you that you are in Asia. At almost every turn you find houses and branches of trees covered with httle flags of white and red paper and calico ; these are Buddhist prayers, and the inscription on one and all of them is the same — four words of doubtful interpretation being repeated over and over again. I thought how striking an illustration this was of the words, '^ Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do." We visited a celebrated Buddhist temple, and saw the circular praying-machines at work ; it was but a better kind of hut after all, considerably adorned, and not so dirty as the Hindoo temples. Then we walked round the summit of the hill on which most of the bungalows stand, under great banks of foliage — magnificent tree- ferns in hundreds — and were struck with the number of tall stately trees which had creepers almost to the top ; the great pothos parasite, several specimens of which we THE TBA.-PLANTATIONS, DARJEELING. 81, saw, never fails to kill its victim in the end. Rounding the western extremity of the hill, we obtained the best view of the settlement from what is called Edgar's j'olly — why, I really don't know, because there is no point from which you could command so well the whole of Darjeeling. There are no roads for driving in this hill station ; you must ride on a pony, or be carried on a dandy — a kind of couch on poles. The people here complain very much of the Chinese resident ministers at the various courts in Central Asia using their influence, and successfully, to keep the trade of all these countries in the hands of their own nation, and to prevent any extension of commerce with British India. Every one seems to have an interest of some kind or another in those tea plantations which are rapidly cover- ing the hillsides of that portion of Sikkim belonging to US. The following is a true story, and makes one's mouth water. A certain doctor, about to retire from the service, was tempted in an unguarded moment to offer £2000 ($9680) for a plantation, when times were at their very worst. Hardly had the auctioneer knocked it down to him when he became terrified at his own audacity ; and greatly was he relieved when a general officer stand- ing by offered to go halves with him. That estate now pays £10,000 ($48,400) a year clear profit, and the worthy pair are living at home in luxury. I have been reading Sir Joseph Hooker's '' Himalayan Journals," where he gives a most vivid description of Darjeehng and its neighborhood, and in which, long 82 A WINTER IN INDIA. "before the days of the railroad, or the discovery of Mount Everest, he prophesied the great future which every one now sees is certainly before it. This interest- ing book is now out of print, and a new edition urgently required. All the carrying work in the place is done by coolies, and one is distressed to see very small children literally groaning under heavy loads of stones. You remark the great variety of races inhabiting the place : Lepchas, the aborigines of Sikkim, who believe in spirits good and bad, but celebrate no religious rites ; Limboos, who are Buddhists ; Moormis, grave, powerful men, originally from Thibet. The gold and silver ornaments worn by nearly all of them cannot fail to strike the stranger. One morning five of us on ponies rode down to the Ging tea plantation, twenty- five hundred feet below Darjeeling, to visit Mr. Durnford who manages it, and who is a friend of my friend, Lady Crossley. The tea- plant is rather a pretty evergreen, resembling the myrtle or sweet bay more than any other shrub we have at home. It is not allowed to grow more than a foot and a half high. It was pruning season, and we could dis- tinctly smell the tea aroma as we passed the gangs of Nepaulese workmen plying their knives. During De- cember, January, and February they weed the ground and prune the plants. The leaves are picked in the nine remaining months : those on the very top, more like little stems than leaves, constituting the Pekoe, those immediately below them the Souchong-pekoe, and those THE TEA-PLANTATIONS, DARJEELING. 83 nearer the centre of the bush the Souchong of com- merce. They are all heated, rolled — first by machinery and secondly by hand — and then dried together, and afterward passed through wires which separate the three qualities just mentioned. Then all imperfections are picked out by women, after which the tea is packed in 80-lb. boxes made of toon- wood, from Independent Sik- kim, and carried up to Darjeeling by coolies, to be trans- mitted by railroad. The wages paid are good : 6r. 8a. (ru- pee = 60 cents ; anna = l^d. sterling = 3 cents — $2.Y4) for men, 4r. 8a. ($2.24) for women, and 3r. for children, per week. They are housed but not fed by the proprie- tors, who, however, generally give them plots of land on which to raise Indian corn, on which, and on rice, they subsist. The plants require no irrigation, as sufficient rain falls during the rainy season to nourish them. Their only enemy is the red spider, which has lately at- tacked them just as the phylloxera has done the vines in France. The new gardens are all adopting a hybrid between the Assam and the China plant, the former giv- ing strength, the latter flavor. Mr. Durnford gave us at luncheon the only good curry I have tasted in India. There were peals of thunder in the mountains as we rode up the hill, and at last once more in the evening we heard the sound of rain. '^ The clear shining after rain." I believed in that, consequently rose very early in the morning, and arrived at the point of view just as the first rays of the sun gilded the peak of Kinchin- junga. One after another, in proportion to their height, 84 A WHITER IK IN^DIA. the other summits were lighted up till, by and by, the whole mighty range of the eastern Himalayas for two himdred miles stood revealed in unclonded splendor. The prospect is engraved in my mind forever. A great treat was awaiting us this morning. Mr. Prestage, the managing-director of the tram-line, had arranged that we should be ' ^ troUied ' ' down the moun- tains instead of going in the train ; so at Ghoom station, which is liigher than Darjeeling, and from which to the plain there is a continuous descent, we found two little tram-cars fastened together, and Mr. Walker, one of the officials — a Scotchman, of course — who managed the brakes, and took us down in the most skilful manner, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, stopping an hour for breakfast at the charming little Clarendon Hotel at Khersiong, from which we had our last look of the gigantic Kinchinjunga. The motion of the trollies was the most delightful I ever experienced in travelling, and without the locomotive you see the scenery far better. Its grandeur and variety struck us more than when going up. , At Siliguri station I saw a considerable quantity of very superior jute, which had been brought on ox-carts for forty miles. "W"e found here waiting us an excellent dinner, and three large sleeping-carriages for our night journey on the Northern Bengal Railway. The East Indian Company refused to give ua any facilities what- ever, but the managers of all the other railroads were ex- ceedingly polite, and their liberality will certainly be an encouragement to travellers. CHAPTER IX. CALCUTTA, ITS BUILDINGS, TRADE, AND LIFE. The comparative cleanliness of the masses in India strikes me very forcibly. They are far superior in this respect to the inhabitants of Southern Europe, and their villages contrast most advantageously with those in Egypt and Syria. You find them performing their ablu- tions, with remarkable delicacy and propriety too, at every pond and brook ; and, excepting at Benares, we have seen or smelt very little to offend. The station-master at Siliguri told me that the fame of our large party — the only family one which ever travelled for pleasure in India — had for weeks preceded us, and that a native magistrate who had heard of, but had not believed in our numbers, had ridden eight miles to verify the report with his own eyes. The great difiiculty which all employers of European labor on railways, tea plantations, in mills, and elsewhere, have to contend against is the frequency with which even their most skilled and best servants get drunk. Perhaps they do it to drown care, or from weakness, or disap- pointment ; but the fact remains, and it is a serious draw- back to national progress. I find myself often thinking that, after all, India is a kind of banishment. No doubt 86 A WINTER IN" INDIA. salaries and wages are high ; it may be, in a good many- instances, too high. Certainly, people there can drive their carriages and enjoy many luxuries which could not be afforded at home ; and we have met not a few cheer- ful souls who declare that life here is much preferable to life in England ; but the general impression is the other way. Many little things make it stronger in my mind every week, and I feel less inclined than ever to think that Europeans of all classes employed in India, either in the public or private service, ought to be grudged their little luxuries. Just after day-dawn we reached the Ganges, two and a half miles broad, very shallow at the present season, and crossed it in the tidy, American-looking steamer Vampire. What a multitude of birds we saw that fore- noon — vultures, kites, herons, cranes, kingfishers, minas, pheasants, pigeons, bee-eaters, and countless others, the names of which I do not know, of varied and beautiful plumage, frequenting land and water. On many fields red capsicums were spread out to dry in the sun. In this part of Bengal you do not find that abject poverty which is so noticeable in other provinces of India. The houses of the poor are better, and they themselves seem better fed and clothed. Between 12 and 1 we were in the Sealdah station, and this time went to the Great Eastern Hotel, a noisy, roughish place, but the best in Calcutta, where we re- mained for three days, preparatory to taking possession of 12 Elysium Row, which a fellow-passenger from Eng- CALCUTTA, ITS BUILDINGS, TRADE, AND LIFE. 87 land, Mr, Mackinnon, of the great shipping firm of Mac- kinnon, Mackenzie & Co., had with remarkable kindness placed at our disposal, for the celebration of a certain romantic marriage. What a remarkable place this Calcutta is ! The crowds, blocks, ox-carts, running coolies, dust and heat, in the busiest portion of it, overpower me. I observe in the weekly shipping list in the Indian Daily News for 22d January, that there are no fewer than twenty-two large ocean-going steamers and seventy-eight sailing- ships from foreign ports lying in the river. Few people know that £30,000,000 sterling ($145,200,000) worth of goods are annually exported from Great Britain to India ; that of the annual £75,000,000 ($363,000,000) worth of cotton goods exported, £21,000,000 ($101,640,000) worth go to India, and that its foreign trade now amounts to very nearly £125,000,000 ($605,000,000). AVe spent Saturday afternoon with Mr. Heriot, son of the late respected Sheriff of Forfarshire, who manages Howrah Jute Mills, on the other side of the river, and were glad to hear from him, and from Mr. Thom, of the Barnagore "Works, where 5000 people are employed, that there is no Sun day-work in any of these miUs ; and that, taking relays and other things into consideration, the people do not labor more than ten and a half hours a day. I was glad to hear the Rev. Mr. Gillan, of the Estab- lished Church of Scotland, preach in Union Chapel on Sunday morning. 88 A WIKTER Iiq- liyTDIA. On Monday morning I went with Mr. Payne, of tlie London Missionary Society, to see the idol-worship at Kahghat — the landing-place of Kali, from which Cal- cutta derives its name. It is now a suburb, situated on a branch of the Hooghly more sacred than the river itself, contains the holiest shrine in Bengal, and is as dirty as it is holy. There I found hundreds of poor bleating kids, with their legs cruelly tied together, which they first immerse in the sacred stream and then sacrifice before a hideous image of Kali, which was ex- posed for my inspection at the request of Mr. Payne, who is much beloved, notwithstanding his constant preaching of Christianity, by these poor people, and has so much influence with them that he induced a priest for one rupee to give me his upper garment, on which are written all the names of the Hindoo divinities. There also I beheld abominations, which cannot be recorded, confirmatory of the worst accounts given of iniquitous idolatry. My next visit was to a very different place, not far off from the first, where YOO young men are receiving a gen- eral and Christian education of a very high order from the missionaries of the London Society. I examined one class, who in a few months were to matriculate for the university, and found them read and answer well. It is impossible that the teaching in these institutions should not produce a signal and widespread effect by and by. Since the foregoing sentence was written, I have had an opportunity of visiting the educational institutions CALCUTTA, ITS BUILDII^GS, TRADE, AKD LIFE. 89 coniiected witli the Established Churcli and the Free Church of Scotland, and also an exceedingly well-con- ducted Christian girls' school in a very poor locality, over which Mrs. Macdonald presides. Mr. Hastie, the principal of the General Assembly's scholastic establish- ment, was kind enough to conduct me through it ; and I was glad to see the various classes of perhaps the most flourishing seminary of the kind in all India. There are YOG boys at the school and 500 students in the college, which, with 200 scholars outside and 600 girls in a sepa- rate building, make no fewer than 2000 young people enjoying the advantage of an excellent education in Cal- cutta in connection with this church alone. Twenty- one youths out of the above number took the degree of B. A. at the last examination. The Free Church Mission had gone back a little ; but no one doubts that under its new head, Mr. Robertson, it will soon add to its present num- ber of 760. The Rev. Mr. Gillan, Presbyterian chaplain, and the Rev. Mr. Milne, Free Church clergyman, were good enough to accompany me, and I was interested to see the house where Dr. Duff so long lived and labored. I have now driven a great deal through Calcutta and its vicinity — which, by the way, is no joke, for the drivers, both of hackney carriages and of private vehi- cles, seem the worst in the world, and several accidents have taken place during our residence, two of them to friends of my own — and am much impressed with the magnitude of the place : the distances remind one of London. On the east of the Maidan are those spacious 90 A WINTER IN- IlfDIA. and often splendid bungalows from which it derives its name of the City of Palaces ; but even close to them are little villages of native huts- — one might almost call them wigwams ; and although there are a considerable number of fine buildings, colleges, hospitals, Mohamme- dan seminaries, and lofty residences of rich Baboos scat- tered throughout the native portion of the city, the streets present a mean appearance, and must impress a stranger fresh from Europe very unfavorably. One evening we attended in Government House an investiture, first of the Star of India, and afterward of the Indian Empire, at the close of which Lady Ripon had a reception. More than a thousand people were present, and the majority of the native dignitaries were gorgeously attired, some of them displaying an almost fabulous amount of jewelry. All classes in Hindostan are exceedingly extravagant, especially in the matter of ornament. Poor people will ruin themselves for life on the occasion of a marriage by borrowing, for the purpose of display. Many folks have their whole fortune invest- ed in precious stones. The custom of Europeans is reckoned of little account in large towns, in comparison with that of rich natives, by jewellers and venders of articles of luxury. One rajah spent lately, in Calcutta, in two months, £360,000 ($1,742,400). It has been represented to me by men on whose judg- ment I rely, that British officers in India are required to do far too nmcli clerk and office work ; much time being occupied in drawing up comparatively useless returns, CAIfCUTTA, ITS BUILDIJ^GS, TRADE, AND LIFE. 91 which might be more profitably employed in purely military duties. Several of them likewise complain to me of the extravagance of the Government in building so many new barracks of expensive kiln-dried bricks, with roofs of teak and other useless decorations, while in their opinion, the old buildings, of the same material as the bungalows, confessedly immensely cheaper, are in many respects also better. They knew that many of the latter had been condemned by the Sanitary Department ; but there are some facts and circumstances connected with this question which may necessitate a further in- quiry. An amusing anecdote in relation to this controversy was told to me. A distinguished Englishman travelling in the north-west thought he ought not to be contented with the testimony of officers, so he got up very early one morning and addressed a private soldier. " That is a very fine new barrack you inhabit." " Don't like it at all,' ' was the reply. " But why ?" he rejoined ; '' it has two stories, is exceedingly well built and arranged, and gets all the air that is going in this hot climate." ''Can't bear it, notwithstanding," said the private. "That is curious," remarked the inquisitive stranger; '^ please tell me your reason." The man flatly refused for a long time ; but at last, yielding to entreaty, roared out, " If you must know, I hate it because, when I gets drunk I can't get up the d stairs." There is a somewhat delicate point which I do not like altogether to pass over, because excellent officers 92 A WINTER 1^ INDIA. think it of some importance. Once a jear tlie troops are called out to cheer for the Empress of India ; and the native soldiers complain that while their European com- rades are paid for doing so, they are not. Surely this is an invidious distinction. Might not the payment be done away with ? Or, better still, the whole ceremony dispensed with altogether ? On Friday the Rev. Mr. Johnson, of the London Mis- sionary Society, asked a large number of native Chris- tians to meet me at an evening party, when several speeches were made, and 1 addressed the audience, con- sisting of about one hundred, belonging to all sections of Protestants, and constituting really a Holy Catholic Church. We must keep in mind that at the great educational institutions which I have been visiting there are few or no idlers. Only those who are anxious to learn attend, and their principal ambition is to get a good English education. This makes the task of the teachers compar- atively easy. CHAPTER X. INDIA MADRAS — COONOOK. The weather is now getting decidedly warm — warmer than usual, people tell me. On Saturday I did little but arrange for our departure, and go down in a steam- launch to the Botanical Gardens, where we drank the water from unripe cocoanuts under the shade of the celebrated banian-tree. A last drive on the Maidan, and our party separated for a fortnight. I was one of those who slept on board the P. and O. steamer Brin- disi at Garden Reach, which at daybreak dropped down the river, bound for Madras. Slept^ indeed — ^the mos- quitoes took good care to prevent that ! They attacked us with a ferocity unheard of. Although the banks of the Hooghly below Calcutta are flat, it is, nevertheless, a pretty sail. Yessels of all sizes and shapes, factories and plantations, give one con- stantly something to look at. At a point called, in vul- gar parlance, the James and Mary, two large rivers flow into it, and the place reminded me much of various reaches on the Mississippi. Our pilot is a big man ; gets about £2000 ($9680) per annum ; and we were all greatly disappointed when, at mid-day, a little below 94 A WINTER IN INDIA. Diamond Harbor, at Kalkee, lie anchored for the night ! And such a night ! I tried the music-room, the saloon, the deck — all in vain. Myriads of mosquitoes followed, flew at, fastened on me in that damp, washing-house-like atmosphere, made my face and hands hideous, and ren- dered sleep a mockery. At 2.30 A.M. Captain Lee (I wish all commanders of mail -steamers were as courteous and jolly, as well as omnipresent and attentive to their duties) and I met on deck in the fog ; and it was a kind of cold comfort to find him as miserable as I was. At 8 a.m. the mist was still dense ; and although only fifty-three miles from Calcutta, we had a close shave in getting off at all. Another half -hour's darkness would have detained us on that horrible bar for twenty-four hours more ; but just as we sat down to breakfast the sun faintly appeared, the anchor was taken up, we pushed into a bank of fog, and emerged on the other side in a clear atmosphere, and proceeded at full speed down the great river, passing the outer light-ship at 3.30. There is good pig-sticking on the right and tiger- shooting on the left bank of this Ganges mouth. The BrindiHi is a fine ship, only thirteen months old, not very fast — what P. and O. vessel is ? their Indian contract is a premium to slowness — but comfortable ; 3500 tons burden ; fitted with electric bells ; steam steer- ing gear, etc.; and, as '^ like master like man," all are civil and obliging on board. How delicious is this Indian Ocean ! The air is heavenly ! At noon on the IN^DIA — MADRAS — COOKOOR. 95 last day of January we had run 270 miles in twenty- four hours, and were 422 miles from Madras. I have been reading on the hurricane-deck all the forenoon Mr. Bose's book, *^ The Hindoos as They Are," and am much interested in his testimony to the great change going on. Here are a few sentences, corrobora- tive, I humbly think, of the impressions recorded from time to time in these notes : *' The Hindoo schoolboy may be said from the day he entered a public school to enter on the first stage of his intellectual disin- tegration. The books that are put into his hands gradually open his eyes and expand his intellect ; he learns to discern what is right and what is wrong ; he reasons within himself and finds that what he had learned at home was not true, and is led by de- grees to renounce his old ideas." *' The progress of education has opened a new era in the social institutions of the country, and an enlightened proletariat is now- . adays more esteemed than an empty-titled Dullaputty." *' Morally, socially, and intellectually, the enlightened Bengalees are assuredly the Athenians of Hindostan. Their growing intel- ligence and refined taste — the outcome of English education — have imbued them with a healthier ideal of moral excellence than any other section of the Indian population." *' As English schools and colleges are multiplying in every nook and corner of the empire, more liberal ideas and principles are being imbibed by the Hindoo youths, which bid fair in process of time to exercise a regenierating influence on the habits of the people. Idolatry, and its necessary concomitant, priestcraft, is fast losing its hold on their minds." * ' The gigantic strides that English education has made in India within a short time have been the wonder of the age, the founda- tion-rock of her ultimate emancipation, socially, morally, and in- tellectually." " Some fifty or sixty years back, when English educatioji could scarcely be said to have commenced the work of reformation, or rather disintegration . . ." 96 A WIN^TER IN- IIS-DIA. " It is worthy of remark that though the distinction of caste still exerts its influence on all the important concerns of our social and domestic life, it is nevertheless fast losing its prestige in the estimation of the enlightened Hindoos." *' When Hindoo society is being profoundly convulsed by heterodox opinions . . ." The other side of the picture is, that the native intel- lect, quick in early years, stops developing very soon ; and few attempt anything more after acquiring sufficient English and general information to insure them employ- ment. The medical schools, they tell me, are becoming a rapidly-increasing educational power. The 1st of Februaiy has come, and with it great heat. At noon we were in latitude 14° 48', longitude 82° 19' ; and, having run 2Y2 miles, were only 150 miles from Madras, and consequently had to slacken speed, as we could not go in before daylight. There is a decided swell, but no air, far less wind. We have a number of coolies in the forecastle, returning from Demerara. Some of them have been twenty years there. I rose at 5.30 on Thursday morning, and saw the revolving light at Madras harbor. By and by the mist rolled away, the sun rose, and a long line of white houses, a shattered breakwater, and many ships at anchor showed us that our voyage was terminated. Then what a row the naked crews of the shore-boats made : greater, I think, than I had ever witnessed, even in the Levant. Catamarans, constructed merely of three logs tied to- gether, were paddled round the ship when the anchor went down, and in a few moments the deck was crowded II^DIA — MADRAS — COOI^OOR. 97 by porters and boatmen scrambling for custom. An A.D.C. from Government House delivered us from these Philistines ; and after a drive of eight miles in the delicious morning air, we were welcomed at Guindj Park House by my distinguished friend Mr. Grant Duff, whose cultivated intellect, large official experience, love of work, and knowledge of India cannot fail to be of essential service to the inhabitants of the Presidency. Madras is not a town, but a population of 400,000 scattered over twenty-seven miles. Its palatial build- ings, wide avenues, and open spaces surprise me. It has quite the air of a capital ; and trees as well as costumes remind us that we are a good deal nearer the equator. Guindy Park is five miles in circumference ; and we look over its spreading trees to rounded and peaked hills in the distance — a refreshing prospect after the dull monotony of North India's plains. There are cobras within the compound ; and only last week they killed, close to the house, a Kussell viper — the most poisonous of all snakes. The beauty and variety of the gardens here are celebrated. The bread-fruit, cocoanut, palms, jack-fruit, and many other striking forest trees, plants, and flowers interest me much. The park is full of deer, and also of jackals. We drove about until we could no longer see on the evening of our arrival ; and there was a large dinner- party, attended, among others, by the Maharajah of Tra- vancore ; and a number of Hindoo and Mohammedan 98 A WINTER IN" IKDIA. gentlemen came afterward, when the lawn and terrace were illuminated — a verj pretty sight. Next morning early Mr. Grant Duff and I drove to St. Thomas's Mount, the artillery cantonment ; and after breakfast I went into Madras, called on Messrs. Arbuth- not & Co., and from the top of their offices had a very commanding view of the native quarter, called Black- town, the fort, port, and shipping. Before sundown we had a long drive through paddy-fields and dense masses of palms, paid a visit to the Botanical Gardens — where there is much that is curious and interesting — to Govern- ment House, near the sea, and to the stables at Guindy. Nearly all the carriage-horses in India — Walers as they are called — come from Australia. It is now very hot ^ and although occasionally the sea-breeze comes up, I begin to wish for a cooler atmosphere. On Saturday evening we drove to the artillery parade- ground, at the foot of St. Thomas's Mount, where a large company of Europeans and natives had assembled to witness athletic sports, and a very lively and pictu- resque sight it was. The horse artillery, driving through gates and over hurdles, reflected the greatest credit on the batteries. Then we had a dinner-party of forty -four, a ball, and another illumination in the evening : our last in Madras. I would rather live in Guindy Park than in any other house which I have seen in India. On Sunday I was really afraid to go to church, so powerful were the sun's rays. We left at 6 p.m. in the mail-train for the hills. The station at Madras is a very Iiq-DIA — MADRAS— -COONOOR. 99 imposing one of red brick, with a lofty tower, perhaps the most conspicuous object in the place. Nothing could exceed the kindness we experienced at the hands of the officials in reserving carriages for us, keeping them wait- ing where we stopped, and showing an example to their brethren of the East Indian. We all slept well, as there was less motion than on any line by which we have trav- elled in the country. They have adopted an excellent plan of selling dinner and breakfast tickets when you pay your fare ; they thus know and can wire how many are to be provided for, and have likewise a protection against dishonest '^butlers," as they call them at the refreshment -rooms. We dined at Arconum, and when I awoke we were passing through a very rich country with luxuriant crops, although the cultivation seemed of an exceedingly prim- itive description. Many women were working in the fields. By and by ranges of peaked hills came in sight, and we stopped for breakfast at Poothanoor, where a branch to the hills joins the Bey poor main line. The viands were poor, and the waiting was simply scandalous. Most of us had to help ourselves. Just before Coimbatoor station there is a view of re- markable beauty — a lake or ' ^ tank' ' in the foreground, palms beyond, and behind rugged, jagged peaks of infi- nite variety. Strange and picturesque indeed was the whole scene — the gay colors of the peasants' scanty gar- ments, the thick aloe hedges — everything so different from Northern India. There are quantities of the 100 A WIN'TER IN INDIA. prickly pear here, many plantations of the graceful castor-oil plant, rice, grain, beans, tobacco, and cotton, with rows of fine forest trees. Then the line descends throngh a waste-land region into a kind of basin, and terminates at Matipolliam, where we were transferred into three '' tongas" — a kind of rough, low, two-wheeled dog-cart, drawn by two ponies, which are attached, not by traces, but by a short high pole with a bar across their backs. In these we reached Coonoor, upward of twenty miles, in 3J hours ; the ponies were changed four times and trotted all the way, although the rise is more than 6000 feet. The road was crowded with carts, oxen, and coolies, and many a sharp curve and turn made us quake, as in most places there is no parapet. The vegetation is exceedingly varied in color, luxuriant and beautiful, and every now and then we had extensive views over the great plain below, studded with isolated hills like islands. Four or five miles from our destination we saw coffee plantations for the first time, and before 2 o'clock were in Gray's Hotel, a pretty bungalow — like a cottage in Devonshire — embowered in roses and heliotrope, on a hill 600 feet above Coonoor (itself 6100 above the sea), and commanding a wide prospect of mountains wild as those of Scotland. The first thing that strikes me in reaching this very beautiful and homelike place is the extent to which the eucalyptus appears on every slope. They have been planted principally for fuel, but also for shade. Mr. Jamieson, who takes charge of the gardens Il^DIA — MADRAS — COON^OOR. 101 and plantations at Ootakamund, and who has been most attentive to us, tells me that trees which he put in only four years ago are already sixty feet high. He says that Australian and Tasmanian trees flourish in these hills, but not the deciduous trees or pines of Britain. We spent Tuesday morning very pleasantly on Mr. Allan's coffee plantation of Glenmore, where he employs 200 men, all Canarese, from Mysore. They go home for about two months in the slack season, and get 6r. 8a. ($3.24) per week — an excellent wage. The coffee-plant is kept at a height of 3 J feet, has leaves a little like a Portugal laurel, and a very thick stem, resembling that of a tree several years old. The berries are red when ripe, and called cherries. The bean is separated frona the husk by simple machinery, driven by a water-wheel. The leaf disease, which has caused such havoc in the Ceylon plantations, has only threatened to appear here ; as yet no serious damage has been done. In the afternoon we drove to see the great view over the South Indian plain from the summit of the mighty slopes of the !N"eilgherries. There are three principal points — Lamb's Rock, Lady Canning's Seat, and Dol- phin's Nose. The narrow and rough road, in driving along which we experienced much difficulty when we met ox-carts, passes sometimes through thick tropical vegetation, where creepers of many kinds abound, the crimson flower of the rhododendron tree — not shrub — being at this season conspicuous. Sometimes the road winds round unfenced promontories with yawning gulfs 102 A WINTER IK INDIA. below, and again looks down on tea-gardens planted wherever the ground is not actually precipitous. The yiews of the hills and plain far below are very grand. A company of Todas, the aboriginal and fast dying out pastoral inhabitants of the range, were sent to see us at sundown. They are a very peculiar people, practise infanticide and polyandry, and live in low huts into which they have to crawl. They refuse to do any work but tend cattle. CHAPTER XI. CONJEVEEAM- — DEPAKTUEE FKOM MADEAS. On Wednesday morning we left for Ootakanmnd, passing the race-course and the spacious Wellington Bar- racks ; and after leaving the plantations of Coonoor emerging into a bleak, red, treeless country very much resembling Algeria. The road is well made. We changed horses often, trotted all the way up, and came down at a rattling pace, drawn sometimes by mere ponies. 1 never was charged so high a bill in any part of the world as that of the Madras Carrying Company. At Charing Cross, Colonel lago, head of the Woods Department, met us and took us first to Government House, not a successful building, where I was anxious to see the room in which my lamented friend Mr. Adam died, and I afterward reverently visited his grave in the new churchyard, a pretty spot, o\^erlooking the lake. The Botanical Gardens are full of interesting trees, shrubs, and flowers. One of the loveliest of the last is of that detestable medicine called jalap. The Chinese rice- paper tree is remarkable. I took away with me a por- tion of the stem from which paper is made. On a hill above Coonoor there is a wood looking at a distance ex- actly like a plantation of Scotch firs seventy years old : 104 A WINTER IK INDIA. it is eucalyptus, aged eleven. The cinchona planta- tions of Government on the ^N'eilgherries, one of which adjoins the garden at Ootakamund, are very important and prosperous ; they cover 800 acres, cost last year in labor £96,000 ($464:, 640), and their gross produce was £300,000 ($1,452,000). The value of the bark after the wound has been medicated by wet moss, is twice as great as before the knife has been first applied. We lunched at the Cedars, the beautiful residence of Mr. Barlow, collector of the district, the drawing-room window of which commands a fine view of the Kundah range ; this is more picturesque than the huge rounded Doddabett, 8622 feet above the sea, which rises behind Government House. There are many tigers in these mountains, and Mr. Barlow had in his hall a magnificent head of a Sam- bur stag, which he shot six weeks ago, close by. '' Ooty," as it is familiarly called, is 7300 feet above the sea. I distinctly perceived the rarefaction of the air. We returned by a very pretty drive past the Law- rence Asylum for Boys, which joins the main road at the top of the hill, where you look down both on Ootaka- mund and Coonoor. Mr. Jamieson kindly sent down to the Government gardens at the foot of the hills for mangosteeu for our dessert. I thought the fruit delicious, like a very deli- cate French confection. Kext morning we descended the ghaut at a tremendous pace, and at a sudden turn the vehicle which conveyed me collided with a tonga on its way to Coonoor. The CONJEVERAM — DEPARTURE FROM MADRAS. 105 crash was alarming, but no damage resulted. Matipol- liam is a veritable Gehenna for heat ; but at the station house there were washing-rooms, kept scrupulously clean, and we enjoyed an excellent luncheon at the adjacent dak bungalow. "We did not penetrate farther south in India than Poothanoor junction — about 700 miles from the equator. We dined at Salem, and had a miserable hour at Arco- num, between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning, stowing away our effects in the left luggage-room — as the station- master refused to allow them to remain in our reserved carriage — -and in endeavoring to get washed. At 5.15 A.M. we left, in the Southern India narrow- gauge railway, for Conjeveram, seventeen miles off, and, when we arrived there, fancied that some celebration was going on, as the station was crowded with servants in red liveries, policemen, native magistrates, etc., and two or three hundred spectators lined its approaches. My surprise was great when, on stepping out, wreaths of yellow and pink chrysanthemums were thrown round our necks, strange bird-like devices, chiefly of the same material, and limes were placed in our hands, and all bowed low to do us honor. Few Europeans visit Con- jeveram ; hence the gaping and admiring crowd ! Tea was ready for us at the station ; and then we set out to visit the temples, in covered carts drawn by oxen, which trotted along merrily. Conjeveram is a clean, well-kept place, with wide streets and a thriving population. One who has trav- 106 A WINTER IN INDIA. elled in Eastern Europe and Western Asia remarks how few deformed people there are in India in comparison. The sight of a cripple and a woman afflicted with ele- phantiasis during our drive reminded me of this. At one turn of the road we came on a huge car, exactly like that of Juggernaut, and like it, also, happily laid up in ordinary. "We likewise visited an immense tank, one of the most sacred in India, containing a mixture of holy waters. We first drove to Yishnu's temple, in Little Kanchi, and were received by a crowd of priests and spectators, fireworks and music, and entertained with a nautch-girl dance, after which we inspected the wealth of jewels, and had all the hideous idols brought out to view. The haU of pillars, in the centre of the inclosure, is very remarkable for carved horses and hippogriffs ; and the whole scene was one of the most strange and striking which we witnessed in India. The other famous temple — that dedicated to Seva the Destroyer — has a gopura, or great tower, 181 feet high- —the highest in Southern India — and there we were received in a similar manner ; but its buildings did not strike us as so curious as those of the first ; and thirty years ago it was robbed of its principal jewels. Its frightful idols are carried in pro- cession on high days. They give one a sad idea of heathenism — its brutalizing and degrading nature. " Jehovah dwells not in temples made with hands." May the millions of Hindostan soon realize the blessings of a purer, holier, and manlier religion ! COlirjEVERAM— DEPARTURE FROM MADRAS. 107 Formerly these temples were managed by the British Government, and by gifts to them officials foolishly thought to propitiate the Hindoo people. The Mutiny and other events roughly opened our eyes to the ineffi- cacy of such a cowardly policy ; and now this idol-wor- ship has no connection with the state. Complaint has recently been made that the new law in this respect has been infringed in the case of a well-known temple in the Punjaub, but I have reason to believe that what took place there has been disapproved at headquarters, and that no such breach of the order will be permitted in future. It may also be well for the central Government to keep an eye on those in authority who refuse to em- ploy natives if they happen to profess Christianity. Our visits to the temples over, we were driven to the Tahsildar's bungalow, to which servants, with all the materials requisite for a sumptuous breakfast and lunch- eon, had been sent all the way from Madras by the thoughtful care of Mr. Grant Duff and his genial staff, who had, I need scarcely add, likewise given orders to the officials to receive us at the station and pay us every attention. This is the only place we have been in in India without seeing a European or even a Eurasian. The gentleman who took charge of us was the Deputy Tahsildar of Chingleput district — Mr. Damodera Mao- dilly — and most kind and attentive he was. Eeturning to Arconum, we dined, and joined the evening mail-train from Madras to Bombay. When I awoke, we were at the old ruined fort of Gooty. In 108 A WIIS'TER IK IKDIA. every field there was a man in a structure elevated on poles, watching the crops and protecting them against the depredations of wild beasts. "We passed much waste- land — the country was quite flat, with low and generally isolated hills at a distance, and, nearer to the line, singu- lar rocky mounds, rising to a considerable height at the town of Adoni — then we crossed the now nearly dry channel of the river Toongabudra, which joins the Beema some distance below, and the two together form the Kistna. The cactus makes an excellent railway- fence in Southern India. At Kaichoor the Madras Railway ends and the Great Indian Peninsular begins. We arrived there at 11.30 ; and, having had nothing since the previous evening but a cup of weak tea, were naturally hungry. "What was our astonishment when told there was no breakfast ready at a place where we were to stop forty minutes, except a piece of cold beef covered with wire and flies ! Some one used an unparhamentary expression, and, hey, presto ! appeared one of the best breakfasts we had had set before us in India — choice tea, excellent curry, ten- der mutton chops, and fresh eggs. Where it came from must remain a mystery forever. CHAPTER XIL AT POONA. We are now in the Eizam's territory, and a branch line goes off at Wadi to his capital of Hyderabad. Ris- ing to a higher level, the line passes over a poorly-cnlti- vated and sparsely -peopled district, with extensive tracts of waste-land. It was very hot all day : even the Vene- tians failed to keep out the sun's rays, and we felt the lightest of clothing too heavy, and motion impossible. Dining at Sholapore, we reached Poona at 4.40 a.m., and found carriages and servants waiting to take us to join the other members of our party in the Napier Hotel. "We heard an admirable sermon from the Rev. Mr. Small, of the Free Church of Scotland, on Sunday even- ing, and on Monday forenoon paid two visits of great interest to me. There are six Government schools for females in Poona, over which Mrs. Mitchell and her very energetic assistant. Miss Rosa Morris, preside. They commenced only ten years ago, but already have sent forth a great number of teachers ; and now none are admitted into the higher classes, or those for schoolmistresses only, who have not passed the third standard in the vernacular. On entering that college they get a salary varying from 110 A WINTER IN INDIA. two to eight rupees per month, dependent on length of attendance and progress. We spent a long time in the principal of these schools, and were greatly gratified by all we saw and heard. Little girls are brought in, on whom the young teachers first try their hand ; then the latter are sent out to give instruction in other institutions, still under the eye of their European superiors ; and lastly they are available for situations anywhere. I was delighted with Miss Morris's '^ Marathi Songs for Children," one of them set to music to the old familiar tune of ^* Duncan Gray." It was remarkable to see the transformation worked by this able and enthusiastic young lady on the silent, motionless Hindoo youngsters : they were all life and joy when following her lead. Many of the women — some of them mere children — are widows, and the popular feeling is much opposed to their being taught and teaching. Our second visit was to the old palace of the Peishwas' commander-in-chief — now turned to a much better pur- pose — a school in which 300 young men and boys are taught under the superintendence of Mr. Beaumont, of hhe Free Church of Scotland. Two hundred learn Eng- lish, and the good attendance and anxiety to learn were very evident. From the roof of the building 1 had an excellent view of Poona, with its neat and clean native town of 80,000 inhabitants, the cantonment, pubhc buildings, and officers' bungalows, situated in a basin surrounded by hills. AT POONA. Ill This morning the Eoyal Commission on Education, the names of its members, and the instructions to them of the Governor- General in Council, appear in the newspapers, and to my mind the expressed views and order of the Government appear eminently satisfac- tory. The extension of primary education to the mass- es is set forth as the main desideratum of the present day. Hitherto we have been doing rather too much to instruct, at the expense of the state, classes well able to pay for their own education, and not over-loyal, or likely in certain contingencies and in certain respects not to make a very good use of it.'^ I anticipate much good from this inquiry and new departure. Government has likewise, I see with pleasure, taken up seriously the rec- ommendations of the Famine Commission^ of which my friend Mr. James Caird, C.B., was a leading member, which some feared might be allowed to fall into neglect. A new department is to be formed, which will put the rulers of India in possession of all the necessary facts re- garding the food supplies, and likewise give an impetus to agricultural improvement, and so render famines less likely and disastrous. I hope that those charged with this important duty will give a favorable consideration to Mr. W. Wedderburn's scheme for the formation of * " Too much money is spent by the Government in giving to the richer classes a superior education for which they ought to pay themselves, while too little is spent on elementary instruction for the masses of the poor."—" The Finances and Public Works of India," by Sir J. Strachey and Major-General R. Strachey. London : Kegan Paul, French & Co. 112 A WINTER IN INDIA. agricultural banks, which seems already to have com- mended itself to the Government of Bombay. He has published a most interesting and readable pamphlet on the subject, in which he narrates what has been done in Germany ; points out that ' ' the fundamental error of what has hitherto been done in India consists in the at- tempt to accomplish through state agency what can only be successfully carried out by private enterprise ;" and in a most business-like manner propounds, explains, and defends his own plan, which certainly commends itself to my judgment as one which, if adopted and exten- sively acted upon, cannot fail to be an enormous boon to India. We are all constantly being reminded in various ways of the -poverty of the people, and the primary necessity of improving their lot. I am no defender of the Government interest in opium ; and no one I imagine would, if such a mode of raising revenue were proposed as a new measure, care to defend it ; but it is very ques- tionable if China would be morally benefited by a change of system which might greatly extend the culti- vation of the poppy ; and I say without hesitation that the poor ryots of India have a prior claim on us for a reduction, and let it be hoped eventually the abolition, of the salt tax, which presses on the very poorest of the population, and has been, 1 believe fairly, estimated as equal to a fortnight's labor per annum of every head of a family who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow. We drove on Monday evening to the enormous pile of AT POON^A. 113 buildings erected at most unjustifiable cost as a Govern- ment residence at Gunesh Khind, then tlirougb the Kirkee cantonment of artillery and sappers and miners, across the bridge where the river has been dammed up so as to form a pretty lake, and home by the public gar- dens. The Southern Cross shines gloriously here in early morning at present. When we arrived from the south at 4.30 a.m., its stars were like lamps to our path. There is an extensive view of Poona and its surround- ings from the Temple of Parbuttee, or Goddess of Love, situated on a lofty rock close to the town ; and the pret- tiest place within a short drive is Sungum, where the rivers Moota and Moola meet close to the Bombay rail- road line. Many questions are likely to be asked of those who have travelled in India regarding the probable stability of British power. It must be kept in mind that there is no such thing as patriotism or national feeling among the heterogeneous races which form the population of Hin- dostan, and that the millions of ryots and laborers neither love nor hate us, but simply view our reign with in- difference, in fact think and care little about us. There are Mohammedan fanatics, who do cherish deep-seated dislike to us, both on rehgious and political grounds ; and certain Brahmins may sympathize more or less with them ; and the events of the Mutiny showed how badly- informed the official class was at the time as to the state of public feeling, and how foolish men in authority were in refusing to listen to the representations and 114 A WINTER IK IZSTDIA. warnings of the missionaries. But there are two consid- erations which render a fresh outbreak unlikely. In the first place, thousands of the upper classes among the natives are fast making money under our regime of law and order ; and, secondly, such military arrangements have been made since 1857 as render a successful insur- rection almost impossible. All the forts are in European hands, and all the artillery, with the exception of a few small batteries in the north-west frontier, is in the same position. Every one, however, admits that there is a danger from the armies kept up by native princes, which are absolutely useless and very expensive, and may give trouble. Careful but vigorous steps should be taken to reduce their number, which stands at present on paper at 381,000 men, most of whom, however, are a mere rabble, although Scindia has adopted the German system, and could at any time call out a large, well-disciplined force. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to induce rajahs to dismiss men who had once '^ eaten their bread ;" but might not the paramount power insist on enlistment being reduced and eventually stopped ? I fain hope and believe that a very marked improve- ment has taken place in the treatment of the natives by Europeans. There are no doubt many stories afloat, some of them perhaps more or less true, and some much exaggerated, of the unjust decisions of judges, the vio- lent behavior of officers, and the supercilious conduct of men in authority ; but I find testimony wonderfully unanimous in favor of the present rather than the past ; AT POOl^A. 115 and those on whose judgment most reliance can be placed all say, Deliver us from the old school — the " Qui hais" of the last generation — and send us out gentlemen from England fresh to their duties, who will not be so tyran- nical and capricious as those who in so many instances have reflected no credit on the British name. No one can be long in India and visit its courts of law without observing how closely, almost ridiculously, the various customs, disputes, and lawsuits about land in that coun- try resemble those in Ireland. The great difficulty with the natives seems to be their disregard of truth, and their habit of exaggeration ; all their statements must be put in writing or they would be denied on the first con- venient opportunity. Perhaps the most important question of the hour- is how to place the tenure of land on a more satisfactory footing. Nor can we afford to overlook the natural de- sire expressed by the educated classes for an extension of the representative principle. The great council of Calcutta has heen almost in abeyance, and is now not much of a reahty. It may be possible, by and by, to strengthen it by delegates from successfully-managed municipalities, or in some other manner to meet an ever- increasing demand. As a fair example of the feelings and opinions of the natives, I cannot do better than in^ sert here a copy of an address presented to me at a meet- ing of the Sarvajanik Sabha, attended by 800 or 1000 people in Poona, on the evening before I left : 116 A WINTER 1-^ INDIA. " Hon. Sir : It gives us great satisfaction to have the privilege of welcoming you on behalf of the native public of this place. You have always been honorably distinguished by your adhesion to liberal principles, and you have been one of that small band of Englishmen who have always evinced an interest in Indian matters. Since the days of the Mutiny and the assumption of direct sovereignty over India by Her Majesty the Queen-Empress, the affairs of India have assumed their natural place in the thoughts of Englishmen, and, however much the leaders of both parties in Parliament profess to regard Indian questions as out of the pale of party politics, during the last four or five years es- pecially Indian grievances and wrongs have furnished a consider- able number of topics on which the Parliament and the public of England have felt themselves called upon to interest themselves as intimately as if they were purely English questions. Under these circumstances it becomes the duty of those who have India's welfare at heart to supply from time to time, as occasion arises, correct information of the views and wants of the people of this country, and to seek to influence the English public through its recognized leaders in the English Parliament and the English Press. In this connection it is felt by us all to be a most fortu- nate circumstance that honorable Members of Parliament avail themselves of the small leisure at their disposal to visit this dis- tant country, and make themselves practically acquainted with its material and moral condition. Official sources of information are always at your disposal, and we, under existing conditions, can hope but little to supplement it with accurate statistics and other detailed information. At the same time you cannot but be fully aware that official authorities, however honest and painstaking, are seldom able to grasp all sides of the questions that come before them, and certain it is that they do not possess the same facilities to know where the official machine presses hard upon the people as intelligent representatives of the people themselves may be expected to do. The absence of any representative insti- tutions, even of a consultative character, to control and modify the action of executive officers, enhances the difficulty caused by the differences of race, religion, and manners between the rulers and the ruled. It is, however, a hopeful circumstance that not- withstanding these difficulties India has made a fair progress in AT POONTA. 117 good government during the twentj^-five years that have passed since the Mutiny troubles. The force of Indian public opinion is, however, so small that it needs to be strengthened by the active sympathy and co-operation of India's friends in Parliament. It is with this view that we have troubled you with this call upon your valuable time, and we cannot but express our heartfelt thanks for your accepting our invitation with such cordial readiness. Allow us, in the short time that is at your disposal, to briefly note for your attention a few points on which we feel that in the interests of England and India the administrative machinery set up in this country fails to give satisfaction to the people, and requires to be carefully looked after, with a view to adapt it to the wants of the present day. We freely acknowledge all the benefits which British rule has secured to this country in maintaining undisturbed tranquillity and guaranteeing its safety against foreign invasions, in encouraging education, in developing a system of useful public "works, and the other benefits incident to a high state of civiliza- tion. While in all these respects there has been great progress during the last twenty-five years, the form of the administration and its direct action upon the people have remained for the most part unchanged. It is true that Legislative Councils for the more advanced provinces were constituted in 1861 ; but their constitu- tion is so one-sided, and their power so limited, that in the hands of strong rulers they have almost ceased to possess any influence for good, and are too often made the instruments of registering official wishes without being able to represent outside opinion effectively. The attention of Indian reformers has of late been directed to this question, and various schemes have been sug- gested with a view to improve the constitution of these councils. The absence of any local organizations which could be trusted with the power of electing representatives has been always felt to be a very serious want ; but the extension of the decentralization policy by the present government of India will, we trust, supply this want by the creation of self-governing municipalities and district local boards. Mr. William Digby has recently published a pamphlet, in which he insists, with good reason, upon the urgent necessity of this reform, as lying at the root of all other reforms in Indian administration. We are fully aware that consti- tutional habits and traditions take a long time to grow and cannot 118 A WINTER IN INDIA. be created to order. At the same time we assure you that the establishment of some correlation between the views of the Indian public and the British rulers is a necessity which Parliament will have to direct its attention to if the present process is not to be retarded. The people of India will be satisfied at present with the establishment of a consultative assembly, consisting of officials and non-officials, the latter representing the large towns and dis- tricts, with a right to be consulted in matters of new legislation and taxation, and of interpellating executive officers with a view to elicit information upon administrative details. " 3. Next in importance to the reform noted above is the liber- alizing of local administrations in the large towns and more ad- vanced districts. The Government of India has already in the series of resolutions expressed itself strongly in favor of extending local self-government. The official authorities, however, viewing the matter from their own standpoint, will, it is feared, not co- operate with the same singleness of purpose which earnest con- viction alone secures. English opinion has alone the power to remove these obstacles, and we trust that those who have the ear of the English public in and out of Parliament will strengthen the hands of the Government of India to secure the success of their contemplated reforms. "3. It is not without reason that we have drawn your attention to the necessity which exists of English public opinion coming to our assistance. In the settlement of the much-disputed land question the authorities in India, as well as the Secretary of State, as far back as 1862, definitively pronounced themselves in favor of extending the permanent settlement in all the more settled dis- tricts of the country. Owing to local opposition, however, that despatch, though not formally overruled, has remained a dead letter to this day. The example of bad native rulers, who en- hanced the assessments arbitrarily at times, has been turned into an argument to support the policy of periodical resettlements, and a great deal too much is made of the concession of this modi- fied system of conferring interest in land upon the peasantry. The fact, however, is that the best native rulers respected and recog- nized indefeasible property in land, subject to a fixed charge, and, what in England is called freehold, was the common tenure of this country, with the name of mirasi, as typical of the highest AT POOKA. 119 property that a man can possess. Whatever may be the theory, the government assessment absorbs not a portion of the rent proper, but the whole of the rent and a portion of the profits of cultivation. As a consequence of this state of things the country is reduced to a dead level of poverty. Two commissions appointed by Government (the Deccan Riots Commission of 1875, and the Famine Commission of 1878-79) have set forth the evils of the present system, and the independent members in those two com- missions have to a great extent indorsed the views we have long entertained on the subject. A modified permanent settlement, which will secure its due share to Government in the land revenue, is as important to the future growth of this country as the settle- ment of the Irish land question is in Ireland. " 4. Another question in which the people of India have always evinced the greatest interest, and have repeatedly memorialized Parliament for the redress of their grievances, is the question of the admission of the natives on equal terms with Englishmen in the ranks of the covenanted services. The Covenanted Civil Service was thrown open to public competition in 1853, but it was not till 1864 that the first native candidate passed the tests. Soon after the limit of age was reduced from 23 to 21, but it did not materially interfere with the chances of native candidates finding admission into the service. And in ten years, from 1867 to 1877, about twelve more candidates passed the test. In 1878 the limit of age was still further lowered to 19, from which time no Indian candidate has found it possible to appear at the examination. This limit of 19 was, we understand, disapproved by a large majority of the authorities consulted, and is found very incon- venient even in the case of English candidates. Indian opinion, while iusisting upon the test of examinations and the advantage of residence in England, only asked that the examinations should be held in India and in England subject to the same tests. This prayer was refused, and in its place the late Viceroy has sought to satisfy native claims by the creation of a subordinate native ser- vice, distinctly marked as separate from the governing body by differences in pay, prospects, and promotion, and not chosen by competition, but by nomination from considerations of family connections. This we regard to be a distinctly retrograde step, and native public opinion will not be satisfied till a return is made 120 A WINTER IK IKDIA. to the old liberal rules. Next to the Covenanted Civil Service, the largest opening to native ambition is furnished by the rules of the medical service. We trust there is no foundation for the report that English authorities contemplate the abolition of these examinations, and substituting in their stead a system of direct nomination from the medical schools in England. The admission of natives into the ranks of the military service has long been felt to be a desideratum, especially in the case of the scions of the noble families for whom this career would furnish a healthy oc- cupation. The late Army Commission has recommended the par- tial adoption of this reform in the case of Bengal and Punjab, and we trust that India's friends in Parliament will press this subject upon the attention of the authorities till this invidious distinction between class and class is removed. " 5. The threatened abolition of the cotton duties, and the necessity which will soon be forced upon the Indian authorities of surrendering some portion of their opium revenue in deference to the anti-opium agitation, renders the position of Indian finance so unstable, that notwithstanding the anticipated surplus of this year it will be impossible to make both the ends meet without effecting retrenchments in all departments. The highest military authorities who were represented in the Army Commission sug- gested a reduction of one and a half million sterling in the army expenditure. An equal sum might be saved by the larger substi- tution of native for European agency in the police, public works, medical, educational, post-office and account branches, in which there are at present no vested interests to conserve. In this con- nection the reduction of the home charges by a more equitable distribution of the Indian army expenditure in England, and the purchase of the stores in the local markets, will also commend themselves to you as requiring immediate attention. If in addi- tion to these reductions England guarantees the interest of Indian public debt, as it is bound to do in its own interest, the total re- ductions will amount to about five millions sterling, which will be a great relief, and might enable India to bear with equanimity the partial loss of the opium revenue, and the total loss of the cotton duties. We need hardly urge upon your attention that there is little or no room for additional taxation in this country, where the people are so poor that the chief necessary of life has AT POOKA. 121 to be taxed a thousandfold, to the great inconvenience of all classes, and that an income-tax on the English scale is expected to yield only one million sterling. The existing license tax has been condemned for its invidious incidents, and also for the pov- erty of its return, while the other heads of revenue are already fixed at their highest pitch. The reduction of expenditure is thus not a question of choice, but of necessity for the success of Indian finance. "6. In the same connection we are glad to note that the ques- tion of the disestablishment of the Anglo-Indian Church has already engaged your attention. The services of army chaplains must be secured under any circumstances, but the same necessity cannot be pleaded for the diversion of public funds for the sup- port of the four bishoprics and a large number of chaplains who minister to the spiritual wants of the wealthy among the European civil population. Having due regard to the promises contained in the great Royal Proclamation of 1858, the natives of this country must demand that this abuse of state funds shall be put a stop to forthwith, and we trust that when the time comes, you will support our prayer for the abolition of this anomaly before Parliament. *' 7. In submitting the foregoing observations on this occasion we are fully conscious that the questions indicated therein have complex bearings, and the point of view from which we look at them nmst be modified by other considerations which commend themselves to the Indian authorities. It seems, therefore, to us to be very necessary that all the bearings of the questions should be sifted by an independent commission of inquiry. In the last session of Parliament Mr. Fowler and Sir David Wedderbura made a motion to this effect, and we have good reasons to think that but for the Irish distractions the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for India would have accepted a limited inquiry. We trust that when the arrears of home business are cleared, you and the other friends of India will reopen this ques- tion. Periodical inquiries into the working of the Indian Govern- ment have produced good results in the past, and the time ap- pears to us to have come when such an inquiry might be expected to lead to similar results in the future. " 8. We hope to be excused for the length over which these 122 A WIKTER IK INDIA. observations have extended. The Liberal party at present in power, and of which you are so distinguished a member, pledged their word at the late elections to accomplish certain reforms in accordance with the expressed wishes of the people of this country. They have given us peace on the frontiers ; they have set a noble precedent in defraying a portion, though a small one, of the cost of the Afghan war from the English revenues ; they have sent his Excellency the Marquis of Ripon to rule over us, and deputed Major Baring to manage our finances. These Indian authorities have earned a title to the confidence of the country by stimulating private enterprise, encouraging the consumption of articles of indigenous manufactures, setting free the Indian ver- nacular press, and laying down a scheme for the extension of local self-government. These generous concessions have laid the people under great obligations to the leaders of the Liberal party, and we request that you will convey this expression of our grati- tude to the Right Hon. Mr. Gladstone, the Right Hon. the Mar- quis of Hartington, and the Right Hon. Mr. Bright, and Mr. Fawcett, for their noble endeavors to promote the best interests of this country." CHAPTER XIII. EETUKN TO BOMBAY. I HAD occasion, on the 15tli, to send a telegram to Scotland, and received an answer, md Bombay, in seven hours ! The Post- Office and telegraphic services in India are most admirably conducted. In 1880-81 no fewer than 159,000,000 letters, newspapers, and par- cels passed through the Post-Office, and nearly 15,000,- 000 post-cards w^ere used. In the course of the same year nearly £8,000,000 ($38,720,000) worth of insured property was sent through the Post-Office, of which only £1040 ($5, 033. 60) was lost. The most conspicuous building in Poona is the syna- gogue, its lofty red tower being seen from every point of view. The principal street in the native town is wider and has much handsomer and cleaner houses than is the case in most Indian towns : it resembles one in an American Western city. Sugar-cane is extensively grown in the vicinity, there being an ample supply of water to irrigate the fields, and it pays better than other crops. At 12.30 on 16th February we left by train for Bom- bay. At this time of year the country on the route is more dreary and burnt-up than any we had seen in 124 A WINTER i:^ Il^TDIA. India. Tlie bare conical hills have a Scotch-like appear- ance. In a little over two hours we arrived at the beginning of the descent of the famous Bhore Ghaut, one of the most remarkable engineering feats in the world, and were detained a long time by a landslip, which had blocked the line shortly before, near Kundala. In a very few miles the railway descends more than 1800 feet. At one point there is a reversing station, the engine changing its position. There are many tunnels, and the views of the plain far down below — of over- hanging peaks, deep gorges and precipices — are very fine. The fact of there being more deciduous trees than usual on these slopes detracts from the beauty of the scenery in the winter. At CalHanee Junction, where the Calcutta line branches off, there are some very fantas- tically-shaped hills, and here are the prettiest station garden and flowers which we had seen in India. Bombay strikes one, on returning to it, as, after all, in point of public buildings and streets, much the hand- somest town in the country. About Elphinstone Circle and the Esplanade it will in these respects bear compari- son with some European capitals ; and the drive round Cumballa and Malabar hills, among the delightful bun- galows, which overlook the Indian Ocean on the north, and get the benefit of its refreshing breezes, is one of the most beautiful of its kind anywhere to be seen. On Sunday I went out to Parek, to lunch with Sir James Eergusson, the able Governor of the Presidency, KETURIf TO BOMBAY. 125 who, on account of severe domestic affliction, had not been able to ask ns to stay with him, as proposed ; and in the evening we attended divine service at the Free Church of Scotland. At Agra we had met, in the hotel. Dr. Partridge, Brigade- Surgeon, who has a beautiful villa — Bella Yista -^on Cumballa Hill, and who is actively engaged in missionary work during his spare hours. Like a good Samaritan and Christian as well, he had compassion on us in the dirty, dilapidated, mosquito-infected Adelphi Hotel, and insisted on our removing to his house on Monday, where we spent, fanned by the delightful northern breeze, our last days in India. He took us in the afternoon to visit a Parsee house, in which reside seven sons and three daughters, all married, having, one of the ladies said, ''dozens upon dozens" of children, and rejoicing in wonderful barrel-organs. Then there were dinner and luncheon parties, a ball given by the bachelors of Bombay in a fine native house at Malabar Point, horse-races at Byculla, and a variety of other engagements and amusements for old and young. I counted eighteen cotton-factories from the balcony of the spacious Byculla Club. The day before leaving I paid a visit to the Free Church Mission Establishment, where Dr. Wilson so long labored, and where 600 scholars are now being taught ; lunched with the Governor in the Secretariat, went off to see the Jumna transport, and then drove round Malabar and Cumballa Hills. Some parts of the 126 A WINTER IN INDIA, former, with its villas and flowers, remind me of Musta- pha at Algiers. The latter has the purer, fresher air, and will surely become the favorite suburb of Bombay. Warden Road, leading along the sea to Breach Candy, is the paradise of nurserymen and maids in the evening. CHAPTER XIY. DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. How cliarming was our last night in India ! The naoon shone through the palm-trees upon the spacious balcony of Bella Vista, and we felt a sort of melancholy steal over us as we thought of the kind friends from whom we were to part — a dear daughter whom we might not see again for years, and a country to which we were about to say good-by forever. The sea-breeze sighed among the branches, and the waves of the Indian Ocean, breaking gently on the rocks, were our lullaby. As the clock struck five on Thursday afternoon, 23d February, the Yenetia^s anchor was raised, and before we sat down to dinner I had my last look of India. The north-east monsoon was blowing, and for thirty-six hours the ship rolled a good deal, but by Saturday morning the wind died away, and at noon that day we had run 809 miles — quite a feat for a P. and O. I have read '' Twenty-one Days in India ; or, the Tour of Sir Ali Baba, K.C.B.," by the late lamented Mr. Mackay. It is very clever, and many truths are told in its witty, satirical sketches. Here is what he says of ritualistic clergymen : "In a heathen country their paltry fetichism and incomprehensible technicalities are 128 A WINTER IN INDIA. peculiarly offensive and injurious to the interests of civil- ization and Christianity." About the Rajahs he re- marks : " They have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British Eule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling below." Of the poor ryot he writes : '' Famine is the horizon of the Indian villager ; insufficient food is the foreground." Then follows a beautiful description of the fertile soil and glorious climate, and he concludes: "Amid this easeful and luscious splendor the villager labors and starves." I have spent some time in looking over back numbers of The Quarterly Journal of the Poona Babha. The following extracts faithfully represent the sentiments of every educated native whom I met regarding the past and present administrations : " The four years of Lord Lytton's administration of India have proved disastrous beyond all precedent to the true interests of the millions committed to his fostering carjB. The besetting sin of his administration has been that it was eminently untruthful, re- pressive, and reactionary at home, unjustly aggressive abroad, and disastrous to the safety of our finance and material prosperity. " We cannot but congratulate both India and England on the overthrow of an administration which has been without a parallel in the annals of British India for its disastrous failure in war, in finance, in legislation, and administration. " We can only hope that with the retirement of Sir E. Temple, and the enforced resignation of Lord Lytton and Sir John Strachey, the retrograde and blustering policy which overshad- owed all the departments of administration, and repressed the growth of our national aspirations, may be said to have had ita DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. 129 fitting close, and that a more gen^iinely liberal, just, and sym- pathetic rule will dawn upon the country, and undo the disas- trous work of a false and short-lived imperialism. " Under these circumstances, we are gratefully thankful that our rulers feel disposed to review their Indian policy, and to re- organize their system of Indian government. The old policy of blustering, and of assuming imperial airs, and of devising plans to humiliate and weaken the natives of India, and of excluding them from all consideration as if they were ' dumb driven cattle,' has now been wisely abandoned. The time has come when the shack- les of India should be relaxed, and when the natives should be taken into confidence, when their proposals for conserving and improving their commercial and political condition should be carefully considered, when their aristocracy, which necessarily and naturally leads them, should be respected, and when the police arrangements and the municipal and local government of India should be placed on a better footing. India has now learned to look about herself, to examine, to improve, and to aspire. With the accession of the Liberals into power, and the deputation of Lord Ripon and Major Baring to control the desti- nies of this country, the dawn of a better order of things has filled the land with hopefulness, and dispersed the gloom of war and humiliation. ' ' Those interested in the extension of the principle of representation shoiald read the two extracts subjoined ; " Your petitioners submit that the time has come when the views of the independent native and European public should find a recognized place ; and the only way in which this end can be secured is to admit a few representative members elected by the leading cities and populous centres throughout the country. The representative principle has now found place in the municipali- ties of the three Presidency towns, and has worked satisfactorily. This principle might be safely extended to the other large centres of population, and the municipalities so elected might be safely trusted to send representative men to the several legislatures. These members might not find a place in the executive govern- ment for the present, but if the right of interpellating the execu- 130 A Wli^TER Iiq^ I]S^DIA. tive officers upon all questions of public importance were allowed to them, the check against arbitrary rule will be effective, and the criticism based upon such information in the press and in public petitions will cease to be non-effective as at present — thus estab- lishing greater harmony than has obtained hitherto by allowing Government to justify its measures to the people. The present advanced state of public intelligence in this country justifies the extension of this right, as, without the adequate check it will provide, all further progress will be greatly retarded. " The real struggle will have to be fought out in India, and it is in the enlargement of the Indian Legislative Councils that all our hope for a better future is centred. Mr. Digby proposes to have a council consisting of the e^^-officio executive counsel- lors, supplemented by the addition of the ex-officio collectors, and a due proportion of nominated and elected European and native members. We do not approve of the suggestion regarding the ex- officio collectors. The District Local Fund Committees, enlarged and liberalized under the new decentralization schemes, will be in a position to send their representatives to the council. This will supply the Conservative element, and the Liberal element will be effectively supplied by the representatives of the large city municipalities. These two elements, with a due admixture of the ex-officio and nominated members, will be for a long time to come a sufficient representation of all interests." I liad the happiness to be in at the death of the Yer- nacular Press Act. The following quotations express accurately the views not only of natives but of many Englishmen who spoke to me on the subject : " But in what light can their conduct be viewed if they wilfully increase the difficulty of knowing what the people think and feel about their intentions and doings a thousand-fold ; if in- stead of trying to make themselves acquainted with what passes in the innermost recesses of the minds of the subjects, they designedly throw a veil over them, as if a knowledge of the dis- ease is not the first condition of its cure, and as if the task of the physician will be smoothed by ignoring its symptoms. Can good DEPARTURE FROM IKDIA. 131 government be insured to the people without the rulers being ac- quainted with their modes of thinking and feeling, with what they consider as their grievances, with the impressions they receive from the acts of Government officials, with their habits and opinions and sentiments and prejudices ? Can this desirable information be had independently of the native press ? Certainly not, if we are to believe Lord William Bentinck, one of the most successful and really philanthropic rulers of India, who is reported to have said ' that he had derived more information from the Indian press than from all the councils, all the boards, and all the secretaries by whom he was surrounded.' Can a fettered press venture to supply freely to Government any information re- garding its officials and the people which it needs for successfully conducting the administration of the country ? Who can, with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, freely denounce the conduct and doings of government officials, when the latter are so prone to resent any sort of criticism of their acts as an in- sult offered to the majesty of Great Britain, and to confound it with an attempt at sapping the foundation of the British Empire in India ? "The act for the better control of oriental publications was passed by the late Government three years ago, under an appre- hension of political necessitj'^ which subsequent events have not, by the admission of all parties, justified. The official papers since published have shown that there was not that consensus of opinions even in the most responsible advisers of Government which alone could have warranted the wide departure from the acknowledged policy of the Government in this connection, sanc- tioned as it was by nearly fifty years' experience of the greafc benefits which had resulted from the unrestricted liberty of the press in this country. The only precedent for such action was that afforded by a measure adopted by Lord Canning under the excitement of the troubles caused by the Mutiny of 1857 ; but Lord Canning's measure was free from any invidious distinction between vernacular and English publications, and it was only temporary in its application. The present measure was apparently passed in great hurry, in view of apprehended troubles in Russia. That justiecation has long since ceased, and the measure had been practically inoperative, except in a few isolated cases where 132 A Wli^TER Iiq" IKDIA. the actional of local governments has had to be controlled and set aside by the interference of His Excellency the Viceroy in Coun- cil. This Sabha has from the first protested against the enact- ment of such a measure and its retention on the statute-book, on the grounds that it cast an undeserved suspicion upon the loyalty of the vernacular newspapers, that it prevented the free discus- sion of official measures which, under the circumstances of an alien rule like that which obtains in British India, is so necessary in the interests both of the governed and the governing classes, that it checked from the sense of ignoble fear the growth of a healthy public opinion, and that it invested petty local authorities with a power of vexatious interference which cannot fail to de- moralize them." Tlie excuse for passing this measure was that many of these newspapers evinced a bad spirit, and attacked the Government in improper words. If this test were ap- plied to not a few of the English periodicals published in India it would go hard with them. Until I visited the country I had no idea that there existed in our Empire journals so replete with vulgar vituperation as the Jingo newspapers of liindostan. I read in one of them a leader on Lord Hartington, put- ting into his mouth words which he never used, and im- puting to him opinions which I know he does not hold, and then showering upon him names worthy onl}' of Billingsgate. Several men of influence expressed them- selves to me thoroughly ashamed of a portion of their press, and remarked that if the vernacular papers were violent, they had had a very evil example set them by the organs of the officials who were the authors of the act now happily repealed. A writer in one of the numbers of the Poona Sabha DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. 133 Jmirnal discusses the policy of retaining the armies of the native states, and I give his arguments against dis- bandment, although not agreeing with him, and taking care to remark that no one advocates forcible measures in bringing about a change of system. *' 1. The native armies in all the larger states distinctly rest on treaty obligations which are binding upon the paramount power, which has repeatedly admitted the force of these obligations. Such obligations cannot be dissolved without the free and mutual consent of poth parties. " 2. This appanage is the last privilege left to the royal houses. Measures of forcible disbandment cannot but cause dissatisfaction among the native states. " 3. The armies are not a source of danger to the British Gov- ernment. Their strength and numbers are overrated. Badly armed, badly officered, badly disciplined, and wholly disunited, they have no power for mischief. "4. They are, at the same time, very useful auxiliaries, es- pecially as against Asiatic powers on the frontiers of our prov- inces, in respect of whom the use of the regular British army in- volves a needless waste of money and strength. " 5. They have rendered important services in the early wars, as also in the Mutiny struggle, and have proved valuable auxilia- ries in the present Afghan war. *' 6. Their loyalty and insignificance renders jealous watchful- ness unnecessary, and if more confidence were placed in them, they would render a considerable reduction of the British garri- son possible. " 7. They are beyond all comparison a cheap agency, and good material to rely upon as a recruiting-ground for the British Indian forces. " 8, The whole population being disarmed and demartialized, the native armies are the only available militia and reserve force to fall back upon. *' 9. The native British Indian force is par excellence a merce- nary body. The sepoys require to be counterbalanced by these 134 A WINTER IN INDIA. native armies, which are for the most part national and not mer- cenary, and which, at all events, will never make common cause with the sepoys. " 10. In the present state of India, when the whole of Central Asia may be expected with Russian help and propulsion any day to come down upon us, it is not safe to trust to the single support of the regular British Indian forces alone. There should be many small centres and foci of dependent authority, scattered over the country, with their opportunities of education in military habits, and in the higher art of leading and controlling men. " 11. In many native states society rests on a feudal or military basis. This state of things cannot be disturbed without affecting the integrity of the states. The Sirdars and military classes, for whom British India offers no field, are usefully provided for in these native armies. "12. The purposes sought to be accomplished by forcible dis- bandment can be equally well achieved by a policy of greater trust and confidence. If the armies of native states are badly armed and officered and disciplined, these defects may be removed by the help of British officers lent to these states to effect these reforms, and improve the race of native officers." CHAPTER XY. ON THE INDIAN OCEAN. This voyaging on the Indian Ocean is the perfection of travelhng. The sea is so calm, the sun so bright, the air so balmy. "When I rose on Wednesday morning we were in sight of the rock of Aden, and at 10 o'clock we anchored in the harbor. There was a delightfully refreshing south- ern breeze blowing, and we landed to explore the place, driving in light covered carriages to the town on the opposite side of the peninsula from the landing-place, to the celebrated tanks, which hold millions of gallons of water, through two tunnels to the cantonment of the English troops and the lines facing Arabia, and to the pier, where native craft land provisions and fuel. What a grim, arid, sepulchral-looking place it is ! The little one-barrel water-carts drawn by camels, the profusely- ornamented women, the number of vehicles of all kinds on the roads, the total absence of trees — ^indeed, of all vegetation except in the small irrigated garden at the tanks— and the sharp outlines of the peaks strike you. Then the harbor is always full of vessels — steamers coming and going continually ; a Russian man-of-war entered when we were at anchor, saluted, and her salute was returned from a battery on the shore. 136 A WINTER IN INDIA. Brigadier-General Blair, Y.C., was our fellow-passen- ger from Bombay, on his way to assume the governor- ship of Aden for five years — a brave soldier and most agreeable companion, to whom we wish health and hap- piness during his residence on that shadeless rock. As 4 P.M. struck we weighed anchor, and had rather a rough time of it in the night, the scuttles being closed. "When I got on deck at 7 a.m. all the square sails were set, and we were running past the Island of Gebel Zukur, with the wrecks of the Duke of Lancaster and Penguin on the port bow. Gradually the wind increased, until at noon our good ship began to take in seas, and not until we had passed the Twelve Apostles did the turmoil end. The Venetia is a very substantial and excellent sea-boat, built and engined by Denny of Dumbarton, 2726 tons, and commanded by Captain Daniell, who spared no effort to make every one happy and comfortable on board. Travellers in India and in the steamers to and fro will be struck with the frequent discussions which they hear about the taxation of that country. There can be no doubt that the wealthier classes there do not bear their fair share. In fact, the rich natives get off nearly scot- free, and millionaires not in trade need pay no more than the ryot whose salt is so heavily burdened.* Even the * " The exemption of the richer classes from taxation is a polit- ical mistake, which, as time goes on, and knowledge and intelli- gence increase, must become more and more mischievous." — • " India," by Sir J. and General Strachey. "It is notorious that the mercantile wealth of the country, which is considerable, and daily increasing, pays very little, in O^ THE INDIAN OCEAX. 137 ^ ■I landed proprietor is charged a mere trifle in comparison ^ with what his forefathers paid under the settlements of Akbar ; and the poorer classes will always have a griev- ance as long as no income-tax, or similar mode of reach- ; ing the large number of wealthy natives, is imposed. : "Well-paid civil servants and baboos unite against any j such proposal, their newspapers enlarging on the diffi- i culty of getting it to work fairly, especially in a country like India, where deceit is a science. Yet I have met Britisli officials who believe that with a little courage and | determination on the part of the authorities it miglit be imposed with safety, would remove a great injustice, and prove a national benefit. But while rich people pay a mere trifle toward the expenses of government, the small \ holders and laborers do contribute a considerable portion ; of their hard earnings in the shape of a salt tax ; and ^ instead of reiterating impressions of my own regarding ^ their impoverished condition, let me quote two passages from '' British India and its Eulers," just published by j Judge Cunningham, of the High Court of Calcutta : j •' On the whole it may be said that the great mass of the occu- pants of the soil of India must be, from the smallness of their j holdings, and the numbers who have to be supported on them, at ] the best of times hard pressed for the means of subsistence ; that, | in the case of a very large number in Bengal and Upper India, j the hardships of their position are enhanced by the presence of a i class of more or less exacting landlords, whose eagerness for an '' proportion to its means, for the protection and advantages which ] it enjoys under British rule."— Mr. Bazett Colvin on "Indian ] Taxation." 138 A WINTER IN" INDIA. increased rental is favored by the increased necessity of a grow- ing population to find room on the soil ; that habits of improvi- dence, and traditional customs of occasional extravagance, not un- frequently destroy any chance there might be of a rise to greater comfort and security ; that the almost universal practice of de- pendence on money-lenders has of late years entailed more serious consequences, owing partly to the larger and more assured interest in the soil which the landowner enjoys under the British revenue settlement, and the better credit he thus obtains ; and partly to the speedier, more exact, and more effectual procedure of the civil courts ; that some of the conditions of modern life may have tended to enhance the difficulties of particular classes ; that though there can be no doubt that a large amount of wealth is being brought into the country, the increase of population, which is likely to be accelerated, will, in years to come, make a large demand on the resources so created ; and that, as no considerable outlets, other than in agricultural employment, at present exist, the pressure on the soil and the penury of the less thrifty and capable agriculturists, is likely, in the absence of some new form of relief, to become still severer than at present. " The grave political and social dangers to which an impover- ished, degraded, and rack-rented peasantry gives rise, are assum- ing every year a more menancing aspect, and the controversy has a tendency, as the pressure of the population on the soil increases, to become continually more embittered. Official evidence of the weightiest character, and tendered from the most various quar- ters, makes it impossible to doubt that the condition of the tenant- ry in several parts of India is a peril to society, and a disgrace to any civilized administration." The following, from the same book, in regard to local self-government, is especially interesting at a time when that subject is much discussed at home : " It was resolved accordingly to intrust to the local govern- ments certain important departments of the administration, to hand over to them certain specified funds for the purpose of meeting the expenditure thus involved and to hold them respon- 01^ THE INDIAI^r OCEAN". 139 sible for obtaining, either by economies, rearrangement, or, if necessary, local taxation, the means for defraying any outlay beyond that covered by the allotment. Cost of jails, registration, police, education, medical services, printing, roads, and some other items, were thus handed over to the several provincial ad- ministrations, a corresponding allotment of revenue being made to each. *' The gross sum made over for these services was about four and a half millions ; this has subsequently been increased by the further development of the system to ive and a half millions, and the Government is gradually extending it, as opportunities offer, in various parts of the Empire. " Bengal is now responsible for all civil expenditure, except that on opium, and for all loss on its productive public works. It has the benefit of all branches of income except land revenue, opium, and salt. The success of the scheme in this province has been so marked that Bengal has already been able to make a material contribution to the Imperial revenue from the large margin of profit which accrued to her under tlie arrangement. Similar measures will hereafter be carried out elsewhere. " All authorities concur in attesting the excellent results of these measures as regards economy and activity in the local ad- ministrations. The continuous growth in local expenditure has been successfully arrested ; every branch of the provincial ad- ministrations has received a wholesome stimulus toward care in the use of public funds ; the local governments have been relieved from a minute financial control which was a constant source of irritation, and the Government of India from duties of supervision which threatened to overwhelm it. The next few years will, it may be hoped, witness the development of a scheme whose sub- stantial success is already beyond dispute." I add a couple more passages in regard to the all-im- portant land question : *' In the majority of instances the landlords are now purely rent-receivers, doing nothing for the land, and spending none of the rental on the improvement of the soil. On the other hand, by the invasion of the occupants' rights, and the reduction of 140 A Wli^^TER liT INDIA. large classes to the level of poverty-stricken and rack-rented tenants-at-will, the landowners have presented a formidable obstacle to the gradual improvements which cultivators with secure tcDure and an interest in the soil would have been certain to effect. A tenantry in the condition of the Behar ryot, holding on a precarious tenure under great proprietors and ' contractors, ' whose one interest it is to force up the rents, is the best guaran- tee for improvident, wasteful tillage and an exhausted soil. " In Bengal, and especially Behar, the landlord system has had the longest and completest trial, and the result of unrestricted competition for the land has been most clearly illustrated. We have now, after a century's experience, to deal with a question which, aifScult at the outset, has become, with each year's fresh accretion of interests, prejudices, and customs, less easy of solu- tion, and which is now so entangled in conflicting claims that its adjustment can scarcely be effected without bitter heart-burnings, ©lass animosities, accusations of bad faith, and all the other inevi- table ill-results of a too long postponed reform. Reform, how- ever, is admitted, even by those who are most alive to its difficul- ties, to be indispensable. Its successful accomplishment would be the crowning feat of Indian statesmanship." Every one who cares to know about India should read Mr. Cunningham's book, although in the judgment of men who have spent a life-time in the country, it is written in too couleur de rose a style, and although nothing is said of the ' ' gulf gradually widening' ' (some observers of long experience assure me) between the edu- cated natives and their rulers, nothing of the demand for an extension of representation, nothing of the complaints recorded by me in preceding pages. The information given is, however, accurate and well put together, and every one must regard it as a valuable contribution to our knowledge of India. The annual average foreign trade of that country, the author tells us, has increased ON THE INDIAN OCEAN. 141 from 18.6 millions in 1834-39 to 122,000,000 in 18Y9-80, and the yearly export of tea now amounts to 34,000,000 pounds, of the value of £3,000,000 ($14,520,000) sterling. According to the most recent official accounts to which I have had access — viz., those of 1879 — there are 1363 tea-gardens in our Indian dominions, having an out-turn of 44,771,632 lbs., and a capital invested in them of £88,794,298 ($429,764,402.32), and paying an average interest of 9.47 per cent. We had a calm, cool Friday, another breeze succeeded, and by 3 a.m. on Sunday we were abreast the Daedalus light ; we passed the remarkable and dangerous coral rocks called ^' The Brothers" at noon, had a rough night, and found that next morning we were in a different climate — every one was shivering, and preferring the sunny side of the ship as she ran along that dreadfully desolate coast. CHAPTER XYI. THE SUEZ CANAL HOME. At 10.30 on Monday morning, 6tli March, our anchor was dropped in the roadstead of Suez, among numerous steamers of various nations, inlcuding H.M.S. Cleopa- tra^ and the Khedive^ and Teheran of the P. and O. Line. Then followed the usual absurd ceremonies of the quar- antine system — a health -despatch received on a forked stick, a list of passengers thrown into a tin box, and the mails put in tarred sacks, Bombay and Aden being in- fected ports, and passengers from the Yenetia not being allowed to land in order to proceed to Alexandria by rail. I have mentioned previously that the British Govern- ment in India no longer manage idol temples, but we adopted the endowments which existed before our rule, and now pay very large sums to the Hindoo and Moham- medan places of worship, in the shape of annual cash payments ; and, besides, lands and villages are assigned for their support to an extent the value of which it is not easy accurately to discover. In the Bombay Presidency alone, and excluding five districts not in the returns, 2725 district religious establishments and 11,039 village temples are paid no less than 214,947r. ($107,473.50), and the total sum contributed, taking cash payments and THE SUEZ CANAL— HOME. 143 assignments together, is computed to be five lacs of rupees ($60,000). In Madras the return of ISTovember, 1872, shows that land revenue alienations equal to 2,332,670r. ($1,166,285) in the case of Hindoos, and 263,194r. ($131,597) in the case of Mohammedans, are apphed for religious purposes, while 525,407r. ($262,- 703.50) were disbursed from treasuries for the same uses. Sooner or later the Government must face the ques- tion how this system can be put an end to, and these payments be made to cease, leaving the temples and mosques ultimately, as a writer in one of the journals puts it, " to depend entirely on the votive offerings of the people." Of course this is a difficult and delicate question, not to be settled off-hand, in a day or a year, but its discussion and eventual decision cannot be avoid- ed, and the ostrich-like policy of refusing to look at it at all, will in the long run be found to be inadmissible. In order, however, to deal with it without fear, we our- selves must be without reproach, and my inquiries in India strongly confirm my previous impression that our ecclesiastical system and establishment of chaplains there cannot be defended. As it may be necessary for me elsewhere to treat this subject at some length, and in detail, I only observe here that a large number of our so-called chaplains do not preach to soldiers, or even civil servants, but to planters and merchants who ought to pay for their own clergy- men ; that influential deputations of Hindoos, Moham- medans, and Christians waited upon me in Calcutta, 144 A WII^TER 11^ IN^DIA. Madras, and Poona, and in many other places gentlemen privately urged me to bring parliamentary pressure to bear against the system of paying bishops and priests of the Established Church of England, and clergymen of the churches of Scotland and Kome, out of revenue prin- cipally derived from persons vrho are not Christians ; that chaplains, considering themselves a superior class on account of their official position, are often found at vari- ance with the more experienced and hard-working mis- sionaries ; that many earnest Christians in India told ine that it would be better even for the soldiers if the state did not interfere at all ; that the ritualistic practices now so prevalent among the class are doing serious damage to the progress of Christianity ; and that the devices fallen upon to get men, who really do no military duty, placed on the ecclesiastical and state-paid staff, are discreditable to the congregations who thus save their money, injuri- ous to Christianity, and contrary to the spirit of the Queen's Proclamation. 'No further step can be taken about heathen temples until Government sets its house in order in this respect ; and I earnestly hope that they will not be content with paltry reductions and more stringent new rules, but boldly recognizing the justice of the complaints, as boldly apply the axe to the root of the tree, JSTo one ever ex- pressed to me an opinion that there is any objection on jprinoifle to chaplains for soldiers being paid out of rev- enue, although several persons well acquainted with the subject did say that they believed that the spiritual wants THE SUEZ CANAL — HOME. 145 of the military would be better supplied if there were no State clergyman at all. A leaf should be taken out of the Ceylon book. In that island a time has been fixed when all such payments by Government shall cease, and the congregations connected with the riches of the Chris- tian churches, on its termination, be given an opportu- nity of doing what has been already done by the poorer sects — viz., supporting their own clergymen. We are now waiting our turn to get into the Suez Canal. Here are the most recent statistics in regard to that remarkable work, in favor of which I voted in the House of Commons many years ago, when we were in a small minority, because opposed by the engineering tal- ent and supposed statesmanship of Great Britain. It was opened in 1869. In 18Y0 there passed through it 496 vessels, with a gross tonnage of 486,000, which paid 6,169,357 francs ($980,277) in toll. In 1881 these fig- ures had risen to 2727 ships, 6,794,401 tons, and 61,274,- 862 francs ($9,742,126), and during last year the number of vessels that passed through exceeded 3000. Of the 2727 vessels in 1881, 2261 were British ; in 1870, 64 per cent of the tonnage belonged to Great Britain ; in 1881 that percentage had risen to 83, and it is still ris- ing. From its opening up to the end of May, 1882, 18,634 steamers have passed through the canal ; of this number 14,169 were British, and the French come next, with 1048 only. The receipts during the years 1870 to 1881 inclusive amounted to very nearly thirteen millions stei'ling, the average toll per ship being about £760 146 A WINTER IIS" INDIA. ($3630), and the net profits are now reported to amount to 14 or 15 per cent per annum. Shades of Kobert Stephenson and Lord Palmerston ! Bj some inexplicable arrangement we were detained at Suez all day, and not allowed to enter the canal until next morning, although a Dutch steamer which arrived two hours after us went in before sunset ; and when morning came a dense and very cold fog prevented us weighing anchor until 8.30, and then at 10.30 we were stopped for five hours in a siding until eight steamers — all British — passed on toward Suez. We spent the night at anchor in the Bitter Lakes, and a short distance from Ismailia, at the entrance of Lake Timsah, found the merchant-steamer Lisgard aground and blocking up the channel ; so we had to lie there for twenty-one hours, until she had been lightened of suffi- cient cargo to enable her to float. That operation might have been performed much quicker, but the quarantine regulations did not permit of assistance from the shore. Every one believes that this farcical system has been adopted at the instance of the owners of steam-launches, as all steamers in quarantine are obliged to have a steam- launch before them, for which the charge is twenty-five francs ($4.Y5) an hour — a direct premium on delay — the presence of a pilot on board the supposed infected ship being inadmissible. Of course a continuance or renewal of this preposterous restriction on trade, and enormous loss to shipowners and inconvenience to passengers, can- not be tolerated much longer. The whole proceedings THE SUEZ CAKAL— HOME. 147 of the so-called sanitary commission require being looked into. The mirage was very remarkable between Ismailia and Port Said, the mounds in the desert appearing like islands in the sea. We were booked for the Khedwe to Malta, but found she had sailed the night before, and as soon as the Yenetia dropped anchor we were transferred to the Teheran^ from Calcutta. All Friday and Saturday it blew from the north-west, and as it had evidently been blowing heavier a day or two before there was a consid- erable sea on, and we had rather a poor time of it ; but Sunday dawned fair and fine, with a calm sea, and we reached Malta, which I had not seen for thirty-three years, early on Monday morning. The great increase of population, especially around Yaletta, and even in the formerly deserted region of St. Paul's Bay, struck me, and I observed with regret as many priests and their consequential beggars as before. Our quickest way home was by the French steamer which carries the British mails to Syracuse, thence by rail to Messina — one of the most beautiful routes in Europe — the mountain, rock, sea-cliff, and valley scenery varying in loveliness every few minutes, and majestic, solemn Etna presiding over all ; and so on to ^Naples by steamer again. There I read a synopsis of the Indian Budget, and was overjoyed to find it in every particular in accordance with the opinions which I had formed. It reflects the 148 A WIKTER IK INDIA. highest credit on the statesmanship of Lord Kipon and Major Baring ; especially are they deserving of praise for reducing the salt-tax, notwithstanding the opposition of the moneyed classes — native and European — who think too much of themselves and too little of the poor.* I have since had an opportunity of perusing the East India financial statement as presented to Parliament in a blue-book, and recommend all who are interested in the social well-being of our great dependency to study it with care. Anything more admirable has seldom been laid before the House of Commons. The following from paragraph 34 will give great satisfaction to all who conversed with me on the subject : "It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government, and of the Government of India, that a constantly increasing share of the work of the country shall be performed by natives of India. Not only will this gradual change add to the ties which already bind educated natives and the chief native families to the British Gov- ernment, but the work will be performed more economically than hitherto. The number of native gentlemen holding offices of trust and position has increased during the last three years, and will continue to do so under the combined influence of the annual admissions to the Covenanted Civil Service in both Eng- land and India, and the rules of 1879, regarding appointments to the Uncovenanted Service." * "When the time comes for reducing taxation we should begin with the taxes on salt and clothing, which add to the cost of the necessaries of life." " Further reductions in the salt duties are, on all grounds, desirable, both for the benefit of the people and of the finances."— " Indian Finance," by Sir J. and Maj. Gen. Strachey." THE SUEZ CAKAL — HOME. 149 ! \ Paragraph 58 bears out what is stated in the foregoing i pages, regarding the poverty of the people in certain dis- \ tricts : \ " A careful examination of the economic condition of the I people in the various provinces of India leads to the conclusion ! that in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh there are but ! slight signs of any improvement in the mass of the people during the last decade. The number of people with incomes of not less than rs. 500 ($350) a year, derived from trade, and assessed to \ the License Tax in 1880-81, was 1550 less than the number as- sessed to the Income Tax in 1870-71 and 1871-73. This would seem to indicate a diminution of the trade-wealth of these Prov- ] inces. On the whole, it may be said that nowhere in India is a i reduction of taxation more required than in the North- Western | Provinces and Oudh." j j 1 give an extract from paragraph 65, which shows that i the Government are fully alive to one of the great ques- - tions of the day : \ " Boards and committees for the administration of certain local | funds already exist in most parts of India. We now wish to widen the sphere of action hitherto assigned to these bodies. ] The Provincial Governments have, therefore, been invited to hand over to them such items of revenue and expenditure as may ap- pear most suited to give them a real interest in the administration of the resources at their command, and, on the other hand, to \ take over as a provincial charge some items of expenditure, such ; as police, over which local bodies cannot exercise any real control. I will not, however, at present discuss this question at length. i The Local Governments have been consulted upon the subject, ; and until their answers are received it will be impossible to de- cide upon the particular measures which it may eventually be ] deemed desirable to adopt. I will only say, that while we recog- \ nize that the development of local self-government must be grad- i ual, and not of a nature to outstrip the wants of the country and I 150 A WIN^TER Ilf IN"DIA. the standard of political education at which the people have ar- rived, at the same time we are desirous of making a real step in advance in the proposed direction." Paragraph 173 should be studied bj those who, in their anxiety to benefit the Chinese, do not sufficiently take into consideration what would be the effect of any sud- den change in the opium duties at the present time on the poorer classes in India : *' From the language which is occasionally used on this subject in England, I am led to infer that many influential persons, ani- mated by a laudable zeal to benefit the population of China, are perhaps somewhat forgetful of the duty we owe to the population of India. It has been calculated that the average income per head of population in India is not more than rs. 27 ($13.50) a year ; and although I am not prepared to pledge myself to the accuracy of a calculation of this sort, it is sufficiently accurate to justify the conclusion that the tax-paying community is exceed- ingly poor. To derive any very large increase of revenue from so poor a population as this is obviously impossible, and if it were possible would be unjustifiable. Apart from the practical issues involved, there are, indeed, two aspects of the question from the point of view of public morality. If, on the one hand, it be urged that it is immoral to obtain a revenue from the use of opium among a section of the Chinese community, on the other hand, it may be replied that to tax the poorest classes in India in order to benefit China would be a cruel injustice ; and it is to be remem- bered that no large increase of revenue in India is possible, un- less by means of a tax which will affect those classes. To tax India in order to provide a cure, which would almost certainly be ineffectual, to the vices of the Chinese, would be wholly unjus- tifiable." At Paris I received the following letter from one of the ablest, most zealous, and most experienced of India's civil servants : THE SUEZ CAKAL— HOME. 151 '' I must write a line to say how sorry I was not to see you again before you left India. The native press and public are unanimous in expressing gratitude to you for the patient and sym- pathetic hearing you have given them. All they ask for is inde- pendent and impartial inquiry, and they are confident that they will then prove the correctness of their statements and the mod- eration of their demands. It is a striking feature of the contro- versy between the Indian official and non-official world, th-at when unprejudiced and qualified judges, like yourself and Mr. Caird, come to this country, the official organs are so very angry with them for the opinions they form. The fact is, that a large pro- portion of officials, even during a long service, remain quite isolated and profoundly ignorant of the facts and feelings around them ; and an intelligent outside observer, who mixes freely with the natives, will learn more in a few weeks of the true state of the country than is known to them." It will be a great satisfaction to me if anything in the preceding pages should induce other family parties to follow our example, and give themselves a dehghtful holiday by spending '' A Winter in India." THE END. INDEX Address presented to the author, 116. Agra and the Taj Mahal, 40. Agra Fort, 43 Allahabad and Benares, 56 ; its famous avenue», 57. Ambek, an extraordinary place, 26. American Mission, the gathering of school- children, 52. tjit^-^at,, ?t,„^i««o ah ''Soirof'^S?'"^'"'" ''""'"'' '"^^ FR^E^cCfh'Sstion establishment, a American M. E. Church visited, 50. '^^^^^ ***' ^^' Darjeeling, 77. Delhi, ancient capital of the Great Mogul, 28 ;. the crisis at, 31 ; the popu- lation of, 31. P. B. Baptist Mission, premises of, 68. Benares, its temples and mosques, 62 ; one temple tenanted solely by monkeys, 62 ; the business of, 65. BoMBAT, 19 ; return to, 123 ; the hand- somest town in the country, 124. Botanical Gardens, 103. British India, and its rulers, 137. British residents, how they live, 34. British power, probable stability of, 113. Buddhist temple, visit to, 80. British Govt-rnraent, sums paid by, to Hindoo and Mohammedan places of worship, 143. C. G. Gate of Tears, the, 16. GuiNDY Park, 97. H. Himalayas, My first sight of the, m. Hindoo Hymn, 36. Home again. 151. Hotels in India, 32. I. Ikdia, its promise of future prosperity, 71 ; the government of. 72 ; taxation, 72 ; employment of natives, 72 ; rail- roads in, 75 ; departure from, 127 ; last night in, 127. Indian Ocean, on the, 135. Calcutta, 67 ; its inhabitants, 69 ; its j^ builfiings, trade, and life, 85. Cashmere Gate 30. j^jgj^ Masjid, the largest mosque in In- Christianity, few converts to, 61 ; ces- ^ij^^ 29. sation of hostility to, 62. Johnstont, Miss, and the medical mis- Cinchova plantations, 104. gion 47 Coffee plantation, 100. Jugglers, tricks of. 64. Concert, A, in aid of widows' asylum, Jumna, The river, 28. 66. CONJKVERAM, 105. Coolies, wages paid to, 83. K. COONOOR, 93. Cunningham's, Mr., book, 140; his sta- Khotub Minar, the highest pillar in the tisticB on trade, 141. world, 32. 154 IKDEX. Lahore, 33 ; Its population, 35. Land Question, The, 139. Lawrence, Sir Jolin, "Delhi must be taken," 31. Lawrence, Sir Henry, his grave visited, 51. Lee, Sergeant, a remarkable man, 53. LEiTNERDr., and his college, 38. LucKNow, 49 ; its population, 50 ; a beautiful city, 50 ; its marvellous siege, 51 ; its amusing bazaars, 52. M. , Madras, 93. Maharajah of Benares, 60. Malabar Hill, 20. Massacre, tale of, never told, 54. Monkeys, A troop of, 23. MoTi-Mus.TiD, or the pearl mosque, 29. Mutiny of 1857, 28. N. Natives, Improved treatment of, 114. O. RELiGiotis eetablishmenta, sums paid to 142. RuNJEET Singh, The tomb of, 36. S. Samnugger, The jute factory of, 69. SENTiMENT,The, Of educated natives, 128. Sepoy barbarities, 54. SiKANDRA, from which was taken the Koh-i-noor, 44. Sounds, Extraordinary, at night, 52. Story, a true, 81. Straight, Mr. Dougl as, 57. Stuart, Sir Robert, chief-justice, 57. Suez Canal, when opened, 13 ; return to, 142; interesting information concern- ing, 145. SuRAT, The, 13. Taj Mahal, the finest building in the world, 41. ka-Plantations, 74. Thomson, Mr., Prof, of English Litera- ature, 48. Tiger Hill, 78. Traill, Rev. John, 27. V. O'Neill, Rev. Father, 41. p Valentine, Dr., medical missionary, 48. PooNA, At, 109 ; six Government schools Venice, varied views of, 10. for females at, 109. Vishnu Temple, 106. R. Railway travelling in India, 24. Red Sea, The color of, 15. Voyage out, The, 9.^ W. Weir, Mr., the banker, 48. 165. OB o o is: s I nsr THE STANDARD LIBRARY, TMEIR STERLING WORTH. OPINIONS OF CRITICS. I. Life of Cromwell. NEW TOBK SUW: "Mr. Hood's biography is a positive boon to the mass of readers, because it presents a more correct view of the great soldier than any of the shorter lives published, vs^hether we compare it with Southey's, Guizofs, or even Forster's." PACIFIC CUUBCUMAN, San Francisco : " The fairest and most readable of the numerous biographies of Cromwell." GOOD IITEBATURE, New York : " If all these books will prove as fresh and readable as Hood's 'Cromwell,' the literary merit of the series will be as high as the price is low." NBW YORK DAILY GRAPH- IC: " Hood's ' Cromwell ' is an excellent account of the great Protector. Crom- well was the heroic servant of a sublime cause. A complete sketch of the man and the period." CHRISTIAN UNION, New Tork : " A valuable biography of Cromwell, told with interest in every part and with such condensation and skill in arrange- ment that prominent events are made clear to all." SCHOOL J^OURNAL, New Tork: " Mr. Hood's style is pleasant, clear, and flowing, and he sets forth and holds his own opinion well." EPISCOPAL RECORDER, Phil- adelphia : "An admirable and able Life of Oli- ver Cromwell, of which we can unhesi- tatingly speak words of praise." NEW YORK TELEGRAM: "Full of the kind of information with which even the well-read like to refresh themselves." INDIANAPOLIS SENTINEL, Ind. : "The book is one of deep interest. The style is good, the analysis searching, and will add much to the author's fame as an able biographer." THE WORKMAN, Pittsburgh, Pa. : " This book tells the story of Crom- well's life in a captivating way. It reads like a romance. The paper and print- ing are very attractive." NEW YORK HERALD : " The book is one of deep interest. The style is good, the analysis search- ing." II. Science in Short Chapters. HOJIRNAL OF EDUCATION, Boston : *' * Science in Short Chapters ' supplies ft growing want among a large class of busy people, who have not time to con- sult scientific treatises. Written in clear and simple style. Very interesting and instructive." 156 ACADEMY, London, England : "Mr. Williams has presented these scientific subjects to the popular mind with much clearness and force. It may be read with advantage by those without special scientific training." MELIGIO US TELESCOPE, Day- ton, Ohio : " It is historic, scientific, and racy. A book of intense practical thought, which one wishes to read carefully and then read again." NEW YORK SCMOOIi JOTTR- JVJLi; *'A volume of handy science, not only interesting as an abstract subject, but valuable for its clear expositions of every-day science. Of Professor Will- iams as an authority upon such subjects, it is unnecessary to comment. He al- ready has a fame as a scientific writer which needs no recommendation." JPAIjL MALZ gazette, London, England : " Original and of scientific value." GRAPHIC, London : " Clear, simple, and profitable." CANADA BAPTIST, Toronto r " A rich book at a marvellously low price. The style is sprightly and sim- ple. Every chapter contains something we all want to know." NEWARK DAILY ADVER- TISER,-^. J.: " As an educator this book is worth a year's schooling, and it will go where schools of a high grade cannot penetrate. For such a book twenty-five cents seems a ridiculous sum." tT. W. BASH:F0RT>, Auburndale, Mass. : " A marvellous book, as fascinating as Dickens, to be consulted as an authority along with Britannica, and even fuller of practical hints than the latter's ar- ticles. I do not know how you cam print its 300 pages for 25 cents." AMERICAN, Philadelphia : "Mr. Williams' work is a practical compendium." III. The American Humorist. COMMERCIAL GAZETTE, Cin- cinnati, Ohio : " It is finely critical and appreciative ; exceedingly crisp and unusually enter- taining from first to last." CHRISTIAN INTELLIGEN- CER, New York : "A book of pleasant reading, with enough sparkle in it to cure any one of the blues." CONGREGATIONALIST, Bos- ton : " They are based upon considerable ■tudy of these authors, are highly ap- preciative in tone, and show a percep- tivity of American humor which is yet a rarity among Englishmen." SALEM TIMES, Mass.: "No writer in England was, in all respects, better qualified to write a book on American Humorists than Haw»is," CHRISTIAN tlOURNAL, To- ronto : " We have been specially amused with the chapter on poor Artemus Ward, which we read on a railway journey. We fear our fellow-passengers would think something ailed us, for laugh we did, in spite of all attempts to preserve a sedate appearance." OCCIDENT, San Francisco : " This book is pleasant reading, with sparkle enough in it— as the writer is him- self a wit— to cure one of the 'blues.' " D ANBURY NEWS, Conn.: " Mr. Haweis gives a brief bibliograph- ical sketch of each writer mentioned in the book, an analysis of his style, and classifies each into a distinct type from the others. He presents copious ex- tracts from their works, making an en- tertaining book." 157 CENTRAL BAPTIST, St. Louis : *' A perusal of this volume will give the reader a more correct idea of the charac- ter discussed than he would probably get from reading their biographies. The lecture is analytical, penetrative, terse, incisive, and candid. The book is worth its price, and will amply repay reading.'" SCHOOI^ JOTTRNAI^, New York : " Terse and brief as the soul of wit Itself." INDIANAPOLIS SBNTINEZ, Indiana : "It presents, in fine setting, the wit andwisdomof Washington Irving, Oliver W. Holmes, James R. Lowell, Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and Bret Harte, and does it con amove.'''* THE MAIL, Toronto, Ont. r "Rev. H. R. Haweis ia a writer to© well-known to need commendation at our hands for, at least, his literary style. The general result is that not a page re- pels us and not a sentence tires. We find ourselves drawn pleasantly along in just the way we want to go ; all our favorite points remembered, all our own pet phrases praised, and the good things of each writer brought forward to re- fresh one's memory. In fine, the book is a most agreeable companion." LUTHERAN OBSERVER, TUla,- delphia : " The peculiar style, the mental char- acter, and the secret of success, of each of these prominent writers, are presented with great clearness and discrimination." IV. Liyes of Illustrious Shoemakers. WESTERN CHRISTIAN AD- VOCATE, Cincinnati : " When we first took up this volume we were surprised that anybody should attempt to make a book with precisely this form and title. But as we read its pages we were far more surprised to find them replete with interest and in- struction. It should be sold by the scores of thousands." PRESBYTESIAN OBSERVER, Baltimore : " The writer of this book well under- stands how to write biography— a gift vouchsafed only to a few." NEW YORK HERALD : " The sons of St. Crispin have always been noted for independence of thought in politics and in religion ; and Mr. Winks has written a very readable ac- count of the lives of the more famous of the craft. The book is quite interest- ing." DANBXTRT NEWS, Conn. : "The Standard Libbary has been enriched by this addition." LITERARY WORLD, London': " The pages contain a great deal of in- teresting material— remarkable episodes of experience and history." BOSTON GLOBE: " A valuable book, containing much in- teresting matter and an encouragement to self-help." CHRISTIAN STANDARD, Cin- cinnati : " It will inspire a noble ambition, and may redeem many a life from failure." CHRISTIAN SECRETARY, Harlr ford. Conn. : " Written in a sprightly and popular manner. Full of interest." EVANGELICAL MESSENGER, Cleveland : " Everybody can read the book with interest, but the young will be specially profited by its perusal." LEICESTER CHRONICLE,Eng- land : " A work of the deepest interest asd of singular ability." 1S8' COMMEHCIjLIj GAZETTJS, Cin- cinnati : " One of the most popular books pub- liBbed lately." CENTMAIj METBOmST, Ken- tucky : " This is a choice work— full of fact and biography. It will be read with in- terest, more especially by that large class whose awl and hammer provide the human family with soles for their feet." TSE WE8TEMN MAIZ, England : " Written with taste and tact, in a graceful, easy style. A book most in- teresting to youth." CHRISTtAN GXTAHniAN, To- ronto : " It is a capital book." EVANGELICAI^ CJSURCM^ Man, Toronto : ""This is a most interesting book, written in a very popular style." V. Flotsam and Jetsam. SATURDAY SEVIEW, Eng.: "Amusing and readable. . . . Among the successful books of this order must be classed that which Mr. Bowles has re- cently offered to the public." NEW YORK WORJLn: "■ This series of reflection?, some phil- osophic, others practical, and many hu- morous, make a cheerful and healthful little volume, made the more valuable by its index." CENTRAL METHODIST, Cat- tlesburgh, Ky. : " This is a romance of the sea, and is one of the most readable and enjoyable books of the season." ZUTSERAN OBSERVER, Phil. : " The cargo on this wreck must have been above all estimate in value. How much ' Jetsam ' there may be we cannot tell, but what we have seen is all ' Flot- sam,' and will float and find its way in enriching influence to a thousand hearts and homes." NEW YORK HERALD: "It is a clever book, full of quaint conceits and deep meditation. There Is plenty of entertaining and original thought, and ' Flotsam and Jetsam ' is indeed worth reading." CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, Nash- ville, Tenn. : "Many of the author's comments are quite acute, and their personal tone will give them an additional flavor." METHODIST RECORDER, Pitts- burgh, Pa. : "In addition to the charming inci- dents related, it fairly sparkles with fresh and original thoughts which cannot fail to interest and profit." GOOD LITERATURE, New York: "... Never fails to amuse and inter- est, and it is one of the pleasantest feat- ures of the book that one may open it at a venture and be sure of finding some- thing original and readable." HERALD AND PRESBYTER, Cincinnati, Ohio : " His manner of telling the story of his varied observations and experiences, with his reflections accompanying, is £0 easy and familiar, as to lend his pages a fas- cination which renders it almost impos- sible to lay down the book until it is read to the end." NEW YORK LEDGER: " It is quite out of the usual method of books of travel, and will be relished all the more by those who enjoy bits of quiet humor and piquant sketches of men and things on a yachting journey.'* NEW YORK STAR: "Not too profound for entertainment, and yet pleasantly suggestive. A volume of clever sayings." CHRISTIAN SECRETARY, Hartford, Conn. : "It is a hook well worth reading, . . , fuUof thotaglit." 159 PMES B TTJEBIAX tTO JTRNAZ, Philadelphia : "A racy, original, thoughtful book. On the slight thread of sea-voyaging it Jhangs the terse thoughts of an original mind on many subjects. The style is so epicy that one reads with interest even When not approving." CHRISTIAN lyTBLLIGEN^ CER, New York : " No one can spend an hour or two in. Mr. Bowles' gallery of graphic pen-pict- ures without being so deeply impressed with their originality of conception and lively, epicy expression, as to talk about them to others." VI. The Highways of Literature. NATION AT. BAPTIST, Phila. : •• A book full of wisdom ; exceedineily bright and practical." PACIFIC CHUBCHMAX, San Francisco : *' The best answer we have seen to the common and most puzzling question, * What shall I read ? ' Scholarly and beautiful." DANBXTBY NEWS: "Its hints, rules, and directions for reading are, just now, what thousands of people are needing." CMMISTIAN WITNESS, New- market, N. H. : *' Clear, terse, elegant in style. A boon to young students, a pleasure for schol- ars." NEW TOBK HEBALI): "Mr. David Pryde, the author of ' Highways of Literature ; or, What to Read, and How to Read,' is an erudite Scotchman who has taught with much success in Edinburgh. His hints on the best books and the best method of mas- tering them are valuable, and likely to prove of great practical use." NEW TOBK TABLET: " This is a most useful and interesting work. It consists of papers in which the author offers rules by which the reader may discover the best books, and be enabled to study them properly." VII. Colin Clout's Calendar. XiEEDS MEBCUBT, England : "The best specimens of popular sci- entific expositions that we have ever had the good fortune to fall in with." NEW YOBK NATION: " The charm of such books is not a little heightened when, as in this case, a few touches of local history, of cus- toms, words, and places are added." AMERICAN BEFOBMEB, New York: " There certainly is no deterioration in the quality of the books of the Standard Library. This book consists of short chapters upon natural history, written in an easy, fascinating style, giving rare and valuable information concerning trees, plants, flowers, and animals. Such books should have a wide circulation beyond the list of regular subscribers. Some will criticise the author's inclina- tion to attribute the marvellous things which are found in these plants, animals, etc., to a long process of development rather than to Divine agency. But the information is none the less valuable, whatever may be the process of these developments." 160 EDINB UBGM SCOTSMAN, Scot- land : "There can be no doubt of Grant Allen's competence as a writer on nat- ural history subjects," NEW YOBK MJEBALD: *' A book that lovers of natural history will read with delight. The author is Buch a worshipper of nature that he gains our sympathy at once." THE ACADEMY, London : " The point in which Mr Grant Allen is beyond rivalry is in his command of language. By this we do not mean only his rich vocabulary, but include also his arrangement of thought and his manip- ulation of sentences. We could imagine few better k-esons to a pupil of Eng- lish than to be set to analyze and explain the charm of Mr. Grant Allen's style." CANADIAN BAPTIST, Toronto : " Mr, Grant Allen is one of the few scientific men who can invest common natural objects and processes with poeti- cal beauty and make them attractive to ordinary readers." HEMALD, Monmouth, Oregon : "A wonderful book by a charming naturalist. Lovers of flowers, birds, plants, etc., will prize this volume high- ly," NEW YORK J^OURNAIi OP COMMERCE: " A charming volume, free from the taint of exaggeration and sensational- ism." INDIANAPOLIS SENTINEL: " He is as keen an observer as Thoreau or Burroughs." CHRISTIAN STANDARD, Cin- cinnati : *' They are written in a pleasant and captivating style, and contain much valu- able information." METHODIST PROTESTANT, Baltimore. "One of the finest productions of modern times." GOOD LITERATURE, New York: " A trustworthy guide in natural his- tory, as well as a delightful, entertaining writer." Till. George Eliot's Essays. THE CRITIC, New York : " Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have done a real service to George Eliot's innumer- able admirers by reprinting in their popular Standard Libraky the great novelist's occasional contributions to the periodical press." NEW YORK SUN: "In the case of George Eliot espe- cially, whose reviews were anonymous, and who could never have supposed that euch fugitive ventures would ever be widely associated with the name of a diUident and obscure young woman, we cain access in her early essays, as in no other of her published writings, to the sanctuary of her deepest convictions, and to the intellectual workshop in which literary methods and processes were tested, discarded, or approved, and liter- ary tools fashioned and manipulated long before the author had discerned the large purposes to which they were to be applied. . . . Looking back over the whole ground covered by these admira- ble papers, we are at no loss to under- stand why George Eliot should have made it a rule to read no criticisms on her own stories. She had nothing to learn from critics. She was justified in assuming that not one of those who took upon themselves to appraise her achieve- ments had given half of the time or a tithe of the intellect, to the determina- tion of the right aims and processes of the English novels which as these re- 161 views attest, she had herself expended on that object before venturing upon that form of composition which Fielding termed the modern epic." EXAMINER, New York : "These essays ought to be read by any one who would understand this part of George Eliot's career ; and, in- deed, they furnish the key to all her subsequent literary achievements." JSMOOKLTN DJLILT EAGLE: "It is rather suprising that these es- says have not been collected and pub- lished before, and it is a matter of con- gratulation that they are now issued." CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, New York: " They show the versatility of the great novelist. One on Evangelical Teaching is especially interesting." INniANAPOZIS SENTINEL: "Nathan Shepherd's introduction to these essays is worth many times the price of the volume." EPISCOPAL METHODIST, Bal- timore : " Everybody of culture wants to read all George Eliot wrote." NORTHERN CHRISTIAN AD- VOCATE, Syracuse : "The compiler of this collection haa done a unique and a useful work." METHODIST PR O TESTANT, Baltimore : " They comprise some of the best of the author's writings." ZION'S HERALD, Boston : " As remarkable illustrations of her masculine metaphysical ability as is evi- denced in her strongest fictions." CHURCH TTNION, New York: "Nathan Sheppard, the collector of the ten essays in this form, has written a highly laudatory but critical introduction to the book, on her ' Analysis of Mo- tives,' and after reading it, it seems to us that every one who would read her works profitably and truly, should first have read it." HARTFORD EVENING POST: " They are admirable pieces of literary workmanship, but they are much more than that. . . . These essays are triumphs of critical analysis combined with .epi- grammatic pungency, subtle irony, and a wit that never seems strained." IX. Charlotte Bronte. DAILY ADVERTISER, T^iewsLvk, N. J. : "There was but one Charlotte Bronte, as there was but one William Shake- speare. To write her life acceptably one must have made it the study of years ; have studied it in the integrity of all its relations, and considered it from the broadest as well as from the narrowest aspect. This is what Mrs. HoUoway has done." ZION'S HERALD, Boston : " This well-written sketch, with selec- tions from her writings, will be appre- ciated and give a clear idea of the re- markable intellectr.al ability of this gifted but heavily -burdened woman." NEW YORK HERALD: ] " There are, at times, flights of elo- ] quence that rise to grandeur." I BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: 1 " Managed with the rare skill we might j expect at the hands of a fair-minded I woman dealing with the traits of charac- ' ter and the actual career of one who, amid extraordinary circumstances of adversity, plodded her way to fame i within the span of a brief lifetime." | SOUTHERN CHURCHMAN, Richmond, Va.: "There are few memoirs more sad i than those of this gifted woman and her ^ sisters. An interesting volume at the ] cheap price of fifteen cents." ] 162 O^OUBXAZ ANJ> MESSENGEB, Cincinnati : "The reader, for a small sum, will obtain quite a thorough understanding of the characteristics and literary abil- ity of Miss Bronte, and also be placed in possession of some of her rarest thoughts." EPISCOPAL BECOBDEB, Phil- adelphia : •' The manner in which the reminis- cences are narrated is very agreeable, and the reader wonders how so fascinat- ing a life-story could be found in the proey confines of literature. . . . A thor- oughly enjoyable style of description and a deep sympathy with the subject render Mrs. Holloway's sketch exceed- ingly readable." CENTBAZ CHBISTIAN AD» roc ATE, St. Louis : "The book will be welcomed by all lovers of pure bibliographical litera- ture." Sam Hobart. JDAILT FBEE PBESS, London, Ontario : *' The continual additions made to the Standard Library of works of a high order is evidence that the reading public can easily absorb something more useful than the mere novel. . . . The latest issue deals with the life of a railroad engineer— Sam Hobart, one of the mill- ion men who are employed in the rail- way service of America. ... It is a marvel of cheapness and biographical excellence." NEW TOBK WOBILD: "A graphic narrative and a strong picture of a life full of heroism and changes. Pull of encouragement, and as thrilling as a romance." G VABDIANf Truro, Nova Scotia : " The author's object in writing it was to portray the possibilities of happiness and usefulness within the reach of a workingman content to fill the sphere of usefulness awarded him, and willing to lend a helping hand to do work for God and humanity. It is just such a book as we would like to see in the hands of rail- road men." DANBVBY NEWS: "It is doubtful if any working person can read this book, and not become a .better worker and a better man." EPISCOPAIj METHOniSTfBAl' timore : " A charming book. All railroad men will be interested in it, and it will pay professional men to read it." CHBISTIAN SECBETABT, Hartford, Conn.: " The object of the book is to show how happy and useful a workingman may be, if content in his work and will- ing to do well. Written in a very in- teresting way, and while it will probably be devoured by railroad men, it will af- ford very pleasurable reading to all." BELIGIOUS HEBAZn, Hart- ford, Conn.: "An entertaining book designed to aid in making one true and noble." lUTMEBAN OBSEBVEB, Phila- delphia : "Dr. -Fulton has done a good work in writing this story of a railroad man. It is a genuine record of heroic fidelity to dnty. Let it be scattered by the thousands." CnVBCB ADVOCATE, Harris- burgh : "If every workingman and employer would follow its principles, the solution of the Labor Question would be near at hand." PUBLICATIONS OP FUNIC &» WAGNALLS, NEW yORK". 163 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATIONS From the Writings of Dr. Guthrie, arranged under the subjects which they illustrate. i^« By an American Ciergf jitaan* Price, in Cloth, $1.50. This book abounds in picturesque similes. Dr. Gntlirie has rarely, if ever, been equaled either in the number, beauty or force of the illustrations with which his sermons and ■writings abound. They have been collected by an American clergyman, a great admirer of the author, and the book forms a perfect storehouse of anecdotes, comparisons, examples and illustrations. It contains tbe choicest ctf bis illustrations, arranged under the subjects which they illustraila. Ihe Lmdon Times says: "Dr. Guthrie is the most elegant orator in Europe." Dr. Gandlish 8ajs'> "Dr. Guthrie's genius has long since placed him at the head of all the gifted and popular preachers of our day." Dr. James W. Alexander says : *'I listened to him for fifty minutes^ but they passed like nothing." The Western Cliristian Ad- vocate says : "Dr. Guthrie was pe- culiarly happy in the use of brilliant and forcible illustrations in his ser- mons and writings. An American has selected many of these gems of thought and arranged them under the subjects which they illustrate. Readers and preachers will enjoy them, and will find many beautiful sentiments and seed- thoughts for present and future use." The Boston Simday Olobe Bays : "Dr. Guthrie's illustrations are rich and well chosen and give great force to his ideas. Love, faith, hope, charity are the pillars of hi;3 beUef." Tlie lixitliera n Observer, Phila- delphia, says: "The power of illustra- tion should be cultivated by preachers of the Gospel, and this volume of speci- mens, if used aright, will furnish valu- able suggestions. A good illustration in a sermon awakens the imagination, helps the memory and gives the barb to truth that it may fasten in the ieart." Tlie Christian Intellig<>nc«r says : " It is a large repository full of stirring thoughts set in those splendid forms of ' spiritualized imagination,' of which Dr. Guthrie was the peerleas master." Tlie Christian Observer, Lonis- ville, says: "No words of ours cocdd add to its value." The Bostr?n Post says: "A rare mine of literary wealth." The Observer, New York, says: "Ifc was not given to every generatiou to , have a Guthrie." The Chr's*i«»n Advocate, New York, says: "This book will be read with interest by the religious world." The Sion's HeraliS, Boston, says: "Preachers will appreciate this vol- ume." The Christian Gnardian. To- ronto, says: "An eKceedinglyint^esting and valuable work." Jia* The above works will be sent by mail, postage paid, oh receipt qf the price. 164 PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK &> WAGNALLS, NEW YORK. TALKS TO FARMERS. BY CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 300 pp., 12ino, Clt)th, $1.00. This is the last, and one of the best, of the wonderful productions of the fertile pen and prolific brain of Mr. Spurgeon. It consists of a series of Talks to Farmers. Each Talk is a short sermon from a text on some subject concerning agriculture. Mr. Spurgeon is as much at home in, and as familiar with, the scenes of nature as he is with the stores and business of mighty London. WHAT IS THOUGHT OF IT. Canadian Baptist says: "Our jjeaders need no information about Mr. Spurgeon. His name is a houBehold word. They read his sermons con- stantly. They have only to be told that something new of his has appeared, and they are eager to procure and read. In nothing, perhaps, does Mr. Spurgeon's greatness manifest itself more con- spicuously than in his wonderful power of adapting his discourses to the needs of those to whom he speaks. •John Ploughman's Talks ' and ' John Ploughman's Pictures' are admirable illustrations ©f this power. So is the book before us. It will be especially interesting to farmers, but all wiU en- Joy the practical common sense, the abundance of illustrative anecdote, the depth of spiritual insight, the richness of imagery, that prevail in the volume. The subjects of the different chapters are: 'The Sluggard's Farm,' -The Broken Fence,' 'Frost and Thaw,' 'The Com of Wheat Dying to Bring Forth Fruit,' 'The Ploughman/ 'Ploughing the Eock,' 'The Parable of the Sower,' ' The Principal Wheat.' ' Spring in the Heart,' • Farm Labor- ers,' 'What the Farm Laborers Can Do and What They Cannot Do,* 'The Sheep before the Shearers,' 'In the Hay Field,' ' Spiritual Gleaning,' 'Meal Time in the Cornfield,' 'The Leading Wagon,' 'Threshing,' 'The Wheat in the Barn.' Every farmer should read this book." Tlie Cliristian i^onitor, St. Louis, Mo., says : "Most interesting and unique. The arguments in favor of ChrisManity are able and convincing, and there is not a dry .uninteresting line in the book; the distinguished author presents the principles of religious life in a novel but instructive manner, and the garniture of truth and earnestness in his competent hands makes the book eminently readable," This American edition is edited by Talbot W. Chambebs, D.D. 544 large octavo pages. Cloth, $2.50. Howard Crosby, D.O., says : •* I consider Godet a man of soundest learning and purest orthodoxy." Tliomas Armitage, D.O., says: "Especially must I commend the fair, pain8takiBg,thorougb and devout work of Dr. Godet. All his works are wel- come to every true thinker." Artlinr Brooks, D.I>., says : "Any one acquainted with Godet's other works will congratulate himself that the same author's clear logic and deep learning, as brought to bear upon the diflaculties of the Epistle to the Ro- mans, are to be made accessible through this publication." J8@=- The aiove w rks will he sent by tn.J.il, postage paidf on receipt »f the pnct. 165 T5e "Che^p Ijood Boo\" piioWem. THIS PROBLEM MUST BE SOLVED IF THE MASSES IN AMERICA ARE TO BE HELD TO VIRTUE AND TRUE MANLINESS. The Demoralizing Effects of Bad Books. A man's associates determine his character. Our most intimate compan- ions are the authors of the books we read; they are with us when others are denied our presence; they enter our homes, and, unquestioned, cross the threshold of our most private cham- bers. The parent can guard his daugh- ter against the wrong comrade, but how watch the author with whom she communes ? The comrade can be seen: the author in his book is easily con- cealed and communed with, in her chamber, when she is thought to be alone. What suggestive words, what descriptions of deception, of betrayal, of plots and counterplots, what hot words of passion she reads without a thought of wrong which, if she heard spoken, would crimson her face with blushes ! This i3 true, not of those books only that have a bad reputation, but of hundreds of books that joass as respect- able. Boys and girls, men and women, of the better families, all over the country, are reading daily descriptions that would not dare be uttered aloud in their presence : not now, but by and by, ' when the evil communication has I wrought its perfect work in the cor- j ruption of manners, they will be heard * and repeated without a blush. f Ttiere are fathers — men of the world, who would shoot dead the villain who dared speak in the presence of their daughters words one-tenth as black as these same daughters often read. Yet a thought read is a thought thought and as a man thinketh so he is. O foolish parents and educators ! why are ye so careful of what enters th« ear and so heedless of what enters the eye ? The secret of the failure of many a faithful ministry, of the waywardness and final destruction of thousands of the most promising of boys and girls — the mentally active — is concealed be- tween the covers of the books they read. See to what monstrous proportions this evil has grown 1 In New York City alone over 200,000 boots of fiction, mostly trashy and hurtful, are printed every week. These books, by circulating libraries or pri- vate lending, pass from family to fami- ly, so that many read the same book. Besides over a million copies of the sensational story papers are issued from the New York presses each week — that is, about one such paper to every ten families I Then, what vast quantities are supplied by other cities I Now, think of the class of men and women who are, usually, the authors of these flashy stories, and who are securing actually a more universal and a closer hearing than our preachers of all denominations. Representatives of this class can often be seen on the streets of New York with blear eyes and tangled hair and lecherous looks- beings from whom you instinctively recoil. You had rather see a daughter of yours, just budding into woman- hood, clasp the hand of a smallpox patient, than, in social equality, the hand of such an one. Yet, believe it, ye doting fathers, ye thoughtless, con- fiding clergymen, ye educators, philan- 166 thropists, these beings from whom you BO recoil are boon companions of four- fifths of the mentally awakened boys and girls of America. Is this an esaggeration ? Look at a single fact. A publisher of popular books in New York recently said ; •• Some time since I inserted in [a popular religious New York journal] at a cost of $60.00, a large display adver- tisement of good standard books. In the same issue of this paper I inserted at a cost of $1.25 a small advertisement of a flash sensational book. What do y*l» think was the result ? WeU, my $60.00 advertisement brought me six orders for my good books, while my $1.25 advertisement brought me one hundred and ihirty orders for my bad book. Yet this was a religious paper, and the readers presumably church members 1 " This incident throws a flash of elec- tric light— revealing (1) the wide spread- ing of this evil of pernicious reading. (2) A reason why it is so much easier to publish the sensational book at low rates than it is to publish the standard book: $1.25 invested in advertising brings over one hundred orders for the one; and $60.00, similarly invested, brings but six orders for the other. These facts make plain why we must have the co-operation of the clergy and others if good literature is to be pub- lished permanently at low rates. Bad literature wiU run itself. It is water going down-hill. Some other force than gravity must pull water up-hill. The force that will make cheap good literature permanently possible must be generated in the hearts of the true educators and philanthropiats, devel- oped Christians. The Educational Effect of Good Books. Books beyond anything else are edu- cators of the people. The intellectual, social and moral character of a people must be largely an outgrowth of their reading. The character of the books already issued in the Standard Library, and of those now announced for future issue, is a sufficient guarantee that the educa- tional effect of a general reading of the books comprising this Library must prove most satisfactory. In the warfare against bad literature our motto has been ' ' Conqceb by Ee- pLAOiNG." Mere denunciation is of little avail. The mind must be filled. To prove to the people that the books that they are reading are worthless, and often vicious, will not be of any permanent advantage unless you place in their hands interesting books of positive value. Give them something else to think about, and they will be easily weaned from worthless trash. The quality of the matter in our library is always standard. Science, History, Biography, Essays, and Travels are included in this series. The educa- tional result in a popular distribution of such books cannot be overesti- mated. Good books are needed at low prices to stimulate the masses to higher attainments. The question is —Shall the manhood and womanhood of our country sink to the standard of the Dime Novel, or rise to that of the choicest literature in the English lan- guage? Why should any waste their spare hours over third-rate books, when they might spend them with the great- est and best thinkers of the world ? None but absolutely new books get into this Library. Hence a great feature is freshness. Thus there is no danger that a subscriber will receive a duplicate of a book he already has. 167 How the Advocates of Qood Cheap Books Can Help Us. If vigorously sustained, a good and lasting result wiU be secured. TJnassistod we can do little. We can, at most, but supply ammunition ; tbe fighting must be done by tbe clergy and tbe advocates of good reading throughout the country. There is most urgent need for this reform. If not, why would such men as Drs, Hall, Ezra Abbott, Mark Hop- kins, Wm. M. Taylor, and scores of others of representative men in differ- ent spheres of life and parts of the country, so unanimously and enthusi- Biastically send us words of God- speed ? Is not this enthusiastic support most reasonable ? • Eead and act at once. To accomplish the work this enterprise is fitted to do. we must have your enthusiastic and persistent co-operation. Hundreds of the ablest preachers in the land are giving us their hearty support. Many of them have not deemed it out of place to attack the bad book in the pulpit and commend the good. You can do us effective work by the distribution of descriptive circulars ; urging your friends to purchase the books ; organizing reading circles i8 your neighborhoods, and in many other ways that will readily suggest them- selves to your mind. The price of subscription for the entire 23 books is $5.00— $2.50 now. and $2.50 July 2, when the first haK of the series will be completed. Can you not secure for us some sub- scribers? Try it. Representative Clergymen Heartily Indorsing this Plan. Chas. H. Hall D. D., Holy Trinity Eoiscopal Church, Brooklyn, says : "In the great strife for the greatest good of the largest number, put me down as on tbe side of this plan. Place my name on your subscription list." Pres. Mark Hopking, D.jy., of Williams College, says : " The attempt is worthy of all commendation aad encouragement. It will be a great boon to the cauntry." X:zra Aboft, D. D., LiL..!)., of Harvard College, says : " I heartily approve of your project." T; 'W, Chambers, D.D., Colle- giate Reformed Church, New YorK, says: " The plan seems to me both praise- "vrorthy and feasible." Sylvester- P. Scovfl, D.D., First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburg, Pa., says : *' Your plan deserves a place in the category of moral reforms." J. P. Neivman, D.D., New York, says : •'I recommend my friends to sub- scribe for the twenty-six books to be issued within the coming year.' Geo. C. Lorim^r, D.D., Baptist Church, Chicago, says : " I sincerely hope your endeavors to circulate a wholesome and elevating class of books will prove suocessful. Certainly, clergymen cannot afford that it should fail." diaries "W. Cxisbing, D.D., First M. E. Church, Rochester, N. Y., says : " I have been deeply interested in your effort to make good books as cheap as had ones . I mentioned the matter from my pulpit. As a result I at once got fifty-four subscribers for the full set, and more to come." J. O. Peck, D.D., First M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N Y., says : "Your effort is commendable. You ought to have the co operation of all good men. It is a moral, heroic, and humane enterprise." 168 THE STANDARD LIBRARY. WHAT KEPKESENTATIVE CLERGYMEN SAY OF IT. Chas. K. Hall, D.D., Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, says : " Great book monopolies, like huge railroad syndicates, are now the mo* narchical relics against which the benevolence and radicalism of the age, from different standpoints, are bound to wage war. Each source will have its own motives and arguments, but each will resolve to conquer in the long run. At one end of the scale we have the Life of Dickens offered for $800, that some one wealthy man may enjoy the comfort of his proud privilege of wealth in having what no other mortal possesses ; at the other, we hnd the volume offered at 10 or 20 cents, which any newsboy or thoughtful laborer uses in common with thousands. In the great strife for the great- est good of the largest number, put me down as on the side of the last. I enclose my subscription order for a year." Rev. Chas, W. Cashing, D.D., Eirst M. E. Church, Rochester, N. Y., says ; "One of the most pernicious sources of evil among our young people is the books they read. When 1 can get a young man Interested in substan- tial books, I have great hope of him. For this reason 1 have been deeplj interested in your effort to make good books as cheap as bad ones. I men- tioned the matter from my pulpit. As a result I at once got fifty -four sub- scribers for the full set, and more to come." J. O. Feck, D.I>., First M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. T., says: "Your effort is commendable. Yon ought to have the co-operation of all good men. It is a moral, heroic, and humane enterprise." Fres, Mark Hopkins, D.D., of Williams College, says : "The attempt of Messrs. Funk and Wagnalls to place good literature •within reach of the masses is worthy of all commendation and encourage- ment. If the plan oan be successfully carried out, it will be a great boon to the country." Creo. C. liorrimer, D.D., Baptist Church, Chicago, says: " I sincerely hope your endeavors to circulate a wholesome and elevat- ing class of books will prove successful. Covtainly, clergymen, and Chris- tians generally, cannot afford that it should fail, 'in proof of my personal interest in your endeavors, I subscribe for a year." J. P. Newman, D.D., New York, says: " I have had faith from the beerinning in the mission of Messrs. Funk r a Trifle. i These books are printed in readable type, on fair paper, and are bound in postal card manilla. These books are printed wholly -without abridgment, except Canon Farrar's "Life •f Christ" and his " Life of Paul.'" No. Frice. 1. John Ploughman's Talk. C. H. Spurgeon. On Choice of Books. Thomas Carlyle." 4to. Both.... $0 12 2. Manliness of Christ. Thomas Ilughee. 4to 10 3. Essays. Lord Macaulay. 4to... 15 4. Li^'htof Atiia. Edwin Arnold. 4to. 15 5. Imitation of Christ. Thomas a Kempis. 4to 15 6-7. Life of Christ. Canon Farrar. 4to 50 8. Esfiavs. Thomas Carlyle. 4to.. 20 9-10. Life and Work of St. P^nl. Caiimi Farrar. 4to 2 parts, both 50 11. Self-Cnl I nrt^. Prof. J. S. Blackie. 4to. 2 parts, both 10 12-19. Popular History of England. Chas. Knijrht. 4to 2 80 20-21. Ru>kin'8 Letters to Workmen and Laborers. 4to. 2 parts, both 30 22. Idyls of the King. Alfred Tenny- son. 4to 20 23. Life of Rowland Hill. Rev. V. J. Charlesworth. 4r©. 15 24. Town Geology. Charles Kings- ley. 4to 15 25. Alfred the Great. Thos. Hughes. 4to 20 26. Outdoor Life in Europe. Rev. E. P. Thwing. 4to 20 27. Calamities of Authors. I. D'ls- raeli. 4to 20 28. Salon of Madame Necker. Part L 4lo 15 29. Ethics of the Dust. JohnRuskin. 4to 15 30-31. Memories of My Exile. Louis Kossuth. 4to 4® 32. Mister Horn and His Friends. Illustrated. 4to 15 a3-.34. Orations of Demosthenes. 4to. 40 35. Frondes Agrestes. John Rus- kin. 4lo 15 36. Joan of Arc. Alphonse de La- martine. 4to 10 37. Thoughts of M. Aurelius Anto- ninus. 4to 15 38. Salon of Madame Necker. Part 11. 4to 15 39. TheHfrmiis. Chas.Kingsley. 4to. 15 40. John Plousrhman's Pictures. C. H. Spnrgeon. 4to 15 41. Pnlpit Table-Talk. Dean Ram- say. 4to 10 42. Bible and Newspaper. C. H. Spurgeon. 4to 15 43. Lacon. Rev. C. C. Colton. 4to. 20 No. Price. 44. Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 4to $0 20 45. America Revisited. George Au- gustus Sala. 4to 20 46. Life of C. H. Spurgeon. 8vo.... :i0 47. John Calvin. M. Guizot. 4to . . 15 48-49. Dickens' Christmas Books. Illustrated. Svo 50 50. Shairp's Culture and Religion. 8v9. 15 51-52. Godet's Commentary on Luke. Ed.by Dr. John Hall. Svo, a parts, both 2 00 53. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part I. 8vo U5 54-57. Van Doren's Suggestive Com- mentary on Luke. New edition, t enlarged. Svo . 3' 00 58. Diarv of a Minister's Wife. Part IL 'Svo 15 59. The Nutritive Cure. Dr. Robert Walter. Svo 15 60. Sartor Resartus. Thctaias Car- lyle. 4to : 25 61-62. Lothair. Lord Beaconsfield. 8vo 50 63. The Persian Queen and Other ^ Pictures of Truth. Rev. E. P. Thwing. Svo v '^^ 64. Salon of Madame Necker. Part IIL 4to 15 65-66. The Popular History of Eng- lish Bible Translaticm. H. P. Co- nant. Svo. Price both parf>«. .. 50 67. Ingersoll Answered. Joseph Par- ker, D.D. Svo 15 68-69. Studies in Mark. D. C. Hughes. Svo, in two parts 60 TO. Job's Comforters. A Religious ijatire. Joseph Parker, D.D. (Lon- don.) 12mo 10 71. TheRevi ers' English. G.Wash- inston Moon, F.R.S.L. 12mo.. 20 72. The Conversion of Children. Rev. Edward Payson Hammond. 12mo 30 73. New Testament Helps. Rev. WA F. Crafts. Svo ^ 74. Opium— England's Coercive Poli- cy. Rev. Jno. Liggins. Svo 10 75. Blood of Jesus. Rev. Wm. A. Reid. With Introduction by E. P.Hammond. 12mo. 10 76. Lesson in the Closet for 1883. Charles F. Deems. D D. i2mo.. 20 77-78. Heroes and Hoiidavs. Rev. W.F. Crafts. Ifhno. 2pts.,both 30 79. Reminiscences of Rev. Lyman Eeecher, D.D. Svo 10 FUNK Sl WAGNALLS, 10 and 12 Dey St., NEW YORK. Yoig's Aoalytic'al Coscordaiice MJEnucjsn TO $2. so, Dr. Young cannot endure to have this, the great work of his life, Judged by the un- authorized editions with which the American market Is flooded. These editions, he feels, do his work and the American public great Injustice. That Americans may be able to see the work as printed under his eye and from his own plates, he will sell some thousands of copies at A Great Pecuniary Sacrifice. The sale at the reduced prices will begin March 1, 1883, and will continue until the thousands of copies set apart for this sale are exhausted. This is the authorized, latest revved and unabridged edition— in every respect the same type, paper, binding, etc., as we bave sold at the higher prices. It is a burning shame that the great life-work of one of the most eminent scholars, a work pronounced in both Europe and America as one of the most laborious and important that this century has produced, embracing nearly 1100 large quarto pages, each larger and containing more matter than Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, should prove a great fioancial loss to Its author ! This great work is selling In England at $9, and Is now imported and sold In America at $2.50!.° Orderg will be filled in the order reeeired np to the time of the exhaustion of the stock. YouNG'8 Great Concordance. DO NOT BE DECEIVED. There is bat one authorised and correct edition of Tonne's Concordance eoW m America. Every copy of this edition has on the title-page the words " Authorized Edition," and at the bottom of the page the imprint New York : Fuxk & Wagnalls. Edinburgh : Georgk Adam Young & Compant. * All copies, no matter by whom sold, that hare not these words printed on the tltie-page are printed on the bungling plates made by the late American, Book Exchange. Dr. YoTiNG says : " This unauthorized American edition Is an outrage on the Americim public, and on me, containing gross errors." Rev. Dr. John Hall says : •* Dr. Robert Young's Analytical Concordance is worthy of the lifetime of labor he has spent upon it. I deeply regret that his natural and just expectation of some return from its sale on this side of the ocean Is not realized; and I hope the sense of lustlce to a most painstaking author will lead to the choice by many purchasers of the edition which Dr. Young approves— that of Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, with whom Dr. Young co- operates In bringing out here the best edition. ,,v^„ „ . , » ,. " Nbw Yokk. JOHN HALL." Do not be deceived by misrepresentations. Insist that your bookseller furnish you the Authorized edition. _ REDUCED PRICES: 1100 quarto pages (each larger than a page In Webster's Unabridged Dictionary), Cloth, f2 M Sheep 4 00 French Im. morocco * 5" Sent post-frei. FUNK & WAGNALLS, 10 & 12 Dey Street, New York. ^•-n^».. «i «S,