r* I! 1 Si THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS/ ' THIRTY THOUSAND MILES OF TRAVEL IN OCEANICA, AUSTRALASIA, AND INDIA BY FRANK VINCENT, JR. AUTHOR OF "THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT" NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE 1876 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO BARON DE HtiBNER, EMBASSADOR, MINISTER, HISTORIAN, AN HONORED COMPANION IN SEVERAL ASIATIC JOURNEYS, THIS VOLUME JEs l&espectfullfi SefcfcateU. PREFACE. THE great and unexpected favor with which my first work was received, both at home and abroad, has emboldened me to write a second, and to offer it in the presumption that it will not be less" fortunate. I am the more hopeful that this may be the case, since all I profess to do is to narrate, in the simplest manner and without exaggeration, what I have myself seen, heard, and experienced. A few of the follow- ing chapters originally appeared in various maga- zines, and are here condensed and revised. In presenting them and their companions, I repeat the aspiration with which Hindoo writers some- times crown their literary labors, and exclaim, " Khwaninda khoosh-bashud !" May the reader be pleased ! F. V., JR. NEW YORK, October, 1875. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. SOUTHERLY AROUND THE CONTINENT. Cargo of the Golden Fleece. Flying-fish. Phosphoric Phenom- ena. Sea-weed of the North Atlantic. Characteristics of the " Horse Latitudes." Crossing the Equator. Looking North for the Sun. Catching a Sword - fish. Dying Dolphins. A Tropic Storm at Sea. Tierra del Fuego. Amenities of Sea Life. How the Time is Passed. The Etiquette of Signals. Contrast of Sunrise on Land and Ocean. Christmas on the Briny Deep. Omnivorous Reading. Ship Discipline Good- bye to the Southern Cross and Welcome Farralone Light. San Francisco at Last Page 1 7 CHAPTER II. IN 'FRISCO. Justly praised Climate of Central California. Influence of the Black Stream of Japan. Bracing Property of the Air. Vegetable Vari- eties in the Markets. Where are the Public Buildings ? San Francisco contrasted with New York. Aspect of the Private Residences. Public Gardens at Alameda, Oakland, and Sauce- lito. Breakfasts and Suppers at the Cliff House. The "fast- ness " of San Francisco Society. Want of Sanctity on the Sab- bath. Peculiarities of the Chinese Inhabitants. Celestial Con- ceit and Thrift. A Mongolian Drama 41 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. HONOLULU. Off to the Sandwich Islands. We Sight Molokai April 10, 1870. First Impressions of Oahu. Situation of Honolulu. American Appearance of the Town. The Poke Bonnets and Antediluvian Hats. I ask for Breadfruit Groves and am shown a Bar. Fare- well to the Golden F/eece.The Pali. The Valley of Nuuanu. Souvenirs in Bone of Kamehameha I. A Superb Landscape. Wonderful Agility of the Natives 51 CHAPTER IV. AT THE HAWAIIAN PALACE. How Foreign Residents Live. The Royal Palace. Appointments of the Interior. The Library and Paintings. Scientific and Il- lustrated Works. The Crown-Room. Grand Reception-Room. The Magnificent Mamo, or Feather Cloak. Porcelain Likeness of the Empress Eugenie. The Billiard-hall and the Royal Plate. Bill of Fare at lolani Palace. The Kamehamehas a Short-lived Race. Dr. Judd's Unpardonable Mistake. " No nagurs allowed at this table." Succession of Kalakua. The Old Crater of Dia- mond Head. Cheery Salutations of the Kanakas 57 CHAPTER V. GLIMPSES OF THE HAWAIIAN GROUP. Sailing for Hilo. Kanakas as Passengers. Their Constitutional Shiftlessness. Their Ideas of Conviviality. Molokai and its Leper Hospital. Mauna - Haleakala. The Largest Quiescent Crater in the World. A Hole Thirty-five Miles in Circumfer- ence and Three Thousand Feet Deep. Fertility of the Soil of Hawaii. Is another Island in Process of Volcanic Formation? Native Productions. Churches and Missionaries. Gathering CONTENTS. IX Cocoa-nuts in Hilo. How they are Eaten. Bananas. Pests of the Sandwich Islands. Caterpillars Five Inches Long. ... 64 CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT CRATER OF KILAUEA. In Quest of a Big Crater. Scenery through the Woods. Accom- modations at the Half-way House. Delights of the Lomi-lomi. A Pleasant Way of Getting Fat. A Sulphur Steam-bath in the Lap of Nature. The Three Lofty Mountains of Hawaii. Mau- na-Loa. Kilauea, the Largest Active Volcano in the World. The Inside of a Crater. How it Feels to be on the Under-side of the Earth's Pie-crust. We Impinge on a Small Crater. De- scription of a Lava Stream. Overflow of Kilauea. Terrific Ap- pearance of a River of Burning Lava. Natives Propitiate the Kilauean Deity. Visit to an Extinct Crater 71 CHAPTER VII. AT HOME WITH THE KANAKAS. Native Canoes. Artistic Swimming. The Ocean a Natatorium for Kanakas. Captain Spencer's Sugar-cane Plantation. A Labor-saving " Flume." Mode of Planting Sugar-cane. How the Sugar is Made. Setting out for Mauna-Kea. Eleven Peo- ple in One Room. Kapa Cloth. Pleasures of Poi-eating. The Lively Manner in which it is done. Rum among the Sandwich Islanders. Decimation since the Time of Cook 80 CHAPTER VIII. MAUNA-KEA, WAIPIO, AND WAIMEA. Inducements to Ascend Mauna-Kea. Hard Work for a Sublime View. What Geologists Say about the Mountain. Source of the Crateriform Lake. Waipio Valley. An Eden bounded by Mountain, Sea, and Waterfall. Fair Possessions of Kameha- A 2 X CONTENTS. meha V. His Numerous Pursuits. He Runs a Cattle Ranch and Rules a Throne. Waimea, the Sanitarium of Hawaii. The Spot where Captain Cook Fell. A Solitary Palm-tree Stump Consecrates it. Inscriptions of a Grateful but Impecunious Pos- terity. Vain Efforts of the British Consul. Hawaiian Cata- combs. Decrease of Population since the Time of Cook. Na- tive Temple of Kawaihae. Unique Method of Shipping Bul- locks. Miscellaneous Islands 86 CHAPTER IX. FROM HONOLULU TO SYDNEY. Facts from the Honolulu Directory. Rapid Civilization of the Hawaiians. Sail for Auckland, New Zealand. Steamship Com- pany Complications. Ineffectual Efforts to Reach Tahiti. Mi- cronesia an Incorrect. Name for the Polynesian Archipelagoes. Climate, Vegetation, and Scenery of these Groups. Method of Structure in Coral Reefs. Wide Dispersion of the Islands. The Irrevocable Manner in which we Lost a Day. Where Cannibalism still Flourishes. Magnificent Harbor of Sydney. Burlesque Fortifications. Spacious Hotel Hospitality 97 CHAPTER X. WONDERS OF KANGAROO LAND. Popular Impression concerning Australia. Something more than an Infinite Island with a Desert at Heart. Character of the Aborigines. Their Burial Superstitions. Animal Life. The Kangaroo, Ornithorhynchus, and other Quidnuncs. Vegetable Phenomena. Aspect of Sydney. Public Buildings. Origin of Botany Bay. Australian Railways. A Grade that Cost Five Hundred Thousand Dollars per Mile. Newcastle Mines. Features of an Australian Landscape. Melbourne and Sydney Contrasted. Sudden Rise of Melbourne. Imperial Presents to the Public Library. Exquisite Models in the Mining Museum. CONTENTS. XI The Observatory. The Second Botanical Gardens of the World. Ballarat Gold Nuggets. An Old-fashioned Coach- drive in Tasmania. Coup cfceil of Hobart-town. Bound for Cal- cutta. We Escape the Cyclone. Specimen of Caste. Anchor- ing at Calcutta 104 CHAPTER XL CALCUTTA. First Impressions of Calcutta. Small Ponies. Furniture in Indian Houses. Population, Imports, and Exports. An Inexpensive Eurasian. The Pleasures of a Palankeen. The Government House. Asiatic Society's Museum. Chantrey's Statue of He- ber. The Banyan - tree at the Botanical Gardens. The Dying Houses. " Morgues for the Moribund." Idiosyncrasies of Hin- doo Mourning. The Goddess Kali at Home. The Esplanade, Calcutta's " Rotten Row." An Attenuated Operatic Chorus. The Voices are Thin to Suit the Climate. Menagerie and Garden of the ex-King of Oudh. Interview with Moonshee Ameer Allie, Khan Bahadoor. Aviary of the King of Oudh. His Personal Appearance. Debauchery and Extravagance. Burra Bazar. Cheating Propensities of Native Traders. Departure for the Himalayas and Thibet 126 CHAPTER XII. NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. First Sight of the Ganges. Experiences in a Shigram. Hindoo Rareyism. A Unique Specimen of Midnight Coachmanship. Dak-bungalows. At the Foot of the Himalayas. Nepaulese Coolies. Their Wonderful Strength and Endurance. Precip- itous Roads and Exquisite Valleys. European Residents at Dar- jeeling. European Vegetables for Sale. Find it Impossible to Proceed to Thibet. Contumacy of the Pugla Diwan. A Horse- back Excursion into Sikkim. Abysmal Bridle-paths at an An- Xll CONTENTS. gle of Forty-five Degrees. A Bamboo Suspension-bridge. Un- expected View of the Sublime Kanchinginga. A Mountain Five Miles in Perpendicular Height. The Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas Compared. Tea - plantations. Land - owners and Peasants. Native Productions. Poppy Plants. Patna. Shops and Dwellings. A Famous Old Granary. The Government Opium Manufactory and Warehouse 138 CHAPTER XIII. THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. The Soane Bridge. The Victoria Hotel. General Characteristics of Benares. Situation. Hindooism at Home. A Short Cut to Paradise and a Royal Road to Bliss. Sacred Simians. Bull Deities. The Monkey-gods Scramble for Rice and Corn. Jai Singh's Observatory. The Vivishas Temple. Shopping en prince. Kinkob Manufacture. The Fascinations of Fakirism. Amenities to the Sick and Aged. Oriental coup d'ceil. Mosque of Aurungzebe. Experience in Betel-chewing. Ruins of Sar- nath. Snake-charming. Received by the Maharajah of Benares. Ramnaghur Citadel. The Heir- Apparent. Royal Gardens. Audience with the Rajah. Invited to a Private Entertainment at Karnatcha Palace. The Rajah's Nautch Girls. Their Style of Dancing. Their Style of Singing. The Accompanying Musi- cians. The Rajah's Hookah. Description of the "Been." His Highness's Distinguished Courtesy. Attar - of - Roses and Silver-silk Neck - ribbons. " Palagan Maharaj !" Something more about Hookahs. The Trick-elephant. Claims of Benares upon the Traveler. Reluctant Departure for Allahabad. . . . 155 CHAPTER XIV. MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. The City of Allah. Memorial Gardens. Nana Sahib's Victims. Lucknow. The Alumbagh. La Martiniere. Its somewhat Ro- CONTENTS. Xlli mantic History. The Tomb of Ghazee-ooder Hyder. A Court and a Cock-fight. Royalty and Roosters. Ghazee-ooder's Rapacity. Badshahd Munzil. Costly Palaces and Pleasure- houses. The Great Emambarra. Hoseinabad Emambarra. A Prismatic Apartment. The Tombs of Mohammed AHie Shah and his Mother. From Cawnpore to Agra. The Fort of Agra. Sandal -wood Gates of Somnauth. The Motee Mus- jid, or Pearl Mosque. A Persian Panegyric. The Emperor's Palace. The Shish Mahal, or Palace of Glass. Black - mar- ble Baths. Tomb of King Akbar. A Cenotaph Open to the Sky ' 181 CHAPTER XV. A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. The Confluence of the Ganges and Jumna. A Tonsorial Pass to Paradise. Losing Hair and Gaining Heaven. Nefarious Prac- tices of the Brahmins. The Melas, or Religious Fairs. How Sun-worship is Conducted. Cave-temples of Elephanta. The Trimurti, or Triad. Hindoo Superstitions and Proverbs. Vari- ous Dialects. Ancient Writings. The Vedas. The Rig- Veda. The Puranas. The Ramayana and Mahabharata. An Epic of Two Hundred Thousand Verses. The Manuvadharmasastra. The Rajneet Proverbial Philosophy of the Hindoos. Speci- mens of their Poetry and Letter-writing. General State of Edu- cation. Sanskrit School at Benares 195 CHAPTER XVI. THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. Supremacy of the Taj. Meaning of the Term. Locality of the Tomb. A Magnificent Gateway. Dimensions. Various other Architectural Details. Who Mumtaz Mahal was. Wealth of Marble Fioriture. Gems as Thick as Pebbles in a Brook. The Echo in the Dome. Tributes of Various Writers. Depre- XIV CONTENTS. dations of English Troops and the Jauts. M. Austin de Bor- deaux the Architect. Details respecting Cost and Laborers. Localities where Gems were Obtained. Fabulous Wealth of Ancient Mogul Sovereigns. A Throne worth Thirty Million Dollars, and a Crown worth Twelve Millions. Chameleon-like Characteristic of the Taj. Probable Order of Architecture. Shah Jehan's Poem. Taj -haunted. " Kings for such a Tomb might wish to Die." 204 CHAPTER XVII. FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. The Favorite Residence of the Emperor Akbar. The Emperor Subservient to the Saint. Futtehpore-Sikri. Gateway Inscrip- tions. Horseshoes as an Expression of Gratitude. Hindoo Epitaphs. Beer-Bui's Palace. A Parable of the Olden Time. The Good Plowman and the Wicked Kotwal. The Elephant Tower. The Antelope Tower. Palace of the Sultana of Con- stantinople 223 CHAPTER XVIII. AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. A Day in Futtehpore-Sikri Three Hundred Years ago. Emperor Akbar an Early Riser. Abdul Kadir and Abul Fazl. Morning Prayers. The Tomb of the Sheik. Shooting Antelopes. Cav- alry Review. Prince Selim and Prince Khusru. The Two Ec- clesiastics. Rajah Beer-Bui. Noontide. A Harem Interior. " Oh ! Istamboul !" An Oriental Afternoon. Prince Danial. A Prodigal Son of the Olden Time. A Talk with the Two Ec- clesiastics. The Emperor in the Dewan-i-aum. Prince Danial at Home. " Jenazeh ! O Jenazeh !" Premonitions. A Breath from the Inevitable 232 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XIX. THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. Off for Delhi. Devotion under Difficulties. The Chandni Chowk. Cheap Fruit. The Circular Road. General Nicholson's Mon- ument. English and Native Residences. A Persian Hummaum. Contrast with Turkish and Russian Baths, and Hawaiian Lomi- lomi. Shah Jehan's Palace. Great Crystal. Peacock Throne. The Emerald Parrot. Costly Umbrellas. The Jumma Mus- jid. Venerable Relics. The Print of Mohammed's Foot. Pu- rana Killa. A "Village in a Fort. Emperor Humayon's Tomb. The Princess Jehanara. Contrast between her Obituary and that of Mumtaz Mahal. The Junter Munter. The Kutub Minar, the Loftiest Single Pillar Extant. An Unfinished Mi- nar. The Oldest Authentic Mohammedan Tomb in Hindo- stan 244 CHAPTER XX. AMONG THE SIKHS. From Delhi to Umritsur. Letter of Introduction to Bey Purdamon Singh. Brief Account of Umritsur. The Sikhs. Sacred Res- ervoir. The Golden Temple. Religious Order Established by Goroo Govind. Narnak Shah. Resemblance of his Career to Gautama Buddha's. Narnak's Writings. Uniform Dress of the Sikhs. Principles and Practice. Rules. Attentions from Bey Purdamon. Appearance of the Bazar and Shops. A Cos- mopolitan Throng. Manufacture of the Famous Attar-of- Roses. Reception by Bey Purdamon. Hindustani Ideas respect- ing America. Golden Temple by Moonlight. Bridal Proces- sion. Ruinous Nuptials. Golden Temple and Sacred Tank. A Moment of Romance and Ecstasy. Proceed to Lahore. Mausoleums of "Selim" and "Nour Mahal." Her Desecrated Grave. Duty of the Anglo-Indian Government 261 Xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. DOWN THE INDUS. Mooltan City. A Moslem Mausoleum. Genuflexions of Mussul- mans. Camel-riding. Beauty of Navigation on the Chenab. Sticking on a Sand-bar. Appearance of the Indus. Pentapo- tamia. Brilliant Blundering of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke. Scenery of the Indus. The Province of Sindh. The Unhappy Valley. Bholan Pass. Khelat. Husbandry of the Sindhees. Roree. Sukkur. Ruins of Alore. Kotree. Hydrabad. Kur- rachee. Muggur Peer, the Alligator Tank. The Holi Festival. Reach Bombay 276 CHAPTER XXII. LAST DAYS IN INDIA. Population of Bombay. The Parsees. Their Disposal of the Dead. The " Towers of Silence " and the Vultures. The Par- see Theatre. " No Gentleman Admitted unless Accompanied by a Lady." A Comedy in the Gujeratti Tongue. The Jam- setjee Jeejeebhoy Hospital. The Western Ghauts. Poona. 1 Koolburga. The Cerulean Throne of the House ofBhamenee. Dominions of the Nizam. Golconda. Situation of Madras. The Masullah. The Catamarans. Summing Up. Four Thou- sand Miles of Hindostan. India in the Past. India in the Fut- ure. Oriental Civilization to Come 288 INDEX 299 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER I. SOUTHERLY AROUND THE CONTINENT. ON the 24th of October, 1869, the stanch old clipper ship Golden Fleece, of fifteen hundred tons' burden, left the port of New York on a trading voyage around the world, her more immediate destination being San Fran- cisco via Cape Horn. Her cargo was extremely mis- cellaneous, embracing marble and machinery, coals and coffins, liquors and lumber, paint and pianos, hats and hardware. The passengers were four in number the Reverend Dr. Nehemiah Adams, his two accomplished daughters, and myself. The Doctor was taking this long voyage for his health, which forty years' work had impaired, and the young ladies in order to unite filial duty with the desire to see that world whose principal resemblance to heaven is that "it lies about us in our infancy." The fourth passenger had in view three ob- jects, to be sought in the following ratio of importance : health, instruction, and amusement. The chief officer 1 8 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. was Captain Robert C. Adams, son of the reverend doc- tor, and one of the best navigators that ever sailed from New York. Seven miles beyond Sandy Hook the pilot left us with a cool "good-morning," as though he were merely going down town for a little business, and might cer- tainly be expected back to dinner. He was the last link which bound us to shore, and we felt his profes- sional indifference the more when we remembered the stern rhetoric of the shipping articles. These set forth that our expedition was " from New York to San Fran- cisco, at and from thence to such other ports or places in the Pacific Ocean, East Indies, China, the China Seas, or Europe, in a general trading or freighting voy- age, for a term not to exceed twenty-four (24) calendar months, and back to a final port of discharge on the Atlantic coast in the United States, either via Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or, should the master so elect, direct back to New York or some other At- lantic port in the United States from the said port of San Francisco." Our favoring breeze continued for three days, and finally increased to a gale in the Gulf Stream, the char- acteristics of which Professor Maury has so well de- scribed. When one week out we had made a thousand miles, and were heading directly for the Strait of Gib- raltar. This we did in order to make sufficient " east- ing" to obtain a slant which would enable the ship to weather Cape St. Roque, the most easterly point of the South American continent. SOUTHERLY AROUND THE CONTINENT. 19 One day, while we were still several hundred miles from the Tropic of Cancer, a fine specimen of flying-fish seldom met with outside of the tropics fell on deck and was captured. It was one foot long, and resembled a pickerel. Its fins or " wings " were of beautiful con- struction, the ribs being like delicate strips of whale- bone, and the membraneous covering like gold-beater's skin. Of course we sacrificed it to our appetites, but found the flesh dry and tasteless, and the bones super- fluous enough to please a North River shad. Fish of this species, as the name implies, have the remarkable power, by means of their pectoral fins, of sustaining themselves in the air several seconds at a time. Their nature is gregarious, and their locomotion extremely swift. Whole shoals of them often combine to lead the dolphin a vexatious and futile chase ; while it is not alonf European books on Oriental subjects, and also a very valuable collection of Sanskrit, Persian, Chinese, Burmese, Thibetan, and Ara- bic manuscripts. The Society has published many vol- umes of transactions styled " Asiatic Researches," and several Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit books. At pres- ent it issues a journal once a month, and at irregular periods the " Bibliotheca Indica," a collection of un- published standard works. Upon the Maidan a large, open plain near the Gov- ernment House is a lofty pillar raised in honor of some long-ago deceased English official. The three hundred and fifty steps of ascent are arduous, but the fine pano- ramic view of Calcutta repays one. In the centre lies the native or black town ; nearer, the European quarter ; and far away to the north the foreign private residences the chowringhee, or court end of Calcutta. Here stands St. Paul's Cathedral, in one of the transepts of which is a magnificent colossal statue of Reginald He- ber, the well-known bishop of Calcutta, in a kneeling posture. It was cut by the celebrated sculptor Chan- trey. The floor is of tesselated marble, and from the ceiling depend double rows of the ubiquitous punkah. A chair of state for the bishop occupies one side of the altar, and opposite is another for the viceroy. Above the altar is a superb stained-glass window, one hundred and thirty feet in height and sixty feet in width, repre- senting the Crucifixion, by Benjamin West, and painted on glass by Forest. F 2 130 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. Near Garden Reach, on the side of the river opposite the metropolis, are thfc Botanical Gardens, in which is a large specimen of that wonderful tree the Banyan, or Indian fig (Fiats Indicus). Before the great cyclone or hurricane of 1864, which swept more than half of it away, there were one hundred and ten trunks, of which the main one was about fifteen feet in diameter, and the outermost one more than one hundred feet distant. Some of the minor stems were three feet in diameter. The branches extended straight out about twenty feet from the ground, and threw down stems which took root at intervals from ten to thirty feet. The Dying Houses, on the banks of the Hoogly, where the Hindoos formerly exposed their aged and sick relatives and friends to die, have long been closed by order of government. They might with some truth have been called Morgues for the Moribund. The Burning Houses, where funeral piles are erected and bodies burned, consist of two inclosures with high brick walls, situated near the banks of the river in the northern part of the city. Passing through the gate of one of them, I saw a party of women in one corner engaged in piling light and dry wood upon a heap of blazing logs. Ap- proaching nearer I distinguished the neck and head of a man protruding from the burning mass. Through my interpreter, I learned that the party had brought the body of their dead friend from a short distance in the country for the greater convenience of burning offered in the city. The mourners were seven in number, and all women. None of them exhibited a particle of sor- CALCUTTA. 131 row, but, after praying to Krishna, sat in a circle and smoked from a water-pipe that was passed around. The head of the corpse happening to fall out, it was coolly propped up with a stick, and then the singing and pray- ing went on. It requires about three hours to consume a corpse, and after that ceremony is over the friends go jovially to attend a banquet a sort of Irishman's wake, without the body. Sometimes the ashes are scattered on the river, and when the corpse is half consumed a little clarified butter, or ghee, is poured on the head, which is then broken with bamboos. A near relation usually lights the pyre. In order to consume the nox- ious gases the government at one time erected tall chimneys, and built furnaces inclosed in iron cars which could be run into ovens ; but the body being consumed with great difficulty in this way, the natives returned to their old fashion. We found the temple of the goddess Kali, patroness of Calcutta, crowded with natives sacrificing kids and bullocks. Formerly human beings were offered, a man satisfying the goddess for one thousand years, and three men for one hundred thousand. Such imperfect view as we could obtain through the throng showed the idol to be of fierce countenance, with a long tongue pro- truding from an ill-shaped mouth, and thick hair falling on every side of its head. One of the attendants wished to garland our necks, but we refused, having no desire to fee the priests through the pretense of a present to the goddess. In Calcutta both health and fashion necessitate a 132 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. drive every evening or afternoon upon the Esplanade a broad macadamized street parallel with the river and afterward a promenade upon closely cropped lawns in a beautiful little park near the Government House. At night the park is brilliantly lighted with gas, and has a small pavilion at one side occupied by a reg- imental brass band. Near the centre is a lofty Bur- mese pagoda of teak, with its portals guarded by im- mense griffins, lions, serpents, and men, indiscriminately blended. An inscription says that this building was removed from the city of Prome, Burmah, in 1854, after the war which resulted in the annexation of the prov- ince of Pegu to the British Indian Empire. If it is the cool season, one may also attend the opera or theatre later in the evening. The Opera House is built of galvanized iron, arranged with par- quette and two tiers of boxes, and will seat about five hundred people. Opera is a luxury in Calcutta, and is supported entirely by subscription. The season usually extends over four or five months. One night I attend- ed the opera pf "Un Ballo en Maschera." The chorus embraced about five female and nine male voices, and the orchestra thirteen instrumentalists. One of the best sights of Calcutta is the menagerie and garden of the ex-King of Oudh, though to these it is not always easy for Europeans to gain admission. I was fortunately furnished by Captain Peacock a son- in-law of the viceroy with a letter of introduction to Moonshee Ameer Allie, Khan Bahadoor, the chief aide- de-camp of the king, who kindly proffered his services CALCUTTA. 133 as cicerone. Early in the morning I left the hotel and \vent with my interpreter to the palace of Moonshee Ameer Allie, who is a lesser or subordinate prince. A drive of half an hour brought us to an immense square brick building. We were ushered up -stairs into the parlor, a large room furnished very handsomely in Euro- pean style. On the walls were some frames containing Persian poems, and a remarkably well - executed por- trait of the King of Oudh by a native artist. The prince sent his grandson to talk with me until he him- self should be at leisure. The young man spoke En- glish quite respectably, and also seemed well-informed concerning many matters of foreign history. After we had conversed for some time, the prince en- tered and received me cordially, asking facetiously whether I spoke Urdoo Hindustani. Upon my an- swering negatively, he said, " Neither can I speak En- glish, and therefore we shall prove very excellent com- panions." In reply to this I pointed to my interpreter as the medium of communication. The prince was a very intelligent-looking gentleman, sixty-one years of age, as he aftenvard informed me, of medium height, and rather corpulent He was dressed in a white linen suit (over which was thrown a long silk gown or tunic), silk socks, and patent-leather shoes. Upon his head rested a turban of blue velvet, encircled with a rich gold band. From a pocket of his gown hung a gold watch- chain. Around one of his wrists was a light bracelet, and upon the little finger of his right hand a ponderous amethyst ring. But the most remarkable ornament of 134 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the prince was a closely cropped mustache, dyed bright red, and considered exceedingly stylish and aristo- cratic. The prince's barouche was at the door, and motion- ing me to a seat beside himself, we drove to the king's palace, six miles from the Government House. The Moonshee kept up a spirited conversation, asking ques- tions about my former travels, how I was pleased with Calcutta, and so forth, and informing me that he was an author as well as courtier, soldier, and lawyer. At the same time he opened a large tin box placed on the front seat of the carriage, and took therefrom a coverless vol- ume, his autobiography, neatly printed in Persian. He afterward showed me an English abstract of the same. Hastily glancing over a few pages, I saw that it con- tained an account of his services to the English govern- ment during the Sepoy mutiny of 1857, the administra- tion of Lord Mayo, the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Moonshee's observations made during a recent tour through India. The King of Oudh owns or leases a square mile of land on the banks of the Hoogly below the city, be- sides a dozen large palaces. These I was not per- mitted to enter; but glimpses here and there showed magnificent marble pillars and floors, the marble being imported from France, and gorgeously ornamented fur- niture. After passing through several of the com- pounds, the prince led the way to the menagerie, pre- ceded by two or three officials, one of whom bore the emblem of royalty and rank a silver mace or cane, CALCUTTA. 135 about Six feet in length and two or three inches in di- ameter, handsomely chased and engraved. The mace- bearer was surrounded by half-a-dozen sub -aides in gorgeous dresses of silk and linen, and twenty or more servants. In the menagerie the most imposing speci- mens of animal life were an African lion and a Bengal tiger, both very large. Within an immense inclosure, protected by a wire fence, were several thousand birds, mostly water -fowl, and of every conceivable variety, color, and size. Near the centre of this inclosure was a large pond flanked with a summer-house, whence His Majesty was wont to view the aviary. Upon the menagerie he is reported to have spent half a million dollars. So fond was he of the animals and birds that at that time he was absolutely living in the midst of them, and superintending the arrangements for their comfort during the approaching cold season. It was owing to this latter circumstance that I was favor- ed with a sight of His Majesty before leaving the grounds. We were standing directly in front of the main pal- ace, looking at a magnificent marble fountain basin, when one of our attendants suddenly cried, "The king! the king!" I turned and saw before me Wajid Allie, sitting cross-legged in a large palankeen borne by eight servants. Immediately raising my sun-helmet and bow- ing low, His Majesty was gracious enough to bow twice in return, lifting his cap, made of the finest white linen and threaded with silver embroidery. While the king conversed with his officers a good opportunity was of- 136 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. fered to study his development of brawn and brain. He had a large, powerful frame, and a not unpleasant though somewhat sinister countenance, with bright black eyes and regular features. He appeared to be about sixty years of age, wore an iron -gray mustache much turned up at the ends, and his lips were stained a cherry color from chewing the pawn or betel -nut. He was very plainly dressed in white linen, with one half of his olive -brown chest bared. The king inquired who the foreigner was, and the prince's reply, "A friend of mine," seemed to be satisfactory. His Majesty certainly did not look the spendthrift and debauchee he is represented to be. It is a well- known fact, however, that over one hundred " lights of the harem " illuminate his zenana and shed radiance upon his life. Concerning the question of extrava- gance, it is stated that, though for twelve years the king has never left his palace, yet his expenditures have averaged more than one million dollars per annum. The government of India has lately interfered, and ap- pointed a commission to pay his debts, and deduct from his income six hundred thousand dollars yearly. Until then the revenue of the dethroned King of Oudh was twice that of the Queen of England. Burra Bazar is one of the largest in Calcutta. The streets in the native or black town are scarcely wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass each other, and ar.e generally crowded with bullock-carts, palankeens, and pedestrians. The shops are in clay or bamboo huts, and consist of little rooms or holes, more properly CALCUTTA. 137 about six feet square. In these you may see a few goods piled on shelves or laid on the ground, while their owners lie beside them sleeping, smoking water- pipes, or gazing vacantly at the passers-by, with a su- preme indifference to business incomprehensible to a Christian shopkeeper. The goods are very nearly all of European manufacture, being generally purchased at auction in Calcutta. The native traders are great cheats. They invariably demand two or three times as much as they are willing to take ; and the stranger who pays for an article what he deems a moderate price often learns afterward that a resident would have obtained it for less than half of the sum given. I priced some nose and ear rings, of native manufacture, such as are worn by the lower class of women. The trader at first demanded six rupees ($3 oo) for the lot, but upon my laughing his exorbi- tancy to scorn, offered to take four rupees " as the very lowest, since the articles were extremely valuable." Finally, he accepted two rupees and eight annas ($i 25) ; but imagine my chagrin when one of the hotel servants afterward informed me that he could have ob- tained the very same articles for twenty-five cents. After a stay of three weeks in Calcutta I traveled nearly due north to the Himalayas and Thibet, and, returning, made a circuitous tour of India which cover- ed more than four thousand miles, and occupied nearly six months. 138 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER XII. NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. MY intention was to reach, if possible, the city of Lhassa, the capital of Thibet, and the residence of the Grand Lama of the Buddhists, the pontifical sovereign of Eastern Asia. The cars of the East Indian Rail- way carried me in a single night two hundred and twenty miles to the town of Sahibgunge and the banks of the Ganges. The first sight of the sacred river -ex- cited in me but little enthusiasm. It was a mile in width, shallow and very muddy, with a swift current and dreary sand -banks, whereon huge crocodiles basked in the sun. Its religious character among the Hindoos is well known. In the courts of justice believers in Brah- ma swear by it; and Benares, Allahabad, and Hurdwar, situated on its banks, are cities of especial sanctity. Having been ferried across, I journeyed onward in a shigram a large palankeen on wheels, drawn by two horses. The country around was an immense plain, with occasional palms and bamboos alona giving it an Oriental character. The trees were banyans, peepuls, and mangoes, and we passed fields of rice and corn. The straw-thatched huts were of bamboo-reeds and mud, but an inside view was prohibited by that iron law of /i NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 139 caste which prevails from Peshavvur to Rangoon, from Cashmere and Thibet to Cape Cormorin and Ceylon. Immense trees shaded a macadamized road. The na- tive methods used to coerce our balky Mongol ponies were amusing. A groom held in his hand a piece of bamboo two feet in 'length, at the extremity of which was fastened a strong, looped horse-hair cord. This be- ing twisted around the ear of a fractious beast, a very little power, applied a few paces in advance, overcame its scruples. Horses that would not back into the shafts were assisted by a rope around a hind -leg, and one that would not start forward was precipitated into a better frame of mind and conduct by a cogent combi- nation of rope and pressure applied to a fore-leg. Often one native would take a wheel and others would push from behind; some would then lift the fore -feet of the obstinate brutes, and a few would take their heads ; and after much alternate fondling and forcing, off we would suddenly start at break-neck speed for perhaps a mile, when the horses would quiet down into an easy trot preparatory to devising another tableau. About twelve o'clock on the first night a provoking yet amusing incident happened. I had some time pre- viously covered myself with my blanket's, and, closing the sliding-doors, as it was bitterly cold, had been en- joying a sound sleep. Waking suddenly, I found the shigram standing in the middle of the road, but without horses, coachman, or groom. Having heard that such an event will occasionally happen in Indian dak-post- ing, I endeavored not to be disconcerted. Alighting, I 140 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. approached a fire discernible through the trees, and found my missing coachman taking a comfortable smoke and a quiet chat with half-a-dozen bullock- drivers, friends of his, who were camping there for the night. I approached the group with the feelings of a ghoul, shook my fists in the coachman's face, and talked with exceeding loudness, making eloquent use of all the bad words in Bengali that I was master of, and plac- ing heavy emphasis upon the scathing "soour" (pig) and the withering "gudha" (fool), epithets more dread- ed by the Hindoos than the most profane oaths. This judicious method produced the desired effect. In less than ten minutes the ponies were harnessed and we were again on our way. In the morning I stopped at a dak-bungalow for breakfast. Dak means post or stage, and bungalows are government - erected inns, twenty miles apart, for post-travelers. They are of one story, contain apart- ments for sitting, dining, and sleeping, besides dressing and bath rooms, and are under the direction of a khan- samah, or native butler, who hires a small corps of servants. If you bring provisions, the khansamah will have them cooked, or he will supply you with a mod- erate bill of fare, charging for each dish according to an official scale. For one rupee (fifty cents) any one may claim accommodation for twenty-four hours, but not longer, should the bungalow be full or other trav- elers arrive. Next afternoon we reached the foot of the hills and the terminus of shigram travel. My route then lay di- NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 141 rectly over the nearest range of the Himalayas, which I found bold and sharp in outline, and densely wooded to their tops. The one over which my route stretched was something more than one mile high. The foot-hills can be ascended by palankeen or pony. For the former, previous application is necessary, as relays of bearers must be arranged. There are eight bearers, four of whom carry you at a time, being relieved by the other four every half mile. The stages are eight miles long, at the end of which an entirely new set of bearers is obtained. On good level roads the distance made averages four miles an hour ; going up or down steep mountains it is rather less. I chose a mountain pony, wiry and vicious, and for one rupee a coolie carried my baggage to a village thirty miles distant. At Kurseong was a good hotel, bearing the intensely civilized title of " The Clarendon," and kept by an old New-Yorker, who told me he had left America fifteen years before. He had traveled all over the world, had made much money in Western Africa in the palm-oil trade, and had finally settled in India. He started the first tea plantation in the Himalayas, and was reported to be worth one million rupees. My coolie a Nepaulese was a wonderful illustra- tion of strength and endurance. He carried my bag- gage up the mountain on a sharp trot, and reached the hotel but two hours after my arrival. The weight of the burden was nearly eighty pounds, and, as I have said before, the distance was thirty miles. The hill- tribes, breathing a cool and invigorating air, are alone 142 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. equal to such feats ; and on going to Simla, in the West- ern Himalayas, I afterward employed co'olies who pos- sessed the same wonderful stamina. They were splen- did-looking men, short but thick-set, and very muscular, with olive-brown skins, piercing black eyes, long glossy hair, and regular and handsome features. One of this class of men (Hindoo hill-tribes) will carry thirty seers (sixty pounds) upon his back, or twenty-five seers upon his head, for fifty miles up the hills, in twenty -four hours. His charge for this is one rupee a special in- stance of the astonishingly cheap labor of all India. The road ran the whole distance on the face of al- most perpendicular hills, and for the greater part of the way was guarded by a low wall on the dangerous side. The scenery was grand enough to well repay me for the arduousness of the journey from Calcutta. Some views, however, were rather frightful. Imagine a ride on the very brink of a precipice thirty-five hundred feet high, with the hills rising abruptly on the other hand twenty-five hundred feet above you. The tops of the distant and lofty mountains were all hidden in the clouds, but the scenery of the valleys far beneath was very beautiful immense fields of tea planted in rect- angular rows, with here and there a planter's dwelling or factory glittering in the sun, while bickering water- falls and bubbling brooks flashed and sparkled amid the dense foliage of the dark-green forests, whose som- bre beauty was enriched by the black shadows cast by the clouds. Yet, though already on summits more than a mile in height, I seemed to have gained this altitude NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 143 only to obtain glimpses of much higher and grander mountains nearly a hundred miles distant. In due time I reached Darjeeling, three hundred and fifty miles almost due north from Calcutta. The Euro- pean residents here number about fifty, with about four times as many tea-planters in the suburbs. Sunday is the day when marketable supplies are brought into town for the whole week, and the proprietor of my hotel took me to see the bazar. It much resembled those in and near Calcutta ; but what most surprised me was the number of European vegetables offered for sale. There were pease, onions, potatoes, squashes, lettuce, radishes, turnips, and many kinds of grains, in- cluding that unique Yankee institution, "pop -corn." The bazar was held out-of-doors, in a public square, with a few dry-goods shops around; and the motley crowd assembled made a terrible din. In one place a number of soldi'ers from the cantonments were bid- ding on some glassware offered it auction, and in an- other mothers of families and khansamahs were bustling about, purchasing their necessary household supplies. Here a wretched beggar, wearing a grotesque mask, danced before some merchants, who rewarded his con- tortions with potatoes. Hindoos, Mohammedans, Bho- teeas, Nepaulese, and Sikkimites were represented, and offered every variety of dress and figure the one char- acteristic they all had in common and in the same de- gree being that evinced by unclean skin and raiment. The Nepaulese women wore bracelets and necklaces of Indian coins, besides silver anklets, finger and nose 144 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. rings, gold ear-rings, and beads. Suspended from her neck each also wore a silver snuff-box, three or four inches square, of the purest metal, and handsomely carved and embossed. At Darjeeling I learned that my plan of traveling to Lhassa was not feasible. My host obligingly proposed other plans, but my chagrin was as great as that of Mark Twain's supposititious youth, who desired to go to the circus, and whose moral parent answered, " No, my dear ; but I will take you to your grandmother's grave." I was destined to know but by report the Tale-Lama (Sea of Wisdom), the great palace, the city whose three prime productions are lamas, women, and dogs ; the streets lined with houses built of oxen's and rams' horns; the people whose lively mode of salutation consists in uncovering the head, thrusting out the tongue, and scratching the right ear, and who dispose of their dead by cutting them to pieces and giving them to "sacred clogs," raised and nurtured in convents for that express purpose. The Thibetan traders at Darjeeling reported that the Pugla Diwan of Sikkim had become a great man in Thibet, had seized every thing en route from Lhassa during the year, and, having stored all in huge warehouses, would allow nothing to pass into Sikkim or Bengal. Previous travelers and missionaries had all entered the country disguised as priests or as Chinese or Mogul traders, having a knowledge of the Thibetan or some allied language, and even then so greatly fear- ing detection as to be unable to learn very much of the condition or capabilities of the land, or the habits and NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 145 usages of the people. That foreigners should be so rigorously excluded from Thibet is doubtless owing to the influence of the Chinese, who fear and are jealous of British power and possession in the East, the south- ern, boundaries being strictly guarded by a cordon of Chinese garrison-stations on the highlands of the Him- alayas. The most reasonable suggestion made by the pro- prietor of the hotel, and one which I adopted, was that of a little excursion on horseback in Sikkim, the country of the Lepchas. It is ten or twelve miles to the bottom of the valley, and the road, or rather bridle-path, winds around the hill forward and back, but constantly de- scending, until at last the Rungeed River is reached. Some of the precipices were frightful to look over, and I clutched the reins tightly, braced myself in the saddle, and almost held my breath as the pony trotted quietly along a path three feet in width, and often lying at an angle of forty-five degrees. But, unless from the sliding away of part of the road, there was no danger, since the ponies are mountain -bred and very sure-footed. The views were extremely grand, and the distances from peak to peak so immense that the mind was almost lost to detail. Much of the land is cleared of forest trees and covered with tea -plants. Cinchona is also culti- vated, and with great success. The Rungeed is a small mountain torrent, a branch of the Teesta, which empties its waters into the great Brahmapootra "Son of Brahma." t serves as a bound- ary-line between Bengal and Sikkim. Crossing this G 146 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. stream, at a height of six feet, is a bamboo -cane sus- pension-bridge three hundred feet long, and built en- tirely by the natives. It is intended for foot-passengers, and will safely support a dozen people at a time. It consists of sixteen bamboo -canes, of the thickness of a finger, on each side. The bottom is formed on three very large stems of bamboo, and a sort of wicker-work extends from these upward to the supporting canes, which are about four feet from side to side, and may be grasped by the hands in crossing. The bridge has a peculiar oscillating motion, which much increases at the centre, together with an up and down movement. These two vibrations, joined to the sight of the fiercely rushing water, are quite enough to make the traveler giddy. Crossing, I met in the forest an English gentleman, who informed me he was just returning from a two- weeks' tour through Sikkim. He was Colonel Mainwar- ing, of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and was engaged in compiling, under government orders, a dictionary of the Lepcha tongue. Salutations over, he pressed me, Brit- on-like, at once to drink, and asked if I would try a na- "tive beer. On my assenting he ordered a quantity of chi, a drink made of fermented millet, from a hut near at hand. It proved nutritious and exhilarating, though not intoxicating, and we drank it a la Sikkimite, warm, through a reed a foot in length, and from a joint of bamboo holding perhaps a couple of quarts. The col- onel informed me that the Lepcha language is very co- pious, expressive, and beautiful, abounding in metaphor. NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 147 The number of words is extraordinarily large, and neces- sitates a partial knowledge of geology, botany, and zo- ology in a foreigner acquiring it. His labors he de- scribed as trying and discouraging. He had been em- ployed on the dictionary for three years, and it was only partially complete. I had waited nearly a week for a clear day on which to view the highest mountain -peaks in the world, and almost despaired, when on the last morning of my stay, upon looking from my window at daybreak, I saw that, although the valleys and sides of some of the hills were covered with clouds and fog, still a lofty peak near Darjeeling showed its face distinctly, and for the first time during my visit. Remembering that this mount- ain was over two miles in height, I fancied that possibly Mount Kanchinginga might be in view, bu,t hardly dared entertain the thought. It was my last chance, for I in- tended to return to the plains in the afternoon ; so jumping into my clothes, pulling on my hat, and snatch- ing up my field -glass, I walked, or rather ran, to the opposite side of the hill for an unobstructed view. Sud- denly turning a sharp bend in the road, I saw through the trees a clearly defined, substantial -looking cloud was it a cloud ? and, rushing forward a dozen paces, lo and behold! one of the highest mountain-summits on the globe stood unveiled before me ! I confess never to have experienced like sensations of awe and reverence. My eyes involuntarily filled with tears, and I stood com- pletely lost in wonder and admiration. It was early morning. The sun, newly risen though 148 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. not yet visible, threw a flood of rosy light on the gigan- tic snow-tipped pinnacles, causing them to glisten like polished white marble. The valley below, four or five thousand feet deep, was filled with an ocean of silver clouds which majestically rolled and rose upon the for- est-clad sides of the great mountains as far as the limit of perpetual snow ; and from this fleecy mass, as from a border, the magnificent form of Kanchinginga embossed itself against an azure sky. For miles in each direc- tion the thickly wooded sub -hills were in sight, but all interest centred in those never-trodden peaks. A dread and awful silence seemed to pervade the air, and the total absence of life and motion lent an almost su- pernatural glamour. For nearly two hours I sat as one entranced, until the sun gently lifted the clouds from the valleys, and as with a silver - wrought screen shut out from my eyes the most impressive scene they had ever beheld. During this marvelous exhibition the littleness of man had been made very painfully lucid. Kanchinginga, properly speaking, consists of three peaks, which are sharp, serrated, precipitous, and ap- parently composed of solid rock from the snow-limit to the summit. Its immense height is not thoroughly ap- preciated by the traveler for two causes its great dis- tance (fifty miles "as the crow flies"), and the fact that the point of observation itself is one fourth the height of the mountain. Had I risen earlier and ridden to Mount Senchal, fifteen hundred feet above Darjeeling, I might have obtained a view of Mount Everest, which is nearly thirty thousand feet (about five and a half miles) in per- NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 149 pendicular height above the level of the sea, and is the loftiest point upon our globe. Until quite recently Kan- chinginga was supposed to be the higher of the two, but it is now found to be about eight hundred feet less. Mount Everest is a single peak a cone and the summit appears like a small white tent among the clouds. In grandeur and sublimity, however, it is excelled by Kan- chinginga. Well do the Himalayas bear out their mean- ing " the abode of snow ;" for on their southern slopes in some places the snow-line descends to within four- teen thousand feet of the earth's surface. The mean elevation of this remarkable range is double that of the Alps, and many of its passes to the elevated table-lands of Central Asia are higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. Huge glaciers of smooth ice, though none so vast as those of the Alps, are numerous in parts of this stupendous mountain-chain, and even descend from the region of perpetual snow until within eleven thousand feet above us. Though the Andes present a mountain system twice the length of the Himalayas, still in re- spect to altitude the Asian rivals bear the palm. Mount Dwalaghiri, in Nepaul, is of nearly the same height as Kanchinginga ; two other peaks attain twenty-six thou- sand feet, four about twenty -four thousand, and over twenty exceed an elevation of twenty thousand feet. Leaving Darjeeling, I visited one of the large tea-gar- dens near the terai at the foot of the hills. The best of land may be purchased at ten rupees per acre, and an average -sized plantation embraces about two hundred acres. The prospective garden must be cleared of its 150 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. forest and jungle. This is an arduous task, but, once performed, one native can properly cultivate an entire acre. The best teas are raised upon the hill-tops, seven thousand feet above the sea-level. Good tea can be grown o only under two conditions moisture and heat. Hence the southern slopes of the Himalayas are admirably adapted for its cultivation, for during the middle of the day the sun is warm, and at night the dews are copious. The laborers employed are all natives, and only one or two Europeans are necessary to superintend the largest plantation. In Hindostan land is owned either by government or by the native rajahs and nawabs. That belonging to the former is leased to a class of people called zemin- dars, which means landholders or lanclkeepers. These sublet it to another class styled ryots, meaning husband- men or peasants, who are the real tillers of the soil. A well-to-clo zemindar will rent two thousand acres of land, for which he pays four annas (twelve cents) an acre. The hardships of the ryots are great. They are treated like slaves, and can barely make a subsistence ; but among the zemindars are some of the wealthiest men in the country. One, for instance, owns fifty square miles of fertile land, all wrung from the labor of the poor peasants. Formerly these zemindars were merely the superintendents of the land, but latterly they have been declared its hereditary proprietors, and the dues of government, previously fluctuating, have under a per- manent settlement been unalterably fixed in perpetuity. I had now reached the Ganges once more, and was NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 151 traveling westward up its rich valley. I soon entered upon the great plain of Hindostan, embracing an area of half a million square miles, and some of the most fertile soil on the globe. On both sides of the railroad, far as the eye could see, were immense fields of wheat and barley, paddy, tobacco, mustard, the castor-oil plant, millet, maize, poppy, indigo, and sugar-cane. Wheat and barley are not sown broadcast as with us, but in drills a few inches apart. Both of these grains are entirely con- sumed in the country, none being exported. The paddy, when growing, resembles rye or wheat, the rice-kernels being contained in husks at the top of the spires. There is but one crop a year, and the plant requires a wet loamy soil, such as is best offered in Cambodia and Siam, the former being called the "Asiatic storehouse of rice." The mustard plants were two feet high, and bore small yellow flowers as crests. The oil and the table article of commerce are made by grinding the seeds in mills constructed for the purpose. The castor- oil plant is a green and succulent shoot about six feet in height, with white flowers hanging in bunches like hops. Maize is never fed to cattle as in America, but is all consumed by the poorer classes of natives. Most interesting were the poppy plants. They are raised on oblong patches of ground, surrounded by low mud walls for retaining the water essential to their growth. The plants are quite small, with green leaves at their bases, from which rise tall stalks with bulb-like tops the pods of the flowers. When ripe, slight incisions are made in their bulbs by drawing two needles across them, the I$2 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. time chosen being evening. During the night the juice exudes, and is scraped off in the morning and collected in shells. This operation is performed on all sides of the bulb, and then the juice is sent in earthenware jars to Bankipore, to be dried in the sun, and to undergo vari- ous other processes in its manufacture into opium. It is then pressed into balls and exported to China, to the great emolument of the British Indian government and the fearful moral and physical degradation of the Chi- nese. Patna is one of the oldest cities in India. It extends for a mile and a half along the south side of the Gan- ges, which in the rainy season is here five miles wide. Patna properly consists of but a single street eight miles long and thirty feet in width, and numerous short by-ways. It contains about two hundred and fifty thou- sand inhabitants, and was formerly a place of such con- siderable trade that the English, French, Dutch, and Danes had factories there. Few European merchants, however, are to be found there at present. I found the streets crowded with gayly dressed Mohammedans and Hindoos, and solemn, gruff - looking Afghans. Some were on foot, some astride splendid horses from the Deccan ; many rode in eckas, a few in baillies two va- rieties of native vehicle. The city dwellings, built of mud, with tiled roofs, were mostly but one story in height. In those of two stories the lower is rented as a shop to the merchants, or used as such by the owners, the fam- ily dwelling in the upper portions, as with us. The stores were of all denominations, but the manufactures NORTHWARD TO HIGH ASIA. 153 were principally of cotton goods and earthenware, the lat- ter being made in feeble imitation of European crock- ery. The smell of the ghee (clarified butter) and curry was intensely disagreeable. The natives are very fond of sweets named metai, which are compounded of sugar, butter, and flour. Numerous shelves teemed with these bonbons, but they looked any thing but inviting to a gora-logn fair-complexioned person, or, as our Indians would say, a pale face. It is generally reported that the Hindoos never use intoxicating beverages, but in pass- ing several liquor-shops I saw three or four men drunk in the streets. The drink in general request is the fer- mented juice of the taul, or Indian palm-tree, mild and soft to the palate, but acrid and baneful to the stom- ach. There is an old brick granary in Patna, a large bee- hive-shaped structure, at a guess two hundred feet in di- ameter and one hundred feet* in height. Two staircases winding up to its summit give the building at a distance the appearance of a huge corkscrew. Up these stairs Shah Maharaj, the present premier of Nepaul, is re- ported to have once ridden his pony. On one side are two large stone tablets, one in English and one in Persian, stating that the granary was erected in 1786, for the storing of grain and the prevention of fam- ine. It has never been used for that purpose, how- ever, but has been employed as a military magazine. The building of the Ganges canal and the railroads have rendered the occurrence of a widespread, calami- tous famine, like that of 1770, almost impossible. The G 2 154 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. extent of the recent famine was grossly exaggerated. Had certain public works contemplated by the govern- ment been completed, probably no reckless sensational reports of " a disaster which had no parallel in the his- tory of human misery " would have reached our ears. In the long street extending between Bankipore and Patna is situated the government opium manufactory and warehouse. March and April are the months in which opium is made, and at the time of my visit it was being packed and prepared for shipment to China. The buildings are of brick, and the grounds are sur- rounded by a high wall. In one of the largest struct- ures I found about one hundred natives, with a Euro- pean superintendent, weighing and packing the drug. The juice has the appearance of thick tar. It is placed in large tanks, well worked up, and dried in the sun. Then poppy-leaves, poppy-flowers, and the liquid juice are worked into a layer an inch thick, and this is wrought into hollow spheres six inches in diameter. The whole interior is next filled with the viscous fluid, and the balls are placed to dry, in earthenware cups, upon immense shelves, with which many entire build- ings are filled. The balls weigh two seers, or four pounds, and are worth thirty-two rupees, or sixteen dol- lars each. Rolled in poppy - leaves, they are subse- quently packed in long wooden boxes with thin parti- tions. There were forty balls in a box, which, when filled, was worth twelve hundred and eighty rupees, or six hundred and forty dollars. In this manufactory about three thousand natives were employed. THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 155 CHAPTER XIII. THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. I NOW traveled by rail up the valley of the Ganges to Benares, the Hindoo metropolis. Thirty miles from Patna the railroad crosses the famous Soane bridge, over the river of that name, small and shallow in the dry, but swift and deep in the rainy season. The erec- tion of this bridge was a most gigantic undertaking. Nearly a mile in length, the foundations are said to have been sunk to an average depth of thirty-two feet below water-level. In the evening we arrived at Mogul Serai, the station for Benares, which is reached by a branch line six miles in length. The Hindoo capital is on the opposite side of the river (the left bank), and at Rajghaut I left the cars and crossed the Ganges on a long bridge of boats. Unfortunately it had grown quite dark, and I could not see the splendid ghauts of fine Chunar stone, nor the magnificent palaces one hundred feet in length and four or five stories .in height, with their little carved bal- conies, their oriel windows, and their gorgeously paint- ed walls ; nor the gilded temples, nor the stately mosques with their lofty minars and graceful minarets. Having walked slowly across the bridge, and clambered 156 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. up a steep bank eighty feet in height, I engaged a gharry, and was driven to the Victoria Hotel, a small one-story building kept by a Hindoo Christian named James Ebenezer. The rooms were miserably furnished and the table only fair; but the European travel to Benares is small, and I ought to have been grateful that the hotel was not a dak bungalow. Two or three officers were the only guests, except a nawab and suite who occupied rooms adjoining mine. The nawab had his own cook with him, as being a Mussulman his religion would not allow him to eat any thing prepared by a Hindoo, nor could he dine with us at the table (fhbte. He had come to attend the races which, under English auspices, an- nually take place in Secrole, the foreign suburb of the city. Benares is one of the oldest cities in the world. It is five hundred miles from Calcutta by the railroad, and is situated on the northern bank of the Ganges. It is the capital of the Hindoos, their political and spiritual centre, as Delhi was of the Moguls, and Calcutta is now that of the English. Benares has been styled the Athens of India, as in ancient times it was the chief seat of Brahminical learning and civilization. The Hindoos delight to call their metropolis Kasi, or " The Splendid," and its magnificent temples, palaces, and ghauts warrant their doing so. Formerly its popula- tion, comprising natives of all parts of India, with num- bers of Turks, Tartars, Persians, and Armenians, was estimated at not less than seven hundred thousand. At the present day the number would probably not ex- THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 157 ceed two hundred thousand, excepting in times of great religious festivals, when it frequently contains four times that number. It lies upon a cliff eighty feet above the river, along which it extends for three miles, with an average breadth of one mile. It is very compactly built, the streets being too narrow for the passage of any vehicle other than a palankeen. In the heart of the city the buildings of stone and brick are four or five stories in height, though the greater number are simply one-story huts of clay or bamboo, with thatched or tiled roofs. Benares is the home of Hindooism, and is said to contain one thousand temples. The number of idols worshiped is immense, not less than half a million, says the Rev. Mr. Sherring, an English missionary stationed there. This city is styled the type of India, and espe- cially the India of the past. It is to the Hindoo what Jerusalem is to the Christian, Mecca to the Mohammed- an, Rome to the Catholic, Lhassa to the Buddhist, and Philadelphia to " centennialism" a most revered and sacred spot. Seven tenths of the people are professors of the Brahminical religion, and yearly to Benares come hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all quarters of India patrician and plebeian, prince and ryot, priest and pariah to worship and give alms. As many as ten thousand Brahmins subsist entirely upon the offer- ings of pilgrims and pious residents; and so holy is the city considered that a residence in it of but twenty- four hours, or in the surrounding country within a ra- dius of ten miles, will secure eternal happiness to any 158 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. one Christian, Mohammedan, infidel, or pagan. I therefore contemplate the future with calmness, fully appreciating so brief and bright a method of gaining admission into Paradise. .The many splendid palaces, te*nples, and gardens, belonging to rajahs and princes living at a distance, are occupied only during certain festivals long enough to enable the owners to do pen- ance for their sins. Remorse is certainly well-housed, and the great men, becoming purified, depart in peace. During the rest of the year these palaces remain closed, in the same manner as a summer residence at Long Branch or Saratoga. Not content with bowing down to stocks and stones and graven images, the Hindoos worship certain brutes, among them bulls and monkeys. In Benares the sa- cred bulls wander about the streets at will, being wel- comed, fed, and religiously protected as representatives of the god Siva, to whom they are dedicated, and with whose mark they are branded. Some of these bulls are quite beautiful, with their soft white skins, glossy black horns, and large brilliant eyes. The day following that of my arrival I visited the " monkey temple." At a little distance from a large tank, dedicated to the goddess Durgha, appeared the monkeys, sitting demurely on the walls, clambering up the huge mango-trees, or running about the road. The temple is a graceful stone building of pyramidal form, and elaborately carved with figures of those animals es- teemed sacred by the Hindoos. It is situated in the centre of a small quadrangle, which has a corridor for THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 159 the use of the Brahmin attendants and devout worship- ers. A large bell used in idolatrous ceremonies is found in the cupola of a fine porch adorned with carved pillars, and said to be a recent addition. The temple itself, the priest told me, had been built two hundred years. At the time of my visit but few people were in the inclosure, and hence the opportunity to examine every thing at leisure was good. In the temple the pre- siding goddess Durgha was placed in such a dark re- cess, or shrine, and so covered with jasmine blossoms, that nothing could be distinguished but a small hideous gilt head like those we used to draw at school on wal- nuts and several necklaces of English gold sovereigns. The face and neck were about one foot in height; there was no body. The monkeys there were nearly four hundred, all " living deities," belonging to the temple were seen on every side. We fed them with koee (parched corn), and fried rice, which our attendant Brahmin produced. We were soon encircled by an immense troop, and very sleek and fat they were, of all ages and sizes, who scrambled and wrestled and fell over one another in the most ludicrous and ungodlike manner, eagerly contest- ing for the food. While we were looking at the idol, one of the Brahmins wanted to put a necklace of jas- mine blossoms, wet with Ganges water, upon my shoul- ders ; but I objected, and compromised by carrying the wreath in my hands. To be garlanded as he desired would have been construed into an act of homage and respect to Durgha, with whose walnut face it would have l6o THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. been difficult for me to become much enamored. The Brahmins were fine-looking men, quite as sleek and ap- parently as well-fed as the monkeys. They followed me to the gharry, crying, " Bukhshish, sahib, hamen ko bukhshish do" " A gift, master, give us a gift." The oldest building in the city is supposed to be the Man Mundil, or Observatory of J ai Singh. It is a large stone structure, situated near the river. On the roof are some ancient astronomical instruments. These consist of an immense stone mural quadrant, eleven feet in height and nine in breadth; an instrument, thirty-six feet long and four and a half feet wide, for ascertaining the declination and distance from the meridian of any plan- et or star; a large sun-dial; and various appliances used in astrology. The instruments were all marked with scales and characters which are not now under- stood. Jai Singh, the founder of this observatory, was a rajah of Jeypoor, who fought against several nations of the Deccan, under the Emperor Aurungzebe, in the seven- teenth century. In the earliest periods of Indian his- tory, before the Mohammedan invasion, the Hindoos had made great progress in literature and the arts and sci- ences. Especially were they well -versed in geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry. In all these they had made valuable explorations, anticipating not only the Greeks and Romans, but, in many respects, the most advanced of the modern nations of Europe. The Vivishas temple, formerly one of the handsomest in the city, but now fast going to decay, contains a large THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. l6l stone bull seven feet in height, which is worshiped sim- ply by throwing upon it rice, flowers, and Ganges water. Bisheswar, or Siva, seems to be the most popular divin- ity in Benares. To "the Destroyer" is dedicated the Golden Temple, which is situated in a very crowded part of the city, and consists of three small rooms crowned with two gilt domes, said to have been over- laid with pure gold by Runjeet Singh, Rajah of Lahore. In each of the rooms is a small, plain, conical stone, called Mahadeo the Adam of the Hindoos and repre- senting the linga, or creative principle. Near this tem- ple was another of the same style as that of Durgha. A pine -apple -shaped spire rested upon a square tower, which contained the shrine and columned vestibule for the people, and was dedicated to Unna Purna, the In- dian Ceres. A rajah and his suite were praying at the time of my visit, and I could not obtain a view of the idol. In the same inclosure were the stalls of a great many " sacred bulls," which were being fed with milk by the natives a peculiarly meritorious and pious act. I spent several days in walking about the streets, visiting the shops and mosques, and sailing up and down the Ganges. The streets were always crowded, and my syce (groom) ran ahead, crying out from time to time, " Make way for the English lord !" while the in- terpreter followed at m,y elbow. In this imposing man- ner I "did" Benares. The first shop visited was that of a native silk merchant, who had received a gold med- al at the Paris Exhibition in 1867 for the superiority of his fabrics. In a large room, on the upper floor of a 1 62 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. brick house, the proprietor spread before me the finest of his goods, which were wrought with gold and silver patterns of leaves, branches, flowers, and odd figures. The silk came from Bokhara, in Central Asia, and the gold and silver threads were manufactured in Benares, where also the interweaving was done by looms. The designs of many of the mats displayed great ingenuity and good taste. Benares is celebrated throughout India for its manufacture of Kinkob gold and silver thread embroidery. There are various sects of fakirs or religious devotees in Hindostan, but they all seek to attain future bliss by torturing the body in this present life. Even affluent Hindoos seem to have a strong predisposition to become fakirs. With some it is crazy impulse, with others van- ity, with a third class mistaken devotion, and with those who turn mendicant fakirs it is simply laziness. "Some fakirs make a vow to keep standing a certain number of years, generally twelve. The burning rays of the sun and scorching blasts of the hot simoon, the torrents of the monsoons, and the piercing winds of the cold sea- sons are alike unheeded by them. There is a class of them called Paramhanses, who are believed to be the highest of all. These people observe no caste, and go about in a state of nature. They say their minds are so taken up with the contemplation of the Deity that they can not pay attention to sublunary things." The practice of bringing the old and sick to the riv- er's edge to die is not now in vogue among natives of the city, though the provincials still cling to it. Much THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 163 caution is used, however, for the government is as deter- mined to abolish this ancient and cruel custom as to do away with sutteeism, or widow-burning, and infanticide. From the river Benares ha*s a strange and Oriental look. Massive stone ghauts or steps ascend to the top of the cliff, along which extends a line of irregularly built houses, four or five stories in height, with small windows of different sizes promiscuously placed. Many of these buildings are fast going to decay. From the river, also, one sees the temples and the mosques, the palaces of princes who make periodical visits to the holy city, and the pagodas erected by wealthy men for the benefit of the pilgrims. Add to this brilliance tens of thousands of natives, in white and vari-colored gar- ments, passing up and down the ghauts or bathing in the water, and the thousands of boats of every character upon the river, and the scene is one long and vividly remembered. Near the eastern limit of the city, at the top of a very steep ghaut, stands the great mosque of Aurungzebe. It is a square stone building covered with three domes, and has at each end a slender minar or pillar that rises one hundred and fifty feet above the floor of the mosque, or nearly twice that height above the level of the river. This building is on the site of the Hindoo temple of Vishnu, which the Emperor Aurungzebe destroyed, and the materials of which are thus re-used to celebrate the triumph of Islam over Brahminism. The minars are but eight and a quarter feet in diameter at the base, and seven and a half at the top. They were formerly fifty 164 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. feet higher, but, becoming unstable, it was found necessa- ry to shorten them. The ascent is by a stone staircase. From the top the view of Benares, the Ganges, and the surrounding country is very commanding it is said that in clear weather even the Himalayas may be seen. From this point the city presents a very odd spectacle . to an American, accustomed to cities of " magnificent distances ;" for this bird's-eye view gives it the appear- ance of one solid mass of houses. Such, indeed, it may well appear, since streets only four feet wide form scarce- ly perceptible divisions between houses five stories in height. The dense green trees constitute a grand back- ground, and the Ganges may be seen winding away like a silver thread for miles and miles in the distance. From the top of one of the minars the muezzin, with a loud, shrill voice and a musical measure, calls the faithful to prayers. Once, in walking through the bazar, I determined to taste the betel-nut the tobacco of the Asiatics to the use of which the natives of India are especially addicted. From a tradesman who dealt in nothing else I bought two little packages, each containing material for eight epicurean chews. For this luxury I paid one pice, or one fourth of a cent. The betel -nut stains the lips a bright red color, and the prepared leaf of the piper- betel tastes very like the sassafras bark or root. The Hindoos call it pawn. The effect upon the system is slightly exhilarating, but not so powerful as tobacco or opium. Princes and wealthy persons are accustomed to chew leaves which have been soaked in rose-water and THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 165 tinctured with rich spices. The appetite for the betel increases with the consumption, and from chewing one of the little packages after each meal (considered a moderate allowance), the approach to perpetual use is as rapid and inevitable as any other species of demor- alization. The ruins of ancient Sarnath, which I did not omit to visit, are situated four miles from Secrole. One tower alone remains of that once mighty city. This structure, which is about ninety feet high and seventy feet in diameter, is thought to be at least fifteen hundred years old. It is built of stone, elaborately carved with geo- metric figures, scrolls, flowers, fruit, and human forms, which give abundant proof of taste and skill in design and execution. It is, however, much dilapidated, and the sides and top are overgrown with grass and shrubs. A low and narrow passage extends through and un- derneath to the centre, where a small hole admits light from the top. One morning two snake-charmers called at the hotel. Around their necks large boa-constrictors were twined; and each charmer carried jars of smaller snakes, and one of scorpions. The performance consisted in taking the venomous snakes from the jars in which they lay coiled, and in picking them up, the men placing their fingers upon the reptiles' mouths, tantalizing them to a frenzy, and then twisting them a"bout their heads and necks, where the hissing, writhing mass presented a frightful spectacle. A cobra bit the finger of one of the men twice, and 1 66 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. each time he made use of various charms, placed a small round stone over the cut flesh, smelt a piece of wood resembling flag-root, and then used it for marking a circle around his wrist. This, he told me, would ef- fectually prevent the absorption of the poison into the system. The stone draws out the blood, and with it, of course, the virus. It is generally supposed, however, and with much reason, that the poison-glands of the cobra have already been removed by the crafty charmers. Several times the cobras advanced until within a foot of my chair, but turned back at the command of their masters. During the entertainment one of the men played at intervals upon a sort of flageolet. The scor- pion divertissement consisted in stringing numbers of them together, as the whips of the Furies were made, and in hanging the horrid necklace upon the charmers' lips, noses, and ears. At Benares dwells, during a great part of the year, the Rajah of Vizianagram a liberally educated native gentleman, who speaks English fluently, and takes great interest in all matters tending to meliorate the moral and intellectual condition of his people. But at that time the rajah was absent at Madras, and I was there- fore deprived of the introduction which an English gentleman, a resident, would have procured for me. However, a very great pleasure and honor was now at hand nothing less than being received as a visitor of distinction, and splendidly entertained at his palace, by the Maharajah of Benares, the present spiritual and political chief of the Hindoos. THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 167 Early in the morning I left the hotel to visit the rajah at Ramnaghur, a citadel, palace, and town all in one, situated on the left bank of the Ganges, one mile above the sacred city. Riding in a gharry to a ghaut oppo- site, I crossed the river in a dinghy, or native boat, and was received at the palace by the rajah's chief officer. This gentleman, conducting me up long flights, of stone steps, left me sitting in the court -yard near the audience-hall, while he presented to his royal mas- ter the letter of introduction which had been given me by my good friend Moonshee Ameer Allie, of Calcutta. An aide-de-camp presently came and informed me that the rajah was then sleeping, being very tired on ac- count of the festivities of the previous night while en- gaged in celebrating his son's birthday and performing the religious rites customary on such occasions, and that no one dare wake him. The officer added that the young prince would see me, and led the way to the audience -hall, a large room with a lofty ceiling, hand- somely painted and stocked with European furniture, a Brussels carpet, and some native portraits of the ra- jah's ancestors. In the dining-room, which adjoined, was a tesselated marble pavement and a large rosewood centre-table, the walls being hung with engravings of the English royal family and some native princes. In one corner, upon a small table, stood a beautiful ivory model of the celebrated Taj Mahal tomb at Agra. In the audience -hall I was presented to the young prince the heir-apparent who was surrounded by a l68 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. crowd of officers and attendants. His highness was dressed in a gold-embroidered satin robe and trousers, with velvet slippers, and wore a small turban studded with jewels and covered with tracery of gold and silver needlework. In his delicate ears hung circles of gold wire, strung with pearls and sapphires, and his fingers shone with costly gems. The prince was a bright-look- ing little fellow who spoke English fairly, and under- stood also some Persian and Sanskrit. He told me he was just fifteen years of age, asked about my previous travels, wished to know my intended route from Be- nares, and so forth, and then sent for a rifle an Amer- ican " Henry " patent with which he had shot a large tiger in the jungle. The rajah was still sleeping, and no one in the palace wishing or daring to disturb him, I was invited to visit the palace gardens and the royal temple. A ride of about a mile in the rajah's own carriage, with its liveried coachman and grooms, brought us, proceeding along the river -bank, to the royal gardens, which cover about four acres, and are surrounded by a stone wall with an imposing gateway. In the gar- dens were several large summer-houses, built in the Indian style, and near by was an immense tank of clear water. Passing through one of the houses in which his highness sometimes entertains European guests, we soon reached the private temple, whose foundations were laid over one hundred years ago by the famous Rajah Cheit Singh, an ancestor of the present rajah. This temple is built upon a raised stone platform, THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 169 and is nearly one hundred feet in height. There are also some smaller shrines and dwellings for the Brahmin priests, and the whole is surrounded by a high wall. The temple is built of Chunar stone, and is of the usual pine-apple shape, but differs from most others in the ornamentation of its sides, which are elaborately carved with figures of gods, goddesses, elephants, lions, etc., in middle relief. On the plat- form opposite, and facing the entrance of the temple, are three marble figures a bull, a garud, or man with wings, and a lion on which the goddess is supposed to ride when out for an airing. A Brahmin comes to show us the idol, and opening the small, high- ly polished brass doors, her deityship is before us. Durgha for such is her name stands in a carved stone recess. Her face is of gold and her body of gilded marble, and she is almost covered with flowers. While we were looking over the temple a messenger arrived, who said the rajah was awake and wished to see me. In leaving the gardens I was presented with beautiful flowers and baskets of fruit, and soon after I alighted at the principal gate and proceeded at once to the dewan of the rajah. His highness, surrounded by a great crowd of princes and attendants, received me in a large pillared court, and having graciously waved me to a seat at his right hand, asked if I spoke Hindustani, remarking that he did not speak English. My interpreter was at hand, however, and served us well. The rajah was very plainly dressed, and was smoking a beautiful silver- H 170 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. wrought hookah. He seemed quite an old gentleman, of large and fleshy person, with a keen, intellectual coun- tenance, and very bland and pleasing manners. He first offered me refreshments of all kinds, and then wished to know how he could serve me. He .inquired concerning my past travels, asked me if I had seen Benares, and said that one of his elephants was at my disposal for visiting any part of the city, whenever de- sired. On taking leave, the rajah was good enough to present me with a beautiful silver-silk perfumed neck- ribbon as a mark of his regard, and one of his officers brought me a bottle of the priceless attar-of-rose, after the Indian custom. At the palace gate stood a huge elephant, ready to convey me to Rajghaut, where the gharry was in waiting. Upon returning to the hotel one afternoon from a sail upon the Ganges before the city, I found Babu Ganesh Chunder, the private secretary of the Rajah of Benares, awaiting my arrival, with a note from his royal master proposing to give a nautch (native dance) in my honor at Karnatcha Palace. The palace was on the same side of the river as the city; the entertainment was to be given at any time between eight and twelve, and the rajah requested me to name the hour which would be most convenient. I gladly accepted the in- vitation, and specified nine o'clock. My interpreter accompanied me, and a drive of two miles brought us to the palace gate. Though it was quite dark, one could see, upon one side, beautiful gar- dens, glistening tanks, and gayly ornamented summer- THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 17 1 houses, and upon the other the palace a plain, two- story building, with a narrow stone staircase which led on the outside to the upper floor, and brought us to the reception chamber. A native-made carpet covered the floor, numerous candles glittered in chandeliers, and the walls were decorated with portraits by native art- ists of some of the rajah's ancestors and friends. Chairs having been placed, the officers informed me that his highness would not arrive until ten o'clock, having been detained by important business, but that the nautch would proceed at once. Wine and cigars were offered, as before, but were declined, and the mu- sicians then entered. The nautch girls were the rajah's private dancers, who danced before him nearly every evening, and were kept for his own especial amusement. They were dressed in wide-flowing trousers and long robes, or rather shawls, of heavy crimson silk, made perfectly stiff with gold and silver thread embroidery, borders, and trimmings. They were greatly overloaded with jew- elry on the neck, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Large and curiously wrought rings hung from the lobes of their ears, and a perfect fringe of small rings dangled from holes pierced along each ear's upper rim. This system of jewelry was made complete by dozens of armlets bands of gold two or three inches wide set with vari-colored gems several necklaces, some of them consisting of chains with gold coins attached ; four or six rings on a finger ; anklets strung with little bells ; and even gold and silver toelets upon their 172 THROUGH^AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. naked feet. The distinguishable jewels were the topaz, onyx, carbuncle, agate, and camel ian. The movements of the dancers were very slow, be- ing much hindered by their long robes. They scarcely seemed to raise their feet from the floor, the perform- ance consisting rather of posturing and singing than what we understand by the. single term dancing. In fact, no people of the East indulge in dancing-parties as do the natives of the West. Orientals of the upper class never dance themselves. It is not dignified, and they always hire others to dance before them. So fond are they of the diversion that the profession of a danc- ing-girl is both popular and lucrative, though it is not considered very respectable. These girls some of whom are possessed of extraordinary beauty generally lead an irregular life. One of the officers behind my chair remarked of a rather fascinating girl, who had been dancing for some little time, that she was a cel- ebrated singer, and mentioned her unpronounceable name. I confess never to have heard such extraor- dinary screeching. She "sang" at the extreme limit of her gamut, without the slightest attempt at expres- sion or modulation, and, with short intervals for recu- peration, as long as her strength lasted, when she was relieved by another, and afterward by another, and so the torture proceeded. The musicians four in number stood behind the dancers, and followed their eccentric movements. The instruments were two violins, or guitars one with steel- wire strings a tom-tom, or kettledrum, and a pair of THE SACRED CITY OF THE I^NDOOS. 173 cymbals. The guitars, shaped like very crook-necked squashes, were held before the body, supported by the waistband, and played with bows closely resembling those used with violins in more civilized countries. The tom-toms were two in number, fastened to a belt strapped around the performer, who played by drum- ming upon them with his -fists and fingers. The cym- bals were made of brass, and in action would answer perhaps to our castanets and triangle combined. The guitars were not incapable of producing melody, but the music extracted was entirely without tune, and hence rather monotonous, the same strains being repeated again and again. On each side of the dancers and musicians were torch-bearers, who followed them forward and back- ward in their evolutions, and were so stationed that the light exhibited the gorgeous dresses to the finest effect. These torches were made simply of greased rags, and emitted a thick, oily smoke, which soon filled the room and almost suffocated us. To my mind, nautch danc- ing is like the famous attar-of-rose essence a little of it goes a great way. After an hour or so of the Terpsichorean and Euter- pean performances, the rajah and suite entered. His highness was dressed in magnificent cloth-of-gold vest, trousers, and tunic. The latter was embroidered with a beautiful palm-leaf pattern. On his feet were silk slippers. A jeweled armlet clasped one arm, massive rings glittered on his fingers, and his coat was of pur- ple velvet covered with rich gold flowers, leaves, and 174 THROUGI^ AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. vines. He carried a gold-headed cane, more for sup- port than ornament, for he is quite an old man. The young prince, his son, Koor Perbho Narain Sing Baha- door, was not present, having remained at Rarnnaghur in charge of the citadel during his father's absence. The nautch proceeded at the rajah's request, a silver hookah being brought for him to smoke. This hookah well merits a description. It rested upon a solid silver tray two feet in diameter, and its stem a pliable hose twenty feet long, called nicha was covered with red velvet, wound with gold and sil- ver thread. The bowl of silver, with fantastic em- bossed cover, held the tobacco and the lighted charcoal, which was in the form of balls composed of powdered charcoal mixed with water and baked in the sun. The silver pillar, or rather tube, on which the bowl was mounted, was about three feet in height, and the entire instrument was beautifully modeled and covered with arabesque engraving. At the bottom of this tube was a large bell-shaped vessel, containing rose-water, to which the hose was attached, and through which the tobacco-smoke was drawn, cool and perfumed. The nicha terminated in a beautiful mouthpiece of amber and silver. " How long will the hookah of your highness re- main lighted?" I asked; for the natives do not smoke continuously, but sit and gossip and read and sing for hours at a time, having the nichas in their hands, but taking only an occasional whiff. " All night," answered the rajah ; and added with a merry twinkle of the eye, THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 175 " My hookah is stronger than myself, for I am so fatigued at night that often while smoking I fall asleep ; but my faithful hookah is never tired, for I always find it light- ed on awaking in the morning." This may be explained by the fact that the greater part of the sleep of wealthy natives is taken at noon and in the early afternoon, during the violent heat of the day. They seldom retire at night before eleven or twelve o'clock, and always rise at five in the morning, or at daylight, thus making it four or five hours only during which the rajah's hookah remained lighted. We then had a full half- hour of the nautch, during which time I talked almost incessantly with the rajah through my interpreter, the dialect employed being Persian, the court language of Hindostan, and a tongue with which most educated natives are familiar. His highness had recently been absent on a visit to Allaha- bad, where he also owns a palace and gardens. He had made the excursion for religious purposes, and told me laughingly that he had lost his mustache on that occasion. Allahabad, being situated at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna rivers, is regarded as a holy city, and thousands of pilgrims visit it every year. The hair and beard are cut at the junction of the rivers, and for every hair that falls into the sacred flood a million years will be granted in Paradise. Hence the rajah's visit. The nautch had ceased, and after refreshments two musicians were ordered to enter. The one carried a been, and the other a very long-armed and small-bodied 176 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. guitar. The been is a most singular and primitive in- strument, which was used thousands of years ago in Hindostan. It consists of two large hollow pumpkins, which are joined by a bamboo-cane two or three inches in diameter and perhaps six feet in length. Over this are stretched seven wire cords of different sizes, re- sembling those of a piano, and upon these the per- former plays with the tips of his fingers. Both of these instruments were capable of producing good music, but the men kept thrumming a half-dozen chords over and over again in a most monotonous manner, and with a nearly unbearable effect. I exchanged photographs and autographs with the Maharajah, and had the gratification of seeing myself placed in his superb pearl-covered album, in the distin- guished company of Lord Mayo and some other offi- cials of the British Indian Empire. His highness also presented me with a letter of introduction, written in Persian, to a friend residing at Umritsur, and said he would willingly give me others, but that Agra, Luck- now, Delhi, and Lahore were all Mohammedan cities, and that he, being a Hindoo, had no acquaintance in any of them at least not a sufficiently intimate ac- quaintance to ask favors for an American or English- man. He promised also to send me a hookah to smoke, and an elephant to use in visiting some of the more interesting parts of the city. Previous to taking leave, his highness requested me to write him concerning my further travels, which letter he would answer; and added, " If, while you are in any THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 177 part of India, you are in trouble, or in want of any thing in my power to grant, a written request from you will alone be necessary to obtain it." The rajah also placed upon my shoulders one of the silver-embroidered neck-ribbons of regard, and sprinkled some attar-of- rose essence upon my handkerchief, doing all with much kindness and apparent sincerity. " Good-bye," he concluded, using doubtless the only English phrase of which he had command. " Palagan Maharaj " (" I respectfully bow before you, honored sir "), I replied, in my broadest Hindustani. It was after midnight when we left Karnatcha Palace, and rode back to the hotel by moonlight, through long avenues of glossy peepul, feathery neem, and gnarled mango-trees. The next morning two men one of them the rajah's own hookah-burdar, or pipe-preparer came to the ho- tel with the promised hookah, and shortly afterward the arrival of the elephant was announced. The hookah resembled the one already described. The smoke was of a very mild but agreeable flavor, cooled and purified by its passage through the water. The tobacco is not used pure and unadulterated, but several other plants and some spices and molasses are added. In consist- ency it resembles opium, or thick pitch, and is called goracco, or smoking-paste. I obtained an account of its preparation from the pipe attendant. The tobacco leaves, which are extensively grown throughout Hindo- stan, are pounded and chopped very fine. Molasses, bananas, and cinnamon are then added, and the mass, being well mixed, is kept in the sun until fermentation H 2 178 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ensues. A little musk is next supplied, and the paste, being of the consistency of soft clay, is made into lumps the size of a man's fist, in which state it will keep for years. In order to flavor the smoke, rose-water is sometimes poured into the "snake," or nicha, or the water in the bowl is perfumed by the addition of some fragrant oils. Tobacco and hookahs of good quality are sold in the bazars very cheap ; and Hindoos, Mo- guls of every grade, and in fact all natives of India, from Brahmins to pariahs, are great smokers, but use very mild tobacco. Pipes are of infinitely various prices. The ryot (or peasant) pays but two pice (half a cent) for his neriaul (cocoa-nut water-pipe), while the jewel -studded, gold -mounted hookah of His Majesty the King or His Highness the Rajah often costs as much as a thousand rupees. The entire morning was spent in riding about the city. In passing through the bazar, the elephant would occasionally help himself to a piece of sugar-cane, or a few guavas or vegetables, to the disgust of the trad- ers and my intense amusement. It was quite a novel sensation to move along upon this species of air- line, mounted so high as to be able to gaze into the second - story windows of the houses. Some of the streets were so narrow that the flanks of the animal touched the shop awnings upon each side, while others were of too slight breadth even to admit his body. We visited two palaces belonging to the rajah. They are situated in Secrole, the European quarter, upon op- posite sides of a broad street. His highness entertains THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS. 179 his foreign guests in them, the one containing sitting and sleeping apartments, and the other banqueting and ball rooms. The Duke of Edinburgh and suite occu- pied them during his late visit to India, and Lord Mayo and other notabilities whenever they visited the holy city. The buildings are of brick, stuccoed, two stories in height, with broad verandas, and surrounded by ex- tensive compounds, laid out in level lawns and beau- tiful parterres. The palaces contain large and lofty rooms furnished in European style, but are. overstocked with paintings and engravings of little merit, and trink- ets, ornaments, and fancy clocks. The carpets, of na- tive manufacture, had the appearance of old rugs, owing to their dull color and thick, plushy substance. Returning to the hotel, the driver of the elephant caused her to perform some tricks. Few of these ani- mals can be taught them, and the rajah, thinking to please me, sent this particular one, she being a "trick" elephant. At command she would raise her trunk high in air and make a profound salaam or bow in correct style, accompanying the obeisance with a loud snort. She would also walk or dance upon two feet, lie down or rise at command, and smoke from a hookah. The stick pointed with iron which the driver carries is call- ed a haunkus. It is about twenty inches in length, and is usually m#de of iron, though some have wooden handles. The tip has a sharp point, and some six inches above it is a semicircular hook, about four inches in diameter. With this as a" means of enforcing his commands he pricks the elephant's head upon both l8o THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. sides. When the animal becomes very restless or ob- stinate, a full half-inch of the haunkus is inserted, and the day following a healing oil is applied. Benares was for many centuries the metropolis of the land of the Hindoos, the " intellectual eye " of India, and is still the seat of much learning, culture, and power, though no longer the capital of an immense in- dependent state. Its early condition, its connection with ancient Buddhism, its antiquities, its famous tem- ples, its holy wells and tanks, its numerous ghauts lead- ing down to the Ganges, its manufactures and com- merce, its inhabitants, the ceremonies of the idolaters, its religious festivals, and the gorgeous displays of the native courts, combine to make it to the Western trav- eler one of the most interesting localities of all India. A few days after my reception at Karnatcha Palace I reluctantly left for Allahabad, the capital of a province of like name, about one hundred miles from the sacred city of the Hindoos. MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. iSl CHAPTER XIV. MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. ALLAHABAD, the City of Allah, or God, founded by the Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century, stands at the head of steam-navigation on the Ganges, one thou- sand miles from Calcutta. After having reached it I proceeded through a level, fertile, and but partially cul- tivated country to Cawnpore, about one hundred and twenty miles distant. The chief interest of this city now is a very painful one, and is due to its association with the terrible Indian mutiny of eighteen years ago. The Memorial Garden, six or eight acres in extent, is tastefully laid out with lawns and graveled paths, and filled with trees, shrubs, and beautiful flowers. On a grassy knoll in the centre stands what is termed "The Memorial." It consists of a circular red sandstone plat- form, ten feet in height, surrounded by an open Gothic railing, beautiful in design and finish. The inclosure contains a large winged statue of a female figure, cut from pure Italian marble, and designed by the sculp- tor Marochetti. An inscription in Old -English text, carved upon the base, announces that this monument is " Sacred to the memory of a great company of Christian people, chiefly women and children, who near this spot 182 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. were cruelly massacred by the rebel Nana Dhoondpoot of Bithoor, and cast, the dying with the dead, into the well below, on the fifteenth day of February, 1857." Over the door, on the inner side, one may read the following: "Erected by the British Government, 1863;" and, outside, the Scripture text, "These are they which came out of tribulation." The guides will show you the site of the intrenchment in which General Wheeler, with his small band of sol- diers, and the European and half-caste residents, were assembled, and for twenty-one days held the place in the face of a continual fire from Nana Sahib's troops. No vestige of the intrenchment now remains, but the well is seen whence, at the peril of their lives, the un- fortunate soldiers had to procure their supplies of water. A small plot of ground near the barracks is filled with the graves of the victims, and in the centre is a massive stone cross bearing a long and appropriate inscription. At Lucknow I found comfortable quarters in the Can- tonment Hotel, built after the style of an Italian villa. I was somewhat surprised, on entering the parlor, to find it filled with English officers, in full-dress uniform, and on inquiry learned that His Excellency the Com- mander-in-chief of Her Majesty's Indian Army, Lord Napier of Magdala, then on his annual tour of inspec- tion, was holding a levee of the local cantonment of- ficers. Soon after my arrival I visited an old garden-house, the Alumbagh, of the ex -King of Oudh, the political prisoner whom I saw at Calcutta. It is situated on the MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. 183 main road which leads to Cawnpore, three miles distant from Lucknow. The palace stands in the centre of a garden, surrounded by a high wall one mile in circuit. The gateway is an imposing structure, surmounted with the king's crest or seal two enormous fishes painted in colors. The Alumbagh was the headquarters of Gener- als Havelock and Outram, before the " relief of Luck- now." In the garden is the tomb of the former, sur- mounted by a plain granite shaft, twenty -five feet in height, bearing an appropriate inscription. In Lucknow is a large school for European and Eu- rasian boys, called " La Martiniere," from its founder, General Claude Martine, originally a common soldier in the French army, but subsequently a major-general. Some one has accurately described it as a "strangely fan- tastical building, of every species of architecture, adorn- ed with minute stucco fretwork, enormous lions with lamps instead of eyes, mandarins and ladies with shak- ing heads, and all the gods and goddesses of the Hindoo mythology." Connected with the origin of La Martiniere is a not uninteresting story. About seventy-five years ago General Martine showed its plan to the then ruling King of Oudh, who offered five million dollars (?) for it as a palace for himself. His death soon after rendered this bargain null. In process of time the general him- self died, but commanded in his will that the school should be completed from funds which he had left. To prevent any future ruler from confiscating or occupying it, he ordered his body to be buried in a vault under the building, as no Moslem is permitted by his religion to 184 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. reside in a house where any one is buried. In 1857, however, the mutineers broke open his tomb and scat- tered his bones. The Shah Nujeef, which I next visited, is the tomb of Ghazee-ooder Hyder, the first King of Oudh, built by himself, and modeled after the tomb of Allie, the step- son of Mohammed, at Medina, in Arabia. Through lofty portals you enter a circular room, paved with marble and surmounted by a dome. The latter is beautifully painted in various colors, and hung with twenty large chandeliers of plain and variegated glass, silver, and gold. At the Mohurrum (Christmas) festival these are lighted. In the centre of this room were temples or pavilions of silk, which are covered with gold and silver filigree -work, and beneath which the body of Ghazee- ooder Hyder is buried. At one side were two tombs of tinsel -work, eight or ten feet in height, said to be models of the tombs of certain prophets, and between them were some old banners of the Kings of Oudh, made of silk, and heavily embroidered, in gold and silver letters, with extracts from the Koran ; lances with large silver hands at their extremities a sort of crest, the five extended fingers being emblematic of the five holy per- sonages of the prophet's family ; and shields covered with the names of Mohammed's successors. Near the door was a collection of curious antique paintings, on paper, of the Kings of Oudh, their favorite wives, pictures of festivals, and models of the mosques and tombs at Mecca and Medina. One amusing paint- ing represented Nawab Asaf-o-dowla and his court and MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. 185 General Marline witnessing a cock-fight. The birds, with swollen throats and upreared tails, are seen in the foreground, beak to beak, and immediately behind them are the king and the general shaking hands the pledge of a wager just laid, doubtless. Officers and attendants crowd around, with greatly interested though ludicrous countenances, anxious to be in at the death and to con- gratulate the king, should he be victorious. Ghazee- ooder Hyder entertained rather peculiar ideas of honor, reverence, and affection, for he is said to have despoiled the shrine of Nawab Asaf-o-dowla, his uncle, of all its furniture, and the tombs of his father and mother as well, for the decoration of this mausoleum. Lucknow is a city of palaces, and one of the most splendid is the Kaiser Bagh, or Caesar Garden. It is the great work of the ex-king's reign, was completed in 1850, and cost four million dollars. As every one knows, the English equivalent of Kaiser is Caesar, and this ambitious title was adopted by the Kings of Oudh, who affixed it to their seal. These gardens are fully a mile in circuit. Passing beneath a massive gateway adorned with immense mermaids, painted with red bod- ies and green tails, I entered a smaller garden in which is the Badshahd Munzil, the favorite residence of the king. The ex -king's vizier, the notorious Allie Nuki Khan, to whom he gave the entire control of state busi- ness, and who in reality ruled Oudh, appropriating many lakhs of public revenue to himself, is said to have re- sided above the mermaid gateway, in order that he might be close to the king, and obtain instant informa- 1 86 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. tion of all he was doing. I passed under a magnificent arch called the Lakhi Gate (because it cost a lakh of rupees fifty thousand dollars), and entered a beautiful garden entirely surrounded by palaces. Many of these were formerly occupied by ladies of the harem, but are now empty, though in a tolerable state of preservation. About the centre of this garden is a large marble and glass barraduri an open arcaded pleasure-house, used for dances, theatrical performances, and concerts, and now belonging to a resident rajah. The great Emambarra is the architectural gem of Lucknow, and the work of Asaf-o-dowla, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars in gold. The word " emambarra " signifies a holy place, a place of Moham- medan worship, a depot for the tazees (representatives of the shrines of the sons of Allie at Mecca), used at the Mohurrum festival. It is said that the only re- strictions the nawab put upon his architects, in mak- ing their plans, were that the building should not be a copy of any other structure, and that for beauty and magnificence it should surpass every thing of the kind ever built. The Emambarra was begun in a year of terrible famine, being undertaken in part to supply the poor with bread, and was completed in 1783. It is built of brick, and the extreme length is three hundred and three feet, the width one hundred and sixty, and the height sixty -three, while the walls are sixteen feet in thickness. In the centre is an im- mense hall (one hundred and sixty-seven feet long, fifty-three broad, and fifty high), and at each end are MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. 187 octagonal apartments, each fifty-three feet in diameter, with ceilings even loftier than that of the apartment whence they open. In the hall itself is a marble slab said to cover trie remains of the nawab. All the fur- niture, however, was pilfered by Ghazee-ooder Hyder to embellish his own tomb the Shah Nujeef, already described. The Emambarra is now utilized by the English as an arsenal. Of all the "lions" of Lucknow, the Hoseinabad Emambarra, built in memory of Hosein, a grandson of Mohammed, is the most interesting. It stands upon a raised stone platform, and all its sides have large win- dows delicately painted with designs of leaves, fruit, and animals, while three gilded domes adorn the roof. At first the colored glass, prismatic crystals, and looking- glasses ad infinitum almost blind one. The room is nearly filled with chandeliers depending from the ceil- ing or supported on pyramidal stands. The glass is of different colors, and the stands are of gold and silver tinsel-work, some of them containing glass shades for one hundred and thirty-five lights. On all sides were large pier - glasses, with massive gilt frames. Between the glasses were other frames, containing, in gold-em- broidered letters, sentences from the Koran. In this" tomb were formerly two chandeliers, each of which is said to have cost a lakh of rupees. They were pre- sented by the ex-King of Oudh. Two candelabra, with splendidly enameled and embossed stands, long- branching arms, and stained-glass shades, have lately been added, at an expense of twelve thousand rupees. 1 88 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. In the centre of this room were two square gilt railings, at whose corners rose silver pillars six feet high, sup- porting a magnificent gold and silver embroidered can- opy. . Beneath these were the tombs of Mohammed Allie Shah and his mother. During the great Moham- medan festival the tomb is gorgeously illuminated. The entire exterior walls are covered with iron brack- ets, which hold thousands of little lamps. King Mo- hammed began, near his present tomb, what was to have been a seven -storied tower a Babel whence he might look down upon the Babylon he had built ; but the tower, something like its historic prototype, only reached the fourth story, and has never progressed fur- ther. The king also began a fine mosque, which was completed after his death, at an expenditure of two million dollars. At its gate are rules, printed in En- glish, which state that strangers are permitted to enter at certain hours, but that they must either remove their shoes or walk on pieces of carpet spread for them by the attendants. That Mussulmans are enjoined by their religion to remove their sandals at the gate of a mosque reminds one of God's command to Moses from the burning bush. In the centre of the mosque, be- neath the largest dome (every mosque has three), was the marble pulpit whence the priest reads the Koran. The walls were covered with choice Arabic and Per- sian extracts from the doctrines and precepts of Mo- hammed. Returning to Cawnpore, I continued my journey to Agra, once the Mogul capital of India. At Toondla MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. 189 Junction we changed cars, and reached Agra after a ride of thirteen miles, or one hundred and fifty-five miles in all from the Cawnpore station. We crossed the river on a bridge of iron buoys. To our left stood the massive fort of Agra, containing the palace of the Emperor Akbar and the beautiful pearl mosque, whose " three domes of white marble appear like silvery bub- bles which have rested a moment on its walls, and which the next breeze must sweep away." The fort of Agra, whose walls are nearly two miles around, is filled with old palaces and mosques, and modern barracks and arsenals. Though the walls are seventy feet in height, and are built of brick and faced with blocks of sandstone, a mud fort would probably stand a greater amount of cannonading. A moat, thirty feet deep and supplied with water from the Jumna, still exists, as also do " the triple walls, frowning one above the other," which originally formed a part of the for- tress. Having crossed the mediaeval drawbridge, we approached a large court-yard by means of a long and crooked stone ascent, passing through several gates, the last one of which was flanked by two towers. Former- ly this fort was divided into three sections. In the first resided the guards ; in the second the officers and civil dignitaries ; and in the third, which comprises the side toward the Jumna River, stood the palaces, baths, gardens, and seraglios. At present the fort is occupied by English troops, and the old Dewan-i-aum, or judg- ment-seat of the Emperor Akbar, contains twenty thou- sand stands of arms. Here are shown the celebrated IQO THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. "gates of Somnauth," twelve feet in height and ten in width, made entirely of sandal-wood, elaborately carved and inlaid. Here, too, is the Motee Musjid pearl mosque, as it is poetically yet justly termed ; for if not literally a mosque of pearl, it is at least the pearl among mosques. The dimensions are not grand, but the proportions and style are perfection. From the outside nothing is to be seen excepting high red walls, with white domes just rising above them ; but, having mounted a long stone staircase, you enter a court-yard one hundred and fifty feet square, paved with white mar- ble. The arcades on each side are of the same beauti- ful stone ; so also is the mosque immediately in front : the whole is built of the clearest polished white marble. Just before you is a tank for the ordained ablutions, and in one corner stands a large sun-dial, whence the priests learn the proper hours of prayer. The architecture is Saracenic. The roof is crowned with three graceful domes, supported by eighteen pillars, each cut from a single block, and joined by arches that a Ruskin or a Fergusson would travel far and endure much to be- hold. Above these arches runs an inscription in Per- sian verse, of which the following is a literal English translation : "This place of prayer is one of splendor, Like the Bital Namour in the seventh heaven, Whose whiteness is slave to the dawn of the morning, And from whom the sun rejoices to draw light. To Ursh its solid floor is strongly riveted, And its dome is joined together like the leaves of Paradise. The mosque is betrayed in its lofty ceiling. MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. igi Its flower-pictures, which bloom in marble, Are like a starry nosegay culled from heaven. Here too the sun discovers his fountains, And every golden pinnacle shines as though in heaven. Radiance fills every arch to overflowing, Like the moon on the first night of Eed. On its four sides is the strong fort of Agra, Built of red stone, whose walls reach to heaven. So around the moon glimmers a halo Made of the clouds of Allah's tender mercies j So bright vapors, raining down bounty, Weave around the sun a nimbus of splendor. Made from a pearl of unparalleled beauty, Truly this building belongs to the highest heaven. Never ere this was the soul of marble reached. Never such a temple, provocative of worship, Enriched the world, since the birth of creation. It was built by a king, like Solomon in wisdom, In faith like Abraham, the favorite of God, The civilizer of the world, whose residence is heaven. On him rests the shadow of Allah, The founder of the world and support of princes. By reason of the footsteps of this princely builder The earth is proud, and assumes to be heaven. Gifts he distributes here and hereafter; With him both wealth and fortune are enamored, And beautiful angels are his constant well-wishers. Heaven is a supplicant for some dust of his palace, And the fire of hell fears the flash of his scimiter. By the great, the just, the generous, the magnificent, The merciful and kind Emperor Shah Jehan, Was built this magnificent temple of devotion, In the year seventeen hundred and seven Hijree." Though this poetry partakes strongly of hyperbole, IQ2 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. yet it shows us that the Mohammedans themselves were not a little enamored of their pearl mosque, that they fully appreciated its great beauty. The contour of the domes is very striking ; that in the centre is perhaps a hundred feet in height, and all are surmounted by slender golden pinnacles. Along the edge of the roof is a row of little marble kiosks, and at the corners are tall tow- ers, having eight pillars each. The Motee Musjid, erected by Shah Jehan, was seven years in building, and furnished employment for three thousand workmen, among whom were many Persians, also a few Italians, Portuguese, and French. The mar- ble was presented to the emperor by the Rajah of Jeypoor, and the simple cost of erection is said to have been as much as thirty lakhs of rupees, or one million five hundred thousand dollars. This, however, seems an exaggerated tradition, when we remember the cheapness of labor and the necessities of life at that period. The emperor's palace, and the gardens and zenana, overhang the wall next to the river. The buildings are all of marble, carved, and exquisitely inlaid with gems. Some of the little pavilions are erected directly on the rough red walls of the fort, thus producing a contrast nearly analogous to that of diamonds placed upon an undressed board. In the gardens are fountains and tanks, and in some places waterfalls which are illumined at night by means of lamps placed in the wall beneath the fall. In front of King Akbar's audience chamber is a musnucl, or throne, composed of a single slab of black MOSQUES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. 193 marble. A Persian inscription around the edge informs the spectator that "This was the throne of such A mighty king that his sword cut the heads of his enemies In two whenever it was drawn from its jeweled scabbard. It was the proof- stone of all the kings upon the earth. And as this stone proves gold and silver, So did the sun and moon prove its temper." Opposite this throne is another, on which sat the king's fool, or court-jester. In the Shish Mahal, or Palace of Glass, is a bath- room for the ladies of the harem, in which the ceiling is composed entirely of little pieces of glass set in silvered frames. In the centre are tanks lined with polished black marble. Water, admitted near the ceiling, is con- ducted over slabs of stone in beautiful cascades, and falls into the baths in broad white sheets. The room was originally lighted by lamps suspended from the ceiling. It is said that these beautiful edifices, and the fortress containing them, were twenty- seven years in building. One of the finest tombs in all India is that of King Akbar, the most famous of the great Mogul lords who ruled during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Situated a few miles north of the city of Agra, it is a pyramidal structure of brown stone and marble, which, rising in five terraces, slopes from a summit of fifty to a base of three hundred and fifty feet square, and reaches an extreme height of one hundred and fifty feet ; it stands in a garden of about eight acres. In the centre of I 194 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the upper terrace, with no covering save the sky, is the royal cenotaph a single block of pure marble, ornament- ed with the ninety-nine names of Allah in raised Arabic characters, which are enfolded in elaborate scroll-work. In various parts of the mausoleum are praises of Allah, and Akbar as well, and sentences from the Koran in raised marble letters. It is customary for all Moham- medan writers to begin their effusions with praises to Allah. The gross and obsequious flattery they address to their temporal rulers reminds one of the eulogies of ancient Greece and Rome, while their concluding texts and precepts and pious ejaculations recall the style of several French authors of the last century. A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. 195 CHAPTER XV. A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. AMONG the Hindoos, as I have already hinted, the confluence of two rivers is regarded as a holy spot, where various religious ceremonies are annually held. Near Allahabad, at the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna, a great festival takes place in January and Feb- ruary, when thousands of pilgrims come from all parts of Hindostan to visit the place of flags and hair-cutting. Here the heads and bodies of pilgrims are shaved, a small tuft being left upon the crown ; and, as I mention- ed in my chapter on Benares, for every one of his hairs thrown into the water the pious devotee believes that one million years will be granted to him in Paradise. In addition to this observance is that of bathing, and of lying for some time in a prescribed position, where the Ganges and the Jumna mingle their floods. The Brahmin priests then take the devotee in hand, and proceed to fleece him to the utmost of a capacity which has met with careful cultivation. At the holy junction are a number of square bamboo platforms, upon which the shaving and hair -cutting are done. Near by, sitting cross-legged under huge umbrellas, are the Brahmins, waiting to receive alms, to forgive sins, and sell the 196 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. flowers and trinkets to be used in Hindoo worship. On tall bamboo-poles, and above each of the umbrellas, are gay-colored flags which represent the different districts of the country. By this means pilgrims from the various districts are directed to the respective Brahmins licensed to superintend their pooja or worship, or, not to speak figuratively, to tax their purses to the utmost limit. The Hindoo religion considers it very meritorious to feast the Brahmins and make them valuable presents. Of these priests (of whom there are about twelve millions in Hindostan) it is painful to be obliged to confess that they never lose an opportunity of practicing upon the credulity of the people. The following doctrine, which savors indirectly but strongly of profit to the priest, is said to be frequently propounded from the temple of a Hindoo goddess : " Dan charhao debi nai ; Papi nark na jao bhai" " Present offerings to our mother the goddess, O sin- ner ! and you will not go to hell !" Melas, or festivals which are not exactly pilgrimages, are also popular. At one which I visited near Umritsur, the great Sikh capital of the Punjaub, the attendance, numbered fifty thousand people during one clay. Nu- merous booths, containing sweetmeats, pictures, and toys, had been erected, for Hindoo festivals of this kind are little more than fairs tinctured with religion. Benares, Allahabad, Juggernaut, and Hurdwar are all celebrated for their annual fairs, but Hurdwar par excellence. Half a million pilgrims and dealers flock there yearly, .the A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. 197 former for bathing and worship, and the latter for busi- ness and fun. Every twelve years a sort of jubilee is celebrated, when all that is degrading and fiendish in paganism usually asserts itself. I have frequently seen Hindoos worshiping the sun. Looking toward that luminary and muttering brief in- vocations, they offer in the palms of their hands water taken from the sacred Ganges. This practice they ob- serve thrice a day, and devout Hindoos repeat equally often a short prayer, which varies with the caste, but the form of which, as used by the Brahmins, may be trans- lated thus : " O Earth, Firmament, and Heaven ! we meditate on the great light of the Sun. May it en- lighten our hearts !" Indeed, the Hindoo Triad is said to be simply emblematical of the Sun, who was Brahma, or the Creator, at morning; Vishnu, or the Preserver, at noon ; and Siva, or the Destroyer, at even- ing. In the remarkable cave-temples of the island of Ele- phanta, which I visited, the Hindoos have sculptured a gigantic Trimurti, or Trinity, which is one of the grand- est sights in all India. The temples, situated about half-way up the side of the island, are hewn out of the living volcanic rock. The principal hall is eighteen feet in height, fifty-five in length, and the same in breadth, while the entire temple is one hundred and thirty feet long and one hundred and twenty broad. The roof is supported by rows of immense fluted pil- lars, with capitals carved in imitation of poppy plants ; and the niched walls, containing colossal statues of the 198 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. gods, are covered with entire scenes taken from the Hindoo mythology, and sculptured in alto-relievo. The principal group that opposite the entrance is called the Trimurti, or Triad. The central figure is a full- face image of Brahma, and upon the right and left sides respectively are profiles of Vishnu and Siva. This group stands in a deep recess, and the triple- headed bust measures twelve feet in height and eight feet in width. All these temples, the date of whose erection is thought by antiquarians to have been the tenth century before Christ, prove that in architectural skill and in sculpture the ancient Hindoos far surpassed the Egyptians. Credulity is a prominent characteristic of the Hin- doos, and superstition governs every important event of their lives. They consult their priests or astrologers concerning natal, nuptial, and funeral ceremonies and festivals, and eagerly inquire concerning the mysteries of the future. Their superstitions are as amusing as any in " Napoleon's Dream-book." If they hear the word bunder (monkey) early in the morning, it pre- sages nothing to eat during the day. The effect of the evil-eye on children is to be exorcised by a little chaff and salt. The mother who is told that her child is very poorly and does not thrive construes the condole- ment into a good omen. A shopkeeper never sells on credit the first article he disposes of in the morning. A child's name must not be mentioned at night, lest an owl hear and repeat it, and the child pine and die. These are a few of their childish credulities not, how- A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. 199 ever, more childish than many people born and bred in Christian countries cherish at the present clay. The Hindoos deal much in proverbs : " They eat molasses, but sedulously abstain from sweetmeats." This would be equivalent to the Biblical "Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel." So, too, our " Penny wise and pound foolish" is expressed in their "Gold mohurs (sovereigns) are allowed to be taken away, but charcoal is kept safe with seals." The following say- ings need no explanation: "A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes ;" " Every dog is bold in his own lane ;" and, " What ! live in water, and at enmity with the croc- odile !" An erroneous opinion prevails among Western peo- ple that all the inhabitants of Hindostan speak one and the same language. The language most widely dissem- inated and understood throughout the country is Hin- dustani, a dialect resulting from the union of the San- skritthe ancient vernacular of the Hindoos with the Arabic or Persian of their Mohammedan conquerors. But there are also the Hindi, the literary medium par excellence; Urdu, used by the Mussulmans; Bengali, Punjaubi, Mahratti, Gujeratti, Telegu, Tamil, etc. The sacred books, which include many old grammars and medical works, are written in the Sanskrit, which, how- ever, has long ceased to be a spoken language, being now understood only by a few learned pundits. Per- sian and English have taken its place, and many of its most valuable works have been translated into Hindu- stani. The golden age of Sanskrit literature was just 200 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. previous to the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century A.D. The Hindoos have been called the most religious peo- ple in the world, and on many' accounts they well merit the designation. Their ancient writings indicate the worship of one God, though in later times, the people having sunk into gross idolatry, books were written which instilled the paying of divine honors to innumer- able gods and goddesses, animals, mountains, rivers, and trees. The Vedas (knowledge) constitute the Hin- doo Bible. They are composed in verse, were first col- lected about the fourteenth century before Christ, and contain the revelation of Brahma, devotional hymns, legendary heroic, poetry, history, cosmogony, laws, moral precepts, philosophy, science, and the ritual of worship. They are supposed to be the earliest of the Hindoo sacred books. The Rig- Veda a fourth portion only of the Vedas, and containing the sacred hymns of the Brahmins has been translated into English by the cel- ebrated philologist Max Miiller, after more than twenty years' labor, and published in eight large volumes. The Puranas (ancient writings), containing four hun- dred thousand stanzas, and comprising miscellaneous traditions, were composed probably in the tenth cent- ury A.D. It is said that in the Puranas very little of the primitive Hindoo religion remains. All that has been preserved of the history and insti- tutions of the Hindoos is contained in two great epic poems, named the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. They are the most colossal epic poems to be found in A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. 2OI the literature of the world. The Ramayana contains twenty -five thousand verses, which describe the war waged by Ram, or Ramchunder, king of Oudh, and one of the incarnations of Vishnu, in the thirteenth century before Christ, against Rawan, king of Ceylon. This book is the constant companion of every member of the Kshatriya, or Warrior Caste of Hindoos, since it relates the military tactics and exploits of ancient times. It is said that this really magnificent poem has been translated into Italian and published in Paris by the government of Sardinia. The Mahabharata describes, in two hundred thousand verses, the greatest avatar of Vishnu a manifestation of the god dh earth in human form. The enormous length of this poem has hitherto prevented its translation into any European language, since it would occupy about fifteen octavo volumes. The more important portions, however, have been ren- dered into English by Professor Wilson, who has also translated some of the Puranas. The moral and political philosophy of this strange people is contained in the sacred book Manuvadharma- sastra, or Code of Manu, the lawgiver. It contains four thousand verses, and treats of creation, education, mar- riage, domestic economy, the art of living, penal and civil laws, punishments, atonements, transmigrations, and the blessed state. The Rajneet, a Sanskrit and .Hin- di work, translated by Sir William Jones, exhibits many of the moral doctrines and precepts of the Hindoos. The following are a few selections : I 2 202 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. " What is strength to him who subdues not his own foes? What is the soul itself to him who keeps not his own body in subjection ? " Among all possessions knowledge appears eminent. The wise call it supreme riches, because it can never be lost, has no price, and can at no time be destroyed. " He is a friend who delivers thee from adversity. That is a good action which is well intended. She is a wife who is an insep- arable companion. He is wise who honors the good. He is a friend whom favors have not purchased. He is a man who is not subdued by his senses. "A hundred good works are lost upon the wicked; a hundred wise words are lost upon fools ; a hundred good precepts are lost upon the obstinate ; a hundred sciences upon those who never re- flect. " In the sandal-tr^ are serpents ; in the water, not only lotus- flowers, but crocodiles. Even virtues are marred by the vicious ; in all enjoyments there is something which impairs our happiness. " If a man has no knowledge of his own, of what use is a book to him ? Of what service is a mirror to a blind man ?" The Hindoos have also quite an extensive song liter- ature. The subject is usually love, and the verses are short, the same stanzas being repeated again and again to different musical strains. Here is a sample : " Moved by the gentle breeze, the leaves of the Poorain wave gracefully. The easterly wind blows gently, and the Sakhees are fast asleep. My love is so very awkward that he does not arouse when I try to wake him. The leaves of the Poorain wave grace- fully, being moved by the gentle breeze. " The sky is covered with thick, dark clouds ; the lightning flashes ; I am terrified. O Sakhee, beseech my love to return, or I rend the paper that joined us. The time when he promised to return is nearly out. My heart's emotion is toward the Jumna, from which direction I expect him. If he does not come soon A GLANCE AT HINDOO LIFE AND LETTERS. 203 I will lay aside my ornaments, and become a wanderer with dis- heveled hair." The subjoined specimen of Hindoo correspondence may not prove uninteresting : "The palagan [worship] of Nurpat Singh, Zalim Singh, and Goolab Singh, to Runjeet Singh, Phakoor. We are all well here. May the Yungajee [holy Ganges] always keep you well. We are, it seems, considered enemies by you ; not even one of our letters has been answered. If we were not considered so, you would doubtless have written to us. We are thought enemies. May not God be displeased. What can the pleasure of man do ? May God be pleased with us. Man's displeasure is nothing. May not God be displeased with us. You can write to us, if you are dis- posed to do so ; if not, you need not write. Our Ram Ram [salu- tation] to all the members of the families of Lallas Gokoolut Roy, Bidhee Chand, and Kishoon Dayal. Our Ram Ram and blessing to all, both old and young." The state of education is exceedingly backward in Hindostan, the women, owing to the wretched system of caste, being in general entirely ignorant. At Ben- ares, in 1792, however, a large and costly Sanskrit school was founded for Brahmins, and " Queen's Col- lege " is still considered the finest modern edifice in India. Almost all the literatures and sciences of Eu- rope are taught there, and the Sanskrit department em- braces a collection of rare Oriental manuscripts. In Burmah, Ceylon, and Hindostan more than one hun- dred thousand converts to Christianity have, within the last decade, been made, and the general desire for secu- lar knowledge among the natives is increasing. 204 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER 'XVI. THE PALACE -TOMB TAJ MAHAL. IT is now my privilege to introduce my readers to a theme which has been touched in vain by far abler pens than mine, and in the treating of which, therefore, I ex- pect to show little else than my own incompetency and bewilderment. What was said of the Latin Emperor Augustus regarding Rome might also be said of the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan concerning Agra he found the city brick, and left it marble. One who loved not India or her races has said, " If the people of this land really built the Taj, the sooner the English leave the country the better. We have no business to live here, and claim to be their masters." For grace, symmetry, material, and execution, the Taj Mahal sur- passes the acknowledged masterpieces of architecture in all lands. It" is not only the most beautiful and costly mausoleum on the face of the globe, the most faultless relic of Eastern architecture, but, taken for all in all, probably the most noble and perfect art-ideal of the kind ever embodied by man. It better deserves to be numbered among the wonders of the world than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, or the Mausoleum -erected by Artemisia. Were nothing THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 205 else of interest to be seen -in India, the labor and dan- ger of a journey around the world would be amply com- pensated by an inspection of that stupendous miracle of art, the Palace-Tomb Taj Mahal. The name "Taj Mahal" signifies " Crown of Edifices." The building stands in the midst of a fine garden on the northern bank of the Jumna, two miles from Agra. You enter a spacious inclosure filled with trees. Upon one side is a gate leading to a small village where sweetmeats, food, semi-precious stones, models of the Taj, and knickknacks are sold. Directly opposite is the entrance to the Taj a magnificent portal, whose doors are of solid teak, plated with copper, and studded with huge nails and bosses. The masonry is of sandstone elaborately carved, ornamented with black marble in- laid with extracts from the Koran, and surmounted by a row of marble cupolas. Entering this superb gateway, the first view of the Taj flashes upon you through an arcade of dark and slender cypress - trees. "The whole building, as you look upon it, seems to float in the air like an autumn cloud." Before you is a narrow marble tank with a row of jets d'eau y which extends to the platform of the tomb. A quadrangular garden of about twenty acres is inclosed by lofty walls, with a tower at each corner, and in the centre of that side of the quadrangle which ad- joins the Jumna the tomb is placed. -The garden is filled with banyan, tamarind, orange, lemon, and palm trees and flowers, and the songs of birds are heard in every direction. The tomb is erected upon a platform 206 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. of sandstone measuring nine hundred and sixty -five feet in length by three hundred and thirty in width. The red-stone tower at each corner of this chibootra, or terrace, is surmounted by a marble kiosk. Two build- ings occupy the east and west sides the one a mosque, the other what the natives style a jawab, or "answer." It is intended to preserve the proportion of the group, though also used as a rest-house for travelers. These edifices are of red sandstone, inlaid with marble and other stones, and surmounted by marble domes. From the central sandstone platform, which is twelve feet in height, rises another terrace of white marble. This is perhaps twenty feet in height, and three hun- dred and fifteen feet square. In the centre stands the imposing and beautiful mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj itself is built entirely of white marble. It is octangular in shape, the sides being one hundred and thirty feet long. The roof is about seventy feet from the terrace. The marble dome is seventy feet in diam- eter and one hundred and twenty feet in height, and is crowned with a gilded copper spire and crescent, whose topmost point is three hundred feet above the ground. At each of the corners are four small cupolas, while the angles of the tomb are surmounted by slender minarets topped with gilded spires. On each of the chief sides are grand entrances, consisting of pointed arches which reach . nearly to the cornice, and two arcades of the same form placed one above the other on each side, all save one now closed by magnificently carved marble screens. From each corner of the terrace rise, to the THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 207 height of two hundred and twenty-five feet, elegant mi- nars of marble and inlaid work, crowned with eight-pil- lared domes. In accordance with a requirement of Saracenic architecture, extracts from the Koran are in- laid upon the walls and corridors. The mosaic being in black marble and the walls of white, the effect at a little distance is airy and veil-like. The whole Koran is said to be thus inlaid a sermon in stone of five hundred pages. Entering at the grand arch through sandal - wood doors, I follow a flight of marble stairs which lead down to the vault where the Emperor Shah Jehan and his favorite wife lie buried side by side. There is nothing in this chamber save two sarcophagi exquisitely inlaid with semi-precious stones and covered with inscriptions. On the begum's, or queen's, is written : " The splendid tomb of Arjimand Bannoo, whose title was Mumtaz Mahal, was made in 1009 of the Hijree." At one end is the following line : " Defend us from the tribe of un- believers " that is to say, Hindoos and Christians. On the side of the emperor's sarcophagus is written : " The magnificent temple of the king, inhabitant of the two heavens, Ridwan and Khool ; the most sublime sit- ter on the throne in Illeeyn [the starry heaven], dwell- er in Firdoos [Paradise], Shah Jehan Badshah Ghazee ; peace be to his remains ; Heaven is for him : his death took place the 26th day of Rujub, in the year 1043 of the Hijree" (1665 A.D.). "From this transitory world Eternity has ordained him to the next." The vault being quite dark, and having no opening except 208 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the door, two or three natives bearing candles attended me. Directly over these sarcophagi, in the central room beneath the dome, are the cenotaphs magnificent tombs of pure marble inclosed by an octagonal trellis- work screen about six feet in height. The great ro- tunda is so profusely clustered with fruits, flowers, and foliage as to have the appearance of a blooming bower. It was intended to convey an idea of the blissful seats of Paradise. From the centre of the dome once hung, by a golden cord and jewel-button, an ostrich-egg, de- signed to represent the world floating about in the im- mensity of space. This splendid room is lighted by two rows of latticed windows composed of pieces of glass three inches square set in marble frames. Some of these windows contain as many as three hundred panes. The floor is tesselated with vari-colored mar- ble. The screen inclosing the cenotaphs is of delicate- ly carved marble, wherein the lily, iris, lotus, tulip, and other flowers are intricately arabesqued. Thus the genius of the sculptor, charming the stone into expres- sion, has given to the most perishable things of earth eternal life. The marble posts, frames, and fanciful mouldings of the screen are covered with mosaics. One of the sections is a single slab, six feet in length by four in width, " wrought with such marvelous delicacy that it resembles a piece of rich lace-work, wherein are ' Mimic leaves and vines, That, light and graceful as the shawl designs Of Delhi or Umritsur, twine in stone.' " THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 209 Over the door is a beautiful arabesque made from a mineral the exact color of gold. This is the only place in the mausoleum where this substance is found. The cenotaphs glitter with embedded gems. Flower, fruit, leaf, and branch are here wrought faithfully copy- ing the colors and gradations of nature in mosaics of carbuncle, lapis-lazuli, agate, carnelian, heliotrope, jas- per, chalcedony, topaz, emerald, turquoise, garnet, crys- tal, sard, amethyst, chlorite, jade, and serpentine, insin- uated into every square inch of the marble. So skill- fully are these gems inlaid that the face of the marble has the appearance of a beautiful painting. Bishop Heber writes : " Every thing is finished like an orna- ment for a drawing-room chimney-piece ;" and again : "These Pathans designed like Titans and finished like jewelers." As pure works of art these mosaics rival the most admired of the inlaid marbles at Florence the tombs of the Medici. The guides call especial at- tention to a flower composed of twenty-seven different varieties of gems. Another flower contains three hun- dred pieces of stone. Owing to the Mohammedan ab- horrence of the very appearance of idolatry, no figures of men or beasts are imitated in these pictures in jewel and stone. The Taj forcibly illustrates the metaphor- ical language of Isaiah when he says, "I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones ;" and of the Revela- tion, in the passages, " Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. . . . And the foundations of the wall of the city were gar- 210 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. nished with all manner of precious stones the jasper, the sapphire, the chalcedony, the emerald, the sardonyx, the sardius, the chrysolite, the beryl, the topaz, the chrys- oprasus, the jacinth, the amethyst." Says Myers, fresh from the banks of the Nile, Euphrates, and Murghab rivers, and writing about this grand cenotaph vault : "No royal chamber or stately hall of Egyptian, Assyr- ian, Babylonian, or Persian palace was ever decorated with such purity of taste, such chasteness of design, such delicacy of sentiment, such perfection of skill, such supreme forgetfulness of wealth and labor." The echo in the dome of the Taj is probably the finest in the world. An old and well-known American traveler thought it more sweet, pure, and prolonged than that in the Baptistery of Pisa, one of the most perfect in Europe. At the time of my visit some country people were spending the day in the grounds, and one of them had a flute upon which he played beneath the great dome. The effect was magical. The sound, which at first increased slowly, diminished as it rolled and re- verberated through the arches until you could scarcely distinguish the separate notes. A sweet female voice gives the best idea of the clearness and softness of this echo, a cornet or flute of its power. An enthusiast compares the melody to the " atmosphere breathed by Ariel and playing around the fountain of Chindara." That which pleased me as much as any thing else about the mausoleum was the magnificence of its mi- nars, whose symmetry to my eye seemed perfection it- self. As I have already observed, they are two hun- THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 211 dred and twenty- five feet in height, and built with as small a circumference at the base as will support so great an altitude. Taylor exactly expresses my con- victions in saying of the Taj minars that they " are perfect; no other -word will describe them. You can not conceive of their being changed in any way, so little as half an inch, without damage to the general effect." I ascended one by a spiral staircase of one hundred and sixty -five steps, and was rewarded by a remarkably interesting view. Below me "Agra slept, By the long light of sunset overswept : The river flowing through a level land, By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, Skirted with lime and olive, gay kiosks, Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, Fair pleasure-gardens with their flowering trees Relieved against the mournful cypresses ; And, air poised, lightly as the blown sea-foam, The marble wonder of some holy dome Hung a white moonrise over the still wood, Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood." So sings the poet VVhittier, well and truly. During the reign of Aurungzebe, the son of Shah Jehan, and for fifty years after, the light that fell, noon and night, upon the tombs of the Taj was from per- fumed oil in golden lamps, daily garlanded afresh. " Mogul musicians furnished appropriate music ; five times in each twenty-four hours the muezzin's cry to prayers resounded from these minarets; and a eunuch of high station, with two thousand sepoys under his or- 212 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ders, held watch and ward, without ceasing, over the en- tire place and all its approaches. None but men of Mohammedan faith were permitted to come within these precincts or to draw near the tombs ; and the entire shrine was by the emperor's (Shah Jehan's) orders ex- pressly held sacred from the approach of any Christian foot." After reading of such jealous care, it will scarce- ly be believed that this work of art came near being pulled down and sold for what ij: would bring by one of the former governor-generals of India. Yet such is in- deed the truth. During the sepoy mutiny the Taj Ma- hal was protected by a regiment of English soldiers ; and though it has suffered little in comparison with sim- ilar remains, yet when Agra was taken by Lord Lake in 1803 the English troops scooped out many of the jewels, imitating the Jauts, who had ravaged the city two years previously. For the past ten years the British-Indian government has been carefully repairing the Taj, and keeping in order the remarkably beautiful gardens. This palace-tomb was erected by the Emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his favorite wife and queen, Mum- taz Mahal, niece of the celebrated Nour Mahal, Moore's " Light of the Harem." The empress died in child- birth, but just previous to her death requested of the emperor that he would build over her remains a more beautiful tomb than the world had ever seen. Shah Jehan promised. At his command many plans of mausoleums were brought, and after much thought and study he selected one presented to him by Austin de Bordeaux, a French architect and adventurer attached THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 213 to his court. M. de Bordeaux had already designed the Takt Tons, or Peacock Throne of the palace in Delhi. In reward for his skill the emperor named him Jewel- Handed, and gave him a salary of two thousand rupees a month. A model of the Taj was first made in wood. Then, during a space of seventeen years, precious stones were collected. The marble was brought from Jeypoor, three hundred miles away, upon wheeled carriages, and the sandstone came from Futtehpdre J Sikri, twenty-three miles distant. The splendid monuments of the Moguls in India could only have been erected by the' squander- ing of their immense revenues during hundreds of years, and the possession of despotic power in compelling their subjects to work without remuneration, and their dependent princes to furnish gratis much of the building material. In the case of the Taj, the labor was all forced. In the construction of this wondrous pile twen- ty thousand workmen are said to have been employed twenty-two years. To these slaves very little payment was made in cash. An allowance of corn was daily meted out to them, and even this was cruelly curtailed by the rapacious officials. This jeweled tomb therefore is merely a monument of a woman's vanity and a tyrant's despotism. A native account of the cost of the Taj Mahal states that 9,855,426 rupees were contributed by the rajahs and nawabs throughout the empire, and that from the emperor's private treasury were taken 8,609,760. This would give a total of 18,465,186 rupees, or more than nine million American dollars. Another account puts 214 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the cost at $15,000,000, and a third at $60,000,000. There are reasons for believing the first -mentioned estimate nearest the truth. At the entrance to the Taj were formerly two silver doors, studded with eleven hun- dred nails, each having a head made of a Sonat rupee. The whole cost is said to have been $640,000. These doors were taken away and melted by the Jauts. Upon the opposite side of the Jumna Shah Jehan began to build a mausoleuiri for himself, but the civil wars and the death of M. Austin de Bordeaux cut short the un- dertaking. ' The emperor intended to have joined the two tombs by a silver bridge. In 1853, the sheik who at* that time took care of the Taj told Bayard Taylor that its entire cost, including gateways, mosques, and adjacent buildings, had amounted to seven crores of rupees, or $35,000,000 ; but Mr. Taylor deemed this quite impossible, and thought the cost better estimated at 8,750,000 Spanish dollars. In a Persian manuscript still preserved in the Taj Mahal is a catalogue of the workmen, with their respect- ive wages, and an account of the stones and jewels, with their value, and the localities whence they were ob- tained. It is fortunately in my power to insert a trans- lation of this document. "The names of some of the workmen who came from divers countries to assist in the building of the Taj : The Headmaster was Isa Mohammed Shureef [a son of Austin de Bordeaux, employed after his father's death]; his salary was one thousand rupees per month. The Illuminator, Amarnud Khan, inhabitant of Shiraz, also THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 215 at one thousand rupees per month. The Master Mason, Mohammed Hunif, from Bagdad, also at one thousand rupees per month. The golden cupola became broken by a violent storm before it was finished, and the son of Isa Mohammed Shureef undertook its repair. He re- ceived five hundred rupees per month. A great many other workmen also were employed, some from Turkey and Persia, others from Delhi, Cuttack, and the Punjaub. These received salaries ranging from one hundred to five hundred rupees per month. " Names and weight, also the value, of some of the stones : The white marble came from Jeypoor, in Raj- pootana ; the yellow marble from the banks of the fller- budda River ; a square yard of this cost (or was worth) forty rupees. The black marble came from a place called Charkoh ; a square yard of this cost ninety ru- pees. Crystal from China; one square yard cost five hundred and seventy rupees. Jasper from the Punjaub; carnelian from Bagdad ; turquoises from Thibet ; agate from Yemen ; lapis-lazuli from Ceylon, the square yard costing one thousand one hundred and fifty-six rupees ; coral from Arabia and the Red Sea ; garnets from Bun- delkund; diamonds from Punnah, in Bundelkund." (It is, however, doubtful whether any of these were used ; although, since many of the precious stones have been picked out by the Jauts and the English when they severally took Agra, there may have been a few in some of the flowers.) "The plum-pudding stone came from Jaisilmere ; rock-spar from the Nerbudda; the philos- opher's stone from Marcheen ; the loadstone from Gwa- 2l6 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. lior; the onyx from Persia; the chalcedony from Villait; amethyst from Persia; sapphires from Lunka. The red sandstone, of which one million and fourteen thousand cartloads were used, came from Futtehpore-Sikri. Many other stones were also employed, in the inlaying of the flowers, which have no name in our [Persian] language." The greater portion of the marbles and jewels was re- ceived, in lieu of tribute, from different tribes and na- tions under Shah Jehan's dominion, or as gifts from the various petty chieftains of India. It is noticeable that the majority of the precious and semi -precious stones came from within what were the limits of the Mogul Empire at that period, A.D. 1631-71. Though the above account resembles a chapter from the "Arabian Nights," it becomes more credible when we remember that the courts of Mogul sovereigns, two centuries ago, corresponded to the magnificence implied by these amazing contributions. At his death, Shah Jehan left $150,000,000 in his treasury. His palace was the finest in the East, his hall of private audience the most superbly furnished and entrancingly beautiful the world has ever seen. His throne of gold and jewels the famous " Peacock Throne," which was stolen from Delhi by Nadir Shah, and afterward broken up by his nephew and successor was valued at $30,000,000. His crown, which cost $12,000,000, resembled those worn by the Persian kings, having twelve points, each tipped with a diamond of the rarest water. In the centre was a pearl of extraordinary beauty and size, and the whole was thickly sprinkled with rubies and other princely THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 217 gems. His dress comported with this gorgeous extrav- agance. His sword and buckler were incrusted with diamonds and rubies. His sceptre was entwined with a chain of large pearls, rubies, and diamonds. Around his neck he wore three strings of immense pearls. His armlets glittered with diamonds, and rows of jewels were embedded in his bracelets. His tunic was of cloth-of- gold, as thin as lawn, and his slippers were of gilded buckskin embroidered with pearls. Except upon grand and state occasions, when "the royal crown came into use, he wore a rich turban plumed with long heron feathers. On one side was an unset ruby, and on the other a diamond, both as large as walnuts ; in the middle was an emerald like a heart, only, as credulous chron- iclers relate, much larger. One of the most singular facts connected with the Taj Mahal is that it appears to assume different colors, ac- cording to the state of the atmosphere. Early in the morning it appears light blue; as the sun rises it takes sometimes a roseate, and often a bright yellow color ; at noonday the glare is so powerful that one can scarce- ly look toward the dome ; and when a storm impends, and dark-blue clouds overhang the palace, it assumes a violet tinge. Its appearance is especially beauti- ful by moonlight. Indeed, the best time to see it is when the moon is declining, for then there is just suf- ficient light to bring out impressively its grand propor- tions, and make it resemble " a silver palace floating in the air," while at the same time the individual outlines become less distinct. I fear that when the moon is full, K 2l8 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. her light is so strong as to throw the whole building into vague masses, like heaps of snow. But if you take the elegant minars alone, they appear to the best advantage by day, being so light of substance. Many think that the Taj is never so imposing as when illuminated with Bengal lights from the tops of the minars ; and when these are also burned in the great dome the effect is certainly enchanting. The jewel -studded caskets, the finely wrought marble screen, and the carved and inlaid walls are as clearly discernible as if the morning sun were shining full upon them through the latticed win- dows. A word is necessary as to the precise order of archi- tecture to which the Taj belongs. Some maintain that it is Florentine, some Byzantine, some Saracenic. I should say it was a blending of all three styles with the purely Oriental school. In grace and harmony of proportion it is not surpassed by the temple of Minerva in the Acropolis ; the mosques of Mohammed Ali at Cairo, Omar at Jerusalem, or St. Sophia at Constanti- nople ; the Alcazar of Seville, or the Duomo of the old Tuscan capital. In exact fulfillment of the requisites of the beautiful, in exuberance of fancy, and in variety and delicacy of ornamentation, this wondrous tomb is quite incomparable. Well, indeed, may it be called a poem in marble, when stern and unimaginative people have been known to burst into tears upon entering the great hall. Upon another occasion I visited the sarcophagi, or true tombs, in the vault of the Taj, and had all the Ara- THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 219 bic inscriptions read to me by the attendant moonshee. None, however, were of special interest. The Emperor Shah Jehan, " Conqueror of Worlds, Protector of the Poor, Taker of the Hand of the Distressed, Most Learn- ed and Illustrious," has himself left behind some verses written in praise of his beloved queen, Mumtaz Mahal, and her palace-tomb. A nearly literal translation of the original Persian poem would be as follows : "This lovely and beautiful tomb Is like those in the time of Kais, A place for lovers to slumber. The floor is sweet with amber, As in the seventh heaven, Or a temple built in Paradise. The air is hung with fragrance, And houris fan its corridors With shadow-drooping eyelashes. Its walls and portals are set with jewels, And pure is its air and sweet its water, Which its architect lured from the Chusma-i-Faiz. Continually from clouds of mercy* Falls the" rain on its lofty dome. Should any one enter its holy precinct, And ask a boon of the One High God, Allah will hear and grant the favor. Every one here is hospitable. One might imagine the gentle breezes Left this place receiving nothing. But are they not laden with the aroma Breathed by the plant called the Flower of Generosity ? The blossoms laugh, but hide their faces. The clouds rain, but it is the rain of compassion. When any sinner here seeks protection, 220 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. His sins are forgiven as though he were in heaven. The buds of the trees burst with smothered laughter, Unannoyed by the breathings of the zephyr. While the blushing blossoms expand and sweeten, The modest breezes hide behind the curtain, Knowing that here reclines a spotless beauty. All who seek protection here will find it, Since to Allah the place is consecrated. Even should the wicked dare to creep hither, The pages kept by the Recording Angel Will be washed clean, and sparkle pure and spotless. When the sun and moon see this mausoleum Their eyes grow full with the tears of compassion. In this place, crowned with heaven's azure, The sun himself is a recipient of favors. And as soon as he retires the moon emerges, Glowing with anxiety to receive an equal bounty, And adding to the constant expectancy of heaven. Life here is pleasant, being full of loving-kindness For the poor and alien, the pilgrim and the stranger. Until now, was there ever an eternity? Hath not death himself removed his presence ? Surely not of eartk could have been the builder, Since the design was furnished him by heaven. Firm are the foundations as the creed of the Faithful. I know not where the colors were captured ; Possibly they came here to live forever. When the builder made it, peace was his intention Peace everlasting and a place of security. When eternity laid its foundations, The winter time of the year fled afar to the jungles." The impression made by the Taj upon different be- holders is of course as varied as the peculiar tastes, knowledge of art, and appreciation of the beautiful. THE PALACE-TOMB TAJ MAHAL. 221 An anonymous author thus glowingly describes his visit : " View the Taj at a distance it is the spirit of some happy dream, dwelling dim but pure upon the horizon of your hope, and reigning in virgin supremacy over the visible circle of earth and sky. Approach it nearer, and its grandeur appears unlessened by the acuteness of the fabric, and swelling in all its fresh and fair harmony, until you are at a loss for feelings worthy of its pres- ence. Approach still nearer, and that which, as a whole, has proved so charming, is found to be equally as ex- quisite in the minutest detail. Here are no mere touch- es for distant effect. Here is no need to place the be- holder in a particular spot, to cast a particular light upon the performance. The work which dazzles with so much elegance at the coup (Fceil will bear the scrutiny of the microscope. The sculpture of the panels, the fretwork and mosaics of the screen, the elegance of the marble pavement, the perfect finish of every jot and iota, are as if the meanest architect had been one of those potent genii who were of yore compelled to adorn the palaces of necromancers and kings." I remained more than a week at Agra. My thoughts by day were Taj-haunted ; at night my dreams were of a silver palace floating in the air. Each morning I rode from the city to the wonderful tomb, and at every visit discovered new beauties. Yesterday it was the mosaic- work of the cenotaphs, to-day the dome and surrounding cupolas; at one time it was the proportions and nice balancings of the minars, at another the poetic senti- ment that the mute marble seemed still to put into white 222 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. and shining speech. From all this study, untrained though it may have been, I could draw but one infer- ence, namely, that the work was perfect, and criticism out of place. From corner-stone to crescent-spire, from mosque to minar, no fault could I find, no improvement suggest. In the midst of a heathen country, he who threads Taj Mahal walks upon ground made holy by the light of genius. FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. 223 CHAPTER XVII. F U T T E H P O R E - S I K R I. I DID not leave Agra without paying a visit to Fut- tehpore - Sikri, about twenty - three miles distant from that city, and the favorite residence of the Emperor Ak- bar. Here he built some very imposing and beautiful palaces, tombs, mosques, and towers ; but at last, when he wished to surround the hill on which they stood with a chain of massive fortifications, a Goroo, or Hin- doo saint, whom, probably from motives of policy, he kept near him, objected. The holy man could not re- strain himself, but told the emperor his devotions were interrupted by the bustle of the city and the gayeties of the court ; that he had gone twenty times on pilgrim- ages to Mecca, and had never before had his comfort and quiet so much disturbed, and that either his royal master or himself must depart. " If it be your majes- ty's will," replied the emperor, " that one should go, let it be your slave, I pray." Akbar therefore rebuilt Ak- barabad, the city of Agra. " The court and the towns- people removed thither, and Futtehpore-Sikri, with its massive palace, its noble residences, and its deserted streets, remains to the present day a monument of the splendor and wealth of its founder, and a testimony to 224 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the despotic power which a reputation for sanctity has in all ages conferred." A good guide is the first requisite in setting out to explore the ruins, and I was fortunate to obtain the services of Mustag Allie, son of the noted Sheik Bu- sharat Allie. We passed the emperor's palace, and approached the great court -yard in which is the tomb of Sheik Selim Chisti. Ascending a magnificent flight of stone steps, we found before us an immense gate- way built of sandstone, inlaid with white, black, and brown marble, and surmounted by numerous kiosks and minarets. The arch, around which were inlaid the customary sentences from the Koran, is seventy -two feet in height, and the entire gateway is one hundred and forty feet from the pavement of the court, and fully two hundred from the ground below. At the summit one obtains an enviable view of the surround- ing country, and toward the east can just discern the snow-white dome of the Taj Mahal, appearing like a bright star on the horizon. Having descended, we paused for a moment to inspect the gates of solid teak, studded with hundreds of horseshoes of all sizes and shapes. "These are so placed," Mustag the guide said, " in honor of Sheik Selim Chisti ; for if a man has a horse which is sick, he prays to the sheik for its recovery; and should the animal become well, he then nails one of its shoes upon these doors in token of gratitude." Upon one side of the gateway is carved, in basso re- lievo Arabic characters, this sentence : " Jesus, on whom FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. 225 be peace, has said the world is merely a bridge ; you are to pass over it and not to build your dwellings [hopes ?] upon it." This lofty portal is a fitting en- trance to what is probably the largest mosque court- yard in the world. The area four hundred and fifty feet square is paved with sandstone slabs, and bor- dered with colonnades fifty feet in height. Directly op- posite the entrance is the tomb of Sheik Selim Chisti, and on the left hand is the great mosque. The tomb, built by Akbar, is about fifty feet square and fifteen in height, surmounted by an elegant dome and raised upon a platform, all made of the purest white marble. A series of three doors the first of ebony, the second of sandal-wood, and the third of marble admitted us into a room fantastically frescoed, though the colors were becoming dim with age. The floor was of marble, sandstone, cinnamon-stone, and jasper. The sarcopha- gus was covered by a cloth of silk and gold, and is bared to the public but once a year, at a particular re- ligious festival. Mustag Allie told me it was made of mother-of-pearl. It was also surrounded by a low, in- tricately carved marble railing. In addition to the light which came through the door, the room was illumined by two pierced marble screens. These attracted my attention from having hundreds of little pieces of col- ored worsted and strings and ribbons tied through their perforations. Mustag volunteered an explanation. The sheik, being a holy man and a prophet, devout Mus- sulmans, when he grants a favor they request of his manes, or spirit, tie a string near his tomb, and offer K 2 226 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. some flour and metai (native sweetmeats) in thankful- ness. Around the walls are Koran sentences in Arabic gold letters. The outer walls are simply beautifully chiseled screens, some of the slabs being nearly eight feet square. The neighboring mosque, accommodating one thou- sand worshipers, is composed of lofty galleries, support- ed by carved pillars, with a roof topped by three huge brick domes. The tomb and the durgah, or mosque, were built with money left by the sheik, amounting to thirty-seven lakhs of rupees, or $1,850,000. Near Se- lim Chisti's tomb are many smaller ones, erected in memory of the relations of the emperor and the de- scendants of the sheik. Here is the grave of Busharat Allie, marked by a plain slab of white marble. In or- der to obtain an idea of Oriental epitaphs, I asked Mustag to translate some of those upon his father's tomb. They were in Arabic characters, and read thus : " From this world he has departed, and, Allah bless him, has gone to heaven." "Suddenly he heard somebody whisper in his ear that he would die in 1236 Hijree ;" "He, happy and delighted, has gone to heaven;" "Allah forgive him;" "Allah is great, and Mohammed is his Prophet ;" " Sheik Busharat Allie, guide, descended from Haji Hassein." On the footstone is the date 1236 Hijree A.D. 1858. Our next visit was to the palace of Beer-Bui, who was Akbar's prime minister, and a man of great wisdom and wit as well as learning. The palace is built of red sandstone, as indeed are all the buildings at Futteh- FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. 227 pore-Sikri, this stone being quarried in immense quan- tities at the foot of the hill. It is very elaborately carved, both within and without, and fitted up for the reception of visitors of distinction. Busharat Allie was a great stpry-teller, delighting es- pecially in tales of the time of Akbar. Here is an an- ecdote illustrative of the character of the great king and of Beer-Bui, the prime minister, who enjoyed so much of his confidence : "One day while Akbar was out hunting he lost his way, and, suffering much from thirst, chanced to see a laborer cutting sugar-cane. He rode up, and, having asked him for a piece to chew, the man went into the midst of the khet and brought him a large cane. The emperor then asked the man what was the necessity for his going into the midst of the field to get a cane when there were plenty close by. The countryman answer- ed, ' The king is worthy of the best ; I brought the largest in the field.' Akbar then asked him why, if he knew he was the king, he had not made an obeisance, which was the king's due. The man answered, 'The obeisance is rather due to me ; I have received no ben- efit or favor from the king, whereas the king has from me.' Akbar then said, 'There is some truth in this fellow's reasoning;' and taking off a signet -ring, he gave it to the man, and told him to present himself next day at durbar [court where a levee is held] and ask a favor, at the same time returning the ring. When Akbar arrived home, he told the affair to Beer -Bui, who blamed him very much for giving such a valu- 228 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. able ring, and one with which he could do so much harm, to a peasant. Akbar averred that he could trust the man ; Beer-Bui said that the ring was gone forever. " The countryman did not present himself at the durbar next day, and many months passed away without hearing any thing about the ring, further than Beer-Bui's continual reproaches to the king for his folly. Now it chanced that Akbar and Beer-Bui were riding out one day in the country, when the emperor at a distance espied this very countryman engaged at the plow. He told Beer -Bui of it, and asked his advice. Beer -Bui answered, 'If the man is innocent, he will continue his plowing; but if guilty, he will run off into the jungle upon seeing you.' The king approached, but the man went on with his work. Akbar then asked why he had not come to the durbar and brought back the ring. The man replied : ' O king ! as I was returning that evening to my village, I chanced to take the ring out of my pocket, just to see that it was all safe. The kotwal [mayor of the town] happened to observe me, and im- mediately had me seized, banged on the head with laths, and your ring taken by force from me, saying, " What punishment is due to a thief who has stolen a ring?" He also warned me that if I made any com- plaints about it my lot should be hard.' Akbar then said, ' Why did you not repeat this at the durbar the next day? You would have had justice.' The man an- swered, ' O king ! would such a one as I have been be- lieved ? I should have been put in prison ; perhaps FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. 229 have lost my life.' Said Beer-Bui, ' There is truth here, but it is mixed with error ; let us go to the village and see the kotwal.' Akbar ordered the countryman to be mounted on an elephant and to show the way to the village. " When they neared the place, the king and Beer-Bui went on ahead, and entered the house of the kotwal, who made profuse expressions of delight at the visit, and professions of devout obedience to the king. The latter, however, kept his eye on the man, and saw him take off the ring from his finger and conceal it in his waist-belt. The king then ordered all the head people of the place to be assembled, and asked them if they were satisfied with the kotwal. They all, with one ac- cord, poured forth his praises, saying that their destiny was good to be under such a worthy man. Now the kotwal was the veriest villain in the world, and was hated, but much feared because he had the signet of the king, by means of which he carried on all kinds of oppression, extortion, and injustice. The king then said, ' How much is your salary ?' and the kotwal told him fifty rupees a month. The king then asked, ' How is it you can live in such magnificence upon fifty rupees a month ? Explain this, that I may take a lesson, and reduce the expenditures of my kingdom.' At this close questioning the face of the kotwal became white with fear. The king then said to the head men of the vil- lage, ' You are well satisfied with the kotwal, but I will produce one who is not.' He then gave orders for the elephant with the plowman on' it to advance. 230 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. "When the kotvval saw him his head fell on his breast, the dark shadow of confusion overspread his face, and speech left his lips. And the villagers, when they saw the turn affairs were taking, loaded the kotwal with abuse and revilings for his tyranny and oppression such is the way of this world. Akbar then ordered all the property of the kotwal to be confiscated and given to the plowman, whom he made kotwal instead, and also ordered a fine of one hundred rupees to be levied on the village, because the men had spoken false before him, and this to be given to the religious mendi- cants. The former kotwal had the plot of land and hut of the husbandman given him for his lot. The plow- man turned out an honest man, and was afterward ad- vanced to the situation of inspector of chillars, which was a very lucrative employment. Beer-Bui said, 'The seed I have sown has increased a hundredfold ; my advice is no longer required by you, O king ; your wis- dom now exceeds mine.' " From Beer -Bui's palace Mustag Allie and myself walked to the Elephant Tower, a minar about ninety feet in height, surmounted by a light cupola, and stud- ded from top to bottom with stone imitations of ele- phant tusks, each about three feet in length. This tower was erected by Akbar over the grave of a favor- ite elephant. It is called also the Hirum Minar, or Antelope Tower, because (so the guide said) from its top the emperor used to kill with the bow and arrow, and sometimes with the matchlock, antelopes that were driven across an open field in front. FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI. 23! Near the dewan-i-khas, or hall of private audience, is a small pavilion whose dome is supported by massive stone serpents curiously carved. Here the Goroo, or Hindoo saint, who was the reputed cause of the emper- or's abandoning Futtehpore - Sikri and building Agra, made his religious offerings. Adjoining is a building full of small rooms and crooked passages, where the ladies of the harem used to amuse themselves at play- ing hide-and-seek. On another side of this court is the palace of the Sultana of Constantinople. Though small, it is the most splendidly sculptured building at Futtehpore-Sikri. Both within and without even the inner roof of the portico all is covered with delicate and beautiful carving. The slabs of stone used are of immense size, and the designs cut upon them embrace flowers, fruits, vines, and geometric figures. 232 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER XVIII. AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. HAVING given a brief account of the deserted and decaying Futtehpore-Sikri of to-day, I will now attempt to resurrect the palaces and people, and present the drama of a day in the olden time, giving some idea of life, character, and manners at the court and capital of Sultan Akbar toward the close of the sixteenth century nearly three hundred years ago. Should interest or en- tertainment be found in this portion of the narrative, the reader will be to some extent indebted to an anonymous sketch published in an Anglo-Indian periodical a quar- ter of a century ago. The hints and references which I have thus gleaned constitute the elements of an Orient- al picture, illustrative of the halcyon days of glorious old King Akbar, the greatest of the Great Moguls, and of his pride and delight, the beautiful city of Futtehpore- Sikri. It is scarcely day, but already the roll of drums is heard, and the roar of cannon breaks the silence of the solitary morning. The emperor is an early riser, and the moment of his quitting his couch is thus announced. The door of the khwabgah opens, and the large drums resound from the noubutkhana over the great doorwav AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 233 < of the palace. A nakib issues forth, and, mace in hand, proclaims in that monotonous tone so familiar to dwell- ers in the East the titles of his master. In the door- way, immediately after him, appears a broad-chested man somewhat advanced in years. The chasteness of his simple costume shows that some thought has been bestowed on its quality and arrangement. The material is white muslin, but gold thread is tastefully introduced. His arms are unusually long, his face is very clear, the blood richly tinging his olive complexion. The joined and lowering brows give to the bright eyes they half conceal a somewhat severe expression. This is King Akbar. His appearance is the signal for a loud and general cry of "Allaho Akbar!" God is great; to which the emperor, still standing in the doorway and bowing slightly, answers, " Jilli Jalallihu !" May his glory shine. . ^ Among the courtiers who now press around is one who, on hearing the first sound of the azan, stood per- fectly still. He is a man of sharp and severe features, noted as the most rigid Mohammedan about the court. It is directed in the Haddis that if a person be walking when the azan is sounded, he shall stand still and rev- erently listen. Abdul Kadir, the bigoted historian (for it is he), is not one lightly to omit obedience. A gay man of most polished manners, who was walking by the emperor's side, looked around when Abdul Kadir was left some distance behind, and, catching the emperor's eye, both laughed. This is the celebrated Abul Fazl, 234 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. t well known to be as lax in matters of faith as Abdul Kadir is rigid. The party has now reached the eastern gate of the durgah, on the steps of which an attendant receives the emperor's shoes, as no one is permitted to pass that sacred precinct excepting with bare feet. In the middle of the court, prayer - carpets are spread opposite the mosque. The emperor and his courtiers form them- selves into one long line, and prostrations and other religious ceremonies are executed by the whole assem- bly, forming, in the fresh light of the new morning, a spectacle curiously picturesque and uniquely Oriental. After prayers the emperor pauses for a moment within the tomb of the sheik, for whom he entertains an affectionate remembrance, and casts upon the ceno- taph the simple tribute of a jessamine. Passing on, his train is swollen with many courtiers and dependents, who, having made their salaams from some conspicuous position, put their horses in line. The name of Hirun Minar having been whispered about, it becomes gener- ' ally understood that the emperor is going to indulge in a little matchlock shooting from the Antelope Pillar. And Akbar soon ascends to its top, attended only by an old chuprassie, who carries two matchlocks. After he has amused himself a little while firing at the antelopes, which are driven across an open space at some distance from the tower, he sends word that he is satisfied with sport, and orders the review of cavalry which has been arranged for that morning. , A man richly dressed now ascends the. minar. His AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 235 countenance is not wholly unpleasing, yet it is haunted by that terrible expression of uncertain temper which so mars his character. This is Prince Selim. He salutes his father, by whose side he remains, looking on as the cavalry come into sight. Mounted on a showy horse, and leading the troops, is a fine young man who every now and then glances up at the minar, as if for approval. This is Prince Khusru, Selim's son. He has recently received his mansab, and is as proud of it as a lad can be. . The inspection of cavalry concluded, Akbar and the prince come down, and, mounted on their elephants, move in procession toward the palace. Upon the right of the minar, as you return to the Hathi Pol, is a large serai, or inn. Travelers of many nations are standing in front of this place, having come down to see the em- peror pass. Among them are two foreign-looking men of swarthy hue, dressed in ecclesiastical cassocks. The emperor's eye immediately catches them, and, apparent- ly knowing their nation and calling, he gives orders that they shall attend him in the evening. When Akbar arrives within the palace, he alights at the gate of the building which is now the Tahsili. Here he partakes of a repast, and afterward sends for -the Rajah Beer-Bui. This functionary, a man of agreeable and cheerful features, and plainly dressed, comes over in a nalki, or large open litter, accompanied by his- sec- retaries and a few attendants, and is soon deeply im- mersed in political papers and debate with the em- peror. It is now a busy time in the town. Marketing is 236 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. brisk ; men are washing and dressing in the customary public manner. Some are cooking, and others eating their food, with the peculiar solemnity with which the Orientals transact such duties. In one place is loud haggling about a bargain ; in another some bunniahs are vociferating " Dohai padshah" against a trooper who has taken more atta for his money than is right. Every where is noise, every where bustle and life. At twelve Akbar dismisses the rajah after a hard morning's work, wishing to be left alone, as he says, fpr meditation on the orb which now stands at meridian height. And now creeps on that hour the noon of an In- dian day so full of unaccustomed imagery to a Euro- pean mind, but imagery to whose picturesque features familiarity has not rendered native writers indifferent. The Rajah Sudakra, in his drama of " The Toy Cart," and the great Kalidasa, the Hindoo Shakespeare, in the " Hero and Nymph," both do tribute to this hour. Can this slumber and silence be the Futtehpore-Sikri of two hours ago? Drowsy and shrouded figures are stretch- ed on every shop-board, scarce a soul is in the streets, "the very houses seem to sleep." Pompeii could scarce be calmer. But in one corner of the royal zenana, in a chamber prettily carved with grapes, flowers, and other orna- ments, is the Turkish wife of Emperor Akbar. The " Lady of Constantinople," as she is called, is seated on cushions of white silk, and dressed in a caftan of pale blue and silver, a Turkish waistcoat of pale pink, and AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 237 trousers of pale blue with white stripes. She seems lonely and distressed. A sitar lies on her lap. She takes it up and strikes a few irregular chords, and then, passing into a simple, melancholy air, sings some Turk- ish verses : " I pant for the azure .sea, And its breezes fresh and free ; For the home I would view once more Sits by the gusty shore. And my heart turns to thee, Oh Istamboul! To the city of the sea, And the home of my soul. " The gleams of the sultry noon Brood o'er the Anderoon ; Perfumes of Indian flowers Breathe through the dizzy bowers. And my heart, etc. V Hope came with the sea-born gale, Cheering, if doomed to fail. Comes, with this slumbrous air, A deep, though a calm despair. And my heart turns to thee, Oh Istamboul ! To the city of the sea, And the home of my soul !" The sad music, breathed amid gorgeous captivity, steals into the dreams of a Greek slave sleeping in a corner of the apartment. She smiles and murmurs, and confidently treads in slumber the distant shore her foot shall never press again. 238 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. At three o'clock the city awakes. Men chatter lazily from their charpoys. Again the streets hum and buzz. The laughter and shouts of children ring in the air. Serv- ants make ready for the evening. Dancing girls emerge upon little balconies, chatting with their own musicians, or laughing and joking with people in the streets. Led horses pass by, their eyes bandaged, their heads reined tightly up, their grooms holding them by long handker- chiefs. Dogs limp out from the dust and snarl over garbage. Akbar has spent the afternoon in a desultory chat with Abul Fazl and Feizi. After they leave another party is seen approaching the palace. The principal personage is a young man reclining languidly in a litter. He is flashily dressed, and leans upon one arm, laugh- ing and talking to his servants, most of whom are jaunty, impudent -looking youths. This is Prince Danial, Ak- bar's youngest son. The meeting between them is al- ways a melancholy affair. The emperor's affection for the youth is great, but even affection's eye can not avoid seeing the shadow of ruin upon poor Danial's counte- nance. He is drinking himself to death, and neither passionate entreaties, nor stern warnings, nor menace, nor ridicule, can arrest the slow, certain, and inevitable suicide. This interview resembles in all respects many that have preceded it. Fair promises and angry threats on the emperor's part are met by sullen silence from the prince ; and then, nature getting the better of both of them, Akbar wrings his hands and falls in tears on the youth's neck, and Danial, whose nerves are too much AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 239 out of order to stand a scene, sinks in maudlin hysterics of alternate weeping and laughing. Signs of evening now approach. The watermen have laid the dust before the houses ; paroquets flit from shady corners and screech around the eaves ; the roar of the town has a tone of exhaustion, in keeping with the heavy atmosphere and dead sky. The emperor, attended by his household servants, passes from the palace to the khwabgah, and thence to the dewan-i-khas. Carpets are spread in the middle of the square, with cushions of faint blue velvet and silver. When Akbar is seated, he orders Abul Fazl and Feizi to be again admitted, and after them the two ecclesiastics whom he had summoned in the morning. One of them is a young man of pleasing countenance, the other much older, and of a very battered appearance. The elder holds up a crucifix on entering, whereat Akbar smiles, and, putting his hands together, slightly bows his head. At this juncture Abul Fazl remarks, with a sneer, that he is sorry Abdul Kadir is not present. The emperor laughs, and immediately sends for him. Conversation with the priests, who are Portuguese, is difficult, but is effected after a fashion. The discussion is not very profitable, for it consists chiefly in Akbar's relating cures which have been effected by Mussulman saints, and miracles wrought at their tombs. He insists that if the priests' religion is true, they ought to be able to authenticate it with miracles. The priests reply that in their own country are relics of good men which have often effected cures, but that they are not permitted to be removed from the kingdom. 240 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. After some little badinage, at which the skeptic Akbar is an adept, the priests receive permission to retire, and the king proceeds with his friends into the dewan-i-aum. As soon as he appears great shouts arise from the as- sembled crowds. In this place he sits for half an hour, talking and laughing with Abul Fazl, who stands by his side. Occasionally a horse is put through the manege; then a wild-looking man seeks his attention with a pair of tiger cubs ; next a fakir, with arms stiff and attenu- ated from being held so long aloft in one position, stands silently before him, like a prophet denouncing a city. At last another shout announces that the emperor has withdrawn to the dewan-i-khas. There, surrounded by a small circle of courtiers, he reclines on his cush- ions, to listen to an old man with a white beard give an Oriental version of the tale called " The Ring of Poly- crates." Many stories succeed to this, and when at last the old man's voice ceases, no approbation fol- lows ; " And if ye marvel Charles forgot To thank his tale, he wondered not The king had been an hour asleep !" However, the complete hush, after the long flow of an- imated words, awakes the emperor, and, bidding farewell to his friends, he moves off into the khwabgah for the night. And now the city is growing silent. But in a lane below the brow of the hill on which the palace stands is a large house, whence, though all the doors are closed, issues the sound of music and singing. This dwelling AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 241 belongs to a friend of Prince Danial, " a young spring- al of a chieftain," who is rapidly spending a large sum of money accumulated by his father. The court-yard in the centre of this house is lighted by torches, and at one side, on cushions, lies a small party of young men, among whom is the prince. On his right sits Mozuffer Khan, plying him with wine. Mozuffer is the master of the house, a handsome youth, effeminate with luxuriant long hair. A company of actors exhibit a pie'ce of rude buffoonery on the other side of the court. After the acting a nautch begins, the principal dan- seuse being a girl named Chonee, lately arrived. A Hindoo by birth, she has handsome Rajpootnee feat- ures. Though accompanied by the very dregs of so- ciety, and gloated over by drunken eyes, her face still wears an expression, not of innocence for of that, alas ! she never could have even dreamed in sleep but of a pensive sort of despair, akin to indifference, and almost wearing a resemblance to purity. Near Prince Danial lies a matchlock. It is a very favorite piece of his, to which, as indicating its fatality to animals against which it is raised, he has given the jocose name Jenazeh, or the Bier. At one time the emperor was so distressed with Danial's habits that he imprisoned him in his own apartments, and had him strictly watched ; but a knavish servant managed to bring him wine clandestinely in the barrel of Jenazeh. This exploit of course endeared the matchlock still more to its owner, and a poetical friend had at his request written some verses on it, which at late hours L 242 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. of the night the prince was sometimes accustomed to sing. To-nigbt there is a call for the composition in ques- tion, and Prince Danial, taking a sitar, on which he plays a little, and being accompanied by Mozuffer Khan on a small drum, strikes up, to a monotonous air, some Persian verses, which may be freely rendered thus : "Jenazeh, O Jenazeh ! under the greenwood tree, Many a time and oft have I shot the deer with thee Have I shot the antlered roebuck as I saw him nobly pass, First listening for an instant, and then topping o'er the grass. And when fell the shades of even, and the bigots had gone to pray, I thought a draught of wine a better finish for the day. But they blustered, and they flustered, and they took the Proph- et's name, So I smuggled it through thee, old gun, and found it just the same. Jenazeh, O Jenazeh ! what a pleasant friend thou art ! In my sporting and carousing thou hast ta'en the foremost part. " They tell me I am dying from the fatal joys you bring, And the nickname I have given you may mean another thing. But it is better thus to die than live in sober pain ; And if I had a hundred lives, I'd lose them so again. For some are praying half the night forgiveness for their sin, And some are dreaming half the night of power they hope to win ; But I am full of laughter, and full of giddy wine, And if there be a careless heart, I swear it must be mine. Jenazeh, O Jenazeh ! what a pleasant foe is this, Who kills me so deliciously, and makes me die of bliss !" AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 243 Now let us leave the convivial party and ascend the gateway of the sheik's tomb. All is dark and si- lent. Rising from the city, amid the few specks of light beneath, come the cries of watchmen. From the darker mystery beyond the walls swell faintly and dis- mally the bark of jackals and the sudden yelp of fiercer beasts. A night - breeze blows over one, like that dreary wind which, in Moslem belief, is to precede the day of judgment. Why is there such terror, such awful forlorn ness in its moan ? The air is heavy with doom. The scene we have wit- nessed to-day is to pass away, not by the common oper- ations of change and time, but in complete and sudden darkness. Prince Danial is to find the dark death he madly celebrates. For young Khosru a life of trouble and imprisonment and a sudden ending are in store. The gay head of Abul Fazl is to be brought drip- ping with gore before his royal master. The wise and serene Beer -Bui is to be murdered far away among the Eusufzai. Akbar shall come one midnight to the couch of Feizi, and find him speechless and deaf, spit- ting blood amid death agonies. And when the inevita- ble hour comes to the emperor himself, his son and his grandson are to be intriguing over his death-bed for the vacant diadem. >44 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER XIX. THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. AFTER a visit of two weeks, I left Agra for the still more renowned city of Delhi, about one hundred and fifteen miles distant from it, and the capital of the old Mogul Empire. Fifty miles from Agra was Allyghur, the centre of the cotton-trade of that district. Some dis- tance beyond this town a few jackals and large herds of antelopes were seen scampering away through the low scrub. I was afforded some entertainment by the ingenuity of one of my fellow-travelers, a Mussulman, in the pursuit of prayer under difficulties. In the begin- ning he stood upon one of the benches of the car, but soon, finding this too narrow for the act of prostration, he removed his choga, or tunic, and threw it upon the floor. Then, turning toward the west and Mecca, he used the cushioned space thus improvised upon which to execute the prescribed ceremonies of crossing, bow- ing, kneeling, and prostration. Just before reaching Delhi the railroad crosses, for the second time, the River Jumna, on a splendid iron bridge two thirds of a mile long. We passed through the old fort of Selimgurh, and the train stopped in an immense station built in the Gothic style, and with an- THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 245 iron and glass roof. A gharry, or native hack, carried me to the United Service Hotel, a large single-story building of fantastic form, situated in the midst of a garden near the old wall of the city. It is kept by a native named Bishumber Nath, who is said to have made there an ample fortune. Delhi, which was formerly the imperial city of India, the residence of the Great Moguls, and the chief seat of the Mohammedan Empire, stands, like Agra, upon the south bank of the Jumna. It is said that formerly the country around Delhi was fertile and cultivated, but the numerous invading armies so ravaged it as to destroy the three great irrigating canals constructed by different Mogul emperors. In consequence, the crops failed, immense districts became perfectly barren, and terrible famines prevailed. But during the past thirty years the Indo-British government has repaired and re- stored these canals, the land has resumed something of its original appearance, and Delhi is one of the princi- pal marts of the commerce of Northwestern India and of the provinces beyond in Central Asia. The chief products of the district are wheat, grains, cotton, and sugar. Delhi is celebrated for its jewelry, its miniature paintings on ivory, and its shawls the latter, however, being 'manufactured farther up the country, and in Cash- mere. The morning following my arrival I visited the cele- brated Chanclni Chowk (Silversmiths' Street), the princi- pal business thoroughfare. It is about a mile in length and one hundred and twenty feet in width, with a 246 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. double row of trees and a walk in the centre. On each side are native shops, in low buildings, with English, Persian, and Hindustani signs over the doors. You may read here that Eh am Mull keeps for sale every description of shoe ; there is the shop of Maitab Rai, tailor; adjoining is that of Buclree Das, stationer; and across the way, smiling in the doorway, is Goolab Singh, a tobacconist. At one end of the Chanclni Chowk stands an old imperial palace, and at the other the "Lahore Gate" of the Citadel. But this celebrated street is no longer what it was in the days of the Mogul lords. Though the vendors are as numerous and the shops as gay as formerly, the thoroughfare no longer teems with richly attired pleasure-seekers, borne luxu- riously in palankeen and on elephant. In the bazar I bought some Caubul fruit, the rate being very cheap. Thus figs, which, though small, were of good flavor, were offered strung on spires, of grass, at eight annas per seer, or twenty-five cents for two pounds; large, plump raisins, six annas per seer; dried apricots, eight annas per seer ; and grapes packed with cotton in half-peck boxes, ten annas per box. These grapes are large, white, cucumber-shaped, sweet and re- freshing, and have much of the rich, fruity flavor pecul- iar to our hot-house products at home. Guavas from the northwestern provinces cost three cents per pound, and oranges nine cents per dozen. The oranges, though large, are not equal in flavor to those of either Cuba or Sicily. One entire day I devoted to what is called the Circu- THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 247 lar Road, part of it being outside the walls of the city and the remainder within. The first object of interest was a stone elephant of life size, standing in the Queen's Gardens, and made of separate blocks of black-colored stone. A tablet informed me that this image was a work of considerable though unknown antiquity, that it was brought from Gwalior a city fifty miles distant and that it was set up outside the south gate of his palace by Shah Jehan, A.D. 1645. Thence it was re- moved and broken into a thousand fragments by the Emperor Aurungzebe, and remained forgotten and bur- ied for more than a century and a half, until, being re- discovered, it was erected where it now stands, A.D. 1856. Passing the walls of the Citadel and the lines of a Sepoy regiment, on through a large bazar and by a few European bungalows, I reached the Delhi Gate, with its name emblazoned overhead in Persian, English, and Hindustani. Driving through and turning to the right I was soon near the Lahore Gate, whence a branch road leads to the Kutub Minar, the famous pillar of Old Delhi. On the city side the beautiful minars of the Jumma Musjid are always in view, while many of the stores and dwellings may be seen rising just above the walls. In the new cemetery, outside the city walls, is the monument of the brave General Nicholson. On a plain white marble slab are written these words: "The grave of Brigadier-General John Nicholson, who led the assault on Delhi, but fell in the hour of victory, mortally wounded, 248 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. and died 23d of September, 1857 ; aged 35." But little now remains of the famous Cashmere Gate excepting the two arches. It and the walls for a considerable distance on both sides were the chief objects of the British fire, and the ruin they now present is a tribute to the annihilating power of the 24-pounder. At the siege of Delhi the main breach was made at the Cash- mere Gate, which was blown up by a " forlorn hope " party. The ground occupied by the British lies be- yond the cemetery where Nicholson is buried. Here may be seen the remains of the house occupied by Sir Thomas Metcalfe, English Resident at the court of Delhi ; the Flag - staff Tower, where the ladies of the station were first assembled ; and Hindoo Rao's house, the main piquet of the English lines, and in front of which still stand the walls erected by faithful Sepoys to protect themselves from rebel fire. Here, too, is the monument commemorating ihe capture of Delhi a beautiful Gothic steeple of red sandstone, one hundred feet high, and crowned with a large white marble cross. A spiral staircase leads to the summit. Returning to the city, I tried a Persian hummaum, or hot and shampoo bath. Having threaded a narrow gateway, the gharry halted in a small, dark quadrangle before a low house, which upon entering I found to contain but three rooms an office, a dressing apart- ment, and the bath. The hummaum may be thus de- scribed : Having undressed, you enter a room perfumed with rose - essence. It is handsomely decorated, the floor and walls being of white marble inlaid with black THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 249 arabesques. Inserted into the walls on both sides are large marble tanks filled with water, of perhaps 110 Fahrenheit, while the temperature of the room is prob- ably 100. Three stout Mohammedans now take you in charge, pouring water from large chatties over your head and body, placing you in a comfortable chair, and bringing you a glass of water to drink. After a few minutes' rest, your feet and hands are rubbed with a small piece of burned brick very much rougher than sand-paper. Then, being laid backward upon the floor at full length, the shampooing begins. This is per- formed by one man, who pulls and kneads and twists and stretches and pounds you into various devices of his own conception, and finally puts you together again into a shape which you feel to be but a vague approx- imation to that you originally possessed. Then come soaping and scrubbing, differing from those given in the Turkish or Russian baths, the operator wearing mittens of coarse twine-stitched cloth, while attendants drench you with hot water from small-spouted metal pitchers, producing a singular but not disagreeable titillation. A barber then entering, you are shaved in true Hindoo fashion, sitting cross-legged. Your hair is then dressed with a rich, gloss -producing compound, named basin, which surpasses most Western pomades, and consists mainly of pulverized orange-peel and flour made from pease. The bath finishes with rinsing and drying, the smoking of a pipe, and the sipping of a small cup of strong coffee. Every thing is so deliberate that the time occupied is two hours ; but on the whole the Per- I, 2 250 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. sian does not equal the Turkish or even the Russian bath, nor is the shampooing as exhilarating and sooth- ing ; and in no bath that I know of are the rubbing and percussion processes at all comparable to the Hawaiian lomi-lomi. The Citadel a rival of the Kremlin, and the most interesting building in Delhi containing the palace of Shah Jehan, is situated next to the river, and surround- ed by sandstone walls two miles in circuit and forty feet in height, with towers at regular intervals, and a deep and wide ditch in front. At the end of the Chandni Chowk you enter the gate opening toward the city, and pass first through an outwork into a small area, then through the main entrance flanked by lofty towers and surmounted by little marble kiosks and minarets, then down a long vaulted passage past a dozen native shops, and so enter a large court-yard filled with modern brick buildings. These are bar- racks for English troops, five hundred of whom were then stationed there. Immediately fronting you is an- other gateway standing alone. Above its arch is a pro- jecting gallery where'the king's band formerly played. Directly behind this is the dewan-i-aum, or hall of pub- lic audience, built of red sandstone. It is a large room, open upon three sides, and its far-projecting roof is sup- ported by Saracenic arches and rows of beautifully carved pillars. In the centre of the rear side, partly in recess, stands a magnificent throne. It is . of white marble, carved, inlaid, painted, and surmounted by a lofty canopy supported on pillars. The whole of the THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 251 marble wall behind the throne is covered with birds and flowers in rich mosaic. The birds looked natural and the colors seemed perfect, but upon ascending the throne I found that all the original mosaics had been excavated and their places filled with lac imitations. The dewan-i-khas, or hall of private audience, is adja- cent. It is an oblong marble pavilion, resting upon square pillars joined by Saracenic arches, and sur- mounted at the corners by graceful kiosks crowned with richly gilded copper spires. In the centre is a marble couch, whereon the emperor was accustomed to kneel in prayer ; behind this is a very large marble table upon which once stood the "great crystal," four feet long, two wide, and one foot thick ! This crystal, which is now preserved in London, was formerly used by the Great Moguls for a throne. The ceiling of the dewan-i-khas is now simply paint- ed and gilded, but is said to have formerly been com- posed of gold and silver filigree, which the. Mahrattas a tribe of Hindoos in Southern India tore down when they sacked Delhi in 1759, and melted into eight hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars'" worth of metal. At each end of the hall, .over the arches, are painted in Persian gilt letters (or in gold, as the story runs) those celebrated lines used by Moore in "Lalla Rookh :" " If there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this." It was the dewan-i-khas which contained, in the days of Shah Jehan and Aurungzebe, the famous Peacock Throne. This was so called from its having the fig- 252 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ures of two peacocks standing behind it with expanded tails, which were so spangled with sapphires, rubies, em- eralds, pearls, and other precious stones of appropriate colors, as to represent life. The throne itself was six feet long and four wide. It stood on six massive feet, which, as well as the body, were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It was ascended by silver steps, and surmounted by a canopy of gold fringed with pearls, supported by twelve pillars richly emblazoned with costly gems. Between the peacocks once stood the figure of a parrot of the ordinary size, which, tradition says, was carved out of a single emer- ald ! On each side of the throne was placed a chattar, or umbrella, a favorite emblem of Oriental royalty. These chattars were of richly embroidered crimson velvet, fringed with pearls. The handles, of solid gold, and studded with diamonds, were eight feet long. The cost of this unique and superb work of art has been esti- mated at sums varying from ten to fifty million dollars. The deviser and executor was no other than M. Austin cle Bordeaux, whom I have mentioned before as the architect of the Taj Mahal. But few remains of the magnificent palace of Shah Jehan exist, all the buildings within the walls of the Citadel having been cleared away since the mutiny, and barracks and arsenals erected in their places. Just outside the walls is the old fort Selimgurh, at present used as a military storehouse. It was built by a for- mer Mogul lord, Selim Shah, about A.D. 1545. The railway passes through one end of the fort, the walls THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 253 having been cut perpendicularly on each side of the road. The odd spectacle is thus presented of a me- diaeval citadel, nearly three and a half centuries old, in immediate juxtaposition with locomotives and cars the nineteenth century embosomed in the sixteenth. Leaving the palace and the Citadel, we proceeded to the Jumma Musjid, or Friday mosque Friday being the Moslem Sunday which is thought to excel the celebrat- ed one of Soliman at Constantinople, and is without doubt the finest as it is the most famous mosque in the East. It is situated on high ground near the Citadel, at the intersection of four streets, and may be entered by three gates, each of which are approached by broad and lofty flights of steps. The paved court -yard is three hundred and fifty feet square. In the centre is a large marble tank. On the left stands the mosque, and on the remaining three sides are open corridors of sandstone, with a square tower at each corner. The mosque itself is built of equal proportions of red sand- stone and white marble. The domes are of white mar- ble, with alternate strips of black, and are crowned with gilded spires. At the front corners are two octagonal minars, each one hundred and fifty feet in height, and composed of red sandstone and white marble disposed in vertical stripes. To each of the minars the appear- ance of being three stories in height is given by the projection of white marble cornices at equal altitudes above each other. To the crowning cupolas access is had by an interior staircase. Above the cornice of the mosque runs a notched parapet of red sandstone, orna- 254 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. merited with white marble, and beneath are compart- ments with black borders inlaid with inscriptions in the Niski character. The inscriptions give the date of the erection of the mosque, the name of its founder, its cost, the time occupied in its building, and Koran sentences in Arabic. The mosque floor is paved with large mar- ble blocks having black borders and other ornamenta- tions. Nine hundred "pews" are thus marked. On the west side (that toward Mecca), called Kibla, are large marble niches carved and inlaid, and above are some Koran sentences, beginning with the oft-repeated " Allah il Allah, Mohammed resoul Allah !" There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet. The pulpit is of carved marble. In cold weather, the pave- ment being uncomfortable for kneeling, a thick carpet, called a prayer-cloth, is spread. From an old Mohammedan who served as guide I learned that two mollahs, or priests, are engaged to minister at the Jumma Musjid one, the high-priest, re- ceiving seven dollars per month, and the other one dol- lar and a half. A muezzin, or crier, is also employed to summon the people to prayer five times each day ; strictly religious Moslems worshiping at least thrice daily at sunrise, noon, and sunset. His salary is one dollar and a half per month. Before leaving the Musjid some relics were shown to me. They were preserved in one corner of the quad- rangle in a richly gilded box eight feet square. I en- tered the sacred repository by a low door, and found therein a powerful odor of attar-of-roses, and a mollah, THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 255 who at once uncovered the sacred treasures. First I was shown three Korans, of which two were believed to have been copied by Hussein and Hassein, the sons of Allie (vizier of the Prophet), and one by his son-in-law. The books were bound with goat-hide, and some of the capital letters were illuminated. They were preserved in silk bags in a large chest. The priest next showed me an old leather shoe, which, he said, once belonged to the great prophet Mohammed. It was placed in a sandal-wood box lined with blue velvet, and though it was scarcely to be detected beneath the quantity of flowers that lay upon it, still I could just discern the shape of a shoe with two thongs, one for the great toe and the other for the instep, all much decayed, but be- lieved to be very holy. The last relic, which was in a silver box, and likewise nearly hidden beneath flowers, consisted of a small block of stone. unquestioningly be- lieved by the faithful to contain the impression of Mo- hammed's foot. Among the buildings in old Delhi, many still remain in good or tolerable condition. Two miles from the city is the Purana Killa, an old Pathan fort. The walls are sixty feet in height, with circular towers at regular intervals, and four gates, one in the centre of each side. It was built over four hundred years ago, and was re- paired by the Emperor Humayon, father of the great Akbar, A.D. 1535. Within this fort, which now con- tains a native village, are still to be seen a mosque and an observatory, the former in good condition, but the latter much decaved. 256 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. Perhaps the best preserved, certainly the finest, of the ruins near modern Delhi is the Emperor Humayon's tomb, which stands in the midst of a large triangular garden. The walls are of red stone, with towers and lofty gateways on each side. The mausoleum is raised upon a terrace two hundred feet square and twenty-five feet high, composed of arches and vaulted chambers, in which are many tombs of the wives and relatives of the emperor. It is about one hundred feet square, is built of red sandstone inlaid with white marble, and sur- mounted by a large but low marble dome. In the great room under the dome is a plain marble sarcophagus, containing the remains of Humayon. The ornamental work of the body of the mausoleum appears rather coarse after one has seen the Taj Mahal, or even the Jumma Musjid; still the massiveness and immensity are very impressive. It was erected in the neighbor- hood of A.D. 1554, cost seven hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars, and was sixteen years in building. From the roof of Humayon's mausoleum about fifty large tombs are in sight, among them those of Mirza Jehangir, the son of Akbar II., Mohammed Shah, who was emperor at the time of Nadir Shah's invasion in 1739, and Jehanara Begum, daughter of Shah Jehan. These tombs are nearly identical in character. They are simply plain marble sarcophagi, surrounded by beau- tiful perforated marble screens, with marble doors. Je- hanara was a most estimable princess, adorned with every virtue that a woman could possess. She re- fused to share the splendors of Aurungzebe's court, pre- THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 257 ferring to stay with her father. On her tomb are these remarkable words, a part of the inscription which she is said to have written herself: "Let no rich canopy cover my grave ; this grass is the best covering for the poor in spirit. The humble, the transitory Jehanara, the disciple of the holy man of Cheest, the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." In literal fulfillment of her command, the top of the sarcophagus has been hol- lowed, filled with soil, and sown with grass. Surely this simplicity of feeling is in pleasant contrast to the towering vanity of which the Taj Mahal is the ostenta- tious obituary. The Junter Munter, or Observatory of Jai Singh, is situated about two miles southwest of new Delhi. Jai Singh was the Rajah of Jeypoor, a very scientific man, and the builder also of the Man Mundil at Benares, founded A.D. 1680, the Observatory being built forty years later. The edifices here are in a very ruinous condition, standing close together on the open plain, with no remains of a wall about them. The largest is an immense stone equatorial dial, justly called by the rajah the Semrat Yuntor, or Prince of Dials. Its ex- act dimensions are: length of hypothenuse, 118 feet 5 inches ; length of base, 104 feet ; length of perpendicu- lar, 56 feet. A flight of steps leads up the hypothenuse side to the summit angle. The Kutub Minar to which Bayard Taylor assigns a place before Giotto's Florentine Campanile and the Giralda of Seville is said to be the loftiest single iso- lated pillar in the world, rising, as it does, two hundred 258 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. and fifty feet above the ground. The diameter at the base is fifty feet, and at the summit ten feet. It is built of kharra (gray granite), red and brown sandstone, and marble, and is lined and braced with granite blocks, of which the interior steps, three hundred and eighty in number, are also composed. It is divided into five stories by projecting balconies, with cornices and balus- trades, all of which bear Arabic inscriptions, and most of which encircle the tower with broad belts ornament- ed with raised characters of colossal size. The outer face of the pillar is not altogether a plain surface, but the lower story is covered with fluting alternately cir- cular and angular ; in the second story it is circular only ; in the third angular ; while the upper stories are smooth, and built chiefly of marble. The pillar is crowned by no cupola, and, as other deficiencies in- timate, formerly stood, much higher. Fergusson, in his great " History of Architecture," says that probably twenty feet might be added to make up the proper height, thus giving a total of two hundred and seventy. It is said that from the summit, in very clear weather, the crests of the Himalayas, two hundred miles to the northward, may be seen. The history of the Kutub Minar is involved in much obscurity, but the most gen- erally credited account is that it was built by King Kutub -oodeen, about A.D. 1220, to commemorate his victories over the Hindoos. About four hundred feet from the Kutub, and nearly double its bulk, is a large unfinished minar, which is eighty-seven feet in height and eighty-one feet in diam- THE HOME OF THE GREAT MOGULS. 259 eter as it now stands. Some suppose that these two minars were to have been connected with a mosque built on an equally gigantic scale ; and in fact the ruins of an immense edifice, called the Musjid-i-Kutub-ool Islam, near by, are now to be seen. The front wall and some other parts are standing. They are of red and brown sandstone, and very elaborately carved. One of the arches, which has been repaired by the government, is twenty -two feet wide and fifty -three feet high, and the walls are eight feet thick. In the court-yard of this mosque stands a very famous iron pillar. It is a solid shaft of mixed metal, about fifty feet in height and two feet in diameter, and is covered with inscriptions in the Pali character. One account tells us that this pillar was erected by the Hindoo rajah Dhava, A.D. 319, fifteen hundred and fifty-six years ago. Another ascribes it to Rajah Pithora, the last of the Hindoo sovereigns (died A.D. 1 193), who, by the oracular advice of his Brahmins, sunk the shaft so deep as to pierce the head of the snake -god Lishay, in order to secure thereby the per- petuity of his throne. Two sides of the quadrangle in which stands the iron pillar are surrounded by colon- nades of Kharra stone columns. They are most elabo- rately carved from base to capital in fact too highly ornamented for a perfect effect and were taken by the Mohammedans from twenty -seven idol temples which they pulled down after the destruction of Rajah Pithora's fort, A.D. 1193. Passing through the great arch previously mentioned, and turning to the right, I stood before the oldest au- 260 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. thentic Mohammedan tomb in Hindostan. It is a massive' square building, without dome or roof, which it doubtless never possessed. The walls, seven feet thick, are of sandstone and marble, and the interior is elegantly carved. The sarcophagus is an immense mass of unornamented dark marble. It was erected to the memory of the Emperor Altomsh about six hundred and fifty years ago. A detached gateway Ala-oodeen's near the Kutub Minar, has been described by a com- petent authority as the most beautiful specimen of Pa- thao architecture in existence. AMONG THE SIKHS. 261 CHAPTER XX. AMONG THE SIKHS. AFTER a residence of nearly one month in Delhi, I traveled north to Umballa, and thus entered for the first time in India what is called a " protected " state one retaining native forms of government, though still in subjection to British influence. Thence I made a flying trip to Simla, the famous sanitarium of Hindostan, and, returning, took the rail to Umritsur, the capital and holy city of the Sikh nation. I found accommodation at a hotel near the station, and at once dispatched the Persian letter with which the Maharajah of Benares had favored me to his friend, Bey Purdamon Singh, Reis, a magistrate, and a recognized "Light" of the Sikhs. Presently a Persian reply, written with a reed pen upon jute paper, and containing most hospitable offers, was brought by his secretary, Mussamee Meer- abuksh, with whom, as guide and interpreter, I at once set out to see something of this strange city and its stranger inhabitants. The name Umritsur is contracted from Umrita Savas, the Pool of Immortality, a famous holy reservoir or tank built by one of the early pontiffs. It has imparted its sanctity to the city, making it the holy place of the 262 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. Sikhs, in the same manner that Benares is the holy place of the Hindoos. Umritsur's present population, including Hindoos and Mohammedans, is one hundred thousand. This estimate embraces ten thousand Sikhs. Previous to 1849 the ruling people in the Punjaub were the Sikhs, but since then their territory has formed a part of the Anglo-Indian Empire. The sect numbers now about half a million. These people are called Sikhs from the Sanskrit word " Sicshe," which means disciple, or follower. Their language is a medley of Hindustani and Persian. They were originally a Hindoo sect, founded about the middle of the fifteenth century by a priest named Nar- nak Shah, who desired to. reform a religion which he regarded as a corruption of a once nearly pure deism. At first the successors of Narnak were simply spiritual chiefs, but the fourth pontiff, as if combining the offices of the Mikado and Tycoon of Japan, organized his fol- lowers into a political and military as well as religious brotherhood. After vicissitudes extending through sev- eral hundred years, it was only in 1849 tnat ^ ie Sikhs were finally subjugated by the English, to whom they have since remained loyal. The principal object of interest is the sacred reser- voir of Umritsur, a tank of clear water five hundred feet square, surrounded by splendid palaces of the Sikh no- bility. In the centre of this pool of immortality is a very beautiful temple, the holiest of Sikh shrines, where the Goroo, or spiritual teacher, formerly sat to receive the homage of his sect. The temple is approached by AMONG THE SIKHS. 263 an elegant marble causeway. I was requested to re- move my shoes and replace them with large cloth san- dals ; then, attended by chokedars (policemen), sac- ristans of the temple, and a great throng of natives curious to catch a glimpse of the feringhee (foreigner), we descended to the broad marble pavement surround- ing the tank, and passed through the silver doors of a lofty stone gateway onto the causeway which leads to the " Golden Temple " dedicated to Goroo Govirid Singh. This temple forms an irregular octagon in shape, and is built of granite, the lower portion faced with white marble, the upper half covered with richly gilded copper plates, with four graceful kiosks at the corners of the roof, rows of miniature cupolas along the edges, and the whole crowned by a low dome. Flowers, animals, and arabesques are represented upon the marble in mo- saics of precious stones. Each of the four entrances has silver doors, and on the second story are oriel and other windows. We were ushered into a large room whose arched ceiling was very elaborately frescoed, plastered, and gilded. It was filled with worshipers, who belonged to a class of devotees called Acalis, or Immortals. The order was established by Goroo Go- vind, and has almost the entire direction of the holy ceremonies at Umritsur. Upon one side three priests were chanting verses from the Granth the sacred book of the Sikhs to the accompaniment of the sitar, lyre, and tom-tom. On the floor in the centre of the room was a large cloth, upon which the people 264 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. threw various offerings : the rich, silver coins ; the mid- dle class, cowries small sea- shells, one hundred of which in India are worth a cent ; and the very poor, grain and flowers. The money thus acquired is set apart for the maintenance of the Goroos, or priests, and the attendants, as well as for necessary repairs. On another side of the room, beneath a velvet gold- embroidered canopy, was a gold-legged pulpit, bearing, upon silk and velvet cloths, the books of law and faith literally, the Old and New Testaments. These are called the "Granth" a Sanskrit word, meaning book or writing and contain the precepts of Narnak, the reformer, and the doctrines of Govind Singh, the tenth and last Goroo, and the founder of the Sikh national power. The life of Narnak Shah resembles in many respects that of Gautama Buddha, the reputed founder of Bud- dhism. Narnak was born in the province of Lahore, in the year 1469. His father, a Hindoo, wished to bring him up to a trade, but Narnak's mind was turned to- ward devotion. He cared nothing for worldly affairs, gave away all his property to the fakirs, and led a most austere and religious life. With a view of reforming the gross idolatry of the Hindoos, and of enlightening the ignorance and bigotry of the Mohammedans, he traveled all through India, explaining his peculiar doc- trines and teaching the pure worship of one God. He also visited Mecca and Medina, and argued with the learned Moslem doctors. During his travels in India he was received at the court of the Emperor Baber, AMONG THE SIKHS. 265 about 1527, and was there treated kindly and offered a maintenance. The fourth king after Narnak collected his writings, and compiled an account of his doctrines in the Adi- granth, or Original Record, and Govind contributed an- other volume, named the Daswin Padshah da Granth, or the Record of the Tenth King. Both these sacred books the Bible of the Sikhs-^are written in metre in the Punjaubi language. Some portions of the Adi- granth, however, are in Sanskrit. The book consists of the sayings and doctrines of Narnak, prayers, praises of Umritsur, chants, and references illustrative of the con- dition of the society and the religious feeling of the times. It contains three thousand verses. The book of Govind is about half the size of that of Narnak. It contains praises of God, prayers, Persian stories, mytho- logical legends, and an historical sketch, written by Go- vind himself. The Sikh scriptures order that a man shall worship one God, eschew superstition, and prac- tice morality, though holding to Mohammed's teaching that the faith shall live by the sword and proselytes be made by it. As distinguishing features, and perhaps to assist in cultivating an esprit de corps, one of the pontiffs ordered the Sikhs to wear a blue dress, to let their hair grow long, to be always armed, and to exclaim when they met each other, " Success to the state of the Goroo ! Victory attend the Goroo !" Nothing can induce the Sikhs to renounce their faith. They suffer martyrdom with the greatest firmness, and never abjure their re- M 266 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ligion to save their lives. But as regards the success of Narnak's original system, it need hardly be stated that the Sikhs have not yet been able to effect a union between the two great religions of India. In many minor articles they differ from the Hindoos, rejecting, for instance, the authority of the Vedas, eating all flesh excepting that of cows, and admitting converts from all castes. They differ also from the Mohammedans, in rejecting the Koran (though not the mission of Moham- med), in eating hogs' flesh, and in abstaining from cir- cumcision. The following are some of the principles of belief and practice among the Sikhs. The resemblance to Chris- tian dogmas will be apparent : " One, self-existent, Himself the Creator. O Narnak ! one continueth, another never was, and never will be." "Thou art in each thing and in all places. O God ! Thou art the one Existent Being." " God is worshiped, that by worship salvation may be attained. Fall at the feet of God : in senseless stone God is not." " Eat and clothe thyself, and thou mayst be happy ; But without fear and faith there is no salvation." " According to the faith of each, dependent on his actions, are his coming and going determined." " Householders and hermits are equal, whoever calls on the name of the Lord." " Think not of race ; abase thyself, and attain to salvation." " God will not ask man of his birth ; He will ask him what he has done." AMONG THE SIKHS. 267 The following are some of the rules for the guidance of the Sikhs : " A Sikh who puts a cap on his head shall die in seven deaths of dropsy. " A Sikh should set his heart on God, on Charity, and on Purity. " Whosoever wears a thread around his neck is on the way to damnation. " One tenth of all goods should be given [in charity] in the name of the Goroo. " It is forbidden to play at chess with women. " No Sikh should speak false of his neighbor ; promises should be carefully fulfilled. "A Sikh should comb his locks and fold and unfold his turban twice a day. Twice also should he wash his mouth. " A journey should not be undertaken, nor should business be set about, nor should food be eaten, without first remembering or calling v on God. " Daily some portion of what is gained is to be set aside in the name of the Lord ; but all business must be carried on in sincerity and truth." The next morning Bey Purdamon Singh sent two large elephants to convey me and my interpreter through the city, and I enjoyed a tour which was a repetition of my Benares experience. All that I lacked was a pagri, or turban, an anga, or tunic, and a complexion a trifle nearer an olive-brown. The streets were mostly very narrow, and the houses of one story, though many of the dwellings of the wealthy bankers were four or five stories high, and covered with frescoes of gods, fakirs, beasts, birds, and flowers. In the bazar were great quantities of barley, wheat, pulse, tobacco, rice, sugar, and rock or fossil salt, which last is brought to the city 268 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. on camels from a mine between the Indus and Jhelum rivers, about one hundred and fifty miles distant. The merchants' shops exhibited shawls and other Cashmere work muslins, silks, caps, scarfs. The streets were crowded with Hindoos and Mohammedans, and Sikhs with magnificent broad shoulders, forked beards, and flashing black eyes. The Sikhs have a very grave, proud, and martial bearing, and are famous horsemen. We also met tall, fair-skinned Cashmeerees, fierce-look- ing Rajpoots, robust and active Jauts, and swarms of (Hindoo) begging fakirs. These latter constitute a fair proportion of the population of Umritsur. The charitable merchants throw them cowries, and so, by a little pedestrianism, these lazy fanatics collect quite handsome sums in a country where a pice (one quarter of a cent) will purchase sufficient food for one day. I must not forget to speak of another manufacture for which Umritsur is celebrated that of the fragrant essence called in the Hindustani atta goal, in English attar-of-roses. Umritsur contains a class of men whose sole occupation consists in making and selling this val- uable perfume. One shopkeeper had on hand about a dozen gallons, preserved in wicker-covered jars, and of three qualities. .These severally sold at one, two, and three rupees per tolah (an ounce and a half), a tolah being a denomination in the ponderary system used in weighing coins and precious metals. The price of the best attar, however, which is made in Cashmere, is rather higher, being worth its weight in silver. The genuine essence is made as follows : About forty pounds AMONG THE SIKHS. 269 of roses are well mixed with forty pounds of water in a still, and as soon as the fumes arise cold water is put on the refrigerator at the top. The distillation is al- lowed to continue over a slow fire until half the quan- tity of water has passed into the receiver. This takes about five hours. The rose-water thus obtained is then poured over another forty pounds of roses, whence about twenty pounds of water are distilled. This sec : ond distillation is then decanted into earthenware jars, and exposed to the air for a night. In the morning the attar will be found congealed and floating on the sur- face of the water in globules, which are then skimmed off with a thin shell and poured into chatties, or small jars. The remaining water is used for fresh distilla- tions. This is the usual process for making the essen- tial oil of roses, so highly esteemed as a perfume, and differs materially from several accounts I had read be- fore my visit to India. The rose of the Punjaub (Rosa centifolia, or common cabbage-rose) yields but a small quantity of essence, and hence it is customary in Um- ritsiir to place in the still, along with the flowers, the raspings of sandal-wood. A connoisseur, however, can usually detect the presence of the sandal-wood from its peculiar odor, and from the fact that a high degree of cold is required to congeal it. The roses are worth about two hundred and fifty rupees ($125) per ton, in the raw state. In color the attar is usually of a greenish brown, though sometimes reddish. The odor, as every one knows, is extremely powerful. It is only with the best quality of roses, and the most careful manufacture, that 270 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. forty pounds of petals will yield a drachm of the attar. The pure attar-of-roses, imported from Cashmere, would be worth its weight in gold in the United States. Be- fore leaving the factory, the superintendent, in accord- ance with the polite native ceremonial, presented me with a piece of cotton on which was a drop of the pre- cious rose-oil. But I have not yet described my first reception at the house of Bey Purdamon Singh. The parlor, where about a dozen of his friends had been invited to meet me, was an octagonal-shaped room, the walls and ceiling of which were covered with fancy plaster arabesques, paint- ed in gay colors, and ornamented with little pieces of looking-glass of different shapes. From the ceiling de- pended several vari-colored glass globes. The furni- ture and carpets were of European pattern and impor- tation. A singular feature was a row of cheap English lithographs let into the walls about two feet beneath the ceiling. The bey was a thick-set, broad-shouldered little man, with jet-black eyes, a jolly red nose, and heavy curly beard, parted at the chin and brushed up- ward toward the ears, after the peculiar Sikh fashion. He was plainly dressed in white turban, tunic, and slip- pers. Our conversation, carried on through my inter- preter, was quite brisk, and the numerous inquiries con- cerning America and the Americans were very funny. The only two Christian countries about which any thing definite and authentic appears to be known by the ma- jority of East Indians are England and Russia. Amer- ica is to them an almost complete terra incognita. An AMONG THE SIKHS. 271 offer of an elephant from Bey Purdamon, on which to ride to Lahore, forty miles distant, was respectfully de- clined, my penchant for the railway predominating. In returning, I purposely drove out of my way to view the Golden Temple by moonlight, and chanced to meet a Hindoo marriage procession in the chowk, or heart of the native city. I heard a terrible din, as of trumpets, drums, and fifes, and, turning a corner in the street, saw hundreds of immense torches borne by long double lines of frol- icking natives. First came a man on camel-back, furi- ously beating two tom-toms ; then a party of young men in various masquerading disguises, one of whom person- ated an Englishman with mustache, side whiskers, and sun-helmet; while another rode a pasteboard horse, after the manner of our circus clowns at home. Next came the music a genuine brass band with trumpets, flag- eolets, and snare and bass drums, marching a VAn- glaise in triple row abreast ! The musicians were fol- lowed by a great crowd of the bridegroom's friends, wearing costly robes, and covered with jewels and orna- ments. Succeeding these were a score of nautch girls, who at intervals of a dozen yards would halt and dance and sing for a few moments, the procession de- laying the while, after which they would march on again. Finally came the bridegroom, a handsome young Punjaubi, magnificently dressed, and mounted on an Arab steed almost completely enveloped in vel- vet and gold trappings. High above his head a servant carried a gorgeous silk chattar, surmounted with an im- 272 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. mense stuffed peacock, the sacred bird of Hindostan and a royal emblem of the kingdom of Burmah. Crowds of servants closed the procession. The bridegroom was on his way to the house of his bride, whose father, if wealthy, would provide an elegant entertainment, con- sisting of an exceedingly early breakfast. Judging from this specimen, the two essentials of a Hindoo marriage procession are noise and display. These weddings are said to be ruinously expensive, the wealthiest men spend- ing thousands of rupees, and poor men borrowing money at high rates of interest. The dustoor (or custom) is imperative, and none dare depart from it. In this re- spect they are as bigoted as Christians. The Golden Temple and Sacred Tank, which I at last reached, were most beautiful, especially since I saw them "bathed in the soft splendor of moonlight." Gold and white was the temple, graceful in design, ex- act in proportion, rising grandly from the unruffled bosom of a glittering pool. Upon one side of the quadrangle were the gayly illuminated marble palaces of Sikh noblemen, partly concealed by dark masses of the peepul and neem trees. From the half-slumbering city strains of wild music escaped at intervals, and merry laughs broke occasionally from the jealously guarded zenana. The atmosphere was heavy with "Perfume breathed From plants that wake when others sleep, From timid jasmine buds that keep Their odor to themselves all day, But, when the sunlight dies away, Let the delicious secret out To every breeze that roams about." AMONG THE SIKHS. 273 During this brief poetic interval I made true for a mo- ment my dream castles in the air. They stood before me and around me, sanctified with the radiance of night, rich with tropic touches and Oriental splendor. From Umritsur I proceeded to Lahore, formerly the metropolis of the Sikh kingdom, and for many hundreds of years the capital of the Rajpoot kings. It contains few vestiges of its former grandeur, and has suffered much from the hands of both Sikh and Sepoy. Inside a small fort are the old palace, the Shish Mahal of Akbar and Jehangir, and some modern barracks occu- pied by several companies of English and native in- fantry. Near the great Mosque of Lahore is the tomb of Runjeet Singh, a square brick edifice, with niches and oriel windows, erected upon a lofty platform, and surmounted by a dome and several fantastic little kiosks with gilt spires. It is entirely covered with white plaster, and the ornamentation is very rich and elaborate. Under the dome is the cenotaph of the great Sikh conqueror. Its top is nearly covered by eleven large marble balls, in memory of the eleven wives whose esteemed privilege it was to be burned alive with the corpse of their august lord. Maharajah Runjeet Singh of Cashmere and Lahore, born 1779, died 1839, from being the leader of a gang of robbers, became the abso- lute despot of despots, whose word was law to princes, and who ruled twenty millions of men with a rod of iron. A few days after my arrival at Lahore I visited the mausoleums of the Emperor Jehangir (" The magnificent M 2 274 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. son of Akbar ") and his beautiful queen, the celebrated Nour Jehan, known before her marriage as Nour Mahal, and celebrated under that name in Moore's " Lalla Rookh." In the same poem the Emperor Jehangir, at one time Prince Mirza Suliem, figures as Selim. These tombs were built by Shah Jehan, and are situated on the bank of the Ravee River. That of Jehangir is in the centre of an immense garden of mango- trees, date-palms, pomegranates, and flowers. Winding paths lead in every direction, among numerous tanks of clear water. The mausoleum is of red sandstone, inlaid with white marble. It stands on a brick ter- race two hundred feet square. At each corner of the edifice rises an octangular minar, perhaps one hun- dred feet in height. These minars have four stones, separated by broad projecting shelves, and, with the exception of the first (which is of red sandstone, inlaid with narrow lines of marble), are built of white and black marble and brown sandstone, disposed in zigzag stripes. They are surmounted by eight-pillared white- marble cupolas, with tapering brass calices, or spires. The minars are very graceful, their architecture closely resembling that of the pagodas I have seen in the south- ern piovinces of the Chinese Empire. The interior of the mausoleum consists of arched vaults for the accom- modation of the priests, and the centre is a small cham- ber containing the sarcophagus of Jehangir. This is built of white marble, inlaid with precious stones, sim- ilar to that of his son, Shah Jehan, at Agra. Many of the jewels have been extracted by Rungeet Singh. A AMONG THE SIKHS. 275 quarter of a mile distant are the remains of the tomb of Nour Jehan, wife and queen of Jehangir, and aunt of Mumtaz Mahal, the occupant of the renowned Taj Ma- hal. The guide told me that Nour Jehan's tomb was originally built in the same style as that of Jehangir, but, having fallen into ruins, had lately been converted into a European dwelling-house and stable. The Brit- ish government should make it their duty to see that the tomb of the lovely, good, and now historic " Nour Mahal" is reserved from such desecration. Certainly the heroine of one of the most polished and celebrated poems in English literature deserves at least an honor- ed grave, if not a magnificent mausoleum. 276 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER XXL DOWN THE INDUS. MY route of Indian travel led me from Lahore to Mooltan, thence to Slier Shah, on the Chenab River, to the Sutlej, down the Indus, and then by rail to Kur- rachee, on the Arabian Sea. The province of Mooltan is generally level and open, in parts fertile and well cultivated, but with large tracts of arid, sandy soil. The greater part of the country is thinly inhabited. Its pro- ductions are wheat and other grains, cotton, and indigo. Mooltan is one of the oldest cities in India, and has been renowned since the time of Alexander. It is situ- ated four miles from the left bank of the Chenab, one of the four great rivers which unite and flow into the Indus. The inhabitants comprise Jauts, Belooches, Sikhs, and Hindoos, and the language Punjaubi is that generally spoken in Lahore and Umritsur. The Citadel shows, even now, many signs of its ter- rible bombardment by the English in 1848. Near it is the tomb of a revered Moslem prophet, built of brick covered with lac work, and fast going to decay, though once repaired by the British government. The mauso- leum is octagonal, divided into three stories by means of bastions, which are surmounted by kiosks at the cor- DOWN THE INDUS. 277 ners. The first and second of these stories are octag- onal, the second being a little smaller than the first. The third story consists of a plaster -covered dome. The large room under the dome contains not only the tomb of the holy man, which is a simple brick affair, but sixty-nine other tombs, in compact rows. Before leaving, I witnessed a singular religious ceremony. Four or five Mussulmans, having made vows, had come from Kurrachee on a pilgrimage. Their heads were shaven, rosaries were around their necks, and they were now at their final rites. These consisted in rubbing the head against a "sacred stone" let into the outer wall of the tomb, while one of the number held the hands of the devotee behind his back. Each Mussulman performed this affecting ceremony. The whole party then walked backward from the mau- soleum, muttering prayers and incantations, until they could see its gilt spire and crescent, and then fin- ished by marching thrice in solemn order around the tomb. In the afternoon I rode a camel for the first time, and found the motion rather pleasant, excepting when the animal was urged to full speed. It then became too jolting, and the jerk was shorter and more abrupt than that experienced on the elephant. The luggage- camel will not carry a man, nor the man-camel luggage. The animal may be hired in some provinces for twelve annas, or thirty-six cents, a day, and his daily provender costs eight annas. Taking the railroad for half an hour, I was carried 278 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. . to Sher Shah, eleven miles from Mooltan. This com- pleted my journey of seventeen hundred miles through Northern Hjndostan. At Sher Shah the traveler takes one of the vessels of the "Indus Steam Flotilla" down the Chenab River, and a walk of two miles brought us to the steamer Havelock, Captain Johns. We started at one P.M., but grounded within an easy stone's-throw of our point of departure. It was February, the worst month in the year for navigating the Chenab or the Indus. We had native pilots, two of whom were re- ceived on board at each stage, or every forty miles. Grounding was of frequent occurrence and long dura- tion, and the first day was lost in a manner truly Ori- ental. To an American, the repose and contentment of the native passengers were unspeakably exasperat- ing. Their talent for tranquillity and voluptuousness in the midst of annoying conditions never appeared more detestable. My ruminations were cut short by our running upon a sand-bar, where we stuck fast the remainder of the day. Then followed a succession of disasters, owing to which we made but seventy miles in nine days. When glued to the mucilaginous sand we could only get free by warping ourselves to numerous kedges placed at a distance. Once we got out of wood for the boilers, and had to send men back to Sher Shah for a supply. Soon after entering the Sutlej we were transferred to another steamer, whose transatlantic ac- commodations were, in contrast, very agreeable. She had among her passengers an English officer who, with tents and servants, had been making surveys in the DOWN THE I^DUS. 279 territory of the Bhawalpoor Rajah, a small independent state of Rajpootana. A few days after we entered the Indus, one of the most renowned rivers in the world, called by the na- tives of this part of Hindostan the Sind, and by many Mohammedan writers the Hind. Where we entered near the town of Mithunkote the classic stream is about one mile in width and ten feet deep during the dry season. In the wet or rainy season its width in- creases to two, three, or four miles, and its depth to twenty or thirty feet. It may not be generally known that the Indus rises in Middle Thibet, north of the Him- alayas, about fifteen thousand feet above the sea-level, flows west, southwest, and south, and empties into the Arabian Sea after a course of 2260 miles. Its volume is much increased by the five large rivers of the Pun- jaub, the old Pentapotamia, or country of the five rivers. The Indus is navigable for a distance of nine hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, as far as the little town of Attock, which is about thirty miles east of Peshawur. At Attock are the remains of the stone fort built by Sultan Akbar in 1581. Sir Charles Wentvvorth Dilke, in his "Greater Britain," writes that "geographically the Indus Valley is but a por- tion of the Great Sahara. Those who know the desert well say that from Cape Blanco to Khartoum, from Khartoum to Muscat, from Muscat to Mooltan, the des- ert is but one ; the same in the absence of life, the same in such life as it does possess. The valley of the Nile is but an oasis, the gulfs of Persia and of Aden are but 280 THROUGH AND t THROUGH THE TROPICS. trifling breaks in its vast width. Rainless, swept by dry, hot winds laden with prickly sand, traversed every where by low ranges of red and sunburnt rocks, strewn with jagged stones, and dotted here and there with a patch of dates gathered about some ancient well, such is the Sahara for a length of nearly six thousand miles. On the Indus banks the sand is as salt as it is at Suez, and there are as many petrified trees between Sukkur and Kurrachee as there are in the neighborhood of Cairo." Sir Charles is entirely mistaken. The Great Indian Desert consists of coarse sand and hard clay, lying upon a layer of rich mould, and requires only plentiful rains to render it fertile and productive. By sinking wells, water, though often brackish, is always to be found, and during the wet season grain is now raised in its valleys. In these respects it is totally different from the Sahara, or great desert of Africa, which is the most barren waste upon the globe. The Indian desert is not rainless. It is swept by " dry, hot winds," but not by winds laden with " prickly sand," for here the sand is round and smooth. It is not "traversed every where by low ranges of red and sunburnt rocks." Very few stones are to be found upon it, and when they do occur they are not "jagged." Very seldom can a date- palm be seen ; the sand on the Indus is not salt ; and although some petrified trees are to be found between Sukkur and Kurrachee, still they possess few features in common with those near Cairo, and may have been formed by entirely different processes. Besides, be- tween Arabia and India intervene Persia, Beloochistan, DOWN THE INDUS. 281 and Afghanistan, the latter two being both mountainous and fertile. In the Indian desert are found rats and squirrels, gazelles, foxes, and wild asses ; but in the Great Sahara are lizards, serpents, tortoises, ostriches, and on the outskirts hyenas, lions, and panthers. The scenery of the Indus is not very interesting. The river flows through an immense plain, bounded on the west side, at distances varying between fifty and one hundred miles, by the Sooleiman range of mount- ains separating Hindostan from Afghanistan. They are gray-colored, lime-rock hills, a mile in height, and totally void of vegetation. The river, which is a dark, muddy flood, is eight or ten feet below the banks, which, when not quite nude, are clothed with low, scrubby pines. Upon the sand-banks on each side of the channel the gavial, or long-snouted variety of the alligator, was frequently seen, and my fellow-passenger, Captain Tanner, Superintendent of the Government Survey of the Great Indian Desert, sometimes amused himself by shooting them from the steamer's deck. Occasional herds of camel were seen among the pine- bush. Few villages dot the Indus, and during the whole 2260 miles of its tortuous course Sukkur and Roree are the only places of particular interest. We had now entered the province of Sindh, styled the Unhappy Valley by Captain Burton, owing to the sterility of the soil and the insalubrity of the climate. With a population of one and a quarter millions, it ex- tends from the Punjaub and Bhawalpoor to the Ara- bian Sea, and from Beloochistan to Rajpootana and 282 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. the Great Indian Desert. In the northwestern part is the famous Bholan Pass, which leads through the Soo- leiman range of mountains to Khelat, and forms the only practicable road from the plain of Hindostan to the savage country of Beloochistan. It is about sixty miles in length, and at its most elevated point a mile in height, and is by nature so formidable a pass that a regiment of European troops, properly accoutred and disposed in it, could easily resist an entire army of barbarians, "and make a new Thermopylae." Khelat, the capital of Beloochistan, to which a road runs direct from the Bholan Pass, is described as a meanly built city, of twelve thousand inhabitants, sur- rounded by a mud wall, and standing upon a plain eight thousand feet above the sea. It was captured in 1839 by the British, but was abandoned by them a few years afterward. At the town of Jacobabad, on the Sindh frontier, there is a cantonment of English troops. The soil of the " Unhappy Valley" is poorly cultivated, and the husbandry of the Sindhees is of the rudest de- scription. The country about Sukkur is picturesque. Upon a low bluff on the opposite bank is the ancient town of Roree, its houses built of mud, two or three stories in height, and with small balconies overlooking the river. Between Sukkur and Roree, on a limestone island, is Bukkur fort, with low brick walls and towers, in bad repair and not garrisoned, though three hundred natives, mostly indicted for murder, are confined there. Bukkur fort is called the Key of Sindh, and its seizure by the British partly caused the war with the Ameers. DOWN THE INDUS.' 283 Sukkur is a larger town than Roree, and of more mod- ern date. Along the shore is a stone embankment nearly two miles long, built by the municipal author- ities, and intended to confine the stream to its bed during freshets. Our steamer was made fast to some stone piers along the quay, and as we landed crowds of natives from half-a-dozen countries collected. Chief among them, of course, were the Sindhees, with their peculiar head-gear "a tall hat with the brim atop," made of pasteboard, and variously colored, according to the taste or rank of the wearer. In Sukkur, a few lac-covered tombs, a small Hindoo temple, and a high, round brick tower are all that are to be seen. The historical associations are interesting, however, and a few miles distant are the ruins of Alore. This city was, in early times, the capital of a kingdom mentioned by Greek historians as the kingdom of Mu- sicanus, and which extended from the Arabian Sea to Cashmere on the north, and from Khandahar (in Cen- tral Afghanistan) on the west to Kanize on the east. Sukkur itself is one of the most ancient of Indian cit- ies, and its antiquities attracted Alexander the Great. The manufactures are leather and cotton fabrics, and gold and silver jewelry, and much trade comes to it from China, through Eastern Persia and Beloochis- tan. The Sindhees have a peculiar mode of fishing ; and some varieties of their fish, as, for instance, the pullah a species of carp are excellent eating. The pullah is thus caught : The natives, lying upon huge earthen- 284 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ware jars, float down the swiftly running stream, push- ing before them a pouch-net, which can be closed by simply drawing a string. When the fish is captured, it is strung upon a stick carried behind the back, or, being killed, is deposited in one of the jars, which are left open at the top. The net is then immediately lower- ed again. The average weight of the pullah is two pounds. As we steamed down the river the banks showed trees of a larger size, and many rich-looking fields of barley and wheat. These were irrigated with water drawn from the river by Persian wheels. The channel continued quite as tortuous and narrow as when above Sukkur. We passed the independent state of Khyrpoor, the village of Sewhan, and the Ibex Hills a short lime- stone spur of the Kheertur Mountains, three or four thousand feet in height and perfectly barren. Kotree completed my river journey of nearly one thousand miles. It is a small village on the west bank of the Indus, and is noted only for being the terminus of the Sindh railway and the depot of the " Indus Steam Flo- tilla." As we approached, the village itself was conceal- ed by luxurious date-palms and tamarind-trees, but we could see the branching lines of the railway, so laid along the river's bank as to land cotton and produce direct from the steamers to the cars. The only Euro- peans resident at Kotree are those connected with ei- ther the steamers or the railway. Four miles distant, upon the opposite side of the Indus, is the city of Hy- drabad, the capital of Sindh, and once the residence of the DOWN THE INDUS. 285 Chief Ameer, or nobleman. I visited it on the morning following my arrival at Kotree. It stands on the banks of the Fulallee, a small branch of the Indus, is built of sunburnt bricks and mud, and contains about twenty- five thousand inhabitants. A large sandy plain, cov- ered with scrub thorns and peepul-trees, very nearly sur- rounds the city. I inspected the tombs of the Ameers huge brick and stucco edifices, gaudily painted in- side and out ; some covered with colored tiles, but the majority with plain white cement, and all contain- ing simple marble sarcophagi carved with Arabic in- scriptions in praise of Almighty Allah. Hydrabad is noted for its manufacture of matchlocks, swords, spears, shields, embroidered silks, and cotton and leather goods. The country through which the railway runs to Kur- rachee is quite level, and destitute of trees and sown fields. The soil consists of equal parts of sand and limestone, and its only productions are the cactus and a species of thorny shrub. Kurrachee itself, the chief seaport of Sindh, is situated at the westernmost mouth of the Indus, on a plain near the Arabian Sea. It was captured by the British in 1839, and is now an impor- tant military post. The only genuinely interesting sight in the neighborhood is Muggur Peer, the Alligator Tank, about ten miles to the west. In a comfortable carriage, with three horses attached, I followed a road which passed through a most desolate and barren plain, the only compensations of which were a few perfect specimens of the mirage, that wonderful illusion which 286 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. dots the desert with momentary paradises. Hajee Mug- gur was the name of a Mohammedan fakir, who, accord- ing to the native account, died hundreds of years ago, enjoining that several alligators which he had nurtured should be protected by posterity. The descendants of these alligators are kept in a spring-fed pool fifty feet square, and surrounded by beautiful date-palms. The pool was formerly open on all sides, but is now inclosed by high mud walls for the greater safety of the neigh- boring natives. Near by are the tomb of the fakir, sev- eral other tombs, and a small mosque. The muggurs, or alligators, about one hundred in number, were of. sizes varying from four feet in length to twenty feet, and the body of the " queen " alligator was nearly as large as that of a horse. Inspired by a delicate per- ception of humor and a fine sense of hospitality, an at- tendant fakir threw a live goat into the pool for my en- tertainment. In a second the animal was torn limb from limb, and each of the monsters swallowed his por- tion skin, hair, and bones with only a snap or two of his huge jaws. The Hindoo worships these alligators, but the Mohammedan venerates the fakir alone who bequeathed them to posterity. While I was in Kurrachee the Hindoos celebrated, during two days, the Holi festival saturnalian in char- acter. Unlicensed merriment reigned. Red powders were daubed upon the image of the god Krishna, and thrown and squirted by his worshipers upon each other. Women were insulted by impure jests and ribald 'ex- clamations, persons were sent on bootless errands, and DOWN THE INDUS. 287 drunken devotees commemorated the dancing of Krish- na with the Gopias, or female cowherds. Neither the origin of this festival nor the obscenity of its observ- ance in Western Hindostan can be here described. It is nothing in its favor that the highest join in it with as much zest as the lowest. I left Kurrachee the next day in the English steamer India for Bombay. On the afternoon of the second day out the western ghauts of Southern Hindostan were sighted, and late in the evening I landed upon the Apollo Bund of Bombay, and was driven to the Adelphi Hotel, kept by Pallanjee Pestonjee, the same Parsee landlord with whom Bayard Taylor had lodged more than twenty years before. 288 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. CHAPTER XXII. LAST DAYS IN INDIA. BOMBAY is the largest city, the second seaport, and the capital of the smallest of the three presidencies of India. The population is estimated in round numbers at one million, and embraces Hindoos, Mohammed- ans, Parsees, Jews, Armenians, Jains, Arabs, Persians, Sindhees, Seedyes (from the eastern coast of Africa), and Europeans, among whom are many Portuguese. These are termed by the natives Goa-men, from Goa, the only Portuguese possession in India. More than half the inhabitants are Hindoos, 250,000 are Moham- medans, 75,000 Parsees, 12,000 Europeans, and about 36,000 of other races. Though but a small proportion are Parsees, still it is chiefly to this race that Bombay is indebted for her present pre-eminence. The Parsees, or, as they are variously styled, Guebres, Ghebers. (infidels), or disciples of Zoroaster, have, in re- ligion and education, made further progress than the Indian Mohammedans and the Hindoos ; and though they have not done a great deal toward the advance- ment of woman, no other Eastern race has as yet done so much. They dispose of their dead in a curious man- 289 ner. Fortunately for me, owing to a case of mistaken identity, I not only obtained admission to the Parsee burying-ground, but was kindly attended by Mr. Mus- sewanjee Byramjee, upon whose card was written " Sec- retary of the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Public Burying Institution." It seems that at the time of my visit a government surveyor had an appointment to meet the secretary, and that I had simply been mistaken for the surveyor. The Parsees are very jealous of this bury- ing-ground. Over the gateway is an inscription prohib- iting the entrance of any one not of their faith ; and not many years ago not even the Viceroy of British India could have obtained admission. But political in- fluence and progressive ideas have by this time broken down the barrier. The cemetery is on high land, out- side the city limits, and two or three miles from Mala- bar Point. It embraces about a dozen acres, surround- ed by a lofty wall, in which there is but one gateway, reached by an immense basalt staircase nearly half a mile in length. Along neat gravel paths, and between beautiful lawns and flower-beds, the secretary led me past three or four stone martello towers, each forty feet in diameter, thirty feet in height, and with windowless walls three feet thick, and provided with but one small door. These fabrics are called " Towers of Silence," and no one save a pall -bearer or a priest dare en- ter or even look into them. Inside these inclosures, which are open at the top, the dead bodies are placed upon iron biers arranged for that purpose, and imme- ' diately great flocks of vultures, which have been hover- N 2QO THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. ing around, descend, not to rise again until they have stripped the flesh from the bones. This horrible disposition of the dead is called " re- signing them to the element of the air," and certainly does not seem superior to the Thibetan fashion, which I unluckily missed seeing. The vultures are not, how- ever, held to be sacred, but are regarded simply as a means of preventing decomposition ; for though, at the death .of a Parsee, the soul goes at once to heaven, yet his creed prescribes that his body shall not be tainted with corruption. Upon the crests of several of the towers I saw the weird birds of prey, gorged to stupe- faction with their cadaverous repast, yet blinking envi- ously at the denuded bones that were being thrown into the general pit. The European ensemble of the city outweighed the Asiatic glamour of the numerous date -groves; and the spired churches, the sidewalks and gas-lamps, the large hotels, the macadamized streets, and stores built of cut stone, six stories high, completed the aspect of civiliza- tion. In the evening I rode to the Parsee theatre, but, having no lady with me, was not admitted. Females had been cast in the play, and whenever this is the case, Parsee etiquette admits only married men accom- panied by their wives an instance of moral sensitive- ness which I leave to the estimate of those American managers who lean toward dramas borrowed from the French. I then repaired to another theatre, the stock company of which consisted of males, pure and simple. My sex and solitariness qualifying me for admission, I LAST DAYS IN INDIA. 29 1 entered, and saw what was called a comedy, in the Gu- jeratti tongue. It consisted chiefly of singing, and not always graceful or expressive pantomime. The cos- tumes were Orientally rich ; the orchestra numbered five or six performers, and produced good music ; ap- plause was frequent, but so were hisses. The audience of one thousand consisted of Parsees, men and boys. There were no women, and but one European. Prominent among the few Bombay sights is the Jam- setjee Jeejeebhoy Hospital. Sir Jamsetjee, who gives his name to this institution, was a very wealthy Parsee, and was knighted by Queen Victoria in recognition of his benevolence. The Arthur Crawford Market, too, is well worth seeing, being one of the finest establishments of the kind in the world. Each of its half-dozen build- ings is devoted to a particular variety of produce. It is patronized almost exclusively by Europeans, and be- longs to the government, which gives a certain Mr. Crawford three thousand pounds per year for the ardu- ous task of collecting weekly the native rents. Though the month was March, which is not a very fruitful one, the display of produce was the best I had ever seen, in Hindostan or any where else. I did not remain long at Bombay, but left for Ma- dras, about eight hundred miles distant, per the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The time had arrived for me to turn my back upon the land of the Moguls, and again enter that of the Hindoos. Our first stoppage was at Poona, one hundred and twenty miles from Bombay. The heat burned like steam, and in this sec- 2t)2 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE' TROPICS. tion of the country the intense glare of the sun not un 3 frequently produces the strange effect of furrowing the outer eye-corners into wrinkles as deep as those of old age. When seventy miles from Bombay, the railway begins the ascent of the Western Ghauts, so named from the resemblance which the terraces of the acclivity bear to steps. These ghauts are a range of hills extending from the Tuptee River, on the north, to the extremity of the peninsula, a distance of about nine hundred miles. Some of the peaks attain an altitude of six thousand feet above the sea-level. The railway passage through these hills, called the bore ghaut, because of the im- mense quantity of rock-tunneling necessary to be per- formed, is, so far as my experience goes, one of the most wonderful engineering successes ever achieved, being equaled only by the railway which ascends the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia. In a section of sixteen miles the roadway rises more than two thousand feet, in some places the grade being one foot in thirty-seven feet. The neighboring hills rise into tall, slim peaks, and all bear evidence of volcanic forma- tion. On the bore ghaut a fall of two hundred and twenty inches of rain, during the four months of the wet season, is not unusual, and therefore it is impera- tive that the railroad should be of the most perfect construction. I reached Poona early, in the evening, and found accommodation at a comfortable bungalow near the station. The city is situated upon a level plain, two thousand feet above the sea. It was once the capital LAST DAYS IN INDIA. 293 f.a powerful empire the Mahratta which extended from the Ganges to Cape Cormorin. I remained only for one .day, leaving the next evening for Kistna, four hundred and twenty- six miles from Bombay, on the direct road to Madras. The first town of importance in the Nizam's dominions, at which the train stopped, was Koolburga, which has been alternately the capital of the Hindoo and of the Mohammedan sovereignty. Here, in the seventeenth century, was the Cerulean Throne of the House of Bhamenee, a rival of Shah Je- han's Peacock Throne at Delhi. Ferishta, the Persian historian, describes the Cerulean Throne as nine feet long and three wide, made of ebony, covered with plates of pure gold, and set with precious stones. It was val- ued at a crore of oons, or nearly $20,000,000. The dominions of the Nizam constitute the largest na- tive protected state of British India, and are completely surrounded by territories subject to English rule. About one tenth of the people are Mohammedans, and the en- tire population is estimated at twelve millions. The chief city and capital, Hyderabad as the entire state is sometimes named has about two hundred thousand inhabitants. Hyderabad is neither grand nor beauti- ful, and contains few monuments of any interest, though in the immediate neighborhood is a water-tank said to be twenty miles in circumference. Golconda is seven miles distant ; according to tradition, it was from the Golconda mines that the famous Koh-i-noor, now pos- sessed by the British crown, was obtained before the Christian era. The present Nizam is said to own a 294 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. beautiful diamond weighing eleven hundred grains. :The cave-temples of Adjunta and Ellora, more wondrous even than those of Elephanta, are in the extreme north- west of the Nizam's dominions. At midday we arrived at Kistna, then the terminus of the Bombay line. To reach the extremity of the Ma- dras line, we crossed the Kistna River and rode fourteen miles in a bullock-cart, reaching, at 3 A.M., the station of Raichoor, and accomplishing the journey in nine hours. Early the following morning we left Raichoor for Madras, nothing of much interest being perceptible from the car windows. We crossed the Toongabooclrah and Pennaur rivers, and as we neared Madras and the Coromandel coast, the land became cultivated, and na- tive field-hands were seen. The train reached Madras at four the next morning, about sixty hours from Bom- bay, and no difficulty was experienced in procuring pleasant rooms at the Elphinstone Hotel. Madras, the third city of Hindostan in respect to pop- ulation, stands in a plain on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is the capital of the presidency of the same name, and is the chief commercial port of the Deccan, or the South. The inhabitants, seven hundred and twenty thousand in number, are styled Madrasses. They speak the Tamil language, which is extremely difficult for a European to learn. Madras extends for nine miles along the coast, with a breadth of four miles. To one who has seen Calcutta, Benares, Agra, and Umritsur, it contains nothing of interest beyond Fort St. George, the Government House, and the Park. I had intended to LAST DAYS IN INDIA. 295 visit Tanjore, Mahabalipoor, Vellore, Bangalore, My- sore, and Mercara, to most of which places I bore let- ters of introduction that would have been useful to me; but the hot weather was at hand and hurried my de- parture. A drive of three miles brought me to the seashore, where I hired a masullah in which to reach the steamer, two miles distant. The masullah is a large surf-boat, sharp at both ends, and sewn together by coir rope. This enhances its flexibility, and so prevents its break- ing when thrown violently by the waves upon the beach. The ten men who usually propel it employ for oars light, springy poles twenty feet long, each tipped with a blade or oval paddle scarcely larger than the open palm. While rowing the men chant lively and bizarre refrains. We passed safely through the furious surf, with its three lines of rollers, and reached the Oriental in less than twenty minutes. We were advertised to leave at ten, and about that hour the catamarans, another species of native craft, shot off in fleets from the shore to the steamer, their oc- cupants carrying letters and dispatches in their turbans, which were almost all they had on. These curious rafts consist of three firmly lashed cocoa-tree logs, fif- teen feet long, somewhat flattened upon the upper sur- face, and curving upward at the prow. Upon this boat or raft one or two men kneel, or rest on their haunches, and propel themselves by means of a flat, thin piece of wood about four feet in length. These logs are the mail-express, which one would fear would get damaged 296 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. by the incessant sweeping over them of the waves ; but as the native's mail-bag is invariably his turban, and as he remains imperturbably in his place, both mail and carrier are preserved. Only upon the steamer's deck, when the engines had begun to move, did my Eurasian interpreter, guide, and valet part from me. He had been in my service over five months, and had performed his diverse duties with entire satisfaction. I had previously engaged for him a passage home to Calcutta on a steamer advertised to sail three days later. We passed successively Masulipatam, Coconada, Viza- gapatam, and Bimlipatam, and at the latter place, three hundred miles from Madras, I bade a final adieu to Hither India, and mentally summed up my travels. Within six months I had leisurely journeyed more than four thousand miles through Hindostan. I had seen the King of Oudh and his menagerie at Calcutta ; pen- etrated to the base of the loftiest mountain of the globe, near Thibet; had been feted by Maharajah Isuree Pershod at Karnatcha Palace ; stood in the Taj Mahal at Agra ; ascended the Kutub Minar, not far distant from Delhi ; reached the borders of Cashmere in the northwest ; sailed down the great Indus River ; explored the cave-temples of Elephanta ; traversed the Nizam's dominions ; and coasted up the Carnatic from Madras to Bimlipatam. Throughout the whole journey I had enjoyed somewhat exceptional facilities for becoming acquainted with the political, social, and moral condition of this strange land and people, fortune having favored LAST DAYS IN INDIA. 297 me with good health and ample time, and being provided with numerous letters of introduction to native princes and gentlemen. Under these circumstances, and not re- stricting myself to the common routes of tourists, I un- hesitatingly pronounce Hither India, or Hindostan, the most interesting country of all in which it was my priv- ilege to travel throughout Asia. Much knowledge in metaphysics, astronomy, navigation, mathematics, medi- cine, law, and the arts which Europe has obtained from Egypt, Greece, and Rome, or has plumed herself on "dis- covering," was, ages ago, familiar to the learned men of Hindostan ; while stupendous and elaborate monuments of architecture and sculpture prove the Hindoos to have possessed, from remote antiquity, a genius and a skill equal to those which created the sublime and beautiful palaces, tombs, obelisks, and statues of Karnak and Luxor. This rich and fertile empire, three fifths the size of Europe, with a coast-line over five thousand miles in length, and a population of nearly two hundred and forty millions, has excited the cupidity of conquerors since the time of Sesostris, and its foreign trade has been famous for its magnitude and lucrativeness since the period when the Phoenicians sailed around Africa and the Persians followed the Indus down to the Ara- bian Sea. For historical, ethnographical, archasological, botanical, and philological studies, this celebrated sec- tion of Asia presents an inexhaustible field. In olden times the whole of India was divided among petty rajahs, who, besides being continually at variance with each other, were utterly unable to protect them- N 2 298 THROUGH AND THROUGH THE TROPICS. selves from foreign enemies. Of course little or no advance was made in civilization during this period. Afterward, when the Mohammedans invaded and held possession of Hindostan for nearly one thousand years, nothing but oppression and injustice, war and famine, reigned supreme. The most prosperous condition of India has been attained under English rule. Life and property are now secure, and every means is sought for the perfect administration of justice. Schools, colleges, and newspapers are established throughout the terri- tories and states. Christian missions have been won- derfully successful, especially in the Madras presidency. Six thousand miles of railway have been introduced,' the electric telegraph is all but universal, and canals and steam navigation abound. Barriers of caste are being steadily undermined, the Mohammedans are grow- ing less intolerant in matters of faith and works, and the Hindoo is intellectually and religiously advancing. The present political outlook for India is therefore most encouraging. Proofs are not wanting that still greater reforms will be instituted ; that Western science and philosophy will eventually supersede Eastern igno- rance and superstition ; and that a noble civilization, waxing nobler with advancing centuries, will lift these glorious old lands of the Hindoo and the Mogul to an indefinitely higher level than any they have yet occu- pied. INDEX. A. Agra, the fort of, 189 ; gates of Som- nauth, 190 ; the Motee Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, 190 ; the Shish Mahal, or Palace of Glass, 193 ; tomb of King Akbar, 193-4. Akbar, the Emperor, and the Goroo, 223 ; anecdote of Akbar and his prime minister, Beer-Bui, 227-30. Albatross, its size, 24. Allahabad, sacred purpose for which it is visited, 175 ; situation, 181 ; religious festival, 195-6. Amenities of ocean life, 26-7. Antelope Tower, 230. Atta gool, or attar-of-roses, 268-70. Australian hotels, their spaciousness, 103. Awa, an intoxicating drink, 85. B. Ballarat, models of the mines of, 116-17 ! general description of Ballarat, 1 18-19. Banana, leaves, fruit, and tree, 69-70. Been, the, a Hindoo musical instrument, 175-6. Beer- Bui, palace of, 226-7. Benares, the Hindoo metropolis, 155 ; situation, appearance, and population, 156-7; religion, 157; beautiful bulls, 158; sacred monkey temple, 158-60; observatory of Jai Singh, 160 ; Vivi- shas Temple, 160-1 ; the fakirs, 162 ; appearance of Benares from the river, 163 ; mosque of Aurungzebe, 163-4 ; elephant-riding, 178-9; former status of the city, 180. Bengali "strong language," judicious use of, 140. Betel-chewing, 164-5. Bombay, population of, 288 ; European ensemble, 290 ; Parsee theatres, 290 -i ; the Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Hospi- tal, 291. Bordeaux, M. de, the architect of Taj Mahal, the Palace-tomb, 213. Botany Bay, no. Bullocks, ludicrous shipping of, 94. Buningyong, models of the mines of, 116-17. C. Calcutta, first impressions of, 126; pres- ent population of, 126 ; Government House, 128 ; the Asiatic Society's Mu- seum, 128; the Maidan, 129; the Bo- tanical Gardens, 130 ; Dying Houses, 130; the goddess Kali, 131; the Es- planade, 132 ; the Opera House, 132 ; the menagerie and garden of the ex- King of Oudh, 132, 135; the Burra Bazar, 136-7 ; native traders, 137. Camel-riding, 277. Canoes, Hawaiian, 80. Cape Horn, its barrenness and desola- tion, 29. Captain Cook, the spot where he fell, 90; tablets and inscriptions, 91 ; Great Britain's splendid gratitude, 91 ; the 300 INDEX. British consul's queer conduct, 92 ; decrease in population, 92 ; similarity of Cook's fate to Magellan's, 93. Caste, examples of, 124-5, J 3^, 156. Catamaran, the, 295. Cave-temples of Elephanta, 197-8 ; of Adjunta and Ellora, 294. Cerulean Throne, the, 293. Christianity in Polynesia, spread of, 102. Christmas at sea, 32 ; St. Nicholas and Neptune, 32-3. Cock-fight, an imperial, 185. Cocoa-nuts, how gathered by the Ka- nakas, 68 ; how eaten in their natural condition, 69 ; characteristics of the cocoa-palm, 69. Coral reefs, how produced, 100; incor- rect ideas regarding, 100. D. Daks and bungalows described, 140. Darjeeling, 143 ; Sunday in, 143-4. Delhi, situation of, 245 ; Chandni Chowk, 245 ; fruits, 246 ; the new cemetery, 247-8 ; a Persian bath, 248-50 ; the citadel, 250-1 ; Fort Selimgurh, 252-3 ; the Jumma Musjid, or Friday Mosque, 2 53~4 : some wonderful relics, 254-5 ; the Purana Killa, or Pathan Fort, 255 ; tomb of the Emperor Humayon, 256 ; tombs of Mirza Jehangir, Mo- hammed Shah, and Jehanara Begum, 256-7 ; the Junter Munter, or Observ- atory of Jai Singh, 257 ; the Kutub Minar, 257-8 ; ruins of the Musjid-i- Kutub-ool Islam, 259 ; oldest authen- tic Mohammedan tomb in Hindostan, 260. Dewan-i-khas, 231, 239-40, 251. Dilke, Sir Charles Wentworth, and his mistakes, 279-80. Directory, the Honolulu, 97 ; interest- ing statistics, 97. Doldrums, experiences in tlie, 21. Dolphin, the, as a dish and as a thing of beauty, 23. Durgha, the goddess, 169. Duties, a sailor's, at sea, 36. Dying Houses, the, 130. E. Elephant, an accomplished, 179. Epitaphs, Oriental, 226. Eurasian guide, my, 127, 296. F. Farralone Light, the, 39. Flying-fish, catching and eating a, 19. From Honolulu to Hilo, distance, 64. Fuegian huts, 28. Futtehpore-Sikri, situation of, 223; con- dition three hundred years ago, 232- 43- G. Ganges, the, more muddy than sacred, 138. Ghauts, the Western, 292. Gliazee-ooder Hyder, the tomb of, 184. Gladstane, Mrs. Mary, the tragedienne, 98. Golden Fleece, the, leaves New York October 24, 1869, 17; our quarters, 30 ; discipline, 34. Golden Gjite, the, 39. Gonies, what they are and where found, 38. "Good-morning," a nonchalant, 18. Goroo, the, or Hindoo saint, 223, 231. Granth, the, or sacred books of the Sikhs, 264. Great Moguls, the, 244. H. Hajee Muggur, a Mohammedan fakir, 286. Hawaii, the valleys of, 67 ; fertility of, 68. Hawaiian group, the islands comprised in the, 64. Heenalu, or surf-boat riding, a favorite Kanaka game, 81. Hilo without a harbor, 68. INDEX. 301 Himalayas, scenery among the, 142-3 ; southern slopes of the, 150. Hindoo superstition, 198-9; proverbs, 199 ; dialects, 199 ; religious books, 200 : epics, 200-1 ; moral and politic- al philosophy, 201-2 : song literature, 202-3 : epistolary style and education, 203. Hither India, 297. Hobart-town, general description of, 121. Holi festival, the, 286-7. Honolulu, situation of, 52 ; climate, 52 ; . American appearance of, 53 ; a bar and a billiard-saloon, 53 ; Queen Emma's residence, 55 ; the royal mausoleum, 55 ; average architecture for the foreign residents, 57 ; lolani Palace, 58-61 ; a wondrous feather cloak, 60. Hookah, smoking the, 174-5, 177 ; prepa- .- ration of the tobacco, 177-8. " Horse Latitudes," why so called, 21. Hiibner, Baron de, 122. Hummaum, the, or Persian bath, 248-50. Hydrabad, the capital of Sindh, 284-5. I. Inconveniences of the passage to Cal- cutta, 122. India, present and future, 298. Indian Ocean, sunsets on the, 32. Indus, the, 279, 281. lolani Palace, 58-61. * . J- Jack's staple diet, 35. Jai Singh, 160. Jeejeebhoy, Sir Jamsetjee, 291. Jehangir, the Emperor, 273-4. Judd, Dr., the missionary, his lamenta- ble mistake, 62. Jumma Musjid, the, or Friday Mosque, 253-4- K. Kali, a Hindoo goddess, 131. Kamehameha V., reason of his antipa- thy to Americans, 62 ; his versatile pursuits, 89. Kanakas, the salutations of, 63 ; char- acter and habits, 65 ; love of the sea, 81 ; dirtiness of their homes, 84 ; pas- sion for intoxicating liquors, 85. Kanchinjinga, Mt., its immense height, 148; sublimity, 147-8. Kangaroo-Land, popular impressions of, 104 ; aborigines, 104-5 ! cannibalism, 106 ; animal life, 106. Kangaroo-tail soup, 106. Kapa or tapa, a native cloth, mode of manufacture, 83. Ka-rima-poi, or poi-finger, 84-5. Kawaihae, 90 ; its native temple, 93-4. Kealakekua Bay, situation of, 90. Khelat, the city of, 282. " Kids," what they are, 35. Kilauea, the volcano of, 71 ; a sulphur- steam bath there, 72. Kinkob, a kind of embroidery, 162. Kotree, the village of, 284. Kotwal, the wicked, 228. Kuro-Siwo, the, or Black Stream of Japan, 41 ; its influence upon the at- mosphere and vegetation of Califor- nia, 41. Kurrachee, the chief seaport of Sindh, 285 ; Alligators' Tank, 286. Kutub Minar, the, 257-8. L. Lady Franklin's big tree, 121. Lahaina, Mr. McGee's sugar-plantation at, 66. Lahore, general description of, 273; mausoleum of the Emperor Jehangir and Nour Jehan, 273-5. Land in Hindostan, how owned, 150; crops, 151-2. Landscapes, Australian, 113. Le Maire, Strait of, named after the Dutch explorer, 29. Leahi, or Diamond Head, an old coast crater, 63. 302 INDEX. Lepchas, the country of the, 145 ; lan- guage of, 146-7. Lhassa, disappointed at not being able to reach it, 144 ; cause of the disap- pointment, 144. "Lime -juicer," origin of the expres- . sion, 35. Lomi-lomi, a rejuvenating luxury, 71-2. Lucknow, 182 ; the Alumbagh, 182-3 ; La Martiniere, 183-4; the Shah Nu- jeef, 184; the Kaiser Bagh, 185; the Emambarra, 186-7 ; the Hoseinabad Emambarra, 187-8. M. Madras, situation and population of, 294. Magellan, Strait of, 25-6 ; inhabitants of the Magellan Archipelago, 28. Maidan, the, in Calcutta, 129. Mainwaring, Colonel, 146. Mamo, or feather cloak, 60. Manuvadhannasastra, the, or Code of Manu, 201. Marine signals, etiquette of, 31. Marsupialia, one hundred specimens of, in Australia and Tasmania, 106. Masullah, or surf-boat, 295. Mauna-Haleakala, the largest quiescent crater in the world, 66. Mauna-Kea, a volcanic mountain, 86 ; view from the summit, 87 ; geological theories concerning, 87-8. Mauna-Loa, present appearance of, 72 ; old and "new craters, 73 ; eruptions, 73 ; most remarkable crater, Kilauea, 73 ; description and history of Kilauea, 74-8. Melbourne contrasted with Sydney, 114 ; public buildings, 115; presents by European sovereigns to the Public Library, 115 ; National Museum, 116 ; Observatory, 117 ; Botanical Gardens, 117-18. M ental appetite, a man with a large, 3 3-4. Micronesia, inexact nomenclature, 99- 100. Molokai, the island of, 51. Mongol ponies, how managed, 139. Monkey-gaff, use of the, 31. Monsoons, their periods, 123. Mooltan, the city of, 276 ; the citadel, 276-7. Moonshee Ameer Allie, Khan Bahadoor, appearance and manners of, 133-4. Motee Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, 190-92. Mountains, the three loftiest ones of Hawaii, 72. Muggur Peer, the, or Alligators' Tank, 286. Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Shah Jehan, and niece of Moore's Nour Mahal, 212. Musjid-i-Kutub-ool Islam, the, 259. Mustag Allie, guide, 224-5, 2 3- N. Napoleon III., gift of, to an Hawaiian monarch, 61. Narnak Shah, his life and works, 264-5. Nautch girls, their appearance and mode of dancing, 171-3. Nepaulese coolie, a, 141-2. Newcastle, mines of, 112. Nizam, the dominions of the, 293-4. Nour Mahal, tomb of, 274-5. Nuuanu, precipice of, 55 ; signification of the word, 55 ; scene from the sum- mit, 56. O. Oahu, first view of the island of, 51. Obsequies, unique method of solemniz- ing, 55- Ocean track, the most lonely in exist- ence, 33. " Old Hundred," singing it with Cape Horn for a listener, 29. Oriental picture, an, 232 ; Futtehpore- Sikri three hundred years ago, 232- 43 ; a day with King Akbar, 233-36, 238-40; the Lady of Constantinople, 236-7; Prince Danial, 238, 241-2; fate of king and court, 243. INDEX. Ornithorhynchus, the, repudiated by an English zoologist, 107. P. Palagan Maharaj, 177. Palankeen-riding, 127, 141. Pallanjee Pestonjee, a Parsee landlord, . 287. Pamperos, the, 23 ; their effects and ac- companiments, 24. Paiis, Rev. Mr., one of the original translators of the Bible into Hawai- ian, 93. Parsees, the, 288-90; their horrible treatment of the dead, 289-90 ; their theatres, 290-1. Patna, one of the oldest cities in India, 152; general description of, 152-3; . singular brick granary, 153 ; govern- ment opium manufactory and ware- house, 154. Peacock Throne, the, 216, 251-2. Persian poetry, 190-1, 193, 219-20, 242. Poi, the Hawaiian staff of life, 84. Poona, the town of, 292-3. Prayer under difficulties, 244. Pugla Diwan of Sikkim, the, 144. Purdamon Singh, Bey, his reception, 270-1. Q. Queen Emma, her residence in Hono- lulu, 55. R. Railways in Australia, in ; the one up the Blue Mountains, 111-12. Rajneet, the, 201-2. Ramayana, the, and Mahabharata, 200 -i. Roccas, the, a dangerous low reef, 22. Ruins of Sarnath, 165. Rungeed, the, 145-6. S. San Francisco, the climate of, 41 ; mar- kets and architecture of, 42-3 ; con- tr,asted with New York, 44 ; houses on steep hills, 44-5 ; Cliff House, 45 ; so- cial peculiarities, 45-6 ; China Town and the Chinese, 47-9 ; a Chinese the- atre, 49 ; growth and future of San Francisco, 50. Sandwich Islands, the soil of the, 67; geological arguments concerning their volcanic upheaval, 67. Sargasso baccifera, or berry-bearing sea- weed, 20. Savaii, description of the island of, 101, Sea-birds, different varieties of, 24-5. Sea-feather, what it is, 20. Sea-water, different tints in various lo- calities, 25. Selimgurh, fort of, 252-3. Shah Jehan, founder of the Taj Mahal, 212; his wealth, 216; his peacock throne, 216; crown, 216-17; costume and jewels, 217 ; poem by, 219-20. Shigram travel, experience in, 139-40. Shipping articles, rhetoric of, 18. Shores between Cape Sunday and Cape Horn, 28. Sikhs, the, who and what they are, 262 ; description c", 265 ; their articles of belief and practice, 266-7. Sindhees, the, 283 ; their mode of fish- ing, 283-4. Snake-charmers, two, 165-6. Spencer, Captain Tom, his sugar-cane plantation, 81. Staten Island, an uninhabited, 29. Sugar-cane in Hawaii, 82. Sukkur, 283-4. Summary of travel, 296-7. Sunday, Cape, 26. Sunrise and sunset at sea contrasted, 31-2. Superstition, Hindoo, 198-9. Sword-fish, catching a, 23. Sydney, its beautiful harbor, 102 ; the city next to Melbourne in importance, 107-8 ; Italian Opera there, 108 ; its public buildings, 109-10. 34 INDEX. T. Taj Mahal, the, or Palace-tomb, its in- describable sublimity, 204 ; meaning of the words, 205 ; first view of, 205 ; dimensions of, 206-7; inscriptions, 207 ; cenotaphs, 208 ; tributes to the beauty of its embedded gems, 209-10; the echo in the dome, 210 ; the minars, 210-n ; a glimpse during the reign of Aurungzebe, 211-12 ; by whom erect- ed, 212; the architect, 213; method of erection, 213 ; estimates of cost, 213-14; Persian catalogue of work- men and material, 214-15 ; changes of color, 217 ; order of architecture, 218 ; emotions excited by a view of the Taj, 221-2. Tapa or kapa, a native cloth, mode of manufacture, 83. Temple built by Rajah Cheit Singh, 168-9. "The Clarendon " in Asia, 141. Tomb of Sheik Selim Chisti, the, 224 ~S- Towers of Silence, 289. Travel from Launceston to Hobart- town, 120. Tropic insects and reptiles, 70. Turkish verses, 237. U. 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