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THE

ORIENTAL ANNUAL,

OR

Scenes tn Knifta;

COMPRISING

TWENTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS

FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS

BY WILLIAM DANIELL? R.A.

A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT

BY THE REV. HOBART CAUNTER, B.D.

LONDON :

BULL AND CHURTON, HOLLES STREET,

CAVENDISH SQUARE.

1835.

LONDON :

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street

46?

- -

THIS VOLUME IS,

BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION,

DEDICATED TO THEIR ROYAL HIGHNESSES

THE DUCHESS OF KENT AND THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The great success of the Oriental Annual last
year has encouraged the Proprietors to spare no ex-
pense to render the present volume still more worthy
of public patronage.

Their object having been to make this work some-
thing beyond a mere elegant trifle, it will be found to
contain matters of History and views of Society
which they trust will render it a book for the Li-
brary as well as for the Drawing-room table.

In one respect the Oriental Annual differs from
all works of a similar class ; — it will be continued
in yearly volumes, every three forming a distinct
series.

The First Series will contain descriptions of the
three English Presidencies : — the volume already pub-
lished describes Madras:-— the present volume de-
scribes Calcutta, and the third will describe Bombay.

VI

ADVERTISEMENT,

Although no Series of the Oriental Annual will
extend beyond three volumes, the work itself will be
continued until the demand for it ceases. The ma-
terials, however, are so abundant and of such in-
creasing interest, that it is confidently expected they
will raise it each succeeding year still higher in public
estimation.

September 20th, 1834.

ENGRAVINGS

FROM

IBratotttg*

BY

WILLIAM DANIELL, ESQ. R.A.

INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE, JUANPORE (Frontispiece.)

INDIAN FRUIT-SELLER (Vignette Title.)

RHINOCEROS Page 4

YAK OF TIBET 28

THE SALAAM 52

AT NUJIBABAD, ROHILCUND 62

FAVOURITE OF THE HAREM .... 80

MAUSOLEUM OF SUFTER JUNG . . . .96

THE AGRA GATE, CHAUTER SERAI ... 106

MOSQUE AT MUTTRA 118

THE MOAH-PUNKEE AT LUCNOW ... 128

MAUSOLEUM AT LUCNOW . * . . . .138

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE 156

GARDEN OF THE PALACE, LUCNOW . . .172

THE BERNAR PAGODA, BENARES . . .190

THE KUTWHUTTEA GATE, ROTAS GUR . . .210

TEMPLE AT MUDDUNPORE, BAHAR . . .222

GREAT TEMPLE AT BODE GYAH . . . .232

MOSQUE IN THE COIMBATORE .... 234

KUTWALLEE GATE, GOUR . . . . . 244

CALCUTTA, FROM GARDEN-HOUSE REACH . 254

BOA CONSTRICTOR AND BOAT’S CREW . . .260

SCENES IN INDIA.

CHAPTER I.

SINGULAR TEMPLE. THE RHINOCEROS. SERIN AGUR.

Upon quitting Hurdwar, as I have stated in the
conclusion of the former volume, we proceeded towards
the mountains. A short distance from that venerated
spot where ablutions in the Ganges are considered so
especially efficacious to spiritual purgation, there is a
remarkable banyan tree. It is consecrated to the
worship of the Hindoo godhead, and its sanctuary is
constantly visited by devout pilgrims from the neigh-
bouring countries. The stem, of vast circumference,
is surrounded by a terrace. It is hollowed out into a
chamber of considerable dimensions, which has been
converted into a temple by the pious zeal of the de-
votees who visit it daily, merely entering on one side
and passing out at the other, where they pay tri-
bute, after the manner of all true believers, in the
current mintage of the land ; by which they acquire
a mystical purification. Being aliens from the pri-
vileged stock, we were not allowed to enter the adytum
of this forest sanctuary, lest we should desecrate its

B

2

SCENES IN INDIA.

hallowed mysteries and thus neutralize the potential
efficacy with which the presiding deity is supposed
to have endowed it. Immediately beyond are several
small temples devoted to the mysteries of Hindoo su-
perstition ; and as the population in this neighbour-
hood is chiefly composed of the poorer and more ig-
norant classes which are invariably the dupes of their
priests, the services of their temples here exhibit all
the absurdities of idolatry without any of its less re-
volting features. This is evidently a place of more
than ordinary sanctity. There is an air of solemnity,
almost of solitariness about it that renders it unusually
imposing, bounded as it appears to be by the neigh-
bouring mountains which project their huge shadows
over it.

The ministering Bramins relate strange stories of this
marvellous tree, to them an object at once of profit
and of superstition, assigning to it an existence an-
terior to the deluge ; and they enumerate a greater
number of souls as having been saved by passing
through it than the world has contained since the
period of that awful visitation. There is nothing re-
markable in the upper growth of the tree, which does
not cover so large a space as some others on the banks
of the Ganges ; and though the trunk is tolerably vi-
gorous and has the remnant of a long life apparently
yet before it, still does it exhibit evident symptoms
of having passed the vigour of its time. The wither-
ing grasp of decay has already fixed upon it.

We entered the mountains by the Coadu war ghaut,
meeting several travellers, who gave us the rather dis-
couraging information that the snow had begun to fall

JUNGLES ON FIRE.

3

before they left Serinagur, where it was our inten-
tion to make our final halt. As we advanced, the sky
appeared to be tinged with a deep dingy red, and, upon
suddenly emerging from a narrow glen, to our asto-
nishment the distant mountains seemed to be in a
blaze. The fire swept up their sides to the extent of
several miles, undulating like the agitated waves of
the ocean when reddened by the slanting beams of
the setting sun. It was like an ignited sea, exhibit-
ing an effect at once new and fearful.

This striking phenomenon is not by any means un-
common and is accounted for by the larger bamboos,
as they are swayed by the wind, emitting fire from
their hard glossy stems through the violence of their
friction, and thus spreading destruction through the
mountain forests. These are so extensive that the
fire continues to burn for many days together, and is
often as suddenly extinguished as it is ignited by
those mighty deluges of rain, so common in moun-
tainous countries, where the water pours from the
clouds in confluent masses resembling small cata-
racts, and in a few moments arrests the progress of
a still more formidable element. No one can form
a conception of the violence of the torrents which oc-
casionally fall on these mountains, from anything that
has been witnessed in the more temperate latitudes of
the opposite hemisphere. Here indeed, when they do
fall, to use the sublime imagery of the Jewish law-
giver, " the windows of heaven appear to be opened/’
It is scarcely possible for man or beast to stand against
the impetuosity of their descent. Every living thing
seeks the shelter of the forests where immense trees.

4

SCENES IN INDIA.

the growth of ages, afford but an imperfect pro-
tection.

These forests, which cover the bases of the hills, are
filled with all kinds of game, especially pea-fowl, and
it is a beautiful sight to behold those splendid birds come
at sunrise from the deep recesses of the woods, as
they do in large flocks, and completely cover the val-
leys. The wild elephant is found in the lower regions
of the mountains, and so is the rhinoceros, though less
frequently. Of the latter animal we were fortunate
enough to obtain a view, which is by no means a
usual thing, as it is not gregarious like the elephant,
and therefore much more rarely met with. We had
turned the angle of a hill that abutted upon a nar-
row stream, when, on the opposite side of the rivulet,
we saw a fine male rhinoceros; it was standing
near the edge of the water with its head slightly
bent, as if it had been just slaking its thirst in the
cooling stream. It stood, apparently with great com-
posure, about two hundred yards above us, in an open
vista of the wood. Mr. Daniell, under the protection
of a lofty intervening bank, was able to approach
sufficiently near to make a perfect sketch of it ; after
which, upon a gun being fired, it deliberately walked
off into the jungle. It did not appear in the least in-
timidated at the sight of our party, which remained at
some distance, nor at all excited by the discharge of
the 'gun.

There are two species of this animal, the bicornis
and the unicornis ; the latter supposed to be the uni-
corn of scripture. The former is, I believe, peculiar
to Africa: it is never known in India, where the

THE RHINOCEROS.

5

one-horned rhinoceros alone is found. Its size is only-
inferior to that of the elephant, although it is con-
siderably smaller. Its bulk, however, is greater in
proportion to its height, and, from its superior cou-
rage and activity, it is a much more formidable crea-
ture. Its head resembles that of a pig, and it has
two small dull eyes which give it an appearance at
once stupid and intractable. Its length, not in-
cluding the tail, is from eleven, to twelve feet, and
the circumference of its body about the same ; though
it is said sometimes to exceed this standard. It occa-
sionally attains to the height of seven feet, and is
amazingly strong, while its skin is so hard and thick
as to be generally impervious to a musket ball. The
hide is curiously divided into sections, and the dif-
ferent divisions are adapted with such exquisite pre-
cision as to have the appearance, at a short distance,
of a beautiful coat of mail. It is extremely rough,
and offers so complete a resistance to the touch, as
not to yield in the slightest degree to the strongest
pressure. The only vulnerable parts are the belly,
the eyes, and near the ears.

This animal is of very sequestered habits ; it tra-
verses the most impenetrable jungles alone and is the
terror of every creature with which it comes in con-
tact, although it seldom attacks unless provoked by ag-
gression. The horn upon its nose, which is thick and
pointed, curves upwards towards the forehead, forming
an acute angle with the bone of the snout, and pro-
jecting from it about thirty inches. It is a most fear-
ful weapon ; so much so, that even the colossal ele-
phant has been occasionally laid prostrate by a well
b 3

6

SCENES IN INDIA.

directed stroke from the armed head of this terrible
adversary. The horn does not adhere to the bone,
but when the animal is in its ordinary state, stands
loose between the nostrils ; the moment, however,
that the rhinoceros is excited to resistance by the ap-
proach or attack of a foe, the muscular tension is so
great that the horn instantly becomes immovably
fixed, and he is able to dart it into the trunk of a
tree to the depth of several inches.

The upper lip of this animal is of great length and
remarkably pliant, acting like a short proboscis, by
which he grasps the roots of trees and other esculent
substances, and it is capable of contraction or expan-
sion as circumstances may require. “ With this lip,”
says Bruce, “ and the assistance of his tongue, he
pulls down the upper branches which have most leaves,
and these he devours first. Having stripped the tree of
its branches, he does not directly abandon it, but,
placing his snout as low in the trunk as he finds his
horn will enter, he rips up the body of the tree and
reduces it to thin pieces like so many laths ; and when
he has thus prepared it, he embraces as much as he
can of it in his monstrous jaws and twists it round
with as much ease as an ox would do a root of
celery.”

The female generally produces only a single young
one at a birth, which attains to a full state of ma-
turity in about fifteen years. The rhinoceros is of
a savage disposition and seems to exist merely to gra-
tify a voracious appetite. When excited, it displays
paroxysms of fury which render it highly dangerous
for any one to approach. As it is of a temper

THE COADUWAR GHAUT.

7

much less mild than the elephant, it is far more for-
midable when exasperated, on account of its greater
activity and more desperate ferocity. The voracious-
ness of this creature is extraordinary : it will consume
as much as an elephant. A young one, only two
years old, sent from Bengal in 1739, cost a thousand
pounds sterling for food, including the expenses of its
passage.

Before we entered the pass of the mountains which
separates them from the plains, we were obliged to
obtain permission from the Rajah of Serinagur to
visit his capital. This permission was readily grant-
ed, though it caused some delay, as the formalities
even of a petty Rajah’s court are invariably more
numerous than agreeable ; we nevertheless contrived
to spend the intervening time pleasantly enough
in the valleys through which our route lay to the
Coaduwar Ghaut. The Rajah sent an escort with
two hirkarrahs* to conduct us from this place, where
the mountains began to close in upon our path, ex-
hibiting to our view that grandeur of form and majesty
of aspect for which this mighty range is so preeminently
distinguished. At this pass, upon the summit of a
tabular hill which is ascended by steps cut in the
rock, is built a small neat village, flanked by a
strong barrier and gateway. The walls on either side
the portal are very massy and the entrance nar-
row. The valley by which the hill is immediately
bounded is protected towards the plains by a rapid
stream, which taking a circular direction nearly en-
closes it on two sides, rushing down into the lower
* A hirkarrah is a messenger.

8

SCENES IN INDIA.

valleys with a din and turbulence peculiar to mountain
torrents.

The gate of the village was guarded by a small de-
tachment of the Rajah’s troops, and on passing under
its low arch we entered the territory of Serinagur.
This village is quite deserted during the rainy season,
when the ghaut is rendered altogether impassable and
becomes the abode of tigers, leopards, bears, hyenas,
and other beasts of prey, which retire into the jungles
as soon as clearer skies and a more genial temperature
invite the return of man. Here the vakeel/'5' sent by
the Rajah, procured for us the necessary number of
diggeries and sillenies — the former to bear our pa-
lankeens, the latter to carry our baggage ; he was ex-
ceedingly civil and showed every disposition to di-
minish the difficulties which invariably arise to im-
pede the progress of the mountain traveller. In these
mountains especially there is generally a reluctance in
the natives to contribute to the accommodation of a
stranger, and it is no easy matter, at any time, to
obtain porters to transport his baggage. They are for
the most part a very indolent race, although accus-
tomed to encounter the severities of want and to un-
dergo occasionally the most difficult and arduous
labours.

The palankeen used in these hills is of a pe-
culiar construction and admirably adapted to the
asperities of the region. In the precipitous ascents
which here continually occur, the path frequently
winds round angles so abrupt and acute, that it would

The vakeel is literally an ambassador.

AGILITY OF THE SILLENIES.

9

be impossible to get round them with the ordinary
palankeen ; the poles, therefore, of those which are
adapted to mountain journeys are divided in the
centre, acting upon a movable hinge, opening be-
fore and behind the palenkeen as the front bearer
turns the sharp angle of a hill, and resuming their
original position as soon as the abutment has been
cleared and the path again becomes straight. It is
wonderful to see with what agility the sillenies scale
the steep acclivities, where there often appears scarce-
ly footing for a goat, with loads that would distress
any person of ordinary strength even upon level
ground: they carry with them bamboos crossed at
the top by a short transverse stick in the form of
the ancient Greek T, upon which they rest their
loads when fatigued. They are generally small men,
but their limbs are large and the muscles strongly
developed, from the severe exercise to which their
laborious employment subjects them. Their legs
are frequently disfigured by varicose veins which
dilate to the size of a man’s little finger, appearing
like cords twisted round their limbs and causing in
the spectator a somewhat painful feeling of appre-
hension lest they should suddenly burst,— a conse-
quence that could not fail to be fatal.

We found the road here to be difficult and fre-
quently dangerous, winding along the edges of deep
ravines and occasionally cut through the solid surface
of the rock. The waters of the Coah Nullah dashed
beneath our path over their narrow rocky bed, foam-
ing and hissing on their way to the parent stream, of
which they formed one of the numerous accessories.

10

SCENES IN INDIA.

The channel is occasionally almost choked with huge
masses of rock, which fall from the beetling precipices
above and so interrupt the course of the stream that
it boils and lashes over them with an uproar truly
appalling; especially when the traveller casts his
anxious eye upon it while crossing one of those frail
bridges over which he is so frequently obliged to pass
in a journey through these mountains.

We again met with some delay, in consequence of
the alarm of our servants at the aspect of the country.
Many of them refused to advance, and, notwithstand-
ing the civility of the Rajah’s vakeel in procuring us
porters, several of these quitted us shortly after we
left the Coaduwar ghaut, and we had great diffi-
culty in supplying their places ; and when this was
finally accomplished, it was not without resorting to
a compulsory mode of discipline which necessity only
could have warranted but against which there was
no alternative. Thus we were obliged to obtain by
stripes what we could not do by persuasion. We,
however, at length procured the number required,
over whom a vigilant watch was kept as we pro-
ceeded.

During our halt a circumstance occurred which I
confess I feel no little pleasure at having the oppor-
tunity of recording, as it is highly characteristic of the
skill of these mountaineers in baffling the ferocious
propensities of those animals by which they are so
perpetually threatened with mischief. I had entered
a deep dell with my gun, accompanied by two hill-
men, in order to try if I could not succeed in killing
some jungle-fowl which are here tolerably abundant.

ATTACK BY A BEAR.

il

though so wild as to render it a matter of no common
difficulty to get near them. After a long and fa-
tiguing walk, we ascended with some toil a very
sudden abruption of the mountain, when upon gain-
ing the summit, which overhung a precipice, a bear
started from a recess in the neighbouring covert and
advanced evidently with sinister intentions towards us.
I was about to fire, though my gun was only loaded
with large shot, when one of my highland guides mo-
tioned to me to desist, giving me to understand, by
significant gesticulations (for I understood his lan-
guage but very indifferently) that he would attack
the enemy unarmed ; and from the coolness and dex-
terity with which he commenced operations, I confess
I could not persuade myself to doubt of a favourable
result, in spite of the difficulties which seemed to defy
its accomplishment. Almost upon the extreme edge
of the precipice stood a tall tree with strong vertical
branches, apparently of the character though not the
form of the mountain-ash, being very tough and
elastic. The hill-man approached the bear and by
exciting it withdrew its attention from me towards
himself. The exasperated beast immediately made
him the object of attack, when the man adroitly
sprang on the tree, as nimbly followed by the bear.
The former having reached the upper branches, he
quickly slipped a strong cord over the top of the limb
upon which he stood, at the same time dropping the
reverse end upon the ground. This was instantly
seized by his companion, who, pulling with all his
strength, drew the point of the bough downward until
the branch projected nearly in a horizontal line from

12

SCENES IN INDIA.

the stem : there were no intervening branches betwixt
this and the precipice, the edge of which it nearly-
overhung when in its natural position. As soon as
the bough was warped to the necessary degree of
tension, the mountaineer crept cautiously as near the
extremity as he could with safety, followed as cau-
tiously by the bear ; but, the moment he saw his angry
foe upon the bent branch, he dexterously let himself
down by the cord to the ground. The bear, thus un-
expectedly deprived of its victim, attempted to turn,
in order to retrace its steps ; no sooner however had
it relaxed its grasp of the bough for this purpose, than
the hill-man suddenly cut the cord, which had been se-
curely tied to the stump of a tree, and the depressed
branch instantly gained its original position with an
irresistible momentum. The suddenness and vigour
of the recoil shook the bear from its hold, elancing it,
like the fragment of a rock from a catapult, into
the empty air ; uttering a stifled yell, it was hurled
over the precipice, and, falling with a dull crash upon
the rocks beneath, no doubt soon became a prey to
the vultures and jackals. The address with which
the bold highlander accomplished this dangerous ex-
ploit was as astonishing as it was novel.

In the course of our progress towards Serinagur,
we found all kinds of European trees and plants in
abundance. We saw sweet-briar, with and without
thorns ; walnut, maple, and willow-trees ; apple and
pear, peach, apricot, and barberry-trees ; birch, yew,
beech, pine, ash, and fir-trees : we saw likewise the
mulberry, laurel, hazel, and marsh-mallow. Rasp-
berries, strawberries, and gooseberries, abound in this

NULLAHS.

13

region, and flowers with which every European is fa-
miliar, the dog-rose, heliotrope, hollyhock, marigold,
nasturtium, poppy, larkspur ; lettuces, turnips, cab-
bages, and potatoes, are also very plentiful — indeed,
I think there is scarcely a European fruit, flower, or
esculent vegetable, that is not to be found in some
part or other of these mountains. We were told that
oaks were occasionally seen in the higher regions of
this immense chain, though we did not happen to see
any. The common stinging-nettle was very abun-
dant, though somewhat more potent in its powers of
infliction than the same plant so well known in Eu-
rope; and it was truly amusing to see with what
alacrity one or two Bengalee servants who had ven-
tured to accompany us, having unwittingly squatted
down upon a tuft of these insidious evergreens, sprang
upon their feet, gaping with inquisitive surprise at
the cause of their sudden celerity.

As we advanced, we crossed several nullahs in
which were huge disjointed masses that had fallen
from the superincumbent rocks, so rounded and po-
lished by constant attrition — for the extreme agita-
tion of the waters produced a perpetual whirlpool —
that one might have imagined they had been sub-
mitted to the process of human labour. During the
rains, by which the torrents are immensely swelled,
their agitation is inconceivably violent; in fact, the
impetus of the stream is then so great, that stones
of immense magnitude are washed from the mountains
and precipitated into the plains below.

By this time the difficulties of our route had con-
siderably increased : to look down some of the gaping
c

14

SCENES IN INDIA.

gulfs which arrested our gaze as we passed them, re-
quired no ordinary steadiness of brain, and the road
by which we had to descend was frequently so steep
that we were obliged to cling to the jagged projections
of rock or to the few stunted shrubs that appeared
here and there in our path in spite of the asperity
of the stony surface through which they with diffi-
culty forced their way. The prospect between those
lofty eminences which every now and then rose in
solemn grandeur before us, was sublime beyond concep-
tion : glens so dark and deep that the powers of vision
were baffled by their profundity, and the tall spires
which towered majestically above them, hooded by
light feathery clouds, presenting a contrast at once the
grandest and most picturesque, exhibited altogether a
scene of singular and wild magnificence. So awful is
the impression made by these stupendous objects,
that, were it not for the occasional relief afforded by
the gentler livery of vegetation which sometimes so
beautifully displays itself on these gigantic hills, the
traveller would find it almost impossible to proceed.
Impediments began now to multiply upon us : we
were obliged occasionally to wade through the nullahs
as high as our hips, and found it no easy matter to
keep our footing on account of the impetuous rush-
ing of the waters, while the circular stones with
which their channels abounded rendered them gene-
rally anything but easy to pass over. It is scarcely
possible to imagine the difficulty of crossing these
mountain-streamlets, and this is much increased by
the danger; the least slip would be attended with
imminent peril, for such is the force of the torrents.

NULLAHS.

15

that if the whole attention and strength of the tra-
veller were not employed, they would hear him off his
legs, and, once swept from his footing, there would
be scarcely a chance of saving him, for he would
be hurried over a number of low but dangerous falls
and dashed against the rocks beneath. The beds of
these nullahs are very irregular, and, though nar-
row, are generally deep, while the number of smooth
stones which have accumulated in them render the
footing so slippery as to require great circumspection
in order to secure a safe transit. One of our followers
was struck down by the impetuosity of the waters,
and was only saved by catching hold of the branch of
a tree that had fortunately fallen across the stream.
The roar of the torrents when .swollen by the rains is
so loud, that you can scarcely hear your own voice in
their vicinity, and, multiplied as it is by the reper-
cussion of the surrounding hills, it produces an un-
intermitting confusion of sounds as disagreeable as
they are stunning. Our ascent was at times so pain-
fully laborious that we scarcely advanced more than
half a mile in an hour. We pursued our journey in
silence and in weariness — there was not a smile upon
a single countenance ; on the contrary, the features
of every one bore an expression of deep solemnity.

It is surprising with what an imperturbable gravity
the traveller generally pursues his alpine journey ; he
is affected by far different feelings when scaling pre-
cipices, than when he is quietly traversing the plains
As he climbs those mighty steeps which appear as
if they were the pillars of the world he dwells in, the
deepest emotions are awakened ; there is an awe in-

16

SCENES IN INDIA.

spired by the grandeur of the scene around him of
which he cannot divest himself, for he seems to feel
as if he were in immediate communication with the
mysterious agents of the universe. He here., with a
subdued but gushing heart, “ looks through nature”
in her most stupendous sublimities “ up to nature’s
God/’ beholding him in the glorious works by which
he is himself surrounded, and feeling at once that he
is indeed a God infinite in wisdom and unapproach-
able in his omnipotence. Every sentiment seems to
converge into one focus, every mental association is
of one tone and complexion — in short, the whole mind
becomes rapt in one absorbing feeling of veneration.

We passed several villages as we advanced towards
Serinagur in which the houses were tolerably well
constructed, though huddled together without either
order or uniformity ; they were, however, upon the
whole, not deficient in accommodation. As in Sa-
voy and I believe in mountainous regions generally,
so in these mountains, the side of the hill commonly
forms one of the walls of the highlanders tenement,
against which the roof is fixed and supported by two
strong stone walls projecting at right angles from the
face of the hill ; the area being closed in by a third wall
completing the square. These houses are entered by
a low doorway, through which the inmates are obliged
to creep, the aperture not being high enough to admit
a child of more than three years old without stooping.

Our road now lay up a very precipitous mountain,
the bleak sides of which had been bared of vegeta-
tion by one of those conflagrations already noticed
and not uncommon in these regions. The charred

MOUNTAIN SCENERY.

17

stumps of trees were everywhere visible as we as-
cended, presenting an aspect at once of ruin and deso-
lation by no means cheering ; higher up, however, the
jungle remained entire. After slowly winding for
some distance between two hills, we entered a dense
thicket which day appeared never to have visited, for
it was involved in a perpetual twilight : the sun seemed
never to have penetrated its deep and gloomy re-
cesses. Though we could distinguish no distant ob-
jects we could still hear the roar of the cataract ; it
brawled hoarsely through the blast, which interrupted
only to bring it to the ear with more fearful in-
distinctness.

We now commenced a rapid and difficult descent ;
it led us into a valley overhung by the peaks of
mountains which seemed to plunge their tall spires
into the skies and absolutely to prop the firmament.
Here, on the bare and scarped sides of the precipice
above, pine-trees blasted or riven by the lightning
rattled their seared trunks in the wind, which, moan-
ing through them in low hollow gusts, seemed to a
saddened spirit like the wailing of the dead. Looking
at the sky from this dismal valley, as if from the
interior of a huge funnel, the stars were visible as
shining through a pall. The heavens appeared to be
one uniform tint of the deepest purple, whilst the bril-
liancy with which the stars emitted their vivid fires
altogether baffles description ; they shone intensely
bright, and, although it at least wanted two hours of
sunset, night seemed already to have established its
supremacy. Nothing could exceed the splendour of
the scene.

c 3

18

SCENES IN INDIA.

Emerging from this valley, we commenced another
arduous ascent, and although the summit of the hill
appeared to promise a cessation of our labours, yet we
had no sooner surmounted it than other hills rose
before us, thus presenting to our view an interminable
succession of difficulties.

So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,

Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;

But, those attain’d, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen’d way,

The increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes,

Hills peep o’er hills, and alps on alps arise.

A THUNDERSTORM.

19

CHAPTER II.

A THUNDERSTORM. GOITRES. AN ELK SHOT.

The third day after our departure from the Co-
aduwar ghaut we encountered a storm of thunder
and lightning such as can never be easily effaced from
my memory. On the morning of this day we had
observed that the motion of the clouds gradually in-
creased, the fleecy masses occasionally meeting and
variously blending with the sunbeams, from which
they reflected a great variety of beautiful tints ; thus
imparting an agreeable colouring to the surrounding
landscape. The sky was bright above us, though the
atmosphere was sultry and oppressive. The rack at
length spread over the hills, skimming rapidly along
their precipitous sides and occasionally rolling in un-
dulating volumes, deepening as it expanded upon their
bare or shaggy tops and assuming forms the most
singular and fantastic. In the course of a few mi-
nutes after we had observed this hurried gathering of
the clouds, without any further indication, the sky
became suddenly overcast, involving us in a gloom so
intense as to render every object within a few yards
of us perfectly indistinct. The rain quickly poured
down upon us in a deluge. We contrived to obtain

20

SCENES IN INDIA.

a tolerable shelter under a projecting ledge which
overhung a part of our path to the extent of several
feet. The lightning streamed from the clouds as from
a mighty reservoir, wrapping the whole mountains in
flame, and literally, in the words of Scripture, “ ran
along the ground.” The flashes were so quick in
succession that there was only the pause of a few
seconds between them, while the peals of thunder
which followed were almost deafening. The scene
was grand beyond description. The loud and suc-
cessive peals were multiplied to such a degree by
the surrounding echoes, that there was one continued
and tremendous crash of several minutes, and at the
first pause the silence was so intense as to be po-
sitively painful. The thunder was repeated from
rock to rock, rolling along the valleys as if subverting
the very bases of the hills, and finally hushing its
portentous roar in those interminable glens where the
eye cannot penetrate and even the contemplation of
which causes the brain to whirl. Though the storm
did not continue above a few minutes, it was never-
theless some time before we entirely recovered from
its effects ; it had, indeed, made a deep impression
on us all and was by far the most terrible, for the
time it lasted, I had ever witnessed. The atmos-
phere now quickly brightened; the clouds separated
before the sun which threw a clear flood of light upon
the dripping foliage whence it was cast back in num-
berless vivid reflections, while the retreating thunders
were heard only at a distance and after long intervals.
The heavy masses of vapour which had enveloped the

INDRA,

21

mountains shortly dispersed and there soon appeared
not a vestige of the late storm.

Evening was now approaching and its shades were
already beginning to deepen upon the surrounding
landscape. Before we had proceeded far, the setting
sun in his descent assumed a fiery glow that tinged
with the same vivid hue every object from which his
beams were reflected. The clouds which had gathered
on the horizon opened before his track, and through
the interval his rays streamed with the most dazzling
intensity: they were arrested by the tops of the
mountains and even the dark glens beneath caught a
portion of their departing radiance. The whole pro-
spect was for the moment brilliantly irradiated by the
same fiery beam. We were surrounded by mountains
that towered above each other to a prodigious altitude,
while the effect of the deep glow of the setting sun
upon these gigantic objects, contrasted with the clear
placid light of the snowy range, which was distinctly
visible, was as striking as it was beautiful.

Indra, god of the elements, is a deity highly vene-
rated in these hills. The various transformations of
this Hindoo Jupiter are related with great gravity by
the mountaineers. He is one of the chief heroes of
their mythology ; and where hurricanes are so frequent,
no wonder, according to their creed at least, that he

“ Who guides the whirlwind and directs the storm”

should be an object of especial veneration. One of his
incarnations is beautifully alluded to by Sir William
Jones in his spirited hymn.

22

SCENES IN INDIA.

“ The reckless peasant who these glowing flowers,

Hopeful of rubied fruit, had fostered long,

Seized and with cordage strong
Shackled the god * who gave him showers.

Straight from seven winds immortal genii flew :

Varuna green, whom foamy waves obey ;

Bright Vahni, flaming like the lamp of day ;

Kuvera, sought by all, enjoyed by few ;

Marut, who bids the winged breezes play ;

Stern Yama, ruthless judge ! and Isa cold.

With Nairrit, mildly bold : —

They, with the ruddy flash that points the thunder,

Bend his vain bands asunder.

Th’ exulting god resumes his thousand eyes,

Four arms divine, and robes of changing dyes.”

We had now advanced sufficiently far into the
hills, to witness one of the most grievous inflictions
to which the inhabitants of all mountainous dis-
tricts are subject. That huge wen known in the
Swiss alps under the name of goitre is here even
more prevalent ; it enlarges to an immense size, often
entirely encircling the neck, and giving an aspect of
the most revolting deformity to those miserable crea-
tures who are the objects of this dreadful visitation.
Some of these tumours were of such enormous dimen-
sions as to force the head considerably backward, at
the same time reaching nearly to the breast, while
the sickly hue of the complexion, and the squalid ap-
pearance altogether of those thus afflicted, excited an
emotion of disgust at once painful and irrepressible.

* Indra assumed the form of a shepherd-boy, and entering a
garden to steal pomegranate- blossoms for his beloved Indrani,
was seized and bound by the owner. This legend will remind
the classical reader of Ovid’s account of Bacchus bound by the
sailors. Met. lib. iii.

GOITRES.

23

These frightful excrescences are sometimes removed
with the knife by the native surgeons, who are much
more unskilful than the commonest farrier in Europe ;
they mangle dreadfully the patient upon whom they
operate, but it is astonishing how soon he recovers,
in consequence of the pure state of his blood arising
from the simplicity of his diet. So free are these
people from a feverish habit of body that after the
loss of a limb, which is removed by a most clumsy
and summary process, a poultice of turmeric combined
with a few herbs is applied, which occasions a gradual
suppuration and thus the stump heals in an incredibly
short space of time.

Early in the afternoon of this day we came to a
rude bridge which it was necessary to cross in order
to save a circuit of several miles. This we determined
to do, in spite of the hazard which is by no means
trifling to one unaccustomed to so novel a method
of transportation. The bridge consisted simply of
two ropes of about an inch and half in diameter made
of twisted creepers, eighteen inches apart, passed
through a hoop and secured on either side of the
stream by strong bamboos driven firmly into the earth
parallel to each other. The passenger places himself
between the parallel ropes within the hoop, on the
lower rim of which he is seated, and, holding a rope in
either hand, pulls himself across. To the hill-men this
is a sufficiently easy process and they perform it with-
out the slightest apprehension ; but to any one who
has never before trusted himself upon such an equi-
vocal machine, over a deep and impetuous torrent at
an elevation of from eighty to a hundred feet, it is a
matter of no ordinary periL Nothing can be well con-

24

SCENES IN INDIA.

ceived more appalling than, hanging over the tremend-
ous abyss supported by two small ropes and a hoop,
to cast the eye down upon the hissing flood beneath,
tossed and agitated into innumerable whirlpools by
the narrowness and asperity of the channel, the whole
machine fearfully vibrating and threatening to give
way at every impulse of the wind, which frequently
whistles over the trembling passenger with most me-
nacing violence.

We had scarcely reached the opposite side in safety,
when a fine elk started from a thick grove of trees on
the hill side, and was shot by two of our attendants
armed with matchlocks. This is the animal known
under the more generic name of the moose-deer. It
is an inhabitant, I believe, of the four continents,
though always found in hilly countries. Its habits
are gentle, and it is so timid that, when first started
from its covert, overcome by fear, it will fall upon its
knees and remain in that position for several seconds,
thus giving the hunter an opportunity of easily securing
his prey. But if this opportunity be lost, the vigor-
ous animal darts forward with a speed scarcely cre-
dible, defying all pursuit, and thus continues without
the least diminution of its progress to the distance of
many leagues. Though of the gentlest character, it
will defend itself with great energy when attacked,
using its horns with a dexterity that baffles the ap-
proach of dogs, which it gores or strikes with its fore-
feet with such force as frequently to lay them dead
upon the spot. It is usually about the size of a com-
mon English ox.

After a short progress we reached a chasm, above

PERILOUS DESCENT.

25

which the mountain rose to an immense altitude, and
we had to ascend its steep sides by a path so narrow as
only to admit one passenger in line. A broad cataract
bounded oyer the precipice, up the side of which we
were ascending. Just as we had reached the summit,
one of the sillenies dropped from his shoulder a small
portmanteau which fell into the gulf below. He ex-
pressed his determination to recover it by descending,
although the depth was at least two hundred feet, and
accordingly prepared to accomplish his resolution. A
stout cord, composed of hair, was passed round the limb
of a tree that projected over the precipice. The end
was firmly tied to a thick bamboo, about fifteen inches
long, upon which the man placed his feet, and, grasp-
ing the rope in both hands, was slowly lowered into
the void. As the face of the precipice sloped gradually
inward, he was not within reach of it during the whole
of his descent. When about fifty yards below the
summit, he was swayed in an alarming degree by the
wind, which, pouring down into the chasm and not
finding a ready vent, was forced back again in strong
eddies that seemed at times to whirl him round with
dangerous velocity. He, however, still maintained his
hold until he appeared but a speck, when the cord
slackening, it was clear that he had reached his des-
tination, After a short time, upon a signal being
given from below by a sudden jerk of the cord, the
men above began to haul up their companion, who,
from the additional weight, had evidently recovered his
burden. They pulled him up much more expeditiously
than they had let him down, and he soon appeared
uninjured with the portmanteau upon his shoulders.

D

26

, SCENES IN INDIA.

On the sixth day after we quitted Hurd war, we
entered Serinagur. During the whole march of the
preceding day the snowy range had been distinctly
visible,, looking like a white drapery hanging from the
skies over the blue tops of the distant mountains.
It seemed perfectly detached from the hills, above
which it rose to an elevation that appeared to blend
it with the heavens, whilst its surface of unsullied
whiteness, catching the rays of the sun, reached the
eye through the distance, softened into a purity of
effect that carried the imagination to a world un-
known to man, of which it seemed to form a part.
The impression conveyed by a scene at once so novel
and imposing, was solemn in the extreme.

Shortly after our arrival at Serinagur, we were
introduced to the Rajah. We found him an intel-
ligent person, courteous in his manners, and of easy,
unembarrassed address. His countenance indicated
no peculiar trait of character, yet was by no means
deficient in intelligence. His manners inspired con-
fidence and he received us with an undissembled
welcome. He was frank and free, though somewhat
effeminate, giving great attention to his dress which
was evidently arranged with extreme care. He wore
large gold bangles on his wrists, while his fingers were
covered with rings of different shapes and weight,
composed of the same metal.

The inhabitants of Serinagur appear to be a mixed
race, exhibiting in their features the blended linea-
ments of highlander, lowlander, Patan, Tartar, Chi-
nese, and Hindoo ; and often showing the especial
peculiarities of those several races. Their complexions

THE RAJAH OF SERXNAGUR.

27

are swarthy, though in a slight degree, and they have
very little heard ; yet when they possess more than
the usual superfluity it is a good deal prized by them.
They are, upon the whole, a mild, inoffensive race, and
though not deficient in courage to make resistance
when attacked, they have displayed very little in-
genuity in devising the most effectual means of de-
fence, considering the advantages which their moun-
tains afford them.

On the second day after our arrival the Rajah paid
us a visit in form, accompanied by the principal officers
of his court. There was, however, very little cere-
mony observed upon what might be considered a state
occasion, — for he came in full court costume. At our
first visit we had presented him with a pair of pistols
and a watch; the latter he now brought with him,
requesting us to explain how it performed its move-
ments and how the different divisions of the day
were indicated on the dial, as he had never before
seen such a machine, although he had heard its powers
extolled by those who had descended into the plains
and there held intercourse with Europeans. He was
highly gratified when made thoroughly to compre-
hend the complicated structure of the watch, and this
he readily did, for he was by no means slow of com-
prehension. Indeed, a quickness of perception is a
general characteristic of the Hindoo of every denomi-
nation. I do not think that the mental qualities of
this highly gifted people have been hitherto suffi-
ciently appreciated. Their superstitions have too fre-
quently been the mask through which their intellec-
tual features have been scrutinized, and this medium

28

SCENES IN INDIA.

has deformed them instead of presenting a faithful
delineation.

After the powers of the watch had been explained
to the Rajah, a little gunpowder was presented to him,
with the strength of which he seemed surprised; as
that made by the natives is far less efficacious than
the powder manufactured in Europe. A charge was
put into the hands of his gun-bearer to load his mas-
ter’s matchlock with; but the man smiled at the small-
ness of the quantity and insisted upon doubling it.
He did so and the result was a recoil that instantly
laid him on his back; almost dislocated his shoulder
and so damaged the matchlock that he was obliged to
put it into the hands of an armourer. The astonished
servitor was now experimentally convinced that the
strength of the powder had not been exaggerated ;
though he confessed it with a very rueful countenance.
He affected; however, to treat the matter lightly, but
the rigidity of his smile betrayed the counterfeit,
while the grin upon the features of the bystanders
showed that they had little sympathy for his misfor-
tune. The Rajah was a good deal amused at the issue
of his servant’s obstinacy, and we shortly after parted
with mutual expressions of kindness and good wishes.

Before we quitted Serinagur we visited the Rajah’s
stable, in which was a beautiful animal of the bo-
vine species, called a yak. It is the domestic bull
of Tibet. I do not believe that a single specimen
of this creature now exists in Europe. In Tibet it is
found both in the wild and tame state, though chiefly
in the latter. As the wealth of the Tartar hordes con-
sists principally in their cattle, they have large herds.

THE YAK OF TARTARY.

29

These are their most valuable property,, for they live
almost entirely upon the milk. They sell the hair
of the yak to great advantage, as it is in much re-
quest throughout the countries immediately around
them.

This animal is about five feet high and has much
the form and bulk of a common English bull. The
chief point of dissimilarity between the yak and
every other animal of this genus consists in its sides
being covered with long glossy hair which extends
over the whole body, except the head and legs, and
hangs from the flanks quite down to the hocks. The
head is not so long as that of the English bull and
the ears are smaller. The horns are of greater length,
tapering from the skull to the extremities, and form-
ing a horizontal arch ; they gradually incline towards
each other until near the end, when they make a
sudden curve upwards. The forehead seems to pro-
trude considerably, but this is probably owing to a
thick tuft of curly hair which traverses it, partly
shading the eyes, and giving rather a heavy expres-
sion to the animal’s features. The eyes are large,
though not bright, and project boldly from the sockets,
without however conveying the disagreeable impres-
sion which a projecting eye-ball is apt to create ; as
the hair of the forehead neutralizes the unfavourable
effect.

The yak has all the genuine marks of high breeding
and unmixed blood. The nostrils are small but open,
the nose is also small and delicately shaped, present-
ing likewise that roundness and smoothness of surface
so common to animals of a pure breed. The neck
d 3

30

SCENES IN INDIA.

is short hut arched ; and, as in the Brahminee hull,
peculiar to Hindostan, there is a high hump between
the shoulders : this is coated with a profusion of short
curly hair, extremely soft and of a texture very dif-
ferent from that which covers the other parts of the
body. This soft fur, for such it really is, overspreads
the shoulders, and continues, though in less profusion,
along the back, extending to the root of the tail, which
is composed of an immense tuft of long bright hair
that almost sweeps the ground, and adds greatly to
the elegance of this singularly beautiful animal. It
is far more copious than the tail of the largest Eng-
lish cart-horse ; not so long, indeed, but much thicker,
while the hair is finer and more glossy, entirely en-
veloping the tail, and is as great an ornament to this
fine creature as a luxuriant head of hair to a hand-
some woman. In some of these bulls it is perfectly
white, every other part of the animal being quite
black, except the soft fur which covers the shoulders,
hump, and spine. This order is frequently reversed,
though occasionally the colours vary considerably ;
but black with white, as seen in the accompanying
engraving, is the most prevailing order, and I think the
most striking.

The legs of the yak are very short, while the
body appears disproportionably large from the profu-
sion of hair with which it is overspread. On some
of these animals this is so long as to trail upon the
ground, which gives an ungainly appearance to the
creature’s movements, as, when walking slowly, it
exhibits the creeping motion of a large reptile. The

THE YAK OF TARTARY.

SI

soft fur upon the hump and shoulders is manufactured
by the natives of Tibet into a fine but strong cloth,
and if submitted to the test of European skill, might
no doubt be made to produce a very superior fabric.
This animal is not generally fierce, but if intruded
upon by strangers, it sometimes manifests very for-
midable symptoms of impatience. It has generally
a sullen appearance, though that, I think, is greatly
caused by the projecting forehead, which tends to give
a stern aspect to the countenance. It, however,
certainly expresses no signs of gratification when ap-
proached by those with whom it is most familiar,
discovering none of those indications of pleasure so
generally evinced by other animals under similar cir-
cumstances. When excited it is not easily appeased,
and is exceedingly tenacious of injury, always show-
ing great fierceness whenever any one approaches who
has chanced to provoke it. The cow is called dhe, of
which the wandering Tartars have large numbers.
These Tartars, like the modern Bedouins and those
nomadic races of more primitive times which nearly
overspread the East, dwell chiefly under tents in the
hills or in the deserts, wander from place to place,
and have no means of subsistence but those supplied
by their flocks and herds.

The yak, which they pasture upon the tops of the
mountains and in the deep glens of Tibet, affords
them at once warm clothing and wholesome food.
They use it also as a beast of burden, and it answers
the purpose of the horse in transporting them over
those bleak and rugged mountains among which they

SCENES IN INDIA.

32

dwell, as it is very strong and sure-footed. It scarcely
ever falls, and when this does happen on steep decli-
vities where it is so generally employed, the accident
is almost invariably fatal. Instances of such casualties,
however, are rare.

The herdsmen commonly convert the hides into a
loose outer garment that covers the whole of their
bodies, hanging down to the knees, and it proves a
sufficient protection against the lowest temperature of
the cold and desolate region which they inhabit. It
furnishes at once a cloak by day and a bed by night.
The long hair, when carefully taken from the skin, is
skilfully manufactured into a sort of tent cloth which
is remarkably strong and quite impervious to the wet.
They convert the same material into ropes, which
are much stronger than those composed of hemp
and resist more successfully the influence of climate
and of friction. The yak’s tail is an indispensable
appendage to the costume of an Eastern court ; it is
used throughout India, and when not to be obtained
in sufficient quantities to answer the demand, is very
successfully imitated by those cunning artificers, who
are equalled only by the Chinese in these and similar
deceptions. The tails are converted into chowries,
a sort of whisk employed to keep off the flies and
musquitoes from the heads of those who can afford
such a luxury. The dhe, or cow of the yak, yields
a large quantity of milk, and this is so rich as to
produce better butter than that of any other of the
bovine species in Asia.

We were much gratified at having the opportunity

THE YAK OF TARTARY.

33

of beholding so fine a creature of its kind, as this
animal is seldom seen below the mountains of Tibet ;
no one, I believe, having yet thought it worth while
to introduce the breed into Bengal, and most pro-
bably the experiment would fail if attempted.

34

SCENES IN INDIA,

CHAPTER III.

THE GHOORKAS. COLONEL GILLESPIE. SIEGE OF

KALUNGA.

The independence of the Himalaya highlanders
has been considerably shaken by the tyranny of the
Ghoorkas, who, until dispossessed by the British go-
vernment in India, during the Nepaul war, had en-
tire possession of the southern side of these hills.
The political condition of those mountaineers, being
one of complete feudality, exhibited that want of
general unity so prevalent in the feudal system,
and which has always been the cause of much po-
litical mischief wherever it has prevailed. The
whole district, which is of great extent, was divided
into numerous petty states, each governed by an in-
dependent chief, and, as many of these rulers were
little better than semi-barbarians, plunder was with
them an honourable acquisition. Thus they were con-
tinually levying contributions on each other, the
weakest upon the strongest, and were consequently
involved in perpetual hostility.

In this condition of things, when the whole social
system among them was in a perpetual state of jar-
ring oscillation, accelerated by the stern and uncul-
tured habits of the people, they were in a position to

THE GHOORKAS.

35

receive any ruler who should have the boldness to
scale their mountain fastnesses and dictate laws to
a community ready to obey any new master who
should unite them under a less resolute but more
prosperous domination.

The Ghoorka state., lying to the westward of Ne-
paul, was many years ago governed by an enterprising
chieftain., who, determining upon the conquest of the
hill country, directed all his faculties and means to
this one object. He first subdued the fertile valley of
Nepaul, which was the key to his further conquests.
This valley contained a large extent of rich but un-
appropriated land, and promised, in the various pro-
ductions of its soil, an abundant harvest to the con-
queror. Upon the death of this chieftain, which hap-
pened not long after he had secured this important
conquest, he was succeeded by his son, a stern yet
enterprising warrior, who, pursuing his father’s inten-
tion with that vigour so natural to his character and
having now acquired a vast succession of means,
turned his arms against the petty sovereigns of the
hills, whom, after a short but spirited resistance, he
completely subdued. He was finally assassinated and
succeeded by an alien from his kindred, Ummur Sing
Thappa, who usurped the sovereignty both of the
Ghoorka state and of the mountainous districts on
that side. It was under the rigid yoke of this tyrant
that the hill-men suffered such a severe deprivation of
liberty and independence.

The Ghoorka soldiers, severely but ably disciplined
under experienced and sagacious leaders, are inferior
to none and superior to most of the Indian troops

36

SCENES IN INDIA.

who are unacquainted with the greater advantages
of European tactics. They exhibit a perfect heedless-
ness of danger, and a readiness to meet any foe who
may seek to be opposed to them. They consider
obedience the first duty of a soldier, and freely sa-
crifice their lives in discharge of their military obliga-
tions, an infraction of which they look upon as the
highest degradation. With no very accurate per-
ception of moral right, and yet with a very high sense
of moral obligation, they obey the dominant power by
whom their allegiance is demanded with an unde-
viating and patient fidelity which in general nothing,
not even the harshest treatment, can subdue. They
have a high sense of honour, seldom betraying the
trust reposed in them even by a stranger; while
their long career of victory and their known determi-
nation in maintaining their conquests, rendered them
no mean opponents to our armies during the Nepaul
war.

As a proof of the resolute spirit by which the
Ghoorka soldiers are actuated when engaged in de-
fence of their conquests, I need only mention a me-
morable instance that occurred in the year 1814. A
strong detachment, under the command of Colonel
Gillespie, one of the most spirited officers in the
British service, had been sent to besiege Kalunga,
a small hill-fort in the Dhoon, and during the
storming of which Colonel Gillespie was unhappily
killed. The garrison consisted of about three hundred
men, while the besiegers amounted to nearly three
thousand, commanded by brave and experienced offi-
cers. After a desperate struggle, and with immense

DEFENCE OF KALUNGA.

37

loss on the side of the besiegers,, the fort was aban-
doned by the survivors among the besieged, amount-
ing to seventy men out of three hundred, who, fight-
ing their way through different passes which had been
strongly guarded to cut off their retreat, eventually
effected their escape with the loss of very few lives.
Before daylight the officer who succeeded Colonel
Gillespie in the command entered the fort, of which
he took possession, though he found nothing but shat-
tered walls and blackened ruins covered with the dead
and dying. Here indeed was frightfully exhibited the
desperate resistance which had been made by a few
determined and but half-civilized soldiers against an
immensely disproportioned force, highly disciplined
and commanded by the ablest officers then under the
British government in the East. What the besieged
had done and suffered was incredible : they had dis-
played the highest endurance and the most indomi-
table courage. This was horribly apparent to the
victors : their ears were shocked by the dismal groans
of the dying, and their hearts saddened at the sight
of mangled limbs which had been torn from their
parent trunks by the bursting of the shells thrown
into the fort from the besiegers’ guns, and of disfi-
gured bodies lying black and putrid on the very spot
where they had fallen when struck down by the shot,
which was scattered like hail over their weak defences,
causing a most frightful carnage. The corpses of those
who had perished early in the siege and had been just
put under the surface of the ground, were seen pro-
truding through the earth from their superficial graves
in a revolting state of decay, exhaling the most

38

SCENES IN INDIA.

noxious odours and filling the air with the seeds of
pestilence. The bodies of women and children were
among the dead and dying, some frightfully mangled
but yet alive, and imploring most piteously for a drop
of water to slake the raging thirst that was consuming
them and adding an intolerable torment to their ex-
piring agonies.

All that humanity could suggest was done for these
unhappy sufferers, but so furious and deadly had been
the cannonading before the fort surrendered, that few
of the wounded survived. Upwards of a hundred dead
bodies were committed to the pile by our native
troops, and all the wounded put under the care of the
surgeon who accompanied the British forces, by whose
combined skill and attention several recovered, though
most of them died. There were but few prisoners
taken, and these were treated with great kindness, as
a mark of their captors’ respect for the bravery they
had displayed in defence of Kalunga, which has sel-
dom been equalled and never excelled in the annals of
Indian warfare. It may stand a fair comparison with
that so eminently signalised at the memorable siege
of Bhurtpore, where the veteran Lake received the
severest check experienced by him during his military
career in the East, where he won immortal renown.

On this occasion, though the Ghoorkas had met
with such severe losses, for they were defeated in
almost every quarter by the superior discipline of our
troops, still they manifested none of those symptoms
of vindictive hostility which they have been repre-
sented as evincing in an earlier age, and which is
common to many of the Indian races even at this day.

THE HILL-MEN.

39

They made no unjust reprisals ; they treated their
prisoners with extreme humanity, expressing every-
where the greatest confidence in the British officers,
whose superior tactics they extolled with the nohle
ingenuousness of a brave and generous enemy. One
instance of this confidence deserves mention. While
the cannonading was pouring death and devastation
into the fort at every discharge, a wounded soldier of
the enemy advanced to the breach and waved his
hand as a signal for a parley. The firing immediate-
ly slackened and he came within our lines, where he
was received with the greatest kindness. The lower
part of his face had been dreadfully injured by a
cannon-shot. He was immediately committed to the
surgeon’s care and eventually recovered, though after
a long and dangerous confinement. When perfectly
restored — in fact, as soon as he could safely travel —
he returned to his party with an exalted feeling of
patriotism which would have done honour to the
worthiest cause, to assist, as he said, the struggles of
his countrymen against their generous but national
enemies. These struggles lasted not long and the
mountaineers were soon released from the Ghoorka
tyranny.

The natives of this wild and inhospitable country
are in general not calculated to beget much sym-
pathy either by their habits or appearance. In some
districts there are, it is true, shades of difference, and
occasionally there will be found a fine specimen of
the hardy and generous mountaineer ; but these in-
stances are certainly not common. The men are for
the most part of small stature, though their limbs are

40

SCENES IN INDIA.

singularly muscular and elastic, betokening at once
great strength and activity. Their countenances are
not prepossessing ; and whilst their whole aspect ex-
cites rather a feeling of compassion for their civil
and social degradation, they confirm this unpleasant
impression by the mean servility of their address.
Even the higher classes of the peasantry, here called
zemeendars, who have extensive farms and contrive
to live in a state of great comparative comfort, are
scarcely better conditioned in a moral point of view
than the lowest of their dependants. They have the
same vices of meanness, servility, and falsehood ;
they lie, cheat, and rob, where they have the oppor-
tunity, as if to lie, cheat, and rob were the three car-
dinal virtues. Their ignorance often shames humanity,
and yet they possess in an eminent degree that well-
disguised cunning so common to the most degraded
intellects. They seek not to obtain knowledge, for
they have no sympathy with it; to them it would
be an unprofitable acquisition, a burden, from which
release is therefore a joy. Even the highest orders,
their princes, possess the elements of all these in-
firmities so conspicuous in the lower, and in propor-
tion to their power are these vile propensities the cause
of more or less mischief. They have no dignity of
character, being utterly without honour or principle.

I have mentioned the extreme muscularity of limb
possessed by these diminutive mountaineers, especially
the poorer among them ; indeed, their legs are gene-
rally disproportioned to their bodies, developing from
the ankle to the hip a compages of muscles that would
well become the members of a man six feet high.

THE HILL-MEN.

41

while their stature frequently does not exceed five.
The hardy habits of these people will readily account
for the extraordinary strength and size which their
limbs attain. Accustomed to toil from their in-
fancy up the mountain-steeps, and often with im-
mense burdens, their muscles acquire an elasticity and
power unknown in more level regions ; while the ex-
cessive cold to which they are so often exposed braces
and gives a tension to their fibres that enables them
to endure almost any severity of climate. A hill-man
will frequently carry a load of from ninety to a hun-
dred pounds weight to a distance of eighteen miles
over the most rugged paths where there appears
scarcely footing for a goat : he will scale the almost
perpendicular sides of hills and descend the most dan-
gerous steeps without apprehension and apparently
without difficulty. His dexterity is no less surprising
than his strength, and the occurrence of any serious
accident never appears to be contemplated. It is ad-
mirable to observe how the " human form divine” is
adapted to master the difficulties of situation and cli-
mate ; neither the asperities of the one nor the noxious
influence of the other prevent him from finding a home
with which he is content and in which he may be
happy. Locality has, it is true, a great influence upon
his moral and social condition ; he is nevertheless
everywhere the only creature that can surmount na-
tural difficulties and render this world, under its most
repulsive aspect, subservient to his wants : he is the
creature of all climates, of all regions and equally
wonderful in all.

The Himalaya mountaineers, in spite of their so-
e 3

42

SCENES IN INDIA.

cial degradation, are nevertheless in many respects an
extraordinary race. The moral elements, indeed,
exist among them, but these have not yet been ex-
cited into active and vigorous combination, for their
vices prevail so completely over their brighter quali-
ties, that the latter only occasionally scintillate through
an intellectual darkness which is all but complete.
The hill-man of this region is a slave to his passions
and to his selfishness, the latter of which is so in-
delible within him that nothing can dislodge it. He
is soon roused to anger and is then treacherous and
cruel. He seldom fails to commit the most brutal
excesses where the means are within his reach. He
will rob whenever he has the opportunity, and impu-
nity is his encouragement. He is not only violent
and hasty, but also crafty and revengeful, and so pro-
found is his duplicity, that he will frequently fawn
at your feet with the most cringing humility while
he holds the concealed dagger to plunge into your
heart. The worst features of the Asiatic character
are seen with most repelling prominence among the
inhabitants of these mountains, originally imbibed,
perhaps, in their occasional intercourse with the plains,
and distorted into the wildest extremes by that im-
punity which is the curse of humanity and the pri-
vilege only of savages. Their princes offer them but
a bad example by entertaining among themselves
the deadliest animosities and displaying all the fe-
rocious features so prominent in the feudal system in
Europe during the middle ages. They acknowledge
no law but the sword, no virtue but retaliation, no
honour but revenge. So implacable sometimes are

THE HILL-MEN.

43

the feuds, even between the families of less distin-
guished note among them, that they are quenched
only by the extermination of one or the other ; while
individual cases of revenge are scarcely less frequent
and, perhaps, no less sanguinary than are to be found
among the more brutalized population of central Africa.
They who, from their superior birth and wealth, can
command the devotion of their retainers by paying
them the wages of plunder, attack and pillage their
weaker neighbours, leaving them to their retaliation
when they shall have acquired the means. They are
almost invariably cruel and tyrannical masters, but
to their superiors in power fawning and meanly sub-
servient.

“ The inhabitants of Nawar and Teekur,” says
Mr. Fraser, “ are notorious for infamy of character
even in this country, where all are bad. They are
revengeful and treacherous, deficient in all good qua-
lities, abandoned in morals and vicious in their habits.
As a proof of the savage indifference with which they
look on the life of another and on the act of shedding
human blood, it is said that mere wantonness or a joke
will induce the crime of putting a fellow-creature to
death, merely for the satisfaction of seeing the blood
flow and of marking the last struggles of their victim.
Female chastity is here quite unknown, and murder,
robbery, and outrage of every kind are regarded with
indifference. They are generally unpleasing in ap-
pearance, mean, grovelling, cowardly, and cruel. It
would seem as if the faint approaches they have
made towards civilization, had only awakened the
evil passions and propensities of the mind, which yet

44

SCENES IN INDIA.

remains quite uncontrolled by, and ignorant of the re-
straint of religion and virtue. They have lost what-
ever native virtue may have existed in the savage
state, and have not acquired that which would pro-
bably result from a happy, free and liberal intercourse
with civilized beings/'

The sillenies, or porters, a numerous class among
the poorer population of these mountains, are so lazy
as to require to be frequently urged forward by the
rod, for they are deaf to persuasion. So great is their
apathy, that they will often lay down their burdens
in the most rugged passes and extend themselves upon
the edge of a precipice where the slightest change
of position would be inevitable destruction ; and
they submit to the severest castigation before their
apathy is overcome or their latent passions can be
roused. There are, it must be confessed, numerous
exceptions, and these dark traits are perhaps to be
accounted for by the tyranny to which they have so
long been subservient, their excessive poverty and the
barbarous ignorance in which they are suffered to
live.

The Himalaya women are generally well favoured.
They are neither so short of stature, nor so mean of
aspect as the men. Their figures are finely propor-
tioned, while their features possess that delicacy of
proportion and softness of texture so peculiar to Hin-
doo females in their youth. They are much fairer than
the women of the plains, being seldom darker than
a native of Italy or Spain. They, however, soon
lose their beauty, growing almost hideous in age.
This loss — always a natural source of regret to the

HIMALAYA WOMEN.

45

gentler sex in every country — is perhaps accelerated
by constant exposure to the climate they live in,
which is remarkable for very sudden and severe
changes of temperature. Here they are not secluded
as among the higher castes of Hindostan, and that
fierce jealousy which is a dominant feeling of the
Hindoo is entirely unknown in these hills,, where the
women enjoy a liberty as morally pernicious as it is
socially degrading and of which they avail themselves
to the fullest extent. They mix with the men without
the slightest reservation/ and this unlimited freedom
of intercourse gives them a confidence and self-posses-
sion before strangers peculiar only to the highest classes
of their sex in the most civilized countries.

The wives and daughters of these highlanders are
their most valuable property : they labour in the farms
with the ardour and address of men, and are thus
wholly free from the slavish seclusion to which Hindoo
and Mahomedan women are usually subjected. Their
moral relaxation, however, subjects them to an evil
worse than bondage. They soon exchange the deli-
cate feelings of their sex for those which reduce them
from all that is lovely in woman, to all that is de-
based. Chastity with them has neither

“ A local habitation nor a name,”

They are, however, neither beloved nor honoured by
the men, who, though they set no value upon chas-
tity, cannot regard those who uniformly violate it.
Thus, though they do not check the sensuality of
their females, they nevertheless do not respect it.
The permission to do wrong does not always imply

46

SCENES IN INDIA.

approbation, since a man, whose code of morals is
loose or limited, may permit what he does not com-
mend. The fact- is, their apathy renders them in-
sensible to those active jealousies which rage among
the fiery temperaments that are warmed by a more
glowing sun and fanned by more genial breezes.
They therefore look without emotion upon what they
probably neither honour nor approve. This indif-
ference on one side and utter absence of chastity on
the other, are supposed to be the proximate cause of
one of the most singular and revolting customs to be
found in the history of man ; but I should rather con-
sider them as the effect. These highlanders have almost
in every district of this vast range of mountains a com-
munity of wives. The women are in fact polyandrists,
as the Mahomedans are polygamists. One wife is
often the common property of several brothers who
are each legally bound to her by an indissoluble civil
contract. They live in perfect harmony together,
and it is surprising how rarely any difference occurs ;
for notwithstanding this debasing communion, they
are governed by social laws to which they adhere
with a scrupulous exactness utterly irreconcilable to
such lax morality. The first child becomes the pro-
perty of the elder husband, and so in rotation.

The general notions of these people regarding female
virtue may be inferred from their admission of a prac-
tice so degrading to humanity, but its origin is perhaps
to be looked for in causes remote and not immediately
apparent. The practice of female infanticide among
the Rajpoot tribes must have necessitated the search
after wives from among those races claiming the

POLYANDRY.

47

nearest kindred with themselves, where they might
be the most readily found. As the Himalaya moun-
taineers, on the southern side, claim an affinity with
the Rajpoots, the draughts of women from the former
to supply those which have been immolated in obe-
dience to the barbarous prejudices of a proud but no-
ble race, whose customs, however sanguinary, are
inviolable laws to them, may account for that paucity
of females in the mountains which renders polyandry
a necessary evil. Certain it is, that the daughters
of these highlanders are frequently taken to the plains
and disposed of for prices according as the promise
of beauty is greater or otherwise ; so that the defi-
ciency caused by this singular trait of sordidness and
parental indifference, may account for a practice which
however revolting to our better feelings, becomes a
matter of civil expediency. The Rajpoot immola-
tions* must reduce that tribe to the necessity of seek-
ing for wives somewhere ; and if it be a matter of
uncertainty whence they obtain them, the existence
of polyandry among the inhabitants of the Himalaya
mountains appears to me at once to solve the problem.

* Until within the last thirty years, it was a practice among
the Rajpoot tribes to destroy their female children as soon as
they were born, lest their parents should not be able to find them
suitable alliances. This horrible custom was suppressed through
the instrumentality of Mr. Duncan, formerly Governor of Bom-
bay, and, I believe, no longer exists.

48

SCENES IN INDIA.

CHAPTER IV.

HOUSES OF THE HILL-MEN. CIVILIAN IN CALCUTTA.

It is remarkable that a race so degraded in morals
as the Himalaya mountaineers, and whose general
habits are so remote from those of a civilized people,
should occasionally assume an external refinement, to
which nations standing much higher in the scale of
positive civilization, are comparatively strangers. Not-
withstanding their brutal habits in other respects and
the cringing servility with which they approach a su-
perior, or any one who has the means of benefiting
them, they have, nevertheless, an ease and amenity
of manner not at all inferior to the highlanders of
European countries. Their address is commonly free
and unembarrassed, except when they have any ul-
terior object in view, in which case they exhibit all
the mean humiliation of semi-barbarians. They are
for the most part comfortably clad and their houses
well constructed, clean and convenient, by comparison
with those of the poor who inhabit the Alps or the
highlands of Scotland. The very lowest among them
are indeed an exception, for poverty and destitution
are peculiar to no country but known in all.

The farmers of these mountains display no little
skill in agriculture when the stubborn nature of the

HOUSES OF THE HILL-MEN.

49

ground which they have to till and the natural diffi-
culties of situation are considered. It is surprising
to see the steep sides of hills, so rugged and precipitous
that you would scarcely suppose they could be adven-
tured on by the foot of man., covered with the ripen-
ing harvest,, the fruits at once of his agricultural skill
and of his laborious industry. The rough rocks and
shaggy steeps are converted into fruitful fields ,* “ the
pastures are covered with flocks., the valleys also are
covered with corn and it is one of the most gratify-
ing sources of reflection, in a region where the natural
and moral features are generally so repulsive, to find
that man, even in his lowest state of social degra-
dation, has still something to exalt him in human
estimation.

The houses of the hill-men are upon the whole to-
lerably convenient, and with reference to the general
habits of their occupants, sufficiently clean. They
consist of two or more stories, the lower appropriated
to lumber and stabling for their cattle, the higher
to the dwelling of the family. The rooms are floored
with planks, I think of pine, well fitted and planed ;
they are not large, but very conveniently disposed
so as to admit light to the best advantage and ex-
clude cold. The windows, which are merely small
apertures in the wall, always open on the shel-
tered side of the house, and the builders never in-
troduce more than absolutely necessary. In order to
shut out the cold, as their windows are not glazed and
they have no substitute for glass, they cover them at
night with a piece of thin board very accurately fitted,
which answers the purpose exceedingly well. The

50

SCENES IN INDIA,

walls of their houses are plastered with mud., upon
which are frequently painted some of the strange
figures represented in their barbarous mythology.
The fireplace is always in the centre of the room and
consists merely of a stone hearth upon which the fire
is kindled, and as there is no chimney, the smoke
finds egress through the windows ; hut as these are
extremely small the sooty exhalation becomes intoler-
able, except to those familiarized to it by long habit.
The family all sleep together on one bed, which consists
of a layer of soft grass spread in a corner of the room
under the windows, so as to be sheltered from the
night-air which cannot be entirely excluded. The
only furniture in these houses is a few earthen vessels
of various sorts and for different purposes. The ascent
to each story is by a thick pole notched at intervals
of about a foot, which the inmates ascend with quick-
ness and dexterity.

Although tolerably clean, it is impossible to exclude
from these mountain-abodes the vermin that abound
in this region to such a degree as to prove an intolerable
nuisance to strangers. The natives, however, seem
to consider this visitation rather an advantage than
a nuisance, as the insects continually swarming over
their bodies excite an irritation on the skin which
prevents the superficial circulation from languishing
and thus leaving that torpor so common in a cold
climate, unless the circulation be kept in constant
activity. When their bodies are so covered that the
accession becomes troublesome, they plunge into water
with their clothes on, thus destroying in a few mo-
ments myriads of these importunate visitants.

A BENGAL CIVILIAN.

51

The contrast between the mansion of an aristocratic
civilian in Calcutta and the rude cottages of these
hardy mountaineers is sufficiently striking. The for-
mer has everything around him which wealth can
procure. Seated on an easy chair of the coolest con-
struction, one leg carelessly thrown upon a handsome
mahogany table, the other languidly resting on a
costly morah,* * * § he smokes his hookah in all the indo-
lent luxury of a temperature of ninety-four degrees.
His sircar t advances with a profound salaam to re-
ceive his orders for the day ; the hookahbadarj stands
ready to replace the exhausted chillum, the peadah§
to bear his master’s commands wherever he may
choose to have them conveyed, and the punka-bearer
to fan him with the broad leaf of the palmyra. Every
want is anticipated : all he has to do for himself
is to think, and as soon as his wishes are expressed
they are executed. His hair is dressed, his beard
shaved, his feet are washed, and his nails pared, by
his ready attendants. When he lolls on his couch,
he is fanned by an obedient Mussulman or Hindoo ;
when he sleeps, a yak’s tail is waved over his head
in gentle and cooling undulations to keep off the
obtrusive musquitoes, which would otherwise “ mark
him for their own j” when he retires to his nightly
repose, he is undressed by his obsequious valet, and
when he rises from his luxurious slumbers he is

* Footstool,

t The sircar is a sort of house-steward.

$ The hookahbadar always stands behind the hookah, so that
he does not appear in the engraving.

§ The peadah is a running-footman.

52

SCENES IN INDIA.

dressed by the same hand. When he goes abroad he
is borne on the shoulders of four sturdy retainers and
attended by as many more; or, when he chooses to
go on foot — covered by a chatta,* which glitters with
its costly array in the sunbeams, and followed by a
host of servitors of various ranks and designations —
his walk for pleasure or for exercise is a positive pro-
cession.

To the Himalaya hill-men such luxuries are un-
known ; they, however, in their wild but picturesque
abodes, perched upon the crest of a mountain hanging
over the roaring torrent and deriding, as it were, the
earthquake and the storm, are far higher objects of
human sympathy than the mere sybarite, who is
rather the victim of civilization than a living evidence
of its triumph. In these mountains a solitary dwell-
ing is seldom seen ; the houses are clustered together
in tens and twenties upon the faces of the hills,
dotting their dark shaggy sides and forming compact
villages which impart an agreeable variety to the
prospect. Every village has its temple, which is al-
ways a rude structure, though devoid neither of ele-
gance nor of just architectural proportions. These
humble sanctuaries sometimes tower to the height
of from sixty to seventy feet, and are divided into
several stories. The means of ascending from one
story to the other are the same as in the houses, by
a pole deeply notched, which serves as a ladder. The
religion of these children of the hills seems to be a
blending of that of all the different Hindoo sects,
while their priests appear no better instructed in

* An umbrella.

SINGULAR MODE OF SEPULTURE.

53

the Shasters, Vedahs and Puranas,* than them-
selves.

In some districts of these mountains they have a
most singular mode of sepulture. When a person
dies and leaves behind him the means of paying for
an expensive funeral, it is the practice to treat his
corpse in a manner which most wealthy persons, I
should imagine, would rather shrink from with
horror than anticipate with satisfaction. They first
carefully wash the body, and after having prepared
it for the principal process with a variety of cere-
monies, they cast it into a huge mortar, where they
reduce it, bones and all, to a thick pulp, which is
rolled up into small balls ; these are taken to a spot
consecrated for this particular purpose, and strewed
upon the ground, when they are instantly devoured
by kites which always hover about these places of
interment in great numbers. Those kites are con-
sidered sacred by the priests, who regularly feed them,
as to those holy men they are a source of no small
emolument. There are certain persons appointed to
watch these birds, lest they should be driven from
their favourite haunts, or otherwise molested. No
one but their accredited guardians are permitted
to approach them, though this precaution scarcely
seems necessary, for the superstition of the popu-
lace is so great, that they would consider it an act
of the most flagrant impiety to intrude upon the
retreat of those feathered anthropophagi. To be
“ emboweled” in the maws of the sacred kites is a
very expensive mode of sepulture, and is entirely
* The sacred books of the Hindoos.

F 3

54-

scenes IN INDIA.

confined to the higher classes. The poor are buried
in various ways : sometimes they are burned, some-
times cast into the nearest river, and they are not
unfrequently left upon the peak of some solitary
mountain to be devoured by the vultures.

In certain districts the inhabitants expose the bodies
of their friends and relations in a similar manner to be
eaten by carnivorous creatures, with only this differ-
ence, that the corpses are laid out with great ceremony
within a walled area, being placed upon iron gratings
over a deep vault and left uncovered, in order that
they may be the more readily devoured. A similar
practice prevails among the Parsees at Bombay, who
are a remnant of the Guebres, or ancient fire-wor-
shippers. In order to exclude the horrible sight of
the carnival within, those cemeteries are surrounded
by a lofty wall, in which there is a large aperture to
admit dogs, jackals, and other beasts of prey, that
crowd daily in great numbers to these disgusting re-
ceptacles for the dead.

The animals found in the Himalaya mountains are
neither so numerous nor so fierce as those on the
plains. In the lower regions of the hills the elephant
is sufficiently common and the rhinoceros is some-
times seen, though not frequently. Tigers and leo-
pards inhabit the forests but rarely frequent the
higher situations. There are deer of various sorts
and very numerous. Wild hogs are by no means
rare, though neither so large nor so fierce as in the
level country. Buffaloes are also indigenous to this
sequestered region, but they confine themselves to
the bases of the mountains. Hares, monkeys, jack-

THE MUSK-DEER.

55

als, foxes, likewise find a refuge in these hilly soli-
tudes.

“ Fierce o’er the mountain stalks the ravenous tiger,

Or lurks in gloomy caves ; through the thick grass
Coils the vast serpent, on whose painted hack
The cricket chirps, and with the drops that dew
The scales, allays his thirst. Silence profound
Enwraps the forest, save where babbling springs
Gush from the rock, or where the echoing hills
Give back the tiger’s roar, or where the boughs
Burst into crackling flame, and wide extends
The blaze the dragon’s fiery breath has kindled/’ *

The trees in these regions are sometimes of enor-
mous size, occasionally measuring twenty feet in girth,
towering to a height of more than a hundred and
fifty, and exhibiting a sheer branchless trunk at least
sixty feet high, surmounted by a vast crest which
waves like a gigantic canopy above it, projecting its
mighty shadow in the calm clear light of the setting
sun and wrapping in solemn shade the scarped and
precipitous sides of the neighbouring hill. Everything
here is, in fact, on so immense a scale, that all mi-
nuter objects are lessened to a degree hardly to be
conceived. At a short distance, a man seems dwindled
to a mere puppet, while horses and oxen appear
scarcely bigger than dogs.

The most singular animal known in these hills is
the musk-deer, a creature timid and wild to excess;
it lives secluded from the sight of man, and indeed of
every other animal but its own species, inhabiting the

* “ Specimens of the Hindoo Theatre,” translated from the
original Sanscrit by Horace Hayman Wilson, Esq., Professor of
Sanscrit at the University of Oxford.

56

SCENES IN INDIA.

most inaccessible heights and living among glens and
precipices that defy the approach of human foot, in
a neighbourhood where the cold is intense and the
snows are eternal. It is seldom seen at an altitude
lower than twelve thousand feet above the sea., though
sometimes forced to quit the heights in search of pas-
ture, which is scanty in proportion as the snowy re-
gions are approached.

The musk-deer, when full grown, is about the size
of a calf six months old ; it is singularly shaped, hav-
ing a head which much resembles that of a wild hog,
while its feet are precisely those of a deer. The snout
is sharp and the countenance wrinkled ; the eye small,
dark, bright, and full. From the upper jaw two long
tusks project, pointing downwards in a gentle curve
and extending several inches beyond the lower man-
dible. This animal is extremely active, and so shy
that it is difficult to be met with, and no less diffi-
cult to be secured when killed ; for its general haunts
are so sequestered and often in such inaccessible
places, that if shot, even the hill-men sometimes dare
not venture to approach their quarry. The musk
is contained in a small bag under the belly and this
bag is cut from the creature alive ; for it is said that,
should the animal be killed before the bag can be dis-
engaged from its body, the musk is almost instantly
taken up by the absorbents, which so taints the flesh
that it is rendered unfit for human food. The musk-
deer is so scarce that, whenever one is seen, the whole
population of the district quit their homes to join in
the chase and it is at least an equal chance whether
the anxious object of pursuit is taken or escapes.

THE RUTNAL.

57

The musk of this animal is very expensive and dif-
ficult to be procured in its genuine state, as the na-
tives manufacture a counterfeit article, which is ex-
ported in immense quantities to China, through Tibet,
and to the plains of Hindostan.

There are several birds peculiar to these mountains,
and among the most remarkable is the rutnal. It is
very large and more beautiful than the pheasant, of
which it is a species ; it exceeds the latter in size
and is less delicately shaped, though greatly surpass-
ing it in splendour of plumage. The body is en-
tirely of a deep brilliant blue, without the slightest
variation of tint; while the neck is of an intense
purple so richly blended with green and scarlet as
to glisten in the sun’s rays, and throwing off a
continued succession of scintillations which sparkle
like a glory round it. The back, when uncovered
by the wings, is white : and as soon as the bird
takes flight it spreads out a copious tail, the feathers
of which are a bright cinnamon-colour. There is a
large tuft on the head, beautifully variegated, which
it can erect or depress at will, forming a graceful
crest and adding greatly to the splendour of the
neck and breast. At the moment of taking wing
the rutnal gives a soft, clear whistle which is heard
at a considerable distance. This bird is exceed-
ingly wild and therefore not frequently met with ;
like the musk-deer, it lurks in the highest recesses of
the mountains, seeking the most sequestered spots
and delighting in the dreariest solitudes, where hu-
man foot seldom dares to penetrate. From this cause
it is rarely to be obtained. Its flesh is said to be

58

SCENES IN INDIA.

delicate above that of every other game bird, though
many of the natives who have passed a tolerably
long life in the vicinity of its haunts have never en-
joyed the luxury of tasting it. There are several
birds of the pheasant species in these lofty districts,
but none so beautiful in plumage or so much esteemed
for the table.

Another bird is found here, less difficult of approach,
but, perhaps partly for this reason, much less highly
esteemed. The cock-bird is as large as a common
dunghill-fowl, with a clear brown plumage and a
small delicate head something resembling that of the
rock-pigeon. It is by no means scarce, but in every
respect inferior to the pheasant.

The hill-partridge abounds in the mountain-forests,
and I know of no game so exquisite in flavour. It is
moreover a very graceful bird, having a much more
delicate form than the common partridge and bearing
a nearer resemblance to the quail, which, however, it
far exceeds in richness of plumage : this is greatly va-
ried, though red and black prevail. It has a singular
habit of basking in the sun covered with dust, appear-
ing like a dry molehill until disturbed, when it rises
with a sudden bound, shakes off the dust, expands its
beautiful wings in the sunbeams, as if conscious of
the splendour in which nature had arrayed it, and
disappears in the impenetrable recesses of the forests.

The black partridge so general throughout India is
equally plentiful in these hills : the flesh of this bird
is likewise very delicate and the plumage far su-
perior to that of the common partridge of Europe. The
jungle-fowl, of which I have before spoken, are also

BEES.

59

numerous, though so wild that they are not easy to
be approached. They seldom fly, but run into the
thickest parts of the jungles where it is impossible to
follow them. The only way to obtain a shot at them
is to watch just after daybreak at the edge of the
forests, from which they come in great numbers to
feed ; they are then easily killed. Like most of the
game birds in these high regions, their plumage is
richly varied and their flesh delicately flavoured.

In our progress from the plains to Serinagur we
were much struck with the simple manner in which
the mountaineers manage their bees, and of these
they generally possess numerous swarms. They de-
vote great attention to them, repaying the labours
of these industrious insects with great kindness and
care. In this respect, if in no other, our rustics might
learn from them a valuable lesson. As honey forms
a favourite article of food among the Himalaya
highlanders, they have a very extensive sale for it ;
it is therefore with them a great article of internal
commerce, in fact, the staple of their bazaars, where
it always finds a ready vent. They obtain the honey
without destroying the bees by means of a hollow
cylinder of wood inclosed in the wall of their huts
on the side most sheltered from the weather, and in
which there is an opening without for the bees to
enter. In the centre of this hive there is a move-
able division which is kept open while the bees are
making their honey ; but, as soon as the combs are
full, the busy family is driven out by a noise made
through the inward extremity. As soon as they have
retreated, the central partition is closed and the combs

60

SCENES IN INDIA.

are drawn out of the cylinder from the opening on the
inner wall. The honey being secured, the hive is
again opened and the bees commence their intermin-
able labour of reproduction.

Serinagur, where we halted, is the capital of Gur-
whal and situated on the south bank of the Alaca-
nanda river, which is the main stream of the sacred
Ganges, about seven leagues above its junction with
the Bhageruttee, where a belt of level ground extends
to a distance of several miles, forming the beautiful
valley of Serinagur. This city was once a place of
considerable importance and a mart for the produc-
tions of the countries on either side of the Snowy
Mountains. It was dreadfully shattered by an earth-
quake in the year 1803. Since that time it has been
in a state of comparative decay, and will most probably
never be restored.

NUJIBABAD,

61

CHAPTER V.

NUJIBABAD. NUJIB UD DOWLAlPs TOMB.

After remaining a few days at Serinagur, where
we were treated with great kindness by the Rajah,
we set out on our return towards the plains. We
reached Nujibabad in about four days, pitched our
tents and made a short stay there. It is a small
town built by Nujib ud Dowlah, a Rohilla chief
of some note in his day, for the purpose of attract-
ing the commerce between Cashmere and Hindostan.
It is situated about twenty miles to the south-east
of Hurdwar, and is ninety-five miles from Delhi. It
was a place of some importance, though since the
earthquake at Serinagur, which has interrupted the
traffic extensively enjoyed by the latter town before
that event, Nujibabad has been involved in the same
commercial privation. Of late years its commerce
has almost totally declined, a circumstance perhaps
to be finally attributed to the severe shock which the
Rohilla power received from the British arms during
the Nepaul war. It is now inhabited by few persons
of either wealth or consideration, and bids fair in
another generation to be the abode only of “ the
moles and of the bats.”

The town is about three-quarters of a mile in

G

62

SCENES IN INDIA.

length, and pleasantly situated on the northern bank
of a small lake. The streets are in general broad,
regular, and remarkably clean for an Indian town.
They are divided by barriers at different intervals,
forming distinct bazaars in which the scene is suffi-
ciently busy, although much less variety is now dis-
played there than formerly. A traffic of great extent
used to be carried on at Nujibabad in wood, bam-
boos, copper, tincal, musk, and honey, from the hills.
In the height of its prosperity it was also the entrepot
of a trade from Lahore, Cashmere, and Cabul, to the
east and south-east of Hindostan. The situation of
the town is low and the surrounding country swampy ;
thus in consequence of the superabundant vegetation
collecting and condensing the exhalations, together
with the various vegetable substances continually
scattered over the surface of the soil being put into
a state of active fermentation by the heat reflected
from the neighbouring hills, the atmosphere is very
uncongenial to any but a native constitution. Even
the natives themselves do not exhibit that bodily
energy and muscular vigour of frame so common to
the more hardy inhabitants of the mountains.

In the neighbourhood of Nujibabad are the remains
of some fine buildings, and just without the town is
seen the tomb of its founder, Nujib ud Dowlah.
Though distinguished by little ornament, it is never-
theless imposing from the quiet elegance and solemn
simplicity of its structure. It is a square building
flanked with four cupolas stuccoed with chunam,
and having a dome covered with the same material
rising out of the centre. It is protected by four massy

MOUNTAIN SCENERY.

63

stone walls, forming a quadrangle, with strong square
bastions at each angle ; and there is a plain gateway
in the centre of the front wall of the area which en-
closes the mausoleum. This monument stands upon
the border of the lake, which when swelled by the
rains, almost washes the lateral wall on the southern
side, giving an agreeable relief to the wildness of the
surrounding scene.

The view of the distant mountains from the plain
on which this mausoleum stands, is grand in the ex-
treme. The snowy range is distinctly visible and its
white peaks lifting their spotless crests above the
clouds and appearing to shoot up into the very skies as
if they had set at defiance the elementary law of limi-
tation, produce a truly sublime effect. Their gelid
spires, capped with eternal snow, are strikingly im-
posing in the midst of their cold and repulsive solitude ;
for the eye as well as the mind can never be directed,
without an impressive emotion, towards those regions
of unvarying sterility and silence where human foot
has never penetrated and no living creature has ever
found a permanent abode. Such a scene baffles the
force of words, nor can those impressions which are
excited by the contemplation of nature in her most
inspiring solemnities, be communicated by any written
description.

The country at the base of the hills in this neigh-
bourhood, is well cultivated and very fertile. The
labours of the husbandman, which are light and
quickly accomplished, are soon repaid by an abun-
dant harvest. The eminences skirting the plain and
forming the lower range of that chain of mountains

64

SCENES IN INDIA.

which divides Hindostan from Tibet and Tartary,
are about eight leagues from the spot where we had
now halted, although they did not appear above half
a dozen miles. Such is their altitude and bulk that
so short a distance scarcely seems to diminish them
to the eye, which is, moreover, beguiled by the ex-
treme clearness of the atmosphere.

Near Nujib ud Dowlah’s tomb is a tope of stately
trees that overshadows some fine ruins, several of
which are on the skirts of the town. Behind these
trees there is a mausoleum of considerable beauty,
highly ornamented with mosaics of black and white
marble ; the chief object of interest, however, is the
tomb of the founder of Nujibabad. Wild elephants
and tigers abound in this neighbourhood, where the
jungles are very extensive and in many places per-
fectly impenetrable. The clear, doleful wail of the
jackal is heard at night, waking the mountain echoes
which multiply the din, to the great annoyance of the
weary traveller, though it seems to produce but little
inconvenience to those whom habit has reconciled
to so loud and dissonant a lullaby.

Before we quitted Nujibabad, we had the opportu-
nity of seeing a bull-fight, an amusement not unfre-
cpiently indulged in by the petty Rajahs of the moun-
tain districts. These bulls had been brought from
Boutan, and were exhibited by a party 'of jugglers,
who expected a small gratuity from each spectator.
The animals were about the size of a Bengal ox, or
of an English bull two years and a half old. They
had, however, no excrescence between the shoulders,
common to the Bengal breed, and, unlike that species

BULL-FIGHT.

65

generally, were sleek, fat, and extremely fierce. They
had little sharp horns, which were very smooth and
bore a fine polish. Their fore legs were so short
that but for the prodigious depth from the upper part
of the shoulder to the extremity of the neck, they
would have appeared stunted and disproportioned.
From the extreme narrowness of the loins, compared
with the depth and breadth of the fore-quarters, their
hind legs seemed much too long. Their necks were
very thick, indicating amazing strength, which they
sufficiently manifested in the issue, while their heads
were delicately small. They were of a deep liver
colour. When brought into the area, being led by
strong ropes attached to their horns and noses, they
pawed the ground, threw themselves into the most
violent contortions, and exhibited every symptom of
the most desperate ferocity. The men who led them
forward showed great dexterity in managing these im-
petuous animals, adroitly avoiding their plunges and
bringing them to a degree of control quite surprising,
considering the intense excitement under which they
were evidently labouring.

The bulls seemed perfectly to comprehend why
they were led into the area, betraying the most violent
symptoms of impatience to try their prowess, while
the spectators were no less impatient to witness
a scene as novel as it promised to be terrific. At
a given signal the ropes were slipped from the crea-
tures’ heads and they were left at liberty. In a mo-
ment they sprang forward as if to ascertain whether
they were really released from the restraint of the
ropes, then curving their backs, like a strung bow,
g 3

66

SCENES IN INDIA.

as preparing to exert their utmost strength, they
tore up the ground with their horns, plunged and
roared, their eye-halls at the same time projecting
from the sockets with a savage stare and flashing
with the most portentous fury. They ran wildly
round the area for more than a minute before they
came in contact, gradually narrowing the circuit as
if collecting themselves for the onslaught ; each watch-
ing to take his adversary at an advantage. At length
they met each other full in front, darted forward with
astonishing celerity, and tremendous indeed was the
shock ! Both staggered for an instant but bore the
concussion without giving way, when their horns be-
came locked and then commenced the grand struggle
for victory. Fierce as the onset had been, it did not
appear in the slightest degree to have diminished the
energies of these pugnacious animals. On the con-
trary, without wounding each other and their horns
continuing locked, they displayed wonderful strength
and dexterity, each preventing the other from goring
him ; so that the contest was really far less terrible
than might have been anticipated from the manner in
which they commenced the encounter- They were
occupied full twenty minutes in this energetic struggle
without disengaging their horns, exerting all the while
their utmost strength to cast one another upon the
ground. Alternately retreating and advancing, as their
powers relaxed or recurred, the earth flew from their
heels in showers while they pressed their hard heads
together with still more determined obstinacy and with
the might which rage added to their ordinary strength.
At length the weaker began to retreat, and as he re-

HIGH TEMPERATURE.

67

treated, the other, feeling his advantage, pushed on
with renewed vigour. He felt that he was about to
conquer, and with a roar of anticipated triumph forced
his adversary on his haunches. At this moment the
keepers advanced, and by striking the victor on the
nose with a large bamboo, forced him to disengage his
horns, when they secured both the combatants with
cords and led them from the area amid the cheers of
the gratified spectators.

During our stay at Nujibabad the thermometer in
our tents rose occasionally as high as a hundred and
five degrees. Upon our departure from this town we
proceeded to Kerutpoor, a distance of about twelve
miles. We found the country in our route generally
well cultivated. The view of the distant mountains
was very striking, especially at sunrise, when their
broad bosoms, catching the level rays, cast them with
subdued splendour over the neighbouring plains.

At Chandpoor, our next halting-place, we received
much attention from the chief of the district, to whom
we had letters of introduction. He was unusually
hospitable and strongly pressed us to extend our stay.
He was fond of field sports, and before we quitted the
neighbourhood, afforded us an opportunity of witness-
ing a somewhat novel mode of catching the tiger.
It had been ascertained that one of those destructive
animals was in a jungle at some short distance, and
had taken up its abode within the cover of a thick
brake at the very verge of the wood. It had been
scared from its covert the preceding day, when a
large hole about six feet square and twelve feet deep
was dug within a dozen yards of its lair. The sides

68

SCENES IN INDIA.

of the hole rather sloped inward from the top to the
bottom so as to increase the difficulty of escape, of
which indeed there was little chance, should the ani-
mal fall into the snare.

Early in the evening before the tiger returned, a
goat was placed upon a small platform slightly fixed
in the centre of the hole, on a level with the sur-
rounding surface and supported by weak bamboos ; so
that little additional weight would precipitate it into
the chasm below. The rest of the surface above was
covered with grass, and no appearance of an opening
remained. The night happened to be unusually dark
and we repaired early in the morning to the spot
where this preparation had been made for entrap-
ping the sanguinary tyrant of the forest. When at
some distance, perceiving that the bait had not been
taken, we concealed ourselves behind a few intervening
trees to see if the tiger would quit the place of his
security and fall into the snare that had been so in-
geniously placed to betray him. We had not waited
above half an hour when our wishes were grati-
fied by observing the beautiful beast rush from its
lurking-place, and, when within about five yards of
the devoted goat, spring upon it with a yell so fero-
cious that I trembled where I stood, though removed
from all chance of danger. The platform instantly
gave way with a crash, and the tiger and goat both
fell into the hollow beneath. As soon as the former
found itself a prisoner it howled with rage, lashed
its sides with its tail, erected the fur upon its back
and exhibited fearful demonstrations of fury. It made
the most desperate efforts to escape, springing up the

A TIGER CAUGHT.

69

sides of the shaft and occasionally clinging to the
very edge ; the earth however was so soft that there
was no hold for its claws, so that it always fell back ;
but upon reaching the ground and finding its efforts
at release invariably foiled, its fury redoubled. Its
yells were dreadful. The goat was quite dead but
remained untouched by its destroyer, which at length
lay upon its belly almost exhausted with its exer-
tions. At this moment our host advanced and fired
at the dreaded captive as it lay panting and power-
less. The ball took effect but not mortally. The
sudden pang only roused the tiger to renewed exer-
tions in order to retaliate upon its assailant, who de-
liberately loaded and fired until the excited beast
was destroyed. So tenacious was it of life, that it
received seven balls in different parts of its ‘body be-
fore it finally surrendered to the great conqueror —
death.

Upon quitting Chandpore we passed through large
tracts of jungle, in which peafowl greatly abounded.
We forbore, however, from shooting any in deference
to the prejudices of the people, who look upon the
peacock as a consecrated bird. During the night the
wind rose so high that our tents were in danger of
being prostrated, and became so saturated with rain,
which fell in torrents, as to be too heavy for the
camels to carry ; we were therefore obliged to keep
them- standing the best part of the succeeding day
in order to get them dry.

On approaching the Ganges we found the country
more open and agreeable. A few miles from Sumbul a
large herd of deer crossed our route, one of which was

70

SCENES IN INDIA.

shot by an armed attendant who had secreted himself
behind a min ; for these animals are so timid that it
is very difficult to get near them.

At Sumbul there is a mosque of considerable beauty,
though not much respected, built by the unfortunate
but virtuous Humayun. The town is but thinly
populated and many of the houses are altogether de-
serted. The bazaars being indifferently attended,
there is little or no appearance of that busy chaffer-
ing so generally observed in the bazaar of an Indian
town. We crossed the Ganges at the Depour Gaut,
proceeded to Anopshur, a military station above Fut-
tyghur, and after a progress of four days, crossed
the Kyratta Gaut on the Jumna and entered the still
splendid capital of the Mogul empire. But Delhi is
no longer what it was during the domination of the
house of Timour. Its glory has departed, though it
is magnificent even in its decay.

The modern city of Delhi, and the seat of the
present Mahomedan empire in Hindostan- — alas, how
fallen ! was built by Shah Jehan in the seventeenth
century and called after him Shahjehanabad. It is
about seven miles in circumference and stands on the
western bank of the Jumna. It is protected by a
strong lofty wall, but which would offer little effectual
resistance to modern artillery. There is nothing very
remarkable in the town which yields in magnificence
to many of inferior note in Hindostan. It has seven
gates, near one of which is a college, a tolerably
handsome edifice of some extent but now unappro-
priated and rapidly falling to decay. The palaces
of Saadet Khan, and of Sultan Darah Shekoh are

GARDENS OF SHALIMAR.

71

fine structures, standing within large enclosures and
encompassed by lofty walls, within which are baths,
menageries, stables, and various other subsidiary
buildings. In this quarter of the city are several
handsome mosques, and here is the celebrated Musjid,
where, in 1739, the sanguinary Persian conqueror
Nadir Shah sat and witnessed the massacre of the
unfortunate inhabitants.

The gardens of Shalimar, made when the modern
city was built, are said to have cost upwards of a
hundred lacs of rupees, or above a million sterling.
They were originally surrounded by a high brick
wall, and occupied a space above a mile in circum-
ference. They are now so completely in ruins that
scarcely a vestige of their former magnificence remains.
From the southern wall of these gardens, as far as
the eye can reach, the champaign presents nothing
but one vast surface covered with splendid ruins, the
remnants of the former Indraprastha.* The whole plain
is crowded with these magnificent remains. Mosques,
mausoleums, palaces, observatories, pavilions, colleges,
baths, seraglios, lie heaped in mighty confusion,
showing, in the lapsing glories of their decay, what
must have been the grandeur of that city which they
contributed to adorn during the period of its strength
and of its pride. Even Upper Egypt, so rich in
memorials of former greatness, can exhibit nothing
superior to the monumental relics that lie scatter-
ed over the plains on which ancient Delhi originally
stood. But though this once magnificent capital
has passed away and is now little more than a me-
* Indraprastha is the Sanscrit name of old Delhi.

72

SCENES IN INDIA.

morandum in the chronicle of time, other cities have
sprung up by the application of human energies, if
not equally magnificent, at least of equal importance.
Nothing passes from us without a purpose. For
every loss there is a balance of gain. One man dies
and another is born. One empire is crushed and ex-
pires, when another starts into existence and flourishes,,
If ruin lays her mighty grasp upon some distinguished
capital, prosperity lifts another from the shade.

The spider,” says a Persian poet, “ has wove
its web in the palace of the emperors, and the owl
hath sung her watch- song on the towers of Afrasiab.”

Look Nature through, ’tis revolution all —

All change, no death. Day follows night, and night
The dying day ; stars rise and set, and rise ;

Earth takes the example. See the Summer gay,

With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers.

Droops into pallid Autumn: Winter gray,

Horrid with frost and turbulent with storms,

Blows Autumn, and his golden fruits, away,

Then melts into the Spring : soft Spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south
Recalls the first. All, to reflourish, fades :

As in a wheel, all sinks to reascend,

Emblem of man who passes, not expires.

A GOSSEIN.

73

CHAPTER VI.

A GOSSEIN. GHOLAUM KAUDIR. THE SERAGLIO.

One morning, as I was about to quit my tent;
which was pitched a short distance without the walls
of Delhi in a fine tope of tamarind-trees, I perceived
a gossein standing with his back against a broken
pillar at a short distance from me. He had assumed
that attitude which betokened an expectation of re-
ceiving something more tangible than mere courtesy
from the benevolence of myself or any other person
whom he might thus silently condescend to supplicate ;
for with these devotees the social order of things is
frequently inverted : they consider the recipient the
benefactor when of their own community, or the
giver the beneficiary when of any other. As I came
near him I perceived that he had a thick iron rod
passed through his cheeks, riveted at each end, from
which a circular piece of iron depended inclosing the
chin. Though the rod passed quite through the
tongue, as I afterwards found, it did not mate-
rially affect his articulation : he spoke with some
difficulty but was nevertheless perfectly intelligible.
He was an elderly man of gentle manners and mild
aspect, without being offensively filthy, as the mem-
bers of this strange tribe so frequently are. I invited

H

74

SCENES IN INDIA.

him to enter the tent, which he immediately clid., and
to my surprise was very communicative. The iron
through his tongue and cheeks had been a penitential
infliction to which he had submitted in consequence
of the breach of a vow. He declined my invitation
to seat himself, but stood erect with his back against
the pole of the tent and entered freely into conversa-
tion upon the strange events of his life., answering
all my questions with the most perfect readiness., and
he appeared gratified at giving me any information
either respecting himself or the singular customs of
the religious fraternity to which he belonged.

He stated that he was then under a vow to remain
erect for the space of fifteen years. During thir-
teen of this term he had either stood or walked ; yet
he suffered little or no inconvenience, sleeping every
night in the jungles with his back against a tree as
soundly as the most voluptuous man could upon a
bed of down. He confessed, however, that for some
time after he had commenced the performance of this
strange vow he was obliged to be supported with
cords when inclined to sleep, and his feet swelled to
such a painful degree that he could scarcely stand or
walk. After a time, however, this inconvenience
ceased, when the performance of his penance became
no longer either a pain or a grief to him.

This was not the only infliction to which he had
voluntarily subjected himself; the fingers of his left
hand were so completely bent upward from the palm
as to form a right angle with the back of the hand, and
were thus rendered entirely useless. He further told
me that he had been suspended from the branch of a

SHAH ALLUM.

75

tree during three hundred and sixty-five revolutions
of the earthy as he expressed it, or a whole year. He
was suspended by a cord with a strong bamboo
crossing the end; upon which he sat, while a strap
confined him to the rope and thus prevented his fall-
ing: this he described as the severest infliction to
which he had ever submitted. I gave him a trifling
gratuity with which he departed perfectly satisfied.

The self-tortures inflicted by these fanatics are en-
tirely voluntary ; they are, like many of the Roman
Catholic penances, merely acts of supererogation and
are not necessarily enjoined in the Hindoo ritual, as
will appear from the Mahabbarat, a work esteemed
almost of divine authority among the Hindoos.*
“ Those men who perform severe mortifications of the
flesh not authorised by the Sastra are possessed of
hypocrisy and pride ; they are overwhelmed with
lust, passion and tyrannic strength. Those fools tor-
ment the spirit that is in the body and myself who
am in them.” t

Whilst we remained at Delhi, I could not help con-
trasting the wretched condition of the reigning em-
peror with that of its former sovereigns, who esta-
blished the Mogul dominion upon the ruins of the
Afghan or Patan dynasty and erected the standard
of the crescent in almost every district of Hindostan.
The late emperor, Shah Allum the Second, exhibited

* See the Bhagvat Geeta, an episode of the Mahabbarat,
translated by Sir Charles Wilkins from the original Sanscrit,
lecture xvii. page 120.

t This is spoken by Krishna, the chief avatar or incarnation
of Vishnu.

76

SCENES IN INDIA.

in his establishment the sad decline into which the
Mahomedan sovereignty had fallen. In 1788, Gho-
laum Kaudir, a Rohilla chief, in whom the too confiding
emperor had reposed implicit confidence, made a sud-
den irruption upon Delhi, of which he became master,
seized the weak but virtuous Shah Allum and after
subjecting him for several weeks to the most humi-
liating mortifications, loading him with insults and ex-
posing him to every atrocious abuse in order to extort
from him the supposed secret of his concealed treasures,
pierced the unhappy emperor’s eyes with his crease
thus rendering him totally blind. He likewise mas-
sacred and put to the torture several members of the
royal family ; nor did he quit the city, where he had
indeed rendered the imperial palace a house of mourn-
ing, until the approach of Mahadajee Scindia’s army
drove him from the scene of his atrocities. A retri-
bution, however, as sudden as it was terrible shortly
overtook him : he was pursued and captured by a de-
tachment of the Mahratta army and brought before
their commander. Scindia did not deign to utter a
word, but, looking sternly on the hardened criminal,
who seemed to despise the fate which he too well
knew awaited him, ordered one of his attendants to
ask him where he had deposited the plunder of the
palace, and, on his refusing to answer, the Rohilla
was given up to a truly terrible punishment : he was
put into an iron cage and suspended from a beam in
front of the army. After being exposed to the scoffs
of men scarcely less ferocious than himself, his nose,
ears, hands, and feet, were cut off, his eyes forced from
* A short two-edged dagger.

GH0LAUM KAUDIR.

77

their sockets, and in this mutilated state he was
ordered to be mounted upon a lean camel and con-
ducted to the unhappy Shah Alluni, whom he had
so unmercifully blinded. He bore the dreadful punish-
ment without shrinking — -with a heroism, indeed,
worthy of a better cause — but expired on his way
to Delhi from extreme thirst, brought on by the
severity of his sufferings. His inexorable judge had
previously ordered that nothing should be given to
him either to eat or drink : his death must therefore
have been one of intense agony.

Such acts of retribution are in truth fearfully
inhuman, but are nevertheless so common under the
government of despots that they cease to look upon
them with anything but indifference. In their code
of equity the great axiom is cc an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth,” and unless this be en-
forced to the very letter, they consider that justice is
not satisfied, and mercy always yields to the sterner
attribute.

From this period to 1802, when Lord Lake de-
feated the successor of the great Scindia six miles
from Delhi, and restored the old emperor from the con-
dition of a state-prisoner to that of a free sovereign, the
situation of the latter was sad in the extreme. The
yearly stipend allowed to each surviving prince of the
imperial family did not exceed two hundred rupees,
or twenty-two pounds sterling per annum ; while the
entire amount disbursed on account of the emperor,
including his own personal expenses, those of his
family and dependants, and of the numerous stipen-
diaries whom he had to support, did not more than
h 3

78

SCENES IN INDIA.

make up the sum of two lacs of rupees, or twenty-
four thousand pounds sterling per annum. The se-
raglio, which is the most expensive portion of the
personal establishment of a Mahomedan prince, was
reduced to a pitiable condition, and the emperor found
himself in his old age without the power of securing
the comforts of those who had not the means of re-
alizing their own, and these too the objects of his
tenderest affections.

The seraglio of an eastern prince is at once the pe-
netralia of the political and social sanctuary, whence
emanate all the cabals and conspiracies so rife in the
cabinets of Moslem potentates ; it may, therefore, be
as well to give a brief description of this part of a
Mahomedan sovereign’s domestic establishment. In
the seraglio are educated the Mogul princes and the
principal youth among the nobles destined for posts
of responsibility in the empire. It is generally sepa-
rated from the palace, but so nearly contiguous as
to be of ready access. None are admitted within its
apartments except the emperor and those immediately
attached to its several offices, the duties of which are
performed by women. It is generally inclosed by
lofty walls and surrounded by spacious gardens, laid
out with all the splendour of eastern magnificence,
where every luxury is obtained which the appe-
tite may demand or money can procure. Those
inmates who form the matrimonial confederacy of
the Mogul potentate, are among the most beautiful
girls which the empire can furnish. They are
taught embroidery, music, and dancing, by certain
old women hired to instruct them in every bland-

THE SERAGLIO.

79

ishment that may captivate the senses and stimulate
the passions. These lovely captives are never per-
mitted to appear abroad, except when the emperor
travels, and then they are conveyed in litters closed
by curtains, or in boats with small cabins, admitting
the light and air only through narrow Venetian
blinds.

The apartments of the seraglio are very splendid,
always, however, of course in proportion to the wealth
of the prince ; and the favourite object of his affections
exhibits the dignity and enjoys the privileges of a
queen, though of a queen in captivity. While her
beauty lasts she is frequently regarded with a feeling
almost amounting to idolatry ; but when that beauty
passes away, the warmth of love subsides, her person
no longer charms, her voice ceases to impart delight,
her faded cheeks and sharpened tones become disagree-
able memorials of the past. Neither her song nor her
lute are now heard with pleasure, for, in the beautiful
imagery of the Persian poet, “ When the roses wither
and the bower loses its sweetness, you have no longer
the tale of the nightingale.”

The favourite, however, while she continues her
ascendency over the heart of her lord, is treated with
sovereign respect throughout the harem. She smokes
her golden-tubed hooka, the mouth-piece studded with
gems, and enjoys the fresh morning breeze under a
verandah that overlooks the gardens of the palace,
attended by her damsels, only second to herself in
attractions of person and splendour of attire.

“ Her smiling countenance resplendent shines
With youth and loveliness ; her lips disclose

80

SCENES IN INDIA.

Teeth white as jasmine blossoms ; silky curls
Luxuriant shade her cheeks, and every limb
Of slightest texture moves with natural grace,

Like moonbeams gliding through the yielding air.*

Here she reclines in oblivious repose upon a rich em-
broidered carpet from the most celebrated looms of
Persia. Through an atmosphere of the richest in-
cense she breathes the choicest perfumes of Arabia the
happy, and has everything around her that can ad-
minister to sensual delight ; still she is generally an
unhappy being. She dwells in the midst of splendid
misery and ungratifying profusion, while all within
herself is desolation and hopelessness. Her sympa-
thies are either warped or stifled ; her heart is blighted
and her mind degraded. She cannot join in the en-
thusiasm of the inimitable Hafiz t — fC the breath of
the western gale will soon shed musk around;— the
old world will again be young ; ” but languishes as
the seasons return in the most debasing captivity
and feels that the western gale breathes not upon
her either the freshness of freedom or of joy.

A description of the haram of the celebrated Mogul
Emperor Akbar, by the no less celebrated Abul Fazel
Mobarek, his minister, will, I trust, be not unwelcome
to the reader. “ The haram is an enclosure of such
an immense extent, as to contain a separate room for
every one of the women, whose number exceeds five
thousand. They are divided into companies, and a

* Uttara Rama Cheritra, a Hindoo drama, translated by Ho-
race Hayman Wilson, Esq. from the original Sanscrit.

t Hafiz was a lyric poet, called by way of pre-eminent distinc-
tion, the Anacreon of Persia.

THE HARAM OF AKBAR.

81

proper employment is assigned to each individual.
Over each of these companies a woman is appointed
Darogha. And one is selected for the command of the
whole, in order that the affairs of the haram may
be conducted with the same regularity and good go-
vernment as the other departments of the state.

Every one receives a salary equal to her merit.
The pen cannot measure the extent of the emperor’s
largesses ; but here shall be given some account of the
monthly stipend of each. The ladies of the first
quality receive from one thousand six hundred and
ten rupees, down to one thousand and twenty-eight
rupees. Some of the principal servants of the pre-
sence have from fifty-one down to twenty rupees, and
others are paid from two rupees up to forty.

At the grand gate is stationed a mushreff, to take
account of the receipts and expenditures of the haram
in ready money and in goods.

Whenever any of this multitude of women want
anything, they apply to the treasurer of the haram,
who, according to their monthly stipend, sends a me-
morandum thereof to the mushreff of the grand gate,
who transmits it to the treasurer of the king’s palace,
who pays the money.

The inside of the haram is guarded by women, and
about the gate of the royal apartments are placed the
most confidential. Immediately on the outside of the
gate watch the eunuchs of the haram, and at a proper
distance are stationed the Rajpoots, beyond whom are
the porters of the gates, and on the outside of the
enclosure, the omrahs, the ahdeeans, and other troops
mount guard, according to their rank.

82

SCENES IN INDIA.

Whenever the begums or the wives of the omrahs,
or other women of character, want to pay their com-
pliments^ they first notify their desire to those who
wait on the outside, and from thence their request is
sent in writing to the officers of the palace, after which
they are permitted to enter the haram. And some
women of rank obtain permission to remain there for
the space of a month. But besides all the precautions
above described, his majesty depends on his own vi-
gilance, as well as on that of his guards.” *

* Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. part I.

NOOR JEHAN.

85

CHAPTER VII.

NOOR JEHAN. — CHAJA AIASS. — SHERE AFKUN.

It was from the seraglio that the celebrated Noor
Jehan, Jehangire’s favourite empress,, fulminated those
decrees — for though they passed in her husband’s name,,
it is creditably attested that they emanated from her —
which rendered the reign of Jehangire one of the most
politically prosperous in the annals of Mahomedan
history. This remarkable woman was as extraordinary
in her birth as in her life,, in her obscurity as in her
exaltation. The whole period of her existence,, though
so long confined within the walls of a seraglio,, was
one signal display of intellectual energy, marvellous
enterprise, and boundless ambition. She had not
only the mind to conceive, but the resolution to act ;
not only the spirit to undertake, but the fortitude to
endure. The peculiar circumstances of her birth form
one of the finest episodes in Farishta’s history.

This celebrated woman was the daughter of Chaja
Aiass, a native of Western Tartary, who was of an
ancient and noble race, though under the various vi-
cissitudes of “ time and circumstance” his family
had sunk into comparative destitution. He there-
fore quitted his country for Hindostan, hoping under
the Mogul emperor to repair the loss of fortune.

SCENES IN INDIA.

Having become enamoured of a young woman, as
poor but enthusiastic as himself, he married her. This
so incensed his family that they discarded him ;
when he, under the excitement of indignation at what
he considered to be his wrongs, mounted his wife upon
an old horse, and walking by her side, proceeded
towards the capital of the renowned Akbar. Their
scanty supply of money was soon exhausted. They
had no means of procuring sustenance, and were ap-
parently fast approaching destruction. They had not
tasted food for three days : difficulties every moment
accumulated upon them, and to crown their misery
the wife of the Tartar was seized with the pains of
labour. Assisted only by her wretched husband, she
gave birth to 'a daughter. They were in the midst
of a vast desert where the foot of man but seldom
penetrated, and had no other prospect but of perishing
with hunger or by wild beasts. Chaja Aiass having
placed his wife upon the horse as soon as he could do
so with safety, found himself unable to follow with
the infant. The mother was too weak to carry it,
and there was but one alternative. The struggle of
nature was a severe one ; there was however no choice
left between death and parental subjugation. It was
agreed by the half distracted parents that the new-
born pledge of their affection must be abandoned.
They covered it with leaves, and left it in the path
to the mercy of that God who can protect the babe
in the desert as well as the sovereign on his throne.

The miserable pair pursued their journey in silence
and in agony. After a short progress, the invincible
yearnings of nature prevailed over the torments of

MHER-UL-NISSA.

85

hunger and thirst, and the bereaved mother called
distractedly for her child. The heart of the hus-
band was subdued by her sufferings ; dashing the
tear from his cheek, he undertook to return and re-
store it to her arms. He retraced his steps, but was
paralysed with horror, on arriving at the spot where
he had left his infant, to see a large black snake
wreathed round it. In a paroxysm of desperation he
rushed forward, when the monster, gradually uncoiling
itself, retired into the hollow of a tree. He snatched
up the child and bore it in ecstasy to the anxious
mother. It had received no hurt, and whilst by their
caresses they were expressing their exultation at its
singular escape, some travellers overtook them, who
supplied them with food and enabled them to resume
their journey. They advanced by easy stages till
they reached Lahore.

Soon after the arrival of the poor Tartar in this city,
where the great Akbar then held his court, he was
fortunate enough to attract that emperor’s attention,
and by an extraordinary accession of good fortune
became finally high treasurer of the empire. His
daughter, as she grew up, excelled all the loveliest
women of the East, and was therefore named Mher-
ul-Nissa, or the Sun of women. The greatest care
was taken to make her mistress of every accomplish-
ment which could impart an additional fascination
to the natural graces of her sex. In vivacity, wit,
spirit, and all those elegant attainments in which wo-
men especially excel, she was equalled by few and
surpassed by none. In masculine vigour of understand-
ing she stood alone and unapproached. The emperor’s

i

86

SCENES IN INDIA,

soil, Selim, afterwards so well known as the Emperor
Jehangire, having seen her, became enamoured of her,
and this hasty prepossession the ambitious fair one
exerted all her powers to strengthen. In the frenzy
of his passion, Prince Selim applied to Akbar for his
consent to marry her, but the latter sternly refused
it. Shortly after the lovely daughter of Chaja Aiass
became the wife of Shere Afkun, a Turkoman noble
of high distinction, to whom she had been long be-
trothed.

Selim was from that moment the bitter foe of his
successful rival; he secretly disseminated calumnies
to the injury of Shere Afkun, who in disgust retired
from court into the province of Bengal, where he ob-
tained from the governor the vicegerency of Burdwan,
a considerable district in that province. When Prince
Selim became emperor, his passion for the daughter
of Aiass revived in full force ; the restraint being
removed under which the smothered flame had been
so long and so painfully suppressed, it burst forth
with increased fierceness. He was now absolute, and
determined to possess the object of his disappointed
love; he therefore made advances towards a recon-
ciliation with Shere Afkun, but the brave Turko-
man for a time resisted all his importunities; per-
ceiving their object, and resolving to part neither
with his wife nor with his honour, as he could not
resign the one without relinquishing the other. His
strength was prodigious and his bravery equal to his
strength ; his integrity was unimpeached, his reputa-
tion high, and he was alike feared and respected by
all classes. Upon every occasion where danger was

SHERE AFKUN.

87

imminent he was foremost to encounter it, while his
valour was the theme of many a romance and of
many a song. His bodily vigour was so great that
he had slain a lion single-handed, from which circum-
stance he obtained the cognomen of Shere Afkun, or
the lion-slayer, his original name being Asta Jillo.
He had been much esteemed by Akbar, who valued
alike his bravery and his virtues.

Soon after Jehangire ascended the imperial throne
of the Moguls, Shere Afkun was invited to court,
whither, after repeated solicitations, he repaired, trust-
ing to his own high reputation for security against
any tyrannical exercise of the sovereign power. Upon
his arrival, he was much caressed by the emperor in
order to lull suspicion : open and generous himself,
he suspected no treachery in others. A day was at
length appointed for the chase : the omrahs and in-
ferior nobles assembled, and the forest-haunts of the
lion and tiger were explored. The hunters soon in-
closed a mighty beast of the latter species, of which
the emperor being apprised, immediately proceeded
to the spot. He demanded of those around him who
would venture to attack it: all stood silent and
confounded. Shere Afkun began to hope that the en-
terprise would devolve upon him, when three omrahs
stepped forward and offered to encounter the forest
tyrant. The pride of the bold Turkoman was roused ,*
they had challenged the encounter, and he therefore
could not set aside their prior claim to the distinction
which they insisted upon striving for. Shere Afkun,
fearing that he was likely to be rivalled and that his
fame would thus be tarnished, advanced and presenting

88

SCENES IN INDIA.

himself before the emperor,, said firmly, “ To attack
an unarmed creature with weapons is neither fair nor
manly. The Deity has given limbs and sinews to
man as well as to tigers, and has imparted reason to
the former in order to countervail the deficiency of
strength.”

The omrahs declined such a perilous contest, when
the bold warrior, to the emperor s surprise and delight,
instantly cast aside his weapon and his shield and
prepared to engage the tiger unarmed. The encounter
is described with the most appalling minuteness by
the Mogul historians. After a desperate conflict, and
mangled by terrific wounds, the heroic Afkun forced
his arm down the throat of his adversary, grasped
him firmly by the root of the tongue and finally
strangled him. Thus were the secret expectations of
Jehangire defeated, and the fame of this extraordinary
exploit resounded through the empire.

Shere had scarcely recovered, when private orders
were given to the driver of a large elephant to way-
lay him and tread him to death. He saw the elephant
approach ; the street was narrow and there were no
means of escape. Perceiving his danger, he ordered his
bearers to turn, but they threw down the palankeen
and fled. The Turkoman undismayed sprang instantly
upon his feet, drew his sword, and before the elephant
could accomplish its fatal purpose, severed its trunk
close to the root. The huge animal immediately
dropped and expired. Jehangire witnessed the action.
He had placed himself at a small lattice that overlooked
the street. He was perfectly amazed, but disappoint-
ment and vexation banished from his bosom the better

THE SUBA OF BENGAL.

89

feelings of his nature. Shere Afkun waited upon the
emperor, and communicated to him what he had done.
Jehangire extolled his bravery with warmth, and
thus escaped the hero’s suspicion.

He was not however permitted to remain long
unmolested. Kuttub, suba or governor of Bengal,
knowing his master’s wishes and in order to ensure
his further favour, hired forty ruffians to assassinate
the dreaded omrah. So confident was the latter in
his own strength and valour that he took no precau-
tion to protect himself either against secret or open
enemies. He retained only an old porter in his house,
all his other servants occupying apartments at a dis-
tance. The assassins entered his room where their
victim was asleep, when one of them, touched with
remorse, cried out, “ Hold ! are we men ? What ! forty
to one and afraid to encounter him awake !” The
Turkoman, aroused by this timely and manly expos-
tulation, started from his bed, seized his sword, and
retiring backward before the assassins had all entered,
reached the corner of the apartment, where he pre-
pared to defend himself to the last extremity. The
ruffians, fearing their victim would escape, rushed on
him so tumultuously that they encumbered each
other. Shere Afkun, taking advantage of their con-
fusion, laid several of them dead at his feet ; many
others fell desperately wounded and the rest be-
took themselves to flight. The man who had warned
the hero of his danger, stood fixed in mute astonish-
ment at the prowess of him whom he had been hired
to murder. His intended victim advanced, and kindly
taking his hand, welcomed him as his deliverer,
i 3

90

SCENES IN INDIA.

Having ascertained from the man’s unreluctant con-
fession by whom the assassins had been hired., he dis-
missed him with a liberal benefaction.

This remarkable exploit was repeated from mouth
to mouth with a thousand exaggerations,, so that
whenever Shere Afkun appeared abroad,, he was fol-
lowed and pointed at as a man of superhuman powers ;
but in order to avoid the recurrence of perils similar
to those from which he had so recently escaped, he
retired to Burdwan,

Meanwhile the suba of Bengal had received the
emperor’s orders to despatch this extraordinary man,
but dared not openly execute them. Coming with a
great retinue to Burdwan, about sixty miles from
the modern capital of this extensive province, under
pretence of making a tour of the territory placed under
his political superintendence, he communicated to
his principal officers the secret of his mission. The
devoted omrah went out to meet the suba as he was
entering the town, and the latter affected to treat
him with great cordiality. In the progress of the
cavalcade, a pikeman, pretending that Shere Afkun
was in the way, rudely struck his horse. The in-
dignant noble, knowing that no soldier would have
done this without orders, immediately saw that his
life was aimed at, and directly spurred his horse
towards the elephant of the treacherous suba, tore
down the howda and slew the cowardly Kuttub be-
fore any of his guards could rescue him : then turning
upon the omrahs, five were almost instantly sacrificed
to his just revenge.

DEATH OF SHERE AFKUN.

01

Terrified at his prowess, the soldiers began to
discharge their arrows and muskets at him from
a distance ; his horse, struck by a ball in the fore-
head, fell dead under him. Covered with wounds
and bleeding at every pore, the still undaunted lion-
slayer called on the suba’s officers to advance and
meet him in single combat, but they, one and all,
declined the encounter. At length, seeing his end
approaching, the brave Turkoman, like a devout Ma-
homedan, turned his face towards Mecca, threw some
dust upon his head by way of ablution, there being
no water near, and standing up calm and undismayed
before the armed files of his murderers, received at
one discharge six balls in his body and expired
without a groan.

The beautiful widow was immediately transported
to Delhi, but Jehangire refused to see her, whether
from remorse or policy is uncertain. He ordered her
to be confined in one of the worst apartments of the
seraglio. The daughter of the Tartar Aiass was
a woman of haughty spirit and could ill brook this
indifference. It preyed deeply upon her mind. Mean-
while she was not idle. Being very expert at work-
ing tapestry and all kinds of embroidery, and in
painting silks with the richest devices, she applied
herself with great assiduity to those employments.
In a short time the exquisite productions of her taste
and skill became the talk of the capital. The la-
dies of the omrahs of Delhi and Agra would wear
nothing on grand occasions but what came from the
hands of the beautiful Mher-ul-Nissa. She therefore

92

SCENES IN INDIA.

soon became the oracle of fashion and of taste.
Whilst she affected an extreme simplicity in her
own dress, she attired her attendants in the richest
tissues and brocades, making those who had attrac-
tive persons the vehicles for setting off to advantage
the works of her own industry. She thus amassed
a considerable sum of money, and became more ce-
lebrated in her obscurity than she had hitherto been
as the wife of the most distinguished hero of his
age. Her milder glories had been hitherto eclipsed
by the predominancy of his.

The accomplishments of this singular woman
were soon carried to the ears of the emperor, who
had probably by this time forgotten the ascendency
which she once held over his heart. He determined
therefore to see her in order to have ocular proof
whether the voice of public report was a truth or an
exaggeration. Resolving to take her by surprise, he
unexpectedly entered her apartment, when, at the
sight of her unrivalled beauty, all his former passion
revived in an instant. She was reclining on a sofa
in an undress robe of plain white muslin which exhi-
bited her faultless shape to the best advantage, and
became her better than the richest brocades of Bagdat,
or the -finest embroideries of Cashmere. As soon as
the emperor entered, the syren rose with an agitation
that served only to heighten her charms, and fixed
her eyes on the ground with well-dissembled confusion.
Jehangire stood mute with amazement ; rapture
took immediate possession of his soul ; he felt, if he
did not utter, the sentiment of an emiment poet of his
own religion — -

NOOR JEHAN.

93

Sweet maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight,

And bid these arms thy neck infold ;

That rosy cheek, that lily hand,

Would give thy lover more delight
Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold —

Than all the gems of Sarmacand.*

He was dazzled by the perfection of her form., the
dignity of her mien, and the transcendent loveliness
of her features. Advancing to where she stood in
the plenitude of her beauty, he took her hand, de-
clared his resolution to make her his empress, and
immediately a proclamation was issued for the cele-
bration of the royal nuptials with the lovely relict of
the late Shere Afkun.

The name of Mher-ul-Nissa was exchanged for
that of Noor Mahil — f<r the light of the harem.”
From this moment she became the favourite wife of
the sovereign of the Moguls. In the climax of her
exaltation her name was again changed to Noor Jehan,
or, “ the light of the world.” As a distinguishing
mark of her pre-eminence in the emperor's affections,
she was allowed to assume the title of Shahe, or em-
press. The current coin was stamped with her name
as well as with the sovereign’s. Her family was held
next in rank to the princes of the blood, and advanced
to places of the highest trust. Its members were ad-
mitted to privileges which had never before been
enjoyed by subjects under the Mogul domination.
Her influence exceeded that of any person in the
empire, not even excepting the emperor ; and perhaps
under the rigid scrupulosity of Mogul policy with

* Hafiz, translated by Sir Wm. Jones.

94

SCENES IN INDIA,

regard to women sharing in the administration of the
state, there never has been an instance of one of the
sex attaining an ascendency so paramount, and such
perfect political control over the destinies of so many
subject principalities as the renowned Noor Jehan.

DELHI.

95

CHAPTER VIII.

DELHI.- — TOGLOKABAD.— A HINDOO TEMPLE.

We saw much more of Delhi on our return than on
our upward journey; for we made a longer stay there.
One of the most striking objects in the modern city,
though by no means one of the most magnificent,
is the tomb of Sufter Jung, a Mahomedan chieftain
of some repute, who died about the middle of the
last century. This structure is ranked among the
best architectural works of New Delhi. It is sur-
rounded by a large garden, enclosed by a high wall,
above which the dome and minor cupolas of the
edifice appear with agreeable effect, when beheld from
the plain without. The body of the building is com-
posed of light red stone tessellated with white mar-
ble, beautifully contrasting its pure bright surface
with the dull red of the mass which forms the
monument. The dome is entirely of white marble,
rising majestically over the body of the edifice, and
relieved against a clear blues sky which seems to be
its native element, as if it were the aerial abode of
some guardian angel watching the slumbers of the
dead, reduced to its primitive dust in a capacious sar-
cophagus below. The entrance into the gardens is
through a handsome square building, in which are

96

SCENES IN INDIA.

apartments for the different stipendiaries. In the
right hand corner there is an elegant mosque, and
in the left a small pavilion. These gardens have
suffered greatly from neglect. They are of consider-
able extent and inspire a solemn impression as you
enter, which is no doubt enhanced by the desolation
that seems to reign around. The mind is irresistibly
impressed with a feeling that it is the abode of silence
and of death. There is a perception imparted, and a
sentiment realized, of which we are perhaps never so
conscious as when we draw nigh to " the place of
graves,” where C( the prisoners rest together, and hear
not the voice of the oppressor.”

Before we quitted this neighbourhood, we visited
the fort of Toglokabad, at the extremity of one of the
Mewat hills, not far from the city. It was erected
by Toglok Shah, a Patan prince of some celebrity, in
the early part of the ninth century. It is built in a
bold style, its massy walls bidding defiance to all
the means of assault practised at that early period ;
though it is pretended that the use of fire-arms was
known in India some time previously to the first
irruption of the Moguls into Hindostan, three cen-
turies before its invasion by Timour, when that
portion of the peninsula between the Indus and the
Ganges, to which his family so rapidly succeeded,
was under the Patan, or Afghan government : so
that cannon might have been in use when this fort
was erected — indeed the strength of its defences would
imply that even in that early age sieges had already
become formidable.

The tomb of the founder is seen near the fort, and

A DISINTERESTED BRAHMIN.

97

is built of the same materials, in a plain unpretending
style, but with the same massive strength. Though
rudely constructed and almost entirely without orna-
ment, it is nevertheless not deficient in general gran-
deur of effect, which is somewhat increased by the
natural solitariness and asperity of the spot.

Near the tomb, we entered a temple, in which
were several small brass images, such as are commonly
sold for a few rupees in the bazaars. We were at-
tended by one of the officiating Brahmins, who was
exceedingly courteous and more than usually com-
municative. The temple is but a rude structure, and
the attendant functionaries appear to be miserably
poor, living upon the small gratuities of devotees who
casually resort to this humble sanctuary. They were
very civil and showed us every part of the building
without the slightest hesitation. They manifested
none of that reluctance to answer any questions re-
specting their worship, which is generally shown by
the better-conditioned ministers of those sanctuaries
that are more richly endowed. Everything here be-
spoke extreme poverty, and if the spiritual attendants
were devout in proportion, they must indeed have
been most holy men.

Before we quitted this temple, a circumstance oc-
curred which strikingly displayed the selfish and
equivocal casuistry of the mercenary Hindoo. I hap-
pened to take a fancy to one of the little brazen gods
which was placed upon a sort of altar in the most
sacred part of the edifice. It was a very clumsy
cast in brass, but one which I had never before seen,
and was therefore anxious to possess. Knowing that

K

98

SCENES IN INDIA.

these deities had been occasionally sold by the Brah-
mins from their very altars, I proposed to pur-
chase this, and made for it what I imagined to be a
very liberal offer. The obsequious priest, bowing
his head, placed his hand upon his breast with the
most ludicrous humility, and said that he could not
sell, since that would be a desecration of the holy
sanctuary of which he was an unworthy minister,
and that he could not give because he was too poor
to replace the treasure of which the temple would be
thus deprived ; but, he continued, “ suppose sahib
take, what can a poor Brahmin do V* Upon this hint
I acted, and, without the slightest opposition from the
good-tempered priest, took possession of the image.
The holy man did not even offer a rebuke, but, on
the contrary, extended his open palm towards me,
into which I dropped a pagoda that I had previously
held between my finger and thumb, and upon which
he closed his hand with a courteous smile, bowing
with the profoundest reverence the moment his flesh
felt the delectable pressure of the gold.

It is surprising to see with what facility some of
these spiritual functionaries reconcile themselves to a
breach of the spirit of their religious restrictions,
though they literally conform to them. The obliga-
tion of sincerity is, with a large portion of them,
a mere dead letter ; so much so that they claim
the rewards of heavenly beatitude, if they outwardly
obey a given law, whatever depravity may lurk in
the heart. It is true that such mental reservations
or compromises of conscience are not admitted by the
more intelligent of their priesthood as legitimately

THE INSTITUTES OF MENU.

99

moral feelings, nor as sanctioned by the spirit of their
religion. Those Brahmins, who are really learned,
and such are by no means uncommon, have a nice
perception of moral influence. They teach the doc-
trines of a refined practical philosophy, contending for
inward purity and integrity of heart as well as for
external decorum of conduct, and there are many
among them of very rare mental endowments. We
find, moreover, many axioms of a high morality
among their religious and philosophical writings. I
take one at random from the Institutes of Menu.
“ Let not a man be querulous even though in pain ;
let him not injure another in deed or in thought ; let
him not even utter a word by which his fellow-crea-
ture may suffer uneasiness ; since that will obstruct
his own progress to future beatitude.” * There is a
beautiful maxim quoted by Sir William Jones, and
written upwards of three hundred years before the
Christian era, which would do honour to any religious
community— it pronounces the duty of a good man,
even in the moment of destruction, to consist, “ not
only in forgiving but even in a desire to benefit, his
destroyer, as the sandal-tree, in the instant of its
overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe that fells it.”
These are the suggestions of no common minds, and
whoever, in seeking to ascertain the Hindoo character,
shall judge of it from those with whom he may
happen to come in contact, in passing rapidly through
any part of their country, will be sure to look at it
through a false medium and consequently not appre-
ciate it justly. If there be much to despise, there is
* Institutes of Menu, chap. 2, on Education.

100

SCENES IN INDIA.

also much to admire. It cannot indeed he denied that
many of their religious teachers are so ignorant as to
uphold the most barbarous superstitions, which of
course are eagerly received by the deluded multitude ;
but it is equally true, that in almost every age of the
world, they have produced learned men among them
who would have done honour to any country and at
any period.

During our stay at Delhi, we took advantage of
our leisure, and saw everything in the city worth
the traveller’s attention. I shall, therefore, enter
a little further into detail concerning one or two of
the more remarkable buildings of this still magnifi-
cent city. The gateways of the fort are built in a
style sufficiently bold, but look heavy in consequence
of the material being a dull red stone. In two or
three of these gateways there are marks of the se-
verity of Gholaum Kaudir’s cannonading, before he
was obliged to fly from the scene of his atrocities by
the victorious Scindia, who visited him with so hor-
rible a retribution. In the first court there is a can-
non of so vast a calibre that a large man may lie in
it with ease. I believe it is now never fired. In the
second court is the Dewan Aum, or hall of public
audience. The musnud* upon which the Mogul em-
perors once sat was a most costly piece of work. It
was in the form of a peacock with the tail outspread,
entirely composed of diamonds and other precious
stones. It had been valued at seven millions sterling.
This gorgeous piece of state furniture was taken away
by that rapacious spoiler Nadir Shah, and since the
* Mahomed an throne.

THE DEWAN KAUSS.

101

period of this predal abomination, the emperors of
Delhi have been content to sit upon a much less
costly throne.

In the third court is the Dewan Kauss, or hall of
private audience, built entirely of marble, and richly
ornamented with representations of various flowers.
This is a very elegant structure, and the interior
scarcely less costly than that of the Dewan Aum.
Over the arches which support the roof is the following
inscription in Persian characters, beautifully inlaid with
silver on a ground of dark but brilliantly polished mar-
ble:— “ If there be a heaven on earth, it is here, it
is here, it is here.” The characters are large and ad-
mirably formed ; indeed, I think it is the finest spe-
cimen of the Persian text I ever witnessed. In this
hall there was an immense block of crystal, on which
the unhappy Shah Allum always used to sit when he
held a private audience of his ministers. Its su-
perficial measurement was four feet by three, and it
was eighteen inches thick. The apartment formerly
devoted to the royal privacy, into which no one was
permitted to intrude but upon business of great mo-
ment, is close by the Dewan Kauss. It was gorge-
ously furnished. Over it is a gilt dome, the most spa-
cious in the palace. The gardens are now quite in
ruins. In the centre is a large square basin, said to
have been originally lined with crystal. It contains
gold and silver fish. Close by it there was a marble
seat for the emperor’s use when he chose to visit
the gardens. At a short distance was a large bath,
much like a huge sarcophagus, cut out of the solid
marble. Between the garden and the Dewan Kauss

102

SCENES IN INDIA.

are the royal baths ,* they are composed entirely of
marble and elaborately embellished,, the floors and
sides being elegantly inlaid with flowers of variously
coloured stones.

A few days after our arrival at Delhi a male ele-
phant, having killed its driver, escaped from its stable
and,, running through the city in a state of great ex-
citement, created considerable alarm. The enraged
animal, when it got outside the walls, stood eyeing
the approaching multitude which had followed it from
the town, with a most mischievous expression and a
very sinister motion of the proboscis. Its look was
so determined that no one had the courage to ap-
proach, when an English soldier from a small de-
tachment on its march to Cawnpore, rendered more
than usually courageous from having indulged in
liberal potations of arrack, advanced with the most
undaunted bearing towards the angry animal, which
calmly awaited his approach. The spectators ima-
gined that instant destruction must be the issue of
this mad freak. On the contrary, to the astonish-
ment of all present, the elephant permitted the drun-
ken soldier to seize it by the trunk with impunity,
bent its knees and inclined its head to enable the
man to mount, who, assisted by the animal, now no
longer refractory, got upon its neck and drove it into
the city amid the acclamations of the crowd, by whom
it was finally secured.

After we quitted this interesting capital of a once
flourishing but now subverted empire, on passing by
Feroz Shah’s cotilla,* a few leagues from Delhi, our

* A fortified house.

A REMARKABLE PILLAR.

103

attention was arrested by a pillar composed of a single
stone forty-six feet high and upwards of ten in cir-
cumference at the base. It is said to have been
much more lofty, a large portion of it having been
struck down by lightning many years since, without
shattering any part of the column below. The top of
the shaft bears evident marks of severe injury, and
the story has decidedly the voucher of strong ex-
ternal evidences in favour of its truth. It certainly
has the appearance of a broken column. The whole
has a fine polish until within a few feet of the base,
where the curious and the lovers of virtu have
clipped it off ; the one to satisfy an idle curiosity in
ascertaining if it were really stone, the other to add
an item to his choice collection of extraordinary frag-
ments. How often have the finest monuments of
man’s mental and manual labour been thus dilapidated
to make a valueless addition to a collection of lumber !

This remarkable pillar has been supposed by many
to be nothing more than a composition which time
has compacted into a mass so solid as to give it the
appearance of a hard impenetrable granite ; but there
are no just grounds for such a supposition, since the
stratifications may be distinctly traced, and it has
all the compactness of marble with a like capability
of receiving the most exquisite polish. There are
several inscriptions upon this pillar which it has
baffled the ingenuity of the learned to decipher. They
are perfectly legible, but the character is not recog-
nized, so that the column must be of extreme an-
tiquity.

As the day was unusually hot, we were much gra-

104

SCENES IN INDIA.

tified just at the entrance of a small village at seeing
a fruit stall, on which there was no despicable dis-
play of some of the choicest fruits which this fine
climate produces. It was a shed very rudely con-
structed, thatched with long wiry grass, and sup-
ported by four slender bamboos. The front was open,
but the back was covered by a light frame of bam-
boo thatched like the roof, while a coarse drapery
hung down on one side. The girl who presided over
this rude pavilion of the Indian Pomona, was a
prepossessing young Hindoo, the graceful flower of
sixteen summers !

Arched is her brow like heaven’s gay bow of light,

Her gentle breast heaves lovely to the sight,

With the bright moon her brighter face may vie,

And with the lotus’ purest tint her eye.

Her step the elephant’s proud gait reveals,

And sweetness from the cygnet’s* voice she steals.

She was leaning with her back against the stand on
which some of her fruits were disposed for sale in
tempting profusion, while at her feet lay a basket of
pine apples and bananas. She pressingly but gracefully
invited us to become purchasers of the choicest of her
stock, for which she courteously asked us about ten
times its value ,* but who could refuse what was so
eloquently demanded by this interesting creature?
W e bought the best of what she had to offer, and paid
her without reluctance what she demanded, which
gave her, no doubt, an idea that we were more liberal
than wise.t

* The Hindoos have a fabulous bird so called, which is said
to feed on pearls, and whose voice is most melodious.

t See title page.

THE CHAUTER SERAI.

105

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHAUTER SERAI. — - A VICIOUS CAMEL.

We now followed the course of the Jumna to the
Chauter Serai,, built by Asuf Khan, brother to the
celebrated Noor Jehan. From the top of it the eye
embraces a very extensive and agreeable prospect. It
is said to be one of the finest serais in the country, and
is in excellent repair. The gateway is particularly
elegant, and seen from the distance as you approach
upon a gentle ascent, flanked on either side by a lofty
parapeted wall, the effect is extremely picturesque.
The area within the walls is of great extent and
is generally found occupied by travellers. Its re-
cesses are so numerous as to afford accommodation
to a large number. There is moreover an extensive
bazaar in the neighbourhood, so that they have no
difficulty in procuring anything they may require.

The morning after our halt at this interesting spot,
Mr. Daniell and myself rose early in order to indulge
ourselves with a sight of the beautiful prospect around
us. The sun had just risen ; the distant hills were
tinged with its beams, but the gloom of twilight was
still in the valleys. As the gate of the serai stood
upon a considerable elevation, the sun’s rays were in-
tercepted by it ; but slanting through the portal they

106

SCENES IN INDIA.

fell brightly upon the busy travellers who had just
resumed their journey down the winding path that
led from their welcome shelter, imparting a most
delightful feature to the scene. There was a delicious
freshness in the morning, and I could not refrain
from wishing the travellers a hearty “ God speed !”

A small detachment of European troops, on their
way to Delhi, halted here a few hours after sunrise.
We joined the two officers who accompanied it, and
this casual meeting of our countrymen was a very
agreeable incident in our long though interesting jour-
ney. The detachment consisted of about seventy
men, under the command of a lieutenant, accom-
panied by a junior officer. They had pitched their
tent within a small grove at a short distance from the
serai walls, while the soldiers were quietly reposing
under the deep shade of the trees. The elephants,
camels, and other cattle were picketed around them.
Whilst the detachment was preparing for its march
on the following morning, an accident happened,
which I relate, as it will serve to show the disposi-
tion of that very useful, but occasionally savage crea-
ture, the camel. In general, indeed, this animal is
remarkably tractable, kneeling down at the slightest
intimation of its keeper, quietly ruminating while
the latter loads it, and patiently submitting to the
imposition of a very heavy burthen. One of the
camels, however, belonging to the troops preparing to
proceed on their march, contrary to its usual habit,
refused to obey the command of its driver, and stood
motionless in stubborn defiance of authority. The
man tugged in vain at the cord passed through its

A COBRA DI CAPELLO.

107

nostrils, which is the mode of bridling the camel,
when a soldier, impatient at the delay, advanced and
struck the animal a violent blow on the knee with
the handle of his bayonet. The mild spirit of the
camel was instantly converted into the most implaca-
ble hostility. Its eyes flashed fire ; its nostrils ex-
panded ; it stamped, projected its ears, and snorted
violently. The expression of its fury was indescriba-
ble. The soldier heeded not this fearful menace,
but repeated the blow. The creature’s eyes now di-
lated to an intense stare, assuming at the same mo-
ment a glare of the most deadly ferocity ; bending
down its head, its jaws distended and its lips qui-
vering with rage, it seized the soldier by the arm
between the elbow and the shoulder, raised him in
the air, snapping the bone in an instant, shook him
furiously, then dashed him upon the ground, and was
preparing to repeat the punishment, when the wounded
man was rescued by some of his comrades, and the
camel secured. It would not, however, suffer itself
to be loaded, and was led forward by the driver, the
baggage which it should have borne being divided
between the less turbulent of its fellow beasts of
burthen.

Shortly after the departure of our military compa-
nions, I took my gun and proceeded into a neighbour-
ing wood in search of game, and as I was standing
near a spot thickly overgrown with short bushes, the
native attendant who accompanied me suddenly gave
an exclamation of alarm, pointing at my feet and
exhibiting at the same time, every symptom of ex-
treme terror. Perfectly unconscious of the cause of

108

SCENES IN INDIA.

his sudden excitement, I cast my eyes on the ground
in the direction towards which he pointed, and to my
consternation saw a large cobra snake actually gliding
between my feet with the most quiet deliberation.
For a moment I felt paralysed. In fact, I was too
much alarmed to stir ; but in the course of a few
seconds the reptile passed harmlessly on its way, and
escaped into the thicket. Had I been more collected,

I probably should have fired at it ; but my energies
were so completely overcome at the moment, that
this never once occurred to my mind, though as soon
as the snake was out of sight, I confess I did enter-
tain the somewhat ungenerous regret that I had not
destroyed it. I was however no longer disposed to
continue my search after game, but returned to the
serai, where I felt not the slightest disposition to
demur at seeing a chicken served up for dinner instead
of a roasted partridge or peacock.

It is generally imagined, and by persons too who
have been some time resident in India, that the Cobra
di Capello exhibited by the jugglers in this country,
is perfectly harmless, in consequence of its fangs being
extracted by these practised adepts in the art of leger-
demain ; but this is altogether a mistake. The fangs
are positively not extracted, and the creature is pre-
sented to the spectator possessing all its natural powers
of mischief unimpaired. The bite from a snake shown
by any of these itinerant conjurors would as certainly
prove fatal as from one encountered in the jungle.
This will, perhaps, appear strange to those who have
heard of these reptiles being constantly shown in
the houses of the curious, and more especially when

SNAKES.

109

they are told that this snake is frequently permitted
to put its head against the cheeks of the children of
those who show them.

The dexterity of the jugglers in managing these
dangerous reptiles is truly extraordinary. They easily
excite them to the most desperate rage, and by a
certain circular motion of the arms appease them
as readily ; then without the least hesitation they
will take them in their hands, coil them round their
necks, and put their fingers to their mouths, even
while their jaws are furnished with the deadliest
venom, and the slightest puncture from their fangs
would produce not only certain but almost instant
death.

The power which these people exercise over this
species of venomous snake remains no longer a mys-
tery when its habits are known. It is a remark-
able peculiarity in the Cobra di Capello, and, I be-
lieve, in most poisonous reptiles of this class, that
they have an extreme reluctance to put into ope-
ration the deadly powers with which they are en-
dowed. The cobra scarcely ever bites unless excited
by actual injury or extreme provocation, and even
then before it darts upon its aggressor it always gives
him timely notice of his danger not to be mis-
taken. It dilates the crest upon its neck, which is
a large flexible membrane having on the upper sur-
face two black circular spots like a pair of spectacles,
waves its head to and fro with a gentle undula-
tory motion, the eye sparkling with intense lustre,
and commences a hiss so loud as to be heard at a
Considerable distance; so that the juggler always has

L

no

SCENES IN INDIA.

warning when it is perilous to approach his captive.
The snake never bites while the hood is closed, and
so long as this is not erected, it may be approached
and handled with impunity. Even when the hood
is spread, while the creature continues silent, there is
no danger. Its fearful hiss is at once the signal of
aggression and of peril.

Though the cobra is so deadly when under ex-
citement, it is nevertheless astonishing to see how
readily it is appeased even in the highest state of
exasperation, and this merely by the droning music
with which its exhibitors seem to charm it. It ap-
pears to be fascinated by the discordant sounds that
issue from their pipes and tomtoms.

I confess, for some time after my arrival in In-
dia, I laboured under the general delusion that the
fangs of these reptiles were always drawn by the
persons who carried them about, and had often fear-
lessly ventured within their spring with a feeling of
entire security; I however took especial care never
to approach a captive snake, after I discovered that
it still retained its powers of destruction. The jug-
glers, who gain a precarious subsistence by showing
these creatures, will bring them in from the jungles
by the neck, and an instance of their being bitten is
scarcely ever heard of. They themselves appear not
to have the slightest apprehension of danger, for it is
not often that the snake, though so rudely seized,
manifests any symptoms of irritation.

We were induced to extend our halt near the Chauter
Serai in consequence of a hunting party having ar-
rived in the neighbourhood, which we gladly availed

TIGER HUNTING.

Ill

ourselves of the opportunity of joining. We pro-
ceeded towards the jungle soon after daylight, and
having arrived at the appointed place, at least fifty
men were sent in to beat the wood, and by yells to
scare the game from the cover. They had not been
so employed above a quarter of an hour when a large
tiger darted from its concealment into the plain. One
of the beaters who had previously emerged from the
jungle, happened to be standing close to the spot
whence the tiger issued, and seeing the enemy so
near and in an evident state of furious excitement,
fled in terror. The tiger immediately pursued him,
and, soon overtaking his affrighted victim, struck
him a gentle tap, as it appeared, on the back and
passed on. The man instantly fell, rolled on the
ground and declared that he was dying. Our general
impression was that he could not be seriously hurt
from the slight blow he had received; we therefore
imputed his cries to fright, especially as there was no
perceptible wound on his body, and took it for granted
that in an hour or two he would be on his legs again.
He was immediately put under the charge of some
followers, who were ordered to convey him to the
tents without delay.

Meanwhile the tiger was vigorously pursued ; being
soon surrounded, it at length stopped panting against
a bank and prepared to resent the advance of the
first adversary. It was so perplexed by the yells
of the numerous attendants that it made no further
effort to escape, though it had not run above a
quarter of a mile from the place where it first broke
cover. We were now in an open part of the jungle

112

SCENES IN INDIA.

whither the animal had run for protection from its
pursuers ; but the party was so numerous and dis-
persed, that the tiger had not time to penetrate the
thicket before it was surrounded and forced to pre-
pare for defence. The grass was high, which a good
deal impeded the movements of the shikarries and
elephants. These latter were much frightened, on
seeing the fierce determination of the enemy towards
which the mahoots were violently urging them, and
shrank back with their trunks raised in the air, be-
tokening the violence of their alarm. The tiger stood
with its eyes glaring upon them, lashing its tail,
protruding its claws, every now and then showing
its monstrous fangs, uttering a suppressed yell, and
exhibiting all those indications of rage so terrible in
this ferocious creature.

The elephants remained stationary. Not one of
them would advance : on the contrary, several turn-
ed their backs upon the infuriated beast and started
off at full speed in spite of the efforts of the ma-
hoots to keep them in the field. The tiger did not
attempt to move, but maintained its position, eyeing
with a deadly ferocity the formidable array by which
it was surrounded. At length, after violent exertions
on the part of the driver, an old and well-trained
male elephant was induced to approach the savage foe.
He rushed forward on a sudden, and at the same
moment, ere the tiger could make its spring, a shikarry
shot it through the body: it staggered and reeled
backward. The elephant instantly seized the oppor-
tunity, and impaled it with his tusks, pinning it
firmly to the earth ; but in its death-struggle the

TIGER HUNTING.

113

enraged brute inflicted so dreadful a laceration on his
trunk, that a man’s arm, from the elbow downward,
could have been laid in the wound.

When the tiger was despatched it was placed upon
the back of the victorious elephant, which seemed, to
proceed under the burthen with conscious triumph;
but so terrified were some of its companions that they
would not approach their foe, even though it was dead.
The victor however marched on in the pride of con-
scious pre-eminence, and as soon as we regained our
tents, for the day’s sport was now concluded, the
lifeless enemy was unstrapped and immediately rolled
upon the ground. The elephants formed a circle
round it, though none could be induced to advance
within a hundred yards of the gored body. At length
the old elephant, in derision of their terror, as it
seemed, raised the dead tiger upon one of its tusks
and hurled it into the air with as much ease as if it
had been a sucking cub. Away they scampered when
they saw the dreaded projectile in rapid impulse to-
wards them, and it was with considerable difficulty
that the mahoots, after much coaxing, could induce
them to return.

Meanwhile the poor fellow who had been wounded
continued to complain of great internal suffering, but
his protestations were unheeded, as it is too frequently
the habit of these people to affect suffering in order
to excite compassion and thus obtain money. He
was therefore little attended to, more especially as he
happened to be a pariah ; for the unhappy wretches
who bear that designation are looked upon with ab-
horrence by the higher castes of Hindoos. His com-
l 3

114

SCENES IN INDIA.

plainings procured him no pity,, not even from those
of his own tribe ; there being but little sympathy
where there is only a community of wretchedness.
Extreme misery always makes us selfish. Every-
thing then merges in the one absorbing feeling of
conscious bereavement.

There happened to be a young regimental surgeon
of the party, but, either from inexperience or careless-
ness, he assured us there was nothing the matter and
that the man was only frightened. To our surprise
the poor fellow died in the course of the night. Upon
examining his back more attentively, it became evi-
dent that a wound, although a minute one, had
been inflicted by the tiger’s claw. The young sur-
geon, now conscious of his mistake, opened the body,
when it was found that the claw had pierced through
the spine and punctured the intestines : — the com-
plaints of the poor man were at once fully accounted
for. I confess that this melancholy issue of the day’s
sport did not tend to increase my relish for tiger-
hunting, and I could not help observing with a pain-
ful emotion with what apathy the death of a fellow-
creature was regarded.

Eagerly as tiger-hunting is pursued in India, it is
nevertheless a dangerous sport. In proof of this I
may mention an accident which happened during the
Marquis of Hastings’s administration. Two young
officers were beating a jungle upon an elephant, when
a large tiger suddenly sprang upon the animal’s flank,
reached the seat on which the officers were sitting,
and seizing one of them by the thigh instantly dragged
him to the ground. He had fortunately the pre-

TIGER HUNTING.

115

sence of mind to hold the ferocious brute tightly by
the ear with one hand, and with the other, drawing a
pistol from his pocket, he discharged it into the tiger’s
belly. The enraged animal, however, continued to
drag him onward, until exhausted by loss of blood, it
relaxed its gripe ; some of the party coming to their
friend’s assistance, the tiger was despatched and the
officer rescued from jeopardy, though not without
being dreadfully lacerated. His life was for some
time despaired of, but he happily recovered, and
the Marquis of Hastings, as a mark of respect for
his intrepidity, placed him upon the staff.

116

SCENES IN INDIA.

CHAPTER X.

ABDULNUBBI KHAN MOSQUE AT MATHURA.

I should have mentioned that at the small town
of Furreedabad, between Delhi and the Chauter Serai,
we had an opportunity of witnessing the process of
how-makings at which the workmen are there very
expert^ and the skill displayed by some of them in
the use of this weapon is truly astonishing. I have
seen a pigeon on the wing struck down by a bowmans
and a hare killed at full speed. Nor are such instances
of dexterity at all uncommon.

The bows manufactured at Furreedabad are com-
posed of mulberry wood and buffalo’s horns bound
with the sinews of the same animal dipped in a strong
glue made from the hoof. These bows are in much
request. They are very neatly finisheds and any one
unused to the operation requires great strength of arm
to string them. The arrow is a straight reed tipped
with a steel barb and feathered at the reverse end.
It is thirty-two or three inches long, and the shaft
about the third of an inch in diameter. One of the
most celebrated marksmen of the place gave us a spe-
cimen of his dexterity by strikings at the distance of
twenty paceSs a small copper coin from the top of a
slight bamboo fixed into the ground. He knocked

ABDULNUBBI KHAN.

117

the copper from the bamboo three times out of five.
The mark was covered with a piece of white linen in
order to render it the more visible. While I am
on this subject I may remark that in the island
of Madagascar the natives exhibit equal dexterity in
hurling the segai, or javelin. They will pierce an
ox through the heart at the distance of twelve yards.
I once saw this done three time successively. The
last ox was opened, and I stood by during the pro-
cess, when the head of the spear was found buried
in the animal’s heart. The weapon used on this oc-
casion was a light javelin with a thin ebony shaft
about the thickness of a mould candle of the largest
size, having a small steel head of an elliptical shape
not barbed, but edged on two sides and very sharp.

Upon quitting the Chauter Serai we reached Mat-
hura, a town celebrated for an establishment of mon-
keys, supported by a bequest from Mahadajee Scin-
dia, as stated in the former volume of this work.
Here is a very magnificent mosque, said to have
been built by Abdulnubbi Khan, a foujdar* of the
Emperor Aurungzebe. The account given of its origin
is somewhat singular. Mathura was at that time,
as it has been ever since, a place of much resort
by the votaries of Krishna. On the invasion of
Mahmood of Ghizni, the celebrated Mahomedan con-
queror, in 1018, Mathura was taken and razed to the

* The foujdar is an officer who has the charge of a troop of
elephants. “ The foujdar’s business is to teach the elephants
to be bold, and not to be frightened at the sight of fire or at the
noise of artillery, and he is answerable for their discipline in
these respects.” — Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. part I.

118

SCENES IN INDIA.

ground by the haughty warrior, in consequence of
the abominable idolatries there practised. Mahmood
was a fierce iconoclast, and found abundant exercise
for his intolerant zeal, the fury of which he poured
out upon this devoted city. It was subsequently re-
built with much superior magnificence, being embel-
lished with several splendid temples and other orna-
ments of art which rendered it a place of even greater
celebrity than it had formerly been. Krishna was
worshipped in still more gorgeous temples, and the
number of his votaries had been gradually increasing
since the destruction of his shrine by the unrelenting
Mahmood.

It is said that Abdulnubbi Khan was seduced from
his spiritual allegiance to the prophet of Mecca, and
persuaded to offer his oblations on the altar of the
Hindoo god. He was detected in the act of pro-
stration before the Pagan image and the circumstance
forthwith reported to Aurungzebe, who, being a perfect
fanatic in the observance of religious austerities, was
highly scandalized at a Mussulmaun degrading him-
self by so preposterous a fealty. The convicted neo-
phyte, soon convinced of the folly of his proselytism to
such a degrading superstition, returned to the spiritual
service of the Prophet, and, in order to regain the em-
peror’s favour, pulled down the sanctuary of the god
to whom he had so lately dedicated his homage, and
raised a mosque on its site. The mosque, however,
of which a most faithful representation is given in the
accompanying engraving, is stated by some historians,
who question the fact just related, to have been built
by the emperor himself with the materials of a temple

MOSQUE AT MATHURA.

119

previously erected by the Rajah of Oorcha. This
latter is said to have been a noble Hindoo structure
raised by the Rajah after the rebuilding of Mathura,
and to have cost upwards of four hundred thousand
pounds sterling — a vast sum at that period, especially
where the price of labour is so low. This was the
temple that was pulled down to make room for the
mosque, which now stands upon the same ground
and is a fine structure. The body of the building,
which is quadrangular, is flanked by four superb
minarets nearly a hundred feet high. They have
each ten angles, are sparingly ornamented and sur-
mounted by small cupolas, supported upon slender
pillars of stone. At intervals there are balconies,
which are reached by a staircase from within and
impart a graceful finish to each minaret. The gate-
way of this temple is lofty, and its architectural
decorations are very elegant. The spandrels of the
arch which forms the portal, are faced with white
marble, admirably harmonizing with the darker ma-
terial of which the adjacent parts are constructed.
The arch, like the gothic, terminates in a point, rising
to a considerable height above the entrance and lead-
ing immediately into the interior of the sanctuary.
There is a projecting stone gallery over the gateway,
decorated with a profusion of tracery in the very hap-
piest style of redundant embellishment; for though
the ornaments are profuse, there is not the slightest
confusion nor the least violation of taste. On either
side of this gallery are sunken panels covered with
finely executed inscriptions from the Koran.

From the doorway of the mosque to the street

120

SCENES IN INDIA.

there is a descent by a broad flight of steps* composed
of durable stone* forming at once a compact and beau-
tiful piece of masonry. The street is here so spa-
cious that a numerous cavalcade of elephants and
horses may pass without difficulty. The picture re-
presents an elephant kneeling at the bottom of the
steps awaiting its rider* who has just descended from
his devotions in the sanctuary. On the left of the
steps* as you face the mosque* is a large bazaar* abun-
dantly supplied with every thing that might tempt
the palate of the most luxurious* from a kismish*
to a pine-apple.

In the fort of Mathura are still to be seen the
mins of an observatory* reported to have been a
lofty and elegant structure* though* it must be con-
fessed* there are few indications of this in what now
remains of it. This city continued subject to the
Mogul government until the period of its decline*
when it experienced many of the vicissitudes common
to conquered provinces. About the middle of the
eighteenth century the province of Agra was ravaged
by the Persian despot Ahmed Shah Abdalli* who
ordered a general massacre of the wretched people
of Mathura. He took the city by storm* and giving
it up to plunder* put the inhabitants to the sword
for having dared to defend their lives and property.
Towards the close of the last century* the province
of Agra fell into the hands of the Mahratta conqueror
Mahadajee Scindia* and was* in 1803* rescued from
his successor Dowlut Rao by Lord Lake.

* A dried raisin.

HINDOO SUPERSTITION.

121

From Mathura we proceeded towards the capital of
the province. On the road the distances are regularly
marked by coss stones,, the coss being two miles. These
stones form large octagonal pillars, from twenty to
thirty feet high ; they are generally composed of brick
and covered with a dark stucco, on which the distances
are legibly cut in large characters. The whole of
the country from Delhi to Agra is rich in architectural
remains, impressing upon the mind of the traveller
a grand idea of bygone generations. But it is not
abundant only in the noble ruins of past ages ; there
are also mighty evidences of the taste and capacity of
modern times to challenge our admiration and pro-
voke our praise.

From Agra we crossed the Jumna, and proceeded
by the usual route to Futtygur. Here we were most
hospitably entertained for several days by the com-
manding officer of a small detachment stationed in
this town, which is one of the several military de-
pots on the Ganges. During our stay we witnessed
the awful effects of superstition on the human mind,
when not counteracted by the higher energies of
reason.

About three weeks before our arrival a servant of
our host had, by accident, run against an old woman
in the bazaar and nearly knocked her down, upon which
she poured upon him such a torrent of abuse as to
rouse his anger. In a moment of irritation he pushed
her violently forward ; she immediately fell, and her
head came in contact with the stone steps of a house,
which cut it severely, and she was picked up sense-

M

122

SCENES IN INDIA.

less. The poor fellow instantly relented, and be-
came dreadfully alarmed at the possible issue of his
intemperance. After a short time the woman re-
covered, but perceiving the person near her who had
been the cause of her injury, she caught in her hand
the blood which was streaming from her temples,
cast it at him with ferocious vehemence, imprecating
upon him at the same time the most dreadful male-
dictions. He remained silent as if paralysed with
horror. " May thy shadow grow less and less until
it ceases to darken thy path ! ” cried the sibyl with a
half-suppressed scream of rage. “ May thy pillow
deny thee slumber, and thy food fail to nourish thee !
May thy thoughts be curses to thee, and thy heart a
plant of bitterness within thee ! Before the waning
of another moon the alligator shall carouse upon thy
devoted body. Thy bones shall never crumble upon
the pyre, but rot in infamy. Go, go ! thou art ac-
cursed—thou bearest an injured woman’s malediction!”
The man shrank in dismay from the bitter ana-
thema. He returned to his master as a creature under
ban and for whom there remained no hope. He
could not be persuaded but that the curse pronounced
against him was to be his doom. He heard only a
prophetic judgment in that horrible denunciation.
Deaf to all persuasion, he took little or no food, but
gradually declined, and on the da}7 after our arrival
at Futtygur, I saw him. He was dejected and low,
declaring that his days were numbered, and that his
life would terminate before the lapse of forty-eight
hours. From this time he tasted no food, or not
enough to sustain life, and on the morning of the

AN AWFUL SACRIFICE.

1 23

twenty-eighth day after his adventure in the bazaar,
he died.

Similar instances of superstitious belief acting fa-
tally are not uncommon in India, and Colonel Tod, in
his “ Annals of Rajasthan,” mentions a circumstance
of this kind so remarkable that I shall offer no apo-
logy for inserting it here. Oodi Sing, known from
his extreme obesity by the name of the fat Rajah,
had fallen in love with the virgin daughter of a
Brahmin.

“ It was on the Rajah’s return from court to his
native land that he beheld the damsel, and deter-
mined, notwithstanding the sacred function of her
father and his own obligations as the dispenser of
law and justice, to obtain the object of his admiration.
The Brahmin was an Aya Punta, or votary of Aya
Mata, whose shrine is at Bai Bhilara. The sectarians
of Maroo, very different from the abstinent Brahmins
of Bengal, eat flesh, drink wine, and share in all the
common enjoyments of life with the martial spirits
around them. Whether the scruples of the daughter
were likely to be overcome by the royal tempter, or
whether the Rajah threatened force, the memoir does
not inform us; but as there was no other course by
which the father could save her from pollution but by
death, he resolved to make it one of vengeance and
horror. He dug a sacrificial pit, and having slain
his daughter, cut her into fragments and mingled
them with pieces of flesh from his own person, made
the burnt sacrifice of Aya Mata, and, as the smoke
and flames ascended, he pronounced an imprecation
on the Rajah. f Let peace be a stranger to him, and

1 24

SCENES IN INDIA.

in three pahars,'* three days, and three years, let me
have my revenge ! ' Then exclaiming, f my future
dwelling is the Dabi Baori/ sprang into the flaming
pit. The horrid tale was related to the Rajah, whose
imagination was so haunted by the shade of the Brah-
min, that he expired just at the assigned period, a
prey to unceasing remorse.”

* Hours.

ARRIVE AT LUCKNOW.

125

CHAPTER XI.

ANECDOTE OF A HINDOO. — THE NEWAUB OF LUCKNOW.

From Futtygur we crossed the Ganges,, and pro-
ceeded to Lucknow on the river Goomty. As soon as
we reached this splendid metropolis, our palankeen
bearers came in a body to congratulate us on our safe
arrival at the great city, and at the same time begged
we would give them something for having conducted
us in safety thus far. We accordingly bought them a
sheep, which they soon killed, and converting the flesh
into curries regaled themselves, as it appeared, to their
infinite satisfaction. They were all Hindoos of the
Sudra caste, which is the lowest of the four legiti-
mate divisions. Now, although according to their
Vedas and Puranas, even this caste is prohibited from
taking the life of animals, except in sacrifice, yet it
is certain that while some sects adhere, as the Bhud-
dists to the letter of the prohibition, even to the
preservation of vermin, yet are there a vast number
of high caste Hindoos, and even of Brahmins, who do
not hesitate to destroy animal life upon particular
occasions, though they chiefly confine themselves to
animals noxious or wild, except in cases, as above
stated, where the love of good feeding induces them
to eat as well as to kill. But whilst, however, they
m 3

126

SCENES IN INDIA.

will relax on certain points — and where is the commu-
nity so morally organized that some of its members
will not? — they are equally tenacious of their ob-
servances upon others, to which they will often adhere
even unto death.

At Bombay, I knew an instance of a Hindoo who
had gone on board an Indiaman on commercial bu-
siness, and having taken too strong a dose of opium,
he was overcome with drowsiness and fell asleep in
the steerage. When he awoke he found that the
ship had weighed anchor, and was already several
leagues from the fort. There were many Lascars * on
board, but, as they were all of inferior caste to him-
self, the provisions which they had procured for the
voyage were looked upon by him as polluted. The
captain of the ship, to whom the prejudices of a
Hindoo were matters of indifference, refused to send
a boat on shore, alleging that it would cause consi-
derable delay. The poor fellow therefore had no
alternative but to proceed to Madras with the ship,
leaving his family in utter ignorance of what had
become of him. On hearing the captain’s cruel de-
termination, he lay down upon the deck sullen and
dogged, neither moving nor speaking, and in this state
he continued for two days without tasting a morsel
of food, or once moistening his parched lips. The
ship was now at least a hundred leagues from
Bombay, though, as she was bound for Madras, she
did not keep very far from the land, but coasted down
towards Cape Comorin, under easy sail, and was on
the morning of the third day about twenty leagues
from the shore.

* Native sailors.

THE NEWAUB OF LUCKNOW.

127

By this time the poor Hindoo, overcome with horror
at the idea of perishing among a race of beings de-
graded in his eyes by every moral and personal pol-
lution, requested the captain to allow him a spar upon
which he might endeavour to float himself to the
nearest point of land, which, as far as I recollect, was
Mangalore. It was at least fifty miles distant. A
thick spar was accordingly flung into the sea, the
Hindoo gallantly plunged in, and, bestriding it, com-
mitted himself to the mercy of the calm waters,
surrounded by sharks and a host of other perils.
Whether the unhappy fanatic reached the shore alive
was never ascertained, but the chances were greatly
against him.

The devotion of these people is extraordinary, and
their capability of endurance incredible. With slight
frames, and even when labouring under great bodily
debility, they will undergo privations which would
destroy the life of a European of much stronger pro-
portions and constitution, while they appear to suffer
little or nothing. The chief cause of this may, per-
haps, be found in the extreme abstemiousness of
their living, which renders them so little liable to
inflammatory affections of any kind, that in every
part of India even the severest wounds heal in an
inconceivably short time with the simple application of
a plaister and bandage. I once saw a man in the
Deckan at work, six days after he had received a se-
vere fracture of the skull. Owing to his lowness of
habit, no inflammation, or to a very trifling extent,
ensued.

We reached Lucknow just as the Newaub was

128

SCENES IN INDIA.

passing down the Goomty in his state barge, the
Moah Punkee, of which a faithful representation is
given in the following page. It was a splendid sight.
This boat derives its name from the figure orna-
menting the bow, which is a flying peacock; moah
signifies a peacock, and punkee wings, indicating the
swiftness of its progress ; and these boats certainly
are remarkable for their speed. They are of an
elegant shape, extremely long and light in form.
Unlike every other description of boat, the head rises
greatly above the stern, which latter terminates in a
low point without the slightest ornament. The head
of the boat projects forward with a slight curve, and
is at least ten feet from the surface of the water, end-
ing in the body of a peacock with the wings ex-
tended. Near this gay ornament is a pavilion suf-
ficiently spacious to contain ten or twelve persons.
The boat is manned with from twenty to forty rowers,
who use short elliptical paddles, with which they
propel her forward with amazing swiftness, timing
their strokes by a measured but not unmusical chant.
Near the pavilion is a raised platform, upon which a
man dances for the amusement of the company, flou-
rishing the while a chowry over his head. He acts as
a sort of fugleman, for by his movements the action
of the paddles is governed. In the middle ground of
the picture appears the palace of Lucknow, which
is a structure of much beauty. This celebrated
city is situated on the southern bank of the river
Goomty, which rises among the Kumaoon hills, whence
it flows nearly parallel with the Goggra, and after
passing Lucknow and Juanpoor, debouches into the

LUCKNOW.

129

Ganges, a few miles below Benares. It is called
Goomty from its serpentine course; and there are
many smaller rivers flowing through the Gangetic
plain which have the same name and for the same
reason.

As in all the large cities of Hindostan, the greater
part of the streets in Lucknow are so narrow as barely
to admit the passage of an elephant,, and very filthy.
The different palaces of the Newaub, and indeed most
of the public buildings., are structures of considerable
splendour. The Imaum Barrah, completed in the
year 1784 by Asoph ud Dowlah, is considered infe-
rior only to the edifices erected by the Mahomedan
emperors. The architecture is loaded, though not
crowded, with ornament. This building contains a
single room a hundred and sixty-seven feet long
and broad in proportion. There is one remarkable
feature in this structure : no wood has been employed
in its erection, it being built entirely of brick. During
the Presidency of Mr. Hastings, Lucknow was, per-
haps, next to Benares, the richest and most populous
city of Hindostan.

A few days after our arrival, together with other
English residents, at Lucknow, we received from the
Newaub, who was very rich and as hospitable as he
was wealthy, an invitation to a sort of public break-
fast ; after which we were to be regaled by the sight
of several novel contests between some of the strongest
elephants in the prince’s stables,. About ten o’clock
we accordingly repaired to the palace, where a sump-
tuous entertainment was provided. It was laid out
with Oriental magnificence in a large room with a

130

SCENES IN INDIA.

gilded roof. This splendid apartment looked out,
through verandas that flanked it on either side, into
a spacious area surrounded by trees planted at near
intervals, the whole being again encircled by a strong
palisade of bamboo.

The splendour of the entertainment sufficiently con-
firmed what we had heard of the princely hospitality
of the Newaub. He received us very graciously, and
after having done full justice to his sumptuous pro-
vision, we all repaired to the veranda to see a spe-
cimen of those elephant fights for which Lucknow has
been long celebrated. They were announced as about
to commence by three strokes given at unequal inter-
vals on a gong, in order to distinguish this signal from
the regular striking of the hour. We had scarcely
placed ourselves in such a situation as afforded us the
most commanding view of the arena, when a female
elephant, followed by two horsemen well mounted
and armed with long spears, was conducted into the
enclosure. As soon as she reached the centre she
looked about her with an apparent complacency that
seemed to express a consciousness of the scene which
was about to follow ; and to my fancy there was a
sort of smiling glance occasionally cast from her small
twinkling eye, though every other part of her coun-
tenance was as rigid as a piece of unpolished horn.
She stood all but motionless, merely now and then
flapping her ears and slightly twisting her trunk,
when two enormous male elephants were admitted
by different entrances, and, upon seeing the female,
both proceeded briskly towards her ; but as soon as

AN ELEPHANT-FIGHT.

131

each perceived that he had a rival, there was a
mutual pause of some duration.

These were indeed the proud exulting monarchs
Of the huge herd ; their mighty roar invites
Grateful their willing mates ; down their broad cheeks
The viscid fluid sheds such cooling odour,

As from the newly ripe kadamba breathes.

They rend away the lotus leaf and stem
And roots and filaments, as in the lake
They madly plunge, affrighting from their nests
The osprey and the saras,* and to the tune
Of their ferocious loves, their ponderous ears
Waved dancing, lash the water into foam. t

It was evident that neither was desirous of com-
mencing hostilities,, for each stood alternately looking
at the female and at his rival, fearful and undeter-
mined. The men on horseback were already prepar-
ing with their long spears, to urge them on to the
attack, when one of the huge champions, more resolute
than his adversary, advanced towards the female,
still with great caution, evidently by no means anxi-
ous to begin the encounter, though desirous of inviting
her companionship without the intervention of a rival.
This was a thing not to be quietly endured ; the other
elephant, therefore, eyeing him suspiciously, bent for-
ward with the same slow movement, following him
step by step. There was now a prospect of immediate
collision, and the eyes of the spectators were fixed
upon the objects of their eager curiosity. As the
two unwieldy combatants had gradually approached

* The Indian crane.

t Hindoo Theatre.

132

SCENES IN INDIA.

the subject of contention, they were at length so near
to one another that there was no alternative but
an immediate conflict. In point of size they were so
equally matched that it would have been difficult
to determine which had the advantage; and they
were said to be about the same age. When within
a few yards of each other, the elephant which had
got nearest to the female, sprang suddenly forward,
with a short abrupt cry, towards his adversary, which
having eyed him keenly for some time as if he had
expected such a result, was fully prepared for it.
The shock was indeed terrific. The tusks of these
formidable foes met with a force quite appalling, and
the sound of the stroke must have been heard at a
considerable distance beyond the enclosure. So fearful
was the impetus that both these enormous animals
were lifted off their forelegs to the height of at least
four feet. Their tusks continued locked for some time
without producing mischief, when they gradually re-
treated, as if by mutual consent. Meanwhile the
female appeared to be a perfectly indifferent spectator
of the contest. She scarcely deigned to look at the
competitors, which were so earnestly contending for
the preference in her approbation. It was doubtful
whether they had yet relinquished the strife, as both
still approached the object of their rivalship, though
evidently showing no very vivid anxiety to renew the
encounter. There was now a sort of tacit menacing kept
up between them, until the two horsemen galloped
forward from behind and began to goad them in the
flanks in order to induce them to renew hostilities.
This summary proceeding, instead of increasing their

AN ELEPHANT-FIGHT.

133

irritation towards each other, provoked their rage
against the horsemen, upon whom both instantly
turned, and pursued them with a speed that bid fair
to render fruitless the utmost efforts of their horses.
I confess I expected every moment to see one of the
riders seized by the trunk of the excited elephant and
either whirled into the air or crushed to death under
the weight of its ponderous body, but by the dex-
terity of his horsemanship and the superior speed of
his horse, he managed to escape, although at one
time he was in no little jeopardy.

The elephants were now led from the enclosure, and
others introduced, when the same scene was almost
precisely repeated, until the amusement began to lose
its interest and to grow exceedingly tiresome. After
the first shock the combatants invariably declined
to try a second, which I could not help thinking a
most prudent determination. A tusk of one of them
was broken off close to the jaw, and the animal led
from the arena streaming with blood. The unfortu-
nate creature was most probably rendered useless by
this accident, as the tusk when broken almost inva-
riably becomes diseased; the wound constantly sup-
purating renders the animal unable to perform its cus-
tomary services. We at length became completely
weary of the sport, and retired with the good wishes
of the Newaub, who seemed pleased at the idea that
he had availed himself of the opportunity of enter-
taining us. The elephants at Lucknow have been
long celebrated for their prowess in these encoun-
ters ; but I must own that on witnessing them I was
greatly disappointed.

N

134

SCENES IN INDIA.

A few days after, we received another invitation
from the Newaub to witness a fight between an ele-
phant and an alligator ; this we willingly accepted,
expecting to see something tremendous from the col-
lision of two animals so formidable and so different
in their habits and character. His highness had
made the necessary preparations for affording us this
new species of entertainment, having sent to the river
Goggra a party, who had succeeded in catching a
couple of large alligators, one of which was seven-and-
twenty feet long. They were conveyed from the
banks of the Goggra to the Goomty upon hackeries.

On reaching the scene intended for this strange sport,
we found the alligators so exhausted from the uncon-
genial mode of their conveyance, and from having been
so long without food, that they could scarcely crawl,
but remained upon the banks of the stream without
attempting to escape, and in a state of almost complete
inaction. One, however, was much more torpid than
the other, in consequence of having been longer caught
and consequently longer a sufferer. A large elephant
was at length led to the spot, though it approached
with evident symptoms of distrust ; for these animals
appear to have an instinctive perception of danger far
more keen than any other beast of the forest. He
eyed the hideous monster which lay half gasping
upon the river hank, for several moments before he
ventured to advance, and when at length he did so,
the largest alligator opened its ponderous jaws and
made a snap at his trunk, but he had taken care to
curl it up between his tusks, thus securing it from
injury. The alligator finding itself foiled, snapped

ALLIGATORS.

135

at its aggressor's legs, but as the effort was made
without any vigour or quickness, the elephant easily
evaded the intended infliction by actively retreat-
ing beyond the reach of its dreadful fangs. Care-
fully avoiding a nearer approach to an enemy who
it was evident had still the power to do him a se-
rious mischief, he cautiously advanced towards the
other alligator which was lying on the bank in an
almost exhausted state, and on getting close to it,
coiled up his trunk as before that it might be be-
yond the reach of harm, then placing his foot upon
the body of the huge reptile, pressed upon it with
the whole weight of his own. The creature imme-
diately opened its mouth to a hideous extent and
gave a shrill scream ; but though crushed by such a
weight, it was so tenacious of life, that it was not
dead when we left the ground, and revived consi-
derably upon water being thrown over it. The gnash-
ing of the monster’s jaws, when the elephant trod
upon it, might I should think have been heard at a
distance of at least two hundred yards.

A pariah dog was now fastened by a strong cord
to this alligator, which immediately took him into
its mouth, but to our utter astonishment the dog
soon released himself from his horrible prison, and
attacking the animal’s nose, bit it so severely that
the blood copiously flowed. The creature seemed to
be quite insensible of the infliction, and was mani-
festly so nearly exhausted as to be almost bereft of
sensation. To this circumstance must of course be
attributed the dog’s escape from his perilous con-
finement. His head, however, was more than once

136

SCENES IN INDIA.

within the alligator’s mouth, hut he seemed to thrust
it in with impunity, and to draw it out at pleasure.
Having at length seized his dying enemy again by
the nose, he bit it with such severity that the alligator,
as if in its expiring agony, opened its jaws and imme-
diately closing them upon its tormentor, crushed him
so forcibly that when he was extracted, which was
immediately done by one of the attendants who was
present to conduct the sports, he appeared to be quite
dead. Water was again thrown upon the alligator
and the dog. Upon the former it had little or no
effect ,• but the latter, to our extreme surprise, almost
immediately rose up, staggered for a few seconds,
and then, the moment it was released, ran off as if
nothing had happened.

The Newaub had a space of ground of several acres
enclosed, within which he kept a large assortment
of birds and beasts of prey. It was a very fine col-
lection. Amongst a great variety of animals there
were several couples of the Rhamghur hill dogs, which
go in packs to the number of several hundred, hunting
down and quickly despatching the most ferocious tiger.
They were animated creatures, but did not appear to
be particularly fierce. Their size was about that of a
stag-hound. They were kept in cages, for they are
not easily domesticated, their wild nature taking
them continually into the jungles in search of game.
They often run down a whole herd of deer and
leave not one alive.

A MAUSOLEUM.

137

CHAPTER XII.

A MAUSOLEUM. ASOPH UD DOWLAH.

Among the architectural objects worthy of notice
at Lucknow., is a mausoleum erected to the memory
of a female relative of Newaub Asoph ud Dowlah.
It is placed in a garden with a terraced walk and
fountains. The building in the distance, as repre-
sented in the picture,, is a private mosque, built by
the immediate predecessor of that prince by whom
we were so hospitably entertained. The garden is
spacious, and laid out with much taste. The prin-
cipal building stands upon a square platform, which
is ascended by four or five steps, and forms a ter-
race of considerable width. The tomb is an octagon
terminating in a richly ornamented parapet with
short minarets at each angle. A large dome rises
from the centre of the roof surmounted by a lofty gilt
culice. The pediment beneath the parapet projects
from the wall about three feet, giving a graceful finish
to the body of the building.

At a little distance it is difficult to say whether
the mausoleum is not constructed of the finest marble,
but a closer inspection shows that it is covered with
chunam only, a composition which for a long period
preserves its pure white surface uninjured.

n 3

138

SCENES IN INDIA.

It is astonishing to what a degree of perfection the
natives of India carry the art of stuccoing with this
beautiful material, producing an effect so near to that
of white marble, that it often requires a close scru-
tiny to detect the imitation. As neither frost, nor
snow, nor any of the sudden atmospheric changes,
to which most ‘other countries are subject, occur in this
“ land of the sun,” the chunam resists even those
awful storms with which every region between the
tropics is more or less visited at certain periods of the
year, and will last for generations without showing
the slightest symptoms of decay.

The mosque in the distance, though simple, is not
devoid of elegance, which is much enhanced by the
two lofty minarets that ornament the transverse angles
of the square.

The body of A soph ud Dowlah, who built the
mausoleum just described, is buried in a sepulchre
constantly illuminated by an immense number of
wax tapers. The sarcophagus in which his body re-
poses, is continually strewed with flowers and strips
of gilt paper ; why the latter, I never heard ex-
plained. The tomb is kept covered with consecrated
bread from the city of the Prophet, whence a supply
at certain intervals is obtained at an enormous ex-
pense, and passages from the Koran are chanted day
and night over the mouldering ashes of the prince.
A censer filled with various perfumes is placed on
one side of the sepulchre, and his sword and cummer-
bund on the other. At the head a copy of the Koran
and his turban are deposited.

— ■

LUCKNOW.

139

Lucknow is about six hundred and fifty miles from
Calcutta, and is consequently visited by many resi-
dents at the Presidency, especially by ladies as anxi-
ous to see the elephant fights and other novelties for
which this city is celebrated, as they of the nobler
gender, who deem the enjoyment of such stern amuse-
ments their especial privilege.

A very interesting circumstance connected with
Lucknow occurred about three years ago, to the
recital of which I shall devote the remainder of this
short chapter.

Some thirty years since, the captain of an Xndia-
man residing in this city, obtained an introduction
to a Persian lady of great personal attractions, of
whom he shortly after became enamoured. She re-
turned his affections and they married. The lady
being in possession of great wealth, the husband re-
linquished his profession and took up his permanent
abode at Lucknow- Here he resided with his wife
for upwards of three years in great domestic comfort,
during which period she bore him three children.
From this time he was absent until the eldest boy
was about seven years of age, when the father brought
him to England in order to obtain for him the ad-
vantages of a European education. It happened that
the quondam captain, for some reason now only to
be surmised, led his child to suppose that he was not
related to him but merely a friend to whose care
he had been committed during the voyage. Almost
immediately upon their arrival in this country, the
father suddenly died without revealing to his charge

140

SCENES IN INDIA.

the relationship subsisting between them. As the
boy bore the complexion of his native clime,, and the
features of the race from which he sprang on the
maternal side,, he was looked upon as a half-caste
by the relatives of the deceased, who had never been
informed of the father’s marriage ; they, therefore,
considered that they made a suitable provision for
him by binding him an apprentice to a grocer, with
whom he served his time and proved a faithful and
assiduous servant. When the period of his appren-
ticeship was completed, the relations of his late father
gave him a hundred pounds and cast him upon the
wide world to seek his fortune, at the same time dis-
couraging any expectation of future assistance ,* glad
to be thus easily freed from the claims of one whom
they deemed an incumbrance.

Without patron or friend, the deserted youth had
little chance of establishing himself in his business by
securing a respectable connexion — a half-caste being
looked upon with a kind of conventional prejudice,
which it is to be hoped the late act of Parliament in
favour of this slighted race will tend speedily to sub-
due. Thus circumstanced, he was at length reduced
to such a state of destitution that, in order to prevent
the accession of irremediable poverty, he became an
itinerant dealer in tea, and in this humble capacity
contrived to realize an uncertain subsistence, which
he rendered still more precarious by adding to his
domestic responsibilities that expensive blessing — a
wife. He married the daughter of a labouring car-
penter, with whom he casually became acquainted,
without any portion but her beauty and household

THE TEA-DEALER.

141

dexterity. She was a comely woman, and, fortu-
nately for him, turned out an excellent manager ;
his expenses were therefore not materially increased.

Having been represented to the servants of a gen-
tleman residing in the country as an honest fellow
who sold excellent tea for a small profit, he found
among them a ready sale for the commodity in which
he dealt ; and though they were keen chafferers and
generally pushed a hard bargain with him, still he
was constant in his attendance upon them, as the
establishment was large, the sale therefore considera-
ble, and his money returns quick. His civility more-
over was appreciated, so that he always found a ready
welcome among those merry domestics.

He was one day upon the point of quitting the
house, when he chanced to pass the master as the latter
was ascending the steps of the portico. The gentle-
man seemed suddenly struck with his appearance,
eyeing him with an eager and somewhat impatient
curiosity. The poor huckster, for he occasionally sold
other things besides tea when he found he could turn
such traffic to profitable account, felt abashed at the
rigid and unexpected scrutiny, touched his hat with
a tremulous obsequiousness as he passed the lord of
the mansion, and made the best of his way home,
fearing that the gentleman had entertained some un-
favourable suspicion of him. As soon as he had re-
tired, the master asked his servants what they knew
respecting him, and though this was very little, it
was still sufficient to induce him to desire again to see
the itinerant tea-dealer ; he therefore gave orders that
he should be apprised the next time the latter called.

SCENES IN INDIA.

14 2

This was accordingly done, and when the poor fellow
was introduced to the great man, he began to enter-
tain fears that he was labouring under the odium of
a base suspicion. The old gentleman commenced by
questioning him about his birth and parentage. His
replies at length convinced the inquirer that the
humble vender of tea was the object for whom he
had been some time in search.

It happened that this very gentleman was resid-
ing at Lucknow at the time of the captain’s marriage
with the Persian lady, and was in fact the only
European, besides her husband, with whom she had
been acquainted. He was moreover present at the
marriage, and the sole attesting witness. The widow
had latterly written him several earnest letters from
Lucknow, imploring him to use his best endeavours
to recover her boy, of whom she had heard nothing
for nearly twenty years. Upon receiving an appeal
so urgent and affecting, the kind-hearted friend did
his best to discover the lost son, but having no clue
and finding his efforts end in disappointment, he had
abandoned all hopes of success, when the resemblance
of the huckster to the Indian lad, as the former quitted
his house on the morning of the preceding day, struck
him so forcibly, that he felt instantly convinced of
their identity, which his subsequent enquiries con-
firmed.

The old gentleman now made the long-neglected
half-caste, as he was considered to be, acquainted with
every particular of his birth, informing him that the
person who brought him to England was his father,
and that he had a mother in India who was longing

THE RECOVERED SON.

143

to clasp him to her bosom. She had deposited several
thousand pounds in the Calcutta bank for his use
should he be discovered, and was inconsolable at his
mysterious absence. Her affection never for a moment
subsided : she had mourned for him as for one dead,
though not without a hope of still meeting him, in
spite of her long and bitter disappointment.

This intelligence came like a light from heaven
upon the friendless outcast. He could for the mo-
ment scarcely believe so flattering a reality ; but
it was indeed true that he who had for years been
reduced to the hard necessity of trudging about the
country with a hawker’s licence, abandoned by those
relatives who should have protected him from such
degradation, was destined to come into the possession
of great '‘'wealth, which his former privations have
taught him how to enjoy. His newly discovered
friend furnished him with immediate letters to his
agent in Calcutta. He secured a passage without delay,
and after a prosperous voyage, reached the City of
Palaces, whither his mother quickly repaired, with a
large retinue, to receive and convey him to her own
magnificent abode at Lucknow. Shortly after his ar-
rival he sent to England for his wife, who followed in
the first ship that sailed after the receipt of his letter.
These latter transactions took place within the last
three years. The parties are now at Lucknow, living
in splendour and happiness. These few simple facts
might furnish the groundwork of a romance of no or-
dinary interest. Their authenticity may be relied on.

144

SCENES IN INDIA,

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

Scarcely a day passed, during our stay at this
splendid city, without something or other of novelty
occurring to afford us entertainment. The Newaub’s
menagerie was a scene of frequent resort, but espe-
cially the palace gardens, which are laid out with
great magnificence, and contain several very elegant
buildings.

The Newaub had in his service a troop of Rajpoot
cavalry, in which there was one of the finest men I
ever beheld. He was in the prime of life, in the
full vigour of his strength, remarkably expert in all
the manly exercises peculiar to his tribe, and as
powerful as he was active. He was pointed out to
all strangers at Lucknow as a person of extraor-
dinary qualities both of mind and body. He stood
about six feet and an inch high, as erect as a column,
with a frame, though not heavily muscular, yet knit
with a compactness that combined elegance and
strength in an unusual degree. The development
was not prominent, and though rather of a spare
habit, yet the contour of his frame displayed the most
graceful anatomical outline, while the firm texture of
the muscles showed that they were capable of more,

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

145

than ordinary exertion. The man was altogether
extremely handsome, his nose being small and of per-
fect symmetry, his lips rather inclining to fulness,
and his eyes uncommonly brilliant. He had a deli-
cate curly moustache and but little beard. He was
admired by all the women of Lucknow, nor did the
men look on him with less admiration, though of a
different kind: still he manifested no consciousness
of superiority, save in that expression of independence
inseparable from his race, and which told that he
gloried in the name of Rajpoot. He was the grandson
of a Hara chieftain, whose end had been as sanguinary
as the cause was tragical. The recital exhibits such
a faithful picture of the Rajpoot character, that I offer
no excuse for introducing it here.

It happened that a feud had existed for several
generations, in the families of two chieftains, a Hara
and a Rahtore. Nothing can exceed the animosity
which prevails among these stern and uncompromising
warriors when such deadly inheritances are left them
to maintain. It is next to impossible to effect a re-
conciliation, and it seldom or never happens but that
these unnatural animosities have eventually the most
fatal issues. The Hara had a daughter as celebrated
for her beauty as for her energy of character and mas-
culine understanding. Though subjected to the rigid
discipline and jealous seclusion general among the
daughters of Rajpoot princes, she had nevertheless
partially emancipated herself from a control so repug-
nant to her impatient yet resolute temperament, and
had not only become a partner in the counsels of her

146

SCENES IN INDIA.

parent, but was consulted by him upon every pressing
emergency. Although

She never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors to her blood,

she was of a fiery and daring spirit, and her father
scarcely regretted being without a son, that paramount
blessing of all Rajpoot marriages, in having a daughter
so pre-eminently possessing the high moral energies of
her race.

This extraordinary woman had been sought in
marriage by many a bold aspirant, though none of the
chiefs in her immediate vicinity had succeeded in se-
curing her affections. Her beauty and vigour of mind
were the theme of every tongue.

Her forehead some fair moon, her brows a bow.

Love’s pointed darts her piercing eye-beams glow ;

Her breath adds fragrance to the morning air ;

At once the lover’s hope and his despair ; —

Her teeth pomegranate seeds ; her smiles soft lightnings are.

Her feet like leaves of lotus on the lake

When with the passing breeze they gently shake ;

Her movements graceful as the swan that laves

His snowy plumage on the rippling waves .*

It happened that the beautiful Rajpootni was one
day hunting in company with her father when a
tiger, darting from a thicket, sprang upon her horse
and thus put her life in immediate jeopardy. Instead
of exhibiting any of the ordinary fears of her sex,
she hastily shook her raven locks from her temples,
and with her head undauntedly raised, her lips com-

* Brough tonJs translations from the Popular Poetry of the
Hindoos.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

147

pressed, and her eye flashing with a wild energy,
she resolutely attacked the tiger with a dagger which
she carried in her girdle, plunging it up to the very
hilt in the animars body. The excited beast, finding
itself thus unexpectedly assailed, and roused to tenfold
rage by the wound she had just inflicted upon it,
quitted the horse and turned upon the rider. Her
danger was imminent, yet she did not quail; on
the contrary, her resolution seemed to increase with
her peril. It was evident, notwithstanding, that she
could not successfully cope with an assailant so
fearful, and her father was unfortunately at too great
a distance to afford her aid. At this critical mo-
ment, when with extended and foaming jaws her
ferocious adversary was in the act of seizing her
by the head, a young hunter darted forward on his
well-conditioned steed with the swiftness of the blast,
and as he shot by like a thunderbolt, with a single
stroke of his sabre, severed the tiger’s head from its
body. The gory trunk instantly fell to the ground,
leaving the intrepid huntress unscathed. The van-
quished brute in its dying agonies, short as they
were, fixed its claws in the flanks of the poor horse,
and lacerated them so severely that it was found ne-
cessary to destroy it on the spot. The lady thus
providentially rescued, looked round for her preserver,
but he was at a distance urging his horse to its
utmost speed ; she had, nevertheless, seen sufficient
of his features to distinguish that he was a Rahtore ;
for these Rajpoot tribes have always a something dis-
criminative of their respective clans. This discovery
was painful, as it recalled to her mind the feud which

148

SCENES IN INDIA.

her father was maintaining with all that vindictive-
ness of spirit so frequently and fearfully verified in
the Rajpoot chronicles.

The old Hara, who had been sufficiently near to
perceive what had happened,, approached his child
with a gloomy austerity of countenance, to the cause
of which she was no stranger. He too had distin-
guished the Rahtore : his grim silence and the stern
composure of his features sufficiently expressed that
he had recognized her deliverer. Not a word was
exchanged. The Rajpoot did not express, even by
a look, his satisfaction at his child’s escape, and she
with an aspect of calm but haughty indifference,
mounted a camel and accompanied her parent home
without the interchange of a word. She could not,
however, efface from her mind the image of the
young Rahtore. His manly bearing, his strength and
dexterity, fired her imagination. He was perpetually
present in her dreams, and the sole object of her
waking thoughts. His fine muscular frame, the clear
rapid gleam of his eye, the haughty bend of his brow
and animated expansion of nostril, the grace with
which he rode, his prowess and skill in the use of the
tulwar, or scimitar — all rose to her view in rapid
succession, imbued with the colourings of an ardent
prepossession, and she determined, at whatever cost,
to behold the object which had thus irresistibly
entranced her imagination. Her resolution was a
bold one, and therefore her unbending soul main-
tained it with the greater pertinacity.

For some time she failed in all her efforts to ob-
tain a sight of her deliverer. Her father watched

THE RAJPOQTNI BRIDE,

149

her with a scrutiny so unremitting that she could not
evade the morbid keenness of his vigilance. She., ne-
vertheless, contrived to employ emissaries, but in
vain : they only returned to bring her the unwel-
come tidings of their failure. Still disappointment
seemed rather to add strength to than weaken her re-
solution ; and notwithstanding the gloom occasionally
gathering on her parent’s brow, which invariably
darkened to a deeper shade whenever an allusion
was made to her rescue from the tiger, her determi-
nation had abated nothing: her indomitable spirit
was of too high a temper to blench, though her per-
severance had not been rewarded with success.

At length, as she was again one day hunting with
her father in the jungle, emerging from a tangled path
into a narrow vista of the wood, she saw at a dis-
tance a single horseman pressed by several assailants,
who appeared about to overpower him. On a nearer
approach she discovered that they were, as she had
suspected, part of a dacoit gang attacking a Rahtore
chief. She instantly spurred her horse forward and
discharged an arrow at the foremost assailant, who re-
ceived it in his right temple and dropped dead. The
robbers fled when they perceived that others were
coming to the rescue of their victim. Upon reaching the
spot where the encounter between the dacoits and the
young Rajpoot had taken place, his fair rescuer found
him lying on the ground weltering in his blood, and
desperately wounded. He had been cut down by a
sabre stroke, and the wound presented a most ominous
aspect of fatality. The brave Rajpootni instantly
perceived that it was her late deliverer who was lying
o 3

150

SCENES IN INDIA.

senseless before her. She did not rend the air with
her shrieks, but calmly tore a strip from the turban
of one of her attendants, bandaged the wound tightly in
order to stanch the blood, then desired that the Rahtore
should be lifted into a palankeen, which had fortunately
been ordered to await her commands at the skirts of
the jungle, and immediately borne to the house of her
father. When, on the arrival of the party at the
Harass abode, he was taken from the palankeen, the
old warrior discovered that his wounded guest was the
head of that clan with whom his family had been so
long at strife. Though this was a galling discovery,
it did not preclude the generous offices of hospitality.
These were rigidly performed, yet the rancour which
gnawed at the vitals of the Hara chief did not for
one moment abate. Whilst, however, he gave orders
that every attention should be paid to the stranger,
bitterness and curses were in his heart. “ May his
shadow diminish,” he murmured when there was
no one by to catch the echo of his thoughts, “ until
he stalk a tortured spirit over the scene of his pilgri-
mage ! May prosperity never spread her wings over
his dwelling, but the scourge of desolation smite
him and his! Should he become a husband and a
parent, may his children be fatherless and his wife a
widow!”

These and similar maledictions were continually in
his mouth ; nevertheless, it did not abate the scrupu-
lousness of his hospitality, and the young Rahtore was
tended with the most careful attention, until he was
in a condition to be conveyed to his own dwelling.
During the short period of his confinement under the

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

151

roof of his family foe, he had found an opportunity to
declare his passion for his lovely preserver. He told
her that he had long attempted to smother it, on ac-
count of the enmity mutually subsisting between their
houses, but had found it impossible to do so. This
was neither an unexpected nor unwelcome avowal.
His young and beautiful nurse — for the daughter of
the Hara chief had anxiously attended upon him —
heard him therefore without surprise, but not without
pleasure, and before he quitted her parent’s roof, their
vows of eternal attachment had been reciprocally
plighted.

Although his wound had been desperate, he was
not long in recovering, and when sufficiently strong
to appear abroad, he made overtures to the here-
ditary foe of his family to bestow the hand of
his daughter upon him. The old man was roused
to the most ferocious indignation at a proposal which
he considered so derogatory to the pride of his
house, bound as he was by the stern obligation of
hereditary enmity to maintain the feud so long ex-
isting between it and that of the Rahtore. He
consequently rejected the proposal in terms of the
harshest severity, at the same time reproaching the
young warrior who had so frankly solicited an alliance
with his family, with a breach of honour in having
seduced the affections of his child, at a moment
too when he was at the point of death under her
father’s roof, and receiving all the kind offices of a
scrupulous hospitality. This accusation was repu-
diated with the wild indignation and keen sensibility
of wrong peculiar to the high-spirited Rajpoot, and

152

SCENES IN INDIA.

thus the breach was irremediably widened- The
young chief considered himself now personally in-
sulted, and nothing but the fervency of his affection
for the daughter of the man who had so wantonly
aggrieved him, could have saved his aggressor from
the immediate operation of his revenge. This was for
the moment postponed, but a personal insult is never
either forgotten or forgiven by a Rajpoot. The me-
mory of a wrong may slumber for years, but a time
seldom fails to arrive when the spark ignites, and
then the combustion is indeed fearful.

The old Hara, in the excess of his indignation,
accused his child of having conspired against him.
His menaces were loud and bitter. Her haughty
spirit was roused ; her countenance was calm and her
tongue mute, but the blood rushed to her heart with
a momentum that agitated every fibre within, though
all without appeared serene and undisturbed. The
father quitted her in anger and with a harsh threat.
Her pure but resolute soul recoiled from this tyranny.
She felt that she had been wrongfully accused, and
after the first transports of her indignation had sub-
sided, and she was in a condition to give free scope
to reflection, she became the more invincibly per-
suaded that she had been unjustly reproached and
that an undue severity had been exercised by her
parent, in endeavouring to disunite her from her
first and only attachment. She thought that it was
tyrannical to discourage an interchange of affection
begun on the one part in a rescue of her life by the
object of her heart's choice, and confirmed on the
other by her having saved his.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

153

On the following morning the old man visited
his daughter ; there was somewhat less of asperity in
his manner than on the previous day, nevertheless,
he could not speak of the Rahtore without betraying
the excitement under which he laboured.

“ Forget him, girl,” he cried sternly; <e his sha-
dow never can darken this portal as a member of our
house. As he has eaten my salt, the vengeance of
the Hara is appeased, but the feud is not extinguished,
and my withering hate must fall like a blight upon
him still. We are under bond of eternal enmity. It
stands in indelible characters upon the dark record of
my inheritance, and a testamentary obligation at once
so sacred and so binding is never to be cancelled
while the heart has a perception or the soul an im-
pulse. I would sooner behold the tiger an inmate of
these walls than the man whom you desire to wed.
It must not be — forget him !”

“ The saviour of my life,” replied the daughter in
a tone of calm, measured energy indicating an un-
alterable resolve, “ has a claim to my gratitude, and
that claim can only be justly rendered by giving
him what most he covets, especially since it is the
boon which I would the most willingly bestow upon
him. He won my affection when he won my admi-
ration, and my esteem has since been added to both.
His soul is as gentle in the areka grove as it is
mighty in the dark forest, where the tiger skulks or
the lion prowls. It melts as sweetly at the sound
of the sittar* as it nobly swells at the blast of
the war-trump.' — My love is irrevocable. I may
* A kind of guitar.

154

SCENES IN INDIA.

not be ungrateful, father ; ’tis the vice of contemptible
souls.”

He saved your life and you have in return saved
his ; thus the obligations of gratitude are annulled.
He was ministered to in his extremity under the roof
of his hereditary foe,, and sent back unscathed to his
own dwelling. Your debt has been fairly cancelled.
If there be a balance it is on his side.”

“ True, father, and he is willing to lay the ba-
lance at your feet by making your daughter happy.
Remember, when she was in jeopardy, to use the
words of our own native bard,*

The guardian youth appeared
And, heedless of a person which enshrines
The worth of all the world, quick interposed
His powerful arm to snatch me from destruction.

For me he braved the monster’s mighty blows,

Falling like thunder-strokes.

The tiger plied

His fangs and claws in vain ; the hero triumphed —

The furious savage fell beneath his sword.”

c< No more of this — you know me, girl; I must
hear no more. Would you bring the evil influence
upon your father’s house ? The very stones would
cry out in indignation against you. Remember a
parent’s command is not to be trifled with. I brook
not trifling.”

She was silent, but the broad steady gleam of her
eye told at once that it was not the silence of ac-
quiescence. Her heart rose to her very throat as the
Hara retired, and her determination increased in pro-

* Bhavabhuti.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

155

portion as her feelings were suppressed. She from
this moment sought an opportunity to burst the bonds
of restraint and escape from a tyranny which had
become in the highest degree repulsive to her ener-
getic soul. She passed several days in the silence of
her chamber, from which she seldom stirred, and the
result was a resolution to thwart the tyranny of her
parent’s vindictive refusal, by flying to the arms of the
man in whom she discovered a kindred spirit, and
knew every feeling of his heart to be perfectly germane
with her own. She accordingly sent him, by a trusty
messenger, a picture which represented a hunter res-
cuing a fawn from the claws of a tiger. He readily
understood the allusion and returned to her a commu-
nication in a similar hieroglyphical form, exhibiting
the same hunter with the fawn nestled in his bosom
and a dove flying over it, to denote the speed with
which he was preparing to execute her wishes. Several
other communications, and of a like kind, passed be-
tween the lovers, until there was a mutual under-
standing as to the course each should pursue.

The father, who had one of those indomitable
tempers which is the Hara’s boast, though he doated
on his child as far as was compatible with his stern
nature, had nevertheless treated her with uniform
severity ever since she made her declaration of at-
tachment to the Rahtore ; still he entertained not the
slightest suspicion that she would, under any circum-
stances, dare to compromise the dignity of his house
by such an act of disobedience as she meditated. It
was plain that he knew her not. He confided in her
inflexible spirit as a safeguard against dishonour. He

156

SCENES IN INDIA.

felt satisfied that she would make any sacrifice, how-
ever painful, to support the glory of her race ; hut
amidst all this asperity of feeling, he was proud of
her beauty, and it fully justified his pride.

Mark her slender form bent low,

As the zephyrs lightly blow !

Mark her robes like blossoms rare,

Scattering fragrance on the air !

Lotus-like her dewy feet
Treasures yield of nectar’d sweet ;

Lightly as her footsteps pass.

Blushes* all the bending grass ;

And rings of jewels, beauty’s powers,

Freshen into living flowers, t
While brighter tints and rosier hues
All the smiling earth suffuse. t

* The Hindoo ladies are accustomed to stain the soles of
their feet with a crimson dye.

t In the East, ornaments of gold and jewels are often made
in the forms of flowers,

X Broughton’s translations from the Popular Poetry of the
Hindoos.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

157

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

One morning the father and daughter were as usual
enjoying together the pleasures of the chase, when
they were separated as before. A boar having started
from a thicket, was instantly pursued by the bold
huntress. The animal was large, powerful, and great-
ly excited by a slight wound which it had received in
the shoulder from one of the shikarries, whom it had
immediately charged and disabled. The undaunted
Rajpootni fearlessly approached the enemy ; it in-
stantly turned, struck her horse in the flank, and
ploughing up the flesh, laid the ribs bare. She, how-
ever, delivered her spear with unerring precision, forcing
it through the boar’s body; — the savage beast rolled
upon the plain and expired. This was a deed of
prowess that would have done honour to any mas-
culine arm. Whilst she was breathing her wounded
steed after this rough encounter, a horseman sud-
denly emerged from the thicket, came up to the fair
vanquisher, dismounted, placed her upon his own fiery
courser, sprang up before her, then, pressing his heels
against the sides of his faithful Arab, plunged into the
jungle in the sight of her father and his numerous
attendants. It was the Rahtore ; there was no mis-

p

158

SCENES IN INDIA.

taking him. Vain was pursuit, for the fugitives
were at a distance, and soon disappeared amid the
thick recesses of the forest.

The venerable Hara returned from the chase im-
precating curses on his child, and vowing the most
deadly vengeance against her audacious paramour.
The lovers, when they thought themselves beyond
the reach of pursuit, slackened their speed and pro-
ceeded leisurely towards the Rahtore’s abode. Im-
mediately upon his return, the bereaved father sum-
moned his followers to avenge the abduction of his
daughter. His faithful Rajpoots were ready at his
call, and upwards of three hundred men stood before
him to rescue his child and inflict a signal punish-
ment upon her ravisher. The old man prepared to
march with the dawn, every dark passion of his soul
boiling like a lava-flood within him. All those feel-
ings which a fierce sense of injury now wrung from
his unrelenting nature, were concentrated into one
absorbing impulse of revenge. He had no energy
but for hatred and vengeance, and the sullen calm-
ness with which he prepared to execute their ruth-
less injunctions, at once betrayed the intensity of
his savage purpose. With the full blight of his pas-
sions upon him, he proceeded to the temple of his
divinity, and laid his propitiatory sacrifice upon the
unhallowed altar. It was an oblation too sanguinary
to be accepted by a just and merciful God: — the
smoke of his incense ascended not beyond the gor-
geous dome of the desecrated sanctuary. The offi-
ciating Brahmin, however, as the vicarious minister
of the deity to whom the sacrifice was presented.

THE RAJP00TNI BRIDE.

159

accepted the suppliant’s offering, giving him assurance
of success, upon which the spiritual tribute was
doubled. The unholy worshipper then quitted the
presence of the divinity to whom he had been taught
thus to exhibit his demoniacal homage, with the con-
fidence of a divine sanction for any act of desperate
retribution he might commit.

The morning broke brightly upon the slumbers of the
indignant father ; he awoke with the heavens smiling
above and around him, but with a hell burning in his
heart. Mounting his charger, he proceeded in silence
at the head of his followers towards the abode of his
hereditary foe. His impatience of revenge rendered the
journey long and distasteful. A raven perched upon
a tree on the roadside as he passed, presented an un-
favourable omen ; nevertheless, assured by the pro-
mises of the Brahmin, he interpreted it in his own
favour and to the prejudice of him by whom he had
been so grievously wronged. His soul was parched
with a thirst which nothing but the blood of his
enemy could appease. Halting his little troop after
sunset under a large grove of trees, he ordered
them to refresh themselves with food and rest and
waited impatiently for the dawn. The night was
calm, but deepened by the shadows of the surround-
ing groves. The scene " suited the gloomy habit of
his soul,” which was as sombre as the prospect imme-
diately around him. Nature at length gave way, and,
even under the inflictions of his own fierce passions, he
slept. The moon rose, and traversed the blue plains
of heaven like a fair angel of light, heralded by stars
and embracing in her retinue the glories of a universe ,*

160

SCENES IN INDIA.

while the wretched mortal who lay slumbering be-
neath the influence of her gentle effulgence saw no-
thing hut the gloom within — was awake to nothing
but the darkness of his own blighted spirit.

Meanwhile, at the Rahtore’s dwelling all was har-
mony and rejoicing. The bridal feast was prepared;
the bride and bridegroom had ratified the compact to
which their hearts had been mutually pledged. They
looked abroad into the clear calm sky, and hailed the
celestial presence which seemed, to their glowing
fancies, to smile upon their union. Their hearts were
buoyant ; the sounds of mirth and congratulation were
in their ears. The neighbours had assembled : the
tomtom,* the sittar,f the sarinda, J the kurtaul,§
the saringee, || were uniting their harmonies in order
to animate the guests. The voice of joy was in the
feast, when it was interrupted by intelligence that the
Kara chief was approaching to avenge the rape of his
daughter. The banquet was abruptly suspended, and
without a moment’s delay the Rahtore mustered his
followers. These were few, but resolute ; they did
not amount to more than a hundred and fifty men :
nevertheless, their brave leader shrank not from the
encounter, as a true Rajpoot never declines a contest,
whatever the odds against him ; — with him death is
always preferable to disgrace.

The young bridegroom did not give the enemy time
to take him by surprise, but, sallying forth, accompa-
nied by his small yet determined band, resolved to
fight to the last in defence of his honour and of his

* Drum. f Guitar. t Violin. § Cymbals.

|| An instrument played at weddings.

THE RAJP00TNI BRIDE.

161

wife, who cheered him on his departure., bidding him
a prosperous issue, and adding, that she should have
the pile prepared in case of his defeat. She gave him
her parting benediction, and said, with subdued emo-
tion Should thy discomfiture be the decree of the
Eternal, thy soul shall not occupy the swerga-bowers
alone — thy sita* will accompany thee to the abodes
of the brave.” He departed with the most deadly
resolves. The adverse parties met ; the encounter
was tremendous : there was no shrinking, neither mercy
felt nor quarter given — revenge was the cry and
death the issue. The weight of numbers was on the
side of the Hara, but the advantage of prowess on
that of the Rahtore; still nothing could withstand
such fearful odds as two to one, especially where
both sides were proverbially brave. The bereaved
father, panting for vengeance, sought his adversary
through the thickest of the fight, and at length
they met. There was a deadly deliberation in the
aspect of both, and the conflict was proportionably
stubborn ; but the declining strength of age was no
match for the undiminished vigour of youth. The
Hara was struck down by a blow from his adver-
sary’s sabre ; fortunately, his quilted tunic resisted
the stroke sufficiently to protect his body from a fatal
incision. The Rahtore, when he saw his foe prostrate
before him, remembering that he was the father of his
bride, forbore to repeat the blow. Quitting his van-
quished enemy, he plunged into the thickest of the
fight, where his sword did signal execution; but his
numbers momentarily diminished. It was clear that
* Sita signifies spouse.
p 3

1 62

SCENES IN INDIA.

they must he finally overpowered ; yet they main-
tained the unequal contest with unflinching con-
stancy.

A hundred and eighty of the enemy had fallen ; they
nevertheless still retained an overwhelming majority.
Upwards of a hundred Rahtores were lying on the
field of slaughter, hut the fury of the fight did not
slacken. The field was strewed with dead, and the
survivors were every moment adding to the number
of the slain. The Hara chief performed acts of valour
which would not have disgraced his best days ; hut
his thirst of revenge was unslaked while he saw
his valiant foe alive. He encountered him a second
time, and defeat was again the result. At length,
after a desperate struggle, the Rahtores were cut off
to a man ; their leader alone escaped alive, and he
quitted the field under the cover of evening, leaving
hut fifty of his enemies to tell the story of their san-
guinary victory.

The brave though vanquished chief retired, weary
and dispirited, into the neighbouring forest. He was
goaded by remorse at the idea of having survived a
contest in which all his companions had obtained the
soldier’s noblest meed — a glorious death on the field
of battle, whilst he was skulking into the covert,
under the veil of darkness, like a hunted beast of
prey, as if to avoid a foe from whom death would
now be a boon. At first his thoughts were so
many goads that irritated, to an insupportable de-
gree, the lacerations of his fiery spirit, but, in propor-
tion as these paroxysms gave way to calm reflection,
he seemed to rise above his condition and to be en-

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

163

dued with new energies. He felt his soul on a sud-
den expand with the contemplation of some mighty
enterprise, and while every nerve within his quiver-
ing frame seemed newly strung, he uttered, in the
Vehemence of his excited feelings, a deep, hoarse vow
of vengeance. At this moment a lion crossed his path
in the clear moonlight. It appeared to be ominous of
his future destiny. “ Now,” thought he, “ here is the
representative of my deadliest enemy. I will attack
the monster with my sword, and, if I destroy him, it
will be the pledge of my future revenge on the man
to whom I owe a death. If I perish in the encounter,
it will be a fortunate release at once from misery and
disgrace.”

He was armed with a conical shield which was
strengthened by a thick brass boss, projecting from the
centre, and terminating in a blunt point. Raising his
heavy tulwar, he undauntedly approached the lion,
which had by this time manifested symptoms of hos-
tility so fearfully indicative of its deadly intentions.
Its head was slightly depressed : its eyes glared with
appalling ferocity : it licked its quivering chaps, open-
ing every now and then its vast mouth as if to
show the formidable weapons with which its jaws
were armed. The Rahtore, nothing dismayed by these
preliminary menaces, approached the grim savage with
a quick step, dashed his shield violently against its
head, and struck it so vigorous a blow across the skull
as to cleave it in twain. The beast fell instantly
dead before him. He smiled savagely as he saw it
extended at his feet, as impotent to harm him as
the earth-worm above which it lay.

164

SCENES IN INDIA.

Returning pensively from the spot, he approached
his home with a sad and ominous presentiment. He
dreaded to encounter the reproaches of his bride,
who, he knew, would not think favourably of his
escape from a field which had terminated so dis-
astrously for him. There was a weight upon his
spirits which he could not shake off, but, trusting
to the strength of her young affections, he bent
forward with some confidence to meet her. When he
reached the house which during the previous day had
resounded with the bridal festivity, he found the door
barred, and was thus denied an entrance to his
home. Thinking that this might have been done
in order to prevent surprise from the enemy, he
knocked with a determined but trembling hand. He
who had fearlessly braved death in its most ap-
palling forms, cowered before the anticipated indig-
nation of a woman. As the door was not opened,
he struck upon it with the hilt of his scimitar.

“ Who knocks V* calmly asked a voice from within,
which he instantly recognised, and his heart thrilled
with the tenderest emotions.

“ Thy bridegroom, my sita,” he replied with the
energy of awakened passion ; “ open, and bid him
welcome.”

“ Hah ! how went the battle ?” inquired the Raj-
pootni in the same unimpassioned but somewhat stern
tone, that sent a cold chill through the whole mass of
his blood.

" Against us. I alone am left to tell the sad tale
of defeat. Every Rahtore, save myself, lies upon the
bloody field. It was in truth a contest of extermina-

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

165

tion. Seeing that all was lost, I saved a worthless
life for thy sake. Open, love.”

“ To whom ?”

“ Thy husband.”

“ I have none. He perished on the bloody field
from which thou hast ignobly fled. He never would
have returned hut with victory on his brow.”

“ Host thou deny me, sita ? — thy bridegroom of
yesterday — thy champion for ever !”

“ He who called me bride, has taken his draught of
the amreeta-cup.* He was no recreant to retire from
the field of glory and leave the sable garland of death
upon every head but his own. He never would have
saved an inglorious life to skulk through the world
with the brand of infamy upon him. My husband
was no coward. Thou art a stranger to this deso-
late bosom. Go from the door of the widow4)ride
who knows the sacrifice due to one who is dead to
her for ever.”

The Rahtore was deeply stung with the reproof.
It fell -like a blight upon his heart. He felt the full
force of her calm but haughty interdiction, and quailed
beneath that heroism , which abashed his own. He
was repudiated by her who was the magnet to which
all his affections clung with a tenacity that even her
scorn could not subdue. She stigmatized him with
the name of coward ; she refused him admittance to
her presence j she denied that he any longer retained
an influence over her affections ; she scorned, she
rejected him. She had talked of a sacrifice, and the
most fearful apprehensions began to take possession of
* The cup of immortality.

166

SCENES IN INDIA.

his mind. He knew her resolved energy of purpose,
her uncompromising notions of honour, her reckless-
ness of suffering, her high sense of conjugal obliga-
tions, and her scrupulosity in adhering to the most
rigid observances which custom had, as it were, sanc-
tified among the caste of which it was her pride to
be a member. Dreading the fearful import of her
words, and knowing the austere bent of her determi-
nation, he struck again fiercely on the door with his
shield, at the same time entreating, in a tone of the
most pathetic persuasion, that she would immediately
admit him. She did not condescend to reply. In
the desperation of his mental agony, he repeated the
stroke with all his might, and such was the force
of the blow that the door flew open as if an engine
had been directed against it. Rushing instantly into
the house, with a look of wild inquiry, he saw not
the object of his search. The apartment in which
the bridal festivity had been held was deserted, and
his heart throbbed heavily as a most horrible presen-
timent passed darkly across his mind.

He passed into a second chamber; the mistress
was not there. Her maidens were in tears. He
inquired, with an expression of agonizing apprehen-
sion, where was his beloved. They pointed dis-
tractedly towards an enclosure at the back of the
house, maintaining an ominous silence. He flew to
the spot and found all his worst fears most awfully
verified.

Immediately upon her husband’s departure for the
field, the unhappy bride had ordered the pile to be
raised, with the determination of sacrificing herself

THE RAJPOOTNI BRIDE.

167

upon it, according to the custom of her race, should
the object of her tenderest attachment perish in
the encounter. She knew the disparity of num-
bers between the hostile parties, and was there-
fore prepared for the worst. When the distracted
bridegroom entered the enclosure in which his de-
voted sita had erected the funeral pile, with a con-
vulsed countenance and bursting heart he beheld her
already upon the burning fabric. The flames were
rapidly ascending to do the work of death, while she
stood erect and undaunted with an expression of stern
determination on her countenance that absolutely
appalled him. Her eye gleamed with a portentous
energy, and as he entered was riveted upon him with
a look of withering scorn. Her clothes were already
on fire, and her limbs dreadfully scorched, yet she
stirred not a muscle ; her whole frame seemed fixed
like a rock amid the desert upon which the lightnings
flash with harmless impetuosity. The Rahtore ap-
proached her hurriedly, but she raised her arm, for-
bidding his advance. He was in a moment riveted
to the spot. He dared not interrupt the voluntary
sacrifice to which she was now submitting. Her eye
moved not from him, and never for a moment relaxed
its expression of indignant disdain.

By this time the fire had made dreadful inroads
upon her lovely frame ,* still she discovered not the
slightest indication of an agony too intense and ter-
rible for description. Her features maintained the
same fearful immobility. In a few moments her legs
gave way and she fell upon her knees, the flames
entirely encircling her. Every now and then, how-

168

SCENES IN INDIA.

ever,, a gust of wind blew the fire from its victim, and
discovered her for an instant with the same expression
of lofty indignation marked in every lineament of her
majestic countenance. The skin of her arms burst and
curled up like a scroll of parchment ;* the sinews snapped,
but she looked upon the havoc which the flames were
making upon her beautiful body with a smile of bitter
derision, as if she defied their power to inflict suffer-
ing. At length her eyes appeared to start from their
sockets ; she fell backward into the flames, and a
period was put at once to her heroism and her agony.

The miserable Rahtore watched beside the pile
until her body was completely consumed, when he
gathered the ashes together, and placing them in a
jar, deposited it on the hearth of the apartment which
had been the scene of the marriage revels. Then
putting on the saffron robe,t he sallied forth to meet
death and to accomplish his revenge. Not a tear
moistened his eyes — they were dry and bloodshot.
His heart was marble, and every muscle of his com-
pact frame seemed stiffened into unison with the
unbending purpose of his soul. The night was dark
as the tone and aspect of his mind. The cry of the
prowling jackall was a melody to his ears more mu-
sical than the sweet serenade of the bulbul, J which
he had listened to in the days of his joy. He crept
stealthily through the jungle, like a tiger lurking for

* I once witnessed a similar circumstance at a Suttee which
took place in the neighbourhood of Poonah.

t When a Rajpoot puts on the saffron robe, he devotes himself
to death.

$ The Indian nightingale.

THE RAJP00TNI BRIDE.

169

its prey, lest he should be observed by any of the
enemy’s scouts. He at length gained the tent of his
mortal adversary, who had been long hushed in slum-
ber after the fatigues of that sanguinary day.

The Rahtore, covered by the darkness, reached the
opening of the tent, which was negligently guarded,
as it was known that the adverse party had been cut
off to a man, and their chief was even supposed to
be among the slain. He found no impediment — all
was still as death. He entered. A dim lamp, which
threw a heavy ochreous light around, was burning on
the ground, near which lay the Hara chief upon a
coarse rug, and covered with a common palampore. *
A sardonic smile passed over the convulsed features
of the Rahtore as he gazed upon the prostrate form be-
fore him. Withdrawing his eyes for a moment from
his victim, an expiration of the deepest bitterness
slowly escaped from his labouring bosom. He drew
his sword ; it gleamed faintly in the lamp-light. He
tore the covering from his sleeping foe, standing over
him like an avenging demon to whom the cry of pity
would have been at once a mockery and a provocation.
The old man started from his sleep, instantly grasped
his sabre, but, ere he could raise his arm, he fell a
headless trunk at the feet of the vindictive Rahtore.

The noise occasioned by this work of destruction
was heard by the guards, who immediately rushed in.
When they saw a Rajpoot standing in the safron robe,
they but too well knew what had been his purpose,
and a single glance sufficed to show how terribly he had
accomplished it. He deliberately bestrode the body
* Counterpane.

Q

170

SCENES IN INDIA.

of his prostrate enemy, and, darting a look of fierce
defiance at the intruders, pointed with a grim smile
at the reeking corpse over which he was standing in
ferocious triumph. The guards rushed forward to
avenge the death of their chief, and the Rahtore, m
the paroxysm of desperation, soon laid three of them
dead at his feet. His weapon was raised to immolate
another victim, when he received a javelin in the
temple and fell dead.

Thus ended this sanguinary feud, of which many
instances are recorded equally terrible in the annals of
Rajpoot warfare.*

* They who are acquainted with the history of this extraordi-
nary race will not be surprised at the details of this sad narrative.

GARDEN HOUSES.

171

CHAPTER XV.

GARDEN HOUSES AT LUCKNOW. PARIAHS.

The day before we quitted Lucknow we paid a
visit to the Newaub to take leave and thank him for
his hospitality. We were received in a splendid
apartment of the palace, in which the prince was
seated upon a Persian carpet covered with rich devices,
and smoking a hooka through a mouthpiece studded
with jewels. He treated us with great complacency
and kindness, and, after a few minutes’ conversation
on indifferent topics, we withdrew. Upon quitting
the Newaub, we repaired to the garden of the palace
which was laid out with great magnificence and
taste.

The buildings represented in the engraving are
merely garden-houses, constructed of brick and beau-
tifully stuccoed with chunam ; they are raised on
chaupoutres,* with steps to ascend from the garden to
the first story. They are spacious, having broad ter-
raced roofs, and at each angle a small cupola covered
with the same delicate stucco. Some of them are
surmounted by an elegant square canopy with curtains
depending from the four sides. These canopies are

* Platforms.

17.2

SCENES IN INDIA.

supported upon small pointed arches; and here is a
delightful retreat from the heat of the noonday sun.
The interior of the garden-houses is divided into
apartments, which are occupied by the different func-
tionaries to whom the charge of the gardens is com-
mitted. Although the exterior effect of these buildings
is sufficiently imposing, they nevertheless do not pre-
sent much attraction to the traveller, except as form-
ing part of the palace of this distinguished city.
Though less costly in their structure, it must be al-
lowed that they are more picturesque than some of
the grander edifices. In the distance is the mosque
before-mentioned, built by Asoph ud Dowlah.

Quitting Lucknow, we proceeded towards Juanpoor.
On our route we found some of the large nullahs that
intercepted our path so much swollen by the rain
which had lately fallen, that we could not cross them
without difficulty. At length, by a most simple con-
trivance we passed over them very securely. From a
neighbouring village we obtained a charpoy, or small
narrow bed, the legs of which were inserted into four
large earthen vessels of a globular shape, with small
mouths, called cudjree pots ; each aperture was covered
by the frame, so as to exclude the access of the water.
When launched upon the stream, the charpoy floated
buoyantly upon the surface, and we thus easily accom-
plished our transit, being drawn over upon this slight
machine by a< rope, together with our palankeens and
baggage. This portable bridge we took with us : it
was consigned to the care of two coolies,* who were
a brace of pariahs, and I could not help noticing, on
* Porters.

PARIAHS.

173

one occasion, with a feeling of painful compassion to-
wards these poor outcasts, the indignation with which a
high-cast Hindoo dashed an earthen jar of milk upon
the ground, and broke it to atoms, merely because the
shadow of the pariah had fallen upon it as he passed.

This numerous tribe are in a condition of the
most abject degradation ; the worst state of bondage
would be comparative blessedness if substituted for
the position in which they stand among the commu-
nities that surround them. They are considered by
the higher order of Hindoos, and in fact by every
caste above their own, not only utterly despicable in
this world, but aliens from the beatitudes of another.
The indignities heaped upon them in consequence are
repugnant to humanity : nothing can exceed the heart-
less scorn with which they are everywhere met. They
are denied the common social privileges of man, and
degraded below the vilest of the brute creation. The
pariah is forbidden communion with all but his own
immediate tribe, and whatever even his shadow over-
casts, belonging to a person of superior rank, is
deemed polluted. If it be food of any kind, it is
thrown away; if anything of a frangible nature, it
is destroyed; and if a thing of value, it is only to
be recovered from its contamination by the most ri-
gorous purifications.

These unhappy beings are held in such utter abhor-
rence by the whole Hindoo population, that the laws
of the latter award no punishment for the murder
of a pariah, save that of a small fine, and which is
seldom enforced, except in very aggravated cases.
The occupation of this despised race consists in the
Q 3

174

SCENES IN INDIA.

most disgusting offices : they are the scavengers of the
cities and villages ; they perform all kinds of servile
and filthy duties, and from their wretched manner of
living are subject to loathsome diseases. So impure
are they in the eyes of a Brahmin, that they dare
not appear in his presence without subjecting them-
selves to the penalty of death or some punishment but
little short of it. Should a person of any other caste
condescend to speak to a pariah, the latter is obliged to
place his hand before his mouth, lest the breath of a
being so depraved should taint the atmosphere which
the former breathes, and thus render him impure.
These miserable outcasts are neither allowed to enter
a temple nor admitted to the privileges of any religious
communion. While the higher order of Hindoo thinks
it meritorious to save the life of a noxious reptile, he
would esteem it meritorious to destroy a pariah.

Although the Brahmin, who, when spiritualized by
mortification and penances, frequently holds himself
to be only second to an avatar of his god, looks upon
the pariah as a creature unworthy even of those sym-
pathies which he deems to be due to the brute, still,
so great is the reverence in which these abjected
aliens hold the Brahmins, that they will worship the
very ground which they consider to have been hal-
lowed by their footsteps. Scorned as they are by every
other class and excluded from all reputable commu-
nion with their fellow-men, they are reduced to the
necessity of wandering about as vagabonds whom it is
held an abomination to relieve and meritorious to
spurn. Should the bitterest privations overtake them,
they are left unpitied to linger out the agonies of a

PARIAHS.

175

hopeless existence, or to resort to those desperate
modes of obtaining their daily bread which render
them still more odious among the communities by
whom they are denied the natural privileges of social
beings. Thus abandoned, and smarting under the
stigma of unmerited degradation, they frequently re-
pair to the jungles, where they conceal themselves
from the sight of those who behold them with such
indignity, and live in a state of moral desuetude,
prowling savagely for human prey, like the beasts of
the forest.

Their hand is against every man, and every man’s
hand is against them. They often have recourse to
dacoity, that system of lawless plunder which is carried
to excess in India ; and when this is the case, they
naturally become desperate and ferocious robbers. Is
this to be wondered at ? Can we be surprised if in
their social position they should hold it a law of equity
to wage a war of general extermination? Is there
not much to be said in extenuation of poor wretches
driven, as they are, to the hopelessness of desperation ?
They sometimes, it is true, wreak a terrible retalia-
tion upon their oppressors, and think themselves
justified in doing so. Will it be matter of wonder
that the crushed adder should turn and sting ? But
although they occasionally commit acts of great predal
enormity, they nevertheless more commonly submit
to dreadful privations with the greatest fortitude, fre-
quently skulking from the jungles, where they have
lived upon the fruits of the forest until these have
ceased to supply the cravings of nature, and seeking
the banks of the Ganges, when, under the cover of

176

SCENES IN INDIA.

night, and with no eye but that of the casual passen-
ger to behold them, they have been known to drag
on shore human carcasses that were floating down
the stream, and, like the hungry vulture, satisfy the
longings of a morbid appetite upon this unnatural
provision, while in a state of the most disgusting
decomposition.

It is indeed shocking to think that such horrors are
to be witnessed in a highly civilized country, the
people of which are often eminent for their mildness
and humanity. But revolting as is the very contem-
plation of such a humiliating fact, it will nevertheless
appear that this description of cannibalism is not
confined to the poor despised pariah.

“ I will go a step further/’ says Mr. Moore, “ and
say that not only do Hindoos, even Brahmins, eat flesh,
but that at least one sect eat human flesh. I know
only of one sect, and that I believe few in number,
who do this, but there may, for aught I can say, be
others, and more numerous. They do not, I con-
clude, (in our territory assuredly not,) kill human sub-
jects to eat, but they do eat such as they find in or
near the Ganges, and perhaps other rivers. The name
of the sect I allude to is, I think, Paramahansa, as I
have commonly heard it named ; and I have received
authentic information of individuals of this sect being
not very unusually seen about Benares, floating down
the river upon a human body, and feeding on it.
Nor is this a low despicable tribe, but, on the con-
trary, esteemed, by themselves at any rate, a very
high one. Whether this exaltation be legitimate or
assumed by individuals, in consequence of penance or

THE PARAMAHANSA.

177

holy and sanctified acts, I am not prepared to state
but I believe the latter, as I have known other in-
stances where individuals of different sects, by per-
severing in extraordinary piety or penance, have been
deemed in a state incapable of sin. The holiness of
the actor sanctified the act, be it what it may ; or, as
we say, f to the pure all things are pure/ But I never
heard of these voluptuous saints carrying their devo-
tion or impudence to the disgusting extravagance under
our consideration. They are still much respected;
more, however, under all their shapes by women than
by men.

ce I will finish my notice of the Paramahansa by ob-
serving that my information stated, that the human
brain is judged by these epicurean cannibals as the
most delicious morsel of their unsocial banquet.” *

In the ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches, in an
account by Major Mackenzie of the Jains, — a sect
remarkable for their humanity, and it is against
the express law of their religion to put any animal
to death — there is the following remarkable pas-
sage, referring to the Buddhists, who also consider it
a deadly sin to take away animal life. It would
lead to the inference that these latter are likewise
cannibals. “ The Jains generally account modestly
for all their tenets, and conduct themselves with pro-
priety; and never assert that their bodies are eternal
and that there is no God. Nor do they, like the
Buddhists, say after death there is no pain in the
flesh nor feeling ; since it feels not pain nor death, what

* Miscellaneous notice of the Brahmins and Hindoos. Vide
Hindoo Pantheon, page 352.

178

SCENES IN INDIA.

harm is there in feeding upon it when it is necessary
to procure health and strength ?” If this passage does
not go so far as to prove that the Buddhists are can-
nibals, it is at least a justification of cannibalism.

Dr. Leyden, in his dissertation on the language and
literature of the Indo-Chinese nations,* gives an ex-
traordinary account of anthropophagy practised in the
island of Sumatra, where the people in general are
by no means uncivilized.

" When a man becomes infirm and weary of the
world, he is said to invite his own children to eat
him. In the season when salt and limes are cheapest,
he ascends a tree round which his offspring and friends
assemble ; and, shaking the tree, they join in a dirge,
the burthen of which is this : — the season is come,
the fruit is ripe, and it must descend ! The victim
descends, when those who are nearest and dearest to
him, deprive him of life, and devour his remains in a
solemn banquet.”

The landscape between Lucknow and Juanpoor,
especially near the former city, presents at times the
same artificial appearance as an English park. Upon
our approach to the latter town, several fine old
mosques for which it is remarkable, rose sublimely in
the distance, affording an agreeable relief to the un-
varying aspect of the surrounding scenery. As we
approached the bridge they opened in full view before
us, and forced from us an exclamation of involuntary
admiration. The Atoulah kau Musjid is one of the
most highly finished structures of its kind in Hin-
dostan. It is only second in magnificence and in the
* Vide ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches.

THE ATOULAH KAU MUSJID.

179

costliness of its materials to the celebrated Taje
Mahal. And when we remember that it was built
full two hundred years before, the expenditure may
be considered as falling little short of that laid out
upon the more gorgeous structure.

The Atoulah kau Musjid is said to have cost se-
venty lacs of rupees, or upwards of eight hundred
thousand pounds ; and the view of this grand edifice
fully justifies the supposition that the amount of the
outlay has not been exaggerated. This temple is
highly venerated by all pious Moslems, who hold it
only second in reverence to the Prophet’s shrine at
Mecca. We were admitted into the interior without
the slightest difficulty; for, unlike the Turks, the
Mahomedans in India are generally extremely cour-
teous to strangers, and express no repulsive hostility
to Christians. The most gorgeous portion of the in-
terior is the central aisle, that rises to a great height,
being divided into several stories, and covered by a
vast dome which has a panelled ceiling ornamented
with very elaborate decorations.* The basement of
this aisle represents a square rising to the height of
about twenty feet, when the angles are intersected,
their number being thereby increased to eight. Here
is the termination of the first story, round which there
is a gallery divided into recesses, and adorned with
the most exquisite tracery. At the termination of
the second story, where there is also a gallery simi-
larly decorated, the angles are again intersected and
increased to sixteen ; each story thus graduating
towards circularity until the angles fade before the
* See frontispiece.

180

SCENES IN INDIA.

eye in the altitude, leaving a perfect circle, the whole
terminating in a dome of great extent, and magnifi-
cently ornamented. The doorways at the base, of
which there are nine, and the cornices above them,
are covered with a profusion of minute but admirable
architectural embellishments ; the floor is beautifully
paved with a fine smooth stone almost as closely
grained as marble, and much more durable. It has
resisted the wear of four centuries without exhibiting
the least roughness of surface.

The entrance to this fine mosque is very striking.
The external doorway is flanked by two square masses
of stone-work which rise, on either side, to the height
of at least eighty feet. These buttresses are united
by a wall traversing the top of the arch, and sur-
mounted by a parapet enclosing a spacious terrace.
The arch of the entrance is sunk several feet beneath
the external surface of the stone buttresses, which
are embellished at intervals with a rich tracery, in
bold relief. The centre of the arch extends as high
as the base of the transverse wall, and the spandrels
are covered with different devices, skilfully wrought
in the solid marble with which they are cased. The
stone of which this sacred edifice is built is of so firm
a texture and of so durable a quality, that the angles
of the various carvings are just as sharp as the first
moment they were finished. This mosque has no
minarets, and therefore differs, though in no other re-
spect, from the generality of Mahomedan temples. The
terrace over the entrance is the spot whence the priest
announces the hour of prayer.

WHITE ANTS.

181

CHAPTER XVI.

WHITE ANTS. BENARES. INFANTICIDE.

During our stay at Juanpoor, we were so annoyed
by white ants, that we were glad to escape from
this intolerable nuisance and proceed on our way to
Benares. These extraordinary insects are one of the
greatest marvels in natural history. They are the
most destructive creatures of their size in the universe.
Nothing but stone or metal can resist their powers of
devastation. They will pass through a whole shelf of
books in an incredibly short space of time. In a
single night they will make their way into a strong
wooden trunk, and ruin everything it contains. I
have known them perforate a thick stake of at least
ten inches in diameter, leaving nothing but the bark
entire, so that what appeared strong enough to support
a large building, crumbled at the touch like a piece of
tinder. They abound more or less in every part of
India, though they prefer a soil where clay is readily
to be obtained, as they use vast quantities in the
construction of their populous habitations. One of
their cantonments will cover a surface of at least
fifty square yards, and rises sometimes to the height
of twenty feet. In particular districts these are so
numerous, that they appear like small villages in

R

182

SCENES IN INDIA.

ruins dotting the surface of the plain. These singu-
lar insects form a community under the government
of a king and queen. The population is divided into
three classes. The first class comprises the belligerent
portion, which are always prepared to defend their
habitations from the assaults of an enemy, and they
inflict so sharp a wound when intruded upon, as im-
mediately to make the blood copiously flow. The
second division includes those which perform all the
labours of their community; these build their tene-
ments and repair whatever breaches may be made
either by foes or accident. The third class consists
of those that propagate. From these they select
kings and queens which almost immediately emigrate
and erect new states, that shortly become crowded
with a busy and destructive population.

When they fix upon an object of destruction
they first cover it with a thin coat of clay mois-
tened by their own secretions ; under this crust are
innumerable passages in which they work unseen,
and with the most destructive celerity. Here they
labour in perfect security until they consume the
whole material, finally leaving nothing but the ar-
tificial incrustation with which they had overspread
it, and which assumes the exact form of the object
destroyed.

“ They generally enter the body of a large tree,”
says an observing traveller, “ which has fallen through
age or has been thrown down by violence, on the side
next the ground, and eat away at their leisure within
the bark, without giving themselves the trouble either
to cover it on the outside or to replace the wood which

WHITE ANTS.

183

they have removed from within, being somehow sen-
sible that there is no necessity for it. These exca-
vated trees have deceived me several times in run-
ning ; for attempting to step two or three feet high,

I might as well have attempted to step upon a cloud,
and have come down with such unexpected violence,
that besides shaking my teeth and bones almost to
dislocation, I have been precipitated head foremost
among the neighbouring trees and bushes/' *

Their communities are so numerous that the de-
struction of myriads makes no sensible diminution, and
in some ungenial localities, they are such a continual
nuisance, as to have a considerable influence upon a
man’s social comforts. The queen is incredibly pro-
lific and will produce upwards of eighty thousand
eggs within twenty-four hours. And what is ex-
traordinary in the civil organization, if I may so say,
of this little commonwealth is, that the king and queen
have a host of retainers constantly in waiting: as
soon as the latter lays her eggs, they are carried to
different cells, at a distance from the state apart-
ment, where they are carefully deposited, and when
hatched, the new-born insects are attended with the
most vigilant circumspection, until able to provide
for themselves and share in the labours of their com-
munity.

These creatures are so fond of paper that they
never fail to make great havoc among the books that
happen to be within their reach. The only protec-
tion from their depredations is a binding of Russia

* See Mr. Smeathman’s account of the White Ant, in the
seventy-first volume of the Philosophical Transactions.

184

SCENES IN INDIA.

leather, which they will not touch, being repelled by the
strong odour that escapes from this valuable material.

After we quitted Juanpoor nothing occurred worth
recording until we came in sight of Benares — that
celebrated city called the splendid, containing the
most renowned seminaries of Hindoo learning to be
found in Hindostan, a, more detailed account of which
will be found in the first volume of this work. As
we approached the city we were induced to moor our
budgerow and land, in order that we might witness
the Churrack Pooja — one of those revolting inflictions
which some particular orders of devotees undergo, to-
gether with such unhappy Hindoos as have had the
misfortune to lose their caste ; the former to enhance
their claims to a blessed immortality, the latter to
recover that temporal superiority over a large portion
of their fellow beings which the well known distinc-
tion of caste confers. A man frequently loses his
caste by circumstances over which he can have no
control, such as the casual contact of a pariah whom
he might not have known to be within his vicinity,
or eating out of a polluted vessel, though not at the
time aware of its pollution.

I once happened to be present when a sepoy, of
high caste, falling down in a fit, the military surgeon
ordered one of the pariah attendants of the regimental
hospital to throw some water over him, in consequence
of which none of his class would associate with him,
and he was considered to have forfeited the privileges
of clanship. The result was, that as soon as the after-
noon's parade was over, he put the muzzle of his
musket to his head and blew out his brains. Al-

THE CHURRACK POOJA.

185

though, however, the distinction upon which the
Hindoo so highly prides himself is often thus easily
forfeited, it is not to he regained but by undergoing
either severe mortification or some terrible infliction,
which happened to be the case in the instance I am
about to record.

On landing we found a large concourse of people
assembled, and forming a circle of about twenty yards
in diameter, in the centre of which was a strong pole
fixed upright in the ground. On the top of this
pole a transverse bamboo, sufficiently strong to sus-
tain the weight of a man, was attached to a move-
able pivot, so that it could be swung either vertically
or circularly as occasion might require. The insertion
of the transverse bamboo was about one-third part
from the end, leaving two-thirds on the other side,
to which was attached a cord that reached the ground.
At the extremity of the shorter division was a pully
from which a strong cord depended about the size of
a man’s middle finger, having two ends, to which
were affixed a pair of bright steel hooks. Both the
vertical and cross poles were of bamboo, which is
extremely tough and difficult to break. When the
apparatus was prepared, a Brahmin, who is usually the
functionary on these occasions, advanced to the centre
of the area, and having anointed the points of the
hooks with a small portion of ghee, from a sacred
vessel especially set apart for this holy purpose, he
beckoned to the person about to undergo this trying
ordeal. The penitentiary was a handsome man, in
the full vigour of manhood, and had lost his caste by
eating interdicted food during a voyage from Calcutta
r 3

186

SCENES IN INDIA.

to China,, whither he had gone as servant to the cap-
tain of the ship.

On perceiving the Brahmin’s signal, he advanced
without the slightest indication of alarm., hut rather
with an expression of joy on his countenance, at
the idea of being restored to that position among
the members of his own peculiar caste, which he
had unhappily forfeited. He was stripped to the
loins, having nothing on but the cummerbund and
a pair of white linen trowsers which reached about
halfway down his thigh. He was a muscular man
and rather tall : — he came forward with a firm
step. Upon reaching the place of expiation, he knelt
down under the cord to which the two bright hooks
were attached. Gently raising his hands, and clasp-
ing them together in a posture of devotion, he con-
tinued for a few moments silent, then suddenly ele-
vating his head, declared himself ready to undergo
the penance that should release him from the stains
of his recent pollution. The moment his assent
was announced, a burst of acclamation was heard
from the surrounding multitude. The officiating Brah-
min then took the hooks, and with a dexterity that
showed he was no novice in his sacred vocation,
slipped them under the dorsal muscles just beneath
the shoulders. This operation was so instantaneously
and so adroitly managed, that scarcely a drop of
blood followed. Not a muscle of the man’s coun-
tenance stirred : all his features seemed stiffened into
an expression of resolved endurance which imparted a
sort of sublime sternness to every lineament. Not
even the slightest quiver of his lip was perceptible.

THE CHURRACK POOJA.

187

and his eye glistened with thrilling lustre as he
raised his head after the hooks had been fixed. His
resolution was as painful as it was astonishing. At
a certain signal from the presiding functionary, he
started from his recumbent posture and stood with
his head erect, calmly awaiting the consummation of
his dreadful penalty. After a short interval he was
suddenly raised into the air and swung round with
the. most frightful velocity by a number of half frantic
Hindoos who had stationed themselves for this pur-
pose at the other extremity of the transverse pole.
They ran round the area at their utmost speed,
yelling and screaming, while their cries were ren-
dered still more discordant by a deafening accom-
paniment of tomtoms, tobries, kurtauls, and other in-
struments so familiar to Indian devotees, and which
are indispensable on these and similar solemn occa-
sions, producing anything rather than “ a concord of
sweet sounds.”

The velocity with which the poor man was
swung round prevented any one from accurately ob-
serving his countenance, though, during one or two
pauses made by his tormentors, who became shortly
fatigued with the violence of their exertions, there
was no visible expression of suffering. Had he utter-
ed a cry, it would at once have neutralized the effect
of the penance, though I do not think it could have
been heard through the din by which this terrible ce-
remonial was accompanied. The ministering brahmins,
however, are said to have a perception of sound so
acute on these occasions, that the slightest cry of the
victim never escapes their ear.

188

SCENES IN INDIA.

After this barbarous ceremony had continued for
about twenty minutes, the man was let down, the hooks
extracted from his back, and he really seemed little
or nothing the worse for the torture he must have un-
dergone. He walked steadily forward amid the accla-
mations of the surrounding multitude, and followed
by his friends, who earnestly offered him their congra-
tulations on the recovery of his caste.

Accidents of a very serious nature have been occa-
sionally known to happen during the infliction of these
fearful penances, though such occurrences are, I be-
lieve, rare. Should the cord chance to break, the sus-
pended person is propelled forward under the influence
of such a powerful impulse, that he is invariably killed
on the spot. When this occurs, it is imputed to the
magnitude of his sins, and he is immediately cast
upon the funeral-pile, neither pitied nor lamented. I
have heard a circumstance related by a person once
present at the ceremony of the Churrack Pooja when
the muscles of the back gave way, the penitent being
of considerable bulk, and on his being immediately
lowered, the mischief was so extensive, that the
wretched man died soon after he was released from
the hooks. These things are really too dreadful to be
permitted in a civilised country ; but in India custom
is a positive and indeed a paramount law, and is
therefore implicitly followed. “ Immemorial custom,”
says their imaginary lawgiver, " is transcendant
law, approved in the sacred scripture and in the
codes of divine legislators ; let every man, there-
fore, of the three principal classes who has a due
reverence for the supreme Spirit which dwells in

THE BERNAR PAGODA.

189

him, diligently and constantly observe immemorial
custom.” *

On landing at Benares we passed a ruined bridge
over the Bernar, one of the rivers from which the
city takes its present name, and pitched our tents
near the Bernar pagoda, situated upon the banks of
that beautiful stream. From hence the view of Be-
nares, looking up the Ganges, exactly realizes the in-
teresting description given of it by the great Abul
Fazil. “ Baranassey,” says this remarkable man, in
the third volume of his history, commonly called
Benares, is a large city situated between two rivers,
the Bernar and the Assey ; in ancient books it is
called Kassey the splendid. It is in the form of a
bow, and the river Ganges resembles the bowstring.”
The truth of this latter part of the description will
be at once verified by a reference to the accompany-
ing view of it, taken from the bank of the river near
the Bernar pagoda.

This latter structure has not much to recommend
it to the notice of travellers, except its picturesque
position on the bank of the river. It falls far short
of the splendour of many similar sanctuaries of Hin-
doo devotion ; it is, however, an agreeable object, and
there is an air of simple antiquity about it which re-
deems its less attractive features. We had pitched
our tents so near it as to be considerably incom-
moded by the swarms of devotees who frequented it
with a most boisterous piety at so early an hour as
greatly to interrupt our repose; and the situation,
moreover, being exposed to the full action of the sun,
* Institutes of Menu, chap. i. sect. 108.

190

SCENES IN INDIA.

we were soon glad to change our quarters for a lo-
cality more agreeable, at least, if not more conve-
nient : we therefore struck our tents, crossed the river,
and pitched them opposite to Aurungzebe’s mosque,
of which a detailed account has been given in a for-
mer portion of this work.

In the neighbourhood of this populous city, one of
the greatest victories has been achieved over a most
barbarous superstition recorded in the history of man-
kind. It was here that Mr. Duncan first severed the
root of an evil which had spread with the most devas-
tating influence over several extensive and populous
districts ; it was here that the savage custom of in-
fanticide, once so prevalent among a limited, indeed,
but very influential portion of the Hindoo population,
was finally extinguished, and our benevolent coun-
tryman became the saviour of thousands of infants,
who have grown up to bless his name and to show
the triumph of a moral administration over the bar-
barous rites of superstition and the errors of pre-
judice.

The people among whom this horrible custom origi-
nally prevailed, and among whom it even now exists,
though practised to a comparatively trifling extent,
are Rajpoots, who, from the difficulty of providing
proper matches for their female children, immolate
them upon the altar of a fierce and revolting pride.
A Rajpoot never bestows his daughter unless upon one
who is not merely her equal in rank, but is likewise
able to maintain for her that social superiority which
the parent conceives her born to claim ; and the hor-
rors of degradation of any kind are so great among

INFANTICIDE.

191

this haughty race as to rend asunder, not only the
common ties of humanity, but the links of natural af-
fection. Before Mr. Duncan was appointed resident
at Benares, now nearly fifty years ago, infanticide
prevailed to a deplorable extent among certain Kaj-
poot tribes residing in this extensive district; and
every effort hitherto made by the British government
to check a long-established and widely-spreading
evil had entirely failed: the vigilance of the magis-
tracy was baffled, and these murders were con-
stantly taking place in defiance of the ties of pater-
nity and the highest obligations of nature. By inde-
fatigable assiduity, by conciliating the prejudices of
a haughty and powerful people, and by adopting the
most energetic measures, Mr. Duncan eventually suc-
ceeded in greatly diminishing, though not in com-
pletely eradicating, this evil in the province over
which he presided. The moment the extent of his
success became known, his benevolent example was
followed by others in different parts of the country,
with more opposition, indeed, and not certainly for
the moment with equally signal success. Colonel
Walker, then political resident at Broach, succeeded
in a great measure in suppressing this unnatural
practice through a large extent of territory. The diffi-
culties which he encountered in realizing his laudable
efforts to exterminate so odious a custom from among
an influential and enlightened community, are scarcely
to be conceived ; nevertheless those efforts were even-
tually crowned with success. The Jarejahs, a tribe
among whom infanticide was practised to a dreadful
extent, account for its origin as follows.

192

SCENES IN INDIA.

They relate that a certain powerful Rajah of their
caste, who had a daughter of singular beauty and ac-
complishments, desired his rajgur, or family Brahmin,
to affiance her to a prince of desert and rank equal to
her own. The rajgur travelled over many countries
without discovering a chief who possessed the requisite
qualities ; for where he found wealth and power com-
bined, personal accomplishments and virtue were defec-
tive ; and, in like manner, when the advantages of
the mind and body were united, those of fortune and
rank were wanting. The rajgur returned, and re-
ported to the prince that his mission had not proved
successful. This intelligence gave the Rajah much
concern, as the Hindoos reckon it to be the first duty
of parents to provide suitable husbands for their
daughters, and it is reproachful that they should pass
the age of puberty without having been affianced
and be under the necessity of living in a state of ce-
libacy. The Prince rejected and strongly reprobated
every match for his daughter which he conceived
inferior to her high rank and perfections. In this
dilemma, he consulted his rajgur, and the Brahmin
advised him to avoid the censure and disgrace which
would attend the princess’s remaining unmarried by
having recourse to the desperate expedient of putting
her to death. The father was at first deaf to the
proposal, and remonstrated against the murder of a
woman, which, enormous as it is represented in the
Sastra,* would be aggravated when committed on his
own offspring. The rajgur at length removed the
Rajah’s scruples by consenting to load himself with
* One of the sacred books of the Hindoos.

NANA FIRNAVESE.

193

the guilt, and to become in his own person responsible
for all the consequences of the sin. The princess was
accordingly put to death, and female infanticide was
from that time practised among the Jarejahs.'*

Whether this be really the origin of female infan-
ticide or not, it is certain that the motive for its
practice among the Rajpoots is the same — the difficulty
of finding suitable matches for their daughters. But,
it may naturally be asked, why not allow them to
live unmarried ? Because among the Hindoos celibacy
is considered a family disgrace, and so universal is
this feeling, that there is scarcely to be found an un-
married female of high caste throughout the whole
extent of the Indian peninsula. Children are affianced
to each other in their infancy, when not more than
three or four years old, and girls at that tender age
are frequently betrothed to very old men, when the
match is considered advantageous ; so that an old
maid is as rare in Hindostan as common in Eu-
rope. Mr. Moor, the ingenious author of the Hindoo
Pantheon, tells a story sufficiently amusing, and at the
same time strongly corroborative of the fact stated.

“ Nana Firnavese, prime minister of the Mahratta
empire — the Pitt of India — lost his wife in 1796,
when he was rather an old man, and as he was infirm
withal, it was not expedient that he should marry, as
is usual, a mere infant, and his brahminical brethren
sought far and near, and for a long time sought in
vain, for an unmarried marriageable Brahminee of a

* See Report from Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Walker,
dated Baroda, 15th March 1808, of the measures pursued by
him for the suppression of infanticide in Katl^war or Guzerat.
s

194

SCENES IN INDIA.

respectable family. At length one was found remote
from the metropolis, at Kolapore, near Goa, and he
married her. So little, however, was this success cal-
culated upon, that a reason was expected and given
for it. It appeared that this lady in her infancy had
been afflicted with some personal debility that had
prevented her early betrothment ; this had suddenly
been removed about the time of Nana's predicament,
and he was thus deemed fortunate in finding a damsel
under such suitable circumstances."

It may seem extraordinary to Europeans, who have
been accustomed to hear of the extreme reluctance
which the Hindoos feel to destroy animal life, that
there should exist among them such savage customs
as an intimate acquaintance with their history and
social habits will certainly unfold ; for, although their
moral and civil code, contained in the Institutes of
Menu, exhibits in general a system of rigid morality,
corporeal forbearance, and an absence of everything
like Draconic severity, except in cases of extreme
guilt — nevertheless, there is perhaps no country in
the world equally civilized where so many sangui-
nary practices prevail. This is a problem very diffi-
cult to solve, except we admit the general solution,
which after all is probably the right one, that every
faculty of the mind and natural prejudice of the heart
yields to the force of custom, which reconciles us to
the greatest moral contrarieties.

Infanticide, however, is not confined to Hindostan :
it is practised among the modem Chinese, and a re-
ference to Bryant’s Analysis of Ancient Mythology
will show how extensively human sacrifice prevailed

MOLOCH.

195

among the ancient Greeks and Romans at a time
when they were looked upon as the most civilized
people upon earth. It was a well-known decree of the
Spartan lawgiver., Lycurgus, whose code was consi-
dered merciful compared with the bloody institutes
of Draco, that all children born with any deformity
should be destroyed. Even the Jews, in the early
period of their history, forced their children to pass
through the fire of Moloch, thus presenting a most
horrible sacrifice to the brazen god of the Ammonites.
When children were offered to this sanguinary deity,
his statue was heated red-hot, and the wretched victims
were placed within its gigantic arms, where they were
almost instantly consumed.

“ Such,” says Bryant, “ was the Kronos of the
Greeks and the Moloch of the Phoenicians, and nothing
can appear more shocking than the sacrifices of the
Tyrians and Carthaginians which they performed to
this idol ; in all emergencies of state, and times of ge-
neral calamity, they devoted what was most necessary
and valuable to them for an offering to the gods, and
particularly to Moloch. But, besides these undeter-
mined times of bloodshed, they had particular and
prescribed seasons every year, when children were
chosen out of the noble and reputable families, as has
been before mentioned. If a person had an infant
child it was the more liable to be put to death, as
being more acceptable to the deity and more effica-
cious to the general good. Those who were sacrificed
to Kronos were thrown into the arms of a brazen idol
which stood in the midst of a large fire and was red
with heat ; the arms of it were stretched out and the

196

SCENES IN INDIA.

hands turned upward, as it were, to receive them, yet
sloping downwards, so that they dropped from thence
into a glowing furnace. To other gods they were
otherwise slaughtered, and, as it is implied, by the
very hands of their parents. What can be more
horrid to the imagination than to suppose a father
leading the dearest of his sons to such an infernal
shrine ? or a mother the most engaging and affectionate
of her daughters, just rising to maturity, to be slaugh-
tered at the altar of Ashtaroth and Baal ? Such was
their blind zeal, that this was continually practised,
and so much of natural affection still left unextin-
guished as_ to render the scene ten times more shock-
ing from the tenderness which they seemed to express.
They embraced their children with great fondness, en-
couraged them in the gentlest terms, that they might
not be appalled at the sight of the hellish process, and
exhorted them to submit with cheerfulness to this
fearful operation; if there was any appearance of a
tear rising or a cry unawares escaping, the mother
smothered it with kisses, that there might not be any
show of backwardness or constraint, but the whole be
a freewill offering. These cruel endearments over,
they stabbed them to the heart, or otherwise opened
the sluices of life, and with the blood, warm as it ran,
besmeared the altar and the grim visage of their idol.
These were the customs which the Israelites learned
from the people of Canaan, and for which they were
upbraided by the psalmist: r‘ They did not destroy
the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded
them, but were mingled among the heathen and
learned their works. Yea, they sacrificed their sons

INFANTICIDE.

197

and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent
bloody even the blood of their sons and of their
daughters^ whom they sacrificed unto the idols of
Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood/”

Infanticide is to this day practised among some of
the ruder tribes of America; in New South Wales
and in the South-sea islands; and wherever this prac-
tice prevails, female children are the general victims ;
yet it must be confessed that among the more savage
races who destroy their children it commonly arises
from a better principle than that which actuates the
more civilized. The former almost invariably resort
to this barbarous custom from a feeling of humanity;
in order to remove their female offspring from the
miseries of a destitute existence; for among all sa-
vage or semi-barbarous communities the women are
so emphatically the drudges of the men, that their
lives are an absolute burden to them. Even in their
adolescent years; when free from the slavery to which
in their puberty they are hopelessly condemned; they
have still only the sad prospect of wretchedness be-
fore them ; and; so fully alive are mothers to the
barrenness of their children’s joys; that they have been
frequently known to destroy them in order to secure
them from the hardships which they themselves un-
dergo. But they never destroy their male offspring;
knowing that these inherit the chances of a far more
endurable condition. The Hindoo; however; has a
much less rational excuse; as he puts his daughter
to death merely to evade the penalties of an imaginary
degradation.

It is said that among the Rajpoots the child was
s 3

198

SCENES IN INDIA.

always destroyed as soon as it was born either by
the mother or the nurse ; sometimes by opium, some-
times by stratagem ; but it appears that since the
practice has fallen into desuetude, through the hu-
mane endeavours of Mr. Duncan and of those active
functionaries who so shortly after followed his meri-
torious example, thousands of mothers have rejoiced,
with a glowing gratitude, to see their daughters grow-
ing up around them in the native loveliness of inno-
cence and youth. I can well imagine the anxious
mother now looking on her blooming offspring with
all the rapture of an affection enhanced by the re-
membrance of that horrid law of custom which would
once have deprived her of so interesting a pledge of
conjugal love, and exclaiming in the words of one of
her own native poets—

“ Lost in the silvery beam so soft and fair,

No eye can trace her as she moves along ;

The winds which fan her, heavenly fragrance bear,

And trace her footsteps in the virgin throng.”*

I believe a case of infanticide is now seldom or
never heard of, though within the last half century
many thousand victims were yearly sacrificed to an
arrogant and inhuman prejudice. It is scarcely pos-
sible to conceive the indifference with which mothers
are said by those who have described the fact, to have
put their new-born babes to death— and mothers
too who, on other occasions, when their maternal
feelings were aroused, have exhibited the most tender

* Broughton’s translations from the Popular Poetry of the
Hindoos.

KARARA BRAHMINS.

199

yearnings towards their helpless offspring; but the
law of an imperious necessity was then considered so
binding among this haughty race., that no parent ever
thought of opposing it by exhibiting that symptom of
opposition which the least expression of parental sen-
sibility would appear to indicate.

Asa proof that even Brahmins are not invariably,
as is supposed, averse to the destruction of human life,
I may mention that there exists a sect called Karara
Brahmins, who are said to be under the influence of a
demon, to propitiate whom they administer poison to
their guests and friends, by which the protection of
their evil patron is secured. A story is current in
Guzerat that the wife of one of these Brahmins,
having besought a boon from the demon whom she
served, which was granted, as a token of her gratitude
vowed to offer him the acceptable sacrifice of a hu-
man victim, and, as this was not otherwise to be
safely procured, resolved to select for the sacrifice one
about to be endeared to her by ties of the nearest
alliance. She therefore fixed upon the destined
husband of her only daughter, to whom, however,
she was obliged to reveal the horrible secret. On
the day before their marriage, the bridegroom was,
according to the custom of this sect, invited to a
nuptial banquet at the house of the old Brahmin,
his bride’s father. He came with the bloom of joy
upon his countenance, and the freshness of love in
his heart, and while the revelry was going on, the
mother mixed poison with that portion of the food
which was intended for him. This was set apart
with a similar portion, but not poisoned, for the bride,

200

SCENES IN INDIA.

and she was commanded by her mother to direct
her affianced husband to the fatal mess. The girl
horror-struck at the idea of being made the in-
strument of destroying one whom she tenderly loved,
directed him to another share that had been set apart
for the father, who eat of the poisoned dish and pe-
rished. Thus the wife became a widow, and was
obliged to undergo the penalty of all Brahmins’ widows
by expiating her crime upon the funeral pile, while
the young couple married and were happy.

RHOTAS GUR.

201

CHAPTER XVII.

RHOTAS GUR. A SHEEP-EATER.

On quitting Benares, which we did after a halt of
a few days, we directed our steps to Rhotas Gur, one
of the most romantic spots south of the Himalaya
mountains. At a village, about eighteen miles from
Benares, where we halted for the day, we were visited
by a gaunt, grim-looking Hindoo, of some celebrity in
the neighbourhood, which he had acquired, as well as
the admiration of his caste, by his capability of de-
vouring a sheep at a single meal. He was a tall,
bony person, somewhat past the prime of life, with
a thin, wiry frame, and a countenance of the most
imperturbable equanimity, though as ugly as a sheep-
eater might be expected to be. He was of the Sudra
caste, and his companions seemed to entertain a high
idea of his singular accomplishment as a most vora-
cious eaten. He offered, for a few rupees, to devour
an entire sheep, if we would pay for the animal as well
as for the different accessories of the meal. There
was something so extraordinary in the proposal that
we readily acquiesced. We accordingly prepared to
witness this marvellous feat of manducation, by pur-
chasing the largest sheep * we could find, which
* Sheep in India are generally very small and lean.

202

SCENES IN INDIA.

weighed,, when prepared for cooking, just thirty-two
pounds. We purchased it for one rupee, or about
twenty-two pence.

All being now ready, the carnivorous Sudra com-
menced his extraordinary feast. Having cut off the
sheep’s head with a single stroke of his sabre and
jointed the body in due form, he separated all the
meat from the bones, the whole quantity to be de-
voured amounting to about twenty pounds. This
meat he minced very fine, forming it into balls about
the size of a small fowl’s egg, first mixing with it
plenty of spice and curry powder. As soon as the
whole was prepared, he fried some of the balls over a
fire, which he had previously kindled at the root of a
tree, eating and frying till the whole were consumed.
At intervals he washed down the meat with copious
potations of ghee, which is sometimes so rancid as to
be quite disgusting ; and this happened to be the case
now. After his prodigious meal, the performer was
certainly far less active than he had previously been.
His meagre body had acquired a considerable degree
of rotundity, and although he declared that he felt
not the slightest inconvenience, it was evident that
he had taken as much as he could hold, and more
than was agreeable. He acknowledged that he could
not manage to eat a sheep at a meal more than twice
in one week, and that this was oftener than he should
like to do it.

Extraordinary as such an appetite may appear, it
is very much less so than that act of carnivorous
barbarity, mentioned by Colonel Mackenzie in the
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, where a

INSTITUTES OF MENU.

203

man is described as devouring a sheep alive, and a
series of lithographic illustrations accompanies the de-
scription, representing, with a disgusting minuteness
of detail, every part of the revolting process.

Although the most rigid Hindoos profess that in
their sacred book, they are prohibited from destroy-
ing animal life, yet many even of those restrict this
prohibition to tame, and especially to what we call do-
mestic animals, assuming the privilege of killing such
as are wild. Few of them, however, are so con-
scientiously punctilious as not to slaughter a sheep or
a goat when oppressed by the calls of a sharp appetite,
nor do they hesitate on such emergencies to quote
some gloss on their sacred scriptures as an authority
for the practice under circumstances of necessity.
They find it no very difficult matter to make inclina-
tion and necessity co-ordinate in their code of moral
obligation.

It is indeed certain that in the Institutes of
Menu, which contain the whole formula of Hindoo
duties, both civil and religious, the killing of animals
is, with some limitations, allowed even to Brahmins ;
and I believe it is only those of the Jain and Bud-
dhist sects who abstain from this practice altogether.
The following is an extract to this purport from that
celebrated formulary. u Beasts and birds of excellent
sort may be slain by Brahmins for sacrifice, or for
the sustenance of those whom they are bound to
support.” Thus it is clear that they are permitted
to slay for sustenance as well as for sacrifice. It is
a common error that Hindoos may not eat flesh or
destroy life ; but the prohibition is particular not

20 4

SCENES IN INDIA.

general. There are, nevertheless, an immense number
of prohibited meats from which they abstain with
scrupulous particularity.

So rigid are the Jains in observing the mere
textual precept which prohibits killing, that they
have established lazarettos for the security of vermin
of all kinds, and even of noxious reptiles, to whose
wants they attend with the most patient attention,
and would rather suffer death themselves than press
their finger even upon a musquito. It must be
confessed that in general the members of this sect
are remarkable for their mildness and humanity.
Whatever may be the silly qualities of some of their
superstitions, they are more than countervailed by
traits of the noblest kind, which are by no means
discovered to abound among the mass of the Hindo
population.

On the third day after quitting Benares we crossed
the bridge at Mow, near Bidzee Gur, and ascended
the hill. On reaching the fort in which the rebel
Cheit Singh had deposited his treasures in 178], we
found it in a state of great dilapidation. This me-
morable fortification is erected upon a table-land of
some extent, considerably elevated above the level of
the plain, and inaccessible on all sides but one, where
the ascent is extremely tedious, The circumference
of the summit, which is protected by a strongly forti-
fied wall, is about two miles ; the ground which it
encloses is abundantly supplied with water and well
cultivated. We were surprised, on observing the
strength of the place and the difficulty of approach,
that it should have so easily yielded to the assault

THE ECKPOUAH GHAUT.

205

of the British troops in 1781 ; but fear and a had cause
seldom find security even behind walls and bulwarks.

On descending the hill, we proceeded to the Eckpouah
ghaut,* through an agreeable wood that terminated
within a mile of it. As the country opened before us,
the prospect was very striking. Immediately below
this pass there was a rich dell thickly wooded, and
within its dark recesses the tiger and other savage
beasts found an undisturbed sanctuary. A deep and
rapid nullah foamed beneath, and the dash of its waters
faintly caught the ear of the traveller above as they
gurgled through the obstructed passages of the wood.
On the right were bold precipitous rocks, the scarped
summits of which seemed an invulnerable link be-
tween the present and remote time ; on the left were
gently undulating hills, the distance terminating with
the valley, through which the river Soane winds its
placid course.

At the ghaut we found it difficult for our horses to
descend, on account of a loxty rock, which was all but
perpendicular and greatly embarrassed our progress.
We searched for another path, but could find none :
in spite, therefore, of the precipitous nature of the
descent, we had no alternative but to attempt it, and
fortunately, after much toil, succeeded in reaching the
bottom without accident.

In this mountain-pass we caught a black monkey,
and as these creatures are rare, we proposed send-
ing it to England the first opportunity that might
offer ; but unfortunately it escaped, through the negli-

* A gliaut is literally a pass in a mountain, though the word
is often used for the mountain itself.

T

20 6

SCENES IN INDIA.

gence of the person to whose care it was intrusted,,
and who probably favoured its escape in order to get
rid of a troublesome charge. Having continually re-
marked the foot-prints of tigers and other beasts of
prey as we advanced,, though tolerably well prepared
against an irruption from such formidable enemies,
we were not without our apprehensions ; we, however,
saw nothing to molest us, except four large bears,
which we surprised in the bed of a dry nullah, and
which were glad to escape from so formidable an
array as our party presented.

At some short distance from the Eckpouah ghaut
there is a huge, misshapen crag, rising full three hun-
dred feet above the level of the plain. Its sides are so
nearly perpendicular that there is no possibility of
scaling it. This amorphous mass does not at all ap-
pear to belong to the spot, but seems as if it had been
upheaved from the bosom of the earth by some pri-
meval convulsion of nature. It bears the marks of
very remote antiquity, and from its having so unna-
tural a location, the native geologists ascribe its posi-
tion there to the period when, according to their
cosmogony, the churning of the ocean took place, by
which there was such a general dislocation of na-
ture, that rocks were cast upon plains, and vast tracts
of land, forming islands, flung into the sea.

In the neighbourhood of Sasseram, where we halted
for a day, we found many fine subjects for the pencil,
besides the tomb of Shere Shah, engraved in our first
volume. The country round exhibits some noble
specimens of oriental architecture, both Mahomedan
and Hindoo. As we approached Rhotas Gur, the

AKBARPOOR.

207

hills presented a great variety of form, with occasion-
ally a sternness and abruptness of aspect exceed-
ingly attractive to the eye, though not very inviting
to the footsteps of the traveller. Shere Shah by a stra-
tagem obtained possession of the fort of Rhotas from
the last of a long dynasty of Hindoo princes. Rajah
Chintamum, whose family had held dominion over
this part of the peninsula during a numerous succession
of generations. This fort was considered impregnable
until it was taken by Shere Shah, who made it a de-
pository for his treasure and the chief residence of
his family, until his death, when it probably reverted
to its former possessor, as in the year 1575 it was
captured from a Hindoo prince, after a severe struggle,
by the Mogul emperor, Akbar.

On taking possession of the fort, in a large temple
in the upper part of it, Shere Shah found a number
of rude idols cut in marble, which he ordered to be
flung over the neighbouring precipice, whence they
have never been recovered ; and for that act of sacri-
legious tyranny his name is to this day execrated by
all pious Hindoos in the neighbourhood.

The zemeendar of Akbarpoor, a village at the foot
of the hill on which the fort of Rhotas stands, very
obligingly sent us two or three men to guide us to the
summit. We had not proceeded far on our way,
which was tedious from the asperity and narrowness
of the path, when our progress was interrupted by the
gateway of a fortified pass, of which there are several
between the base of the hill and the fort. These gate-
ways are immensely strong, and from the steepness of
the ascent oppose a formidable barrier to an approach-

208

SCENES IN INDIA.

ing enemy. It would, indeed, be a matter of no or-
dinary difficulty to bring artillery to play upon them,
and they form a defence impregnable to any com-
mon mode of assault ; they have, however, yielded
to the skill and perseverance of a superior foe.

On reaching the first gateway, the chief guide
stopped before the portal, and with a significant air of
ceremony silently unwound his turban ; then, putting
one end of it into the hand of a companion, and placing
himself at the other extremity, which he held, the two
men stood on either side of the doorway, across which
they drew the turban about three feet from the
ground. Our obsequious guides then told us that it
was customary for travellers to pay toll before entering
the portal, as a propitiatory offering to Pollear, the
protecting deity of pilgrims and travellers, who with-
out such an oblation might bring us into mischief,
Their logic was conclusive ; therefore, upon the strength
of an appeal so irresistible, we deposited the cus-
tomary tribute in the outstretched palm of the pe-
titioner, and passed under the gateway into the gorge
of the mountain. We entered several similar portals
before we reached the summit, which gave us an ex-
alted idea of the former possessors of this strong-hold,
who had displayed great sagacity and skill in for-
tifying a place so well adapted by nature for the pur-
pose of affording an almost perfect security against in-
vasion. At length we entered the fort, which is gain-
ed by a flight of winding steps through a gateway,
flanked on either hand by a wall of vast thickness
that abuts each side upon a precipice. This wall
is built of large masses of a most durable stone so

MONKEYS.

209

strongly cemented together, that there is not the
slightest appearance of decay. The masonry is en-
tirely without ornament, but is still very imposing
from its stern simplicity and massive strength : it is a
fine specimen of ancient military architecture.

The summit of the hill, on which the fort of Rhotas
now stands, is about nine hundred feet above the
level of the plain. It is the greatest elevation in
this part of the country, and commands a grand and
extensive prospect. We found the place altogether
so agreeable, that we ordered our camp-equipage to
be brought to the fort, within which we pitched our
tents, and took possession of an old palace then in a
state of great dilapidation, yet sufficiently entire to
afford us a satisfactory abode for several days. In
consequence of its great elevation, we escaped the
general annoyance from reptiles to which all persons
who inhabit old buildings in India are especially
liable ; in short, there was nothing to disturb the
serenity of our repose save the chattering of legions
of monkeys which had colonised the neighbouring
glen, inhabiting the trees that grew from the sloping
sides of the precipice beneath the fort. These ani-
mals, where they congregate in large numbers, are
an intolerable annoyance, and their cunning is so
profound, that it is difficult to banish them from a
spot of which they have once taken possession.

210

SCENES IN INDIA.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FORT OF RHOTAS. A HINDOO FUNERAL.

The fort of Rhotas, like Bidzee Gur, stands upon
the summit of a table hill, but is much more ex-
tensive, embracing a circumference of many miles,
within which are several villages, and a moderately
numerous population. It is everywhere protected by
a lofty wall of immense thickness, except where the
precipice presents a natural barrier to an invading
army. Wherever the mountain upon which the fort
stands, originally appeared in the slightest degree
accessible, the wall towers above it with an union
of massiveness and strength that seems to bid de-
fiance to every human assault. It however yielded,
as I have already stated, to the irresistible valour of
the Afghan Shere Shah, who conquered the son of the
renowned Baber, and father* of the still more re-
nowned Akbar. Shere Shah had the enviable merit
of taking, with inconsiderable loss, one of the strongest
fortresses in Hindostan,

Beyond the gateway which leads immediately to
the principal fortification, are several plain but hand-
some structures. There are temples, palaces, gra-
naries, besides villages and single houses. The ba-
* Humayun.

yd.

VIEW FK0M THE FOET.

211

zaars are furnished with everything necessary to
supply the domestic wants of the people, of whom
many never descended to the plains. The walls
and the precipices by which they were surrounded
being the boundary of their little world, they lived
in a sort of Utopian simplicity, circumscribed within
the narrow limits of a few miles, beyond which
they did not seem to have the slightest desire to
emerge. To such primitive minds the happy valley
would have been a paradise, though to Rasselas it
was a prison. In truth, happiness is not a fugitive
that is to be pursued with breathless impatience
through a world of perplexity and care. It is as
secure to the indolent cenobite as to the busy wan-
derer; neither may obtain it, and it may visit the
hermitage while it shuns the house of concourse.
They generally know it best who seek it least;
and certain it is that the little community of this ro-
mantic hill, if they were not positively happy, ap-
peared contented, and content is so nearly allied to
happiness, that they form rather a distinction than a
difference.

The prospect around Rhotas Gur, viewed from the
highest point about a mile south of the gateway, is
of a truly sublime character ; scarcely anything can
surpass it, except it be the wild and stupendous
scenery of the Himalaya mountains. Here are pre-
cipices several hundred feet deep, which it makes the
brain whirl to look down, and they are so near the
perpendicular, without a shrub to break the unifor-
mity of their sheer rocky sides, that, until within a
short distance from their termination, there is scarcely

212

SCENES IN INDIA.

footing for any animal beyond the size of a lizard.
Some of them are clothed with wood nearly to the
summit ; others are bare almost to their base. To-
wards the bottom, the sides of the mountain are
covered with trees of considerable bulk, and these
are so infested with monkeys as entirely to banish
silence from her primitive dominion. Their inces-
sant gabbling, for clamour and continuance, can only
be compared to a disturbed rookery.

In the old palace which we occupied, we were hap-
pily beyond the reach of these serenaders, but they
never failed to hail our appearance upon the battle-
ments above with peals of their boisterous merriment.
We several times amused ourselves with rolling large
stones over the precipice, in order to terrify them into
silence ; but it had quite the contrary effect : for these
ponderous projectiles bounded downward with the
most fearful impetuosity, crashing amid the trees,
and causing such consternation among the monkeys,
that their chattering was changed into loud screams
of terror. We saw them bounding from branch to
branch in such multitudes, that the whole forest
seemed alive. W e were notwithstanding wanton enough
to continue our perilous pastime for a while at the
imminent hazard of some of their lives. They, how-
ever, adroitly avoided the impending destruction,
and were certainly more alarmed than injured ;
nevertheless, had they been able to expostulate in
words, they would, I imagine, have cried out with
the frogs in the fable, “ this may be sport to you,
but it is death to us.”

From the elevation of the hill whence we were

ZEMEENDARS.

213

amusing ourselves, the country below to the east and
south was visible for many miles, and nothing could
exceed the beauty of the prospect. The distant plains
lay extended before the eye, bounded by the bright
blue horizon, glowing under the vivid beams of an
ardent sun, and exhibiting all the varying hues of an
abundant cultivation. There were several towns and
villages scattered over the extensive scene, and to a
superficial observer, everything bespoke a happy and
thriving population. But these appearances in India
are too often fallacious : for while the country round
you seems to promise a plentiful harvest to the hus-
bandman, the ryot, or farmer of the soil, having, from
the urgency of immediate want, been obliged to mort-
gage the produce to the more wealthy Zemeendar, has
nothing to look forward to in the promising abundance
around him but the pittance to be derived from his
own labour in aiding to get in the future harvest;
thus gathering, in anguish of heart and prostration
of spirit, the scanty and bitter fruits of a poorly re-
warded industry. In India, the social condition of
the husbandman is one of extreme privation and
pitiable endurance. The taxes upon the produce are
very heavy, and being moreover levied before there is a
return upon the sale of the crop, the farmer is almost
invariably reduced to the hard necessity of selling it
as it stands to the Zemeendar, who generally con-
trives to grind him down to a hard bargain, and
he has no choice left between acceptance or star-
vation. Thus he sells the labour of months for little
or no profit, all but giving it away, in order to meet
the demands of a prince under whose government he

214

SCENES IN INDIA.

lives, and the rapacity of the Zemeendar through
whose covetousness he starves. This state of domestic

misery among the tillers of the land in the most pro-
ductive country upon earth, is the reason why so few
improvements have been here made in husbandry,
and why there is so much valuable land unappro-
priated. There is no stimulus given to exertion, no
encouragement to industry, no motive for improve-
ment. The Zemeendar who takes advantage of the
immediate necessities of the husbandman, is at no
expense for tillage, for he buys the crops upon those
terms which distress ever offers to a ready purchaser ;
so that there really exists no motive to till beyond
what the mere hope of obtaining the absolute neces-
saries of life supplies. For these reasons agriculture
is in a very imperfect state, and likely to continue so
until there is some encouragement given to predial
industry. The agriculturists in India are precisely
in the same state they were centuries ago, nor can
there be any substantial improvement until there is a
change in the social system— until, in short, the con-
dition of those who raise the crops is ameliorated and
brought nearer to that of those who enjoy the fruits
of the harvest. So prolific is the soil in this genial cli-
mate, that it requires very little labour to render it
productive ; yet more than half the country is a wil-
derness. Thorns and briars usurp the supremacy of
pulse and grain. The prickly pear scatters its rough
tenacious arms over vast tracts of territory, where
with little toil a plentiful harvest might be gathered
in. There is no doubt that under an improved condi-
tion of things, millions of acres, which now lie waste,

A HINDOO FUNERAL.

215

and over which the “ golden ear” has never waved;
might be made to teem with fruitfulness., and to bless
the toil of a miserable and frequently starving popu-
lation. Famine would never then spread the blight
of her horrible devastation over populous and exten-
sive districts; strewing the earth with gastly corpses;
and not leaving sufficient of the living to perform the
last offices of humanity to the dead. Thousands of
carcasses; in every frightful stage of decay; would not
then lie uninhumed; scattering pestilence over the
land which famine had first filled with lamentation;
and loading every passing breeze with the elements
of a most summary destruction. These are not cir-
cumstances of unusual occurrence : I was myself twice
a witness of such scenes during the period of my resi-
dence in the East. They were in truth fearfully sad.
I have seen the roads strewed with the dead and the
dying. I could make these pages the vehicle of the
most appalling descriptions; but I forbear. To per-
sons who have resided long in India; those scenes are
too familiar. Alas ! that such calamities should arise
from defective legislation; for this is the great second-
ary cause of the evil.

During our stay within the fort of Rhotas Gur; a
funeral took place in a village at some short distance
from our temporary residence; which we availed our-
selves of the opportunity of witnessing; and; as we
took care not to mix with the procession; there was no
objection expressed on the part of the relatives of the
deceased to our being present. The body; as is usual
on these occasions; was laid upon a charpoy and cover-
ed with a crimson palampore; over which was strewed

21 6 SCENES IN INDIA.

a profusion of red flowers. The procession was to-
lerably numerous, consisting of the friends and rela-
tives of the deceased, the latter of whom appeared
as chief mourners, filling the air with their discor-
dant lamentations. Nearly the whole village join-
ed the mournful cavalcade, in order to pay their last
tribute of respect to the remains of a departed brother.
Those persons who immediately followed the bier
made a dismal wailing, which was every now and
then broken by a sort of shrill chorus in praise of
the virtues of the dead. This kind of funeral elegy
is always chanted on these solemn occasions, and is
considered to form a very essential part of Hindoo
obsequies, whether the body be disposed of by cremation
or sepulture. The dissonance of their loud and elabo-
rate wailings, mixed with the din of tomtoms, horns,
and trumpets,, defies description.

When the corpse was brought to the spot destined
for its consumption, two parallel trenches were dug a
few inches deep and about four feet apart ; these were
crossed by a trench at either end, the whole space
forming a parallelogram about six feet long by four wide,
each angle being opposite to one of the four cardinal
points. The charpoy was then placed upon the ground
and the body uncovered. It was in a very advanced
state of decomposition, although death had only taken
place late the preceding night. Upon the forehead
a mark of caste had been distinctly traced, and the
mouth was crammed with betel-nut. The flowers
were now taken from the coverlet and strewed over
the body, to weaken the fetid exhalations which arose
powerfully from it and must have been intolerable to

A HINDOO FUNERAL.

21 7

those who were in its immediate vicinity ; still
they did not seem to he inconvenienced, hut calmly
proceeded with the solemn ceremonial. Within the
square which had been formed, certain mystic rites
took place to propitiate the spirits supposed to pre-
side over sepulchres and to have an influence upon
the happiness or misery of departed souls. When
these were completed, the body was borne towards
the pile, which had been carefully erected on a spot
previously consecrated for the occasion by the of-
ficiating Brahmin. It consisted of large branches of the
mango-tree, well besmeared with ghee, rising about two
feet and a half from the ground. It was squared with
great exactness and regularity, forming a compact
body, and the wood was so skilfully disposed that few
or no interstices were apparent.

The corpse was now laid upon the pile by four
pariahs, who alone touch dead bodies in India ; for the
contact with a corpse is held by all other castes to be
a pollution from which no one can be purified but by
undergoing the severest mortifications. It is on such
occasions only that the poor pariah is tolerated, and
this because his services are indispensable ; though
even then no rigid Hindoo will approach him so near
as to run the risk of coming even within the reach
of his shadow. The principal mourner, who I under-
stood was father of the deceased, as soon as the
pariahs had retired, approached with a lighted torch
in his right hand and a vessel of water on his left
shoulder. On reaching the sacred platform on which
were deposited the remains of an only son, he turned
his back towards it, applied the torch to the com-

u

21 8

SCENES TN INDIA.

bustibles underneath, his eyes the while directed
towards heaven, dropped the vessel of water on the
ground as soon as he heard the crackling of the flames,
then darted off as if he had been pursued by some
malignant spirit. The fire kindled with great rapi-
dity ; in a few moments the body was enveloped
in flames which burned so ardently that it was
shortly consumed. The pyre had been previously
strewed with unguents and other inflammable sub-
stances, in order to accelerate this solemn conclusion
of the funeral ceremony. Letting fall the water-vessel
is an ancient superstitious test never, I believe,
omitted on these melancholy occasions. The idea of
this credulous people is, that if it does not break
in falling, another of the family will die before the year
expires ; but that if it breaks — and this seldom fails
to happen, from the violence with which they let it
fall — the family is secure from such a calamity.

The moment the torch is applied to the pile, the
party upon whom it devolves to perform this part of
the ceremony rushes from the spot to the nearest
tank, into which he instantly plunges, in order as
soon as possible to purify himself from the contamina-
tion which he is supposed to have imbibed from so
near a contact with a corpse. With somewhat less
celerity, but following close upon his steps, the rest of
the mourners on this occasion repaired to the same
tank, where they also underwent the customary puri-
fications. The body being consumed, the ashes were
carefully collected and deposited in a large earthen jar,
there to remain until an opportunity should offer of
casting them upon the sacred waters of the Ganges,

WIDOWS BURIED ALIVE.

219

which,, according to the Hindoo creed., having their
source in heaven, will waft them thither,* when those
senseless atoms shall be reunited to the disembodied
spirit and enjoy with it an immortality of uninter-
rupted beatitude.

Upon these solemn occasions the ministering Brah-
min exacts a considerable fee. From a family in but
moderate circumstances he would think a hundred
rupees no more than a reasonable demand ; and what-
ever he does demand is paid without a murmur on
the supposition that so sacred a person cannot be guilty
of extortion. Funerals therefore, where the parties can
afford to pay, are always attended with great expense.
There was no suttee in this instance, although the de-
ceased left a young widow ; that barbarous custom
having been almost abolished in this part of the
country.

Sonnerat mentions that in some places the widow,
instead of burning herself on the husband’s funeral-
pile, buries herself alive, in order to be immediately
united to him in paradise. When they are buried
alive,” says this observing traveller, " the same cere-
monies are observed before they are conducted to the
place of interment as when they bum themselves. So
soon as the person who is the object of the sacrifice has
arrived, she descends into a place of the form of a
small cellar, and takes the body of her husband in her
arms. The ditch is immediately filled with earth up
to the woman’s neck ; a carpet is laid before her to

* The Hindoos imagine that as the Ganges has its source in
heaven, its waters finally return thither, after purifying the souls
of men upon earth.

220

SCENES IN INDIA.

prevent the horrors of death from being perceived, and
that the sight may not frighten other women, they
give her something in a shell, which is doubtless poi-
son, and the ceremony concludes by twisting her
neck, which they do with surprising dexterity.”

On the day which followed the funeral we were
out with our guns, when one of the party shot a large
vulture that had perched upon the carcase of a dead
sheep, and was certainly doing the neighbourhood a
benefit by removing the nuisance. As soon as the
bird was shot, it fell and turned upon its back ; but,
struggling a good deal, two of the attendants, of which
each person of our party had one, were ordered to
despatch it with bamboos. This was accordingly
done, and, after receiving several severe blows upon
the head, it appeared to be quite dead ; one of the
men then took it upon his shoulder, and we pursued
our sport. We were out several hours, the vulture
hanging all the while from the shoulder of the man
apparently lifeless, its eyes closed and its head much
lacerated by the shot and the strokes from the
bamboos. Upon our return, the man who carried
the vulture, glad to get rid of his burden, (for these
birds will sometimes weigh as much as thirty pounds)
flung it upon the ground with a force of itself suffi-
cient to kill it ; but to our surprise it seemed to be
reanimated by the shock ; for after opening its eyes,
it suddenly turned, and was on its legs in a moment.
Advancing a step or two, it stretched out its wings,
rose heavily into the air, continuing to rise until
it was entirely lost to our view in the distance.
We were all so much astonished at thus so unex-

THE DEAD ALIVE.

221

pectedly beholding the dead alive, that no one thought
of making an attempt to prevent its escape. The
tenaciousness of life which the vulture possesses, as
this anecdote will show, is almost incredible ; and so
great is its rapacity, that when engaged in devouring
its prey, it will allow a person to approach and
seize it, though this is at all times a dangerous expe-
riment.

SCENES IN INDIA.

099

CHAPTER XIX.

HINDOO TEMPLE AT MUDDENPOOR.

Quitting Rhotas Gur, on our way to Patna, we
halted at Gy ah, where there are several majestic
ruins. At Muddenpoor, a village in the neighbour-
hood of Gyah, we visited a Hindoo temple, formerly in
high repute, though now in a state of dilapidation.
There are several small trees growing out of the tower,
which rises to a great height above the body of the
building, and has four elliptical sides with convex sur-
faces. It is divided into two stories, and surmounted
by a small fluted dome, which makes a graceful ter-
mination. The main edifice is square, and adorned
with two handsome porticos, one at the eastern, the
other at the western extremity. The common en-
trance is on the south side, through a narrow door-
way, over which are some rude carvings. On the fore-
ground, about twenty yards from the south-western
angle of the building, is an elegant but massy stone
column from fifteen to twenty feet high: — for what
purpose it was erected does not now appear to be
known. It is hexagonal for the first four feet from
the base, when the squares increase in number ; but
towards the top the pillar is perfectly round, and sur-
mounted by a plain square capital.

HINDOO TEMPLE AT MUDDENPOOR.

223

This temple, which is built without cement, is
supposed to be of extreme antiquity, and its appear-
ance fully justifies the supposition. It stands upon
an eminence at some distance from the public road,
commanding an extensive and beautiful view of the
surrounding country. The hill, though not lofty, is
troublesome to ascend ; for in consequence of the im-
mense number of persons who still visit this sacred
shrine, either from curiosity or devotion, the surface
of the rock through which the road is cut is so worn
as to render it quite slippery, and to persons unac-
customed to such a ticklish ascent, it is altogether
impracticable without assistance from those whom
habit has enabled to surmount the difficulty. Never-
theless, when the summit is gained, the traveller’s
toil is abundantly repaid by the splendid prospect
before him, which however is so common in India that
it soon ceases to be a novelty, though it cannot cease
to give delight. The view from this spot is scarcely
inferior to that seen from the summit of Rhotas Gur.

The Brahmins who attend the temple are esteemed
very holy persons, and the sanctuary, though in a
state of dilapidation, is resorted to by pilgrims from
a great distance. It is dedicated to Vishnoo, and is
frequently the scene of the most absurd supersti-
tions ; yet in spite of the foolish rites to which
long established custom has imparted the authority
and obligation of law, some of the doctrines taught
in these heathen tabernacles are such as would not
disgrace a Christian preacher. They inculcate a highly
pure morality, and wherever this is infringed, under
the sanctions of interested teachers, it is a viola-

224,

SCENES IN INDIA.

tion of the pure Hindoo creed, which, when divested
of its corruptions and false glosses, is by no means so
free from “ spiritual discernment,” as is generally sup-
posed. Although, perhaps, there is no country in the
world where religion has been exposed to so many
gross and monstrous corruptions, there may never-
theless be found beautiful lessons of wisdom and
practical virtue even in those Brahminical writings
which are accessible to Europeans ; while the esoteric
precepts of such among their sacred books, as are
sealed to all but the privileged few, are said by learned
Christians, who have been made acquainted with their
mysteries, to contain doctrines so pure and wise, as
to be second only to the oracles of inspiration.

He could have been no ordinary teacher who wrote
the following. “ Let the motive be in the deed and
not in the event. Be not one whose motive for action
is the hope of reward. Let not thy life be spent in
inaction. Depend upon application, perform thy duty,
abandon all thought of the consequence, and make
the event equal, whether it terminate in good or evil,
for such an equality is called yog.* Seek an asylum
then in wisdom alone ; for the miserable and unhappy
are so on account of the event of things. Men who
are endued with true wisdom are unmindful of good
or evil in this world. Study then to obtain this ap-
plication of thy understanding, for such application in
business is a precious art.” t Again, “ There is no-

* A Sanscreet word, which, says Sir Charles Wilkins, we have
none in our language to express. It is nearly synonymous with
devotion.

+ Bhagvat Geeta, Lecture II.

HINDOO TEACHERS.

225

thing in this world to he compared with wisdom for
purity. He who is perfected by practice, in due time
findeth it in his own soul. He who hath faith findeth
wisdom, and, above all, he who hath gotten the better
of his passions ; and having obtained this spiritual
wisdom, he shortly enjoy eth superior happiness ;
whilst the ignorant and the man without faith, whose
spirit is full of doubt, is lost. Neither this world
nor that which is above, nor happiness, can be en-
joyed by a man of a doubting mind. The human ac-
tions have no power to confine the spiritual mind,
which by study hath forsaken works, and which by
wisdom hath cut asunder the bonds of doubt.” *

We should form altogether a very unjust estimate
of the intellectual qualifications of Hindoo teachers,
if we tested them by those vulgar superstitions which
are constantly presented to the traveller s eye in their
numerous temples. These are frequently nothing more
than the juggles of an interested priesthood, from
which, indeed, the religion of Christian countries is
not entirely free. The besotted notions so commonly
instilled into the mind of the ignorant Hindoo are
as far removed from the spirit of his ritual, as the
mummeries sanctioned by the Roman Catholic priest-
hood are from the purity of those doctrines promul-
gated by the chosen ministers of the Christian Law-
giver. Wherever religion is taught to be a mystery
too subtle for the penetration of common minds, and
thus kept from the mental scrutiny of the vulgar; —
where it is left to be expounded by a few interested
teachers, who derive more temporal profit from prac-
* Bhagvat Geeta, Lecture IV.

226

SCENES IN INDIA.

tising on the credulity of their hearers, than in open-
ing their eyes to the truth — it will naturally he cor-
rupted; and nothing is too monstrous for ignorant
credulity to receive.* Ignorance being naturally at-
tached to the marvellous is consequently inclined to
superstition, and thus, in order to satisfy this mor-
bidly spiritual appetite, the attributes of the Deity
have been personified, and a host of idols offered to
human adoration, under the assumed sanction of a
sacred name. The Divinity is so constantly asso-
ciated with human actions and human infirmities, as
to represent an Almighty monster of iniquity, pos-
sessing the repugnant qualities of Omnipotence both
in good and in evil.

Such views of him are, alas ! but too grateful to
the feelings of corrupt minds ; for we may easily
imagine it is no difficult matter for men inherently
depraved to persuade themselves that a God, who can
be the great exemplar of vicious acts, will not be
backward to pardon in others what his own conduct
justifies ; and therefore this assumed sanction of vice
in the Creator cannot fail to render it more palatable
to the heart of the creature. The implicit reliance
which the ignorant among the Hindoos place upon
their priests, who are often as corrupt as they are
illiterate, is the chief cause of that barbarous idolatry
in which they are still involved, and which has
hitherto bid defiance to the most zealous endeavours
of our missionaries.

* It is a general belief among the Hindoo vulgar, that no one
has a chance of happiness in the next life, if he neglect to give
alms to the Brahmins.

BRAHMINICAL THEOLOGY.

227

Monstrous as the complicated mythology of Hin-
dostan may appear to those who cannot discover the
spiritual inference through the mythic adaptation,
the Brahminical religion, when divested of its ex-
aggerated fables and allegories, amounts simply to
this : that God is eternal, omnipotent, and infinitely
wise ; the source of all good, and the consummation
of all perfection. As he had no beginning, so neither
can he have an end, since that to have an end,
which has no beginning, would at once involve a
contradiction and an impossibility. He is without
body, parts, or passions ; permeating all space ; the
antithesis of evil, which he will eventually overcome ;
an omnipotent, just, and merciful God. He is the
creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, and
nothing is hid from his scrutiny. Past and future
are to him everlastingly present, and his ubiquity
enables him to comprehend all things within himself.
As he is infinitely merciful, so is he infinitely just,
and therefore eternally punishes the wicked as well
as everlastingly rewards the good.

The Brahmins further believe that at the time fixed
in his eternal deerees, God will destroy this world
by fire. They place implicit faith in the influence
of inferior divinities, which are subservient to the
one Almighty, who wills nevertheless that divine
homage, though different from that which is offered
to himself, should be paid to them as his accredited
vicegerents to whom he has appointed especial func-
tions upon earth. These agents are extremely nu-
merous, and it is in consequence of the homage paid
to them that so many corruptions have crept in to

228

SCENES IN INDIA.

destroy the purity of the primitive worship. The
doctrine of the metempsychosis is one to which I be-
lieve the different Hindoo sects unanimously subscribe.
They hold that immediately after death the soul is
wafted into the presence of its eternal judge, who
passes sentence upon it, condemning it to everlasting
happiness or misery according to its spiritual purity
or pollution upon earth. If it be condemned to suffer,
after an expiation of ages it returns to the world it
has quitted and assumes a bestial incarnation. Dur-
ing a succession of lives it takes possession of the
bodies of several beasts of progressively higher grades,
and thus gradually advances in the scale of animal
improvement. When the process of personal atone-
ment has been so far completed, it passes into the
frame of a man, still migrating from one human
body to another more holy and increasing in spiritual
purity until the crimes committed in a former state
of existence have been sufficiently expiated, when it is
released from its hard bondage of probation, received
into the celestial paradise and absorbed into the Deity.

Before we left Gyah we went into the woods with
our guns in search of game, a pastime so common in
India, that the traveller scarcely passes a day on his
journey without enjoying it. On the present occasion
a large hog was shot, but did not yield without
making a fierce resistance; not until it had re-
ceived fourteen balls in its body from different guns,
did it finally relinquish the hard struggle for life.
We left the carcass close by the edge of a jungle, in-
tending on our return to deprive it of its head, and bear
this to our tents as a trophy. We continued our sport

VULTURES.

229

but shot nothing except a few black partridges and
a couple of hares,, the latter of which in this country
are generally hard and coarse. Upon our return to
the spot where we had left the hog, which had not
been killed above two hours,, we were astonished to
find that not an atom of flesh remained on its bones.
During our absence the vultures had descended upon
the carcase and completely devoured it,, though in the
most extraordinary manner. When we approached
it appeared to be perfectly entire, but upon closer
inspection we found the skin to be filled with only
bones and air. The hide of the animal was so
tough, that the vultures could make no impression
upon it; they had therefore insinuated their beaks
through the holes made by the balls in the boar’s
body, gradually enlarging the orifice until they ob-
tained admission for their heads, when with their
usual voracity they tore from the bones and skin
every morsel of flesh, and shortly swallowed the whole.
The entrails were also consumed, so that there re-
mained little more of the dead hog than an inflated
skin, which two of our attendants bore away, no
doubt gratified at the vultures’ ingenuity, since it had
greatly diminished their burthen.

The vulture is said to have a keenness of scent
so extraordinary as to be sensible of the effluvium of
putrid flesh at the distance of more than a mile.
Certain it is, that if an animal of any bulk is de-
stroyed and left on the ground, though there should
be no vulture in sight at the moment of its destruction,
within the space of half an hour it will be covered
with these hungry spoilers, which never quit it while

x

230

SCENES IN INDIA.

a morsel of the carcass remains. When they scent a
piece of carrion they immediately congregate in large
bodies, make several gyrations in the air over the
spot, and then descend upon their prey. They may
frequently be seen soaring on the watch at an immense
height in the air, and a dead body never escapes either
the quickness of their sight or the keenness of their
scent. These birds are so voracious, that they have
frequently been known to attack distempered cattle
and destroy them. If a buffalo happens to have a
sore, they will perch upon its back and begin to
feed upon it, and, notwithstanding its strength and
fierceness, they will continue the assault, one perch-
ing on the animal’s head and flapping its wings over
its eyes, while others fix upon the diseased part, until,
worn out with fatigue and suffering, it becomes at
length an easy prey to these indefatigable destroyers.
The vulture is generally about the size of a large turkey,
though some have been known to weigh upwards of
thirty pounds. It is very serviceable in hot climates
in removing putrid substances, which would else ex-
pose the country to the continual visitation of pesti-
lence: in fact, but for these disgusting birds, every
region within the tropics would soon be depopulated ;
- — they annually save thousands of human lives.

BODE GYAH.

231

CHAPTER XX.

BODE GYAH. BUDDHIST TEMPLE. BUDDHISM.

From Gyah we proceeded a few miles out of our
direct route to Bode Gyah, where there is one of the
most celebrated Buddhist temples to be found in
Hindostan ; it is still an imposing structure, though
the ravages of time are visible in several parts of it.
The body of the building is a massy square, in the
neighbourhood of which are alto-reliefs finely chi-
selled; they are masterpieces of ancient oriental art.
The anatomical proportions are such as show that those
masters by whom they were executed had studied the
human figure with no common attention. These
sculptures have all the; reality of life in the attitude
and action which they represent, having more grace
than the Egyptian, and more action than the Greek,
nor are they much inferior to the latter in beauty of
proportion and vigour of outline. The tower of this
temple rises from the body of the structure, covering
the entire square, and gradually diminishing in its
elevation until it terminates in a tall columnar top
with a round projecting base. On the walls are rich
masses of bass-relief, carved with consummate taste
and skill. The entrance is through a dilapidated por-
tico, to which you ascend by a broken flight of steps.

232

SCENES IN INDIA.

On either side is an unseemly mound of earth which
has been suffered to accumulate, somewhat diminish-
ing to the eye the beautiful proportions of the building.

The architectural features of this temple are so un-
like anything else in the country round it, that an
appearance of great antiquity is thus imparted to
it, and the conjecture fairly justified that all the other
edifices in the neighbourhood are of a much more
modern date, although the pagoda at Muddenpoor,
near Gyah, has the reputation of being extremely
ancient. Colonel Todd, indeed, asserts that in India
there are no fine specimens of sculpture, for which the
neighbourhood of Bode Gyah is at present pre-emi-
nently distinguished, before the tenth century ; but
upon what data he grounds his assertion is somewhat
problematical. His arguments are to me by no means
conclusive, and before he can establish this new theory,
he must advance something more tangible than the
hypothesis of even a very enterprising traveller, an
eloquent writer, an acute reasoner, and an amiable
man. He is each and all ; I have read his volumes
with admiration and respect, and feel deeply his debtor
for the information they have afforded me. With re-
gard, however, to his hypothesis, it is to my mind suffi-
ciently negatived by the fact that fine sculpture is now
seen on those temples to which the highest authorities
ascribe an existence long anterior to the tenth century.

The temple at Bode Gyah is entirely deserted;
years have rolled away since the knee of the wor-
shipper has bent before its altars. The priest is no
longer there to receive and console the pilgrim; no
devotees throng its aisles— no offerings are made at

BUDDHIST TEMPLE.

233

its shrines. It has become a scene of gloomy deso-
lation, a forsaken sanctuary, a shelter for the fox-
bat and the serpent. At a short distance to the
left of the building there is a remarkable stone, up-
wards of six feet in diameter, representing the
chackra of Vishnoo, most exquisitely carved in fine
bas-relief ; indeed, so great is the knowledge of art
displayed in these carvings and the adaptation of
that knowledge to the subjects they exhibit, that it
would be difficult to find a specimen of modern sculp-
ture of a similar character that could surpass them.
The chackra represented by this stone is a missile
with which the forefinger of Vishnoo’s main right-
hand, for he has four hands, is armed. It is a sort
of discus or quoit, the periphery terminating in a keen
edge ; and this, when hurled from the finger of the
deity, carried death and desolation before it.

There are few inhabitants in the neighbourhood of
this magnificent structure, which, in spite of neglect,
desertion, and the dilapidations of ages, seems formed,
like the pyramids, to endure until it shall be finally
toppled down amid

“ The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.”

About a mile from Bode Gyah there is an immense
pile of building which forms one solid mass of ce-
mented brick, but for what purpose it was erected no one
can now surmise. As a contrast to the ancient Hin-
doo architecture exhibited in this temple, the reader
is referred to a grand mosque in the Coimbatoor dis-
trict, built by Hyder Ally, and perhaps the finest
specimen of modern Mahomedan architecture in India,
x 3

234

SCENES IN INDIA.

The one has not been erected above sixty years, the
other has perhaps existed nearly half as many centuries.
Nothing can be more perfectly opposite than the two
styles, and yet both are perfect in their kind.

I shall devote the remainder of this chapter to a
brief account of that remarkable sect which raised the
splendid temple at Bode Gyah. The Brahminical re-
ligion by consecrating the hereditary principles of caste,
by declaring there was no passage from one caste to
another, by proclaiming that all men who were not
of the Aryas, were Mlechha, or barbarians, fixed
limits to its own progress that could not be passed.
When once it was established that crimes committed
in a previous state of existence irrevocably determined
the fate of men in the present life ; that he who was
born a Mlechha must remain a Mlechha, whatever
were his virtues, and that he who was born an Arya
should continue an Arya whatever were his vices,
there could be no motive to conversion ; the very at-
tempts to make proselytes must have been regarded
as criminal. Two results necessarily followed from
such a system. The Aryas seized supremacy as a
matter of right ; the Mlechhas were ready to receive
with pleasure the first daring innovator that would
denounce as unfounded the dogmas which sentenced
them to hopeless degradation.

We must not imagine that the system of caste
belonged exclusively to India: on the contrary, we
have strong proof that it prevailed over the greater
part of central and western Asia. In Persia, for in-
stance, the Medes claimed to be Aryas, and under
that pretext demanded submission from the Persians.

BUDDHISM*

235

It is singular that certain history begins for almost
every nation of the East, at the moment when the
chains of caste were broken ; and the sixth century
before Christ, in which Cyrus commenced the great
religious and political revolutions which Darius Hys-
taspes and Zoroaster consummated,, is an important
era not merely for Persia, but for India, for Ceylon,
and the Indo-Chinese nations.

We know the fact of the introduction of a new
religion into Persia and central Asia about this
period ; a religion more universal in its character than
the Brahminical, which recognized no hereditary dis-
qualifications, which either totally abolished or greatly
modified the system of caste, and which, as a neces-
sary consequence, elevated the character of saints and
prophets, above that of the priestly tribe. Derived
from a creed strictly exclusive, the new religion re-
tained no trace of this characteristic of its parent, and
yet preserved almost every other. It spread rapidly
over Eastern Asia ; but in India, the country of its
native birth, it was met by the fierce hostility of
those whose supremacy rested on the system of caste,
and it fell in the encounter.

The new religion thus established in the countries
round India received the name of Buddhism, from
the word Buddha, which signifies a “ holy person/5
It borrowed from Brahminism, its mythology, its phi-
losophy, and a part of its rites and ceremonies ; but it
substituted for an hereditary priesthood, an organized
hierarchy and monastic institutions.

In speaking of Buddhism, too much caution cannot
be used ; perhaps there is no subject on which so

236

SCENES IN INDIA,

much nonsense has been written by those who lay
aside research for conjecture. There have even been
found some who assert that it is a more recent
religion than Brahminism, though the marks of its
derivative character are stamped on every portion
both of its faith and practice ; though its creed can be
deduced from Brahminism by logical sequence. In
the fifth section of Mr. Colebrook’s Essay on the Phi-
losophy of the Hindoos, it will be seen that in the
Upanishads or terminating sections of the Vedas, an
ascetic and contemplative life is recommended as the
true means of salvation. Such a doctrine produced
a race of anchorites possessing more influence over the
vulgar than the Brahmins, just as with the Jews the
schools of the prophets possessed more authority than
the descendants of Aaron. A consequence of the
recommendation of contemplative life, recognized in-
deed in the Vedas themselves, is that a greater autho-
rity will be attributed to the interior revelations of
the conscience, than to the revelations in the Sacred
books, of which the priests are the hereditary guar-
dians ; and this principle followed out, is manifestly
subversive of caste, because it elevates the anchorite
of whatever tribe he may be, above the Brahmin.
In fact, some of the present Hindoo schools of phi-
losophy have not hesitated to go the entire length of
preferring the revelations within the soul, discovered
by profound meditation, to the Vedas or Scriptures.

The praise of asceticism, and especially the belief in
the mysterious revelations made to the ascetic, neces-
sarily led to the attribution of divine qualities to the
sages who retired from the busy haunts of men, to

BUDDHISM.

237

enjoy divine meditations in the wilderness. There
needed only an individual of this class to appear,, en-
dowed with superior intelligence and favoured by cir-
cumstances, to collect admirers, followers, disciples ; to
become the founder of a new religion, and perhaps the
reformer of the political system. The Brahmins, re-
lying on their prescriptive power, he would probably
find at once arrogant and indolent ; he would disco-
ver the lower classes deprived of knowledge by their
superiors, and at the same time he would see this
ignorance made an excuse for withholding their civil
rights. His first appeal would be made to the poor,
and it would be eagerly welcomed by a host of par-
tisans. Such a reformer was found in the person of
the Buddha Sakia Muni, that is to say, the holy
hermit Sakia. The dates of his appearance vary con-
siderably, not only in the different Buddhist nations,
but in the histories of each nation Schmidt, in his
Mongolian History, says that he found among the
Tibetans thirteen different dates, of which the ex-
tremes are more than a thousand years asunder.
The latest of these eras is the one adopted by the
Singhalese, which places Sakia between the years
b. c. 638 and 542.

In accordance with the merits attributed to a life
of celibacy, the Buddhists believe that Sakia was
born of a pure virgin, that he was a divine incarna-
tion, and that on his appearance in the world, all the
inferior deities paid him homage. His supposed father
was king of Mogadha, in Southern India, and was so
delighted with the beauty of the boy, that he de-
clared him heir to his kingdom.

238

SCENES IN INDIA.

When Sakia grew up, he was deeply affected by
the sight of human misery, and in spite of every
remonstrance, resolved to lay aside the splendours of
royalty and lead the life of a hermit. Several of the
young nobles imitated his example and professed
themselves his disciples. For many years, Sakia
lived in the desert, absorbed in meditation, scarcely
paying any attention to the common necessaries of
life, and evincing his humility by refusing the services
and homage of his disciples. From hence he re-
moved to a still more solitary place, where he was
assailed by several temptations, over all of which he
triumphed. Being now persuaded that he had sub-
dued all human lusts, he prepared to publish a new
system of faith ; but before commencing the publi-
cation he underwent a series of fasts and penances for
forty-nine days. His first sermon to his disciples on
the origin and necessity of faith, may be regarded as
a brief summary of the principal doctrines of Bud-
dhism.

“ The universal state of misery, that is, the present
world, is the first truth ; the path of salvation is the
second truth ; the temptation to which we are ex-
posed is the third truth ; and the mode of overcoming
temptation is the fourth truth.” He then proceeds to
explain the signification of these truths in the follow-
ing terms. “ In the course of human life no moment
of pleasure equals that in which we acquire cognizance
of the truth ; thus I name this world, a true state of
misery, and the practice of the precepts of faith the
greatest happiness. Consider the fourfold condition
of man ; the pains attending his birth ; the diseases

BUDDHISM.

239

he has to encounter in the course of his life ; the
miserable condition of his old age, and the calamity
of death. As years increase, his skin becomes dry
and wrinkled like an old parchment ; the flesh upon
his bones withers and wastes away ; the blood in his
veins flows sluggishly ; his body bends towards the
ground ; his sight begins to fail, and even mountains
are scarcely apparent to his weak eyes ; the sense of
hearing is so lost that trumpets sound for him in vain ;
the mouth loses its teeth ; and fragrance is wasted on
his decayed sense of smelling. The diminution of his
bodily strength compels him to have recourse to a
staff for support, the faculties of the soul change into
distraction and forgetfulness.” He thus at great
length enumerates all the possible evils to which man is
subject, and concludes by declaring that belief in the
Buddha is the sure path of salvation.

The path of salvation can scarcely be explained
without entering very deeply into the mysteries of
Indian metaphysics. All religions that do not pro-
fess to be founded on a special revelation, must of
necessity be Pantheistic, because Pantheism is the
natural result to which we are led by unassisted
reason. But, few have been content to stop here : in
most instances men look beyond the material and
changeable world, for that which is immaterial and
unchangeable. The Buddhists arrive at this notion
by abstracting all the attributes that would imply
limitation until nothing is left but the simple idea of
existence. This remote abstraction, which has been
well termed “ the something-nothing,” they regard
as the supreme God. The world and its deceptive

240

SCENES IN INDIA.

appearances have only an illusive existence; they
were produced by beings or agencies that emanated
in the fourth degree from the Supreme Being or Sunya.
Man attributes to these worldly appearances a reality
which they do not possess, regards things as good
which are truly evil, allows himself to be overcome
by the vicissitudes of life, and recognizes not his
original destination. He must, then, detach his soul
from all the objects which excite passions or desires,
he must devote himself to profound contemplation, to
arrive at that intuitive science, that state of the soul in
which it recognizes the nature of those fallacies, and
thus acquires mastery over the world and its illusions.
The soul thus divested of worldly passions and affec-
tions, becomes itself a Buddha. After death it passes
into the state of nirwana, when it is wholly absorbed
in the Sunya, and perfectly identified with the Deity.

This is the best account of Saida’s doctrine that
can be deduced from the mysticism with which either
he or his followers have veiled the system, a mys-
ticism of which the reader may judge from the fol-
lowing specimen.

Buddha says, my religion or law consists in
thinking the unconceivable thought ; my religion con-
sists in going the unpassable way ; my religion con-
sists in speaking the ineffable word ; my religion con-
sists in practising the unpracticable practice.”

Sakia spent his whole life in diffusing his doctrines,
but as he seems never to have formally embodied his
followers into a sect, he escaped persecution. When
his eightieth year was passed, he assembled his
principal disciples, and recommended them to form

BUDDHISM.

241

themselves into a separate society after his death. He
told them that such a measure would undoubtedly
expose them to fierce persecution, and recommended
them when the hour of distress and danger arrived, to
seek a refuge in the mountains north of India. He
advised them also to prepare images of his person, the
sight of which would serve to fortify their faith.
Statues were accordingly executed, representing the
Buddha at different periods of his life. The most
celebrated of these exhibits him sitting with his
right hand on his knee, his left holding a string of
beads, and his hair which had not been cut during his
residence in the wilderness, clustered in curls over his
brow.

Soon after this he obtained nirwana without suf-
fering the pains of death. The Buddhists show the
print of his foot on several mountains. He impressed
it just before his ascent into heaven ; and a repre-
sentation of this foot-print is usually found in every
Buddhist temple.

It is very difficult to separate truth from falsehood
in this story of Sakia; we cannot even determine
whether it was his design to found a sect, or whether
he merely recommended the ascetic philosophy, the
doctrines of which carried to the extreme by his fol-
lowers, necessarily formed a new religion. Like most
men who have given a new direction to the religious
ideas of his contemporaries, he was less an inventor
than a collector of dogmas ; developing more plainly
and forcibly what many before him had often thought
and what some had obscurely expressed. When in
a later age his followers came to write the life of one

Y

242

SCENES IN INDIA.

who had preached such vast reforms as the abolition
of caste, at least so far as religion was concerned, of
hereditary priesthood, and of bloody sacrifices, they
were astounded at the vast amount of change pro-
posed, and naturally ascribed it to superhuman in-
tellect ; they were thus tempted to interweave in
Sakia’s life the legends of Rama and Krishna, the
more especially as when he quitted Brahminism he
brought with him the greater part of its mythology,
though he abolished all its practice.

The Buddhists were a powerful sect in India,
when Alexander the Great appeared on its north-
western frontier ; but soon after that event, the Brah-
mins discovered that the progress of the new sect
threatened the ruin of their power. It is not easy
to ascertain when persecution began ; but Professor
Wilson is of opinion that the great effort for the sup-
pression of Buddhism was made in the fifth and sixth
centuries of our era. In northern India, the Bud-
dhists seem to have made some stand, for the Brah-
mins never possessed so much influence there as in
other parts of the Peninsula, and hence in that quar-
ter, the remains of Buddhist temples are by no means
infrequent.

Assailed by the Mahomedans on one side, and the
Brahmins on the other, few, if any Buddhists, are
now to be found in India. But probably the dis-
appearance of this religion is not to be attributed to
persecution only ; the orthodox themselves, and es-
pecially the Vishnu vies, have made some approxima-
tions to the creed of their ancient adversaries, by
making Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu, by per-

BUDDHISM.

243

mittihg men of every class to embrace a monastic life,
and by abolishing in a great degree the use of bloody
sacrifices. Hence it is probable that the remnant of
the Buddhists may have been lost in the Jains and
Vishnuvies.

It would be inconsistent with the limits of this
work to enter into any consideration of the Buddhistic
sects, or to describe the modifications which that re-
ligion has received from the character of the different
nations in which it has been established; still less
to pursue the difficult and important inquiry of the
effects produced by Buddhism indirectly ; but I may
be permitted to remark that decisive traces of its
influence are to be discovered in the Gnostic here-
sies that corrupted Christianity, and in the Sufeeism
which threatens at no distant day to overthrow Ma-
homedanism.

244

SCENES IN INDIA.

CHAPTER XXL

GOUR. MUSQUITOES. A WILD SOW SHOT.

From Bode Gyah we made the best of our way to
Patna,, where our budgerow was waiting for us., and
thence dropped down the river to Rajemah’l. Here
we crossed the Ganges, and proceeded in our palan-
keens to the ruins of Gour, once the capital of Bengal,
and about thirty miles from Rajemah’l. The city of
Gour was formerly of vast extent, as is evident from
the ruins now remaining, which occupy a space of
twenty square miles. Several villages stand upon its
site ; and what may be called the modern town, in
which there are eight tolerably good bazaars, contains a
population of somewhere about thirty thousand souls.

Nothing scarcely remains of the old city, except
a few solemn ruins. One of the gateways is still
a magnificent object ; it is a noble piece of archi-
tecture and majestic even in decay. It originally
formed one of the principal entrances into the town.
The arch is upwards of fifty feet high, and the wall
of immense thickness. The ravages of time are in-
deed fearfully visible upon it, but it nevertheless
appears likely to stand for centuries. This neighbour-
hood swarms with vermin and reptiles of all kinds,
and only two days before our arrival, a boa snake,

MUSQUITOES.

24 5

two-and-twenty feet long, had been killed close by
the old gateway. The tanks were so filled with
alligators, that it was dangerous to approach their
banks. Some of these creatures, however, were so
tame as to come at the call of a fakeer, and take rice
from his hand.

We found the musquitoes so intolerable, that it
was scarcely possible to obtain any rest at night.
In fact the whole vicinity has been so neglected,
that it has become the resort of everything noxious
and disagreeable. The ground is covered with the
rankest vegetation, which is permitted to wither and
rot upon the surface, so that the place is very un-
healthy from the pestilential effluvia continually
arising. Though this is an evil easily remedied, still
the inhabitants permit it to remain with the greatest
unconcern, preferring to be visited with the most
frightful distempers, rather than take the trouble to
remove the cause of them. The soil is so fertile
that it would yield an immense harvest for the la-
bour of cultivation ; and yet it is left untilled ex-
cept a few small patches which return a scanty crop
to the niggard toil of several poor farmers, who seek
from it a bare subsistence.

The morning after we reached Gour, we went out,
as was our usual practice, with our guns, but the
jungle was so rank and the swamps so dangerous
that we were soon glad to return. On our way back
a large wild sow was shot at by Mr. Daniell, and
wounded in the hind leg. She was so much disabled
that she could not make her escape ; but the fierceness
of her resistance, even though taken at such a dis-
y 3

246

SCENES IN INDIA.

advantage, was surprising. She turned upon the per-
son who approached to despatch her, with a ferocious
activity, her jaws covered with foam, and champing
with the most savage aspect of fury. A second shot
broke the other hind leg, and she was now quite
unable either to advance or retreat ; she nevertheless
contrived to scramble into a ditch filled with tall
jungle grass, which so entirely covered her that we
lost sight of her for some time. As we could neither
hear her moan nor see her stir, we began to imagine
that she was dead and our hope of a griskin de-
feated. At length a small dog belonging to one of
our party roused her from her painful repose, when
she inflicted upon the poor little creature a wound so
severe as ultimately to cause its death. The grass
was now soon plucked up, and the wounded quarry
exposed. Although she could offer no effectual re-
sistance, she nevertheless made astonishing efforts to
escape, dragging herself forward into the grass, and
using incredible exertions to wound her assailants.
She literally sprang at them on her two stumps,
evincing an indomitable determination not to die
unavenged ; and it required great agility and cau-
tion, on the part of our attendants, to defeat her des-
perate purpose.

The men attacked her with thick bamboos, and
having broken one of her forelegs she was soon des-
patched. It was now about noon, and, within five hours
after, the flesh was in such a state of decomposition
that it was impossible to dress it. The heat of the
day had been extreme, and the severe bruises which
the animal had received from the bamboos of our

BAGGAGE BOAT SWAMPED.

247

merciless followers, had so accelerated the natural
activity of putrefaction in so warm a climate, that
we were obliged to consign her to the vultures, which
gladly reaped the fruits of our labours and disappoint-
ment.

On the following day we returned to our budgerow,
and proceeded leisurely down the Ganges. Not far
below Rajemahl we were overtaken by a severe
squall, which had nearly driven us on shore. We
did not escape without damage, as our budgerow
struck against the bank, and received a severe shock,
the water making its way so rapidly into her that
we were obliged to keep two men constantly em-
ployed in baling her out. Our patilla, or baggage boat,
was swamped, and went to the bottom with every
thing we possessed in the world, except our papers
and drawings, which we happened luckily to have
on board the budgerow. The patilla was consider-
ably astern of us when she went down, nor were we
conscious of the accident until we had moored for the
night, when the boatmen appeared with rueful coun-
tenances to report the disaster.

Next morning we proceeded up the river in search
of the sunken boat, and at length saw her mast
just above water near the opposite shore. It was
now clear enough that our baggage had received the
benefit of a night’s soaking in consecrated water, a
blessing which we should have been better satisfied
to have dispensed with, as we found the sacred ele-
ment just as hostile to portmanteaus and hair trunks
with their perishable contents, as the waters of the
commonest stream.

248

SCENES IN INDIA.

Having got into a small boat, we made for the spot
where the mast was visible, and with the assistance of
our dandies succeeded in saving a portion of our things
from the wreck, though many were irrecoverable.
In the course of the day the budgerow was despatched
to our aid, when we put into her those things which
we had recovered, and again dropped quietly down
the river. The day was beautiful, though the loss
of our baggage rendered us less alive to it than we
no doubt should have been but for the unlooked-for
misfortune of the preceding evening.

Boats are exposed to great danger in coming down
the Ganges when the current is strong and the wind
high. The wind assisting the impetus of the current
frequently drives them with such force against the
high banks, already undermined by the water, as to
dislodge the superincumbent earth, which immediately
falls in immense masses, and unless the boats are
instantly driven past by the rapidity of the stream,
they are overwhelmed and sunk. The current, how-
ever, is generally so rapid at the seasons of the year
in which these accidents are to be apprehended, that
no sooner do the boats strike than they are borne
away beyond the reach of danger. Nevertheless,
their progress is sometimes arrested for the moment,
when the bank falls upon them, and they are inevitably
swamped. While the river is falling, where the stream
is impetuous, boats are occasionally thrown with vio-
lence against the banks of sand, which greatly inter-
rupt the course of the Ganges, except when it is
swollen by the rains and the melting of the moun-
tain snow. Should such an accident occur, a passage

A TIGER KILLED.

249

must be immediately cleared by human labour, though
if the water should be fast subsiding, this is often
impracticable ; there is then no alternative but to
allow the stranded boat to remain through the season
upon the shoal, until at the periodical monsoon the
water rises sufficiently high to float her.

The evening after our disaster a budgerow, in
which was an English officer, passed us on its way
to Benares. As we moored near the same spot, he
invited us on board his boat. There was spread
upon the roof of the cabin the skin of a large tiger
which he had killed the preceding day. He told us
that as the dandies were preparing to start in the
morning, his budgerow being close to the shore, a
tiger rushed from a neighbouring covert, and spring-
ing into it, seated itself upon the roof of the cabin.
The boatmen instantly crept out of sight : the officer
loaded his rifle and desired his servant to tie a
rope to one of the small beams of the boat and,
having first made a running noose, slip the reverse
end gently over the animal’s tail, which hung down
on the outside of the cabin ; — this object was there-
fore easily accomplished. No sooner did the fierce
beast feel the pressure of the cord, than it sprang in
wild alarm from the cabin-roof, and such was the
impetuosity of its spring, that the beam gave way,
and, when it gained the shore, was hanging at its
tail. The tiger rolled on the bank with pain, writh-
ing and yelling furiously, and the officer, taking a
deliberate aim from the cabin-window, shot it dead.

On the morrow we floated again upon the broad
bosom of the Ganges, which was hourly widening as

25 0

SCENES IN INDIA.

we approached Calcutta. As I now call to my re-
collection the beauties of that magnificent river, I
shall indulge myself, and I trust gratify the reader,
by giving a poetical description of it from the pen of
one of its own native bards.

“ Gold river ! gold river ! how gallantly now
Our bark on thy bright breast is lifting her prow !

In the pride of her beauty how swiftly she flies,

Like a white- winged spirit through topaz- paved skies!

,f Gold river ! gold river ! thy bosom is calm,

And o’er thee the breezes are shedding their balm ;

And nature beholds her fair features pourtray’d
In the glass of thy bosom serenely display’d.

“ Gold river ! gold river ! the sun to thy waves
Is fleeting to rest in thy cool coral caves ;

And thence, with his tiar of light, in the morn
He will rise, and the skies with his glory adorn.

“ Gold river ! gold river ! how bright is the beam
That lightens and crimsons thy soft flowing stream !

Whose waters beneath make a musical clashing —

Whose waves as they burst in their brightness are flashing !

“ Gold river ! gold river ! the moon will soon grace
The hall of the stars with her light- shedding face ;

The wandering planets will over thee throng,

And seraphs will waken their music and song.

“ Gold river ! gold river ! our brief course is done,

And safe in the city our home we have won ;

And as to the bright sun, now dropp’d from our view,

So, Ganga, we bid thee a cheerful adieu !”

These stanzas are taken from a volume of poems
written in English by Kasiprasad Ghosh, a young

KASIPRASAD GHOSH.

251

Hindoo, I am indebted to the kindness of Miss
Emma Roberts, a lady of high literary attainments,
who knew him in India, for the following particulars.

Kasiprasad Ghosh is of Brahminical descent. His
ancestors were distinguished by holding high and
responsible appointments under the native rulers of
Bengal. Since the occupation of this vast province
by the British, they have held a rank equally high as
private members of their community. In 1821, when
the subject of this brief memoir was fourteen years
old, he was sent to the Anglo-Indian college at Cal-
cutta, established under the superintendence of Mr.
Horace Hayman Wilson, now Professor of Sanscrit at
the University of Oxford. At this period the young
Hindoo began to study the English language. During
the six years that he was a member of this institu-
tion, he distinguished himself by several compositions
of great merit, undertaken at the recommendation of
Mr. Wilson. A critical essay upon Mill’s British In-
dia, read at the public examination in 1829, was
esteemed so highly creditable to his talents, that the
Calcutta Government Gazette printed copious extracts
from it, which were subsequently republished in Lon-
don in the Asiatic Journal. The early productions
of Kasiprasad Ghosh now appeared from time to time
in the Calcutta periodicals, and the attention they
attracted, together with the encomiums bestowed
upon them by all who were acquainted with the
disadvantages under which their author laboured,
induced him to publish a volume of poems : this was
exceedingly well received in India, and deservedly so,
as the poems evince talent of no common order.

252

SCENES IN INDIA.

The personal appearance of this interesting Hindoo
is highly prepossessing. His countenance is handsome
and intellectual, his figure well-proportioned; and set
off to great advantage by the graceful costume of his
country. He invariably dresses in white muslin of
the finest texture; his turban and large sleeves being-
most elaborately plaited; and the only costly portion
of his attire is a splendid Cashmere shawl arranged
with that happy taste which Asiatics so well under-
stand how to employ. The young poet is distin-
guished by an easy and courteous demeanour and a
modest estimate of his own acquirements; whilst
the anxiety which he manifests to cultivate the ac-
quaintance of foreigners of talent; combined with his
own high personal and mental endowments; render
the present tribute to his merits an agreeable duty.

CALCUTTA.

253

CHAPTER XXIL

CALCUTTA. EDIFICES. SUNPERBUNDS.

On the fifth day after we quitted Gour we reached
Calcutta, from the splendour of its buildings now
called the City of Palaces, though within a century it
was nothing better than a rude straggling town with-
out regularity or beauty, containing indeed a dense
population, and surrounded by a dreary and unwhole-
some jungle, the haunt of robbers, and the abode of
beasts of prey*

The modem town extends above six miles along
the eastern bank of the Hoogley, and presents a very
animated picture from the river here curving into
a large bay, from the opposite side of which, called
Garden-house reach, the view is taken represented in
the engraving. This reach takes its name from several
elegant country houses erected in the neighbourhood,
each enclosed by an extensive garden ; and here their
opulent owners retire after the business of the day
is concluded at their offices in the city. The buildings
of the European portion of the town present an ap-
pearance of great splendour from their almost inva-
riably having extensive and lofty porticos, supported
on numerous pillars, which impart an air of Grecian
grandeur to those edifices. To persons just arrived
z

254

SCENES IN INDIA.

from Europe the houses appear very imposing from
their novelty of style, their size, and the richness
of their architectural embellishments. The square-
ness and simplicity of their forms is striking, though
this simplicity is perhaps too much intruded upon by
the gorgeous facades and numerous columns with
which they are generally adorned. The absence of
chimneys is a novelty that does not escape a European
eye, and associates with their grandeur of aspect the
idea of a want of comfort rather repugnant to our
notions of social enjoyment. The roofs of the houses
are invariably terraced and surrounded by handsome
balustrades, these being far more light and elegant
than a parapet. The windows are large, and instead
of being glazed are covered with Venetian blinds, in
order at once to admit the air and exclude the light,
for heat is inseparable from light in this warm climate.
The architecture, which is of the Italian school, is well
adapted to a tropical country, though in some in-
stances taste has been sacrificed to vulgar whim,
many of the private dwellings having two pediments,
as if, because one formed an elegant finish, two must
give a proportionate increase of magnificence to the
structure.

There is a square within the city extending up-
wards of a quarter of a mile each way, in the centre
of which is a large tank surrounded by a low wall,
and protected by an elegant iron railing. The top
of the wall is at least fifty feet above the level of
the water, to which there is a descent by a broad
handsome flight of steps.

As rain water is much used in Calcutta for domes-

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

255

tic and culinary purposes, there is set apart in every
house a room, in which is a number of large earthen
jars. These are filled from the terraced roofs during
the monsoons, and the water is preserved by an in-
fusion of charcoal pounded small and thrown into
each jar, which, by arresting the process of putre-
faction, keeps the water sweet for any reasonable
period.

The most striking edifice in Calcutta is the Govern-
ment house. The lower story forms a handsome solid
basement, with arcades on every side. All the pillars
are of the Ionic order, though one of the largest rooms
in the building is supported by Doric columns so beau-
tifully chunamed as to resemble the finest white marble.
There are four wings, one at each corner of the house,
connected by circular passages, by which means there
is a free circulation of air all round. These wings
contain the private apartments, the main structure
being devoted to the several public rooms set apart
for the despatch of Government business, and for those
public entertainments for which the metropolis of
British India has been long distinguished in the palace
of her rulers.

There are only two English churches in this large
city, one of which appears in the engraving. It is a
graceful structure, built by an officer of engineers, and
does him great credit, as he has displayed a refined
taste in the disposal of its architectural features. The
other church is a much plainer building, and altoge-
ther inferior. Although from Garden-house reach the
city has an air of grandeur unequalled by any native
town in India, it must nevertheless be confessed that

256

SCENES IN INDIA.

at Delhi, Agra, and Lucknow, there are edifices of
a far superior order in point of architecture, than the
finest at Calcutta, and which indeed may fairly chal-
lenge comparison with anything of a similar kind in
Europe.

Next to the Government house the principal build-
ing is the Custom-house, a low but capacious edifice
with an elegant front, and containing extensive and
commodious warerooms. At Cheringhee, the fashion-
able part of the town, there is a line of magnificent
houses, extending like a row of palaces, and almost
realizing some of the fictions of Eastern splendour.
These houses are all inhabited by Europeans. They
are mostly stuccoed, and stand each within a large
area, being" well ventilated ; nor indeed is there want-
ing anything which the greatest refinement in luxury
can suggest to remove the inconveniences of climate,
and render them delightful abodes.

Although the portion of Calcutta inhabited by
Europeans is airy, attractive, and imposing, nothing
can exceed the wretchedness of that part of it oc-
cupied by natives. The streets are narrow, dirty,
and unpaved. The great proportion of houses are
little better than mud hovels, swarming with a
squalid, half-starved, miserable population. Here dis-
ease, that constant ally of poverty and privation, is
perpetually raging, and thousands are yearly victims
to the awful evils thus superinduced to the miseries
of destitution ; nor does there appear any prospect of
amelioration to those wretched beings who crowd to-
gether in the suburbs of this vast metropolis, only to
form a sad community of wretchedness. While the

FORT WILLIAM.

257

cholera prevailed, seven hundred daily are said to
have fallen victims to this terrible scourge for a period
of many weeks, during which time enjoyment of all
kinds seemed suspended, and not an hour passed in
which the wail of lamentation for the dead did not
remind the living of the desolation that was spreading
around them.

Fort William, standing about four or five hundred
yards below the city, is a place of great strength.
From the city a road runs by the river in front of the
fort to Garden-house reach, round the shore of the bay,
a distance of at least three miles, and from this point
the best general views of Calcutta are obtained. The
citadel towards the water, by which the only approach
can be made with any reasonable prospect of success,
has the form of a large salient angle, the faces of
which enfilade the course of the river. The ditch is
dry, with a reservoir in the middle, that receives
the water of the Hoogley by means of two sluices
protected by the fort. The citadel was commenced
by Lord Clive after the battle of Plassey. It is capa-
ble of accommodating a garrison of fifteen thousand
men, and the works are so extensive that at least ten
thousand would be required to defend them efficiently.
They are said to have cost the Company upwards of
two millions sterling. The interior of the fort is per-
fectly open, presenting to the view large grass plats
and gravel walks, kept cool by rows of trees all in the
finest order and fullest vigour of their growth, inter-
mixed with piles of balls, bombshells, and cannon.
Between the town and fort is the esplanade, a fine
level, where the inhabitants enjoy a refreshing ride
z 3

25 8

SCENES IN INDIA.

" at shut of even/' when a grateful breeze from the
river generally prevails, cooling the body and impart-
ing an elasticity to the spirits altogether delightful.

The Hoogley exhibits at all times a very ani-
mated scene, but more especially at flood tide, when
vessels from all parts of the world, and of every size
and form, cover the broad bosom of its majestic
stream. Indiamen of six hundred tons are frequently
seen at anchor off Calcutta. A remarkable peculia-
rity of this river is that sudden influx of the tide
called the bore, which rises in a huge wave some-
times to the height of sixteen or eighteen feet,
sweeping up the stream at the rate of seventeen
miles an hour, and overwhelming all the small craft
within its rapid flow. It runs on the Calcutta side,
but seldom extends above one-fourth part across the
river, so that the shipping are generally beyond the
reach of its influence. It nevertheless at times causes
such an agitation that the largest vessels at anchor
nearer the opposite shore pitch and roll with consi-
derable violence.

One eminent advantage that Calcutta possesses is
its inland navigation, which renders it the emporium
of a vast variety of foreign imports ; these are con-
veyed on the Ganges and its subsidiary streams to
the northern parts of Hindostan, which return their
commercial produce to the capital through the same
channels. The amount of property commonly kept on
sale by the native merchants is incredible ; — the article
of cloth alone has been estimated at a million sterling
on the average. From the great variety of merchan-
dise brought to this city, the property afloat is perhaps

POPULATION,

25 9

seldom less than eighteen or twenty million sterlings
though it is probable that the late large failures,
by paralysing the monied and commercial interests,
have considerably abridged this prodigious flux of ca-
pital. In 1808 the Calcutta Government bank was
established. Fifty lacs of rupees— about five hundred
thousand pounds — were advanced by the Government
and private speculators, both native and European ;
forty lacs, or four hundred thousand pounds, belonging
to the latter, and ten lacs, or a hundred thousand
pounds, to the former.

Calcutta has undergone great improvements and
is much enlarged within the last fifty years. The
blackhole, the monument erected by Mr. Holwell to
commemorate the horrible cruelty of Sevajee ud Dow-
lah who, having captured the British capital of Bengal,
shut up a hundred and forty-six prisoners in a dismal
cellar twenty feet square, in which all perished ex-
cept twenty-three— the old Government house and
several other buildings which existed a half century
ago exist no more. The city has been mostly added
to on the eastern bank of the river. Govinda Ram
Mittee’s pagoda, I believe, still stands ; it is an ex-
tensive pile of peculiar form, and though partaking
of none of the higher beauties of Hindoo architecture,
is nevertheless a structure of much beauty. It was
formerly, I believe, a place of great sanctity, though
now no longer resorted to but by a few of the lower
castes.

The inhabitants of Calcutta, native and European,
are computed at about six hundred thousand souls,
and the immediate neighbourhood within a circuit of

260

SCENES IN INDIA.

twenty miles is supposed to contain a population of
nearly two millions and half.

Just before sunrise the air is cool and refreshing ;
it is therefore the custom to rise early and take a
ride before breakfast, which is ready about nine. At
halfpast one o’clock tiffin, or luncheon, is served,
and dinner at sunset. The wines chiefly drunk are
Madeira and claret. The tables are served with a
variety of game, partridges, quails, peafowl, wild
ducks, ortolans, hares, and venison. Fruits are to be
had in great profusion and exceedingly cheap. But
the chief luxury at Calcutta is the mango fish, so
called from its only appearing during the mango sea-
son, and which is not approached in delicacy of flavour
by any fish known in Europe. The style in which
civilians live can scarcely be imagined by any one
who has not crossed the Indian ocean. Even young
writers affect such an air of state, and keep such
expensive establishments, that notwithstanding their
liberal allowances they often become so deeply in-
volved as to be ever after unable to release them-
selves from the incumbrance.

Nearly a hundred miles below Calcutta, at the
embouchure of the Hoogley, is the delta of the Ganges,
called the Sunderbunds, composed of a labyrinth of
streams and creeks, all of which are salt, except
those that communicate immediately with the prin-
cipal arm of the sacred river ; those numerous canals
being so disposed, as to form a complete inland na-
vigation.

A few years before our visit to Calcutta, the cap-
tain of a country ship, while passing the Sunderbunds,

Ill

SUNDERBUNDS.

261

sent a boat into one of the creeks to obtain some fresh
fruits which are cultivated by the few miserable in-
habitants of this inhospitable region. Having reached
the shore the crew moored the boat under a bank,
and left one of their party to take care of her. Dur-
ing their absence, the lascar, who remained in charge
of the boat, overcome by heat, lay down under the
seats and fell asleep. Whilst he was in this happy
state of unconsciousness, an enormous boa- constrictor
emerged from the jungle, reached the boat, had already
coiled its huge body round the sleeper, and was in
the very act of crushing him to death, when his com-
panions fortunately returned at this auspicious mo-
ment, and attacking the monster severed a portion
of its tail, which so disabled it that it no longer
retained the power of doing mischief. The snake
was then easily despatched, and found to measure
sixty-two feet and some inches in length.* The
immense size of these snakes has been frequently
called in question, but I know not why it should
when the fact has been authenticated by so many
eye-witnesses. Nor was it unknown to ancient histo-
rians ; for Suetonius, in the forty third chapter of his
Lives of the first Twelve Caesars, mentions that the
Emperor Augustus over and above the regular shows,
gave others occasionally for the purpose of exhibit-
ing any extraordinary object of which he might have

* The original picture, painted by Mr. W. Daniell, is in the
possession of le Baron de Noual de la Loyrie; and that of the
“ Favourite of the Harem,” also by the same artist, is the
property of R. W. Cox, Esq. of Lawford, Essex.

262

SCENES IN INDIA.

obtained possession ; amongst these he mentions a
rhinoceros, a tiger, and a snake, seventy-five feet
long — quinquaginta cubitorum.

This wild tract extends a hundred and eighty miles
along the bay of Bengal, and is filled with tigers and
alligators of the largest kind, together with other crea-
tures of similar power and ferocity. There are two
passages through it, the northern Sunderbund passage,
and the Balliaghaut passage. The first opens into the
Hoogley sixty-five miles below Calcutta, the other into
a shallow lake on the eastern side of the city. The
navigation of these channels extends more than two
hundred miles through an impenetrable jungle divided
by creeks occasionally so narrow, that in some places
branches of trees almost meet on either side, and
in others you sail upon an expanded river beautifully
skirted with wood. Alligators innumerable are seen
sleeping along the shores, looking like huge trunks
of trees. It is scarcely possible to imagine them to be
alive until they are disturbed, when they scramble
with surprising activity into the stream and sink. Great
numbers of natives who frequent the banks of the
creeks that divide the Sunderbunds, to cut wood
and collect salt, are yearly devoured by these and
other beasts of prey ; indeed, the tigers are so ra-
venous, that they have been known to swim off to
boats and attack the crews at a considerable distance
from the shore.

Notwithstanding these perils, many devotees erect
their rude huts in this region of desolation. In spite
of the charms which they pretend to possess, and their

EFFECTS OF FANATICISM.

263

propitiatory offerings to the tigers and alligators,, these
ignorant fanatics are almost invariably destroyed by
them ; still other fanatics supply their places : thus
the wild savages of the forest are yearly supplied
with no inconsiderable portion of sacred food. It is
astonishing to what lengths fanaticism will go.

LONDON :

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, DORSET STREET.

*