Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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Colonel De Barthe showed me the rules for the government of these
institutes, which may be found in paragraph 658 of the Army
Regulations for India, and begin with the words: "In order to
promote the comfort and provide for the rational amusement of
noncommissioned officers and men, to supply them with good articles
at reasonable prices and to organize and maintain the means for
indoor recreation, a regimental institute shall be provided," etc.
It is then provided that there shall be a library, reading-rooms,
games and recreation-rooms, a theater or entertainment hall, a
refreshment-room and a separate room for the use of and under
the exclusive jurisdiction of the Army Temperance Association.
The reading-room is to be furnished with a library and the
amusement-room with a piano; card playing is permitted in the
recreation-room, but not for money or other stakes of value;
the discussion of religious and political subjects within the
institute is forbidden, and religious exercises are not allowed
to be conducted in the building except in the room of the Army
Temperance Association.

Every noncommissioned officer and private is entitled to the
use of the institute except when excluded for profane or other
improper language, for intoxication or other misconduct, for
such time as the committee in charge shall deem advisable. The
management of the institute is entrusted to several committees of
non-commissioned officers and soldiers and an advisory committee
of three or more officers. These committees have control of all
supplies, receipts and expenditures, the preservation of order, the
enforcement of the rules, and are enjoined to make the institute
as attractive as possible. A committee of three, of whom the
chairman must be a sergeant, is authorized to purchase supplies;
an inventory of the stock must be taken once a month; there may
be a co-operative store if deemed advisable by the commanding
officer, at which groceries, provisions and general merchandise
may be sold to the men at cost price; liquor may be sold in a
separate room of limited dimensions, under the supervision of a
committee of which a sergeant is chairman, and that committee,
by assigning good reasons, has the power to forbid its sale to
any person for any length of time. No spirituous liquor except
rum can be kept or sold; that must be of the best quality and
no more than one dram may be sold to any person within the hour,
and only one quart of malt liquor. Beside these, aerated waters
and other "soft drinks" must be provided, with coffee, tea,
sandwiches and other refreshments as required. The profits of
the institute may be devoted to the library, reading-room and
recreation department, the purchase of gymnastic apparatus, etc.,
and articles for the soldiers' mess, and may be contributed to
the widows and orphans' fund, if so determined by the patrons
of the institution.

Those, in short, are the means used by the Indian government to
promote temperance and morality in its army, and everyone who has
experience and knowledge of the practical operation of such affairs
approves them. In addition to the institutes described, the Army
Temperance Association, which is entirely unofficial and composed
of benevolent people in private life, has established in several
of the large cities of India, where garrisons are stationed,
soldiers' clubs, which also prove very efficacious. They are
located in the bazaars and other parts of the cities frequented
by soldiers and where the most mischief is usually done. They are
clubs pure and simple, with reading and writing-rooms, games,
music, restaurants, billiard-rooms and bars at which rum, beer,
ale and other liquors are sold. There is also a devotional-room,
in which religious meetings are held at stated times. These clubs
are managed by private individuals in connection with committees
of noncommissioned officers and enlisted men, and several of them
represent investments of $15,000 and $20,000. In some cases a
small membership fee is charged. They have proved very effective
in catching human driftwood, and provide a place where men who
are tempted may have another chance to escape the consequences.
They are conducted upon a very liberal plan, and after pay day
soldiers who start out for a debauch, as so many regularly do,
are accustomed to leave their money and valuables with the person
in charge before plunging into the sinks of vice, where so many
men find pleasure and diversion.

XXIII

MUTTRA, ALIGARH, LUCKNOW, CAWNPORE

On the way back from the frontier are plenty of delightful places
at which the journey may be broken. You can have another glimpse
of the most beautiful building in the world at Agra, and can take
a day's excursion to Muttra, one of the seven sacred cities of
India, the birthplace of Krishna, second in rank and popularity
of the Hindu gods. The trains are conveniently arranged; they
take you over from Agra in the morning and bring you back at
night, which is well, because there is no hotel at Muttra, only
what they call a dak bungalow, or lodging-house, provided by
the municipal authorities for the shelter of travelers who have
no friends to put them up. These dak bungalows are quite common
in India, for comparatively few of the towns have hotels that
a European or American would care to patronize. In Japan the
native hotels are miracles of neatness and sweetness. In India,
and the rest of Asia, they are, as far as possible, the reverse.
I suppose it would be possible for a white man to survive a day or
two in a native hotel, but the experience would not be classified
as pleasure. Several of the native princes have provided dak
bungalows for public convenience and comfort, and one or two are
so hospitable as to furnish strangers food as well as lodging
free of cost. The maharajas of Baroda, Jeypore, Bhartpur, Gwalior
and several other provinces obey the scriptural injunction and
have many times entertained angels unawares.

It is an ancient custom for the head of the state or the municipal
authorities or the commercial organizations or the priests to
provide free lodgings for pilgrims and strangers; indeed, there
are comparatively few hotels at which natives are required to pay
bills. When a Hindu arrives in a strange town he goes directly to
the temple of his religion and the priest directs him to a place
where he can stop. It is the development of ancient patriarchal
hospitality, and the dak bungalow, which is provided for European
travelers in all hotelless towns and cities, is simply a refinement
of the custom. There are usually charges, but they are comparatively
small. You are expected to furnish your own bedding, towels,
etc., and there are no wire spring mattresses. Sometimes iron
cots are provided and often bunks are built in the wall. If there
are none all you have to do is to wrap the drapery of your couch
around you and select a soft place on the floor. A floor does
not fit my bones as well as formerly, but it is an improvement
upon standing or sitting up. Usually the dak bungalows are clean.
Occasionally they are not. This depends upon the character and
industry of the person employed to attend them. The charges are
intended to cover the expense of care and maintenance, and are
therefore very moderate, and everybody is treated alike.

After a long, dusty drive in the suburbs of Delhi one day I crept
into the grateful shade of a dak bungalow, found a comfortable
chair and called for some soda to wash down the dust and biscuits
to hold my appetite down until dinner time. I was sipping the
cool drink, nibbling the biscuits and enjoying the breeze that
was blowing through the room, when the attendant handed me a
board about as big as a shingle with a hole drilled through the
upper end so that it could be hung on a wall. Upon the board
was pasted a notice printed in four languages, English, German,
French and Hindustani, giving the regulations of the place, and
the white-robed khitmatgar pointed his long brown finger to a
paragraph that applied to my case. I paid him 10 cents for an
hour's rest under the roof. It was a satisfaction to do so. The
place was clean and neat and in every way inviting.

At many of the railway stations beds are provided by the firm of
caterers who have a contract for running the refreshment-rooms.
Most of the stations are neat and comfortable, and you can always
find a place to spread your bedding and lie down. There is a
big room for women and a big room for men. Sometimes cots are
provided, but usually only hard benches around the walls. There
are always washrooms and bathrooms adjoining, which, of course,
are a great satisfaction in that hot and perspiring land. The
restaurants at the railway stations are usually good, and are
managed by a famous caterer in Calcutta, but the men who run
the trains don't always give you time enough to eat.

On the passenger trains, ice, soda water, ginger ale, beer and
other soft drinks are carried by an agent of the eating-house
contractor, who furnishes them for 8 cents a bottle, and it pays
him to do so, for an enormous quantity is consumed during the
hot weather. The dust is almost intolerable and you cannot drink
the local water without boiling and filtering it. The germs of
all kinds of diseases are floating around in it at the rate of
7,000,000 to a spoonful. A young lady who went over on the ship
with us didn't believe in any such nonsense and wasn't afraid
of germs. She drank the local water in the tanks on the railway
cars and wherever else she found it, and the last we heard of
her she was in a hospital at Benares with a serious case of
dysentery.

[Illustrations: GROUP OF FAMOUS BRAHMIN PUNDITS]

Mark Twain says that there is no danger from germs in the sacred
water of the Ganges, because it is so filthy that no decent microbe
will live in it; and that just about describes the situation.
It is a miracle that the deaths are so few. Millions of people
fill their stomachs from that filthy stream day after day because
the water washes away their sins, and I do not suppose there
is a dirtier river in all the universe, nor one that contains
more contagion and filth. It receives the sewage of several of
the largest cities of India. Dead bodies of human beings as well
as animals can be seen floating daily. From one end of it to
the other are burning ghats where the bodies of the dead are
soaked in it before they are placed upon the funeral pyres, and
when the bones and flesh are consumed the ashes are cast upon
the sacred stream. But the natives observe no sanitary laws,
and the filth in which they live and move and have their being
is simply appalling.

But I started out to tell you about Muttra, which is a very ancient
place. It is mentioned by Pliny, the Latin historian, Ptolemy, the
Egyptian geographer, and other writers previous to the Christian
era, and is associated with the earliest Aryan migrations. Here
Krishna, the divine herdsman, was born. He spent his childhood
tending cattle in the village of Gokul, where are the ruins of
several ancient temples erected in his honor, but, although he
seems to have retained his hold upon the people, they have allowed
them to crumble, and the profuse adornments of the walls and
columns have been shamefully defaced. At one time it is said
there were twenty great monasteries at that place, with several
hundred monks, yet nothing is left of them but piles of stone and
rubbish. All have been destroyed in successive wars, for Muttra
has been the scene of horrible atrocities by the Mohammedans who
have overrun the country during several invasions. Therefore most
of the temples are modern, and they are too many to count. There is
a succession of them on the banks of the river the whole length
of the city, interspersed with hospices for the entertainment of
pilgrims, and palaces of rich Hindus, who go there occasionally
to wash away their sins, just as the high livers of London go
to Homburg and Carlsbad to restore their digestions. One of the
palaces connected with the temple, built of fine white stone in
modern style, belongs to Lakshman Das, a Hindu who the guide
told us is the richest man in India. The many merchants of Muttra
all seem prosperous. The city is visited by hundreds of thousands
of pilgrims every year, all of whom bring in more or less money,
and the houses and shops are of a more permanent and imposing
order of architecture than those of Delhi, Agra and other places.
It has the appearance of being a rich community.

The shade trees along the streets swarm with monkeys and parrots,
which are sacred, and when you go there you mustn't jump if a
grinning monkey drops down upon your shoulders in a most casual
manner and chatters in your ear. The animals are very tame. They
are fed by the pilgrims, who gain great merit with the gods thereby,
and the river is filled with sacred turtles, which are also objects
of great interest and devotion.

Only two towns in India are more sacred than Muttra. One is Benares
and the other is Jagernath, or Juggernaut, which is about 150
miles south of Calcutta on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. There
is the great idol which we have all heard about from the
missionaries, and, I regret to say, some have been guilty of a
good deal of misrepresentation and exaggeration. When I was a
boy I read in Sunday-school books the most heart-tearing tales
about the poor heathen, who cast themselves down before the car of
Juggernaut and were crushed to lifeless pulp under its monstrous
wheels. This story has been told thousands of times to millions
of horrified listeners, but an inquiry into the facts does not
confirm it. It is true that on certain holy days the great image
of Juggernaut, or Jagernath, whichever way you choose to spell
it, and it weighs many tons, is placed upon a car and the car is
drawn through the crowded streets by thousands of pilgrims, who
cast flowers, rice, wheat, palm leaves, bamboo wisps, sweetmeats
and other offerings in its way. Occasionally in the throng that
presses around the image some one is thrown down and has the
life trampled out of him; on several occasions people have been
caught by the wheels or the frame of the car and crushed, and
at rare intervals some hysterical worshiper has fallen in a fit
of epilepsy or exhaustion and been run over, but the official
records, which began in 1818, show only nine such occurrences
during the last eighty-six years.

I have great respect for missionaries, but I wish some of them
would be more charitable in disposition, a little more accurate
in statement, and not print so much trash. In Muttra you have a
good illustration of their usefulness. The American Methodists
commenced work there in 1887. No educational or evangelical work
had ever been attempted previous to that time, but the men and
women who came were wise, tactful and industrious, and the result
may be seen in a dozen or more schools, with several thousand
pupils, a flourishing, self-supporting church, a medical mission,
a deaconesses' home and training school, a printing establishment
and bookshop which is self-supporting and a large number of earnest,
intelligent converts. Wherever you go in heathen lands you will
find that wisdom, judgment, tact and ability, when applied in
any direction, always show good results, but all missionaries,
I regret to say, are not endowed with those qualities or with
what Rev. Dr. Hepburn of Japan calls "sanctified common sense,"
and the consequences are sometimes deplorable.

"By their works ye shall know them."

At Aligarh, a town of 50,000 inhabitants on the railway between
Agra and Delhi, is a very rare and indeed a unique institution--a
Moslem university and printing press--the only ones in India, and
the only ones in the world established and conducted on modern
lines. The university is modeled upon the English plan. It has an
English president and dean and several English professors, all
of them graduates of the University of Cambridge. The preparatory
school has an English head master and assistant, and in the faculty
is a professor of physical culture, who has brought manly sports
among the students to a standard unequaled elsewhere in India.
The Aligarh University has the best football team and the best
cricket team in the empire.

This remarkable institution was founded in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan, a Mohammedan lawyer and judge on the civil bench, for the
education of his co-religionists in order that they may take
places in the world beside the graduates of English and European
universities and exercise a similar influence. He recognized
that the Moslem population of India must degenerate unless it
was educated; that it could not keep pace with the rest of the
world. He was shocked at the ignorance and the bigotry of his
fellow Mohammedans and at their stubborn conservatism. He was
a sincere believer in his own religion, and insisted that the
faith of Islam, properly understood, was as much in the interest
of truth and progress in every branch of human knowledge and
activity as the Christian religion, and he devoted his entire
fortune and collected contributions from rich Mohammedans for
the establishment of a school that should be entirely up-to-date
and yet teach the Koran and the ancient traditions of Islam. There
are now about 500 students, who come from the most important
families in India. They live together in dormitories built about
the college, dine in the same refectory and enjoy a healthy,
active college life. Foreign and Christian professors fill the
chairs of science, mathematics and languages, while able mullahs
give instruction in the Koran and direct the students in the
daily exercise of the Mohammedan rites.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan met with bitter opposition and animosity
from the conservative element of his faith, and while some of
his opponents admitted the purity and nobility of his motive,
he was often accused of apostasy, but his noble life was spared
until March, 1898, and he was permitted to see his institution
enjoying great popularity and usefulness. There is at present a
movement among the Mohammedans of India for the higher education
of the members of that sect. It is the fruit of his labors and
the men who are leading it are graduates of the Aligarh College.

Lucknow and Cawnpore are usually neglected by American travelers,
but are sacred objects of pilgrimage to all Englishmen because
of their terrible memories of the awful struggles of the mutiny
of the sepoys, or native soldiers, in 1857, and their heroic
defense and heroic relief by a handful of British troops under
Sir Henry Havelock, General James Outram and Sir Colin Campbell.
Although more has been written about Lucknow, yet the tragedy
of Cawnpore is to me the more thrilling in several particulars,
and that city was the scene of the greater agony.

Upon the shores of the Ganges River is a pretty park of sixty
acres, in the center of which rises a mound. That mound covers
the site of a well in which the bodies of 250 of the victims of
the massacre were cast. It is inclosed by a Gothic wall, and in
the center stands a beautiful figure of an angel in white marble
by an Italian artist. Her arms are crossed upon her breast and in
each hand she holds a palm branch. The archway is inscribed:

"These are They which Came
Out of Great Tribulation."

Chiseled in the wall that marks the circle of the well are these
words:

"Sacred to the Perpetual Memory of a great Company of Christian
people, chiefly Women and Children, who near this Spot were cruelly
Murdered by the Followers of the Rebel Nana Dhundu Panth of Bithur,
and cast, the Dying with the Dead, into the Well below on the
XVth day of July, MDCCCLVII."

The story of Cawnpore has no parallel in history. It might have
been repeated at Peking two or three years ago, for the conditions
existed there. In the summer of 1857 sixty-one English artillerymen
and about 3,000 sepoys were attached to the garrison at that place,
where about 800 foreigners resided. Upon the 6th of June the native
troops rose in mutiny, sacked the paymaster's office and burned
several of the public buildings. The frightened foreigners fled
into one of the larger buildings of the government, where they
hastily threw up fortifications and resisted a siege for three
weeks. Their position having become untenable, they arranged
terms of capitulation with Nana Sahib, the leader of the mutiny,
who had been refused the throne and the allowance paid by the
British government to the late maharaja, although the latter
had adopted him in legal form and had proclaimed him his heir.
This was one of the principal reasons for the mutiny, and without
considering the question of justice or injustice, Nana Sahib
satiated his desire for vengeance under the most atrocious
circumstances. Having accepted the surrender of the little garrison
upon his personal assurances of their security and safe conduct
to Allahabad, he placed the survivors, about 700 in number, in
boats upon the Ganges River and bade them good-by. As soon as
the last man was on board and the word was given to start down
the stream, the blast of a bugle was heard. At that signal the
crews of the boats leaped into the water, leaving the passengers
without oars, and immediately the straw roofs of the boats burst
into flames and showers of bullets were fired from lines of infantry
drawn up on the banks. Most of those who jumped into the water
to escape the flames were shot down by the bullets. And many
who escaped both and endeavored to reach the shore were sabered
by cavalrymen who awaited them. One boat load escaped.

The survivors of this incident, about 200 in number, were led
back into the city, past their old homes, now in smoldering ruins,
and were locked up in two rooms twenty feet long and ten feet
wide. They had no beds, no furniture, no blankets, not even straw
to lie upon. They were given one meal a day of coarse bread and
water, and after suffering untold agonies for fifteen days were
called out in squads and hacked to pieces by the ruffians of
Nana's guard. Their bodies were cast into the well, which was
afterward filled with earth and has since been the center of
a memorial park.

The siege of Lucknow was somewhat different. When the mutiny
broke out Sir Henry Lawrence, the governor, concentrated his
small force of British soldiers, with eleven women and seven
children, in his residency, which stood in the center of a park
of sixty acres. It was a pretentious stone building, with a superb
portico and massive walls, and protected by deep verandas of
stone. Anticipating trouble, he had collected provisions and
ammunition and was quite well prepared for a siege, although
the little force around him was attacked by more than 30,000
merciless, bloodthirsty fanatics. The situation was very much
as it was at Peking, only worse, and the terrific fire that was
kept up by the sepoys may be judged by the battered stump of an
old tree which still stands before the ruins of the residency.
Although about three feet in diameter, it was actually cut down
by bullets.

On the second day of the siege, while Sir Henry Lawrence was
instructing Captain Wilson, one of his aids, as to the distribution
of rations, a shell entered his apartment, exploded at his side and
gave him a mortal wound. With perfect coolness and calm fortitude
he appointed Major Banks his successor, instructed him in details
as to the conduct of the defense, exhorted the soldiers of the
garrison to their duty, pledged them never to treat with the
rebels, and under no circumstances to surrender. He gave orders
that he should be buried "without any fuss, like a British soldier,"
and that the only epitaph upon his tombstone should be:

"Here lies Henry Lawrence, Who Tried to do his Duty; May God have
Mercy upon his soul."

He died upon the Fourth of July. Upon the 16th Major Banks, his
successor in command, was killed and the authority devolved upon
Captain Inglis, whose widow, the last survivor of the siege,
died in London Feb. 4, 1904. The deaths averaged from fifteen to
twenty daily, and most of the people were killed by an African
sharpshooter who occupied a commanding post upon the roof of a
neighboring house and fired through the windows of the residency
without ever missing his victim. The soldiers called him "Bob the
Nailer." The latter part of August he was finally killed, but
not until after he had shot dozens of men, women and children
among the besieged. In order to protect themselves from his shots
and those from other directions the windows of the residency
were barricaded, which shut out all the air and ventilation,
and the heat became almost intolerable. A plague of flies set
in which was so terrible that the nervous women and children
frequently became frantic and hysterical.

On the 5th of September a faithful native brought the first news
that a relieving force under Sir Henry Havelock and General James
Outram was nearing Lucknow. On the 25th Havelock fought his way
through the streets of the city, which were packed with armed
rebels, and on the 26th succeeded in reaching the residency. But,
although the relief was welcome, and the sufferings of the besieged
were for the moment forgotten, it was considered impracticable
to attempt an evacuation because the whole party would have been
massacred if they had left the walls. A young Irish clerk in
the civil service, named James Kavanagh, undertook to carry a
message to Sir Colin Campbell and succeeded in passing through
the lines of the enemy. On the 16th of November Campbell fought
his way through the streets with 3,500 men, and the relief of
Lucknow was finally effected.

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