Eight Lectures on India

|1.
Map of Indian Railway System.| Two new facts have of recent years altered all the relations of India with the outer world, and have vitally changed the conditions of internal government as compared with those prevailing at the time of the Mutiny. The first of these facts was the opening of the Suez Canal, and the second was the construction, and as regards main lines the virtual completion of the Indian Railway System. Formerly shipping came round the Cape of Good Hope, and it was as easy to steer a course for Calcutta as for Bombay. To-day only bulky cargo is taken from Suez and Aden round the southern point of India through the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta. The fast mail boats run to Bombay, and thence the railways diverge northward, northeastward, and southeastward to all the frontiers of the Empire. Only the Burmese railways remain for the present a detached system. But in regard to tonnage of traffic Calcutta is still the first port of India, for the country which lies in rear of it in Bengal and the United Provinces contains a very large population.

From Bombay inland runs the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, or as it is known everywhere in India, the G.I.P. This line branches a short distance from the coast, striking on the one hand southeastward in the direction of Madras, and on the other hand northeastward in the direction of Allahabad. A second great railway system, the East Indian, begins at Howrah on the shore of the Hooghly opposite to Calcutta, and thence crossing the low Rajmahal spur of the central hills descends to the bank of the Ganges at Patna, from which point it follows the river to Allahabad, and there branches, one line continuing northwestward to Delhi and beyond, the other striking southwestward through the hills to Jubbulpore, where it meets the northeastward branch of the G.I.P. Each week, four hours after the arrival of the mail steamer at Bombay, three express trains leave the Victoria Station of that city. One of them is bound southeastward for Madras. The second runs northeastward over the G.I.P. and East Indian lines, by way of Jubbulpore and Allahabad, to the Howrah Station at Calcutta. The third also runs northeastward by the G.I.P. line, but diverges northward from the Calcutta route to Agra and Delhi. When the Government of India is at Simla, the last mentioned train continues northward beyond Delhi to the foot of the mountains. The time taken to Madras is 26 hours, to Calcutta 36 hours, and to Delhi 27 hours.

Access to the great plains at the foot of the Himalayas was formerly by the navigation of the Ganges and of its tributaries. Then the Grand Trunk road was constructed from Calcutta northwestward through the Gangetic plain to the northwest of India. It was by this road that relief was brought during the Mutiny to the besieged garrisons of Cawnpore and Lucknow. Finally, the East Indian Railway was built from Bengal to the Punjab through the whole length of the densely peopled belt which is enriched by the monsoon rains of the Himalayas.

Recently a more direct line from Bombay to Calcutta, which does not pass through Allahabad, has been constructed through Nagpur, the capital of the Central Provinces of India. This runs, however, through a hilly country, much forested and relatively thinly peopled. There are now two daily mails between Calcutta and Bombay, the one running via Nagpur and the other viâ Allahabad.

|2.
Indian Railway Station.| We have here an Indian train standing at a platform. Note the screens constructed to give shade in the heat of the day.

|3.
Bhor Ghat Reversing Station.| |4.
The Same.| The two branches of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway approach one another at an angle from Allahabad and the northeast and from Madras and the southeast. They descend the steep mountain face which edges the Deccan plateau by two passes, the Bhor Ghat and the Thal Ghat. The lines are constructed downward, with remarkable skill of engineering, by loops, and in places by blind ends on which the trains are reversed. Here are two views of the Bhor Ghat Reversing Station, the first taken from below, and the second from above. The Junction of the two lines is in the narrow coastal plain at the foot of the descent. Thence the rails are carried by a bridge over a sea strait into Sashti Island, and by a second bridge over a second strait into Bombay Island, and so to the great Victoria Terminus in the midst of the city.

|5.
Map of Bombay District.| The island of Bombay is about twelve miles long from north to south. The harbour, set with hilly islets, lies between Bombay and the mainland, the entry being from the south round the long Colaba Point. Westward of Colaba is Back Bay, formed by the Malabar Point, on whose end, extended as it were to meet Europe, is the residence of the Governor of the great Province of Bombay.

|6.
Plan of Bombay City.| |7.
Bombay, from top of Rajabaie Tower, looking South.| |8.
The Same, looking Southeast.| |9.
The Same, looking Northeast.| |10.
The Same, looking Northwest.| |Repeat Map No. 1.| The most conspicuous feature of the now magnificent city is a range of public buildings, running north and south about mid-way between the harbour and Back Bay. East of these buildings is the oldest quarter of the city, known as the Fort. Westward, on the shore of Back Bay, is a broad expanse of garden. The native town lies to the north, and beyond it is Byculla, where are the mills and factories, and to the east of Byculla on the harbour front is the dockyard of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. How fine a city is Bombay may be realised from the top of the great tower of the University, some two hundred and fifty feet high, the most conspicuous building in the place. It is the central feature of the range of public buildings just referred to. We have here in succession from south and southeast to northeast and northwest, four views from the top of this tower. The first is to the south, and shows the Union Jack flying from the Secretariat of the Government of Bombay, and the entry to the harbour beyond. The edge of the garden belt towards Back Bay is seen along the right hand edge of the view. In the southeastward view we have the shipping and the islands of the harbour, and the Government Dockyard with its long jetty. Notice the island fort guarding the channel. In the northeastward view we look towards the native city, and see the factories smoking in the distance. It will be seen that there are practically no chimneys on the nearer buildings, and no smoke in the air. Finally from our tower top we turn northwestward, and look across the head of Back Bay towards Malabar Point. The building on the shore of the Bay is the office of the Bombay and Baroda Railway, which runs northward along the coast into a densely peopled lowland round the head of the Gulf of Cambay. Away in the distance on that Malabar Promontory, but not visible in this view, are the Towers of Silence, where the Parsis dispose of their dead.

|11.
Group of Parsis.| |12.
Parsi Tower of Silence.| The Parsis (i.e. Persians) are a community, chiefly of merchants, who came to Bombay in the Middle Ages, flying from Persia when the Musulmans conquered that land. They hold the ancient faith of Persia, and are commonly described as Fire Worshippers. They regard the elements fire, water, and earth as sacred, and therefore refuse to pollute them with the decay of dead bodies. They build round towers, known as Towers of Silence, and these they place in large grounds equivalent to our cemeteries. Each tower is hollow and exposed to the sky within. There on stone ledges the dead bodies are laid, and the vultures pick the flesh from the bones. The ash of the bones is washed by the rain into a central pit at the bottom of the hollow tower, where it slowly accumulates, so that, in accordance with one of the tenets of their faith, the Parsis, rich and poor, meet in death. The Parsis of Bombay are a wealthy and enterprising community, who do no small part of the commerce of the city. One of their number recently sat in the House of Commons at Westminster as the representative of a London constituency. They have no caste prejudices like the Hindus, and no seclusion of women like the Musulmans, so that their ways of life are nearer to those of Europeans.

|13.
The Rajabaie Tower, Bombay University.| |14.
The Same, more distant view.| |15.
P. & O. Offices, Bombay.| |16.
Carmac Bund, Bombay.| |17.
Victoria Terminus, G.I.P., Bombay.| |18.
The Same: another view.| |19.
Municipal Buildings, Bombay.| |20.
Esplanade Road, Bombay.| |21.
Fountain in Esplanade Road, Bombay.| |22.
Statue of Queen Victoria.| Now let us walk through the city, and realise its grandeur. Here we are down by the western façade of the University. The great tower rises above us from which we just now obtained our views. That tower is called the Rajabaie Tower, in memory of the mother of the founder of the building. This is a rather more distant picture of the same building. We have next the offices of the P. and O. Company, and then a wharfside with steamers about to start for Goa, the old Portuguese capital midway along the west coast of India southward of Bombay. Here we have the great Victoria Terminus of the G.I.P. Railway, with a central dome and an elaborately carved façade. Bombay claims that it is the finest railway station in the world. This is another view of the same building, with bullocks passing in front of it. Here are the Municipal Buildings with another fine dome. They are a combination of gothic with oriental architecture, and were opened about fifteen years ago. Notice the electric tramway wires above. Then we see another fine street, the Esplanade Road. The National Bank is to the left, and further along is the Bombay Club. Here is a fountain in the Esplanade Road, with a bullock passing in front of it, and here is the Statue of the Queen-Empress Victoria, unveiled in 1872. On the canopy are the rose of England and the lotus of India.

Bombay has a population only a little smaller than that of Calcutta, and, like Calcutta and Madras, it is a new city, as time goes in the Immemorial East. The island on which it stands was presented to King Charles II. as part of the dower of his Portuguese Queen, and in order to enable the British the better to co-operate with the Portuguese in resisting the aggressions and encroachments of the Dutch. When handed over by the Portuguese, there was but a small settlement on the island. In 1668, however, Bombay was ceded to the East India Company, and the Company transferred thither the centre of its trade on the west coast of India, which had up to that time been at Surat, a hundred miles north of Bombay. Gradually the commerce of the port increased, although for a long time it was far outdistanced by Calcutta, whose great riverway extends, as we have seen, through densely peopled plains for a thousand miles inland. Eastward of Bombay, on the other hand, is the mountain face of the Western Ghats, barring easy access to the interior. The greatness of Bombay came only with the opening of the Suez Canal and of the railway lines up the Bhor and Thal Ghats, northeastward and southeastward into India.

|23.
Exterior of Caves of Elephanta.| |24.
Caves of Elephanta.| |25.
The Same, showing the Trimurti.| |26.
Villagers of Elephanta.| In Bombay Harbour there is a small island, about six miles from the city, which is called Elephanta. It contains carved rock temples whose antiquity contrasts strangely with the modern city close by. We have here the entry to these temple caves, and here a view within. This is another picture, showing a three-faced image. The carving is some twenty feet high, and represents Brahma the Creator, Siva the Destroyer, and Vishnu the Preserver. The nature of these gods was described in the first of these lectures. Here we have a little group of the villagers of Elephanta. The village has some seven hundred inhabitants. It is known as Elephanta because there was formerly conspicuous among the rock carvings of the temple a great elephant, which, however, decayed and fell some fifty years ago. The native name of the island means “the town of excavations.”

|27.
Map of Bombay Presidency, Nizam’s Territory, and Maratha Country.| |28.
The Satara Hills, Maratha Country.| |29.
Native Plough, Maratha Country.| Now let us journey inland, up the Ghats, through their thick forests, and if it be the rainy season, past rushing waterfalls, until surmounting the brink top we come out on to the plain of the tableland, and into the relative drought of the upper climate. This is the Maratha country, and here we have a typical view of the open landscape which it presents. The hills in the distance are the Satara hills, extending west and east through the heart of India. Here is another view in this same Maratha Country. It shows a native plough at work, and in the background one of the table-topped mountains, which are studded over the surface of the generally level plateau, not unlike the kopjes of South Africa. These steep-sided isolated mountain blocks have often served as strongholds in warfare, and many of them are noted in connection with the Maratha wars, waged in this part of India a little more than a century ago under the lead of Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards the great Duke of Wellington. At the foot of the mountain may just be seen one of the Towers of Silence of the Parsis.

|30.
Maratha Soldier.| |31.
Map of the Maratha Dominions at their greatest extent.| The Marathas are a people of Hindu religion and Marathi language, which is akin, as we learned in the last lecture, to the Hindi of the United Provinces. Some four generations ago they raided most of India from their home on this high plateau of the Western Deccan, and the troops of the East India Company had to wage three successive wars with them. Had it not been for the British victory, there can be little doubt that the Marathas would have established an Empire in India. Their homeland round the city of Poona now forms the main portion of the Province of Bombay, but Maratha princes still rule large conquered countries as feudatories of the King-Emperor. This map shows us the dominion of the Marathas at its greatest extent, near the end of the eighteenth century, when they were the dominant warlike race of India. Their original home was not far from Poona. As they spread, five principal officers of court and state took the place of the dynasty of the Rajas, which became decrepit. These were the Peshwa, the Gaikwar, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla. These five great chiefs conquered far and wide through all the heart of India. Sindhia’s dominions extended northward to Delhi, and Bhonsla’s eastward to Orissa on the east coast. The Peshwa was on the plateau round Poona. Holkar was seated at Indore between the Peshwa and Sindhia, and the Gaikwar at Baroda, in the fertile lowland round the head of the gulf of Cambay. At times there was rivalry and war between them, but with the exception of the Peshwa they were united by French intrigue in the time of Napoleon, with the result that we had to fight between the years 1803 and 1805 the most widespread war which we have ever fought in India. Our generals were Lake and Wellesley. The most brilliant victory was that of Assaye, in the plateau country just north of Poona. There, with three thousand troops, Wellesley defeated Sindhia’s army of twenty thousand men, organised by French officers, and captured an artillery of a hundred guns. Peace was made with the conquered Marathas about the time when Trafalgar was fought, and it was stipulated that they were for the future to allow no European influence in their States except the British. There was a subsequent Maratha war, but the great war just referred to was the most serious crisis through which the British rule in India has had to pass, perhaps not even excepting the Mutiny of 1857.

The Marathas are of Hindu religion, but the caste system is not with them carried to the extreme that prevails among other Hindus. They present, in fact, the nearest approach to a national caste. As we shall learn presently, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Gaikwar still rule great territories as Feudatory Princes, but Nagpur, the Bhonsla’s capital, is now the chief town of the Central Provinces of British India, and Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, is the seat of the Bombay Government during part of the year.

|32.
Political Map of Bombay Province and Central India.| In contrast with the last map, showing the extent of the former Maratha Dominions, we have here a map of the central parts of India as they are to-day, with the Province of Bombay ruled directly by the British Government marked in red, and also the Central Provinces under direct British rule from Nagpur, but in addition it will be seen that in blue colour there are two patches of territory northeastward of Bombay, which bear the inscription Central India, a term to be carefully distinguished from the Central Provinces.

|33.
Scene near Hyderabad.| |34.
Street Scene, in Hyderabad.| |35.
The Nizam’s Palace, Hyderabad.| Central India consists of Native Feudatory States, which acknowledge the British suzerainty, but are immediately ruled by their own Maharajas, of whom the two most important are the Maratha princes Holkar at Indore, and Sindhia at Gwalior. There is another larger patch of blue, southeastward of Bombay. This is the State of Hyderabad, ruled under British suzerainty by the Nizam. This great prince is however no Maratha, but a Musulman. His people for the most part speak the Dravidian language Telugu, and are Hindu by religion. Thus we see that none of these large states, each as important as one of the smaller European kingdoms, has for its ruler a man of the same race as the people. Sindhia and Holkar are Marathas ruling Hindi populations; the Nizam is a Musulman ruling Telugu-speaking Hindus. The Gaikwar of Baroda, it may be added, who governs a small but very rich and populous territory, is a Maratha ruling a Gujrati population. We have here a typical landscape in the Nizam’s territory, and see that it is not very different from the Maratha landscapes. It is on the same open Deccan plateau. This is a scene in Hyderabad itself, showing a procession of elephants, and then we see the Nizam’s Palace.

|36.
Golkonda Fort.| Next we have a view of Golkonda Fort, placed on one of the usual flat-topped hills, and defended on one side by a large sheet of water. Golkonda is in the neighbourhood of Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam’s dominions. Its name has become proverbial as indicative of immense wealth. Formerly it was the great Indian centre of diamond cutting and polishing, or in other words the Amsterdam of India. The diamonds were not found in the immediate neighbourhood, but in the extreme southeastern corner of the Nizam’s territory.

|37.
The Same, nearer view.| |38.
A Bastion at the top of Golkonda Fort.| |39.
View from Golkonda Fort, looking Northeast.| |40.
Hindu Temple, Golkonda Fort.| |41.
Musulman Mosque, Golkonda Fort.| Here is a nearer view of Golkonda Fort, and here a view over the plain, from the bastion at the top of the Fort, from which can be seen the Tombs of the Kings about half a mile away. These kings belonged to a great Musulman dynasty which ruled here during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was overthrown by Aurangzeb. Next we have, near the summit of the Fort, the ruins of a Hindu temple, and close by, shown in the following slide, the remains of a Muhammadan mosque. The Fort, therefore, in its ruins, records the essential history of the country, first the Hindu civilization, and then two successive Musulman conquests.

|42.
Mahbub College, Secunderabad.| |43.
Ploughing at Agricultural School at Aurangabad.| |44.
A Queen’s Boy at the same School.| Some of these Feudatory Native States do not lag far behind the territories directly ruled by British officials. Western civilization is permeating all India under the British suzerainty. At Secunderabad and Aurangabad, places in the Nizam’s Dominions, are, for instance, Agricultural and Industrial Schools. Here is a group of students at the Mahbub College, Secunderabad, and here a view taken at the Agricultural School at Aurangabad, which shows some of the students ploughing. One of the gentlemen in the foreground is the Director of Public Instruction in the Nizam’s State, and by his side is the Superintendent of the School. Then we see an orphan student, a “Queen’s boy.” He will probably settle down in a year or two’s time, very likely marrying one of the “Queen’s girls.” With a portion of his scholarship saved up for him, he will purchase the necessary bullocks and plough. He came to the college from the Victoria Memorial Orphanage, where each child is trained in his own religion.

|45.
Kinkob Loom, Secunderabad.| |46.
Carpenters at Aurangabad.| In the midst, however, of this rapid advance we still find the older methods. Here at Secunderabad is a Kinkob loom of the old pattern. Kinkob work is made of gold and silver thread. The boy sitting above is controlling the threads, and helps to make the pattern by raising or lowering them in the warp. The boy sitting below in the well is working the shuttles. This is a street scene in Aurangabad showing natives of the carpenter caste sawing timber.

|47.
The Tomb of the Saint, Roza.| |48.
Roza Fair.| |49.
The Same.| |50.
Daulatabad, from the Road to Roza.| Another aspect of life in the Deccan of India is shown in the next slide, where round the tomb of a saint at a place called Roza is gathered the camp of a fair. A saint of great renown among the Musulmans was buried here in the fourteenth century, and deposited within the shrine are some hairs alleged to be from Muhammad’s beard. There follow two slides showing the usual amusements of the fair, in the latter of which we see a merry-go-round not at all unlike those typical of the country fairs of England. Next we have a view taken on the road from Roza, and in the distance can be seen the hill fort of Daulatabad, built in the thirteenth century on a great isolated mass of granite about five hundred feet high. In this fort was imprisoned and died the last King of Golkonda, and it became the favourite summer resort of his Mogul conqueror, Aurangzeb.

|Repeat Map No. 27.| The upland which fills most of the centre of India and bears in its midst the Nizam’s Dominions is in most parts of no great fertility. Over large areas it is fitted rather for the pasture of horses and cattle than for the plough. Agriculture is naturally best in the river valleys, but there is one large district lying on the plateau top east of Bombay, and on the hill tops about the Narbada valley east of Baroda, which is of a most singular fertility. The usually granitic and schistose rocks of the plateau have here been overlaid by great sheets of basaltic lava. Detached portions of these lava beds form the table tops of the hills in the country rendered famous by Wellesley’s Maratha campaigns. The lava disintegrates into a tenacious black soil, which does not fall into dust during the dry season, but cracks into great blocks, which remain moist. As the dry season advances these blocks shrink, and the cracks grow broader, so that finally it is dangerous for a horse to gallop over the plain lest its hoof should be caught in one of these openings of the ground.

This remarkable earth is known as the Black Cotton Soil. The cotton seeds are sown after the rains, and as the young plant grows a clod of earth forms round its roots, which is separated from the next similar clod by cracks. Wheat is grown on this soil in the same manner, being sown after the rainy season and reaped in the beginning of the hot season, so that from beginning to end the crop is produced without exposure to rain, being drawn up by the brilliant sunshine and fed at the root by the moisture preserved in the heavy soil.

Thus in the part of India which lies immediately east, northeast, and north of Bombay the lowlands and the uplands are alike fertile—the lowlands round Ahmadabad and Baroda and in the valleys of the Narbada and Tapti Rivers because of their alluvial soil, and the uplands round Poona and Indore because they are clothed with the volcanic cotton soil.

Just within the northwestern corner of the Nizam’s territory are the famous rock temples of Ellora, perhaps the most magnificent of their kind in the world. The sculpture is of Brahman, Buddhist, and Jain dates, the monuments of various religions being thus as it were imposed upon one another.

|51.
Entry to Jain Caves, Ellora.| |52.
Jain Caves, Ellora.| |53.
The Juggernath Temple, Jain Caves, Ellora.| |54.
The Same.| |55.
The Kailas Caves, Ellora.| |56.
The Same.| |57.
Buddhist Temple, Ellora Caves.| |58.
The Carpenter Cave, Ellora.| This is the entry to the Jain part of the Ellora caves, and this is the interior of one of the Jain caves, story above story. The niches are full of statues, many of them in perfect condition. Here we have two views of the magnificent Juggernath Temple. Next, in the dim light, we realize something of the internal structure of the Brahman section of the caves. Notice the two men whose height enables you to judge of the scale. These are among the finest of all the monuments of antiquity in India. Here is a view taken on the floor of the Buddhist Temple, with large figures of Buddha seated on a throne, and there follows a view in another cave showing the beautifully carved roof. It will be seen then that in these Ellora caves several religions have contributed, the Jain no less than the Buddhist and the Hindu.

The Jains rose in the time of Buddha, five hundred years before Christ. That was a time of religious stir in India, which resulted in various revolts against the Brahmanical system. The Jain tenets are not unlike those of the Buddhists. They believe in the universal soul, and in the transmigration of souls, so that a man’s soul may pass into an animal. Their regard for animal life, for this reason so general in India, is carried to an extreme. The Jains were strongest in Western India, and they are still present there, although now in a very small minority. They probably total to-day not more than a million and a half, and are perhaps most numerous at Ahmadabad. Of their great temples at Mount Abu we shall hear presently.

|59.
The Mecca Gate, Aurangabad.| |60.
The Mausoleum of Rubia-ud-Daurani.| In order to complete the range of the architectures of India, there follow two specimens of the Muhammadan buildings of the state of Hyderabad. First we see the Mecca Gate at Aurangabad, with the Mecca Bridge underneath it, and then we have the Mausoleum of Rubia-ud-Daurani, the wife of Aurangzeb. The door of the gateway is of brass and all the domes are of marble. The building has recently been restored by the Government of the Nizam, and is now probably second only to the Taj Mahal at Agra among the Muhammadan buildings of India.

|Repeat Map No. 32.| Finally, we must note that a portion of the Bombay Presidency lies far away to the northwest, detached from the remainder. This is the province of Sind, for the most part a desert area, but containing the delta of the river Indus, which is a second Egypt in fertility, for there the alluvium brought down by the great river from the distant Himalaya mountains is deposited, and water is available by irrigation from the same distant source. Curiously, Sind resembles Egypt in its human settlements. At the head of the delta where the distributaries divide, and therefore at the lowest convenient crossing place of the river, is situated the city of Hyderabad, corresponding to Cairo, and on the sea front westward of the deltaic mouths is Karachi, corresponding to Alexandria.

|Repeat Map No. 27.| Sind was conquered by Sir Charles Napier in 1843. The Sindi population is for the most part Musulman, and engaged in agriculture, but the significance of Sind has altered since it was first added to the directly ruled British territories. At first communication with the Punjab was relatively difficult, for the Indus is not navigated with the same ease as is the Ganges. In the days before railways it was therefore natural that the new province should be administered from Bombay by means of sea communications. To-day, however, with the construction of the North Western Railway from Karachi up the river Indus, the commercial relations of Sind have come to be with the Punjab, of which Karachi is now the great port, although it is still subordinate to Bombay for purposes of government.

It is interesting and significant to observe that the coastline of all India is now under direct British rule, except for the little States of Cochin and Travancore, in the far south, near Cape Comorin, and the peninsula of Kathiawar and the island of Cutch, which are divided among a multitude of petty chieftains subordinate to the Government of Bombay. Thus the larger Native States, being isolated from the sea, there is little fear of foreign intrigue in India such as we had to contend with during the French wars. There are a few diminutive scraps of territory belonging to the French and Portuguese Governments, but these are too insignificant to break the general rule, and moreover they are engirt landward by directly ruled British territory. The largest of them is at Goa, on the west coast, south of Bombay, the last remnant of the great Portuguese dominion in the Indies.