India and the Indians

Some of the perplexities of missionaries in India, and also probably of Civil servants in the Indian Government, arise from preconceived notions about the country and people which are either only partly true, or are altogether erroneous. It takes years of growing experiences before things gradually assume their proper proportions in the mind.

The generally accepted idea that Indians have a depth of intellect which it is almost impossible to fathom, is one of the most fruitful causes of mistakes in government, whether within the comparatively narrow limits of a Mission area, or when dealing with affairs which concern the whole country. An extensive and varied experience amongst Hindus of almost every class and age has led to the conviction that the great depth which could not be fathomed is really a shallow, and that we should have realised that we touched bottom long ago, except that we continued to try and probe for it in a region which does not exist.

If it is true that the Indian mind is shallow, and with limited capabilities, it explains a great deal which otherwise seems perplexing. Nor will this conviction lead you to think less of the Indian. On the contrary, it makes you like him all the better, because you can appreciate his many good qualities without being disappointed because they do not yield all the fruit which might be desired.

Many instances might be given of the shallowness of the Indian's mind. In his student days he will often slave at his books to an extent almost unparalleled in any other student world. But when he has attained the goal and secured his diploma, which is the summit of his ambition, the number of students who make any further use of the knowledge which they have acquired with so much toil is few indeed. Or, if he has secured a post which would in due course lead on to a position of responsibility and corresponding prosperity, he will often throw up his work and sacrifice all his prospects on account of some trifling rebuke or imaginary slight.

The marks of unfinished projects to be seen all over India point to a want of depth of purpose. Interest and zeal has abated before the work is complete, or it was entered upon thoughtlessly without having counted the cost. It does not seem to cause the Indian any compunction that an undertaking was begun but never finished. Nor is the partly built house going to ruin because incomplete, or the well useless because it has not been sunk deep enough, an eyesore to him. Even his inveterate want of tidiness indicates a careless mind. Rubbish of all sorts lying around or within his house, even if it be of a most unsavoury nature, so that its presence forces itself upon attention, does not distress him.

Inveterate unpunctuality, and the general absence of a sense of responsibility concerning the value of time, is another indication of shallowness of mind. Days and weeks are allowed to drift away with nothing done, even amongst those who are supposed to be men of business. Petty vanity is also a mark of a shallow nature, and there are few heathen Indians who do not boast about attainments and possessions and exploits, and make unblushing statements which perhaps have not a vestige of truth in them. The reality of Indian affection as far as it goes, but its want of depth, has been already touched upon.

What ought to be firmness of character is apt to take the form of a vein of quiet obstinacy, which is latent in almost all Indians. With many it is not generally aggressive in character, and shows itself in matters of no great importance. It is necessary, for the sake of peace, to allow Indian servants to do certain things in their own way. You explain how you prefer to have a thing done and you give your reasons, and the butler or gardener will apparently agree, and they will do it for a few days according to your wish; but as soon as they think that you have forgotten, they will return to their own custom. And if you were to tell them twenty times, they would twenty times take the same course.

With Indian children a conflict of opinion is to be avoided if possible, because, even with them, if the spirit of obstinacy is aroused it may easily lead on to serious complications. An Indian lad, if he gets his back up, becomes from the most reasonable of beings the most unreasonable. Arguments and warnings are wasted upon him, and you can only leave him alone and deal with him when he has recovered.

When shallowness of nature has been recognised as being that of the average Indian, it simplifies your relations with him. You take him as he is, and enjoy the many attractive qualities which flourish, up to a certain point, in the shallow soil. It also makes it easier to govern him, supposing you have responsibilities of that nature, if you understand that you must not depend too much on certain qualities which he only possesses in a limited degree. And this is equally true whether your responsibility extends only to one or two individuals, or whether it embraces a wide area and large populations.

With the Indian boy, for instance, firmness and kindness must be judiciously blended. It is no good arguing with him in times of difficulty, or you will stir up that latent spirit of obstinacy. Rules concerning work or conduct must be clearly laid down, and deviations taken notice of at once. Almost all Indians require the stimulus of supervision to keep them up to their work. But many Indian boys are slow in learning the duties of their office, whatever it may be. They must be given time, and the same thing may have to be often patiently explained before it is digested. A word of commendation for good work or conduct may be dropped now and then, but not too often, or it will be taken as an indication that a less amount of exertion will suffice.

The question of punishment should always be very carefully thought out beforehand. But if threatened, and really earned, it is best given. "Letting off" is looked upon as a sign of weakness, and does not stimulate gratitude. Reasonable punishment, given good-temperedly, as the proper due for debt incurred, never produces ill-feeling. But the Indian boy smarts under a sense of injustice, and his case ought always to be carefully weighed, and what he has to say in his defence patiently listened to, and due deference should be shown to his special characteristics as an Eastern and not a European. Also, the infinite variety of character to be found amongst Indian boys should be taken into account. They must be dealt with, not as a flock, but as individuals.

The old Anglo-Indians of the "Lawrence" school, who were for the most part eminently Christian men, ruled India much on the same lines as if it was a large boys' school. And, when they were not hampered by undue interference from headquarters, they were on the whole signally successful, and were both beloved and feared. Unless the Indian nature changes, and that can only be with the acceptance of Christianity, and even then only up to a certain point, any attempt to govern India on different lines will be a dubious experiment. People whose nature is not very strong are often not unwilling to accept the support of a kindly, but firm hand, to guide them. And as they rarely agree amongst themselves concerning any course of action, they like to have things settled for them, provided that the decision has wisdom and common sense on its side. This of course does not apply to the little knot of discontented political agitators. But they in no way represent the attitude of the people of India. The manner of the declaration of Delhi as the new capital, coming from the lips of a King of whose goodwill they were already assured, was exactly the course of procedure which most of all commends itself to the Indian mind.

There are, however, unexpected contradictions in the Indian character which baffle explanation. In spite of the almost universal moral laxity in the conversation and personal life of a Hindu, any English lady could travel in perfect safety through the length and breadth of the land, in city or in jungle, with no other attendants than her heathen Indian servants. There are also English parents who have found that an Indian boy is, from a moral point of view, a safer guardian for their young children than the average Indian woman who usually fulfils that office.

CHAPTER XXIV

They are particularly fond of illustrations drawn from Nature, and they always regard the illustration as a conclusive answer to an argument. If you point out its want of applicability, they reply by at once giving another illustration equally inapplicable. For instance, the broad-minded modern Indian argues that all religions ultimately lead to God, and so that they are all equally good; and he gives as his illustrative proof, that many rivers starting from a variety of sources eventually empty themselves into the sea. And he looks upon this, not merely as an illustration, but as a clinching argument against which nothing can be said. But if you demur he will put the case in the reverse order, and he will say that just as in Poona City there are many tanks, but the water which supplies them all comes from the great reservoir many miles away, so the various forms of religion found in different countries came originally from the same source, and are therefore identical.

A Hindu, defending the multiplicity of gods, said to me that of course there was only one Supreme Being, but that he was too great to be approached by ordinary mortals, and that it was through the lesser deities that man had access to him. To make this clear, he used the following illustration. He said that if a man had a grievance he could not go direct to the emperor and state his case, but he must begin by approaching the district collector, and ultimately his petition might reach the ears of the emperor. Happily this illustration gave the opportunity to say that in the Kingdom of Christ the poorest outcast, or the little child, can have direct and immediate access to the King of kings, whose ears are always open to the prayers of all His people.

Moral maxims, such as they are, are often put into the same illustrative form. The following maxims are for the guidance of an ascetic:—

"As the uncomplaining earth suffers injuries and affronts without any sign of resentment, so should the ascetic be unperturbed by any ill-treatment and indignities he may be subjected to.

"Into the serene sky ascend the glad sounds of mirth, the fierce roar of battle, the beating of drums, and the clash of swords; but it retains none of them; the ascetic in the midst of the turmoil of life should, in like manner, retain no impression of the events about him, be they joyous or mournful.

"As the pure flame feeds indiscriminately on all sorts of fuel, the living timber of the forest as well as the refuse of the dung-heap, so ought the ascetic to accept willingly whatever food is given to him, never reflecting on its value, nor whether it is stale or fresh."[2]

The reader will be able to judge for himself how far the application of these illustrations is calculated to help a man in his religious aspirations towards asceticism.

The fact that Hinduism is a religion which still has a great hold upon the majority of the people of India may be partly explained by the shallowness of the Indian mind, which was referred to in the last chapter. If there had been greater depth of feeling, and keener perception of what the soul needs, the Hindu religion could never have held its ground for so long. In spite of what many writers say about Hinduism permeating every corner of domestic life, which is true in a sense, it does not mean that "religion," as we understand the word, permeates the Indian household. In an article in the Fortnightly of September 1909, an educated Hindu, Mr. P. Vencatarao by name, writing on the subject, "Why I am not a Christian," after stating amongst other things that "Hinduism has no fundamental dogmas," goes on to say: "Hinduism is much more a matter of social intercourse and domestic life than of religion in the proper sense of the word." And that is perfectly true.

It is a particularly easy religion to follow. The moral code is left undefined, and for the child depends upon the individual characteristics of the members of the household in which he grows up. The only clear rule of life which the Hindu possesses is concerning the observance of caste. That is to say, he must never take food or drink which has been in any way contaminated by the touch of a caste lower than his own, and marriage may only be contracted within the limits of his own caste. This rule he observes strictly, at any rate in public, from the earliest childhood onwards. But it conveys no moral obligation. On the contrary, it tends to self-esteem and selfishness. Nor does it often cause any serious inconvenience. Or when it does, as for instance when travelling, the exigences of modern life have brought about a number of small concessions to the strictness of the rule concerning food and drink, so that the inconveniences have been mitigated or removed.

Numbers of Hindus break their caste rules in private. More than once a high-caste visitor in the verandah, when he was alone, has asked me for a drink of water; and there is no breach of caste so heinous as to take water from the hand of a Christian. Now and then a Hindu lad will display such an audacious courage in religious matters that it partakes rather of the nature of a boyish freak. Several big Brahmin lads, most of them being about sixteen or seventeen years old, had been visiting the Mission-house rather frequently and showed a good deal of interest in Christianity. One of them, when sitting in the verandah, suddenly said to one of the Fathers: "Could I have a drink of water?" The Father replied that he would fetch him the water if he wished. The lad said: "Bring it, please"; and when the glass of water was brought, he drunk it in the presence of his companions, and thus deliberately and publicly breaking his caste. Unless he had been prepared to follow his action up in some definite way, it had no particular use; but it was not for us to suggest scruples. It need scarcely be added that the visits from that particular group of lads ceased, and it was long afterwards that, meeting the perpetrator of this rash act in the road, I asked him what penalties he had had to undergo for what he had done. He denied that any results followed, but the cessation of his visits gave the lie to this assertion.

One of the village boys, who is endowed with a strong spirit of mischief, implored me to cut off his pigtail in order that he might have the fun of seeing his mother's horror when he returned without it. But as he had no present intention of becoming a Christian, and it would have made a row to no purpose, I refused to be an accomplice to his mischief.

CHAPTER XXV

In the hot weather in India English people sleep with doors and windows wide open on the ground floor, or in the verandah, or even quite out of doors in their compound, without apprehension. Whereas in England, where there are no wild beasts, and thieves may be supposed to be under control, doors and windows are barred at night as if the house was about to sustain a siege.

But where there are no barriers of sea to prevent wild beasts from wandering wherever they please, unlooked-for visits are possible, even if improbable. Animals are sometimes obliged to abandon their usual haunts in time of drought, when the normal sources of water have dried up, and they wander farther afield and come nearer to the haunts of men than is their wont. Occasionally people are taken by surprise by the advent of a panther, or even a tiger, in a district which they were supposed to have deserted.

One of the Brothers and some of the Mission boys were climbing about the hills in holiday time in the neighbourhood of Kala, a small village twenty miles or so from Poona, and in the heat of the day rested for a while in the shade of a thicket of small trees. Continuing their walk, they were startled on looking back to see a tiger jump out of the thicket in which they had been resting. Tigers rarely come into the open in the middle of the day unless they have been disturbed, and his sudden appearance was soon accounted for when an Englishman, accompanied by some native beaters, emerged. The Englishman fired, and the tiger gave a terrible roar, as he generally does when wounded, and went back into the thicket. To dislodge him was not an easy task, because a wounded tiger is, of course, a most dangerous beast. But eventually he broke cover again, and the Englishman shot him dead; and the boys had the novel experience of inspecting at close quarters the body of a tiger who, not long before, had been sheltering from the rays of the noonday sun in the same thicket as themselves.

One Sunday a bullock-cart drew up at the Mission-house, containing a large panther which had been shot, some eight or nine miles away, by a Christian who is one amongst the few privileged natives allowed to carry a gun. He was bringing the body in order to exhibit it to the local authority, so that he might claim the Government reward. The skin also fetches a good price. The scent was getting rather strong, so after photographing the successful hunter and his son, standing over the beast in the approved fashion, we were glad to hurry him on. Its claws and teeth were in a very dirty and neglected condition, which may partly account for the great danger of even slight lacerations made by an animal of this kind.

Government sometimes spends as much as £8000 a year on rewards for the destruction of wild beasts and snakes in British India, and the annual return of the number of human beings reported as having been killed by them shows that they are still sufficiently numerous to be a power in the land. In a recent return this number reached the enormous total of 24,576. But snakes were accountable for 21,827 out of these deaths. In the same year, in the case of 48 people killed by tigers in the Central Provinces, nearly all were the victims of one tigress which had been infesting the jungle for some years. A confirmed man-eater becomes very crafty, and difficult to kill.

There are many hills and dales where wild beasts found a congenial home from which they have gradually retreated in the face of man and civilisation. A den in the hillside, visible from the Mission bungalow at Yerandawana, is still spoken of as the "Tiger's den," and a remote, but probably true tradition lingers of an immense tiger who lived there and who was eventually hunted down and slain by order of the then ruler of the district. At the present day, in the immediate neighbourhood of Yerandawana the only wild creatures left are the fox and the jackal, with an occasional hyena. Jackals visit the outskirts of the village at night to see if there is anything eatable to be picked up, and they sometimes race across the Mission compound in the early morning on their way home. It is to be feared that they visit the Hindu cemetery, where the graves are often so shallow that the bodies are scarcely covered. The low-caste men, whose duty it is to bury stray corpses, do not expend more labour over their task than they can help.

Jackals generally travel in companies at night, and they utter a most peculiar and rather attractive sharp cry in chorus, which they are commonly said to repeat after exact intervals of time. But solitary jackals are often to be met with. In the mountainous district somewhat farther away wolves are still found, and they do a little damage amongst the flocks of the villages. Some two or three hundred persons are carried off yearly by wolves in British India. The majority of these victims are very young children who have strayed away a little from their parent's hut.

There is a widespread belief in rural India that wolves, instead of devouring these babies, occasionally bring them up amongst their own young ones. It has been questioned whether these stories of "wolf-boys" have any foundation in fact. A schoolmaster, whose evidence was reliable, told me that he had actually seen a boy of this description brought to a mission in North India by people who had found him in the jungle. They led him by a string, as if he had been a wild animal. The Mission accepted the charge, and the boy proved quiet and docile; but he never learnt to speak, nor, in fact, was it possible to teach him anything. He did not join the other boys in their games. When he went to church he sat there quietly, but without any apparent understanding of what it meant. He learnt, however, to smoke, and made signs to indicate that a cigarette would be acceptable; and if one was given him he gave a kind of salute by way of acknowledgment, which shows that his mind was not quite a blank. He seemed to be about ten years old when the people brought him, but whether he was still alive the schoolmaster did not know.

Even in this case there was no direct evidence to connect the boy with wolves. But the natives have so many stories of the kind that it would seem likely that there is some truth in them. It is not inconceivable that the young wolves might welcome the arrival of the strange child as a new playmate, and that if its life was spared at the first the wolf-boy would, through his human nature, gain a sort of ascendancy over his foster-parents, and they would eventually fear to hurt him, after the fashion of Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.

The Asiatic lion is sometimes spoken of slightingly, as if it was a feeble creature and almost extinct. A visit to Kathiawar, in Guzerat, would dispel the idea. In one forest alone, only a few years back, there were said to be a hundred lions, which were the terror of the surrounding villages. One of these lions in recent years killed an officer who formed one of a shooting party organised for the benefit of one of the former governors of Bombay.

CHAPTER XXVI

The grey and black striped fur of the squirrel always appears spotlessly clean, and in all their spare moments they are busy at their toilet. The bushy tail is their chief beauty, and it is scarcely ever at rest. Like so many other animals, they betray their varying emotions by the way in which they frisk it about. Their manners are beautiful, and when they have got hold of a choice morsel they take it in their paws, and sitting on their haunches eat it with evident enjoyment, but with a certain polish and grace of manner pretty to see. Young squirrels are easily tamed, and soon get reconciled to making their home in the jacket pocket of a schoolboy.

When I was staying in the bungalow of a country mission, an exquisitely graceful antelope stepped into the verandah, and entering the room where we were breakfasting, went up to my host and asked for food. He had tamed it when young, but it was now living a semi-wild life, and was often absent in the jungle for days together. In some parts of India various kinds of deer may be seen from the windows of the train. The making of a line of railway naturally has the tendency to drive the wild creatures of the district deeper into the jungle, but after a while they to some extent get accustomed to the passing of the train, and delightful glimpses of animal life can sometimes be got when travelling. Monkeys, for instance, have insatiable curiosity, and when they have got over their first alarm the quaint sight may sometimes be seen of a row of monkeys seated on the top of the boundary wall to watch the train go by.

Monkeys have become lawless citizens of Delhi, and will no doubt greatly welcome the enlarged scope for mischief which the new city will open out to them. They travel in troops over the flat roofs, and are very bold and mischievous, and great thieves. But monkeys must be studied in their wild freedom in the woods to appreciate them. When seen leaping from tree to tree with refreshing elasticity, or from rock to rock in the open country, their spirit of fun and mischief having full scope, the sight is a delightful one. They stick very closely to their own districts, although now and then a solitary monkey will detach himself from the rest and search for pastures new.

Wild pigs are common in some parts, looking like the poor relations of their tame brethren. They do great harm amongst crops, and no weapon is of much avail against them except the gun. The Christian who shot the panther mentioned in the last chapter was largely employed by the Hindu farmers round about to shoot any wild pig that came into their fields. It was for him a profitable job, because, besides his fee, he got the carcase of the pig, for which he could always get Rs. 10 from a Parsee, who regarded the flesh as a great luxury. Wild pigs are also chased in the so-called "sport" of pig-sticking, which is popular amongst some English residents.

Now and then the mongoose, useful as a destroyer of snakes and rats, may be caught sight of, with his long coarse fur, running across the road, or hunting along a fence, much in the same way as a weasel shows himself in England, although the mongoose is a good deal larger. Sometimes they will even venture into a bungalow to prospect, and young ones are easily tamed and become domestic pets.

Every morning a lumbering buffalo shambles into the compound to be milked on the premises, in order to ensure getting the unadulterated article. Even then it is expedient to look into the bottom of the vessel to see that no water has been put there before the milking begins. Buffalo's milk is not very rich, and the cream, such as it is, produces a white and tasteless butter, which has generally to be doctored and coloured before an Englishman will look at it.

The buffalo for the greater part of the year has not much flesh on his huge skeleton, and is a sorrowful-looking creature with an expressionless eye and an inky skin, and often with enormous horns which give him a formidable appearance. But except when buffaloes fight amongst themselves they are not savage beasts, although their temper is uncertain, and they are said to be liable to attack an Englishman in districts where they are not accustomed to the sight. Generally buffaloes appear to take no interest whatever in life, except to regard it as a burden too heavy to bear. A whole herd is sent out to graze under the care of a small boy; they are in astonishing subjection to his despotic rule.

The Indian donkey is very small, and its foal is a beautiful little creature; but its life-long sentence of hard labour begins early. It spends its days carrying great weights of earth, or brick, or stone, or gravel, in panniers made of coarse sacking, for buildings, road-making, and the like. They work in droves of a dozen, or twenty, or more, according to the prosperity of the contractor. When they have delivered their burden, the men and boys who are in charge each mount a donkey, the legs of the men almost touching the ground, and the cavalcade goes for a fresh load, often at full gallop.

Elephants are used much less as beasts of burden than was the case in days gone by. Some are employed in military service and in the pursuit of big game, but their chief function is to make an imposing appearance on grand occasions in some of the native states. But the fact that elephants were not used in the royal processions at the last Delhi Durbar, will probably lead to their being gradually less used even for ceremonial purposes. Camels are employed for all sorts of work in Northern India, and add greatly to the picturesqueness of the road and street traffic. The horse plays a subordinate part, comparatively speaking, in the labours of India, except for hack duty. And though wealthy people, both English and Indian, drive handsome horses, the motor-car is rapidly taking their place in the service of the rich, or the prosperous professional, of all nations.

CHAPTER XXVII

The view of crocodiles lying on the mud-bank of a river in Bengal inspired confidence in the accuracy of early teachings, because they were so like the hideous monster in the picture hung on the nursery wall. A crocodile can see and breathe while the whole of its body is immersed in the water, because its eyes and nostrils are on a plane on the surface of the head. A person incautiously bathing, or dipping water out of the river, may be suddenly seized by a crocodile who, though on the watch, is buried in the muddy water and invisible. Every year a certain number of human lives are lost in this way. Cattle and other animals coming to the river-side to drink are dragged into the water and devoured. The Poona river, swollen to a torrent in the rains, and for the rest of the year reduced to a small stream, meandering along a stony and rocky bed, is not suited to the habits of a crocodile, and there are none.

The brilliance of fire-flies is quite beyond the description usually found in books. They flash hither and thither like tiny electric lamps, and they are so numerous in certain places at certain times that they might be supposed to be some organised scheme of fairy illumination on a large scale. Boys sometimes capture two or three and put them into a bit of muslin and carry them about as lamps, and the light they give is quite appreciable. The insect itself is a dull-looking little creature, apart from its luminosity.

Another astonishing experience in which the reality at least equals the descriptions, is a visitation of locusts. When you hear for the first time the peculiar rustling sound made by the beating of the countless wings of the vast army which sweeps past in an unbroken stream for hours, you realise what an invasion of locusts really means. Military terms, such as "army," "invasion," are strictly applicable, because locusts come with a rush and determination, and a military precision, and an evident unanimity of purpose, which suggests the movements of soldiers under orders. This idea is accentuated when the head and body of the locust is of a bright red colour.

The rapid destruction which they cause has also been described with fidelity. They have jaws of great power, and when they take possession of a tree it is stripped in ten minutes or so. When locusts settle down on a group of trees, the colour of each tree is instantaneously changed from green to red, because there is practically a locust to every leaf. When they travel on again, the tree they leave behind them is bare as an English tree in mid-winter. Little can be done to arrest their progress. An ordinary garden may be protected to some extent by beating the trees with poles, and so driving off the locusts as fast as they alight. But to protect any large area in this way is impossible.

The natives try to frighten them by making a deafening din, beating tom-toms and tin cans, but it is doubtful whether the locusts pay any heed to these demonstrations. A few people amongst the lower castes eat locusts, but they are not sought after by Indians in general. Monkeys, dogs, and some birds eat them, but their numbers are so vast that none of their enemies produce any appreciable diminution.

In the Indian world of nature the sweet melody of the birds of England is absent. No Indian bird knows how to sing. Some make a brave attempt, but they break down after the third note. The so-called Indian nightingale only deserves its name because its performance is a shade less disappointing than that of the rest. Nor do the birds compensate for their lack of musical power by the splendour of their plumage. It is generally supposed that plants and animals in the tropics must necessarily be brilliant in colour. But many English birds equal Indian ones even in this respect. For instance, the green wood-pecker with his red crest is scarcely less gorgeous than the green parrot, and the kingfisher only comes behind its Indian relative in size. The plumage of the golden oriole is certainly sumptuous, and brilliant sunshine has, of course, the effect of showing off colour to the best advantage.

Though Indian birds cannot sing, they shout, and scream, and whistle. What is known amongst English residents as the "brain-fever" bird, is common in some districts. He makes a series of sounds, thought by some to resemble this word, over and over again with increasing rapidity and shrillness, until he breaks down and begins afresh. To people actually suffering from the ordinary fever so common in India he is sometimes a serious annoyance, because it is almost impossible not to follow him mentally in his incessant repetition of "brain fever." To a few fortunate people his peculiar note does not suggest these words. Even the Indian sparrow drowns conversation with his shrill chirp, taking advantage of the ever-open doors and windows to invade the bungalow, and making determined efforts to make his nest in the most inconvenient places.

The swallows which build in the verandah are like old friends, and are always welcome. The curious cry which they make as they wheel in and out of the verandah in the last few minutes before they plunge into bed under the eaves, sounds almost melodious by contrast with the strange noises made by other birds. There is also a species of peewit who utters a rather pretty call, which might be supposed to be the Marathi version of what the English peewit says.

Vultures are as uncanny-looking as they are painted, and to see them waiting on the trees near the erections where Parsees put out their dead to be devoured, is not a pleasant sight. They also sit and watch near the Hindu burning-grounds, which suggests the uncomfortable idea that pickings are to be had there also. The rapidity with which they collect from all parts and swoop down upon the dead carcase of an animal is astonishing to witness. Their value as scavengers is great, and in a very short time nothing is left of the carcase but bare bones.

Crows are also useful as scavengers. Nevertheless, they are a great nuisance, especially in Bombay. Their loud cawing is often most distracting; but they are also bold thieves, and do not hesitate to enter houses when they see their opportunity and to carry off any portable article which comes first to hand, even when it is of no possible use to them. Some of the birds of prey are beautiful objects, on account of their size, and the boldness of their flight. Kites wheel about in the air in large numbers around Poona. Since people carry almost everything upon their heads, a kite not unfrequently makes a sudden swoop and snatches a prize out of the basket.

Few people are allowed a gun license, so that birds are less afraid of mankind than they are in England, and favourable opportunities constantly occur of observing them near at hand. A great variety may be met with in an ordinary country walk in the cultivated parts of India where food is plentiful. Although they cannot sing, many of them have quaint and charming personal characteristics.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Amidst the many sounds of the restless Indian night, some far away, some near at hand, there is one which, when it commences, drowns all the rest. It is a harsh, metallic, rasping, shrill, unmusical sound. It might seem as if it had to do with some machinery, except that it is unlike the sound of any machine that you ever heard. It begins in the room where you are sitting reading, or else out in the verandah, where you are enjoying the cooler breeze of evening. Loud as it is, you cannot locate it. At one moment you think it is up aloft amongst the rafters, at another moment it seems to be close by. It emanates from an uninteresting-looking brown insect, about an inch long, who makes prodigious jumps like a grasshopper. One night when this din was so great that conversation was almost impossible, I was astonished to find that the insect was on the table, only a few inches away from my book, and I was able to see his method of making this sound. He was vibrating his horny wing-cases with marvellous rapidity, producing such an amount of noise that, unless one had seen it in process of production, it would have seemed impossible that it could arise from such a humble source.

At certain seasons, and especially when it is warm and damp, the evening meal in the country is attended with difficulty because of the quantity of insects, especially beetles, which are attracted by the lamp, and they appear to make a specialty of falling into any dish which may be at hand. When camping out the difficulty is intensified, and the only thing to be done is to put the lamp at a distance and to dine in comparative darkness. Such a variety of insects come that an entomologist might make quite a respectable collection in the course of one night. One of these evening visitors after the rains is a long, slim beetle, green, or sometimes buff in colour, with a small head which fits loosely into his body. He twists his head about as if his collar was uncomfortable. When alarmed he exudes a strong acid which at once raises a blister. He is the more dangerous because, flying in rapidly, he often alights on your collar or neck, and the action of brushing him off causes the emission of the acid, and the blister follows.

In the daytime, bees, black and hairy, immense in size, and making a noise like a threshing-machine, come banging in at the open windows. They are not as formidable as they look, except in their own domains, and they quickly depart in response to indications that they are not wanted. They know their way out without difficulty, which is contrary to the experience of most intruding animals.

A solitary wasp is apt to select inconvenient places in which to build a mud-cell wherein to deposit its egg, and the store of live caterpillars destined to be the food of its young when hatched. You find a keyhole, or the tap of a filter, filled with mud as the result of this wasp's labours. It works so rapidly that it generally completes its job in the course of a day. An even more inconvenient site for its nest is the sleeve of a garment left hanging on a peg, especially if you put the garment on while the wasp is at work. A small colony of social wasps built their comb under the refectory table of the village Mission-house. They were so determined to remain that for some months they resisted all attempts to get rid of them, returning as often as they were dispersed.

Cockroaches, some of great size, abound in most houses, and are very destructive. They nibble the bindings of books, and cut quaint devices, which look almost as if they had been done with a pair of scissors, in clothes put away in drawers. They run at an amazing pace when they think they are in danger.

Jet black ants, enormously big and warlike in appearance, come into bungalows, sometimes in unpleasantly large numbers, to see what they can pick up. They are not really aggressive, nor do they do any particular mischief. Another kind of ant, very like an ordinary English one though smaller, is a great trial to housekeepers. They get into the bread and sugar and other stores, and though cupboards are generally set in saucers of water on account of insect depredators, these ants often manage to get in.

White ants are most destructive in a house if it is built of materials which they can deal with. In the case of many houses in India, mud is used instead of mortar, and the structure suffers greatly if the white ants take possession. All woodwork, including furniture, ought to be of teak, because they are unable to burrow into it. Sound hard floors are necessary, so that when ants try to work their way upwards they may find their road blocked. Otherwise, in the course of one night, they will eat large holes in a mat or carpet, coming up from beneath. They make havoc in a library if they get amongst the books. Many ant-heaps out in the country are so large as to be conspicuous objects.

Scorpions may be found anywhere. In your bedding, in your boots, in your clothes, under your books and, out of doors, chiefly under stones. You soon get into the way of prudently shaking each garment before putting it on. The scorpion averages about two inches in length, but they vary a good deal in size, and also in colour. They much resemble a little lobster in appearance. Their sting is not dangerous under ordinary circumstances, but the pain is great, and resembles a blow on the funny bone, continuing acute for some hours. The boys, sleeping on the floor and having bare feet, get stung now and then, and generally make great lamentations over the misfortune.

Indian boys are like many English rustics in their disregard for the feelings of animals—they appear honestly to think that they have none—and they delight in forming a chain of scorpions by making them grip each other, which they do fiercely, and hang on tenaciously. Boys will also nip off the end of their tail to prevent them from stinging, and leave them in this maimed condition.

Wherever Indians live, bugs are invariably found. Hence in schools where many Indian children are gathered together these insects are sure to find an entrance, in spite of vigilant care and cleanliness. When the small boys of the Mission moved out from their old quarters in the city, which like all old native houses was much infested, immense pains were taken to make sure that no bug was transported to the new home in the country. But it was not long before these intruders showed themselves in the new house. Possibly they fulfil some useful but at present unknown function as destroyers of microbes.

Spiders are much in evidence, and some are very large and fierce. Out in the country I once fairly ran away from a great spider, which made for my foot with a courage and ferocity such as one would not expect to find in an animal of the kind. But they are not altogether unwelcome in a house, because they help to keep down the population of the insect world. There is a handsome little spider who spins no web, and roves about, and springs on its victim like a tiger.

Mosquitoes are the most troublesome insects to be found in the tropics, although some districts are much more infested than others. There are several different kinds. The one that causes the most irritation is smaller than the average English gnat. They are veritable bloodsuckers, and the amount of blood which a mosquito can imbibe is astonishing. They may be seen so distended after their night's work that they can scarcely fly. Newcomers from England are their special prey, and their bites often cause a good deal of inflammation. The loud hum with which they approach is almost as disturbing as their bite. Most English people have nets of fine gauze surrounding their beds, and some Indians have adopted the same precaution since the promulgation of the theory that the bite of an infected mosquito is the cause of malarial fever. Natives when they sleep, generally roll themselves up completely, head and all, in a dhota, which they use then after the manner of a sheet. The mosquito-nets cut off a good deal of air, and people are tempted to discard them unwisely when the nights are intensely hot. The framework from which the nets depend is a frail counterpart of the four-poster of the Victorian age. The net is usually tucked in under the mattress, to prevent any possibility of the mosquito entering. In places where mosquitoes abound they are troublesome by day as well as by night, and they are specially fond of attacking the ankles of persons seated at table.

Towards the close of the rainy season flies become numerous almost everywhere, but especially in a native city like Poona, and they are an unpleasant indication of its unsavoury condition. They fall into your cup, the table is black with them, your food becomes a matter of dispute between you and them. But out of doors, except at meal-time in camp, they are not nearly so aggressive as the summer flies which buzz around during a country walk in England. Though they could be dispensed with without regret, they are probably of great value as scavengers.

There is a very small fly which is popularly known as the "eye-fly," because it hovers in front of your eye like a troublesome person who will not take a refusal. It apparently thinks that the pupil is the entrance into some desirable chamber. Fortunately it rarely gets beyond the stage of prospecting this supposed entrance. Now and then it travels round to your ear and prospects there also. But though it does so at a safe distance it makes an irritating hum, and it is so small that attempts to flap it away are futile.

There are many striking instances in India of insects being protected from their enemies by their likeness in colour and markings to the tree or plant on which they feed. The most noteworthy example of this is a long insect, so precisely similar to a bit of dry stick that, until you actually see it walk, you can hardly believe that it can be anything else.

Butterflies, in the Poona district at any rate, are disappointing. They are larger than the English ones—the scale of most things in India is big—but their colours are not strikingly brilliant. Some of the large moths are handsome, but not more so than many of the English nocturnal moths.

The most comical insect is the praying mantis. It is of a fresh green colour, often three or four inches long, and something like a grasshopper in appearance. When it alights on your table in the evening, attracted by the lamp, it behaves in a seemingly ridiculous way. It puts its long front legs together as if praying, and sways about as it does so in an absurdly affected fashion, reminiscent of Thackeray's description of Charles Honeyman in the pulpit.

CHAPTER XXIX