I would give you my husband's account of the diamond diggings in India, the Nizam diamond, and the history of the Koh-i-noor; but I fear it would be too long, too heavy, except the Koh-i-noor, so I will put them in the Appendix (E).
"The Koh-i-noor.
"The Koh-i-noor, or 'Mountain of Light,' is the largest and most celebrated diamond in the world, and is famous throughout the East as the 'Accursed Stone' that brings misfortune and eventually destruction upon the dynasty of every successive possessor. In the East there is a belief as to good or evil fortune attending particular precious stones. It was the same in England in the reign of Elizabeth and the first James, and Shakespeare alludes to this belief in one of his minor poems, but the modern Englishman rejects the absurdity, despite the fact that evil fortune has actually always followed the owner of this particular gem, showing how curiously actual fact co-operates with superstitious theory.
"The Koh-i-noor was first discovered in the mines of Golconda about A.D. 1650, and has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three years. The famous Mir Jumla was then farmer of the diamond mines, and the King's chief minister, a Persian who had been brought young to India, and who rose by rapid gradations to power, was famous for the sagacity of his plans and the ruthless cruelty with which he carried them out. The poor people, under compulsory labour, had to give their services for a bare subsistence to all the farmers of the mines, and under Mir Jumla their condition was desperate; this tempted them occasionally to elude the vigilance of their taskmasters, and secrete a stone if they could. The cruelties that followed the smallest suspicion of such a fault rendered the mines a perpetual scene of horror, especially under Mir Jumla, and it is supposed that some frightful act of fiendish brutality occurred at the finding of the Koh-i-noor, which was cursed by the innocent victim—a curse which ever since, according to the natives of India, has remained attached to it and its possessors.
"Certain it is that before the King of Golconda had long been in possession of it he quarrelled with Mir Jumla, who in return treacherously invited the Mogul Emperor of Delhi, Aurungzeb, to invade his master's territory, promising to join him with the whole of the forces under his command. This he did, and the King of Golconda had to sue for peace, which was granted by Aurungzeb only on his giving him one of his daughters in marriage; making over to him a large portion of his treasures, including the Koh-i-noor, as well as a considerable slice of his territories; and consenting to hold the rest as a fief of the Great Mogul Empire. Some time after, the King of Golconda thought he saw a favourable opportunity to recover his territories, rose against his oppressor, and lost all the rest of his kingdom—nay, all that he possessed. Mir Jumla died a miserable death of disease in exile.
"Aurungzeb, the second royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was at the time of getting it in the zenith of his power; but immediately trouble after trouble rained upon him, and accumulated till he died in 1707. After his death a war began amongst his progeny. The first who succeeded him, the third royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Shah Alum, who died in 1712, five years after his succession. The next King of Delhi, the fourth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Jehander Shah, who was deposed and strangled at the end of one year (1713). Ferok Shah, the next in succession and fifth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, met the same fate in 1719, in the course of which year two other occupants of the throne (sixth and seventh possessors of the Koh-i-noor) passed in the same way thence to the grave.
"So, in twelve years from the death of Aurungzeb, five princes of his line who had ascended the throne and possessed the Koh-i-noor, and six others who had been competitors for it, had come to grief. Moreover, the degraded state of the royal authority during this period had introduced an incurable anarchy, and a disposition in all the Governors of Provinces to shake off their dependency on the head of the Empire. The next King of Delhi, and eighth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was the Emperor Mahmoud Shah, under whose reign the once great empire of Aurungzeb almost fell to pieces. He succeeded in 1719, twelve years after the death of Aurungzeb, being the son of Akter, son of Shah Alum, the son and immediate successor of Aurungzeb, and it was in 1739 that the final blow was given to his authority; his ill fortune culminated in the capture of Delhi by the celebrated Nadir Shah, who in that year invaded India, and, after defeating the army of Shah Mahmoud at Kurnaul, entered as conqueror into the Capital. Then, in consequence of the hostile acts of some of the people, he delivered over the whole City to massacre and pillage; and from the dawn of light till the day was far advanced, without regard for age or sex, all were put to the sword by his ferocious soldiery.
"Fifty-eight days afterwards Nadir Shah commenced his march homewards, carrying with him treasure amounting to twenty millions sterling, jewels of enormous value, and the Koh-i-noor, which was considered by the Persian conqueror to be his greatest prize. Nadir Shah, ninth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was no more fortunate with it than the previous owners had been, for shortly after his return to Persia, in the height of his glory, he was assassinated, leaving no heir to his kingdom; while Ahmed Abdallee, chief assassin, and once his trusted officer, went off, carrying with him most of Nadir Shah's treasure, and amongst it the Koh-i-noor. He meant to found a kingdom for himself out of the territories now known as Afghanistan.
"The dynasty which Abdallee, this tenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, founded, having been crowned at Kandahar in the year 1747, met with the same fate that attended the dynasties of all the possessors of this celebrated stone. His son Timour, after a short and inglorious reign, left his throne to his eldest son Humayoon, twelfth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, who fell into the hands of his next brother, Zemaun Shah, by whom he was cruelly blinded, and rendered incapable of reigning. The same fate befell Zemaun Shah, the thirteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor; he in turn fell into the hands of another brother, Mahmoud, who also put out his eyes and succeeded him, but who was in his turn soon conquered by another brother, Shah Shooja, our Afghan ally. This last did not long maintain his position, and, after various vicissitudes, fled to the Punjaub with his brother Zemaun Shah, carrying with them the Koh-i-noor, of which Shah Shooja was the fifteenth and last Mohammedan possessor. His fate is known to all who have heard or read the story of our fatal expedition to Cabul and its consequences, including Shah Shooja's end. Shah Shooja being now dependent on Runjeet Sing, the then sovereign of the Punjaub, for his very existence, soon found himself compelled to yield to the requirements of this powerful and most unscrupulous potentate, who insisted upon the Koh-i-noor being given up to him. The captive prince had no alternative, and yielded, when the great Sikh potentate became the sixteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor.
"At that time no native sovereign in India was so great as Runjeet, and no kingdom seemed more likely to last than the great Sikh monarchy he had founded, but by a curious coincidence the same ill fate that had always followed the possessor of the Koh-i-noor pursued it into this great family. Runjeet himself died, leaving the Koh-i-noor, which he valued at £1,000,000 sterling, to the priests of Jagannath (Juggernath); but it was preserved in the Lahore Treasury. Runjeet was succeeded in 1839 by his son, Kurruck Sing, who was poisoned the following year. Before the funeral ceremonies were completed, his son was purposely killed by a falling archway. A competition for the throne (now vacant) ensued, between the widow of Kurruck Sing and a reputed son of Runjeet Sing, named Shere Sing, who, though born in wedlock, had been stigmatized by his father as illegitimate. Shere Sing, however, succeeded, but his triumph was of a short duration. Near the close of 1843 he was assassinated, and this led to wide-spreading anarchy, culminating in the two successive wars with the British, that of 1846 and 1848-9, ending in the final annexation of the Punjaub by the British, and the acquisition by it of the celebrated diamond, the Koh-i-noor.
"The natives, with their belief as to the peculiar properties of the stone, prophesied what would happen. The East India Company carried off the booty, which should have been sold and converted into prize-money. They broke up almost directly after the 'Accursed' had entered their hands, when Lord Dalhousie, the Viceroy of India, presented it to her Majesty (3rd of July, 1850, forty-three years ago). It was considered by loyal natives the most sinister circumstance that could have befallen our royal family. Lord Dalhousie did not live very long, and died just as he might have expected to be raised to the highest honours of the State. The Duke of Wellington, who gave the first turn to the cutting, died three months after. We then lost Prince Albert, and I do not believe we any of us knew what we were losing until he was gone.
"When my friend, the then Collector of Hyderabad, was sitting with the Nawáb Mahmoud Khan, the former Minister of that State, and one of the Queen's most loyal subjects after the conquest of the province, he informed the Nawáb of the stone's destination. The latter spat upon the ground, and with an expression of horror uttered the usual Mohammedan exclamation under the circumstances, 'Tobah! repentance in the name of God! Are they going to send that accursed thing to the Queen? May she refuse it!' All natives spit with an exclamation of horror whenever they hear it mentioned. It is impossible for me to go into the causes, nor perhaps ought I to say how, according to Eastern theory, the curse may be averted. Nevertheless I have done so. May I ask if, barring £ s. d., our position or prestige has progressed or declined since we became the possessor of the 'Accursed Stone'? I ask all non-£ s. d. Englishmen whether they consider the Koh-i-noor a comfortable ornament for the English crown, or a pleasant legacy for our most deservedly popular Prince of Wales?"
Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung gave a magnificent evening fête, which was like a scene in the "Arabian Nights." One of the large courts of the palace is a quadrangle, the centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as big as a small lake full of fountains. The salámliks all open out into it with flights of marble stairs. The starlight was above us, and a blaze of wax lights and chandeliers lit up every hall, and coloured lamps and flowers spangled the whole centre. The company consisted of the Nizam's Court and Ministers, and about thirty-six picked Europeans. It began by a Nach; then a beautiful dinner of about fifty-six covers was served in the principal salámlik by retainers in wild picturesque costumes. The band played; we afterwards walked about and conversed, and were presented with attar of roses. We were very sorry to be obliged to leave before we could accept an invitation from the Nizam's 3rd Lancers to witness their Holee Tamasha in their lines at Assuf Nagur, which answers very much to our Carnival, but the day after this we were bound to go to Secunderabad, a prosperous European station with three regiments, which, however, is not the least interesting.
Back to Bombay.
The Towers of Silence, or Parsee charnel-house, the burying-place of the Fire Worshippers, one should not omit to see. Ascend a giant staircase overhung by palms and tropical vegetation to a large garden on a hill summit. On the way you pass a clock, and a hand points to the following notice: "None but Parsees enter here." This is one of the four splendid views of Bombay; the other three are from Kumballa Hill, Mazagon Hill, and Parel Hill. The palms immediately around us are thick with myriads of large black vultures, gorged with small-pox and cholera corpses. The air is heavy with their breath; they breathe and exhale what they feed upon; they fatten upon what bare contact with would kill us, and they cluster in thousands.
This garden is full of public and private family towers. The great public tower is divided into three circles, with a well in the middle. It has an entrance and four outlets for water. First, there is a place for clothes, and a tank to bathe in. Here the priests (the operators) leave their garments. The procession of Parsees who accompany the body here desist, and wait outside. The priests then place the body, if a man, on the first circle; if a woman, on the second; if a child, on the third. The centre is a dry well covered with grating. The priests are obliged to stop and watch. A body is picked clean in an hour by these vultures, who fly down the moment they see the procession coming, and have to be kept at bay till the right moment. It is considered very lucky if they pick the right eye out first instead of the left, and the fact is recorded to the relatives. When the bones are perfectly clean, the priest pushes them into the well; when the rain comes, it carries off the ashes and the bones, and the water runs through these four outlets, with charcoal at the mouths to purify it before entering and defiling the earth, which would become putrid, and cause fever. They will not defile the earth by being buried in it, and it is an honour to have a living sepulchre. When there is no epidemic, they have about three bodies a day. The priests then descend, wash, and resume their garments, when they are reclaimed from being impure, and the procession returns to the City. Once descended from this melancholy height, there is no smell.
We saw a great deal here of the Sassoon family, who showed us much hospitality. Sir Charles Sargent and Mr. Melville gave several garden-parties, also private theatricals, in a very nice bungalow at Breach Candy. We also had a delightful bachelor dinner at Mr. Pedder's.
One of the notable things was seeing the departure of Lord Napier of Magdala. Besides the regular guard of honour, all his old Abyssinian Wallahs (21st), by force of habit, "off duty" and without arms, formed themselves into a guard to bid farewell to their cherished Commander. We all had misty eyes as we saw the splendid old soldier move away from the crowd of "swells" and go and speak touching words of parting to his men. It must be a strange moment in a man's life resigning a Command after a brilliant forty-eight years' career, such as his was, and being turned out to grass e'er the fire and energy of work has flickered out, if one may use such an expression regarding the Command of Gibraltar. We then witnessed the arrival of Lord Lytton. The Chinese bazar was also a great amusement.
There was a new sect arising among the Maharattas, and we used to go to their meetings at the Brahm Somaj, a Hindú temple. They believe in one God, no idol, and no revelation. There was an old lady named Mrs. Hough, who died three years before we came here, at Kolaba, who used to relate that in 1803 she danced with Sir Arthur Wellesley at a fête. Mr. MacLean, the editor of the Bombay paper, regretted that before her death she burnt all her memoirs, extending over three-quarters of a century, from 1798 to 1873, which would have been invaluable material for a domestic history of Bombay at that time. I dare say she knew why she burnt them; I dare say thousands of people's descendants have cause to bless her for it. A house was now pulled down at Malabar Point, which was inhabited by the subsequent Duke of Wellington.
There is an old new church in Travancore belonging to the Syrian Christians, founded personally by St. Thomas the Apostle, in the year of our Lord 57; anyway, it traces clearly to the second century. Their leader, Justus Joseph, has a flock of five thousand Syrian Christians and eighteen priests. I hear their doings are wonderful.
Not the least curious thing near Bombay is Walkeshwar; most visitors and many residents do not know what it is. Just off the road to Malabar Point, and close to Frere Town, quite unsuspected, lies concealed a most interesting remnant of ancient India, pure and undefiled. We descended several flights of steps, and came in view of a splendid tank some hundred yards wide and broad, which you reach by other flights of steps extending the whole length and breadth of the tank. The water looked nasty and unwholesome, and was covered with insects, some stinging and venomous. The banks are surrounded by innumerable Hindú temples, great and small, dedicated to Mahadevi and their other gods. The village around was inhabited entirely by Hindús. A holy Brahm Pundit came out of a Hindú convent, or ascetic place. My husband said something to him, and told him that he had been admitted to the Brahminical thread, and he took us to see everything. It was already evening; there was a lighting of lamps and a ringing of bells, and we stayed to see their worship.
The next day we went to the Hindús' Smáshán, or burning-ground, in the Sonápur quarter. The corpse was covered with flowers, the forehead reddened with sandal-wood, and the mouth blackened. The bier was carried by several men; one bore sacred fire in an earthenware pot. The burial-ground men made four holes in the ground with a crowbar, into which they drove four stout stakes; then they piled up logs of wood cross-barred of the same length and breadth, six or eight layers high; it is teakwood. Then they lay the body on it. Everybody walked up and put a little water in her mouth—first the husband, then the father, father-in-law, relatives and friends, just as we throw dust on the coffin. They pile more layers of wood on the body, leaving it in the middle; then the husband comes out, and walks backwards to the fire, and takes, with his hands behind him, a burning brand, and sets the first light to the wood. The whole party in similar order (as before named with the water) do the same, but they face the pile, and apply the fire to the four quarters, one at each cardinal point. The rich burn with wood and ghee. The ashes and bones are thrown into the sea. The ordinary ceremony costs sixteen rupees, and three hours consumes a corpse. The burning of the Hindú is thus explained: He has three births; the first physical, from his parents; the second his religious ceremony, which makes him a Dwija, or twice-born man; the third is the heavenly birth, attained by passing through the purifying fire. All present at this funeral were Hindú except ourselves. They throw sugar down to feed the ants. The clothes caught fire first, and then the feet, and then you only see a great blaze and smell roasted flesh. The burning-ground is a long, large, enclosed yard with a long shed, or covered verandah, and seats for mourners. The yard is dotted with these burning-places; a sacred cow is stalled at one end. Outside is a little burial-ground for Hindú babies, as they are not burnt.
Another very curious place is the Pinjrapole, in the heart of the native quarter called Bhuleshpsar—a hospital for sick, maimed, and incurable animals, which covers two thousand square yards. There were old bullocks that had been tortured, orphan goats and calves, starved kittens and dogs, and blind and lame and wounded beasts. It was founded fifty-seven years ago by Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy, supported by his money and piety, and that of the well-known banker, Mr. Khamchund Motichand, and by Hindú contributions to the amount of eight lakhs a year. I admire immensely a religion that believes in animals having a kind of soul and a future. To me this, is the missing link between Nature and Grace. Perhaps I had better not say what I do think about it.
We then went for a little excursion to Jhinjeera, and one to Bassein, for we found it extremely hot in March in Bombay. Bombay is a City of large public buildings; every great man builds one, and it is called by his name. But in 1876 there was no general hospital, no assembly-room, no theatre, no lunatic asylum.
One cannot say enough of the Bhendi Bazar. It is unrivalled in India, and there one really sees what India is in the present time. It has a totally different cachet to any other Eastern bazar. You have Hindú, Parsee, Portuguese, Chinese—every race, caste, and family between Cathay and Peru, Marocco and Pekin, Moscow and the Malay Peninsula. Every house is of a different architecture and different colour—green, blue, Cashmere shawl pattern, the names written in English, in Maharattee, Guzaratee, and Hindostani. Here and there are inserted small oratories dedicated to as many different gods as races, and you are mostly attracted to them by a black, almost naked worshipper, dancing furiously before it to the jangling of bells. Here are three hundred and three jewellers and dealers in precious stones, fine diamonds, carved blackwood furniture, cocoanut-fibre matting and reed matting, brass and copper work, bronzes, ivory, and tortoiseshell, Bombay box-work, carving in sandal-wood and ebony, turquoise ornaments, shawls, and all sorts of silver and gold work, and old china. The "swells'" houses are also the quaintest things under heaven, with every colour in the rainbow, and all sorts of shapes.
The crowd, seething and frying in the gorgeous glare of the tropical sun, is as remarkable as the houses which lodge it. Konkani Moslems, Persian Shí'ahs, Bohrahs, Arabs from the Persian Gulf, or from the stables of Abd el Rahman or Ali bin Abdullah, Afghans, Beloch Sindis, and Brahmins and Mahmans, schismatic Shí'ahs and Khiyahi and Wáhhabis, Hindú women in wonderful colours, the best-dressed women in India, making the place look like a garden with their bright-coloured sáris. A great object of curiosity is the variety of turban, every size and shape, every colour and manner of wearing—some of the size of a good-sized tea-table; some fit the head tight, some are red and horned, some are worn straight, and some are jauntily cocked sideways. There is the Pattewála (the local Janissary), the dark Portuguese, the Sisters of Mary and Joseph, in black robes and white-frilled caps, gliding meekly in and out the crowd, Souters canaries (policemen), Sepoy riflemen, the Bheestie under his huge water-skin, Sulaymanis (Afghans) from the hills, and Rohillas, also hill-men. After being there a week one begins to learn the tilak—the Hindú forehead mark, the sign that denotes his caste; and we saw eight various sorts. The colouring of this crowd is truly wonderful, and the Hindú waggon, a painted box on wheels, dating from the year 1, completes the scene. Nowhere in the world, except perhaps at Damascus, are there so many varieties of race, nationality, and religion as in Bombay.
Máhábáleshwar.
Máhábáleshwar is the favourite of all the sanitaria save the Neilgherries, which, fortunately for the other poor stations, is eight or ten days' journey by sea and land, very expensive, and rough travelling for invalids. We took a ticket to Bassein, and to our right were the far-famed Kanheri Caves (called "Kennery" by the English), which are very like those of Karla. There are plenty of places which could be advantageously converted into sanitaria—Khandála, Lanáuli, Sinhgarh, Purunbhur, Punalla near Colapur, and Kalsabai in the Deccan, and Tunga in the Northern Konkan. It is no use waiting until you are sick to look for sanitaria; while you are healthy seek them all out, and find which suits you best.
No private family can form a sanitarium. Some great official must go there with all his Staff; then bungalows, inns, necessaries, and comforts begin to grow; roads have to be cleared, water looked after, wild beasts to be hunted out, regular supplies for man and beast to be sent from the next greatest town, and things come round of themselves. Máhábáleshwar was made by Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay 1827-30. To reach it you have first got to make for Poonah, and after that you have to go seventy-five miles.
The air was like blasts of a heated furnace on the 16th of April, and the thermometer we pinned to the cushion showed 105º F. We ordered a trap; the springs were broken, the projections stuck through the hard, narrow cushions into our unhappy bodies, the carriage was lopsided and bumped fearfully; but we were well, hearty, and happy. It was a charming night, and we enjoyed it awfully, sleeping through the dark, and drinking a lot of water. In the morning we passed a beautiful clean bungalow at Soorool, where we brought down our provision basket, ate, and had tea and milk with the old soldier that kept it; and we stopped at Wali, the prettiest and most interesting village in Western India, from its temples up to the river-bed.
We passed several most interesting things, which we inspected; and when we arrived at the bottom of the mountain the horses were taken out, and sixteen coolies took us up to the top. After every two minutes we had to tie up our broken springs, but when we got under the verdure of Máhábáleshwar at the summit, 4780 feet above sea-level, we found the carriage-roads so broad and the vegetation and trees so plucked as to give no shade, though the luxuriant woods extend over seventeen miles long to five broad. The distances seemed intolerable, and the last thirteen miles we were very tired. We had been eighteen hours out, but on arrival we went off for a drive with Lady Agnes Danyell, who drove a pair of "tattoos" the size of a dog. At the end of the day we were thoroughly tired. We had been out twenty-five hours, and had had no sleep for forty-one hours; we dined, and we do not remember the end of the dinner nor how we got to bed. Dorabjee Sorabjee, the civil Parsee of "Máhábáleshwar Hotel," treated us very well, and was most reasonable in charges. One drives everywhere in a tonga, a little tea-cart with small tattoo ponies; but it is an agony to drive with hired "tats," they are so ill-treated; so that Richard did nothing but swear at the driver in his own particular dialect for being cruel. My fox-terrier did nothing but struggle and fly at his throat, for she could not stand cruelty either; and Richard, in contradiction, scolded me all the way for my ridiculous tender sensibilities.
There were magnificent mountain scenes, with piles of Gháts on all sides; the points went out into the air with a fall of four thousand feet into the Konkan, and the ravines are wild and jagged. Sívaji, born in 1627, was one of the greatest leaders of light cavalry ever known. His character was fiery, and fascinated all bold adventurers. He formed a large body of wild horsemen, whom he led to great military enterprises, and at his death left a kingdom four hundred miles long by a hundred and twenty broad, though only a subject of the Rajah of Bijapur, with whom he broke faith. On yonder eminence is Purtabghur, where this Sívaji, the founder of the Maharatta Empire, murdered the Moslem General, Afzul Khan, in a disgraceful manner; whilst embracing him he stabbed him with a dagger, called waghnak, a thing like a tiger-claw, worn on the hand like a knuckle-duster.
The village of Máhábáleshwar is a Brahm settlement, where five rivers in the dry and seven in the wet season arise; this is the Krishna source, and these Maharattas are a very fine race. We went to Lingmálá, where lie utterly neglected plantations of quinine (cinchona). Why! when quinine is so dear?
At nine a.m. the sun is too hot; at five begins the cool afternoon. At nightfall a horror of deep gloom settles upon the world up there. The sun is as hot as Sind, the nights are cold. Here we again found the Petersons. We went off to look at the iron mines; this is the best iron, from which all the Damascus and Khorasán blades were made. It is soft and pliable, and when the blade is made they harden it. Richard brought away a lump of the iron, and Mr. Joyner, C.E., has since had it made into an inkstand as a remembrance, which always stood on Richard's writing-table, and which I keep now as a treasure. The bridle-paths, and the shady dingly walks of Mátherán, are far better than the broad carriage-roads of Máhábáleshwar, that, in spite of the lovely green, give you no shade. Besides, Society is always on duty up there. Tall carriages instead of basket chairs, and sables capped with black chimney-pots, look queer in the wild woods. There is none of the abandon of the country.
The Dangar tribes linger here, the Thakurs cling to Mátherán, and the Kátkaris haunt the lowlands. After a few days here, which Lady Agnes Danyell made very pleasant to us, with drives and breakfasts and dinners, we started for our return journey. We were twelve hours getting down, stopping to admire Wali, and have some tea at Soorool. There was just enough moon to show us the dark and awful parts of the Gháts, and the windings of the woods and the very sharp turns suggested tigers, jackals, and brigands (which do not exist here). We arrived at the station at two in the morning, ate from our basket, got into the train, reached Lanáuli at seven, and were at Bombay by midday. I will not insert an account of the hill races and tribes, which would overload this book, but will insert it amongst my husband's "Labours," as he taught them to me.
Goa.
As soon as we arrived in Bombay we caught the "British Indian steamer" going down south, coasting along. They are middle-sized steamers, beautifully clean, good table, excellent wine, airy cabins, great civility, and fairly steady ships—which they have need to be in such a sea as is often on. The fares are extravagantly dear—£10 for a thirty-six hours' passage; but there is no opposition.
Richard had always such ready, sparkling wit, and it was never offensive nor hurtful. One day, as we were on board a ship, going to a rather uncivilized place, a Catholic Archbishop, and a Bishop with a Catholic party, stepped on board. My husband whispered, "Introduce me." I did so, and they became very friendly, and sat down to chat. The Archbishop was a very clever man, but no match for Richard. My husband began to chaff, and said, "My wife is the Jesuit of the family." "What a capital thing for you!" answered the Archbishop. Presently some apes were jumping about the rigging, so the Archbishop looked up and said playfully, "Well, Captain Burton, there are some of your ancestors." Richard was delighted; he pulled his moustache quietly, looking very amused and a little shy and apologetic, and said with that cool drawl of his, "Well, my lord, I at least have made a little progress, but—what about your lordship, who is descended from the angels?" The Archbishop roared; he was delighted with the retort, and treasures it up as a good story till this day.[1]
At nine at night we reached Vingorla; the coast is very bad and dangerous, and in the monsoon all but impossible. Vessels are often wrecked, so steamers never go near, but put boats off. We disembarked a Sister Marie (fille de la Croix), a young German nun, bound for some desolate spot where they are forming a convent for educating children, nursing the sick, and reclaiming the savage. This young, interesting-looking girl of about twenty had to make her own way up country; these are the true "Soldiers of Christ," and our hearts yearned to her as she calmly and smilingly bid us good-bye, and went over the ship's side.
Arrived opposite Goa, we were cast adrift in the open sea, as is usual, on account of an unbuoyed and doubtful shoal, and we had eight miles to row before we could reach Goa. You may imagine what that means in a storm. The mail agents must do this, monsoon weather as well, once a fortnight all the year through, and the return ships are in the dead of the night, besides living in a fœtid hole, where they get none of the comforts of life, and never see a soul.
The Portuguese manage to make every place look like Lisbon; actually the features of the country grow the same. There is the same abrupt entrance to the sea between mountainous cliffs, up a broad winding river or sea arm, with wooded rising banks, with the same white town perched on its banks, a perfect Santos in Brazil, which is 24º south of the Equator. We rowed a mile and a half of open sea, five miles of bay, and one and a half of winding river, to a little stone pier landing at Panjim (New Goa).
All Portuguese India is only a strip of about seventy miles long, and very narrow, which they would do much better to sell to the British Government; for of all the God-forgotten, deserted holes, a thousand years behind the rest of the creation, I have never seen anything to equal Goa, and I pitied from my heart the charming, kindly, gentle, hospitable people who have to live there. I have lived in sandy deserts, in primeval forests; I have suffered hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fatigue, privation, and danger, and thought it charming; but I hated the sort of life at Goa. It is dead, and there is nothing to reward one; only we were here for a purpose.
There are three Goas, full of history and romance. There is the Inquisition to study, and there is the tomb of St. Francis Xavier.
No. 1 is the old Hindú Goa, now called San Lourenço, about six miles from Panjim (New Goa), upon the winding river, and two miles to the southward of Old Goa, or Goa Velha. It is only marked by a salt plain, and two hills with a church upon each, and a bit upon the plain. It is pretty healthy, and no one knows why it was deserted. Old Goa, or Goa Velha, is that of St. Francis Xavier; it is nine and a half kilometres from Panjim, by a good road along the winding river—a most picturesque locality, full of history, Catholic tradition, and the scene of the infamous Inquisition. It was deserted on account of malaria and fever for New Goa (called Panjim), where we landed, and where the few personages who are obliged to be there vegetate, except with an occasional change to Cazalem, the six cottages on the open beach of the bay corresponding to our Barra at Santos.
In Panjim are the barest necessaries of life; there is no inn, no travellers' bungalow, no tents, and you must sleep in your filthy open boat and have fever. Kind-hearted Samaritans (Mr. and Mrs. Major) gave us their only small spare room and spare single bed. I had, luckily, one of those large straw Pondicherry reclining chairs and a rug, so we took the bed in turns, night about, the other in the chair. It is the worst climate we were ever in, and we know pretty bad ones. The thirst was agonizing. All the drinks were hot (no ice); the more you drank the more you wanted. The depression was fearful, and never a breath of air even at night. The blazing sun poured into our little room all day, and baked it quite red-hot for the night. I used to look upon the people who lived there as miracles—a truly purgatorial preparation for death.
We found for hire only one small gári, a small open wooden cart with room for two; the wheels wobbled, the spring on one side was broken, the lamps dangled, there was a deal box for the driver, the harness was old rusty chains tied together with bits of string. Our coachman and footmen were two little boys with something round their loins. The pony was broken down by mange, starvation, and sores. I insisted on keeping him myself. He was put into a comfortable shed in Mr. Major's garden, and had as much as ever he could eat and drink, and was groomed daily. We started at dawn, for at nine it is too hot. At first the pony had to be led by a rope by No. 1 boy. We used the whip gently and mercifully from the cart, and the wheels had to be rolled round by No. 2 boy and a help; but as soon as his sores healed, and he began to resume a respectable appearance, he followed me about like a dog, and looked after me with almost human eyes; and if he stopped needlessly after that, the gharawála running in front of him for a moment was enough, without any whip or any rope. He trod his old forage underfoot with contempt and used it as litter.
Richard was very fond of collecting native music from various parts of the world, and we tried very hard to get them to treat us to some of the music of Portugal and Brazil; but they are foolishly ashamed of it, and will only sing in French and Italian, which does not suit their voices. It would be difficult to find an uglier or meaner-looking race than the people here. Black Christians are a mixed breed of European and Indian blood. The mestiços (Eurasians) or mixed breed compose the mass, the Government officials are mostly from Portugal. The white families settled here, native Portuguese, were called castissos. The few who consider themselves pure Portuguese are very proud of it. The officials from Portugal are, of course, pure, but the descendants of the first great families have intermixed with the natives.
The mesquin rhubarb-coloured race are dressed in a scanty dirty-white bit of decency, or the refuse of European rag-shops. A great sign of respectability is the top hat. The poorest man who considers himself a Portuguese twenty times removed, will wear a seedy patched black coat and a black tile in a cocoanut-forest-hut to distinguish himself from the natives, as a mark of respectability. The shabby demi-semi-civilization, the enervating climate, the poverty, the utter uninterestedness of everything, bears the curse of the Inquisition. They bear, however, one mark of St. Francis Xavier's teaching, who was a true gentleman (Hidalgo), besides being a saint. He preached courteousness, and the manners of the lower orders are excellent. The merest beggar has the manners of a gentleman; the poor all doff their caps as you pass, and seem formed to exchange civilities with Europeans. Richard found them just as he left them thirty years ago, the women scolding, making a noise almost like pig-killing, the children whining and crying as if they were perpetually teething, the animals starved and ill-treated.
There is no escaping the heat of Goa; no ice, no punkahs, no tatties. The houses have no verandahs, have no shade, all white paint, and the sun bakes the walls the first hour it comes out. There is no milk and no servants. They export annually twenty-eight thousand excellent[2] servants, but they won't stay there.
If any extraordinary law could oblige anybody to live here, they should bring a dozen tents, and pitch them under the trees, half a dozen good horses, a tent servant, a first-rate cook who could market, a groom, and a general servant and messenger. They should make a contract with the British Indian steamers to supply them with everything, keep a steam launch to go out and meet those steamers. But if any one were rich enough to do all that, they would not live at Goa. However, we were most lucky to have found the kind Majors.
Richard had to revisit old scenes, and I had my work to do amongst the old Portuguese manuscripts at Old Goa. This must have been once a very extensive City, and you are deluded by its magnificent appearance, until you find yourself wandering in utter desolation in a City of the Dead, amongst Churches and old Monasteries; the very rustling of the trees, the murmur of the waves, sounded like a dirge for the departed grandeur of the City. The Church and House of the Bom Jesus belonged to the Society of Jesus, was dedicated to Xavier, and given to the Jesuits in 1584, till they were expelled in 1761, when it was given to the Lazarists. The Jesuits were the first to pioneer civilization to all lands, to choose healthy sites, to build tanks, to teach the people, and how badly they have been rewarded! Here the new Governors are invested, and here they are buried if they die during the term of office.
The body of St. Francis Xavier is in a magnificently carved silver sarcophagus placed on a splendid base of black marble. On the sarcophagus are beautifully cast alto-relievi, representing the various acts of his life and death, all surmounted by a gold and silver top. The actual body of the saint is inside, in a gold shell, and is shown to the people once in a century on the 3rd of December. The last time was in 1878; the body was found in its normal state of freshness. There is a real old portrait of him in oils outside his chapel, done in 1552. A print found in rags in a convent dusthole is so like it, that I put it together, brought it home, and had it copied.
We used always to leave our vehicle here, and have the pony taken out and fed, watered, and rested, whilst we scrambled all the day over the hills, looking at the different remnants of Churches and Monasteries.
The site of the once so-called "Holy Office" is on the right hand of the Cathedral and the Archbishop's Palace, a heap of ruins, covered with luxuriant growth, and poisonous plants and thorns; not one stone left upon another; not a wholesome shrub springs between the fragments of masonry which, broken and blackened with decay, are left to encumber the soil, as unworthy of being removed, or contaminating another building with their curse. You must not think we walked through comfortable paved streets to these different buildings, of which I only mention two, but there were dozens. We scrambled through woods, over hill and dale, and the distances tell us how large Goa must have been, especially ascending a stony Scala Santa through briars and brambles to the place where the victims used to be scourged. There was the chapel where Xavier first started a school and a chapel for converting and preaching, where he used to educate children; and hard by was the well where he took his morning bath. It is like the Arab's "City with impenetrable gates, still, without a voice or cheery inhabitant; the owl hooting in its quarters, and night-birds skimming in circles in its ruins, and the raven croaking in its great thoroughfare-streets, as if bewailing those that had been in it." How thirsty we used to be! But at the sight of a bit of silver, boys would climb the trees like monkeys, pick off cocoanuts, chop off the little round piece at the top, and hand them to us to drink. How beautifully white the inside of the nut; how refreshing the milk, clean and cold as ice! Each nut containing enough to quench the greatest thirst, leaving a refreshing coolness in the mouth, throat, and interior. In a dry, parched, thirsty land without water, there is drink for you at the top of the trees that shade you—harmless drink, iced by nature.
The moonlit scenery of the distant bay smiles in all eternal Nature's loveliness upon the dull-grey piles of ruined, desolate habitations, the short-lived labours of man; delicately beautiful are the dark hills, clothed with semi-transparent mist, the little streams glistening like lines of silver over the opposite plain, and the purple surface of the creek stretched at our feet. Musically, the mimic waves splashing against the barrier of stone, and the soft whisperings of the night breeze, alternately rose and fell with the voice of the waters.
During all our drives and long walks we were chiefly struck by the poverty of the people and the unhealthiness of the air: but we were healthy and strong, and we did not mind it. We drove once to a large village called Ribandar for the purpose of seeing the Convent of the Misericordia. Here are closely kept under strict surveillance, both religious and civil, seventy orphan girls of all colours, class, and ages, educated by the nuns, and who, when grown up, remain in the house till they receive an offer of marriage. They look like birds in a cage, and I pitied them; for, with the world full of nice pretty girls and spontaneous love affairs, who would think of going to the World's End to overhaul this cage of forgotten captives? Richard gives a rather amusing account of his visit to this convent when he was a young lieutenant thirty years before.[3]
We had two nice boat expeditions; one to Mr. Major's coffee plantation, in which is a petrified forest, and one to Seroda; each expedition occupying two or three days.
Seroda is a Hindú town of houses, pagodas, tombs, tanks, lofty parapets, and a huge flight of steps, people, trees, and bazars, all massed together. It is fearfully hot, dirty, and shut in on all sides. In old days it was a nursery for Nach girls.
Goa is well worth visiting, its history well worth learning. It is one of those kingdoms that has been; that grew, reigned in magnificence, declined, and is now a pauper. I studied its history on the spot in Portuguese, and I thought that none of the English books upon it are worth reading. I cannot give an account of it here, for the reason of overweighting my book, but of all its grandeur there are only two interests attaching to its name that last—one infamous, the Inquisition; the other glorious, the poor Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier. The Inquisition practically ceased in 1732, and was officially effaced in 1812, being abolished by the interference of the British Government, and its offices were shut up in the reign of the Count of Sarzedas, who was Viceroy from 1807 to 1816; but for eighty years the Inquisition had been only a name.
The religious history of Goa is even more striking than its civil Government. It seems to have been a sort of sacerdotal republic—a huge collection of Churches and Convents in a desert place. The province was in its meridian, both civil and religious, 324 years ago. In 1571 it contained 150,000 practical Catholics, and owned half a million of subjects in Portuguese India, and in Old Goa alone there were 200,000 inhabitants. It only absolutely flourished during a space of 135 years. How it must have been cursed by the victims of the tortures of the Inquisition, till God heard their cry, and avenged their blood, so that not one stone remains upon another, whilst the only thing that lives is the shrine of the one saint and gentleman, Xavier, and the tomb of the Christian hero, João da Castro—as if God had preserved them to shine out as everlasting treasures from the ruins of crime! Xavier was the apostle of the Indies; his mission was to reform the manners of Europeans in the Indies, whose lives were a disgrace to the Christian profession, and on the other hand to preach the gospel to the pagan population of the East. There is no space in this book to give an interesting account of him and his works, but he went to India in April, 1541, and was thirty-five years of age. He only lived ten years, and there was no Inquisition in his time. They used to call him the "God of Nature."