The train proved, however, to be very crowded, and we could only secure a berth each in separate compartments, though there was a small sliding door between the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s sleeping compartment, through which communication could be made. Four ladies, a baby, and a parrot, and the green pigeons made up the complement in the ladies’ part. I had two travelling companions only, a river-steamer captain or engineer on sick leave, going south with his family, and an English officer of the Army Medical Service going to some hill station beyond Madras. The former kept himself going with whiskey and soda, of which he freely invited his fellow travellers to partake. The latter proved to be Capt. J. B. Dalzell Hunter of the 64th pioneers. He was studying Persian, and introduced me to a most interesting book, the “IQD-I-GUL,” or “The Rose Necklace,” being selections from the Gulistan and auwār-i-suhaite translated into literal English with notes by Adālat Khan. This was full of delightful stories, and rich with oriental imagery and wisdom.

Leaving Calcutta in the darkness of night, of course nothing could be seen of the country till next morning when we were approaching Cuttack, when we took “Chota Hazri”—or early light breakfast. A little south of this hills appeared inland reminding one in character and apparent height of our lake country. We passed Poori, the junction for Juggernath, where crowds of pilgrims go, especially at the time of the great festival of Krishna in March, when the image of the god is borne through the town on the famous car, out to a temple in the country. The old story we were told in childhood of the dreadful heathen custom of the natives on such occasions throwing themselves under the wheels of the car of Juggernath has been discredited. Krishna, being a god of love and life, not a destroyer, would not be pleased with human sacrifices, and they would be quite inappropriate. It might be possible, however, that the car, drawn as it is by men with great cables, through the press of pilgrims, might accidentally crush some one fallen in the crowd, and European missionaries may have misunderstood what had really happened, and had misrepresented and exaggerated it.

There were many new and different types of natives at the stations. We were now on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway, and the native crowds, and groups entering or leaving the train all down the line, were most interesting in character and colour. Pilgrims from Juggernaut bearing small canes back with them as signs of their pilgrimage, Brahmans with red marks like seals on their foreheads, and others with the triple pronged fork-like mark of Siva in white and red. The men wore their hair long like women, sometimes done up in ample knots at the back of the head, and sometimes hanging down the back. All wore a sort of tight cotton skirt or piece of drapery chequered or patterned in colour wrapped round the loins, and depending from the waist to the feet; a white loose jacket frequently surmounted this, so that judging only from the back view, the stranger with European prepossessions as to dress distinctions between the sexes, might have some difficulty in saying which was which, or who was who, especially as the native women frequently wore similar skirts, white bodices, and their hair in knots. It was chiefly the beards that betrayed the gentlemen; otherwise the equality of the sexes was fairly well established, as to outward appearance at least, in the way that might astonish some of our Western reformers. It is true some of the men, like the ancient Egyptians, wore nothing above the skirt, except perhaps a white scarf on the shoulders, and the field-workers and coolies all down the Coromandel coast wore nothing but white turbans and waist cloths.

We passed the Silver Lake, really an inlet of the sea nearly surrounded by hills, the train startling large flocks of brown geese from the margin as it passed. Our old friends the white cranes we saw again lower down the line among the marshy pools. Paddy fields in various stages, often under water, irrigation wells drawn by oxen, as well as another pattern—like the Hungarian or Egyptian, a walking beam weighted at one end, the other having a rope attached to the bucket. The Southern Indian ones are, however, worked by the natives, generally two, working up and down from the centre, from which the beam swings, making it dip and rise again with bucket, the men steadying themselves by upright bamboos fixed each side, sometimes chanting a song to mark the time and enable them to move together.

Groves of palms were passed and pyramidal hills, bringing the same suggestion of Egypt we had had before, on the way to Chitorgarh. There was no doubt about getting further south as the temperature was much higher, the thermometer registering 75° to 80° and this was February 4, whereas only two days before we had been shivering over a fire at Darjeeling! In the burning sun we could see the dark figures in white turbans and waist cloths, coolies on the railway line, and ploughmen in the fields toiling in the heat. We stopped for breakfast at Berhampore. In the district from here to Vizianagram there was formerly a flourishing silk weaving industry among the natives. “All gone now,” said a bright-looking European official in white drill and topi who entered our compartment. From what he told us further, it seems that this industry declined for very obvious causes—because the raw silk, the very material upon which it subsisted, was exported and consequently the occupation of the native hand-loom weavers was gone.

At Waltair, one passenger left, but our compartment was kept full as another immediately succeeded him and all four berths were occupied on the second night. One got more or less broken sleep, but perhaps more than might be expected.

At Bapatia next morning there was chota hazri, or early tea, ready, and it was very welcome. At Bitragunta there was a halt for breakfast. As we approached Madras, late in the afternoon, we came by lovely groves of palms, quite dark thick forests of them, with pools of water among them in which water lilies bloomed. Green parroquets decorated the telegraph wires, sitting in rows much as the swallows do in England in the autumn. The telegraph wires all over India are however a favourite resting perch with a variety of birds, and quick an observer may get a good notion of the variety of species in Indian Ornithology by noticing the many kinds of birds which may be seen in such positions, clearly silhouetted against the sky.

We arrived at the Beach Station, Madras, about five o’clock on February 4, relieved to have reached the end of our long journey. Hotel touts here may be described as active and strong on the wing. We eventually squeezed ourselves into a tickagary with our light baggage, and in spite of the presence of Moonsawmy—or perhaps in colusion with him—an officious native guide mounted the box and offered us information as to the public buildings we passed on the way to the hotel. The Prince of Wales’s was full, but the proprietor advised us of another not far off, known as the Castle, which had formerly been the pavilion or palace of a native prince, and was a large two-storied yellow washed building with colonnades on the ground floor, and extensive terraces on to which the rooms opened out, on the first floor. These terraces were protected by a parapet which took the form of low battlements, whence possibly the hotel derived its name. There was a pleasant garden shaded by trees around the building, walled in from the road, and having entrance gates. Here we found agreeable rooms and plenty of space, without oppressive luxury or comfort, and as cool as might be expected, if it is ever cool anywhere in Madras? The hotel was under English management, and photographs of familiar places at Torquay and on the Cornish coast hung in our salon. Mosquito curtains told their usual tale, being generally a necessity in India, but are more particularly so at Madras.

On the drive from the station we passed Fort St George which dates from 1680, and is the only building of any historic interest. There were big Law Courts in a pretentious Italian Gothic style after the manner of modern Bombay architecture. The British traders and their stores and posters were in evidence, and “summer sales” going strong at the drapers, attracting smartly dressed English ladies in their motors and dog-carts. The streets were broad, and there was plenty of space everywhere. The hotels and bungalows were surrounded by large gardens, and abundant trees—palms being very plentiful.

It was pleasant to hear the clear notes of birds in the early morning, and of course we had the usual kite and crow chorus. In the evening there was a children’s party going on at a pavilion in the garden, and popular European waltz tunes came from a piano.

The temperature in our rooms ranged from 75° to 80° and we felt anything but energetic. We had, moreover, in the afternoon an interesting drive out to the Adyar Library, the headquarters of the Theosophical Society built by Colonel Alcott who was now lying ill there. Having had a telegram from Mrs Annie Besant in the morning, a visit was arranged. She could not leave the Colonel, as he was then in a dying state. Our road lay between beautiful groves of palms of various kinds, mostly cocoa palms, and native villages, the huts of one story, long and low, and roofed with ridge tiles of a delightful bronze colour, the tiles, probably sun-baked, being doubled and trebled over and under alternately. The roads were covered with a fine dust of a rich reddish-brown tint, almost coffee colour, and this tint varied with the full red and bright white of the dresses of the natives, and their dark skins, and relieved by the clear light green of the paddy fields, and the gold and green of the palms, in the warm evening sunlight, made a fine harmony.

We passed a Hindu temple and a tank, and crossed a bridge over the broad river (Adyar) and on the other side presently drove under an ancient fragment of a stone carved gateway, and so through the wooded grounds to the Adyar Library, a new building of red brick and red sandstone of semi-Hindu type.

A lady clad in white conducted me to a large upper chamber very lofty and long in proportion to its width, furnished more or less like a European drawing-room, with chairs and couches, but high on the wall at intervals were various religious symbols, in white plaster relief, among which I noticed the Gammadion and the Serpent and the Tree. There was a pretty view over the river from the windows, on the side.

Presently Mrs Besant entered. She was robed in white. It was the sari dress of the native women in some fine soft material, with embroidered borders also white. Her hair too had whitened since I knew her in London many years before. We spoke of the old days—of Cunninghame Graham, G. Bernard Shaw, and Sidney Webb. Mrs Besant, once an active and ardent socialist, seemed to have quite removed herself into another world, strikingly different from the one of strife and protest in which she with her wonderful eloquence had been a potent influence, and was now devoting her life to inculcating the principles of Theosophy and educational work among the young Hindus. Her idea was to gather the best elements out of all religions, and to unite them in one comprehensive creed, the keynote of which, as I understood, is universal brotherhood. In her schools she desired to cultivate the higher side of the native Hindu religion, refining and spiritualising, though by no means Europeanizing, but preserving all native characteristics in dress and courteous manners, and as far as possible preventing any Western contamination.

In the great hall on the ground floor the first thing that catches the visitor’s eye is the text inscribed aloft on the entablature in large carved characters—“There is no religion higher than truth.”

On the walls of this hall, also, are carved in stone another series of symbols, treated as a series of panels in relief, and among these it was interesting to find Mr Holman Hunt’s well-known picture “The Light of the World,” reproduced in relief by a native sculptor. In a recess in the opposite wall was a life-size seated portrait of Madame Blavatsky in marble. It was intended to place a statue of Colonel Alcott standing beside her, Mr Besant told me. His loss will be a severe one for the Society.

We drove back by way of the Triplicane or Mohammedan quarter—the native bazaar, a brilliant scene of colour and movement. On the way we passed several “Toddy Tappers,” as they are called, at work on the palm and stems. These are natives who extract a sort of spirit from the palm, and who, clad only in white turbans and waist-cloths, climb the tall, smooth columnar stems of the cocoa palm, by a curious method—a sort of loop of cane which encircles the upper part of the body, and hooks round the tree stem. This they shift in jerks as they climb, using their legs and feet in the usual way as a grip on the stem. We noticed the small, gourd-like bottles attached to some of the trees, which are placed so as to catch the juice from incisions made in the bark. The spirit made from this juice is sold in the bazaars.

The jin-rickshaw is much in use in Madras as a means of locomotion, and some of them will even carry two people at once, though this seems heavy for one boy. The native boys who draw them are, however, active enough and but little encumbered with clothes, and are always eager for custom. Mount Road is the main thoroughfare in the European quarter, and here all the principal shops and stores are situated. These as buildings were mostly pretentious and tasteless. St George’s cathedral was a semi-classic church with a pointed spire. The Post Office had red-tiled gabled spires of a more or less Swiss type, with iron crestings, and arcaded balconies on each story. One sees relics of eighteenth century semi-classic taste in some of the older houses with plastered walls yellow and white-washed. The vast gardens which broke the continuity of the buildings, and often isolated them, and the pleasant avenue-like character of the main roads, always lined with shady trees, made up for many architectural short-comings, and again suggested spacious ideas for a garden city.

At the head of Mount Road was the Munro statue where other roads diverged—a bronze statue by Chantry of a gentleman in a cloak pointing—probably to indicate his line of policy, though, more literally, he might be taken to be showing the stranger what a long way he was from Madras. The electric trams are no doubt useful as the distances are enormous and dusty, walking being impossible for Europeans, as they would soon be covered with a powdering of fine red dust.

We paid a visit one evening to the Botanic Gardens where we saw the Victoria Regia (which is usually associated with the inside of a hothouse at Kew) growing in the open on a lake. There were beautiful palms here and many varieties of trees. One we noted was covered with white blossoms which looked and smelled like orange or lemon flowers, and had green fruit of an egg shape, hanging from its branches.

Madras we found too oppressive and inervating to stay long, and so on February 8th we departed for Tanjore, rising at 4.30 A.M. to catch an early train, and were only able to snatch a hasty hazri, and get into a belated carriage and drive through the gloom of the early morning—or rather by the dim light of the waning moon to the station for the 5.45 train South.

Our compartment was shared at different stages of the journey by British officers. A Babu with a quantity of baggage, and three German Mission people—a gentleman and two ladies with still more baggage, who filled it pretty well up to Tanjore.

The country seemed very productive, and on each side of the line most of the way were large crops of paddy, much of it under water. In many places, too, the natives were ploughing in the water. The crops in some of the fields (or rather pastures separated by low banks of earth) were a brilliant light green, in others the grain was ripe, and was being reaped with hooks by the natives, while further on they would be threshing and stacking the straw. The method of threshing out the grain was primitive. A man would hold a loose sheaf in his hand and beat it hard, several times in succession, on the ground; this shook out the grain, and then he would cast the straw that remained to the men who were stacking it near by. They made low wide stacks straight on to the bare earth. The women gathered up the paddy as it was reaped.

We passed more fine groves of cocoa palms, distant hills were visible inland here and there, and there were generally large sheets of water each side of the line, but the rivers which we frequently crossed were almost dry.

The crowds of natives at all the stations were again very interesting. The men generally wearing their hair long and done up in knots. In fact the men had finer and more luxuriant heads of hair than the women, whose hair was usually short and fuzzy. Sometimes the men had their foreheads and temples shaved, and let their hair grow freely at the back. Caste marks were painted very boldly and distinctly on the dark foreheads. The sacred mark of Siva occurring most frequently—a red vertical stroke in the centre between two white lines radiating from the nose.

The men also wore the coloured skirt tightly wrapped about their middle and falling to their feet, the upper parts of their bodies being left bare, except for a loose white scarf, like a towel, thrown over their shoulders. The coolies and agriculturists wore nothing but turbans and waist-cloths. The women invariably wore silver nose rings, earings and anklets, and the Sari dress. Mahomedans seemed to be very scarce in these parts. As to colour, reds and whites prevailed in the dresses. Sometimes the vivid crude (magenta) aniline pink which has become unfortunately too common in India was to be seen. A favourite blend was red and yellow in the women’s Sari dresses, in stripes, or crossed tartan-wise.

Light cakes, bananas, and painted toys and other trifles were hawked about at the stations, the sellers uttering curious cries and chants. Every station had its tap of water, and always a thirsty throng of natives from their crowded compartments would be seen clustering around it filling their bright brass drinking cups, which they invariably carry, quenching their thirst and washing themselves.

Apropos of the refreshment stations, I find a note in my journal as to what appears to have been a particularly unsatisfactory Tiffin at Villuparam, for which we were induced to pay 1 rupee 8 annas in advance, but of which “only a little currie was really eatable.” How much more sensible (perchance not so profitable) it would be to give travellers the chance of ordering from the carte, and paying according to a fixed tariff. Travellers are by no means always able to eat the provided meal, and need milk and easily digestible foods, and simple cookery. The hard meat, stringy fowl, and messed up dishes usually offered are very inappropriate, if not positively injurious food. Simply cooked sound fresh food is a great want at hotels and railway stations all over India.

We arrived at Tanjore between 6 and 7 in the evening. There were sleeping and refreshment rooms at the station. The station-master met us and said that a room would be vacant at 9 o’clock, as Lord and Lady ——? who then occupied them were leaving by the 9 P.M. mail. In the meantime we had a ladies’ waiting-room to ourselves and could dine during the interval. The sleeping-rooms were across a bridge on the other side of the line in a new terraced building, with an English housekeeper sort of woman to receive us and our rupees. There was quite an up-to-date porcelain bath, but, on examination, one tap was cut off, and there was no water in the other! There were spring beds and mosquito curtains, and it was a fairly cool room. The system here was to charge 1 rupee 8 annas for a room for the first twelve hours, and if occupied for longer then the rate was higher.

Hearing there was a good Dak bungalow near by, we decided to take up our quarters there the next morning and found it quite nice, cool, quiet, old-fashioned and unpretentious, and there being no other travellers we had it all to ourselves. From what the native in charge said it appeared that the new station rooms rather injured his custom, as travellers now mostly stayed there.

Our exploration of Tanjore commenced by driving to the Old Fort within which stands the great Hindu Temple dedicated to Siva. The great gateway is approached by a bridge over a moat, then dry, which surrounds the Fort. The outer gate is plastered and is crowned by a row of figures of deities in niches which are brightly coloured. The great gateway is of yellow sandstone and is richly carved—a mass of figures and detail. The image of the god Siva and his various incarnations constantly appears. Various legends connected with these are painted on the walls of the court at the back of an arcade, and are exceedingly curious.

The great Nandi, or sacred Bull of Siva, a colossal image of a recumbent Bull, richly ornamented with chains and bells around his neck, is seen on a pedestal approached by steps in the centre of the court, under a pillared and decorated canopy. When we saw it first a magnificent peacock had perched himself upon the head of the bull, his tail drooping over its neck. The bull was carved out of a fine black stone, really syenite, but much darkened by libations of oil with which the image is constantly anointed. It has all the character of the type of zebu in this district. We saw its living prototype in a street of Tanjore—a splendid black bull (short-horned) lying down with its yoke companion, a white one, equally noble looking.

The pillared front of the small temple close by was richly coloured, and on a sort of frieze was a series of portraits of the reigning family of Maharajahs.

The Temple guide spoke a little English, but occasionally would stop for want of words, but we generally gathered his meaning, and he seemed unusually intelligent.

Ganesha, the elephant god (of generation) frequently appeared among the others, Siva and Parvati being the chief. One of the scenes painted on the wall of the arcade, already spoken of, represented the wedding of Siva and Parvati, who stood, hand in hand, with a tree in the middle—like Adam and Eve. Among the guests at this wedding were represented two giants, one whose appetite seemed to know no limit, while the thirst of the other was unquenchable. The first was shown devouring all kinds of food, and to express the drinking capacity of the other a stream of water full of fish was flowing into the mouth of the other. These were very primitive paintings, but expressive. The figures were drawn in black outline and filled in with flat tints. At the gate of the Temple there were drawings on the white-washed wall in thick outline in Indian red, in quite a different style and no doubt of a much later date. A large number of Lingams were shown in rows placed together in one corner of the court, and there were many Lingam shrines in the arcade besides. Here and there was colouring on the carved figures, but, as a rule, the elaborately carved pagodas were left in yellow sandstone, which had blackened where exposed to the weather, and it may have been that colour had been worn off.

The later temple (dating from about the fifteenth century) had remarkably delicate carving on its lower courses, the edges being frequently pierced. At the steps of the entrance an elephant, carved on each side, formed the balustrade, each having two trunks, one curling inwards and holding a man in its coil, and the second extended and terminating in a volute at the end of the steps on each side.

There was a noticeable point, as giving further evidence of primitive wooden construction, in the carved detail under the eaves of the great temple where there was a sort of intersected lattice work faithfully rendered in stone. It recalled the screens of bamboo and matting, commonly used in this district, added on to the edges of the tiled roofs in front of the huts and bungalows as extra shields from the sun, and this carved stone lattice work may have been derived from the wood work and the cane and wicker structure of the primitive buildings which preceded the use of stone.

In the court of the great temple, in a shed (roofed with corrugated iron I regret to say), we saw the cars used for the procession through the city, on the occasion of the great annual festival in March, which appears to be similar to the Juggernaut. The high pyramidal canopied roof, supported on columns, was carved like the pagoda of a temple, which, in fact, it represented. The image of the god being placed within. The car would be drawn by a pair of oxen.

We saw afterwards a religious procession of the kind passing down the principal street. Two men carried a banner in front, a piece of red cloth suspended between two poles. After them came a band playing tom-toms and hautboys, such as we heard at Benares. Then came the car drawn by two zebus, with its high pagoda, accompanied by priests in white robes, with long hair and marks on their foreheads.

It struck me as remarkable how closely the dress of the native men here resembles that of the people of ancient Egypt as pictured on the monuments. Indeed, the Hindu pantheon itself suggests a certain kinship to the symbolic Egyptian religion, embracing, as it appears to do, the deification of all natural forces and types of animals and birds. The Hindus have their elephant god, their monkey god, and their parrot god, for instance, each figured with the animal’s head but otherwise human, just as the Egyptians imaged their hawk-headed, cat-headed, and other deities. The ox of Osiris, too, seems to present a parallel to the sacred bull of Siva.

We next visited the tank in the citadel, noted for the purity of its water, but it looked muddy enough we thought, and felt no inclination to test the sample offered us by a native in a cup.

Near the tank was a very plain Christian church, dating from about the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th, absolutely bare of ornament or symbol, with the exception of a small mural monument at the west end—a bas-relief in marble by Flaxman, in memory of one Schwartz, a British missionary. Not, however, a very good specimen of the sculptor’s work, and looking as if it had been rather done to order, and though it had Flaxman’s characteristic broad simple treatment, was rather over smooth and “goody-goody” in expression—a missionary looking benevolent on his death-bed, clerical attendant and probable successor at his side, group of good boys in front, and row of turbaned Indians, presumably converts, on the other side of the bed.

It was curious to see this bare, gaunt, puritanical-looking church, planted almost in the shadow of the great Hindu temple with its frank nature worship, pantheism, and riot of symbolism and imagery.

From the citadel and the temples we drove over the bridge across the river into the city to see the palace of the Maharajah. Not a very beautiful building—a big, rambling, yellow-washed pile, looking rather untidy and neglected. In the guardroom at the entrance gate, there was a portrait of the father of the present prince. Through a corridor, the walls of which were painted with quaint figures, we reached a small chamber, open on one side, but painted on the three other walls with large equestrian portraits of three Maharajahs—grandfather, father, and son. They were in profile, very richly dressed, and on finely caparisoned horses, with hunting dogs—the dogs running underneath the horses. These mural portraits were painted in tempera, apparently, on the white-washed wall, and had flaked off in places, but they were good characteristic Indian work, and reminded one a little in treatment of European mediæval design, such as may be seen in Burgundian tapestries of the end of the fifteenth century.

We next came to a small court where we saw the Durbar Hall, divided from the court by an open colonnade. Inside was a miscellaneous collection of objects—portraits, rather dreary ones of the Maharajahs and favourite hounds, some on very dilapidated canvasses with holes through them—old-fashioned French lithographs of the early “fifties,” much fly-blown; a handsome palanquin, with dragons’ heads on the ends of the poles; another one was carved, and plated with ivory. There was also a beautiful ivory fan, of a large size and peculiar shape, probably to be used as a punka. Then, too, there was a bronze bust of Lord Nelson, presented by some English lady to a former Maharajah, and her own work. Then we saw the library, which contained quite a large collection of old-fashioned English books—in eighteenth and early nineteenth century bindings—such as a set of The Spectator, Hayley’s Poems, Burns, Scott, etc., and also an extensive library of Hindu and Tamil manuscripts. These were peculiar in form, and consisted of long oblong sheets of a roughish sort of paper, rather resembling papyrus in quality, protected by thin boards on loose covers of thin wood, secured round the middle by ties. These covers were sometimes lacquered on their outsides in various designs. On one I noticed the typical design representing Vishnu, with the lotus flower springing from his navel which contains the figure of Buddha, Laksmi looking on in wonder. These figures were drawn in black outline on gold, the gold high-toned with coloured lacquers. A smell of naphtha or some such moth antidote pervaded the place.

We were then shown the armoury, where there were some rather showy sporting guns of English make, bearing the name of Mortimer & Co., and elaborately chased. There were very vile portraits of King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra.

After this we saw another Durbar Hall—the Maharana’s—adorned with more dreary portraits of the family and a few stuffed birds. The most curious thing was a real skeleton in a real cupboard, side by side with a skeleton beautifully imitated in ivory. There they hung inside a plain upright cupboard, looking like a hanging wardrobe—but what a wardrobe! What hung there needed no robes!

Down the main street of Tanjore there were placed at intervals very curious and richly carved wooden pagodas, apparently very old, upon cars with massive wheels of wood, somewhat like rude ox-cart wheels, some of them being discs. These were probably used in processions at the festivals.

The houses were generally low, and of only one story, with the low-pitched ridge-tiled roofs as at Madras, the porches and raised terraces on platforms in front forming the shops, being further protected from the sun by lean-to extra roofs or screens of matting and bamboo, sometimes supported on uprights of cocoa palm stems. Occasionally these screens are supported by growing trees which spread their foliage above. Pumpkins and gourds are often grown upon the tiled roofs, and have a charming effect with their wandering stems, green leaves, and golden spheres of fruit scattered over the rich brown tiles.

The roads are deep in red-brown dust as at Madras, and there is a continual traffic of little covered tongas drawn by little trotting zebus in single harness. We had a broken-down victoria to drive in, and a fearful old crock of a horse, given to jibbing and really not fit to drive. The carriage seats were sliding ones, too!

Tanjore spreads itself over a large area of open spaces, interspersed with trees, gardens, and tanks. The water is abundant, and washing operations frequent. There is no coherent plan about the town, the streets wandering about into open space, and leaving off in a casual sort of way. There was a considerable market going on in provisions, and there was a silk-weaving quarter where may be seen the native weavers stretching long threads of silk on bamboo frames the whole length of the street, and winding it off on to wheels—our carriage nearly collided with one in a narrow street. The raw silk is often wound round short staves.

We visited a weaver’s shop, and were shown some hand-woven silk saris, brocaded with silver thread, the silver being turned into gold by some colouring process. A dress of ten yards can be bought of this beautiful material for 24 rupees. Red and purple are the principal colours, and these, with the gold thread woven in border designs of elephants, horses and peacocks, have a very gorgeous effect.

European influence seems to have declined in Tanjore, although there are numerous Christian missions about. What strikes the unprejudiced spectator is the extreme unsuitability of any modern western type of Protestant Christianity, with all that it involves to the native mind, to say nothing of climate and habit.

Western influence, it is true, asserts itself to the eye, at least, in the form of an ugly clock tower, and we passed “The Tanjore Union Club,” where we saw native gentlemen in their cool, white, loose clothing playing lawn tennis in a well laid-out court. But the life of the mass of the people goes on unchanged as it has done for ages.

In driving through the town we saw many little white-washed temples among the native houses, their richly carved pagodas rising above the low brown tiled roofs. At the doors are quaint paintings of elephants or tigers, and the white walls of the shops and dwellings are frequently ornamented in the same way with curious figures, among which occurs not unfrequently the English soldier with a dragoon’s helmet and jack-boots. Outside a liquor shop I saw, painted rather boldly in red outline, a European lady and gentleman refreshing themselves with wine-glasses in their hands. The lady’s costume reproduced the rather fussy fashion of twenty-five or thirty years ago, the frills and furbelows quite carefully worked out with the Indian love of detail, but somehow the general effect was rather Elizabethan than Victorian.

In passing along one of the streets we heard a sound of tom-toms, and presently saw approaching on a zebu cart a large theatrical poster painted on the outer sides of two large boards leaning together, tent-wise, on the cart. These bore announcements in Hindustani and Arabic, with pictures of exciting scenes—Rajahs flourishing scimitars over people, and so forth. Natives walked alongside the cart distributing pink bills of the performances printed in Arabic, while the tom-toms attracted attention to the forthcoming show.

In the evening we drove to the theatre, accompanied by our bearer. We reached an open ground outside the town; it was rather dark, but we saw a row of lights in front of us, and heard the sound of tom-toms. The old horse jibbed and would not go further, so we left the carriage, and Moonsawmy conducted us to some temporary structures of matting and bamboo, where tickets were sold. One rupee secured a chair in the front row. The theatre was a large, tent-like structure, with plastered piers supporting a roof of matting. The floor was of earth, the common ground, in fact, upon which the back rows squatted. The stage was also of earth, raised about three or four feet, the front being painted in broad red and white vertical stripes. The footlights were ordinary oil lamps, clustered in groups. The audience was entirely native (besides ourselves, who were the only Europeans present). Some sat close up alongside the stage on raised steps of earth. Dark draperies hung at the sides of the proscenium, and there was a coarsely-painted drop scene, of the kind familiar in third-rate provincial theatres and music-halls at home.

The first scene apparently represented a suburban street in the European quarter of an Indian town; at least there was a square towered church in it, ugly enough, although some high-pitched gables rather suggested suburban England. A road in very acute perspective ran through the centre of the scene, which might, after all, have been bought from some European travelling theatre.

The curtain raiser was of a sort of operatic, conventional courtship motive, and consisted of a musical dialogue between a young lady and gentleman of uncertain country, costume, and period. The girl was badly dressed in a white muslin frock, with a little red silk waistband, and a tinsel coronet or tiara on her head. She kept her eyes on the ground the whole time, and moved stiffly and shyly; her action, as well as that of the gentleman, being rather suggestive of marionettes.

The lady began by singing, each strophe or couplet being repeated or answered by an antistrophe from a chorus concealed behind the scenes, to the accompaniment of tom-toms. The little wooer presently appeared (also a girl), dressed in a cap of tinsel, a tunic of black velvet trimmed with silver tinsel, and breeches of the same, with brown hose or boots. He also began singing strophes, which were responded to or repeated by the chorus, and the lady replied in the same way. Whenever the lover made any advances the lady repelled them, and, after each of her sung speeches, crossed over to the opposite side of the stage, the lover doing the same. After a long course of this monotonous question and answer, sing-song business, they finally came to terms, and stood singing together, the lover with his arm round the lady’s shoulders. A harmonium, playing at the wings, assisted the tom-toms.

The pièce de resistance next began. The first scene was a room of state in a Rajah’s palace. The Rajah and his grand vizier, and an old priest or soothsayer in a turban and Indian dress, were the characters. The Rajah was a white man, of a rather Irish cast of countenance. He was dressed in black and silver, having wonderful silver spangles in circular patches as big as dinner plates down the front of his trousers. He wore a sabre at his side, and he was seated on a throne mounted on several steps, and each step was decorated by a large globe of silvered Bohemian glass. The vizier was attired in a similar way, but not quite so gorgeous as the king.

From our bearer’s interpretation it appeared that the Rajah, or king, who commenced chanting in a most doleful and monotonous way, was in trouble for want of an heir to the throne, and consulted the turbaned old gentleman about it, who gave his advice at considerable length.

The next scene showed the interior of a temple; an image of the sacred bull was there, and a black man, clad only in a waist cloth, was officiating, apparently as priest. He was also evidently regarded as a comic actor by the audience, and it was rather curious to observe that his obvious burlesque of some native religious observances were received with laughter. He seemed to put the Rajah, the vizier, and the soothsayer, who now entered, through their religious paces, waving a brush over them and putting garlands round their necks, uttering curious gibberish the while, with extravagant action, which seemed vastly to amuse the audience.

The next scene showed the Rajah seated again in his palace, and to him entered a troop of zenanas to announce the joyful news of the birth of an heir; but after they had departed with many salaams, something seemed to go wrong, and the Rajah began his doleful plaint again. The soothsayer and the vizier were again consulted, and both had a good deal to say, but matters did not seem to mend much, and the scene promising to be interminably long, we felt we had had about as much of the drama as we could do with, and hearing, moreover, that the performance would continue until 2 a.m., having commenced at nine, we left Moonsawmy to sit it out, after he had found us our carriage.

The next day we had another drive through the city and its surroundings, reaching a pleasant region of palm-groves, and lakes where buffaloes were enjoying a bath. They lie in the water quite deeply, with often only their heads out or the ridges of their backs showing.

At the bungalow various native pedlars and travelling merchants came up with their bundles, and, as we sat under the verandah, they would untie these and spread out their wares before us. These were generally new silver and copper repoussé dishes and bowls, samples of the craft of the Tanjore district, but not good, being vulgar and mechanical in workmanship, although repeating traditional patterns and representations of the chief deities of the Hindu pantheon. Some of these were embossed in silver, or rather were partly silvered over the copper, leaving bright copper in parts, but they had rather a flashy and tasteless appearance. The best things were the small antique bronzes and brass objects—bulls, horses, birds, peacocks, lamps, and curious shaped vessels, and many of these were highly interesting. A pair of bronze stirrups I acquired were charmingly designed, and showed delicate design and workmanship.

In the town they make a kind of brass standard lamp, in various sizes, having a moulded stem supporting a shallow vessel for the oil, with niches from four inches, the brass image of a cock is usually placed at the top as a sort of finial. The parts are made to unscrew like the well-known antique Roman lamp which, in general design and structure, this Tanjore lamp strongly recalled. Some, indeed, were terminated by ring handles just like the Roman ones.

We had been fairly comfortable at the Dak bungalow, and the two brothers who kept it were most anxious to please. The cooking was unusually good, and the place was certainly very quiet. The windows had no glass, but were closed with Venetian shutters (which did not always act, however, satisfactorily). The floors were covered with India matting, and the beds were furnished with mosquito nets. The meals were nicely served, and the table always decked with flowers. The thermometer in our rooms registered usually about 75 degrees, whereas at Madras it went up to 80 degrees.

Water was not carried here in goat-skins as in Bombay and the North-West and Central Provinces, but in large earthen jars. A man would carry one in each hand, or slung by strings from a stick over the shoulder. There was a fine young native who watered the garden in front of our bungalow—he had a splendid figure, and was almost the colour of ebony. I tried to get hold of him to get a study from him, but somehow he was not to be found when the time came, and another very inferior specimen was offered in his stead.

We left Tanjore on the evening of February 11 for Trichinopoly. It is only a two hours’ journey by the railway, and we arrived quite punctually about 8.30. It was too dark to see much of the country, or get anything but a vague idea of the place, especially when under the cover of an ox tonga, two of which vehicles conveyed us and our baggage to the travellers’ bungalow about a mile off, the little zebus trotting along at a brisk pace as fast as ponies, and much better conditioned than any tonga ponies we saw in India.

At the bungalow we found an English lady and gentleman, a newly arrived official and his wife, who had not yet got a house—who were then dining by candle light on the verandah—in possession of the best room, and had to make the best of it in a small side room, poorly furnished, and with no mosquito nets. We got some soda and milk and turned in, but, alas, the beds were hard as nails and the mosquitoes troublesome and strong on the wing, while the temperature went up to 80 degrees again!