My home was lonely. The light that once shone so brightly in it had gone
out, as I might say, in darkness. I took to my books, but I had no
purpose or pleasure in reading. I improved my own grounds, and my
property in the station. I often went to my villages and spent weeks
among them, having good wells dug, a large tank, covering an acre of
ground constructed to contain water for irrigation, built roads, made
drains, planted good fruit and timber trees. I took much pleasure in all
this, and had great satisfaction in doing my duty to the poor people. I
was not satisfied to squeeze every pice of my rent out of them and give
them nothing in return. The results were better than I anticipated.
There was scarcely any sickness or disease among the people, owing to
the good water and drainage. They became healthy and more able to labor,
and, having abundant water in the tank for irrigation, they raised extra
and improved crops. The people had plenty to eat, and the cattle were
well fed. They had gardens, for which I supplied imported seeds, so they
had vegetables the year round, of which formerly there was a scarcity
except during the rains. In a few years there was plenty of fruit, and
the branches of the trees supplied the villagers with fuel, so they
could save the refuse, that was formerly burned, for their land. I
considered all the expenditure I had made, enhanced the worth of my
property. The ryots did not fail to realize the value of the
improvements to them, and gave me not only my legal rents most
willingly, but in their generosity gave me something of their products
and would have provided for me as their guest while I was with them.
They always received me with pleasure, not as their landlord, to make
demands upon them, but as their best friend. They ever had some present
for me. The largest melon, the ripest fruits, the finest flowers, were
kept for the sahib. I encouraged them to cultivate flowers, giving them
seeds, and sending them various kinds of plants and shrubs. I offered
prizes for the best flower beds kept by the women, and appointed a
committee of five to decide upon the awards. This was such a success,
and gave so much pleasure, that I offered other prizes for the planting
of trees, for the best productions of their gardens, and the best crops,
the finest looking cattle, and the cleanest, neatest houses and yards.
Twice a year we had our little fairs, gala days, on which the prizes
were distributed. The amounts I offered were not large, but the
emulation they excited was very great. They stimulated industry and
induced the people to work with pleasure, and gave them a taste for
beautiful and useful things.
My villages soon became the envy of all around them; my people, my
friends, took pride in speaking of me as “their sahib” and telling what
he had done for them. Need I say that I was pleased, for what is there
to produce greater happiness than in doing good and making others happy?
I might have skinned these people, and drained every pice I could out of
their poverty, but thousands of rupees accumulated would have been only
blood money and a curse compared to the pleasure I received from the
contented happiness of these once impoverished serfs.
I ventured on another experiment. I built a cheap school-house in each
village, and surrounded them with trees and flowers, planted by the
villagers themselves. I always got the people to be my partners in
everything. A teacher was engaged for each school-house, and every girl
and boy was asked to attend, and they were all there. I had no thought
of encouraging that Oxford and Cambridge fad of giving the higher
education to people to whom it is more of a curse than a blessing. I
have often thought of writing a book denouncing the government scheme of
giving the sons of the rich natives a classical education at the expense
of taxing the groans, sweat and life blood of the poor to pay for it.
These upstarts are impudent and mean enough in their natural condition,
but with the nonsensical crammed education they get, they are still
worse. But I have never found a pen sharp enough, so my book is still in
embryo.
In these schools, reading, writing, and the simplest figures were
taught; nothing more from books, but a great deal as to morals, manners,
health, about their houses, their fields, their cattle, about the birds,
the flowers and trees.
I put the girls first, as I always do. If we educate any let it be first
the girl, for as the girl is, so will be the mother and the coming man.
“A clever mother makes a clever man.” One might as well suppose a stream
to rise above its source, as to expect a nation to rise above its
mothers. An English writer says, “No great general ever arose out of a
nation of cowards; no great statesman or philosopher out of a nation of
fools; no great artists out of a nation of materialists; no great
dramatist, except when the drama was the passion of the people.” And I
will add, no great, good men without good mothers. Therefore, I say,
educate the girls! Sometimes the whisper of a mother, in the ear of a
child to-day, becomes the boom of a cannon a century hence. The people
of India are utterly blind in this respect. No matter what else they do,
they will never become a people among the great nations of the earth
until they educate the women.
I visited these schools often, gave the children treats, and offered
prizes. I gave little lectures to little people, and being only “That
Eurasian,” I had their language probably better than they could speak it
themselves, so had no difficulty in reaching them.
On the lecture prize days, the work in the fields was stopped, the
gardens neglected, and the holiday clothes taken from the earthen jars.
The people were all there, and not even a zanana woman or baba left
behind. The walls of the little school-house were too near each other,
so we had our School Jama’at under the big tree, with mats all around on
the ground for the people to sit upon. The result in a few years—for I
am looking back now—was that there was not a girl or boy in the villages
but could read and write fairly well. They were eager to read, and
begged for books and papers, so that I never made a visit that I did not
carry out a supply to them. It was interesting, to me at least, to see
frequently a little tot of a girl standing up and reading to a number of
grown men.
All the teaching was in their own language, of course, as I was not an
enlightened fool enough to introduce English among them.
I have always considered, and I do not speak from guess or supposition,
but from what I know, that the zemindars, or village owners, are the
greatest curse of India, unless they do something for their people, and
not one out of a hundred, or even one in a thousand, does that.
Next unto these zemindars is the army of brazen robbers, the jamadars,
who collect the rents. They live on the villagers, while with them, and
take all the dastoori and plunder they can lay their hands on. The poor
people might better welcome a swarm of locusts than these plunderers. I
never employed a jamadar to do my collecting, but went myself, and each
ryot placed his money in my hands as I sat by a table under the big
tree. All paid willingly, as they knew the exact amount, and that there
would be no extortion.
Another thing. I allowed no bunyas or money-lenders about. These are
another set of leeches, who suck the life blood of the poor in the shape
of interest on money advanced on the crops, at from one hundred to two
hundred per cent. profit. I have often wondered that a government, half
civilized or even a quarter enlightened, should not pass a law against
this accursed system of usury, and so protect the poor from wholesale
robbery. These harpies are worse than thieves, for they plunder under
protection of government, and can collect their extortionate demands by
means of law, and in the government courts. I found that several of
these fat sleek fellows paid regular visits to my villages, and I well
knew from the nature of these animals that they did not go without a
purpose. One day I called the ryots together and discovered that a
number of them were paying from fifty to one hundred per cent. for
loans—a profit to these extortioners that not a mercantile man of
Calcutta, or his wicked partner, hardened though they be, would expect.
I made a list of the names, with the amounts. I told them that I wanted
all this borrowing stopped at once. I drew up a paper, and said that I
would advance the sums they had borrowed, without any interest, on
condition that they would make their marks on the paper promising never
to borrow from the bunyas again. And they all agreed and signed. I got
no interest, but received what was better, the good will of these poor
men. I advised them to wear their rags, and live on weeds, rather than
go in debt. I loaned them money, but at the same time I tried to give
them a lesson in political economy. I gave not only one talk, but
repeated it. The result was excellent. In a couple of years there was
not a man in the villages who owed a rupee. They had a pride about this,
for knowing my feelings, it became a disgrace for a man to borrow, and
any one was marked when he went into debt. I got a good deal of pleasure
out of this in the hatred of the bunya tribe.
Another thing I noticed. Before my improvements and the new regime, the
people went to different melas to see the tamashas, for however low and
poor a people are, they will have their pleasures. I have read this
somewhere. “One way of getting an idea of our fellow men’s miseries is
to go and look at their pleasures.” I have often thought of this when
seeing the simple trifling amusements of the millions of India people at
a mela. How narrow and empty the minds that could take any pleasure in
what they enjoy! My whole feeling toward them was pity, even to sadness,
as to bring tears to my eyes. Immortal souls, with no desires worthy of
immortality!
After a few years, what with the improved culture of the fields, the
gardens, the trees, flowers, our fairs and school exhibitions, the
people had so much to look forward to and prepare for, that they had no
time or inclination to run about the country, or go away from home for
amusement.
I made very few rules, but gave many suggestions which they were very
quick to take up. Once in our assembly under the big tree, one of the
younger men wore a rather earthy looking coat. I suggested that he ask
his wife to loan him her clean sari. He left at once and soon appeared
with a nice clean coat to the amusement of the company. This little hint
was enough, and they showed respect by appearing as cleanly as possible.
I gave them a lecture on the impurities of water and showed them by
means of a magnifying glass, first to the women and then to the men,
what hideous creatures there were in foul water, to their great disgust,
for I saw it in every face, and explained that when they drank such
water, and all these clawing, wriggling creatures got into their
insides, they would see bhuts, ghosts, even in the day time, and get
fever, cholera and all other diseases.
I may have magnified even the truth in this, but as it is what all
medical men do when they wish to frighten their simple-minded patients,
my little exaggeration was excusable. I talked very plainly to them of
the nasty, filthy habit of the Hindus, washing their bodies and rinsing
their mouths in the foul pools, and then using the water for drinking
and cooking purposes. Of all the customs of the India people this is the
vilest, and often have I seen these self styled holy Brahmins, so
fastidious as not to drink water out of my clean glass, yet bathing in
water so foul that I would not allow my dog to be washed in it, and then
drinking the same water.
The Government sends to Europe for learned Medicos to come out here at
great expense and publishes octavos on the prevention of disease, and
yet allows these talaos or cess-pools to exist near every village, the
very hot walloes and breeding places of nearly every kind of disease. It
is a very soft thing for these gentlemen to get such a pleasure trip,
and that is about all there is in it, except the taxes on the people to
pay the bills.
I think my talks on this subject were a great success, as I saw
afterward that the people were particular to get water for drinking and
domestic purposes from the wells, and the water for bathing they carried
away from the tank to use outside.
All these things may be considered trifles by learned scientific minds;
but no matter. Many a time in my life I have had to do with trifles.
When that English gentleman, my father left us, and poor mama broke her
heart, a trifle perhaps to him,—and little sister and I lived on a few
handfuls of rice a day, given by the poor out of their scanty store, it
was a mere trifle, and when the good old faqir gave us a few handfuls of
parched grain, it was only a trifle, but life to us, and when Mr. Percy
found us in the serai, only a trifle, but what would I have been if that
trifling incident had never occurred? I do not think I am out of my
sense in saying that the man who looks carefully after all the trifles
may let the big things take care of themselves.
It is said that one of the great characteristics of Charles Darwin was
his interest in the littles of every day life, and besides he was one of
the most courteous of men. One statement of his, has given me great
satisfaction. In a letter he says: “As for myself I believe that I have
acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science. I
feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often
regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow-creatures.”
The tank, well filled with clean water, I stocked with the best of fish
of which the villagers soon had a plentiful supply. I am surprised that
the distinguished officers of government who write so learnedly about
relieving the poor of India, do not look after such a cheap and
excellent means of supplying food for the people. Yet as this might
become another article for taxation my prudence suggests silence.
I gave and also received, illustrating the Spanish proverb, “He who
would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the
Indies with him.”
I became very fond of these people, and I know they had great regard for
me, and the children, especially the little girls, chattering, laughing,
playful things always around me, and they were rewarded. As I looked at
them I thought of that little sister of mine, would I ever find her?
One thing I recalled years afterward, and that was, I never once talked
to the people about their religion or referred to mine, for heathen as I
am, I have a religion. I never once spoke to them of the Bible or the
Shasters, nor gave them any creed or catechism. I often spoke to them
about God, pointing upwards, as to the One above, and explained what I
thought He would be pleased to have us do, and with what He would be
displeased. I am sure they came to reverence Him with a desire to obey
Him, for they paid less and less attention to their old idolatries.
One day one of the men came to me with a question. He first stated his
case, and then asked “Sahib, do you think Permeshwar, God, would be
pleased to have me do that?” “No” I replied, “I don’t think He would.”
“Then,” said he, “I will not do it.” I felt that good seed had been
planted in their hearts as in their fields, and I would let it grow and
ripen, cared for by God himself.
For some time I enjoyed this pleasant labor, as it diverted my thoughts
from my desolate home. I have long since come to the conclusion that
when a man becomes tired of himself, or is down in the mouth or heart,
the best remedy is to try and benefit his fellow men.
Said Rowland Hill: “I would give nothing for that man’s religion whose
very dog and cat are not the better for it.”
I left the villages to themselves for awhile and engaged in other
matters.